Category: Azer News

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev received Mohammad Mustafa, Prime Minister of the State of Palestine, on July 16, AzerNEWS reports.

The head of state expressed confidence that Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa’s visit to Azerbaijan would contribute to further strengthening the fraternal relations between Azerbaijan and Palestine.

President Ilham Aliyev reaffirmed Azerbaijan’s support for the establishment of an independent and sovereign State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Expressing his pleasure at meeting with the head of state, Mohammad Mustafa conveyed the greetings of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, to President Ilham Aliyev.

The Azerbaijani President thanked him for the greetings and asked the Prime Minister to convey his own greetings to President Mahmoud Abbas. President Ilham Aliyev fondly recalled Mahmoud Abbas’s visits to Azerbaijan and their meetings on the sidelines of international events.

Noting the difficult situation currently facing Palestine, Mohammad Mustafa expressed hope that, with the support of friendly countries, Palestine would be able to overcome the current challenges. He thanked President Ilham Aliyev for Azerbaijan’s continued support, including the decision to build a secondary school in Palestine as part of the country’s humanitarian assistance.

During the meeting, the opening of Azerbaijan’s Representative Office in Ramallah, as well as Azerbaijan’s coverage of the operational expenses of the Palestinian Embassy in Baku, was described as a testament to the high level of bilateral relations.

The sides also recalled that Azerbaijan had allocated $5 million in financial assistance to Palestine following the Conference on the Establishment of the Islamic Financial Safety Net and the Donors’ Conference to Finance the Strategic Plan for the Development of the City of Al-Quds Al-Sharif, held in Azerbaijan in 2013. It was noted that Azerbaijan continues to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestine through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The meeting also highly appreciated the fact that 23 Palestinian students are currently studying in Azerbaijan under the Heydar Aliyev International Education Grant, bringing the total number of Palestinian students in the country to 37.

Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa expressed his gratitude to the Azerbaijani President for this support.

The sides also discussed the export of selected Palestinian agricultural products to Azerbaijan under preferential terms and exchanged views on other issues of mutual interest.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has postponed his official visit to the United States that had been scheduled for next week, AzerNEWS reports, citing Israel’s Ynet news portal.

According to the report, Netanyahu had planned to travel to the US to attend the farewell ceremony for US Senator Lindsey Graham, who died on July 11.

The visit was postponed after Graham’s funeral was delayed and is now expected to take place later this month.

Earlier, The Times of Israel reported that Netanyahu had also planned to meet with US President Donald Trump during the trip. According to the newspaper, Israeli officials had been discussing the possibility of arranging such a meeting with the White House in the coming weeks, even before Graham’s death.

No new date for Netanyahu’s visit has been officially announced.

Discussions are underway with several airlines over expanding international flights to Gabala International Airport, with one carrier assessing the possibility of developing the airport into a regional aviation hub similar to Georgia’s Kutaisi Airport, AzerNEWS reports.

The announcement was made by Rashad Aliyev, Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of the Azerbaijan Tourism Bureau (ATB) under the State Tourism Agency.

According to Aliyev, activating regional airports and expanding international air connectivity are among the key priorities of Azerbaijan’s new state tourism development program.

“Negotiations are currently being held with several airlines regarding the launch of flights to Gabala. One airline is even evaluating the possibility of using Gabala Airport as a regional hub based on the Kutaisi model in Georgia,” he said.

Aliyev noted that the initiative is aimed at boosting tourist arrivals to Azerbaijan’s regions and making greater use of the country’s tourism potential.

He added that the resumption of international flights from regional airports is one of the program’s main objectives.

“One of our primary goals is to activate regional airports and restore international flights. Joint work in this direction is being carried out with relevant state institutions and airlines,” he said.

According to the ATB official, increasing the number of international flights to regional airports would enable foreign visitors to travel directly to different parts of Azerbaijan, contributing to the further development of regional tourism.

