{"id":204949,"date":"2025-11-04T10:27:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T06:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/?p=204949"},"modified":"2025-11-04T11:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T07:01:12","slug":"us-should-force-baku-to-stop-religious-oppression-support-for-jihadist-terrorism-and-sanctions-violations-says-michael-rubin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/politics\/204949\/","title":{"rendered":"US should force Baku to stop religious oppression, support for jihadist terrorism, and sanctions violations, says Michael Rubin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Azerbaijan, the ostensibly pro-Western and secular dictatorship in the Caucasus, likes to depict itself as a bastion of religious tolerance, a bulwark against Islamist terrorism, and an ally in the West’s efforts to free itself from energy dependence on hostile powers, Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in an article published in the Washington Examiner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As noted, Baku’s cynicism toward its Jewish and Christian populations is well-established. Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s dynastic dictator, is equally deceptive in his opposition to jihadism. Following the 2023 ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev arrested the region’s democratically elected, ethnic Armenian leaders on false terrorism charges. Azerbaijan’s Armenian hostages include philanthropist and former state minister Ruben Vardanyan and former foreign minister David Babayan, a 52-year-old academic and author of several books. Aliyev’s show trials harken back to the Soviet era; outside his domestic audience, they have no resonance.<\/p>\n

Rubin notes that Turkey recruited up to 2,000 Syrian jihadists to fight a religious war against Christians. He states that during the Second Karabakh War, Azerbaijan would pay a bonus for every severed head the Syrian mercenaries provided.<\/p>\n

As noted, Azerbaijan also undermines U.S. sanctions on Russia.<\/p>\n

Less than a week before the start of war in Ukraine, Russia’s Lukoil purchased a nearly 10% stake in the Shah Deniz natural gas project from Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas, a deal that made Lukoil a partner of the Azerbaijani state-owned oil firm SOCAR.<\/p>\n

While Azerbaijan sells itself as a means to bypass Iranian and Russian gas, Baku’s math does not add up, as the gas it produces is less than that it pipes to Europe, meaning it serves as a conduit to launder Iranian and Russian gas.<\/p>\n

“The White House and State Department must start calibrating policy to reality rather than rhetoric. Forcing Baku to stop supporting religious repression, jihadi terrorism, and sanctions busting would be a good place to start,” Rubin writes.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Azerbaijan, the ostensibly pro-Western and secular dictatorship in the Caucasus, likes to depict itself as a bastion of religious tolerance, a bulwark against Islamist terrorism, and an ally in the West’s efforts to free itself from energy dependence on hostile powers, Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in an article […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":204917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,43,95,47,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-world","category-azerbeijan","category-society","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204950,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204949\/revisions\/204950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}