Bryza: Azerbaijan and greater Caspian region have lost a great diplomat

Azerbaijan and the greater Caspian region have lost a great diplomat with the passing of Ambassador Vakhdet Sultanzade, Matthew Bryza, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, former US Ambassador to Azerbaijan, and international expert, told Report.

"Ambassador Sultanzade’s distinguished diplomatic career reached from Southeast Asia’s islands to Central Asia’s mountains and steppe and all the way to Central America’s Caribbean Sea.

Ambassador Sultanzade was a renaissance man, not only discharging his diplomatic duties as his country’s official representative around the world, but also authoring several articles and books on the history, culture, and politics of the Near East.

Perhaps his most special official assignment was as Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Turkmenistan, where Ambassador Sultanzade brilliantly laid the foundation for a new period of closer relations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

The groundbreaking visits to Ashgabat that he organized for then-President of SOCAR Rovnaq Abdullayev and senior Azerbaijani government officials opened a new door for Turkmenistan to global energy markets, in cooperation with its friend and neighbor on the western shore of the Caspian Sea.

Ambassador Sultanzade also played a key role in helping both countries resolve their decades-old dispute over the “Dostluk” oil field in the Caspian Sea. This has cleared the way for a wide range of cross-Caspian cooperation not only on energy, but also on telecommunications and broader trade and investment", Matthew Bryza said.

All of us suffer from the loss of this accomplished diplomat and share in the pain of his loved ones to whom we extend our deepest condolences, Bryza added.