Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ANKARA: Deadlock in NK undermines Armenian national security in the

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • ANKARA: Deadlock in NK undermines Armenian national security in the

    DEADLOCK IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH UNDERMINES ARMENIAN NATIONAL SECURITY IN
    THE CAUCASUS

    EÅ?ref Yalınkılıçlı

    The Southern Caucasus basin might be said to have constituted one of
    the "regional security complexes" in post-Cold War era politics. In
    this sense, the national security of the three independent post-Soviet
    republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are embedded in each
    other by their geography. Since Armenia occupied the Nagorno-Karabakh
    Autonomous Oblast of Azerbaijan SSR in between 1992 and 1994, peace
    and stability in the Caucasus have been the most needed values,
    particularly when the region came to prominence once again as the main
    battleground of great power politics soon after the sudden collapse of
    the Soviet Union.

    However, Russia's reluctance to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem
    also creates some pressures on regional security, from which Armenia,
    foremost, is heavily influenced in terms of its realpolitik, although
    the Armenian state does not have a territorial connection with the
    Russian Federation anymore. Therefore, Russia's use of the long frozen
    conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in order to maintain the status quo in
    the South Caucasus endangers Armenian national security the most over
    the course of time.

    Seemingly, as much as this problem has been left unresolved, Armenian
    security sectors will continue to be affected negatively, hereby the
    whole regional security complex of the Southern Caucasus will collapse
    sooner or later. Hence, the post-Soviet Caucasian republics, most
    notably Armenia, will remain as an object of the great power politics
    in the international arena. As will be remembered, the likelihood of
    war and conflict was tragically witnessed in Georgia when Russia
    attempted at a military campaign in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in
    August 2008 upon Georgia's warming relations with the U.S., which then
    had a potential to change the balance of power in reverse of Russian
    interests in the region.

    Regarding the Armenian geopolitical situation in the Southern
    Caucasus, military conflict should not be kept away from our strategic
    calculations as well. Contrary to its geopolitical raison d'etre,
    Armenia's foreign relations in the region are very paradoxical and its
    position vis-a-vis Azerbaijan and Turkey jeopardizes not only its own
    national security, but also the collective security of the Caucasus,
    where the small post-Soviet states have no luxury to fight
    unilaterally against each other. The same criterion is also valid for
    Azerbaijan and Georgia, so they should always cooperate so as not to
    engage in conflicts at any cost considering all the issues for the
    sake of the regional security complex of their geopolitics.

    At the present stage, Armenia and Azerbaijan perceive themselves as
    sworn enemies due to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and continue to
    mobilize against each other. Needless to say, Azerbaijan is by far the
    champion of this armament race with the help of its oil and gas
    revenues and further triggers Armenia's security dilemma day by day.
    In return, the Yerevan leadership has invited more Russian military
    supplies and deployment in Armenian territory, which is also annoying
    Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Russian deployment to the 102nd
    military base in Gyumri can be regarded as a source of distrust, with
    this understanding, between the parties, and Armenia's membership in
    the Collective Security Treaty Organization always worries Azerbaijan
    and Georgia, the two former Soviet republics that are opposed to any
    kind of military or political association with Russia as a necessity
    of their post-Soviet independence and sovereignty.

    Because of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, landlocked Armenia has become
    very isolated inbetween Turkey and Azerbaijan when both countries
    closed their borders to Armenia since the conflict erupted during and
    soon after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Since independence,
    Armenia has tried to balance the Turkish-Azeri axis through
    Russo-Persian financial-economic support, but the country has become
    an economic backyard for both countries with overwhelming economic
    dependency.

    Hence, Armenia's economic dependency, particularly on Russia in terms
    of infrastructure, energy and military, asymmetrically caused the loss
    of its economic independence. As the massive international blockage
    over Iran has also been considered, Armenia has no option other than
    mending its relations, especially with Turkey, in order to open up to
    the Western world.

