YEREVAN. – Russian-Turkish rapprochement overall is a good thing for the South Caucasus and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in particular, editor of Caucasus Survey Laurence Broers told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“It stems the misleading recasting of the conflict as a proxy war, eases pressures on Azerbaijan as a state with important relationships with both Russia and Turkey, and releases Armenia from the threat of confrontation between its main partner/patron and its second largest neighbor,” Mr. Broers said in an e-mail interview.
He believes that Russia-Turkey rapprochement clears the way for infrastructural development, most of it bypassing Armenia of course, but still embedding a dynamic of multiple regional stakeholders interested in stability.

“In fact, the more the Russian-Turkish-Azerbaijani (and Turkish-Azerbaijani-Georgian) axis develops, the more dependent Armenia is on Russia, so for Russia it's win-win. 

Moreover, in November we saw the bolstering of Russian-Armenian military ties with the creation of a Joint Group of Forces, which sends the signal that Russia is not preparing to abandon Armenia. But whether Russia will retain its ceasefire enforcement capacities is an open question, and the fact that this is a key question just shows how far we are from a negotiated settlement,” the expert said.