Moscow’s Caucasian Conundrum: Turkish-Russian Relations and the Limits of “Strategic Competition”

... keeping with that history, Moscow is very suspicious of the activities of any NATO member state in its immediate neighborhood. Turkey is no exception in this regard. Ankara made its first foray into the Caucasus after 1991, with particular focus on developing ... ... South Ossetia. Meanwhile, conventional wisdom told the Kremlin that it should prevent any drastic change of the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh in favor of Azerbaijan to prevent an increase of Turkey’s influence. Moreover, although Georgian President ...