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TURKEY-AZERBAIJAN RELATIONS STILL STRONG
Al-Monitor
Nov 5 2013
Author:Tulin Daloglu
Posted November 4, 2013
When Turkey decided to launch an initiative to normalize its relations
with Armenia in May 2009, Azerbaijan perceived it as a betrayal by the
Turkish-Azeri alliance and their brotherly relations based on sharing
the same ethnic background. The Azeri officials still insist to this
day that Turkey did not inform them about that initiative in advance,
and that they learned it from the media like everyone else. That
caused a significant turmoil in Azeri confidence in Turkey. Ankara
was perceived as acting solely on its own national interests, trading
off the territories in mountainous Karabakh that have been occupied
by Armenia since 1991. And this perception of Turkey really struck
a sensitive nerve in the Azeri society.
Perhaps these two countries won't ever trust each other as they did
prior to this incident, but, nevertheless, it has also become clear
that no crisis between Turkey and Azerbaijan can leave a permanent scar
in this pivotal relationship. Although the Turkey-Armenia normalization
efforts are long gone, technically speaking, Ankara did not actually
cause any harm to Azerbaijan in the end. What's noteworthy is that
Azerbaijan started to pay more attention to balancing and improving its
relationships with its powerful neighbors like Russia and Iran. It's
as if the Azeri government is trying to implement Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's failed attempt for Turkey's "having zero
problems with neighbors" policy.
"Today, Azerbaijan's initiatives in regional affairs are of great
importance not only for our country, but also for the region. Our
economic and political initiatives pursue one goal: first of all, to
enable the people of Azerbaijan to live even better," Ilham Aliyev,
president of Azerbaijan, told a crowd of nearly 1,000 people last
week, Oct. 31, during the third Baku International Humanitarian
Conference. "On the other hand, we want to be in constant communication
with neighboring nations. The purpose of our regional initiatives is
to further strengthen our ties with neighboring countries. Today this
is the case. Azerbaijan has very sincere and constructive relations
with its neighbors. Our relations with all countries are based on a
very sound footing. These are relations of friendship and partnership,
equal relationships."
Matt Bryza, the former US ambassador to Azerbaijan, however, argues
that they're not really multitasking. "They have the opposite ambition
of Turkey," he told Al-Monitor. "They're extremely vulnerable to
outside intervention, and they're trying to do the best they can to
save themselves from any problems." He added: "Azerbaijan's survival
as an independent and sovereign state is dependent on the pipelines
that physically and economically interconnect it to Turkey and the
Western world."
Still though, Azerbaijan announced in October that it is considering
opening Hudaferin border gate to Iran. Even the thought of this would
not have been possible a few years ago. The reason is simple. Iran
has developed strong relations with Armenia in a way to side with the
Soviet Union and, today, Russia against the United States, and that
put it in an awkward position - religiously - as it stood against
the interests of Azerbaijan. Not that Iran had any direct role to
play in the Nagorno Karabagh conflict, but its posturing benefited the
Armenians on this issue. Azerbaijan, ethnically Turkish and religiously
from the Shiite school of Islam like Iran, chose to stay away from
the orbit of Russia after announcing their independence, and therefore
sided with Turkey and therefore the United States and NATO alliance.
The Aliyev government is certainly trying to do its best in keeping
its relationships manageable with all of its neighbors - even with
those like Iran, where half the population is of Azeri origin, and
which can not relieve itself from the fear that this Azeri population
will one day seek to establish a greater Azerbaijan, taking significant
chunks land away from them.
All that said, at the core of all of this outreach to its neighbors,
one would not be exaggerating to say that Azerbaijan is always
thinking about how it can help end Armenian occupation of its land
in Nagorno-Karabagh.
"We hope that the conflict will be resolved and Azerbaijan's
territorial integrity recognized by the international community will
be restored in the near future. There is a strong legal basis for
that. There are four UN Security Council resolutions which explicitly
state that the Armenian armed forces should unconditionally withdraw
from the occupied Azerbaijani lands," Aliyev said.
