Category: Eastern Europe

Will Turkey put a base in Azerbaijan in response to Russia-Armenia agreement?

Nakhchivan

That’s what the Russian newspaper Nezavismaya Gaezta says, citing Azeri news reports alleging Azeri dissatisfaction with their relations with Russia (summary via RT):

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan and Turkey may have prepared their “symmetrical answer to Yerevan and Moscow,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily said. A Turkish military base may be deployed in Azerbaijan as a result of the talks between Baku and Ankara, the paper noted.

“The topic was allegedly discussed during the recent visit of Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul to Baku and his meeting with Azerbaijan’s leader Ilkham Aliev,” the daily said. According to Azerbaijan’s media, the military base may be deployed in Nakhichevan autonomous republic, an exclave between Armenia and Turkey.

The relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan are so close that the question arises why Ankara has not yet deployed its military base in the friendly country, the paper asked. Baku may have expected Russia’s more effective role in settling the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, the daily explained.

Hoping that Russia could “influence its strategic ally – Yerevan – and help to promote the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity,” Baku “did not venture on strengthening a pro-Turkey vector or another one,” the daily stressed.

However, the authorities in Baku think that “expectations were overestimated” as the situation over Nagorno-Karabakh remains unchanged, the daily said.

“Baku, in fact, has determined the limitation of its expectations after which it will probably try to change the situation in its favor by other actions,” the daily said. “This limit is President Medvedev’s visit to Baku scheduled for September.”

(The original article, in Russian, here.)

One thing notably missing from this analysis is Russia’s alleged pending sale of S-300 air defense systems to Azerbaijan (which Russia continues to not deny), and which obviously should change Baku’s perception of whether or not Russia is selling it out.

And as I’ve discussed before, all of this speculation about a Turkish military base in Azerbaijan seems to be coming solely from Azerbaijan, and not at all from Turkey. And it’s hard to imagine would Turkey would gain from having a base in Nakhchivan.

Still, as EurasiaNet has reported, Turkey has increased its ties to Nakhchivan, and has at least spoken vaguely of military cooperation:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan went still further, noting that “Nakhchivan is exposed to various threats from the Armenian state.”

“Therefore, military cooperation between Turkey and Azerbaijan and the NAR [Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic] is one of the major components of our relations,” Erdogan said.

Azerbaijan maintains a base in Nakhchivan that has received heavy Turkish support in the past, but no official information is available about the current scope of military cooperation between the two countries in the exclave.

And things are changing pretty quickly, at least in geopolitical time, in the relations between Turkey and Armenia, Turkey and Russia and Turkey and Azerbaijan. So we shouldn’t be too surprised by further big moves to come.

, August 20, 2010

August 21, 2010
Armenia, Russia Sign Extended Defense Pact

20.08.2010

Hasmik Smbatian

Armenia and Russia have signed a raft of agreements, including a protocol that extends the lease of the Russian military base in the South Caucasus country for nearly a quarter of a century.

The deal signed after talks between visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian in Yerevan on Friday consolidates Russia’s military presence in the volatile region crisscrossed with pipelines in exchange for security guarantees to Armenia.

In the presence of the two countries’ leaders signatures to the document were put by Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov.

The defense pact, which is an upgrading of a 1995 treaty allowing Russian ground and air forces to be stationed in Armenia’s northwestern city of Gyumri near the border with Turkey, extends the Russian presence in the South Caucasus state from the initial 25 years to 49 years, that is, to 2044.

It also expands the Russian mission from protecting only the interests of the Russian Federation, to also ensuring the security of the Republic of Armenia and commits Moscow to supplying Armenia with modern and compatible weaponry and special military hardware.

The move is widely viewed in Armenia as a means to discourage neighboring Azerbaijan from committing aggression. Equally, it is likely to become a source of concern in Azerbaijan, which has an unresolved conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fought a three-year secessionist war against Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. The currently disputed region has been de-facto independent since the 1994 ceasefire mediated by Russia. Moscow is also one of the three principal negotiators, along with Washington and Paris, in continuing talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Speaking in Yerevan on Friday, President Medvedev said the protocol prolonging the treaty on the operation of Russia’s military base in Armenia is aimed

Armenia — President Serzh Sarkisian (R) and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev attend a ceremony of documents signing at the presidential palace in Yerevan, 20Aug2010

at “maintaining peace and security in the entire South Caucasus.”