The meeting of the Azerbaijan-Serbia Joint High-Level Working Group Meeting on Military Cooperation took place in Baku, AzerNEWS reports.

International Military Cooperation Department of the Azerbaijan Ministry of Defense hosted a meeting between the delegations headed by the Acting Chief of the Main Department of Military-Technical Supply, Major General Farid Aliyev and Head of Serbia’s Defense Technologies Department, Major General Slavko Rakic.

In the subsequent phase of the meeting, subgroups representing various functional areas held discussions on the Digital Army, AI, cybersecurity, air defense, unmanned systems, and the organization of joint training and military exercises.

The delegations also assessed the current state of military and military-technical cooperation and engaged in a comprehensive exchange of views on the expansion of bilateral cooperation, as well as on other issues of common interest.

U.S. President Donald Trump has shared on his Truth Social platform a Breitbart News article featuring remarks by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev delivered during the 4th Shusha Global Media Forum, AzerNEWS reports.

The article highlighted President Aliyev’s assessment of Trump’s role in advancing peace efforts between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Responding to a question from Breitbart News about how Trump’s approach differed from the policies of previous administrations in the process of reaching the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, brokered by the United States and signed at the White House in August last year, the President said that the U.S. leader’s success was driven by a fundamentally different approach to resolving protracted conflicts.

According to the President Ilham Aliyev, previous administrations pursued a policy for nearly three decades that effectively resulted in the freezing of the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict, whereas Trump approached its resolution from a completely different perspective.

Donald Trump reposted the Breitbart News article on his Truth Social account, making the publication available to his millions of followers.

Earlier, speaking at the 4th Shusha Global Media Forum, President Aliyev praised the U.S. president’s contribution to efforts aimed at achieving historic understandings between Azerbaijan and Armenia, emphasizing the importance of dialogue and diplomacy in advancing regional peace.

For a government that has spent a decade building a tourism industry around five-star hotel chains, Formula 1 circuits and international summits clustered in a single city, the message from the World Bank last week in Baku has been eye-catching. Azerbaijan, according to the World Bank, ‘has to stop branding itself as Baku and develop a non-hydrocarbons economy for the rest of the country, or risk wasting one of its few sectors that can offer employment to those who will lose jobs in the hydrocarbon sector.’

The occasion was the presentation of the World Bank’s “Azerbaijan Country Economic Memorandum Spring 2026”, unveiled at an event titled “Unlocking Azerbaijan’s Tourism Potential to Drive Economic Growth and Diversification”. According to Rolande Pryce, the World Bank’s regional director for the South Caucasus, tourism must move away from cities to focus on the regions, since the industry does not live up to its full potential in terms of visitor numbers and employment. As one might have expected, the choice of date was deliberate, since according to the World Bank’s estimates, the growth of the country’s economy in 2025 was only 1.4 percent, and given the latest numbers, it does not look like it will exceed it.

Perhaps, none of this is abstract for Baku’s planners. The country’s tourism recovery, robust through 2022-24, has since gone into reverse. The number of foreign arrivals in the first five months of 2026 contracted 11% compared to the previous year to 871,700 people, and the expenditure of international tourists plummeted by almost 23% to nine hundred and forty-four million manats. This followed a 2025 in which tourist numbers from Russia, India, and various Middle Eastern markets were declining. The issue is also identified by the World Bank in its structural form, and there are only three or four major sources of foreign tourists to the country.

As mentioned by the World Bank’s Senior Private Sector Development Specialist Shaun Mann at the forum, ‘development of air connections is crucial in promoting tourism: while developing tourism destinations, one needs to work together with the airline industry for launching new air connections.’ The main issue is to offer tourists not only Baku, but the ‘Baku+’ experience, to encourage visitors to travel to the regions and stay in the country for longer.

Prescription by the Bank is based on lessons learned somewhere else. Shaun Mann cited examples of Bali, Machu Picchu, and Reykjavik, where there was an interplay between the central hub/capital and other places where visitors can spend their time, in contrast with focusing all investments in just one place. Furthermore, he mentioned that Azerbaijan still has things to do in terms of improving its services, offering, and the development of its tourism ecosystem, which is much more realistic than official rhetoric usually used by the government.

