Emil Valiyev
– Why did not the round table meeting hear these topics?
– Are these issues dealt by a round table? Otherwise, are the officials at the round table doing this?
The cold war in world politics today is over the economy. Obviously, everyone is taking political decisions in pursuit of their own objectives. But why are so many countries neglecting to get more profits by negotiating on the round table?
I will make a mention that how the South Caucasus is an important part of the world, and of Eurasia in particular. I will talk about the economic and other negative impacts of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the South Caucasus, both for the region and for Europe and other developing countries.
In 1918, the Republic of Azerbaijan regained its statehood status with the three-color flag and coat of arms, by Mahammad Amin Rasulzadeh. However, after the establishing of the USSR in 1920, it lost its self-government until 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Azerbaijan_Democratic_Republic_1918-1920_Map.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Democratic_Republic
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is territorial and ethnicconflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, which are de facto controlled by the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, but are internationally recognized as de jure part of Azerbaijan. The conflict has its origins in the early 20th century. Under the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin decided to make the Nagorno-Karabakh region an autonomous oblast of Soviet Azerbaijan. The present conflict began in 1988, when the Karabakh armenians demanded that Karabakh be transferred from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia. The conflict escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s.
Today, Azerbaijan is a significant partner for all of Eurasia, both with national intangibles and economics. But I want to highlight the importance of this partnership in four areas.
– Energy sector
– Transportation
– Trade and market
– Memorials, historical places.
Energy. Azerbaijan, as a country producing and exporting oil, is a worth-while partner as an energy supplier in all of Eurasia. Oil and gas pipelines of Azerbaijan, built in four directions today, connected capital city, Baku with Europe through Turkey, and with Russia through Asia.
The Baku–Novorossiysk pipeline
The Baku–Supsa Pipeline
The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline
The Baku–Batumi pipeline
The core of the relationship between Azerbaijan and EU is the energy. Caspian region and especially Azerbaijan is an important partner for EU, on their natural gas market. The EU energy policy for the period 2020 to 2030 defines three main goals:
security of supply
competitiveness
sustainability
Azerbaijan has its own energy security and energy development and sustainability program. Therefore, Azerbaijan uses energy development strategy of Europe for joint energy profit (synergy) of Europe and Azerbaijan. The strategy of energy security started from 1994 when the “Contract of Century” signed. The “Contract of Century” has an undeniable place in the economic development of Azerbaijan. This contract had extraordinary place in the process of ensuring fuel and energy needs not only for country economy but also for world energy provision. A leader company of France – CNIM has won the tender with EUR 346 million for construction, establishment and operation of waste to energy plant for 20 years in Baku, in 2008 year. On the other hand, there are variety of barriers to Azerbaijan’s accession to the European Energy Security Union. The only, visible, hidden, and the main reason for this is the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh, occurred in Karabakh and in the surrounding 7 regions, which is recognized by the world countries as the Azerbaijani lands. This can impede future projects with Western partners and foreign investors in the energy sector. Improving Azerbaijan’s economic performance and avoiding conflicts is a positive factor for the sustainability, development and security of energy in the economies of its partner countries. Vice versa reduction of oil and gas output will affect to the total production which is in the result the income from oil and gas export will decrease. Active participation at Eastern Partnership Program and good relationships with EU can accelerate the integration of Azerbaijan to the Energy Union and it will help Azerbaijan to develop energy market. Passive participation of Azerbaijan at Eastern Partnership Program also harms the possibility of integration of Azerbaijan to the European Energy Union. Today, Azerbaijan approaches the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem as the return of occupied lands. Azerbaijan claims that it will create peace and tranquility in the returned lands, and will dominate by maintaining the sustainability of partnerships by using returned lands which rich in natural resources. In fact, on 01-05 April 2016, Azerbaijan Armed Forces rescued the village of Jojuq Marjanli under the fire of Armenian Armed Forces, moving forward in the battle in which that Armenian armed forces violating ceasefire with heavy artillery weapons. Today, in accordance with the strategic plan of President Ilham Aliyev, the village is being under construction and renovation, and a number of telecommunications lines has been laid. This is actually marked as a small victory, but it is a kind of proof of the promise of the Republic of Azerbaijan against the return of other occupied territories, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region. One of the important thing in the energy security area is security of the oil and gas pipelines. This is common with the EU energy security strategy. The geographical situation of Azerbaijan and the pipelines are risky. Oil and gas routes are laid on the territories to the conflict affected regions which impacts to the security strategy of oil pipelines. We may see that Azerbaijan is in war condition. It is raising the risk of energy security. For instance, in August 2008 there was a burst at a pump station on the Turkish part of the BTC pipeline. Though the suspicions about the PKK’s involvement in this occasion were high, the Turkish authorities have waived the terrorist nature of this incident. However, the potential risk of PKK terrorism cannot be completely excluded and raises the issue of the growth level of preservation of the BTC pipeline. This is a main export pipeline to transport Azerbaijan oil (and possibly some part of Kazakhstan oil as well in predictable future) to the European market. The terror attacks are not the only potential threat to the critical energy infrastructure in Azerbaijan.
