TURKEY, IRAN: ANKARA’S PRIORITIES SHIFT

The FINANCIAL
Aug 18 2008
Georgia

STRATFOR — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s two-day trip to
Ankara ended Aug. 15. While the Iranian government and state media have
touted his trip as proof that Iran and Turkey are close allies, the
Turkish government is far more concerned with containing the current
situation in the Caucasus, which could have major implications for
Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan. Read STARTFOR analysis.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrapped up a two-day trip to
Ankara on Aug. 15. The Iranian government and state media have been
hyping Ahmadinejad’s visit to Turkey for days in an attempt to showcase
to the world the Iranian belief that Iran and Turkey, as the two
principle non-Arab regional powerhouses, are close and natural allies.

But while Iran is eager to forge closer ties with Turkey, the Turks
do not have much time for Ahmadinejad right now. Ankara has bigger
things on its mind, namely the Russians.

Turkey is heir to the Ottoman Empire, which once extended deep into the
southern Caucasus region where Russia just wrapped up an aggressive
military campaign against Georgia. Turkey’s geopolitical interests
in the Caucasus have primarily been defensive in nature, focused on
keeping the Russians and Persians at bay. Now that Russia is resurging
in the Caucasus, the Turks have no choice but to get involved.

The Turks primarily rely on their deep ethnic, historical and
linguistic ties to Azerbaijan to extend their influence into the
Caucasus. Azerbaijan was alarmed, to say the least, when it saw Russian
tanks crossing into Georgia. As far as Azerbaijan was concerned,
Baku could have been the next target in Russia’s military campaign.

However, Armenia — Azerbaijan’s primary rival — remembers well the
1915 Armenian genocide by the Turks, and looks to Iran and especially
Orthodox Christian Russia for its protection. Now that Russia has
shown it is willing to act on behalf of allies like South Ossetia and
Abkhazia in the Caucasus, the Armenians, while militarily outmatched
by the Azerbaijanis, are now feeling bolder and could see this as
their chance to preempt Azerbaijan in yet another battle for the
disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region– especially if it thinks it can
look to Russia to militarily intervene on its behalf.

The Turks and their ethnic kin in Azerbaijan are extremely wary of
Russia’s intentions for the southern Caucasus beyond Georgia. Sources
told Stratfor that Azerbaijan has learned that the Russian military
jets that bombed Gori and Poti were based out of Armenia. This
development not only signaled a significant expansion of Russia’s
military presence in the southern Caucasus, but it also implied
that Armenia had actually signed off on the Russian foray into
Georgia, knowing that Russian dominance over Georgia would guarantee
Armenian security and impose a geographic split between Turkey and
Azerbaijan. If the Armenians became overly confident and made a move
against Azerbaijan for Nagorno-Karabakh, expecting Russian support,
the resulting war would have a high potential of drawing the Turks
into a confrontation with the Russians — something that both NATO
member Turkey and Russia have every interest in avoiding.

The Turks also have a precarious economic relationship with Russia. The
two countries have expanded their trade with each other significantly
in recent years. In the first half of 2008, trade between Russia and
Turkey amounted to $19.9 billion, making Russia Turkey’s biggest
trading partner. Much of this trade is concentrated in the energy
sphere. The Turks currently import approximately 64 percent of the
natural gas they consume from the Russians. Though Turkey’s geographic
position enables it to pursue energy links in the Middle East and the
Caucasus that can bypass Russian territory, the Russians have made
it abundantly clear over the past few days that the region’s energy
security will still depend on MOSCOW ‘s good graces.

Turkey’s economic standing also largely depends on its ability to act
as a major energy transit hub for the West through pipelines such as
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which was recently forced
offline due to a purported Kurdish militant attack and the war in
Georgia. Turkey simply cannot afford to see the Russians continue
their surge into the Caucasus and threaten its energy supply.

For these reasons, Turkey is on a mission to keep this tinderbox in
the Caucasus contained. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
spent the last couple of days meeting with top Russian leaders in
MOSCOW and then with the Georgian president in Tbilisi . During
his meetings with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, President
Dmitri Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Erdogan pushed the
idea of creating a Caucasus union that would include both Russia and
Georgia. Though this organization would likely be little more than
a talk shop, it is a sign of Turkey’s interest in reaching a mutual
understanding with Russia that would allow both sides to maintain a
comfortable level of influence in the region without coming to blows.

The Iranians, meanwhile, are sitting in the backseat. Though Iran
has a foothold in the Caucasus through its support for Armenia,
the Iranians lack the level of political, military and economic
gravitas that Turkey and Russia currently hold in this region. Indeed,
Erdogan did not even include Iran in his list of proposed members
for the Caucasus union, even though Iran is one of the three major
powers bordering the region. The Turks also struck a blow to Iran
by holding back from giving Ahmadinejad the satisfaction of sealing
a key energy agreement for Iran to provide Turkey with natural gas,
preferring instead to preserve its close relationship with the United
States and Israel. Turkey simply is not compelled to give Iran the
attention that it is seeking at the moment.

The one thing that Turkey can look to Iran for, however, is keeping
the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict under control. Iran’s support for
Armenia has naturally put Tehran on a collision course with Ankara
when dealing with the Caucasus in the past. But when faced with a
common threat of a resurgent Russia, both Turkey and Iran can agree
to disagree on their conflicting interests in this region and use
their leverage to keep Armenia or Azerbaijan from firing off a shot
and pulling the surrounding powers into a broader conflict. In light
of the recent BTC explosion claimed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK), Turkey can also look to Iran to play its part in cracking down
on PKK rebels in the region, many of whom have spent the past year
fleeing a Turkish crackdown in northern Iraq by traversing through
Iran to reach the southern Caucasus.

While Iran and Turkey can cooperate in fending off the Russians,
it will primarily be up to Turkey to fight the battle in the
Caucasus. Russia has thus far responded positively to Turkey’s
diplomatic engagements, but in a region with so many conflicting
interests, the situation could change in a heartbeat.