With Azerbaijan in mourning this week over the Christmas Day airplane crash that claimed 38 lives, political scientist Farhad Mammadov’s thoughts raced again to November 2020.
Then, at the ultimate day of the battle between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh area, Azerbaijan shot down a Russian helicopter close to its border, whilst it was once in Armenian airspace.
“Instantly, the president of Azerbaijan referred to as the president of Russia, took the blame for himself, for the rustic, introduced an apology, after which there was once the punishment of the accountable and the cost of repayment,” stated Mammadov, who’s the director of the Baku-based Heart for Research of the South Caucasus.
4 years later, the jobs have reversed — nearly.
On December 25, Azerbaijan Airways Flight 8243 took off from Baku sure for Grozny in Chechnya, with 67 passengers and team onboard. Because the airplane neared Grozny in Russian airspace, it seemed to have come underneath hearth from the bottom and adjusted path east, crashing close to Aktau in western Kazakhstan. Most effective 29 other folks survived.
Even though Russian officers in the beginning speculated that the airplane hit a flock of birds or an oxygen tank onboard exploded, the wear and tear seemed in step with that from surface-to-air missiles utilized by the Russian air defence. On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised for the “tragic incident” however did indirectly take accountability on Russia’s behalf, claiming Ukrainian drones have been within the house.
On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has demanded that Russia officially settle for accountability and pay repayment to the survivors — reflecting the anger in Azerbaijan over Moscow’s dealing with of the disaster, and the expectancy that Putin be as prematurely about what took place as Aliyev was once in 2020.
“Azerbaijan is anticipating the similar now, which we’ve got no longer observed but,” stated Mammadov. “And if the Russian aspect has selected the trail of partial apology, then we will be able to be expecting next apologies, punishments and compensations on the next levels of the investigation into the continuing case.”
For plenty of in Azerbaijan, it isn’t only a query of what hit the airplane, however how Russia answered to the emergency.
“What makes this case much more appalling is what took place after the airplane was once shot down,” Leyla, a local of Baku, informed Al Jazeera. “Touchdown permission in Russian territory was once denied. That is essentially the most grotesque a part of the incident and one thing other folks can not forgive.”
Azerbaijani officers have claimed that the pilots have been denied emergency touchdown permission in Russia, forcing them to modify path to Aktau, around the Caspian Sea.
“If the airplane have been allowed to land in Russia after the error was once realised, most likely the ones lives can have been stored. As an alternative, the airplane was once despatched to Kazakhstan, a choice made via heartless, incompetent people,” Leyla added. “This loss of humanity and duty is what angers and devastates other folks essentially the most.”
However may just the destiny of Flight 8243 additionally harm Russia’s family members with Azerbaijan?
As a former Soviet republic, family members between oil-rich Azerbaijan and its huge northern neighbour were sophisticated – however, in contrast to for instance, the Baltics, no longer utterly adverse.
Azerbaijan in short won independence following the Russian Empire’s cave in on the finish of the First International Battle. However in 1920, the Purple Military invaded, bringing Azerbaijan again underneath Moscow’s wing for the following seven many years.
The primary few years after Azerbaijan’s independence in 1991 have been marked via suspicion, as two tried coup d’etats in Baku have been sponsored via the Kremlin. Russia has additionally attempted to steadiness pleasant family members with each Azerbaijan and Armenia, with whom Azerbaijan has been in a sour war over the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh because the past due Soviet technology. Similtaneously promoting weaponry to all sides, Moscow has attempted performing as a mediator and deployed peacekeeping troops to Karabakh.
Those peacekeeping troops stood again as Azerbaijani forces temporarily overran Karabakh in September ultimate yr, inflicting nearly all of the Armenian inhabitants to escape, regardless of Armenia being a fellow member of the Collective Safety Treaty Group (CSTO), a Russia-led NATO-like alliance. Russian peacekeepers after all withdrew from Karabakh in April this yr as Baku consolidated keep an eye on.
At the complete, apart from the tensions over the airplane crash, ties between Russia and Azerbaijan are just right, stated Mammadov. Azerbaijan has no longer taken aspects in Moscow’s battle on Ukraine and is Russia’s greatest buying and selling spouse within the South Caucuses, occupying a a very powerful delivery course for items travelling to and from Iran. Similarly, Moscow issues as an financial spouse for Baku.
“As a industry and financial spouse [for Azerbajian], within the first position is Italy, in the second one position is Turkey, and within the 3rd position is Russia,” stated political scientist and lawmaker Rasim Musabeyov.
“So, on this sense, industry and financial family members are necessary for Azerbaijan and Russia,” he stated. “The vast majority of Azerbaijani planes fly to Russia, a minimum of sooner than this incident. The most important Russian neighborhood within the South Caucasus, about 120,000 Russians, reside right here.” Just about one million Azerbaijanis reside in Russia, he added.
Musabeyov believes that it’s now on Putin to do the appropriate factor to assist family members recover from the hit they have got taken from the airplane crash.
Putin’s apology, he stated, “must be adopted via an research of this incident, the offender punished, and repayment paid”.
“Azerbaijan isn’t fascinated with worsening family members with Russia,” Musabeyov stated.
