Azerbaijani President met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Israeli President Shimon Peres in a day. The agreements Azerbaijani President Aliyev signed with both Presidents can be defined as ’revolution’ for the foreign policy of Azerbaijan.
Welcoming Israeli President Shimon Peres in Baku is not welcomed by Iran while the natural gas agreement between Azerbaijan and Russia created question marks in Turkey and Europe.
Kremlin was lobbying for signing a natural gas agreement with Azerbaijan since long time. Head of Russian natural gas provider compony Gazprom, Aleksey Miller had came to Baku and stated that they are interested in Azerbaijani natural gas. And he said that they are ready to buy Azerbaijani natural gas with a higher price that Europe will pay to Azerbaijan.
The target of the Miller was clear. Making steps in path which Moscow draws for the company, Aleksey Miller was in Baku for preventing the realization of Nabucco project. By Nabucco project, Europe wants to decrease its energy dependence to Europe by the transfer of Azerbaijani gas to Europe over Turkey. Doing so, Russia wants to bury the project before it comes to the world.
The logic of trading is simple. The trade should be made with the costumer who pays more money. But there is need for a serious consideration before, if the buyer is strategical partner of Armenia.
Russia signed the natural gas agreement with Azerbaijan. This issue is very important for Russia, that Russian President Medvedev came to Baku despite his dense agenda.
Now, does the agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan form an obstacle for the Nabucco project?
According to the agreement, Azerbaijan will sell 500 million cubic meter gasous to Russia starting from 2010. This is not a big deal. This year, Azerbaijan will export 27 billion cubic meters of gas while next year the amount will reach to 30 billion cubic meters. The amount that is required for Nabucco project is 30 billion cubic meters. So, even if Azerbaijan sells 500 million cubic meters of natural gas to Russia, it will still be able to provide gas for Nabucco project.
But, the real face of the agreement is different.
Gazprom will buy gaseous from Azerbaijan with the price of 350 dollars. This amount is big for the Russian company. Gazprom does not pay more than 300 dollars to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. So, it is clear that the agreement is not made for economical interests. The aim of Russia is enlarging the agreement by time and keeping Azerbaijan away from West.
After the agreement between two countries, President Ilham Aliyev said, “The agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan is reached easily. There isn’t any transit country and pipeline is ready.” These statements should make United States to consider the issue. Nabucco project is established only on paper and it includes many transit countries while there is an existing pipeline between Russia and Azerbaijan without any transit country.
Official Baku expects Russia to have a fair attitude in the process of resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh problem in return of the gas agreement. Some circles in Azerbaijan considers that if Azerbaijan prevents realization of Nabucco project by selling its all natural gas over Russia, then Russia would press Armenia for the resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh problem. The best reply to the people who think that way, came from a Russian political scientist.
Talking to Russian Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Russian political scientist Tretyakov said, “Armenia is partner of Russia by all historical aspects. Armenia is the only stop of Russia in the South Caucasus. Russia’s interest over Azerbaijan is because of natural resources. Recently, Moscow supports both Azerbaijan and Armenia. But what will be the attitude of Russia if one day Azerbaijan and Armenia starts war for Nagorno-Karabakh? We should determine our position in such case. Russia’s interest is in good relations with Armenia. Russia has its own natural sources, we do not need Azerbaijani petroleum. We can find petroulem but finding a military partner is not that easy.”
Elhan Sahinoglu
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