EUROPE’S RISKY TOLERANCE OF TENSION IN THE CAUCASUS
Published 19 June 2012 – Updated 20 June 2012
Military tensions have grown in recent weeks between Armenia and
Azerbaijan. Charles Tannock argues that the EU should take steps to
diffuse the situation.
Charles Tannock is a member of the European Parliament from Britain.
“Almost unnoticed beyond the specialist foreign policy community,
there have been around a dozen heavy incidents of exchanges of sniper
fire and artillery shelling between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the
last two months.
In this time, more than 10 soldiers have been killed, and those foreign
policy pundits who still maintain the concept of “frozen conflicts”
being dormant affairs that can be safely ignored should know that
half of these incidents did not take place in the disputed territory
of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, but at the recognised international
borders between the two states, which are both part of the European
Neighbourhood Policy and the EU’s Eastern Partnership.
This recent escalation smacks of the rising tensions before the
Georgian-Russian war in 2008. After years with numerous smaller
incidents, the international community gets used to a certain
instability, and while peace negotiations fail due to the lack of
political will between the hostile parties, the frequency and gravity
of the incidents slowly escalates and in spite of European “calls
upon both sides” for restraint, real war actions can suddenly unfold.
History appears to be repeating itself, but there are three main
differences.
First, among Armenia and Azerbaijan, only Azerbaijan has an interest
in mobilising troops at the risk of escalating to an outright actual
war. While the situation between Russia and Georgia was more blurred,
only Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his government openly
and repeatedly threaten their neighbour with war, whereas Armenia
does not and would logically have no such interest.
After decades of discrimination, the majority ethnic Armenian
population of Nagorno-Karabakh sought independence during the fall
of the Soviet Union. In 1991, when the young Republic of Azerbaijan
used force to restore “order”, the independence movement took up
arms and with military assistance from Armenia proper they liberated
Nagorno-Karabakh and the conflict carried on until the legally still
binding cease-fire of Bishkek was signed in 1994.
Azerbaijan claims that these territories are occupied, but since Stalin
allocated them in 1921 under Soviet rule (arbitrarily) to Azerbaijan,
it has done nothing to convince the local Armenian population of the
benefits of Azerbaijani rule. The only time most of the local people in
Nagorno-Karabakh have felt to be living without fear of discrimination
and with a relative physical security came after 1994, and thus neither
Armenia nor the de-facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic have any interest
in the renewed use of force – as they would be fighting for what?
The second current difference is the potential scale of this possible
war. It is very different from the Georgian situation in 2008, as
Azerbaijan and Armenia could see bombs and rockets fall on their
capitals and the large-scale destruction of key places of civilian
infrastructure. In Azerbaijan, oil rigs and pipelines, vital to their
petrodollar economy, are all within simple artillery range of the
Karabakhi army, and Armenian rockets can easily reach the refineries
on the Caspian shores near Baku.
These places have been the major vital financial resource for
Azerbaijan’s large defence budget, which, as President Aliyev proudly
proclaimed, exceeds Armenia’s total state budget and allows the
possibility of “liberating Karabakh in 10 days”.
In short, both sides can erase everything positive that has been
built up in the past 20 years since independence. Armenia is in a
close defence alliance with Russia, while Azerbaijan is supported by
its ethnic “brother nation” Turkey.
Iran is at odds with Azerbaijan due to Azeri revanchist and irredentist
claims on Iranian soil and fears international peacekeeping troops
on its northern border, given its virtual pariah status over the
Iranian nuclear quest. Georgia fears Russian troops spreading out in
the South Caucasus to aid Armenia. It is most unlikely that such a
war would be restricted simply to Karabakh.
Also knowing the complex local geography and huge natural resources,
it is impossible to predict whose troops would finally end up exactly
where. Only one thing is certain: the human tragedy and economic
costs would dwarf anything seen in Europe, at least for the last 20
years since the Balkan wars. To add to further turmoil as the world
is facing an economic slump, with the eurozone crisis and US and
Chinese growth dampening, the expected collapse of Azerbaijani oil
and gas supplies would cause a rapid rise in world-wide crude prices
and strangle any green shoots hopes for renewed global economic growth.
The third main difference is the position of Europe. While the EU has
traditionally been closer to Georgia than to Russia, the EU desperately
seeks a balanced relation with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. After the
above mentioned hostile incidents, EU High Representative Catherine
Ashton and foreign ministers in the EU’s capitals all “called upon
both sides” to show restraint, despite clear evidence about which
side had started the recent provocation.
Azerbaijani state-controlled media reported that “Azerbaijani armed
forces prevented one more provocation of the Armenian army” and that
“it was identified that the Armenians were carrying out digging work
along the front line” (the internationally recognised state border).
One might assume that the Armenians are allowed to dig on their
own territory as much as they like and that “preventing” such a
“provocation” with the disproportionate use of artillery fire, as it
happened on the 25 April in the Tavoush region, might have sparked an
international outcry. And even though ever since the Eurovision song
contest (held in Azerbaijan’s capital), most of Europe is now better
informed about the undemocratic nature of th0 government in Baku,
no Belarus-type EU sanctions have been threatened or even discussed.
The EU today possesses all the instruments necessary to make a
difference. If we have learnt anything from the Georgian war of 2008,
we must now use them to avert the possibility of the worst horror
scenarios occurring in our near eastern neighbourhood.
The EU should clearly threaten sanctions against anyone unilaterally
using disproportionate force in this conflict, and we must insist
on the removal of snipers and on having EU observers along the line
of contact and the state borders. Incidentally, Armenia has already
agreed to this.
Before signing the next oil trade treaty with Baku, this should be
the EU condition, or we might soon have very different prices to pay
for oil and more importantly a tragic human catastrophe in Europe’s
east with large-scale casualties. In addition, there could be large
flows of refugees heading in our direction with all that this might
mean in economic terms in terms of additional burdens on our already
stretched public resources.”