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Category: Georgia

  • NATO’s ‘Caucasus Council’

    NATO’s ‘Caucasus Council’

    19/08/2008 22:01 MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political observer Andrei Fedyashin) – The emergency NATO Council session held in Brussels on August 19 at America’s request to give Russia its “comeuppance” did not go smoothly. It took the ministers several hours to hammer out the final communique.

    In the end it turned out to be utterly predictable: the bloc’s 26 members decided that they would, after all, live with Russia, but they should talk to it in a tactful, but tough way. They heard the Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili (who, addressing the bloc’s headquarters, pressed for all thinkable punishments, including Russia’s expulsion from many international organizations), but refused to give a hearing to our Ambassador, Dmitry Rogozin.

    The latter had sought a meeting with NATO ministers and ambassadors every day since August 8 to explain the Russian position and actions. Rogozin threatened to spoil the party so much that he was barred from the meeting and was not even allowed to hold a press conference on the heels of the emergency meeting. Still, NATO officials have never tried to conceal the fact that their task was to protect the interests of the bloc and its members rather than to provide information and political objectivity.

    Speaking of the outcome of the meeting, Russia knew all along what NATO’s political response would be.

    At U.S. insistence, the bloc agreed to form a NATO-Georgia Commission (similar to the one it already has with Ukraine) to coordinate the strengthening of military ties with Tbilisi, and confirmed it was ready to admit Georgia to NATO at an unspecified future date. But NATO failed to back George Bush and curtail military cooperation and high-level meetings with Russia.

    The U.S. was counting on much more. U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, upon arrival in Brussels confirmed Greater Europe’s fears that the Americans had fallen prey to another bout of “diplomatic frenzy” which happens each time after major setbacks. Europe is not happy when America behaves like this because it is prone to get carried away and opens all the cards. The Old World prefers the slowly-slowly, softly-softly approach. Rice, however, declared that NATO would not allow Moscow to win a “strategic victory”. “We have to deny Russian strategic objectives, which are clearly to undermine Georgia’s democracy… We are not going to allow Russia to draw a new line at those states that are not yet integrated into the Transatlantic structures.”

    If one strips away the usual “democratic litany” what Condie said was that the U.S. and NATO must not allow Russia to prevent a new enlargement of the bloc by taking in Ukraine and Georgia. This is Washington’s long-term strategic objective: to close the NATO ring in the region where Russia is most vulnerable.

    “Russia’s strategic victory” was meant to come as a horrible revelation to European ears. True, Russia has never concealed that not allowing Georgia and Ukraine, especially under their present regimes, to join NATO was its “strategic objective.” The Europeans do not mind admitting them, but not all of them are quite sure that it is necessary and worthwhile to quarrel with and break relations with Moscow over Yushchenko’s Ukraine and Saakashvili’s Georgia. What is the point? NATO has moved up to Russia’s borders already.

    The European ministers in Brussels were faced with a classic conundrum: “punish or pardon.” Some NATO members formed “interest groups” even before the meeting on this issue. For example, Old Europe (Germany, France and Italy) was loath to continue rocking the “Transatlantic foundations.” But it was being pressed to go further than it wanted.

    The Europeans had, in fact, wondered for some time whether Bush would depart calmly or try to make his mark in history by springing yet another surprise. Much to Greater Europe’s chagrin, “friend George” is not someone who goes quietly. He had to bring Saakashvili’s Georgia into NATO through the slaughter of civilians in Tskhinvali. Now that it has turned into an indisputable disaster for Saakashvili, Washington is trying to bring pressure to bear on NATO allies and prevail over the Kremlin which refused to have another puppet government controlled by NATO, or rather Washington, on its doorstep. Washington is genuinely surprised as to why Moscow disagrees with such an elementary thing…

    NATO’s political response, as expected, boiled down to mere symbolism because NATO’s European old-timers were not ready to curtail links with Russia. Against this background, one finds some of NATO’s actions perplexing. According to our General Staff information unveiled during the meeting, U.S., Polish and Canadian naval ships would enter the Black Sea by the end of August. An encounter between Russian and NATO ships in times of crisis is not conducive to an early settlement of the “Caucasus conflict.”

    However, despite some disagreements between the Europeans and Washington, no one should have the slightest doubt that America, be it the America of George Bush or Barak Obama, will cease to be the Old World’s main ally. Illusions about a Transatlantic rift are no more than illusions. Russia should not kid itself about “Europe’s growing dependence” on its gas, oil, timber and other commodities. That will never be a prize “for good behavior”.

