"These vast infrastructure projects are part of Eurasian development but we should also recognize that different geopolitical interests are bound up in both their fruition and their obstruction."

 

Historian and political analyst, author of books on Britain, Turkiye, and South Caucasus, Dr. Patrick Walsh told this to the Ednews while commenting agreement signed by Iranian and Russian officials on the long-stalled construction of a railway connecting the cities of Astara and Rasht.

 

He noted that from the time of the famous Geopolitics professor, Sir Halford Mackinder, and his Heartland Theory, Eurasian development has been contested:

 

"In fact, even before that, the German/Ottoman Berlin-Baghdad Railway was a major cause of the Great War of 1914. In these days Great Britain was the major Atlanticist/naval Power, aiming to obstruct Eurasian development. Today, it is the US."

 

"However, a wide range of states from China to France have a stake in Eurasian development. Both the US and UK, as island/naval powers, are always wary of land-based development. It puts economic development outside their control, beyond their hegemony. It is part of multi-polar development and challenges the unipolar world of the US hegemon. Both Turkiye and Azerbaijan, along with the rest of the Turkic world, have big stakes in this development, Azerbaijan as a hub, being in an important location along the North-South and East-West axes that meet to the West of the Caspian. Considerable annoyance was recently caused when the opposition candidate in Turkiye showed a map of this development bypassing Azerbaijan. The world is changing due to the coming movement away from fossil fuels and toward renewable, which by 2050 will be very advanced", Dr. Patrick Walsh mentioned.

 

According to him, Azerbaijan will need to diversify from being a producer to being  a hub of development for different areas of economic production and exchange:

 

"This is why Eurasian development is so important for the state. Being a provider of gas and oil for Europe will be an insufficient generator of national income in the medium-term future. Despite the understable historic antagonisms Azerbaijan has with its neighbors, these neighbors are vital to its long-term prosperity, and to peace and stability in the region, which are prerequisites of progress and growth. This is why Baku maintains a balance between East and West and why, in Ataturk's words, peace at home and abroad and good neighborly relations are essential."

 

Ulviyya Shahin