The War Between Period and Exclamation Mark: New Reality and Nagorno-Karabakh: The Cemre that Fell to Nagorno-Karabakh

Abstract

Having always been competition fields thanks to their geopolitical impact potential, the Caucasus and Turkestan have been among the Strategic Focus Centres of Russia since the Tsarist times. While Russia, whose strategic culture has produced expansionist policies for centuries, constantly expanded its political borders, it clashed with the Ottoman Empire and Iran in the Caucasus field of competition. From the second half of the 19th century, the Kazakh regions and independent Turkic states (Khiva, Kokand and Bukhara) were occupied by the Tsarist Russia. The Imperial Age was also a period in which Russia expanded its sphere of influence over the Ottoman Empire through its patronage policies. Having embraced “New Reality” in the regional power projection in the near past, Turkey stayed away from the region for a long time. In addition to some ethnic and cultural problems paused by the Cold War, problems in the partition of the territory came to light again following the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Caucasus geography, from south to north, went back into the period when various national issues were at the forefront and conflicts were experienced. The occupation Armenia carried out with the sponsorship and de facto military support of Russia violated the sovereignty rights of Azerbaijan, caused great social and economic harm, deteriorated the geopolitical impact potential of Azerbaijan and Turkey, and annihilated the possibility of direct connection between Turkey and Turkestan. With Vladimir Putin taking the lead of the Russian Federation, Russia aimed at maintaining regional control and, beyond that, imperial domination, as it had also aimed in the times of the Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. The appointment of Sergey Lavrov, who is of Armenian origin, to the post of Foreign Minister further increased the tension in the South Caucasus region. Eventually, the process that started with Pashinyan’s statement "Artsakh is Armenia, period" during his visit to Khankendi, and Ilham Aliyev's response "Karabakh is Azerbaijan, and exclamation mark!" resulted in absolute defeat of Armenia and pushed it to the position of a desperate province of Russia. However, there is no place for zero-sum games in real life. * Assoc. Prof., Ege University, Institute of Turkish World Studies, İzmir. E-mail; vefa_rzayeva@yahoo.com. ORCID: 0000-0002-8178-1544 ** Dr., E-mail: oguzhanergun@gmail.com. ORCID: 0000-0002-6917-0871 (Makale Gönderim Tarihi: 02.02.2021 Makale Kabul Tarihi: 02.03.2021) Vefa KURBAN Oğuzhan ERGÜN 210 In this study, the cemre1 that fell to the Trans-Caucasus on September 27, 2020 with the first martyr, and new realities are discussed. Following the triumph, how are the balances going to be formed? Or if they are not formed, is a period of conflict going to begin for third countries? What sort of climate change is Aliyev's New Reality going to involve in military, political, economic and cultural terms? The article tries to explain the answer to this question by questioning the historical background and strategic culture.