Author: Samvel Nahapetian

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced in Turkish parliament at the beginning of the week that Turkey would normalize ties with Armenia and charter flights between Istanbul and Yerevan would resume. 

"We will mutually appoint envoys as part of normalization steps with Armenia," Cavusoglu said, adding that Ankara would coordinate its steps with Azerbaijan.

Citing a senior Turkish official, Bloomberg reported that Turkey's surprise overture is in line with President Joe Biden's request, who allegedly urged Erdogan to open the country's border with landlocked Armenia during the two leaders’ October meeting in Rome. 

According to the Bloomberg report, Turkey hopes that normalizing ties with Armenia will help Ankara to improve its strained relations with Washington over the former’s purchase of Russian air missile defense systems. The report has gone as far as to claim, "Erdogan could reap major benefits from any foreign policy move that helps to stabilize the economy as skyrocketing inflation threatens his popularity ahead of the 2023 vote."

Turkey's overture has nothing to do with the request of Biden, nor is it aiming to reap major benefits from the foreign policy move in a bid to stabilize its economy amid currency crisis as “skyrocketing inflation threatens” Erdogan's popularity ahead of the scheduled 2023 elections.

In a bid to mend the strained relations with Washington, Turkey needs to withdraw from the S-400 deal it reached with Moscow. Ankara cannot alleviate Washington’s objections to Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400s by normalizing ties with Armenia. 

Moreover, Turkey's economy is in such a deep crisis that this sort of foreign policy steps cannot prevent the looming train wreck, which in New York Times wording "has sped up with a ferocious intensity."

The financial crisis and the Turkish currency's unprecedented depreciation is Erdogan's making. "And the foot that's pushing hardest on the accelerator belongs to the country's authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan," because of his "insistence on lowering interest rates in the face of galloping inflation — precisely the opposite tactic of what economists almost universally prescribe," The New York Times wrote.

Turkey is in such a desperate situation that new Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati, who was handpicked by Erdogan, reportedly called on the country’s businessmen to exchange $100 million converting to the Turkish lira.

While the devastatingly shaken country is on the verge of financial bankruptcy, normalization with Armenia would not yield any economic benefits for Erdogan to enhance his chances in the 2023 elections.

The text of a trilateral agreement signed between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan that ended the Nagorno-Karabakh clashes in November 2020 might provide clues for Turkey’s motivations on the latest move. The agreement, which Ankara also supported, was more than just a cease-fire deal — it was a document that aimed to shape the region's future.

The last provision of the deal calls for a setup of a corridor connecting mainland Azerbaijan with its autonomous exclave of Nakhichevan along the Turkish border.

Such a corridor would directly link Turkey to Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea’s western shore and from there to other Turkic states in Central Asia, in line with a decades-old joint Turkish and Azeri aspiration. 

Establishment of regional corridors and roads linking regional countries to each other also useful for China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

Commenting on the geopolitical importance of the trilateral agreement, The Economist said last year, “Though not mentioned in the trilateral agreement signed between the two belligerents and Russia, Turkey is a big beneficiary of it. It is to get access to a transport corridor through Armenian territory … linking Turkey to Central Asia and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Russia will control the road itself, but Turkish and Chinese goods will travel along with it, and all parties stand to benefit economically.”

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev also hailed the multifaceted importance of the transit-corridor plan. He said that the corridor would “unite the Turkic world, as well as Russia with Armenia,” speaking in a Turkic Council summit held in Istanbul in November. 

Opening of transport links is also in line with Russia's aim to increase its geopolitical influence in its former backyard, South Caucasus, as it would have access to Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan through railroads, bypassing Georgia.

The shift in the balance of power in the South Caucasus has driven Turkey and Armenia to normalize their decisions. Armenia lost, and Azerbaijan regained all of the territories that had fallen under Armenian occupation in 1993. Turkey had closed off its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with Baku.

As the new status quo has removed Turkey’s reason to keep the borders closed, Erdogan and other Turkish officials sent signals for normalization. During a visit to Baku in December 2020, Erdogan said “we will open our closed doors if positive steps are taken,” referring to Armenia. In response, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed his country’s readiness to strengthen ties with Turkey without preconditions. As a goodwill gesture, Armenia opened its airspace to Turkish Airlines flights to Baku.

