By Vestnik KavkazaThe main event of the last week in Russian-Azerbaijani relations was the first visit by the head of "Rosneft" Igor Sechin to Azerbaijan, during which he held talks with President Ilham Aliyev and the head of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev. Neither Azerbaijani nor Russian media reported on this visit anything more than a standard diplomatic note on the possibilities mentioned in the negotiations of bilateral relations in the oil and gas sector. Vestnik Kavkaza asked Russian and Azerbaijani experts to analyze the antecedents and consequences of the meeting, and answer one question: Why exactly did Sechin travel to Baku?
The director of the Institute for Policy Studies, prominent political scientist, Sergei Markov, explained that the details of the negotiations are not known because they concerned very sensitive political issues. "I believe that they concerned the theme of cooperation in oil and gas sector and in the field of political cooperation, as Igor Sechin is one of the closest figures to Vladimir Putin. I think that this visit took place on the basis of telephone conversations between Vladimir Putin and President Ilham Aliyev that occurred recently," the analyst suggested.In his view, the possibilities and prospects for bilateral cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan in the oil and gas sector should be discussed, in the first place, because the space for them has been extended by the "Shah Deniz" consortium of the Nabucco project, which, as you know, was to compete with the Russian "South Stream" project. Among the political issues discussed, Markov named the presidential elections in Azerbaijan to be held on October 16 this year.
Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of International Studies, MGIMO, Leonid Gusev, stressed that in the foreground of Sechin's visit to Baku were the issues of the economy and energy. "First, they discussed Russia's share in the consortium for the development of the second phase of the Azerbaijani "Shah Deniz" gas field in the Caspian Sea. They planned that Rosneft and SOCAR will participate. This is supposed to create a joint venture for oil and gas," Gusev said.
Azerbaijani political scientist and Professor of the Western University, Fikret Sadikhov, in contrast to the Russian experts, rejected the political aspect of the visit of Igor Sechin in Baku. "The president of Rosneft is not in a position to speak on political issues. His task is the economy, the oil strategy, hydrocarbon and energy projects. I think that these questions were on the agenda and were discussed with officials of Azerbaijan," the expert said.
