Shusha Declaration in Russian Political Thought

Baku/18.06.21/Turan: Russian experts regard the signing the Shusha Declaration as a continuation of Erdogan's policy of restoring the Ottoman Empire.

Russian Turkologist Nadein-Raevsky discusses Erdogan's intention to show that Turkey's actions are not an accident, but fit into the framework of a common pan-Turkist policy. Erdogan sought to eliminate the Armenian wedge that divides the Turkic world. The Turkologist distinguishes Erdogan's actions in Azerbaijan from the policy of neo-Ottomanism in other countries. “The talk is about the creation of a supranational community in a new area. The goal is to unite the Turkic-speaking peoples”.

At the same time, Nadein-Raevsky is sure that Azerbaijani President Aliyev is not ready to share power with anyone, and therefore is not interested in significantly strengthening Turkish influence in his country.

Vadim Mukhanov from MGIMO considers Erdogan's visit to Azerbaijan as a response to revanchist sentiments in Armenia where they are not satisfied with the results of last year's war and do not want to unblock old and create new communications.

“This is a very interesting attempt on the part of Aliyev. Therefore, in this regard, we can view Erdogan's visit to Karabakh as support for the expansion of Azerbaijan,” the expert said. The Turkish-Azerbaijani talks in Shusha and the signed documents further strengthen Ankara's positions in the Caucasus, and this cannot but worry Russia, said Russian political scientist Andrei Areshev.

He notes that of course, all these post-Soviet 30 years Azerbaijan has been moving towards Turkey in one way or another. It is also clear that Turkey has been active and continues to operate in the post-Soviet space. Areshev puts the responsibility for what is happening on Yerevan, which failed to keep Shusha for itself.

"In any case, the Armenian government gave the enemy a powerful informational, ideological, cultural, historical and propaganda reason to demonstrate the fruits that friendship with Turkey is supposedly capable of bringing. The loss of Shusha (by the Armenians - Ed.) is another episode demonstrating the Turkish experience in solving problems," said Areshev.

The political scientist believes that now Ankara is consolidating itself in Azerbaijan and in the South Caucasus in general, tomorrow it will try to transfer this experience to the countries of Eastern Europe, to Ukraine. There is an agreement with Kiev on the joint production of the notorious "Bayraktars". True, Areshev hopes that this production will not work so quickly there due to a number of specific reasons.

As for Moscow's position, it cannot but reckon with the strengthening of the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance. The most interesting thing in Areshev's reasoning is the issue of prolonging the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh. “The problem will have to be solved through a long and tough dialogue with the Turkic states,” Areshev added. Turkey is building a new empire,” said Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the Institute for the Middle East.

"Azerbaijan and Turkey are currently allies. Erdogan has quite big plans for the post-Soviet space, especially the countries of the Turkic world, and for the Turkic regions of Russia. He never hid it and does not hide it. This is what he is implementing," Satanovsky said. ...

Erdogan has two tools for building a new Turkish empire. The first is Pan-Turkism; the second is political Islam, which he uses in regions outside the Turkic world. Pan-Turkism is not popular in them.

Azerbaijan in this format acts as a source of oil and gas, as a fairly important and capacious market. As for sovereignty, this concept is conditional. If it is influenced in terms of economic potential, military capabilities, then there are no problems with this.

Satanovsky does not know whether the Turkish plans correspond to the Azerbaijani ones. Until now, he has not heard anything about this from the Azerbaijani leadership.

As for what will happen when the 5-year mandate of the Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh ends, it makes no sense to predict now. It is not known what may happen in the next year.

"The Armenian side has a very clear time lag until the moment when something can happen," Satanovsky said.

In his words, much depends on what Armenia will manage to do during this time in order to strengthen, rebuild, and get out of the current situation. — 0—

The reasoning of Nikolai Silaev, a leading researcher at the Institute of International Studies at MGIMO, can be considered atypical for Russian thought. He suggests not getting involved with the theory of neo-Ottomanism, calling such reasoning related to political philosophy, ideology and journalism. Since the attempts to influence Turkey culturally extend not only to the Turkic countries. After all, there is a Turkish university in Georgia, and Turkish mullahs in Germany,” Silaev reminds. Georgia and Germany can in no way be considered the territories of the new Erdogan Empire.-0-