The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan, which works to coordinate the efforts of non-profit and non-governmental organizations in that Eurasian country, has hired international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP to provide U.S. government relations counsel.
Oil-rich Azerbaijan, which has been widely criticized for its repressive human rights record under leader Ilham Aliyev, has recently become an alluring energy alternative for many Western countries.
Aliyev, who has held office since 2003, has become known for his crackdown on dissidents and groups critical of the Aliyev government, imprisoning large numbers of journalists, bloggers and human rights activists in recent years.
The European Parliament, in a 2015 resolution, described the former Soviet Union republic as “having suffered the greatest decline in democratic governance in all of Eurasia over the past ten years.”
Azerbaijan, which holds diplomatic relations and a bilateral trade agreement with the U.S., is one of the few Muslim-majority countries to maintain a strategic alliance with Israel. The country is known for its “caviar diplomacy,” the practice of spending large sums on efforts to enhance its image abroad and promote its causes among foreign diplomats and officials.
The country in recent years has inked a number of image-building pacts with APCO Worldwide, Patton Boggs, Mair Strategies, Delahunt Group and most notably, Podesta Group.
Greenberg Traurig has been hired by the ACSDA to educate the government and other opinion leaders regarding pending legislation, as well as provide advice and government relations counsel related to that legislation.
The U.S. press has referred to the ACSDA as a “Bogus Azeri Human Rights Group.”
The pact was signed by Elkhan Siraj Suleymanov, a member of Azerbaijan’s parliament, who also serves as the ACSDA’s chairman and oversees the association’s operations.
The three-month contract is worth $25,000 per month.
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