Azerbaijan

Control over privatizing state-owned property and the disposal assets in Azerbaijan is outlined by the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the Privatization of State-Owned Property, which was passed by presidential decree in 2000. Paragraph 6.2.4 of this law stipulates that property being used by the security services (military units, internal and frontier protection forces, customers services) cannot be privatized, making asset disposal illegal. The effectiveness of such controls in practice is not clear. References 2,3 and 4 cited above provide no information on the either the procedures for disposing of assets or the practice in place. In addition, the state budget for 2015 makes no reference to any kind of asset disposal.

Asset disposal is prohibited by the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the Privatization of State-Owned Property (Paragraph 6.2.4). There is moreover no evidence of any independent and transparent scrutiny of asset disposals conducted by defence establishments, nor are there available reports of any such scrutiny.

There is no available information on secret security budgets. As has been noted in previous answers, the government of Azerbaijan provides only limited information on its budget process, which overall lacks transparency. Neither the defence nor security budget provides details on proposed expenditures or specific allocations. For example, Azerbaijani media sources reported military expenditures for 2009 at $2.46 billion, however, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), only $1.472 billion was spent. The International Institute for Strategic Studies also suggests that the official budget from that year was $1.5 billion, which suggests that there is a significant discrepancy between officially reported and actual spending on security.

I have found no information on parliament’s role in reviewing secret spending, which makes it difficult to assess whether the legislature or its committees are given full information on “secret item” spending. Formally, parliament exercises budgetary oversight. Similarly, though consultation is not provided for in law, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) “…it is nevertheless observed in practice.” However, as has been observed in previous answers, in practice there is little real budgetary oversight provided by parliament and its committees. The standing committee for defence and security has limited powers and issues only non-binding opinions on draft laws. Most real power is concentrated in the hands of the executive and the National Assembly, stacked full of the president’s allies, plays a very limited role.

As has been noted in other answers, the legislative branch in Azerbaijan enjoys none of the powers of oversight and debate normally associated with parliamentary democracy. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) it has no role in reviewing the activity of government departments, does not receive reports from the government administration or public service, cannot hold hearings, cannot organized committees of enquiry, and has no role in making senior appointments. In matters of defence and security, there is no provision for annual parliamentary approval of government expenditure, and though there is a public audit body appointed by parliament that audits the government’s books and reports back twice a year, it has never reviewed one of the security ministries and cannot be considered effective. We have found no oversight role for parliament in terms of secret budgets, and there is no reference in law to parliamentary oversight of police activity, or scrutiny of extra-budget expenditure. Similarly, there is no provision for parliamentary oversight of Azerbaijan’s border guards.

While off-budget military expenditures are not permitted in law, in practice they may exist. Police activities, for instance, according to article 39 of the The Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan Republic on Police No727-IQ, are funded by both government and non-government funds. In view of the oversight deficit that characterizes the Azerbaijan security sector, however, it seems probable that any off-budget expenses incurred by these actors would not be subject to parliamentary oversight or recorded.

There is no hard evidence of off-budget military expenditures and that they involve illicit economic activity. That said, much points to the fact that this is a serious problem in Azerbaijan. First, the military budget has increased exponentially in recent years. Second, there is no effective control over the military. Third, there are documented cases of serious misuse of military resources. The assessment is that off-budget military expenditures indeed exist. According to an expert interviewed for this project, Azerbaijan has committed itself to enhancing transparency of its budgetary spending and making more information available on its budget, but it is not clear whether this would also apply to the defence sector. In any event, according to the expert, there has been as yet little improvement in the country's record on this score.

Azerbaijan has a Law on State Secrets (1998), which covers defence secrets and which has been recently modified by the government and approved by parliament. The Law does not appear to be available on the internet. As pointed out in answers to other questions in this survey, scrutiny of everything in the Azeri security sector by parliament or other oversight actors is either extremely weak or non-existent. There is no reason to assume that this would be any different with regard to its classification system.

There is no direct evidence indicating that defence and security institutions “have beneficial ownership of commercial businesses.”

There is a Ministry of Defence Industry which is separate from the MOD and it runs businesses related to defence.

Azerbaijan has a Ministry for the Defence Industry and domestic manufacturing capacity in this area. There is no available evidence that the military owns businesses. There is a Ministry of Defence Industry which is separate from the MOD and it runs businesses related to defence.

