Azerbaijan at crosswinds of a new cold war

Azerbaijan’s presidential elections are a few weeks away and while most experts agree it is a sure bet that the current president, Ilham Aliyev, will easily win re-election, there is less certainty about the future orientation of the country, increasingly caught in the crosswind of a new US-Russia power struggle.

In his tour of the region last week, US Vice President Dick Cheney shot many salvos against Russians, accusing them of posing a “threat of tyranny, economic blackmail and military invasion” to its neighbors. In his meeting with Aliyev, Cheney was comparatively more reserved and put the emphasis instead on “energy security”.
Coinciding with Cheney’s trip has been a new report by the

European Union’s energy commissioner, Andris Piebglas, calling on the EU to redouble its efforts to build the US$12 billion Nabucco gas pipeline [1] and reduce its dependence on imports from Russia in the wake of the Georgian crisis that, per a report in the British newspaper The Guardian, has led many experts to dismiss the planned 3,300 kilometer Nabucco pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe via Georgia and Turkey.

Not only that, both Russia and Iran have opposed the construction of a trans-Caspian pipeline that would allow the shipment of gas from the Caspian section of Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan and then to Europe. Last week, at a meeting of the Caspian littoral states on the legal status of Caspian Sea, held in Baku, Iran’s point man on the Caspian Sea, Mehdi Safari, stated, “We object to the trans-Caspian pipeline because of the possible negative impact on sea ecology … there are Iranian and Russian energy routes and it is unnecessary to jeopardize Caspian ecology.”

Although there is real concern about the Caspian ecology, both Tehran and Moscow are equally if not more concerned about the geopolitical ramifications of so-called “pipeline politics” in the Caspian basin and the adjacent regions, particularly now that the US and Europe seem determined to lessen the West’s energy dependency on both Iran and Russia by cultivating alternative sources.

Asia Times