Analysis

Azerbaijan Does Not Have to Choose East or West

By AZE.US Editorial Team The Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s anniversary summit has revived a familiar question for Azerbaijan: Should Baku move closer to the East or...

Sargsyan Did Not Betray Putin – The Kremlin Misread Armenia

By AZE.US Editorial Team The claim that Serzh Sargsyan deliberately handed power to Nikol Pashinyan after betraying an agreement with Moscow is politically seductive. It would...

Armenia Heads for Europe With Handcuffs for the Opposition

By AZE.US Editorial Team Robert Kocharyan’s arrest does not erase legitimate questions about his family’s wealth. But when law enforcement acts immediately after a public...

Putin Allows State to Take Control of Big Business

By AZE.US Editorial Team Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree allowing the government to place companies and their assets under temporary state management...

Pashinyan Jails His Rivals as Russia Loses Armenia

By AZE.US Editorial Team The detention of former President Robert Kocharyan is the latest move against Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s political opponents. Azerbaijan and...

The Baku-Tashkent Axis: How Azerbaijan Is Reshaping Eurasia

By AZE.US Editorial Team The Treaty on Eternal Friendship is more than a diplomatic slogan. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan are building a transport and economic bridge...

Pashinyan Is Closing the Book on “Historical Armenia”

By AZE.US Editorial Team Nikol Pashinyan’s proposed “Fourth Republic” is more than a new name for another Armenian government program. Yerevan is attempting to redefine the...

A 250,000-Manat Apartment – With No Yard, School or Parking

By AZE.US Editorial Team Baku has learned how to build high-rise apartment blocks. It still has not learned how to build complete neighborhoods. A buyer is...

Trump Wants to Isolate Iran. Could Azerbaijani Companies Face Secondary Sanctions?

By AZE.US Editorial Team The Trump administration is preparing a new sanctions package against Iran that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described as the...

TikTok in Azerbaijan: Shadow Millions, Sexual Solicitation and Children Behind Filters

TikTok in Azerbaijan stopped being a harmless app for dance clips, recipes and short comedy videos a long time ago.

Hotels Lose Out to Homes With Barbecue Grills: How Travel Across Azerbaijan Has Changed

By AZE.US Editorial Team A family can now rent an entire house with several bedrooms, a private yard, kitchen and barbecue area for the price...

America’s Next Target Is Not Iran, but Those Helping It Survive

By AZE.US Editorial Team After 60 days of failed diplomacy, President Donald Trump has declared an “Economic D-Day” against Iran. But his most consequential warning...

Moscow and Baku Raise the Stakes Again

Azerbaijan is building a foreign policy framework in which Russia is no longer the indispensable center of regional decision-making.

Who Checks Foreign Food Couriers Working in Azerbaijan?

By AZE.US Editorial Team A missing food order involving a courier reportedly from India has raised a broader question: how do foreign nationals who cannot...

If Trump Is Azerbaijan’s Friend, Why Is Section 907 Still Alive?

By AZE.US Editorial Team Washington has again waived the restriction, but it has not repealed it. For the Trump administration, Section 907 remains a useful...

Putin Is Afraid of Yabloko – And of Russians Who Want to Vote Against the War

By AZE.US Editorial Team Vladimir Putin has spent years cultivating the image of a leader who fears no one. Russia has nuclear weapons, a vast security...

Ukraine Retook 26 Settlements. A Turning Point – or a New Phase of the War?

By AZE.US Editorial Team Ukraine says its forces have retaken 26 settlements and more than 745 square kilometers of territory in one of Kyiv’s most...

Azerbaijanis Urged Not to Travel to Russia After Student’s Reported Detention

By AZE.US Editorial Team A prominent Azerbaijani lawyer has urged citizens to avoid traveling to Russia after reporting that a young Azerbaijani student was detained...

Peace Without Moscow: Why Baku and Washington’s Interests Aligned

By AZE.US Editorial Team Dates matter in diplomacy. On Aug. 8, 2008, Russia and Georgia went to war. Russian forces advanced deep into Georgian territory,...

A $201 Million Stake in the Middle Corridor: What Washington Wants After Peace

By AZE.US Editorial Team A year ago, Washington helped Azerbaijan and Armenia lay the political foundation for peace. The United States is now moving to the...

