ISTANBUL (Reuters) – NATO-member Turkey is treading a fine line between its loyalty to the alliance and its economic interests in its Black Sea neighbor Russia, with some fearing Ankara could find itself at the frontline of a new Cold War.Evidence of Turkey’s dilemma in the standoff between the West and Russia over its action against Georgia was on display last week, when two U.S. ships sailed through the Istanbul Strait on their way to the Black Sea.
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The 1936 Montreux Convention roiled relations between Washington, which wanted to send humanitarian aid on massive vessels through the Turkish Straits, and Ankara, which has steadfastly insisted on the terms of the treaty being respected. The incident is a reminder, if any is needed, that despite Turkey and the United States being close allies and NATO compatriots, the two nations’ strategic interests do not always run in tandem. While America and its NATO allies attempt to cram as many warships as legally allowed up the Turkish Straits, thoughtful analysts should remember that the passage is also a conduit for massive tankers of up to 200,000 tons or more. In 2006, tankers carrying more than 140 million tons of Azeri, Kazakh and Russian oil used the Turkish Straits. Washington’s increasingly aggressive stance with the Kremlin over South Ossetia could have a direct impact on these oil shipments, something that hawks both inside the Beltway and the Kremlin should consider.
The Turkish Straits consist of two waterways connected by the landlocked Sea of Marmara. The 17-mile-long Bosporus, which debouches into the Black Sea, bisects Istanbul with its 11 million inhabitants, and its sinuous passage is only a half-mile wide at its narrowest point at Kandilli and has a convoluted morphological structure that requires ships to change course at least 12 times, including four separate bends that require turns greater than 45 degrees. At its southern end the Bosporus empties into the Sea of Marmara, which in turn connects to the 38-mile-long Dardanelles. Under good conditions merchant vessels currently canpass the 200 miles of the Turkish Straits in about 16 hours.
Under Montreux, Turkish sovereignty is recognized over the entire channel, but while the agreement guarantees merchantmen unhindered passage, the passage of warships of non-Black Sea nations is tightly regulated, which has led to the current friction between Washington and Ankara. Disputes over the waterway date back to the dawn of European history. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey recount the struggles of the Trojan War, which is assumed to have occurred in the 13th or 12th century B.C.; modern archaeology has placed Troy at the entrance to the Dardanelles.
The Turkish Straits now carry 50,000 vessels annually, making the passage the world’s second-busiest maritime strait, whose volume of traffic is exceeded only by the Straits of Malacca, and the only channel transiting a major city. The development of the former Soviet Caspian states’ energy riches has led to an explosion of tanker traffic through the Turkish Straits; in 1996, 4,248 tankers passed the Bosporus; a decade later 10,154 tankers made the voyage, a development that Ankara, worried about a possible environmental catastrophe, views with growing concern as the Turkish Straits have become a tanker superhighway. The tankers transport Russian, Kazakh and, until the 2006 opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Azeri crude to increasingly ravenous foreign markets.
Under the terms of Montreux, Turkey cannot even charge tankers transit fees or require them to take on pilots to traverse the treacherous waterway.
Montreux is quite explicit on the passage of foreign warships through the Turkish Straits, however, limiting non-riverain Black Sea forces to a maximum of 45,000 tons of naval vessels, with no single warship exceeding 30,000 tons.
Washington originally proposed to send to Georgia two U.S. Navy hospital ships, the USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy, but both are converted oil tankers displacing 69,360 tons apiece, and the Turks demurred.
Four ships belonging to the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 — Spain’s SPS Almirante Don Juan de Borbon, Germany’s FGS Luebeck, Poland’s ORP General Kazimierz Pulaski and the USS Taylor — last week passed into the Black Sea to Romania’s Constanza and Bulgaria’s Varna ports to participate in a NATO maritime exercise scheduled in October 2007 to conduct joint operations with the Bulgarian and Romanian navies. The Bulgarian navy currently has one Koni-class, one Wielingen-class and three Riga-class frigates, one Tarantul and two Pauk-class corvettes, three Osa-class missile boats and a Romeo-class submarine, while Romania has three frigates, four light frigates, three Molniya-class corvettes, three torpedo boats, one minelayer, four minesweepers and 16 auxiliary ships. In contrast, the Russian Black Sea Fleet has 40 warships; its flagship is the guided missile cruiser Moskva. According to the Russian General Staff, these soon will be joined by an additional eight NATO warships, even as the Moskva dropped anchor in Abkhazian waters.