It is less about the content of the latest advice and more about the fact that it aligns perfectly with an independent analysis that made similar findings even prior to the Bank’s report. Academic research on tourism recovery of Azerbaijan in post-pandemic conditions, conducted in the context of a paper written in 2026 and published in the World Journal of Tourism Management, reveals the same structural problems: the country is too dependent on a few specific source markets, has developed a capital-centric model and fails to deliver on the promises laid down in governmental strategies. The study mentions one more thing that is absent from the Bank’s roadmap, Azerbaijan has seen this movie before. In 2016, “Strategic Roadmap for the Development of the Specialised Tourism Industry” was adopted with a perspective of 2025 and featured goals that are very similar to those announced in 2023, regional diversification, better connectivity, and a larger international base of tourists.

In author’s seperate paper, on Azerbaijan’s tourism sector, examining the same World Bank findings presented in Baku, arrived at a comparable reading of where the binding constraints lie, pointing to the concentration of arrivals in three or four source markets and the Baku-first pattern of infrastructure investment as the factors most likely to determine whether the regional pivot actually happens, rather than the availability of natural or cultural assets, which the dissertation treats as largely already sufficient.

However, the areas where the Bank wishes development to take place are not homogeneous. The Azerbaijani tourism workforce is already predominantly from the countryside, and data shows that around three-quarters of the 178,000 people employed within the tourism industry are from the regions – thereby disputing the notion of a purely Baku-based industry despite tourist expenditure being predominantly in the capital. Additionally, the freed-up territories of Karabakh constitute yet another challenge and an opportunity in one: an area with tourism potential but none of the necessary infrastructure that would allow tourism to take place – roads, energy supply, accommodation facilities, etc., thus presenting a task quite unlike that of changing marketing strategies for existing regional locations.

All of this does not make the Bank’s roadmap wrong. There were indeed diversifying effects in inbound markets in Azerbaijan due to air connectivity liberalization and visa digitization in the period from 2017 until 2025, including tourists coming from India, Saudi Arabia, China, and Trkiye, which confirms that consistent policy actions do yield some effect. However, the difference between Azerbaijan’s strategic priorities in relation to the development of tourism infrastructure and its implementation is the very thing which the Bank and independent analysts in the field are trying to stress right now. It should be noted, however, that the recommendations have already been included in the new national program in relation to last-mile connectivity and subsidies for regional infrastructure. The main question is whether Azerbaijan will be able to implement it into reality and not put it aside like the roadmap formulated in 2016.

Azerbaijan’s State Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) signed the Contribution Agreement for the Implementation of the Project Titled “Integrated Spatial Planning for Sustainable Urban Development – Towards Smart, Resilient and Inclusive Human Settlements in the East Zangezur Economic Region of the Republic of Azerbaijan,” AzerNEWS reports.

The document was inked by Anar Guliyev, Azerbaijan’s Chairman of the State Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture, and Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of the UN-Habitat, at the UN Headquarters in New York, the U.S.

The agreement marks a new phase in cooperation between Azerbaijan and UN-Habitat. Under the partnership, UN-Habitat will directly participate in the planning and design of settlements in Azerbaijan’s liberated territories, contributing to the creation of more sustainable and people-centered living environments for residents returning to their native homes under the Second State Program on the Great Return.

As part of the project, international experts from UN-Habitat will work alongside Azerbaijani specialists to prepare territorial planning documents for Quyjaq village in Jabrayil district and Mollabayramli village in Kalbajar district. The cooperation will also help improve approaches to designing sustainable settlements in Karabakh and East Zangazur by incorporating recommendations from leading international professional organizations.

