Baku, August 30, 2025
On the “Новости Кавка” channel, analyst Heydar Mirza laid out a blunt premise: the South Caucasus is entering a phase where Russian coercive influence must end, even as pragmatic trade and humanitarian ties can continue. His roadmap mixes hard-edged deterrence with flexible regional formats—and a revival of GUAM as a pressure tool and policy platform.
Why now
The landscape rhymes with the mid-2000s: Azerbaijan is “reverting” to balanced, West-linked energy and transit—BTC, SGC logic—after shocks from Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Stay Ahead with Azerbaijan.usGet exclusive translations, top stories, and analysis — straight to your inbox.Collective security or nothing: Real guarantees may wear a U.S., Turkish, or mixed badge. The label matters less than deterring coercion.
GUAM, upgraded—and weaponized (politically)
Mirza urges reviving GUAM (Georgia–Ukraine–Azerbaijan–Moldova) as both substance and signal. He floats “GUAM+”—even inviting Armenia as a one-off participant/observer—if Western security roles grow and Yerevan wants a pragmatic anchor in regional connectivity.
“Restart the GUAM discourse—make Moscow react rather than just react to Moscow.”
Trilateral formats: useful scaffolding, not the ceiling
Workhorse triangles: Azerbaijan–Türkiye–Georgia; a prospective Azerbaijan–Uzbekistan–Turkmenistan track; concepts like Azerbaijan–Georgia–Ukraine (or Romania via Constanța).
Purpose: keep commerce and transit moving now; shift core security to a global guarantor when the West steps in.
The propaganda smog
Mirza says Russian state-aligned outlets have pivoted to personal attacks and ethnic wedge tropes (“MGIMO,” “Lezgistan”) to bury unresolved issues—the downed plane, Minsk Group failures, intimidation of diaspora.
“Mixing irrelevancies is the point—drag debate from facts to personalities.”
Central Asia linkages—and limits
Kazakhstan: geography, routes, and a 7,000-km border complicate strategic autonomy.
Uzbekistan & Turkmenistan: more maneuver room; logical partners in east-west energy and logistics with the South Caucasus.
North Caucasus boomerang
Weaponizing ethnicity won’t crack Azerbaijan first, Mirza cautions; it risks blowback in Dagestan, highlighting the self-destabilizing nature of such gambits.
Leader-to-leader optics
A hypothetical Aliyev–Putin handshake? Don’t over-read the photo. Personal diplomacy can matter, but outcomes are judged after, not before.
Mirza’s through-line
Azerbaijan will harden sovereignty, revive GUAM as leverage and platform, and scale trilaterals—all while keeping normal trade open. What’s out: Russian hard-power tutelage dressed up as “security.”
“No imposed political culture, no coercive footprint. Trade? Fine. Pressure? No.”
Source: Novosti Kavkaza (in Russian). Full video here
