Stalemate with Azerbaijan Broken

Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have ended a prolonged standoff and agreed to cooperate, but NBCentralAsia experts say that differences over oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea will remain a hindrance in relations.



On March 13, the presidents of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan had a phone conversation in which they agreed to resume bilateral cooperation. It was the first conversation to take place between Turkmen and Azerbaijani heads of state in eight years.



NBCentralAsia experts believe the thaw has been prompted by the new Turkmen leadership’s desire to explore alternative routes for exporting hydrocarbons to the West.



A government source in Turkmenistan told NBCentralAsia that a Caspian working group led by Deputy Prime Minister Rashid Meredov has already been set up and will developing proposals on how to begin a dialogue with Azerbaijan.



Relations between the two countries were tense when Saparmurat Niazov was Turkmen president, and relations were disrupted in 1999 when the dispute over Caspian oil and gas fields came to a head. In 2001, Turkmenistan closed its embassy in Baku.



Niazov died suddenly last December, and his successor Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov is ready to talk to Azerbaijan, with energy at the top of the agenda.



According to Rovshan Ibrahimov, an expert at Turkey’s International Strategic Research Organisation, “Berdymuhammedov realises that Turkmenistan needs alternative routes to the West that bypass Russia. The only [viable] route is the [proposed] Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline via Azerbaijan and Georgia.”



Renewed interest from the United States may also have spurred Turkmen leaders to approach Baku, according to one oil and gas expert based in Ashgabat. Steven Mann, Deputy Assistant of Secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs, visited Turkmenistan in early March to discuss ways of expanding regional energy cooperation.



However, the relationship between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan will still face difficulties on the unresolved question of who owns certain disputed oil and gas fields and where national boundaries should be drawn in the Caspian Sea. One unresolved issue is who a major deposit – known as Kapaz in Azerbaijan and Serdar in Turkmenistan – belongs to. According to some estimates, the field contains 450 million barrels of oil and 32 billion cubic metres of gas.



The dispute could be resolved if all five littoral states agree on the status of the Caspian at talks in April. But Baku and Ashgabat hold opposing positions on the matter – the former wants to divide the sea along the median line, which would give it a healthy share of the oil, whereas the the Turkmen want any demarcation to allow for a sharing-out of offshore deposits.



Azhdar Kurtov, an academic at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, points out that the unresolved Caspian issue is not only a hindrance to Azerbaijani-Turkmen relations, but is also delaying commercial development of the Caspian’s resources.



Kurtov is not predicting a rapid breakthrough, since he believes “the economic situation in Turkmenistan is not so bad that it should sacrifice its national interests. Moreover, Azerbaijan cannot offer anything of worth in return for the concessions [Turkmenistan] might make.



“All that is happening now is that dialogue is resuming.”



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)