The recent visit of the Turkish Prime Minister to Baku left an ambiguous impression. It is still hard to tell whether it was successful in promoting bilateral relations between the countries. The most important issues of today’s Azerbaijani-Turkish relations are: lifting the visa regime for Turkish citizens in Azerbaijan; finalizing the agreement on Azeri gas transit via Turkey and the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. As for the first issue, the Azerbaijani President made it clear that the visa regime won’t be lifted any time soon, as “Azerbaijan isn’t yet ready for it”.
This unwillingness of Azerbaijan to lift the visa regime with Turkey is explained by some experts by the subsequent mandatory lifting of visas with Iran, and that would ease the process of smuggling drugs, weapons and other hazardous items. Representatives of the Azerbaijani presidential administration have indirectly confirmed this opinion. Ali Hasanov, a member of the President’s staff, also pointed out that if the West is to take any action against Iran, ethnic Azerbaijanis would most likely try to migrate to Azerbaijan, and without a visa regime such an inflow might prove to be a threat to national security. Therefore, the lack of progress on the visa question didn’t come as a surprise to the Turkish PM.
Mr Erdogan’s visit to Baku was not dictated by urgent matters of the two countries relations, it was more likely honouring a tradition, according to which each Turkish PM visits Azerbaijan or North Cyprus after being elected. If Erdogan hadn’t visited Baku after the elections, it could have been taken by the international community as a sign of a cooling in Azeri-Turkish relations. Some countries would love such a development. However, nothing that the leaders of the two countries have discussed during this latest meeting brought their governments closer together than the efforts of the Armenian President, Serge Sarksyan, to sever the alliance. In one of his statements he hinted that Armenia actually has a claim on certain Turkish territories. The President said that “the present generation of Armenians settled the Nagorno-Karabakh issue for good, and it is up to the next to solve the Ararat problem”. Such a claim, unacceptable to both Baku and Ankara, could effectively put an end to recent Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.
This statement was made in front of the Youth Armenian Language Contest, so it was aimed at influencing the judgment of the younger generation of Armenians. It is unlikely that the Turkish government would want to continue dialogue with a country whose leaders have such an attitude. This statement had an impact on Turkish domestic politics as well: The Nationalist party triumphed over the so-called “peace party” which stands for reconciliation with Armenia. The idealist concept of ‘a Great Armenian revival’, absolutely absurd as it is as far as real politics go, is the basis of the current government’s propaganda. During his address to the youth, the President was asked a direct question: “Will Ararat ever be returned to us?” By answering it any other way he would have undermined the ideological basis of his authority, so he chose to risk virtually non-existent Armenian-Turkish relations instead.
Only Azerbaijan benefited from such a hasty statement by the Armenian leader: it only shed light on the destructive and expansive tendencies of Armenian politics for the international community. If the Armenian leader says that “the Karabakh problem is settled for good” while the negotiations are still proceeding, the mediators should become concerned about whether there’s any point in carrying on with the talks at all.
Ankara’s harsh reaction to this statement also suits Baku’s interests. Easing of Turkish-Armenian relations never suited Azerbaijan’s interests, but such a course was forced on it by the USA, which wanted Turkey to open its border with Armenia, despite the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh is still under occupation. Washington also tried to convince Baku that opening the border would only benefit the peace talks: more economically stable and thus independent from Russia, Yerevan would be a better partner to work with. However, this suggestion is based on the assumption that Russia is interested in maintaining the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh and doesn’t really want Armenia-Azerbaijani reconciliation. This assumption is far from being a proven fact, but, even if it is correct, Turkey’s economic influence might not be enough to make Armenia completely independent from Russia. This whole theory is too vague for Baku to fall for it.
Now it’s absolutely clear that Nagorno-Karabakh is not the only real problem in relations between Ankara and Yerevan: the issues of Eastern Anatolia and Ararat are as timely as ever. The statement of Serge Sarksyan and the recent visit of Mr Erdogan to Baku resulted in consolidation of the Azerbaijani and Turkish positions regarding Armenia, as well as in further escalation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict: the Azerbaijani President made some comments on that statement, which triggered harsh responses from Yerevan.
Reckless statements are very characteristic of Sarksyan: once he said that the tragic events in Khodjali served the purpose of “shattering the Azerbaijani belief that the Armenian army’s just playing games and would never hurt civilians.” But the recent statement also undermined Russian’s authority as a mediator, as its latest peace initiatives were put into action just recently.
Orkhan Sattarov, the head of VK’s European department
