Azerbaijan’s Borders Continue to be Closed 3 Years After Covid Outbreak and the World has Said Little
It has been three years since Azerbaijan has closed its borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a policy very much in line with the rest of the world at that time. Since then, places like the US, all of Europe and even countries with the most restrictive measures like Japan and China have all opened. So, why do the land borders continue to be closed? What effect is it having on the country and why has the West said little about it?
March 2020, the world, and Azerbaijan was in the midst of grappling with a once in a generation global pandemic, resulting in a policy that prevented passenger traffic over land borders. Countries like Iran, Georgia and Russia, which once saw large levels of daily traffic to and from Azerbaijan have been reduced to cargo traffic. To this day the policy has stayed in place with the exception of reports that suggest residents from the exclave of Nakhchivan are able to access Turkey by land with a permit but of course unable to reach Azerbaijan proper through Armenia. The result of this policy has been skyrocketing prices for produce and products transported by everyday citizens across the borders and a bottleneck in international transportation to the airline industry. In a country in which wealth is concentrated in the capital of Baku, rural and border communities have been gravely impacted due to increased prices and the inability to leave their country via land.
Through these increasing prices the average Azerbaijani citizen’s salary has not increased, preventing large majorities of the population from leaving their country due to the government limiting air travel to state sponsored companies. As much of the world has grappled with inflation due to the fallout from both the Covid pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine, Azerbaijanis face a hyper localized brand of inflation that could be mitigated with an open border policy.
The war in Ukraine has had a direct impact on facilitating the international rhetoric (or lack of), with the changes in the trade patterns globally, particularly in fossil fuels, changing drastically. Prior to February 2022, large portions of western gas and oil imports were from Russia. Since then there has been a drastic decrease of fossil fuels imports from Moscow due to public pressure and the sabotage of the Nord stream pipelines which has led the west to look elsewhere. An increase in need for fossil fuels in Europe and a lack of options has led Azerbaijan to become one of the emerging trade partners.
This brings in one of the major issues in the region, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This territorial dispute has been the major faultline in the region for decades and has been the product of the most international political attention. Nagorno-Karabakh which is a territory a little larger than the size of Luxembourg, currently has a sizable Armenian population but is claimed Azerbaijan due to historical federalization under the Soviet Union and there previously being a substantial Azerbaijani population. Currently it is claimed to be a part of Armenian territory by the Armenian government but has little international recognition. This conflict, which has been at a bare simmer since the fall of the Soviet Union with two instances of formal war known as the First and Second Nagorno-Karabakh Wars, the last being 2020, has garnered the most attention by global powers. The result has been a lack of oversight or conversations pertaining to instances of authoritarian practices or human right violations in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
While the Russian War in Ukraine continues to rage on and the tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh continue to persist, a blind eye will continue to be taken towards this strict border policy within Azerbaijan. As a result, the economic volatility of rural and border populations will continue and much of the population will be unable to legally leave their country across land borders. This is a human rights issue and as a result of international leadership prioritizing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and fossil fuels interests, the vast majority of the population of Azerbaijan will continue to be affected.
