U.S. State Department’s report: Azerbaijan actively opposes terrorist organizations

Azerbaijan actively opposed terrorist organizations seeking to move people, money, and material through the Caucasus, U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism 2012 says.

According to the report, the country continued to strengthen its counterterrorism efforts and had some success in both reducing the presence of terrorist facilitators and hampering their activities.

The report says that in March, Azerbaijani security services reported the arrest of 22 individuals accused of working with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to carry out terrorist attacks against Western embassies and other groups with Western ties.
According to the report, in May, Azerbaijan's security service reported it had arrested 40 terrorist suspects and thwarted planned terrorist attacks during the May Eurovision Song Contest held in Baku. Planned targets during the event included major hotels frequented by foreigners as well as the song contest venue.

"Azerbaijan is a member of Moneyval, the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, a Financial Action Task Force (FATF)-style regional body. In order to bring Azerbaijan's legislative framework into conformity with international standards and requirements, including those of the EU and FATF, a significant number of legislative acts - four codes, 15 laws, and six presidential decrees covering more than 100 articles - have been amended but the Financial Monitoring Service (FMS), Azerbaijan's Financial Intelligence Unit, since 2009. Azerbaijan continued to work with Moneyval to address the full range of anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) issues identified in its Mutual Evaluation Report. The U.S. government, primarily USAID and Treasury, has been one of the leading partners of the FMS since its formation in 2009, working with it along with the Prosecutors office and others to provide technical assistance and training to upgrade enforcement capabilities, which included four distinct training sessions on AML/CTF issues in FY 2012," the report says.