Azerbaijan restores parity with Russia A fair balance

Recently, we discussed the need for a parity in diplomatic, humanitarian, and informational representations between Azerbaijan and Russia. This parity serves as a crucial indicator of equality and mutual respect in bilateral relations.

On February 13, Caliber.Az received exclusive information from reliable sources indicating that Azerbaijan has decided to make certain adjustments to the operations of foreign media representations and branches in the country, aiming to address the existing disparity. Specifically, to ensure parity between the Azerbaijani and Russian state news agencies in Azerbaijan and Russia, respectively, the number of correspondents from Russia’s Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today) news agency in Azerbaijan will match the number of correspondents from Azerbaijan’s Azertag in Russia. At present, this involves one staff position.

It is noteworthy that around 40 people are currently employed at the Baku branch of Rossiya Segodnya. The branch is expected to be closed, with Rossiya Segodnya continuing its work in Azerbaijan through a single correspondent, whose activities will be governed by the laws of Azerbaijan and the agreement between the governments of the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan, signed on January 9, 2001, regarding the status of media correspondents.

From the outside, the situation with Sputnik might seem like merely a reflection of the cooling relations between Russia and Azerbaijan. While this is partly true, the cooling of relations in this case acted only as a trigger. Moreover, it began not due to any fault of Azerbaijan but was linked to the downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) plane by Russian air defense forces over Grozny, for which Moscow has yet to take responsibility. To be more precise, it was not the crash itself but the refusal to accept responsibility that led to the deterioration in relations.

Just as Baku's demand for an apology, accountability, punishment of those responsible, and compensation for the downed AZAL plane is fair, so too is the decision to establish parity in media representations and reduce Sputnik's presence to just one person.

At this moment, we deliberately avoid focusing on Sputnik's editorial policy, which has at times contradicted Azerbaijan's interests. The agency operates in many countries, including Armenia, where its Armenian service openly opposes Azerbaijan and its territorial integrity. Given that the Simonyan project is entirely funded by the Russian state budget, one can argue that Moscow either encourages or turns a blind eye to Sputnik's activities.

We bring this up for comparison. Can you imagine an Azerbaijani media outlet operating in Moscow that openly opposed Russia’s territorial integrity? We cannot. But we have rectified the situation. From this perspective, this event can certainly be seen as the establishment of parity.

Recently in Baku, the "Rossotrudnichestvo" representative office, known as the "Russian House," was also closed. Although this was not directly related to restoring parity (as the "Russian House" violated Azerbaijani law), it still indirectly contributes to the same goal—there is no cultural representation of Azerbaijan in Russia that we can recall. Additionally, the All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress (VAK) was closed under fabricated pretenses.

Despite this obvious imbalance, Baku has never raised waves of discontent or initiated aggressive rhetoric (as is happening now in Russia against Azerbaijan) over the asymmetry in relations. We hope that in Russia, cooler heads will prevail and that efforts will be made to preserve and develop equal and constructive relations with Azerbaijan.