Another “strategic partnership”: This time with Azerbaijan, a model to follow

While we have been preoccupied with American-Hungarian and Russian-Hungarian relations, the dictator of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, arrived in Hungary for a visit, his third in four and a half years. Not too many high-level western visitors can be seen in Budapest lately, so Orbán must be satisfied with Azeri dictators and the like. Orbán himself is not welcome in western capitals, and therefore his official trips usually take him outside of the European Union and North America. He visited Baku twice, and I understand he will be going again to strengthen the “strategic partnership” he forged between Hungary and Azerbaijan, two countries that have a lot in common: both are extremely corrupt and both are led by autocratic leaders whom outsiders describe as mafia dons.

In September 2012 I wrote three posts (September 1, 2, and 3) on the Orbán government’s decision to release Ramil Safarov, an Azeri army officer, from the Hungarian jail where he was serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of an Armenian officer in 2004. The crime was perpetrated in Budapest, where both men spent a couple of months in a training program organized by NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program. The Azeri government made several attempts to convince the Hungarian authorities to release him into their custody. But because Safarov was considered to be a national hero the Gyurcsány and Bajnai governments, fearing that once Safarov stepped onto Azeri soil he would not spend a minute in jail, denied the requests. Not so the second Orbán government, which in the hope of Azeri goodwill and economic support decided to strike a deal with Aliyev, the Azeri dictator. To this day we don’t know what the Hungarian government got in return for the release of the “ax murderer,” as he is called in Hungary. According to rumors at the time, Viktor Orbán made the decision to extradite Safarov in exchange for the Azeri purchase of Hungarian bonds. The deal was struck under the watchful eye of Péter Szijjártó, and final approval came from Tibor Navracsics, the minister of justice who currently serves as one of the EU commissioners in Brussels. This dirty deal was the beginning of a great friendship between Aliyev’s Azerbaijan and Orbán’s Hungary.

Since then, the Hungarian government has manifested its commitment to closer economic and political ties between the two countries on several occasions. In November 2012 Hungary organized an “international conference” in Budapest to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Hungary and Azerbaijan. In 2013 Hungary opened a Hungarian Trading House in Baku, and yesterday Viktor Orbán and Ilham Aliyev signed a “strategic partnership” agreement. Apparently this agreement encompasses the following areas of cooperation: energy, education, commercial air transport, tourism, veterinary medicine, and youth and sport. Currently trade between the two countries is insignificant and has actually been falling since 2010. Szijjártó himself talks about Azerbaijan only as a “potential economic partner” of Hungary, a partnership that will be realized once Azeri gas reaches Europe. For the time being, one hears only about the hundreds of scholarships offered by Hungary as a goodwill gesture toward these Central Asian countries. Azerbaijan just gratefully acknowledged 200 scholarships.

As usual, in the joint press conference after the meeting and signing ceremony, Viktor Orbán went overboard, praising Azerbaijan as an “example to follow” (mintaállam). By the way, when Orbán is confronted with foreign dignitaries, he is often visibly servile. He bows just a little too low, which in Aliyev’s case was accentuated by the Azeri president’s height and Orbán’s small stature. He did the same thing when the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, visited Budapest in 2011.

In his unbridled enthusiasm for the Azeri model, he even praised Aliyev’s father, Heydar Aliyev, the former KGB agent who became president of Azerbaijan after a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of the country in 1993. His and his family’s corruption was legendary. After his death in 2003, his son, the current president Ilham Aliyev, took over after a fraudulent election. Since then he has been reelected three times, and he can be assured that he will remain president of the country as long as he is alive: the law was changed that barred repeated reelection of the same person to the post. Wikileaks documents have revealed that American observers compared  the Azeri president to a mafia crime boss. Well, perhaps this is what Orbán had in mind when he spoke of Azerbaijan as an example to follow.

President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán

In the afternoon there was an economic forum where Orbán made a speech in which he announced that “countries that have political systems that offer clear and unambiguous leadership to a given community are lucky,” indicating that he considers both Azerbaijan and Hungary among the lucky ones. Aliyev immediately picked up on Orbán’s remarks, adding that “both countries are led along a clear strategy. Hungary is defending its national interests, its independence, and its sovereignty.” How should one interpret Orbán’s reference to “clear and unambiguous leadership”?  I, for one, think that he means that in such a regime no opposition forces could possibly alter the strategy of an autocratic leader. This is certainly true of Aliyev as well as Orbán.

Today HVG posted a short note online teasing an article in its print edition tomorrow, according to which there might be “a thread that connects Baku and Budapest” in the U.S. banning of the six Hungarian officials and businessmen. According to the paper, the case involves corruption surrounding Hungarian government bonds offered for sale to Azerbaijan in 2012. My recollection is that the deal eventually fell through. The Hungarians were apparently hoping that Azerbaijan would pay Hungary back for its release of Ramil Safarov by buying Hungarian bonds through ARDNF, the Azerbaijan State Oil Fund. However,  ARDNF announced on October 9 that it had no intention of buying Hungarian bonds and that it did not plan to invest in Hungary. I still remember all the jokes on ATV about “manat,” the Azeri currency. However, there is always the possibility that some secret deal was struck over the Hungarian government bonds and that perhaps some of the money received disappeared either into Fidesz coffers or into individual pockets. The official announcement of ARDNF might have been intended simply to disavow any connection between the Safarov case and payments received by Hungary. We’ll have to see what HVG came up with.

And here is the latest. According to an unnamed Fidesz source, Viktor Orbán realized that he went too far in embracing Russia, ratcheting up his anti-EU rhetoric, and attacking the United States. According to this highly placed individual, Orbán is planning a change of orientation. From here on he will be a model of cooperation with his western allies. Well, his latest moves don’t support this reorientation. First, he just raised RTL Klub’s 40% levy to 50%, presumably to punish them for reporting negative news about the government on their very popular 6 o’clock news. This huge levy is a serious financial blow to RTL Klub, one that its German parent company, Bertelsmann, will have to absorb. Second, he wouldn’t call Azerbaijan “an example to follow” if he is preparing the ground for a change in his foreign policy objectives. And third, if he were trying to show the U.S. that he is serious about ridding Hungary of corruption, he would tell his minions to relieve Ildikó Vida and her co-workers of their duties. I believe that this piece of news is no more than Fidesz disinformation. At best, it is a new round in his usual “peacock dance.”