Vugar Seyidov

Independent Analyst

Budapest, Hungary

 

After it recovered its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan faced the challenge of defining almost from scratch policies on an enormous range of foreign policy issues.  Indeed, the range of these issues is so broad that sometimes makes it difficult to see the basic contours of Baku's approach to the world.  But now, nearly 17 years after this process began, it is possible to identify the five key vectors of Azerbaijan's foreign policy.  

            

The overriding foreign and domestic policy challenge facing Azerbaijan is the restoration of its territorial integrity and the establishment of control over Nagorno-Karabakh and other regions of the country occupied by Armenian forces.  No other Azerbaijani foreign policy concern can or will ever be allowed to take precedence over this one, a reality that many outsiders do not understand but that explains why Baku is using its oil revenues to transform its military in order to be in a force of a resolution of this problem.  That is the first vector of Azerbaijan's foreign policy.

The second involves the definition of the legal status of the Caspian Sea.  Because Azerbaijan extracts much of the oil that makes it a power from this territory, reaching an agreement about the division of the Caspian that satisfies the country's national interests is a continuing priority, one second only to the Karabakh dispute.  As a result, Baku continues to put much of its diplomatic muscle behind negotiations with the four other littoral states.  Not only must the legal status of the Caspian Sea and the marine borders be defined, but it is also crucial to keep the biggest lake off the arm race and turn it into a demilitarized zone, which will serve the interests of all five littoral states.

Azerbaijan's third key foreign policy vector is one that most analysts pass over but that in fact is central to the country's future.  It concerns relations with the growing number of Azerbaijanis living abroad.  The Azerbaijani government seeks to expand ties with them in order to promote Baku's interests bilaterally and multilaterally.  For Azerbaijan, it is critically important that Azerbaijanis abroad, be they migrants, émigrés, or longtime ethnic communities, feel themselves part of the Azerbaijani nation broadly conceived.  It is essential that the Azerbaijani communities in these countries feel the attention and care from the state of Azerbaijan and overcome the feeling of being abandoned.  Towards that end, the Azerbaijani diplomacy can and must be more active in addressing cultural and social needs of Azerbaijani communities in the countries of their residence, especially in Iran, Russia, Iraq (the Turcomans), and Georgia.  

Baku has identified as its fourth key vector in foreign policy active involvement in international and regional organizations.  That has allowed Azerbaijan to expand its reach to countries in which it does not yet have diplomatic representation and to enlist the aid of these organizations, including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, among others to put pressure on Armenia and its backers to end the illegal occupation of the Azerbaijani territory.

And fifth, given both its geographical location and its national traditions, Azerbaijan has defined as a vector of its foreign policy both the closest possible integration into European and Trans-Atlantic institutions and strategic partnership with the United States on the one hand, and the best possible relations with the Russian Federation on the other, an approach that President Heydar Aliyev and his successor, President Ilham Aliyev, have defined as Azerbaijan's "balanced" foreign policy and one that requires the most clever and flexible of approaches.

Thinking about Baku's approach to the world in terms of these five vectors not only helps to explain many of the specific actions of Azerbaijani foreign policy actors but also provides a way of thinking about what Azerbaijan is likely to do in the future, especially if there are significant changes on one or another of these vectors.