President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent visit to Azerbaijan would not have attracted particular attention had it not been for a highly notable statement made during the trip:
“If Russia is interested in diplomatic negotiations, we are ready to conduct these talks in Baku with the participation of the United States.”
Relations between Azerbaijan and Ukraine have always been warm. Even when Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev signed a strategic cooperation declaration with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin just two days before Russia’s full-scale invasion, it was clear that this would not work against Azerbaijan-Ukraine relations.
There are naturally warm ties between the peoples of both countries, reinforced by deep interstate economic cooperation across numerous fields – from energy and security to military supply. Over the past decade, this cooperation has deepened further, although in key areas such as energy, military equipment and arms trade, telecommunications, and agreements related to the exploitation of rare earth elements, the principal participants have largely been companies owned by, or closely affiliated with, the family of Aliyev. In any case, the contracts involved are of very large scale.
Regardless of whether the idea or proposal to continue negotiations in Baku originated personally from Zelensky or from Aliyev, the suggestion itself is noteworthy. It appears that the primary argument lies in presenting the venue for negotiations as a more neutral platform.
Turkey is a NATO member, and from this perspective, Russia may place less trust in it. Arab countries are closer to the US, which may render such venues “one-sided,” and they are also geographically distant from the conflict zone.
Azerbaijan, however, maintains proximity to Russia while also possessing experience in engaging with the West in non-political spheres.
Naturally, such an initiative may also be seen as a fortunate opportunity for Aliyev. For a leader whose country is consistently in the spotlight due to severe repression and widespread corruption allegations, being presented as a “platform for peace initiatives” could add positive elements to his political image.
This is particularly important for Aliyev at present, as repression in Azerbaijan has reached such a level that, in the near future, it will be difficult to avoid comparisons with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko two years ago.
In a country with more than 340 political prisoners, Aliyev has imprisoned the only opposition leader he was unable to suppress by all possible and impossible means, thereby effectively banning opposition activity altogether. That person is Ali Karimli.
No “coup” without Ali Karimli
For more than five months now, Karimli – the leader of Azerbaijan’s opposition Popular Front Party – has been imprisoned on fabricated “coup d’état” charges. Authoritarian regimes routinely fabricate such accusations to eliminate their opponents. Frankly, I have lost count of how many times Karimli has been accused of a “coup attempt.”
In October 2025, Ramiz Mehdiyev, who led the Azerbaijani presidential administration for nearly 25 years and was known for his close ties to Russia, was arrested on “coup” charges. The very next morning, Karimli and I met at the Baku Court for Grave Crimes, where the trials of political prisoners were taking place.
Discussing Mehdiyev’s arrest, I told Karimli that this case would likely end up being linked to his. He laughed in surprise: “Would they really go that far?” Half-jokingly but half-seriously, I replied that, in this country, no “coup” happens without him. (Over the past decade, in every staged “coup attempt” in Azerbaijan, the central “revolutionary figure” has invariably been Karimli).
After President Aliyev removed the constitutional restriction on serving more than two presidential terms through a fraudulent referendum in 2009, he declared that there would be no opposition in Azerbaijan. To make good on this declaration, he mobilized all state resources against the real opposition, the Popular Front, and against democratic institutions.
The 2013 elections, in which I stood as the unified opposition candidate, exposed the true social base of the Aliyev regime. According to information leaked from the Central Election Commission’s Information Center the day before the Oct. 9 vote, Aliyev had already been declared the winner. Even CNN reported that not even the Prophet Moses himself could have performed such a “miracle.”
Fabrication upon fabrication
It was precisely after those elections that systematic repression in Azerbaijan began in earnest, targeting the political opposition – namely Karimli – suppressing free media, and dismantling civil society institutions.
During mass repressions of 2013–2014, independent media were shut down, non-governmental organizations were destroyed, and pressure on opposition political parties intensified. Shortly thereafter, following the events in Nardaran in November 2015 when Azerbaijani security forces launched a fatal raid against the Muslim Unity Movement (MUM), Karimli and I were accused of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order together with a Shiite radical group allegedly linked to Iran.
