Iran battle boosts strategic significance of South Caucasus | EUROtoday

In the hours after the US and Israel started conducting joint strikes on Iran on February 28, air visitors alongside the usually busy East-West routes was compelled right into a slim airspace hall over the South Caucasus.

What is a brand new growth within the skies has been constructing on the bottom for a while. In latest years, the area has gained consideration as a key hyperlink within the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. Also referred to as the Middle Corridor, it serves to attach Europe and China while bypassing Iran and Russia through Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Now, the Iran battle has solid the Middle Corridor’s significance into even sharper focus. By shutting the Strait of Hormuz, a route that handles roughly 20% of world oil and liquified pure gasoline(LNG) shipments, Iran has disrupted international vitality flows.

“For this region, this is an opportunity within this crisis,” says Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center in Yerevan, Armenia. “The Middle Corridor is now the one route left standing, the one viable path when it comes to commerce and transport.”

A key hyperlink within the Middle Corridor

What is extra, a significant transport artery via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Red Sea, which carries 12% of the world’s commerce, has repeatedly been disrupted by the Iranian-linked Houthi militiain Yemen. An different route across the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa provides greater than 10 days to the Asia-Europeroute.

The Middle Corridor — the shortest geographical route between Europe and China — is meant to maneuver Chinese items together with crucial minerals and vitality merchandise from Central Asia to Europe. Both the EU and China have already pledged billions to improve ports, railways, and roads alongside the route.

Cargo volumes alongside the hall have quadrupled since 2022, the yr Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Though it nonetheless solely carries a fraction of Europe-Asia commerce, the World Bankestimates that commerce volumes might attain a complete of 11 million tons by 2030.

Region stands to realize strategic worth

Even past the present battle, the Middle Corridor is more likely to acquire extra momentum within the coming years.

“In the mid to long term, the South Caucasus and the Middle Corridor are going to be one of the main routes connecting the EU and China alongside maritime routes,” says Kornely Kakachia, a politics professor in Tbilisi. For Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, this shift would elevate their function as pivotal transit states.

For energy-rich Azerbaijan, the Iran battle might additionally deliver brief time period good points. Higher oil costs would imply an export windfall for the nation, which analysts have estimated might attain as a lot as $500 to $600 million further a monthfor the nation.

Hikmet Hajiyev, chief international coverage adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, informed Euronews that Azerbaijan was growing its shipments of pure gasoline to make up for shipments from the Gulf amid the Iran battle.

Europe presently receives round 4% of its pure gasoline from Azerbaijan, equal to 12.8 billion cubic meters of gasoline. This is slated to extend to twenty billion cubic metersby 2027.

Conflict dangers instability within the area

But battle can be detrimental to enterprise. “In order for the Middle Corridor to be successful, it needs stability from China to the European Union and around the South Caucasus,” says Kakachia.

Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia have all taken a impartial stance within the battle. But Iranian officers have lengthy criticized Azerbaijan for its robust financial hyperlinks with Israel.

In 2025, Israel acquired 46.4% of its oil from Azerbaijan via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. In return, Azerbaijan receives the vast majority of its army weaponry from Israel.

“Azerbaijan’s deepening ties with Israel were always seen as a threat from the Iranian side,” says Mahammad Mammadov, research fellow at the Topchubashov Center in Baku. “But on the opposite facet, Azerbaijan-Iran relations have been deepening in recent times. The sides have been making an attempt to compartmentalize.”

Cooperation between the 2 nations primarily centered on constructing a commerce hall between Iran and Russia.

This stability was disrupted on March 5, when 4 Iranian drones struck an airport in Azerbaijan’s exclave Nakhchivan. Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev known as the strike a “terrorist act,” whereas officers threatened retaliatory strikes, and briefly suspended freight visitors from Iran.

The escalation was finally defused after a direct name between the leaders of Iran and Azerbaijan. Still, whereas “relations are back to normal, the incident created lots of uncertainty,” says Mammadov.

Azerbaijani officers additionally claimed to have thwarted sabotage makes an attempt by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Crops (IRGC). Among the alleged targets have been the BTC pipeline and the Israeli embassy in Azerbaijan.

A protracted battle might endanger a flagship Middle Corridor infrastructure venture — the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP.

Agreed to as a part of a Trump-brokered peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan final August, it foresees a 43-kilometer highway and rail hall via Armenia that will join Azerbaijan to its exclave Nakhchivan and Turkey.

By reopening the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan — shut for many years due to the nations’ battle over Nagorno-Karabakh — TRIPP would create a brand new logistics hall alongside present routes that run via Azerbaijan and Georgia.

The United States, which views TRIPP as a provide chain for crucial minerals, has closely supported the venture. It is meant to be constructed and managed by a US-led consortium.

But Iran has been skeptical of Washington’s involvement within the venture, which can run instantly subsequent to Armenia’s border with Iran. Last summer time, an adviser to the previous Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, went so far as to say that the route can be the “grave of Donald Trump’s mercenaries.”

These considerations, nevertheless, shouldn’t be overblown, says Giragosian, mentioning that “in military terms, there is nothing yet to target.” Construction on TRIPP is just not slated to start till the second half of 2026.

What Baku needs

Ultimately, says Kakachia, the South Caucasus has a robust curiosity in sustaining peace and safety within the broader area.

Chief amongst these searching for stability is Azerbaijan. According to Mammadov, “Azerbaijan doesn’t want Iran to collapse — or this war to continue longer — because it tips the balance in favor of more uncertainty and miscalculation.”

A collapse would “open Pandora’s box” — triggering financial instability and doubtlessly an inflow of refugees from a rustic the place over 20 million ethnic Azeris presently stay.

Instead, Mammadov argues, probably the most favorable state of affairs for Baku can be a weakened Iran that nonetheless stays beneath its present theocratic regime. As lengthy as Tehran is seen as a pariah, Azerbaijan retains its geopolitical and financial worth as a secure hyperlink between East and West.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru