Among the roles of Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline project was that of aborting the EU-backed Nabucco, merely by threatening to preempt Nabucco’s markets along the same route downstream. Conversely, Nabucco’s European rival Trans-Adriatic Pipeline project (TAP) can abort Nabucco by preempting the gas supply source... MORE

On March 22 in Copenhagen, the Danish and Turkish prime ministers, Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Recep Tayyp Erdogan, witnessed the signing of agreements between subsidiaries of Danish Moeller-Maersk and Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company (SOCAR) to develop a giant port near Izmir in Turkey. The petrochemicals holding... MORE

At the end of February 2013, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili paid an official visit to Baku. During the visit, Saakashvili met with his Azerbaijani counterpart, President Ilham Aliyev, and discussed several issues of mutual interests. As analysts suggested, the visit was supposed to calm down... MORE

The nomination and approval of John Kerry as the next head of the US Department of State did not come as a particular shock for observers inside Azerbaijan. The predictions and rumors prepared both the Azerbaijani establishment and the public for such a scenario. Still,... MORE

On December 21, 2012, Georgian Prime-Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili dropped a bombshell, stating that ongoing construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, connecting Azerbaijan to northeastern Turkey via Georgia, raised many questions about its economic efficiency and profitability for Georgia, regardless of the project’s geopolitical importance (www.geopalitratv.ge,... MORE

China’s economic role in the south Caucasus is expanding rapidly, with Beijing’s investments in Azerbaijan alone now approaching a total of one billion US dollars and its bilateral trade with that country exceeding that figure on an annual basis. But as impressive as those figures... MORE

Several key developments in 2012 had a tremendous impact on Azerbaijan and its foreign policy. First of all, the “reelection” of Vladimir Putin as president of Russian could be considered one of the major events that influenced Azerbaijan. Putin’s triumphal return buried the last hopes... MORE

On December 5, Turkmenistan’s capital of Ashgabat hosted a summit of heads of state of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. The presidents of Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan did not attend this forum, however. Instead of President Ilham Aliyev, Prime Minister Arthur Rasizade represented Baku... MORE

On November 15, Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov began his two-day visit to Baku. This was the second visit of the Chechen leader to Baku in the last couple of years. Despite the fact that Kadyrov faces heavy criticism in Europe and the United States... MORE

On October 15, Baku hosted the 12th summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). The presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, as well as the prime minister of Turkey attended the event. ECO was established in 1985 as a regional, inter-state economic organization... MORE