The Two Faces of Azerbaijan: Aliyev Crime Family’s Foreign Policy

The Lookout Report has met and interviewed Azerbaijani journalists, human rights activists, and dissidents to uncover the true story behind Azerbaijan as it prepares to host COP29.

This is the third article in a three-part TLR series on Azerbaijan: “The Two Faces of Azerbaijan”. Last week we featured a piece on corruption in Azerbaijan, and the week before that, one on human rights violations and repression. 

If you were to mention Azerbaijan to most people today, chances are that the overwhelming response you’d get is total indifference. Perhaps a few know it from its appearances in Eurovision, but it is not common knowledge that, nestled in the Caucasus Mountains at the edge of the Caspian Sea, there is a powerful petrostate competing with the emirates and kings of the Persian Gulf.

The Lookout Report has over the last weeks met and interviewed Azerbaijani journalists, human rights activists, opposition leaders, writers, and diplomats living in exile. This article, specifically, tells the story of two men, engaged in a battle over the country’s foreign policy. It is an insider’s view into the foreign service of Azerbaijan, revealing a diplomatic corps, hyper-focused on one single goal - to keep the Aliyev family in power. In true Godfather-Style, the capo of the regime and family dynasty, President Ilham Aliyev, directly instructs and encourages his diplomats, to employ underhand tactics, to destroy those who threaten him. From its realpolitik engaging with its partners in the region, to its silencing of dissidents at home and abroad, everything is, always, ultimately about Aliyev. 

The Story of Arif Mammadov 

It is May 19th, 2015. Flames violently arise from a sixteen-story high-rise building in the Binagadi District of Baku. Dramatic scenes unfold as firefighters throw themselves at the blaze in what is inevitably a futile attempt as the flames consume its facade at breakneck speeds. Toxic fumes, stemming from the low-quality, Styrofoam-material covering the building from top to bottom, yields a lethal cocktail for the building’s many residents. Fathers carry their unconscious children to safety and elderly people cry for rescue from the building’s higher levels. In the end 16 people lost their lives in the fire with more than 60 people injured.

Part of a government-sponsored “embellishment” scheme, ahead of the 2015 European Games, the Styrofoam was used all over the city of Baku to give the city a literal face-lift before the arrival of international athletes and visitors. Allegedly chosen by the government contractor, in an effort to cut costs, more than 200 Soviet-era apartment blocks were covered with the material. The disaster led to severe outrage amongst the population of Baku, with some extreme cases of residents using hammers and even their own hands to remove the dangerous material from their buildings. 

It is with this back-drop that Arif Mammadov enters this story. Then serving as Chief of Mission of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) delegation to the European Union, the then 51-year old Azerbaijani diplomat, angered by the scale of human suffering and apparent gross negligence on part of the authorities, angrily tweeted on Twitter (now X): "There is no nation that would stand that shame and injustice. Officials earn millions on our people's sufferings, and if they are not afraid of our people's anger, then they must be scared of God's anger!"

Mammadov claims he merely repeated similar comments made by President Aliyev, who like Mammadov, lambasted Baku city authorities. Nonetheless, it did not take long for Haqqin.az, a pro-government website, to single out Mammadov for a political take-down. Mammadov tells TLR: “If there is an article against someone on that site it means that man is finished”. According to Mammadov, The website, argued he should be “put in a trunk and brought to Azerbaijan”, described him as a "traitor", and linked him to an alleged anti-government group within the ranks of the Foreign Ministry that the site claimed was plotting a coup. They even made a cartoon about him showing a conspicuously big-eared Mammadov at the pool engaged with an American agent, who’s recruiting him to a CIA puppet-scheme. Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmat Haciyev subsequently on June 3, 2015 called Mammadov's "behavior, if confirmed, unacceptable, irresponsible, and unprofessional."

