Eurasianet organization, United States
April 8 2004
AZERBAIJAN: TURKEY COULD PROVE SPOILER FOR NAGORNO-KARABAKH PEACE
Zulfugar Agayev: 4/08/04
Prospects for a Nagorno-Karabakh peace agreement suffered a potential
setback recently when President Ilham Aliyev warned that Azerbaijan
might withdraw from peace talks if Turkey opens its border with
Armenia. In recent months, Turkey, a key Azerbaijani ally, has
indicated that it may be willing to consider ending its 11-year
blockade of Armenia. The Turkish decision-making process appears to
be driven by Ankara’s ambitions to join the European Union.
Turkish-Armenian relations have been marked by animosity for much of
the past century, with tension continuing to revolve around the mass
slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish soldiers during World War
I. On an official visit to the United States in late January, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that his Justice and
Development Party (AKP) government might decide to re-open the border
with Armenia “if the friendly initiatives of Turkey were
reciprocated.” Erdogan said that Turks living in economically
depressed neighboring regions with Armenia want to see the border
opened so that they can easily trade with the former Soviet republic.
Currently, trade between the two states – estimated by the
Turkish-Armenian Business Council, a non-governmental organization,
at roughly $70 million – takes place via Georgia and Iran.
Without Turkey, Azerbaijan would be the only state maintaining a
blockade of Armenia over Yerevan’s ongoing occupation of Azerbaijani
territory captured during the Nagorno-Karabakh war. A decision to
open Turkey’s borders with Armenia, Aliyev said, would leave Baku at
a disadvantage in negotiating for the withdrawal of Armenian troops
from Azerbaijani territory. “If Turkey were to open its doors to
Armenia, Azerbaijan will lose an important lever in finding a
solution to the conflict,” the president told reporters on March 24
after returning from an official visit to Uzbekistan. “It also would
make it impossible for us to continue the peace talks and would even
bring the talks to an end.”
Already that threat appears to have been put to work. A meeting
between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, originally
scheduled for March 29 in Prague, was cancelled at “the wish of one
side,” OSCE Minsk Group Chairman Yuri Merzlyakov told the Azerbaijani
Channel ATV. The Minsk Group, made up of the US, UK, Russia and
France, is charged with overseeing the Nagorno-Karabakh peace
process. Citing an “informed source” in the Armenian Foreign
Ministry, the Armenian news agency Mediamax reported that the
cancellation had not been at Armenia¹s instigation.
Little progress has been made in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process
since 2002. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. Despite intermittent announcements of fresh peace
proposals, and a meeting between Armenian President Robert Kocharian
and President Aliyev last December in Geneva, no concrete
breakthrough has emerged. Aliyev stressed in early February that he
was “not in favor of making compromises,” and Azerbaijani officials
later announced that they were in “no hurry” to find a solution to
the Karabakh question.
Since Aliyev’s initial comments, other Azerbaijani leaders have
attempted to exert pressure on Ankara to maintain the status quo. “If
Turkey opens the border with Armenia, it will deal a blow not only to
Azerbaijani-Turkish friendship but also to the entire Turkic world,”
Azerbaijani Parliament Speaker Murtuz Alasgarov told MPs on April 6,
according to a Trend news agency report.
Until recently, Turkish support for Azerbaijan on the Karabakh
question appeared steadfast. Turkey and Azerbaijan share close
cultural ties. Although Turkey was one of the first countries to
recognize Armenian independence in 1991, Ankara has no diplomatic
relations with its neighbor. In 1993, Ankara closed the Turkish
border with Armenia in an act of solidarity with Azerbaijan.
But now, more than 10 years later, Turkey’s foreign policy objectives
have changed. In December 2004, the European Union will decide
whether to begin accession talks with Turkey, potentially putting the
country in line to become the EU’s first predominantly Muslim member
state. To enhance Turkey’s chances for success, Prime Minister
Erdogan launched an ambitious reform program to improve the country’s
checkered record on human, political and ethnic minority rights and
rebuild its economy from a five-year-long recession. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].
