Siz Aliyevleri sadece Haydar ve İlham Aliyevler mi zannediyorsunuz? Azerbaycanın her bir sektörü bu ailenin farklı üyelerinin elinde. Kamu yararına: claude.ai/artifact/XND3jyPwi…

Azerbaijan’s confrontation with Türkiye should serve as another lesson for the democratic world. Azerbaijan’s increasing use of coercive diplomacy & confrontational rhetoric in diplomacy need more coordinated response from democratic countries rather than division. For years (at least since 2012), their step back & weak responses have taught Baku that tough language / threats in diplomacy produce more gains than negotiations. Keeping communication open became an overriding priority. Too often, it allowed Azerbaijan to benefit from coercion; it has repeatedly rewarded this behaviour (“attack diplomacy” strategy determined by 🇦🇿 President, 2004). Azerbaijani authorities have also learned how to use its international recognition (always too overestimated) in certain issues such as peace with Armenia or energy security or connectivity. When partners treated their cooperation as indispensable, even the hints that it might withdraw that creates pressure for concessions. Read Baku’s official chronicle these days and you’ll find a long list of quarrel with all - Europe, the Islamic world, Russia, Türkiye, Armenia, Georgia and, rarely these days, but the US as well. I sometimes wonder whether this chaotic modus operandi has a domestic political logic: When the authorities target believers, they can win applause from some secularists. When they target people labelled pro-Russian, some nationalists applaud. When they turn against those sympathetic to Türkiye, etatists now become supporters. Each group has its own fears but what they all do together serves to fuelling arbitrary power that will harm them one after another. It is tragicomic that 100s of people are now suffering in Baku prisons accused of being pro-European, pro-American, pro-Russian, pro-Iranian; many other citizens are now being threatened with arrest for being pro-Türkiye. Baku does not need everyone to support every crackdown. It benefits when each crackdown finds its apologists. Same logic works in abroad, confrontation put Strasbourg Court and PACE under severe pressure while that system seeks cooperation with member states or other institutions of Council of Europe or EU. Recent confrontations better illustrate this strategy: 1) Yesterday, Azerbaijani SOCAR announced intention to purchase gas from Gazprom. The reasons behind this decision may soon become clearer, particularly in light of Azerbaijan’s opposition to the opening of the Türkiye–Armenia border. 2) In September 2026, Azerbaijan postponed the Peace Bridge initiative following 🇦🇲 & 🇦🇿 CSO criticism of foreign diplomats’ visits to Karabakh. Following this, Azerbaijan also created a new working group to study Caucasian Albanian heritage in Armenia within its domestically unpopular “Western Azerbaijan” initiative creating more pressure on Armenia. 3) Another more telling example is Azerbaijan’s August 2026 diplomatic protest against Poland over TVP World’s (Poland's public service broadcaster) critical coverage of Azerbaijan’s human rights situation. Baku summoned the Polish ambassador, warned of damage to bilateral relations. Shortly beforehand, Azerbaijan’s state-controlled media mounted an aggressive campaign against the Polish MFA’s decision to establish an Azerbaijani-language service within TVP which resulted in the postponement of its launch until 2027 (seems cancelled). As a result, on 6 Oct, AzGov “media” Minval wrote an article titled “Correcting mistakes: is Polish public television changing its attitude toward Azerbaijan?”. The piece reads: “… 3 October this year, the very same TVP World news portal published a friendly article about Baku… TVP World decided to drop Azerbaijani-language broadcasting from its programming for the South Caucasus, reserving that pleasure for Armenian and Georgian audiences alone. A skilful ability to learn from mistakes—both their own and those of others—has always been a hallmark of the Poles.” If humiliation had a face, wouldn’t this be it? +