Azerbaijan – the only country in the world that has kept its land borders closed for six years due to coronavirus

If, during two years of living in Georgia, the journalist had set aside one dollar every time he heard the question "Why doesn't your country open its land borders?", he would have had enough money for a plane ticket to Baku. And if he had collected a dollar for every version he heard about why Azerbaijan actually keeps its borders closed, he would have had enough money for luggage too.

Six years after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when in many countries it is only reminded by posters in public restrooms urging people to wash their hands more thoroughly, Azerbaijan continues to use it as a pretext to keep its land borders closed.

But neither the people nor the Azerbaijani authorities themselves, who extend this ban every three months, believe this version. They – President Ilham Aliyev and Members of Parliament – speak of some external threats, without revealing whom they specifically mean, and generally refer to the turbulent world situation and geopolitics.

Land borders are closed with all neighbors – Iran, Turkey, Russia, Armenia, and Georgia.

For the latter, the situation is particularly difficult: Azerbaijanis are the largest minority in Georgia, 233,000 people, or more than 6% of the population. Almost all of them live in regions near the Azerbaijani border.

Many earned their living through cross-border trade; on the other side – nearby, but often essentially out of reach – live their relatives.

Through two capitals to a neighboring village

The village of Kirach-Muganlo in Georgia has partially emptied over these six years. It stands right on the border with Azerbaijan – only two hundred meters from the edge of the village to the border post.

Trade used to thrive here. Restaurants were open. Tourists would stop here for a bite to eat.

Here is the bakery where I used to buy village bread on my way to Tbilisi a few years ago. Now it's empty. "Everything collapsed, everyone went bankrupt," says a woman herding geese behind a wooden fence.

Here there are sturdy stone houses, two-story, with large gazebos decorated with metal embossing. But there are also many abandoned, unfinished ones. Chickens roam the grounds of an abandoned pub.

In the village, they say the only income here comes from rare taxi customers. Azerbaijan doesn't let anyone in, but you can leave the country via the land border – only if you are not an Azerbaijani citizen.

For Azerbaijanis with Georgian passports, this means they can visit relatives by plane – and return by land. For their relatives on the other side of the border, often the only option is a plane.

Azerbaijan has one major international airport that regularly serves flights to other countries – it is located in Baku.

Since Azerbaijan closed its borders, Azerbaijanis, according to state statistics, have been traveling more than twice as rarely.

They rarely used planes, and Georgia was their second most visited country after Russia. Now, Azerbaijanis travel to Georgia three times less frequently.

For Georgia, Azerbaijan was the second most visited country after Turkey before the pandemic. But now, Georgian citizens travel to Azerbaijan ten times less frequently.

About fifteen men stand near the checkpoint next to Kirach-Muganlo. One of them is 67-year-old Azad Ismailov, who was born and raised in this village. He says he only talks to his son, who lives in Azerbaijan, via video call – neither of them has money for a plane ticket.

"We can't travel [to Azerbaijan], plane tickets cost 600 lari (224 dollars), and my pension is 350 lari. Where should I spend this money, on a plane ticket or on food? We can't go to weddings or funerals," says Azad.

Павялічыць

On the other side of the border, along the highway, stretches the village of Shikhly. Practically everyone we spoke to has relatives on that side, whom they used to visit on foot.

Now, to get to Shikhly, you have to drive for more than an hour to Tbilisi airport (about 60 km), fly from there to Baku, and then drive almost seven hours (more than 500 km) across the entire country back to the border.

"All our relatives are on that side," says young driver Abu Mammadov, an ethnic Azerbaijani with a Georgian passport, pointing to the border crossing. "People traded, did business, and now they're stuck here. To get there (to Azerbaijan), you have to fly via Baku, but before I used to go to Azerbaijan and back 10 times a day."

According to Abu, the last time he was there was in 2019.

Closed borders are a problem for all places in Georgia where Azerbaijanis live: Marneuli, Rustavi, Tbilisi. When they hear you are from Baku, they immediately ask about the borders and start telling similar stories about relatives, weddings, funerals, and ancestral graves.

At the Azerbaijani consulate, where I was twice, almost everyone in line for an appointment came with a request for a special permit to cross the land border. A poorly dressed woman, who does not know the Latin script that Azerbaijan switched to from Cyrillic 30 years ago, asks to write a letter for her, explaining her poverty and that she wants to visit her deceased husband's grave with her young children.

At the market in Marneuli, people, upon hearing that I am from Baku, curse the Azerbaijani authorities, including President Ilham Aliyev, whom it is not customary to fear here – unlike in Azerbaijan.

Any news from Azerbaijan on social media can quickly turn into discussions about closed borders. At the end of January last year, Aliyev congratulated Azerbaijanis worldwide on Solidarity Day, and in the comments to the news, Georgian Azerbaijanis demanded, out of solidarity, that the borders be opened.

Many construct theories about the true reasons for the closed borders. Some believe it's all because of the war with Armenia, and if a peace treaty is signed, Azerbaijan will open its borders. Others, all these years – even before the recent events in Iran – explain the isolation by the possibility of war there and the risk of a refugee influx.

There is a version that the Azerbaijani authorities fear an influx of Russians after the start of the war in Ukraine, and if that war ends, then the border will definitely be opened.

There is also an idea that isolation saves the country from capital outflow. According to yet another version, the closed land borders benefit the state airline "Azal."

All these versions – which lack any concrete evidence – would hardly be discussed so actively on both sides of the border if the authorities were more specific and less contradictory in their explanations.

Secret forces that cannot be named

"The fact that our land borders have remained closed in recent years has saved us from very great catastrophes. Even today, with the borders remaining closed, dangerous actions are being taken and stopped," Aliyev said in 2024.

No other COVID restrictions remain in Azerbaijan, and the president himself admits that the pandemic is a formal reason for keeping the land borders closed. He speaks of "serious threats coming from outside," but does not name them.

"I think you will understand if we don't go into too much detail," Aliyev says, referring to national security, ensuring stability, crises, and wars in the region.

Pro-government media, political scientists, and deputies defend the president's position. Sometimes he is also supported on Azerbaijani social networks – especially when Armenian commentators come to mock.

The remnants of the opposition, criticizing the decision, compare the country to either Turkmenistan or North Korea. The leader of the systemic opposition party "Republican Alternative," Natik Jafarli, calls the idea that the country's borders are closed for security reasons a "disgrace."

"There cannot be a worse thesis for Azerbaijan, because our army and security forces are strong, so why don't Georgia and Armenia, which are much weaker than us, keep their borders closed for this reason?!" he writes. "Russia, which is committing aggression against Ukraine, and Ukraine, which is fighting for its existence, have not closed their borders. What happened to us that we keep our borders closed for such a reason?!"

South Caucasus researcher Kirill Krivosheev believes that although the threat of a refugee influx from Iran or – in case of a new mobilization – from Russia indeed exists, Azerbaijan could at least make an exception for Georgia.

"It seems to me that after the pandemic, this (closed borders) is simply inertia; it's calmer for them that way. And the interests of citizens are, of course, secondary," he says. "It's also a besieged fortress regime, where autocracy must explain the restriction of freedoms with terrible threats."

The current "quarantine regime" expires on April 1st – but few believe it will be canceled.

Azerbaijani businessman Azad, who asked for his name to be changed, used to travel to Tbilisi several times a year before 2020.

"I used to come as if to my own home, and now I read these comments about my country doing everything right, even though no one can explain why, and such despair takes over," he says. "It seems like this will never end."

• 1
• 0
• 0
• 2
• 0
• 0
• 2
• 0