AN END TO SPECULATION

Vladimir Putin has been to Azerbaijan before. History tells us that he was the first leader of the Russian state to visit Azerbaijan in this position following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This was in January, 2001. Then, following the official visit, the Baku Declaration and a joint statement on the principles of cooperation in the Caspian were signed. Vladimir Putin's current visit to Baku was his fifth as Russian president, but the first since his return to the Kremlin in the spring of last year. This put an end to rash speculation about a cooling of relations between our countries after Moscow and Baku failed to reach a mutually acceptable compromise regarding the future lease of the Gabala radar station to Russia. Those Azerbaijani and Russian analysts who pointed out the importance of maintaining close partnership relations for both sides and who predicted the preservation of the traditional neighbourliness and cooperation were proved right.

Russia's importance to Azerbaijan hardly needs to be stressed. During the two centuries of its existence as a single state (the Russian Empire and then the USSR) close relations have developed between our countries and peoples both at the level of state and public structures, enterprises and organizations, and of millions of individuals. Russia is the only one of the five great powers (permanent members of the UN Security Council) with which our country has a direct border. The Russian language, culture and science are widely represented in Azerbaijan. The diasporas of many thousands of people live in both countries. Russia is one of Azerbaijan's leading trade and economic partners. Bilateral trade turnover between our countries, unlike some other countries, including the CIS, has a stable trend towards growth. Based on the results of 2012, it increased by 11% - to $3.4bn, and in January-May this year it increased by 50%.

Azerbaijan, for its part, is an important state for Russia. We are a growing and - more importantly - financially solvent market for Russian manufacturers of industrial and agricultural output. The volume of military-technical cooperation alone between our countries, according to President Ilham Aliyev, is $4bn.  Moscow cooperates closely with Baku on questions of opposing the armed jihadists and religious extremists in the Caucasus and on the problem of the division of the Caspian. The prospects for partnership in the energy sphere are very good. Azerbaijan is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and has a border with Iran. All this predetermines the need for interaction between the Russian Federation and Baku on a broad range of acute international problems, from Iran's nuclear programme to the situation in Syria and the Near East in general. Problems of the conflicts in the South Caucasus, the most dangerous of which is the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, also come within the range of interests of Azerbaijan and Russia.

As we can see, Moscow has plenty to talk about with Azerbaijan not only by virtue of its demographic and economic potential and advantageous geopolitical situation, but also because Baku, unlike many other post-Soviet countries, is drawing up and conducting an independent foreign-political course. In line with the concept of a multi-vectoral policy, Azerbaijan is striking a definite balance in its relations along the East-West line, and also North-South. So our country, by joining the non-aligned movement, has demonstrated a reluctance to enter into any military-political blocs. Baku not only steers clear of Moscow's initiatives on integration (Customs Union, CSTO, Euro-Asian Union), but also has no plans to rush thoughtlessly into integration with the European Union or NATO.

As soon as the Russian delegation arrived the presidents had one-to-one talks, and then with other officials present, at the government residence at Zaqulba. After that there was a joint press conference with the signing of documents. The most significant of these was an agreement on cooperation between Rosneft and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR). In all, six documents concerning a broad range of problems, including an agreement on the construction of a road bridge on the interstate border, humanitarian cooperation, and so on, were signed during this visit. Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev exchanged opinions on key questions of international and regional policy, including the problem of the legal status of the Caspian Sea and a settlement to the Karabakh conflict. They also discussed questions of the preparations for the 3rd Baku International Humanitarian Forum which is due to be held from 31 October to 1 November this year.

The visit proved to be a fleeting one and lasted less than a day. Because it was of a working nature there were no ceremonials. Nevertheless, President Putin, accompanied by his counterpart Ilham Aliyev, managed to see all the delights of the new Baku, drink tea in a homely atmosphere and to show the Azerbaijani president the Russian missile carrier Dagestan, which had arrived in Baku on a friendly visit accompanied by the small artillery vessel Volgodonsk.