There appears to be no direct evidence of unauthorized private enterprise by individuals in the defence sector. However, government officials have been reported as being involved in unauthorized private sector activity. In view of the lack of transparency reigning in the defence sector, it can be expected that such activity extends to the defence sector as well. Azerbaijan's anti-corruption law (article 9.3.1), stipulates that an official could be considered guilty of corruption if in the course of performing his or her service duties, he or she were to hold &quoute;any lucrative office or to engage in any lucrative activity, except for ... scientific, pedagogical and creative activity.&quoute; The actual implications stemming from this clause are unclear, in particular, for the defence sector which may or may not be subject to this law. In any event, according to the expert interviewed for this project, the anti-corruption law is not effectively implemented.

Research, dating back to the beginning of 2013, suggests that senior defence officials are not in the habit of making public anti-corruption pronouncements. The only public reference by a member of the government to the need for enhanced anti-corruption efforts is one made by President Aliyev on the eve of the October 2013 parliamentary elections. It appears that this was in response to the effort of the opposition candidate to mainstream the corruption issue. In view of the President's official stand on corruption, it is likely that Defence Ministry officials will reflect this stand in their work, but no evidence of this has been found. Of note in this regard is the commitment to support the Council of Europe's fight against corruption made by Azerbaijan in its statement on assuming the chairmanship of the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe. In this connection, Azerbaijan hosted a high-level conference on combating corruption to be organized in Baku from 30 June - 1 July 2014.

According to the Central Asia Caucus Analyst, the decision to appoint former Deputy Interior Minister and Commander of Internal Troops, Zakir Hasanov, as the new Defence Minister reflects a “possible launch of serious defence reform and a new anti-corruption campaign within the Azerbaijani armed forces.” Upon assuming the post, Hasanov sacked two deputy ministers and other senior officers he inherited from his predecessor, Safar Abiyev, who is believed to be highly corrupt.

The OECD has recently praised Azerbaijan’s progress on anti-corruption; however, there is no available evidence of specific policing to investigate crime within the defence services, and it is difficult to determine the extent to which this happens. The military in Azerbaijan does not publish the results of investigations into negative incidents. Moreover, the OECD anti-corruption monitoring team found an absence of cases regarding organized crime and corruption being detected, and referred to the Anti-Corruption Department, which suggests that anti-corruption policing is weak. Most cases that have been prosecuted thus far have been in the areas of education, health and social welfare, not in defence or security. There have been several instances of corruption cases brought against officers; however, these appear to be brought selectively against those who have been critical of the regime.

According to an OECD anti-corruption monitoring team reporting in 2013, “it appears no steps were taken to introduce a legal obligation to report corruption or regulation on protection of whistleblowers.” Overall the monitoring team found that the Azerbaijani government had done nothing to introduce legislation protecting whistleblowers.

There is no specific information available on personnel policies in the defence sector. However, given the unchecked patronage within the government as a whole, it is reasonable to assume that in the defence sector, as in other security institutions, promotion is often based on personal loyalty rather than merit, or other objective criteria.

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence provides totals of neither civilian nor military personnel. There are other sources however, such as the CIA Factbook, that provide what can be assumed to be relatively accurate approximations of Azerbaijan’s military strength. The answer given is 0: presumably people who want to know the numbers can consult the CIA Factbook but no evidence has been found of an effort by Azeri authorities to make this information publicly available.

The government does not openly publish the pay rates for civilian and military personnel, nor are up-to-date figures available. The most recent publication on pay levels for the public sector as a whole comes from a 2004 UN report. In 2008, a journalist reported that officers’ salaries had been increasing, bringing the monthly average to $400-$600.

There is little rigorous evidence available regarding compensation of military personnel. However, ICG reported in 2008 that there had been over 200 court decisions made in favour of officers concerning unpaid compensation, which indicates that this was a serious problem. Nothing suggests that this problem has been corrected in the interim. According to an expert interviewed for this project, the payment system still tends to be built around the system of low official pay augmented by advantages in kind - &quoute;additional income&quoute; - such as existed in Soviet times.

According to a consultant working with the Human Rights Department for Civil Service Recruitment, there is a well-developed and transparent system for public service recruitment. For instance, competitions for civil service positions are regularly announced in the national media, and 80% of those appointments are fulfilled through on-line postings. However, there are some flaws specific to the security sector. Given the use of patronage by ruling elites, many hiring and promotion decisions are based on loyalty rather than merit. Similarly, corruption is also common within the army, where many pay bribes to serve in a particular unit or location. An article on recent purges in the upper ranks of the military following the dismissal of the long-serving Minister of Defence claims that these changes stem from an ongoing political struggle in the military, and not any appointment system.

