Azerbaijan: Important political events in 2022

I.18.01: Prime Minister Ali Asadov held a meeting to develop an action plan to curb the 60% food inflation.

II.10.02: President Ilham Aliyev issued an order to dismiss Rovnag Abdullayev from the post of head of the state oil company SOCAR. He was replaced by Rovshan Najaf.

III.14.02: Former head of the presidential administration, president of the National Academy of Sciences Ramiz Mehdiyev resigned.

IV.25.03: The Azerbaijani military took control of the dominant Farrukh height in Karabakh, driving out the Armenian troops.

V.06.04: President Ilham Aliyev met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels with the participation of European Council President Charles Michel. It was decided to instruct the foreign ministers to start preparing a future peace treaty.

VI. June 15, 07: The State Security Service (SSS) made arrests in the State Customs Committee, which led to a change in the leadership of this structure.

VII.26.08: The Azerbaijani army entered Lachin and took control of the villages of Zabukh and Sus.

VIII.09.09: A declaration on the development of the North-South transport corridor was signed in Baku following the trilateral governmental meeting of Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran.

IX.12-13.09: Combat clashes took place on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in the directions of the Kelbajar and Lachin regions, which led to the death of hundreds of servicemen from both sides.

X.03.12.22: Azerbaijani environmental activists block the Lachin corridor.

The year 2022 left two noticeable traces in the political life of Azerbaijan - the clarification of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and the reformatting of the cadre of government.

The clarification of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and this is how the disposition of the parties that developed after the 2020 war, covered all areas where contacts between Armenians and Azerbaijanis took place, including negotiation, military, and civilian components. Yerevan and Baku throughout the year demonstrated their inability to reach mutual understanding at the political and public level. The Brussels and Moscow meetings at the highest level, the dialogues of people's diplomacy did not reduce the amplitude of enmity. The main obstacle for the signing of the peace treaty was Yerevan's non-recognition of the Armenian-populated territory of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. In turn, Baku used all means to uphold the principle of territorial integrity. These two opposite lines clashed more than once in the form of an armed conflict in Karabakh and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in March and September of the outgoing year. The final chord of the year was the blocking of the Lachin corridor by Azerbaijani environmental activists, formally provoked by the illegal gold mining of Armenians, but this non-violent action became a new non-military civilian component of the showdown between Yerevan and Baku. The lack of a proper reaction of the international community to the situation in Lachin may indicate that the countries acting as mediators are inclined towards the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. This may indicate that in 2023 a compromise to bring constructivism into the negotiation process will be found.

In the outgoing year, President Aliyev continued to purge his team of old, blundering officials, rejuvenating them with faces that had passed through the sieve of the Pasha family hyper-holding. The once all-powerful head of the Presidential Administration of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ramiz Mehdiyev, who was still trying to influence the processes from the office of the president of the Academy of Sciences, was finally sent into political oblivion. The personnel change in the State Customs Committee dealt a serious blow to the financial support of part of the Nakhchivan clan that disagreed with the loss of influence. And finally, at the end of the year, the neutralization of the all-powerful Nakhchivan "khan" Vasif Talybov and the lowering of the status of Nakhchivan as a special isolated territory. These processes noticeably accelerate the process of forming and strengthening the new presidential team, which, during its formation, is also cleared of new wave personnel that have not justified the trust, as, for example, happened with the Minister of Culture Anar Kerimov. It should be expected that the final purge of the old senior cadres will be completed in 2023.

 The 2022 year was also marked by the increasing role of Azerbaijan in the European energy security system (On July 18, the European Commission signed a new Memorandum of Understanding on a strategic partnership in the field of energy with Azerbaijan to increase the import of Azerbaijani natural gas to Europe by at least 20 billion cubic meters annually by 2027), regional logistics (In Aktau, on November 25, 2022, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey adopted the Roadmap for the Development of the Trans-Caspian Corridor) and international regional formats (In Samarkand, on November 11, the summit of the Organization of Turkic States was held, the leitmotif of which was the theme “New era of Turkic civilization - together for common development and prosperity.

On the domestic side, however, the government proved unable to curb the 60% inflation seen in 2021. Rising prices and social tensions continued to rise despite government food security measures announced at the beginning of the year (on January 18, Prime Minister Ali Asadov chaired a meeting on food security, price increases and the challenges ahead to curb them. deadlines to prepare proposals for the Action Plan “On strengthening anti-inflationary measures.”) The results of the year do not indicate an improvement in the socio-economic situation soon.