It has become known where and when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will make his official foreign visits after winning the presidential election and being inaugurated. Turkish news website Yeni Şafak reported that President Erdoğan will visit Azerbaijan on 13 June 2023. As part of his trip, the Turkish leader will hold talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, followed by a joint speech of the heads of state.

The first foreign visit of a head of state after an election is always symbolic and shows what geopolitical direction the country is taking. For Turkey and its president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the priority is clearly South Caucasus and Central Asia, countries along the New Silk Road and the Turkic world.

Turkey's geopolitical successes under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's leadership in this direction are particularly impressive. Especially in comparison to the failures in the same regions and in the post-Soviet space in general of another power claiming an "imperial renaissance" - the Russian Federation.

Уже всем сегодня очевидно, что Россия «уходит» с Южного Кавказа. Агрессивная военная авантюра Кремля против Украины только ускоряет этот процесс. Однако, на место РФ, как «доминирующей силы», несмотря на все пожелания Запада, в регионе не получается полностью «обосноваться» только Западу.

As a result, Turkey is becoming a kind of "regional referee". At that, it achieves this not by rattling weapons, military aggression and support of separatism as the Russian Federation, but on the contrary, by helping to establish peace, restore territorial integrity of sovereign states and unblocking of regional communications.

It is interesting that Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erodgan began to govern their states at approximately the same time by historical standards - in the early 2000s in a difficult geopolitical environment. But their "starting conditions" were different.

Russia's potential was initially so enormous that the Turkish leadership could only dream of it. For most of Putin's reign, there were high and ultra-high oil and natural gas prices and, most importantly, there was initially a practical monopoly on energy supply routes from the former Soviet space to the West.

This, not to mention the initially colossal "ideological influence" of the Russian Federation on historically and "spiritually" close peoples of the former USSR, reinforced by "soft power" - joint history, Soviet culture and cinema, ties at family level. This potential has been destroyed by the Kremlin itself with its criminal neo-imperialist aggressive policy, where the examples of Georgia and Ukraine are very telling.

 Revenues of the Russian Federation from the export of raw materials have been growing by leaps and bounds for a long time. The elite of Russia literally "did not know where to spend the money". The Kremlin leadership, with its practically inexhaustible financial resources, has used them in its attempts to "restore the imperial greatness" not in the best way, both in domestic and foreign policies. In particular, it chose the course of totally insane ventures to support separatism and "dismemberment" of neighbouring countries.

Turkey was originally resource-poor and dependent on energy imports. But Recep Tayyip Erdogan has found a way out of this situation by proposing new efficient transit routes for energy carriers with Turkey's participation, largely "intercepting" them from Russia itself. Erdogan had to develop the Turkish economy at the expense of the non-resource sector, and he has achieved impressive success here.

However, Turkey's main successes have been foreign policy ones. Lacking even a tiny fraction of the military and geopolitical resources that Russia had, Turkey "cleanly" outplayed the Kremlin in the struggle for influence in key regions and in defining policy there. Moreover, Turkey's policy was built on respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of states and rejection of separatism.

As a result, Turkey, in cooperation with Georgia and Azerbaijan, is successfully developing transit projects with global significance. At the same time, the Russian Federation, which began "to revive the empire through separatism", was throwing enormous resources into "black holes" to occupy foreign territories and to support stalled, isolated separatist regimes that were historically doomed.

Due to Turkey's principled position and political support, Azerbaijan was able to restore its territorial integrity during the 44-day war by liberating Karabakh from the long-standing occupation. An agreement was signed to unblock transport communications in the South Caucasus region. This has given hope to Georgia, which has had a long and fruitful economic cooperation with both Turkey and Azerbaijan, to restore its territorial integrity and regain Abkhazia and Samachablo.

Turkey's principled position gives all the three countries of the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Georgia and, oddly enough, Armenia a chance to develop dynamically and preserve their sovereignty if they renounce aggressive adventures and claims on the territories of others, stop supporting separatism and restore peaceful relations with all their neighbours.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's landmark visit to Azerbaijan after his election as President of Turkey could mark the beginning of a new phase of closer economic and geopolitical cooperation between Turkey and the countries of the South Caucasus, to the benefit of all the countries of the region.

 Varden Tsulukidze