THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS INDEED

The recent visit by President Ilham Aliyev to Turkey will go down in the history of relations between the two countries as a special event. The firmness of the strategic alliance between Baku and Ankara has been confirmed at a difficult moment for the Turkish nation, which has suffered a series of terrorist attacks lately.

The major terrorist attacks in Ankara on 17 February and 13 March, which killed numerous people, made President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancel a scheduled visit to Azerbaijan, while it was Baku that was originally meant to host the regular, fifth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Turkey High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council.

Incidentally, a number of experts, in particular Mehmet Seyfettin Erol, the director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Gazi University in Ankara, have expressed confidence that those were not just random bloody bombings in the Turkish capital in the run-up to Erdogan’s scheduled visit to Baku. According to Erol, the terrorist attacks “pursued strategic goals, one of which was to impede the multi-dimensional relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan. The forces behind these bloody explosions primarily sought to convey a message to Azerbaijan that hinted that it should abandon its projects with Turkey”.

Supporters of this theory point out that both terrorist attacks in Turkey were committed immediately before Erdogan’s visit to Baku.

However it may have been, the president of Azerbaijan made a meaningful gesture - after the second terrorist attack he went on a visit to Turkey. By doing so he expressed support for the brotherly nation and also did not leave ill-wishers of the Azerbaijani-Turkish alliance any reason to expect that this alliance would weaken. Aliyev made it clear that Azerbaijan would continue to implement the strategic line aimed at strengthening cooperation with fraternal Turkey. He also made it clear that meetings between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey are much more than just contacts between the heads of two states. “It is no coincidence that Turkey hosted the G20 in November last year. We are pleased that Turkey invited Azerbaijan to that prestigious event. Turkey could invite one country and that was Azerbaijan,” the Azerbaijani president said in a press release.

The sincere warm welcome Aliyev received in Ankara and touching moments during the visit, which went beyond the framework of protocol and were captured by media, were a convincing demonstration of the true nature of the relationship between the two countries.

During the meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, Ilham Aliyev once again condemned the monstrous terrorist attack in Ankara and expressed confidence that these kinds of crimes against the Turkish people and state “will not produce any result”.

The Turkish leadership and Turkish public duly appreciated the Azerbaijani leader’s position. “I highly appreciate this visit and the meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council from the point of view of demonstration on the national and international scale of both our joint power and solidarity over what happened, and our unity against all terrorist attacks,” said Erdogan, thanking the Azerbaijani leader for the gesture.

“I want everyone to read with attention the message that has been issued here. Those who describe support for terror and covering up terrorism as freedom and pursue their political interests, while our citizens have not yet been laid to rest, should learn a proper lesson from this message issued by brothers [Azerbaijan and Turkey],” the president of Turkey said.

The desire to further strengthen the friendship and allied relations between Baku and Ankara is secured with concrete actions. The meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council alone resulted in the signing of six cooperation documents between the two countries. The presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey expressed readiness to expand bilateral cooperation, and made it clear that they continued to aim to increase trade between the two brotherly countries to 15bn dollars by 2023. Mutual trade is planned to be increased not only due to the implementation of the TANAP energy project and the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.

It should be noted that the railway that links Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey will be put into operation as soon as the end of this year. This project will make it possible eventually to establish a direct ground connection between London and Beijing. TANAP is an important part of the ongoing project Southern Gas Corridor. It is scheduled to launch in two years, something that Presidents Aliyev and Erdogan confirmed.

The Azerbaijani president quite succinctly described the significance of Azerbaijan and Turkey towards the implementation of TANAP. He said in his statement that if our two countries would not have launched that project in 2012, “the Southern Gas Corridor could not have been implemented today. Turkey and Azerbaijan are playing a leading role in building this corridor. We will try promptly to implement this transnational project that requires large financial resources”.

Meanwhile, it is obvious that Turkey’s interest in the soonest opening of the TANAP gas pipeline has increased considerably in view of the growing confrontation with Russia. For this reason, Ankara is trying to use all opportunities to reduce its energy dependence on Moscow, seeking, in particular, for Azerbaijani and Turkmen gas to flow via its territory.

However, [Azerbaijan and Turkey’s] joint interest in the successful implementation of major economic projects is not the only thing that lies behind Baku and Ankara’s aspiration to expand their bilateral alliance. Another point is the interweaving of the strategic interests of the two countries in the field of political cooperation and security.

Looking at the outcome of the working visit that the president of Azerbaijan paid to Turkey, it is necessary to point out that in addition to affecting the state of and prospects for bilateral cooperation, the outcome also has a pronounced regional dimension. First of all, Azerbaijan and Turkey are interested in the soonest establishment of peace and harmony in the South Caucasus region. Hence the support from Ankara for the fair demand by Baku of the immediate withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijan’s occupied territories. According to Gamze Kona Güngörmüş, a professor at the Turkish University Işık, “the Azerbaijani president’s visit to Ankara is of great importance. It also constitutes a message for Armenians who continue to occupy Azerbaijani lands with the support of foreign forces”.

In this context, a special mention should be made of the growing military cooperation between Baku and Ankara. Incidentally, an Azerbaijani-Turkish joint flight and tactical Air Force exercise called TURAZ Sahini 2016 was held in the Turkish city of Konya on 9-25 March. The exercise was conducted in accordance with an annual plan of bilateral military cooperation.

During his visit to Ankara, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that military cooperation unites Azerbaijan and Turkey. “Our militaries held a joint exercise recently,” he stressed. “This has also become a wonderful tradition. Military-technical cooperation is also deepening. We already purchase different kinds of military equipment and weapons from Turkey. Certainly, Turkey’s successes in this area strengthen Azerbaijan’s defence potential as well.”

Noteworthy is the fact that the strategic alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkey is not directed against any third countries. Baku and Ankara’s efforts are aimed at achieving regional stability and security. In this regard, significant is a wide debate, including in the Russian media, about possible mediation by Azerbaijan between Russia and Turkey. It has also been suggested that Ilham Aliyev discussed with Erdogan prospects for the normalization of Russian-Turkish relations. In this regard, Russian analysts do not rule out Ilham Aliyev’s role in positive signals that Turkey and Russia are expected to be ready to exchange in the near future.

Apparently, Baku is indeed making diplomatic efforts for relations between Ankara and Moscow to normalize. In this regard, one can recall that back in November last year, President Ilham Aliyev said at a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu who was visiting our country that Azerbaijan was ready to mediate in the conflict between Russia and Turkey. Our head of state made a special emphasis on the fact that Azerbaijan is historically closely linked to Russia and Turkey and “the tension in relations between them causes regret and concern”.

Thus, Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Turkey should certainly be considered a milestone in regional geopolitics. The two brotherly countries have common interests on almost all issues related to bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the South Caucasus. But it is even more important that Azerbaijan and Turkey have proved once again that they are next to each other at the most difficult moments in the history of both nations.

In this context, even the way Ilham Aliyev left for his home country was significant. Effectively breaking the existing international diplomatic protocol, Erdogan personally accompanied Aliyev to the aircraft. The president of Azerbaijan, in turn, went even further and invited Erdogan for tea on board his plane. This is where their final conversation took place in the course of the truly landmark visit Ilham Aliyev paid to Ankara.