The sense in Baku is that the failure in following up on these
resolutions directly challenges the credibility of the United States
and United Nations. Moreover, Azeri authorities have no confidence
in the MINSK group, headed by a co-chairmanship consisting of
France, Russia and the United States, which is tasked to resolve
the Nagorno-Karabagh issue. The MINSK group also includes Belarus,
Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Turkey,
Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Under these circumstances, it looks quite unlikely to expect Armenians
to end their occupation in Nagorno-Karabagh any time soon. On the
contrary, Azerbaijan warns against ethnic Armenian Syrians being
relocated to the occupied territories. Azernews reported in its Jan.
5, 2013, edition that Armenia continues its illegal activity of
attempting to artificially change the demographic situation in
Nagorno-Karabagh thus ignoring the international community's position
which condemns such activities. "Recently, about 200 Armenian refugees
from Syria were settled in the occupied Zangilan region, which was
another clear evidence of the illegal settlement policy pursued by
the Armenian state," the paper reported.
One would have hoped in fact that these war-torn Syrian refugees were
to be placed in a safer area - away from any potential conflict. But
the international community seems to also fail to warn Armenia on
this matter as well.
To sum up, the attempted effort to normalize relations between
Turkey and Armenia failed at no cost to relations between Turkey and
Azerbaijan, because Turkey remains the most reliable and safe route for
Azeris to export their oil and natural gas to international markets. In
that light, in addition to the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Azerbaijan
started to prioritize its direct investment in Turkey. In September,
Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz announced
that Azerbaijan will make 17 billion lira investment in the economy
of Turkey for the construction of the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline
project (TANAP) and implementation of other project. TANAP will
allow transporting gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field to Europe
through Turkey - and this is the way for Azerbaijan to sustain its
independence and strengthen its sovereignty.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/11/azerbaijan-turkey-relations-russia.html
Al-Monitor
Nov 5 2013
Author:Tulin Daloglu
Posted November 4, 2013
When Turkey decided to launch an initiative to normalize its relations
with Armenia in May 2009, Azerbaijan perceived it as a betrayal by the
Turkish-Azeri alliance and their brotherly relations based on sharing
the same ethnic background. The Azeri officials still insist to this
day that Turkey did not inform them about that initiative in advance,
and that they learned it from the media like everyone else. That
caused a significant turmoil in Azeri confidence in Turkey. Ankara
was perceived as acting solely on its own national interests, trading
off the territories in mountainous Karabakh that have been occupied
by Armenia since 1991. And this perception of Turkey really struck
a sensitive nerve in the Azeri society.
Perhaps these two countries won't ever trust each other as they did
prior to this incident, but, nevertheless, it has also become clear
that no crisis between Turkey and Azerbaijan can leave a permanent scar
in this pivotal relationship. Although the Turkey-Armenia normalization
efforts are long gone, technically speaking, Ankara did not actually
cause any harm to Azerbaijan in the end. What's noteworthy is that
Azerbaijan started to pay more attention to balancing and improving its
relationships with its powerful neighbors like Russia and Iran. It's
as if the Azeri government is trying to implement Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's failed attempt for Turkey's "having zero
problems with neighbors" policy.
"Today, Azerbaijan's initiatives in regional affairs are of great
importance not only for our country, but also for the region. Our
economic and political initiatives pursue one goal: first of all, to
enable the people of Azerbaijan to live even better," Ilham Aliyev,
president of Azerbaijan, told a crowd of nearly 1,000 people last
week, Oct. 31, during the third Baku International Humanitarian
Conference. "On the other hand, we want to be in constant communication
with neighboring nations. The purpose of our regional initiatives is
to further strengthen our ties with neighboring countries. Today this
is the case. Azerbaijan has very sincere and constructive relations
with its neighbors. Our relations with all countries are based on a
very sound footing. These are relations of friendship and partnership,
equal relationships."
