Ethiopia recognized the independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan, immediately after the later regained it from the then Soviet Union, on 26th December 1991 and less than a year after, the diplomatic relations between the two countries established on November 2, 1992.
Bilateral friendly relations between two countries have been developing steadily and in the end of 2014 Embassy of Azerbaijan started functioning in Addis Ababa. Two countries have had high-level visits, including official visit of the Azerbaijani foreign minister to Ethiopia in 2017, resulting in signing of MoU on political consultations between Ministries of Foreign Affairs. Same year, a high-level Azerbaijan-Ethiopia business meeting was hosted by Baku. A high-level Ethiopian delegation, led by the Ethiopian State Minister of Foreign Affairs visited Azerbaijan to take part in the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) held in Baku in October, 2019.
Humanitarian dimension has always been a part of development of bilateral relations with certain modern historical background, when hundreds of Ethiopians received education in Azerbaijan and that trend is also being continued nowadays.
Also, as a part of recent activities in humanitarian dimension, namely in the field of culture, the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Addis Ababa published IRS (Heritage) magazine in Amharic language, held poetry night in Addis Ababa dedicated to the 880th anniversary of the great Azerbaijani poet and philosopher Nizami Ganjavi and has plans, as mentioned in the recent interview to Asham TV, to have another poetry night of Mujiraddin Beylaqani – a famous poet and philosopher born to an Azerbaijani father and Ethiopian mother in 1130. 30 years of diplomatic relations between two countries are being celebrated in the Year of Shusha city, cultural capital of Azerbaijan with sacred significance for each Azerbaijani around the globe that marks its 270 years. The city was founded back in 1752 by Azerbaijani Panakhali Khan, being a crown of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, it was liberated from Armenian Armed Forces on 8th of November 2020. The city of Shusha – the ancient cradle of Azerbaijani culture and entire Turkic world – was also declared Cultural Capital of the Turkic World 2023.
Fruitful cooperation between Azerbaijan and Ethiopia in the international arena shall also be mentioned. Both countries share fundamental principles on respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of the states, non-interference in the internal domestic affairs of the countries and other norms, importance of which nowadays is more than ever, particularly with respect to ongoing conflicts in the respective regions of both countries.
Despite geographical distance, two countries have remarkable similarities and future of bilateral relations is seen prosperous.
Independent Analyst Veritas Temeliketi