Leila Alieva

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Leila Alieva is the president of the think tanks the Centre for National and International Studies in Azerbaijan. [1]. According to its website the CNIS is an independent research organisation based in Baku, Azerbaijan, with a goal of non-partisan research, covering a wide variety of issues such as regional conflicts and security; oil and politics; state and democracy building; foreign and domestic policies. [2] (Not to be confused with the daughter of the current (2009) Azeri president Leyla Aliyeva, though their names are sometimes spelled the same)

Background

Alieva is often described as a ‘political analyst’[3] or as 'one of Azerbaijan’s most renowned social scientists'[4] by background, but has spent almost twenty years in think tanks as well as in fellowships at Western institutions including US Universities and at the National Endowment for Democracy and NATO Defense College in Rome. She has also acted as a consultant to agencies of international governance such as the UN, OSCE, EBRD and others and has advised the oil industry. She seems not to have held an academic post in Azerbaijan in that period.

From 1991-1997 Alieva worked as Deputy director and then Director of the Baku based Center for Strategic and International Studies. This is claimed in a biographical noted on one of Alieva’s publications to be ‘an independent’ organisation.[5]

Since 2001 Alieva has directed the Center for National and International Studies in Baku, but has also taken up a significant number of fellowships to western institutions including both universities and politically engaged placements such as with the NATO Defense College and the National Endowment for Democracy. It is evident that Alieva is prominent in the Azeri Foreign Relations elite and she has on occasion represented the Azeri government such as in 2005 when she was an 'unofficial' representative at the NATO Rose Roth seminar in Yerevan on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, according to Armenian sources.[6]

Career

Views

Iran

In 2007 Aliyeva encouraged the US to consult with countries neighbouring Iran before attacking it:

Political analyst Leyla Aliyeva believes that before starting operations against Iran the USA should consult with countries neighbouring Iran. She believes that if military operations do not last long, this will not affect Azerbaijan, otherwise the problem of refugees will arise. Since the Azerbaijani economy is directly connected with Iran economic problems will arise too. [12]

Oil, Russia, Iran and the US

BOWERS: Yet like Kuwait, Azerbaijan has powerful and perhaps threatening neighbors, in this case, Iran and Russia -- neither of whom like Baku's new orientation toward the West. The U.S. is pushing Azerbaijan to build export pipelines that would avoid both countries. But Azeri political analyst Dr. Leyla Alieva (ph) says the country has to navigate carefully through these dangerous political waters. She notes Azeri leaders formed one international oil consortium without American companies taking part, so that Iran could. And she says Russia also cannot be sidelined in the Caspian oil rush, especially by the U.S.
DR. LEYLA ALIEVA, AZERI POLITICAL ANALYST: You have to take into account that Russian sensitivities are extremely high in the post- Soviet period, to the issues of its titles, its sphere of influence -- not necessarily related to oil. Probably the most sensitive would be the one-sided orientation to the U.S.
BOWERS: Alieva notes that Russia still has troops and other forms of influence in the Caucasus region and could try to stir up ethnic conflicts if it isn't satisfied with its involvement. Yet there are also signs that oil could have a positive impact on this troubled region. Just last year, Russians and Chechens were fighting a bitter war over the breakaway Republic of Chechnya. Now, however, the big international oil consortium AIOC is so eager to get its Azeri crude to market, it's using a pipeline that runs right through Chechnya and Russia. John Hollis (ph), vice president of AIOC, hopes the lure of oil transport money will keep the two sides from fighting again.
JOHN HOLLIS, VICE PRESIDENT, AIOC: Our perception or our belief is that the Chechens and the Russians decided that the only sensible thing was to work together. Neither would be a winner if nothing went that way.[13]

Politics in Azerbaijan

The 2005 parliamentary elections were a step back for Azerbaijan compared not only with the beginning of the post-Soviet era, but even with the parliament of the first "oil-boom" era a century ago. Yet as frustrating as the fraudulent elections were, they also furnished grounds for hope. For civil society, the democratic opposition, and the Azerbaijani people showed themselves capable of carrying on a tradition of peaceful dissent whose roots go back to pre-Soviet days. Opening up political space for that democracy-friendly dynamism—and not turning out sharper technocrats to serve authoritarian rulers—is the key to a better future for Azerbaijan. [14]

Neoconservative connections

Dr. Alieva attended the Democracy and Security International Conference in Prague on June 5-6 2007.

Affiliations

Academy of Latinity, member[15] | Democracy and Security International Conference, Attendee [16]|Centre for National and International Studies, President | Center for Strategic and International Studies, Deputy Director 1991-1994, Director 1994-1996 | European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Advisor to the President.[17] | German Marshall Fund of the United States, published an article in one of their publications[18] | National Endowment for Democracy Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, October 2007-February 2008 [19]

Publications, talks, contact, notes

Publications

Talks

Contact

Address:
Email:
Facebook: Leila Alieva

Notes

  1. Democracy and Security Conference, List of Participants, Accessed 25-February-2009
  2. CNIS Website, About CNIS, Accessed 25-February-2009
  3. See eg, BBC Monitoring Trans Caucasus Unit, Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, April 3, 2007 Tuesday, Azeri experts differ on possible US attack on Iran, Text of report by Azerbaijani news agency Trend; See also the biographical note on the back cover of Leila Alieva Integrative Processes in the South Caucasus and their Security Implications NATO Defense College Occasional Paper N. 13 , Rome, March 2006
  4. NED Past Fellows, accessed 17 August 2009
  5. See the back cover of Leila Alieva Integrative Processes in the South Caucasus and their Security Implications NATO Defense College Occasional Paper N. 13 , Rome, March 2006
  6. ARMINFO News Agency, October 6, 2005, KARABAKH PROBLEM - CONFLICT BETWEEN KARABAKH AND AZERI PEOPLES BUT NOT TERRITORIAL DISPUTE
  7. NED Past Fellows, accessed 17 August 2009
  8. NED Past Fellows, accessed 17 August 2009
  9. NED Past Fellows, accessed 17 August 2009
  10. CNIS Website, CNIS Staff, Accessed 25-February-2009
  11. Rumi forum LUNCHEON - The Perception of Oil and Energy in Azerbaijan March 6th The Rumi Forum presented “The Perception of Oil and Energy by the Domestic and External Actors and its Implications for the Azarbaijan and Turkey” with Leila Alieva Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, National Endowment for Democracy, accessed 17 August 2009
  12. BBC Monitoring Trans Caucasus Unit, Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, April 3, 2007 Tuesday, Azeri experts differ on possible US attack on Iran, Text of report by Azerbaijani news agency Trend
  13. NPR 'Caspian Oil II: Azerbaijan' ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR 8:00 pm ET), DECEMBER 9, 1997, TUESDAY8:20 pm ET BYLINE: Andy Bowers, Baku; Elizabeth Arnold, Washington, DC; Lind
  14. Alieva, Leila. Azerbaijan's Frustrating Elections ‘’’Journal of Democracy’’’ - Volume 17, Number 2, April 2006, pp. 147-160
  15. Academy of Latinity Members – Academicians, Accessed 17 August 2009
  16. Democracy and Security Conference, List of Participants, Accessed 25-February-2009
  17. CNIS Website, CNIS Staff, Accessed 25-February-2009
  18. Leila Alieva (2004) ‘South Caucasus: Going West’ in Ronald D. Asmus, Konstantin Dimitrov and Joerg Forbrig Editors ‘’’A New Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea Region’’’ Washington: The German Marshall Fund of the United States
  19. http://www.rumiforum.org/server/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=434&Itemid=76 LUNCHEON - The Perception of Oil and Energy in Azerbaijan] March 6th The Rumi Forum presented “The Perception of Oil and Energy by the Domestic and External Actors and its Implications for the Azarbaijan and Turkey” with Leila Alieva Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, National Endowment for Democracy, accessed 17 August 2009
  20. German Marshall Fund of the United States Towards a Wider Europe: The New Agenda Bratislava, Hotel Danube, 18 March 2004, Organised by the German Marshall Fund of the United States in co-operation with the Institute for Public Affairs - Slovakia and the Slovak Foreign Policy Association.
  21. Talk on oil and politics in Azerbaijan, Tribune News Service, Chandigarh Tribune, Chandigarh, August 26 2004

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