Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Aliyev orders an early parliamentary election

DEC. 9 (The Bulletin) — At the request of his PM, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev dissolved parliament and called an election for Feb. 9, 10 months ahead of schedule. PM Ali Asadov said that he needed a new parliament to govern effectively but analysts have said that the real reason may have been to allow Aliyev to deflect criticism of the government’s poor economic record.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Azerbaijan’s NEQSOL completes purchase of Bakcell

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DEC. 3 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s NEQSOL Holding, which owns the Bakcell mobile operator, said that it had completed the purchase of Vodafone Ukraine. It also said that finance for the purchase had been provided by JP Morgan and Raiffeisen Bank. Bakcell has also said that the change of ownership at Vodafone Ukraine, won’t affect its operations.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Azerbaijan buys mulberry trees from China

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DEC. 6 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has bought 1m mulberry trees from China for an undisclosed amount, media reported, part of a plan to increase mulberry production across the country. The Azerbaijani government has already bought 3.5m mulberry trees from China. It has been working on a government plan to increase agriculture’s part in its economy.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline opens

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BAKU/Nov. 30 (The Bulletin) –Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially marked the completion of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) which will pump gas from the South Caucasus across Turkey to Europe.

TANAP is the longest section of the 3,500km-long $38b Southern Gas Corridor. The first section connecting the BP-operated Shah Deniz II gas field in the Caspian Sea to Erdine, in eastern Turkey has already been open and next year the final section, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, running across Greece and the Balkans to Italy, will open.

In a speech in Ipsala, on the Turkey-Greece border, Mr Aliyev said that the project, which will give Azerbaijan’s economy a major boost through gas sales, was more than just a gas transit pipeline.

“This project leads to cooperation, stability, long-term mutual understanding, and it would be wrong to consider these projects simply as energy projects,” he said according to a statement on his website.

Construction of the pipeline, one of the world’s longest energy pipeline was started four years ago and has had the financial backing of European countries, the EU and various financial institutions such as the EBRD.

European countries want an alternative energy source to Russia, which has been their primary provider of gas.

When the Southern Gas Corridor does open next year it will pump an estimated 10b cubic metres of gas to Europe, enough power for up to 10m households.
TANAP’s shareholders are Azeri state energy company Socar with a 51% stake, Turkish pipeline operator BOTAS with a 30% stake, BP with 12% and Socar Turkey with 7%.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Comment: The CSTO has always lacked relevance

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Other than spreading Russian influence, the CSTO is a military alliance lacking a clear mission. Opportunities to impose itself and carve out an identity have been missed, writes James Kilner.

NOV. 29 (The Bulletin) — For a military organisation that can pull together regular summits which include Russian President Vladimir Putin, the CSTO is oddly anaemic. On Nov. 28, the heads of states of the six members of the CSTO met in Bishkek for a summit that was only vaguely relevant.

This is a military organisation led by Russia which has dodged intervention on its doorstep and inside its borders. It currently doesn’t even have a permanent Secretary-General to lead it.

The CSTO, or to give it its full name the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union as something of a Warsaw Pact light, very light. It was supposed to impose a military pact over the rump of the Soviet Union that wasn’t looking West and to NATO. But its origins and ambitions have always been confused.

A CIS military grouping was formed after the Tashkent Pact of 1992, with Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia as members. When it came to be renewed in 1999, though, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan declined. This meant that when the CSTO was finally created in 2002 there were also only six members and it was dominated by Russia.

Recent inaction by the CSTO has also undermined its cause. The CSTO stood by in 2010 when fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks in Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, killed several hundred people and forced thousands of ethnic Uzbek to flee. Often too, as in Ukraine and Georgia, Russia is a belligerent, or backs a belligerent, in a conflict, forcing CSTO peacekeeping missions off the table.

Even when there is cooperation within the CSTO, it is couched as bilateral. Armenia has sent 100 deminers and doctors to support Russian rebuilding in Syria but other countries declined and the deal is considered to be between Russia and Armenia directly.

Of course, it doesn’t help that since the start of this year, the CSTO has been without a Secretary-General. Yuri Khachaturov, the Armenian former CSTO Secretary-General, is currently standing trial for “subverting the constitution” in Yerevan in 2008 when police killed at least 14 protesters. Members of the CSTO haven’t been able to agree on a replacement.

The CSTO holds value to Russia for helping it to spread political influence and to sell its military products, but as a militarily operational group it is largely irrelevant.

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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Azerbaijan and Armenia complete journalist exchange

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NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Three Armenian journalists and three Azerbaijani journalists visited each other’s capitals in an exchange overseen by the Minsk Group of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that its organisers hope will break down antagonism and foster goodwill. Eurasianet reported that the plan was hatched after the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia met in Moscow in April. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still officially at war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Aliyev delivers anti-Europe speech

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NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — In a speech at a university in Baku, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev said that he wasn’t seeking closer integration with Europe because it didn’t respect Islamic values, Bloomberg News reported. Relations between Azerbaijan and Europe have been strained for the past few years with European politicians accusing Azerbaijan of cracking down on civil liberties and promoting corruption. Next year Azerbaijan is dues to supply central Europe with gas from its Caspian Sea fields.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Switzerland’s Stadler seals 115m euro deal with Azerbaijan

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NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Swiss train-maker Stadler said that it had agreed to sell 10 five-carriage Flirt units to Azerbaijan’s national railway operator for 115m euros. The Flirt series are Stadlers inter-city trains. Stadler has previously sold sleeping carriages to Azerbaijan in 2014 for its international services and in 2015 and 2018 it signed deals for its double-decker Kiss carriages.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Azerbaijan’s Bakcell buys Vodafone Ukraine

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BAKU/NOV. 25 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijani telecoms operator Bakcell finalised a deal to buy Vodafone Ukraine from Russia’s MTS Group for $734m, its first major overseas purchase.

Yusif Jabbarov, Bakcell CEO, said that the purchase of Vodafone Ukraine was only the first of a series of foreign purchases that the company was planning.

“With the acquisition of Vodafone Ukraine, the second telecommunications operator in the Ukrainian market, we continue the strategy of expanding the international presence and entering the new markets by the companies belonging to the NEQSOL Holding group,” he said.

NEQSOL Holding group is a conglomeration owned by Hasib Hasanov, an Azerbaijani businessman reportedly close to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. It also owns Nobel Oil which wins contracts from the Azerbaijani government in the Caspian Sea.

MTS had owned Vodafone Ukraine, which has no links to the British company, through its Dutch subsidiary Preludium but with a deadlock in the east of Ukraine in a war between government forces and Russia-backed rebels it had become harder for Russian companies to own businesses in Ukraine.

Analysts said the $734m price tag for Bakcell was a discounted price.
MTS has also said that its new strategy is focused on building growth inside Russia. It sold its businesses in Turkmenistan in 2017 and in Uzbekistan in 2016 although it still owns telecoms companies in Belarus and Armenia.

Last year, profits at Vodafone Ukraine fell 18% to 1.8b hryvnia ($72.5m) because of the cost of building new 4G networks.

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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Russia-Azerbaijan pharmaceutical JV nears completion

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NOV. 22 (The Bulletin) — A Russia-Azerbaijan joint-venture to build a pharmaceutical plant on the edge of Baku is nearing completion, media reported by quoting Azerbaijan’s deputy PM Shahin Mustafayev. The 80m euro plant has been more than a year in the making. Plans for the plant, called Hayat Pharm, show that it is expected to produce 89 different medicines, many for export.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.