Russia and Turkey in South Caucasus: A Geostrategic Armistice Prof. Ruben Safrastyan, Ph.D. Global Politician, N.Y.

6/26/2005 Two meetings of the Russian president V. Putin and Turkish Prime Minister R.T. E rdogan, held in the end of the last year and in the beginning of this year, as w ell as the wide spectrum of problems discussed and contents of the signed docume nts, marked the start of the a new phase in the Russian-Turkish relations. Exper ts spoke about that start in several recent years, and this phase can be charact erized as the starting period of the real strategic process.Test Answers to the questions about the depth of that process, its direction and how it will affect the situation in the region, are of vital importance for Armenia. In our memory the remembrance about how in 1920 the Kemalist Turkey and Bolshev ik Russia, uniting their efforts against the common enemy the Entente, came to a secret agreement and at the expense of Armenia put an end to the century-old co nfrontation, in particular, in the Caucasus. As a result, the Sovietized Armenia had to sign the Kars treaty of 1921, which defined the distorted borders of the present Republic of Armenia. The anxiety, expressed by some representatives of the Armenian political elite, that some rapprochement between Turkey and Russia, may have its negative impact on Armenia at present as well, and in particular, weakening its positions in the settlement process of the Karabakh conflict, are well-grounded just by the reas on, that the historical precedent had already happened. These fears may be prove d or denied only as a result of an impartial and comprehensive analysis. The period of instability and confrontation After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and Turkey found themselves in ab solutely new geopolitical conditions, while: -for the first time in several centuries (with the exception of 1918-1920) they have no land frontier, and the South Caucasus is nothing but a buffer zone; -for the first time in several decades they do not belong to two opposing milita ry and political blocs; - Russia, rapidly losing its military and economic potential, the ideological ax is and political willpower, is unable to keep the regions, belonging to former U SSR, including the South Caucasus and Central Asia, in the sphere of its geopoli tical influence any longer. The present situation produced some vacuum in the mentioned regions, which was u se by Turkey. First relying on the ideological and political grounds of Pan-Turk ism, Turkey started to rapidly spread its influence in the South Caucasus and Ce ntral Asia. Its actually pan-Turkist goals were presented by Turkey as a need fo r spreading the Turkish model of development in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. Such policy was supported by the West, mainly by the USA, because it dad fears that those newly independent states may be influenced by the polit icized radical Islam. In addition, the approaches, typical to the period of the Cold War, were still strong in the USA, we, welcoming Turkeys diverse engagement the processes on the territory of the former USSR, counterbalancing the Russian influence. In the first of and tense from on. Turkey used not only in the half of 1990s, the Russian-Turkish relations were quite unstable time to time, explained by their strong geostrategic confrontati all possibilities, except military, for spreading its influence South Caucasus and Central Asia, but also in the North Caucasus

and the regions of Russia, populated predominantly by the Turkic-speaking people s. Russia was trying to concentrate its efforts and stop the increasing Turkish inf luence. Being unable to resist as required at that time, Russia focused its atte ntion to the conflicts, broken out in the South Caucasus, using them as an instr ument for preserving its influence in that region. From this point of view, the Karabakh conflict is remarkable, being a culminatio n of the Russian-Turkish confrontation in the South Caucasus. Turkey helped the Azerbaijani side, and Russia to the Armenian one. No surprise, that the conflict between the two countries in that case was the most aggravated in the last deca des of the Russian-Turkish relations. In 1992-1993, Turkey threatened to use for ce against Armenia, which followed by a swift and hard counteraction by Russia, which openly declared its readiness to use nuclear weapon against Turkey. Both s tates in that period not only were strategic opponents, but also took the counte r-partner as a bearer of the military threat. In this sense, it is worth mention ing the statement by the Chief of the Headquarters of the Turkish troops, made i n 1994, that Russia is the only state, posing a military threat to Turkey. The victory of Armenians in the military phase of the Karabakh, and the firmness of Russia were the main factors to prevent increasing positions of Turkey in th e South Caucasus. Although Turkey established itself in the geopolitical region and became an important factor there, Russia, in spite of serious losses, Russia has managed to partially preserve its influence in the region and not so big mi litary bases. The last circumstance, apart military, had a geopolitical importan ce, which allowed to establish some balance of powers between Russia and Turkey in the South Caucasus. Stabilization In the second half of the 1990s, the geopolitical situation in the zone of the S outh Caucasus, was mostly characterized by the problems, related to the Caspian energy resources. The level of the US involvement in the region had been increas ing, and Turkey in the new conditions tried to get maximum, cooperating with the United States, which was also interested in decreasing Russian influence in the region. Such approach was materialized in the idea by President Suleyman Demire l to create the Stability pact of the South Caucasus, in which the US was supposed to have the role of the most important regional factor. In the Russian-Turkish relations of that period, direction to their stabilizatio n was dominant. Rapid development of the trade and industrial relations, which h ad been also visible in previous years, started to turn into a geostrategic fact or and play a stabilizing role to some extent, which was also by such phenomena as billions in the shuttle trade, significant Turkish investments in Russia, in pa rticular, in the construction and public catering An unprecedented growth took p lace in such a traditional sphere of trade relations between the two states as the Russian gas supply to Turkey thanks to the multi-million The Blue Stream deal, en visaging direct gas supply to Turkey. So its dependence on the Russian gas had b een increasing. The strategy of the Turkish regional policy, preserving its anti-Russian directi on, however, lost its aggressiveness of previous years. For the political elite of the country, the lacking efficiency of the political line, based on the pan-T urkist ideas, became obvious. Not having necessary economic potential and being unable to compete with the other external forces, Turkey had to give up its pret entious plans in the Central Asia, which alleviated its competition with Russia in that region.

