Part III of Igor Torbakov's The Turkish Factor in the Geopolitics of the Post-Soviet Space. Read part II.
Ankara's relations with Moscow exhibit marked "dualism." As Onis has put it, "Turkish-Russian interactions highlight how the relationship between key regional powers in the post-Cold War context can be characterized by significant cooperation and conflict at the same time." Historically, and perhaps in the longer-term, the management of relations with Russia is the leading security issue for Turkey. But the magnitude of Turkish-Russian trade (including large-scale energy imports) and the need for coexistence at the political level work against more competitive policies.
For the first time in centuries and since the end of the Cold War, Turkey and Russia no longer share a border. However, since the Turkish and Russian "near abroads" overlap in areas such as the Caucasus and Central Asia, some degree of geopolitical competition may be inevitable.
At the beginning of the 1990s, almost everyone predicted intense rivalry between Moscow and Ankara in Eurasia. This has ultimately not been realized. Due to the factors mentioned in part II of this series, Turkey has been unsuccessful in gaining a leadership role in the region. Besides, Ankara has focused on its own internal political and economic problems as well as on other foreign policy priorities in Europe and the Middle East. Like Turkey, Russia has also been troubled by its own economic weakness and was diverted in the 1990s by competing foreign policy priorities, especially by its post-Cold War relationship with the United States.
Yet in the mid-1990s Russia appeared to perceive Turkey as a massive security challenge. For instance, The White Book of Russian Special Services (Moscow: Obozrevatel, 1996) described Turkey as an aspiring regional power that supports "Muslim movements" and cherishes "pan-Turkic ideas;" it also argued that Turkey might move into the "geo-strategic niche" in the Caucasus created by Russia's weakening state. Moscow repeatedly accused Ankara of supporting both morally and financially the Chechen separatists during the first Chechen war.
In the end of the 1990s and later, however, Moscow fundamentally revised its perception of Turkey's role in Eurasia. Pavel Baev of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo persuasively argues that Moscow now views Turkey primarily as a "valuable partner" rather than a threat.
Two factors influenced this reassessment. As many regional analysts argue, the main reason and the transforming force behind the development of the bilateral relationship between Turkey and Russia is gas. Turkey, along with Europe, is Russia's major market for gas. Some of the largest energy business deals in Russia have been signed with Turkey. The recent completion of the Blue Stream gas pipeline under the Black Sea will increase Turkey's dependence on Russian natural gas from 66 percent up to 80 percent. Moreover, Russia is beginning to see Turkey as a transit country for its energy resources rather than simply an export market.
Another factor that changed Moscow's perception of Turkey was a reevaluation of Turkish strategic potential. By 2000-2001, a shift had occurred whereby Turkey came to be normally portrayed not as a geopolitical challenger but as a weakening competitor, preoccupied with internal political instability and economic troubles. The Russian Security Council, after a comprehensive reevaluation of security challenges, now perceives Turkey's penetration into the Caucasus as a low-intensity risk, and the sharp political and economic crisis in Turkey in February-March of 2001 only confirmed these assessments.
Thus, it is primarily such issues as the export of Russian gas to Turkey, tanker traffic through the Straits, and the regulation of the so-called "shuttle" trade that dominate the agendas of intensive bilateral contacts at various levels. Strategic alliance with Armenia notwithstanding, Russia has stayed clear of the brewing international controversy around the genocide of 1915-1918, in contrast to the proactive stance taken, say, by France. Ankara, for its part, has not provided any political or material support to the rebels in the second Chechen war and has not shown any softness toward the Chechens inside Turkey.
Some analysts also note that, with respect to the EU, Turkey and Russia are basically "on the same page." Both countries have complex negotiations with the EU, not only for the development of their economies but for their future political and cultural identities as European countries. In addition, Russia and Turkey share similar views with respect to Iran and Iraq, which differ from those of the United States. Both countries have improved their relationships with Israel. Further improvements in US-Russian relations as well as in Turkish-Russian relations and the US willingness to consult both countries on potentially contentious US policies in the broader region could help foster, some observers believe, a real Russo-Turkish relationship in moving forward.
In the opinion of Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution, the possibility of a rapprochement and partnership between Russia and Turkey could ultimately transform the politics of the Southern Caucasus even more than any dramatic change in US-Russian relations. A pragmatic, stable economic and political partnership between Turkey and Russia in Eurasia, argues Hill, would seem "tantamount to the reconciliation of France and Germany after the Second World War in Europe," opening the same kinds of prospects for economic development and integration in the region.
Moscow appears particularly keen these days to send some friendly signals to Turkey symbolizing the change in Russia's perception of its former formidable adversary. In a recent extensive interview with The Turkish Daily News, Aleksandr Lebedev, Russia's Ambassador to Ankara, especially stressed the unique "Eurasian nature" of both countries and said that the relations between Russia and Turkey have evolved from the stage of competition through that of cooperation and further on to the level of "multidimensional partnership."
Quite symptomatically, the Russian senior diplomat has also tried hard to prove the historic stereotypes wrong. The common impression that the Russian and Ottoman empires have been in a state of war most of the time is absolutely untrue, said the ambassador. He referred to the joint study conducted by Russian and Turkish historians that allegedly revealed that out of 500 years of relationship the tsars and sultans were engaged in direct conflict for only 25 years. "We also set up alliances in the past against the British and the French," added Lebedev.
There have also been some remarkable shifts with regard to the so-called Great Game over the Caspian oil export pipeline routes. In practice, until recently, Russia and Turkey have been rivals rather than partners with regard to the transportation of Caspian oil to lucrative Western markets. In contrast to gas, Turkey is not looked upon as an important market for Russian crude oil. Geopolitics together with commercial realities has played an important role in the game of Caspian oil pipeline politics.
In particular, Turkish and Russian policy-makers have been competing to have a main export oil pipeline constructed across their territory to carry Azerbaijani and possibly Kazakh crude to the European market. Ankara (together with Washington) was pushing for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export pipeline project that would bypass both Russia and Iran, whereas Moscow backed the so-called "northern route" to Novorossiisk. Under Putin leadership one key Russian objective remains to control energy exports routes to Europe.
By mid-2001, however, the Russian government to the surprise of some observers had dropped its opposition to the BTC project. Instead of trying to block the project, Russia has taken final steps toward finishing the construction of the high-capacity Tengiz-Novorossiisk pipeline (built by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium), cautiously but shrewdly playing Kazakh oil against Azerbaijani oil on the world markets. With the CPC pipeline becoming operational it seems that officials in Moscow have come to believe that a BTC pipeline will not run counter to Russia's strategic and commercial interests.
Thus, despite occasional over-heated statements, Moscow clearly prefers to present this issue in geo-economic rather than geopolitical terms, putting cost-efficiency ahead of balance of power and emphasizing competition between economic actors rather than struggle for spheres of influence with Ankara or Washington. While some anxiety about American and Turkish activities and intentions in the Caspian area still remains in many of Moscow's political quarters, there is also a predominant line toward downplaying the so-called Great Game and avoiding confrontational paradigms.
This is not to say, of course, that the potential for competition between Moscow and Ankara has disappeared. A fundamental objective underlying Russia's policies in Eurasia is to keep "outsiders" like Turkey and Iran from interfering in what Russia considers its natural sphere of influence. As for Turkey, some regional analysts argue that, notwithstanding the prominence of new energy-related projects in the Turkish debate, Ankara's primary objectives in Eurasia are political rather than economic consolidating the independence of former Soviet states and promoting "strategic pluralism" across the region.
Thus Ankara is wary about the operation of Russian military bases in Georgia and Armenia; some top brass inside Turkey's military establishment consider these bases as a source of potential threat. Turkey would also like to see the so-called CIS peacekeeping forces in the South Caucasus conflict zones (primarily in Abkhazia) replaced by international forces, since these peacekeeping contingents are almost exclusively manned by Russian military.
For its part, Russia is obviously displeased with Turkish military and security officials' cooperation with their counterparts in Georgia and Azerbaijan. In January 2002 in Ankara, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey concluded a tripartite agreement on regional security. Given Georgia's strategic location and the steady deterioration of relations between the Putin administration and Shevardnadze's government, Turkey's lively contacts with Tbilisi appear to cause some concern in Moscow. As Zeyno Baran, director of the Caucasus Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has pointed out recently, "in the past, Georgia had asked the Russians for help against the Ottomans, but today Georgia receives military, economic, and political assistance from Turkey." In fact, in 2000 Turkey even surpassed Russia as Georgia's largest trading partner.
Georgia's military contacts with Turkey make Moscow especially unhappy. A particular irritant is Turkey's assistance in modernizing the Marneuli airbase near Tbilisi. In addition, in October 2002 a Turkish military delegation arrived in Tbilisi to attend the formal opening of the United Military Academy set up and co-staffed by members of the Turkish armed forces. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Georgian Defense Minister Lieutenant General David Tevzadze stressed that instruction will comply with NATO standards.
This seemingly confrontational trend, however, is counterbalanced by continuing cooperation between Russia and Turkey. This cooperation is not limited to the construction or gas sectors. Turkey is the first NATO member that in the 1990s started purchasing Russian arms, helicopters and armored personnel carriers for use against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Military ties continue to develop, as witnessed in the visit to Ankara of Russia's Chief of General Staff Anatolii Kvashnin in January 2002. Also, in November 2001 in New York, the Turkish and Russian foreign ministers signed a memorandum promising to coordinate their policies in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Thus, despite Russia's and Turkey's longer-term competing agendas, Moscow, a number of analysts believe, is now more open to cooperation with Turkey in the Caucasus, and Turkey is becoming more adept at framing its involvement in the region in a way that does not offend other countries' sensibilities.
This is part III of a series. Read part IV.
Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1988-1997; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 1995, and a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York, 2000. He is now based in Istanbul, Turkey. This article is excerpted from a paper originally delivered at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia, November 20, 2002.
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