Azeri President Ilham Aliyev Set to Visit Turkey

Presidential elections took place in Azerbaijan on Oct. 9, with the coming five years of presidential rule decided in these elections.
 
In the wake of the elections, Ilham Aliyev will make the first official visit of his third term as president (2003, 2008, 2013) to Turkey, Nov. 12-13. 
 
Why Turkey? The political and military relations between these two countries are at a very high level. And, of course, there are also ethnic, linguistic and religious ties between Turkey and Azerbaijan. But more importantly than this all of this, both countries have transcended the nostalgic, ideological and ethnically based perspectives that used to shape their relations, moving instead into a new framework of reciprocal respect, in which developed political, economic and ethnic relations continue. Cooperation between Ankara and Baku is these days guided more by cooperation in the areas of defense industry, energy and transportation than by the literature of brotherhood, which used to define the past. Which is why Turkish-Azeri relations are at the highest level yet since Azerbaijan declared its independence for the second time, in 1991.
 
Baku is trying to develop its relations on the Washington-Ankara-Tel Aviv axis in order to balance some of the political and security relations problems on the whole Moscow-Tehran-Berlin-Brussels axis. In addition, Baku is busy trying to fill out the vacuum that has emerged in the Middle East in the wake of the disrupting of Turkish-Israeli relations by bringing its own relations closer to Israel.
 
Baku is also trying to transcend the ideological vacuum that's developed in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union by lending its support to the Turkish Council. It is currently expected that the leadership of the Turkish Council will pass to Azerbaijan after Turkey.
 
During the upcoming visit by President Aliyev, the third meeting of the High Level Strategic Cooperation Council -- which brings a more strategic shape to dual relations between the countries -- will take place. The meeting is set to focus on defense and security issues, with full support policies anticipated from Ankara when it comes to security and stability for Baku. Within this framework, Ankara is not isolating Baku when it comes to issues surrounding the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. There is also the possibility on the table that, in exchange for Armenia pulling out of the two regions it has occupied, borders between Armenia and Turkey could be opened, and general regional cooperation improved.
 
Cooperative projects between Turkey and Azerbaijan in the areas of energy and transportation -- such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan petrol line (BTC), the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline (BTE), the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line (BTK) and the Trans Anatolia Pipe Line Project (TANAP) -- are both economic and strategic in nature. Other projects such as the Nabucco pipeline, the Trans Adriatic Natural Gas Line (TAP), the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP) and the Turkey-Greece-Italy Natural Gas Pipeline (ITGI) are also on the agenda. It is expected that TANAP will be completed in 2016. And while there was talk of the BTK being completed in 2014, it is now expected that it will, in fact, be completed in March of 2015 at the earliest.
 
Of course, there are some flaws in these otherwise flawless-appearing dual relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan. For example, reciprocal cultural centers have not been built and implemented. There has been very little in the way of joint work done by Turkey and Azerbaijan when it comes to Armenian-rooted theses. There is not even a single shared think tank between the two countries. And the economic relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan are well behind those between Italy and Azerbaijan. Despite the fact that Turkey eliminated visa requirements for Azeri citizens, Azerbaijan still requires them of Turkish citizens, which unsurprisingly represents a problem between the countries. Turkish citizens arriving in Azerbaijan by air can receive a 30-day visa for just $10, though this does not apply to those arriving by road or by sea.