Countries in Asia's southern Caucasus region already have shown they can work together and build long-distance pipelines to bring Caspian basin oil and gas closer to European markets. One emerging question is if that experience can help them build rail, maritime, and other transportation networks to finally create "a new Silk Road."
The idea of restoring trade routes that flourished thousands of years ago from China and the Far East across Asia to Europe has tantalized many national leaders for generations. Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia are ideally located to be an important hub, but need to solve significant problems first, participants at an Apr. 2 conference at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies agreed.
"The new Silk Road is a vision of a web of transportation and communication corridors running north and south, east and west," said Justin Friedman, director of the Caucasus Affairs and Regional Conflicts Office at the US Department of State's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. "The South Caucasus nations of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia would be geographically critical."
Pipelines and other transportation projects share some similarities, noted Richard Herold, executive council for global government affairs and policy at GE Transportation. Each system's origin, route, and destination can be controversial. They can be monopolies with strong government support, but governments don't place commercial viability above politics.
Several projects are under way in the southern Caucasus, but many face problems which can't be entirely traced to the countries formerly being part of the Soviet Union, Herold continued. "I hope they can move beyond the burdens of history to opportunities for development," he said.
Beyond pipelines
Azerbaijan has worked for decades to make itself a major regional oil and gas pipeline player as well as a producer. Baku now wants to become a major hub for other transportation modes with new infrastructure, according to Nargiz Gurbanova, deputy chief of mission at Azerbaijan's embassy in Washington. "To date, we have invested about $14 billion," she said.
Diplomats from Armenia and Georgia said their countries face challenges. "It's only been 2 decades since countries in our region became independent," said David Rakviashvili, deputy chief of mission at Georgia's embassy.
By the end of the conference's first panel, however, whether large oil and gas pipeline projects could provide models or lessons for other massive transportation ventures there remained unanswered. "Not necessarily," Herold responded when OGJ put the question to him during a break.
"Pipelines are unique and participants speak their own language," he explained. "They might possibly show senior government officials a way an agreement can be reached, but historic rivalries and animosities still need to be overcome."