Mammadov, who was at this time in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, knew his career was over and that he had to get to safety. He tells TLR: “ I decided to act immediately. I contacted Turkish Airlines for a flight to Brussels, but was still afraid even as I got on the plane, due to my layover in Turkey, because if they found out where I was, Turkey would not be safe for me either. My wife, worried, was on the direct phone with me until the doors of the plane closed”. “As I arrived in Brussels, the Belgian Foreign Ministry was already aware of my situation. One friendly-minded Azeri diplomat had pre-emptively applied for political asylum for me in Belgium”. 

Prior to his fall from grace, Mammadov had been in the absolute highest echelons of the Azerbaijani Foreign Service, holding some of the country’s most important and prestigious diplomatic postings: Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the Council of Europe (CoE) and subsequently to the European Union, Ambassador to Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and finally, his afore-mentioned role as first permanent representative of OIC to the EU. In an interview with TLR, he agrees to give a unique look into the inner workings of Azerbaijani diplomacy. 

An Insider’s View on Azerbaijan’s Foreign Policy

The Foreign Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan is a laser-focused diplomatic entity.  According to Mammadov “the most skilled diplomats are sent to focus on: Geneva, London, Washington, Brussels”. As for the rest of its diplomatic postings: “When it comes to say, the CIS countries (former Soviet bloc) it is just whoever has family relatives, or relatives of relatives”. As for the reason why the brunt of the diplomatic corps is centered around important Western capitals, there are two answers. The first and traditional one: to defend Azerbaijan’s claims to the region of Nagorno Karabakh. Second, as with the buildings of Baku, the embellishment of the gilded facade of the Aliyev regime in Western eyes. However the issue of Karabakh has been declining in importance: “Until the Second Karabakh War (Sep 27, 2020 – Nov 10, 2020 red.), the issue of Karabakh was the number-one issue”. “It was the core of our diplomatic service”, “Second priority was defending the Aliyev regime”. With Azerbaijan’s ultimate victory in the war against Armenia, the second issue has taken center stage and Aliyev is effectively using the foreign service on a PR campaign for his regime in Western capitals. 

During his time in the foreign service, Mammadov also found himself in the midst of some of the most important events characterizing Azerbaijani-Western relations over the last two decades. 

Azerbaijan’s Secret Money-Laundering Scheme

One such event, was the Azerbaijani Laundromat. Infamous in both scope and scale, the secret money-laundering scheme and slush fund saw €2.5 billion ($ 2.9 billion) flow out of the country between 2012 and 2014; facilitated to great lengths by the Estonian branch of Denmark’s biggest bank, Danske Bank (the author’s own bank). Through this elaborate scheme, the Aliyevs’s essentially bought influence and a good renomé in Western countries, by transferring vast sums of money to US and European law-makers and various other international institutions. The laundromat was in part, uncovered by investigative journalists such as renowned Khadija Ismayilova, topic of last week’s article. 

Baku’s Man in the Shadows

Arif Mammadov witnessed first-hand the laundromat in action, as it became ever more present in Azerbaijan’s foreign policy. During his tenure as Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the Council of Europe (2007-2012), Mammadov was getting increasingly doubtful of his country’s conspicuous policies, both on the domestic and international level. His qualms of conscience reached breaking point, when in one meeting with the Secretary General of the CoE, to account for human rights violations in Azerbaijan, he recalls having made use of an old idiom about ambassadors: “I told him an old idiom about Ambassadors: ‘An ambassador is an honest man, sent abroad, to lie for the best of his country. Mr. Secretary General, if I knew that saying lies served the interest of my country - I would lie to you, but since I believe that what is happening in the country, is not in the interest of my people, I will tell you the truth’”. All this happened in the utmost secrecy. 

At the time, an important resolution with regards to human rights and political prisoners was coming up for a vote in the CoE and, according to Mammadov, the Aliyev-regime was adamant this needed to be stopped: “We functioned as other diplomatic missions until they started to use different tools … like distributing money”. 

