All Turkey’s efforts have not led to a reinforcement
of its role in the region; today it does not have greater opportunities
than Iran or, moreover, Russia. This is the opinion of an expert on
foreign policy from the Armenian centre for strategic and national
research, Sergey Shakaryants.
He said that after the collapse of the USSR and change in the
configuration of the Caucasus and Central Asia Turkey thought it would
be able to fill in the vacuum that had formed, but it turned out to be
not so simple and Turkey did not have the expected success. As far back
as 1992, the then Turkish president, Turgut Ozal, proclaimed the 21st
century as the Turkic century. It proved to be only a declaration which
did not become reality since none of the Turkic peoples of the former
USSR, excluding the Azerbaijanis, wanted to get a new “elder brother” in
the person of Turkey. The expert said that the two biggest sources of
energy in Central Asia – Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan – ignore the
Turkish factor. Relations between Turkey and Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan
are also not taking shape. The latter fear an immediate threat by the
Afghan Taleban supported by Turkey to some extent.
Turkey’s relations with the South Caucasus countries are also not
simple, according to Sergey Shakaryants’s assessment. Georgia is in
essence a completely decentralized state, where it is not at all
compulsory to implement in the provinces the decisions of the central
authorities. It is very difficult to strengthen one’s presence in such a
country. Due to relations with Armenia, Turkey is lagging behind in
realizing its strategic programmes in the Caucasus. At the same time,
Shakaryants said that in the eyes of Turkey Armenia was Russia’s
plenipotentiary representative so the Turks, taking into account the
Armenian-Russian strategic partnership, nevertheless could not ignore
Armenia completely.
As for Azerbaijan, the expert said that not everything was so smooth
here. The Turks cannot but take into consideration the factor of the
geographical proximity of many Azerbaijani regions to the so-called zone
of the Karabakh conflict. Turkey cannot but take into consideration also
the factor of the exclave of Naxcivan which represents a blind alley for
Turkey from the geopolitical point of view; at the same time, Ankara
does not rule out a possible counteraction, initiated in Azerbaijan not
only with Russia but also with Iran.
Shakaryants said that one of the key problems for Turkey in the
Caucasus, which it viewed as a transit region, was that the geoeconomic
projects pledged by the West had not so far been realized; Turkey could
have gained a lot from the implementation of these projects and the
transition of the South Caucasus into a transit region.
“Today Turkey cannot get out of the game into which it was pushed and in
which it saw the prospects for its national development,” Shakaryants
said. He thought that in this context, with the seemingly visible
absence of special activity in the Caucasus, the Russian factor
continued to dominate the region. And this factor compels Turkey to
behave very carefully. Even absolutely independent Iran, even the
Western countries, are compelled to take a look at Russia when they
enter the Caucasus.
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