Ashgabat-Baku: Renovation of the Marine Neighborhood
President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov is traveling to Azerbaijan. According to official sources, the visit was undertaken on the initiative of Ilham Aliyev. What is the agenda of the meeting of the leaders of the two states? Of course, it includes a range of issues of trade and maritime proximity, where possibilities are in fact much wider than in oil and gas cooperation. Although, of course, hydrocarbons are a priority issue ... Notable changes in Turkmen-Azerbaijani relations give rise to expectations from the upcoming talks, if not for a breakthrough in the political and diplomatic terms, then for a substantial advance in the positive solution to the dilemma: does the common sharing of the Caspian Sea separate or unite these countries? And where to find the boundaries of not a clash, but the commonality of their national interests? As is usually the case at high-level meetings, the most burning issues will probably be discussed face to face. But the results of this discussion will set the tone of the further course of the Turkmen-Azerbaijani talks with the participation of the members of the governments of the two countries. Cooperation between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan can not be considered in isolation from economic integration in the Caspian region and the Eurasian area, where new logistics systems are now being formed, which determine the strategic nature of the relations of the partner countries. There is cooperation in the fuel and energy complex, maritime trade, ecology, and transit and transport corridors, which somehow include the Caspian ports in their multimodal scheme - both the existing ones and those under construction on the opposite shores ... Today the Caspian states, each of which possesses a unique competitive advantage, are looking for ways of the most effective cooperation and the addition of potentials to strengthen their positions in the world market. Whether it is possible to talk about the movement towards the creation of an energy transport hub in the region will become visible pretty soon. Possibly even at the end of the current high-level talks. The prerequisites for this are obvious. Including the example of our two countries: Turkmenistan, which implements an active energy policy in the direction of China and South Asia, and Azerbaijan, focused on the export of energy carriers to Europe. The creation of such a hub, which will unite the capabilities of countries in the aspect of their influence on the most promising markets of the continent, will open new horizons in many other areas of partnership: from agrarian production to high technologies.
