Publications
Peace in South Caucasus Closer After the Washington Summit, but Uncertainties Loom
By Vasif HUSEYNOV, PhD, Head of Department, AIR Center, Adjunct Lecturer, ADA and Khazar Universities, Baku
On August 28, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that his country will start substantive talks next month with the United States and Azerbaijan on the practical arrangements for opening a transit route to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave via the territory of Armenia. The agreement on this route (hereafter the Zangezur Corridor) was reached on August 8 during a trilateral meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan, mediated by U.S. President Donald Trump. According to the trilateral agreement, the route (renamed as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP) would serve as an “unimpeded” passage and be managed through what Trump called an “exclusive partnership” between Armenia and the United States for 99 years. According to Pashinyan, this implies the deployment of an “Armenia-United States company” which “will carry out the business management”. He underscored that the company “will not control that road but manage it,” refuting the domestic criticism about the loss of Armenian sovereignty over the route and the sublease of the territory to the United States. READ MORE
Publications
Advancing Azerbaijan-China Energy Cooperation within the SCO Framework
By Vusal GULIYEV, Leading Advisor at the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center)
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev delivered a speech at the “Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus” (SCO+) meeting in Tianjin, China (September 2025) underlining Azerbaijan’s role in regional connectivity and energy cooperation. Energy is a cornerstone of Azerbaijan’s economy and a major area of cooperation with both China and other SCO countries. As a hydrocarbon-rich nation on the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan brings significant oil and gas assets to any partnership. It has leveraged its dialogue partner status in the SCO to advance energy collaboration aiming to diversify its export markets, attract investment in energy infrastructure, and even develop new energy technologies. Building on this foundation, Azerbaijan has gradually shifted its energy focus from its traditional European partners toward emerging Asian markets. Traditionally, Azerbaijan’s oil and gas have flowed Westward to Europe (through pipelines like BTC and TANAP), but now Asian markets are increasingly in focus. China has begun importing Azerbaijani crude oil in recent years. Although volumes are modest relative to Azerbaijan’s exports to Europe, they signal a growing Far Eastern demand. READ MORE
Publications
Russia — Ukraine’s Accidental Matchmaker
By Fuad Shahbazov, Baku-based independent regional security and defence analyst
Uneasy neighbours at the best of times, open hostility from the Kremlin is pushing Azerbaijan closer to Ukraine.
Russian drones attacked an oil depot in Odesa in Ukraine on August 17. That’s not unusual, but that night’s target was notable in one important sense — the Kremlin struck high-profile infrastructure owned by SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company. This was no accident. Russia had attacked the same SOCAR facility in Ukraine on August 8. Taken together with a series of other events, it has become clear that Putin’s men are sending a message. That comes at some risk to themselves and potential benefits for Ukraine. These weren’t the first or even the most serious Russian acts of hostility against the energy-rich South Caucasian nation. On Christmas Day, Russian missile batteries shot down a scheduled Azerbaijan Airways plane, killing 38 people. The incident caused uproar, not least because while the missile firing may have resulted from mistaken identity, Russian air controllers refused the badly damaged aircraft permission to land. READ MORE
Publications
The 2025 Trump–Putin Summit in Alaska: Geopolitical Implications Amid the Ukraine War
By Yunis GURBANOV, PhD, Senior Advisor at the AIR Center, Baku
The Alaska summit highlighted the discordant divergence between Washington and Moscow after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and exposed the limits of summit diplomacy in the context of a grinding war. President Trump reaffirmed America's formal commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and NATO's deterrent stance, but his words were typically qualified by continual calls for a "realistic settlement" with Moscow. This contrasted sharply with the State Department’s prior line, suggesting internal tensions within Washington’s approach. President Putin, for his part, sought to capitalize on these uncertainties: he promoted Russia's military successes as irreversible facts on the ground, demanded Western recognition of occupied land, and framed Moscow's actions as a defensive reaction against NATO "encirclement. READ MORE
Publications
Turkish Policy in the South Caucasus and Relations with Russia 
By Benyamin POGHOSYAN, PhD, Senior Research Fellow at the APRI Armenia
Turkey-Russia relations are typically based on compartmentalization. They simultaneously compete and cooperate in various regions, separating the areas in which their interests are overlapping from those where they are in competition. This concept was the base of their competing relations in Syria until the demise of Assad regime in 2024, and mutual interactions in post-Gaddafi Libya. Another aspect of compartmentalization is the conscious separation of economy and geopolitics: they have been developing economic cooperation while competing in geopolitics. Economic cooperation is significant for both Russia and Turkey, considering Russian gas and oil imported by Turkey and the construction by the Russian state nuclear energy company ROSATOM of a nuclear power plant in Akkuyu, southern Turkey. READ MORE