Again, similar to the previous answer, while there are objective and meritocratic processes in place, they are often not respected. Promotion tends to be based on patronage and loyalty rather than merit, and corruption allows those in the army especially to avoid front-line duty by paying a bribe. There are also instances where being assigned a front-line position is used as a punishment for officers. There is no effective officer or military unit rotation system, and some officers end up serving long rotations in the same front-line units.
The article quoted under source 2) above on recent purges in the upper ranks of the military, following the dismissal of the long-serving Minister of Defence, claims that these changes stem from an ongoing political struggle in the military.

President Aliyev has taken measures designed to reduce the potential for corruption in this area, issuing a decree abolishing the district military commissariats and establishing in their place a civil State Service for Mobilization and Induction into Military Service. While these reforms should help to address the corruption inherent in conscription and rotation, I have found no evaluations of their effectiveness.

There is no available evidence of this type of policy, but as has been noted, the payment of bribes is common in Azerbaijan’s military. Regular legal mechanisms to address bribery would apply in this case.

No reference to this issue has been found in articles addressing problems in the Azerbaijan Armed Forces and the need for reform.

In view of this, ghost soldiers are a likely phenomenon. As mentioned in Question 38, the numbers of personnel are not disclosed for the public either.

As a result of the overall lack of transparency in Azerbaijan’s security sector, it was not possible to substantiate whether or not chains of payment are tied to chains of command. That said, there is some evidence suggesting that this a problem. For example, an article published in 2007 asserts that Azeri commanders &quoute;...embezzle salaries of their soldiers serving in Iraq...&quoute; Presumably this is only possible because they control the payment chain. But whether this is also the practice within Azerbaijan is unclear.

Azerbaijan has a legally enshrined code of ethics that applies to civil personnel working for the state, including civilians working for the military but excluding those of military rank. Its provisions, reviewed first in April 2014, were judged to be very general in scope, not covering post-separation activities. Now in June 2014, the links to this document seem to have disappeared. An article (reference 4) reported in 2011 stated that a military code would be adopted in Azerbaijan in order to codify all laws dealing with the military, However, there is no trace of this having happened in the interim. Moreover, the Commission on Combating Corruption makes no mention of a military code in its long list of legislation relevant to the struggle against corruption.

As previously mentioned, Azerbaijan has two major programmes to combat corruption – the National Anti Corruption Action Plan and the Open Government Partnership Action Plan for 2012- 2015, overseen
by the commission. According to civil society estimates, implementation of those action plans is
progressing, despite delays. While evidence suggests that the Commission on Combating Corruption is politically influenced and lacks sufficient power to compel the government to release “sensitive information,” it is emblematic of Azerbaijan’s efforts to criminal corruption. That said, the security institutions are also not in the habit of publishing the results of investigations into negative events and no evidence of significant prosecutions could be found.

As regards anti-corruption training for civilian personnel, the answers to the questionnaire distributed by the OECD as part of its Third Monitoring Round only note that it was an indispensable element of training in all public institutions. No information was provided with regard to the number of trainings, their subject and categories of public officials that took part in such trainings. Within the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Work Plan (EAPWP), as well as bilateral co-operation with different countries, every year, about 1,500 people from the Azerbaijan Armed Forces participate in more than 300 different language and specialty training courses, seminars, workshops, conferences, working meetings, planning conferences, exercises and other events. Anti-corruption training does take place in the NATO context but it is not clear if Azerbaijan is party to this. Searches for NATO and Transparency International's Building Integrity Training Partners does not reveal any training courses in Azerbaijan or with Azerbaijani MoD employees.

The OECD anti-monitoring team has repeatedly identified prosecution as a weakness within Azerbaijan’s anti-corruption efforts, and in 2013 highlighted “a need for firm prosecution policy.” That said, there does appear to be some evidence of public prosecutions. For example, the Former Deputy Defence Minister (see 3) and former chief of Navy forces (see 4) were both arrested on corruption charges.

According to the 2014 National Integrity System Assessment for Azerbaijan, &quoute;Though courts are more transparent than before, with the creation of the single judicial portal on the Internet and online publication of high instance court decisions, full transparency of courts is yet to
be achieved through the planned E-court system. &quoute;

Response to Peer Reviewer: Comments added and score changed to 2.

