Erdoğan in the Caucasus: Iran, Russia, Armenia ignore threat at their own peril
Rick Rozoff
“I still feel most suspicious of the Talaat Pashas, the Kemals and the Envers who are apparently dreaming of setting up a Moslem state to include the Trans-Caspian region, Transcaucasia with Daghestan, Asia Minor and, it seems, Egypt. One feels this is so, and it stands to reason that Armenia and Georgia, a little country I know and dearly love, will inevitably be the first to suffer from this venture. Nor do I think Russia would gain anything from this pan-Turkish game. Of course, I’m no politician, but it sometimes seems to me that I have a healthy intuition, and that my organic disgust at the misfortunes of mankind, at human sufferings, makes me a good prophet or, more correctly, a prophet of evil.” – Maxim Gorky to H.G. Wells, 1920
“The Declaration reflects the words of the great leaders of our peoples – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Heydar Aliyev. At the beginning of the 20th century, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk said, ‘Azerbaijan’s joy is our joy and its sorrow is ours too.’ At the end of the 20th century, Heydar Aliyev said, ‘Turkey and Azerbaijan are one nation, two states.’ These historic words are the key factor for us, for our activities.” – Ilham Aliyev with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in conquered Nagorno-Karabakh, 2021
The joint visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to the city of Shusha (Turkic)/Shushi (Armenian) in Nagorno-Karabakh on June 15 was a landmark event. It signals the indisputable and qualitatively advanced expansion of the 21st century neo-Ottoman project. An attempted revival of the empire almost a century after its demise.
The quote from Aliyev cited above is not fortuitous. It is quite intentional and is equally apt. What Aliyev, Erdoğan, the members of the Turkic Council (1) and Turkic-speaking activists and separatists in Russia, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Southeast Europe, China, Tajikistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere envision is a renewed pan-Turkic domain that stretches from the Balkans to China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It is a phenomenon described as early as 1996 by the later American scholar Sean Gervasi in his inimitable paper Why is NATO in Yugoslavia?
Among a plethora of insightful and farseeing observations, he pointed this out a quarter of a century ago when the world was just beginning to see a pattern to developments in a post-bipolar world:
“The United States is now seeking to consolidate a new European-Middle Eastern bloc of nations. It is presenting itself as the leader of an informal grouping of Muslim countries stretching from the Persian Gulf into the Balkans. This grouping includes Turkey, which is of pivotal importance in the emerging new bloc. Turkey is not just a part of the southern Balkans and an Aegean power. It also borders on Iraq, Iran and Syria. It thus connects southern Europe to the Middle East, where the US considers that it has vital interests.
“The US hopes to expand this informal alliance with Muslim states in the Middle East and southern Europe to include some of the new nations on the southern rim of the former Soviet Union.”
Among other American objectives, and not the least important of them, he mentioned access to Caspian Sea oil and natural gas.
He quoted from a NATO statement of May 22, 1992 on a matter just as pertinent thirty years later as it was then:
“Any action against Azerbaijan’s or any other state’s territorial integrity or to achieve political goals by force would represent a flagrant and unacceptable violation of the principles of international law. In particular we [NATO] could not accept that the recognized status of Nagorno-Karabakh or Nakhichevan [the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, an exclave of Azerbaijan] can be changed unilaterally by force.”
NATO had identified an active interest in Nagorno-Karabakh within mere months of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The three former Soviet republics in the South Caucasus – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – were recruited into NATO’s Partnership for Peace which was established on the initiative of the Bill Clinton administration in 1994. The same year the Azerbaijani government of President Heydar Aliyev (the current president’s father) announced the Contract of the Century (formally the Production Sharing Agreement on the Joint Development of the Deep Water Reserves of Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli), which opened up Caspian Sea Basin oil and gas fields to outside firms for the first time: AMOCO, BP, McDermott, UNOCAL, LUKOIL, Statoil, Exxon, Turkish Petrol, Pennzoil, Itochu, Remco and Delta.
Gervasi’s contention, above, was that the two above events, NATO partnerships in the Caucasus and the West moving into the Caspian Sea, were not unrelated.
