... number of challenges internally and in its immediate neighbourhood.
Andrey Kortunov
, Director of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), shares his analysis of President Putin’s situation amid these crises, and of Russia’s relations with Turkey and the EU.
What does Vladimir Putin's current situation look like, amid the different crises Russia is facing at home and in its immediate neighborhood? Is he able to provide stability in the region?
Andrey Kortunov:
How the Pandemic Will Change ...
Only a common threat or personnel renewal of the top leadership of one of the countries can reconcile Cairo and Ankara
The Arab Republic of Egypt and the Republic of Turkey are the largest states in the Middle East and claim the leading role in the Islamic world. Relations between them soured in 2013 when a group of officers led by Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew President Mohammed Morsi, ...
... Armenia.
The city of Tovuz is located near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline, both of which are gates for Azerbaijan to transport its oil and natural gas, the so-called "Caspian Sea wealth," to Turkey, Europe and other global markets.
A Blow to Russian Interests
Christian Wollny:
Nagorno-Karabakh: A Frozen Conflict Rethawed
The location of the attack or the clashes indicates that they were against Turkish-Western and Turkish-Azerbaijani interests....
... "cold" to "superhot" and then to "frozen," as in unresolved. From the Mediterranean to the Balkans to Central Asia, these frozen conflicts remain, with the habit of resurging violence every now and then.
The increasing tension between Turkey and Greece, both NATO members, served as a heads-up to what is now happening in the South Caucasus. The ongoing tension between Georgia and Russia also stems from the frozen conflict unsolved in the last decade of the last millennia. Heading to ...
... sending Syrian and Libyan mercenaries (according to some sources, thousands of militants!), sponsored, possibly, by regional powers, which also send modern weapons to the parties in war. Some global players also have this information, and are accusing Turkey, in particular, of involvement in these actions.
Second, many external forces are highly involved in the conflict and at the same time, paradoxically, their peacekeeping capabilities are limited, even if the international community (as represented ...
... incorporation of Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia. Therefore, for Nagorno-Karabakh, it is a question of surviving the time of a diplomatic recognition which will ultimately lead to its reattachment.
Because of financial difficulties and poor relations with Turkey since the events of 1915, Yerevan is strengthening its partnerships with Moscow, which is the only power capable of imposing itself against Turkey (a member of NATO). Yerevan is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and ...
... escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh include: 1) Russia finding itself hemmed in from all sides by the seemingly unbreakable transatlantic coalition which has given the West considerable room for manoeuvre with regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue; 2) Turkey’s exponentially growing ambitions to build a new Islamic Empire, which are bolstered by the country’s strong alliance with the United States; and 3) the complete ineptitude of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, the United States and France), which ...
The logic and dynamics of Turkey’s current foreign policy continue to place Erdogan in the middle of a minefield, where any step could prove fatal for his relations with Vladimir Putin
Analysts, journalists and bloggers love to compare the Russian and Turkish leaders. And ...
... disagree upon. The attention has shifted towards the Eastern Mediterranean in the last ten years, while it had only focused on the Aegean Sea before energy discoveries were made in the Levantine Basin in 2009.
Artyom Semyonov:
Gas Without a Fight: Is Turkey Ready to Go to War for Resources in the Mediterranean?
Greek-Turkish relations were relatively calm from 1999 until 2016. In 2002, Athens and Ankara launched the so-called “exploratory talks,” a format to exchange views on thorny issues informally....
... Eastern Mediterranean is no exception, as another power has staked its claim to a share of the region’s resources, a power that had officially received no piece of the gas “pie” that the European states had divided up among themselves. This power is Turkey, which has decided to actively explore the gas deposits in the Eastern Mediterranean and has also visibly increased its military presence in the region. Over the last few months, Turkish and Greek warships have been involved in several dangerous ...
