Interests and aspirations clash in region of frozen conflicts
By Simon Tisdall

The Guardian
Feb 8 2005

The ancient Greeks called it Pontus Axeinus – the inhospitable sea.
Jason and the Argonauts sailed its turbid waters, seeking the Golden
Fleece in the land of Colchis, present-day Georgia. Turks who feared
its lowering storms called it Kara Dengiz, hence its English name.
Now the Black Sea, contested through history by Roman emperors,
Russian tsars, Nazi and Soviet totalitarians and, inevitably, by
British imperialists in the Crimea in the 1850s, is once again emerging
as a strategic amphitheatre of clashing interests and aspirations.

When Romania and Bulgaria join the EU in 2007, modern Europe’s new
frontier will come hard up against the rumbling underbelly of Russia’s
collapsed empire.

Arrayed around this new Black Sea bullring, an encircling host of
failed, floundering or would-be states must soon decide whether their
future lies within the Euro-Atlantic community.

It is here that defining 21st-century battles over identity, security,
democratic values, oil, and migration will be waged. And it is here
that an ever-enlarging Europe’s limitations, political as well as
geographical, may finally be painfully exposed.

Romania’s reformist leader, Traian Basescu, who watches over a
lengthy tract of western Black Sea coast, is keenly attuned to this
challenge. He won the presidency last December in Romania’s quieter
version of neighbouring Ukraine’s “orange revolution”.

Mr Basescu’s visit to London last week amounted to an early warning.
In his view Romania is becoming a frontline state in what governments
now call the Greater Black Sea region.

“The common security threats that we face are many. The Black Sea
region has become an area for trafficking in people, in drugs and
weapons,” Mr Basescu said.

“It is an area of frozen conflicts. These are threats for all Nato and
EU members. In this region we are in a democratic transition period, a
period of emerging democracies – and that presents an element of risk.”

Romania has been offered additional British help in fighting corruption
and organised crime, curbing illegal immigration and preparing for
EU membership, diplomats said.

Both Romania and Bulgaria are already Nato members. And the Bucharest
government, which has offered military base facilities to the US at
Constanta, has purchased two ex-Royal Navy frigates.

Yet while Romania, Bulgaria, and more precariously, Ukraine, have
made their pro-western choice, the fate of many regional states and
peoples hangs in the balance.

Moldova, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, is one of the most
dangerous of the “frozen conflicts” of which Mr Basescu warned.
Located in an area once known as Bessarabia, Moldova is the poorest
country in Europe, divided since independence in 1991 by a secessionist
movement in eastern Transdniestria.

Now Moldova’s communist leaders, facing elections next month, have
broken with their traditional ally, Russia, and are pursuing EU
integration. President Vladimir Voronin appealed last week for western
assistance, saying separatist “armed units” were bent on provoking a
crisis. Moldova has also asked in vain that Russia withdraw its troops.

Almost unnoticed, the EU published an “action plan” in December,
inviting Moldova “to enter into intensified political, security and
economic relations” and describing a Transdniestria solution as a
“key objective”. In short, Moldova is a looming European problem.

Similar disputes requiring international attention ring the Black
Sea. In former Soviet Georgia, scene of the 2003 “rose revolution”,
the pro-western government of President Mikhail Saakashvili is
still struggling with Moscow-backed separatists in South Ossetia
and Abkhazia.

Linked to Georgia’s future is the future of independence-minded
Chechnya, where low-level conflict with Russian forces still smoulders,
and the wider Caucasus region.

In Armenia an authoritarian government is locked in a cold
war with Turkey and Azerbaijan, principally over the enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh, where tens of thousands died in the early 1990s. To
end its isolation Armenia is increasingly looking to Brussels.

While insisting on political and economic reforms, the EU recently
included Armenia in its European “neighbourhood policy”. Self-interest
plays a part. Armenia’s woes have produced an exodus of economic
migrants; most head westwards.

Underlying all this is the Black Sea’s growing strategic importance
as an outlet for Russian and Caspian oil – another potential source
of conflict as well as wealth.

A sort of “best pipeline” contest is now under way. Russia is exploring
a new oil route with Bulgaria and Greece that would bypass pro-western
Turkey. From Athens, at least, this looks like a terrific idea.

Another pipeline will run from Azerbaijan via Georgia to Turkey’s
Mediterranean coast, deviously circumventing poor, ostracised
Armenia. Yet another could link Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast with
Macedonia, Albania and the Adriatic – with intriguing implications
for the Balkans.

While the EU gazes east and wonders just how far it can go, especially
regarding Russia, the US feels fewer constraints. It is determined
to secure its Caspian oil supplies. And its new military toeholds
on the western shore could in time be used to project US influence
across the entire Black Sea region.

Europe’s policy may be drifting. Russia may fret and storm. But
Washington reckons it knows which way the wind is blowing. Like the
ancient Greeks, it aims to turn the Black Sea into the Pontus Euxinus –
the friendly sea.
From: Baghdasarian