Pashinyan, who emerged victorious from Armenia’s early elections in June 2021, acts in self-confidence when it comes to normalization with Turkey. In the September-October issue of bimonthly New Eastern Europe the following observation was made: “Pashinyan won early elections in June 2021 despite the fact he was leading the country when Armenia lost the six-week war with Azerbaijan last autumn. With his election victory, Pashinyan falsified the belief that losing Nagorno-Karabakh would mean losing the power. … Pashinyan’s real achievement was to make Armenians forget about the war.”

The turnout in the Armenian elections was the second lowest since the country gained independence in the 1990s. Nevertheless, his party won 53.9% of the votes. Pashinyan, with a strong mandate, was awaiting a move from Turkey and it came. He could also be encouraged by the endorsement of the United States and the European Union in this regard. 

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken tweeted that Washington “welcome and strongly support statements” by the Turkish Foreign Minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia on appointing special envoys to discuss the process of normalization.

A day later, Pashinyan tweeted from Brussels where he attended the European Eastern Partnership Summit on the sidelines of which he and President Aliyev met with French President Emmanuel Macron informally. From Brussels, Pashinyan wrote: “In a trilateral meeting with Charles Michel and Ilham Aliyev, we reaffirmed the agreement to relaunch the railway based on internationally accepted border and customs regulations on reciprocal principle under the sovereignty authority of countries that will receive railway access to Iran and Russia.” 

The missing word that he did not mention is Turkey. Yet it will be the natural outcome of the normalization process. First, the Armenian and Turkish special envoys will meet to discuss the opening of the land border. The process will probably be followed with the Turkish flag carrier’s landing on the tarmac of the international airport in the Armenian capital. The following step might be the reinstatement of ambassadors. If all of these are achieved, the railroad link between Armenia and Turkey, linking the latter with Azerbaijan, could be expected. 

Yet a smooth move toward the achievement is not guaranteed. The Turkey-Armenia normalization process can be derailed at any moment. The experience in this regard attests to that. Nonetheless, that is a hopeful step in the right direction.

While Turkey is financially collapsing because of Erdogan’s disastrous policies, a positive move on his part in foreign policy may sound paradoxical, but that is the case. A corridor linking Turkey with the Turkic world through Armenia is the new geopolitical reality of our time, and it certainly can outlive Erdogan and his successors.

Turkey and Armenia have formally confirmed that they are going to appoint special envoys to lay the ground for normalizing relations after decades of mutual hostility.

The announcement, first made by Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, was endorsed by Armenia’s foreign ministry via Twitter, which asserted that the country was ready to initiate a process of normalization with Turkey “without preconditions.”

The Turkish foreign ministry has named Serdar Kilic, Ankara’s former ambassador to Washington, a career diplomat and an unabashed loyalist of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as its envoy. Armenia has not yet named one.

The dovish noises coming out of Ankara and Yerevan have caught many by surprise. Why is Turkey still interested in fixing relations with its small, landlocked neighbor, and is it sincere? What’s in it for Armenia? And will Azerbaijan once again sabotage the process as it did in 2009?

Opinion remains divided, but most analysts believe that the road to peace between the two historical foes is riddled with obstacles.

Turkey’s borders with Armenia have remain sealed since 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey’s military intervention swung the long simmering Nagorno-Karabakh conflict decisively in favor of Azerbaijan in October last year with the help of Syrian mercenaries. Israel also supported Azerbaijan with weapons and military advisors. A shaky truce brokered by Russian president Vladimir Putin and punctuated by bloody clashes has been holding since November 2020. The six-week long conflict left more than 6,500 dead.

Zaur Shiriyev, an Azerbaijan analyst for the International Crisis Group, believes that normalization between Turkey and Armenia “is the most natural consequence of the war, because the conditions that prevented normalization were removed by it.” Shiriyev was referring to Armenia’s occupation of seven Azerbaijani regions around Nagorno-Karabakh in the early years of the conflict. All are now back in Azerbaijani hands.

Turkey reckons that peace with Armenia would help repair its international image tarnished by human rights violations at home and aggressive actions in the Eastern Mediterranean and military invasion of large chunks of northeastern Syria.

