Azerbaijan’s recent gas export agreements with Russia, Iran and Bulgaria were serious signals sent to Turkey, an American analytical center said in Eurasia Daily Monitor, according to the Turkish Cumhuriyet daily.

Azerbaijan is seeking alternative gas export routes. “We are interested in exporting our resources through different routes,” Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev stated during his visit to Bulgaria on November 13. On the same day, he paid a short working visit to Sofia to meet his counterpart Georgi Parvanov and to sign an inter-governmental agreement on the transit of Azeri gas to Europe though the Black Sea. This was the third agreement signed with a foreign country during the past month. Previous agreements were signed with Russia and Iran. Analysts believe that these latest developments hint at Baku’s plans to diversify its export options and reduce its dependence on the so-called “Turkish route”.

For most of the 1990’s, Azerbaijan tied the export of its rich energy resources to the Turkish route. Turkey, Azerbaijan’s strategic partner, was considered to be the most reliable transit country, and thus it could reduce Baku’s dependence on Russia. As a result of this strategic vision, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipelines were conceived. Subsequent steps were taken to further strengthen this route by launching the construction of the Baku-Kars railroad and starting negotiations on the transit of Azeri gas from the Shah Deniz field to Europe via Turkey. Unfortunately, this is the point at which progress stopped.

Despite several years of negotiations, Azerbaijan and Turkey have failed to agree on the transit terms for Azeri gas to European markets. This disagreement centers on the transit fees that Ankara demands as well as its proposed purchase price for Azeri gas. Ankara’s price offers have proven unsatisfactory to Baku. During his October 16 cabinet meeting, President Aliyev once again highlighted the remaining disagreements with Turkey and indicated that Azerbaijan would start looking for alternative options to export gas.