Turkey has openly thrown its weight behind Azerbaijan in the Azeri-Armenian flare-up over the long-disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, in what is widely believed to be an attempt to extract concessions from Russia, the “big boss” of the region, in simultaneous conflicts in Libya and Syria. On the other side of the coin, however, Ankara hopes to gain influence over the energy resources of Azerbaijan, with which it has close political and ethnic bonds.
Azerbaijan’s oil and natural gas potential has yet to be fully developed and utilized. Moscow has traditionally steered the country’s energy wealth, both before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia has maintained partnerships with Azerbaijan in various fields, chief among them energy and defense. The Russian energy giants Gazprom, Lukoil and Transneft operate in Baku and Russians wield influence in Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR, which, in turn, holds a nearly 10% stake in the Russian oil refinery Antipinsky. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is purportedly keen to gain influence in the Caucasus, but will Moscow allow a rival player in its backyard?
The clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia flared up in late September, threatening to spill over beyond traditional theaters of war into Azeri cities and Armenian territory. Much of the punditry remains focused on what Moscow will do. Though Russia has been uncharacteristically low key thus far, it sees Armenia as a natural ally and Armenia is limited in what it can do without Russian acquiescence.
The Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States, has been the main mediation platform in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The three-decade settlement efforts, however, have proved futile. Since the latest flare-up, the Minsk Group has sought to convince Azeri President Ilham Aliyev to agree to a cease-fire, but Ankara’s ambitions and its backing for Baku have emerged as a new factor that can hardly be ignored.
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