Cooperation beyond Caspian states is necessary to neutralize external threats in Caspian

By  Trend

It is necessary to immediately react to the certain qualitative changes which occurred in regional security and in security in the Caspian Sea in 2018, Azerbaijani MP Rasim Musabayov said on April 10.

Musabayov made the remarks in Baku during a round table meeting dedicated to “Security Problems of the South Caucasus and the Caspian region countries” in the press center of Trend News Agency.

He called the adoption of the Framework Convention on the Caspian Sea in 2018 as a landmark event.

"In my opinion, this created a legal basis for those discrepancies of interests and disputes that objectively exist to be settled on a bilateral basis,” Musabayov said. “For this purpose, there is a certain legal basis through which it is possible to hold negotiations on the division of interests in the Caspian Sea.”

“Secondly, a multilateral instrument has appeared for those cases when it is impossible to come to a common denominator on the basis of bilateral formats and a multilateral contractual format, which turns all these disputes into a dialogue, rather than confrontation, may be used,” he said.

“The second point is that the adoption of this Convention excludes the military presence of other Caspian countries,” Musabayov said.

"For some countries, this means the elimination of potential risks,” he said. “For example, Iran and Russia did not want the military presence of extra-regional countries to appear in the South Caucasus. When we talk about extra-regional countries, it is clear that the matter rests in the US and NATO. For someone this was an opportunity to potentially enhance the development of cooperation in this direction and I think this gives additional guarantees. This fact is also worth noting as positive.”

“Earlier, we considered security in the Caspian Sea only locally, but now there is such a situation when the Russian military ships can launch missile strikes from the Caspian Sea,” Musabayov added. “This means that if actions are taken from here outside the region, then this can also attract counter-threats from outside, which have never been considered in the context of the Caspian Sea."

He stressed that if the number of the Russian naval forces in the north, in the Pacific Ocean, in the Baltic Sea, decreased all these years, then it grew in the Caspian Sea.

"We must take this fact into account, understand that this is connected with restrictions on medium-range land-based missiles, rather than with the threats existing in the Caspian Sea,” Musabayov added.

“But Russia used this loophole to circumvent these restrictions,” he said. “That is, anyway, these are additional risks and it would be wrong to pretend that they do not exist.”

“When we talk about security issues in the Caspian Sea, the matter rests in various terrorist threats, which all these last 25-30 years have intensified and appear in the territories not so far from the Caspian Sea,” Musabayov added.

“Turkmenistan experienced similar pressure when the Taliban launched actions on the border,” he said. “ Any actions in this direction threaten the Caspian Sea and the whole area. This threat is being intensified even for Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. There are certain risks.”

“There is another issue to which special attention should be paid,” Musabayov said. “This issue is connected with the conflicts in the South Caucasus, which are not directly focused on the Caspian Sea.”

"Taking into account that it will be difficult to localize any conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia only in a bilateral format, this will pose a big threat to the entire region,” he said. “I think that cooperation is required to neutralize external risks and threats. None of the abovementioned risks connected with the security of the Caspian Sea and terrorist threats can be neutralized independently, unilaterally.

“Moreover, I suppose that even cooperation beyond the Caspian countries and the region is required to neutralize these risks,” Musabayov said. “In my opinion, Russia and Azerbaijan are closely cooperating. The two countries conduct joint military exercises related to the neutralization of terrorist threats, exchange experience and information. Our law enforcement agencies, border guards very closely interact in terms of security. So far the situation is under control.”

The event participants discussed Russian-Azerbaijani cooperation in the context of new challenges for the Caspian region, the development of North-South, East-West transport corridor systems as a condition for ensuring security of the Caspian region.

They also discussed signing of the “Constitution of the Caspian Sea” in the context of ensuring regional security in the South Caucasus, regional conflicts and security in the South Caucasus, the fight against terrorism in Azerbaijan, the deepening of economic ties between Azerbaijan and Russia in the light of the formation of a new technology structure in the global economy and economic security, as well as intensification of regional integration and the coordination of the actions of the Eurasian countries in removing tensions and preventing new challenges, the problem of mutual understanding of the North and South Caucasus as a common security system for border states.

From the Azerbaijani side, Azerbaijani MP Rasim Musabayov, head of the Expert Council of the Baku Network, Ph.D. Elkhan Alasgarov, moderator and expert Gulnara Mammadzade, editor-in-chief of the Sputnik-Azerbaijan news agency Ilgar Valizade, professor of Azerbaijan University of Economics Elshad Mammadov, senior adviser of the Baku International Multiculturalism Center Tofiq Abbasov, national security expert, doctor of law Professor Kamil Salimov took part in the meeting.

Stanislav Chernyavsky, director of the Center for Post-Soviet Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Konstantin Kurylev, director of the Center for Studies of Post-Soviet Countries and Leonid Gusev, senior researcher at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry participated from the Russian side.