“Comrade General”: From Baku to Yerevan — Climate Summits on the Ruins of Artsakh and Billions in Suspicious Deals
It is symbolic and noteworthy that both climate conferences that flourished on the bones and ruins of Artsakh — COP29, held in Baku, and COP17, taking place in Yerevan these days — are accompanied by scandals over financial fraud and abuses during their organization.
At present, the opposition is criticizing the Armenian government over a number of issues.
The authorities are concealing the final amount of actual expenditures on COP17, although 18.5 billion drams, around $51 million, had initially been allocated for holding the conference from the reserve fund of the 2026 state budget.
Three advertising contracts worth a total of 452 million drams, around $1.25 million, have also been identified. They were signed with the same company without a tender, with a 90 percent advance payment stipulated.
Among the suspicious transactions is also the purchase of 16,500 thermoses at 7,800 drams each, or around $22, even though similar products could have been purchased more cheaply. According to the data presented, around 129 million drams, approximately $356,000, was spent on thermoses alone.
According to some data, contracts worth a total of nearly 11 billion drams, around $30 million, were signed with Meridian Holding, the company whose exhibition center is hosting the conference. However, the detailed breakdown of the expenditures has not been published.
And so on.
As for the expenditures of COP29, held in Baku in November 2024, they have attracted the attention of investigative journalists at OCCRP.
Almost all the Azerbaijani companies declared “official partners” of COP29 belonged to the ruling family or to individuals with business ties to it.
The official partners included the major food producer Azersun, the PASHA Holding conglomerate, the cargo airline Silk Way West Airlines, and the textile company GILTEX.
PASHA Holding belongs to Leyla and Arzu, the daughters of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. And Pashayev is a cousin of Azerbaijan’s First Lady and Vice President, Mehriban Aliyeva.
Hasan Gozal, the nephew of Azersun Holding President Abdolbari Gozal, was the director of three companies. Those companies had been registered in the British Virgin Islands in 2008 in the names of the Aliyev sisters.
In 2010, Radio Liberty had established that the president’s younger daughter, Arzu Aliyeva, was one of the three owners of Silk Way Bank. That bank was the former financial division of Silk Way Group. The group also includes Silk Way West Airlines.
Until last year, GILTEX was part of Gilan Holding and controlled up to 70 percent of Azerbaijan’s textile market. The controlling stake in Gilan Holding belonged to President Aliyev’s daughters and the children of Azerbaijan’s Minister of Emergency Situations, Kamaladdin Heydarov, through a company registered in the United Arab Emirates. Heydarov was also a member of the COP29 organizing committee.
Another example is the Sea Breeze resort complex, which received a $5.2 million government contract without a tender to accommodate 5,000 COP29 guests. The complex belonged to Emin Agalarov, Aliyev’s former son-in-law.
These revelations, however, seem not to concern UN Secretary-General António Guterres in the slightest, who can be accused of turning a blind eye to abuses. At a press conference in Yerevan, he stated that the UN has great confidence that there is no corruption in the organization of COP17.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is also convinced that COP17 expenditures should not concern anyone because, as he himself claims, they “return to the country’s economy thanks to the attraction of tourism and investment.”
However, the great economist has not specified how many dollars in investment and how many tourists he expects to attract for every dollar spent uncontrollably on the conference.
Once again, we are convinced of just how alike Aliyev and Pashinyan are. Whether it is a matter of taking Artsakh away from Armenians through a bloody path or enriching themselves bloodlessly at the expense of gatherings of Guterreses and other speakers devoid of principles, the picture is the same. The authority of the UN is sacrificed to the greed of local pickpockets, while the beautiful words spoken on the international stage conceal what is happening behind the scenes.