Regarding the visit of the Turkish and Azerbaijani heads of state to the city of Shusha/Shushi in Nagorno-Karabakh – captured in the Turkish-assisted Azeri military assault of last year – much may be said. The leaders chose just that spot to announce a comprehensive bilateral agreement that has a strong military component. And the Turkish president made an inspection of recently conquered territory the day after he participated in the NATO summit in Belgium.
An Armenian scholar, Vardan Voskanyan of the Department of Iranian Studies at Armenia’s Yerevan State University, whose opinion is not disinterested, said of the visit that it marked the first time a sultan had trod on the soil of Shushi. The word he chose to describe the Turkish leader can be viewed as insulting, as figurative or as politically if not historically accurate.
In regard to his statement, below, it’s to be recalled that since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has been a close alliance in the Caucasus-Caspian region between Armenia, Iran and Russia. Though Armenia is a member of the Partnership for Peace (one suspects because it dared not not join), it is also a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the only Caucasus nation other than Russia which is.
The Armenian scholar said of that relationship in terms of Erdoğan’s appearance in Nagorno-Karabakh: “This is a challenge, a message sent not only to us but also to Russia and Iran. This is an impudent message about the heart of Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] being trampled by Turks, and Armenia, Russia and Iran reconciling themselves with this nightmare.”
He is right about the collective threat; he is correct about the disturbing lack of response by the three allies.
A sultan surely the Turkish president is or aspires to be. Like Aliyev, he is a dedicated Kemalist. But what could not be foreseen even by an analyst as prescient as Sean Gervasi is that the leader who would lead Turkey to becoming not only a regional but in many ways an global power would be both a Kemalist and a Sunni Islamist as Erdoğan is. That dual role has permitted him to pose as defender of the interests of Turkic people in Crimea, Cyprus, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Central Asia, but also of non-Turkic Muslims in Palestine, Libya, the Balkans and elsewhere. Nagorno-Karabakh is not the last “war of liberation” planned.
In terms of the pan-Turkic and Islamist component, here are excerpts from today’s Azerbaijani press:
Speaking of the pact signed with Turkey, President Aliyev said: “This unity is underpinned by many factors that bind us together. First of all, history, culture, common ethnic roots, our language, religion, national values and interests, and the brotherhood of our peoples.”
This is from Azerbaijani Colonel Abdullah Gurbani, identified as a hero of the Great Patriotic War (not of World War II as the words are used in other parts of the Soviet Union, but of last year’s onslaught against Nagorno-Karabakh), direct or paraphrased:
“The fact that the President of our country welcomed the great Azerbaijani lover Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with great love as the President of a victorious state, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Muzaffar, made every soldier of the Motherland feel proud.”
“[The] Azerbaijani soldier stood guard over our independence and security today. After all, not only Azerbaijan, but a powerful state like Turkey, a fighting people like the Turkish people, a strong army like the Turkish Army are with us.”
“Today, as at the beginning of the last century, we feel the full support of brotherly Turkey. We are the brothers of a difficult day. Thanks to Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and our Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Ilham Aliyev, our friendship and brotherhood are further strengthened, unshakable and eternal.”
“[The] great victory in the war launched by Operation Iron Fist to restore the territorial integrity of our republic and liberate our historical lands in response to Armenian provocations was a testament to the unity, solidarity, economic strength of our state, the strength of the Azerbaijani Army and the political will of the President of Azerbaijan. It is the victory of the determination, the iron fist of our Supreme Commander-in-Chief and, of course, the brotherly President of Turkey, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as well as the fact that every Turkish citizen supports us at all times.”
He also shared a poem he had written “on the occasion of the unforgettable and historically blessed visit of Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Shusha,” which can be read here.
(1) Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey.
Reblogged this on Piazza della Carina.
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you forgot to mention that Armenia’s reward for attending said NATO’s partnership for peace was to have one of her young soldier leaders murdered in his bed by an Azeri conference participant… who later on oil bribes was released from Hungary to receive “hero’s” welcome in Azerbaijan. A truly dastardly deed by a murderous oil rich shithole dictator. NATO’s response… look the other way when Turkey supported, and ran the war against Nagorno Karabagh.. NATO is shit as well.