Matt Bryza, the former US ambassador to Azerbaijan, however, argues
that they're not really multitasking. "They have the opposite ambition
of Turkey," he told Al-Monitor. "They're extremely vulnerable to
outside intervention, and they're trying to do the best they can to
save themselves from any problems." He added: "Azerbaijan's survival
as an independent and sovereign state is dependent on the pipelines
that physically and economically interconnect it to Turkey and the
Western world."
Still though, Azerbaijan announced in October that it is considering
opening Hudaferin border gate to Iran. Even the thought of this would
not have been possible a few years ago. The reason is simple. Iran
has developed strong relations with Armenia in a way to side with the
Soviet Union and, today, Russia against the United States, and that
put it in an awkward position - religiously - as it stood against
the interests of Azerbaijan. Not that Iran had any direct role to
play in the Nagorno Karabagh conflict, but its posturing benefited the
Armenians on this issue. Azerbaijan, ethnically Turkish and religiously
from the Shiite school of Islam like Iran, chose to stay away from
the orbit of Russia after announcing their independence, and therefore
sided with Turkey and therefore the United States and NATO alliance.
The Aliyev government is certainly trying to do its best in keeping
its relationships manageable with all of its neighbors - even with
those like Iran, where half the population is of Azeri origin, and
which can not relieve itself from the fear that this Azeri population
will one day seek to establish a greater Azerbaijan, taking significant
chunks land away from them.
All that said, at the core of all of this outreach to its neighbors,
one would not be exaggerating to say that Azerbaijan is always
thinking about how it can help end Armenian occupation of its land
in Nagorno-Karabagh.
"We hope that the conflict will be resolved and Azerbaijan's
territorial integrity recognized by the international community will
be restored in the near future. There is a strong legal basis for
that. There are four UN Security Council resolutions which explicitly
state that the Armenian armed forces should unconditionally withdraw
from the occupied Azerbaijani lands," Aliyev said.
The sense in Baku is that the failure in following up on these
resolutions directly challenges the credibility of the United States
and United Nations. Moreover, Azeri authorities have no confidence
in the MINSK group, headed by a co-chairmanship consisting of
France, Russia and the United States, which is tasked to resolve
the Nagorno-Karabagh issue. The MINSK group also includes Belarus,
Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Turkey,
Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Under these circumstances, it looks quite unlikely to expect Armenians
to end their occupation in Nagorno-Karabagh any time soon. On the
contrary, Azerbaijan warns against ethnic Armenian Syrians being
relocated to the occupied territories. Azernews reported in its Jan.
5, 2013, edition that Armenia continues its illegal activity of
attempting to artificially change the demographic situation in
Nagorno-Karabagh thus ignoring the international community's position
which condemns such activities. "Recently, about 200 Armenian refugees
from Syria were settled in the occupied Zangilan region, which was
another clear evidence of the illegal settlement policy pursued by
the Armenian state," the paper reported.
One would have hoped in fact that these war-torn Syrian refugees were
to be placed in a safer area - away from any potential conflict. But
the international community seems to also fail to warn Armenia on
this matter as well.
To sum up, the attempted effort to normalize relations between
Turkey and Armenia failed at no cost to relations between Turkey and
Azerbaijan, because Turkey remains the most reliable and safe route for
Azeris to export their oil and natural gas to international markets. In
that light, in addition to the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Azerbaijan
started to prioritize its direct investment in Turkey. In September,
Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz announced
that Azerbaijan will make 17 billion lira investment in the economy
of Turkey for the construction of the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline
project (TANAP) and implementation of other project. TANAP will
allow transporting gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field to Europe
through Turkey - and this is the way for Azerbaijan to sustain its
independence and strengthen its sovereignty.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/11/azerbaijan-turkey-relations-russia.html