Q:On July 13, speaking at the latest Shushi media forum, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced the full normalization of relations with Russia..

“There were difficulties. Yes, we all know about them, but the important thing is that this phase is already in the past. I would say the relationship is completely normalized. Azerbaijan values ​​relations with Russia.

The contacts are carried out at different levels: between governments, in the line of the co-chairs of the intergovernmental commission, the ministries of foreign affairs, as well as the administrations of the presidents. That’s why, I think, everything is going well in this regard, and we are happy about it. .. bilateral relations include both traditional spheres of interaction and new directions that are emerging today. Of course, the transport component, trade and humanitarian cooperation play a very important role.”

Of course, it didn’t go unnoticed by those who followed the speech in its entirety, not just looking for something comfortable. Aliyev’s unconditional support for Zelensky’s regime, which, as is known, is manifested not only in a symbolic but also in a purely practical way. The series of “friendly” statements continued in Berlin, where the leader of Azerbaijan visited on July 21.

As a result of negotiations with Federal Chancellor Mertz, a declaration on the strategic agenda of bilateral partnership was signed, and agreements on a wide range of directions of bilateral cooperation were concluded. It should be noted the good preparation of the visit, including in the context of the earlier agreements on the supply of natural gas from the western shores of the Caspian Sea to Germany (and Austria) from the beginning of 2026.

During the summary press conference, the “strategic partners” spoke quite frankly about various topics. To Andreas Rinke of Reuters, a question concerning the European and Russian public the answer should perhaps be reproduced in full.

“What about? to oil supplies, I can say that last year our total turnover with Germany amounted to about 1.5 billion dollars։  Most of it is Germany’s export to Azerbaijan, and the rest is our export. The main part of our export is crude oil.

In other words, I think that Azerbaijan supplies crude oil at the level of several hundred million dollars and can supply as much as it needs, both at the expense of internal sources and through the trading division of our energy company SOCAR. In other words, there is no problem here.

As for natural gas, I already mentioned since this year we have started selling natural gas to Germany. Last year, our total gas export was 25 billion cubic meters. 

Half of that volume was exported to European Union countries. As far as I know, a 10-year contract was signed with German companies, and the initial volume is 1.5 billion cubic meters. However, that volume can naturally increase. For that, several issues must be resolved. First, there must be an application to us regarding the volume increase.

Երկրորդ՝ the existing gas infrastructure should be expanded. Because today and TANAPand TAPare operating at full capacity, and there is no free space left in those pipelines.  New interconnectors are needed in the European territory. Of course, funds are needed for this. One of the main problems is that European banks, especially the European Investment Bank, have stopped financial support for oil and gas projects due to the green agenda.

So, in order to expand the infrastructure supplying gas to Europe today, we need to get loans from other sources. It would be good if the European banks reconsidered their decisions. Especially considering that today the crisis in the Middle East is unfortunately deepening and traditional supply chains are broken. Taking into account the fact that due to the decommissioning of Russian oil refineries, Russia cannot export the desired volume of oil products to traditional customers. All these events, the end of which is unknown, continue.

Therefore, I believe that if the green agenda is taken into account, these issues can be reviewed so that European banks also allocate funds for the development of oil and gas projects, the construction and expansion of oil and gas infrastructures. In that case, Azerbaijan can significantly increase its gas exports to the European area, including Germany.”

“We are serious about expanding relations between Germany and Azerbaijan. Cooperation in the field of oil and natural gas supplies through the Southern Gas Corridor is of particular importance, including in the context of the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. We have discussed it in detail,” said Friedrich Mertz, who is an unconditional supporter of total confrontation with Russia. Notepad edition ingeniously writes: “…Azerbaijan will feed the NATO military machine, which in turn will arm the Kyiv regime.”

As for Aliyev, in general, there is nothing in the quote that was not mentioned in one way or another in Baku, implicitly hinting at the need for European partners to more actively support the expansion of the “Southern Gas Corridor” and similar projects.

