Afghan War Opens Old Wounds In The Caucasus
By Onnik Krikorian

Western military action against Afghanistan is rapidly changing the geopolitical makeup of Central Asia and the surrounding area. In the Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia the war against terrorism is leading to renewed squabbling. Russia too has stepped in, fuelling further tension, reports Gemini News Service.

YEREVAN, Armenia -- Attempts to broker a lasting peace settlement in the conflict over the disputed Armenian-inhabited enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, situated within Azerbaijan, have taken on new dimensions in the wake of the United States-led bombing of Afghanistan.

Now that the US has reordered its priorities in Central Asia after the 11 September terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC, analysts think that its new ally, Russia, has been given the green light to pursue its own agenda in the Caucasus.

Previously Russian and US interests in the region have clashed. Key to this unexpected shift in the two countries’ relations is energy.

To the north of Afghanistan lies Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field, one of the largest in the world. Access to reserves in Kazakhstan’s offshore Kashagan field and off the coast of Azerbaijan would make the US less dependent on oil from the Persian Gulf.

The US Department of Energy estimates that there may be as much as 110 billion barrels of oil in and around the Caspian basin.

Regional disputes had previously obstructed development of these reserves. The US had been unwilling to allow resources to flow through conflict-ridden countries, and Russia was concerned that former Soviet Republics might fall under US influence.

In particular, the US and Russia were at loggerheads over a planned oil pipeline from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan in Turkey through Georgia, bypassing Russia altogether.

The southern Caucasus countries – Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia – had been looking increasingly to the West since independence 10 years ago, but ethnic unrest in Georgia as well as the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan had left the security and viability of the proposed pipeline route in question.

Now, analysts say, the new rapprochement between the US and Russia might change matters. Pipelines from Kazakhstan to Russia’s main seaport on the Black Sea, Novorossiisk, through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, could coexist with pipelines running through the Caucasus to Europe.

However, rather than provide an opportunity to bring peace, stability and economic prosperity to the region, the retaliatory strikes against Afghanistan have opened up old wounds in the Caucasus.

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have all offered use of their airspace in the war against terrorism, but squabbling between them is threatening regional cooperation.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have launched into an unseemly war of words, showing little understanding of the larger strategic and economic issues at hand.

Azerbaijani officials accused Armenia of supporting the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers Party, one of 28 groups currently on the US State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

In turn, Armenian politicians accused Azerbaijan of maintaining links with Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the 11 September terrorist attacks.

The large and powerful Armenian lobby in the US is seeking to prevent President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell from suspending US sanctions against Azerbaijan – imposed in 1992 after it closed its border with Armenia and set up a blockade on the country – in return for support in the war against terrorism.

Azerbaijan is attempting to portray Nagorno-Karabakh as a rogue terrorist state, demanding the right to engage in its own anti-terrorist operation against the breakaway, self-declared republic.

The long-standing conflict between the two neighboring republics resurfaced in 1988. More than 25,000 were killed in six years of fighting that ended with a ceasefire agreement signed in 1994.

With Armenia currently controlling more than 14 per cent of Azerbaijani territory including the disputed enclave of Nagorno Karabakh, there is widespread concern that war might break out again.

The conflict has already plunged both republics into poverty, prevented significant foreign investment and frustrated initiatives to exploit Azerbaijan’s oil reserves.

“Nagorno-Karabakh threatens to destabilise or at least hinder development on the other side of the Caspian basin,” says Richard Giragosian, a Washington-based regional analyst and former staff member of the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress.

"As Washington and Moscow want to utilise the Tengiz energy and bridge to Kazakhstan, the Caspian basin will need their joint attention."

"After the Afghan scenario plays out, the new U.S. representative to the OSCE Minsk Group will re-launch an initiative on Nagorno Karabakh with the U.S.-Russian partnership adding new weight and incentives.”

Thomas de Waal, a British journalist currently writing a book on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, argues that Russians and Americans have already been working closely together for the past few years, and agrees that Russia will become more dominant in the Caucasus in exchange for US influence in Central Asia.

“Their positions aren’t really that different now that Russia wants to re-engage with Azerbaijan,” he explains. “Any big Western-Russian divide might come from disagreements over Georgia rather than Karabakh. Petty sniping between Armenia and Azerbaijan is pretty irrelevant. It’s the larger picture that matters.”

That larger picture is already snapping into focus.

Russia sent troops to its border with Georgia at the beginning of October after reports of clashes between Georgian troops, Chechen militia and rebels from the separatist Abkhazia region of Georgia. Free from western scrutiny of its military operations in Chechnya, Russia accused Georgia of harboring Chechen militants on its territory.

Around the same time Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze visited Washington to not only offer support to the US-led coalition in Afghanistan, but also to seek reassurances of continued American aid to Georgia.

“Although naturally distracted by the military campaign that was launched only two days later, the US President and senior officials did attempt to reassure a concerned Georgian President,” says Giragosian.

“During the meeting, US commitment to support the stability and security of the Georgian State was reiterated, but that support is now being reassessed. The US has already agreed to the Russian price for cooperation, namely a freer hand in Chechnya, and an increased role in the Caucasus.”

Not everyone, however, is convinced that this new alliance between Russia and the US will last.

“Greater cooperation against Islamic terrorism will not translate into a meeting of minds in the Caucasus,” says one regional analyst specialising in economic and security issues in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

And with Armenia and Azerbaijan still unable to overcome historical grievances, hopes for peace appear to be crumbling. If anything, with neither side willing to compromise, the threat of political destabilisation within each republic looms large. – GEMINI NEWS

First published by the Gemini News Service, 2001.