Asia Times: Where is the security guarantee for S Caucasus?


	June 13, 2000	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Where is the security guarantee for S Caucasus?
By Harry Tamrazian

The call for permanent peace in the South Caucasus has never been so urgent and loud as it is now, despite the fact that six years have passed since formal ceasefire agreements ended the conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia. But in neither case has the ceasefire been underpinned by a political settlement of the conflict, nor do such settlements appear imminent.

The issue of a security system for the South Caucasus was first raised by the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan during the OSCE Istanbul summit last November. In an unprecedented move, Robert Kocharian and Heidar Aliev called on the 54 members of that organization to create such a system for the volatile South Caucasus region.

At the time, however, the international community, concerned that the war in Chechnya might spill over into Georgia or Azerbaijan, reacted coolly to the proposal for a wider-ranging regional security system. But the idea did not die altogether. Turkey was the first to react positively, with Ankara indicating that the South Caucasus would become the second item on its foreign-policy priority list after the EU, replacing Cyprus and Turkish-Greek relations. And before leaving office, Turkish President Suleyman Demirel traveled to Tbilisi in January to launch his last foreign-policy initiative in the form of a ''Caucasus Stability Pact''.

Notwithstanding Turkey's concern that the war in Chechnya could spill over into Georgia and create an influx of refugees into Turkey, the main goal of Demirel's Caucasus Stability Pact was to create a stable political landscape for the ''energy corridor'' that Ankara hopes will bring the oil riches of the Caspian region to its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Demirel wanted to enlist the US and the EU as official participants and sponsors of his Caucasus Stability Pact. According to Demirel's plan, international financial organizations such as the IMF and World Bank would also take part in the project, providing funding to secure the economic recovery of the region.

The only country conspicuous by its absence from Demirel's blueprint was Iran, while Russia was accorded a secondary role. (Iran was likewise not included in Aliev's draft proposal.)

While Moscow officially welcomed Demirel's proposal, at the same time senior Russian officials made clear Russia's discomfort at the prospect of US direct involvement in the Caucasus. The chief of the Main Department of International Cooperation at the Russian Defense Ministry, Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, said that the US and Nato should not be allowed to participate in the creation of a security system in the Caucasus. ''The involvement of Americans in the South Caucasus would not improve the security of this region. The realization of US plans in the post-Soviet republics is very dangerous, and may explode the situation'', the Russian general said.

Then in late March, Armenian President Robert Kocharian unveiled a more detailed blueprint based on the so-called 3+3+2 formula, meaning the pact would constitute an agreement between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, with Russia, Iran, and Turkey as guarantors and the US and the EU as sponsors. Georgian Foreign Minister Irakli Menagharishvili expressed approval of that formula, saying Tbilisi ''supports all initiatives aimed at stabilizing the situation in the Caucasus''. But Azerbaijan has meanwhile distanced itself from the concept of a regional security system, arguing that the idea is not workable until the Karabakh conflict is resolved.

The most recent and most comprehensive proposal, entitled ''A Stability Pact for the Caucasus'', was drafted by the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS), which played an important role in shaping the EU's Balkan Stability Pact and has drafted a solution for settling the Cyprus problem. After extensive research, CEPS came to the conclusion that it is possible to solve many problems in the region by creating a so-called ''South Caucasus Community'', modeled either on the EU or another comparable regional grouping such as Asean. The CEPS Task Force for the Caucasus, headed by Michael Emerson of the London School of Economics, called on the EU and the US to work closely with Russia in creating and supporting that South Caucasus Community, which would have its own parliament (a parliamentary assembly with 170 deputies) and its own executive (a council of ministers).

CEPS advocates resolving the Karabakh and Abkhaz conflicts by granting those territories a high degree of self-government, separate constitutions, horizontal and asymmetric relations with the state and regional authorities, the preservation of their own cultural identities, and shared competence in security issues, external affairs, and economic policy.

The CEPS Caucasus group is currently engaged in acquainting the international community and international organizations with the details of its proposed South Caucasus plan. It has already made a presentation to Nato and plans to submit its proposals to an international conference on Central Asia and the Caucasus in Tehran on June 11 and to the OSCE in Vienna on June 14.

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