AN ESSENTIAL PARTICIPANT

The integration processes in the South Caucasus and the crossroads of Eurasia are gathering momentum, which is shown by the increasing cooperation between states in various trilateral formats. An essential participant in these is Azerbaijan, an indication of the significant - and at times key - role our country is playing in regional integration.

Two important meetings in a trilateral format have been held in the past few days. The first we wish to focus on was the fourth trilateral meeting between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran, which was held in the Iranian city of Ramsar. After the talks, Elmar Mammadyarov, Mevlut Cavusoglu and Mohammad Javad Zarif adopted a joint declaration expressing confidence that their historical, religious and cultural similarities are creating special conditions for strengthening the unity between the three countries. Endorsing the commitments made by Baku, Ankara and Tehran to establish peace, stability and security in the region, and supporting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of their states, the foreign ministers expressed their readiness to seek new ways of broadening cooperation in all spheres. This entails, among other things, the implementation of joint projects in trade and economic cooperation, investment, power engineering, transport and telecommunications. Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey expressed their readiness to promote trilateral cooperation, with the aim of strengthening Islamic unity, and also emphasized the importance of holding regular meetings to coordinate cooperation with the purpose of resolving regional and global issues. 

Consequently, it is possible to speak about consolidating the trilateral Azerbaijani-Turkish-Iranian format as a pillar of regional security and cooperation. But in the context of interests and Azerbaijan's role in South Caucasian politics, one's attention is also drawn to the fact that whereas Turkey has traditionally been a close ally and partner of Azerbaijan, of late there has been evidence of increasing cooperation between Baku and Tehran. Further confirmation of the strengthening of Azerbaijani-Iranian partnership was the recent very successful visit by President Ilham Aliyev to the Islamic Republic. Azerbaijan and Iran are demonstrating a mutual interest in broadening their bilateral political and economic dialogue. That figures, because in the context of the escalation of tension in the world and the region, Baku's significance in Tehran's political agenda has increased considerably, just as Tehran's increasing significance in Baku's policy is also evident. The results of another trilateral meeting - between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia - which was held in Baku also point towards this.

In welcoming the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to Baku, the head of the Azerbaijani state, Ilham Aliyev, expressed confidence that the first trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Azerbaijan would open a new page in the history of regional cooperation and would contribute to the strengthening of peace and stability in the region.

The results of the Baku meeting were truly impressive, confirming that the Azerbaijani leader's appraisal was correct. After the meeting involving Elmar Mammadyarov, Mohammad Javad Zarif and Sergey Lavrov, a joint communiqu? was adopted, registering the intention of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia to continue their cooperation based on mutual respect, partnership and non-interference in each other's internal affairs, and also their commitment to comply with the principles and norms of international law and the settlement of conflicts. The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia noted the need to confront the new challenges to regional security and reaffirmed their readiness for a joint struggle against terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking. They also underlined the importance of continuing efforts towards defining the legal status of the Caspian Sea.

But the principal virtue of the Baku meeting was that a basic agreement was reached to start implementing the North-South transport corridor project, which is due to link northern Europe with South East Asia via the rail lines of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. The route will follow the western seaboard of the Caspian Sea from Russia to Iran via Azerbaijan.

"A rail link between Russia and Iran has existed since the 19th century: freight has been transported without any problems through Azerbaijani territory and via Naxcivan smoothly right up to the Persian Gulf," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov recalled at the tripartite meeting. And he added: "Today the rail link that unites our countries is once again being restored and communications must be operated as a single mechanism."

It should be stressed that the implementation of the North-South project, the idea for which has been expressed to one degree or another by the countries involved in recent years, became possible only after international sanctions against Iran were lifted. It is proposed that the transport corridor launched by Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran will extend for over 7,000 kilometres and link St Petersburg with Mumbai in India. Its task is to provide transportation of freight from India, Iran and other countries of the Persian Gulf to Russia and on to northern and western Europe.

As far as Russia is concerned, implementation of the North-South project is extremely important, bearing in mind that at the present time the flow of freight traffic from India to the European part of Russia is carried out exclusively by sea: i.e. from St Petersburg it runs to the western part of Europe and, skirting round the Old World, it reaches the shores of India via the Suez Canal. This freight journey takes 40 days. But the new route, which provides for the use of sea, rail and road transport, will run from St Petersburg to Moscow, and then to Astrakhan, Baku and the Iranian port of Bandar-Abbas, reducing by half the delivery time of freight to Mumbai. Furthermore, the new transport corridor is much more economical than the previous extremely expensive and overloaded route via the Suez Canal.

