Sabine Freizer: Only war can unite Moscow and Ankara
Russia, led by its national imperialist foreign policy, is not interested in contributing to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process. The opinion was expressed a year ago by Sabine Freizer, a senior fellow Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council. Given that Russia and Turkey are currently trying to develop a closer relationship, what are the possible developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict? In reply to A1+’s question, Ms Freizer said, “Russia and Turkey are indeed building up their political and economic ties while they have fundamental disagreements over foreign policy issues like the conflict in Syria. Turkey does not currently play an official role in the OSCE Minsk Group and I don’t think that Russia really considers it to be an important conflict resolution actor in the South Caucasus. So far when Turkey has tried to contribute to normalization in the South Caucasus, like it did promoting sea access to Abkhazia, it has tended to do so without much public visibility. Take also the example of Crimea where Turkey has natural allies amongst the Tatars but Ankara has employed silent diplomacy with Moscow to express their concerns about their rights’ protection. Even though Turkey has a clear interest to see movement towards the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, I doubt that Russia has much interest to cooperate with Ankara to achieve any change. Only if there is a real serious resumption of fighting do I imagine that Ankara and Moscow will come together to try to avoid being pulled into a war that would put them on opposite sides.
