Renown Turkish think Tank TESEV in cooperation with Eurasia Partnership Foundation conducted in Tbilisi last week on March 2 a thrilling discussion of Turkey role in the South Caucasus and specifically of any potential for Turkey to move affairs forward of status quo in South Caucasus conflicts. The Turkish policy in the region has been always a point of expert discussion since dismemberment of the Soviet Union. And that does have a meaningful significance as Turkey was an opposite number of emerging Soviet Russia in crafting the map of the South Caucasus and establishment of that day system of regional security guaranties in the aftermath of the Word War I.
However the conference in Tbilisi has come at essentially different circumstances of the ever growing demand for Turkey to deeply engage in older but increasingly turbulent conflict zone of Middle East. Given the historical experiences with Russia in struggle for the Black Sea and the Caucasus and recent Russian attempts to revitalise their presence in Arab Near East Turkey has ended up in the cross cutting point of many clashing interests and demands. Closest neighbourhood, domestic policy dynamics, which are cautiously but still evidently perceived as teaching experience in the South and to the North of Turkey, make this centrally located country an influential power in wider Middle East region.
State policy view angles were represented by retired and in-office diplomats: Levent Murat Burhan, Turkish Ambassador to Georgia, Mr Pascal Heyman, Deputy Director, Policy Support Service (OSCE), EU diplomats with essential regional experience, former Ambassadors and international mission heads to Georgia - Guenther Baechler (Switzerland) , Dieter Boden (Germany), Craig Oliphant (UK) and Kenneth Yalowitz (US). The South Caucasus governments were represented by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tornike Gordadze on behalf of Georgia and Mr Shovgi Mehtizade advisor to the Azerbaijani Embassy in Georgia.
The meaningful and symbolic but slightly contesting overtones were articulated by retired Ambassador Temel Iskit and current head of the mission to Georgia Mr Levent Burhan. While Mr. Burhan eloquently and neatly defined the principles of the policy towards South Caucasus in compliance with basic international priorities, peace and regional cooperation, the retired Ambassador Temel Iskit has openly expressed his disappointment and characterized conflicts in the South Caucasus as stand off situation.
The concluding session was designed to suggest some fresher vision and featured the presentations by civil society actors on behalf of international organizations and the South Caucasus countries. One could not make a conclusion that they proved the expectation, as they simply reported about activities to promote peace and mutual understanding between the people of conflicting countries. However the major question remained: why did the gap tend to widen?
Pivotal point and the reason of the status quo unchanged were that governments while indicating to citizens to start bridging the gaps and creating peaceful atmosphere, felt free to go back to their domestic political challenges in the whole range of election, legitimacy, economic domination concerns. And when it comes to civil society to mitigate the bitter sense of conflict after-effects they actually do not feel supported and secured by clear government commitments to listen and consider outcomes of civil society exchanges.