The Pentagon finally got its chance to fly the flag when on Aug. 22 the USS McFaul (DDG-74, 8,915 tons) guided-missile destroyer loaded with humanitarian aid passed the Bosporus headed for Georgia with supplies such as blankets, hygiene kits and baby food, to be followed two days later by the USCGC Dallas (WHEC-716, 3,250 tons) cutter passing the Dardanelles, which eventually will be joined by the USS Mount Whitney (LCC/JCC 20, 18,400 tons), now loading supplies in Italy.
The Kremlin is not pleased by the foreign show of naval force; Russian General Staff Deputy Chief Anatoly Nogovitsyn observed of the NATO exercise, “From the Russian point of view … the usefulness of this operation is extremely dubious,” later labeling the deployment “devilish.”
The Turkish press is now full of speculation that Washington will pressure Turkey to revise Montreux, but is it really in America’s and its allies’ interests to be provocatively flying the flag in waters through which pass a number of tankers fueling European and Asian needs? As Turkey is allowed under Montreux to shut the Turkish Straits completely in the event of conflict, it is a question to which hawks in Europe and Washington ought to give more consideration.
Stratfor.com
August 28, 2008
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev flew to
Tajikistan on Wednesday for a summit with China
and four Central Asian countries. The countries
are members of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, which meets regularly. This meeting
had been on the schedule for while and has no
significance, save that it brings the Russians
into contact with four former members of the
Soviet Union and as important China.
Each of the Central Asian countries is obviously
trying to measure Russia’s long-term intentions.
The issue will not be Georgia, but what Georgia
means to them. In other words, how far does
Russia intend to go in reasserting its sphere of
influence? Medvedev will give suitable
reassurances, but the Russian empire and Soviet
Union both conquered this area in the past.
Retaking it is possible. That means that the four
Central Asian countries will be trying very hard
to retain their independence without irritating
the Russians. For them, this will be a careful meeting.
Of greater interest to the world is China’s view
of the situation. Again, China has no interest in
Georgia. It does have to have quiet delight over
a confrontation between the United States and the
Russians. The more these two countries are
worried about each other, the less either and
particularly the United States can worry about
the Chinese. For China, a U.S.-Islamic
confrontation coupled with a U.S.-Russian
confrontation is just what the doctor ordered.
Certainly the least problem Washington will have
is whether the yuan floats and, hoping for
cooperation with China, the United States will
pull its punches on other issues. That means that
the Chinese will express sympathy to all parties
and take part in nothing. There is no current
threat to Central Asia, so they have no problems
with the Russians. If one emerges, they can talk.
In the meantime, in the main crisis, Russian
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called attention to
the Black Sea as a potential flash point in the
confrontation between Russia and the West. He
warned that there could be direct confrontations
between Russian and NATO ships should NATO or its
member nations increase their presence there.
According to NATO there are currently four NATO
ships in the Black Sea for a previously scheduled
exercise called Active Endeavor. Putin explicitly
warned, however, that there could be additional
vessels belonging to NATO countries in the Black
Sea that are not under NATO command.
It is hard to get ships into the Black Sea
unnoticed. The ships have to pass through the
Bosporus, a fairly narrow strait in Turkey, and
it is possible to sit in cafes watching the ships
sail by. Putting a task force into the Black Sea,
even at night, would be noticed, and the Russians
would certainly know the ships are there.
As a complicating factor, there is the Montreaux
Convention, a treaty that limits access to the
Black Sea by warships. The deputy chief of the
Russian general staff very carefully invoked the
Montreaux Convention, pointing out that Turkey,
the controlling country, must be notified 15 days
in advance of any transit of the Bosporus, that
warships can’t remain in the Black Sea for more
than 21 days and that only a limited number of
warships were permitted there at any one time.
The Russians have been reaching out in multiple
diplomatic channels to the Turks to make sure
that they are prepared to play their role in
upholding the convention. The Turkish position on
the current crisis is not clear, but becoming
crucial; both the United States and Russia are
working on Turkey, which is not a position Turkey
cares to be in at the moment. Turkey wants this crisis to go away.
It is not going away. With the Russians holding
position in Georgia, it is now clear that the
West will not easily back down. The Russians
certainly aren’t going to back down. The next
move is NATO’s, but the alliance is incapable of
moving, since there is no consensus. Therefore,
the next move is for Washington to lead another
coalition of the willing. It is coming down to a
simple question. Does the United States have the
appetite for another military confrontation
(short of war, we would think) in which case it
will use its remaining asset, the U.S. Navy, to
sail into the Black Sea? If it does this, will it
stay awhile and then leave or establish a
permanent presence (ignoring the Montreaux
Convention) in support of Ukraine and Georgia,
with its only real military option being
blockade? If this happens, will the Russians live
with it, will they increase their own naval, air
and land based anti-ship missile capabilities in
the region, or will they increase pr essure
elsewhere, in Ukraine or the Baltics?
