Turkey Lays Out Plan for Caucasian Alliance
The Turkish government continues to present itself as a regional leader. After talking with both Israel and Syria about a potential peace agreement between the two enemies, Turkey is now working on a ‘Caucasian alliance.’
Such an alliance would, to a large degree, aim at establishing peace between Georgia and Russia, but it would accomplish more than just that.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babacan hosted Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili in Turkey’s largest city Istanbul, two days before he is to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavro.
Babacan told reporters Georgia welcomed the idea of a Caucasian alliance. A spokesman for the Georgian government, however, explained that Georgia would only join such an alliance if Russias forces would truly leave Georgian territory immediately and fully apply the ceasefire.
The alliance Turkey hopes to establish is called the “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform.” Ankara sees this as ‘a mechanism through which countries could discuss cooperation opportunities particularly in economy, discuss some concrete measures particularly confidence-building ones, and find solutions to problems.’
Babacan said Turkey wants five countries to join the alliance and that he will hold meetings will all five.
Turkey is increasingly behaving like the regional superpower it is. With more than 70 million inhabitants, tremendous economic growth each year and NATO’s second largest military, Turkey now seems to live up to its responsibilities and capabilities in the region. There is no need for the Turks to withdraw from the world and pretend they are powerless. They are far from weak. Turkey is one of the most powerful countries in the region, and of immense importance to just about everyone. The Moslem world, the West, and the East all want to have good relations with this country because of its strength and (potential) influence).
The more active Turkey becomes, the more it will be respected, the more business it will attract and the more it successful it will be. Gül and Erdogan can be criticized on a variety of issues, but their willingness to play an important role in the region is not one of them.
The other "regional superpower" element that Turkey has is the fact that most of the Central Asian ex-Soviet republics are peoples closely related to the Turks.
It will be interesting to see how the Caucasian plan works out. Other than Georgia the biggest dispute in the south Caucasus is the Azeri/Armenian conflict. This would be a big prize to sort out, as this would allow alternative pipeline routes to Europe through Armenia, now that Georgia is less secure. I wonder if the Turks could sort this out,the (pro-Russian) Armenians tend to regard them as the ancestral enemy, but perhaps they could persuade the Azeris to allow territorial changes over Nagorno-Karabakh to reflect the facts on the ground. I’d suspect that this is a long shot however.