On October 6, a delegation led by the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Colonel General Ruslan Zhaksylykov paid a visit to Azerbaijan, Azernews reports, citing the Ministry.

The Kazakh delegation first visited the graves of the National Leader of the Azerbaijani people Heydar Aliyev and prominent ophthalmologist, academician Zarifa Aliyeva in the Alley of Honor and laid flowers.

In the Alley of Shehids (Martyrs) the guests laid flowers at the graves of Shehids, who sacrificed their lives for the independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. They laid a wreath at the Eternal Flame monument.

Then the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry hosted a solemn welcoming ceremony, and Azerbaijani and Kazakh Defense Ministers passed along the guard of honor. The national anthems of both countries accompanied by the military orchestra were performed. In accordance with the protocol, Colonel General Ruslan Zhaksylykov signed the “Book of Honor”.

At the expanded meeting, Azerbaijan Defense Minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov welcomed the guests and expressed his satisfaction with seeing them in Azerbaijan. The Minister emphasized that the bilateral military cooperation between the two countries is based on friendship and fraternal relations.

The Minister of Defense of Kazakhstan expressed gratitude for the warm reception and hospitality. The Kazakh Defense Minister congratulated his colleague on the restoration of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan prayed Almighty Allah for the repose of the souls of the Shehids (Martyrs) and expressed deep condolences to their relatives.

Colonel General R. Zhaksylykov expressed satisfaction with the current state of military cooperation between the two countries.

During the meeting, the sides emphasized the importance of the “Khazri-2023” Joint Tactical Exercises held in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea with the participation of warships and military personnel of the Naval Forces. The importance of the conducted exercises in terms of increasing the professionalism of servicemen was noted.

It was pointed out that the exchange of mutual experience in the army development of both countries is of special importance.

The sides discussed the development prospects of cooperation between the two countries in the military, military-technical, and military educational fields, as well as other issues of mutual interest.

In the end, the “Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2024” was signed.

After the meeting, the delegation attended the Cybersecurity Hub of the Azerbaijan Army’s General Staff, the Central Command Posts of the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry, and the Air Force. The visitors got acquainted with the general work done there.

Source: Azer News

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Azamat Sarsenbaev, an activist from the Kazakh Caspian Sea city of Aqtau, is trying to bring attention to a problem that is closing in on residents of his city at the same time as their only water source recedes further into the distance.

“Ten years ago we would swim around 200 meters in order to get to these rocks,” Sarsenbaev told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, recalling his childhood. “Now we are standing on them.”

There is no doubt that the Caspian Sea — the world’s largest enclosed body of water that is shared by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan — is shrinking.

And because Kazakhstan’s section of the Caspian is among the shallowest, it is no surprise that authorities here are scrambling to deal with severe consequences that are no longer far off on the horizon.

Earlier this summer, Aqtau officials announced a state of emergency in relation to the recession of the shoreline — a measure intended to accelerate mitigation efforts.

Kazakh Environment Minister Zulfiya Suleimenova acknowledged the scale of the problem on the day of the June 8 announcement, citing “climate change as an exogenous factor” and upstream “regulation” of rivers that flow into the lake, such as the Russian-originating Volga and the Ural, as the main causes.

Sarsenbaev is less diplomatic.

While acknowledging that Kazakhstan needs to use water more efficiently, he argues that the construction of multiple dams and other industrial objects along the Russian parts of those two rivers is causing big problems for Kazakhstan.

“They stop the water flow. And if less is coming in from the rivers, the Caspian will keep shrinking,” he said, dismissing the idea popular among many Aqtau residents that the latest plunge is the result of time-honored tectonic shifts under the seabed.

Geological changes have caused sudden shoreline recessions in the past — including in the late 1970s — but “a lot has changed in 50 years,” Sarsenbaev argued.

Aqtau: A City On The Edge

Experts say the Caspian’s most recent shrinking phase began around 2005.

In the last few years, the rate of recession has increased, reaching a visibly critical low.

According to Nature, a British scientific journal, the Caspian Sea’s levels are projected to fall by nine to 18 meters “in medium to high emissions scenarios” before 2100.

The drop is “caused by a substantial increase in lake evaporation that is not balanced by increasing river discharge or precipitation,” the authors of a paper published in 2020 said.

