Government Cuts Fuel Excise: Strong Upstream Position Paired with Refining Vulnerability

In St. Petersburg on Sunday, President Vladimir Putin received Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. At first glance, the meeting appeared routine. Yet its timing, amid deepening uncertainty in Iran’s relations with the United States, points to a more consequential trend: a quiet realignment of alliances as diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program enters a fragile new phase.

The reconstruction and redevelopment processes carried out in Azerbaijan’s liberated territories represent one of the largest-scale state investment programs in the country. The audits conducted in 2025 were primarily post-audits (ex-post reviews), and since project implementation is still ongoing, they present interim assessments rather than final conclusions.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have been awarded the 2026 Gernika Prize for Peace and Reconciliation, a symbolic recognition of their efforts to advance negotiations between two countries that have remained in conflict for decades.

Azerbaijan’s institutional and governance indicators in the first quarter of 2026 point to gradual improvements in public administration, digitalisation and service delivery, although disparities in implementation and lingering structural risks continue to weigh on overall effectiveness.