It is at that present stage, Elkhan Suleymanov enters the narrative. A consigliere, man of the shadows, whose name keeps appearing, whenever one investigates Azerbaijan’s illicit dealings and bribery. 

Mammadov tells the story of how, in late 2008 Suleymanov, head of a Baku “NGO”, Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) started coming to the CoE: “They sent this guy, gave him money and resources, and said do anything - just block the resolution. They started doing this independently, and we - as the diplomatic corps were sidelined - they even made Elkhan Suleymanov member of the Azerbaijani parliament, and with full parliamentarian credentials he could freely walk the halls of The Parliamentarian Assembly of the CoE”. Mammadov adds how he thought about this: “He was essentially meddling in my area of business as ambassador, with his money and unorthodox means. I knew this could backfire for Azerbaijan, thus I was trying to reach the government, dissuading them of this tactique. I tried to argue this case at the Diplomatic Corps Bi-Annual meeting. However, President Aliyev’s Chief of Staff had no other comment than ‘Suleymanov does more than the rest of all you diplomatic corps taken together’. In desperation, Mammadov even tried reaching President Aliyev himself: “Before falling out of Aliyev's graces, I was one of his closests ambassadors, thus I even tried to reach the President. I wanted to persuade him to take Suleymanov away. In a talk with Ilham Aliyev, I explained to him the gravity of the situation and the need to stop these activities, and he accused me … of showing weakness, of not being tough enough. He told me ‘you should be tough with them - I don't like that you show weakness’. At that point, with that criticism - I knew I was at the end of my career. It was quite an unpleasant call - he was talking to me like he talks on television, with raised fists - like a dictator”.

“Not only me, but many diplomats understood that what Azerbaijan was doing in the CoE was wrong”.

What Arif Mammadov is referring to is the Caviar Diplomacy Scandal, in whose uncovering he served as a key witness. Luxiouris visits to Baku and gifts such as caviar, crystal tea-sets, and exquisite hand-wowen carpets to law-makers and officials, all for the mere price of speaking out in favour of Azerbaijan and its ‘democratic fairness and progress’. An offer you can’t refuse. As we will soon see, many MP’s of the Council of Europe atleast did not. 

With free access to roam the halls of Strasbourg, Suleymanov started scheming in the shadows. According to emails obtained by Italian police, Suleymanov was responsible for implementing an aggressive plan to improve the country’s image called “Azerbaijan 2020: Smile Future,” which was initiated in late 2011 by none other than the capo, President Ilham Aliyev himself”. 

Important people who received Laundromat money, through Suleymanov, include three former members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE): a German MP (Eduard Lintner), a Slovenian politician, President of the Slovenian National Party (Zmago Jelincic Plemeniti), and an Italian parliamentarian and the former chair of the European People's Party group in PACE (Luca Volonte). Their payments were suspiciously always made in conjunction with favourable comments about the state of Azerbaijan. 

A crucial moment for Azerbaijan’s influence machine in Strasbourg, was around 2013. As we have previously covered in this series, the Azerbaijani Presidential election of 2013, was deemed deeply flawed by various IGO’s. In that same election, Lintner, the German MP, had headed a team of German electoral observers. He only had positive things to say:  “The election process itself was organized at a high level and meets such standards as in Germany, for example [...] Our team did not notice any irregularities”. Shortly after this statement he received his first laundromat payment. In total he was payed €819,500 ($1.1 million) in 19 installments from the laundromat.” The source of the money? Suleymanov’s ACSDA “NGO”. 

The same pattern can be observed for Plemeniti, the Slovenian MP, who had acted as an observer in three Azerbaijani elections: in 2005, 2010 and 2013 only had praise to say for Aliyev’s victory in 2013: “This victory confirms the approval of the people of Azerbaijan of the great successes achieved and their active support for the policies aimed at the development of the country in all spheres of life”. He got  €25,000 ($31,820) from the Laundromat in July 2012.

