ABSTRACT
This chapter aims at providing an overall analysis of Turkish ambitions and achievements in the South Caucasus. It focuses on the contrast between these ambitions and the constraints Turkish policymakers have faced both at the bilateral and regional levels. Some regions of the Caucasus, such as Adjara, were for a short time included in the Ottoman Empire. The end of the Soviet Union is indeed a turning point in the relations between Turkey and the now independent republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Turkish and Western policymakers aimed to fill the ideological vacuum created at the end of the Russian supremacy and the failure of the communist experience, as well as to contain rising Islamism in Azerbaijan and other possible anti-Western influences in the other republics. Ankara took the opportunity to develop a new foreign policy and extend its sphere of influence eastwards, especially into the Turkic republics of Azerbaijan and Central Asia.
