Turkey, Russia and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, hosts a meeting with the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev and the prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan in early 2021. Photo: website of the President of the Russian Federation (CC) http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64877

The simultaneous involvement of the two regional powers in the South Caucasus is reminiscent of the situation in Syria and Libya where Turkey and Russia have had conflicting interests but attempted to negotiate them. This time, however, Russia strives to dominate the peacekeeping process in Nagorno-Karabakh to reinforce its traditional sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space.

The diplomatic Gordian knot

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is a part of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognised territory and inhabited by an Armenian majority, has been one of the longest unresolved conflicts in the post-Soviet area. The last major war over the break-away region ended in 1994 with an uneasy status quo, frequently disrupted by skirmishes along the frontlines. The 1994 ceasefire actually cemented Armenian territorial gains at the expense of Azerbaijan, as the Armenians not only captured the majority of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), but also seven regions which belonged to Azerbaijan proper. These territories were treated as a buffer zone for the newly established separatist quasi-state, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and a possible bargaining chip in peace negotiations with Azerbaijan.

The resolution of the conflict has fallen under the auspices of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group – co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States – which failed to produce any breakthrough for decades. This situation has become increasingly frustrating for Baku, as it hoped to regain control over at least seven occupied districts formerly inhabited by an Azerbaijani majority, which was forced to flee during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in the 1990s.

As a result, the conflict has been simmering for decades and it was only a matter of time when it would flare up again. All the more so, Azerbaijan has been preparing for this for a long time, utilising its hydrocarbon wealth to buy technologically-advanced weapons. The so-called Four Day War, which took place in April 2016, appeared to be Baku’s first serious attempt to recapture part of the occupied territories. This operation ended quickly with modest territorial gains, yet the sheer scale of it, the number of forces and military equipment involved suggests that these were not the usual skirmishes on the contact line, but a well-prepared military action. The April war seemed to be a prelude for the 2020 war. It signalled that Baku has been growing frustrated by the stalled peace process and sought to resolve the conflict by other means.

The most recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh started on September 27th 2020 and ended on November 9th with an armistice. This relatively short war, which lasted for about six weeks, took a large human toll as it claimed the lives of more than 6,000 soldiers and approximately 150 civilians on both sides. These numbers are likely to rise, since at the time of writing there are still dozens of soldiers missing in action. What is worse, the attacks spread outside the frontlines, as cities in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh had been targeted by long-range missiles that have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.

In the recent years Baku purchased technically advanced weaponry, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which played a crucial role in the current round of hostilities. Technological superiority and an innovative fighting strategy were behind Azerbaijan’s fast territorial gains in Nagorno-Karabakh and beyond. These rapid successes in the battlefield resulted in the recapturing of roughly four out of seven districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh and a large chunk of the former NKAO, including the strategically and symbolically important city of Shusha.

Old hegemon losing power?

During the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia remained ostensibly passive, which prompted many observers to conclude that it has been outplayed in its own backyard by the far more active Turkey. This could not have been further from the truth, as it soon turned out that Moscow worked behind the scenes to assemble a ceasefire deal which not only ended the bloody six-weeks war, but also allowed Russia to place a peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh. Inserting peacekeeping forces into the conflict was Moscow’s long-standing goal, outlined in the so-called Lavrov plan. This informal proposal also envisaged Armenia’s unconditional withdrawal from five out of the seven occupied territories and delayed settling the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which has long been an issue of contention between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The implementation of this plan, as was proposed several years ago, would give Moscow greater influence over all the frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet space. Although the proposal was rejected at the time, the security arrangements, which are now being applied in post-war Nagorno-Karabakh, bear some resemblance to the Lavrov plan. This time, however, the terms are less favourable for Armenia, which was forced to hand over seven regions to Azerbaijan within a very tight timeframe and lost a substantial part of Nagorno-Karabakh, including Shusha.

According to the November armistice, Russia has deployed 1,960 troops from its 15th Motorised Rifle Brigade to the Armenian-controlled parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor, which will link Armenia proper with the break-away region. Russian border guards will additionally oversee the future land route between Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhchivan. Russia has also provided humanitarian assistance for the region’s residents and spearheaded post-conflict reconstruction in Nagorno-Karabakh.

For years Russia maintained a consistent position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and preferred to play a mediatory role rather than being directly involved. This is despite the fact that Moscow is a security guarantor for Armenia within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led military alliance. Russia has also kept a military base on Armenia’s territory and frequently supplied the country with arms on beneficial terms. However, Moscow has firmly rejected Armenia’s calls to send troops or equipment to Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and underlined that security guarantees are valid only for Armenia’s internationally-recognised borders. Liliya Yapparova from the news portal Meduza found out that Russia might have even prevented private efforts aimed at backing Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. Reportedly, Russian security services prevented mercenaries paid by the Armenian diaspora in Russia to board a plane to Yerevan in order to be deployed there.[1]

The desire to keep positive ties with Baku is one of the likely reasons for Moscow’s ambition to maintain a balance in relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. In recent years Russia and Azerbaijan developed stronger political and economic ties. Russia has also remained the largest arms exporter to Azerbaijan. Moscow even tried to lure Azerbaijan into membership of the Eurasian Economic Union, but Baku preferred to remain non-aligned.

After the 2018 Velvet Revolution, which brought Nikol Pashinyan to power, the balance of power shifted further in favour of Azerbaijan. From the outset, Moscow’s relations with Pashinyan were uneasy. Having come to power as a result of a peaceful street revolution, the sort the Kremlin is inherently mistrustful of, Pashinyan embarked on democratic reforms and resolved to do away with corruption. The new government has also sought to prosecute members of the former ruling regime for human rights violations, many of whom have had very good relations with Moscow.

