Several German politicians have been criticized for their ties to Azerbaijan, German's SWR radio reported.

According to it, the small state of Azerbaijan is far away, but it is currently in the headlines more often: this week there was a big explosion in a natural gas field in the Caspian Sea. Meanwhile, UEFA is hosting European championship football matches in the state capital, Baku. This has met with criticism because the regime of President Ilham Aliyev has been accused of violating human rights and fraudulent elections for years. For a long time, Aliyev did not have to worry about the image of his government. Because German politicians - including from Baden-Württemberg - stand up for the state with remarkable frequency. An SWR documentation now sheds light on the background.

The lobbying work of several members of the Bundestag for the autocratic regime in Azerbaijan was more far-reaching than previously known. According to research by the SWR, the Baden-Württemberg CDU MPs Nikolas Löbel, Olav Gutting, Eberhard Gienger and Axel E. Fischer as well as the Thuringian MP Mark Hauptmann tried to put pressure on the Foreign Office in December 2019 with a "protest letter". The letter, which the SWR has received, deals with the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The area is contested between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The MPs demand a "clarification" on the Berg-Karbach conflict and the alleged "illegal" actions of Armenia.

So far, it was only known that four of the five MPs had made identical queries on the subject in September 2019 in the Bundestag. The SWR recently reported that the initiative for this came directly from the Azerbaijani embassy. In an email, an embassy employee wrote to member of the Bundestag Eberhard Gienger: "We would be very pleased if you followed up on this matter and, together with Mr. Löbel, examined the possible reactions of the Bundestag to the Armenian approach."

Inexplicable naivete or conscious support?

Nevertheless, they did not stop at the written request but wrote a letter to Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. In it, the members of the Bundestag complain that the Federal Government has only responded evasively to the questions posed in the Bundestag. Inquiries from the SWR as to whether this letter was also the result of an initiative by the Azerbaijani embassy went unanswered by the members of the Bundestag.

The Heidelberg SPD member Lothar Binding finds this approach disconcerting. It is "completely inexplicable to him that colleagues are either naive in this way and do not see through how they are being abused there. Or do it consciously, but then it would be irritating because then they would consciously support a dictatorship and that would of course be one. The thing that can no longer be explained at all."

The MPs involved did not deny to the SWR that there were these inquiries and agreements. However, they stressed that they did not receive any financial benefits. The public prosecutor's office is currently investigating the possibility of corruption against MP Axel E. Fischer from the Karlsruhe-Land constituency.

The honorary consul and the human rights award

The role of the former State Secretary Otto Hauser is also highlighted in the SWR documentation. The Esslinger was government spokesman under Helmut Kohl and is now honorary consul of Azerbaijan. According to SWR research, Hauser also played a role when the human rights activist Leyla Yunus from Azerbaijan was supposed to receive a prize from the city of Esslingen in 2013.