ArmInfo.A very important milestone for Turkey's policy in the South Caucasus region will be 2023, when the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Republic will be celebrated, and then Erdogan plans to announce the creation of a new Turkey. This is the opinion of the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, academician Ruben Safrastyan.
According to him, serious forces are working on this project today in Turkey, including think tanks. In this regard, he expressed the assumption that by this time, that is, within a year and a half, Turkey will try to achieve new international victories in terms of increasing its influence. After the second Karabakh war, the academician believes, Turkey will undoubtedly continue its policy towards the South Caucasus, the purpose of which is to strengthen the small bridgehead that it managed to get as a result of this war against Artsakh.
Safrastyan explained his opinion by the fact that Turkey had the opportunity to create a joint monitoring center together with Russia. And although Ankara had much broader appetites and sought the presence of its military contingent in the peacekeeping forces, having received an unequivocal refusal from Moscow, nevertheless, it achieved the possible minimum.
Now, according to Safrastyan, Turkey, having received at least some, but a foothold, will continue its aggressive policy, which at this stage consists in further promoting its pan-Turkist plan related to the Meghri corridor, and will do its utmost to ensure that the Armenian Syunik partially passes under control of Azerbaijan. Speaking about what Armenia can oppose to this, according to Safrastyan, these are two categorical imperatives: the restoration of the subjectivity and controllability of the Armenian state and the restoration of the army, as well as the deepening of military-strategic cooperation with Russia. "And I also think that we need to create a model of the state in our country, which is commonly called the model of a" smart state ". Only in this case Armenia will be able to oppose Turkey's plan in the region in alliance with Russia, "Safrastyan said.
It should be noted that the opinion of the Armenian expert is confirmed by the numerous comments of the expert community of Azerbaijan, which is considering the "Shusha Declaration" recently signed in the captured in Artsakh city of Shushi as the first step towards the creation of an Azerbaijani-Turkish confederation, to which the opening of the so-called Zangezur corridor will also contribute.