    There is nothing wrong with somebody in Europe, the European Union, NATO, the UN, the OSCE and so on giving Moscow bad marks for behavior. Instead of feeling outrage, we should long have done the same. We can even give marks on the European scale, although clearly, we have not yet adapted it to our way of thinking.

  • Russia-NATO relations in tatters

    Russia-NATO relations in tatters

    HONOR MAHONY

    Today @ 09:25 CET

    Moscow’s relations with NATO were left in tatters on Tuesday (19 August) after the Kremlin dismissed the results of an emergency meeting of the military alliance on Russia’s actions in Georgia as “empty words.”

    NATO foreign ministers gathered in the Brussels headquarters yesterday to discuss what actions it could take following the five-day war between Russia and its small Caucasian neighbour, Georgia, amid a hesitant withdrawal of Russian troops.

    NATO – the Tuesday statement contained little of substance (Photo: nato.int)

    But NATO itself is internally divided on how to approach energy-rich Russia. The EU relies on it for around a quarter of its energy needs, a factor said to influence the more cautious approach of Germany, France and Italy towards condemning Moscow, meaning the alliance cobbled together a political statement but little more.

    It said it would freeze regular contacts with Russia and said there would be “no business as usual under present circumstances” while urging Moscow to “take immediate action to withdraw its troops from the area.”

    There were no promises of troops in Georgia to give weight to the statement, however. Instead, the alliance said it would help with certain non-military “support measures.”

    NATO plans to send a “team of 15 civil emergency planning experts to help Georgia assess damage to its civil infrastructure” and “support the re-establishment of the air traffic system and assist the Georgian government in understanding the nature of cyber attacks.”

    There was no real push for giving Georgia and Ukraine NATO membership. French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner also said the EU would not rethink its support for Russia’s attempt to join the World Trade Organisation.

    The lack of substance was immediately picked up on by Russia.

    Empty words

    “On the whole, all of these threats that have been raining down on Russia turned out to be empty words,” said Dimitri Rogozin, the Russian ambassador to NATO.

    Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, described the statement as “unobjective and biased.”

    Russia continues to only pull back its troops slowly from Georgia even though it agreed to a France-brokered ceasefire over the weekend and announced the withdrawal on Monday.

    The most recent pledge by Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, is that all bar 500 Russia troops would be pulled out of Georgia by Thursday and Friday.

    But the promise was condemned by British foreign minister, David Miliband, who noted that it was already the third commitment on the withdrawal made by Russia.

    “I think we should still engage with the Russians but in a hard-headed way, and we mustn’t allow the Russians to feel they are the victims of this affair when they are the transgressors,” he said in a statement in UK daily The Times.

    The newspaper notes that a British diplomat had been stopped at a Russian checkpoint in Georgia and was told that he could not proceed without a Russian visa.

    According to Georgian officials, Russian troops remain in charge of about a third of Georgia, including Poti, the Black Sea port, and Gori, a key city near the South Ossetia border, the breakaway region at the heart of the conflict.

    Bloomberg news agency reports that Russia on Tuesday set out fresh conditions for its withdrawal.

    Fresh conditions

    “For the withdrawal of Russian troops to happen, two things are necessary: the pullback of Georgian forces to their barracks and, secondly, we need to be assured that our peacekeepers are not going to be attacked again,” Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, said.

    The conflict also dominated a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, where veto-holding Russia on Tuesday refused to support a draft resolution calling for immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia.

    The political bartering comes just 10 days after the war started. On 7 August, Georgia attempted to retake South Ossetia, prompting a massive retaliation from Russia. The UN estimates the fighting has created 150,000 new refugees.

  • Turkey, Iran: Ankara’s Priorities Shift

    Turkey, Iran: Ankara’s Priorities Shift

     
    18/08/2008 14:49  (18:05 minutes ago)
    STRATFOR — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s two-day trip to Ankara ended Aug. 15. While the Iranian government and state media have touted his trip as proof that Iran and Turkey are close allies, the Turkish government is far more concerned with containing the current situation in the Caucasus, which could have major implications for Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan. Read STARTFOR analysis. 

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    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrapped up a two-day trip to Ankara on Aug. 15. The Iranian government and state media have been hyping Ahmadinejad’s visit to Turkey for days in an attempt to showcase to the world the Iranian belief that Iran and Turkey, as the two principle non-Arab regional powerhouses, are close and natural allies.
     
