Azerbaijan\u2019s dictatorial and corrupt government is paying $4.7 million to a US PR firm in order to whitewash its tarnished image prior to hosting the prestigious COP29 international conference in Baku this November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In February, Azerbaijan hired the American public relations firm, Teneo Strategy, to make \u201cthe warring petrostate look like a Mother Teresa,\u201d according to Nick Cleveland-Stout who wrote in ResponsibleStatecraft.org an article titled, \u201cHow Azerbaijan is ‘peacewashing’ its image ahead of COP29; Baku is hosting the climate summit in November with some help from a high-priced PR firm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To earn its excessive pay, Teneo contacted \u201c144 journalists in 88 different global media outlets some 500 times to promote Azerbaijan\u2019s COP29 agenda\u2026. In just one day, the PR firm \u2026 treated three journalists to dinner at a five-star hotel restaurant in Nagorno-Karabakh during a media forum. The very next day, one of them celebrated Azerbaijan\u2019s newly established control of the region in an article published in Pakistan. A few weeks later, he tweeted that Azerbaijan is \u2018lucky to have such a leader\u2019 in President Ilham Aliyev.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Azerbaijani official announced that his country had hired Teneo to \u201cestablish the COP29’s communications function, including narrative development, initial content development, communications and engagement campaign planning, issues management, organizational development, establishing media relations capability, and media training.\u201d Nick Cleveland-Stout reported that \u201cAt least five Teneo executives are always on the ground in Baku — racking up a tab of $350,000 on airfare and hotels to date.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hikmat Hajiyev, Pres. Aliyev\u2019s top advisor, shamelessly announced a \u201cCOP29 Truce,\u201d meaning that Azerbaijan is calling on all warring parties in the world to declare a ceasefire during the November conference. Such a deceitful announcement is being made by a country whose leader has been issuing repeated threats to invade Armenia. This reminds us of the biblical admonition: \u201cPhysician, heal thyself!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nick Cleveland-Stout wrote: \u201cAzerbaijan has become notorious for flaunting its oil wealth to court foreign officials, lawmakers, and journalists with gifts, free flights, and luxury hotels, dubbed \u2018caviar diplomacy\u2019\u2026. According to a trip itinerary obtained by RS [Responsible Statecraft] via a Freedom of Access Act Request, state lawmakers from Maine spent nine days in Azerbaijan in May with flights, food, and lodging paid for by the State Committee on Work with Diaspora of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the same agency that hosted [NY Mayor Eric] Adams\u2019 aides. Part of the itinerary included two days learning about \u2018new development after liberation from occupation\u2019 in Nagorno-Karabakh. \u2018Guess I should locate my passport. I am very excited!\u2019 wrote State Representative Jill Duson in response to the invitation. In June, Azerbaijan\u2019s embassy in Washington even hired former Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) in part to coordinate congressional delegation visits to Azerbaijan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore, Nick Cleveland-Stout mentioned that Azerbaijan had hired another PR company, \u201cThe Friedlander Group, a firm retained by Azerbaijan\u2019s foreign ministry, [which] is leading the charge on Capitol Hill in Washington. An email obtained by RS shows that the firm sent an email on September 23 to members of Congress asking them not to sign onto a congressional letter calling for Baku to release Armenian prisoners ahead of COP29.\u201d The firm\u2019s CEO, Ezra Friedlander, wrote to members of Congress \u201cwe owe Azerbaijan praise, an apology and an open hand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Returning to the PR firm, Teneo, Nick Cleveland-Stout reported that: \u201cWhen Azerbaijan flew out some 300 foreign journalists to the newly-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh region for a media forum in July, Teneo held meetings and hosted expensive dinners — during which it discussed interviews with Azerbaijan\u2019s COP leadership team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The RS reporter wrote that: \u201cThree days after meeting with Teneo, the influential Indian newspaper, The Hindu, published an article titled \u201cClimate conference in November to emphasize \u2018peace\u2019 and \u2018truce.\u2019\u201d The firm also \u201cfacilitated a New York Times article featuring [Mukhtar] Babayev [COP\u2019s president] in Azerbaijan that was based in part on a trip to Nagorno-Karabakh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teneo has assigned a 17-person team to the pro-Azeri PR task. Azerbaijan\u2019s officials are very pleased by the propaganda Teneo is doing for their country. Babayev told Azeri TV that \u201cthe government\u2019s media strategy to change international perceptions of Azerbaijan is a success story, including its \u2018restoration of territorial integrity,\u2019 referring to its offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh. Without mentioning Teneo by name, he credited a new media team \u2018consisting of serious specialists\u2019\u2026. Thanks to the work of this professional team, there has not been a week this year when we have not provided information and made statements to international media\u2026. Now they all understand and see the strength of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most unfortunate issue is that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is the one who allowed Azerbaijan to host the conference by lifting Armenia\u2019s veto in return for the release of 32 Armenian prisoners of war in exchange for two Azeri murderers who penetrated Armenia\u2019s border in 2023 and killed an innocent Armenian worker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I welcome the return of the 32 Armenian prisoners, I believe that Pashinyan should have bargained for Azerbaijan\u2019s release of all Armenian prisoners of war and the eight Artsakh political hostages held in Baku. Pres. Aliyev was so obsessed with hosting the prestigious UN conference in Azerbaijan that he would have agreed to such a comprehensive deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Pashinyan had made such a deal, Armenians and sympathetic non-Armenians around the world would not have needed to work so hard to pressure Azerbaijan to release all the Armenian detainees prior to the November conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Azerbaijan\u2019s dictatorial and corrupt government is paying $4.7 million to a US PR firm in order to whitewash its tarnished image prior to hosting the prestigious COP29 international conference in Baku this November. In February, Azerbaijan hired the American public relations firm, Teneo Strategy, to make \u201cthe warring petrostate look like a Mother Teresa,\u201d according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":674324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[1577,10794],"class_list":["post-824178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian","tag-climate-change","tag-pashinyan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}