A senior Armenian official, speaking to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, said Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan “has always believed in normalizing relations with Armenia’s neighbors and that this should happen as soon as possible.” But the official stressed that if Turkey sought to impose preconditions, such as demanding that Armenia abandon its global campaign for recognition of the genocide of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 and its claims over Nagorno-Karabakh, that the normalization process would be stillborn. “If that’s the way Turkey is going to behave, it had better not start,” the official said.

Cavusoglu, when announcing plans to appoint a special envoy, stressed that “we will be consulting with Azerbaijan every step of the way.” His comments conveyed that Ankara will not keep Baku in the dark as it did in 2009 when the Zurich protocols with Armenia were signed.

In so doing, Ankara is effectively linking progress in its own dealings with Azerbaijan to progress between Azerbaijan and Armenia to strike a comprehensive peace deal of their own, which is far from assured.

Shiriyev pointed out that Yerevan and Ankara will no longer be talking through mediators but directly through their respective envoys and that this could ease a breakthrough. And Kilic, the Turkish envoy, has direct access to Erdogan.

The Armenian official aired skepticism, saying, “I have yet to be convinced that this is more than a Turkish show to the Americans and the Europeans, in order to be able say there is a process, without actually being committed to its success.”

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been mediating between the former Soviet states and brought together Pashinyan and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev in the Black Sea resort of Sochi last month to broker a fresh truce following a fierce bout of fighting along the ceasefire lines. The leaders agreed to start negotiations to determine their national borders. But Nagorno-Karabakh remains the big elephant in the room.

The European Union, accused of remaining passive for years, has started a diplomatic initiative of its own. The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, met with the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in Brussels this week. The European Council noted in a statement that the EU would be willing to provide technical assistance for marking the borders and financial support for re-establishing rail and road links between the two countries.

“The focus on economic connectivity reflects the reality that there are genuine opportunities now for a transformation of the region,” said Laurence Broers, Caucasus program director at Chatham House. And the EU “is not seeking to upstage, replace or dominate any other mediation processes. President Michel’s statement references Russian-brokered agreements and positions itself as building on these,” Broers told Al-Monitor. Critics say this plays straight into Russia’s hands as it amounts to a European seal of approval of its role, including the deployment of some 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The jury is still out on whether Ankara or Moscow came out on top in the war over Nagorno-Karabakh or whether it was the latest iteration of their so-called “competitive cooperation,” wherein the sides manage their differences in places like Syria and Libya and pursue their common interests.

With an unknown number of military officers and equipment deployed in the city of Ganja in western Azerbaijan, Turkey has re-established itself as the primary military patron of Azerbaijan, a status it forfeited when Armenia seized full control of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. Millions of Azerbaijanis displaced by the conflict who are finally able to return home embrace the Turks as heroes.

But with its “peacekeepers,” Russia retains leverage on both sides and has no intention of letting Azerbaijan control the proposed corridor between Nakhichevan and Azerbaijan proper, which is to be secured by more Russian troops.  

Aliyev and Pashinyan have agreed to establish road and rail links to connect the two nations. But Aliyev insists that the passage of all Azerbaijani goods through the corridor should be customs free. If not, he warned, Azerbaijan would start to charge duties on goods going from Armenia via Azerbaijani territory to the bit of Nagorno-Karabakh that remains under Armenian control.

Russian troops already guard Armenia’s 311-kilometer long border with Turkey, with thousands of others stationed at a base in Gyumri which faces the Turkish border town of Kars. The notion that Turkish-Armenian rapprochement would dilute Russia’s influence over Armenia is “utterly flawed,” noted the ICG’s Shiriyev.

“Turkey’s victory was neither as complete or as convincing. This is seen by Moscow’s move to renege on promises for a more direct role for Turkish military peacekeepers,” observed Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center, an independent think tank in Yerevan.

“Russia has allowed [Turkey] a minimal and marginal position in the peacekeeping planning and supervision within Azerbaijan itself. This effectively gives Russian peacekeepers the dominant role in the region,” Giragosian told Al-Monitor.

Moreover, “There is little genuine confidence that Azerbaijan’s currently permissive position will last. Given the record over the past many months, the outlook for security and stability remains uncertain and unpredictable at best,” Giragosian added.