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Good of you to remind me of that. You’re right the two of them – the murderer and his victim – were at a NATO Partnership for Peace training even and the Azeri killed the Armenian only because he was Armenian. Then the murderous beast was released home where he received a hero’s welcome. He likely participated in last year’s “Great Patriotic War” as well. And the world, including Russia, tolerates this.
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The assumption made in this article is that each state, Russia, Iran, and Armenia, have significant overlapping interests. Some interests may coincide, but Armenian interests are deemed expendable, trumped by larger Russian and Turkish co-interests, with Israel countering Iran.
Azerbaijan and Iran enjoy trade numbers twice that of Armenia-Iran, while Baku stabs Iran with an Israeli knife. A stronger Azerbaijan is in Israel’s interest, even coming at the expense of Armenia. What appears to be a pan-Turkic free-for-all may be temporary, as temporary as “NATO’s” Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. As pressure increases on the Russian Federation, the Kremlin is adjusting, with the CSTO seemingly useless. The Aliyev-Erdogan circus in Shushi has cemented Aliyev as Azerbaijan’s uncontested autocratic leader while the Turkish lira sinks at home. The latter indicates the lack of economic benefit to Turkish hard and soft power expended between Libya and Azerbaijan.
If Maxim Gorkey were alive today, he would witness Turkey having more influence over Georgian FP than Tbilisi. Turkish TAV runs all major Georgian airports. Turkish agricultural imports into Georgia are killing local farmers, and flights from Turkey to Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi are booked as domestic Turkish flights. Georgia is trading in its sovereignty to be a NATO member. The latter statement may be redundant.
As far back as the early 1990s – well before Sultan Erdogan’s appearance – China kept a close watch on Turkish claims of its influence expanding to the Chinese border and beyond. Turkey may be NATO’s attack dog, but China is not a power to trifled with.
Yerevan, Armenia
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Thank you once again. You’re right that Azerbaijan is a joint Turkish-Israeli asset; that is, a joint Islamist-Zionist client. Make sense of that anyone who doesn’t understand geopolitics. It is also Israel’s, the U.S.’s and NATO’s outpost on the Caspian Sea (as I hope the article explained). Today’s Turkish press quotes Erdogan inviting Azerbaijan to exploit Libya’s oil riches jointly with Turkey. And let me be clear: THE WEST FULLY SUPPORTS TURKEY. And, yes, Russia betrayed not only its CSTO but its centuries-old ally Armenia in furtherance of whatever Putin’s slavish complicity to Ankara is about. Re China: it like Russia is blind to the Turkish threat, especially in regard to Xinjiang. No, I correct myself: China is blind, Russia is complicit.
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See link below. Turkey is opposing, most often militarily, Russian interests and allies in Afghanistan, Abkhazia, Armenia, Crimea, Cyprus, Donetsk, Lugansk, Libya, South Ossetia, Syria, Tajikistan, etc., yet Putin views Erdogan as one of his two or three closest allies in the world.
https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-afghanistan/russia-against-turkeys-proposal-keep-forces-afghanistan
Russia against Turkey’s proposal to keep forces in Afghanistan
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Turkish UAVs are already in Donbass. Poland, Turkey, NATO and Bayraktary
https://anna-news.info/turetskie-bpla-uzhe-v-donbasse-polsha-turtsiya-nato-i-bajraktary/
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See link below. Turkey is opposing, most often militarily, Russian interests and allies in Afghanistan, Abkhazia, Armenia, Crimea, Cyprus, Donetsk, Lugansk, Libya, South Ossetia, Syria, Tajikistan, etc., yet Putin views Erdogan as one of his two or three closest allies in the world.
https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-afghanistan/russia-against-turkeys-proposal-keep-forces-afghanistan
Russia against Turkey’s proposal to keep forces in Afghanistan
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Thank you
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You’re welcome. Early this morning I gathered material for at least two articles on Turkey and the Caucasus, but thought why write anything on those topics when perhaps only two or three people will read them? (Which is the truth.) It’s crystal clear to me that the current phase of the world war has moved into former Soviet space – the Donbass, the South Caucasus, soon Belarus – but all people are interested in are wars that are over – Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea – or wars that never occurred: Iran. I’m disappointed in the lack of interest in what is going on now.
