Turkey and Azerbaijan: One Nation – One State?

Abstract

The article scrutinizes Turkish-Azerbaijani key areas of cooperation – political, economic, military-technical, cultural and humanitarian. For instance, in addition to intensive interaction at the level of high-ranking political elites, Azerbaijani-Turkish unity in the political context is largely built on the basis of classifying foreign policy partners into common friends and common enemies (the “friend-foe” principle). Thus, both Ankara and Baku are building friendly relations with the Turkic states of Central Asia. At the same time, Armenia acts as a common “enemy”. In the military sphere, both states seek to form Turkey-oriented militarized structures and, moreover, to create a unified Turkic army in the long term. The nature of economic relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey is largely based on a competitive basis. Energy acts as a unifying and at the same time a divisive factor since both states strive for leadership in this area, seeking to occupy a special place in the regional energy market. In the cultural and humanitarian sphere, the unfolding Turkey-centric integration is of particular importance. The author comes to the conclusion that nowadays the bilateral relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan are characterized by the “merging” of the two countries into a single Turkey-centric space, which manifests in almost all fields of interaction. The Republic of Turkey seeks to influence Baku in order to make it a reference point of the “Turkic world” under its auspices. This trend is most likely to strengthen in the future.