Medvedev also stressed that peace in the region is “very important” to Russia and that Moscow remains loyal to its commitments as an ally of Armenia.

Responding to the media question about Russia’s possible reaction in the event of developments threatening the existence of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, given the war rhetoric heard from Azerbaijan, Medvedev, in particular, said: “The task of the Russian Federation as a major state situated in the region, the most powerful state economically and militarily, is to maintain peace and order. But we also have our allied commitments that we have with members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Republic of Armenia is a member of this organization… Russia treats its commitments as an ally very seriously.”

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) groups Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and calls for allied assistance should any of its members suffer aggression.

At the news conference Sarkisian praised the deal, which he said would expand the sphere of Russia’s “geographic and strategic” responsibilities, meaning that the base will not only be responsible for protecting the perimeter of the former Soviet Union border, i.e. with Iran and Turkey, but also beyond them.

“The Russian side has made a commitment to ensure the military security of the Republic of Armenia and to cooperate in equipping our armed forces with advanced weaponry,” Sarkisian said.

At the same time, Sarkisian stressed that Armenia continues to stand for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict “without application of force or threat of force.”

Sarkisian also thanked Medvedev for his mediatory efforts as well as for “understanding the meaning of the balance of forces in the region as an important factor of not allowing provocations and preventing militaristic ambitions.”

Armenia — Presidents of Armenia and Russia take part in the re-opening of 19th century Russian military cemetery, Gyumri, 20Aug2010

Medvedev, for his part, said he was ready to continue his mediatory efforts and work with both Azerbaijan and Armenia to help find a political solution “based on mutually acceptable agreements both within the general work of the OSCE Minsk Group and in bilateral contacts with Armenia and Azerbaijan.”

Analysts agree that the new deal with Armenia puts Russia on a stronger military footing in the South Caucasus where it also has bases in Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In Yerevan representatives of Armenia and Russia also signed four other documents, including an agreement concerning the construction of new energy units for Armenia’s ageing nuclear power plant.

In the afternoon Sarkisian and Medvedev attended a ceremony in Gyumri inaugurating the Hill of Honor, a restored Russian military cemetery founded in the 19th century as the final resting place for many Russian officers and soldiers killed in Russo-Turkish wars.

Later on August 20, the presidents of Armenia and Russia attended the opening of an informal summit of CSTO leaders hosted by Yerevan.

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/2132965.html

August 21, 2010
Russia to prolong military presence in Armenia

YEREVAN, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Armenia said on Wednesday it had agreed to extend the lease on a Russian military base in the South Caucasus country until 2044, strengthening Moscow’s military presence in the strategic region.

The deal will be signed during a visit to Yerevan by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday and Friday.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian confirmed the lease extension in an interview with Rossiya-24 television.

It will prolong for decades Russia’s military presence in Armenia, its chief strategic and economic ally in a region criss-crossed by pipelines carrying Central Asian and Caspian oil and gas to Europe.

The Russian military also has troops in two breakaway regions of neighbouring Georgia, where it is building up bases in the wake of a five-day war over rebel South Ossetia in 2008.

Russia and Armenia signed a deal in 1995 allowing the Russian base in the town of Gyumri on Armenia’s closed western border with Turkey to operate for 25 years. Nalbandian said the changes would extend that deal to 49 years from 1995.

He said the deal would spell out that the Russian base would help secure the landlocked country of 3.2 million people, where the spectre of renewed conflict with oil-producing Azerbaijan over rebel Nagorno-Karabakh is never far away.

“And in realising those goals, the Russian side will assist in providing Armenia with weapons and modern military equipment,” Nalbandian said. Some in the Armenian opposition have complained the deal undermines the country’s independence.

Russia has several thousand soldiers in Gyumri, who help patrol Armenia’s western border with NATO-member Turkey. Ankara closed the frontier in 1993 in solidarity with close Muslim ally Azerbaijan during the war over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The mountain region threw off Azeri rule in the early 1990s with Armenian backing. A ceasefire was agreed in 1994 but a peace deal has never been agreed and Azerbaijan frequently threatens to take the territory back by force.

Russia is part of a mediating group including France and the United States trying for the past 15 years, without success, to forge a peace deal.

