The purpose of Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council Sergei Shoigu's visit to Baku, on his way from Tehran to Moscow, is quite clear: to support its main ally in the South Caucasus in the difficult geopolitical situation unfolding near its borders and to let it know that it can always count on the help of its northern neighbor, Russian military expert, historian of the Caucasus, honorary doctor of the A. Bakikhanov Institute of History of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, PhD in History Oleg Kuznetsov has told AZERTAC while commenting on the visit of the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Sergei Shoigu, to Azerbaijan and his meeting with President Ilham Aliyev.
According to the expert, over the past two decades, all serious, fundamental and pivotal issues in the relations between Russia and Azerbaijan have been and are being resolved exclusively at the highest level – through dialog between Presidents Putin and Aliyev, between whom there is not and cannot be any misunderstanding or mistrust. “Consequently, the statements made should be further evidence of the highest level of collaboration, partnership and cooperation between Moscow and Baku, and this has been successfully achieved. All words on the substance of Russian-Azerbaijani relations were said long ago and in a different format,” the Russian expert has told the agency.
Touching upon the visit of the Secretary of the Russian Security Council to Iran, Kuznetsov said that Sergei Shoigu in his current official capacity was a purely political figure who is not in the position to make any practical decisions independently.
“Based on this understanding of his current function in the system of Russian state power, we should assess the goals and results of Shoigu's visits to Tehran and Baku accordingly. The only real purpose of the visit of the Secretary of the Russian Security Council to Iran may be to understand and evaluate firsthand the seriousness of the Iranian military-political leadership’s intentions to launch a “retaliatory strike" for the death in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Palestinian movement HAMAS,” the historian suggested, adding that the possibility of such a strike was now the number 1 topic in the world, overshadowing even the armed conflict in Ukraine.
Kuznetsov noted the importance of understanding that Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran today were in a very serious economic bond within the framework of the North-South International Transport Corridor project, in which each of the countries sees its own profit and its margin. “This means that despite all the foreign policy turbulence roaming the region, they have macroeconomic interests of their own – simply put, a commercial gain no one should forget about despite all the military and political perturbations. This is why the Russian president, on the eve of Sergei Shoigu's visit to Tehran, was in direct contact with Iran's top leadership asking it to refrain from extreme forms of response to the death of Ismail Haniyeh. In this sense, the economic subtext of Sergei Shoigu's statements made in Baku on behalf of the Russian authorities is quite transparent and comprehensible: no matter what happens in the region in terms of the political and ideological confrontation, the collective business of the North-South South International Transport Corridor should not be affected. President Ilham Aliyev fully agreed with this position of the Kremlin envoy, as it is fully consistent with the national interests of Azerbaijan in the conditions of regional military and political turbulence,” the expert emphasized.
The agency's interlocutor believes that Shoigu's visit to Iran cannot dramatically affect Tehran's position in its next round of confrontation with Israel. “The crisis in relations between these countries that has existed for almost 40 years is of a systemic and multi-vector nature, which is why the impact on only one vector of it will not change its essence. But there is always a chance to be heard, especially if you want to be heard. The Kremlin has taken full advantage of this opportunity. No one in the world should have any complaints about its behavior toward Iran in the current situation - it has articulated its desires explicitly and loudly,” Kuznetsov concluded.
