Eurasia Review
December 26, 2014 Friday
Armenia: Out Of The Game – OpEd
By Fuad Huseinzadeh
In the recent years there have emerged three very promising platforms
of trilateral cooperation in the Black Sea-Caspian Sea region that
consist in the following partnerships: Azerbaijan-Turkey-Georgia,
Azerbaijan-Turkey-Iran and Azerbaijan-Turkey-Turkmenistan.
For Azerbaijan, developing relations with foreign partners at
bilateral and trilateral levels coincides with Baku’s official posture
and its foreign policy strategy of non-alignment to any particular
bloc. It was not by any coincidence that Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev, speaking at an official reception to mark the Republic Day on
May 28, noted the great importance of all these formats of trilateral
interactions: “These formats have a very great significance for
regional security and cooperation and safeguarding our political and
economic interests. We shall, of course, continue these tripartite
meetings in the future, which have already become regular” the head of
state commented.
In this regard it is notable the latest trilateral meeting of the
Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia – Elmar
Mammadyarov, Mevlut Cavusoglu and Tamar Beruchashvili – which took
place in the Turkish city of Kars. The Kars Declaration was the crown
of the meeting, which was the fourth one held in this format. In the
declaration, the foreign ministers said that the three countries had
the same views regarding principles of their cooperation and the
future of the region.
According to the document, the foreign ministers stressed the
importance of trilateral cooperation in the region in accordance with
the documents adopted earlier – the Trabzon declaration of June 8,
2012, the Batumi joint communique of March 28, 2013 and the Ganja
statement of February 19, 2014.
The ministers pointed out the importance of implementing joint
projects in energy and transportation, in particular the
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project and the TANAP gas project, stressed
the importance of the Trilateral Sectorial Cooperation Action Plan for
2013-15 as an effective means of political dialogue, and stated the
need to continue meetings in this format and to expand trilateral
cooperation in other areas, including international organizations.
Along with this, the political component of this trio seems no less
significant, given the geopolitical situation in neighboring
countries.
The developments in Ukraine or, to be precise, the ambiguous
interpretations by some countries of the territorial integrity of this
country, have clearly left an imprint on the final document adopted as
a result of the meeting in Kars. “Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia have
reaffirmed their firm support for one another’s territorial integrity
and sovereignty and in this regard they have once again called for a
speedy settlement of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict in Azerbaijan and
the conflict in Georgia’s Abkhazia and Tskhinval (South Ossetia)
regions in accordance with fundamental principles and norms of
international law, in particular on the basis of respect for
sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of
internationally recognized borders of states,” the declaration
stresses.
At their final news conference, the foreign ministers stated in unison
that they were confident that the transport and energy projects
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, and
Southern Gas Corridor will give an impetus to the implementation of
new economic projects in Europe and Asia. However, regional security
gained a greater emphasis once again. Elmar Mammadyarov said that
Armenia’s aggressive policy against Azerbaijan threatens peace and
development in the region. It was noted that this policy by Armenia is
contrary to international legal norms. Noting that all conflicts in
the world are a crime against humanity, Mevlut Cavusoglu said that
Turkey will continue with its efforts to establish peace between
countries and peoples.
Stressing the great importance of the three parties’ participation in
international organizations and regional integration projects,
Minister Tamar Beruchashvili said that the trilateral relationship
will continue to meet the interests of our countries and peoples.
However, subsequent statements by the foreign ministers are
noteworthy. Tamar Beruchashvili said that every country can take part
in regional projects if it recognizes, first of all, the territorial
integrity of a neighboring state and renounces all acts of violence.
In turn, the Turkish minister was more specific in identifying the
listeners of those statements. Cavusoglu said that as long as Armenian
armed forces do not leave Azerbaijan’s land, that country will remain
out of regional projects. “We support the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan and Georgia. We hope that Armenia would respect the borders
of neighboring states and becomes a nation like one of ours. In that
case, the missing link will be where it belongs,” Turkish media quoted
Cavusoglu as saying.
In the meantime, “the missing link”, as the saying goes, does not care
a straw. Just like previously, Yerevan continues to be concerned not
about real things, the socio-economic situation in the country that
seems to be worsening further and, as a consequence, mass migration,
but the same mythical benchmarks as before – international recognition
of the 1915 “genocide” and “re-creation of the Great Armenia”.
Armenia, the indefatigable neighbor of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia
not only rejects the calls for good neighborly relations in return to
non-aggression but also continues to lay territorial claims on them
and tries to impose on them something they did not do.
There is only one thing that this policy promises Armenia – an
increasingly deeper immersion into crisis and isolation in the region.
The geopolitical state of affairs in the region, which has until
recently suited Armenia, is going to change, and not in favor of
Armenia.
Azerbaijan is increasingly stepping up its cooperation with Turkey.
Last week, the head of the public and political department within the
Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, Ali Hasanov, said that Baku
should create a single political block with Ankara. He said Turkey is
now one of the world’s 20 largest economies, and Azerbaijan is also
steadily moving towards high economic indicators.
But while for Armenia the strengthening of allied relations between
its two sworn enemies is not a big surprise, the increasingly
worsening relationship between Russia and the West, and Iran’s
rapprochement with Azerbaijan are fraught for Armenia including the
loss of its most important allies in the region. The recent visit by
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Baku confirmed the determination
of the sides to eliminate former problems and to clarify everything,
and the Russian president’s visit to Turkey and agreements reached
during the visit to strengthen bilateral relations against the
backdrop of the confrontation between Moscow and the West have even
allowed some observers to predict the creation of a new geopolitical
axis – Azerbaijan-Turkey-Russia.
“The Russia-Turkish agreements may seriously change the geopolitical
architecture, primarily in the South Caucasus. In this regard, a new
line of cooperation between Turkey-Azerbaijan-Russia – is possible,
which in the long term may be expanded to include Iran, especially
given Moscow’s attempts to increase its presence in India,” stated for
R+ magazine, Nadana Friedrichson, a political analyst with EurAsEC
Institute.
Thus, while Armenia is a hostage to important processes running around
it but without any of its involvement, Azerbaijan and also Turkey and
Georgia are not only depending on a geopolitical agenda but are also
actively shaping it.
Kars is actually a very symbolic place for the history of the
relationship between Turkey and the South Caucasus countries. We
should recall that the Treaty of Kars on friendship between the
Azerbaijani, Armenian and Georgian SSRs on one side and Turkey on the
other was signed in this city in 1921. The document extended to the
trans-Caucasus soviet republics the main provisions of the Treaty of
Moscow. The Treaty of Moscow provided for establishment of trade
relations and regulation of financial and economic issues. The Treaty
of Kars added several provisions to the Moscow Treaty – on
facilitation of border crossing by residents of the border zone and on
giving them the right to use pastures located on the other side of the
border. The Treaty of Kars effectively helped remove friction between
Turkey and the trans-Caucasus soviet republics. However, the
present-day Republic of Armenia does not recognize the treaty because
it assigned to Turkey the cities of Kars and Ardahan, which Armenians
covet, as well as the Mount Agridag which they call Ararat.
History, as we know, does not repeat itself. And almost a century
after the treaty was signed, the region’s future is being decided
without Armenia’s involvement.
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