Indeed, current trends suggest that both of those balancing factors may now be in decline.

The need for immediate action is not lost on Murat Igaliev, deputy director of the Mangyshlak Atomic Energy Combine (MAEK), an energy complex that comprises a decommissioned nuclear power plant — thermal power plants that provide heat and electricity for Aqtau — and a plant that desalinates water for the town where more than 200,000 people live.

MAEK, in turn, depends on Caspian Sea water drawn from a water intake channel.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, Igaliev said that 590 meters of the channel was submerged in 2005, compared to just 145 meters now.

During a harsh winter last year, part of the channel froze, contributing to a drop in power generation, while in the long-run, problems at the aging MAEK threaten the viability of Aqtau as a city.

The urgent reconstruction work required for the channel is part of the reason the authorities declared a state of emergency over the Caspian.

Igaliev said it is vital to find a contractor to begin preparatory work for dredging as quickly as possible and determine “what equipment is better to use so as not to harm the marine ecosystem.”

In addition to the former Soviet “closed town’s” existence, declining water levels in the Caspian put the work of seaports central to the so-called “middle corridor” — a cross-Caspian trade route that bypasses Russia — into jeopardy.

Kazakhstan’s traditionally sleepy ports of Aqtau and Quryq have seen demand for their services increase in the wake of the Ukraine war, as some shippers look for alternatives from routes that traverse Russia, which has been hit hard by international sanctions.

Kazakhstan, in turn, is keen to boost modest oil exports across the Caspian as far as possible in order to ease a near-total dependence on a troubled pipeline that sends Kazakh oil to international markets by way of the Novorossiysk-2 Marine Terminal in Russia.

But the director of the Aqtau port, Abay Turikpenbaev, said the shallow waters near his port had already impacted the work of oil tankers, which can no longer be loaded to capacity.

Turikpenbaev noted that from January 1, 2022 to January 1, 2023, the water levels at the port fell 30 centimeters, significantly more than the average of 5-10 centimeters in recent years.

If that trend continues, dredging work will have to be carried out in order to prevent the port from falling into disuse, Turiqpenbaev told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, bemoaning a lack of research into the problem by Kazakh institutions.

For Quryq, some 70 kilometers from Aqtau, the problem is less pressing, given that the port, which was opened in 2017, occupies a position on the shore where the water is deeper.

Nevertheless, Quryq’s port director Serik Akhmetov said the port is already planning for a worst case scenario.

“There are forecasts that the sea will recover. There are also predictions of the opposite. But we cannot sit back and wait. We are currently negotiating with Belgian and Greek dredging companies. We have been dealing with this question for the last six months,” Akhmetov said.

Is Russia To Blame?

Scientists have few doubts that a drying Caspian will have major impacts — ecological and socioeconomic — on its five littoral states and the wider region.

The most obvious evidence for that is the fate of the Aral Sea, once one of the largest inland bodies of water in the world.

The Aral catastrophe, driven by the Soviet Union’s cotton-growing policies in Central Asia, bequeathed a mostly dried up lake that split off into separate Kazakh and Uzbek sections.

And the tragedy still haunts neighbors further afield, as dust storms from the dried parts of the lake travel across borders, lacing farmland in countries like Turkmenistan with salt.

But the degree, timing, and nature of the Caspian impact will vary from littoral state to littoral state, making collective action harder to guarantee.

This is a challenge insofar as the effects are less immediate for Moscow, whose Volga River alone accounts for around 80 percent of the Caspian’s inflow, with the Ural and other Russian rivers playing important secondary roles.

During the Soviet Union’s industrialization drive in the 1930s, systematic damming along the Volga was seen as a factor in a sudden drop in the Caspian’s sea levels that was later corrected by a spell of strong precipitation.

And Kazakh experts believe Russia is now intensifying its use of upstream water, hastening the rapid decline of the northeastern Caspian that also hosts Kazakhstan’s economically vital Qashagan oil field.

Former Water Minister Nariman Qypshaqbaev told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service that he believed state officials who sign and oversee the current transboundary water-sharing agreements with Russia had not done their duty in regards to the Caspian.

“If seven billion cubic meters of [water from] the Ural were still entering the Caspian [each year], then the Ural would not be as shallow [in Kazakhstan] as it is [today],” Qypshaqbaev argued, referencing an agreement that he said was in place during his time as a minister more than two decades ago.