One Year After Washington, Peace Is Real but Not Yet Irreversible

By AZE.US Editorial Team Nearly one year after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in Washington, the main result is...

Moscow Pressures, Washington Pushes: Armenia Is Running Out of Room to Maneuver

By AZE.US Editorial Team Nearly a year after the Washington understandings, the South Caucasus has reached the point where diplomatic promises must give way to...

US Is Gradually Weakening Iran: What It Means for Azerbaijan

By AZE.US Editorial Team Negotiations surrounding Iran have entered a new phase, but it remains too early to speak of an imminent end to the...

Pashinyan Consolidates Power Ahead of Referendum and Peace Deal With Baku

By AZE.US Editorial Team Armenia’s new government looks almost identical to the old one. That is precisely the point. After his Civil Contract party won the...

Kobakhidze Is Turning Georgia Into a “Besieged Fortress”

By AZE.US Editorial Team Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s speech marking the 11th anniversary of the country’s State Security Service was formally devoted to terrorism,...

Pashinyan Sends Russia a $2 Billion Railroad Bill

By AZE.US Editorial Team Armenia’s threat to seek $2 billion a year from Moscow is the loudest part of the dispute. But the real conflict...

Azerbaijan Risks Losing the South Caucasus Economic Race

By AZE.US Editorial Team Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia had almost identical GDP per capita levels in 2020. Today, the two neighboring economies are pulling ahead....

Azerbaijan Joins Central Asia’s Political Core

By AZE.US Editorial Team President Ilham Aliyev’s state visit to Kyrgyzstan was significant not only because Baku and Bishkek signed a treaty on allied relations. The...

Moscow Forces Armenia to Choose: The EU or the EAEU

By AZE.US Editorial Team The July 27 phone call between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin should be viewed not as...

War Comes to the Caspian, Putting Azerbaijan’s Interests at Risk

By AZE.US Editorial Team Ukraine’s strike on a vessel linked to Russia-Iran military logistics has shattered the image of the Caspian Sea as an isolated...

Iran and Ukraine Are on the Brink of Direct War

By AZE.US Editorial Team A Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea has pushed a long-running shadow conflict into the open, raising...

Baku No Longer Wants to Remain Only a Regional Player

By AZE.US Editorial Team For years, Azerbaijan was viewed internationally through a relatively narrow lens: the conflict with Armenia, energy exports to Europe, and its...

Who Is Selling Off Baku’s Nizami Street?

By AZE.US Editorial Team Baku’s famous Nizami Street, known to generations of residents simply as Torgovaya, is gradually being transformed from the capital’s main pedestrian...

Little Baku in the U.S.: Cash Jobs, Borrowed Accounts and Fear of Deportation

A growing Azerbaijani community in Northern Virginia was built partly by newcomers who entered through the southern border and expected time, work permits or...

Armenia and Russia After the Election: A Divorce Delayed, Not Canceled

Yerevan is steadily moving out of Moscow’s political orbit, but economic dependence makes a clean break impossible. Russia, meanwhile, has lost the ability to...

Moscow Is Too Late: Baku Is Building a South Caucasus Without Masters

By AZE.US Editorial Team Russia has long viewed the South Caucasus as a region where Moscow should have the final word. Governments could change, countries could...

An Ice Cream Ad Became Azerbaijan’s Biggest Culture War

By AZE.US Editorial Team An ice cream commercial has become one of Azerbaijan's hottest political and cultural debates. Not inflation. Not housing prices. Not corruption allegations. Not social inequality. Ice...

The Kremlin Swallowed a Bitter Pill From Aliyev

Russia called Azerbaijan’s position on Ukraine “mistaken,” then immediately assured Baku that the disagreement would not damage bilateral relations.

The South Caucasus Is No Longer Anyone’s Backyard

By AZE.US Editorial Team President Ilham Aliyev’s appearance at the Fourth Shusha Global Media Forum was more than a long exchange with foreign journalists. It...

Why Some Azerbaijani Men Now See Marriage As A Financial Risk

AZE.US As housing becomes harder to afford and divorce remains common, a growing number of young men fear that marriage could leave them with debt,...

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