Customs chiefs of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye sign a Middle Corridor protocol in Goygol
The fifth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Türkiye trilateral committee on customs sat in Goygol district on Monday: Shahin Baghirov for Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee, deputy trade minister Sezai Ucarmak for Türkiye and Revenue Service head Mamuka Baratashvili for Georgia. Faster transit procedures on the Middle Corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway were named the priorities, and a protocol was signed, APA reported at 11:50 Baku time.
Japarov asks TİKA for hospitals, farm laboratories and small hydro in the high mountains
Sadyr Japarov received the head of Turkey’s cooperation agency TİKA, Abdullah Eren, on Monday and proposed that its next projects in Kyrgyzstan go to health care, the modernisation of agricultural laboratories, vocational education and the training of green-energy specialists, with a separate line for remote and high-mountain districts, the presidential administration said in a readout Bulak carried at 13:45.
Erdoğan receives Pashinyan at Türkevi in New York, backs normalisation in trade and transport and invites him to the COP31 leaders’ summit
President Erdoğan received Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at Türkevi in New York on Wednesday, with foreign minister Hakan Fidan beside him, and told him Türkiye supported “the normalisation process in bilateral trade and transport”, welcomed “reciprocal steps in the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia” and invited him to the COP31 leaders’ summit Türkiye will host, Hürriyet reported at 20:27 Istanbul time. Armenia’s side went into the meeting saying it “looks forward to border opening, launch of rail connectivity with Türkiye”, Armenpress reported at midday, and came out of it, in Arka’s headline, with both sides seeing a need to “stimulate trade and economic ties”.
Azerenerji signs a $58.6 million turnkey contract with Turkey’s YEO for 250 MWh of batteries, financed by local banks over 4 years
Azerenerji, the state power company, has signed a contract with YEO Teknoloji Enerji ve Endüstri of Turkey for a battery energy-storage system of 250 MWh, worth $58.6 million on an EPC-F basis under which the contractor designs, procures, builds and arranges the financing, Report carried from Turkish media on Tuesday. YEO’s disclosure to the Istanbul exchange on Monday says local banks finance the project with a 4-year repayment term, construction starts shortly and the system is to be commissioned within a year, with the batteries made by REAP Battery, the group’s own company. It follows 2 systems totalling 500 MWh that YEO commissioned in Azerbaijan in the second quarter under contracts signed in 2025.
London’s war-risk list now covers the whole Black Sea, and the open water off Georgia’s ports is inside it
The Joint War Committee’s circular of 16 September lists the Black Sea “excluding territorial waters of adjoining countries other than Russia and Ukraine”; until then, in the Black Sea, the London market listed the coastal waters of Russia and Ukraine. Dunya, the Turkish business daily, puts war-risk premiums at 1% to 1.5% of a ship’s insured value, against 0.1% to 0.2% in normal conditions, which can add $150,000 to $300,000 to a 7-day voyage. The new line crosses routes that call at neither belligerent’s ports: KazTransOil, which owns the Batumi oil terminal, sent 293,000 tonnes of cargo toward that port in August.
The Black Sea drone war reaches the Danube: a Turkish-owned freighter's captain is killed in the Bystre canal as Moscow claims cargo ships hit on 5 of the last 6 days
The Mariam M, a Tanzanian-flagged general cargo ship in the fleet of UBSM Shipping of Mersin, was hit by a drone in the Bystre canal of the Danube delta on Thursday morning on its way to load wheat at Reni. Ukraine's infrastructure ministry says the captain was killed and 3 crew wounded; Turkish maritime outlets put the dead at 2 and the wounded at 13. Russia's defence ministry, which names no ships, has claimed strikes on cargo vessels in Odesa, Chornomorsk and at sea on the Izmail approach on 5 of the last 6 days, on CAW's count of its statements.
Fidan arrives in Baku with a $15 billion trade target and a summit to prepare; Ankara's index reached No: 180 without a word on the tug strike that killed 2 Azerbaijanis
Turkey's foreign ministry announced the visit of 15 and 16 September in one sentence on Monday. Hürriyet Daily News listed the meetings, with Jeyhun Bayramov, defence minister Zakir Hasanov and Ilham Aliyev, and the agenda: the trade target both presidents set, energy and transport projects, the defence industry, and the Organization of Turkic States summit Ankara hosts on 29 and 30 October.
