FRIENDLY SUMMIT

According to the concept of geographical determinism, it is the geographical position of a country that largely determines the nature of its foreign and domestic policies. For Azerbaijan between Europe and Asia geography has always been of paramount importance, and relations with neighbouring countries and regions have been crucial. This is also true for the Central Asian region, with which Baku has been developing an intense dialogue over the past year and a half.

Projects such as the Middle Corridor and TRACECA would be impossible without active cooperation with Central Asian countries. Turkic cooperation is impossible without Central Asia, sustainability within the Caspian Five is impossible without cooperation with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. China, the EU and the US often view Azerbaijan and more broadly the South Caucasus invariably in conjunction with Central Asia.

This is also evidenced by President Ilham Aliyev's recent visits to Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.

Stopover in Dushanbe

Many observers, both in Azerbaijan and beyond, paid particular attention to President Ilham Aliyev's visit to Tajikistan. This is the only country in the region that is not a member of the Organisation of Turkic-speaking States (OTS), but with which Baku has strong friendly relations.

Tajikistan has stood aside of Baku's foreign policy in Central Asia for objective reasons. First, it is the most distant country from Azerbaijan among all the regional states. Secondly, it is not a member of the OTS.  This is why Baku's relations with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan have developed dynamically. Ankara and Baku have established a trilateral format of interaction with Astana, Tashkent and Ashgabat. With Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan also has a regular dialogue within the framework of the Caspian Five. Only Tajikistan, which is not part of the Turkic and Caspian platforms, has been somewhat absent from the current Azerbaijani diplomacy.

It is true that presidents Ilham Aliyev and Emomali Rakhmon met and communicated several times on the margins of the CIS, CICA and SCO summits last year alone. There have also been reciprocal visits of heads of individual ministries and departments. But it was only the official visit of the Azerbaijani president to Tajikistan that truly filled a conditional gap in Azerbaijan's Central Asian policy.

An important marker of bilateral relations at the current stage is the full mutual understanding between the two leaders both on relevant issues of bilateral interaction and important issues of global and regional politics, as reflected in the outcome of the visit.

There was complete unanimity and mutual understanding in assessing the role of the Azerbaijani poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi in forming a common approach between Baku and Dushanbe in building a humanitarian dialogue. The leaders of both countries emphasized that to this day Nizami's figure is a symbol of bilateral humanitarian cooperation. In his keynote address, President Rakhmon stated that in Tajikistan they regard Nizami as an Azerbaijani poet. But because he wrote in Farsi, which is very close to the Tajik language, the Tajik society respects the philosophy of the great Azerbaijani poet and thinker. It is also a message to Iran, with which Dushanbe has had difficult relations due to Tehran's attempts to meddle in Tajikistan's internal affairs. Several years ago there was a serious crisis in relations between the two countries, very similar to the current situation between Baku and Tehran. The tone of the Tajik leader was a demonstration of support to Baku's efforts to promote the heritage of Nizami as an Azerbaijani poet, not as an Iranian poet, as Tehran tries to portray it.

President Ilham Aliyev noted that Baku knows and appreciates the attitude to Nizami in Tajikistan and once again emphasized that the great Nizami Ganjavi "was born, lived and died in his native Ganja". "This is the cultural foundation that creates today the preconditions for active cooperation in all directions", added President Aliyev.

Connecting Tajikistan and Georgia

Despite the considerable importance given to humanitarian cooperation, bilateral relations are still dominated by trade and economic cooperation.

The intention to intensify bilateral trade largely depends on establishing efficient transport and logistics links. This is a major challenge for economic cooperation. For example, in 2022 bilateral trade between the two countries was only $5.8m, with 95% of this amount coming from Azerbaijani exports to Tajikistan. Investments also do not reflect the real potential of the two sides. For nearly 27 years, mutual investments have amounted to just $6m.

It is no coincidence that the delegations specifically focused on the issue of improving logistics and integrating Tajik railways and highways into the Middle Corridor transport system during the bilateral talks. The Tajik leadership assured that Dushanbe was ready to use Azerbaijan's convenient transit infrastructure and increase the volume of cargo traffic for Tajik state and commercial companies.

Back in October 2022, Tajikistan tested a new railway route—Tajikistan-Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Türkiye. Now this route may well be adjusted towards the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Immediately after Ilham Aliyev's visit to Tajikistan, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili paid a working visit to Azerbaijan.  The main topic of discussions was the current state and prospects of implementation of joint projects in the energy and transport sectors. As we know, the central theme of the talks between the Central Asian leaders and Baku was the improvement of transit connection between our countries with access to Türkiye and the Black Sea ports of Georgia.

