This love cannot be questioned. This love cannot be put to any test. This love cannot be doubted. For Turkey, this is the reason it portrays Turkey and Azerbaijan as "a single nation with two states." An Azerbaijani Turk living in Baku or Mingecevir and a Turkish Turk living in İstanbul or Trabzon are members of the same nation. Thus, there cannot be different interests for the members of this single nation. Indeed, this single nation will draw the divergent policies of these two states in the same direction. Those who take the helm of the state apparatus will come and go, but the people will travel to eternity together.
Has Turkey’s Armenian policy changed?
Can Turkey's policy concerning Armenia, which stands like a knife between Turkey and Azerbaijan, change? Can Turkey come closer to Armenia by turning a blind eye to Azerbaijan's interests? Let us focus on some specific issues. Can the border crossing between Turkey and Armenia, which was closed down in response to Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, be reopened?
All of these questions can be answered as follows: Turkey's Armenian policy may change, but Turkey's policy regarding Azerbaijan will not change in the least. Turkey shapes its Armenian policy based on the Karabakh issue in the first place, as well as on Azerbaijan's interests. If it introduces any change to its policy, then it is also intended to produce benefits for Azerbaijan.
Recent debates should be assessed from this perspective. Turkey has launched new initiatives in order to normalize relations with Armenia. These initiatives are conducted with a very important assumption in mind: Turkey assumes that the existing status quo in the Caucasus is detrimental to all three countries --Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia. To maintain this status quo does not serve the interests of any of these countries. It is not reasonable to maintain this situation that brings losses to all three sides.
Today there is not a single issue that can be resolved by fighting between Turkey and Armenia or between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Yet all three countries are harmed by the existing form of relations. It should be acknowledged that the biggest harm is being done to Armenians. Having turned into a toy for the Armenian diaspora cannot promise good days for the people of Armenia. Armenians have been living with fear, poverty and desperation and they are in dire need of change. On the other hand, Azerbaijan cannot save Nagorno-Karabakh from occupation and cannot ensure the return of refugees to their homeland. Hopes for the return for those who fled the massacre and are now living in exile and hopes for abolishing this occupation for are diminishing further every day. As for Turkey, it is struggling against the Armenian genocide claims that hinder its progress in the EU and the US. But the passing of Armenian genocide laws does not bring any good to Armenia. Armenians who maintain the occupation in Karabakh are crushed under a heavy burden. This issue creates a vacuum into which Russia is moving.
So something must be done in order to change the status quo. This is what Abdullah Gül did when he arranged a meeting between Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijani President İlham Aliyev in Prague.
Turks’ public diplomacy
Nuri Pasha, who drew the current borders of Azerbaijan back in 1918, was applying what he had learned from Hüseyinzade Ali and Mehmet Emin Resulzade. Not only Hüseyinzade Ali and Mehmet Emin Resulzade, but also Anatolian Turks had largely learned how to become a nation from Azerbaijani intellectuals. The national awakening of Azerbaijani Turks, who were under Russian rule at that time, removed the hesitation in Turkey resulting from its imperial heritage. In their quest to ensure the survival of an empire, İstanbul's intellectuals were trying to conceal their national peculiarities due to concerns about disintegration, but Azerbaijani intellectuals provided them with the sort of inspiration they needed to create a nation out of an empire in decline.
There are two different traditions this single nation. Behind these traditions are the different experiences of the two societies. Azerbaijanis' experience of nationhood is far richer and sounder than that of Anatolian people. On the other hand, Anatolian Turks have much older and established state experiences. If these two experiences could be combined, the result would be miraculous.
Unlike our brothers and sisters in Azerbaijan, we were newcomers in the land that we today call our homeland. After we arrived, we established the longest-lived and strongest states. This is because we did not come to these lands as wandering migrants with no purpose, but as an organized society led by Alperens and veteran dervishes. In Anatolia, all of the religious organizations are, in essence, social organizations. This has not changed since the arrival of the first Turks in these lands. Accordingly, a religious leader takes the initiative and sees to the organization of the society, setting rules and principles, and he does this to ensure that society can move toward the same destination as the state. For this reason, religious communities are uniquely organized and assertive civilian forces for Anatolian Turks. Those who lend support to these communities are actually serving social purposes rather than religious ones. The religious leader of the community has the duty of securing confidence in this joint target. The fact that rapprochement with Azerbaijan has been facilitated by these communities is the result of this historical experience. Azerbaijanis should realize that the communities that settled in Azerbaijan coming from Turkey cannot be treated as mere religious organizations. These communities are like locomotives. They not only determine the direction and lay down the track, but also pull the national forces with them toward the target.
When the world was no longer bipolar, a new form of diplomacy, called "public diplomacy," was introduced. Invented by the Americans, this form of diplomacy implies that the weight and support of the public should be integrated with foreign policy. Diplomacy is no longer shaped behind closed doors or around tables where the diplomats of two countries bargain. The peoples of these countries are added to the formula. They make diplomatic demands. They influence the decisions of their states. Turkey's public diplomacy has evolved considerably over time. Turkey's increased weight in the Middle East is largely a result of this policy. Also, in the Balkans Turkey made great progress thanks to its public diplomacy. The force of the public giving support to the diplomacy currently developed regarding Armenia should be taken into consideration.
The driving forces behind Turkey's public diplomacy are communities. This is the same force that sends Turkish entrepreneurs everywhere around the world. Today Turkey owes its place in the Middle East arena to its economic power and social mobility, rather than its military power. This applies to the Caucasus as well.
When the Caucasus is viewed from the perspective of public diplomacy, there is one sole alternative in sight. Turkey's economic and social power is ready to penetrate there through any opening that can be found. Shouldn't Azerbaijanis treat Turkey's new power as their own based on the single-nation principle?
In harmony with its state and people, Turkey ventured to change a status quo that is of no use to the parties in the Caucasus. Soon it was found that Armenia was ready to backtrack with respect to the Karabakh issue. Thus, it can be concluded that President Abdullah Gül is taking the right steps. Turkey's civil society force in Azerbaijan -- its religious communities -- understands Azerbaijan very well. It is these communities that are on the alert in order to rectify any wrong move by the Turkish state.
Being a single nation is the direct result of this rapprochement between two peoples and the will to protect common national interests, isn't it?