    Also because of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, Armenia has been
    bypassed by the energy corridor, even though it exists in the middle
    of the energyrich Trans-Caspian-Caucasus route. In this regard,
    Armenia missed a historic economic opportunity when the
    Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Project was inaugurated in 2006. Instead
    of Armenia, Georgiahas taken the advantages of pipeline politics and
    intensely improved its political and commercial relations with Turkey
    after the fall of the Shevardnadze regime during the Rose Revolution
    in November 2003. In brief, Armenia could not have used its chance in
    the New Great Game of geopolitics that has institutionalized a
    new-born Turkish-Georgian-Azerbaijani partnership while exempting
    Yerevan from the blessings of cooperation.

    In addition, this problem not only triggers a military security
    dilemma between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but has also caused some sharp
    declines in the Armenian population and accelerated massive labor
    migration flows out of the country in the wake of economic
    underdevelopment. Many young Armenians have recently left the country,
    more often to Russia and Europe and to some extent Turkey, in order to
    find employment and sustain their livelihoods.

    In this context, Armenian societal security is also alarming and this
    situation frequently enhances non-security threats like cross-border
    problems, smuggling, human and arms trafficking and other organized
    crimes originating from the Armenian border and spreading through
    Russia, Turkey and continental Europe. We can augment the numbers and
    facts that constitute the main sources of political-military tension,
    discontent and disarray in Armenian politics presently.

    In brief, the current trend of Armenian foreign policy always creates
    some problems and continues to undermine the military capacity of the
    country in the Caucasus. Besides that, its domestic politics have been
    nurtured by the catastrophic environment in which the 'otherization'
    of Azerbaijan and Turkey is generating the backbone of ethno-centric
    Armenian statehood and populist nationalism. Allegedly, all of these
    problems that the Armenian public faces are today somehow related,
    directly or indirectly, with the long frozen and unresolved conflict
    of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Therefore, the main question comes to mind immediately regarding
    Armenia's anti-realpolitik attitudes toward its geopolitical and
    geo-economic existence within the clear borders of Southern Caucasia.
    It is very questionable whether Armenia will be able to stand (or not)
    by maintaining its current foreign policy, which might be said to have
    been settled redundantly on a frozen conflict in the post-Soviet era.
    But its unilateral pro-Russian stance obviously poses challenges to
    its national and then to regional and international security in the
    long run. Thus, from a realist point of view, one can easily
    understand how a region's security is sacrificed through an irrational
    insistence on deadlock considering the most emergent political problem
    that is waiting to be solved for the sake of a Caucasian peace
    process.

    It might be said that the Organization for Security and Co-operation
    in Eu rope Minsk Group has so far remained very insufficient in
    conflict resolution and peace-making initiatives concerning the
    Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Russia, France and the U.S. cannot pass beyond
    their-own geopolitical agendas concerning the Caucasus conundrum that
    renders Armenia and Azerbaijan as the perpetual belligerents in the
    basin. Especially Russia's pro-Armenian reserves paradoxically damage
    Armenia and its integration with the coterminous peoples and states as
    if the Russo-Armenian military partnership is perceived of as being
    favor of Armenia in the current stage.

    Thereupon, a possible Turkish-Armenian rapprochement in the future
    could be a political panacea for the Armenian predicament caused by
    the aforementioned side effects of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
    Turkey seems to have the ability to mediate between Armenia and
    Azerbaijan if some conditions are fulfilled by the parties,
    particularly during the centenary anniversary of the Armenian
    incidents in the coming year. In this respect, Turkey's recent
    endeavors led-by President Gül, Prime Minister ErdoÄ?an and Foreign
    Minister DavutoÄ?lu regarding bilateral relations with Armenia should
    be considered by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan as an indicator of
    goodwill and regional diplomacy.

    Besides, ErdoÄ?an's latest official condolences on the mass deportation
    of Ottoman Armenians during World War I can also be thought of as
    Turkey's eagerness to build up a prospective Turkish-Armenian dialogue
    and mutual trust that will be able to melt the current hostile
    relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Caucasia.

    * Freelance Eurasia Analyst, MSc, Center for Russian & Eurasian
    Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden

    http://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/2014/07/31/deadlock-in-nagornokarabakh-undermines-armenian-national-security-in-the-caucasus

Working...
X