By Emil Souleimanov (the 05/02/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Recently, frequent media reports of Azerbaijani citizens involved in the Syrian civil war have sparked a renewed interest in the possible impact of Arab revolutions on this post-Soviet country. Even though Azerbaijani authorities have sought to remain silent on the matter, news from both the South Caucasus and the Middle East suggest that Azerbaijani volunteers have increasingly been participating in the civil war hundreds of miles away from their homeland. Upon their return in Azerbaijan, they might pose a serious threat to the internal stability of the nation of nine million, located at the crossroads of Turkey, Iran, and Russia.

20140122.Analyst.pdf

By Farhad Aliyev (the 22/01/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Geneva interim agreement in November, 2013, between six world powers and Iran on its disputed nuclear program could mark the start of one of the most significant transformations in the Middle East over the last decades, with ramifications across Eurasia. Azerbaijan, as one of Iran's neighbors and sharing certain religious, ethnic, and cultural commonalities with Iran, should be considered among the countries most influenced by the success of negotiations with Iran, even in terms of Azerbaijan's domestic development.

20140108.analyst.pdf

By Mina Muradova (the 08/01/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On December 16, Anar Mammadli, a well-known elections watcher in Azerbaijan, was detained on charges of illegal business activity and tax evasion. However, human rights defenders believe that the pre-trial detention of Mammadli is politically motivated as a result of his critical reports on the October Presidential Elections in Azerbaijan. Mammadli is Chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDC), which documented widespread electoral violations during the October presidential poll. Immediately after Ilham Aliyev was controversially re-elected for a third term, the authorities launched an investigation of EMDC.