"Americans in US and Americans in Azerbaijan have significant disparities" Pundit opinion

Political scientist, head of the Centre for South Caucasus Studies Farhad Mammadov has commented on the visit of US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brian to Baku in his Telegram channel.

"US Assistant Secretary of State James O'Brian paid a visit to Baku. US Ambassador-designate to Azerbaijan Mark Libby was also there.

After O'Brian's own statements to the US Congress on relations with Azerbaijan, especially the part about "business as usual", tensions between Washington and Baku rose to a peak. As expected, Baku responded in a mirror-image fashion, putting US interests in the region in a bad light.

Secretary of State Blinken's call to President Ilham Aliyev lowered the tension level and the instigator of the tension himself was sent to Baku. Note that O'Brien's visit is not a regional visit, but only to Baku! That is, it is not a planned trip to the region. O'Brian flew to Romania, and flew to Baku to defuse....

So... we have two press releases about meetings with the President and Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan. What attracted attention was Azerbaijan's condition to accept the new reality in the region. That is, to stop its claims to mention Karabakh in any form, to accept that Karabakh is Azerbaijan!

The State Department has put itself in a position where it has to say one thing in front of crazy congressmen and senators and something completely different in Baku.

Will there be a new normalcy?

Of course, O'Brian's visit alone will not solve all misunderstandings in US relations with Azerbaijan. American politicians and diplomats have broken so many logs that it will not be easy to settle everything. I am sure that it will not be possible to do so in the short term.

Crazy politicians, radical Christians and corruptors have started a flywheel that cannot be stopped by the executive branch embodied in the State Department. American diplomacy has already taken a destructive path by outlining the delusion that the transport artery from Central Asia to Türkiye cannot go through Iran. This provocative statement by O'Brian did not go unnoticed by President Ilham Aliyev. The absurdity of this approach was demonstrated in Armenia, where an international conference on Pashinyan's "Crossroads of Peace" was organised on December 5, where the Iranian ambassador was one of the main speakers. After all, the North-South in Irevan's plans is India-Iran-Armenia-Armenia-Georgia. That is, in Armenia, Iran's participation is normal for the United States, while in Azerbaijan it is not an affordable luxury....

Now the main thing in relations with the US is to fix the situation and not to make it worse... that is, to create a new normalcy in relations....

Much will depend on the Armenian-Azerbaijani track, and bilaterally at that. It is not reasonable to expect the US mediation to be restored in the short term. What has the US done for that?! Nothing so far.

Let's see through what statements and actions the US will demonstrate its acceptance of reality. There can be several options: official curtailment of the activities of investigators in Armenia, visit of the new US Ambassador to Shusha, freezing of the procedure of adopting a new anti-Azerbaijani initiative at the level of the US President.

We should not relax, as American diplomats will return to the United States, and as practice shows: American diplomats in the United States and in Baku are two big differences," Farhad Mammadov wrote.