NAM Summit as a response to the slide into global confrontation
Serhey Bohdan on Baku's indispensable role in struggle for equity

ANALYTICS  06 March 2023 - 13:15

A high-level meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Contact Group took place in Baku last week. During the twelve years of its membership in the NAM, Azerbaijan has managed both to give a new impetus to its development and rely on it to restore its territorial integrity.

The principles of Azerbaijan's multi-vector foreign policy have proved to be close to the philosophy of this international community based on the principle of nonengagement in global confrontation, mutual respect of countries regardless of their size, and joint defence of their legitimate interests. It can also be expressed more sharply: NAM grew out of the categorical refusal of smaller countries to become a crowd and expendable material in squabbles of other world powers under whatever outwardly beautiful slogans they may be held. This principle is gaining increasing relevance these days. Therefore, the time has come to strengthen the NAM.

Crucial discussions under the modestly titled summit

The Baku meeting was formally organised by the NAM Contact Group in response to COVID-19. Eleven presidents, vice presidents, and prime ministers attended the event. This fact alone indicates that crucial discussions were held under the modestly titled summit. The effects of the coronavirus are all around us, and it is not just a question of economic recession and inflation around the world. Without the coronavirus and the associated restrictions and disruptions to inter-state relations, the current war and confrontation in Europe would hardly have happened, or at any rate, would never have been as great or as intense.

Therefore, when it came to global political issues, from the world order to access of countries to new technologies, it was a logical continuation of the announced theme. In his address to the forum, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke of the defence of justice and international law as the country's key objective as chair of the NAM during the formation of a new world order and the most acute confrontation of world powers and blocs in recent decades.

Aliyev referred in particular to the ineffectiveness of the UN Security Council. Azerbaijan itself had to deal with this - for almost three decades, the Armenian side had defied UN Security Council resolutions demanding the withdrawal of its armed forces from Azerbaijani territory.

The Azerbaijani leader, therefore, pointed to the long-acknowledged need for UN reforms, first and foremost increasing the representativeness of the Security Council.

This demand was voiced in Baku by the Non-Aligned Movement, which unites 120 states. Yes, not all of them are actively involved in the work of the union. Yes, the Movement, founded in 1961, faced a number of problems after the end of the Cold War, when some key members (such as Yugoslavia or Iraq) were extremely weakened, and the Western ideological and information hegemony, along with the military, economic and political dominance crushed global political alternatives.

In spite of all this, however, the Movement has survived and is gradually returning to the global political arena. After all, however much the Western liberal media has derided this association as some kind of Cold War relic, it retains credibility and there are serious forces behind it. Firstly, it is clear that despite all the claims of the West to hold some kind of moral and ethical monopoly, NAM's humanist message is more than in demand. The political practice of the Asian countries of the Movement adds credibility to it. As the influential Singaporean politician and thinker Kishore Mahbubani recently pointed out, interestingly enough, the serious military conflicts of recent decades have taken place in Europe or on its borders, whereas Asia, despite all crises, managed to keep the peace.

Secondly, even if one agrees with the Western classification of political regimes, it turns out that the first and third places in the list of the largest democracies are occupied by NAM members (India and Indonesia) rather than the countries of the "global West", and the USA is in the middle of it.

Thirdly, China was at the origins of NAM and remains close to NAM in ideological and political terms, and therefore could become a partner at any time. Even the principles of peace restoration in Europe recently put forward by Beijing are essentially the same as the NAM programme. In other words, the Movement's principles have once again found themselves in the limelight of global attention.

Applied neutrality

But if the NAM is so vast, progressive, and forward-looking, why does it still not play a decisive role in world politics? Why are the United States, the "global West", Russia, and China the deciders of the world? Alas, even the most brilliant idea can be hindered by circumstances. To begin with, no team can be equally engaged in everything. It works best when leaders take the lead and organise work in an inclusive way, both in the team as a whole and in the different spheres of activity.

NAM has had too few leaders - both countries and politicians - in recent decades who have consistently contributed to the development of the organisation. The way those who created the NAM did - Yugoslavia's Tito, India's Nehru, Egypt's Nasser, Ghana's Nkrumah, or Indonesia's Sukarno. Therefore, admitting Azerbaijan was a step towards filling the leadership vacuum in the organisation.

The dynamically developing Azerbaijan's position in the NAM is particularly solid because its accession to the organisation looks like a balanced step, a result of smooth foreign policy evolution, rather than opportunism. The country has been drawing closer to NAM for many years, although formally there is not even a direct requirement to adhere to neutrality in the Azerbaijani constitution. But, as the experts note, this neutrality gradually took shape after Heydar Aliyev was elected president of Azerbaijan in 1993. He immediately launched a multi-vector foreign policy: at the turn of 1993-94, the country joined the CSTO and several other post-Soviet structures, in parallel launching a partnership with NATO. Faced then with the Kremlin's favourable attitude to Armenian territorial expansion, Azerbaijan carefully withdrew from the CSTO in 1999, continuing to develop ties with Russia. In parallel, good relations with NATO were developing, but rumours of the imminent arrival of American bases in Azerbaijan in the early 2000s remained a rumour. To understand the degree of Baku's adherence to principle in this matter, we must stress that at the time it was a trend, such bases were popping up like mushrooms after the spring rain, and even the Kremlin was perfectly happy with such developments, it even offered Washington to turn the last Russian military facility in Azerbaijan (Gabala radar station) into a joint facility against Iran. In any case, for Baku the transformation of the country into a gateway for superpowers was unacceptable, and its accession to NAM in 2011 was a logical execution of a long-standing de facto policy of non-alignment. Incidentally, the following year, 2012, saw the termination of the operation of the aforementioned Gabala radar station by the Russian side, after which no foreign military personnel remained in the country - an extraordinary achievement in the post-Soviet space, where the struggle for independence too often means simply changing dependencies and replacing some foreign soldiers with others.

