:: Nihal Singh

Great Game gets new players: Turkey, Iran

S. Nihal Singh

May.7 : A "Great Game" was once played between Great Britain and Czarist Russia, but the "Great Game" has now moved further north to the southern Caucasus, and it involves not merely Russia and the West but important regional actors — Turkey and, up to a point, Iran. Indeed, with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vigorous "neighbourhood policy", the pace of the battle has picked up considerably evoking the times of the Russian and Ottoman Empires jostling for greater influence.

The most significant recent development was the agreement between Turkey and Armenia on "a road map" towards normalisation of relations after a yearlong series of secret negotiations in Switzerland initiated by Ankara. The borders between the two countries were closed after the 1992 war over the Armenian-majority enclave of Nagorno-Karabak in Azerbaijan and Armenian troops remain there since the ceasefire declared in 1994. Azerbaijan is an ally of Turkey and is linguistically close to it.

Historical memories run deep in southern Caucasus, and Armenians have never forgiven the killing of an estimated million Armenians in 1915 in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, classed as a genocide by Armenia and much of the West. Turks consider it as a consequence of the turmoil in those unsettled times in which Turks were killed as well. But those killings have remained a symbol of the enmity between the two countries, with closed borders making Armenia dependent upon Russia for its trade and commerce.

As long as the Army controlled the Turkish state, Ankara used the genocide charge as a foil to its ultra-nationalism, and it is an indication of Mr Erdogan’s resolve and confidence that he sought to change the equations in the Caucasus by standing traditional attitudes on their heads by initially encouraging the formation of a joint reconciliation commission with Armenians. Russia, of course, supported Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabak war. The Russian Federation has now entered the field, initiating moves to resolve the contentious enclave problem by becoming the peacemaker. If Armenian troops could be withdrawn from the enclave in exchange for Russian peacemakers, Moscow would emerge the winner.

The opening of the Turkish-Armenian border would change the contours of the region, with neighbouring Turkish provinces gaining in prosperity and giving Ankara speedier access to Central Asia. And Azeri nervousness would be assuaged by the return of Azeri refugees to the enclave and an end to Armenian occupation of one-eighth of its territory.

These are, of course, not the only games being played in the region. The European Union (EU) has called a meeting of Plus Six — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine — ostensibly to promote regional stability and prosperity without offering the promise of membership. Despite the thaw in Belarus’ relations with the EU, it has made it clear that it would not choose between the EU and Russia while Ukraine is frustrated that EU membership is ruled out as an agenda of the grouping’s forthcoming meeting. Russia, on its part, is looking askance at the EU’s activism, believing it to be an attempt to extend Brussels’ influence beyond its eastern membership.

A few days before the scheduled Nato’s military exercises in Georgia — a provocation in Russian eyes — Moscow signed security treaties with the two breakaway Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia it had earlier recognised, provoking Nato’s "deep concern". The United States had been doing its own geopolitical engineering by encouraging the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum oil and gas pipelines bypassing Russia. The prize catch, of course, is Azeri gas and Gazprom remains a suitor. If Azerbaijan remains less than satisfied with the terms of a future Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, it could divert gas supplies to Russia.

Two new agreements have been signed: the opening of a 515-mile pipeline to carry Caspian oil from the Caucasian basin to west Ukraine, Georgia and Bulgaria and a treaty creating a new Black Sea train ferry route that would give Baku direct access to the West. And in a symbolic defiance of Russia, a midget military exercise of 100 soldiers from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine was held east of Tbilisi. On its part, Iran has improved its relations with Azerbaijan.

It is becoming an increasingly crowded field, but Turkey is playing a key role. It has the option of the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline to transit Turkey. Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party suffered its first major reverse in seven years in recent local elections, but instead of nursing his wounds, he has responded by a sweeping revamping of his Cabinet, bringing in his foreign policy adviser, Ahmet Davutoglu, as foreign minister. In fact, the adviser’s regional activism focusing on closer ties with West Asian neighbours earned him the sobriquet of "neo-Ottoman" from critics.

However, the moving spirit of Turkey’s foreign policy initiatives remains Mr Erdogan, who has been undeterred by his troubled relations with the European Union on his country’s membership prospects to pursue what he believes is Ankara’s mission. This is defined as Turkey’s uniqueness in straddling Europe and Asia, being a democratic Muslim-majority nation and being singularly qualified to be the peacemaker between a largely Christian West and a predominantly Muslim West Asia. Until the Gaza killings temporarily changed the equation between Ankara and Tel Aviv, Turkey was conducting indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Until the advent of the AK (Justice and Development) Party, the dominant power in the land, the Army, had played on secularism and nationalism and close alignment with the United States as its main themes in exercising power. Although Mr Erdogan believes in the value of close relations with the US, he has altered the focus of foreign policy goals to a more pragmatic stance in accenting the country’s own interests. These, in the AK Party’s eyes, lie in its immediate neighbourhood and in amplifying the country’s assets in the region at a time of mounting tensions fuelled in part by Islamic fundamentalism and the Western response to it.