The week of October 16-21 saw an increase in money transfers to Azerbaijan, opposition party Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) planning a protest and President Aliyev changing ambassadors’ positions.
Money transfers to Azerbaijan increased five times in 2022
Remittances to Azerbaijan in 2022 have increased compared to the previous three years. In 2019, 276 million dollars, 197 million dollars in 2020, and 261 million dollars were transferred to Azerbaijan from foreign countries in 2021.
In 2022, this amount has sharply increased in five times due to the rise in remittances sent from Russia.
Only in the second quarter of this year, more than one-billion dollars were transferred from Russia to Azerbaijan. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory in February this year, the amount of funds belonging to non-residents in Azerbaijani banks has increased from the equivalent of 294 million AZN to 876 million AZN.
The same scenario is reported in Georgia, where the National Bank announced that this year’s amount transferred from Russia to Georgia is four times more than in the same period of 2021.
PFPA to hold action with demand for “fundamental democratic changes”
On October 24, opposition party Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan plans to hold an action in front of the Baku City Executive Power with the demand of “fundamental democratic changes”, which means ‘freedom for political prisoners, free elections, freedom of free assembly and, finally, the opening of land borders’ according to party member Vahid Maharamov.
However, the Baku City Executive Authority did not consider it appropriate to hold the action, rejecting the party’s application. The executive power indicated that it would cause serious difficulties in ensuring people’s safety, based on the location of an educational institution and a metro station where the population is more active in that area.
Maharramov affirmed that that they will hold the action despite the response letter of the executive power:
“The executive power gives the same answer to all appeals anyway. We just have to warn them and we have done that. If the Baku City Executive Authority does not consider it appropriate to hold an action in that area, it should propose another area, that is, it should not exceed its rights of authority”, he explains.
Several ambassadors have been recalled and there are new appointments
President Ilham Aliyev has signed several decrees regarding embassies and international representations this week.
The current ambassadors of Lebanon, Italy, Morocco, Vietnam and Croatia have been recalled and some have been re-shuffled between these countries. Leyla Abdullayeva, who is currently the head of the Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to France.
Aliyev also pointed a new head of Azerbaijan’s Delegation to NATO.
