WHY BELARUS SIDES WITH AZERBAIJAN, NOT ARMENIA
Belarus Digest
Sept 29 2011
Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian
(photo: belta.by) At a meeting last week, President Alyaksandr
Lukashenka did his best to persuade the Armenian foreign minister of
Belarus’ goodwill. But this was hardly convincing – the halcyon days
of close relations between the two countries are long gone. Now Minsk
is clearly siding with Azerbaijan, even though the latter is opposing
Russian policy in South Caucasus.
The USD 300 million loan given by the Azerbaijani president to
Lukashenka this summer and visit by Belarusian prime minister in
July to Baku were just some recent signs of a strong partnership
between Aliev and Lukashenka. Besides its neighboring nations in
the post-Soviet area, Belarus maintains very close relations with
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. In late 2000s Azerbaijan
apparently became the single most important customer buying significant
amount of weapons from Belarus.
New Friend
In the words of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs*,
cooperation with Azerbaijan was only activated “in recent years”.
Until the mid-2000s, political relations were negligible and trade
developed of its own accord. Lukashenka did not get along with former
President Heydar Aliyev, a seasoned apparatchik of the Soviet period
who looked down on Lukashenka as a young maverick.
Another reason for poor relations in the past was that Minsk tended
to follow Moscow’s foreign policy line. As a result, it developed
relations with Azerbaijan’s nemesis – Armenia. In the aftermath of
the Cold War, the only Belarusian embassy in the region was based
in Yerevan. In the late 1990s, Minsk finally decided to establish a
presence in Baku but the embassy was opened only after a considerable
delay in 2006.
However, over the past decade, relations have improved dramatically.
In Baku, Heydar Aliyev’s son Ilham inherited presidential power in
2003. Already in 2004, the heads of state of Belarus and Azerbaijan
broke with precedent by conducting mutual visits. This set the stage
for four top-level visits since 2006.
At the same time, Belarus deviated from its stringent pro-Russian
political line. Lukashenka found new friends – among them not only
Yushchenko of Ukraine and Saakashvili of Georgia, but also Ilham
Alyev. In this process, the enhanced international stature of
Azerbaijan played an important role, especially after the country
launched a new Caspian oil pipeline. Belarus could hope for support
from Baku as a natural ally against Moscow in the post-Soviet area.
Azerbaijan had long bolstered Russia’s opponents; in the past, it even
went so far as to establish the GUUAM – an alternative organization to
pro-Moscow integration initiatives – with Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan,
Azerbaijan, and Moldova. Although this organization is now moribund,
Azerbaijan’s attitude toward Moscow remains unchanged.
A second set of factors are economic. Between 2008 and 2010,
Belarus-Azerbaijan trade grew from US$ 100 m to US$ 146 m. More
important than this moderate increase is the fact that Belarus enjoys
a trade surplus, which helps to counteract its immense foreign trade
deficit.
Azerbaijan is also helping Belarus to acquire alternative oil sources.
Minsk recently began importing oil from Venezuela but direct
shipments to landlocked Belarus are difficult. Baku thus agreed
to swap schemes by which Minsk gains access to Azerbaijani oil in
exchange for Venezuelan oil.
Belarus Turned against Armenia
For Azerbaijan, an added incentive to work with Belarus is to garner
support for military liberation of its territory occupied by Armenia
and removal of self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabagh Republic. Negotiations
in the OSCE Minsk group have rendered no results for years now.
Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani government has used its growing oil
revenues to perennially increase its military budget. But a stronger
military will not change the fact that Armenians have Russia behind
them. Although Russia wants to preserve Azerbaijan as an ally in
the Caucasus, Azerbaijan is eager to change the status quo balance
of power. It is only a matter of time before armed conflict breaks
out again between Azerbaijan and Armenia and it may occur as soon as
the Azerbaijani government sees less sense in tolerating the current
situation which helps Armenia to legitimize present reality favorable
for Yerevan.
If such a war should ensue, Belarus will probably side with Baku,
the principal buyer of its weapons. It is notable that no arms deals
were made prior to 2005 – there is thus an unquestionable link between
a stronger Azerbaijani military and the initiation of bilateral arms
deals. By contrast, Armenia bought a small number of weapons from
Belarus just once, in 2007.
>>From Cooperation to Alliance
The development of Belarusian-Azerbaijani alliance is practically
a fait accompli. Azerbaijan is openly defending the Belarusian
regime from criticism in the West, as positions of Azerbaijani
representatives in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and EuroNest have
demonstrated. Alyev is also willing to help Lukashenka financially -in
addition to latest 300-million loan, not so long ago, Minsk borrowed
from Baku to pay Moscow for its outstanding claims.
For Azerbaijan, the motives for working with Belarus are political and
economic. The Central Asian state needs all the support it can get
if it wants to confronting Armenia and Russia, not to speak of its
tense relations with Iran. It cannot be very hopeful about Western
support, given the influential Armenian lobby there (especially in
the US and France). This makes support from former Soviet states all
the more important. At the same time, the privatization of Belarusian
industries and development of non-Russian oil supply routes is vital –
Venezuela is a good example.
For Belarus, cooperation with Azerbaijan is important as a tool to
put pressure on Moscow, to obtain financing, and to develop trade. In
particular, Azerbaijan may allow Belarus to access non-Russian oil and
gas from the Caspian and Middle Eastern regions (Iran and Northern
Iraq). The greatest hurdle for such a project would be neither
technical nor financial – the infrastructure is mostly already in
place. Rather, it is political: the Russians will stubbornly fight to
preserve their energy monopoly in Eastern and Central Europe, while
the United States will work to block any regional energy projects
that involve Iran.
SB