Allies and historic foes will come together on Friday in Istanbul to boost cooperation in the South Caucasus at a time of escalating conflicts.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will host his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Azerbaijan’s Jeyhun Bayramov, Armenia’s Ararat Mirzoyan and Iran’s recently appointed Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for the third meeting of the South Caucasus Regional Cooperation Platform.
The Platform is the brainchild of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. It was established shortly after the end of the Second Karabakh War in December 2020, to develop cooperation between countries in the region, which is rich in energy resources and bridges Russia and Asian countries to the West. Georgia was also invited to the platform, but Tbilisi’s hostilities with Russia apparently prevented its participation in previous meetings. The first meeting of the platform was held at the deputy foreign minister level in Moscow in 2021, while the second meeting was held at the foreign minister level last year in Tehran.
Media outlets reported that the ministers will discuss steps to replace conflicts with efforts to maintain stability and prosperity in the region and concrete cooperation projects for regional interconnectivity. The meeting will also focus on regional and international developments and the ministers will exchange the views of their countries on those issues. Fidan is expected to highlight Türkiye’s efforts for peace and stability in the South Caucasus and the importance of regional unity as the best method to resolve outstanding problems.
Fidan is also expected to underline Türkiye’s support of peace agreement negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the normalization of ties between Ankara and Yerevan.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Türkiye was among the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence on Sept. 21, 1991. But in 1993, Türkiye closed its border and cut ties after Armenia's occupation of Karabakh. Ties further deteriorated over Armenia’s insistence on Türkiye’s recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide of 1915, something Türkiye has categorically rejected for decades. Following the 2020 Karabakh war, which saw Azerbaijan regain territory captured by Armenia, Turkish-Armenian relations entered a new phase, and in December 2021, both countries appointed special representatives to hold talks for the normalization process. Special representatives from Türkiye and Armenia, Turkish Ambassador Serdar Kılıç and Armenian Parliament Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan, met on July 30 at their shared border for the fifth round of normalization talks.
Media reports said Fidan will also address economic cooperation possibilities for confidence-building measures between the countries, particularly interconnectivity and economic integration.
One such interconnectivity opportunity is the Zangezur Corridor. The corridor is a transportation concept that is being gradually implemented to secure Azerbaijan's access to the Nakhchivan exclave by skipping Armenia. It, however, remains a contentious issue in peace talks. Moscow supports Azerbaijan’s demand to get unimpeded access to the Nakhchivan enclave by opening the Zangezur Corridor through Armenia, which would cut off Iran’s direct land access to Armenia. The corridor is a geopolitical link for Türkiye to Azerbaijan and, beyond that, Central Asia. Moscow and Baku want Russia to monitor and control the corridor, but Yerevan and Tehran oppose such a scheme and argue that even if a transport route were to be established, Armenia should have control over it.
Türkiye supports the Zangezur Corridor project. President Erdoğan, who will receive Russian, Armenian, Iranian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers on Friday. He hailed the corridor in July, defining it as a “strategic route that will serve in everyone’s interest, especially Azerbaijan, Armenia and Iran” and said Tehran and Baku would be “relieved” if it becomes operational.
The ministers are expected to adopt a joint declaration at the meeting. The declaration will likely highlight the promotion of dialogue in resolving outstanding issues between the countries, as well as the necessity of peaceful solutions to political disputes in the region with principles in the U.N. Charter as the basis. It will also call for countries to respect each other's sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence and borders and to avoid interference in domestic affairs as well as implementing a ban on the threat of the use of force.
