KOSOVO WISHES IN CAUCASUS
By Simon Saradzhyan for ISN Security Watch

ISN, Switzerland
International Relations & Security Network
March 28 2006

While Washington and its allies in the South Caucasus say Kosovo’s
bid for independence from Serbia is a unique situation, separatist
republics across the former Soviet Union and their sympathizers
among Russia’s ruling elite are publicly debating how far the Kosovo
precedent could propel them to independence of their own.

In late January, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the debate
by pointing out at a press conference that independence for Kosovo
would bolster similar bids of de facto independent republics in the
former Soviet Union.

“If someone thinks that Kosovo can be granted full independence as a
state, then why should the Abkhaz or the South Ossetian peoples not
also have the right to statehood?” he said, referring to Georgia’s
separatist republics.

“I am not talking here about how Russia would act. But we know, for
example, that Turkey recognized the Republic of Northern Cyprus,”
Putin told the 31 January press conference. “I am not saying that
Russia would immediately recognize Abkhazia or South Ossetia as
independent states, but international life knows such precedents. I
am not saying whether these precedents are a good or a bad thing,
but in order to act fairly, in the interests of all people living
on this or that territory, we need generally accepted, universal
principles for resolving these problems.”

The following weeks saw officials from the separatist governments
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh,
an Armenian-majority enclave that fought a war to win de facto
independence from Azerbaijan, hold up the Kosovo situation as a future
precedent. At the same time, senior officials from Georgia, Moldova,
and Azerbaijan challenged the argument.

Giorgi Khaindrava, Georgia’s minister for conflict resolution, said
Putin’s statement was not at all surprising, given Moscow’s “unilateral
support” for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. “Kosovo model is not an
universal one,” said Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, echoed those
sentiments, agreeing that Kosovo was a unique situation and should
not set any precedents for the future.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Rosemary DiCarlo also weighed
in on the debate, telling the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant
that a unique situation had arisen in Kosovo because of the violent
break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

According to independent experts, claims that independence for Kosovo
would not have a ripple effect through the former Soviet Union were
wishful thinking, at best.

And while the case of Transdniestria looks weak, given the lack of a
dominant ethnic group, South Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Armenians in
Nagorno-Karabakh are nurturing hopes that a vote for independence in
Kosovo could be replicated in their de facto independent republics,
leading to subsequent recognition of their states by the international
community.

Monica Duffy Toft, professor of public policy at the Kennedy School
of Government and an expert on ethnic conflicts in the former
Soviet Union, said it would be difficult for proponents of Kosovo’s
uniqueness to come up with sufficient parameters to make their case
that is disparate from conflicts in former Soviet Union.

“How many parameters can one list to make their case unique. Is Kosovo
all that unique – I don’t think so,” she told ISN Security Watch.

“In spite of the [fact that the] American argument that Kosovo is a
disparate when compared to conflicts in former Soviet Union is not
convincing, the Kosovo referendum will open the floodgates, it will be
a wake-up call that the principle of territorial integrity is no longer
absolute in the trade-off with the right to self-determination,” Alexei
Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center told ISN Security Watch.

Both Toft and Malashenko agreed that independence for Kosovo would
set a precedent that the separatist regimes of South Ossetia,
Abkhazian, and Nagorno-Karabakh would rely on to strengthen their
own independence bids.

And the Russian leadership reportedly is already trying out the
precedent with Georgia’s separatist South Ossetia.

Gennady Bukaev, assistant to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov,
told a joint session of government of South Ossetia and Russia’s North
Ossetia last week that the federal government had made a principle
decision to incorporate the former into the Russian Federation. The
two republics will then be united into one subject of the Russian
Federation “the name of which is already known to the world – Alania”,
two Russian dailies quoted Bukaev as saying.

The attending officials from North and South Ossetia received Bukaev’s
report enthusiastically, interjecting several times throughout with
applause, Madina Dzhanaeva, a reporter with Russia’s state-owned
Itar-Tass news agency who was present at the Wednesday sitting in
the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz, told Vedomosti newspaper.

Hours after Bukaev’s statement was reported in the Russian press,
Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement asserting that Moscow
had no plans to incorporate South Ossetia even if the separatist
province held another referendum to breakaway from Georgia.

Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said the following day that Russia’s
position was that South Ossetia’s status should be determined within
the existing Joint Control Commission framework, which includes the
separatist province, Russia, and Georgia.

