Bringing Turkey into the South Caucasus

New project aims to encourage unity, utilize Turkey’s experience
applying to join EU

By Keti Sikharulidze

The Messenger.
Monday, April 4, 2005, #060 (0834)

The Turkish-Georgian Research Center, based in the South Caucasus
Institute of Regional Security (SCIRS), presented a new project on
aimed at bringing together the ‘four’ countries of the South Caucasus
on Friday, April 1.

The project, entitled AGAT – Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey
– aims at including Turkey in the South Caucasus region, with a
particular emphasis in improving Armenian-Turkish relations.

“Until now everybody considered the South Caucasus to mean Armenia,
Georgia and Azerbaijan, but now SCIRS is trying to add Turkey as it
is an equal member both geographically and politically of the South
Caucasus,” explains Head of the Turkish-Georgian Research Center
David Tavadze.

Tavadze thinks that it should be up to Georgia to “act as a mediator
to coordinate analysis of the country,” adding that one of the main
functions of the center it is to develop relations between analytic
centers in the region to support the AGAT project.

In an interview with The Messenger, Tavadze said the center had held
negotiations with Azerbaijani and Armenian colleague, and that the
Armenian side expressed great interest in the project.

“Nowadays, the four countries of the region have the same foreign
political views, with the exception of the Turkish-Armenian and
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts – namely European integration. So this
project can play an important role, as one of the main demands of the
European Union is the normalization of relations with neighboring
countries: historical factors should not influence the development
and future of a country,” Tavadze stated

Tavadze added that the center intends to open a website in the near
future which will reach out to as many parts of the region as possible
by being available in both Russian and English.

The center also plans to develop a Golden Circle project, aimed at
developing relations between the countries of the Black Sea basin
and creating a unified security system.

“Besides security, we should discuss other issues as well. For
instance we do not use all the potential that Turkey can offer us.
Such as Turkish people of Abkhaz ethnicity, who could play a great
part in renewing Georgian-Abkhaz negotiations,” said Tavadze.

Commenting at the presentation on this issue Turkish Ambassador to
Georgia Ertan Tezgor stated that he had had frequent talks with State
Minister for Conflict Resolution Goga Khaindrava, and had already
come to an unofficial agreement about which it would be possible to
speak after analysts have considered the issue further.

HE Tezgor expressed his opinion that the AGAT project could not only
play a part in resolving the Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian
conflicts, but other issues in the South Caucasus as well.

“Georgia is the gateway to Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia and
thus has a very important geographical location,” he said, adding
that it should not be forgotten that Russia has an important part to
play in ensuring stability on the region.

“I support [SCIRS’s] initiative and think that conflict resolution
in the South Caucasus would have a positive influence for the North
Caucasus and Daghestan as well. Turkey will do everything it can to
support these projects,” said Tezgor, adding that analytical centers
could play a part in developing different strategic views.

Speaking with The Messenger, Head of the regional department of
the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Givi Shugarov stated that
good relations with Turkey was important not only for Georgia but
for the whole of the South Caucasus, as it is a real candidate for
EU membership.

“It is very important for us that Turkey become a member of the
European Union as we will then become the neighbors of an EU country.
For Georgia it is very important to have good relations with its
neighbors and among those priorities is to solve problems with Russia,”
he said.

He stressed that the South Caucasus has great prospects, although
he noted there were many negative factors which were holding back
development, including “the conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
Nagorno Karabakh, as well as the North Caucasus.”

“Such frozen conflicts freeze the political-economic relations between
countries. It is very easy to say that the conflicts should be resolved
but all countries involved must first overcome psychological barriers
and be prepared to compromise: the situation will not change unless
everybody wishes it to change for the better,” Shugarov said.