Currently, significant changes are taking place in the foreign policy of Azerbaijan, writes Niyazi Niyazov, head of the Department of International Relations in the Post-Soviet Space of St. Petersburg State University.
For a long time, Azerbaijani foreign policy was mainly directed at creating favourable conditions to resolve the Karabakh problem and to restore the territorial integrity of the country. Currently, Azerbaijan begins to solve qualitatively different problems. First, it is attracting investments to restore the regions of Karabakh, second, deepening mutually beneficial cooperation with geographically close states, and third, increasing the country’s role in world politics.
A major role in solving these problems will be played by further deepening interaction with the Turkic-speaking states of Central Asia — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan — both on a bilateral and multilateral basis.
Azerbaijan’s foreign policy towards the Central Asian states began to take shape after gaining independence. Factors contributing to the rapprochement were as follows: a common past, including being part of the Russian Empire and the USSR; linguistic proximity (with the exception of Tajikistan), religious identity, the general view of the elites of these countries on the nature of world politics, the special relationship of these states with Russia, as well as their growing interaction with Turkey and China. At the same time, Baku tried to build its connections primarily through bilateral relations. This is partly due to the fact that Azerbaijan believed that the activities of international organisations and structures designed to solve problems of international security and socio-economic development were inefficient.
One of the advantages of bilateral cooperation is that it is aimed at solving not global, but tactical problems. This enables the parties to interact not only with each other, but also in parallel with other actors who are aimed at achieving the same goal. The advantage of such interaction is that the state’s foreign policy is focused on achieving specific goals in a short-term period. In addition, it becomes possible to use the resources of different partners to solve the problem. This does not deny the possibility that such interaction can be transformed into models of a constant cooperation.
The leadership of Azerbaijan was one of the first to realize the good trends of bilateral relations and made enormous efforts to develop them. It was within the framework of the “Shushi Declaration” (June 15, 2021) with Turkey and the “Declaration on Allied Interaction” (February 22, 2022) with Russia, and now Baku has intensified activities aimed at interaction with the Turkic-speaking states of Central Asia.
Today, Azerbaijani-Uzbek relations are at a very high level, thanks to the friendly relations between leaders Ilham Aliyev and Shavkat Mirziyoyev. In 2023, a roadmap for energy cooperation for 2023-2025 was signed.
It is planned to expand cooperation in the fields of agriculture, industry, tourism, automotive industry, and building materials. The process of creating joint ventures between SOCAR and Uzbekneftgaz has begun.
In November 2023, the parties agreed to develop a roadmap in the field of military production. Tashkent is also participating in the restoration of Karabakh. In August 2023, Ilham Aliyev and Shavkat Mirziyoyev took part in the opening of school No. 1 named after Mirzo Ulugbek, built in Fuzuli with funds from Uzbekistan.
The path of rapprochement and cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan was more tortuous. There were disputes between Ashgabat and Baku over a number of Caspian fields. In addition, Turkmenistan supported the Iranian approach to the sectoral division of the Caspian Sea, contrary to the Russian-Kazakh-Azerbaijani approach. The situation began to change after the energy prices started to fall, which coincided with gas disputes between Turkmenistan and Russia. These factors forced Ashgabat to look for ways to interact with its neighbours, including Azerbaijan. In January 2021, the parties managed to resolve the problem of territorial disputes in the Caspian Sea by signing a memorandum on the distribution of the Dostlug field in the ratio of 30% to Azerbaijan and 70% to Turkmenistan. For Azerbaijan, the main thing was that the transportation of raw materials from this field would have to be carried out using the transport transit systems of Azerbaijan. A further improvement in relations between the countries occurred in December 2022, when, with the active participation of Turkey, the three countries signed five documents strengthening their interaction in the fields of trade, transport, energy, communications, science and culture.
At the turn of 2023-2024, Baku’s relations with Ashgabat cooled again after Turkmenistan refused to supply gas to Azerbaijan through Iran, according to a swap agreement concluded in 2021, citing the fact that Baku wanted to purchase gas below the market price.
Multilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and the countries of the region is in its initial stage and will actively develop. It is clear that interaction in the scientific and cultural spheres will deepen. In addition, the countries will work together to implement the Middle Corridor project, which is essentially a chain of bilateral agreements ensuring trade between China and Europe through Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
The importance for Azerbaijan of multilateral cooperation with the countries of the region is evidenced by the participation of Ilham Aliyev in the fifth summit of the heads of the countries of Central Asia (September 14, 2023), and the first Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA) held in Baku on November 24, 2023.
Thus, Azerbaijan has already managed to achieve considerable success in this direction.
