Russian think-tank to open its first regional office in Baku
By Seymur Aliyev
Russia's North-South political studies center will soon open its office in Baku, the first capital in the South Caucasus region to host such an organization, the think-tank's Director General Alexey Vlasov said Wednesday.
According to Vlasov, the Baku office targets establishing contacts among expert communities of the region, where interaction between experts is quite limited.
The second objective is to intensity humanitarian relationships, he emphasized.
"It is necessary to create common education space through the non-governmental sector between regional countries and Russia," Vlasov said.
Another goal pursued by the Center's office in the Azerbaijani capital is to deepen youth cooperation between Russia and other former Soviet republics, he said.
Finally, it will work to create a platform for dialogue in order to discuss pressing issues of Russian-Azerbaijani and intra-regional relations.
According to co-chair of the center, founder of the Center for Caucasian Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities and Director General of Vestnik Kavkaza news agency, Ismail Agakishiyev, the North-South center was established in Baku through the great efforts of the Azerbaijani and Russian sides.
"Unfortunately, very few experts in Moscow are sufficiently aware of the South Caucasus and realize internal situation in the region," Atakishiyev said.
The North-South organization is intended to fill the gap with absence of a dialogue platform for discussing the most important and controversial issues in Russian-Azerbaijani relations, according to Agakishiyev.
The expert believes that the more actively the important issues of bilateral relations are discussed, the more it will benefit both sides.