The foreign ministers of the five littoral Caspian states—Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran—met in Moscow, on December 5, 2017, to try to finalize an agreement on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. After the talks, the Azerbaijani and Russian representatives, Elmar Mammadyarov and... MORE

The President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev recently described 2017 as a year of recovery from the economic crisis for his country (President.az, January 10). Yet, at the same time, Azerbaijan, along with the other states of the South Caucasus, Georgia and Armenia, spent the past... MORE

The Minister of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan Yavar Jamalov held a press conference, on December 17, to discuss the outcomes of 2017 for the country’s defense industry sector. The minister pointed out that this past year, two additional military-production factories were built in Azerbaijan. Thus,... MORE

The year 2017 could be considered a tranquil one for Armenia’s domestic and international political life. It passed without a repeat of anything as violent or dramatic as, for instance, the “four-day war”—the outbreak of clashes along the line of contact in Karabakh, between April... MORE

Russia is once again focusing on Azerbaijan’s attachment to Turkey and on its “Turkification” of the minority nationalities within its borders, something one advisor to the Kremlin says is a threat to stability in the region and to the interests of Russia and Iran (Ekonomicheskiye... MORE

Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov visited Belarus, on October 9–10, and toured local defense-industry enterprises to review modern military equipment that could help boost the capabilities of the Azerbaijani army (Mod.gov.az, October 8, 10). The Ministry of Defense released photos of Hasanov standing in front... MORE

Like his father Heydar Aliyev before him, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev remains committed to a balanced foreign policy, one that seeks to maintain good relations with both the Russian Federation and the West. But a series of Russian actions that Baku views as hostile have... MORE

Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey signed a new agreement dedicated to launching the Lapis Lazuli transit corridor during a pentalateral meeting at the seventh Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA), held on November 15, in Ashgabat (Azernews, November 15). The finalized document was... MORE

On November 5, a cargo train from Kokshetau, North Kazakhstan, carrying 30 containers of wheat, arrived in the Turkish harbor city of Mersin, on the Mediterranean coast. What made this event so notable was that this was the first train from Kazakhstan to use the... MORE

Russian, Iranian and Azerbaijani presidents—Vladimir Putin, Hassan Rouhani and Ilham Aliyev, respectively—held a trilateral summit in Tehran, on November 1. They stressed the necessity to complete the Resht–Astara railway as soon as possible, with a view to developing the North–South Transport Corridor (NSTC). The NSTC... MORE