According to Kamynin, Bukaev said nothing about any pending
incorporation of South Ossetia, but was rather referring to the need
to establish and develop common economic space in North Ossetia,
South Ossetia, and Georgia’s Gori district to revive the local
economies and facilitate the return of refugees in line with a 2000
Russian-Georgian agreement.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website that
Bukaev’s Wednesday speech had been misinterpreted and he would brief
the Joint Control Commission on what he said at a session this week.

However, the Foreign Ministry’s attempt to contain the news was
unsuccessful, as both government officials and experts picked up the
issue and began debating whether South Ossetia would become a part
of Russia de jure.

According to North Ossetia’s president, Taimuraz Mansurov, the
unification of North and South Ossetias is “inevitable”. “When and
how it will happen is a different issue,” Mansurov told Interfax
last Thursday.

Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper
house of parliament, was only a bit more diplomatic when asked to
comment on prospects of North Ossetia and South Ossetia. Whether
South Ossetia would become part of Russia would depend on Kosovo’s
final status, he told Interfax.

“We are closely watching what is happening in Kosovo. The situation
there is very similar to South Ossetia and they are heading towards
establishment of an independent state,” Mironov said. “The peoples of
North Ossetia and South Ossetia are one people, even it is divided,
and as history shows such people unify in the final run,” he added.

South Ossetia fought and won a bloody war to achieve de facto
independence from Georgia in 1992. Since then, the separatist republic
has been relying on Russia for economic ties while also periodically
calling on Moscow to incorporate their province in Russia.

South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity made the latest of attempts last
Wednesday by telling the joint session of North and South Ossetian
governments that he would ask the Russian Constitutional Court to
look into whether his province could be “re-integrated” into Russia.

He cited the 1774 treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji between Russia and the
Ottoman Empire that made South Ossetia part of Russia, claiming that
no treaty afterwards was made to transfer the province to Georgia.

Both Georgia and the US blasted Kokoity. Julie Finley, US ambassador
to the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE), said the US reconfirmed “our unequivocal support for
the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and the peaceful
resolution of both the South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts based on
that principle”, according to the Associated Press.

Giorgi Khaindrava, Georgia’s minister for conflict resolution, also
attacked on Thursday Bukaev’s statement, calling it “absolutely
irresponsible” and urging the Russian government to condemn it.

Moscow officially maintains that it honors Georgia’s territorial
integrity and maintains a peacekeeping force in the separatist
republic, but Tbilisi has accused Moscow of supporting South Ossetian
separatists through trade, economic aide, and citizenship.

As of 2003, there were 70,000 people residing in South Ossetia, of
which 67 per cent were ethnic Ossetian and 25 per cent were ethnic
Georgians, according to Izvestia. Ninety-five per cent of residents
of South Ossetia hold Russian passports in what Georgian officials
said reflect Russia’s tacit support for independence. Similarly,
a majority of residents in Abkhazia and a sizeable part of the
population of Transdniestria also hold Russian passports.

Both Malashenko and Mikhail Roshchin, Caucasus expert at the Institute
of Oriental Studies in Moscow, expressed doubts that Russia had
any imminent plans to incorporate South Ossetia, saying Bukaev’s
statement could be a trial balloon. “They might be probing to see
what the reaction is,” Roshchin said.

However, even such a trial balloon should not have been allowed, if
Russia were indeed interested in absorbing South Ossetia, Malashenko
said, adding that Moscow should have left the issue alone until a
decision on Kosovo was made.

Nikolai Silaev of the Center for Caucasus Studies at the Moscow State
University of Foreign Relations also believes it could have been
a trial balloon and questioned the wisdom of incorporating South
Ossetia. He said the economically depressed region would become
another burden for the federal budget and that unification of the
two Ossetias might fuel Ossetian nationalism.

Silaev said Russia would rather benefit if Georgia formed a
confederation state with breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, which would be anchored to Russia.

Toft also questioned the viability of Russia setting its sights on
South Ossetia, by noting that it would be preceded by a referendum of
independence and then subsequent recognition of the international
community in what could bode ill for Russia itself, given that
republics in the North Caucasus, dominated by one or two ethnic groups,
could follow the lead.

Simon Saradzhyan is a veteran security and defense reporter based in
Moscow, Russia. He is a co-founder of the Eurasian Security Studies
Center in Moscow.

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