New War?

[gamavor]

..how about "implements of Mass Constuction" instead...eh

 

Construction comes after distruction. If you don't trust me ask your President!

[ED]

09.09.2004 07:10:00 GMT

Iran offers to assist in settling Nagorno-Artsax conflict

 

Yerevan. (Interfax) - Iran is ready to assist in settling the Nagorno-Artsax conflict, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami told the Armenian parliament on Wednesday.

 

Khatami is in Yerevan on a two-day official visit.

 

"Iran is interested in peace and stability in the South Caucasus and is prepared to assist in settling all conflicts in this region," Khatami said, adding that Iran is also interested in a peaceful settlement of the Artsax conflict.

 

Khatami also spoke about democracy and democratization in different parts of the world. He said that while speaking about democracy in a "non-Western region" one should take the principles and norms of this region into account. Democracy in such instances should be interpreted more broadly, he said.

 

Iran had been voicing its readiness to assist in the settlement of the Nagorno-Artsax conflict earlier, as well. Teheran believes that the settlement of the Nagorno-Artsax conflict should not lead to the introduction of military contingents from countries outside the South Caucasus into the region.

[gamavor]

I think Baku's oil fields are of vital importance for the Armenian economy. In that light Khatami's words are very well received.

[ED]

Gemavor,

 

to echo your words I would add, the fact there was large Armenian well educated community in Baku at the turn of the century who actually contributed the oil industry in Azerbaijan, and since 1988 Baku resembles waist land, there was an article in some magazine regarding this. As fact Azeri’s pay far much more for oil Azerbaijan then Armenians in Armenia.

[Armen]

VARTAN OSKANIAN: "KARABAGH IS INVALUABLE"

 

Azg/am

23 Sept 04

 

One Can't Frighten Armenia with Statements That It Is Left Without

Energetic and Transportation Projects

 

"Nagorno Karabagh is invaluable. If someone connects the regional

energetic and transportation projects with the issue of Nagorno

Karabagh, I can definitely say that we can make no connection between

them, as Nagorno Karabagh is invaluable and we can exchange it neither

with railways nor oil pipelines and roads," Oskanian said in

yesterday's press conference.

 

"One can't frighten or bother Armenia with statements that it is left

without the energetic and transportation regional projects, and we

should make concessions and prompt the settlement of the issue. We

absolutely reject this argument and one can't frighten Armenia with

that. Maybe that was possible in 1992. At present Armenia can not

only survive without that, but also develop and during the next

century it will develop without railways and oil pipelines," Oskanian

said.

 

According to the calculation of the experts, Armenia would get $50

million annually, if all the oil and gas pipelines, as well as the

railroads pass through its territory. This sum makes only 10 % of our

country's budget.

 

Oskanian said that Armenia is ready to be involved in the regional

programs, if "the other side wishes." Particularly, he said, that

Yerevan is ready to open Kars-Gyumri-Tbilisi railroad that stopped

functioning because of Turkey's blockade of Armenia since

1993. According to trustworthy diplomatic sourcesof Azg Daily, the

Armenian side offered Turkey to open this railroad, besides, Yerevan

would demand no transportation taxes.

 

Ra Foreign Minister is to leave for New York to participate in 59-th

Session of UN Assembly. According to preliminary agreement, the

meeting of Oskanian with Abdullah Gul is envisaged. Oskanian said that

Armenia hasn't changed its position, as regards achieving positive

results without preconditions. "The issue remains unchanged, i.e. to

fix development in Armenian -Turkish Relations, to open the railroad,

to establish some bilateral exchanges, to open the border-gate and to

establish diplomatic relations, as the final goal," he said.

 

Oskanian stated that at present no agreement has been reached yet for

the meeting with Abdullah Gul. "I think there will be some break

before gettingnew instructions from the presidents. Our evaluation is

the following: the foreign ministers have completed the first stage of

the negotiations, four meetings took place. We are expecting new

instructions from the presidents. If we get the instructions, we can

say that the negotiations on the level of foreign ministers will enter

the second stage, that will be higher and closer to the settlement of

the issue from its qualitative aspect than the first one," Vartan

Oskanian said.

 

Presidents Robert Kocharian and Heydar Aliyev have reached a definite

stage in the negotiation process. In reply to the question whether

Azerbaijan preserves the consistency of the negotiations, Oskanian

said: "The possibility of consistency isn't denied. I can't say that

consistency is preserved. Anyway, some variant of consistency is being

discussed and it isn't rejected by Azerbaijan."

