Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced the arrival of the first rail shipment of Azerbaijani petrol on Friday, calling the delivery — the first such transfer between the two countries in decades — a sign that “peace has now become a reality”.
Officials on both sides have described as a concrete step towards normalising relations between the long-time rivals.
The freight train, made up of 22 tanker cars, delivered around 1,300 tonnes of high-octane gasoline via the Azerbaijan–Georgia–Armenia railway.
Armenia’s Economy Minister, Gevorg Papoyan, said the delivery was a commercial transaction and could mark the first trade deal between the two countries since peace efforts gathered pace.
The shipment began on 18 December and consists of AI-95 petrol produced by Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR.
Azerbaijani officials said the export demonstrates the country’s readiness to engage in mutually beneficial trade, while Armenian representatives described it as a practical contribution to energy security and economic stability.
The fuel delivery follows an agreement reached on 28 November in Gabala, north-west Azerbaijan, where Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev met his Armenian counterpart, Mher Grigoryan.
Talks focused on confidence-building measures and reviving economic links that had been severed by decades of conflict and closed borders.
Both governments have highlighted the symbolic importance of rail transport, which had been suspended for years due to hostilities. Restoring rail connectivity is seen as a foundation for rebuilding broader transport and trade links across the region.
Analysts say the move could have implications beyond fuel supplies. Reopening trade routes and establishing reliable commercial ties may strengthen regional integration, encourage further cooperation and create momentum for additional confidence-building steps.
In the longer term, observers argue that such initiatives could pave the way for expanded trade across the South Caucasus, reconnecting Armenia, Azerbaijan and neighbouring states through revived transport and energy corridors.
Peace is Armenia’s only reliable guarantee of security, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said in comments in Dublin, where he also...
Hungarian authorities have recovered nearly $20 million in cash hidden in buildings and buried in forests as part of a bribery investigation into M...
U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to hold a historic trilateral meeting in She...
Iran’s Assembly of Experts has backed withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and overhauling the country’s defence doctrine, calling both steps essential to national security and deterrence.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration lifted a nationwide ground stop on Friday (13 November) after a communications failure at air traffic control centres caused chaos at airports and triggered the longest nationwide shutdown since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace talks while the United States continues to work towards what could become the largest prisoner exchange of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Microsoft struggled to restore its services on Friday after a major outage disrupted Outlook, Teams and Copilot across the United States and Asia-Pacific region.
Here's your AnewZ Technology Daily Brief for the 13th of November. This week, a Microsoft outage hit Australian agencies, Google restricted mapping data in South Korea, a lawsuit targeted advanced AI development, and Nvidia faced a leadership crisis after Jensen Huang's resignation.
Peace is Armenia’s only reliable guarantee of security, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said in comments in Dublin, where he also commented that the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) alliance had failed to fulfil its obligations towards Yerevan.
Türkiye and Qatar signed a mutual defence agreement on Friday, November 13, aimed at strengthening collective security and regional stability. The two countries pledged to take a united stance against any external armed attack on either nation.
As Central Asia expands its hydropower infrastructure and high-rise construction, seismologists are examining whether large mountain reservoirs could influence earthquake activity. The question is particularly pressing in a region where major cities lie close to active tectonic faults.
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes part of everyday life, languages with smaller speaker communities risk being left behind. Georgian, spoken by around four million people worldwide, is facing a digital challenge: making sure it is understood by the machines shaping how the world communicates.
Tajikistan has urged the international community to increase funding to protect shrinking glaciers and help mountain communities adapt to climate change at the COP31 UN climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment