Pakistan`s “The Nation” newspaper: Azerbaijan and global challenges
Baku, December 31 (AZERTAC). Pakistan`s “The Nation” newspaper has published an article called “Azerbaijan and global challenges”. The following is the full text of the article:
“Azerbaijan, a country of nine million people in the South Caucasus, is moving fast on the development track, based primarily on the exploitation of its huge hydrocarbon resources. However, this is not a smooth and trouble-free environment. Azerbaijan faces some of the most formidable developmental challenges that have roots in the regional conflicts, as well as the interplay between various geopolitical forces.
Azerbaijan is very much the attention of global powers, as it sits on one of the world`s largest oil and gas reserves coupled with the fact that it is strategically located at the junction of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It is a convergence point for the global forces that affect global peace and stability. Thus, the local and regional issues need to be handled carefully with the involvement of global powers so as to ensure positive implications for world peace. This was what emerged from the two-day deliberations of international scholars gathered at a symposium held in Baku, Azerbaijan, last October. This article is based on the author`s keynote address, as well as various presentations and discussions during the plenary sessions of the symposium.
More than 60 scholars from 55 countries around the world had gathered at the symposium. In addition, a large number of Azerbaijani scholars and students participated. The deliberations were intense in several parallel plenary sessions. The Baku Declaration, unanimously adopted, pointed out the critical significance of resolving regional conflicts with the serious involvement of global powers. It also highlighted an increasingly more powerful and more responsible role of Azerbaijan in both regional and international politics. It is indeed poised for a rapid and sustained economic development and growth provided it can wisely and effectively handle the complex and sophisticated international forces engaged in the region.
The South Caucasus, consisting of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, is ripe with several regional conflicts and is a potential hotspot with severe and longer lasting implications for world peace and development. This scenario presents serious global challenges to be dealt with extreme care and prudence, utilizing a balanced approach by world powers, as well as by the South Caucasus countries.
This situation can be analyzed by using a five-tier hierarchical framework that provides two basic hierarchical levels that involve regional conflicts with localized dimensions and implications. This leads to the third level of analysis, that is, economic development challenges and issues. The fourth hierarchical level of analysis is the challenges associated with energy security in the region and beyond. The fifth and final hierarchical level is the broad spectrum of global peace.
Hierarchical Level 1 - Water Management Conflict: The South Caucasus is a huge river basin created by the two major rivers Kur and Araz and their smaller tributaries passing through Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, finally draining out through a broad delta into the Caspian Sea. Historically, the two rivers have provided abundant water resources for agriculture and industry in the three countries. Now water shortage is becoming a global phenomenon, further compounded by the universal dilemma of water pollution. These problems are fast assuming the dimensions of a major conflict in the South Caucasus region. The water management conflict can be analyzed in terms of the following three mutually dependent problem areas.”
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