    But while Iran is eager to forge closer ties with Turkey, the Turks do not have much time for Ahmadinejad right now. Ankara has bigger things on its mind, namely the Russians.
     
    Turkey is heir to the Ottoman Empire, which once extended deep into the southern Caucasus region where Russia just wrapped up an aggressive military campaign against Georgia. Turkey’s geopolitical interests in the Caucasus have primarily been defensive in nature, focused on keeping the Russians and Persians at bay. Now that Russia is resurging in the Caucasus, the Turks have no choice but to get involved.
     
    The Turks primarily rely on their deep ethnic, historical and linguistic ties to Azerbaijan to extend their influence into the Caucasus. Azerbaijan was alarmed, to say the least, when it saw Russian tanks crossing into Georgia. As far as Azerbaijan was concerned, Baku could have been the next target in Russia’s military campaign.
     
    However, Armenia — Azerbaijan’s primary rival — remembers well the 1915 Armenian genocide by the Turks, and looks to Iran and especially Orthodox Christian Russia for its protection. Now that Russia has shown it is willing to act on behalf of allies like South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the Caucasus, the Armenians, while militarily outmatched by the Azerbaijanis, are now feeling bolder and could see this as their chance to preempt Azerbaijan in yet another battle for the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region— especially if it thinks it can look to Russia to militarily intervene on its behalf.
     
    The Turks and their ethnic kin in Azerbaijan are extremely wary of Russia’s intentions for the southern Caucasus beyond Georgia. Sources told Stratfor that Azerbaijan has learned that the Russian military jets that bombed Gori and Poti were based out of Armenia. This development not only signaled a significant expansion of Russia’s military presence in the southern Caucasus, but it also implied that Armenia had actually signed off on the Russian foray into Georgia, knowing that Russian dominance over Georgia would guarantee Armenian security and impose a geographic split between Turkey and Azerbaijan. If the Armenians became overly confident and made a move against Azerbaijan for Nagorno-Karabakh, expecting Russian support, the resulting war would have a high potential of drawing the Turks into a confrontation with the Russians — something that both NATO member Turkey and Russia have every interest in avoiding.
     
    The Turks also have a precarious economic relationship with Russia. The two countries have expanded their trade with each other significantly in recent years. In the first half of 2008, trade between Russia and Turkey amounted to $19.9 billion, making Russia Turkey’s biggest trading partner. Much of this trade is concentrated in the energy sphere. The Turks currently import approximately 64 percent of the natural gas they consume from the Russians. Though Turkey’s geographic position enables it to pursue energy links in the Middle East and the Caucasus that can bypass Russian territory, the Russians have made it abundantly clear over the past few days that the region’s energy security will still depend on MOSCOW ’s good graces.
     
    Turkey’s economic standing also largely depends on its ability to act as a major energy transit hub for the West through pipelines such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which was recently forced offline due to a purported Kurdish militant attack and the war in Georgia. Turkey simply cannot afford to see the Russians continue their surge into the Caucasus and threaten its energy supply.
     
    For these reasons, Turkey is on a mission to keep this tinderbox in the Caucasus contained. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spent the last couple of days meeting with top Russian leaders in MOSCOW and then with the Georgian president in Tbilisi . During his meetings with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, President Dmitri Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Erdogan pushed the idea of creating a Caucasus union that would include both Russia and Georgia. Though this organization would likely be little more than a talk shop, it is a sign of Turkey’s interest in reaching a mutual understanding with Russia that would allow both sides to maintain a comfortable level of influence in the region without coming to blows.
     
    The Iranians, meanwhile, are sitting in the backseat. Though Iran has a foothold in the Caucasus through its support for Armenia, the Iranians lack the level of political, military and economic gravitas that Turkey and Russia currently hold in this region. Indeed, Erdogan did not even include Iran in his list of proposed members for the Caucasus union, even though Iran is one of the three major powers bordering the region. The Turks also struck a blow to Iran by holding back from giving Ahmadinejad the satisfaction of sealing a key energy agreement for Iran to provide Turkey with natural gas, preferring instead to preserve its close relationship with the United States and Israel. Turkey simply is not compelled to give Iran the attention that it is seeking at the moment.
     