We believe that Azerbaijan’s completely logical and pragmatic intention to take the place of Russian energy corporations in the European gas markets should not surprise anyone and cause certain emotional assessments expressed by individual telegram channels.

Rather, we need to look a little further here and note that Azerbaijani-German interdependence is growing going out from the borders of energy, which was pointed out by Orhan Yolchuev, the head of the CASPIA analytical center։ According to him, in 2025, the bilateral trade turnover will reach around 1.7 billion euros, mainly due to the export of German industrial equipment, machines and transport systems.

In parallel with the negotiations, a joint business conference was held in Berlin, the parties agreed to create a business council, which is called, as always, to coordinate joint projects.

Currently, more than 250 German companies are working in Azerbaijan, which participate in the reconstruction of industrial zones in various production directions.

Thus, we are talking not only about energy, but also about closer cooperation and the transition of joint investment projects, including in the field of the military-industrial complex (here, too, we can recall the mutual interest in drone systems, including in the context of the events surrounding Ukraine). Germany’s interest in increasing the possibilities of the port of Baku and the Alyat Free Economic Zone in the “middle corridor” routes, where Azerbaijan can become a transit route for both Kazakh oil and Turkmen gas, and not only for them, is also evident.։

“The exit to Central Asia, if not through Russia or Iran, is through Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus,” recalls Rasim Musabekov, MP of the Milli Mejlis.

Another discussed statement of Aliyev referred to the closed meetings of unofficial representatives of Russia and Germany in Baku on July 12-14., about which the local authorities were allegedly not informed in advance (which, frankly, is hard to believe).

Aliyev said that after the media publications, he ordered to check the information about crossing the state border, as a result of which it was found that on the specified days, former German politicians and Russian representatives were at the same time on the shores of Absheron, who were previously acquainted, in particular, from the “Petersburg Dialogue” conference and participated in some unofficial meetings, about which the Baku authorities, according to their version, do not have information. If such informal contacts really contribute to the cessation of the armed conflict, Azerbaijan can only welcome such efforts, Aliyev noted diplomatically.

Information about the existence of informal dialogues between Berlin and Moscow is confirmed jointly by Die Zeit and ARD investigation the authors, moreover, on the German side, former politicians, not current representatives of the Mertz government, participated in them.

German security services consider such contacts as a possible tool of the notorious “Russian influence”. The federal chancellor himself, commenting on Aliyev’s words, stated that he knows nothing about the alleged meeting.

“Tube successor”-ը  writes: it is possible that “Aliyev has decided to distance himself as much as possible from the story, which is already perceived in a toxic way in Germany”. Speaking with Friedrich Mertz, he actually said: “Azerbaijan did not organize these contacts, Baku was not aware of them in advance and has nothing to do with them.” This corresponds to the current line adopted by the German leadership.

While official Berlin views such meetings with the prism of possible Russian influence, Aliyev tells Mertz. “It’s not my fault, they came themselves.” To us, this is hardly a friendly gesture. The opposite. if such contacts were indeed secret, their public disclosure by Aliyev is unlikely to be in Russia’s interests.”

Another Telegram channel, Кремлёвский безбашенник, does too notes the attempt to “establish a dialogue behind the backs of the official German authorities”, secret diplomacy revealed “by Ilham Aliyev from the high podium”.

Less noticeable (but in vain!) became Ukrainian Ambassador to Baku Yuriy Gusev statementn: about lifting sanctions against Azerbaijani companies involved in the export of Russian oil, bypassing EU restrictions.

According to the Kiev diplomat, currently Azerbaijan and Ukraine continue cooperation on the issues of maintaining existing restrictions, which can mean departure from the previous schemes of transshipment of oil in the Caspian Sea and its further transportation through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

According to Gusev, “the next logical step can be the participation of Azerbaijani companies not only in urgent repairs, but also in the joint production of energy equipment, as well as in the modernization of Ukrainian energy: the construction of new facilities, the development of distributed generation, energy efficiency and renewable energy. We are already conducting such a dialogue with our Azerbaijani partners.”

Alexander Grigoriev

vpoanalytics.com

Translation by Zhanna Avetisyan

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