According to 3) above, facilitation payments are considered bribery under Azerbaijani law and &quoute;certain&quoute; military are subject to them. No further detail on this has been found. According to 2), the practice whereby families of conscripts pay bribes to secure the best postings for their sons is widespread. According to 4), dozens of former commissars are awaiting trial on corruption charges.That said, whether this adds up to effective deterrence of facilitation payments cannot be substantiated.

The military adopted a military doctrine in 2010; however, as it is not publicly available, it is not clear whether or not it addresses corruption as a strategic issue. A review of the content of the doctrine (reference 2) makes no reference to corruption nor is it clear that corruption is recognised as an issue of governance.

With regard to anti-corruption training for civilian personnel, Azerbaijan's answer to the questionnaire distributed by the OECD as part of its Third Monitoring Round only note that this was an indispensable element of training in all public institutions. No information was provided with regard to the number of trainings, their subject and categories of public officials that took part in such trainings. Within the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Work Plan (EAPWP), as well as bilateral co-operation with different countries, every year, about 1,500 people from the Azerbaijan Armed Forces participate in more than 300 different language and specialty training courses, seminars, workshops, conferences, working meetings, planning conferences, exercises and other events. Anti-corruption training does take place in the NATO PfP context, but there is no evidence that Azerbaijan is party to this.

All that said, no evidence has been found of commanders undergoing such training, or applying such knowledge in the field.

There is no evidence that such monitoring takes place. But there is a problem in this regard, Sanamyan asserts that Azeri commanders &quoute;...embezzle salaries of their soldiers serving in Iraq...&quoute;.

There is no publicly available evidence to the effect that such training occurs.

In view of the President's pronouncements and Azerbaijan's public stance against corruption, however, it is likely that there are guides. Azerbaijan, in responding to a question by the OECD Anti-corruption Unit in their 2013 report - see 3) above - stated that all governmental actors had to prepare an anti-corruption plan, which presumably included training. This is corroborated by 6) above. That said, the effectiveness of such plans and their applicability to the defence sector is unclear.

Azerbaijan is a member of NATO's EAPC , which has developed a Building Integrity Program that also deals with peace support deployments such as those Azerbaijan has participated in - 4) above and that has a training dimension. However, this programme is optional for EAPC members. The official website of the Azerbaijan Mission to NATO details the various programmes the country is involved in but there is no mention of participation in the BI initiative.

PSCs are employed by the armed forces in deployments. According to Gomez del Prado, Azerbaijan is party to The International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries (published in 2014). In a reply to a study conducted by the Private Security Monitor, a project run out of the University of Denver, Azerbaijan is reported to have replied that PSCs were under strong state control, but this cannot be corroborated.

Public procurement in Azerbaijan is regulated by the Public Procurement Law of 2001, which outlines the basic standards of transparency and competition for the country’s acquisition and tendering. The description of this law available on the website of the State Procurement agency is very general. The 2012-2015 National Anti-Corruption Action Plan has a section devoted to the &quoute;Improvement and Promotion of Transparency in Public Procurement.&quoute;

Despite formal legislation regarding procurement protocols, there is a broad consensus amongst analysts that procurement legislation is not effective in practice. Current legislation in Azerbaijan does not oblige procuring institutions to develop or publish procurement plans, and there are many examples of rules being broken. The government has begun publicly listing RFPs/RFQs and announcements about tenders on a website (as stipulated in the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan), but the information is currently not complete and often unclear. And while single source procurement is on the decline, information about the value of single-source procurement is not available, and it is unclear how much procurement is not reported. Azerbaijan has a State Procurement Agency (SPA), which is the central body in charge of procurement. However, its supervisory resources are limited and it has very little, if any, actual authority to sanction instances of fraud. An OECD anti-corruption monitoring team - see 2) found that while the SPA has a lot of functions, it often does not have the necessary tools to implement them, a situation that has left the agency “quite weak in practice.” In terms of procurement in the security sector, there is a lack of transparency and parliamentary oversight of tenders for military construction, food and other purchases for the army. This situation has allowed proxy companies to receive preferential treatment and inflate prices.

It is also not clear what items are exempt on the basis of national security and if they are subject to other forms of oversight.

The Ministry of the Defence Industry of the Azerbaijan Republic has a website that provides information on domestic production activity and cooperation with foreign companies in the defence sphere. However, there is no detailed information on the procurement process in the areas cited in the question. The State Procurement Agency website makes a much broader range of information available, but nothing on the defence sector.

The 2012-2014 National Anti-Corruption Plan nonetheless calls for a public procurement plan.
Nonetheless, the defence procurement cycle process - from assessment of needs, through contract implementation and sign-off, all the way to asset disposal - is not fully disclosed to the public.

