Cooperation between Azerbaijan and the five Central Asian states has recently been upgraded from a bilateral economic partnership into a consistent and dynamic geopolitical axis shaped by the shifting strategic landscape of the Silk Road region. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s most recent visit to Uzbekistan to attend the Seventh Consultative Meeting of Central Asian Leaders marked a significant milestone in the country’s long-term foreign policy strategy. As a result of this groundbreaking visit, Azerbaijan became a full member of the C5 format, prompting further diversification of Central Asia’s policy agenda.

Historically, Russia has viewed its extensive territorial size as an advantage, whether during the period of empire, the communist union, or today’s federation. Control over such a vast landmass allowed for extensive overland connections to both Europe and Asia, as well as maritime access to the World Ocean. From a defensive perspective, its large spatial extent provided Russia with seemingly endless strategic depth, helping to deter or repel hostile invasions and offering a foothold for expansion. The phrase “size matters” became a symbol of national pride and was used to justify the ambitions of Russian elites in their pursuit of great power status.

The intense transformation in the global security landscape projects its multiple effects onto a pivotal part of broader Eurasia (the Silk Road region), whose core sub-region is the Caspian Sea and its littoral areas. These effects present both regional and external actors with promising opportunities and proliferating challenges. Beyond a myriad of other patterns, the latter category encompasses security risks and threats in the energy, transportation, and connectivity (ETC) domain.

This paper is the first joint publication of the Institute for Development and Diplomacy (IDD) at ADA University and the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC). Focusing on the geoeconomic dimension of the strategic partnership between two brotherly countries, the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Kazakhstan, this landmark publication is an outcome of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between our two institutions in October 2024.

The Port of Baku at the Azerbaijani coast of the Caspian Sea plays a key role in the Middle Corridor, a trade corridor that connects China via Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, and Turkey or the Black Sea with Europe. Given its timely construction and expansion, the Port of Baku is already now a success and, in view of further development plans, slated to become an even larger regional trade hub. A status report based on an exclusive visit to the port in April 2025.

The shifting global geopolitical landscape in the last few years has prompted “middle powers“ or “keystone states“ to form regional cooperation formats and alliances, constantly adapt through reforms, and increase their mobility in general. The world economy has also experienced changes under the influence of globalization, which has shaped global trade. The onset of the present stage of the conflict over Ukraine in February 2022 has led to a growing emphasis on the strategic importance of alternative trade routes and infrastructure projects aiming to enhance interregional connectivity. In that sense, the Middle Corridor quickly became an even more viable option for connecting countries like China and landlocked Central Asia (via the South Caucasus) to the European continent and fostering international trade.

Situated in one of the most geopolitically delicate regions of the world—right in the heart of the Silk Road region (specifically, in the South Caucasus)—Azerbaijan has always been careful to build relations with its neighboring major powers. Baku is distinguished for its balanced, non-bloc approach to foreign policy, which tries to maintain an equilibrium (if not necessarily an equidistance) between ties with the West, Russia, Türkiye, and Iran, in accordance with its national interests.

In the past several years, a growing number of political addresses, scholarly articles, and policy papers have referred to the vast opportunities for the Middle Corridor to transport goods and energy between East and West via the Silk Road region, including previous IDD Analytical Policy Papers and essays appearing in issues of Baku Dialogues. Much of this material has correctly identified this corridor as an alternative to Russiadominated energy sources (oil and gas), trade routes, and digital highways

The ongoing conflict over Ukraine is accelerating divisions within what Westerners often call the "international community." Among its myriad manifestations is the worrisome prevalence of what social scientists term "false universalism." In this case, it is the tendency to present as global in scale and scope something that is in fact predominantly Western or Western led. Hence, the current political and journalistic rhetoric giving the public impression that the entire world has effectually joined the West in imposing sanctions and export restrictions against Russia. One example is the way that the outcome of a series of almost entirely symbolic votes in the UN General Assembly is presented discursively in the West. But in real life, votes on symbolic, non-binding resolutions at the UN are rarely indicative of a given state's actual foreign policy.

The effects of the ongoing European War continue redesigning the geo-economic map of Eurasia at a fast pace, including the regions placed far away from the Russia-Ukraine battlefield. One of the most significant outcomes becomes the cessation of the previously operational supply chains, and the subsequent shift of their functionality towards newly emerging priority routes and infrastructure. By the trick of geography, most of those contemplated routes run through or by the Greater Caspian Sea region. Such developments provide the transit countries and the end users a range of new opportunities and benefits—but also a new set of risks and challenges.

This policy brief aims to introduce a new concept of the transport backbone of the Silk Road region and to identify the benefits and limitations of the INSTC project for regional connectivity.

