Turkish transit: Ankara and Yerevan seek normalization
While Russia bypasses Georgia via Baku

ANALYTICS  04 July 2022 - 10:24

A new milestone in the transport logistics of the South Caucasus and the Middle East: Türkiye and Armenia have agreed to open the land border for citizens of third countries and direct air cargo transportation. And according to expert estimates, this decision will strengthen the transport integration of these countries, as well as the transit potential of Azerbaijan as a global hub between a number of Eurasian regions.

We will try to figure out how all this will work. The statement of the Turkish Foreign Ministry promises a lot of interesting prospects and says at least that there is a tangible shift from the meeting of the sides - representatives of Ankara and Yerevan. This is evidenced at least by the positive tone of the statement, at least as far as the diplomatic language allows. It is noted that the sides stressed their agreement to continue the normalization process without preconditions.

The statement also says that on July 1 the fourth meeting between Kılıç and Rubinyan, the chief negotiators of the two countries, was held in Vienna, where an agreement was reached on the need to open the land border between Türkiye and Armenia as soon as possible for the citizens of third countries who visit them.

Also, the Turkish Foreign Ministry reports that "the sides agreed to start direct air cargo transportation between Türkiye and Armenia as soon as possible and decided to initiate the necessary process to achieve this goal."

And perhaps most importantly: other possible concrete steps that could be taken to "ensure full normalization" of relations between the two countries, which is the ultimate goal of the negotiations, were also discussed.

In the meantime the very nature of the decision makes at least one more important point: the North-South corridor is getting a new perspective development. And Russia, as one of the main initiators of the direction, is seriously working on it.

At the same time, it is obvious that Azerbaijan will only benefit from this new stage of cross-border transit in its various configurations. First of all, because Baku, unlike Yerevan, tries never to miss the perspective opportunities; Azerbaijan doesn't sit and wait for everything to be ready.

Turkish political analyst Engin Ozer told Caliber.Az that the agreement is only the first step towards increasing contact between Ankara and Yerevan in the sphere of cargo transportation, economic relations, and full-fledged opening of borders.

"We are not yet talking about reciprocal visits of citizens of the two countries, because Turkey and Armenia do not have official diplomatic relations at this stage. However, everything is going towards the final normalization of relations between the countries," Ozer said.

Thus, the opening of the borders between Türkiye and Armenia for citizens of third countries and cargo transportation, in fact, gives Russia an opportunity to establish a new transport corridor to Türkiye and further to the Middle East, bypassing the Georgian Upper Lars. To date, that high-mountain crossing has been the only transfer point for truck traffic from Russia to Türkiye, Armenia, and other countries.

"Georgia's Upper Lars customs checkpoint has long been unable to cope with cargo traffic from Russia to Türkiye. In winter, due to difficult mountain conditions, it sometimes does not function at all. Moscow's desire to force this direction is also connected with rather complex relations with Georgia, which is clearly not on the side of Moscow in the current geopolitical situation and is actively cooperating with NATO," says the Turkish expert.

And the new overland route of the Russian cargo shipments to Türkiye, the expert specifies, will lie through Dagestan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. And it will increase its potential once the land communications between Armenia and Türkiye are established, and highways and railroads will start working.

As a result, Azerbaijan in Russia's plans is an important transport transit hub, which will very soon begin to untwist a new promising direction. Also, according to Ozer, along with the Zangazur corridor, it is an important transit for China's global Silk Road project "One Belt, One Road," which is completely blocked in the Russian direction due to sanctions.

The expert believes that the new redirection of transit is an important element of Moscow's pressure on Georgia, turning it into an "island" in the Caucasus, depriving it of the status of a significant transport hub, if it refuses to accept Moscow's conditions, where the main requirement is to stop or seriously reduce Tbilisi's contacts with NATO.

At the same time, Engin Ozer believes that the corridor through Azerbaijan to Armenia and Türkiye could become an important transit link for traffic flow from other countries, such as Kazakhstan and Central Asian states.

"Such transport corridors, followed by the full opening of borders for economic cooperation and mutual contacts, of course, are very important for Armenia, which gets an opportunity to export its goods to Türkiye and then to Europe or to import goods from there. This will help Armenia become a full member of the world economic and political community. That, of course, will inevitably reduce very soon the ultra-nationalist sentiments in Armenia, will influence the reorganisation of its foreign and domestic policy, will contribute to the restoration of relations with Türkiye and Azerbaijan," concluded the Turkish expert.

Caliber.Az