Azernews.Az

By Aynur Karimova

Today, the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is Azerbaijan’s primary concern and the country might find clarity on this key regional issue in closer cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

This remark was made by Gregory Trofimchuk, the vice president of the Centre of Strategic Development Modeling, who was commenting on Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent statement that Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, and Armenia are joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as partners in dialogue.

"Azerbaijan needs a coherent scheme of settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, directly affecting the security of the entire region, rather than general conversations at the highest level. When Moscow can find such simple and clear words (and actions) for Baku, then everything will move in a positive direction, including the issue of the participation of Azerbaijan in the SCO. By the way, it is beneficial for Armenia as well, which has seriously wafted of street cold in the past month," the expert told local media.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since then, a lengthy war in the early 1990s displaced over one million Azerbaijanis and led Armenian armed forces to occupy over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.

He also said that the SCO could provide Azerbaijan with security guarantees.

"The topic of possible participation of Azerbaijan in the SCO in a particular format is rather interesting. Soon, this topic can be not just interesting, but also trending. Baku thinks about self-protection on the background of today's regional and geopolitical threats, so the country considers all the options that help in this purpose," the expert noted.

Fikret Sadikhov, a political scientist and Professor at Azerbaijan's Western University, also sees the SCO as a new platform for the discussion of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.

He told local media that "the prospects of the OSCE Minsk Group have exhausted itself long ago and to wait for positive results from the organization is meaningless."

Experts believe that membership at the SCO is beneficial for Azerbaijan from the economic point of view as well.

Economist Fuad Alizade told local media that recently a marked rapprochement between Russia and China is being observed and the economic relations of the two countries give a serious impetus to the development of Central Asian countries.

"Azerbaijan, in turn, can play a significant role in the development of relations between the SCO and the EU countries. First of all, it is about the development of international transport cooperation in the direction of China, the Central Asian countries with access to Turkey and European countries," he noted.

It is also expected that Azerbaijan's membership in the SCO would give the country a chance to interact with China and Central Asian countries much more closely. Also, after becoming a SCO member, Azerbaijan will get a real chance to connect to gas supply routes to China in the future. According to forecasts by international experts, China's demand for gas will reach 280 billion cubic meters by 2020.

--

Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz