AHC: Azerbaijan becomes part of Turkey

Alternate History Challenge
Have Azerbaijan become part of Turkey following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.



What kind of consequenes could Azerbaijan becoming part of Turkey have? (Butterflies)
  • Pipeline Politics
  • Turkish Irredentism in Iran and beyond
  • Armenia (Perhaps Armenia would lose Southern Armenia so that Turkish Azerbaijan Proper would be connected to Turkey Proper?, Nagorno-Karabach War)
  • Turkish relationship to Nato and the EU
  • United Nations (International Law, Perception of the UN)
  • Russian North Caucasus (Ethnic and Religious Insurgency)
  • Turkish Islam (Perhaps the rise of secularism could be slowed)
  • Kurds in Turkey
  • Azerbaijani Language
  • Turkish Relations with Central Asian States
 
Last edited:
Turkiy.png
 
It could not happen as shown. The Turks and Azeri had already been stripping land from the Armenians for generations. Taking this one last thing, and seizing undisputedly Armenian land (even though north Azerbaijan{they stole the name an Iranian area had for thousands of years} claimed it during WWI) would send alarm bells throughout NATO. Part of why the Armenians were fighting for Nagarno-Karabakh was due to the Armenians being shrunk to a small minority in places they had formed forty percent before being given to Azerbaijan, as well as massacres against Armenians by Azeris. The Turks rolling in just gets people talking about the Armenian genocide again.

I see the Greeks decrying this due to the Turks going after a Christian group and expanding. The Georgian are against it incase the Turks then move into Adjara. The Iranians are against it because it is increasing the border between them, swallowing up Shias, and gives possible grounds for the Turks to try and interfere in the Azeri areas of Iran. The Russians may back the Armenians, keeping to a close alliance, and the Americans would try to stop the Turks due to the Armenian diaspora reminding them about what happened to Armenians in the past. Not sure what Israel supports. Probably keep to themselves, seeing how things pan out.
 
It could not happen as shown. The Turks and Azeri had already been stripping land from the Armenians for generations. Taking this one last thing, and seizing undisputedly Armenian land (even though north Azerbaijan{they stole the name an Iranian area had for thousands of years} claimed it during WWI) would send alarm bells throughout NATO. Part of why the Armenians were fighting for Nagarno-Karabakh was due to the Armenians being shrunk to a small minority in places they had formed forty percent before being given to Azerbaijan, as well as massacres against Armenians by Azeris. The Turks rolling in just gets people talking about the Armenian genocide again.

I see the Greeks decrying this due to the Turks going after a Christian group and expanding. The Georgian are against it incase the Turks then move into Adjara. The Iranians are against it because it is increasing the border between them, swallowing up Shias, and gives possible grounds for the Turks to try and interfere in the Azeri areas of Iran. The Russians may back the Armenians, keeping to a close alliance, and the Americans would try to stop the Turks due to the Armenian diaspora reminding them about what happened to Armenians in the past. Not sure what Israel supports. Probably keep to themselves, seeing how things pan out.
What if it was presented as a reaction to Armenian agression against Azerbaijan?
 
How about you show some actual effort and answer that yourself ?
Be nice. There are plenty of AHC on here with no effort, but he took the time to write up a bit more. And looking at it again, it seems the Kurdish population is going to be expanded in this world, as it is not Azeris that we're separating the Armenians but Kurds. The joy of linguistic maps. Well, some maps. Think the Soviets deported a lot of the Kurds form there after abanonding setting up Kurdish and Azeri states from Iran.
 

Philip

Donor
The north west corner of Iran has a large Azerbaijani population. Perhaps Turkey could grab some land there.
 
How about you show some actual effort and answer that yourself ?
This Turkey could build a pipeline transporting Azeri oil to Europe. Turkish refineries can also export oil using Turkey proper's Mediterranen sea coast, thereby acessing the world ocean. Turkey would also not depend on passage thru Russia, Georgia, Armenia(if Southern Armenia is conquered during some Turko-Armenian war), Iran. This Turkey could be confident in it's own ability to export fossil energy without any of it's neighbours interrupting(during peace, in theory) Turkish exports. This Turkey could also build a transcaspian pipeline between Turkey and Turkmenistan. If there were a transcaspian pipeline then the Central Asian states would get more leverage in where they export their fossil energy. Russia would lost much of their leverage over former Soviet Central Asian states.
 
The Azerbaijanis had no interest in being ruled by Turkey. Turkey had its attractions as (at the time) a moderate Muslim democracy with close ties to the West and in that sense a model--but there was no more desire on the part of either country to merge than there was for Finland and Estonia. In fact, the Azerbaijanis saw Turkey most of all as a useful ally on the Nagorno-Karabakh question. And even there the Turks did not go as far as the Azerbaijanis wanted:

"As mentioned above, there have been several and mostly interrelated factors modifying and challenging this relationship from the start. The first and so far the biggest test has been Nagorno-Karabakh. Even by 1993, it was clear that Turkey was not to play the role most Azerbaijanis expected it to. At least the first phase of the war was lost, and Turkey as an ally was implicated in this. Though Azerbaijanis were not satisfied with the level of Turkish support, there have been significant voices in Turkey since the early years finding even this level of support too much. These voices have been very much influenced by international pressure and were definitely concerned about Turkey's overall stance vis-a-vis the Western world. In any case, Turkey gradually started to improve its relations with Armenia, culminating in an attempt at reconciliation in 2008. This created the biggest crisis in the history of relations between the two countries after the 1993 shock..." https://books.google.com/books?id=svkyDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT54

For Turkey to actually take over Azerbaijan would be to simultaneously upset everyone--the West, the Russians, the Iranians, and the Azerbaijanis themselves. Turkey could simply not afford to do this.
 
Last edited:

Ian_W

Banned
This Turkey could build a pipeline transporting Azeri oil to Europe. Turkish refineries can also export oil using Turkey proper's Mediterranen sea coast, thereby acessing the world ocean. Turkey would also not depend on passage thru Russia, Georgia, Armenia(if Southern Armenia is conquered during some Turko-Armenian war), Iran. This Turkey could be confident in it's own ability to export fossil energy without any of it's neighbours interrupting(during peace, in theory) Turkish exports. This Turkey could also build a transcaspian pipeline between Turkey and Turkmenistan. If there were a transcaspian pipeline then the Central Asian states would get more leverage in where they export their fossil energy. Russia would lost much of their leverage over former Soviet Central Asian states.


None of which has two thirds of stuff all to do with "Have Azerbaijan become part of Turkey following the dissolution of the Soviet Union."

There is no 'how'. There is nothing about what could have happened to make this true.

You might as well have said "I could have a pony !".
 
That can only happen if Turkey joined the USSR - and even then a good portion of eastern Turkey would be strapped onto the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic because of Joseph Stalin's randomness when it can to national delimination (such as hacking off a good portion of Tajik cultural heritage and shipping it over to Uzbekistan, for example, or initially retaining the Tsarist-era confusion of some Turkic peoples as all Kirghiz, so that what ultimately became Kazakhstan was originally the and what became Kyrgyzstan was originally the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-Kirghiz_Autonomous_Oblast]Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Province). Maybe in this case the TSFSR can be retained until a reformer like Gorbachev takes over and causes the unravelling of the Soviet Union. So no, I don't see the AHC working out as initially planned - it's going to fall apart fast if that happens, as with many other post-Soviet frozen conflict zones. Furthermore, once the USSR dissolves Turkey's going to want to look westward; adding on Azerbaijan would be a huge burden for Turks. Also whatever @David T said.[/url]
 
None of which has two thirds of stuff all to do with "Have Azerbaijan become part of Turkey following the dissolution of the Soviet Union."

There is no 'how'. There is nothing about what could have happened to make this true.

You might as well have said "I could have a pony !".
Is is potential butterflies in such a scenario where Azerbaijan becomes part of Turkey.
 
Top