President Ilham Aliyev said that the Azerbaijani-Georgian dialogue is of great importance in the light of his frequent visits to Central Asia and discussions on the development of transport links through the South Caucasus states.

From business to security

An agreement was reached in Tajikistan on investment projects in addition to cooperation in the transport sector. The day before the summit, a Tajik-Azerbaijani business forum was held in Dushanbe. The forum presented investment opportunities in various sectors of the economy, including tourism, industry, energy, services and so forth. On April 5, after the conclusion of extended talks between the heads of state, there was an official signing ceremony of documents to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in various areas.

The broad agenda of Azerbaijani-Tajik dialogue also includes security issues. Both sides are interested in cooperation in combating international terrorism, extremism, drug and arms trafficking, cybercrime and other forms of transnational organised crime.

Azerbaijan's experience in the 44-day war has been widely studied in many countries, including Tajikistan. The country has faced Afghan attempts to breach the border for years. These attempts periodically turn into armed clashes. Unfortunately, Azerbaijan also has first-hand experience of border tensions. Therefore, an exchange of experience on effective border management is necessary for both countries.

At the same time, Azerbaijan has distanced itself from the Tajik-Kyrgyz border conflict and has not taken a position of any of the conflicting parties. This stems from the principles of Azerbaijani foreign policy not to interfere in regional contradictions. Baku's position is that the resolution of all contentious issues between the countries should take place without external interference and with respect for mutual interests.

Continuing the dialogue

On April 10, President Ilham Aliyev paid an official visit to the Republic of Kazakhstan. This was a response to the visit of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to Azerbaijan in August 2022. At that time, the two countries signed two documents that form the basis of current bilateral relations—the Declaration on Strengthening Strategic Relations and Deepening Allied Interaction and the Comprehensive Programme for the Development of Cooperation until 2026.

A landmark event of the current visit was the establishment of the Supreme Interstate Council. It should strengthen the institutional framework for bilateral interaction and provide the basis for the implementation of a sustained and fruitful political dialogue.

It is noteworthy that Kazakhstan is the first country that signed a treaty on allied relations with Azerbaijan back in 2005. Since then, the dialogue between Astana and Baku has been considerably friendly and trustful.

Currently, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan continue the dialogue based on spiritual kinship, cultural and historical proximity, which is a separate resource for bilateral relations. The president of Azerbaijan took the floor at an enlarged meeting with the President of Kazakhstan and said: "Our interstate relations are built upon the humanitarian track. Undoubtedly, there are many areas of mutual interest. We are actually moving to a qualitatively new level of interaction and alliance".

Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev used the word "fraternal" in their statements more than once to define the nature of bilateral relations. The opening of the Kurmangazy Children's Art Centre in Fuzuli, one of the liberated disctricts of Azerbaijan, is a good indicator of real brotherly relations between the two nations. Ilham Aliyev emphasized that it is a gift of Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan, which the Azerbaijani people will never forget.

At the same time, Ilham Aliyev expressed special gratitude for the respect of the leadership and people of Kazakhstan for the memory of national leader of the Azerbaijani people, Heydar Aliyev. Thus, presidents Tokayev and Aliyev joined the opening ceremony of the Heydar Aliyev street in the centre of Astana on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Heydar Aliyev. Ilham Aliyev regarded the gesture as a sign of friendship, brotherhood and respect for all the Azerbaijani people.

As part of discussions on the current priorities of bilateral cooperation, the two presidents paid considerable attention to the prospects of trade and economic cooperation and increasing the efficiency of transport and logistics links. The parties increasingly highlight prospects in industrial cooperation and expansion of the range of export-import operations. Among the measures to increase mutual trade turnover up to $1 billion, stimulating cooperation in industry, agriculture, high technology and other areas is extremely important.

Increasing mutual trade (40% over the last year), as well as the increasing share of non-oil products in it raise optimistic expectations for its diversification. It was noted at the meeting that grain products accounted for up to a third of all mutual export-import transactions.

Logistics is another priority area for cooperation. During the meetings, the parties discussed in detail the implementation of the road map concerning the development of the Middle Corridor in 2022-2027. Highlighting the magnitude of ongoing works, President Aliyev mentioned that the parties "discussed specific figures, a specific schedule for increasing the transportation of commodities along the East-West route and gave instructions to the heads of relevant bodies to ensure the implementation of all these issues".

With regard to the international agenda, there has traditionally been strong cooperation within international organisations. There is particular support for each other when one of the two countries is not a member of an alliance, which demonstrates the sincere nature of bilateral relations.