Azerbaijan–United States relations

On Jan 21, 2022, ABC News reported that a federal grand jury in Washington had issued subpoenas to search the home and Texas office of Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, “seeking records about a wide array of U.S. companies and advocacy organizations, many of them with ties to the former Soviet nation of Azerbaijan.” According to ABC, a subpoena reviewed by the news organization “asks for records relating to any ‘work, act, favor, or service’ that Cuellar or his wife may have provided at the behest of certain foreign companies, government officials, American business leaders, or others.” Cuellar has denied wrongdoing.[11][12]

Modern U.S.-Azerbaijani relations have been strongly influenced by the U.S. official position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The U.S. was actively involved in the attempts to resolve the conflict since 1992. As a part of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE; now OSCE) mission, US Secretary of State James Baker III proposed a set of rules named after him, which eventually defined the representation of the conflicting sides within the OSCE Minsk Group negotiation format.[13]

In 1992, the U.S. Congress adopted Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which banned any direct U.S. aid to the government of Azerbaijan. The ban made Azerbaijan the only exception to the Post-Soviet states receiving U.S. government aid for facilitating economic and political stability.[14] Passage of Section 907 was influenced by the powerful Armenian American lobby in the U.S. Congress,[15] in response to the blockade imposed by Azerbaijan on Armenia in the course of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War. Azerbaijanis consider this legislation to be unfair as, during the same period of time, Armenian forces took control of the fifth of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh.[16] Consecutive George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations opposed Section 907,[17] viewing it as an impediment to impartial U.S. foreign policy in the region and an obstacle to the U.S. role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict mediation efforts.[13] In her 1998 letter to the House Appropriations Committee chairman, Bob Livingston, then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wrote:

Section 907 damages US national interests by undermining the administration's neutrality in promoting a settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh, its ability to encourage economic and broad legal reforms in Azerbaijan, and efforts to advance an East-West energy transport corridor.[18]

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Congress passed the foreign appropriations legislation of 2002, granting President the right to waive Section 907.[19] In view of Azerbaijan's contribution and support for the US military operations in Afghanistan,[20] President George W. Bush waived the section in January 2002;[21] and President Barack Obama further extended that waiver.

Donald Rumsfeld with Safar Abiyev during a press conference in Baku

The U.S.-Azerbaijani security relations developed along several paths, including Azerbaijan's active participation in the NATO's Partnership for Peace program and the U.S.-led missions in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq;[22] and the bilateral military ties to ensure Caspian energy and transportation security. In support of the U.S.-led War on Terror, apart from troop contributions, Azerbaijan provided overflight, refueling, and landing rights for U.S. and coalition aircraft bound for Afghanistan and Iraq; shared information to combat terrorism financing; detained and prosecuted suspected terrorists.[10] Apart from usage of Azerbaijani airspace by U.S. air forces, over one-third of all of the nonlethal equipment including fuel, clothing, and food used by the U.S. military in Afghanistan travels through Baku.[23] In November 2011, the United States Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus met with the Azerbaijani President and Defense Minister announcing the military ties between their countries would expand. The U.S. State Department already offered Azerbaijan $10 million to enhance its security structures in the Caspian Sea earlier that year.[24]

Azerbaijan-U.S. ICT Forum, December 3, 2013

U.S.–Azerbaijani ties in the economic sphere developed primarily in the context of Caspian energy resources and their transportation to Western markets. The U.S. companies are actively involved in the development of Caspian hydrocarbons in offshore Azerbaijani oilfields, and the U.S. government actively supported the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline as the primary route of transportation for Caspian oil.[25]

In January 2008, commenting on a trip to Azerbaijan by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John C.K. Daily of UPI called Azerbaijan "the one remaining friend that America has in the Caspian basin".[26] During this visit Sen. Lugar also suggested that he along with fellow Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Joseph Biden, D-Del., endorsed the need for "a special representative focused on energy issues in the Caspian to safeguard long-term U.S. interests" in a letter they sent earlier to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.[26]

The United States has signed a bilateral trade agreement with Azerbaijan, granting it the status of a "most favored nation", in 1995; and a bilateral investment treaty with Azerbaijan, naming it a beneficiary country under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program, in 2008.[8] The U.S. also supports Azerbaijan's application for accession to the World Trade Organization.[10]

Remarks made by U.S. officials praise Azerbaijan as the first secular democracy in a majority-Muslim nation.[27] In spite of this, it commonly scores poorly in independent assessments of democratic governance published by non-governmental organizations. For example, Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2018 report listed Azerbaijan as “not free”, with a score of 12/100.[28] One component of the aid package provided by the U.S. government to Azerbaijan focuses on democratic development assistance “with an emphasis on support for civil society, independent media, and rule of law.” The largest part of this assistance is provided by the United States Agency for International Development.[27]

In 2014, Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas O. Melia of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor noted in a written testimony that “Azerbaijan has taken some positive steps” in building democratic institutions and developing democratic norms. “More broadly, however, we have been seeing increasing constraints on fundamental freedoms that increase the risk of domestic instability, undermine the confidence the rule of law will be respected, and prevent Azerbaijanis from reaching their full potential.”[27] United States Department of State press releases between 2011 and 2016 note concern with the actions of the Azerbaijan government over the sentencing of journalists and human rights activists as part of a “broad pattern of increasing restrictions on human rights in Azerbaijan.”[29] Deputy Assistant Secretary Melia's statement lists a number of democratic transgressions, including limiting foreign NGO involvement, incarcerating journalists and peaceful protestors, and withholding travel rights to activists. “These are not the kinds of actions the United States or the broader international community wants to see from a partner, an OSCE participating State, and currently the chair of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.“[27]

Eric Rubin, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, also commented on Azerbaijan's democratic track record. In a testimony submitted to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2014, he wrote:

“I want to emphasize that the United States remains committed to a constructive dialogue with Azerbaijan based on friendship between our people and mutual respect between our governments. But a constructive dialogue means that we can and must have frank and honest discussions in areas where we disagree. Discussing matters of agreement and disagreement in a candid way is part of the nature of a serious dialogue. We therefore have been disappointed by allegations by some of Azerbaijan’s authorities that the United States is interfering in the country’s domestic affairs when we share our views or send democracy-related delegations to Azerbaijan."[30]