Because the government has begun publicly listing RFPs/RFQs and announcements about tenders on a website, score raised to 1.

As has been noted in previous answers, Azerbaijan has a State Procurement Agency (SPA), which is the central body in charge of procurement. However, its supervisory resources are limited and it has very little, if any, actual authority to sanction instances of misprocurement. An OECD anti-corruption monitoring team found that while the SPA has many functions, it often does not possess the necessary tools to implement them, a situation that has left the agency “quite weak in practice.” In terms of procurement in the security sector, there is a lack of transparency and parliamentary oversight of tenders for military construction, food and other purchases for the army is weak. There is a broad consensus amongst analysts that Azerbaijan’s procurement oversight mechanisms are not effective.

As noted in previous answers, the government of Azerbaijan provides only limited information on its defence spending, and the defence budget provides no details on proposed expenditures or specific allocations - see 1), 2) above. While the government provides aggregate figures about overall spending, it does not systematically provide details about individual procurement transactions. The kind of information about its defence purchases that seems to be made available by the foreign companies that sell to Azerbaijan, by research organisation like SIPRI, or Armenian sources. While source 3 above gives information of five purchases or possible purchases in the period of April 2012 to September 2013, there is no indication that the information provided comes from an official Azerbaijan source.

Response to Peer Reviewer: As the government has begun publicly listing RFPs/RFQs and announcements about tenders on a website, as stipulated by the 2012-2015 National Anti-Corruption Plan and score increased from 0 to 1. However, overall transparency is still lacking with regards to defence purchases.

There is no specific information about the standards companies need to observe when bidding for contracts with the defence ministry. 1) above states that foreign actors bidding for contracts need to observe the same rules as local actors. As indicated in previous comments, there is some manifestation of a governmental effort to combat corruption in its public policy statements, and the overall effectiveness of government anti-corruptiuon efforts is highly questionable.


The 2013-2015 National Anti-Corruption Plan calls for &quoute;Development of the mechanism for restriction of participation in public procurement of natural and legal persons due their previous violation of
competition and execution of the transactions on public procurement.&quoute; It also calls for the &quoute;application of measures aimed at expedient review of complaints filed by
bidders in the public procurement competition, with a view to protect their
rights.&quoute; However, it is unclear to what extent competition has been realized in the procurement process and to what extent complaints have been addressed. Score changed to 1.

There is a procurement strategy but it is not clear that is derived from a national security policy or similar document - see 4). A military doctrine was adopted in 2010 and is publicly available, it is not clear whether or not it addresses procurement policy - see 6) Moreover, while there is a public audit body appointed by parliament to audit the government’s books, it has apparently never reviewed any of the security ministries and cannot therefore be considered effective - see 2).

Response to Chapter reviewer: Comments and sources updated.

The website of the Ministry of the Defence Industry provides no detail on the requirements involved in proceeding with defence purchases and it is unclear whether there is a formal procedure in place.

The government has begun publicly listing RFPs/RFQs and announcements about tenders on a website, but the information is currently not complete and often unclear. And while single source procurement is on the decline, it is still common. The PPL Public Procurement Law requires publication of several pieces of information about every tender, but even a short analysis of notices published on the website of the State Procurement Agency (www.tender.gov.az) shows they are very often described vaguely or omitted completely. In 2009, out of more than 800 public procurements which were published, approximately 100 (or about 30% of all the value of public procurement transactions) were single source value tender.

As mentioned in the comments for Question 57, defence and security procurement is inadequately overseen and there is evidence of proxy companies receiving preferential treatment. The level of single sourcing is expected to be much higher and the score was selected accordingly.

No specific information has been found as to whether or not these decisions are audited; however, there seems to be a high level of irregularity in the decisions of tender boards. For instance, in a six-month period of 2009, the state procurement agency recommended cancelling 30 separate tenders due to violations, yet none were cancelled. No evidence has been found to suggest that this situation is any better in the defence and security sector - indeed, to judge by the overall drift of the findings generated by research on Azerbaijan, it is probably considerably worse. A search done on the website referenced at 3) showed entries for Azerbaijan but none related to the defence and security sector.

That said, Azerbaijan involvement in the NATO PfP programme may have had some positive impact in this area, but this has not been corroborated. An effort to broach this issue with NATO PfP officials was not successful, but they may not have anything significant to report.

