It is high likely that Russia and Turkey will expand the format of bilateral relations in the near future. Experts expect that Azerbaijan, Iran and Kazakhstan will join this process. For example, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for African and Arab affairs, Hossein Jaber Ansari, plans to visit Russia and Turkey, where he will discuss the latest developments in the region. Meanwhile, according to Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Ismail Alper Coskun, a quadrilateral format of cooperation between Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Turkey could be very productive for the region: "In the case of combination of all potentials, which each of these countries and the region as a whole have, we can achieve great results."
Ismail Alper Coskun
Moscow is also optimistic about this format. As the director of the Institute for Policy Studies, member of the Public Chamber, political analyst Sergey Markov, said that Kazakhstan may also join this process. "I would like to express my gratitude to Presidents of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, Ilham Aliyev and Nursultan Nazarbayev, for their role in the improvement of Russian-Turkish relations. I think that soon we will witness the formation of not only Russian-Turkish bilateral format, but these countries will also join it. Trilateral summit Russia-Iran-Azerbaijan was already held, and I think now we will see Russia-Turkey-Azerbaijan summit and, perhaps, Russia-Turkey-Kazakhstan. These countries have a lot to discuss, and they have many opportunity to develop contacts in a trilateral format," Markov said.
Sergey Markov
He also suggested that in the near future it may be possible to talk about close cooperation between Turkey and the structures, in which Russia is already an active participant. Organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). "At the moment, I don't think we should expect that Turkey will quickly join these structures for several simple reasons. In particular, there are no NATO member-countries in the SCO, and it would be a precedent that would break the logic of this organization. But I believe that close cooperation will be developed very seriously. The EEU is also a common market. Meanwhile, Turkey has quite serious relations with the European Union's common market, despite de facto termination of substantive negotiations on Turkey's accession to the EU. Nevertheless, Ankara still has the desire to be represented in the European common market, and Turkey will face the need to coordinate its participation in these two markets. Either way, Turkish rapprochement with these structures is very important," he believes.
