Azerbaijan is far and away the most important country you’ve likely never heard of and almost certainly couldn’t pinpoint on an unlabeled map. 

Wedged between the Russian Federation to the north, Armenia to the west, Iran to the south, and the Caspian Sea to the east, this tiny country, slightly smaller than Indiana, vastly outpunches its weight when it comes to international affairs.

And it’s not just geography that triggers this heightened importance. It’s also the fact that Azerbaijan has somehow managed to skillfully walk a proverbial tightrope over the past several decades since gaining its independence from Soviet rule, largely getting along with its neighbors to the north and the south and finally making what seems to be a lasting peace with Armenia, all while managing to avoid the typical pitfalls that come with having a majority Muslim population.

A key to its foreign affairs is adherence to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which eschews military alliances and pursues an independent foreign policy.

Despite around 96% of the population identifying as Muslim, the country considers itself a secular republic and is largely welcoming of Jews and Christians. Sure, it helps that most of its Muslims are Muslim-in-name-only or the religious equivalent of Christians who attend church only on Christmas and Easter, but it also helps that the government has been actively pursuing secularism and religious tolerance and crushing extremism since before Soviet times.

It’s a beautiful country with a rich and fascinating history, something that a small group of journalists that I was privileged to be a part of got to find out firsthand during a week-long media tour, part of which included an interview with Hikmet Hajiyev, a high-level........

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