Lousy Timing Could Overshadow Turkey’s Logical Caucasus Solution

Within days of the start of full-scale hostilities last month between Georgia and Russia, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan floated the idea of a Caucasus stability pact modeled on a 1999 Balkan agreement.

But the diverging geopolitical and economic interests of the proposed five members and the ambiguous status of Georgia’s breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia constitute seemingly insurmountable obstacles to such an alliance.

As outlined by Erdogan, the proposed Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Pact would bring together Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and Turkey. His stated intention of discussing the initiative with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon suggests that he envisaged the UN assuming the role of “patron” in the same way as the European Union did for the 1999 Balkan Stability Pact, which came in the wake of the Kosovo conflict.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul endorsed Erdogan’s proposal one day later, on August 12, saying the Caucasus pact would be “important for stability in the region” and could encompass a mechanism for addressing and resolving problems, presumably before they escalated into violence.

There are, however, several fundamental differences between the Balkans in 1999 and the South Caucasus in 2008. In 1999, the countries of Southeastern Europe, including the Yugoslav success

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