Caspian crossroads

Azerbaijan's foreign policy under president ilham aliyev can serve as a reference sample verified. In fact, while in orbit, the strongest influence of powerful geopolitical players like russia, Turkey and Iran, and being the focus of relentless attention of the United States, it is very difficult to keep a balance between power centres and not to join any camp, losing freedom of action. However, Azerbaijan today this is quite possible. Perhaps because in the turbulent sea of foreign policy of official baku found its lasting rocky island, its "Ecological niche".

The role of Azerbaijan in the international arena can now be described in one word — the facilitator. Centuries-old experience of trade ties was done by the Azerbaijani elite born to diplomats, to extract the maximum benefit for the country, not from confrontation but through the organization of a fruitful dialogue. An example of the above can serve as organized in august 2016 meeting between the presidents of Iran and Russia in Azerbaijan with the aim of promoting one of the most important and global transport projects in global scale project "North — South". It is a logistic project involves the creation of transport arteries of high bandwidth (and therefore profitability), which will connect Europe and asia.

Billion project has attracted increased attention of many countries, since such an economic giant as China, the seeker in the framework of the concept of the new silk road the possibility of entering the markets of Europe, and ending with the countries of Eastern Europe, for example, the czech republic and hungary, have expressed their willingness to participate in the construction of the railway on the resht — astara. From the point of view of the geography of the project it is obvious that the "North — South" will soon become the transport axis of the whole region, the main site which is just Azerbaijan. The economic value of this transportation project is difficult to overestimate: in the first stage on the corridor "North — South" is planned to transport five or six million tons of cargo a year and in the future — more than 10 million tons of cargo. It's remarkable how skillfully the leaders of Azerbaijan established and military-technical cooperation with various countries. Not wanting to become dependent on a single supplier, baku does not only relies on the strengthening of the national defense industry, but also diversifitsirovat the purchase of military equipment, active contact with Israel, Italy and russia.

The latter has all the chances to dramatically increase its military exports to Azerbaijan in the medium term. It is only the Russian defense industry is able in the foreseeable future to offer customers not modernized samples of armored vehicles, and heavy weapon platforms of the new generation.