This document summarizes an off-the-record roundtable discussion featuring Ma Chi, Economic and Commercial Counsellor at the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Azerbaijan. Other participants included senior representatives from leading Azerbaijani companies (public and private), relevant government ministries, and leading Baku-based university-affiliated scholars and think tank analysts. The discussion took place on 27 April 2023 at ADA University under the auspices of the Institute for Development and Diplomacy (IDD), and was hosted by IDD’s Director for Policy Research, Analysis, and Publications Damjan Krnjević Mišković.

This document summarizes a roundtable discussion with Yermolai Solzhenitsyn, a Shanghai-based senior partner at McKinsey & Company who specializes in the metals, mining, and energy industry. The discussion took place on 23 February 2023 at ADA University under the auspices of the Institute for Development and Diplomacy (IDD), in partnership with PASHA Holding, and hosted by Prof. Damjan Krnjević Mišković, IDD’s Director for Policy Research, Analysis, and Publications. More than 40 high-level individuals from government, industry, and think tanks participated in this off-therecord, invitation-only event.

Russia’s focus on the Ukraine War (and the resulting West-led sanctions regime) has created a unique opportunity for the five core Central Asian states. These countries are seeking routes to advance their respective choices to pursue economic diversification. The EU, which has cut trade relations in virtually all spheres with Russia, has been keen to fill this vacuum by enhancing trade with the five core Central Asian states.

This IDD Analytical Policy Paper assesses the geo-strategic importance of the Zangezur Corridor for enhancing regional and global trade and concludes with an assessment as to the likelihood of its implementation.

In many ways, the idea of establishing the Middle Corridor began to take practical shape with the gradual transformation of Azerbaijan into an international energy hub over the past three decades. This began with the December 1994 signing of the Contract of the Century and the oil boom that came in its wake; broadened and deepened with the discovery of vast quantities of natural gas and their subsequent export via the Southern Gas Corridor; and is now entering its next stage by the strategic endeavor to diversity the sources of Baku’s energy exports to include electricity, wind and solar, and even hydrogen, as outlined in the July 2022 Memorandum of Understanding signed between Azerbaijan and the European Union.

The objective of this IDD working paper is to identify the probable malicious actors in the region, evaluate their operational capabilities and tactical solutions, and assess the potential risks and threats in the maritime domain.

The visit of the President of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia in September 2022 was explicitly devoted to deepening economic relations with these three Western Balkan states. It came in the wake of a visit by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to Türkiye in January 2022 during which he extended an invitation to his Turkish counterpart to come to Belgrade and, presumably, other regional capitals. This IDD analytic policy brief takes a look back into history, assesses the political state of play, examines trade and investment trends, and concludes with a suggestion or two on how the European Union and Türkiye can work together to advance shared priorities.

Located at a key geopolitical and geo-economic point in the Silk Road region, Azerbaijan has been a main initiator in the development of technologically advanced and economically viable trans-border logistics and transit services. This is largely due to Baku’s embrace of a wide spectrum of digitalization and innovation initiatives within the broad-based connectivity framework of the Middle Corridor Initiative (MCI) and other similar such projects. This IDD analytical policy brief will examine various aspects of this important topic as it relates to MCI.

As the war in Ukraine escalates and becomes more violent, global food and energy recession risks continue to increase, in turn further heightening the likelihood of a global economic recession. The new full-scale war revealed particular vulnerabilities of the Western block of countries, particularly on energy and supply chain management, due to their imposition of sanctions and export restrictions on Russia. Hence, new security challenges in Europe have forced the Western block of countries to explore new and safer trade routes while avoiding Russian territory.

The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, participated as a guest at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which took place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on 15-16 September 2022. In recent years, cooperation with the SCO has become very important for Baku in the context of enhancing trade and transport links between Europe and Asia, where pretty much all relevant actors envision, in one way or another, Azerbaijan playing a key connectivity role.

The onset of the present stage of the conflict over Ukraine has accelerated large-scale geopolitical movements. Many countries, including most of the post-Soviet states belonging to the Silk Road region, are changing their foreign policy guidelines and strengthening relations with long-standing allies and partners. These include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.

“Why does the European Union need Azerbaijan?” This is the question that Bulgaria’s ambassador to Azerbaijan posed at an event marking Europe Day held at ADA University in May 2022.

The ancient chroniclers lyrically called Central Asia a “Box of Gems” buried in the sands of a desert. Indeed, this landlocked region, placed in the heart of Eurasia (the Silk Road region), far from any ocean shores, is abundant in natural resources of all kinds, from fossil fuel and rare-earth metals to fertile agrarian lands.