Twenty-two wagons of gasoline arrived in Armenia from Azerbaijan via Georgia on December 19, marking the first known commercial trade between the two longtime adversaries in about 30 years – a move both sides have framed as a sign of progress toward peace.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan welcomed the shipment, saying the trade was made possible by an improved political climate between the two countries:
“The trade is taking place between private companies, but, of course, it is the peace established between Armenia and Azerbaijan that has created the political conditions for this trade,” Pashinyan said.
The shipment was agreed last month during talks between the deputy prime ministers of the two South Caucasus countries as part of efforts to expand economic cooperation, according to Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign policy aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Armenia imported about 65 percent of its gasoline from Russia last year, making supply diversification a sensitive issue in Yerevan.
Decreasing Dependency On Russia
“I do believe that it would be good in decreasing Armenia’s dependency on, particularly, Russia,” Emily Babakanian Frazier, a research fellow at the Regional Studies Center, a Yerevan-based think tank, told RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service, commenting on the recent trade.
However, she cautioned that the move is still seen as fragile in Armenia.
“I think there could be a lot of fear that if there are renewed tensions, Azerbaijan could cut the supply and leave Armenia stranded,” she said. “So I do see it as a potential, but maybe more for the medium and long term rather than the short term.”
Armenia’s Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan described the transaction as commercial:
“The process has gone – let’s fix that instead of war. War is loss, trade is prosperity,” Papoyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Earlier this year, Azerbaijan reopened its territory for the transit of goods to Armenia, ending restrictions that had been in place since 1997. Since October, two shipments of grain from Kazakhstan and Russia have passed through Azerbaijan en route to Armenia.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but long controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists. Both Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey have closed their borders with Armenia since the beginning of the conflict.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan retook full control of Karabakh following a military offensive. This summer, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed on a major deal aimed at ending decades of conflict and potentially unlocking regional trade, though the treaty has yet to be formally signed or ratified.
