By Azerbaijan.US Editorial Board
BAKU — September 2, 2025
With the OSCE Minsk Group formally dissolved, Azerbaijan’s intellectual and diplomatic class is speaking with striking convergence. Four voices — political scientist Elmira Talyibzade, former ambassador Namik Aliyev, analyst Ilgar Velizade, and strategist Eldar Namazov — in recent interviews outlined what might be called a “Baku consensus” on the region’s future: the Minsk process is over, peace with Armenia is grounded in international law, Turkey and the Organization of Turkic States anchor security, China projects economic gravity through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Middle Corridor is becoming Eurasia’s central trade spine.
Minsk Group: the “death certificate”
Namik Aliyev, who served as ambassador to Moldova and Georgia, captured the symbolism: the Minsk Group, he said, had long been a “corpse without a death certificate.” By ignoring UN Security Council resolutions and monopolizing diplomacy, the co-chairs turned mediation into obstruction. “It signed its own death warrant by prolonging conflict for 30 years,” Aliyev said. The formal closure was only paperwork, but it mattered. The files of Madrid Principles and “updated” formulas, as Ilgar Velizade put it, are now “sent to the archives of history.”
For Azerbaijan’s experts, the timing is not coincidence. The end of Minsk is read as the direct consequence of the 44-day Patriotic War, the full restoration of sovereignty in 2023, and a peace agenda that has shifted the center of gravity away from Moscow.
“New diplomacy without Moscow”
Talyibzade was blunt: what happened on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin — the establishment of diplomatic ties between Pakistan and Armenia — was not an accident. “It had Baku’s blessing,” she said, “and signals a new diplomacy of the Caucasus without Russia.”
Velizade agreed. For him, India’s decision to block Azerbaijan’s SCO observer status — mirrored by Pakistan’s veto of Armenia — illustrated how old rivalries project into new platforms, but could not obscure the fact that the South Caucasus is writing a post-conflict script on its own terms. Even Armenia, he noted, is finding that Moscow cannot deliver what it once promised.
Turkey as the security anchor
Both Talyibzade and Namazov emphasize Ankara’s role. Through the Organization of Turkic States, Turkey has become, in Talyibzade’s phrase, a “light Caspian NATO”: not a formal alliance, but a web of military, technological and political ties that deter aggression. Namazov, who previously advised the presidency, argued that the strategic partnership with Turkey provides Azerbaijan the leverage to shape regional outcomes. For Baku’s thinkers, this is not only about balance of power but also about identity: a Turkic axis embedded in Eurasia’s infrastructure.
The Middle Corridor logic
Aliyev and Velizade both stressed logistics. Azerbaijan, they said, has invested years in turning geography into advantage: the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway, the North–South corridor, the expanded Port of Baku, and now digitalization of transit. At Tianjin, Azerbaijan underscored its role as the key hub of the Middle Corridor, linking China to Europe through Central Asia and the Caspian.
Velizade dismissed India’s veto as a tactical setback. “Call it delayed membership,” he said. Azerbaijan already works hand-in-hand with China, Central Asia and Pakistan. In contrast, Armenia, with few projects of comparable scale, is “in weaker shape to benefit from SCO connectivity.”
India’s misread and Pakistan’s new opening
For Velizade, India’s move was a strategic miscalculation. By trying to punish Azerbaijan for its ties with Pakistan and Turkey, New Delhi only deepened Yerevan’s isolation. Pakistan’s establishment of diplomatic relations with Armenia, he argued, was not betrayal but normalization — a step taken with Baku’s consent, following the paraf of a peace agreement. Namik Aliyev went further: “This is not against Azerbaijan’s interests — it is a step taken in coordination with us.”
Armenia’s political evolution
If experts agree on one surprise, it is the transformation of Nikol Pashinyan. Namazov and Velizade noted how the Armenian leader shifted from declaring “Karabakh is Armenia” to accepting “Karabakh is Azerbaijan”; from refusing constitutional change to proposing a full rewrite; from resisting Minsk’s closure to endorsing it. Namazov quipped that Pashinyan had “good teachers in the region” — first and foremost Ilham Aliyev. “It is political education delivered by military and diplomatic means,” he said.
Velizade saw the deeper change not only in leadership but in society. “There are no mass protests in Yerevan against peace with Azerbaijan,” he observed. The Second Karabakh War and the spectacle of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, combined with Armenia’s own losses, had inoculated the public against revanchism. Trade with Turkey, charter flights to Istanbul, even quiet acknowledgment of past distortions — all signal a shift. “People want normal life,” Velizade said.
Global South consolidation
Talyibzade and Velizade both zoomed out to a broader frame: the consolidation of the Global South. For Velizade, Western media depictions of Tianjin as an “axis of evil” were caricature. What actually happened, he said, was a revolt against double standards. Global South states still cite international law, but they resist being lectured with Cold War-style scripts. “This is not Benelux,” Velizade said of the Caucasus. “Here you survive by making the neighborhood work.”
Russia and Iran: the limits of leverage
On Russia, Aliyev underscored the absence of an Aliyev–Putin meeting in Tianjin as proof of strained ties. Gestures from Moscow — monuments, medals, birthday greetings — are read as superficial. Any reconciliation, he said, will be “pragmatic, not sentimental.”
On Iran, Talyibzade reiterated Baku’s standard line: the Zangezur corridor runs on Armenia’s sovereign territory; Tehran’s objections must be addressed to Yerevan, not Baku. Both she and Namazov stressed that Azerbaijan’s durable partnership with Israel is a reality, not a bargaining chip.
China’s red lines in Central Asia
Velizade added a note often absent in Western commentary: China, he argued, would not tolerate in Central Asia what it tolerated in Ukraine. Kazakhstan and its neighbors, bound by a Central Asian Charter on sovereignty, enjoy explicit Chinese security guarantees. Xi Jinping has called this a “red line,” Velizade noted, and if Russia ever crossed it, Beijing would react “in very tough form,” even through sanctions.
The Baku consensus
What unites these diverse voices is a narrative of consolidation. The Minsk Group is buried. The Middle Corridor is inevitable. Turkey anchors security, China projects economic gravity, Russia is relegated to the margins, and Armenia — slowly, painfully — is learning to live by international law.
For Azerbaijan’s experts, the task now is to lock in peace on Baku’s terms and position the country as the indispensable bridge of Eurasia. The caution is that India’s missteps or Russia’s unpredictability could inject turbulence. The confidence is that the regional balance has already shifted — and that Baku, not Moscow, sets the tempo.
This editorial reflects the position of the Azerbaijan.US Editorial Board, which supports Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and security, while advocating for democratic governance at home.