Nowadays, Qypshaqbaev claimed, Russia only guarantees Kazakhstan its agreed share of the Ural’s water for farming and other economic activities, marking the end of the idea that “both sides are responsible for the water going into the Caspian, because the Caspian is common.”

Source: Oil Price

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 3. Deputy Foreign Minister from Tajikistan Sodik Imomi will visit Azerbaijan tomorrow to attend a meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement at the ministerial level in Baku, a diplomatic source told Trend.

Moreover, Head of the Department of International Organizations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Hotam Qurbonov will also come to Azerbaijan.

The event will take place on July 5-6.

Azerbaijan has been chairing the Non-Aligned Movement since 2019. Despite the fact that the period of the country’s chairmanship in the organization fell at the height of the pandemic, Baku successfully fulfilled its presidential mission and received the right to lead the movement for another 1 year.

Source: Trend News

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During the visit, the parties plan to discuss further cooperation within the framework of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) project.

Earlier, Minister of Trade and Integration of Kazakhstan Serik Zhumangarin, during a meeting with Azerbaijan’s Minister of Energy Parviz Shahbazov in Astana, stated that during Prime Minister Smailov’s visit, it is possible to sign an agreement between the relevant ministries on cooperation in trade and economic relations between the two countries in various fields.

Source: Trend

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Arch foes Armenia and Azerbaijan are advancing toward normalizing ties following mutual recognition of territorial integrity, the two countries’ leaders said Thursday as they held talks in Moscow.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the three held joint negotiations late on Thursday.

The talks were held following recent deadly border clashes between the two Caucasus neighbors, which have been locked in a decades-long conflict for control of Azerbaijan’s predominantly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“There is a possibility of coming to a peace agreement, considering that Armenia has formally recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan,” Aliyev said ahead of talks.

“Azerbaijan has no territorial claims to Armenia,” he added.

Pashinyan said the two countries were “making good progress in normalizing relationships, based on mutual recognition of territorial integrity.”

He said Yerevan was ready “to unblock all the transport links in the region that pass through Armenian territory.”

Putin said that “despite all the difficulties and problems that still remain, the situation is developing toward the settlement” of the Karabakh conflict.

He said the three countries’ deputy prime ministers will meet in a week’s time in Moscow “to resolve the remaining issues” regarding the reopening of transport links between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Western engagement

The Caucasus neighbors have been seeking to negotiate a peace agreement with the help of the European Union and United States.

On May 14, they agreed at a meeting hosted in Brussels by the European Council President Charles Michel on mutual recognition of territorial integrity.

But the West’s diplomatic engagement in the Caucasus has irked Moscow, the traditional power broker in the region.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars — in 2020 and in the 1990s — for control of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Six weeks of hostilities in the fall of 2020 ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire that saw Armenia cede swathes of territory it had controlled for decades.

Armenia, which has relied on Russia for military and economic support since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has accused Moscow of failing to fulfil its peacekeeping role in Karabakh.

Yerevan’s concerns have grown after Azerbaijani activists blocked in December Karabakh’s only land link to Armenia. In April, Azerbaijan set up a checkpoint manned by border guards along the route.

Last year, Yerevan also accused Azerbaijan of occupying a pocket of its land, in what it has said amounted to military aggression and demanded military help from Russia, which has never materialized.

With Russia bogged down in Ukraine and unwilling to strain ties with Azerbaijan’s key ally Turkey, the United States and European Union have sought to repair ties between the Caucasus rivals.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan. The ensuing conflict claimed some 30,000 lives.

Source: The Moscow Times

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that despite difficulties, he felt Azerbaijan and Armenia were moving towards a settlement to their decades-old conflict over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Putin made his remarks in a televised Kremlin meeting with leaders of both nations. Russia has traditionally been the main power broker between the two countries on the southwest edge of the former Soviet Union which have fought two major wars in the last three decades.

“In my opinion, on the whole, despite difficulties and problems, and there are enough of them, the situation is nonetheless moving towards a settlement,” he said.

Next week, officials from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia would meet in a bid to ensure that “all unresolved issues will be cleared away”, he added.

Earlier, in a clear sign of the tensions between the two nations, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev had argued in Russian for several minutes in Putin’s presence.

Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated enclave inside Azerbaijan, has been a source of conflict since the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In 2020, Azerbaijan seized control of areas that had been controlled by ethnic Armenians in and around the mountain enclave, and since then it has periodically restricted access to the only access road linking Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.

Baku last month erected a checkpoint along the road on the grounds Armenia was using the route to send weapons to Nagorno-Karabakh, something Yerevan denies.

Putin said the three sides had discussed communications and transport in detail.

“There are still unresolved questions, but in my opinion, and we discussed this with our Azeri and our Armenian colleagues, they are of a purely technical nature,” he said.

Outstanding issues between the two sides include the rights and security of some 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

Despite their testy exchange, both Pashinyan and Aliyev said there had been progress lately towards a settlement based on mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity.

Distracted by the war in Ukraine, Russia faces a challenge to maintain its role as broker as the United States and European Union have made their own attempts to bring the sides together.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted by the RIA news agency earlier as saying the West was trying to interfere in the conflict and discredit Russian peacekeeping policy.

Source: Reuters

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As they meet in Moscow on Thursday, Azerbaijan and Armenia are eager to settle the decadeslong dispute over the Karabakh region.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reiterated his announcement this week that his country would recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan and would open all transport links.

“I think there is a possibility of a peace agreement – especially because Armenia has officially recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in response.

Aliyev and Pashinian were to meet in the evening, mediated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to hammer out the peace agreement possibly. However, it was initially unclear whether this would succeed.

“I want to confirm that Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity,” Pashinian said. “And on this basis, we can say that we are quite well on settling our relations.”

Aliyev confirmed that there was a chance of normalizing the relationship. Putin had said the settlement was possible because it was in the interest of the economic development of both sides.

Aliyev on Thursday denied that Baku has any territorial claims against Yerevan.

“I want to say that we have no such (territorial) claims (on Armenia) … As for the word ‘corridor,’ which I used, I used (it) in the same way about the North-South corridor, in the same way, this word is used about the East-West corridor, The word ‘corridor’ is in no way an encroachment on someone’s territory. It is an international term,” Aliyev said.

Pashinian claimed following opening remarks at the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council that Aliyev’s statements on Baku’s initiation of the creation of the Zangezur corridor were “an expression” used to put forward territorial claims against Armenia.

The Zangezur region was part of Azerbaijan, though the Soviets gave it to Armenia in the 1920s, leaving Azerbaijan deprived of its direct overland route to Nakhchivan.

Following a 44-day conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in September 2020, Baku liberated numerous cities, villages and settlements in Karabakh from Armenian occupation, ending in a Moscow-brokered truce.

Since then, Azerbaijan has focused on planned connections, including motorways and a 43-kilometer (26.7-mile) railway through the corridor.

Aliyev also denied Pashinian’s claims that Azerbaijan is blocking the flow of transport through the Lachin road, the only route connecting Armenia to the Karabakh region, saying the road is open and that it is not right to “use this meeting for baseless accusations.”

“A border checkpoint has been established on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. There is a checkpoint of Russian forces 20 meters away from this border checkpoint. Azerbaijani citizens of Armenian origin living in Karabakh can go to Armenia from here without any hindrance,” Aliyev said.

Last month, Azerbaijan announced that it established a border checkpoint at the starting point of the Lachin-Khankendi road, citing the use of the road by Armenia to transport military arms and equipment to the region illegally.

Source: Daily Sabah

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“We are strategic partners both in the political and economic fields. We have recently achieved great success – our trade turnover has increased several times. As you mentioned, there is great progress in the field of transport and transit.

“The key thing is that our peoples are brotherly peoples, and independent Turkmenistan and independent Azerbaijan are building their relations on the basis of this brotherhood today. This is very important for both our countries and the region. And three brotherly countries are meeting in Turkmenistan, in this beautiful Awaza today. I think this is an event that will make the souls of our ancestors happy. Because it is natural. This should always be the case – brotherly peoples should be together.

“I would like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on what I have seen here. We are pleased with the wonderful conditions you have created here. Awaza is becoming a truly international tourism center with its neatness, beauty and greenery. Creating such a magnificent center on the shores of the Caspian Sea is a great achievement of yours. Let me congratulate you and the brotherly Turkmen people on this occasion. Thank you again for the invitation,” the head of state said.

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