EVOLVING WITH SUMMITS

Two large-scale events held in Baku a week apart have demonstrated once again Azerbaijan's determination to promote issues of great concern to the majority of mankind. But the leading countries of the world do not pay these issues proper attention due to the growing confrontation between them.

Issues of dialogue among civilisations, resolving the urgent problems of the Third World, the fight against poverty and the unjust distribution of wealth were among the many topics discussed at the forums held in Baku.

Contact made

A high-level meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Contact Group in early March focused on the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic global recovery.

The meeting was attended by some 70 heads of state and government, as well as representatives of leading international organisations. During his opening address, the current chairman of the NAM, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, emphasized that the rapid steps taken by Baku had mobilised the Non-Aligned Movement to initiate a comprehensive response to the challenges of the pandemic, which had undoubtedly contributed to the organization's international recognition.

As the world is still grappling with the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the Non-Aligned Movement that played a crucial role in mobilising universal efforts for a coordinated and effective response to its consequences, President Aliyev noted. For example, Azerbaijan initiated an extraordinary session of the UN General Assembly on overcoming the consequences of the global disaster. This helped to highlight the socio-economic problems of developing states and draw the public attention to the lack of resources in third world countries during the pandemic.

Azerbaijan assumed the chairmanship of the organisation in 2019, at a critical time when the world faced the global catastrophe. Nevertheless, Baku successfully defended the interests of the movement's members at the UN level in order to draw the attention of developed countries to the catastrophic situation in the least developed states left alone without any significant assistance.

President of Azerbaijan directly accused some of the world's leading nations of vaccine nationalism showing concrete evidence. In one of his speeches he said: "The population of developed countries makes up 14% of the world's population, while these countries order 53% of vaccines produced. Again, this is unfair and an indicator of unequal distribution."

Baku has called on developed countries to relinquish patents and intellectual property rights on vaccines and other critical remedies. President Aliyev opposed the nationalisation of vital supplies to make them available and affordable throughout the world. According to many observers, this demonstrated an absolute sense of responsibility, high capitalisation of the organisation's influence and the leadership qualities of Azerbaijan.

New life for an old movement

Even today, in the post-pandemic era, Azerbaijan demonstrates activism playing an instrumental role in ensuring universal cooperation within the Non-Aligned Movement and realising the interests of member states.

In his address to the summit, Ilham Aliyev noted that the objective of Azerbaijan as a chair of the movement is to defend justice and international law. He underlined the importance of the movement during and after the pandemic, as well as the importance of preserving the principles of non-alignment based on respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations. Under the leadership of its president, Azerbaijan also works for regional cooperation and stability, especially in the South Caucasus.

Thanks to Baku's initiative, the Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement was established to ensure inclusiveness and improve coordination among the member states. Baku also played a major role in the creation of the NAM Youth Organisation in 2022 at a conference in Shusha.

It is worth mentioning that the NAM lost some of its significance after the Cold War, because it started gradually losing its 'global usefulness' under the new circumstances. At the same time, with the emergence of non-traditional security threats in the 21st century, NAM has adapted to the demands of the period and developed a distinctive approach to the challenge. Today, the Non-Aligned Movement believes that its values are under threat, which also affects international security norms, including the violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Moreover, the recent NAM summit demonstrated fears about the erosion of the international security system in the context of increasing confrontation between East and West.

Azerbaijan is working tirelessly to make the Non-Aligned Movement the second largest international organisation after the UN with a prominent and effective role in inter-state affairs. The NAM is trying hard to remain essentially a non-military bloc and to preserve its status in the new world order.

That is why Baku's objective in organising the summit was also to draw international attention to the issue of reforms in the United Nations: Baku suggests one permanent seat in the UN Security Council for the NAM president. Azerbaijan also supports granting permanent membership to Africa.

In this context, Ilham Aliyev met with Csaba Kőrösi, president of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly. Apart from reforms in the top-level UN bodies, President Aliyev also put forward an initiative to establish a new Sustainable Development Goal on demining.

Summit of global perspectives

Another major event was the 10th Global Baku Forum "Peace Today: Challenges and Hopes" organised by the Nizami Ganjavi International Centre on March 9-11. This frequency of large-scale events reveals to some extent Azerbaijan's plans to create a recognisable platform in Baku for a comprehensive dialogue on topics that are particularly important, especially for states that are not part of the antagonistic centres of world politics.

In his keynote address, the Azerbaijani president placed the forum at the same level with the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Munich Security Conference, where he had participated.

President Aliyev reminded the participants of the forum about the Non-Aligned Movement summit held in Baku a week earlier. He noted that during its chairmanship, Azerbaijan has managed to identify the main directions of reforms under the influence of processes that have taken place over the years. First of all, the pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Criticising the existing security institutions, the Azerbaijani President once again noted the OSCE Minsk Group, which, instead of seeking an effective solution to the almost 30-year-old Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has only pretended to be negotiating. OSCE has effectively ignored the requirements stipulated in four UN General Assembly resolutions, making the Second Karabakh War inevitable.

Azerbaijan is now fully focused on promoting its own peace agenda, counting on the support of facilitators of the settlement process. At the same time, Baku hopes to see the outcome of this process being the return of the Karabakh Armenians to the political and legal framework of Azerbaijan, provided that they recognise its territorial integrity and sovereignty, which cannot be changed by force.

"Regarding the Armenian minority in Azerbaijan, it is a multi-confessional, multi-ethnic country. The rights of minorities in Azerbaijan are protected by our constitution. Anyone familiar with the real situation in Azerbaijan can confirm that Azerbaijan is a country with a high level of religious and ethnic tolerance, where representatives of different ethnic groups, different confessions live in peace and with dignity. I am therefore confident that the life of Armenians living in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan will be much better than during the occupation," Ilham Aliyev said.

Speaking about the future, the Azerbaijani President highlighted Baku's increasing role in ensuring European energy security and outlined promising work in this regard, including the creation of the Green Energy Corridor and the expansion of the capacity of the Southern Gas Corridor.

The summit participants supported the points made by the President of Azerbaijan and expressed their readiness to contribute to the establishment of lasting peace and harmony in the region.

In his address to the summit, Latvian President Egils Levits emphasised the significance of international law and territorial integrity as a foundation: "This is an important part of Azerbaijan's policy. As part of this forum, Azerbaijan will also address various international issues. We need to be well-informed about these issues, and there are people with a lot of experience at the forum today."

No doubt the Latvian president was referring to four presidents, two prime ministers, six speakers and ministers, the heads of five UN agencies, 25 former presidents, 21 former prime ministers, deputy foreign ministers of 23 countries and a total of 360 representatives from 61 countries attending the Baku Global Forum.

Discussions with them are always interesting because they have a wealth of experience relevant and very important in terms of understanding the complex processes of today's reality.

Obviously, with each subsequent summit Baku is diligently inserting new pages into the history of world politics both to chronicle the events and make constructive contributions to solving existing problems.