The current government in Yerevan might be another reason for Moscow’s reluctance to intervene on Armenia’s behalf, but not the most decisive one. Even prior to that, Russia has maintained a position that the territorial gains of Armenia, particularly the seven occupied Azerbaijani districts around Nagorno-Karabakh, were unsustainable and Yerevan’s negotiating position was uncompromising. According to Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, Moscow was convinced that a war in the region was inevitable, given the lack of progress in the negotiations and Azerbaijan’s growing military edge. According to Russia, Pashinyan’s position on the conflict and relations with Azerbaijan only added fuel to the fire, as it was too harsh and populist.[2]

A new entrant to the conflict

The eruption of the recent war coincided with Turkey’s increasingly assertive foreign policy: over the last number of years, it has sought to project its power across the Middle East, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. Recently, Turkey also strived to increase influence in the Black Sea region and the South Caucasus. Such an increasingly dominating posture reflects not only the country’s growing capabilities, especially in the military and technical field, but also fuels the nationalist agenda at home to boost ratings of the incumbent President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Following this logic, Ankara has recently aspired to upgrade its ties with Georgia and Ukraine, particularly in the military sphere. Turkey has also demonstrated its growing interest in shaping the outcome of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which prompted Ankara to give Azerbaijan military and political assistance during the recent round of hostilities. This level of Turkish assistance to Azerbaijan is unprecedented, even though both countries have maintained very close strategic relations based on cultural and ethnic kinship and maintain a bilateral military alliance.

The assistance that Turkey offered to Baku to break the long-lasting stalemate in Nagorno-Karabakh was manifold, but it was the transfer of advanced military hardware and relatively innovative strategy that has given Azerbaijan a significant edge on the battlefield. According to Can Kasapoğlu, a military expert at the Turkish EDAM think-tank, Ankara transferred to Azerbaijan its domestically-produced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and a complete drone warfare strategy, used by Turkey during Operation Spring Shield in Syria in early 2020. The rapidly expanding Turkish drone industry alongside Russian, Israeli and domestically-produced UAVs gave Azerbaijan superiority over Armenian forces, when precise drone strikes have quickly overwhelmed their Russian-made air defence systems, artillery and armoured forces.

Engagement in the conflict has already yielded some beneficial results for Turkey. Several countries, such as Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Serbia, have announced their plans to purchase Turkey’s famed Bayraktar TB2 tactical long endurance UAVs due to its impressive performance in Nagorno-Karabakh and Libya, as well as the advantage it proved to have over certain types of Russian-produced air defence systems. In line with the November ceasefire agreement, Turkey has also gained a direct land connection with Azerbaijan through its exclave Nakhchivan, which is now expected to invigorate economic ties and foster people-to-people connections. The latter will be facilitated by a passport-free regime to be introduced between Azerbaijan and Turkey, according to the agreement signed by Turkish and Azerbaijani presidents on December 10th 2020.

However, Turkey seems to have eyed for more substantial gains. Ankara signalled that it seeks to be part of the peace process in Nagorno-Karabakh and to deploy its peacekeeping contingent there on par with Russia, which could be modelled after the joint mission with Russia in Syria. Nevertheless, Moscow put a damper on these ambitious plans and only agreed to establish a joint monitoring centre with Turkey. The centre tasked with overseeing the armistice will be located in Azerbaijan’s Ağdam district, which was recently handed over to Baku by Armenia in line with armistice agreement. 36 Turkish officers including one general are expected to take part in the monitoring mission, which is a far smaller number in comparison with Russian troops deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Such a move was likely caused by the fact that Russia has realized its longstanding goal of inserting its peacekeepers into another post-Soviet frozen conflict and does not want to share power in its traditional region of influence. What is more, Moscow has been particularly explicit in not allowing Turkish soldiers into Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkish military near the Armenian settlements would definitely cause uproar in Armenia, which Russia likely wants to avoid to ensure stability in the country that has already been affected by serious post-war political and humanitarian crises.

New leverage

The November 9th ceasefire has forged a new security framework for Nagorno-Karabakh and was shaped almost exclusively by Russia and Turkey. The West, especially the US amid the presidential election campaign, was either passive or lacked adequate clout to effectively engage with the conflicted sides to cease the fighting. In fact, western powers were side-lined for the benefit of Moscow and Ankara and played no role in reaching the ceasefire agreement.

As a result, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict became entangled in the Turkish-Russian dynamics, which has been already seen in Syria and Libya and might likely be underway in the Black Sea region and the South Caucasus: Russia and Turkey have conflicted interests in these theatres but prefer to put the differences aside to reach mutually beneficial goals.

Yet this time might be different since Russia has visibly gained an upper hand, reinforcing its position in the region as the most successful mediating and peacekeeping power. Moscow has gained a new leverage over both Armenia and Azerbaijan since it took control over Armenia’s most important security concern and placed its troops on the internationally-recognised territory of Azerbaijan. It has also ostensibly side-lined Turkey by relegating it to the secondary role in the peacekeeping process.

Be that as it may, Turkey has established a military foothold in the region and cemented its military and political links with Baku, whereas the future land route between both countries will likely invigorate their economic and people-to people ties. Given the fact that Ankara has been simultaneously strengthening its relations with Georgia, these developments, in the long run, might undermine Russia’s position in Azerbaijan and in the whole region at the benefit of Turkey.

Natalia Konarzewska is a graduate of University of Warsaw, as well as a freelance expert and analyst with a focus on political and economic developments in the post-Soviet space.

[1] Liliya Yapparova, “We were desperate, get it?”, Meduza, December 7th 2020.

[2] Michael Young, “Playing Great Games in the South Caucasus. Interview with Alexander Gabuev”. Diwan. Middle East Insights from Carnegie, November 12th 2020.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nagron-Karabakh, War