Although it has traditionally enjoyed close relations with Armenia, Russia has sought in recent years to develop ties with Azerbaijan as it vies with the West for access to energy reserves in the Caspian Sea.

August 18, 2010
New Russian-Armenian Defense Deal ‘Finalized’

Armenia — Armenian and Russian army units at a joint military exercise, undated

13.08.2010

Ruzanna Stepanian

The Russian and Armenian governments have finalized a far-reaching agreement that will prolong and upgrade Russian military presence in Armenia, a diplomatic source in Yerevan said on Friday.

The source told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that the two governments have worked out corresponding amendments to a 1995 treaty regulating the presence of a Russian military base in the country. They are likely to be signed during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Armenia next week, he said.

The amendments will extend Russia’s basing rights by 24 years, to 2044, and upgrade the mission of its troops headquartered in Gyumri. The Interfax news agency reported on July 30 that a relevant “protocol” submitted to Medvedev by the Russian government makes clear that the troops will have not only “functions stemming from the interests of the Russian Federation,” but also “protect Armenia’s security together with Armenian Army units.” It also commits Russia to supplying its regional ally with “modern and compatible weaponry and special military hardware.”

Some Armenian opposition figures and commentators have expressed concern about the planned changes to the treaty, saying that they could make Armenia even more dependent on Russia. Giro Manoyan, a senior member of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), said on Friday that the changes will be “worrisome” as long as the Armenian government has not convincingly explained their rationale.

“My impression is that Russia has found an opportune moment to clinch from Armenia an extension of its basing rights in return for satisfying some of Armenia’s demands,” Manoyan told a news conference.

But Razmik Zohrabian, a deputy chairman of President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK), defended the deal, saying that it will strengthen Armenia militarily and deter Azerbaijan from “unleashing a new war.” He claimed that the new mandate of the Russian base would oblige Moscow to support the Armenian side in case of renewed fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“If war again breaks out between Karabakh and Azerbaijan, Armenia will naturally directly intervene, and if Armenia has the right to use the Russian base for its security, it means that Russia has to join the war on Armenia’s side,” Zohrabian told RFE/RL.

Commenting the agreement’s reasons and timing, Zohrabian suggested that Moscow is seeking to secure its long-term military presence in Armenia and keep the latter from joining NATO in the foreseeable future. “Perhaps the Russians have a sense that Armenia may seek to join NATO,” he said. “And that is normal, if they want to retain and strengthen their influence in this region.”

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/2127288.html

August 13, 2010
Tatar Nationalist Group Stages Protest In Kazan

August 10, 2010

KAZAN, Russia — A small group of Tatar nationalist activists have staged a protest in Kazan against what they say are government attempts to subdivide them, RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service reports.

Members of the Tatar Public Center (TIU) organization met on Kazan’s Freedom Square and accused the federal government and Tatarstan’s leadership of “seeking to fragment the Tatar nation as the Russian census approaches.”

They held signs saying: “We Are Tatars, There Are 10 Million of Us, We Are One Nation!” “The Ethnocide of the Tatar Nation in Bashkortostan Is A Shameful Act,” and “Stop Dividing Tatars Into 100 Ethnic Groups!”

Rinat Yosyf, a TIU leader, told RFE/RL that the Moscow-based Russian historian and anthropologist Valery Tishkov subdivided Tatars into almost 100 separate ethnic groups in a recent article. Yosyf said at the same time Tishkov — a former Russian minister for nationalities — considers ethnic Russians a single nation.

Yosyf said similar views are being published with increasing frequency in the media in the run-up to the all-Russian census scheduled for mid-October.

Yosyf argued that there are Kuban Cossacks, Don Cossacks, Stavropol Cossacks, Pomors, Vyatich, and other subethnic groups that consider themselves to be Russian. He said Tishkov does not consider them separate ethnic groups, yet he is eager to apply that approach to Tatars. Yosyf said the TIU opposes such practices.

Tatar historian Damir Iskhakov told RFE/RL that in recent months more articles about Tatar culture and history use such terms as “Tatar-Bolgar,” “Bolgar-Turk,” “Kama Bolgars,” and “Simbir Bolgars” in order to replace the ethnonym Tatar with “Bolgars,” the ancient name of Tatars in the Volga region.