In short, how far does this go?
Comment by Sergey Markedonov
Special to Russia Profile
Despite Having Been Affected by the Russo-Georgian Squabble, Both Armenia and Azerbaijan Cautiously Abstain From Taking Sides
The events of the “five-day war” in South Ossetia demonstrated that countries of the Southern Caucasus largely act according to their own national interests, and not on the assurances of “eternal friendships.” Thus, both Armenia and Azerbaijan behave in a careful and calculated manner, realizing that getting involved in the Russian-Georgian conflict bears a lot of “hidden reefs” which could prove to be more dangerous than the status-quo that is so despised by Baku and so cherished by Yerevan.
Georgia’s attempts to “restore the constitutional order” in South Ossetia and the harsh Russian response have altered the politico-legal and power configurations in the CIS, and not only in the two “hot spots.” They had a serious impact on the entire ethno-political situation in Eurasia. In this regard, it is crucial to consider the consequences of this “security deficit” in the South Caucasus, especially because in recent weeks, Armenia and Azerbaijan have remained in the shadows. What lessons were Baku and Yerevan able to draw, having been brought to a conflicted state by the events in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the “hot August” of 2008?
Let’s consider the horizontal links among the three former Caucasus republics, all of them now independent states in the South Caucasus region. Georgia considered Azerbaijan its natural ally. Baku was ready to reciprocate the sentiment. Let’s recall that the day before the new escalation in South Ossetia, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili called Azerbaijan no less than the “guarantor of independence” of his country. Typical theatrics of the Georgian leader aside, we should recognize a few important points. First, Georgia and Azerbaijan are members of an organization whose stated goal is to play a peculiar anti-CIS role—GUAM. After Georgia officially left the CIS, GUAM remains the sole structure in which Tbilisi can realize its integration projects (another question is how successfully) within Eurasia.
Secondly, Azerbaijan has always supported the territorial integrity of Georgia. Unlike Ukraine, Azerbaijan itself lost some 13 percent of the land that is recognized as its integral part, and hence its support, along with political reasons, has emotional and psychological grounds (which in politics, especially in the Caucasus, is extremely important). Thirdly, there is the economic cooperation. In 2005, during the energy crisis, it was Azerbaijan that provided gas for Georgia. “The Georgian people will never forget this,” Saakashvili said in a statement during the groundbreaking opening ceremony for the Turkish section of the “Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars” railway on July 24 (only two weeks remained before the Tskhinvali tragedy). The two Caucasian states were also united by two pipelines (oil and gas). Baku also often served as a profitable and reliable sponsor for Tbilisi.
Unlike Azerbaijan, Georgia never considered Armenia as a strategic partner and even less as a “guarantor of security.” There have been a lot of sensitive issues in their bilateral relations. These include the position of Armenians in Georgia (in the Armenian populated Samtskhe-Javakheti and in Tbilisi itself, considered to be an important cultural center for all Armenians), and the role of the Armenian community in the Abkhaz events. During the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993, the Bagramyan battalion fought on the side of the “aggressive separatists” (as they call them in Tbilisi). There were far fewer Armenian participants on the Georgian side (largely from the aforementioned Tbilisi). In present-day Abkhazia, the Armenian community is represented both in the government and in business, and is generally loyal to the leadership of the de facto state. The irritating factors are compounded by the military partnership between Armenia and the Russian Federation (particularly the military base in Gyumri, to which, among others, Russian military units from Georgia were moved). Prior to the withdrawal of the Russian military base from Akhalkalaki, there were many local ethnic Armenian residents employed there. Also, Georgia (along with Iran) is Armenia’s window to the world (because of the land blockade by Turkey and Azerbaijan). Hence, Yerevan does not want to move past certain milestones in its relations with Tbilisi. Armenia also realizes that its gateway to Russia is through Georgia, and that is why the dependence on the dynamics of Russian-Georgian relations is an extremely sore point for Armenia. In turn, given the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Tbilisi is more cautious in dealing with the “Armenian question.” The Georgian leadership cannot ignore that, unlike the Abkhazians or Ossetians, Armenians have strong support in the United States and the EU (similarly from France).
