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16.05.2007

The dynamic of carrying on the Azerbaijani lobbing

   

Haykaram Nahapetyan 

The budget of the Committee for the work with Azerbaijanis living abroad systemizing the work of Azerbaijani “Diaspora” made up 80$ thousand for the year 2005; in 2006, however, it was amounted to $500 thousand. This year as well, according to mass media, it has been added.

In 2006 took place the following noteworthy events to “mobilize” the Azerbaijani Diaspora: On March 16 was held the second congress of World Azerbaijanis, on June 4-10 was held the joint session of World Turkish and Azerbaijani community organizations in Antalya, Turkey. During the session was discussed the strategy of comparing activities of Turkish-Azerbaijani lobbyist organizations. At the same time in Antalya were organized the forum of Azerbaijani intellectuals and the congress of Azerbaijani organizations in Turkey. The previous year was formed the congress of Azerbaijani organizations in the US aiming at including all the Azerbaijani organizations working there.

According to the Azerbaijani sources in 2006 was established the organization “Azerproductions” in Great Britain. It has 7 employees who are to undertake activities of propagandistic character together with preparing Azerbaijani sites and also carrying out work in other European countries in the prospective. On May 2 the representatives of Great Britain’s Azerbaijani community held a rally in front of the Bulgarian embassy in London expressing their discontent with the Hungarian Court decision of R. Safarov’s life imprisonment. Rallies of protest were also held by the Azerbaijani organizations of Rumania with the participation of Turkish and Tatar representatives.

In June 2006 was held the constituent assembly of the organization Union of friends of Azerbaijani culture in Germany. The organization was headed by a German arts critic of Jewish origin Stefan Stermen, the administrative part was staffed by cultural workers. The organization’s work, according to official information, is directed to “establish a dialogue among the cultures and to spread propaganda on Azerbaijani culture”.

On May 11, 2006 the representatives of the Azerbaijani Union of Austria headed by Elman Muradov met the member of the Austrian Parliament and the Party of Greens Kurt Grunewald and handed him a CD of Azerbaijani production on Nagorno-Karabagk conflict and some literature on the subject of “Armenian terrorism”.

In 2006 the Azerbaijani-French Youth Association launched the publication of “Le pone-bridge” bilingual journal (Azerbaijani-French) in France. At least 2 issues have already been made. According to current information, at present they are not of anti-Armenian character but spread Azerbaijani propaganda speaking about “centuries-old history of Azerbaijani nation.”

In May 2006 at a meeting of Canadians for a Genocide Museum held in Otarion, Canada took part Azerbaijani cultural and educational field representatives in Canada. The Azerbaijani representatives handed out buckles representing the evens in Khojali and the March 31 as “the day of Azerbaijani Genocide”.

For the last years Baku has carried out clear-cut activities aiming at making the relations with Jewish lobbyist organizations closer. It is noteworthy that in May 2006 in the US was celebrated the 100th anniversary of AJC (Armenian Jewish Committee) and the head of the above mentioned Committee for the work with Azerbaijanis living abroad, Nazim Ibrahimov, left for the US to take part in it, there were also present the US president George Bush, the prime ministers of Germany, Austria and Italy. In his interview given on this occasion Ibrahimov mentioned that “he considerers his participation in that special occasion very important from the standpoint of worming relations with the Jewish party.” According to him “close cooperation between the Azerbaijani and Jewish communities meets our state interests.”

There is an opinion that in their program of establishing closer relations with the Israeli lobbing the authorities of Baku has set a goal of making use of the potential of the Azerbaijani Jews. The Azerbaijani-Israeli relations are very important and are subject to separate study.

In the current year of 2007 it is planned to organize forums of world Azerbaijani scientists and journalists. “At the moment is being prepared the list of Azerbaijanis scientists and journalists living abroad by the initiative of Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Science, embassies and other representative”,- writes the Azerbaijani Agency “Azertag” (www.azertag.com, 06.07.2006). It goes without saying that these unions, especially the one of Azerbaijani journalists, has anti-Armenian “background” and Baku will do its best to make use of the capacity of Azerbaijani journalists from abroad to organize pro-Azerbaijan propagandistic organizations on the Karabakh issue. The unification of the Azerbaijani scientists would make it possible to stimulate the development of Azerbaijani scientific thought. According to some information, under the conditions of mass emigration of Armenians and the departure of Russian and Jewish intellectuals from the country one can notice certain crisis of scientific thought and professional cadres in Baku and the authorities are in search of ways to compensate the loses.

Obviously Baku today works more purposefully to organize foreign communities in Baku than Yerevan does. The chronological “remoteness” of the Armenian Diaspora, the activity of traditional parties, in particular Armenian Revolution Party of Dashnakcutyun, and the quantitative superiority of the Armenian communities in some countries (USA, France, Lebanon, Syria, Uruguay, Argentina etc.) still ensure a kind of “victory” of the Armenian Diaspora over the Azerbaijani-Turkish ones. From the other hand one should take into consideration that in a number of countries (Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Germany) the total number of Azerbaijani-Turkish population exceeds the number of Armenians. There are huge Azerbaijani communities in the RF and Ukraine and their self-organization together with Baku’s activity may become a serious factor after a number of years.

One should also take into account the fact that the international Turkish Anti-Armenian lobbing on the Genocide of Armenians is inefficient mainly because of certain pro-Armenian approaches existing in the international community on this issue. The position of the EU countries gradually becomes more and more obvious and the Turkish “Diaspora” already confronts not only with the Armenian communities but the local authorities which minimize the capacity of the Turkish party. However, in case of the Krabakh issue the situation is quite different: the EU countries don’t have clear cut pro-Armenian social and governmental approaches, the fact furthering the activization of Azerbaijani-Turkish party.

It is also important that thanks to oil and dollar flows the Azerbaijani party is in a better material condition than the Armenian one and may also hire lobbyist organizations (particularly in the US) to cooperate with the country’s authorities. As it has already been mentioned the interests of Baku and Washington meet in the point of stimulating Azerbaijani movements in Iran, which is quite an important factor as well.


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