BRITISH ENVOY QUESTIONS RUSSIAN MILITARY PRESENCE IN ARMENIA
By Emil Danielyan
Armenialiberty.org, Armenia
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 6 2005
A senior British diplomat publicly questioned on Thursday the need
for continued Russian military presence in Armenia, suggesting
that it would be particularly unjustified after a resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
“We understand that [Russian troops] are there with the agreement
of the host country, so that problem does not arise,” Brian Fall,
Britain’s “special representative” for the South Caucasus, said in
a speech in Yerevan. “But the agreement of the host country may be
largely determined by their perception of a military threat from
Azerbaijan. If the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh were resolved,
and frontiers at present closed were opened up to peaceful traffic,
that perception of threat would rapidly diminish, and perhaps sooner
or later disappear.
“Would Armenia in those conditions want a substantial Russian military
presence on its territory? And would Russia want to retain one in
circumstances which could not plausibly be explained in terms of the
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh?”
Armenia’s successive governments have not cited the unresolved Karabakh
conflict as the main reason for their close military ties with Russia
or asked for Russian protection against Azerbaijan. They have said all
along that the presence of the Russian military base primarily serves
as a deterrent against a perceived threat from Turkey, Armenia’s much
more powerful neighbor.
That perception is in turn derived from the 1915 genocide of Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire and modern-day Turkey’s refusal to recognize
and apologize for it. A Karabakh settlement alone is unlikely to
eliminate it.
For its part, Moscow considers its troops, mainly deployed along
the closed Armenian-Turkish border, to be essential for its efforts
to maintain a strong influence in the South Caucasus. That also
explains its reluctance to close two other Russian bases remaining
in neighboring Georgia.
Still, Fall claimed that the Russians themselves might feel after
Karabakh peace that their military presence is useless. “Looking at the
same picture through Russian eyes, we might find that, post-conflict,
there was no very strong reason for keeping Russian troops in Armenia
and plenty of other things that could be done with the human and
financial resources that might become available for redeployment,”
he said.
The British envoy spoke at the start of a three-day seminar on security
in the South Caucasus which was organized by the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly, of which Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are members. It
is attended by representatives of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe and other international organizations.
The Karabakh dispute was a major theme of the first day of
discussions. It also reportedly topped the agenda of Fall’s meeting
later in the day with Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian. A brief
statement by the Armenian Foreign Ministry said the two men “exchanged
thoughts” on the subject, but gave no details.
In his speech, Fall, whose country now holds the rotating presidency
of the European Union, stressed that concerted efforts by Russia and
the United States are a “necessary condition” for ending the Karabakh
conflict. He complained that “cold warriors” in the two nations have
hampered such cooperation.
“It is true that there have been voices in Washington unduly dismissive
of the need to build peace and security in the South Caucasus with
rather than against or despite Russia,” Fall said. “And that there
have been voices in Moscow seemingly unable to distinguish the natural
influence which geography and history, culture and commerce, will
give to Russia among its next-door neighbors, from a neo-imperialist
striving for a backyard fenced off against the outside world.”