    The one thing that Turkey can look to Iran for, however, is keeping the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict under control. Iran’s support for Armenia has naturally put Tehran on a collision course with Ankara when dealing with the Caucasus in the past. But when faced with a common threat of a resurgent Russia, both Turkey and Iran can agree to disagree on their conflicting interests in this region and use their leverage to keep Armenia or Azerbaijan from firing off a shot and pulling the surrounding powers into a broader conflict. In light of the recent BTC explosion claimed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkey can also look to Iran to play its part in cracking down on PKK rebels in the region, many of whom have spent the past year fleeing a Turkish crackdown in northern Iraq by traversing through Iran to reach the southern Caucasus.
     
    While Iran and Turkey can cooperate in fending off the Russians, it will primarily be up to Turkey to fight the battle in the Caucasus. Russia has thus far responded positively to Turkey’s diplomatic engagements, but in a region with so many conflicting interests, the situation could change in a heartbeat.
     
    Reprinted with permissions of STRATFOR.
    Strategic Forecasting, Inc., Stratfor, is a private intelligence agency founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas. George Friedman is the founder, chief intelligence officer, and CEO of the company.
     
  • Window on Eurasia: Moscow Expert Admits Russian Interest in Blocking Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline

    Window on Eurasia: Moscow Expert Admits Russian Interest in Blocking Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline

    Monday, August 18, 2008

     Paul Goble

    Vienna, August 18 – A leading Moscow State University expert on the post-Soviet states argues that the Russian Federation’s main goals in Georgia did not include blocking the flow of oil through the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, but she says that “the possibility cannot be excluded” that Moscow was pursuing “other goals” including that.
    In an interview to MGU’s Information-Analytic Center on the CIS countries, Natalya Kharitonova, the general director of that body, said that “considering the love” Russian and Western experts have for focusing on energy issues, “one ought to have expected” that there would be a discussion of oil in the Georgian conflict (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/1989/).
    Many experts, she points out, connected the August 6 PKK attack on the pipeline which stopped the flow of oil and the beginning of the military conflict, with some of them implying if not saying outright that either the one led to the other or that the two together were part of a general plan to force Azerbaijan to seek alternative routes for the export of its oil.
    “Baku, forced to significantly reduce the pumping of oil, immediately stopped using the Baku-Batumi and Baku-Kulevi rail lines again in connect with military actions in Georgia.” The Baku-Supsa line had already been stopped for “technical reasons,” Kharitonova says, but “in official versions are being invoked almost exclusively political reasons.”
    Now as a result, Azerbaijani hydrocarbons are flowing through Russian territory on the Baku-Novorossiisk line, but because Baku can export only 7 to 8 percent as much via this pipeline as via Baku-Ceyhan, she added, “Turkey intends to buy additional supplies from Russia and Iran” to compensate.
    Not surprisingly, given the impact all this is having on both the economic well-being and geopolitical relations in the region, the Moscow scholar says, Tbilisi has accused the Russian government of planning to disrupt such flows as part of its military effort, although such suggestions have been dismissed by Russian and Western specialists.
    But now other explanations are springing up. Some, Kharitonova notes, are saying that the disruption was the “work of Georgian provocateurs” who were looking for something to blame Russia that would attract the attention of the West, while others are saying this is yet another effort to disrupt the NABUCCO program.
    Most of those making these suggestions, however, offer little or no evidence to back up their claims, but the Moscow specialist points out that there are two obvious things going on. On the one hand, Iran is getting more active and is now talking about building a Neka-Dzhask pipeline to compete with Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and thereby increase Tehran’s influence.
    And on the other, Russia has two clear motives for an interest in the stopping of the BTC pipeline. First of all, it has never wanted to see the construction and operation of oil and gas pipelines that bypass Russian territory. And second, it has an interest in “forcing Western countries to put pressure on Georgia” to draw back so that the oil can flow.
    “There are a large number of versions” of why this has happened, Kharitonova notes, and she “suggests that one ought not to ignore any of them,” although she adds that it would be a mistake to fail to see that what has happened in Georgia and with the BTC may be nothing more than “a simple coincidence.”
    But she ends by acknowledging that “there are too many interests” intersecting in this part of the world to ignore the ways in which those who produce oil, those who transport it and those who consume it are in geopolitical competition. Indeed, she says, it is time to talk about “geo-economics” when it comes to oil, gas and politics in the Caucasus.

