The process of Turkish-Armenian normalization, which could potentially have brought improvements to the regional inter-state political climate in the South Caucasus and helped resolving the current deadlock, is suspended, having encountered serious domestic obstacles to ratification in Turkey. This seemingly puts an end to the international mediation efforts to defuse the explosive situation in the region. As a result, Armenia and Azerbaijan have toughened their positions on Nagorno-Karabakh, and the situation has become increasingly dangerous ahead of the 16th anniversary of the cease-fire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

BACKGROUND: Starting from the cease-fire between Armenia, Azerbaijan and the unrecognized authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh, which entered into force on May 12, 1994, the South Caucasus has remained in a deadlock. The continuing efforts of the conflicting sides to reach consensus over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh have brought few results. These efforts were supported by the mediators of the OSCE Minsk Group and since 1997 by the three co-chairs of this body; the U.S., Russia and France. During these years, trade across most of Armenia’s land borders was embargoed from both east and west. Turkey has since 1993 supported Azerbaijan through placing an embargo on Armenia, seeking to isolate it both economically and politically and cutting all diplomatic relations, hoping that this would force Armenia to make concessions on Nagorno-Karabakh. These hopes remained unfulfilled over the following fifteen years, and in 2008 Turkey initiated a new policy for the region, which was supposedly more independent from that of Azerbaijan.

Following the Georgian-Russian war, Turkey put forward the idea of a “security platform” in the South Caucasus, which could become a reality only if its relations with Armenia were normalized. To that end, Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols on the normalization of bilateral relations on October 10, 2009, the protocols making no reference to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. The implementation of these protocols was intended to relieve the geopolitical deadlock in the entire region, enhancing mutual trust between the countries and peoples. This was the main reason why the normalization on the basis of these protocols was supported by the above-mentioned three great powers, as well as the EU.

However, Turkish officials later returned to their previous positions, stating that the protocols with Yerevan would not be enacted unless Armenia made concessions to Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. This again led the Armenian-Turkish process to a deadlock, which is especially evident by the fact that Armenia, the party with most to gain from the process, suspended its ratification procedure on April 22. The deadlock seems especially serious given the fact that the domestic situation in Turkey is a more important reason for this retreat than the officially voiced concerns over the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. 

In parallel, Azerbaijan, which has strongly opposed the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement, recently reached an agreement with Turkey on gas exports, promising to supply Turkey and the Nabucco pipeline with cheap natural gas on the condition that the Turkish-Armenian normalization would not progress. In addition, Azerbaijan has recently made clear that it is unhappy with Washington’s policy, which has allegedly had a very pro-Armenian position in both the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and its relations with Turkey.

IMPLICATIONS: The freezing of the Armenian-Turkish normalization process means that a real opportunity for improving the regional situation has been postponed indefinitely. Beside a failure of the Turkish policy of “zero problems with neighbors”, this could potentially lead to a new worsening of the situation in the region. It is unlikely that the consolidated pressure of Turkey and Azerbaijan will force Armenia to make a concession over Nagorno-Karabakh, as this policy has already failed to produce results for seventeen years now. Quite the contrary, concessions on Nagorno-Karabakh by any side, including Armenia, will only be possible if some improvement is achieved in the regional setting, which would result in increasing trust between the countries. Currently Turkey, as a powerful regional state, is the only player capable of initiating such a process. Its solidarity with Azerbaijan, which openly speaks about the possibility of starting a new war over Nagorno-Karabakh, makes Armenia even less inclined to even minor concessions and increases the risks of a new regional meltdown.

Azerbaijan’s increasingly critical position toward U.S. policies in the region seems ill-conceived as Russia, the main rival of the U.S. in the region, is a political and military ally of Armenia and can thus hardly be regarded as an alternative to the U.S. for Azerbaijan. The fact that the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev rejected the Russian invitation to attend an informal CIS summit on May 8 demonstrated that Azerbaijan is reluctant to establish excessively friendly relations with Moscow. The reason for Aliyev’s reluctance to attend the meeting was that he did not want to meet his Armenian counterpart on that day. On May 8, 1992, the troops of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh occupied Shusha, a major city in Nagorno-Karabakh with Serzh Sargsyan (now the President of Armenia) as Defense Minister of the unrecognized republic. Moreover, Azerbaijan’s criticism toward the U.S. is unlikely to bring any benefits to Baku, as the U.S. and Russia have long shared a common position both on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and on supporting the Turkish-Armenian normalization. These positions are shared by France as well, which makes questionable the promise of gas supplies to Europe through the Nabucco pipeline as a political lever in Azerbaijan’s conflict with Armenia. As the bellicose rhetoric of Azerbaijan increases, the danger of resumed violence in the region increases.

In short, the situation in the South Caucasus has returned to the deadlock it was in two years ago. The promises of Turkish officials that an improvement in Turkey’s relations with Armenia could take place “in months and even weeks” seem increasingly unrealistic as the Turkish government has serious domestic problems and the situation in the South Caucasus is not a priority for it now. 

CONCLUSIONS: The failure of the Turkish-Armenian normalization process has extended the tense situation in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan has used all available levers on Turkey, ranging from ethnic solidarity to promised gas supplies, to prevent its ally from improving its relations with Armenia. As the domestic problems of Turkey seem to have contributed considerably to these difficulties, the region is returning to a dangerous deadlock. As the cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh enters its seventeenth year, the situation is becoming increasingly tense and the half-hearted international efforts   to prevent a resumption of violence seem unlikely to bear fruit.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Haroutiun Khachatrian is an analyst on political and economic problems based in Yerevan, Armenia.