A key component of the partnership is strengthening national human capital and institutional capacity. To this end, training sessions and practical workshops involving international experts will be organized for Azerbaijani professionals working in urban planning, territorial planning, and sustainable development. These initiatives are expected to facilitate the adoption of international best practices, enhance local expertise, and build long-term national capacity for the reconstruction and development of the liberated territories.

Prior to the signing ceremony, Anar Guliyev and UN-Habitat Executive Director Anacláudia Rossbach held a bilateral meeting to discuss the current state and future prospects of cooperation in urban planning, spatial planning, sustainable urbanization, and climate-resilient city development.

The two sides also reviewed the outcomes of the 13th Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13), held in Baku in May this year, as well as urban development initiatives advanced within the framework of COP29. They emphasized the importance of continuing cooperation in these areas.

Rossbach praised the high level of organization of WUF13, noting that the forum had been highly appreciated by the UN system and international participants for successfully bringing together global priorities and local development goals.

For his part, Guliyev said the partnerships established during the forum had created favorable conditions for launching new joint initiatives.

The sides also discussed the ongoing preparations for the high-level meeting dedicated to the mid-term review of the New Urban Agenda’s implementation, scheduled to begin at the UN General Assembly on July 16.

The UN-Habitat Executive Director highlighted the significant progress made in negotiating the political declaration, expressing her optimism regarding the adoption of the final document. She added that the outcomes and partnerships forged at WUF13 have contributed substantially to this process.

Participants of the “Summer School of Azerbaijani Culture” project have visited the Alisher Navoi Uzbek Language and Culture Center operating under the Ganja Branch of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS), AzerNEWS reports.

The visit was organized as part of the program initiated by the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry and the Azerbaijan Cultural Center named after Heydar Aliyev, which operates under the Azerbaijani Embassy in Uzbekistan.

The participants were introduced to the history of the center, its main areas of activity, ongoing research projects, and its role in strengthening scientific and cultural ties between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

Visitors were informed that the center houses an extensive collection of publications, translated works, and academic studies dedicated to Azerbaijani-Uzbek literary and cultural relations, with particular emphasis on the legacies of Nizami Ganjavi and Alisher Navoi.

The center also plays an important role in expanding academic cooperation between scholars of the two countries, promoting research into their shared literary and cultural heritage, and encouraging the involvement of young researchers in this field.

At the conclusion of the visit, participants had the opportunity to ask questions and exchange views on the future development of scientific, literary, and cultural cooperation between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

They also explored the center’s collection of books, publications, and research materials, gaining a deeper insight into the shared cultural heritage of the two nations.

As part of the summer school, concert programs and various cultural events are organized with the participation of the Uzbek students. The program also includes visits to historical and cultural monuments, museums, and key sites reflecting Azerbaijan’s social and economic development.

The summer school plays an important role in expanding Uzbek students’ understanding of Azerbaijan, showcasing the country’s rich historical and cultural heritage, and strengthening cultural and humanitarian ties between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

Note that Uzbek and Azerbaijani peoples are united by similar national customs and traditions, a common language group, and culture.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1995 between the two countries, bilateral ties have forged deep bonds. Over 100 documents have been signed between the two countries until today.

The holding of the Uzbek Culture Days in Baku in 2023 was another step towards strengthening Azerbaijani-Uzbek relations.

The large-scale event featured gala concerts, theatre performances, book presentation, exhibition and other events that aimed to highlight Azerbaijani-Uzbek relations.

Operating since 2019, Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre in Tashkent also contributes to the development of ties between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

In 2024, Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku presented the exhibition “Heritage Living in Loops: A Journey to Uzbekistan’s Embroideries”.

The exhibition was dedicated to the cultural and historical heritage and national costumes of Uzbekistan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Over 148 examples of decorative and applied art were displayed at the exhibition, held jointly with the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation.

The relations between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan are poised to deepen and broaden further.