  • Russian troops to pull out, amid EU sanctions threat

    Russian troops to pull out, amid EU sanctions threat

    PHILIPPA RUNNER

    Today @ 09:28 CET

    Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, has ordered troops to pull out of Georgia starting from noon local time on Monday (18 August), following calls by French and German EU leaders over the weekend.

    French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, secured the promised withdrawal in a telephone call to Moscow on Sunday, in which he threatened “serious consequences” unless Russia retreats to positions held before fighting broke out on 7 August.

    Georgia: Russian tanks entered on 7 August (Photo: prezydent.pl)

    “If this ceasefire clause [on pre-7 August positions] is not applied quickly and in its entirety, I will convoke an extraordinary council of the European Union to decide what consequences to draw,” he explained later in a statement in French daily Le Figaro.

    “I expect a very fast, very prompt withdrawal of Russian troops out of Georgia,” German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said at a press conference in Tbilisi on Sunday. “Georgia will become a member of NATO if it wants to – and it does want to,” she added, AP reports.

    On Monday morning, Russian troops remained dug-in just 35 kilometres from the Georgian capital, as well as holding the Georgian Black Sea ports of Poti and Senaki while roaming freely up and down the country’s main roads.

    Troops also deployed SS-21 earth-to-earth missiles in the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia, the New York Times says, with the rockets capable of striking Tbilisi.

    Russian soldiers and Russian-backed South Ossetian paramilitaries have spent the past few days destroying Georgian military bases and infrastructure, as well as looting homes and roughing up ethnic Georgian civilians.

    Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said that Georgia can “forget” about its territorial integrity, indicating that troops might stay in South Ossetia and a second pro-Russian, rebel province – Abkhazia – for the long term.

    The UN refugee centre estimates the conflict has displaced 98,000 people in Georgia proper and a further 60,000 people in South Ossetia. Hundreds of civilians are also thought to have died.

    “We will have to determine if the Russian intervention against its Georgian neighbour was a brutal and excessive response,” Mr Sarkozy wrote in Le Figaro. “In which case…there will be inevitable consequences for its relations with the European Union.”

    EU’s eastern front

    EU foreign ministers meeting last week put off until 5 September a debate on whether to impose diplomatic sanctions, such as suspending talks on a new EU-Russia strategic treaty or a future visa-free travel deal.

    Former communist EU states, backed by the UK and Sweden, want a strong line on Russia, worrying that the Georgia incursion could be the start of a wider campaign to undermine pro-western countries in Russia’s old sphere of influence.

    A flash poll by the Pentor institute in Poland said that 49.8 percent of Polish people are scared of a potential Russian military attack in the next few years.

    Ukraine president, Viktor Yushchenko, has also offered the west the use of Ukrainian radar facilities in the hope of obtaining security guarantees in return, with an EU-Ukraine summit tabled for 9 September.

    The country’s Crimea peninsula has a large ethnic Russian population and well-organised separatist movements. Meanwhile, Russian generals dismissed as “nonsense” a recent Ukrainian law limiting the movements of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, which is stationed in the region until 2017.

    Sanctions unlikely

    But Germany and Luxembourg have already spoken out against isolating Russia – one of the EU’s biggest energy suppliers – as a result of the Georgia war.

    “I do not advise…any knee-jerk reaction such as suspending talks on a partnership and cooperation agreement [with the EU],” German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said in an interview with weekly Welt am Sonntag. “Our interest in this is as great as Russia itself. Talks in the NATO-Russian Council are essential too. Because we need open lines of communication.”

    Speaking in Moscow on Friday, Ms Merkel also took a softer line than in Tbilisi, saying “Some of Russia’s actions were not proportionate…[but] it is rare that all the blame is on one side. In fact, both sides are probably to blame. ”

    “We must stick to the partnership with Russia, even after these recent events which of course do not please us,” Luxembourg foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, said in an interview with Deutsche Welle.

    “There will be no consequences of this conflict,” a diplomat from a former communist state told EUobserver. “It’s almost as if Germany and Russia had a meeting and said ‘this is our territory and this is yours, you can do what you like there’.”

  • West is able to wait, or about nervousness among Dashnaks

    West is able to wait, or about nervousness among Dashnaks

    The Bureau of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation “Dashnaktsutun” has recently made a statement, calling the government of their country to raise the issue of signing a legal document on non-application of military force against Nagorno Karabakh.

    “Armenian side should protect its national and state interests in the negotiation process more clearly and demand from the parties to sign a document on non-application of force”, says the statement. (more…)