 

In response to the question put by Azg Daily, whether a negotiation

basis was created as a result of the four meetings of the foreign

ministers, Oskanian answered, "According to the foreign ministers,

some basis was created and passed to the presidents. There were some

expectations that the presidents will give consent or give special

instructions to the foreign ministers to continue in that

direction. There was such an expectation, but that wasn't achieved

during the meetings of the presidents (in Astana). Certainly, it

doesnâ=80=99t mean that the presidents rejected that. Kocharian and

Aliyev positively estimated the work done by the foreign ministers and

I believe that the things that were submitted to the presidents are in

the center of their attention and they will continue discussions

around them. After coming to conclusion, there may be definite

instructions given to both OSCE Minsk group and the foreign

ministers."

 

Touching upon the fact that Armenian officers were not allowed going

to Baku to participate in NATO military exercises, Vartan Oskanian

said, "It was a good opportunity to restore trust between the two

armies. If Azeri government yielded and was under the pressure of some

minority's demands, we are seriously concerned with the fact whether

new Azeri authorities will be able to make serious mutual concessions

in Nagorno Karabagh settlement issue."

 

Oskanian evaluated unacceptable the report of Terry Davis, OSCE

Karabagh Issue Reporter. "That report has no legal status at

present. It is still being discussed. The reporter has been

changed. The newly appointed reporter should prepare his own report,

taking into account the report of Davis or ignoringit," he

said. Oskanian is also concerned with the statements of the newly

appointed reporter, Stinckson. They are not in the interest of

Armenia.

 

By Tatoul Hakobian

[Armen]

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/sw/details.cfm?ID=9775

 

Armenia's dreams and realities

As the balance of power in the Transcaucasus shifts in favor of Baku, the prospects for Yerevan become increasingly dim.

 

By Dr. Michael A. Weinstein for PINR

 

The stepchild of the Transcaucasus, Armenia occupies the weakest geostrategic position in the region. Landlocked, poor in natural resources and dependent on energy and agricultural imports, its borders blockaded to trade from the east by Azerbaijan and from the west by Turkey, and engaged in a simmering war with Azerbaijan over the mini-state of Nagorno-Artsax, the country has had to resort to Russian protection for lack of any other options. As Russia has begun to court oil-rich Azerbaijan in order to counter US influence there, Yerevan's dependence on Moscow has become more problematic, threatening Armenia with isolation from the West and the loss of a reliable and committed advocate and protector. The authoritarian-tending strong presidential regime of Robert Kocharian sees Armenia's vital interests as securing reliable energy supplies and foreign investment, opening its borders to trade, preventing Azerbaijan from reasserting sovereignty over ethnically Armenian Artsax, and forging closer military and economic relations with the West without impairing its essential ties to Russia.

 

Complementarity

In pursuit of its perceived interests, Yerevan has adopted a foreign policy of "complementarity", which involves cultivating friendly relations with the world and regional powers - Russia, the US, and Iran - that impinge upon it. The aim of the complementarity policy is to place Armenia into a network of relations among the impinging powers that is based on convergent interests. The best-case scenario for Yerevan would be an agreement among the impinging powers to guarantee the security of the three Transcaucasian republics - Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia - and treat them as interdependent components of a single region. This ideal solution would protect Armenia's autonomy, which is always problematic as a result of its basic geostrategic weakness. Yerevan's policy of complementarity contrasts with Tbilisi's pro-Western orientation since the Rose Revolution and with Baku's "balanced" policy. Armenia cannot take a decisive turn in favor of NATO because the Western alliance includes Turkey, covets Azerbaijan and has a primary interest in the security of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Yerevan is just not important enough to the West for its powers to sacrifice their other interests for Armenia's benefit. Yerevan also does not have the cards to pursue a balance of power strategy of playing impinging forces against each other, as Baku, with its Caspian oil reserves, attempts to do.

 

Armenia’s weakness

Since Yerevan lacks the resources to execute its complementarity policy successfully, that policy has become a hopeful facade covering continued dependence on Russia. Yerevan can point to no instance in which it has been able to engineer or contribute to great-power convergence in the Transcaucasus. The impinging powers cooperate with one another when it is to their interest to do so and compete with each other when they perceive that alternative to be in their advantage. None of the impinging powers seeks direct confrontation and none of them is ready for a grand bargain, because the Transcaucasian situation is still fluid enough to allow each one the prospect of improving its position. Armenia's weakness leaves it stranded as the junior partner in the emerging Moscow-Yerevan-Tehran axis and excluded from the far more lucrative Baku-Tbilisi-Ankara axis presided over by NATO. Those two axes define the power structure of the Transcaucasus, with each of its three republics constrained to adapt to the pushes and pulls of the contending impinging powers. As the state with the best prospects, Azerbaijan has a limited freedom to play all sides against the middle. As the center of the east-west axis and the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, it is intelligible that Georgia would be a willing junior partner in that formation. Armenia is left with an increasingly unsatisfactory second-best situation.

