International press investigation: Azerbaijan tried to avoid sanctions in the US through lobbyists and promote issues important for it
The South Caucasian country of Azerbaijan recently asked Washington lobbyists that it was considering working with to not register under FARA, the law “on foreign agents”, for work they considered necessary to register for, POLITICO writes.
Baku has worked with the Friedlander Group since February 2023, paying the firm $41,666 per month to “enhance U.S.-Azerbaijan relations,” according to FARA records.
The two lobbyists said that the country was not happy with the firm’s progress on issues important to Azerbaijan.
That discontent in part led Azerbaijan to talk with at least one other firm in the last year. But when Deputy Foreign Minister Elnur Mammadov told the firm that the contract was contingent on there being no FARA registration, the firm backed away and didn’t attend a meeting to discuss the potential contract at the embassy.
The overtures came at a delicate time for Azerbaijan.
Last September, Azerbaijan launched a daylong “lightning” offensive in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking the exodus of around 100,000 ethnic Armenians. Leaders from both sides have been working to broker a peace deal in the year since, but nothing has been finalized.
Meanwhile in May, Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar was charged with taking bribes from an oil and gas company owned by the government of Azerbaijan and seeking to use his post in Congress to benefit Azerbaijan’s government — accusations Cuellar denies. Baku, the country’s capital city, is also preparing to host the global climate summit COP next month, prompting a war of words over Azerbaijan’s human-rights record.
Azerbaijani embassy spokesperson Jamila Mammadova said in a statement to POLITICO, “Azerbaijan sees deep value in bilateral relations between the two countries and we continuously engage with U.S. counterparts to advance our relations.”
An investigation by The Washington Post also shows that the sharp increase in U.S. sanctions forms a new lobbying industry in Washington. A reference was also made to Azerbaijan’s lobbying activities. In August 2023, a month before launching a full-scale military offensive on the ethnically Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan paid lobbyist Ezra Friedlander $666,664.
Amid the subsequent global uproar, Friedlander worked to prevent retaliatory sanctions against Azerbaijan. In his interviews, he stated that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, which, according to him, is “100% correct” because “the country cannot attack its territory.”
