THE WASHINGTON CENTRE FOR AZERBAIJAN STUDIES HAS BEEN SET UP AS AN INDEPENDENT, BIPARTISAN ORGANIZATION
The centre has been founded by young Azerbaijani and international scholars to serve as a platform for policy evaluation and independent thinking and to contribute to the strategic debate on Azerbaijan, the Caucasus and Caspian.
The new centre held a lunch presentation on 'Geopolitics of Caspian Energy: Perspectives and Challenges' at the Elliott School of International Affairs on 27 April. The event was moderated by Henry Hale, director for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, and featured Edward Chow, senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Before the discussion started, Efgan Niftiyev from the Washington Centre for Azerbaijani Studies outlined the organization's mission.
Discussion at the event centred on emerging trends in oil and gas production in the Caspian region, focusing on the role of Azerbaijan as an energy producer and transit country. Recalling trips to the region in the early 1990s, Edward Chow said Azerbaijan had been able to rapidly develop energy contracts with foreign companies and turn them into serious projects. He said the government had anchored the balance between the interests of private companies and national interests to provide for sustainable investment in Azerbaijan. 'The achievements that have been made in the past 17-18 years are not to be underestimated,' Chow said. He said it was hard to imagine sustainability without a solution to frozen conflicts in the region.
Touching upon Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, Edward Chow said that without a clear path to a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict there was no imminent prospect of the Turkish-Armenian border being opened. The Turkish-Armenian issue is a negative factor in Turkish-Azerbaijani energy projects, he said.
Talking about the recent nuclear security summit in Washington, Edward Chow described as a 'missed opportunity for the US' the failure to invite Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to the summit. He said that senior officials from the Obama administration should make more visits to Azerbaijan.
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