Azerbaijan's stature keeps growing in international arena While Armenia has no choice but to lie and slander

I will start with news from Armenia. "Hraparak" newspaper writes that the construction of a metallurgical plant in the border village of Yeraskh (Arazdeyan) has already been suspended and will not be resumed. "According to some reports, a possible relocation of the plant's construction site is being discussed. One of the local residents said that they want to move the plant to the Sotk (Zod) community of Gegharkunik region," the Armenian daily claims.

Tigran Abrahamyan, Secretary of the "I Have Honour " parliamentary faction, also expressed his opinion on this issue. "After the 44-day war Azerbaijan forbade the Armenian authorities to operate the Zod mine, did not allow the construction of a metallurgical plant in Yeraskh, and now opposes the operation of the Kapan airport," he wrote on his Facebook page.

One reads all this and realises how great the Armenian leadership's fear of Azerbaijan is. And not only because of its military power but also because of its ability to consistently and reasonably defend its position at the diplomatic level despite the flurry of Armenian lies and slander. And Armenians, after the deafening exposure of a number of their provocations in influential international structures, are now forced to think about the consequences of their actions for themselves.

From time to time they still try to play, as they call it, according to the old programme, without taking into account the new realities. They tried to declare something condemning Azerbaijan in the UN Security Council but got another failure as a result. The officials of Yerevan, the main people in the world Armenian community, as well as politicians, public figures, and journalists of different countries hired by them, will feel the after-taste of this failure for a long time.

Why? Because all these people did not want to face the truth, preferring to live in illusions. And the truth is simple and indisputable: Armenia in the South Caucasus is undoubtedly a loser state, which has long chosen a certain self-isolation as a principle of its existence and has always had territorial claims to Azerbaijan in one way or another. Having tried to achieve its goals through war and occupation, and even temporarily succeeded, after its defeat, it ended up standing aloof from the most important regional economic and transport projects.

Meanwhile, among the plans realised by Azerbaijan with foreign partners in recent decades are such huge projects as the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline, the construction of which began in 1997. The pipeline was put into operation in 1999, and its total length is 920 kilometres, of which 480 pass through Azerbaijani territory. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is also worthy of special mention. The agreement on its laying was signed in Istanbul in November 1999, in May 2006 the construction was completed and soon the first tanker was filled with oil from the pipeline in Ceyhan.

It is impossible to overestimate the launch of these pipelines. Neither is the launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (South Caucasus Gas Pipeline), which was laid to transport Azerbaijani natural gas from the Shah Deniz field to Georgia and Türkiye. Gas deliveries started in 2013.

And that's not all. In June 2019, a truly historic event took place: Azerbaijani gas from the Shah Deniz field via the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) reached the Turkish-Greek border. "Gas from the Shah Deniz field, transported through the TANAP pipeline, reached the border with Europe on Azerbaijan's National Salvation Day - June 15," SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) said in a statement.

Last July, Azerbaijan, and the European Commission signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic partnership in the energy sector. Based on this memorandum, Azerbaijan plans to double gas supplies to the European Union market by 2027. Gas from Azerbaijan is already supplied to Georgia, Türkiye, Bulgaria, and Italy, and soon it will come to Romania. If all inter-system gas pipelines work successfully, Hungary and Slovakia will also receive "blue fuel" from Absheron by the end of the year. In general, gas from Azerbaijan supplied through the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) has become a safety cushion for many countries.

And even more grandiose projects lie ahead. Last December, the leaders of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, and Hungary signed an agreement on laying an underwater electric cable under the Black Sea to supply Europe with Azerbaijani energy. European Commission (EC) chief Ursula von der Leyen described the Black Sea electricity cable project, which will supply Azerbaijan with electricity to Europe, as ambitious.

"I can only say: what an ambitious project! It will connect us on both sides of the Black Sea and go further towards the Caspian Sea - both for digital communication and for energy," von der Leyen said at the signing ceremony of the "Agreement on Strategic Partnership for the Development and Transmission of Green Energy between the Governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, and Hungary."

This is what Azerbaijan has done. And there are a number of other projects brilliantly realised by Azerbaijan. For example, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway opened in 2017. All this shows that Azerbaijan is an example of a state that has initiated and implemented many plans that are of great importance both for the South Caucasus and for the whole world. Armenia, on the other hand, cannot boast of anything even close to this. It was, is, and remains the weak link in the South Caucasus.

Akbar Hasanov