By far the biggest beneficiary of the Laundromat was Italian MP Luca Volonte. According to Italian prosecutors, Volonte was directly involved in the making of the “Azerbaijan 2020: Smile Future” project, seemingly having been contracted by Suleymanov to gather support amongst other MP’s. Over the course of the Laundromat, Volonte received a staggering €1.99 million ($2.64 million) in 19 installments.

Although the above has been focused on Europe, similar schemes have been present in the US, and the name Suleymanov, just cannot stop showing. 

Influence in the US

Across the pond, not even the hill, the US sanctum of democracy and just government, has been  spared of the mischievous machinations of Suleymanov. Much is at stake for Azerbaijan in the US, since here it competes with a powerful Armenian-American lobby for support and favour of the world’s mightiest superpower. 

The Azerbaijani influence machine works, or at least has worked, in two ways in the US. 

First, there is of course none other than Suleymanov. For what we know, he established a triangle between a mysterious Baku-based organization, with offices in Switzerland, called Renaissance Associates, that in turn was payed by his own ACSDA NGO, to then again contract a prestigious American lobby firm based out of Virginia, Bob Lawrence & Associates (BL&A). Although Renaissance and BL&A have long since vanished, (with BL&A functioning as late as 2021), at the height of the laundromat over a million and a half dollars were funneled into Renaissance. In line with Suleymanov’s campaign in Europe, Renaissance’s stated goal was to: “promote Azerbaijan’s image in the US by publicizing its continuing commitment to democratic principles and a more civil society since its independence in 1991”. If there were any doubts of ACSDA and Renaissance being extensions of the same man’s will, the fact that they both shared the same Baku apartment, talks for itself. Just as in Europe, Suleymanov used Renaissance and BL&A to strengthen Aliyev’s image and to create positive coverage of the 2013 election, organizing multiple electoral observations missions. Other trips to Baku were also organized by another Azeri-American laundromat recipient, including one where up to 11 members of Congress, were lavished with silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000.  BL&A’s cooperation seemingly goes way back, as in 2006, BL&A reportedly even organized a visit of President Aliyev to the White House. 

Second, and perhaps even more interesting, Azerbaijan has seemingly employed another more subtle, delicate influence-policy in the US. According to the OCCPR, around 2012 the Azerbaijani Embassy in the US was employing a lobby-organization called the DCI Group. The firm’s contract with the embassy spelled out how for only $20,000 a month it could craft and place op-eds in major online and traditional news outlets, develop a core group of think tanks for outreach, and “define new topics for positive engagement that parallel Azerbaijan's strategic goals”. In short a type of ‘idea-laundering’, where the Aliyev’s can penetrate the intellectual and public spheres of society by way of mass-media. The same DCI Group allegedly influenced a prominent Harvard Scholar’s testimonies at various congressional hearings. A scholar who seemingly also failed to disclose, she was simultaneously working for SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s monolith state oil company. 

Azerbaijan Playing the Grand Game of Realpolitik

Although reliant on shady diplomats like Suleymanov to walk the corridors of influence in foreign capitals, Azerbaijan is also a more-than-capable, deeply involved player in a grand game of realpolitik across its region. Each of its geo-political chess-moves can once again be seen through the prism of increasing the longevity of the Aliyev’s hold on power. 

Fortunately for Azerbaijan, it finds itself at a strategic geopolitical cross-roads, Russia to the north, the EU to the west, Iran to the South and a strong Turkey in the vicinity - an ascendant middle-power, with whom Azerbaijan shares close cultural ties. Impressively walking on a proverbial knife’s edge, Azerbaijan even has close relations with Israel. 