More than ten years have passed since those events, and Karimli has been accused of nearly ten “coup attempts.” At various times, he has been charged with conspiring with Iran-linked Shiite radicals, with Fethullah Gülen-affiliated Sunni groups, or with trying to overthrow the constitutional order using financial support from Europe and the US.
State institutions, including the Interior Ministry, security services, and the Prosecutor’s Office, have repeatedly issued loud joint statements about “foreign-backed coup attempts” involving Karimli. Yet each time, just before moving to arrest him, they pulled back from detaining the opposition leader.
Finally, in the autumn of 2025, a “convenient” moment arrived, and he was arrested on fabricated “coup” charges allegedly supported by Russia.
A kind of political “tradition” has taken root in the country: whenever the Aliyev regime enters into conflict with any foreign country, Karimli is accused of trying to seize power with the support of that very country.
Jokes now circulate that Karimli has had a hand in “coup attempts” in Africa and Latin America, and even in events in Barbados. His arrest has become so absurd that it has taken on a comical character across the country.
To discredit him in the eyes of the public and brand him a “foreign agent,” the country’s security services had already accused him in 2005 of maintaining secret ties with Armenian intelligence and receiving financial support from them. However, the accusation was so patently absurd that it was impossible to convince society of its validity.
When the “Arab Spring” began in 2011, the Youth Organization of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party staged a “protest” in front of the building where Karimli lived. Under police supervision, the demonstrators accused him once again of working for Armenian intelligence services while simultaneously labeling him a radical religious terrorist. The “protesters” accused Karimli of “treason” and demanded he leave the country, though the government had already revoked his foreign passport in 2006, effectively banning him from traveling abroad.
Fate has its strange coincidences. In 2013, Karimli was once again accused of a serious crime. Journalist Parviz Hashimli was arrested by the then Ministry of National Security, headed at the time by Eldar Mahmudov. Mahmudov had also prepared an operation to falsely implicate his own former deputy, Ali Naghiyev (who is now the head of the State Security Service and who carried out Karimli’s arrest last November), together with Karimli.
The paradox is striking: today’s head of the State Security Service, General Naghiyev, could himself have become a victim of the fabricated case against Karimli. Journalist Parviz Hashimli testified in court that he had been repeatedly tortured to force him to claim that Naghiyev, then serving as deputy minister of National Security, was financing Karimli.
Had Hashimli not withstood the torture – had he given false testimony against himself, Karimli, and Naghiyev – then, undoubtedly a criminal case on charges of “forcibly overthrowing state power” would have been initiated against Karimli and other “participants.” But thanks to Hashimli’s resistance, endurance, and willpower, this did not happen.
Now, in a bitter irony, Naghiyev, who at that time was to be framed as a “co-conspirator” with Karimli, is today, reportedly on Aliyev’s orders, accusing Karimli of participating together with Mehdiyev in a Russia-backed “coup attempt” allegedly organized by Mehdiyev.
Formative years and a criminal case that never closed
Karimli’s entire political career has unfolded before my eyes. I remember well that when I was a lecturer at Baku State University, he had just enrolled in the Faculty of Law after completing military service in the Chita region – one of the most difficult postings in the Soviet Army.
At that time, a national liberation movement against the Soviet-Russian empire had begun in Azerbaijan. One of his first acts was to abolish the Soviet Komsomol organization at his faculty. During the course of the national liberation movement, Karimli was also among the leaders of the anti-Soviet “Yurd” (Land) organization founded by students and young people.
He graduated from law school in 1991 with highest honors. Although he was invited to join the Prosecutor General’s Office, Karimli declined and instead worked as a parliamentary correspondent for the Popular Front’s opposition newspaper Azadlıq.
After the Popular Front won the 1992 elections, he was appointed State Secretary in 1993, at the age of 27, and played an active role in the withdrawal of Russian troops from Azerbaijan.
