Center for Black Sea Region Geoploitical Research (CBSG) Director, Prof. Nick Chitadze talked to Polish Institute of International Affairs along with other prominent scholars. 

Please click on Polish Institute of International Affairs for the original Interview

Nika Chitadze | Associate Professor of the International Black Sea University; Director of the Black Sea Region Geopolitical Research Center

The intention of the three countries in cooperating on military and economic affairs can be connected with the joint protection of the strategic objects, for example, providing security of the Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars Railway, which spans all three countries.

This railway, which will start the functioning at the end of 2016, will no doubt have strategic importance. At the first stage, this system will be capable of transporting 1 million passengers per year and about 5 million tons of goods per year. The volume of the goods will be gradually increased, and at the second stage it is estimated that the railway will handle about 15 million tons of goods. About 2,500 people will be employed at this railway.  

The second strategic object of economic importance, which will need joint protection, is the gas pipeline in the framework of Southern Corridor project – TANAP (the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline).According to the experts, the capacity of this gas pipeline will be about 16 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, and the gas volume is anticipated to increase to up to 23 billion cubic meters by 2023, 31 billion cubic meters by 2026, and 60 billion cubic meters at the final stage. It also had the possibility to transport additional volume of gas supplies from Azerbaijan (in case of the number of compressor stations are increased) and, in long-term perspectives, if the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline enters into extraction from Turkmenistan. 

There are several terrorist and diversion groups present in the region, which will do their best to implement diversion tactics on the energy and transport infrastructure in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Such terrorist attacks on the Georgian energy infrastructure will decrease the status of Georgia as a transit country, and this factor will be negatively reflected on the national interets of Azerbaijan as a gas exporter country and Turkey as a gas importer and distributor country. Therefore, it is beneficial to strengthen the cooperation among these three countries in the sphere of defense to protect the pipelines and other transport and communication systems on the territoires of all three countries.