Turkey is trying to avoid openly taking sides in the war of Russia against Ukraine. While condemning the Russian invasion and supplying Bayraktar drones to Ukraine, Turkey did not join the economic sanctions against Russia and in fact may seek to benefit from the Western sanctions against Russia, all while acting as a facilitator of negotiations between the parties. The backdrop of Turkey’s actions is gradually growing Turkish influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In this forum, speakers will address how Turkey’s strategy affects the wider region from Eastern Europe to Western China.

Date: April 20, 2022, 10.00 AM, EST.

Speakers:

• Ambassador Matthew Bryza, Board Member, Jamestown Foundation\
• Suat Kiniklioglu, Former Member of the Turkish Parliament
• Svante Cornell, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council

Moderator:

Fred Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council

 Register for the Zoom webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nvN2Lu0ZROKoZASfi8Su1w

The event will also be live-streamed on the CACI Facebook page and here on the Silk Road Studies website.

Between Eurasia and the Middle East: Azerbaijan's New Geopolitics

Svante E. Cornell

Baku Dialogues, September 2020

Azerbaijan’s geopolitics have changed considerably in the last decade, along with the growing general instability in its neighborhood. Gone are the days symbolized by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline’s construction, when a relatively stable balance existed between a loose Russian-led alignment including Iran and Armenia, and an informal entente between the United States and Turkey, which supported the independence of Azerbaijan and Georgia and the construction of direct energy transportation routes to Europe. From 2008 until today, the geopolitical environment has shifted in several important ways. First, it is more unstable and unpredictable. Second, the threshold of the use of force has decreased dramatically. And third, to a significant extent, the geopolitics of Eurasia and the Middle East have merged, bringing increasing complications. 

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