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I know. No one cares about Yemen either. It’s a straight up genocide being ignored. Trust me the people I reach do care about what Erdogan us up to. Some good news 👇
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some further info on Afghanistan and Erdogan
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I wonder if the Azerbaijani portion of the Iranian population is starting to think of themselves as Turkish? Will Iran just roll over in the face of Turkish expansionism?
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Yes. Ethnic Azeris and Turkmen in Iran are being groomed to join “Greater Turkestan.”
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Iran ignored and/or was naive during the Nagorno Karabagh war. Azerbaijan will not stop until they cut off Armenia from Iran. Then the Israelis will have free access to attack Iran from the North (although the Zionists are having unbelieveable success destroying infrastructure and key personnel in Iran… a real sign that filthy lucre bribes apparently easily overrides any patriotic principles of the Iranian Islamic nation). At some point the Iranian Azeris will revolt and the Iranian nation will have to confront them. It would have been easier for them to do it with a strong Armenian ally and a long , reliable and safe border with her. ps. thank you for writing your articles… I read them when I am not reading about the covid plandemic and deciding whether or not to take Ivermectin as a prophylactic so I can travel again.
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The ever increasing military conflicts, some of which are rooted in centuries old ethnic religious, economic and political tensions remind me of the rivalries of the Great Powers before the outbreak of WORLD WAR 1. One has to wonder if all these renewed alliances will remain cohesive if the lead really begins to fly. Will Central Asia and the Middle East all resemble Iraq and Libyia. Broken destroyed countries ruled by an assortment of militias and warlords supported by one power or another ever evolving according to the fortunes of war. Will WW3 be the war to end all wars again?
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I’ve said since 1999 that the world has been plunged into a global Thirty Years’ War. The nightmarish visions you conjure up would be quite in keeping with that scenario.
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The West is pig-ignorant about many things, one is Turkey, whose real role is barely understood even by so-called ‘experts’. Sean McMeekin begins to get close when he calles WW1 the War of the Ottoman Succession: even though he doesn’t state it, Europe largely tore itself to pieces in not even one but ultimately two world wars over conflicts resulting largely from the Turkish invasions of Europe, which were devastating enough in themselves, but even far moreso in their aftermath. Now the clowns who run the West and Russia coddle Turkey while it foments yet more wars (against Christians also for what little it counts anymore in their eyes) under cover of NATO, as well as deploying weapons of mass-migration to colonize, destabilize, and blackmail Europe, and builds a power bloc that even has Russia acquiescing in its neo-Ottomanic shenanigans. And most astonishingly that’s all while Turkey lacks even nuclear capability (other than the local NATO stockpile). Imagine what it will be like once it gets its own nukes! Russia helping with that. Turkey could easily have been finished as a serious power during/after WW1 but the West quailed from imposing the agreed settlement despite overwhelming capability even then, properly applied, except for the knowledge and will, as today, instead swallowing defeat and disgrace at the hands of the annihilators of the Armenians and others, and reaped and will reap great trouble on account of it, as will Russia, whose conduct in the recent war was a really disgraceful betrayal of ally and fellow-Christian Armenia/Artsakh to curry favor with a Sultan who shoots down Russian aircraft with virtual impunity, while denying the Armenian and related genocides, and whose ally was able to make terror-threats against Armenia’s nuclear plant without repercussion in order to restore the result of the genocide.
Both the West and Russia have really sunk to a new low, and are fully deserving of the defeat and disgrace that is coming their way yet again. The leaders and elites of both are truly sick and stupid, falling into the same old traps yet again while the global power-balance shifts away from them likely forever. The more one learns of these things, the more truly idiotic and corrupt they all are confirmed to be. Little better than pawns in Erdogan’s power-games, when he would not last an hour against both of them combined.
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Perfect in all particulars.
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