Hundred years on: The future of Azerbaijans diplomacy
Given the present global situation, growing radicalism and declining oil prices, Azerbaijan will face a bumpy road ahead
VEERAMALLA ANJAIAH
The year 2019 will remain as a milestone in the history of Azerbaijan, an oil-rich country in the South Caucasus, for at least two reasons.
First is the remarkable centenary celebrations of Azerbaijans diplomacy, which began its journey in 1919.
The second reason is Azerbaijans chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which it assumed during the 18th NAM Summit in Baku in October 2019. The NAM, which was founded in 1961 by countries like Indonesia, India, Yugoslavia and Egypt based on the Bandung Principles, is the second-biggest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations, with 120 member states.
The Bandung Principles were adopted at the historic 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, Indonesia.
Just two decades ago, nobody would have ever guessed that Azerbaijan will one day become the leader of the developing countries. In the early 1990s, at the time of Azerbaijans independence from the collapsed Soviet Union, Armenia a small neighbor of Azerbaijan attacked and seized 20 per cent of Azerbaijani territory and committed a genocide against ethnic Azerbaijani Muslims in Azerbaijans territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and its adjacent areas.
Of course, Armenia received the tacit support of the then-Soviet troops stationed in Armenia.
The war with Armenia drained most of Azerbaijans resources. Its GDP was just US$8.71 billion in 1991, the year in which Azerbaijan became independent from the Soviet Union. Due to the terrible war, Azerbaijans GDP fell to $2.25 billion in 1994.
Azerbaijans popular president, Heydar Aliyev, strongly believed that peace was an essential prelude to prosperity and agreed to a Russian-brokered cease-fire in 1994.
Agreeing to the 1994 cease-fire was a strategic diplomatic move by Azerbaijan, which proved to be a big success for Azerbaijans diplomacy.
On Sept. 20, 1994, Aliyev signed the Contract of the Century with major western oil companies, which brought billions of dollars into the war-ravaged economy.
On the diplomatic front, Azerbaijans achievements were amazing in just two decades.
Azerbaijans diplomatic efforts paid off in 2011 when it became a nonpermanent member of the prestigious UN Security Council for the period 2012-2013. Azerbaijan was elected to become a member of the UN Economic and Social Council (2017-2019) with a total of 176 votes.
Azerbaijan has been working closely with the EU, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States and many other organizations.
Behind all these success stories of Azerbaijan were Azerbaijans untiring diplomats. In fact, the Azerbaijani Diplomatic Service has a hundred years of glorious history.
Although Azerbaijan gained its independence in 1991, its history goes back to more than a hundred years. On May 28, 1918, the Azerbaijani people proclaimed their country as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), the first peoples democratic republic with voting rights for women in the Muslim East.
July 9, 1919, the newly-born Muslim-majority ADR established the secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Through a Presidential Decree on Aug. 24, 2007, the date July 9, 1919, was taken as the basis for the establishment of the Day of Employees of the Diplomatic Service of Azerbaijan, also known as Diplomacy Day.
One century separates us from a time when the ADR was taking its first steps in the international arena. It was an incredibly hectic century which encompassed the collapse of former empires which perished in the fire of World War One, Elmar Mammadyarov said in an article in the IRS Heritage magazine recently.
The ADR was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1920, but the spirit of the ADR and its values were adopted by present Azerbaijan.
Despite living at a junction where the interests of global superpowers converged and often overtly collided, the Azerbaijani people always showed a strong determination and steadfast will to uphold its freedom, Mammadyarov said.
The ADR was able to get recognition from many countries.
At that time, there were diplomatic missions of 16 states operating in Baku, including, for example, those of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Persia, Poland, Ukraine etc.
The writer is a journalist and an author