Transportation. Road transport plays an important role in the economic statistics of the country. Azerbaijan is a leader in geolocation. Thus, the Caspian Sea has a connection with four countries on water transport. Prior to the Karabakh conflict, Armenia’s access to the Asian continent was favorable, both in terms of trade and tourism. On the other hand, because of the Karabakh problem, three railroad lines have broken its operation up.
Qazakh (Azerbaijan) – Dilijan (Armenia)
Minjan-Mehri (Armenia) – Nakhchivan-Julfa (Azerbaijan)
Sadarak – Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan) – Yerevan.
– Trade and market
Azerbaijan is actively involved in the non-oil sector market in terms of soil fertility. However, Karabakh war and the results of the Karabakh war, along with the tension in the region, miss many chances. Due to the tense situation in the Karabakh region, the villagers leave their crop fields vacant or the lands were burned by Armenian military units in the regions and villages of Aghdam, Mughanli, Fuzuli, respectively on 06.08.2013, 16.07.2015, 19.07.2015, 14.10.2016. The Azerbaijani media covered this news with footage from the contact line.
– Memorials, historical places.
In fact, the South Caucasus always put an appearance in the history of the wars in the history of the world. One of the interesting facts is that Nadir Shah’s power in South Asia, not in the South Caucasus, goes to India as a whole. Even some of the historical articles discussed that Nadir Shah hid captured treasures in three secret places after the capture of India. One of them is Kalbajar district. At present, Azerbaijan’s biggest loss in energy sustainability is the Kalbajar gold field, which is used by Armenia for the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Azerbaijan is known as a Muslim country, but favorable conditions has been created according to the official religions for members of other religions. This is tolerance and I support it. For example, the monuments and temples of many religions throughout history have been preserved today as historical monuments. Azerbaijan is in the list of UNESCO and ISESCO member countries. The Karabakh problem stirs a number of problems up in the membership of this cultural community. For example, in Azerbaijan, known as Muslim country, the ancient Albanian churches and even the temples belonging to the ancient Zoroastrian religion, the places of sacraments of the fire worship religion, are protected and act as tourism objects. However, the exact opposite can be said for the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is under the authority and control of the Republic of Armenia today. Today, pigs and cattle are kept in mosques built in the 18th century. Several historical monuments have been destroyed in this way and destroyed due to being neglected.
In conclusion, in this article, trying to keep readability did not deepen facts and statistics much more. But I should emphasize that all facts and statistics are the backend of this article. Thus, the solution of the Nogorno Karabakh problem is not a regional issue and should be solved due to the work of the parties in both for the issues and the policy. Armenians do not want to serve in Karabakh, a number of Armenian soldiers were named after turncoat during April battles, and fled the army. It is not a secret that, despite being in a state of war for the past 10 years, several Armenians (including military servicemen) have taken shelter in Azerbaijan. This shows again that the problem must be solved at any table, whether it is round or not. The interest of Europe and Asia is unavoidable for this issue.
