The Azerbaijani news agency APA, quoting the embassy of Azerbaijan in Turkmenistan, reported in January that Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguli Berdimukhammedov is expected to pay a visit to the Azerbaijani capital. The visit will take place in the first half of 2008, and at the moment, negotiations are taking place between the two countries’ governments to finalize the list of documents and agreements to be signed.

President Berdimukhammedov will be accompanied by a large delegation, comprised of government officials as well as businessmen. Among the issues to be discussed are cooperation opportunities in the fields of energy, agriculture, light industry and transportation. If materialized, it will be the first visit by a President from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, and will significantly raise the level of bilateral relations to a new, strategic and qualitatively different level.

Indeed, bilateral relations have been tense for the most part of the post-Soviet period. The late Presidents of both countries, Heydar Aliyev and Saparmurad Niyazov (Turkmenbashi), competed for regional leadership and often had conflicting attitudes towards each other. The situation further worsened in 1997, when both governments diplomatically clashed over the oil field Kyapaz (Serdar in the Turkmen version), located in the middle of the Caspian sea. The lack of a clear understanding about the way to divide the Caspian Sea, and continued deadlock on the negotiations to determine its legal status, gave arguments to both countries to claim this field. Subsequently, all exploration works were frozen, and bilateral relations came to a low point, with the official Ashgabat even closing its embassy in Baku.

The sudden death of Turkmenbashi in December 2006 created new opportunities for the revival of these relations. The new Turkmen President, younger and clearly more open-minded than his predecessor, seems keen to capture the momentum. His Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, also younger and more prone for regional cooperation, is sending warm signals towards his neighbor.

Both Presidents have already exchanged phone conversations last year, and Turkmenistan decided to re-open its embassy in Baku. In addition to that, the two governments formed a special intergovernmental commission on cooperation, chaired by the first deputy prime ministers, and the first session of this commission already took place in Ashgabat several months ago. It is now expected that the Presidential visit will build upon the success and achievements of this intergovernmental commission. Earlier, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov paid a visit to Turkmenistan and met with the Turkmen President.

There are several issues on the agenda to discuss. Foremost, Turkmenistan is increasingly looking for alternative routes to export its gas to Europe. True, only a few weeks ago, Turkmenistan joined Russia and Kazakhstan in a project to build a new Caspian pipeline to export Turkmen gas through Russia, but most analysts believe that this is a short-term move on behalf of Berdimukhammedov, dictated out of necessity in order to maintain friendly relations with the Kremlin while still new in office. In the long term, a more strategic policy for Turkmenistan would be to be focus on diversifying export pipelines. The option that Baku provides seems a natural choice. Azerbaijan recently finished a new gas pipeline to Turkey, and should Turkmenistan decide to support the idea of the Trans-Caspian pipeline, Azerbaijan will be glad to accept Turkmen gas into its new pipeline network. This, in turn, would reduce the Russian monopoly over Turkmen gas exports, and increase the capability of the Turkmen government to negotiate gas prices with Gazprom. The pipeline is of huge interest to the EU and the U.S. government.

On the other hand, both countries could discuss possibilities of narrowing the gap between their stances on the issue of the Caspian Sea’s legal status. If that succeeds, Iran will be the only country left among the littoral states to oppose the division of the sea by the median line principle.

Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have much to gain from cooperation on the issues of trafficking, illegal migration, drug and weapons smuggling, and minimizing the militarization of the Caspian sea. The session of the intergovernmental commission has already agreed to prepare an agreement on the establishment of a railway-ferry link between the Baku and Turkmenbashi ports. The two sides also agreed on ways to repay the Azerbaijani debt to Turkmenistan, a thorny issue for many years in the past.

It seems that Turkmenistan is looking to Azerbaijan for the latter’s ability to build friendly relations with the West and to attract Western investments, while also maintaining domestic stability, a key priority for the Turkmen government.