‘INVISIBLE’ AZERBAIJAN KEEPS LOOKING WEST

15 May 2013

Rome:

Despite a historical sense of “invisibility” in global affairs, Azerbaijan was determined to keep “looking West” for its future, a colloquium on energy and security in the Caspian Sea, held Wednesday May 14 at Roma-Tre University, heard. Indeed, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Italy, Mr Vaqif Sadiqov, said other countries were paying more and more attention to his own. Although the region’s oil had been exploited since the nineteenth century, only now was the greater Caspian Sea, which Mr Sadiqov called “one of the most dynamic parts of Eurasia”, coming into its own.

Certainly, Baku seems to be trying to raise its profile in Europe with educational partnerships of the kind that gave rise to Wednesday’s colloquium. With Russia’s troubled Chechnya and Dagestan provinces to the north and an often paranoid Iran to the south, speakers presented Azerbaijan as a precious partner for the West in a tense but strategically vital region—right on the Middle East’s doorstep.

“No country has done more to stabilize post-Soviet space in Eurasia,” Elnur Soltanov, Associate Professor at Azerbaijan’s Diplomatic Academy, said. Instead of selling out to an unnamed regional monopolist (read: Russia’s Gazprom), Baku had kept its oil and gas under independent national control, significantly increasing the US and Europe’s energy security, if only by diversifying world supply. And linked with resource-rich Central Asia (itself the subject of a new “Great Game” between Russia, China and the West), the Caspian could even offer an alternative to the Persian Gulf for world energy supplies.

Yet the usefulness to the West of this small state of 9 million Turkic-speaking, mainly Shia Muslims, wedged between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea, is not obvious. At around 20bn cubic meters a year, Azerbaijan’s gas production is too small to offer Europe an alternative to Russia for its annual 500bn cubic metres of gas. An important contribution to some small countries’ supplies (such as Russia-dependent Czech Republic), it won’t be a “game-changer” until seabed pipelines allow Azeri gas to be supplemented with supplies from Turkmenistan’s enormous fields—the world’s fourth largest. But maritime borders disputes between Russia, Iran and Turkmenistan make that a dream rather than a reality for now.

Perhaps because of this, there’s a sense of unrequited love. Baku clearly expects more from the US and EU than it’s currently getting to help build the pipelines that would transport Azeri gas across Turkey to Europe or get Central Asian gas across the Caspian Sea.

But by far the most important issue it looks to the West for support for is the return of Nagorno-Karabakh, the 16-18% of Azeri territory occupied by neighbouring Armenia since the 1992-94 war following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan had “made big sacrifices” and “made itself vulnerable” to enhance other countries’ security, said Mr Soltanov. It hadn’t got enough from them in return.

Unfortunately for Azerbaijan, such pleas are likely to fall on deaf ears in Washington and Brussels. The influence of the Armenian diaspora in the US and Europe (especially in France), the need to keep Russia (Armenia’s unofficial protector) on board for the sake of more pressing threats to global security (Syria and Iran), and Baku’s own questionable human rights record (elections are due in October) mean Western help is unlikely to be forthcoming.

On the contrary, with memories of Moscow’s 2009 humbling of “upstart” Georgia still fresh, Western governments won’t want to burn their fingers again in a region whose full potential is likely to remain unfulfilled for some time. With prospects to the north and south even bleaker, however, “invisible” Azerbaijan will have no choice but to keep looking west until the West takes notice.

-         Matthew Dal Santo