Azerbaijan leverages its vast natural resources and strategic unalignment to deal with the EU and Russia simultaneously. As of July 2022, Baku and Brussels enhanced their bilateral relationship, expanding energy cooperation. The agreement followed Commision-President Ursula von Der Leyen’s visit to Baku where she signed a memorandum on energy, with her counterpart Ilham Aliyev. She heralded Azerbaijan as a “reliable” and “trustworthy” partner for the EU in its bid to move away from Russian oil. The new strategic partnership will see Azerbaijan commit to more than a doubling of its natural gas exports to Europe by 2027, from more than 8 billion cubic metres of gas per year today to about 20 billion. According to LSE Prof. Gubad Ibadoghlu, however, due to restrictions imposed by domestic consumption and pipeline-infrastructure, Azerbaijan can hardly live up to the goals put forth in the EU-Azerbaijan agreement. Ironically, when considering the EU’s reasons for seeking to diversify its gas imports, Prof. Ibadoghlu argues, Azerbaijan would need to import Russian gas to cover its own domestic consumption, while exporting its own natural gas to the EU in order to meet the deal. This essentially undermines the EU’s rationale: to deprive Russian sources of funding for its war in Ukraine. Besides getting Azerbaijan to renew its bid to join the BRICS, some have speculated that Azerbaijan’s sudden need for Russian gas was one the ulterior reasons behind Vladimir Putin’s 2024 hallmark visit to Baku. Nonetheless, for Baku’s foreign policy goals, Von der Leyen’s positive comments about Azerbaijan work to legitimize the government in the eyes of both its people and the international community. Similarly by entering into long-term deals such as this, Baku can secure funding to keep its population content, through various social policies and subsidies.  Last week we covered how the Aliyevs use money and corruption as a tool of power, hence a poor Azerbaijan without oil or gas money, is a dangerous place for the Aliyevs. ‘If the goons don’t eat, off comes the head’. 

Perhaps most interesting of all is, quoting a 2009 cable between Washington and its Embassy in Baku “Azerbaijan’s discreet symbiosis with Israel”.  In a leaked memo, Ilham Aliyev can be read describing his country’s relationship with the Jewish state as an iceberg: “nine-tenths of it is below the surface.” Azeri-Israeli relations are, arguably, some of the most favourable in the region, not least when looking at an Israel, increasingly diplomatically isolated in the wake of its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon. Although quiet about it, Azerbaijan has bought vast amounts of sophisticated weaponry from Israel, helping it secure its victory in Karabakh, something that holds paramount importance as a domestic propaganda victory. In 2023 Israel was the second largest destination Azeri oil exports.  Israeli technology and spyware is even used for surveillance by the state’s security apparatus, which again plays into the Aliyev’s goal of maintaining their firm grip on power. The close relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan has not been received well in Tehran, especially since Azerbaijani airbases have allegedly been offered as a staging ground for a potential Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Azerbaijan, has one partner in the region with whom it shares (at least partially) a language, cultural traits and many overlapping geopolitical interests - Turkey. Through its export of Bayraktar-TB2 drones and military training, Ankara proved a valuable strategic partner in ensuring Baku’s 2020 victory in the Second Karabakh War. Repeated crackdowns on islamic groups within Azerbaijan, who are seen as dangerous to the regime’s sustainability, could potentially alarm an Ankara that increasingly marshals Islam to consolidate the boundaries of Turkish identity. Despite their differences, however, relations on security issues are still close. As we shall soon see, Turkey has proven instrumental in Azerbaijan’s crackdowns on dissidents living in exile. 

Azerbaijan Will Rip Your Tongue Out

Nowhere is safe for Baku’s spymasters. Closely affiliated with the country’s former Ministry of National Security, they keep an eye on networks of political dissidents living abroad. Those deemed too critical of President Ilham Aliyev's policies, they tend to either vanish in mysterious ‘suicides’ or fall victim to hitmen on the war path. These next cases are shrouded in a degree of uncertainty, and rely on the work of investigative journalists, bloggers and a fair share of guesswork. 

