Baku hires PR firm for $4.7 million to cleanse image before climate summit

By Harut Sassounian

Azerbaijan’s 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 “the warring petrostate look like a Mother Teresa,” according to Nick Cleveland-Stout who wrote in ResponsibleStatecraft.org an article titled, “How 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.”

To earn its excessive pay, Teneo contacted “144 journalists in 88 different global media outlets some 500 times to promote Azerbaijan’s COP29 agenda….  In just one day, the PR firm … 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’s newly established control of the region in an article published in Pakistan. A few weeks later, he tweeted that Azerbaijan is ‘lucky to have such a leader’ in President Ilham Aliyev.”

An Azerbaijani official announced that his country had hired Teneo to “establish 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.” Nick Cleveland-Stout reported that “At least five Teneo executives are always on the ground in Baku — racking up a tab of $350,000 on airfare and hotels to date.”

Hikmat Hajiyev, Pres. Aliyev’s top advisor, shamelessly announced a “COP29 Truce,” 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: “Physician, heal thyself!”

Nick Cleveland-Stout wrote: “Azerbaijan has become notorious for flaunting its oil wealth to court foreign officials, lawmakers, and journalists with gifts, free flights, and luxury hotels, dubbed ‘caviar diplomacy’…. 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’ aides. Part of the itinerary included two days learning about ‘new development after liberation from occupation’ in Nagorno-Karabakh. ‘Guess I should locate my passport. I am very excited!’ wrote State Representative Jill Duson in response to the invitation. In June, Azerbaijan’s embassy in Washington even hired former Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) in part to coordinate congressional delegation visits to Azerbaijan.”

Furthermore, Nick Cleveland-Stout mentioned that Azerbaijan had hired another PR company, “The Friedlander Group, a firm retained by Azerbaijan’s 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.” The firm’s CEO, Ezra Friedlander, wrote to members of Congress “we owe Azerbaijan praise, an apology and an open hand.”

Returning to the PR firm, Teneo, Nick Cleveland-Stout reported that: “When 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’s COP leadership team.”

The RS reporter wrote that: “Three days after meeting with Teneo, the influential Indian newspaper, The Hindu, published an article titled “Climate conference in November to emphasize ‘peace’ and ‘truce.’” The firm also “facilitated a New York Times article featuring [Mukhtar] Babayev [COP’s president] in Azerbaijan that was based in part on a trip to Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Teneo has assigned a 17-person team to the pro-Azeri PR task. Azerbaijan’s officials are very pleased by the propaganda Teneo is doing for their country. Babayev told Azeri TV that “the government’s media strategy to change international perceptions of Azerbaijan is a success story, including its ‘restoration of territorial integrity,’ referring to its offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh. Without mentioning Teneo by name, he credited a new media team ‘consisting of serious specialists’…. 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…. Now they all understand and see the strength of our country.”

The most unfortunate issue is that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is the one who allowed Azerbaijan to host the conference by lifting Armenia’s veto in return for the release of 32 Armenian prisoners of war in exchange for two Azeri murderers who penetrated Armenia’s border in 2023 and killed an innocent Armenian worker.

While I welcome the return of the 32 Armenian prisoners, I believe that Pashinyan should have bargained for Azerbaijan’s 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.

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.