Surat Huseynov (12 February 1959-31 July 2023) was Prime Minister of Azerbaijan from 30 June 1993 to 7 October 1994, succeeding Panah Huseynov and preceding Fuad Guliyev.
Biography[]
Surat Huseynov was born in Kirovabad, Azerbaijan SSR (now Ganja, Azerbaijan), Soviet Union in 1959, and he served in the Soviet Army from 1977 to 1979 before working as a textile factory inspector and manager. He became one of the key figures in Azerbaijan's black market, and he funded the national conservative Azerbaijani Popular Front Party in the late Soviet era. At the dawn of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1990, he formed an armed group supported by a local Soviet division, rising to prominence as an Azeri commander during the war. He went on to serve as Prime Minister of Azerbaijan from June 1993 to October 1994, giving him extensive authority over the war effort. However, his opposition to Heydar Aliyev's pro-Western policies led to Huseynov being suspected of involvement in a coup attempt in October 1994, and he fled to Russia and was sent back to Azerbaijan in March 1997 and imprisoned until 2004. Huseynov retired to the town of Buzovna, and he died while receiving medical treatment in Istanbul in 2023 at the age of 64.