"It is disadvantageous for Azerbaijan to be drawn into the North-South project for the sake of Iran and Russia"
Inozemtsev and Krayev talk to Caliber.Az

INTERVIEWS  03 April 2023 - 11:11

"We hope that the current tensions in relations between Baku and Tehran are temporary and will be overcome as soon as possible," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference following talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Moscow.

He said the elimination of these difficulties would help promote trilateral cooperation involving Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan, including in the context of "implementation of important projects within the development of the North-South international transport corridor." "We are ready to help our friends in resolving the existing problems," Lavrov concluded.

What is becoming clear from this statement? Apparently, it is that Moscow is concerned about the prospect of the shortest land link to Iran by rail through our country, which is once again slipping away. A month ago, while in Baku, Lavrov stated, "Russia is interested in cooperation with Azerbaijan within the North-South project. The implementation of this project will significantly increase the importance of the region."

In this regard, he added that the Russian side is ready to proceed to practical steps to implement the missing components of the transport corridor project, and said that the construction of the Resht-Astara railway section is currently under discussion.

Today, however, these plans once again look rather elusive. If we recall, for example, the attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran. In fact, since then Baku has had no official representatives in this neighbouring country. And there have been other events, in one way or another, connected with the rift in relations.

That brings up the question: does Azerbaijan even need to discuss this issue when its two main stakeholders, Russia and Iran, are under international sanctions for well-known reasons? How will Azerbaijan benefit from the emergence of direct cargo transit through its territory between these two states with their current system of government?

Well-known foreign experts have expressed their views on this matter to Caliber.Az.

Vladislav Inozemtsev, the Russian political scientist, and head of the Centre for Postindustrial Society Research, first of all, said that this plan has always seemed very illusory to him.

"I would say that there was a lot of interest in Europe over the past year in the statements of the Russian leadership that they are trying to create a corridor between Russia, Iran, and (through the Persian Gulf) India. I never thought that this was an economically justified step0 because the costs are huge, the port capacity is very small, and in general, of course, there are a lot of contradictions between these countries.

In my opinion, this trade route can't be of serious importance. That is, it will take several years to create it in any case. A lot of money will be spent. And some regional trade flows will be able to go there, but this direction will not become a big, important artery.

And I think that right now Azerbaijan is much more interested in relations with Europe, with Central Asian countries, as a potential transit country for their resources to world markets, given that Russia may become even more toxic. So I think it would probably really be quite disadvantageous for Azerbaijan to get particularly involved in this story. But first of all, let me stress it again because there are no special benefits there. That is, the volume of trade between Iran and Russia through Azerbaijan will never compare with the flow of goods from Central Asia through the South Caucasus to Türkiye and Europe. So I think if there is a feeling in Azerbaijan's political establishment that this is not a very profitable project, it is probably the right one," Inozemtsev noted.

According to Oleksandr Krayev, an expert of the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, there is a geopolitical component in the emergence of such transit and in general in what Iran and Russia are doing at this stage.

"Because it is still necessary to recognize the fact that we are at the starting point of a new cold war between the PRC and the United States. And right now, by the way, China's diplomacy has intensified, including at the highest level, US diplomacy has intensified (as an example, the same Democracy Summit), and it is clear that both sides are gathering their camps. That is the bipolar confrontation has already started, and now each side is gathering its allies," believes Krayev.

In this aspect, if Azerbaijan still decides, let's say, to yield to Tehran's and Moscow's conditions and go for such an arrangement, from Washington's point of view it will look like a party's choice, he says.

"It's the same from Beijing's point of view. So now every decision, every action in one way or another determines whose side the state will be on during the cold confrontation. Therefore from the point of view of geopolitics, looking at the fact that the Americans have ramped up their diplomacy in the Caucasus and in general their political activity, it becomes obvious that the states need to understand - who is for whom in the Caucasus? Who is ready to support whom, and with whom to cooperate?

So, I am rather a supporter of the version that Baku's decision in the context of this transit, and how it will behave towards both Moscow and Tehran in the current circumstances, will be very sensitively perceived in Washington, and due to this decision conclusions will be drawn.

And that is why it is necessary to clearly understand what decisions Armenia will take in parallel. Because both the Americans and the Chinese are also watching it very closely," Krayev summed up.

Caliber.Az