Celebrating Turkey’s 94th Birthday & the BTK Railway
Turkey celebrated its 94th birthday this week. The date was marked by a lavish ceremony in Tbilisi, with high-level politicians stressing how important Turkish-Georgian relations have been throughout the decades. In addition, the ceremony was also to bid an official farewell to the Turkish Ambassador Zeki Levent Gümrükçü who has completed his mission in Georgia.
The Ambassador stated that the modern Turkish Republic was established on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in 192 3 by Ataturk. He further stressed that "this day is one of the happiest days for the Turkish people, important, too, for the entire region. Turkey is developing and going forward both economically and politically. It is an island of stability, development and democracy. We are happy to celebrate this day with our neighbors and friends - the Georgian people".
Indeed, Georgia-Turkey relations could be described as exemplary in many ways. Turkey was one of the first to recognize the independence of Georgia (16 December 1991) after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Protocol on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the two countries was signed on 21 May 1992. Since that time, the two countries have opened embassies in Tbilisi and Ankara. To date, Turkey has a Consulate General in Batumi, while Georgia has two Consulates General in Istanbul and Trabzon.
Beyond that, Turkey and Georgia enjoy close cooperation on a wide range of areas from energy to trade and from economy to education and culture. Turkey ranks the first biggest trade partner of Georgia with a bilateral trade volume of USD 1.33 billion in 2015-early 2016.
Looking at Things from a Geopolitical Perspective
The celebrations on the establishment of the Turkish Republic also coincided with another important event which was taking place on October 30th in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hosted his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as the Georgian Prime Minister, Giorgi Kvrikashvili, at a ceremony to launch the first train on the newly built Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway stretching from the Caspian Sea port of Alat, south of the Azeri capital, Baku, to the city of Kars in eastern Turkey. The ceremony was also attended by the prime ministers of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The new project will play an important role in the geopolitics of the region as it will not only increase connectivity in the South Caucasus, but could potentially also embolden the land-locked Central Asian states to think about increasing their gas and oil exports to the European markets. The project opens a rail corridor connecting Central Asia with the European markets, through the South Caucasus region. This is also reflected in the intention behind the construction of the port at Alat in Azerbaijan, which is one of the largest in the Caspian Sea region, and which was specifically built to provide connections to Central Asia.
An additional layer of geopolitical importance is added to the project when it is seen within the context of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The 826-kilometer railway will enable the delivery of cargo between China and Europe in approximately two weeks. Up to 8 million tons of cargo may be carried on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway by 2025.
The opening of the railway is also a part of a bigger geopolitical process taking place in the region: the emergence of the Trilateral cooperation format between Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan first launched in 2012. The three countries need one another amid volatile geopolitical problems in the entire region. Perhaps economic prosperity could serve as a basis for the much-troubled South Caucasus. As I have oft written in the past, the ongoing infrastructure projects spanning the entire South Caucasus will in fact produce a more stable region which has been traditionally characterized by separatist struggles and pressure from large foreign powers.
Emil Avdaliani