Ambassador before and after Shusha

The big interview of US Ambassador to Baku Mark Libby on 3 May made a lot of noise and became the subject of political discussions. At the same time, it revealed a number of important factors regarding the American diplomacy and the work of the Embassy staff.

First of all, Ambassador Libby, unlike many of his predecessors, should be commended for speaking openly about the gross human rights violations and arrests of journalists in the country. He did not just call for their release, but deemed the arrests and harassment ‘unacceptable’.

Frank interviews and unambiguous statements have been made by Western diplomats before, but not for publication (off the record).  As a participant of the interview, I can confirm that the Ambassador's emotions were sincere and even somewhat surprised by their frankness.

However, the interview showed some problems and shortcomings in the position of the American diplomat. First of all, it concerns his statement "that he is not ready" to visit city of Shusha.

It seems that this is rather the position of official Washington than of the Ambassador personally. For some reason, the U.S. is late in realising that there is no disagreement between the authorities and the opposition on the Karabakh issue in Azerbaijan. Therefore, the refusal to go to Karabakh and Shusha is perceived as a negative attitude towards Azerbaijan as a whole (which is skilfully used by the official Azeri propaganda).

The Ambassador's emotionality was also expressed in the fact that just a day later he still went to Shusha, although he said that he was not ready and did not intend to participate in the ‘show’ organized by someone.

Such actions besides emotions show that the Ambassador was not ready to talk about Karabakh. More precisely, he does not possess sufficient material on the subject, as he has recently arrived in Baku.  If so, it is already a shortcoming in the work of his team in the Embassy, which did not prepare him an appropriate analytical report. To put it simply, the Ambassador should have been explained that the subject of Shusha is of special importance for Azerbaijan and statements like ‘show’ are at least disrespectful to the feelings of the country's citizens.  This should have been realized long ago in Washington, without whose consent the Ambassador would not have gone to Shusha.

The rapid change of the position on this issue reminded us of the Azerbaijani saying about how it is ugly to get on a donkey and even worse to get off it. We must assume that the State Department will draw conclusions.

The situation with the arrested activists, whom the authorities accuse of illegal co-operation with Western donors, looks similar. It is commendable that the Ambassador reacted to the reproach that the representatives of the Embassy do not make attempts to visit the imprisoned activists, and returning from his trip to Shusha, he received the family members of the politically imprisoned activists.

If we summarize what has been said, there is probably more positivity in the actions of the American diplomacy, and if the meeting and conversation with journalists contributed to this, it can only be happy.

It would be advisable that in the future the Ambassador's advisers on political, public and press relations will better inform their boss about the situation and processes in Azerbaijan.