In the South Caucasus, the Russian-Turkish confrontation developed in the contex t of the ways of transportation of the Caspian oil. At the same time Turkey trie d to counterbalance the Russian military presence in Armenia by developing the m ilitary cooperation with Georgia. As for Russia, trying to counterbalance Turkeys involvement in the Chechen conflict, it started to ue the Kurdish factor to exe rt pressure on Turkey. However, all these processes did not have any substantial impact on the balance of powers, which had been established in the second half of 1990s in the Russian-Turkish relations, and in the South Caucasus, as a whole . New geostrategic processes The period of autumn 2001 spring 2002 was critical for the whole region, and for the Russian-Turkish relations, in particular. Two geopolitical processes have b een going on just since then, as a reaction to the terrorist attack against the USA in September 2001. The start of the first one was caused by a diplomatic document, which remained u nnoticed even by many experts. It was the Russian-Turkish Agreement on Cooperatio n in Eurasia, signed in New York in November 2001. It envisaged periodical consul tations between the Foreign Ministries of the both states for some coordination of the regional policy. Actually, two regional powers reacted on then just emerg ing intentions of the only superpower the United States, to spread the scope of its influence in the Eurasian continent under the pretext of the struggle agains t the Islamic terrorism. The above-mentioned US intentions materialized in spring 2002, when the dislocat ion of the US advisers in Georgia. The Russian reaction was quite stormy and ver y negative. The Turkish reaction was also negative, but less exposed. Actually, the Americans chose not to apply for Turkish assistance, and to have their own, though symbolic, military presence in the South Caucasus. So the new US strategy was started in the South Caucasian region, aimed at rapidly changing the balanc e of powers that have been established here in the recent years. The Rose revolut ion in Georgia comes to prove that. The reciprocal visits of the Russian and Turkish leaders, mentioned just in the beginning of this article, which were considered as an evidence of the Russian-T urkish rapprochement, took place in these new realities. However, from the geost rategic view, the process, going on here, is different two powerful regional for ces, old geostrategic opponents, which remains intact up to the present, on the basis of mutual consent are trying to alleviate or stop their competition to res ist the third force the United States with their unprecedented activity in the r egion. Actually, Russia and Turkey are trying to preserve the status quo in the region, meanwhile the USA wish to break it. This new situation supposes a new quality of the bilateral relations, for which an appropriate diplomatic wording has been found and fixed in official documents - multifaceted cooperation. We think that within the geostrategic analysis, it wo uld be correct to characterize the current stage of the Russian-Turkish relation s as a geostrategic armistice. In their verbal statements, Russian and Turkish off icials note that these new realities are an interim stage on the way to the strat egic cooperation. it seems that both parties are trying to create an impression t hat they have allegedly overcome all contradictions, but it is not so. In partic ular, in spite of all attempts to reach some mutual consent in the Chechen and K urdish questions (Russians passed to Turks some intelligence information about C hechen terrorist organizations, operating in Turkey, expecting that the authorities would suppress their activity; and Turks demand from Russia to ban the PKK, etc), there is no news about any positive results.

Some ideological and political concepts of Eurasianship and strategic depth there appeared as an ideological ground for the outlining rapprochement in the Russian -Turkish relations. The apologist of the first idea is the Russian geopolitician A. Dugin, frequently visiting Turkey in the recent time; and the second concept belongs to the foreign policy advisor of the Prime-Minister R.T.Erdoghan, Profe ssor A. Davudoglu. Conclusion So the geopolitical situation of the South Caucasus in the recent years has ente red the second phase of the post-Soviet era, which is characterized by the above -mentioned new trends. Certain geostrategic changes are also taking place in the Russian-Turkish relations, and their main sense is in the striving of the both parties to preserve the balance of powers, established between them in the South Caucasus. This means that Russia and Turkey will try to keep what they have alr eady had. For Russia, it is its military presence in Armenia and by that in the entire South Caucasus, meaning that Russian will never make any concession to Tu rkey, for example, in the Karabakh issue, will not endanger its allied relations with Armenia. In any case, in this stage of the geostrategic armistice with Turkey. Prof. Ruben Safrastyan, Ph.D. is a Professor of International Relations at Achar yan University in Yerevan, Armenia. Hes also the Director of the Department of Turkish Studies at Institute of Oriental Studies, Armenian National Academy of S ciences. In the past, he served as a Counselor of the Armenian Embassy in German y and was the Deputy Director of the Department of Political Analysis for the Of fice of the President of Armenia.