More Fallout from Baku’s Qarabagh Victory – An Accord with Turkmenistan on Caspian Oil Fields

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 24 – Azerbaijan’s victory in the Qarabagh fighting has changed not only its population who now feel themselves to be heroes rather than victims (jamestown.org/program/karabakh-victory-transforming-meaning-of-black-january-for-many-azerbaijanis/) but also the diplomatic weight and possibilities of its government.

            Not only has it demonstrated its own ability to act, but it has also shown to peoples and governments in the Caucasus and Central Asia that it is a force to be reckoned with because of its growing links with Turkey and the path to the outside world that that alliance makes possible for all who join it.

            One of the clearest indications of this is that Turkmenistan has now reached an agreement with Azerbaijan on the joint exploitation of oil deposits on the floor of the Caspian, an accord that ends that dispute and opens the way for broader cooperation not only between Baku and Ashgabat but also between Azerbaijan and the other countries of Central Asia.

            Symbolic of this change is that the two countries agreed to rename the field Dostluk, Turkic for “Friendship.” That name replaces the separate names, Kypaz and Serdar, that Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan respectively had been using for the deposit in the past (stanradar.com/news/full/43066-turkmenistan-i-azerbajdzhan-dogovorilis-o-sovmestnoj-razrabotke-spornogo-uglevodorodnogo-mestorozhdenija.html).