Putin breaks through North-South

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Azerbaijan for the first time in his new presidential cadence. The head of state met with the head of the country Ilham Aliyev, discussed issues of bilateral cooperation and regional security. The topic of the North-South logistics corridor, one of the most significant economic projects for Russia and Transcaucasia, sounded a red thread in the discussions.

Details - in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.

The North-South International Transport Corridor is a multimodal route for transporting passengers and goods, with a total length from St. Petersburg to the port of Mumbai (Bombay) 7200 km. It was created to attract transit cargo flows from India, Iran and other countries of the Persian Gulf to Russian territory (through the Caspian Sea), and further to Northern and Western Europe. Its development is reflected in the Transport Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2030, as one of the most important logistics areas.

The implementation of the North-South project will lead to an increase in the transportation of goods using roads and railways from 15 to 30 million tons, Ilham Aliyev said.

"We discussed in detail the implementation of the North-South project, which is extremely important for our interstate relations, as well as for issues related to regional transport corridors and routes," Aliyev said.

"I must say that both the railway and automobile segments of the North-South corridor have been fully implemented and are successfully functioning on the territory of Azerbaijan. At the moment, we are actively engaged in the modernization of the railway section of this corridor in order to increase its throughput, we are talking about the possibility of transporting goods from 15 million tons and above, to 30, and this is quite real, "Aliyev said.

However, geopolitics dictates its conditions. It is known that the expansion of the corridor's capacities was hampered by the proximity to the military conflict in Karabakh. In addition, his successful work strongly depends on the position of Iran and the situation with the so-called Zangezur corridor. North-South development has also been discussed during recent visits by Moscow and Tehran officials to each other.

As for Azerbaijan, one of the key results of Putin's visit was an agreement on the joint creation of tankers for oil transportation. This was told by the Russian leader. According to him, the use of tankers, including on the Azov-Black Sea and Caspian routes, will increase the supply of energy resources to world markets. The construction of ships will be carried out by the Russian United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) and the Baku Shipyard.

This topic is burning. Firstly, Russia critically lacks the capacity to build ships - Azerbaijan will help here. However, an even more serious problem is the sanctions restrictions imposed on the Russian tanker fleet and the economy as a whole. Apparently, sanction pressure will be exerted on Baku, since he decided to help Moscow with the solution of this problem.

In addition, the President of Russia once again stated that he supports the speedy normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and sees Baku's commitment to the peace process. Accordingly, a peace treaty must be signed as soon as possible - and Moscow is ready to participate in this. But only to the extent that it will be in demand by all participants in the process.

In response, Ilham Aliyev stressed that his country has never refused mediation efforts and the role of Russia, and the site in Moscow remains quite acceptable for Baku. At the same time, he expressed hope for a decrease in geopolitical tensions in the world - clearly hinting at the desire to normalize relations between Russia and the West.

In fact, Aliyev himself is in an extremely interesting position. It relies on Turkey, a NATO member. And the main troublemaker in the Alliance. Today Baku pursues a policy of maximum "irritation" of France, which actively supplies weapons to Armenia - i.e. Aliyev plays against Paris, speculating on the topic of colonialism. Given the extremely tense, hostile relations between Paris and Moscow, Baku here turned out to be a situational ally of Russia.