The Turkey-Armenia-Azerbaijan Triangle: The Unexpected Outcomes of the Zurich Protocols

Abstract

The Turkish-Armenian rapprochement process generated serious concerns in Azerbaijan, at both the public and governmental levels. The particular worry was how the improvement in Turkish-Armenian relations would affect the resolution of the Azerbaijani- Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The immediate cause of the closure of the Turkish-Armenian border was Armenia’s 1993 occupation of Kelbajar, one of the seven adjunct districts to Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region. Baku’s resistance to the normalisation process was and is based on the argument that the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the opening of the Turkish- Armenian border should, given their connection, move forward in parallel. The normalisation process saw an agreement to establish mutual diplomatic recognition, culminating in the Zurich Protocols in October 2009, signed in the presence of the Russian, French and Swiss foreign ministers and the US Secretary of State. However, neither party has ratified the protocols, and the process has essentially been frozen pending progress on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Six months after the signing, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s declaration that Turkish parliamentary ratification was contingent on the conflict resolution progress prompted condemnation from the Armenian side, and an official

Keywords

• Zurich Protocols, Turkish-Armenian rapprochement/normalisation, RussoGeorgian War, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijani-Turkish relations.

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