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Ilham Aliyev, the head of Azerbaijan, hosted the Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) David Harris and his delegation. The development of the bilateral relations was discussed at the meeting, Azerbaijani news site “Minval.az” reports.

According to the article, the American Jewish Committee, an influential lobbying organisation, and Azerbaijani authorities have long been in close relations. The directors of the Committee regularly visit Azerbaijan and meet the leaders of the country. According to the information the site possesses, this very organisation is actively engaged in organizing lobbying activities for official Baku. During the meeting with the Israeli delegation A. Hasanov, the Chief of Socio-Political Department of Parliamentary Assembly, declared that being in good terms with Israel help Azerbaijan in Washington, the Israeli newspaper “The Jerusalem Post” reported, according to Virtualaz.org. During the meeting with the mayor of the city Akka Sh. Lankri on January 26, A Hasanov highlighted the significance of Israel as an important country in the Middle East, possessing advanced technologies, “Minval.az” writes.

It’s pointed out in the article, that AJC’s leader’s visit to Baku coincided with the period of aggravation of the relations between Baku and Washington. Now Baku strives to normalise them. The chairman of the Committee of Azerbaijani Parliament S. Seidov and MP A. Mollazade, who is in good terms with certain circles in the US, are in Washington for that purpose. The names of former US ambassadors to Azerbaijan R. Morningstar and R. Wilson are mentioned among the organisers of the visit. According to the information received, in his speech S. Seidov declared that the partnership with the US is the strategic priority for Baku.

“The visit of the American Jewish Committee exactly in this period highlights the fact that Baku wants to involve its traditional allies and partners in the process of normalising its relations with Washington. That influential lobbying organisation can help the authorities as it did before. But it’s doubtful, whether the lobbying activities of that organisation can be effective in the current stage of the bilateral relations,” reads the article.

Commenting on the situation for “Yeni Musavat,” Azerbaijani political scientist Arastun Orujlu wondered why official Baku puffs out the Jewish factor and tries to fix the bilateral relations with the help of the Jewish community, “Minval.az” reports.

“Certainly, AJC is a fairly influential organisation and it has a positive attitude towards not only the authorities, but also Azerbaijan as a whole. No doubt, Mr Harris’ visit is not accidental and it should be viewed in the general context of the bilateral relations. Anyway, there are many problems between our countries. D. Harris pointed this out, too, during the meeting of the Committee with the Diaspora. In fact, that all of the structures engaged in lobbying for Azerbaijan, as well as the Embassy that must be directly in charge for that direction, didn’t achieve any serious results. Certain activities have been carried out and significant sums of money spent, yet there are no results,” he noted.

As “Minval.az” reports, A. Orujlu finds that even such an influential organisation as AJC is not able to have an impact on Washington’s policy.

“There will be some changes, but I’m not sure that they will succeed in taking off the existing problems up to the hilt. There are serious results that gave rise to this situation. The main reason is the rapprochement of Azerbaijan with Russia. That is a conceptual issue which a lobbying organisation is unable to fix. I don’t believe in the effectiveness of AJC’ efforts until there are fundamental shifts,” concluded the political scientist.