Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan relations as one of the components of the Caspian vector of Eurasian integration

The object of the study is the international relations of Azerbaijan at the junction of the XX and XXI centuries. The subject of the study is the relationship between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan after the disintegration of the USSR. The author dwells in detail on the bilateral relations between Baku and Astana during the presidency of Heydar and Ilham Aliyev. The greatest attention is paid to cooperation in various fields within the framework of Trans-Caucasian logistics projects through the prism of involving Caspian partners in them. This perspective allows us to note that Kazakhstan has gained an important "logistics hub" in Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan fount in Kazakhstan a partner. The research methods are content analysis, discourse analysis and historical research methods. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that Azerbaijan's foreign policy is reflected quite briefly in Russian historiography, especially in the framework of bilateral relations with the countries of Central Asia. The attention of domestic researchers, as a rule, focuses on relations with Russia, as well as other countries of the South Caucasus and Turkey, however, it should be noted that Azerbaijani-Kazakh relations became one of the foundations of the Caspian vector of Eurasian integration at the turn of the century. The main conclusion of the author is that the Azerbaijani-Kazakh relations allowed the two countries not only to solve their own geopolitical problems, but also to qualitatively improve the Caspian vector of Eurasian integration, harmoniously supplementing it with the "West-East" direction. It should be noted not only the intensity of contacts, but also their productivity, a reflection of this is the involvement of Kazakhstan in logistics projects in the South Caucasus, participation in which allows the Central Asian country to have another "corridor" to the world ocean. Probably, the bilateral relations under consideration were the most productive in the region between the post-Soviet countries, with the exception of bilateral relations in which Russia participated.

Azerbaijan, Baku, Caspian sea, Caspian Region, Russia, Astana, Kazakhstan, Eurasia, International relations, Post-Soviet space