This article has been published for the first time in January 2006 in the collection 'Russie.NEI.Visions', n°8, of the Russian.NIS Center at ifri.Abstract

Since 2003 and after centuries of geopolitical competition, Russia and Turkey have drawn together in a new bilateral relationship. Expanding trade has been a major driving force behind this, but shared disillusionment with United States and European policies and attitudes, as well as increasing common ground on issues in the broader Black Sea region and further afield in the Middle East, have all played a role. At this juncture, the main impact of this new relationship is in Russia and Turkey’s joint border area of the South Caucasus -with potentially negative implications for the fragile state of Georgia and for the European Union’s new “Neighborhood Policy” in the region.Fiona Hill is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution.
Omer Taspinar is the Director of the Turkey program at the Brookings Institution, Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a Colomnist for the Turkish Daily Radical and the Pakistan Daily Times.