Azerbaijan
UK sanctions Azerbaijani tanker and five nationals involved in Russian oil trading
The sanctions were announced on 9 May, the day Russia and other former Soviet states commemorate the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
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Become a memberPro-government Azerbaijani media has reported that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is expected to cease operations in Azerbaijan ‘in the coming months’.
Azerbaijani news agency Report.az wrote that UNICEF would phase out its operations soon, citing the organisation’s Regional Director of Communications for Europe and Central Asia, Iryna Mazur.
‘UNICEF will continue to collaborate with partners in Azerbaijan through its regional office and headquarters’, Mazur said, according to Report.az.
Mazur said that UNICEF had been working with the Azerbaijani government since 1993, and that their collaboration ‘contributed to reducing child mortality, expanding access to quality education, and strengthening child protection systems’.
UNICEF is not the only international organisation to announce it was facing closure since the beginning of 2025.
In early March, pro-government media outlet Caliber reported that the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been told ‘they must leave’ Azerbaijan, citing the country’s growth and development.
Caliber also criticised the UNDP for alleged ‘corruption, systemic management failures, and a lack of transparency’, citing an audit conducted by the UNDP itself.
Shortly after, during a conversation with Gwi-Yeop Son, the UN’s Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov emphasised that Azerbaijan ‘has reconsidered its priorities in cooperation with the UN’ based on ‘the realities of the new era’.
This was followed by the freezing of Azerbaijan’s Erasmus+ programme, and reports that Transparency International’s Azerbaijan offices were shutting down, amidst state media criticism of the organisation and one of its founders, whose relative was ‘severely reprimanded’ by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for leaking official documents.
Transparency Azerbaijan to shut down amidst controversy involving Tourism Agency
Transparency International is the latest international organisation to announce it is shutting down its offices in Azerbaijan.
Yousef Bardouka
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