Natural Gas Strengthens Ties in the Caucasus and Central Asia (original) (raw)

How can Turkish and Caspian authorities find the right regional consensus with Iran and Armenia to ensure prosperity and peace? Over the last few weeks, Turkish and Caspian authorities have several times celebrated the successful implementation of their oil and gas pipelines, alongside announcing their willingness to cooperate in building the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) Railway, though they are still need the consent of two excluded neighbors, Iran and Armenia. Recently, two meetings have drawn attention to the region: the Second Trilateral Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia (held in Batumi on March 28) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) Meeting on “Strategic Dialogue for the Future of the Caucasus and Central Asia” that was held in Baku over April 7-8. This growing regional cooperation in Central Asia and the Caucasus would benefit the EU’s energy security and western markets. However, Iran and Armenia missed out on the meeting and the three projects, due to embargoes—Turkey's embargo on Armenia after the secession of Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988, and the US/EU embargo on Iran since 1996.