Commenting on the results of Putin's visit to Baku, many of the local, Russian and foreign media drew attention to the fact that it was clear to Moscow that after the presidential elections in Azerbaijan on 9 October the Russian leaders will be doing business with the government of Ilham Aliyev. That is precisely why he did not want to postpone his visit until after the elections. Leading Russian analysts, such as Sergey Markov, Aleksey Vlasov, and others, however, noting this as an expression of indirect support by the Russian president for his counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, acknowledged that the latter was not in need of this. The situation in Azerbaijan is stable, the atmosphere calm and Ilham Aliyev's ratings and chances of victory are high.

In Vladimir Putin's speech, in which he said that Russia will continue its mediatory efforts to reach a settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani and Nagornyy Karabakh conflicts, attention was drawn to the point where he stressed that the problem must be resolved exclusively by political means. Armenian politicians and media, who have made no secret of their concern that the Russian president, having ignored many invitations to visit Armenia, set off for Azerbaijan with a large and representative delegation, are trying to find some consolation in the Russian leader's words about a "political solution" to the conflict. However this does not in any way mean that Moscow, in response to Armenia's blatant ingratitude and drift towards the European Union, will continue to render it support in its territorial claims and turn a blind eye to the fact of its occupation of Azerbaijani territories which has been continuing for over 20 years.

"If Armenia joins the zone of broad trade with the EU, why should Moscow not prefer Baku as its main partner in the region?" said Aleksey Vlasov, director of the Centre for the Study of Socio-Political Processes in the Post-Soviet Space of Moscow State University, in an interview for the Russian service of Voice of America. A leading German expert on Russia and the post-Soviet space, Aleksandr Rahr, noting Moscow's vested interest in partnership with Baku, nevertheless rules out a switch by Azerbaijan to Russia's political orbit. Azerbaijan, in his opinion, is pursuing an independent policy. It has allies in the shape of a powerful regional power, Turkey, and good relations with Israel and the USA. Russian diplomats are aware of all this and are not putting forward any unacceptable proposals or objectives.

Alongside traditional forms of cooperation in the economic, political and humanitarian spheres, the most promising is the possibility of cooperation in the energy sector. Moscow was positive about the choice of the TAP pipeline as the main route for the export of gas. Russian companies now have the chance to expand cooperation with Azerbaijan. The major state oil and gas company Rosneft is being very active and showing an interest in this. Bearing in mind that its strategic shareholder, the Anglo-American BP company, operates in this region primarily in the Azerbaijani sector, Rosneft's participation in long-term structures would have laid the basis for trilateral cooperation not only in the Caspian but also in third markets.

The president of the Azerbaijani state-owned company, Rovnaq Abdullayev, said that SOCAR and Rosneft are holding talks on a possible reverse route of the Urals oil brand via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline amounting to 5m tonnes annually with its partial transportation via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, from where it could be sent for refining to Italy and Germany, in which Rosneft has a participatory interest. The possibilities are also being considered for the processing of part of the Russian oil to petrol stations in Azerbaijan with the finished product supplied to foreign consumers. With the purpose of implementing these plans the parties are creating a joint enterprise on a parity basis which will also deal with the implementation of projects for the prospecting and extraction of oil and gas in various countries, including Russia and Azerbaijan.

Rosneft's president, Igor Sechin, has given a high appraisal of the prospects of cooperation with SOCAR. Commenting on the agreement on cooperation signed in Baku, the head of Russia's biggest oil company said that "it is strategic and proposes an exchange of assets and joint extraction". "We plan to develop a whole number of areas: mutual supplies, swap-operations and possibilities for the use of a joint infra-structure, and, in the long term, possibly work in a trader direction," Rosneft's boss said.

So one may conclude with every certainty that a high-level dialogue between Moscow and Baku has been resumed. Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Baku has reaffirmed that partnership between Russia and Azerbaijan is important and of mutual benefit.