>From the EU’s perspective, lifting the blockade of Armenia remains a
key component of any program for change. A draft version of the
European Parliament’s yearly report on the status of Turkey’s
accession bid reportedly called on the country “to open the borders
with Armenia, establish good-neighbor relations . . . and to give up
any action impeding the reconciliation of the two countries.”
EU economic clout provides a compelling incentive for Ankara to
listen. In 2002, the latest year for which figures are available, the
EU ranked as Turkey’s top trade partner, accounting for more than 50
percent of its exports and 45 percent of its imports. At the same
time, the United States has also urged Turkey to rebuild ties with
Armenia. At a March 26 press conference in Yerevan, US Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage stated that restoring official
economic ties between the two states would bring benefits to both
sides “rather dramatically and relatively quickly.”
For its part, Azerbaijan represents vast oil and natural gas wealth
that could enable Turkey to realize its dream of becoming a highly
profitable East-West energy bridge. Conscious of this weight, Aliyev
was quick to remind Ankara where its interests should lie. “Turkey is
a great and powerful nation and I am sure that Turkey will withstand
the pressures [to open its border with Armenia],” the Azerbaijani
president stressed. “The Turkish-Azerbaijani brotherhood is above
everything.”
Aliyev said he had received previous assurances from both Erdogan and
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul that the Turkish-Armenian border would
be opened only after Armenia withdraws from Azerbaijan’s occupied
territories. Ahmed Unal Cevikoz, Turkey’s ambassador to Baku, told
The Baku Sun, an English-language weekly, that Erdogan’s statement in
Washington had probably been “misunderstood” by the Azerbaijanis.
The Turkish ambassador emphasized that his country maintains all
three of its conditions for opening its border with Armenia:
withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh, an end to Armenian territorial
claims on Turkey’s Eastern Anatolia region, and an end to Armenia’s
campaign to secure international recognition of the 1915 slaughter of
1.5 million Armenians by Turkey’s Ottoman Empire as genocide.
But some Azerbaijani analysts believe that Turkey’s changes on other
foreign policy questions presage a similar about-face on its Karabakh
position. Thirty years after its invasion of Cyprus, Turkey recently
began talks with Greece on a UN reunification plan for the island,
another ingredient for Turkey’s accession to the EU. Turkey also has
bowed to US pressure on the Kurdish question, as Ankara has refrained
from sending Turkish troops into Kurdish-populated northern Iraq, and
has since extended language and media rights to its own Kurdish
populations. “This policy of retreat is obvious in the positions that
Ankara now holds on the issues of Cyprus, the Iraqi Turkomen and also
on Karabakh,” said Altay Goyushov, a Baku-based expert on Turkish
affairs.
Some analysts argue that Erdogan’s government is more concerned with
expanding trade than it is about potential for friction with a fellow
Turkic, Muslim state. “I think there are many in AKP who believe that
increased commerce makes better neighbors, and thus eases the way for
better relations,” Ugur Akinci, a Turkish analyst who accompanied
Erdogan to Washington, wrote in an opinion piece published in the
Turkish Daily News.
The World Bank agrees. Both the Bank and the UN’s Food and
Agriculture Organization have long argued that the blockade has
hindered the economic development of both Armenia and Turkey. The
World Bank has estimated that the lifting of both the Azerbaijani and
Turkish blockades could increase Armenia’s GDP by as much as 30-38
percent. The Turkish-Armenian Business Council has estimated that
bilateral trade could reach $300 million per year with the lifting of
the blockade.
As Azerbaijan looks on from the side, one analyst cautions that
patience is the best operating strategy. “We should consider that
Azerbaijan and Turkey are two separate countries,” said Goyushov,
“and although the two are bound by ethnicity and religion, their
interests can sometimes be different.”
Editor’s Note: Zulfugar Agayev is a freelance writer based in Baku.