This is CBS Iron the World.

I'm John Batchel, joined by my good colleague Malcolm Honline,

Conference of President's Major American Jewish Organizations,

and we're very pleased to welcome Professor of Political Science,

Zev Khanan.

He is at the Bar-Alan University,

especially at the post-Soviet conflict especially at the post-Soviet conflict at the Begin-Sedat Center.

Professor, a very good evening to you.

I go immediately to the post-Soviet state of Azerbaijan, which I've had the pleasure of visiting several times over these last years.

It is a modern sparkling capital that has put its shoulder to the wheel to aid Europe with natural gas line, the southern gas pipeline.

But it's also the center of energy superstars around the region.

What do we need to know about Azerbaijan today that makes it especially critical in the years ahead. Good evening to you,

Professor. Good evening, John. And thanks very much for your invitation. It's a big pleasure

for me to be with you this night. Actually, I would say that Azerbaijan is one of the post-Soviet

states, which becomes sort of a superpower in the Southern Caucasus,

or trans-Cocasus, as the Russian call it.

Russians call it, but at the moment, like or unlike many other countries of the post-Soviet

space, Oriental Cat of Central Asia and so on, that hesitate in between Russia as a predominant force

and other subjects there in the area, like China, like Iran, like other Turkey, like other interest groups,

actually, Azerbaijan or official Baku, the capital city of that country.

They actually, for quite a long period of time,

they tried to develop a multi-pol policy, foreign policy,

...