IN THE CAUCASUS, BEING CAUTIOUS WORKS BEST
Mansur Aslanov

Turkish Daily News
Monday, October 6, 2008
Turkey

Recently, Azerbaijan has lived through some dramatic changes, which are
having profound effect on the nation’s outlook and perceptions. The
most obvious, of course, is Russia’s show of force against the
fellow Caucasus nation of Georgia. For Azerbaijan, Moscow’s easy and
previously unthinkable blatant annexation of Georgia’s territories
demonstrated the vulnerability of its main access route to the outside
world. Suddenly, the idea of the East-West Corridor, a cornerstone of
the regional developments since the early 90s, is severely undermined.

Perhaps even more shocking was that the Western reaction to the
outright crossing of once clearly marked "red line" of entering Georgia
amounted to nothing serious and has, in effect, condoned Russian
behavior. If Russian readiness to invade and erratic moves by Georgia’s
leaders came as little surprise, the degree of weakness of the West,
especially that of the United States, was unexpected. Similarly
surprising has been Turkey’s cold shoulder to Tbilisi. If Ankara’s
willingness to blur its regional vision from time to time in order to
accommodate Moscow has been a persistent pattern, Turkish easy-going
view of Georgia’s tragedy does not make much sense in the long term.

Emotional scar of Gul’s visit

Speaking of Turkey, many Azerbaijanis watched in disbelief as President
Abdullah Gul joined Armenia’s Sarkissian in Yerevan. Within two months
since Radovan Karadzic’s arrest for war crimes, the Turkish President
was visiting a leader who admitted to an international journalist that
he was behind the mass murder in Khojaly during the Armenia-Azerbaijan
war and that the objective was to instill mass terror. While smaller
in scope, in Azerbaijani psychology, Khojali has a place very similar
to the tragedy of Srebrenica in Bosnian minds. Therefore, the deep
emotional scar of seeing together Gul, the leader of Azerbaijan’s
closest people, and Sarkissian should not be underestimated. Of course,
Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev and his Armenian counterparts meet,
but those meetings take place on neutral grounds and have a goal of
discussing specific proposals toward resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, not grand symbolism.

Turkey has also chosen rather interesting timing for new and somewhat
vague proposals as well as major symbolic gestures. Azerbaijanis,
seeing their main regional partner, Georgia, being strangled and
still digesting the implications of Western impotence, suddenly faced
ambiguity from fraternal Turkey. All of this combined, can produce
a major re-evaluation of Azerbaijan’s perceptions and, certainly,
contributes to strengthening Russia’s regional dominance. In an
unpleasant deja vu, some in Azerbaijan were reminded about being
abandoned by Turkey in the 1920s only to be consumed by Russia. The
history of Moscow playing regional games more skillfully than Ankara
should not be ignored by Turkish policymakers as they assess the
costs and benefits of their next steps.

Turkey’s relative success in the region has been built on its strategic
relations with both Azerbaijan and Georgia and its alliance with
the West. In fact, Turkey has done pretty well in the region. Today,
Ankara can either expand that success rightfully claiming the mantle
of a regional leader and peacemaker, which seems to be a new obsession
of Turkish leaders, or waste the credit it has earned over the last
two decades trading real benefits for ephemeral symbolism.

More dialogue on more sophisticated terms is needed between
Azerbaijanis and Turks. The former, often seeing Turkey in simplistic
terms, have not been fully successful in making their case to the
more liberal sections of Turkish society. The liberals, in turn, keep
seeing Azerbaijan through a misleading prism of domestic politics. For
instance, the ideas of Turkism do not bear anti-liberal flavor in
Azerbaijan and other Turkic nations, quite to the contrary. They,
as often happens, fall victim to misnomers. Nor is Azerbaijan’s
problem with Armenia that of history and symbols. The conflict around
Nagorno-Karabakh is a practical issue, which should be resolved
on practical terms with respect to the rights of Azerbaijanis and
Armenians alike. This is not about digging in one’s past and projecting
it on present-day political divisions, it is about actual people and
issues of today. Turkish liberals taking a closer look may find it
still more comfortable to side with Azerbaijani victims of ethnic
cleansing than with radical Armenian nationalists all too ready to
use violence. Furthermore, what would be the choice of a liberal
Turk: a society, ideally, based on civic identity and, by the way,
rather tolerant of expression of religious identity or an exclusive
ethnicity-dominated political system?

Assuming direct ownership of Nagorno-Karabakh

Thus, looking at Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey should employ
healthy and informed pragmatism. If Armenia’s leader is serious about
ending its nation’s self-isolation, Turkey can and should use this
opportunity to help re-integrate the region. This could be the case
with Sarkissian because his country’s strategic vulnerability has
been made plenty clear by the war in Georgia and because he needs
to restore his legitimacy, which, after coming to power, was marred
by shooting protesters. If so, he also understands that the real
sustainability of Armenia’s future lies not in opening borders with
Turkey alone, but in a comprehensive approach involving normalization
with Azerbaijan and joining the regional infrastructure. For Armenia,
the difference between being an impasse on Turkey’s east and a major
transit point between East and West seems pretty clear.

So it should be to Turkish leaders. Moreover, whatever symbolic
benefits new friendship with Armenia can bring to Ankara, potentially
losing a stronghold in Azerbaijan would immediately decrease Turkey’s
regional role. Therefore, Turkey’s approach should focus on expanding
its presence, not losing the most important pillar of it. To do
so, Turkey’s leaders should be much more forceful in explaining
to Sarkissian that any progress should involve some progress on
Nagorno-Karabakh. They should also work diligently to continuously
reassure Azerbaijan, especially the public opinion, that Turkey does
consider Azerbaijani interests when talking to Armenia, even better
involve Azerbaijan in the conversation. This is important not only
because should the efforts succeed, the benefits can be enormous,
but also, because if they fail, Turkey wouldn’t lose Azerbaijan. Of
course, any attempts to bring in Armenia into a more integrated region
should not be done at the expense of abandoning Georgia, a wounded,
yet very important regional friend.

By stepping up its regional activism and its president visiting
Yerevan, Turkey has assumed direct ownership of the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict. If some think that it has made its life easier, they need
to look at the history of international involvement with protracted
conflicts. Owning the conflict means that Turkey will be more than
ever involved in the Caucasus and bear greater responsibility than
before. If Ankara threads carefully and cautiously, this could be
Turkey’s best hour. If not, then the 1920’s may return to haunt all
of us with a vengeance.