Azerbaijani MP and political analyst Rasim Musabekov says Baku’s decision to lift all restrictions on cargo transit to Armenia marks a real shift in the South Caucasus, moving peace “from paper to practice.”
In an interview to Modern Talking with Rasim Babayev Youtube channel, he pointed to the first planned shipment of Kazakh grain across Azerbaijan as both symbol and substance of the new reality.
The gesture, он argued, reflects Yerevan’s recent move from rhetoric to practical work on the route Armenia brands the “Trump Route” and Baku calls the Zangezur corridor, linking Nakhchivan with mainland Azerbaijan.
“As a response, Azerbaijan allowed certain cargos to transit to Armenia,” he said, adding a cautionary note: the permission is reversible if “counterparts behave improperly.”
Musabekov contrasted Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s stance with that of Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, noting that Pashinyan has publicly said Armenia’s constitution will not block a peace treaty and, if needed, he would initiate amendments-perhaps by adopting a new constitution that strips out territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
For Baku, he stressed, the mechanism is less important than the outcome: a legal framework in Armenia that no longer disputes Azerbaijan’s borders.
Turning to regional geometry, Musabekov described Azerbaijan and Central Asia as a single connectivity space: the region’s path west runs through the South Caucasus, while Azerbaijan’s path east runs through Kazakhstan and its neighbors. That logic underpins a broader economic agenda with Astana.
He said Baku and Astana plan to increase oil flows via the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, though significant growth will require technical solutions for crude quality, strict terminal segregation, and firm throughput agreements.
As an interim option, he noted that the Baku–Supsa line, with roughly seven million tons of annual capacity, could be fully allocated to Kazakh crude if Black Sea routes become problematic, but such a pivot demands tankers, port-depth fixes in Aktau and Kuryk, and long-term contracts.
Grain trade is already tilting eastward: Azerbaijan has imported close to 800,000 tons from Kazakhstan this year, using Baku’s elevator network that once primarily served transshipment to third markets.
Asked about France, Iran, and Russia, Musabekov said Paris failed to push anti-Azerbaijan texts at the UN and has since softened its tone; Tehran has “calmed,” with energy and transit increasingly tied to Azerbaijan; and Moscow-after the downing of an Azerbaijani civilian aircraft-was forced to acknowledge responsibility, promise an investigation with Baku’s participation, and commit to compensation once the final report is approved in December.
Even so, he does not expect relations to return to their previous “allied” framing, predicting instead a pragmatic good-neighborliness shaped by recent experience.
On Armenia’s internal politics, Musabekov portrayed Moscow and its networks-including, he claimed, elements of the church-as working to unseat Pashinyan.
The prime minister, he argued, is “not inclined to be lenient,” pointing to arrests of clergy and to the showdown in Gyumri after the mayor’s detention. In that city, he said, Russia’s long-standing presence and influence are plain, which makes Yerevan’s firmness a signal that “the old methods won’t work.”
Musabekov closed by situating Azerbaijan’s diplomacy in a wider arc that bends toward the Middle East. For centuries, he noted, Baku’s natural hinterland has been south and west-to Iraq, Syria, and the Levant-and those links are being rebuilt alongside deep ties with Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
In his view, Azerbaijan can serve as a practical venue for dialogues, support “Abraham-style” normalization tracks, and, if required, contribute peacekeepers.
The transit opening, he suggested, is part of the same logic: connectivity as statecraft, and proof that in the South Caucasus peace is beginning to operate not just in communiqués, but along rails, roads, and pipelines.
