It is rather an odd way for a small state to try to make itself heard by gathering the entire world to talk about how to get along. However, Azerbaijan’s seventh World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue saw some 2,000 delegates gather in Baku, of whom more than 500 were international participants coming from over 100 countries. This time, President Ilham Aliyev asked who sets the rules at either end.
Azerbaijan’s President delivered something sharper than the usual plea for tolerance: an argument that national sovereignty means little if powerful states reserve the right to lecture others while international institutions struggle to uphold their own decisions. Perhaps a country unable to dictate international rules can make itself useful to those who write them. Hosting confers no automatic authority.
But invitations, chairmanships and negotiations on familiar ground provide access, agenda-setting opportunities and visibility. After decades of unsuccessful efforts to reverse occupation and subsequent military victories, Azerbaijan wants its experience read as a political lesson. In Baku’s telling, neither international recognition nor diplomatic sympathy is a substitute for the capacity to protect national interests.
The harder question is whether a lesson born of one conflict can be translated into a credible principle for an increasingly fractured world. A capital that refuses to remain on the sidelines Baku has had decades to gather all those diplomatic invitations and responsibilities which normally fall to cities many times larger. The city’s chairmanship of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia was extended to 2028.
At the October summit, CICA issued a Baku Declaration and named an Azerbaijani diplomat as the organization’s new secretary-general. Despite being located outside of Central Asia, Azerbaijan is also a member of the consultation arrangement for Central Asian leaders. Azerbaijan, then, is set to host an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit in 2027 and a European Political Community summit in 2028.
These organizations belong to different political geographies, ideologies, and strategies. Baku’s logic is that it should not have to pick sides to be able to make a meaningful engagement in other camps. It is about being relevant as a middle power, but not about being a superpower.
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