THE SOUTH CAUCASUS: A DEMILITARIZATION OF REGIONAL SECURITY
Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
June 14 2013
Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Yerevan hosted the international conference “The Caucasus-2012”
organized by the Institute of the Caucasus, the embassy of Poland in
Armenia, and the Academic Swiss Caucasus Net (ASCN).
Scientists, journalists, and social activists from Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and some European countries took part
in the conference which touched on major political trends of 2012 in
the South and North Caucasus, policy by Europe, the USA, and Russia
in the Caucasus in 2012, ethnic-political conflicts in the Caucasus,
and problems of regional security.
Experts focused on election processes which took place in the South
Caucasus: the parliamentary elections in Armenia on May 12, 2012, and
in Georgia on October, 2012, the presidential elections in Armenia on
February 18, 2013, and the coming presidential elections in Georgia
and Azerbaijan.
A lot of attention was paid to influence of foreign players in the
Caucasus – the USA, Russia, and the European Union. According to
the head of the Regional Studies Center, Richard Giragosyan, who
spoke about activities of the West in the South Caucasus in 2012, a
serious transformation in the EU’s attitude to the South Caucasus took
place: from certain indifference to involvement into very important
problems, including the economic sphere. The expert said that this
intensification made Russia be indignant. Giragosyan stated that the
US and the EU had a division of labour in the South Caucasus: the EU
was focused on preservation of economic stability in the region, while
the United States was concentrated on security problems and energy.
The participants of the conference believe that the most significant
event for the West in the region, which played a big role last year
and will remain acute in a long prospect, are works on organization
of military transit, i.e. withdrawal of American and NATO troops from
Afghanistan through the territory of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
As for the policy of Russia in the South Caucaus, Alan Kasayev, the
head of a department in Moscow Linguistic University, says that a lot
of negative moments can be stated about Moscow’s policy in the South
Caucasus and almost all of them will be true: “Strategic mismatches can
be seen between the status of the great power which Russia wants to be
and its actual lag in some aspects, absence of prediction and desire
to take a risk. At the same time, we cannot deny that Russia has a
right to think that in the near future there will be no independent
reasons for unexpected radical changes which would demand quick and
tough reaction in the region.” Kasayev thinks that Moscow’s position
toward the region is adequate, but some steps are made too late.
According to the participants of the conference, the moderate policy
of Moscow in the South Caucasus in 2012 was caused by careful steps of
Washington in the region. It can be compared with Russia’s reaction
at the USA activity in Central Asia: the position of Russia was much
stricter than in the South Caucasus.
One of the most significant events of 2012 was military training
of the CSTO which took place in September and involved armies of
almost all countries-members of the CSTO. These were the largest
military maneuvers of the CSTO in Armenia for the whole history of
the post-Soviet space.
Participants of the conference emphasized that despite constant
escalation at the front line of the Nagorno-Karabakh, the results of
2012 showed that there will be no war between Armenia and Azerbaijan
in the near future.
From: Baghdasarian
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/analysis/politics/41438.html