Tony Blair lends face to Azeri pipeline

Azerbaijan’s pompous kleptocrat Ilham Aliyev, whose 11-year-old son Heydar owns nine luxury mansions set on the Palm Jumeirah worth $44 million, has appointed British former Prime Minister Tony Blair as an advisor to a consortium which is lobbying for a pipeline to transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe.

The consortium includes British Petroleum (BP), which is developing Shah Deniz 2, a huge natural gas field in the Caspian Sea. It also includes SOCAR – the State Oil company of Azerbaijan, which owns a 20% stake in ElectroGas Ltd, the consortium chosen by the Maltese government to provide Malta with gas for the next 18 years.

The consortium wants to export Azeri gas through a “southern energy corridor” made up of two pipelines - one called Tanap that will run the length of Turkey, and another known as TAP stretching from Turkey’s border with Greece across Albania to Italy.

From Putin to Aliyev?

Like Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev’s father Heydar ascended to power thanks to his role in the KGB – the USSR’s notorious secret service. But diverging geo-political interests are straining the relationship between Russia and Azerbaijan. 

So far Azerbaijan has walked on a tightrope seeking energy deals with the west without seeking any formal political or military ties  which could endanger its relationship with Moscow from which it buys armaments.

In June the European Commission released an EU energy security strategy which considers the new pipeline connection as vital in providing a connection to the Middle East.

Speaking in Brussels in March, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat hinted that recent political developments in Russia had strengthened Europe’s resolve to diversify energy sources and go for new interconnections.

He said the EU’s position in favour of Azerbaijan would benefit Malta’s own position, given that state-owned company SOCAR forms part of the ElectroGas consortium supplying LNG to a new 215MW plant and the Delimara phase II turbines.

And in recent months the EU has increasingly looked at a pipeline with Azerbaijan as an alternative gas source to Russia.

From Israel with blood?

Azerbaijan is known for its discreet but positive relations with Israel, which it regards as an ally against Iran.

In September 2013, a proposal was also made by Turcas, a company partly owned by SOCAR to link the proposed Azeri pipeline to gas from the Leviathan field in Israel, which is the largest natural gas discovery in the past decade.

Last week, while meeting Malta’s Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz excluded any further energy collaboration with Israel adding that “if a pipeline is built from Israel, it will flow not with gas but with the blood of innocent children and mothers.”

Mizzi was reported to have expressed his “sympathy” with Gaza at the same meeting.

Blair’s romance with dictators

Tony Blair’s romance with the Aliyevs dates back to 2009 when he received £90,000 for making a speech in Azerbaijan. He has also been paid in an advisor’s role for dictators like Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

According to The Telegraph his visit was a coup for the country’s rulers “as his well-known grin beamed out on state television from a press conference to homes throughout the small, oil-rich nation”.

Blair’s latest decision to support the TAP pipeline has been criticised by human rights groups, who claim the pipeline will simply entrench the position of the Aliyev family, who treat Azerbaijan as their personal fiefdom.

Blair’s appointment coincided with the arrest of democracy activist Rasul Jafarov in Baku after he was charged with tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship and power abuse – the same charges that saw independent Azeri election monitor Anar Mammadli jailed for five years in 2013. Rasul’s arrest comes shortly after the prominent human rights campaigner Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif were charged with high treason and also jailed.

Rumbles in the Caucasus

Optimism on Azerbaijan’s role in feeding Europe’s energy needs was dampened by noises of war coming from Nagorno-Karabakh, a region disputed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Border skirmishes over the past week in Nagorno-Karabakh are the deadliest since the two former Soviet states signed a ceasefire in 1994, leaving dozens of soldiers dead.  Aliyev went as far as threatening war in a tweet.

The two sides began fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh in the final years of the Soviet Union. Armenian forces wrested de facto control of the territory – though it remains part of Azerbaijan under law.

Both sides signed a Russia-brokered ceasefire after six years of fierce fighting that left 30,000 people dead and around one million displaced. 

A meeting brokered by Russia was held in Sochi  between Putin and the presidents of the two countries.  The meeting was a reminder that ultimately Russia continues to call the shots in Caucasus and that rivalry between Armenia and Azerbaijan still gives Putin leverage over both countries.