Expanding on last week's Sultan Erdoğan's Dream: "Construction of Kanal İstanbul to start on June 26, despite opposition".
From the Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, June 1:
In the 1930s, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin considered building a canal between the Black and Caspian seas because the Volga–Don Canal lacked the depth to handle large-capacity ships. But World War II forced him to suspend and then abandon that dream. Now, President Vladimir Putin is reviving it, drawing on a Dubai-based company to establish a water route between Turkey and Central Asia via Russian territory as well as considering developing a new canal system across the North Caucasus. The latter promises to not only reduce the importance of geopolitical changes in the South Caucasus caused by the latest round of Armenian-Azerbaijani fighting but also increase Russia’s role as a partner in China’s Belt and Road Initiative to link Asia and Europe. The Dubai company has already launched its waterway project—its ships are now moving through preexisting Russian internal rivers and canals. But the proposed new canal faces enormous obstacles—not just topographic but also political and ethnic—making it unlikely to be realized in the near future. Even so, these latest moves on the geopolitical chessboard of the Caucasus are already having an impact.
Last week (May 22), the Dubai-based P&O Logistics, which owns some 400 cargo ships, announced the opening of a new cargo container shipping route between Istanbul and Central Asia using the Black Sea and Russian internal waterways like the Volga–Don Canal and then via the Caspian to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Russian and Turkish officials welcomed this development. However, others in the region affected by it, including Azerbaijan and Iran, have so far failed to react publicly, even though each could find its geopolitical role reduced. East-west trade that had once passed though Azerbaijani and Iranian territory may now be transferred to their north (Kaspiyskiy Vestnik, May 24; Vestnik Kavkaza, Haqqin.az, May 22.
The P&O Maritime Logistics announcement specifies that the company will use the Volga–Don Canal, but it does not indicate how that will affect the speed and thus the price of container traffic along the route. At present, ships using the canal cannot draw more than 3.5 meters, a restriction that would preclude the use of this waterway by larger vessels. Nonetheless, what is of great significance is that the route is now open and does not depend either on the reopening of railways in the South Caucasus or on the construction of new transport corridors. Moreover, it puts Moscow back into the critical game of container traffic. Up to now, Moscow had focused on bulk cargo, the importance of which is declining.
This new water route is expected to significantly increase container traffic between Turkey and Central Asia and, thus, (at least potentially) between China and Europe. At the same time, the P&O action importantly gives new impetus to Moscow’s plans to dredge the Volga–Don Canal so that it can handle larger ships. And it bolsters Kremlin discussions about the construction of a new canal between the Caspian and the Black Sea. Though the new route would bypass the existing waterway, it would help keep this international east-west trade route entirely on Russian territory rather than have it shift to intermodal traffic through Azerbaijan or Iran (see EDM, August 6, 2020)....
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