The smooth evolution and Azerbaijan's membership in NAM contributed to Baku playing an increasingly prominent role in the group soon after its accession. For example, already in the autumn of 2011, Baku, relying primarily on the group of non-aligned states, secured its election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for 2012-2013.

Another striking example of Baku's prominent role in NAM is the Movement's adoption of several resolutions in support of restoring Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, which demonstrated to the Armenian nationalists that, despite their alliance with some Western countries, Azerbaijan can rely on the support of most countries in the world.

For example, already at the 2016 NAM summit in Venezuela, the participating countries called for the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in line with the principles of Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In subsequent years, NAM and its structures repeatedly supported Baku's efforts to end the occupation and opposed attempts to keep the Karabakh separatists afloat. And these attempts continued until 2020 - including Moscow's contacts with the Karabakh separatists, US so-called "humanitarian aid" to them, and the EU's ambiguous attitude to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within the framework of the Eastern Partnership. Generally, when you hear these world players making claims of moral superiority again, remember these facts and how they supported some separatists in Karabakh but condemned other separatists in inconvenient locations: Western countries - in eastern Ukraine, Russia - in Kosovo.

Against this background, the NAM countries pursued a more principled course. Even at the height of the Second Karabakh War, on October 9, 2020, members of the Non-Aligned Movement declared their support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, the Minsk Group co-chair countries were then thinking of imposing sanctions against Azerbaijan - for the liberation of Azerbaijani lands. At the UN, France and Russia tried to push for a statement condemning Azerbaijan's actions without even referring to the four 1993 UN Security Council resolutions on the Armenian occupation. NAM participants categorically demanded that the relevant references be included, which prevented the adoption of this potentially dangerous document for Azerbaijan. In 2022, the danger of an anti-Azerbaijani document being adopted at the UN arose again and NAM countries again helped to neutralise it.

NAM's Azerbaijani future

In 2016, NAM countries unanimously elected Azerbaijan to chair the movement for 2019-2022. This promised to be the dawn of a new era for NAM, and indeed for Azerbaijan's own foreign policy. The rapid progress was hindered, however, by a pandemic that began shortly thereafter, which could not but affect the work of NAM and all global politics. The Azerbaijani presidency was then extended for one year, but the consequences of the pandemic are still having a devastating effect on international life.

Azerbaijan's cautious leadership building in NAM is related to the difficult situation in which the association has found itself in recent decades, facing comprehensive stagnation due to the loss of intellectual sovereignty of non-Western countries and nations after the triumph of the West in the Cold War. In order to consolidate its international position, the Movement must make up for lost years and restructure itself in line with the needs of the times, above all to increase its level of institutionalisation. Hence Baku's initiatives, ranging from the establishment (in Shusha) of a NAM Youth Organisation to the creation of a NAM Parliamentary Network and this week's initiative to set up a Group of Mine-Affected Countries.

In addition to advocating for new structures, Baku also donated $10 million to the World Health Organisation in the face of the pandemic, half of which was earmarked for NAM countries. It has also mobilised NAM to fight the pandemic by convening, at the Movement's initiative, a special session of the UN General Assembly on the issue in December 2020 - the most inclusive global effort against the pandemic. As part of this effort, Azerbaijan led the Movement in combating "vaccine nationalism" by securing resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council on the equitable distribution of vaccines.

To this should be added issues of fundamental restructuring of the Movement. Azerbaijan initiated the process of transforming NAM into a full-fledged international organisation and, in parallel, mobilised member states to launch a diplomatic campaign for granting NAM a permanent seat in the UN Security Council as part of the reform of that structure. Dozens of members of the Non-Aligned Movement supported this initiative.

To sum up, we can say that Azerbaijan's foreign policy has developed effective mechanisms for a multilateral cooperation, including through the Non-Aligned Movement. And it is not about some abstract projects. This policy (in essence, the rejection of any overseas patronage and international solidarity on the principles of law and justice) has helped Azerbaijan build a viable state and restore its territorial integrity with its own resources. How many post-Soviet countries can boast of such results?

It was not a plain egoistic course, but a policy based on principles and values. In continuation of that course, Baku is today helping the most important political alternative, NAM, to return to the world stage, which is becoming more and more necessary in the context of the escalating arms race, destruction of the international treaty system and the real prospect of a world war with the use of nuclear weapons. At a time when the world players, who have brought the planet to the current systemic crisis, which is about to develop into another world catastrophe, demand all countries to abandon neutrality and join in their showdown, it is high time for the people of the world to say "No!" to them.

Caliber.Az