 

Firmly tied to Russia

Armenia's primary dependence on Russia is difficult to deny. Militarily, Russia has 2’500 troops in the country and provides forces to protect its borders with Iran and Turkey. Russia is also Armenia's major trading partner, its largest source of investment, the main destination of its surplus labor, the provider of its energy needs and military equipment, and its biggest creditor. Armenia is firmly tied to Russia as a cooperative member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization. The extent of Moscow's hegemony is evidenced by a 2002 agreement in which Yerevan settled its US$93.7 million debt to Moscow by transferring five of Armenia's key industrial plants to Russian ownership. In order to loosen its dependence on Moscow, Yerevan has moved to establish ties with NATO and the US. The Kocharian regime has sent peacekeepers to Kosovo and is planning to send a small contingent of support troops to Iraq to assist the American-led coalition. It was also primed to participate in NATO's Cooperative Best Effort military exercises in Azerbaijan, but they were canceled after Baku refused to let Armenian officers into the country to attend them.

 

Closer to Tehran, approaching Ankara

Yerevan has also drawn closer to Tehran and is preparing to sign an agreement to construct a pipeline that would carry natural gas from Iran to Armenia, with substantial financing from Tehran. The pipeline would ease Armenia's dependence on Russia for energy supplies, but would not alter the country's fundamental strategic situation. Finally, Yerevan has taken cautious steps to approach Ankara about their long-standing dispute over the Turkish persecution of Armenians (genocide in the Armenian view) at the end of the Ottoman Empire. Yerevan, pressured by nationalist sectors of its own population and by the large Armenian diaspora, demands that Ankara admit to genocide. Although it is in the economic and strategic interest of Armenia to open up the border with Turkey, nationalist interests continue to impede progress toward that goal. Moscow has responded with skepticism to Yerevan's efforts to achieve diplomatic elbowroom. In May 2004, Kocharian visited Moscow for talks about Russia's displeasure with Yerevan's initiatives. Moscow wants Yerevan to limit or curtail its relations with NATO, and its assurance that the Iranian pipeline will not be extended through Georgia and under the Black Sea to Ukraine, bypassing Russia and depriving it of a market for its gas. Moscow is also essential as a go-between in any effort to open Yerevan-Ankara relations, and is reportedly discussing restoring rail links between Armenia and Turkey. Yerevan is restricted by its dependence on Moscow from moving too far toward an independent foreign policy. For its own interests, Moscow will permit the Kocharian regime some leeway so that Armenia does not become a ward of Russia, but it has the power to squeeze Armenia's lifeline if Yerevan exceeds its limits.

 

The Nagorno-Artsax, an open wound

When Azerbaijan was incorporated into the Soviet Union as a republic after the Russian Revolution, it was given the ethnically Armenian region of Nagorno-Artsax. Over 90 percent Armenian on its accession to Azerbaijan, Azeri migration to the region brought the proportion of Armenians down to 75 percent by 1991, when Azerbaijan and Armenia became independent states and the Armenians in Artsax fought a war of independence from Azerbaijan. That war, which resulted in 30’000 deaths and was attended by massacres, pogroms and ethnic cleansing, was successful. Aided by Yerevan's military intervention, a mini-state of Artsax was created, linked to Armenia by a corridor and buffered by an Armenian occupation of areas of Azerbaijan outside the mini-state. Since then, Artsax has stabilized as the most successful mini-state that resulted from the splitting process that occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has received large infusions of investment from the Armenian diaspora and has moved from a state-dependent to a mixed, mainly capitalist economy. Artsax has a stable government, which has begun to democratize and has held municipal elections in which some offices were won by independents. Its population, which has returned to 90 per cent ethnic Armenian, is militantly opposed to reassertion of Baku's sovereignty over the region. Artsax is Azerbaijan's open wound - a humiliation, a severe impairment of its territorial integrity and the source of a serious refugee problem. Ever since Artsax gained de facto independence, Baku has been preoccupied with reasserting sovereignty over the region and has met with no success. Unable at present to retake Artsax by force, Baku has stuck to a hard line, threatening a military solution when circumstances become favorable.

