YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Popular Spanish “El Confidencial” newspaper published an article headlined “End of caviar politics?” which touches upon the economic and political situation in Azerbaijan.

“Armenpress” reports the first part of the article authored by Daniel Iriart refers to the economic losses of Azerbaijan, which is in dire dependence from oil revenues, resulted by drop of oil prices, as well as to the sharp devaluation of the manat. The author mentions that 90% of Azerbaijani revenues depend on oil industry. As a result, if oil prices do not rise in 2016, Aliyev’s distrust towards its forces will increase, and it is possible that the regime will become more intolerable to any kind of opposition or domestic criticism.

According to the article, as a result of economic worsening, Azerbaijan intends to close its embassies and trade offices in Columbia, Uruguay, and Cuba, as well as honorary consulates in Genoa, Bratislava, Santa Fe and Kharkov. In addition, opening of diplomatic missions in Thailand, Afghanistan, Iraq and Oman has been postponed for an indefinite period.

To the conviction of the author the economic hardships may also greatly impact the “caviar diplomacy”, in other words, the huge amount of sums that is spent by the Aliyev regime to “clear” its reputation.  Daniel Iriart states the regime is considered as one of the most corrupt and repressive ones in the world by Transparency International or Human Rights Watch.

According to the second part of the article, the Azerbaijani authorities, anyway, succeeded to some extent in PR campaigns. The example is the Eurovision 2012 or the European games. But, in order to avoid the “awkward” assessments over the country, the Aliyev regime has banned the entry of the representatives of Amnesty International and The Guardian reporters to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan spent millions of dollars only for PR goals in the USA during the last years. All those transactions are regulated by “Azerbaijan America Alliance” organization, which is considered an independent body, but it is clear for everyone that it operates as a lobbyist for the Aliyev regime.

The author mentions also that surprisingly the “caviar diplomacy” is also applicable for the European Union. He states that the position of many of their members coincides with the official position of Baku in an unusual manner, and in some cases they become the disseminators and protectors of those positions.

The article ends with a detailed description of rising human rights abuses and political imprisonments in Azerbaijan. The author sums up indicating that despite all these many European states pretend that they are not aware of what is going on in Azerbaijan.