Why Does Iran Hold So Many Elections? Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Day: June 24, 2024
Azerbaijan’s land borders closed
Azerbaijan has once again extended the special quarantine measures imposed since March 2020. The special regime is now extended until October 1, 2024. This means that Azerbaijan’s land borders will remain closed for another three months.
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Although the government had previously justified the extension of the quarantine measures by citing the spread of the coronavirus infection, this argument became less convincing after the World Health Organization declared the end of the pandemic.
In April 2024, during an international forum on “SDG 29 and the Green Vision for Azerbaijan” in Baku, the country’s president Ilham Aliyev announced the decision to keep the land borders closed as a security measure.
Aliyev said that despite the inconvenience caused to Azerbaijanis living on both sides of the borders and others due to the borders being closed, “national security must outweigh all other considerations, all other reasons.”
“Especially at the present time. We have war on our northern border. It is turbulent on our southern border. New conflicts arise like mushrooms after the rain. I think the Azerbaijani people understand this.”
He also mentioned seeing strengthened security in Azerbaijan during the period when borders were closed.
“As someone who deals with national security issues every day, I can say that after closing the borders, we have seen countless benefits for national security. And this is a reality.”
According to him, this decision has no impact on Azerbaijan’s tourism sector.
Trade along the North-South corridor is off to a strong start in 2024, a boon for the Kremlin. The route got a big boost from a jump in Russian trade turnover with Iran.
During the first quarter of this year, trade turnover between Russia and Irangrew by 48 percent over the same period in 2023, a year in which overall commerce between the two countries lagged. While trade increased between Russia and Iran, it decreased by 6 percent year-on-year between Russia and Azerbaijan during the first four months of 2024.
Meanwhile, turnover between Russia and India – the countries at each end of the network of road, rail and sea links – set a new quarterly value record during the first three months of this year, totaling about $17.5 billion, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported. In late 2023, Indian Foreign Minister Subramanyan Jaishankar credited the North-South corridor with spurring growth in bilateral trade. “This project is in line with our interests,” he said. “It is one of our top priorities.”
In early June, Russian leader Vladimir Putin touted the North-South trade network as a more efficient international trade conduit than the Suez Canal.
Intent on maintaining momentum for growth, Putin on June 12 approved an agreement on free trade between members of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and Iran. Beyond laying the groundwork for new infrastructure and improved logistics, the TASS news service reported that the pact can save Russian exporters up to $300 million in export-duty and other costs.
On June 16, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran announced the creation of a working group for improving logistics arrangements along the North-South route, TASS also reported.
“[Putin] has identified an increase in the volume of traffic along international transport corridors as priority development goals for the Russian Federation for the period until 2030 and 2036,” Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in early June.