The persecution of Popular Front Party leader Karimli by the Aliyev regime stretches back at least 32 years. The first criminal case against him was initiated on Sept. 10, 1994. At that time, discussions were underway between the newly returned President Heydar Aliyev and the Russian leadership about deploying Russian troops in Karabakh under the label of “peacekeepers.”
As one of the leaders of the Popular Front, Karimli led a protest against this plan. Although the authorities banned the rally, protesters lifted him onto their shoulders in the absence of a stage, and he addressed the crowd from there, reading out the rally’s resolution against Russia. That day, real clashes took place in the square.
A large number of police surrounded Karimli, arrested him, and took him to the Baku City Main Police Department. An extraordinary incident then occurred at the police station. Adil Ismayilov, head of the investigation department, took a hand grenade wrapped in paper from his safe, placed it on the table, and told Karimli he would prove it had been found in his pocket.
A criminal case was opened against Karimli for illegal possession of weapons. However, despite serious efforts by the police, it proved too much of an absurdity to ‘‘find’’ a grenade in his suit pockets. Two weeks later, the authorities suspended the fabricated case and released him from detention.
Curiously, the fabricated criminal case against Karimli which opened on Sept. 10, 1994, has never been formally closed and remains active to this day. Despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, it has been used for 20 years, since 2006, as the “justification” for denying Karimli a foreign passport.
The paradox is remarkable: Karimli, who was arrested in 1994 by Azerbaijani authorities for organizing a protest against Russia, is now accused of attempting a “coup” allegedly supported by Russia and Moscow’s “fifth column” in Azerbaijan.
The Russia connection
For a long time, the Russian government has been a strategic ally of the Azerbaijani authorities. Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a guarantor of global peace and security and as the number one politician in the world. Just two days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he signed an Alliance Declaration with Putin, parts of which, still in force today, limit Azerbaijan’s state sovereignty.
One of the first people to protest this declaration at the time of its signing was Karimli.
Within the framework of the obligations arising from the Alliance Declaration, in October 2024, the Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, paid an official visit to Baku.
During the visit, meetings were held with Aliyev and with the heads of Azerbaijan’s Foreign Intelligence Service and State Security Service. During these meetings, it was agreed that one of the principal tasks of intelligence and counterintelligence in both Russia and Azerbaijan would be the timely identification and prevention of anti-Russian and anti-Azerbaijani provocations organized from abroad.
According to the statement released following the meeting, “joint efforts will be strengthened to counter the use by foreign intelligence services of non-systemic opposition (that is, the Popular Front and its chairman Karimli) and international terrorist organizations to destabilize the socio-political situation in Russia and Azerbaijan.
As is now clear, not long before Karimli’s arrest, just one year earlier, the Azerbaijani authorities and their security agencies had reached a secret agreement with Russian foreign intelligence to jointly combat the country’s genuine opposition. Yet a year later, that same opposition stands accused of attempting a coup in Azerbaijan with Russia’s support, and Popular Front leader Karimli is arrested on charges of attempting a “coup” together with Mehdiyev, who for nearly 25 years was the second most powerful figure in Aliyev’s regime.
Where is the logic?
Recently, there have been attempts to extract “confirming” testimony under torture from detained Popular Front Party activists regarding alleged cooperation between Karimli and Mehdiyev, but these attempts have failed.
Indeed, just last Friday, Karimli’s bodyguard, Novruz Taghiyev, delivered a final statement at his own trial, where he outlined how, for seven days, he was kept hungry and tortured and was coerced to sign an incriminating statement against Karimli: that he allegedly personally drove him to meet Mehdiyev – the supposed co-conspirator in this ‘‘coup”.
He refused, showing extreme bravery under coercion.
He was then sentenced to six and a half years of imprisonment under a different set of fabricated charges. All of these attempts to fabricate a coup charge against Karimli happen at the time when the Aliyev government is working to restore relations with Russia, and some steps in this direction have already been taken.
It appears the authorities may eventually retreat from the accusation that a “coup” was being prepared with Russian support. Yet after this accusation collapses, it remains unclear whether Karimli will be released or whether the charges against him will simply be replaced. At present, this question has no easy answer.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.