A few days ago, an ad hominem attack on the US appeared in the pages (or on the web site) of “Azerbaijan,” the official journal of Azerbaijan’s parliament, the Milli Majlis. The article delved into real and imagined hypocritical facets of US foreign policy since the end of the Second World War, and despite its […]
This just in: Matt Bryza was confirmed today (December 29) as the new US ambassador to Azerbaijan. About time. This was a “recess appointment” by the White House, necessitated by a “hold” placed on Bryza by California Senator Barbara Boxer and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, both Democrats responding to strenuous criticism of Bryza from […]
Sunday’s Wikileaks release containing some 250,000 diplomatic cables included headline-creating news regarding Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. One of the cables, marked as “confidential” (not a terribly high level of secrecy) was “classified” and perhaps written by Donald Lu, who at the time was the US Chargé d’Affaires in Baku. The cable summarizes in great detail […]
In a stunning development, Emin Milli, the second so-called “donkey blogger,” was granted a release from prison today by an Azerbaijani court. Details are still sketchy, and Radio Free Europe does not appear to have confirmation yet that Milli is actually out as of press time. One of my sources claims that Milli has been released, […]
This blog may have been the first news source anywhere (or at least the first non-Azeri source) to confirm that Adnan Hajizade was actually released from prison – although RFE/RL was apparently first to report the court’s decision to release him. See attached two superb pictures taken by freelance journalist Turkhan Karimov. Karimov emailed me, saying […]
Radio Free Europe reports that the Iranian ambassador to Armenia has warned publicly against the insertion of US peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh in the event of a comprehensive settlement of the 1992-94 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In a Yerevan news conference on June 23, Seyed Ali Saghaeyan claimed that the United States is eager to […]
On Sunday, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Baku, a long-overdue trip by a senior administration official. The reportage from American journalists adhered to the same moltif: that the Aliyev administration feels “neglected” and that they are “peeved.” For instance, this Washington Post article by Craig Whitlock informs the reader that Gates carried a […]
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) released their 2010 “Predators of Press Freedom” list on May 3. The list consists of the top forty “politicians, government officials, religious leaders, militias and criminal organisations that cannot stand the press, treat it as an enemy and directly attack journalists,” says the RSF web site. Many of the usual suspects […]
The chill in US-Azerbaijani relations may be thawing soon. After months of perceived snubs from Washington and acrimony out of Baku, which included a recent announcement by Azerbaijan that they have pulled out of a scheduled military exercise with the US, a Turkish newspaper reports that the two countries have discussed a possible visit to […]