Ashraf Ghani's Risky Game

Membership in BRICS and the SCO will turn Azerbaijan into a logistics center between East and West, increasing transit revenues to compensate for the lost income from declining oil exports.

After the political balance of the March 31 municipal elections shifted in favor of the main opposition party, the process of "dialogue and easing" that began between the ruling party leader and President Erdoğan and the Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Özel has never brought relief to the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, who has fervently supported the government for the past eight years.

The Azerbaijani government is rapidly changing its course. Following the adoption of the "Joint Declaration on the Establishment of Strategic Partnership between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the People's Republic of China," Azerbaijan's intent to first become a member of BRICS and then a dialogue partner, along with its ambition to obtain observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), signals a recent U-turn towards the East, specifically the Global South.

Azerbaijan wants to become a full member of the BRICS, the chairman of the Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan of the VI convocation, Sahiba Gafarova, said  at the plenary session of the X Parliamentary Forum of the BRICS countries in St. Petersburg on July 10.