Yearbook 2007
Azerbaijan. According to CountryAAH, Baku is the capital city of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s great political significance was reinforced during the year when Russia proposed that Washington and Moscow cooperate on missile defense at a Soviet-built radar station in Azerbaijan. The proposal was an attempt to divert the United States from the plans to create its own robotic defense in the Czech Republic and Poland against possible robot attacks from, Iran.
- According to abbreviationfinder: AZ is the 2-letter acronym for the country of Azerbaijan.
US conflict with Iran is sensitive to Azerbaijan, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Azerbaijan during the year. Iran, which has offered Azerbaijan energy cooperation, is keen that Azerbaijan’s good relations with the United States should not lead the US military to exploit Azerbaijan territory for attacks against Iran. There has been speculation that the United States would use air bases in Azerbaijan for a possible such attack.
In April, editor Eynulla Fatullayev was arrested, and his two magazines were closed. has written about targets in Azerbaijan that Iran may strike if Azerbaijan would support a US military action against Iran. In November, Fatullayev was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison accused of terrorist threats and incitement to ethnic conflict. The judgment was criticized by the US Foreign Ministry, which saw it as an attempt to silence criticism and stifle freedom of expression.
The verdict against Fatullayev was the latest in a series of prison sentences against press people. In the spring, two journalists were sentenced to four and three years in prison, respectively, accused of insulting Islam.
During the year, Amnesty International criticized Azerbaijan for the conditions of the Azeri who fled the conflict in the Armenian-controlled breaker cave Nagorno-Karabakh. Many who were forced to leave their homes in the armed conflict between the Azeris and Armenians in the early 1990s are still living under discriminatory and poor conditions in refugee camps, according to Amnesty.
In July, Nagorno-Karabakh elected new president. Former security chief Bako Saaakyan won the election with 85 percent of the vote. Azerbaijan regularly rejects the elections in Nagorno-Karabch as invalid.
Several attacks against alleged coup and terrorist plans were made during the year. 16 people were arrested accused of planning to overthrow President Ilham Aliyev. In October, authorities said they had uncovered a terrorist group of radical Islamists who were said to have planned large-scale attacks on state targets and foreign embassies in the capital, Baku. Several people were reported to have been arrested near the US embassy.
At the end of the year, it was announced that 33-year-old political activist Faina Kungurova had died in prison. The authorities did not disclose the result of the autopsy.
Azerbaijan weather in March, April and May
Average daily temperatures between 10 ° C and 22 ° C can be expected over the next three months. In Baku, it gets warmest in May, while March is noticeably cooler.
Do you want to go on a beach holiday? The water temperatures are in March, April and May 8-18 ° C.
You can expect around 5 days of rainfall in March, around 4 days in April and around 3 days in May.