The significance of the North-South corridor for Iran lies mainly in the fact that it has a vested interest in increasing trade turnover with Russia (if only because Tehran needs to purchase Russian grain), and also the benefits which the reputation of a Eurasian transit country can offer the Islamic Republic. The role of one of the links in the implementation of the integration processes in the Eurasian project naturally meets Azerbaijan's interests, too. It was not by chance that at the end of last year President Ilham Aliyev issued an instruction for work to be speeded up on building the infrastructure of the North-South corridor on the Azerbaijani sector of this transport junction. Construction began of an 8.5 km section of the rail line from Astara station to the Iranian border. In February this year Baku and Moscow reached agreement on attracting freight traffic flows to the Azerbaijani and Russian rail lines by organizing transportation along the India-Iran-Azerbaijan-Russia route in the reverse direction.

The Qazvin (Iran) - Astara (Azerbaijan) rail line promises to become a part of the North-South transport corridor. Construction of its Qazvin-Rasht section was completed in 2015, whereas the Rasht-Astara section has until recently only been at the design stage. But 20 April will see the opening of the rail bridge between Azerbaijan and Iran, which will be a turning point in the implementation of the Azerbaijani stage of the North-South project. Elmar Mammadyarov stressed in this connection that completion of work to link the rail lines of Azerbaijan and Iran has already been planned for this year.

The full completion of construction of the North-South transport corridor is planned for 2017. It is expected that when this route is launched volumes of freight turnover in Azerbaijan at the first stage will be increased to 6 million tonnes, and next year could reach the 15-20 million tonne mark.

Cooperation in the sphere of the non-oil sector was also broadly discussed during Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev's visit to Baku. Specifically, it was announced that Russian pharmaceutical companies would be opening in Azerbaijan. Medvedev noted that Russia and Azerbaijan are working together in various sectors of the economy, including fuel and energy and the infrastructure. "There are also quite different areas which I would particularly like to mention, for example, we are working with Azerbaijan today in the sphere of pharmaceutics. These are projects in which Russian pharmaceutical companies, who are prepared to set up businesses in Azerbaijan, are taking part, and this will give us an opportunity to promote our technology by setting up such enterprises, and good-quality medication will appear on the Azerbaijani market, which the people of that country will be able to acquire with national currency," the Russian prime minister said.

And so, our country is establishing itself as one of the moderators of Eurasian integration. This is in no small measure linked with its active participation in various trilateral formats of cooperation. In his speech at an extended session of the cabinet of ministers dedicated to the results of the country's socio-economic development in the first quarter of 2016, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev highly praised the development of trilateral formats of cooperation involving Azerbaijan. He said that such formats as Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey, Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey and Azerba-ijan-Iran-Russia "are very important in ensuring security and deepening cooperation in the region. As you can see, Azerbaijan is taking part in all these formats".

There is no doubt that Azerbaijan's efforts to turn the country into a centre of Eurasian integration meet the interests of the country's economic independence which, as Ilham Aliyev said, determines its political independence.

A VIEW FROM THE "REGION"

Talk that an Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran trilateral format is purportedly spearheaded against third countries, and Turkey to be exact, is groundless. Firstly, the strategic union and fraternal relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey are so solid and stable, which consequently means there can be no question of Baku joining any anti-Turkish formats. Secondly, Azerbaijan itself is extremely interested in being involved in the formation of the "North-South" transport corridor, which will consolidate its positions in the region and at the same time promote the further isolation of aggressive Armenia which is continuing to occupy our territories.

Finally, a factor that is of no small importance - Russia itself , which, although it is in a state of continuing confrontation with Ankara, does however regard its own involvement in the "North-South" project purely through the prism of the Russian Federation's national economic interests and not from any striving to spite the Turkish side. For, as already noted above, freight transportation through the territory of Azerbaijan and then through Iran is both geographically and financially advantageous to Russia.

As far as Armenia is concerned, which has cherished the hope of being a party to the "North-South" project for a few years now, in the final count its territory was of no "transit" value to Russia. On the one hand, this is because of the more favourable alternative offered by Azerbaijan as an economic and political leader in the Southern Caucasus region, and, on the other hand, it takes into account the factor of Georgia, which is still hostile to Moscow, as an intermediate link between Russia and Armenia.