BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 18. A single
geopolitical identity has already formed between Azerbaijan and the
countries of Central Asia, and this is a natural process, Board
Member of the AIR Center, Javid Valiyev said, Trend reports.
He made the remark at an international conference on 'C6: One
region, shared future – enhancing strategic dialogue' held today in
Baku.
According to him, over the past decades, the processes taking
place in the region and in the world have, to a certain extent,
made the formation of a common geopolitical identity between
Central Asia and Azerbaijan necessary:
“Why has such an identity formed, and what made it necessary?
This is due not only to a common Soviet past and similar historical
experiences. As I have already noted, the geopolitical events of
the last 30 years in the region – in the fields of economy,
transport, trade, energy, and security – have made deeper
cooperation necessary.”
In the early years after gaining independence, the Central Asian
countries, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, showed great
interest in the energy and transport projects being implemented by
Azerbaijan. In 1999, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan also participated
in the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan project agreements in Istanbul. After
the launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in 2006, oil
from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan began flowing through Azerbaijan
to global markets," he added.
Valiyev pointed out that the Central Asian countries are
landlocked states: "They had to cooperate to access world markets.
Azerbaijan had already created the necessary energy and transport
infrastructure for such access. World powers interested in the
region's energy and transport corridors supported the development
of cooperation between these states. The Central
Asia-Azerbaijan-Türkiye-Western markets route was supported. This
was important for strengthening the sovereignty and independence of
the new states, and also because the route was seen as an
alternative to the northern and southern directions."
