The long-time Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mammadyarov, has resigned after sharp criticism from President Ilham Aliyev. At the recent cabinet meeting, Aliyev said that the country's foreign minister's work did not meet current requirements. Aliyev was also outraged that he could not reach the Foreign Minister during the recent Azerbaijani-Armenian clashes on the border. As it later turned out, Mammadyarov worked remotely from home at that time.

Several weeks before the minister's resignation, criminal proceedings were launched against several senior State Department officials who were later arrested on suspicion of corruption. Elmar Mammadyarov has headed the ministry for 16 years. He refused to comment on his resignation.

The country's former education minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, was appointed as his successor. Unlike Mammadyarov, he is not a career diplomat, but a lawyer. He has been the country's education minister since 2018.

Bayramov nomination comes as a surprise, as the Azerbaijani news agency "Turan" writes, since he has not worked in the diplomatic service until now.