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Azerbaijan has become Turkey’s major gas supplier and this could have major geopolitical ramifications for the region. But it also fits into Turkey’s efforts of the past several years to diminish its dependence on Russian gas. Hence Ankara’s particularly harsh position regarding the recent Armenia-Azerbaijan fighting in the Tovuz region where regional gas, oil and railway infrastructure runs. From January-May of this year, Turkey imported 4 527,39 cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas (from Shah Deniz field). This is some 20,4 percent more in comparison to the same period of 2019. On the other hand, in May 2020 the import from Russia diminished by almost 62% compared to the same month in 2019. In May 2020, Azerbaijan officially became Turkey’s top gas supplier. Overall this is a continuation of the trend from 2019 when Azerbaijan’s share in Turkey’s gas supplies reached 21.2 percent, which is some 6.23 percent more compared to the same period of 2018. This became possible after the launch of...

India has been a key stakeholder in the development of Iran’s strategic port of Chabahar. A landmark India-Afghanistan-Iran trilateral agreement on Establishment of International Transport and Transit Corridor was signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tehran in May 2016. Many important steps have since been taken to speed up the development of the port and realise its full potential. However, growing United States (US)-Iran confrontation and imposition of harsh economic sanctions by the US on Iran under its “maximum pressure” policy has adversely affected New Delhi’s desire to convert its commitments into concrete actions on ground. In the light of the emerging debate in Indian academic and media circles about India’s Chabahar dilemma, it is important to analyse India’s advances as well as challenges in implementing the port project. Advancing Cooperation on Chabahar Chabahar is considered to be of great strategic value to India. It not only provides access to Afghanist...

Soviet foreign trade played only a minor role in the Soviet economy. In 1985, for example, exports and imports each accounted for only 4 percent of the Soviet gross national product. The Soviet Union maintained this low level because it could draw upon a large energy and raw material base, and because it historically had pursued a policy of self-sufficiency. Other foreign economic activity included economic aid programs, which primarily benefited the less developed Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) countries of Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam. The Soviet Union conducted the bulk of its foreign economic activities with communist countries, particularly those of Eastern Europe. In 1988 Soviet trade with socialist countries amounted to 62 percent of total Soviet foreign trade. Between 1965 and 1988, trade with the Third World made up a steady 10 to 15 percent of the Soviet Union's foreign trade. Trade with the industrialized West, especially the United States, fluctua...

While low prices for ‘black gold’ keep shaking the world’s economies, and major oil-exporting nations are trying to weather the trend, the Russian national currency has proven it still has an ace up its sleeve. The collapse of oil prices at the start of March after Russia withdrew from the OPEC+ deal was a disaster for Moscow, which remains heavily reliant on oil exports to fund the budget. But then an odd thing happened: the price of oil lost 56 percent of its value in the year to date, as of May 7, but the ruble is down by only 19 percent over the same period. Like some Tibetan monetary monk, the ruble’s value has managed to levitate and stay up, even as the oil-price ground fell away from underneath it. The ruble’s value has long been tied to the price of oil and the two used to move in lockstep. That changed when the Russian Ministry of Finance introduced the so-called budget rule (aka the financial rule), which automatically siphons off any excess oil-export revenue to the N...