A drone hits a Turkish-flagged Ro-Ro on the Novorossiysk run; Ankara’s press index is still on Syria
The Lionfish, a 139-metre container and Ro-Ro ship built in 1997, under the Turkish flag and operated by Istanbul’s Feeder Link Denizcilik, was hit by a drone in the Black Sea, the Chamber of Shipping’s records showed early on Sunday, Haber Denizde reported; a container caught fire and was put out, no one was hurt, and the ship carried on to Trabzon. The chamber’s record had her sailing from Ambarli to Novorossiysk, the port that ships most of Kazakhstan’s oil; DenizHaber’s account on Sunday afternoon had the voyage as Ambarli to Trabzon, one Turkish port to another, and left the question of who fired open.
Calik's chairman promises Arkadag his contracts will be honoured, a week after a blackout blamed on the station Calik expanded
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's Saturday, in the state chronicle's account, ran through the Netherlands and Germany with the Akhal-Teke: a world championship in Akhal-Teke equestrian sport, held in Europe for the first time at the Peelbergen complex in Kronenberg, Limburg, a beauty contest, the presentation of his horse book in Dutch and, on the state chronicle's account, meetings with Ahmet Calik of Calik Holding and Michael Harms of the German Ost-Ausschuss. At home the chronicle carried prosecutors' appointments and two migration-service buildings. Eight days after the Turkmenbashi refinery fire and the four-province blackout, neither has drawn an official word, and the chronicle lists no Cabinet sitting for Friday.
Erdogan's Black Sea shipping mechanism would start at the berth where Kazakh oil loads
Flying home from Bishkek on Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the reporters on his plane that the Black Sea needs “a mechanism that will permanently secure the safety of commercial shipping”, and that Turkey's concern covers “all civilian sea transport”, beyond ships under its own flag or management. He named no design in the remarks Haber7 printed. The ships with the most to gain are the tankers that load Kazakhstan's oil at Novorossiysk, where the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's terminal logged three attacks in July.
Ashgabat takes a new Turkish ambassador's letters
Serdar Berdymukhamedov received Sener Cebeci's credentials on Friday; the readout speaks of fraternal relations of a long-term, strategic nature.
The Bosphorus stops both ways for a hull the war already stopped
Istanbul suspended traffic in both directions on Friday morning to walk a casualty through the strait: the Liberian-flagged bulker Great Ocean, 289 m, struck by drones near the Kerch Strait entrance about a month ago, went south under tow to a repair yard.
Moscow rejects the moratorium and says no formal proposal ever arrived
Moscow rejected Hakan Fidan’s Black Sea moratorium on Friday, calling it a half-measure and denying that any formalised Turkish appeal had arrived through official channels. Ankara had not answered by Monday morning, and the war keeps washing up on Turkish shores.
Uzbekistan is guest of honour at a gathering Ankara does not convene
The Kurultaj opens on the Bugac puszta today. Tomorrow’s ceremony lists the secretary general of the Organization of Turkic States, the culture ministers of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the president of TURKSOY and one Turkish party official. The host is a Hungarian foundation and the mayor of a village of two thousand.
Ankara's condolences on 10 August went to Colombia
Eight Uzbek citizens and one Tajik citizen were killed at Nizhnekamsk on 10 August. The Turkish foreign ministry issued a condolence statement that day, numbered 155, about an earthquake in Colombia. It has published four releases since 10 August and none of them mentions the nine.
Russia's first answer on the Black Sea moratorium comes from a Duma deputy
Turkey's proposal for a moratorium on maritime strikes drew its first Russian pushback on Tuesday, at parliamentary level.
The shipping war’s damaged ships head for the yards
Two of the vessels hit off Novorossiysk this month now have names and destinations: the container ship LDR Yasar is under damage assessment in Samsun, and the dry cargo carrier Gulluk is sailing to Istanbul for repairs.
Turkey reopens the straits without saying why it closed them
Tankers bound for Novorossiysk are moving again after a pause Ankara never explained and now calls a set of temporary measures. In Astana, the Energy Ministry put its detour list on the record on Monday.
Turkey pauses the straits, and Kazakh oil waits
From Thursday to Sunday, vessels bound for Novorossiysk could not get permits to transit the Turkish straits. The pause revealed a second gate on Kazakhstan’s main export route, and nobody in Astana holds the key.