As stated by the National Integrity Assessment for Azerbaijan, &quoute;the Law on Public Procurement does provide certain mechanisms for the contractors to lodge a complaint of potential misconduct in procurement procedures. The State Procurement Agency, which is tasked among other responsibilities with supervising legality of procurement of goods, works and services on a competitive basis and performance of contracts, can suspend procurement procedures for seven banking days if it finds a violation of law.&quoute; Evidence suggests that enforcement of the Law on Public Procurement is nonetheless weak.

Azerbaijan has reportedly provided training for its procurement staff. In addition, current legislation provides for organisational safeguards at the level of contracting entities to ensure impartiality and objectivity of the decision-making process (prevention of conflict of interest, requirement to establish an independent tendering commission, objective criteria for exclusion of economic operators) See source 3). It is not clear, however, what the content of this training is, or how effective it is in practice. See sources 1) and 2).

The 2012-2013 National Anti-Corruption Plan calls for &quoute;Improvement and Promotion of Transparency in Public Procurement.&quoute; Connected to its call for greater transparency in procurement is the &quoute;application of measures aimed at expedient review of complaints filed by bidders in the public procurement competition, with a view to protect their rights.&quoute; While it's unclear the extent to which these measures have been fully implemented/utilized, I have found no evidence of companies that have attempted to complain being unfairly disadvantaged or debarred from future procurements. The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development characterizes Azerbaijan's public procurement legal framework as &quoute;bureaucratic
and lacking accountability structures.&quoute;

There is no evidence that Azerbaijan has adopted specific regulations or sanctions to deal with corrupt activities of its suppliers. That said, there is evidence of questionable corruption charges being used to take down people considered to be unfriendly to the regime; overall, the sanctions regime appears to be unstructured and highly politicized see 2) and 3).

No hard information on this issue has been found. The government has committed itself to enhancing transparency for different ministries. According to an interview with an expert - see 1) above, more information is now available online to help prepare the preparation of bids and to render public results. This could expose Azerbaijan officials to better practices and set new standards. It is expected that some due diligence is exercised but, to what extent this is done, how, and how rigorously, is not clear. The State Procurement Agency, which is one of the bodies meant to exercise oversight, is reportedly motivated but it lacks resources -see 1) above. Again, how relevant all this might for the defence sector is unclear.

The above-cited report, which is believed to be from 2010, suggests that the government is aware of the advisability of being more transparent about offset programmes in areas not engaging national security - see 1) above. This has been confirmed by the expert interviewed. See source 2). No other details available.

An expert that interviewed- see 1) above - considered that contracts might not be subject to any significant degree of competition in the defence and security sector. For example, in dealing with procurement for emergency situations, the Procurement Agency tended to be ready to waive procurement requirements (details not available). It is therefore likely that the same approach also applies to procurement in the defence sector.

The IMF country report of 2013 on Azerbaijan - see 3) above- calls for a strengthening of its fiscal framework and makes no mention of any arrangements for offset contracts for either the defence/security or any any public sector in Azerbaijan. No further information on this issue has been found.

No concrete information appears to be available on this issue. But in view of the overall lack of transparency and control over the defence sector, it seems unlikely that there is an effective system for governing the activities of agents and intermediaries active in the procurement cycle.

Information on the financing packages is sparse or non-existent in keeping with the overall lack of transparency over the defence sector, as the above -cited websites underline.

No information indicating that the government requires such conditions has been found. As the research for this project has underlined, the government's approach to corruption is essentially declaratory.

Reports by international expert groups and the media suggest that Azerbaijani defence acquisition has indeed been subject to political influence by selling nations. For example, Azerbaijan has been said to be &quoute;slow to implement NATO-recommended reforms, partly because of its policy of balancing the interests of the US, EU, Russia and Iran&quoute; (see reference 1) .

An article published by a Turkish newspaper in 2013 suggests that Azerbaijan's defence acquisition policy is to a great extent driven by political considerations: &quoute;Since 2011, Azerbaijan has signed or enhanced defence industry co-operation agreements with governments and companies from South Korea, Israel, South Africa and Turkey&quoute;.

Azerbaijan's defence co-operation with Turkey dates back to the early independence period, and bilateral relations were developed further in 2011, through a joint venture between the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence Industry and Turkey's state-owned Machinery and Chemistry Enterprise, focused on developing small arms and ammunition. Similar to Turkey, Israel has taken an important place in Azerbaijan's defence co-operation. Since 2011, Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) has been involved with Azerbaijan in establishing a joint venture on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).