Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Turkish split

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict still remains the main point of political tension in the South Caucasus. At the proposal of the Minsk Group’s co-chairs, presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia will meet later in November to discuss this knotty problem.

The two sides do not seem to have made any major changes in their attitudes. Baku insists that the country’s territorial integrity be regained, while Yerevan emphasizes the right of nations to self-determination. But it is not just pro forma that the presidents agreed to meet. Although the Karabakh conflict’s longtime status quo suits, above, all Russia and Armenia, this cannot last too long. Politicians and officials in Baku have ample grounds to say, in the light of ever-growing defense expenditures, that Azerbaijan’s patience is not inexhaustible.

After the president of Armenia had announced the intention to join the Customs Union (CU), Moscow began to take actions aimed at cooling what the First Capital City considers hot heads in Baku and to reinforce the factor that prompted Yerevan to renounce its pro-European course. Moscow is making it crystal clear that it will defend Armenia.

At first sight, it is logical. Armenia must receive guarantees of its security in return for joining the CU – otherwise, Russia will be no longer trusted. But there is also a number of geopolitical factors that forced the main players in and around the conflict to try to do at least something.

Let us begin with the Caspian Sea. It is a particularly sensitive region for Russia, and Moscow is doing its utmost to keep non-Caspian states away from the coast of the world’s largest lake.

The upcoming withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has created the problem of its logistical support. The Pentagon decided not to use the agreed-upon route through Russia’s Ulyanovsk because of a prohibitive cost of this transit. Kazakhstan, a close ally of Russia, came to help the US. It hosted a NATO transportation center with all the necessary facilities in the port of Aktau.

Yulia Yakusheva, deputy director of the Center for Post-Soviet Space Studies, believes that the US will hardly confine itself to the establishment of a transit center in Aktau. “By all accounts, it is just a pretext for full-fledged US presence in Central Asia, the Caspian, and Transcaucasia,” she says. As a result, Washington will be able to somewhat balance the Russian military and political pressure on Azerbaijan.

Another point is connected with Turkey. Ankara’s policy should be regarded in a broader context, not only in terms of the South Caucasus.

Turkey’s main headache now is the Syria conflict and the proclamation of autonomy by Syrian Kurds. On the whole, Ankara’s foreign policy has not been successful in the last while. The attempts to take a leading position in the Middle East were futile. The straining of relations with Israel produced no positive results – this only increased, rather than reduced, the number of problems.

Clearly, it is very desirable to achieve at least some success. The attempt to normalize relations with Armenia by signing the so-called Zurich Protocols in 2009 was thwarted due to an extremely negative reaction of Baku. But it turned out that Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was about to spring a surprise of sorts on Azerbaijan.

An influential Turkish newspaper, Today’s Zaman, quoted diplomatic sources as saying that Turkey had turned for help to Switzerland which Ankara thinks should assist in settling the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, thus paving the way for the restoration of relations between Ankara and Yerevan.

According to this information, Ahmet Davutoglu told Swiss officials during his visit to Switzerland in mid-October that his country was prepared to normalize relations with Armenia. Moreover, the Turkish minister made it clear that Yerevan must first withdraw its troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories. In Davutoglu’s opinion, if Switzerland manages to persuade Yerevan to leave the occupied territories, Ankara would open the border with Armenia.

The newspaper recalls that Armenian formations continue to occupy not only Nagorno-Karabakh itself, but also seven other Azerbaijani districts. “If Armenia starts to leave the occupied territories and does this by presenting a clear timeline of withdrawal that will also be accepted by Baku, we are ready to put the [Zurich] protocols into practice,” the newspaper quotes the Turkish foreign minister as saying.

Today’s Zaman also quoted an unidentified “senior Turkish official” as saying that “Turkey had closed its borders with Armenia not because of Nagorno-Karabakh but because of the adjacent provinces that were occupied.” According to the “senior Turkish official,” “Azerbaijan said it would not oppose Turkey opening its border with Armenia if Yerevan were to leave five of the seven adjacent regions. Yerevan also said it could withdraw from the five adjacent regions.”

Incidentally, Today’s Zaman is not just one of Turkey’s most influential and informed newspapers. The publication is part of a holding controlled by the billionaire Fethullah Gulen who is known to maintain close ties with top governmental officials, including those in the foreign ministry. This really means a lot.

Naturally, all this triggered a negative reaction in Baku. Besides, even if a step-by-step settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is to be accepted, withdrawal from five out of seven occupied districts is no solution for Azerbaijan. And Armenia will hardly agree to leave the Lachin district because it maintains links with Nagorno-Karabakh though it.

The Today’s Zaman publication should be viewed in close connection with some noticeable events.

Firstly, President Abdullah Gul said he might be running for the presidency in the next elections. This highly discouraged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has presidential ambitions of his own. Secondly, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc has publicly urged the head of government to iron out their official differences and said he was ready to resign. A rather hot-heated public polemic broke out between the boss and his subordinate.

Thirdly, more than 60 ruling-party MPs ignored a party meeting in which the prime minister took part. It is a serious fact, and the media began to discuss what they call a topmost-level split.

Fourthly, the owner of Today’s Zaman and a number of other publications is close to the so-called old guard in the person of President Abdullah Gul and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, and he will be on the side of both of them in the conflict with Erdogan.

For these reasons, there was no question of any proposals to normalize relations with Armenia during the recent visit of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev to Turkey. On the contrary, the two sides confirmed similarity of their positions. Given an unstable domestic situation, Ankara decided not to play fast and loose and not to change its policies.

It is futile to expect a breakthrough in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is, rather, an attempt of the two sides to display a preference to diplomacy. But the situation is gradually changing, and Russia will find it more and more difficult to play the role of the main obstacle to the settlement. Sooner or later, it will have to take into account objective conditions and promote a peaceful solution. There emerge more and more conditions for this.