Indeed, the given dispositions have determined the attitude that Georgia’s neighbors have toward the “hot August” events. Despite its commitment to a strategic alliance with Russia, Armenia preferred to abstain from sudden moves and categorical statements. There are many reasons for this. There is a reluctance to either clearly align their actions with the Russians or to spoil their relations with the West. They are already uneasy in connection with the events of March 1 in Yerevan. It is understandable that Serzh Sargsyan is no Alexander Lukashenko, to whom the United States and the EU have long ago given their “blessing” of more freedom in his interpretation of events.
Armenia, which has such a vulnerable place as the Karabakh, was also not overly interested in anchoring the Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) and the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict to Russian-Georgian relations. Besides, even earlier, both Armenia and the NKR leadership distanced themselves from an openly pro-Ossetia and pro-Abkhazia position. This is why representatives of Armenia’s Ministry of Defense hastened to declare on August 10 that raids on the Georgian airbases were not being conducted from the Russian base located in Armenia: “The 102nd military base in the city of Gyumri has no military aircraft capable of committing acts such as these bombings,” they claimed.
The position of Armenia in connection with the heated Russian-Turkish relations is another sensitive issue. Mild support by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan for the Russian Federation’s position is creating a feeling in Yerevan (as well as in the Armenian Diaspora in the West) that the two great powers can agree with each other to the detriment of Armenia (in particular, on the Karabakh issue). Recall that on August 13 Erdogan stated: “The situation in South Ossetia gives us cause to review the relationship between our countries, whose solidarity in this region is of great importance.” Here is what Karapet Kalenchyan, an expert at the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, wrote on this matter: “Seeing that Russia is once again entering the South Caucasus, Turkey gives it its full support in exchange for certain concessions on the part of Russia. What kind of concessions could these be? Armenians have often worried that such concessions might be made at the expense of our interests.”
Prudence (only in the opposite direction) is also what set apart Azerbaijan’s position. Representatives of various political parties of the republic (including the ruling party) were more open in expressing their positions. According to Mubariz Gurbanly (the ruling “Yeni Azerbaijan” party), the “Georgian authorities’ actions to restore the country’s territorial integrity are fully merited. These actions were undertaken in accordance with the UN Charter.” Note that this idea (the legality of actions to punish separatists) had so far been far more popular in Azerbaijan than in Georgia. The chairman of the Supreme Majlis of the “Musavat” (opposition forces) party, Sulhaddin Akper, stated that Georgia “was forced to conduct the operation against the separatists in South Ossetia.” However, Baku was officially much more cautious than, for instance, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and the Foreign Ministry of his country (which, unlike Azerbaijan, does not have such serious interests in the region).
The statement by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs from August 8 in support of Georgia’s territorial integrity (approved by the Georgian diplomats) contained general statements on the validity of the Georgian operation under “international law,” but was not further clarified.
Five leaders of states that expressed their solidarity with Georgia were present at a rally in Tbilisi on August 12. There were leaders of the three Baltic countries, Poland, and Ukraine, but Ilham Aliyev, the head of the state which Saakashvili called the “guarantor of independence” less than a month earlier, was not there. Baku preferred caution, given their interest in maintaining stable relations with Russia. Unlike Georgia, Azerbaijan’s foreign policy is not based on a rigid confrontational manner. In Baku, they consider Russia to be a counterweight to the West (which does not have such unambiguous relations with Azerbaijan as it does with Georgia). Azerbaijan is also afraid of being drawn into the “Iran game,” where it is destined to play a role as either a runway or the target of “Tehran’s retaliatory shot.” Hence the desire to appreciate the generally friendly, albeit difficult, relations with Russia.
The opposition is trying to take advantage of this situation. Isa Gambar, the leader of the “Musavat” party (who received second place in the last presidential elections) believes that the official Baku reaction to the events in South Ossetia is inadequate. But what level of influence does Isa Gambar, or other opposition figures (Eldar Namazov or Ali Keremli), enjoy today that he can alter the position of the president’s team? That is a rhetorical question. Let’s consider a hypothetical situation. Tomorrow either Gambar or Namazov replace Ilham Aliyev. I think that they would also strictly separate rhetoric and realistic politics, guided by the national interests of Azerbaijan. Note that if such a scenario were to be repeated in Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku would receive a much tougher reaction from the West. There would even be talk of the consolidated opinion of the United States, Russia, and leading EU countries. And that is why the Azerbaijani police prohibit protests at the Russian embassy in Baku, and prevents anti-Russian hysteria from sweeping the country.