Azerbaijan’s engagement with Islamic finance, specifically the issuance of Sukuk, is far from a sudden pivot; rather, it represents the patient culmination of a long-standing strategic interest. For years, policymakers and financial architects in Baku have quietly recognized the untapped potential of sharia-compliant instruments. However, what was once a series of conceptual discussions and pilot exploratory phases is now crystallizing into a concrete regulatory and macroeconomic objective. As the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) aligns its forces with the Islamic Development Bank Institute (IsDBI) to build a robust legal framework, the nation stands on the precipice of a financial evolution that could redefine its capital markets and sovereign funding capabilities by 2030.

To understand the significance of this transition, one must examine the fundamental divergence between traditional debt instruments and Sukuk. While conventional bonds represent a simple debt obligation coupled with interest payments, Sukuk grants investors fractional ownership of an underlying tangible asset, distributing returns based on the actual performance or rental yield of that asset. In an era where ethical investment, asset-backed securities, and risk-sharing models are gaining global traction, Sukuk offers an elegant bridge. For Azerbaijan, a nation deeply committed to large-scale, capital-intensive infrastructure endeavors-most notably the grand reconstruction of the liberated territories in Karabakh and East Zangezur-the asset-backed nature of Sukuk is not merely a cultural fit; it is a highly practical financial mechanism.

Historically, the primary bottleneck preventing the realization of a local Sukuk market has been legislative. The Azerbaijani civil and tax codes were fundamentally designed around conventional, interest-bearing financial architectures. Implementing Sukuk under the old framework inevitably triggered complex issues like double taxation, where the transferring of physical assets to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and back would incur repetitive value-added and property taxes. This legislative mismatch rendered Islamic finance commercially unviable. Recognizing this, the Central Bank’s current Financial Sector Development Strategy is systematically targeting these structural deficiencies. By actively collaborating with international experts to construct a dedicated legal status for Sukuk, the regulator is finally addressing the root causes of the historical stagnation.

The external economic environment further amplifies the urgency of this initiative. The global Islamic finance industry is growing rapidly, with a massive pool of liquidity concentrated in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and Southeast Asia. Institutional investors in these regions are actively seeking high-quality, yield-generating, asset-backed opportunities in stable, strategic geoeconomic corridors. Azerbaijan, positioned as a vital transit and logistical hub along the Middle Corridor, presents an incredibly attractive proposition. By offering sovereign or corporate Sukuk, Azerbaijan can tap into this massive, non-traditional capital pool, diversifying its investor base away from traditional Western and regional conventional lenders. This is not just about finding alternative ways to borrow; it is about building strategic economic alliances with the capital giants of the Middle East.

The joint forecast by the IsDBI and the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC) projecting a potential debut Sukuk issuance of up to $500 million by 2030 is both ambitious and entirely achievable. However, the path forward requires a delicate balance of regulatory precision and market-making. The establishment of the legal framework is merely the first step. The Central Bank and sovereign wealth entities must also cultivate local market awareness, train financial professionals in Islamic contract law, and stimulate domestic demand among retail and institutional investors who seek ethical or non-interest-bearing savings instruments.

Ultimately, the journey toward a functional Sukuk market in Azerbaijan is a testament to the country’s broader economic maturation. It signals a shift from passive observation of global financial trends to active, strategic integration. By laying down the legal foundations and fostering international institutional partnerships today, Baku is ensuring that when the first Azerbaijani Sukuk is finally launched, it will not be a fleeting novelty, but rather the cornerstone of a highly sophisticated, diversified, and resilient national financial system.

Slovakia’s push to secure long-term gas supplies from Azerbaijan is not just another bilateral energy negotiation. It reflects a larger structural shift in Europe’s gas market.

The forced unwinding of dependence on Russian fossil fuels, the scramble for alternative suppliers, and the emerging competition among Central European states for whatever reliable non-Russian volumes remain available.

As European governments seek reliable long-term alternatives, Azerbaijan has emerged as one of the few producers capable of offering both additional supply and geopolitical stability.

The latest indication of this shift came during Slovak President Peter Pellegrini’s official visit to Azerbaijan, where Economy Minister Denisa Saková confirmed that Bratislava is negotiating a long-term natural gas supply agreement with Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR.

