Erdoğan's decision to seek an agreement with Yerevan is a testament to his own political courage, says Jeffrey Mankoff, Associate Director of International Security Studies, The Huffington Post reads, Oct. 18.

The Turkish government under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been under enormous pressure at home and from Baku — not to sign any deal with Armenia until the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is solved. So, “Erdoğan's decision to seek an agreement with Yerevan anyway is a testament to his own political courage. Erdoğan deserves much of the credit for recent progress,” the article says.

“While Armenia will be the main beneficiary in the short term, eventually the deal could be even more significant. Armenia's estrangement from Turkey and Azerbaijan has caused it to miss out on the Caspian energy bonanza of the past decade-plus. In the mid-1990s, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey signed an agreement to build oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian shore to Europe. Though Azerbaijan has the hydrocarbons, Georgia and Turkey have benefited from the construction and transit revenue that the pipelines continue to generate. Azerbaijan and Georgia were also able to wean themselves from dependence on Russia and pursue largely independent foreign policies. Armenia, the third post-Soviet republic in the South Caucasus, enjoyed none of these benefits.

Europe, meanwhile, gets a substantial percentage of its oil and gas either from pipelines through Russia, or from the Caspian via pipelines across Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey (the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan or BTC oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum or South Caucasus gas pipeline). This route remains vulnerable to disruption; the BTC pipeline was temporarily severed when Kurdish guerrillas bombed its Turkish segment in August 2008, just as Georgia was accusing the Russian air force of targeting the pipeline's Georgian link during the war between Moscow and Tbilisi. Though Russian attacks did not disrupt supplies, Russia made clear that it had the ability to sever the Caspian energy link, and that consequently the West should think twice before coming to the aid of Georgia in any future conflict with Moscow.

As Europe now seeks to build new pipelines from the Caspian, energy executives' eyes are turning to Armenia as a possible alternative to more pipelines through Azerbaijan and Georgia. A pipeline across Armenia to Europe would be much shorter (and hence cheaper) than existing or prospective routes through Azerbaijan and Georgia. Since Armenia also has better relations with Moscow, a pipeline across Armenia would face less political risk. The EU and its US allies thus have a strong geopolitical interest in a deal.

Russia stands to benefit too: Russian firms are seeking investment opportunities in Azerbaijan, while ending Armenia's diplomatic isolation would strengthen Russia's influence throughout the South Caucasus. Despite these opportunities, Russia has more often been an obstacle than a facilitator of reconciliation in the region. It remains skeptical of Turkey's attempt to become a regional energy hub, loathes the government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and has long benefited from instability that prevents the US and EU from building new pipelines.

Hence the importance of the Obama administration's 're-set' in coaxing Russia into a more constructive role. By lowering tension over NATO expansion and missile defense, Obama has encouraged Russia to alter its strategic calculus in the South Caucasus, allowing Moscow's interest in expanding its commercial and political influence to trump its concerns about US efforts to contain it,” concludes Jeffrey Mankoff.