Azerbaijan: Natural Gas Strengthens Ties with Friendly, Reliable, and Strategic Partners in the Region
Natural Gas Europe seeks to promote dialogue and the exchange of viewpoints. We are pleased to publish the following Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor:
I read the article entitled “Natural Gas Strengthens Ties in the Caucasus and Central Asia”, which appeared on Natural Gas online platform on April 25, 2013.
Although I thought that the title’s objective would serve it the best to address how the regional alliance, brought together by shared values and interests, could help the development of the Southern Gas Corridor, so as to pave way to substantially serious supplies of gas volumes from the Caspian/Central Asian region to the European market, the article fell short of concluding so and instead seemed to have deliberately focused on the “political bottleneck” referring to opportunities connected with the position of Armenia in that geography.
When referring to the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway (BTK) project, the author claims Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey need to receive the consent of Armenia and Iran to go ahead with the project. This is a misguiding statement, because sovereign countries, who unite in their endeavours to expand the regional trade flow and mobility, as well as enhance transport infrastructure network, choose their partners based on their shared values and principles of good neighbourhood, not to mention the strategic value-added of reciprocally favourable partnership. Armenia and Iran have so far demonstrated exactly the opposite by increasing the tension in the sensitive region through their aggressive political, militaristic, and unfriendly domestic and foreign policies.
BTK project is predominantly financed by Azerbaijan. Armenia not only refuses to comply with the UN resolutions to unconditionally withdraw its armed troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territory, but also aggravates the situation by daring to annex the occupied regions to itself, which is blatantly a shocking move anyone can witness happening in 21st century. Needless to mention that some aggressive rhetoric from Armenia also continues to voice territorial revanchiste claims against both Turkey and Georgia, both torn apart by decades of internal instability and instigated terrorism on ethnic grounds. Moreover, when it comes to Iran, its aggressive rhetoric of constantly intervening into sovereign, secular, and independent Azerbaijan makes the matters worse. Let’s admit: Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey cannot be pretentious and embrace aggressive unfriendly Armenia and Iran into BTK project. Put it simply this way: no any other country would ever do so in their place.
Further, when the author talks about the route for any pipeline project from Azerbaijan to Turkey should be through Armenia, he restrains from mentioning the reasons for which it actually is not and cannot be as such. Yes, Armenia is the shortest way possible. However, for the reasons mentioned above, it is unthinkable for Azerbaijan to embrace the unfriendly aggressor Armenia for any project. Such policy would also be suicidal for European Union and Turkey alike. The reason is simple: any country in the region, which continues to occupy its neighbour’s terriroty against the politico-commercial logic and defying the principle of respect for sovereignty and friendly neighbourhood, should be hard to trust when given even a sense of an expectation it could for a moment imagine it had those multi-billion equity infrastructure projects run through own territory and continue to occupy the lands of the country whose resources it eyes. Both Armenia and Iran yet have a lot to prove they can be trusted in that respect.
Author states that “Turkish and Caspian authorities cannot exclude Iran and Armenia without their consent. That may explain why Turkey still insists on receiving oil and gas exports from Iran, despite international embargoes.” Perhaps the author is unaware how big volumes of Irani crude still are transported and bought by Japan, one of the top strategic allies of the United States. It used to be 14% in 2009, today constitutes 6% of Japan’s total oil purchase. Still a huge amount. As for Turkey, it has already clearly announced it has switched to buy natural gas and oil from Azerbaijan, not only for the factors of politics (sanctions), but simply because Azerbaijan sells at a lower price than Iran and in return for better conditions it gets back from Ankara.
Natural resources, their extraction, transportation, and marketing, as well as any financial tool put in their support, is a sovereign ownership of the country they belong to. Perhaps Armenia and Iran can think they are strategically placed to partly own the process, but it is not up them to decide they fit the regional infrastructure enhancement formula of those who provide for the benefits.
It is noteworthy to mention that the armed troops of Armenia staged military exercises last year particularly running the scenario of hitting Azerbaijan’s energy infrastructure. Undoubtedly, Armenia could boast of hosting the Russian military base to allow itself feeling so confident it could ever realize the scenario.
In his one-sided analysis, the author later suggests that Iran and Armenia missed out on the regional projects due to embargoes, including the one still in effect by Turkey with regard to Armenia. The modern history and truth are out there for anybody to study: Turkey would not put a blockade (an inflated version claimed by some) on Armenia if the latter in first place had not staged a warfare and continued to occupy Turkey’s closest strategic ally Azerbaijan. Who would do otherwise?
Concluding my remarks, I would like to share a real sense on why author fails to back up his suggestion about NIOC’s being still there in Shah Denis upstream. The simple truth is thanks to Azerbaijan. The authorities in both Washington, DC and Brussels have finally understood that NIOC’s non-operational 10% stake in SD upstream transaction gives them no means to yield any profit, any say in decision-making. Hence, a better passive presence in the deal rather than forcing it to leave now taking the bulk of cash-out, which Tehran desperately needs. That certainly would not serve the objectives of the sanctions, would it?
Rashad Novruz is an independent energy expert and researcher from Azerbaijan