Azerbaijan
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Five-Year Review: Non-signatory Azerbaijan is not considering accession to the convention as officials say the territorial dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories must first be resolved. Azerbaijan has not participated in any meetings of the convention. It is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but inherited a stockpile of cluster munitions from the Soviet Union.
Policy
The Republic of Azerbaijan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Azerbaijan says it cannot join the convention until the conflict with Armenia is settled, including the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan last commented on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in August 2010, when a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official expressed support for the convention, but said Azerbaijan cannot join “at this stage” because of the “ongoing occupation” by Armenia of Nagorno-Karabakh and “seven areas adjoining regions” of Azerbaijan.[1]
Azerbaijan participated in some of the Oslo Process meetings that led to the creation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[2]
It has not attended any meetings of the ban convention, such as the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014 or intersessional meetings held in Geneva since 2011.
Azerbaijan has voted in favor of recent UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently Resolution 69/189 on 18 December 2014, which expressed “outrage” at the continued use.[3]
Azerbaijan is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty or the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Azerbaijan is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but it inherited a stockpile of cluster munitions from the Soviet Union. Jane’s Information Group has reported that RBK-250, RBK-250-275, and RBK-500 cluster bombs are in service with the country’s air force.[4] RBK-250 bombs with PTAB submunitions were observed among the abandoned Soviet-era ammunition stockpiles located near the village of Saloğlu in the northwestern part of the country in 2005.[5]
Azerbaijan also possesses Grad 122mm and Smerch 300mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[6] Azerbaijan received 12 Smerch 300mm unguided surface-to-surface rocket launchers from Ukraine in 2007–2008.[7]
Azerbaijan received a total of 50 Extra surface-to-surface missiles from Israel for its Lynx-type launchers in 2008–2009; it had ordered them in 2005.[8] According to the product information sheet available from its manufacturer, the Extra missile can have either a unitary or submunition warhead.[9] It is not know which variant was acquired.
[1] Statement by Elchin Huseynli, Arms Control Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Baku, 2 August 2010. The Azerbaijan Campaign to Ban Landmines organized this roundtable meeting on the mine and cluster munition problem in Azerbaijan and globally. “Azerbaijan will not join the UN Convention on the prohibition of cluster munitions,” Zerkalo (newspaper), 3 August 2010; and Letter No. 115/10/L from Amb. Murad N. Najafbayli, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the UN in Geneva, to the CMC, 10 May 2010.
[2] For details on Azerbaijan’s cluster munition policy and practice through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 188.
[3] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 69/189, 18 December 2014. Azerbaijan voted in favor of similar resolutions on 15 May and 18 December 2013.
[4] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 835.
[5] Human Rights Watch visit to Saloğlu, May 2005.
[6] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 88; and Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2007–2008, CD-edition, 15 January 2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
[7] Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “Arms Transfers Database,” Recipient report for Azerbaijan for the period 1950–2011, generated on 15 May 2012.
[8] Ibid. According to SIPRI, the Azerbaijani designation for the Lynx multiple rocket launchers are Dolu-1, Leysan, and Shimsek.
[9] Israel Military Industries, “Product Information Sheet: Extra Extended Range Artillery,” undated, p. 3.