The increasing importance of oil and gas in both domestic and international affairs presents Azerbaijan with enormous opportunities—and equally enormous challenges.  As a major oil and gas producer in its own right and an important transit country by virtue of its location, Azerbaijan has seen its own economy boom and its importance internationally rise dramatically over the last two decades.  Precisely because of its importance as an oil and gas supplier, however, Azerbaijan must navigate among a variety of other power centers—including China and India, which with their ri...

As a contribution to the unveiling of the history of Soviet policy toward Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan in the World offers what is the first half of the third (and final) of a three-part article on the origins of Soviet policy on this region that was prepared by distinguished Azerbaijani historian Jamil Hasanly.  It originally appeared in Russia’s Regnum News Agency at http://regnum.ru/news/fd-abroad/armenia/1429705.html.  The previous sections of Professor Hasanly’s account were published in the preceding issues of Azerbaijan in the World.  The remaining final section...

The visit of Aleksandr Khloponin, Russian vice prime minister and the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian president in the North Caucasus Federal District, accompanied by the leaders of seven republics in that region to Baku at the beginning of October, “opens a new and extremely promising page” in the relationship between Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus and, what may be even more important, between Baku and Moscow, according to an unsigned Day.az commentary. That is because, as the commentary continued, this visit, during which Khloponin and his colleagues sought expande...