AGGRESSION WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

[Yervant1]

AGGRESSION WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

 

Messenger.ge

August 21, 2009

 

The major news issue of this past week has been Russian President

Medvedev's attack on his Ukrainian counterpart, thankfully so far

only verbal, in which he accuses him of conducting an anti-Russian

policy. Now some yet more extraordinary news has been published on

Russian website Regnum.

 

Russia is surprising its neighbours by saying it might possibly

allow Armenian soldiers to organise small bases on Russian

territory to protect the transportation network which delivers

goods to Armenia. This information comes from the headquarters

and joint headquarters of the Collective Security Organisation,

a CIS structure, which says that the special rapid reaction force,

established in the CIS and Armenia according to an agreement concluded

on February 4, 2009, could undertake this work. This force, in effect

Armenian Special Forces, would allegedly be deployed in Dagestan in

the northern Caucasus and Dagomis, a town in the Krasnodar region of

the Russian Federation on the Black Sea coast.

 

Plenty of questions arise immediately. First, this is a direct

threat to Azerbaijan, and why is this being made? Second, it is

strange that Russia cannot secure the safety of its communication

network itself. Why does it need Armenian assistance? Furthermore,

what kind of communications pass through Dagestan which are so crucial

for Armenia that they need to be guarded by soldiers?

 

Stepan Saparian, an MP from Armenia's opposition Heritage faction,

thinks that this suggestion is a Russian attempt to blackmail

Azerbaijan. There are several reasons why Russia is not happy with

Azeri conduct. The first could be that Azerbaijan has refused to sell

its whole output of natural gas to Russia, as Moscow wanted it to do

in order to undermine the potential supply of the proposed NABUCCO

project. This refusal frustrated Russia's wicked plan to be the only

supplier of natural gas in Europe. Another reason is Moscow's need to

supply the Russian military base in Gumri, Armenia, which obviously

Azerbaijan will not let it do. Before the August aggression Russia

supplied this base from Georgia, but now of course this route is

blocked. Moscow has tried to negotiate with Turkey on supplying it

from there but has apparently been told this will not happen.

 

Azeri military analyst Uzeir Japarov says the only way Russia can

now supply its base is through Iran. Russian cargo would have to be

transported through the Caspian Sea or through Central Asia to get to

Iran. Others suggest the Azeri Government should talk to the Iranian

leadership about this issue. Ildrim Mamedov says that Azerbaijan should

ask the USA to monitor what kind of weapons, in what quantities,

Russia would transport to Gumri through Iran. He also suggests that

the Americans should provide Azerbaijan with relevant data from US

space intelligence.

 

Of course, Moscow is not happy with the Azeri position and it is

presumed that this is why the possibility of Armenian soldiers being

based in Russia has started to be talked about. So far President

Medvedev has not written to Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri President, but

Moscow is indirectly hinting that it expects Azerbaijan will take

steps favourable to Moscow. The Messenger has previously written that

the Kremlin wants to play the first violin in the Caspian Sea region

and its policies are designed to achieve this.

 

Russian-Azeri relations cannot be considered in isolation from

Armenian-Azeri relations. However these are a knot which is not easily

to untangle. It is difficult to suggest that the Karabakh conflict

could be solved in a way which will satisfy both sides. Despite

the current threat to Azerbaijan, Moscow wants to simultaneously

influence both countries and present itself as an honest broker in

their conflict. However even in these circumstances it is acting

aggressively towards one side, Azerbaijan. Sooner or later it will

have to directly indicate which side is its genuine ally, and what

boundary will its aggression have then?