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AZERBAIJAN BENEFITS FROM NOT OFFENDING ITS MORE POWERFUL NEIGHBOUR RUSSIA
The Epoch Times
Dec 10 2014
By Rovshan Ibrahimov, Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy University |
December 10, 2014
The relationship between Russia and Azerbaijan has evolved over two
centuries, during which Azerbaijan spent most of the time in the
Russian Empire and then as part of the Soviet Union until it broke
up in 1991 and both emerged as independent states. The two countries
established diplomatic relations in April 1992 and then signed a
free-trade agreement that September.
Such is the difference in power between the countries that it is Russia
and not Azerbaijan that sets the tone for relations. Azerbaijan has
always been interested in good relations with its northern neighbour -
but has consistently stuck up for its own national interest.
Chilly 1990s
This led to problems between 1994 and 1998, when Russia closed the land
border between the two countries - officially, because Russia claimed
that Azerbaijan was a source of military aid to the Chechen separatists
(it sealed its Georgian border too). The background was that Azerbaijan
had been signing contracts with Western energy companies to develop
oilfields in the Caspian Sea, against strong opposition from Russia.
To put pressure on Azerbaijan, Russia began supporting Armenia in
the dispute over the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The
region has a high proportion of ethnic Armenians, whose desire to
join their motherland sparked war in the early 1990s, several years
after Armenia declared an interest in the territory. The result of the
Russian intervention was that Azerbaijan lost control of the region,
whose status remains unresolved today.
In February 1992 Armenians massacred hundreds of civilians in the
city of Khojaly, which promptly led to the resignation of Azerbaijan's
first president, Ayaz Mutabilov, and fundamentally damaged relations
with the Russians.
When the Russia/Azerbaijan border closed in 1994, Azerbaijan lost
the traditional market for exporting its industrial and agricultural
products. Simultaneously it stopped using Russian raw materials
for its enterprises. This caused Azerbaijani industry to come
to a standstill, which brought about huge declines in GDP. Huge
numbers of unemployed people went to Russia in search of work (by
aircraft) - a million-strong army of expat workers whose incomes
have significantly helped supplement family budgets back home. It
also meant that Azerbaijan turned its attention to Western markets,
which eventually helped to bring the economic downturn to an end.
The relationship between the two countries only began to improve with
the coming to power of Vladimir Putin. In January 2001 Putin became
the first Russian president to pay an official visit to Baku. During
the visit, a number of issues concerning relations between the two
countries were resolved, including agreeing a 10-year lease to Russia
of the security-critical Gabala radar station in northern Azerbaijan
and boundary disputes in the Caspian. There was also much emphasis
on developing trade relations.
Some heavy metal from Russia. (Nick Taylor, CC BY-SA)
Business Ties
There have since been significant achievements in this area. Russia
opened a trade representation office in Baku in 2006 and much effort
has gone into developing cross-border co-operation between the Russian
regions and Azerbaijan. The idea is that this will increase production
and create new jobs, helping to reduce social tensions in the North
Caucasus. As a result, Azerbaijani companies began to invest in
the other republics in the region and are playing an increasingly
important part in their economies.
Russia's main exports to its southern neighbour include chemicals,
food, metals, paper products, wood and engineered products - including
defence, on which Azerbaijan has spent $4bn (£2.6bn) on Russian goods
in recent years to become one of Russia's main customers.
In return Russia mainly receives minerals, food, agricultural products
and natural gas - in 2010 Gazprom and Azerbaijani state petroleum
company SOCAR agreed a deal under which Azerbaijan would supply some
500m cubic metres of gas to the Russians each year. In 2013 alone,
trade between the two countries rose over 10% to $2.6bn - some ten
times greater than in the early 2000s.
Balanced Foreign Policy
Despite this close relationship, Azerbaijan prefers to stick to
bilateral agreements and preserve its full sovereignty rather than
anything that involves integrating with the Russians. That is why
it has openly declared that the country has no plans to join the
Eurasian Union (of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus). For the same
reason, Azerbaijan also declined to sign the Association Agreement
with the EU in the framework of the Eastern Partnership - a measure
that has met with approval in Moscow. Instead it only signed an
agreement to simplify the visa regime with the EU, which came into
force in September.
Azerbaijan's attempts to maintain a balanced foreign policy have been
made easier by having a selection of energy pipelines coming out
of the Caspian. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan crude oil pipeline between
Azerbaijan and southern Turkey was completed in 2006, after which it
added a gas pipeline between Baku and Erzurum in eastern Turkey.
Before the end of this decade, there are plans to complete two more
pipelines between Baku and western Europe - the Trans-Anatolian and
Trans-Adriatic lines.
The Baku bypass. (Wikimedia, CC BY)
Unlike Georgia, Azerbaijan does not believe that the EU Eastern
Partnership and Individual Partnership Action Plans will lead to
participant states being invited to join the EU or NATO. This explains
Azerbaijan's more lukewarm approach to them - which satisfies Russia,
since it sees the Caucasus as being in its sphere of interests and is
opposed to Western incursions there. In effect, Azerbaijan's pipeline
activities are tolerated so long as it maintains its arms-length
policy on EU/NATO.
Baku was rewarded in summer 2013 with another Putin visit on the eve of
its presidential election, in which he offered support to controversial
incumbent Ilham Aliyev. This would never have happened if Russia
thought that Azerbaijan was acting against its foreign interests.
