NEW PRIORITIES

The summit of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) was held on March 4 via videoconference. The host country of the summit was Turkey, which also chairs the organisation. Turkey's chairmanship was held in very difficult conditions of the coronavirus pandemic and the global lockdown measures. As a result, the level of trade operations between the member states fell. But even at such an extraordinary time, the parties remained committed to economic cooperation and achieve significant results to strengthen the regional economic platform.

ECO in the system of international politics

ECO was established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. The organisation is the successor to the Organization for Regional Cooperation and Development (ORCD), which operated on the basis of the Izmir Treaty signed by the same three founding members on March 12, 1977. The purpose of the organization was to boost economic cooperation in the region, to increase the potential of national economies, as well as to resist to competition from foreign trade partners. However, a few months later, a coup took place in Pakistan with General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq coming to power in the country. A few years later, a radical change of power also took place in Iran and Turkey. The Iranian Shah was overthrown, and the previous Turkish leadership was deposed. Thus, there was no time for regional cooperation in all three states.

Years later, in 1985, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan began to take measures to reform their own economies. Their interaction acted as an important condition for strengthening the competitive advantages of these countries. In the same year, the organization received its current name.

After another six-seven years, ECO member states discovered additional horizons. With the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new governments of the neighbours of the Izmir Troika applied for membership in the organization. They hoped to form a stable system of regional economic relations, creating prerequisites for their effective participation in the regional economic division of labour. Thus, on November 28, 1992, Islamabad adopted a protocol on amendments to the Izmir Treaty. According to the decision of the Islamabad emergency meeting of the ECO Council of Ministers, the Central Asian states, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan became full members to the organization.

Admission of new members gave the old ECO members a chance to spread their influence over the Muslim countries of the post-Soviet space, as well as to intensify trade and economic ties with them. New members have an opportunity to independently establish relations with their neighbours, develop economic ties, which makes it possible to realize their export potential in full.

Cooperation in the 21st century

Today, the ECO member states are dynamically developing states of Eurasia located at the junction of the largest economies of the planet. In the west, ECO borders with the European Union, in the north - with Russia, in the east - with China, and in the south - with India. This obviously creates advantages, making the member states important communicators in a vast area from the Mediterranean Sea to the Himalayas, from southern Siberia to the Indian Ocean.

This area also hosts important transport and communication projects East-West, North-South, the Lapis Lazuli corridor, and the Black Sea-Caspian Sea corridor. In recent decades, hundreds of kilometres of railways and highways have been constructed and port facilities have been reconstructed in the area.

It is no coincidence that in his address at the recent summit, the Prime Minister of Pakistan suggested that member countries develop an integrated transport strategy that would facilitate trade within the ECO and serve as a transit route for trade between adjacent economies in the East and West, North and South. He also proposed creating an ECO investment agency and organizing an annual investment fair. The fair may well be a venue to present investment-ready projects to member states, while global investors can come up with ideas that need to be explored.

One can also note a conflict potential within the organization. But fortunately, in 2020 it was possible to largely solve two major problems: to achieve progress in a peaceful solution to the Afghan situation and to resolve the Garabagh problem.

Speaking at the opening of the ECO summit, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that the peace process in Afghanistan is crucial for strengthening economic integration between the countries of the organization. He also highly appreciated the efforts of Azerbaijan to liberate the territories occupied by Armenia, congratulating President Ilham Aliyev on the successful military operations of the Azerbaijan Army.

Together against Islamophobia

ECO member states, which are Islamic states, also discussed a rather urgent problem in modern international politics - Islamophobia. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly raised the issue from the highest tribunes. He has always been supported by fraternal Pakistan and Turkey. On the initiative of Pakistan and Turkey, it was proposed to declare March 15 as the International Day against Islamophobia. Ten days before that date, the summit participants reiterated their concern about the growing Islamophobia in some countries. They called on world leaders to reject any attempt to link Islam to terrorism as the greatest injustice to Muslims.

It was noted that, in addition to health and economic implications, the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated manifestations of religious discrimination, xenophobia and Islamophobia in various parts of the world. In this context, the leaders called to counteract attempts to use freedom of speech to damage the image of Muslims.

Azerbaijan’s priorities in ECO

Azerbaijan attaches great importance to relations with the member states of the Economic Cooperation Organization. A striking example of this is the adoption by the leaders of the member states of the charter of the ECO Research Center, which was founded on the initiative of the national leader of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev.

In his address to the summit participants, President Aliyev spoke about the possibilities of cooperation to ensure peace and stability, the implementation of transport projects that can be used directly by the countries of the region. All the addressees of Mr. Aliyev’s speech made right conclusions and thus received clear messages regarding the further plans for cooperation with Azerbaijan.

Everyone except Armenia. Yerevan again surprised everyone with their ridiculous accusations against Baku. Thus, the spokesperson of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Anna Naghdalyan stated that "Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is disrupting the trilateral agreements on Garabagh referring to the far-fetched corridor through Zangezur."

Obviously, this statement was yet another expression of the traditional line of Armenian diplomacy. In fact, it ignores the obvious. As it has been for years. For example, for twenty-five years Armenia has interpreted four UN Security Council resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh, stating that these resolutions did not set a condition for Armenia on the unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Azerbaijan. All these years, Armenia has declared that there was a different subtext in these resolutions and that it was necessary to read them “not from top to bottom, but from bottom to top,” made all sorts of absurd arguments.

Anyway, the regional cooperation has advanced tremendously. Whether Yerevan wants it or not, it will have to realise it very soon.

ECO creates additional conditions for cooperation of regional countries. In the coming period, with the chairmanship of Turkmenistan, these conditions will be further optimized. Moreover, two trilateral formats of cooperation, in which Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan act as partners (Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan-Turkey and Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan-Afghanistan) will only contribute to this.