"Azerbaijan is becoming a key actor for Central Asian countries" Kyrgyz pundit on Caliber.Az

Bishkek hosted a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State, a landmark event for the entire post-Soviet space, where the very format of the event serves as a centring foundation for building relations between the entire bloc of countries. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended the meeting of CIS leaders and said that our country is a reliable partner in the transit and transportation sphere for many CIS countries.

In an interview with Caliber.Az, Esen Usubaliev, candidate of historical sciences, and director of the analytical centre Prudent Solutions (Bishkek), noted that the CIS summit in Bishkek was held in a constructive, friendly atmosphere and we can say that the processes that took place before and are taking place now within the commonwealth have received the necessary impetus for their further development.

"Since it was previously believed that the CIS as a political organism was beginning to give up its positions against the background of integration processes in other organizations. But the very presence of the leaders of the countries at this meeting confirmed in the best possible way their mood for productive work within the CIS mechanism and their direct interest in it.

In general, following the results of the summit, 15-16 documents related to the development of the CIS were signed. But it seems to me that one of the most interesting moments of the summit was that the leaders of states held a number of interesting, bilateral meetings. In particular, a long and meaningful meeting took place between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. And from the very beginning, Putin clearly noted that there would be a big, serious, interesting and complex conversation with the president of Azerbaijan, on the outcome of which issues of security, economics and other processes in the South Caucasus would depend. This characteristic certainly emphasizes its significance,” noted Usubaliev.

An important fact that has been established in the last two to three years is that Azerbaijan has shown that it is a key state in the South Caucasus, on which the implementation of transport, communication, energy projects depends, our interlocutor said.

“Thus, the importance of Azerbaijan for Central Asian countries has increased noticeably in recent years, and if we consider this in the context of the launch of the Middle Corridor, the One Belt, One Road initiative, multimodal corridors with the participation of Central Asian countries, we can say that the intensification of Azerbaijan’s initiatives is one of the most logical and expected steps towards creating a zone of interaction in the field of transport, communications and trade and economic cooperation in the region or even a set of regions,” the political scientist noted.

He believes that in the foreseeable future, the importance of Azerbaijan as the most important transport and logistics link of several regions at once will only increase and Kyrgyzstan clearly understands this.

"In his speeches, Kyrgyzstan’s president has repeatedly said that the development of multimodal and other transport corridors is becoming increasingly important for the country, in particular, Bishkek is now pinning great hopes on the launch of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railroad with further access to Russia, the South Caucasus and the Middle East. And that is why Kyrgyz-Azerbaijani relations are of key importance for us now, taking into account the fact that our countries have special ties within the framework of Turkic unity," the expert said.   

As Usubaliev notes, one cannot fail to note here the unexpected visit of Ilham Aliyev to a consultative meeting of leaders of Central Asian countries in Dushanbe, which suggests that the Central Asian region and the South Caucasus are something more than two regions, but are actively being formed space of cooperation and interaction.

“The result of the summit is the emerging fact that Azerbaijan will become an active player in matters of economic, transport, logistics, and energy cooperation in Central Asia, within the CIS and other associations - this becomes obvious. Moreover, all Central Asian countries look very positively at the activation of the political and economic role of Baku. This is a long-awaited, expected action on the part of Azerbaijan and you can be sure that in the person of Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan has a reliable partner in the Central Asian region, which is always open to cooperation and interaction, and can offer many initiatives for its part to improve regional interaction between bilateral relations,” Usubaliev added.