Turkey, as mentioned before, is feared by many Azeri dissidents living abroad. The case of Bayram Mammadov (not related to Arif Mammadov) gives an idea as to why. The 27-year old Azeri was found mysteriously washed up on a waterfront in central Istanbul. Azerbaijani and Turkish news media quickly started to circulate that the death was a suicide, nonetheless this conflicted with the official police report stating that he had been seen swimming 20-25 meters out into the sea to recover his slippers. These conflicting reports have lead many Azerbaijani’s to suspect foul play, leading to graffitti both at home and abroad asking the question: “What happened to Bayram?”. 

Some cases are less mysterious, and also revolve around Turkey. On August 7, 2023, Fazil Gasimov was detained in Turkey, where he was engaged in academic work. He was then brought to Azerbaijan and charged with holding counterfeit money. The same charge used against many political dissidents (see Part 1 of the series). He was allegedly arrested for cooperating in exile with Prof. Ibadoghlu, and subsequently testified against him. Nonetheless he later retracted these statements, claiming they were a direct result of torture. Gasimov is still in prison today, and currently on a 120-day hunger strike protesting against what he claims is an unfounded arrest. 

In one case, reminiscent of the Godfather, Azerbaijan literally tried to cut out the tongue of one critic abroad. After a series of videos, apparently showing various defamations of a blow-up-doll with the face of First Lady and Vice President of Azerbaijan, Mehriban Aliyev glued onto it, Mahammad Mirzali, an Azerbaijani blogger living in exile in France became the target of the regime. On 14 March 2021, six men punched and stabbed the blogger in downtown Nantes, France, in the arms, hands, legs, neck, and face. Reportedly the attackers also attempted to cut out his tongue. Mirzali was treated in hospital for 16 to 17 knife wounds. This came after unknown people shot at him in 2020, also in Nantes, in this case he received a surface wound in his arm. In 2021, four men were arrested and charged with organised attempted murder. Three of them were born in Azerbaijan and one in Georgia. None have "significant criminal records". Another suspected assassination attempt against Mirzali was foiled by French authorities in 2022. 

As recently as September 29th 2024, another Azeri critic of the regime, Vidadi Iskenderli, was attacked by three unknown assailants in his home in the city of Mulhouse. The mysterious assailants stabbed him 24 times, and on October 1st, Iskenderli died in a local hospital. Although not much is yet known about the identity of the assailants, it has left many Azeri’s abroad increasingly fearing for their well-being. 

What characterizes these assassinations attempts, whether they are conducted by the Azeri regime or not, is that they seem to target dissidents going after the Aliyev family personally (excluding the case of Gasimov). Similarly, their increasingly impunitive nature are in the words of Arif Mammadov: “ a demonstration of power,  to drive fear into the hearts and minds of Azerbaijani dissidents living abroad”. 

Silence? Trustworthy? Reliable? 

Azerbaijan is a place where the ruling family can buy its way into the good graces of Europe’s elites, where political dissidents run the risk of having their tongues cut from their mouths or end their days floating face down in the Bosphorus, and this is but the fate of those living outside the country’s borders. Although this may be disconcertingly reminiscent of a gangster movie, with the author’s comments continuously alluding so, this is real life, these are real people. Over the course of these articles they have put their lives at stake to tell their story of their country. A country whose foreign ministry works for the enrichment and ego of one man. A man whose 11-year old heir-apparent is a property mogul in London. A filthy-rich dynasty that lets political dissidents languish in torture centers at the heart of their very own capital. And most important of all, a President who by direct implication, has little respect for the integrity of the same international institutions with whom he is going to deal this November at the COP. Aliyev’s Azerbaijan may be a “reliable” and “trustworthy” partner in the eyes of Western leaders, but can we really look ourselves in the eye, in just a few weeks, when it is this man that we’re dealing with? 

According to this report, as of 14 June 2024, there are currently 303 political prisoners being held in Azerbaijan, amongst which 20 are journalists. Prof. Gubad Ibadoghlu is in dire need of medical help in his house arrest. Fazil Gasimov is on the 120-th day of his hunger strike.