Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russia
June 15 2012
South Caucasus Black Hole: Outside Players Are Being Pulled Into the
Regional Conflict
by Yuriy Roks
[translated from Russian]
The Armenian question has reached the Knesset
The visit of OSCE Chairman Eamon Gilmore to Armenia and Azerbaijan,
which ended on Thursday, has not lowered the tension between the
conflicting countries. Exchanges of fire have continued both on the
line of contact in unrecognized Nagornyy Karabakh and in some border
areas. In Yerevan and Baku Gilmore spoke about the impermissibility of
violence. But, judging by the reports received from the said
locations, his appeals were ineffective. Hopes for a sedative scenario
are now linked with the meeting of the heads of the foreign ministries
of Armenia and Azerbaijan on 18 June in Paris.
Eamon Gilmore said to the conflicting parties the right things about
peace. But they have heard all this for several years repeatedly. In
the impasse situation that the negotiating process is in the opponents
are disposed to now blame the mediators as well.
Though Baku has long been doing this, criticizing the OSCE Minsk
Group, which is in charge of the Karabakh settlement process, for
inaction and has periodically started a conversation about the need
for a change of format of the negotiations and, simultaneously, of a
change of mediators. The Azerbaijan authorities believe that the
status quo, to which the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group is
contributing, is impermissible.
If the efforts of the mediators do not fully satisfy Yerevan, they do
so to a greater extent than they do Baku. But Gilmore’s statements
made during the present visit are giving rise to questions among the
Armenians also. They make no secret of their disenchantment with the
fact that the OSCE chairman, who in Yerevan declined in every which
way to answer a question about a visit to Nagornyy Karabakh, announced
in Baku, barely having disembarked from the plane, that he had no
intention of going to the unrecognized republic. Another question is
not only and not so much about the OSCE but about world players’
interpretation of the events occurring in the Transcaucasus.
Specifically, the Armenians cannot fail to be concerned as to why the
West insists on calling the Azerbaijani-Israeli military cooperation,
which is growing before their eyes and of which Azerbaijan’s
acquisition of arms worth a sum total of approximately $2 billion is
coming to be an integral part, an involuntary step in the face of the
Iranian threat. Despite the fact that Baku itself is methodically
refuting this claim, assuring Tehran that, despite the interstate
contradictions, Azerbaijan would in no guise be part of an anti-Iran
coalition were such to be formed. Iran, receiving these assurances,
will, in turn, hardly trust them, bearing in mind Azerbaijan’s sale to
Israel of several abandoned military airfields of the Soviet period.
“Israel, for its own specific purposes far removed from the Karabakh
problem, which has ventured upon military cooperation with Azerbaijan,
is now perceived as its ally. Clearly, given the resources, weapons
may be purchased wherever, and Baku could, say, point in response to
Moscow, which is supporting Armenia with favourable weapons
deliveries. Nonetheless, a shadow could not have failed to fallen on
Armenian-Israeli relations,” a commentator from Yerevan told NG.
Obviously wishing to somehow equalize the relations, Tel Aviv, whose
official representatives, specifically Avigdor Lieberman, head of the
Foreign Ministry, had not left even a 1 per cent possibility of
Israel’s consideration of the genocide of Armenians in Turkey, has
suddenly altered its position.
Discussion of this tragedy took place in the Knesset recently. Zahava
Galion, member from the Meretz party, who initiated it, said: “We are
close to rectification of a historical injustice.” The Knesset debate,
in which members of seven parliamentary factions supported recognition
of the genocide, was at such a level that Archbishop Aris Shirvanyan,
representative of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, who was
present at the discussion, said in a telephone conversation that there
was a very high probability of a positive outcome. “The course of the
discussion itself sho wed that the Israeli Government is giving the
green light and not opposing recognition of the genocide,” the
archbishop remarked.
But such optimism could be excessive, the change in Tel Aviv’s
position could have to do not only with a desire to even out relations
with Yerevan but also to put pressure on Ankara. Such an
interpretation of what is happening was made for NG by a source close
to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. “But there’ll be no change in the
authorities’ position on the Armenian question no matter what happens
in Tel Aviv. Ankara continues to believe that the circumstances of
those events should be studied by scholars not politicians,” the
source told NG. He also assured us that Turkey desires a normalization
of relations with Armenia here and that “efforts are being made in
this area, even if no one is saying anything about it.” He said that
Ankara, while sticking to the principle of Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity, is categorically opposed to a solution of the question
involving the use of force, as far as the fact that, according to
unconfirmed, but very insistent rumours, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, after the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, amicably
recommended to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that he “forget
about a return of Nagornyy Karabakh by war.” The source also reported
that in the light of this Turkey cannot fail to be puzzled by
Azerbaijan’s purchases of large consignments of arms from Israel, as,
equally, by its inordinate assertiveness in the Iranian direction.
“Generally, though, a somewhat distorted impression of the cloudless
nature of Turkish-Azerbaijani relations is created. We are, indeed,
partners, but there are quite a few rough patches. relations between
Ankara and Baku could for a more accurate impression of them be
compared with those between Moscow and Minsk or between Moscow and
Kiev even,” the source told NG and hinted that whereas Baku once
expressed unhappiness with the relations between allied Ankara and
hostile Yerevan that were being adjusted, Ankara also is altogether
entitled to be unhappy with Baku’s partnership with Tel Aviv, which is
opposed to it.
The tension in the Transcaucasus cannot remain unnoticed by Moscow. We
recall that the announcement of the major military deal between Baku
and Tel Aviv almost coincided with a warning by Rosselkhoznadzor
[Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight Service] of a possible
ban on imports to Russia of Azerbaijani fruit and vegetables, which
had this spring suddenly proven to be harmful to the human organism.
As earlier Georgian and Moldavian wine and agricultural products and
Tajik dry fruit. Even if this was a chance coincidence and the warning
was not put into effect, Russia is, in any event, alerted by
Azerbaijan’s colossal military expenditure, against whomever it is
directed: Armenia is its commonly known strategic ally, Iran, in its
confrontation with the West, is tacitly such. And the fact that, a
number of agencies report, servicemen of the Russian base in Gyumri
have intensified small-arms exercises and pilots have had their flying
time considerably increased cannot against the background of the
growing tension in the region be fortuitous.
[translated from Russian]
From: A. Papazian