U.S. analyst: Nabucco's stagnation caused by Azerbaijan's political alienation from recent US policies on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

“Stakeholders and other interested parties in the Nabucco project are expressing concern over the project's apparent stagnation, and calling for urgent consultations to revitalize the project."

"Nabucco is simply marking time in the absence of a coordinating mechanism between producer, transit, and consumer countries, and without hands-on leadership from the European Union during the transition from one commission to another in Brussels”, said Vladimir Socor, Senior Research Fellow of Jamestown Foundation in his article published in Eurasia Daily Monitor.

“Political problems have recently added new complications to the Nabucco project. One such problem, clearly recognized by project stakeholders and other European observers, but underestimated in Washington, is Azerbaijan’s political alienation resulting from recent US policies on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Those policies, in their result if not intent, came close to de-aligning Turkey from Azerbaijan, while strengthening Russia’s and Armenia’s hands in the negotiations on the Karabakh conflict," the expert sad.

"At perceived risk of isolation, and lacking an outlet to Europe for its growing gas surplus, Azerbaijan is open to Russian and Iranian offers to export its gas in those directions”, said Socor.

The political analyst noted that despite EU’s memorandum of understanding on energy partnership with Iraq, which considers Iraqi energy resources as a potential source for Nabucco, Iraqi joining the project will take long years.

"Thus, Azerbaijani gas remains the existential issue for Nabucco at least in the first stage; and Turkmen gas via Azerbaijan, just as vital for Nabucco’s second stage and the overall Southern Corridor," said the analyst.

/APA/