Azerbaijan scored a major diplomatic victory when it won the right to host this year’s COP29 U.N. climate talks.
Now, it’s experiencing the downside of this newfound prestige — heightened scrutiny of the regime’s murky foreign influence peddling, jailing of critics, political crackdowns and unrepentant fossil fuel deal-making.
The most recent example came Friday, when the United States indicted Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) on charges that he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Azerbaijan to act as its “foreign agent” in Washington. According to the indictment, the Texas Democrat actively lobbied for Azerbaijan’s oil firm Socar while working with the country’s ambassador to advance the nation’s interests.
The charges by the Biden administration came months after Azerbaijan won the right to host and run the negotiations at this November’s massive global gathering. That was the capstone of the South Caucasus petrostate’s yearslong effort to burnish its credentials with Western politicians and investors.
