hwart_TurkishArmenian_Rapprochement/1603256.html

Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Caucasus Report
Azerbaijan Seeks To Thwart Turkish-Armenian Rapprochement

Turkey has been one of Azerbaijan’s firmest allies, and backed plans
for bringing its oil and gas to Western markets.

April 06, 2009

Senior Azerbaijani officials have reacted with anger and threats to
media reports that Turkey will soon sign a landmark protocol with
Armenia paving the way to the establishment of formal diplomatic ties
and the opening of the two countries’ shared border.

Baku has long insisted that any such formal agreement by Turkey on
closer relations with Armenia should be contingent on key concessions
by the latter on the terms for a solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who assured the Turkish
parliament last November that "today Turkish-Azerbaijani unity is a
stabilizing factor in the region," was quoted by the Turkish daily
"Hurriyet" as threatening on April 1 to suspend natural-gas exports to
Turkey, a threat tantamount to cutting off his nose to spite his face
in light of the fall in world oil prices to half the $80 per barrel on
which Azerbaijan’s state budget expenditure for 2009 was predicated.

Then on April 6, "Hurriyet" confirmed a report published two days
earlier in the online daily zerkalo.az that Aliyev has cancelled his
participation in the NATO Dialogue of Civilizations conference in
Istanbul on April 6-7, despite efforts by Turkish President Abdullah
Gul and the U.S. State Department to persuade him to attend.

Baku’s anger derives in large part from the perception that it has
been stabbed in the back by the country that it has, despite periodic
disagreements, long regarded as its closest ally, partner, and
protector. That perception is rooted partly in the very close ethnic
and linguistic ties between the two states, and partly in their close
cooperation over the past 15 years in the export to Western markets of
Azerbaijan’s Caspian oil and gas. (Both main export pipelines run via
Georgia to Turkey.) In addition, Ankara has provided guidance and
advice to the Azerbaijani military.

But most crucially of all, it has until now unequivocally backed
Azerbaijan’s hard-line position with regard to resolving the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, pegging any real rapprochement with Armenia
to a solution of that conflict on Azerbaijan’s terms. Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov was quoted as telling journalists
in Tbilisi on April 2 that if Turkey does not insist as a condition
for opening the border that Armenia first withdraw its troops from at
least some of the seven districts of Azerbaijan they currently occupy
contiguous to the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh republic, "this would
be detrimental to Azerbaijan’s national interests."

Informed analysts have identified as one of the reasons why Ankara has
responded positively to repeated overtures over the past two years by
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian frustration that Turkish foreign
policy was being held hostage by Azerbaijan’s unyielding position with
regard to the Karabakh conflict. On April 5, Interfax circulated a
question-and-answer with Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian,
who said that "the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations should
have no preconditions, and it is with this mutual understanding that
we have been negotiating with the Turkish side. Normalization of
relations has no linkage to the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict."

On April 6, however, "Hurriyet" reported, quoting unnamed "reliable
sources," that the Turkish-Armenian draft protocol contains the
wording "sufficient progress on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict is required before the opening of the [Turkish-Armenian]
border," and that President Aliyev is seeking clarification of what
precisely is meant by "sufficient progress."

The Azerbaijani presidential administration told RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani
Service on April 6 they have no idea what the "Hurriyet" article was
referring to. But as of mid-afternoon Baku time on April 6, Aliyev had
not left for Istanbul.

Speculation that Azerbaijan is out to thwart the signing of the
anticipated Turkish-Armenian protocol was fuelled by the unexpected
visit to Baku on April 3 by U.S. Assistant Deputy Secretary of State
Matthew Bryza for talks with President Aliyev and Foreign Minister
Mammadyarov. Bryza was quoted as telling journalists on his arrival
that Washington believes that "the positive changes in the region,
that is achieving results in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
and the warming in Turkish-Armenian relations, should proceed parallel
with one another."

Bryza also reaffirmed the prediction made in late February by
Ambassador Bernard Fassier, the French co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk
Group that seeks to mediate a solution to the Karabakh conflict, that
President Aliyev is likely to meet with his Armenian counterpart Serzh
Sarkisian on the sidelines of the EU summit in Prague on May 7-8. When
that time frame was first made public, it seemed probable that the
meeting between the two presidents was intended to finalize the
so-called Basic Principles for resolving the conflict that have been
on the table for the past three years.

During their talks in Moscow in early November with Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev, Aliyev and Sarkisian reaffirmed their shared
commitment to reaching a solution to the conflict that would reflect
those principles. Bryza, who is the U.S. Minsk Group co-chairman, told
RFE/RL in late January that the co-chairs were hoping that the Basic
Principles would be signed in early summer, possibly in June. The
Basic Principles entail a withdrawal of Armenian forces from five of
the seven occupied Azerbaijani districts; "special arrangements" are
to be instituted for the strategic Lachin Corridor that links the NKR
with the Republic of Armenia, and for the district of Kelbacar that
similarly lies between them.

Bryza’s estimated time frame for the signing of the Basic Principles
may, however, be derailed if Azerbaijan continues either to try to
pressure Turkey, or to insist on a separate agreement on the
withdrawal of Armenian forces as a preliminary to endorsing (or not)
the remaining Basic Principles.

Not that Aliyev has any real leverage he could bring to bear.
Speculation that Azerbaijan might withdraw its support for the planned
Nabucco export pipeline for Caspian gas (from which Turkey would
derive considerable profit in transit fees) and opt instead for the
planned White Stream pipeline (the brainchild of Ukrainian Prime
Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, it would run across the Black Sea bed from
the Georgian terminal at Supsa to a Ukrainian port) seems far-fetched,
although it cannot be ruled out completely. The Georgian government
signed a memorandum of mutual understanding on April 3 with the White
Stream Pipeline Company in which the two sides affirmed their
commitment to that project, Caucasus Press reported.