"Azerbaijan, Georgia have opportunity to defend themselves against any enemy" Zaal Kasrelishvili for Caliber.Az

The Georgian parliament has recently supported the agreement "On cooperation between the government of Georgia and the government of Azerbaijan in the sphere of defence" submitted for ratification.

In April 2023, Georgian Defence Minister Juansher Burchuladze and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Col Gen Zakir Hasanov, signed the said agreement.

The main directions of cooperation in the agreement include special education, military exercises, defence and security policy, contacts within the framework of NATO Partnership for Peace, military legislation, military topography, military medicine, defence cyber security, social, sports and cultural events.

However, how will all of this play out in reality? More specifically, what will change in relations between the two countries after the treaty enters into legal force, what threats will it protect against, and how will it affect the foreign policy of the two states?

Defence cooperation is a comprehensive work, Georgian political scientist and chairman of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus Zaal Kasrelishvili told Caliber.Az, pointing out that the conclusion of this agreement implies serious military cooperation.

"I would like to congratulate Azerbaijan on this event because it is a new important strategic agreement between our countries. Let me remind you that we already have several strategic agreements, intergovernmental and interstate, which have provided our countries with stability, peace and profit. And the new document will strengthen this cooperation for the benefit of our two nations.

It will strengthen our security, and the enemies who thought they could undermine the peaceful situation in the South Caucasus, manipulate our countries, guided by the formula 'divide and rule', set the republics against each other, will lose their appetite for all this," he stressed.

The NATO program, he noted, has been implemented in Georgia for a number of years. These are military and staff drills and various civil defence activities.

"The world is unstable, our neighbours will not calm down in any way, and no one knows what will happen to Russia in the post-war period, after the Ukrainian war. And not only the northern neighbours - I think some countries in our neighbourhood will also not be happy that all the energy flows will go through our corridor, where Azerbaijan and Georgia play a decisive role.

For us, for our countries, this corridor is not just a strategic corridor - it is the road of peace, where the West, the East, the North and the South come together. Such a corridor needs protection, and so that no one would think of bad ideas, some of our neighbours and their agents should know that we have the ability to defend ourselves from any enemy, from any threat, and within the framework of the new agreement Azerbaijan and Georgia will help each other," Kasreshvili said.

Moreover, according to the pundit, this shows that NATO countries approve of the steps taken by the two South Caucasian republics and give them the opportunity to rise militarily to their level to be able to repel threats.

"Here I mean both drills and qualifications, as well as supplies of equipment and weapons. Everything is not in words but in deeds. And of course, the closest partner of Georgia and Azerbaijan is Türkiye. It is Türkiye that is the closest, and it can react faster than others to any threats.

An important point is that now there will be separate forces of operative reaction for pre-empting any threats. And the main coordinator of special drills of such units will be the general NATO leadership. And the alliance has the same methods for the Turks, for Georgians and for the Azerbaijanis," the Georgian expert noted.

The expert believes that everything is taken into account in such cooperation, including the Iranian threats. According to him, Georgia has historically suffered a lot from Iran and its ambitions to seize the Caucasus, and Georgians remember it well.

"I would paraphrase the thought and add more clearly: the situation is such that now Azerbaijan and Georgia are given the opportunity and rights to strengthen their geographical borders so that at the right time they can withstand any aggression from the outside," the pundit summed up.