Turkologist: Turkey and Azerbaijan hold the unblocking of borders as  the icing on the cake of common normalization with Armenia

ArmInfo. Judging by the latest statements by Armenian officials, there has been some disappointment in Yerevan regarding the process of normalizing relations with  Turkey.  Victor Nadein-Raevsky, Ph.D. in Philosophy, director of  the  Institute of Political and Social Studies of the Black  Sea-Caspian  region, senior researcher of IMEMO RAS (Russia) expressed  a similar  opinion to ArmInfo.

"At the initial stage of the process, there were illusions in  Armenia, conditioned by the results of the 44-day war, according to  which, after the disappearance of the main prerequisite, that is,  after the taking of territories by Azerbaijan, Turkey will go to  unblock the borders. Yerevan hoped that the normalization of  relations with Ankara would weaken Baku's influence on it. Such a  strategy was visible from the statements made from Yerevan," he  noted.

However, according to the Turkologist Ankara and Baku are guided by  their own strategic calculations, within which they hold the process  of unblocking the borders with Armenia as the icing on the cake of  the common normalization process. Since they are well aware that by  opening the border, they will not immediately receive a positive  decision on the status of Artsakh and communications through the  territory of Armenia.

At the same time, Turkey itself, according to Nadein-Raevsky, has no  weighty reasons for continuing the blockade of Armenia. In this  sense, Ankara, in his opinion, in this matter is a kind of hostage to  Baku's policy, that is aimed at resolving the issue of the status of  Nagorno-Karabakh in favor of Azerbaijan and obtaining a corridor to  Nakhichevan through Armenia.

Commenting on the current policy of Turkey, the Turkologist described  it as oriented towards national interests. Being a true ally of NATO  and trying to demonstrate this constantly, on the other hand, Recep  Erdogan repeatedly goes beyond all the limits prescribed by  Washington. And it was under Erdogan that Turkey became more active  in pursuing a policy oriented both to the West and to the East. This  was largely facilitated by the coup attempt in 2016, in which Ankara  blamed Washington.

"As of today, there are three pronounced accents in Turkish foreign  policy. First of all, it is the incitement of pan-Turkic sentiments  with the aim of consolidating all Turkic peoples into a single state  of Turan.  Second, neo-Ottomanism, expressed in the buildup of  Turkish political influence in countries that were previously part of  the Ottoman Empire. And, finally, the strengthening of geopolitical  influence through the religious factor,  Islamism," the Turkologist  summed up.