Coverage of the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline continues with three different looks at what the future holds in store for Azerbaijan. In a partner-post from EurasiaNet, Transitions Online looks at the democratic process in Armenia’s neighbor.

The last half of this year promises to be eventful in Baku. The main pillar of the country’s long-range economic development effort – the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline – is expected to become operational in late 2005, around the same time parliamentary elections are held in November. Already, there are indications that the election could prove tumultuous. Political uncertainty, in turn, could cloud the pipeline’s prospects for a smooth launch.

Meanwhile, IWPR looks at how an estimated $160 billion from oil and gas might affect such a small, and it has to be said, corrupt former Soviet republic.

“That is a colossal amount of money when you set it against an annual budget of two billion dollars,” Akhmedov said. “And that creates risks for the economy as a whole. In its short history independent Azerbaijan has not only not acquired experience in managing large amounts of money, but it’s also not created an infrastructure for the effective and transparent management of oil revenues when society has weak control over them.”

The BBC takes a different approach (after extensively covering all of these issues in news from the previous week) by presenting a digest of comments from the Azeri press on the BTC opening and how it might impact on the continuing negotiations over Nagorno Karabagh.