Arab-Turkic partnership: breaking fresh ground Azerbaijan-UAE turning new page of cooperation

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev met with His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), during his official visit to Abu Dhabi. It is known that the two leaders have warm friendly relations. It should be noted that the two countries are linked by close economic ties, with trade and mutual investments steadily increasing. A number of alternative energy projects are planned, including in the Karabakh and East Zangazur economic regions.

At the meeting, Ilham Aliyev said the support provided by the UAE to Azerbaijan during the debate on the South Caucasus region in the UN Security Council is highly appreciated. He hailed it as an example of friendship and brotherhood.

During the visit of a government delegation, SOCAR and Masdar signed another agreement on the development of wind and solar power plants in Azerbaijan with a capacity of 4 GW. We should remind that the company has already been involved in the project of solar power plants in Garadagh.

On January 16, President Aliyev delivered a speech at the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Development Week. He participated as a guest of honor by President Al Nahyan. The head of our state stressed the role Azerbaijan attaches to renewable energy sources and its intention to become an energy exporter.

Considering this visit, let us try to capture the geopolitical context of Azerbaijan's relations with the Arab world.

A thousand and one details

This meeting was one of the milestones in cementing Azerbaijan's ties with the Arab world. In this regard, we should also recall the Azerbaijani leader's participation as a guest of honour at the League of Arab States (LAS) summit in Algeria in early November last year.

Building our relations with the Arab states, of course, we are first of all guided by our national interests. At the same time, we are connected with the Arab world by a common spiritual foundation, Islam. This factor determines the existence of common ethical principles that need political expression in the international arena. Therefore, it is in our interest to unite the Arab world on a number of issues. We have to create and defend an agenda in support of the Third World countries unjustly marginalised by neoliberal globalization, to jointly resist both Islamophobic tendencies and terrorist movements in the name of Islam. Azerbaijan, which has good relations with most Arab countries, has tremendous potential to moderate between Arab countries themselves, as well as with external actors such as Israel and Türkiye. It is significant that Azerbaijan has played an important role in the recent normalisation of relations between these very actors in Middle Eastern politics.

Having mentioned Türkiye, it is important to realise the key role of this country as our main strategic ally in the context of our relations with the Arab world.

Türkiye's relations with Arab countries are full of contradictions. On the other hand, the Middle East, after a decade of revolutionary and military upheavals, and political and diplomatic crises, has been showing a movement toward integration since 2020. It is still far from an idyll, but almost all the players have somehow begun to show the will to normalise relations. There seems to be some factor contributing to the optimisation of these processes in the interests of all sides. The expert community tends to see this as a factor in the decline of the US clout and role in the region. The US has long been the security guarantor of both the Gulf monarchies and Israel. But its military intervention in Iraq literally exploded the region, flooding it with dozens of terrorist and semi-terrorist groups, some of which are supported by Iran, an eternal rival of Arab countries and Israel. The withdrawal of the US military contingent from Iraq and Afghanistan also did not help to preserve the image of the United States as a reliable military ally. Under these conditions, the Arab states, and probably Israel, faced the need to calculate new options for building a security system in the region. Add to this Russia's entanglement in Ukraine and the consequent decline in activity in the Middle East. Here, history poses a peculiar challenge to Türkiye as the likely security guarantor and arbiter of the region. Türkiye passed the test with flying colours in the Qatar crisis in 2017, defending the small country against the powerful onslaught of the coalition of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain.

Now we are witnessing Türkiye's relations with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE being progressively improved. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statements about Türkiye's readiness to resume relations with Egypt, and even to begin a dialogue with the Assad regime in Syria, are also indicative in this sense.

Another signal heralding the start of a larger Middle East dialogue process is the as-yet unconfirmed rumors about Egyptian President Al-Sisi's upcoming visit to Baku. If confirmed, it could be called a historic event. It will be the first visit of the head of one of the largest Arab states to Azerbaijan. In light of our thoughts about Baku's moderating role, we assume that mediation of the negotiations between Egypt and Türkiye will also be on the agenda of the meeting.

Thus, the Türkiye-Azerbaijan tandem may become one of the key links in the emerging process of creating a new security system in the Middle East.

The Arab world is an extremely complex and contradictory one. Despite the existence of several integrating organisations, chief among which is the aforementioned LAS, it cannot act as a single actor in the international arena. No matter how much the Arab idealists complain, the situation is rather logical - the geography of the Arab world is too wide and scattered, and the economic and mental contradictions between countries are too great to speak of a common position. In light of this observation, having a non-Arab arbiter and partner in Türkiye and its moderator ally Azerbaijan could serve to consolidate the Arab world on important issues on the international agenda.

The most sensitive issue in the Middle East is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Azerbaijan's rising clout on the international stage perhaps encourages us to join in the mediation process between the parties, each of which is close to us on a number of factors.

The normalisation of Israel's relations with a number of Arab countries (recall the Abraham Accords of 2020 between the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco on one side and Israel on the other) has raised hopes, if not for a swift resolution of the Palestinian question, then at least for positive momentum in the process. The signals coming from Israel about its desire to build Israeli-Arab opposition to Iranian expansion in the Middle East are a tacit indication of Israel's determination to take a certain step toward a peaceful settlement of the conflict with Palestine. As they say, we shall wait and see.

For our part, it is very important to unite our ties with the Arab world with Turkic integration. The process can and must produce a synergetic effect by creating a new powerful voice in the international arena. In light of Ilham Aliyev's recent statements on the need to reform the UN Security Council by including one Muslim country and one member of the Non-Aligned Movement in its permanent membership on a rotating basis, it suggests that Azerbaijan has the required potential to become an assembly point of a new geopolitical entity - the international Islamic community in close liaison with other "forgotten" countries, which is home to more than half of the global population and still has no opportunity to influence world affairs.

The ground has been cleared for an Arab-Turkic partnership. Whether the foundations for a solid building are laid, or whether the sluggish construction will "settle down" depends on the will of the many leaders. However, it should be noted that no matter how fast and successfully such an entity is established, the very fact of Azerbaijan's efforts in this direction gives our country tremendous international credibility and strengthens our statehood. That in itself is a good thing.