Expert: Trade is laying the rails toward a rapprochement between Baku and Yerevan
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that the first deal to export Armenian products to Azerbaijan has already taken place.
The head of the Armenian government did not specify exactly which products were involved, noting that the details should be disclosed by the companies themselves after all the necessary procedures are completed. Against this backdrop, it is particularly noteworthy that since last year Azerbaijan has been supplying petroleum products to Armenia: the total volume of diesel fuel exported from the country to Armenia has reached about 15,000 tons, and around 5,000 tons of AI-92 and AI-95 gasoline have also been delivered.
Doctor of Law, associate professor and senior lecturer at the University of Gothenburg Kamal Makili-Aliyev shared his opinion with 1news.az. According to him, the start of trade between the two countries carries far greater significance than merely an economic component. The first deal to export Armenian products to Azerbaijan, the expert believes, is in itself part of the historic process of rapprochement between the two states.
Makili-Aliyev notes that after so many years of armed conflict, trade ties are becoming one of the simplest and at the same time most important mechanisms for strengthening peace. Economic interaction, in his assessment, creates a situation in which both sides gain more common interests and, accordingly, more incentives to preserve the agreements reached.
"A trade deal can naturally be viewed as an element in strengthening the peace process," Makili-Aliyev emphasized.
He also draws attention to the political component of what is happening. According to him, barriers formed over the years of conflict still remain between Baku and Yerevan, but they are gradually being dismantled. In this sense, trade is becoming one of those areas where the countries can move fairly quickly from political agreements to practical cooperation.
"There is political will, although, of course, the barriers erected as a result of the previous conflict between the states remain. However, these barriers are gradually being dismantled. Trade is precisely that relatively simple item which, on the one hand, allows states to bypass the most difficult issues of the peace process, and on the other hand, to gradually strengthen relations to the point where both sides have something to lose. And it is precisely the presence of such mutual interests that makes it impossible to easily take a decision to roll relations back toward conflict.
Therefore, the political will in both states today is aimed at developing trade ties and gradually forming a mutual trade flow. We are talking about such relatively simple areas as, for example, deliveries of petroleum products to Armenia," the expert believes.
At the same time, in Makili-Aliyev's view, the interests of Azerbaijan and Armenia increasingly intersect in the transport and logistics sphere as well. The development of communications and the implementation of the TRIPP project are capable of strengthening the interconnection of the two countries and creating new opportunities for trade and transit.
The expert believes that if the current trend continues, in the coming years such a serious transport and logistics link may form between Azerbaijan and Armenia that it will already be impossible to ignore in bilateral relations.
"All of this contributes to the fact that rapprochement, rather than separation, is taking place between the countries, even in the absence, for now, of a formally concluded peace agreement, which we expect after the referendum in Armenia. Then peace will be legally enshrined, which will further strengthen the trend toward rapprochement between the two countries and reduce the risk of relations rolling back in the opposite direction," the expert noted.
Makili-Aliyev also believes that the current trend may receive support from the populations of both countries. In his opinion, the public reaction will generally be positive, although there are nationalist forces in Armenia that perceive what is happening negatively. However, the expert does not believe they are capable of turning the current process back.
"I do not think that in this situation this is capable of somehow influencing the direction of the process or causing it to be sabotaged. Because previously this influence was significantly stronger, but even then the process did not go off the rails — if I may allow myself such a joke in the context of connecting the railways of Armenia and Azerbaijan. On the contrary, it is paving its way further," he noted.
Thus, the first Armenian export deal with Azerbaijan is becoming more than just a new episode in the trade relations of the two countries. Against the backdrop of Azerbaijani deliveries to Armenia that are already being carried out, it testifies to the gradual formation of mutual economic interest. And if this process continues, trade, transport and other practical ties may become the foundation that will gradually shift the relations of the two countries from many years of conflict to sustainable cooperation.
Lyaman Hasanova