Azerbaijan has not been directly affected by the Ukraine war - except
that it has confirmed what the country knew anyway: if you correctly
identify Russia's geopolitical red lines and avoid crossing them,
stable and peaceful relations are perfectly possible. In return for
doing so, Azerbaijan has been able to pursue its own interests, even
when the Russians might have preferred a different course of action.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the views of Epoch Times.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1134020-azerbaijan-benefits-from-not-offending-its-more-powerful-neighbour-russia/
The Epoch Times
Dec 10 2014
By Rovshan Ibrahimov, Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy University |
December 10, 2014
The relationship between Russia and Azerbaijan has evolved over two
centuries, during which Azerbaijan spent most of the time in the
Russian Empire and then as part of the Soviet Union until it broke
up in 1991 and both emerged as independent states. The two countries
established diplomatic relations in April 1992 and then signed a
free-trade agreement that September.
Such is the difference in power between the countries that it is Russia
and not Azerbaijan that sets the tone for relations. Azerbaijan has
always been interested in good relations with its northern neighbour -
but has consistently stuck up for its own national interest.
Chilly 1990s
This led to problems between 1994 and 1998, when Russia closed the land
border between the two countries - officially, because Russia claimed
that Azerbaijan was a source of military aid to the Chechen separatists
(it sealed its Georgian border too). The background was that Azerbaijan
had been signing contracts with Western energy companies to develop
oilfields in the Caspian Sea, against strong opposition from Russia.
To put pressure on Azerbaijan, Russia began supporting Armenia in
the dispute over the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The
region has a high proportion of ethnic Armenians, whose desire to
join their motherland sparked war in the early 1990s, several years
after Armenia declared an interest in the territory. The result of the
Russian intervention was that Azerbaijan lost control of the region,
whose status remains unresolved today.
In February 1992 Armenians massacred hundreds of civilians in the
city of Khojaly, which promptly led to the resignation of Azerbaijan's
first president, Ayaz Mutabilov, and fundamentally damaged relations
with the Russians.
When the Russia/Azerbaijan border closed in 1994, Azerbaijan lost
the traditional market for exporting its industrial and agricultural
products. Simultaneously it stopped using Russian raw materials
for its enterprises. This caused Azerbaijani industry to come
to a standstill, which brought about huge declines in GDP. Huge
numbers of unemployed people went to Russia in search of work (by
aircraft) - a million-strong army of expat workers whose incomes
have significantly helped supplement family budgets back home. It
also meant that Azerbaijan turned its attention to Western markets,
which eventually helped to bring the economic downturn to an end.
The relationship between the two countries only began to improve with
the coming to power of Vladimir Putin. In January 2001 Putin became
the first Russian president to pay an official visit to Baku. During
the visit, a number of issues concerning relations between the two
countries were resolved, including agreeing a 10-year lease to Russia
of the security-critical Gabala radar station in northern Azerbaijan
and boundary disputes in the Caspian. There was also much emphasis
on developing trade relations.
Some heavy metal from Russia. (Nick Taylor, CC BY-SA)
Business Ties
There have since been significant achievements in this area. Russia
opened a trade representation office in Baku in 2006 and much effort
has gone into developing cross-border co-operation between the Russian
regions and Azerbaijan. The idea is that this will increase production
and create new jobs, helping to reduce social tensions in the North
Caucasus. As a result, Azerbaijani companies began to invest in
the other republics in the region and are playing an increasingly
important part in their economies.
Russia's main exports to its southern neighbour include chemicals,
food, metals, paper products, wood and engineered products - including
defence, on which Azerbaijan has spent $4bn (£2.6bn) on Russian goods
in recent years to become one of Russia's main customers.
In return Russia mainly receives minerals, food, agricultural products
and natural gas - in 2010 Gazprom and Azerbaijani state petroleum
company SOCAR agreed a deal under which Azerbaijan would supply some
500m cubic metres of gas to the Russians each year. In 2013 alone,
trade between the two countries rose over 10% to $2.6bn - some ten
times greater than in the early 2000s.
Balanced Foreign Policy
Despite this close relationship, Azerbaijan prefers to stick to
bilateral agreements and preserve its full sovereignty rather than
anything that involves integrating with the Russians. That is why
it has openly declared that the country has no plans to join the
Eurasian Union (of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus). For the same
reason, Azerbaijan also declined to sign the Association Agreement
with the EU in the framework of the Eastern Partnership - a measure
that has met with approval in Moscow. Instead it only signed an
agreement to simplify the visa regime with the EU, which came into
force in September.
Azerbaijan's attempts to maintain a balanced foreign policy have been
made easier by having a selection of energy pipelines coming out
of the Caspian. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan crude oil pipeline between
Azerbaijan and southern Turkey was completed in 2006, after which it
added a gas pipeline between Baku and Erzurum in eastern Turkey.
Before the end of this decade, there are plans to complete two more
pipelines between Baku and western Europe - the Trans-Anatolian and
Trans-Adriatic lines.
The Baku bypass. (Wikimedia, CC BY)
Unlike Georgia, Azerbaijan does not believe that the EU Eastern
Partnership and Individual Partnership Action Plans will lead to
participant states being invited to join the EU or NATO. This explains
Azerbaijan's more lukewarm approach to them - which satisfies Russia,
since it sees the Caucasus as being in its sphere of interests and is
opposed to Western incursions there. In effect, Azerbaijan's pipeline
activities are tolerated so long as it maintains its arms-length
policy on EU/NATO.
Baku was rewarded in summer 2013 with another Putin visit on the eve of
its presidential election, in which he offered support to controversial
incumbent Ilham Aliyev. This would never have happened if Russia
thought that Azerbaijan was acting against its foreign interests.
Azerbaijan has not been directly affected by the Ukraine war - except
that it has confirmed what the country knew anyway: if you correctly
identify Russia's geopolitical red lines and avoid crossing them,
stable and peaceful relations are perfectly possible. In return for
doing so, Azerbaijan has been able to pursue its own interests, even
when the Russians might have preferred a different course of action.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the views of Epoch Times.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1134020-azerbaijan-benefits-from-not-offending-its-more-powerful-neighbour-russia/