Sergey Markedonov Ph.D., is the head of the Interethnic Relations Department at Moscow’s Institute of Political and Military Analysis.
Stratfor.com
August 27, 2007
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Tuesday
recognized the independence of two regions in the
territory of the former Soviet republic of
Georgia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia and
Georgia fought a brief war over the territories
earlier this month which Russia clearly won. Now
Russia will undoubtedly enter into “formal”
negotiations with the two “states” about either
long-term military staging agreements or formal annexation.
The West, which has consistently backed the idea
of Georgia’s territorial integrity, broadly
condemned the move, but has taken no action
beyond rhetoric. Nor is it likely to in the short
term. The West could deploy naval forces that can
outmaneuver and box in Russia as a whole, but
that requires time and political will. In the
meantime, Russia has forces on the ground in the
two territories and loads more nearby. The West
doesn’t. The Russians clearly are the ones
determining the reality on the ground, and that for now is that.
But recognition is not something that seems to
serve Russia’s interest. Unlike the drama
surrounding the independence declaration of
Kosovo earlier this year, there is no broad
swathe of states standing by to recognize Abkhaz
or South Ossetian independence. Only Belarus
whose leadership is finding its leash
ever-shorter is likely to jump at the news, and
even then not until the appropriate recognition
speech is faxed to them from the Kremlin.
Additionally, Russia is packed to the gills with
its own separatist regions and Tuesday’s decision
will only give all of these disparate and
resentful groups food for thought. If Abkhazia
can be independent, why not Chechnya? If South Ossetia, why not Tatarstan?
So why open Pandora’s Box?
First and foremost, the recognition decision is
about Kosovo. In Kosovo, the West utterly ignored
Russian concerns and imposed a legal regime that
fit with Western interests. With Abkhazia and
South Ossetia, Russia is returning the favor in its own backyard.
Yet for that logic to hold, this must be only the
beginning. For the Russians the war and this
recognition is not really about Abkhazia and
South Ossetia, or even about Georgia. It is about
redefining the expectations of a broad swathe of
actors all along the Russian periphery. Since
1992 many entities have been eating away at the
Russian borderlands the West first and foremost
among them. In Moscow’s view, Russia needs to
roll that tide back not just in the Caucasus, but
in Central Asia, the Baltics, Ukraine, and maybe even the Balkans.
But that does not mean that tide will be rolled
back in a day. Russia holds most of the cards,
yet does not appear set to press its advantage,
or at least not immediately or overtly. There are
any number of things the Russians could do in
Azerbaijan, Ukraine, the Baltic states or even
in Georgia that they have chosen to put on hold
for now. Tuesday’s recognition had a feel similar
to that of the press statements of the Western
powers: rhetoric that danced around the real issue.
The reason for the (brief) break in the action is
likely rooted in Russia’s mindset, which in turn
is determined by Russia’s geography. Russia’s
borderlands are for the most part indefensible
and so the Russian psyche has been shaped by wave
after wave of foreign invasion. A certain
paranoia about outsiders is understandable.
But there is another layer. Built into this fear
of outsiders is a belief that Russia’s suffering
has allowed others to escape Russia’s dark fate
and thrive. For example, Russians feel that while
Russia languished under Mongol subjugation, their
resistance prevented the Mongols from conquering
Europe. Another common belief is that the Soviet
Union’s battles with Nazi Germany gave the United
States and United Kingdom the time they needed to
invade France. These national myths which is
not to say that they are fabrications, merely
interpretations – blend Russia’s natural paranoia
with the idea that the rest of the world owes
them something. Therefore, it is just a matter of
finding the right words to convince the world of that “fact.”
In the aftermath of the Georgian war we suspect
Russia is waiting for what they feel would
constitute an “appropriate” response from the
West. We suspect that the Russians expect to be
informed that the West will recognize Moscow’s
suzerainty in Russia’s sphere of influence and
see no reason to push the matter so long as the
balance of forces are so obviously in Moscow’s favor.
For better or worse, this buys everyone a bit of
time. Time to negotiate a West-Russia truce
perhaps. Or perhaps time for the two sides to
gear up for a much larger and broader conflict.
The decision of the Russian president to recognize independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia affects the security system in the world, said famous political scientist Ilqar Mamedov in his interview to Day.Az.
“The security and cooperation in Europe were challenged even following the factual recognition of Kosovo’s independence. The first, deep concern for the future of OSCE appeared at that time. And now after Russia has recognized independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, we are dealing with the second, destructive influence on the security system of the world. (more…)