Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev*

Events in the past several years have compelled Europe to pay increasing attention to the Wider Black Sea region. The South Eastern enlargement of both the EU and NATO and increasing concerns about Europe’s energy security have been the main drivers of this process. Relatively scant attention has nevertheless been paid to the eastern linchpin of the region, Azerbaijan. It is now time to change this, since Azerbaijan stands to play a crucial role in the evolution of the region in the foreseeable future.

A number of factors have led to the emergence of what is increasingly called the Wider Black sea region, and the understanding of this region’s role in European security. First, the EU membership of Romania and Bulgaria is bringing the EU to the shores of the Black Sea. Second, developments in other regional countries have increased their link to Europe. Turkey’s reforms since 2002 have been so encouraging that Ankara has begun membership negotiations with the EU; meanwhile, democratic leaps forward in Georgia Ukraine have confirmed those countries’ European vocation.

Third, the main area of operations for Europe’s chief security body, NATO, is presently Afghanistan. This has made the region connecting Europe to Afghanistan increasingly important - the region stretching from Europe over the Black and Caspian seas. Fourth, the developments in Russia lately have increased concerns over Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. As Europe seeks alternative energy supplies to diversify its supply, the Caspian sea region is one of the very few sources of untapped energy supplies that could satisfy Europe’s growing consumption while reducing its dependence on a monopolistic supplier. Finally, as democratic values spread eastward, this region is the main area where authoritarian and democratic forces still struggle for influence.

All these factors have conflated to bring the region surrounding the Black Sea into the limelight. Indeed, one can talk of the emergence of a Wider Black Sea region as one hub of European security. And while this has brought countries like Georgia, Ukraine and Turkey into the public eye, one of the region’s key states has been somewhat neglected: Azerbaijan. Indeed, though little known in Europe, Azerbaijan has emerged as a crucial linchpin of the region’s security.

Azerbaijan may be most famous for its resources of oil and gas. Indeed, thanks to American and European investments and a stable investment environment, the country has emerged as a significant producer of both oil and natural gas. At a time of mounting oil prices, increasing demand for energy, and seemingly endless instability in the Persian Gulf, the energy resources of the Caspian sea are more important than ever. Thanks to a newly built oil pipeline linking Azerbaijan’s oil fields to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, a million barrels of oil per day can now flow to Europe, easing tight markets. It will be followed next year by a natural gas pipeline, which will produce up to 30 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year in 2012.

Azerbaijan’s oil and gas production may not be huge on a world scale. But it is the location and timing of its resources coming to market that matter. The increasingly assertive and reckless Russian foreign policy toward its neighbours as well as toward Europe has caused growing concern that Europe may be growing overly dependent on Russian energy supplies. The old adage that energy security lies in diversity has come back with a vengeance. Indeed, European leaders are now seeking alternative energy supply routes.

It is here that Azerbaijan’s importance is most obvious: on one hand, it is a producer country of oil and gas. But this very fact, and the completion of infrastructure linking its energy deposits to Europe, makes Azerbaijan a transit country as well, for the even larger volumes of oil and gas on the Eastern coast of the Caspian. With Azerbaijan’s energy infrastructure linked to Europe, it is now realistic to free up Central Asia’s energy resources through pipelines over the Caspian sea connecting through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to Europe. This could open the door for Europe to gas resources larger than those delivered by Russia’s state-owned Gazprom monopoly. Indeed, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan combined have a potential to export more than the 140 bcm per year that Gazprom exports to the EU. Moreover, with smaller populations, their export volumes will not be dependent on the evolution of their domestic markets and are therefore more predictable.

In fact, the prospect of linking Caspian energy to Europe has a triple advantage. First, it provides oil and gas to Europe at cheaper rates than new projects in Russia’s Siberian fields. Second, it prevents Russia from monopolising Europe’s supply of oil and gas, thereby increasing European energy security in the case of voluntary or involuntary supply disruptions from Russia.

Third, it is beneficial for the evolution of the regional states into more stable, prosperous and liberal countries, given greater economic and political interaction with Europe and exposure to western business practices.

Yet, as important as oil and gas may be, Azerbaijan’s importance lies not only in that. To begin with, Azerbaijan plays a crucial role in the broader context of Europe’s relations with the Muslim world. It is a Shi’a Muslim majority state, where moderate Islam dominates and extremism is weak. Azerbaijan has a strong secular tradition: in 1918, the first democratic republic in the Muslim world was formed in Azerbaijan – five years before Ataturk created the Turkish republic. Azerbaijan, despite its size, plays an important role in the Muslim world: this year, it chaired the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, and has been an important force of moderation there.

Another factor stems from geography: few countries in Eurasia can compare to Azerbaijan in terms of strategic importance. Its strategic value derives largely from being the only country bordering both Russia and Iran. After September 11, 2001, Azerbaijan became crucial to the allied operation in Afghanistan. Given Russian and Iranian objections, the allies have used Azerbaijan’s airspace for almost all military transport between NATO territory in Europe and the ongoing peace-building effort in Afghanistan.

This same geographic importance makes Azerbaijan a key point of transit in the existing plans to build rail and highway links from Europe to Asia. Indeed, a continental trade route from China to Europe via the Caspian and Black seas would cut transit time by over ten days compared to sea routes, boosting the opportunities for trade across the region.

If Azerbaijan is so important, why have we heard less about it than its neighbours? A lack of democracy is often mentioned as one of the problems in Azerbaijan’s relationship to Europe. And it is true that Azerbaijan has a long way to travel to achieve the democratic standards of the EU’s new member states.

As President Ilham Aliyev himself acknowledges, Azerbaijan has serious shortcomings that it needs to address in terms of elections, its judiciary system, and corruption, to name only a few areas.

Yet everything is relative. Azerbaijan is situated in a region surrounded by authoritarian governments: Putin’s Russia, Iran’s theocracy, and Central Asia’s authoritarian rulers. In this sense, Azerbaijan bears more resemblance to its neighbour Georgia, by standing out as a liberal, pluralistic country with a government working toward meaningful reform. Georgia applied a revolutionary model; Azerbaijan chose evolution.

Mr. Aliyev succeeded his father as President of the country, a process termed by critics as a “dynastic succession.” Yet, this characterisation is unfair. Ilham Aliyev came to power in a way no different from Vladimir Putin in Russia: a chosen successor, who carried an election disputed by the opposition. Much as in Putin’s case, there is little doubt Ilham Aliyev won that election, thanks to the relative popularity of a government delivering economic goods, and a divided opposition. But, unlike Mr. Putin, Mr. Aliyev has, since his election, brought Azerbaijan onward in the path of political and economic reform.

For example, Azerbaijan has become a pilot country in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative launched by the United Kingdom. All this indicates that Europe has a multitude of interests in Azerbaijan. These can chiefly be divided into three areas: energy and trade; security cooperation; and democracy and human rights. Contrary to conventional wisdom, these are not contradictory.

Quite to the contrary, they can be mutually reinforcing. For security and energy cooperation to be conducive to democratic development, Europe needs to promote all its three spheres of interest in parallel and in a mutually reinforcing manner rather than conditioning one on the other. Energy and security cooperation cannot thrive in the absence of democratic reform; but democracy is not going to develop without cooperation in the security and energy fields. If Europe follows this balanced policy, Azerbaijan will continue to respond positively to advice on political reform, as it has to date.

For the EU and its member states, this will bring the great advantage of securing its relationship with a small but crucial country on the very edges of Europe, which stands to play important roles in days to come.

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Dr. Svante E. Cornell is Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, A Joint Research and Policy Centre with offices at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS in Washington DC, US and Uppsala University, Sweden

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