PanARMENIAN.Net
Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku became railway variant of Baku-Ceyhan?
17.02.2007 13:38 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `The sharp cooling of the Russian-Azeri relations in
late 2006 formally began with outer reasons. First, Moscow requested
Baku to suspend gas delivery to Georgia. When Baku refused to form an
anti-Georgian alliance Gazprom raised the gas prices not for Georgia
but also for Azerbaijan,’ head of the department of international
relations at the institute of political and military studies Sergey
Markedonov said in an interview with PanARMENIAN.Net. He reminded
that Azerbaijan had to pay $235 instead of $110 for thousand cu m of
gas. `For its part Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that such
price `discords with the spirit and essence of the Russian-Azeri
relations.’ Moreover, Aliyev junior did not rule out that `oil and gas
relations between Moscow and Baku maintain a political implication.’
The result was that the Azeri authorities and Gazprom did not sign an
agreement on delivery of Russian gas to Azerbaijan in 2007. The story
was continued. February 7, in Tbilisi, top leaders of Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Turkey held a regional summit, which resulted in
signing of agreement on construction of a strategically important
Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railroad. Some experts began speaking of
a railway variant of Baku-Ceyhan. It’s worth mentioning that the
project is supposed to be completed by 2009 without Russia’s
participation and in bypass of Armenia. In general, such a development
was expected but only the event of February 7, 2007 showed that the
project will be launched in bypass of Armenia. The project tightened
the Tbilisi-Baku economic knot. Moreover, Azerbaijan did a little
`service’ to Georgia in the form of a $200 million credit,’ said
Markedonov.