Iskhakov said the move to rename and subdivide Tatars is politically motivated. He said it appears to be an attempt to artificially reduce the number of people in Russia who consider themselves Tatars in the run-up to the census.

At the time of the last census in 2002, Tatars were the second-largest ethnic group in Russia after Russians. They numbered some 5.5 million and officially accounted for 3.8 percent of the total population of the Russian Federation.

The four major subgroups of the Tatar nation are the Crimean Tatars, Siberian Tatars, Volga Tatars, and Lipka Tatars. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Russian officials identified more ethnic subgroups as Tatars, including the Chulym Tatars, Baraba Tatars, and Kasim Tatars. Tatar nationalists consider all the subgroups as one nation.

https://www.rferl.org/a/Tatar_Nationalist_Group_Stages_Protest_In_Kazan/2124224.html

August 10, 2010
Armenia To Seek ‘Long-Range’ Weapons

Armenia — Surface-to-air missiles at a military base in Gyumri, undated

10.08.2010

Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenia plans to acquire long-range precision-guided weapons and will be ready to use them in possible armed conflicts with hostile neighbors, Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian said on Tuesday.

The announcement followed a meeting of an Armenian government commission on national security that tentatively approved two programs envisaging a modernization of the country’s Armed Forces. One of the documents deals with army weaponry, while the other details measures to develop the domestic defense industry.

“These are extremely important programs,” Ohanian told journalists. “Their implementation will qualitatively improve the level of the Armed Forces in the short and medium terms.”

“The two programs envisage both the acquisition of state-of-the-art weapons and their partial manufacturing by the local defense industry,” he said. “The main directions are the expansion of our long-range strike capacity and the introduction of extremely precise systems, which will allow us to minimize the enemy’s civilian casualties during conflicts.”

Armenia — Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian (R) and National Security Council Secretary Artur Baghdasarian chair a meeting of a government commission on defense, 10August 2010.

“Their application will also allow us to thwart free enemy movements deep inside the entire theater of hostilities,” added the minister. He did not specify whether Yerevan will be seeking to have surface-to-surface missiles capable of hitting any target in Azerbaijan.

The Armenian military is believed to be already equipped with short-range tactical missiles. But little is known about their type and technical characteristics. The army command gave a rare glimpse of such weaponry in September 2006 when it demonstrated new rockets with a firing range of up to 110 kilometers during a military parade in Yerevan.

Ohanian did not deny that the modernization plan is connected with the persisting risk of another Armenian-Azerbaijani war for Nagorno-Karabakh. “You know what kind of a region we live in and how dependent we are during the escalation of conflicts,” he said. “We are therefore forced to do such work.”

It was not immediately clear whether Yerevan’s desire to get hold of more powerful weapons is connected with a new Russian-Armenian military agreement expected to be signed soon. The agreement will reportedly take the form of significant changes in a 1995 treaty regulating the presence of a Russian military base in Armenia.

Official Russian and Armenian sources have said that those changes would extend that presence and assign the base a greater role in ensuring Armenia’s security. A relevant Russian government document cited by the Interfax news agency late last month also makes clear that Moscow will commit itself to providing its South Caucasus ally with “modern and compatible weaponry and (special) military hardware.”

Artur Baghdasarian, the secretary of Armenia’s National Security Council who chaired Tuesday’s meeting together with Ohanian, confirmed this last week. “There exist joint projects on this matter and we will be consistently implementing them,” he told the Regnum news agency.

Earlier in July, Armenia and Russia announced plans to significantly step up cooperation between their defense industries after talks between their top security officials held in Yerevan. Baghdasarian reiterated on Tuesday the agreements reached during the “extremely important” talks envisage, among other things, the establishment of Russian-Armenian defense joint ventures.

That was followed by Russian media reports that Moscow has agreed to sell sophisticated S-300 air-defense systems to Azerbaijan in a $300 million deal that could affect the balance of forces in the Karabakh conflict. Russian defense officials have made conflicting statements about the veracity of the information, adding to concerns expressed by Armenian pundits and politicians.

Ohanian on Tuesday commented evasively on the possible S-300 sale. “I think that acquisition of any new weaponry will have a certain impact on the balance of forces [in the Karabakh conflict,] but want to remind that the S-300 systems are defensive systems,” he said. “At the same time, we can’t say we have information about their possible purchase [by Azerbaijan.]”

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/2124090.html

August 10, 2010