Under the EU’s roadmap, imports of Russian pipeline gas must cease by 30 September 2027, while Russian LNG imports are scheduled to end on 1 January 2027. For Slovakia, whose energy system has historically depended on Russian supplies, securing replacement volumes has become a strategic priority.

Speaking after meetings in Shusha, Saková said Slovakia is discussing a contract that could provide approximately 1.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Azerbaijani gas annually after 2027.

The negotiations illustrate a broader trend across Europe: governments are increasingly prioritizing supply security over short-term price considerations, recognizing that diversified energy partnerships have become an essential component of national security.

This is why Slovak officials are reportedly interested in long-term purchase arrangements rather than short spot-market deals. In today’s European gas market, where security of supply has become as important as price, this kind of arrangement is increasingly attractive.

From Azerbaijan’s perspective, the logic is equally straightforward. Expanding gas production and export infrastructure requires capital, and capital requires confidence. If Baku is to invest in new extraction, field development, compression, and export capacity, it needs guaranteed demand over a sufficiently long horizon.

President Ilham Aliyev touched upon expanding Azerbaijan’s gas presence at the opening of the IV Shusha Global Media Forum.

“We started to supply Germany and Austria this year, and this is a part of our overall strategy to expand our presence on global and particularly European gas market,” President Ilham Aliyev said during his speech at the opening of the 4th Shusha Global Media Forum.

According to the head of state, the European market was a premium market, the market with the best prices. Therefore, Azerbaijan was very interested to expand its capacity.

Interest in Azerbaijani gas extends well beyond Slovakia.

Earlier this year, Czech energy group CEZ announced its intention to negotiate long-term gas supplies from Azerbaijan following talks between Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and President Ilham Aliyev.

Several Southeast European countries, including Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Austria and Greece have also expanded energy cooperation with Azerbaijan in recent years.

Today Azerbaijani natural gas reaches 16 countries, including 14 European states, making the Southern Gas Corridor one of Europe’s most important non-Russian energy routes.

Another important aspect of the Slovak visit is that discussions reportedly extended beyond natural gas to electricity transit. Azerbaijani officials presented a medium-term corridor project that would carry electricity from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan via Trkiye to Europe. Denisa Sakova described the idea as having major potential, especially for European countries planning to phase out coal and increase imports of lower-carbon power.

The strengthening partnership between Azerbaijan and Europe reflects more than commercial interests.

Following the 2022 energy crisis, the European energy market has entered a phase of structural transformation. The sharp reduction of Russian supplies, volatile LNG prices, and intensified competition for tanker shipments have prompted EU and non-EU countries alike to accelerate revisions of their energy strategies.

Azerbaijan has emerged as a key player in this evolving landscape. In the first quarter of 2026, the country exported 6.5 billion cubic meters of gas, half of which went to Europe. In 2025, Azerbaijan exported 25.2 billion cubic meters via pipelines, with European markets accounting for 50% of that volume. Specifically, Azerbaijan delivered 12.5 billion cubic meters to EU countries in 2025, a 53.8% increase compared to 2021, representing more than half of the total growth in just four years.

In January 2026, SOCAR began deliveries to Germany and Austria through the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which runs from the Greek-Turkish border through Greece and Albania to southern Italy, and from there further north. In June 2025, SOCAR signed a ten-year contract with German energy holding Sefe, supplying 1.5 billion cubic meters annually. With the expansion to Western European markets, Azerbaijan now exports gas to 16 countries, ten of which are in Europe.

This extensive reach highlights Azerbaijan’s strategic focus on diversification, deliberately supplying resources to as many partners as possible. Several European countries are actively developing or have already established energy ties with Baku.

As Europe’s energy diversification accelerates, Azerbaijan is positioning itself as a strategic bridge connecting the Caspian region with European markets through a network of pipelines, transport corridors and future electricity interconnections.