 

A detriment to Baku’s foreign policy

The Artsax problem is a significant detriment to Baku's foreign policy, diverting it from taking full advantage of its geostrategic and geoeconomic opportunities. The case is different for Armenia, for which Artsax is an asset that demonstrates its military prowess and forces world powers to reckon with it, because Yerevan is essential to any resolution of the conflict. From Yerevan's perspective, the best-case scenario would be incorporation of Artsax into Armenia. A strong international guarantee of self-rule for the region, including Armenian protective rights, would satisfy Yerevan. At worst, Yerevan contemplates prolongation of the status quo through dragging out the mediation process undertaken by the OSCE Minsk Group, led by Russia. Yerevan is not likely to realize either of its satisfactory outcomes in the foreseeable future and must try to perpetuate the status quo. The problem with that strategy, which remains Yerevan's best option, is that Artsax is a wasting asset. When Azerbaijan's oil begins to flow full throttle, it will be able to build up a military advantage over Armenia that will allow it to retake Artsax or to persuade world and regional powers to pressure Yerevan to make unacceptable concessions in order to prevent a war. In addition, as Azerbaijan becomes more prosperous and powerful, Armenia's relative importance to world and regional powers will diminish, leading them to pay less attention to Yerevan's requirements. Yerevan has responded to the threats in its future by embarking on a program of rearmament, straining its meager budget.

 

Stalled mediation

At present, the mediation process is stalled and ongoing. The former Russian co-chairman of the Minsk Group, Vladimir Kazimirov, believes that both Baku and Yerevan are deliberately delaying a settlement of the Artsax dispute, the former because it sees the balance of power shifting in its favor and the latter because it hopes that all interested parties will get used to the status quo. The two sides are equally intransigent. Baku insists that Armenian troops withdraw from all areas of Azerbaijan outside Artsax and that all displaced persons be allowed to return to their homes before the status of Artsax can be discussed. Yerevan does not even admit that Artsax is legally part of Azerbaijan, arguing that because the region declared independence at the same time that Azerbaijan became an independent state, both of them are equally successor states of the Soviet Union. Yerevan insists that the government of Artsax be part of any discussions on the region's future and rejects ceding occupied territory or allowing refugees to return prior to talks on the region's status. With such diametrically opposed and inflexible positions, it was to be expected that a meeting between Kocharian and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev at the CIS summit in Astana, Kazakhstan on 15 September did not result in any breakthroughs. In a joint news conference, Kocharian said, "We cannot boast of any particular success. We must continue to quietly and patiently discuss this problem which we have inherited." Similarly, Aliev remarked, "We must as usual content ourselves with making fairly vague declarations".

 

Breaking the deadlock

The difficulty of bringing the two sides together is illustrated by a report of a proposal circulated by Moscow at the Astana meeting, in which Yerevan would trade the withdrawal of its troops from areas of Azerbaijan outside Artsax for referenda on the region's status to be held in the mini-state and in Azerbaijan. Since the proposed referenda would lead to opposed results and only compound the deadlock, the actual trade would be Armenia's sacrifice of its military advantage for the international legitimacy gained for the Artsax mini-state. The Russian proposal did not bear fruit because Yerevan's military presence in Azerbaijan is its highest card and because Baku refuses to grant the Artsax mini-state any legitimacy. As the balance of power in the Transcaucasus shifts in favor of Baku, the prospects for Yerevan become increasingly dim. Its vital interests are unlikely to be adequately satisfied, as it is brought closer to the choice of conceding on Artsax or going to war, and as it is forced to remain dependent on a Moscow seeking greater influence with Baku. The most likely future for Armenia is to remain the junior partner in the Moscow-Yerevan-Tehran axis, directing its economy toward the Russian-dominated Single Economic Space. The weakest player in the Transcaucasus, Armenia faces the diminution of the power and autonomy that it currently possesses.

 

 

This article originally appeared in Power and Interest News Report, PINR, at (www.pinr.com). All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com. Dr. Michael A. Weinstein is a professor of political science at Purdue University and an analyst with the Power and Interest News Report (http://www.pinr.com).

[gamavor]

Finally, Yerevan has taken cautious steps to approach Ankara about their long-standing dispute over the Turkish persecution of Armenians (genocide in the Armenian view) at the end of the Ottoman Empire.

 

Isn't Weinstein a Jewish surname? Btw, if is fair to note that some Jews believe that persecutions agains Jews in Germany amounted to a Hol0hoax!

[Ludwig9]

Considering the Article posted by Armenian Highlander in the -Peking-tehran-yerevan-moscow "quartet" - . Weinstien doesn't know what he is talking about. If any one steps foot in Artsakh, the Russians will step in, if Anyone step a foot in Armenia, again the Russians will step in. Armenia is the ONLY pro-Russian country in that entire region and I don't think that Russia is going to give up its foot hold. There a saying about the Russians, - becareful of the sleeping bear - . So, again you know why there isn't a war yet ? Read the article posted by AH.

 

And God forbid, if there is a war. You think that Armenia supported by Russians and its neighboring countries is going to lose ?

[Armen]

Isn't Weinstein a Jewish surname? Btw, if is fair to note that some Jews believe that persecutions agains Jews in Germany amounted to a Hol0hoax!

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

Germans persecuted juice, eh? I thought they loved beer ...