AZERBAIJAN: IS BAKU READY TO CAUSE GEOPOLITICAL PROBLEMS OVER TURKISH-ARMENIAN THAW?
Shahin Abbasov

Eurasianet
April 14, 2009

Hope is laden with peril in the South Caucasus these days. After
decades of enmity, Armenia and Turkey appear ready to make peace. But
Azerbaijan — Turkey’s ally and Armenia’s enemy — has made it known
that if the developing rapprochement does not take Baku’s interests
into account, then it is ready to blow up the region’s present
geopolitical and economic balance.

The next few days could prove to be the decisive phase in a delicate
reconciliation process. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is set
to begin a two-day visit to Russia starting April 16. He has broadly
hinted that he might reorient Baku’s abundant energy resources toward
Russia, if he does not receive appropriate assurances from Turkish
officials that they will not betray Azerbaijani interests as they
strive to normalize relations with Armenia. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive].

Baku is most alarmed by the prospect of Turkey’s lifting an economic
embargo against Armenia, a blockade imposed in the 1990s as a show of
Ankara’s support for Azerbaijan efforts to retain possession of the
separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Rumors have swirled in recent
weeks that Turkey was preparing to reopen its border with Armenia.

Those rumors gained steam in early April, when US President
Barack Obama visited Turkey and gave a rousing endorsement for
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation efforts. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive]. And during an April 10 news conference in
Yerevan, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan reiterated his expectation
that the border would re-open soon. "We have to normalize relations
with Turks," he said.

During the days leading up to Obama’s visit to Turkey, a wide array of
Azerbaijani officials began issuing warnings that Turkish-Azerbaijani
relations would suffer grievous harm if Ankara lifted the embargo
without Baku’s consent. From the official standpoint in Baku, the
economic blockade creates leverage on Armenia to engage in Karabakh
peace talks. The lifting of the blockade, Baku worries, would end any
possibility of a negotiated settlement, under which Karabakh remains
under Azerbaijani jurisdiction. To punctuate Baku’s displeasure,
Aliyev refused to attend the Alliance of Civilizations summit held
April 6-7 in Istanbul.

Immediately after the Obama visit to Turkey, Aliyev delivered a blunt
message to Ankara that it could not be friends with both Baku and
Yerevan at the same time. He went on to indicate that Baku would take
retaliatory steps, if Turkey lifted the embargo on Armenia. He hinted
that the primary form of retaliation would be a shift in Azerbaijan’s
energy policy away from the West and toward Moscow. The Kremlin in
recent months has conducted an intensive lobbying effort to woo Baku
away. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"We follow possible geopolitical changes in the region and take
necessary measures," Aliyev said during a meeting of Azerbaijan’s
Security Council. "It is our [Azerbaijan’s] right to conduct our own
policy concerning a possible new situation in the region, and we will
use this right in any form."

Rasim Musabekov, a Baku-based political analyst, said he believed that
Aliyev was not bluffing, and that Baku was ready to take a radical
geopolitical turn. "It was not an accident that as US President Obama
was meeting [Turkish President] Abdullah Gul, Aliyev was talking
with Russian President Medvedev over the phone," Musabekov said in
comments distributed by the Turan news agency on April 7.

Both Turkish and US leaders have sought to provide the assurances that
Baku seeks, namely that its position in the Karabakh peace process
will not suffer because of any Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized publicly
on April 10 that the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations
was linked to a Karabakh political settlement. "We will not sign an
agreement [on the normalization of relations] with Armenia if Armenia
and Azerbaijan have not reached agreement over Nagorno-Karabakh,"
Erdogan said. Meanwhile, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported April
11 that Turkish and Azerbaijani officials were engaged in constant
talks aimed at finessing the various diplomatic dilemmas.

Earlier, Obama held a telephone conversation with Aliyev, during which
the US president reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to the Karabakh
peace process. Obama also reportedly presented an argument to Aliyev
that Turkish-Armenian reconciliation would act as a catalyst for
broader peace in the South Caucasus.

By all indications, however, Aliyev is not buying into Obama’s
reasoning. Aliyev’s presidential press office did not release any
statement on the phone conversation, and Baku’s official criticism
of Turkey continued unabated.

On April 9, Araz Azimov, Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister,
suggested that Baku would endorse the reopening of the Turkish-Armenian
border only after a Karabakh peace settlement had been agreed
upon. "Otherwise, it [the border reopening] would contradict
Azerbaijani interests," Azimov told journalists in Baku on April 9.

In a backhanded manner, the president of State Oil Company (SOCAR),
Rovnag Abdullayev, appeared to threaten Turkey with a disruption of
natural gas supplies in the event the Turkish-Armenian border reopened
without Baku’s consent. "I do not believe that Turkish-Armenian border
will be opened, and, therefore, I do not expect stop of gas supplies
from Shah Deniz field to Turkey," Abdullayev said in comments broadcast
by ANS TV on April 8.

While the government and large part of Azerbaijani society have
joined in Turkey bashing in recent weeks, a few political analysts
are cautioning that Baku could come to regret a rash geopolitical
switch. "Of course, the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border
is against Azerbaijani interests. However, the pumping [by the
government] of propaganda against our major strategic ally Turkey
is also very dangerous game," Elhan Shahinoglu, the head of the
Baku-based Atlas Center for Political Research, told EurasiaNet in
an April 10 interview.

Shahinoglu suggested that Ankara had been caught off guard by the
Aliyev administration’s vehemence on the border re-opening issue. He
indicated that Ankara has kept Baku in the loop about the substance of
the Turkish-Armenian moves on reconciliation, and that Azerbaijani
officials had not expressed any particular concerns about the
re-opening of the border until very recently.

Shahinoglu said that Aliyev’s upcoming visit to Moscow could very
well produce a reorientation of Azerbaijan’s foreign policy. If
Baku and Moscow were to embrace a rapprochement of their own, then
American and European plans for a reordering of the continental energy
equation would be shattered. In particular, all hope for building
the long-contemplated Nabucco and Trans-Caspian pipelines would be
lost. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"The quick relaxation of Turkish-Azerbaijani [tension] is needed
now,’ Shahinoglu said. "Otherwise, serious changes in Azerbaijani
foreign policy could happen, and that would be against Turkish and
US interests in the region."

Somewhat ironically, Azerbaijani-Turkish relations could end up
taking a turn for the better in Moscow, as Erdogan, who will be
in the Russian capital at the same time as Aliyev, may meet with
the disgruntled Azerbaijani president. Those discussions, in turn,
could provide added momentum to a scheduled May 7 meeting in Prague
between the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders on the Karabakh issue.

Editor’s Note: Shahin Abbasov is a freelance correspondent
based in Baku. He is also a board member of the Open Society
Institute-Azerbaijan