ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book looks at the political and economic conditions that underlay the evolving patterns of mutual trade and investment between Azerbaijan and Turkey over the past twenty years. With Azerbaijan emerging from the ruins of the Soviet Union and Turkey coming out of the ashes of the Cold War, the starting phase of Azerbaijan-Turkey fraternal partnership in the early 1990s fell on the period when neither of the two states had yet to develop a clear grasp not only of the other side, but also, and even more dramatically, of its own self. Neither Ankara nor Baku had yet to advance a clear post identity, a post-colonial, post-Soviet identity for Azerbaijan and a post-Cold War identity for Turkey, and a definite foreign and domestic policy agenda the latter understanding would entail.
