Eurasia Daily Monitor — The Jamestown Foundation
Wednesday, March 15, 2006 — Volume 3, Issue 51
IN THIS ISSUE:
*Kyiv revisits RosUkrEnergo’s role in Gazprom deal
*Will Russian become a second state language in Ukraine?
*Ethnic conflict flares in Samtskhe-Javakheti region of Georgia
ROSUKRENERGO SNEAKING BACK INTO UKRAINE
Pending the March 26 parliamentary elections, official Kyiv has shelved
the deeply damaging gas deals it signed on January 4 and February 2 with
Gazprom and its offshoot RosUkrEnergo. President Viktor Yushchenko and
those close associates who confused him into advocating for these deals
seemed prepared to ignore the widespread criticism, until unpublicized
U.S. intercessions finally caused the presidency to delay any decision
until a new government is formed and to exclude the shadowy RosUkrEnergo
from whatever agreements are eventually reached with the Russian side.
Yushchenko has dropped the subject altogether since mid-February.
However, indirect attempts seem to be under way to keep those deals
alive and set the stage for reactivating them after the elections. On
March 13, Gazprom’s deputy chairman Alexander Medvedev declared that it
will be RosUkrEnergo [not Ukraine] that will pay Gazprom for the gas
consumed by Ukraine in January above the volume stipulated for that
month; and that the price of that gas will be 0 per one thousand cubic
meters — i.e., under the terms of the January 4 agreement. In what
looks like a parallel move, Naftohaz Ukrainy chairman Oleksiy Ivchenko
declared that Kyiv would pay RosUkrEnergo [not Gazprom] for that same
volume of gas, at the price of per one thousand cubic meters — again,
under the January 4 agreement (Inter TV, March 13).
Taken together, these moves seem designed to keep the January 4
agreement alive, implement at least some of its provisions, and cement
RosUkrEnergo’s role as intermediary. If this were done, Kyiv would
severely weaken its case for dropping out of that agreement after the
election.
One week earlier, Ukraine’s National Energy Regulatory Commission
awarded a five-year license to the UkrGazEnergo closed joint-stock
company to deliver gas on Ukraine’s internal market. UkrGazEnergo is a
joint venture of RosUkrEnergo and Naftohaz Ukrainy and was created by
the secret February 4 agreement that triggered a storm of criticism when
it was leaked. Thus, Gazprom — acting via RosUkrEnergo/UkrGazEnergo —
is capturing a share of Ukraine’s market and access to the internal
infrastructure. The Regulatory Commission’s move also seems designed to
make certain that RosUkrEnergo via UkrGazEnergo enters Ukraine to stay
(Interfax-Ukraine, March 9).
The Regulatory Commission’s chairman happens to be a candidate for
parliament for the Party of Regions. However, support for RosUkrEnergo
and UkrGazEnergo by a handful of strategically placed officials clearly
cuts across partisan lines, given the fact that Ivchenko is Yushchenko’s
choice for Naftohaz chief and his political ally in the Our Ukraine
bloc.
Kyiv now apparently seeks to regain the chance to buy Turkmen gas
directly, without corrupt intermediaries, possibly in the second half of
2006 or at least in 2007. Ashgabat demands repayment of Ukrainian
arrears as a pre-condition to resuming negotiations on a supply
agreement. Ivchenko and Fuel and Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov lost that
opportunity in the final months of 2005 — the negotiations went down to
the wire until December 28 — by stonewalling on a debt-settlement
agreement or even denying the existence of the debt. Kyiv now seems to
change that negotiating approach and certainly the negotiator.
On March 10-12, a delegation led by Naftohaz Ukrainy commercial director
Anatoly Popadyuk held what appear to be conclusive debt-settlement
negotiations in Ashgabat. The delegation acknowledged that Ukraine owed
9 million, most of it for Turkmen gas delivered in 2005, as Ashgabat had
all along claimed. At the end of Popadyuk’s visit, the Ukrainian side
apparently disbursed .5 million in cash, pledged to pay another million
also in cash, and made a commitment to supply million worth of
Ukrainian goods, including million worth of steel pipes for
Turkmenistan’s oil and gas industry (Turkmen Foreign Ministry press
release, Turkmenistan.ru, March 12).
This result constitutes major progress toward removing an issue that has
poisoned Ukrainian-Turkmen relations, restricting Kyiv’s margin of
maneuver vis-à-vis Gazprom. As recently as February 17-18, Plachkov
and Ivchenko were stonewalling on the debt issue in their talks with
Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov in Ashgabat. Their stance may have
reflected their role as the main authors on the Ukrainian side of the
January 4 and February 2 agreements with Russia. Back in Kyiv from
Ashgabat, Ivchenko told mass media that the debt “does not exist” and
accused Turkmenistan and its president of “displaying Eastern perfidy,”
“humiliating Ukraine and damaging its image.” Ivchenko urged Ukraine to
“renounce Turkmen gas altogether” and stop holding talks with
Turkmenistan, and he threatened to sue Turkmenistan in the Stockholm
Arbitration Court for breach of contract. He assured the public that
Ukraine would in any case receive gas for per one thousand cubic meters
(RosUkrEnergo’s price), but did not explain the reasons for such
confidence (One Plus One Television [Kyiv], February 20).
Just as Ivchenko’s statements seemed to contradict Yushchenko’s February
14 announcement on shelving the deals with RosUkrEnergo, so the March 13
convergent statements by Medvedev and Ivchenko and the Energy Regulatory
Commission’s licensing of UkrGazEnergo raise questions about who is in
charge of Ukraine’s energy policy and about the authority of the
president’s word with some of his officials (see EDM, February 16, 17,
23).
–Vladimir Socor
UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION PARTIES CAMPAIGN FOR RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
The Russian language issue has been employed in the run-up to the March
26 Ukrainian parliamentary election probably more actively than in any
past poll. Unlike in previous elections, where marginal groups and
low-key candidates played the Russian-language card, now such
heavyweights as the frontrunner Party of Regions (PRU) has made
elevating the status of Russian a key promise.
“This issue has a significant conflict potential, that is why it is very
tempting to use it in elections,” Andriy Bychenko of the Razumkov Center
think tank said, presenting the results of a December 2005 nationwide
opinion poll on the attitudes toward the Russian language. The poll
showed that more than 60% of Ukrainians are in favor of raising the
status of Russian, including 37% who believe that Ukrainian and Russian
should have equal status. The 1996 Constitution, however, does not
provide for any status for Russian whatsoever, but stipulates that
Ukrainian is the sole state language. Hence the high conflict potential
and temptation to abuse the issue.
Feelings about the Russian language are especially strong in eastern and
southern Ukraine, including Crimea. In those areas, according to an
April 2005 poll by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the
Kyiv-based Sociology Institute, support for the idea of making Russian
either a second state language or an official regional language hovers
around 90%. More than half of western Ukrainians are against this,
according to the same poll.
The parties that regard the Russophone eastern and southern areas as
their strongholds have been capitalizing on what they describe as the
authorities’ failure to address the Russian-language issue. In the
current campaign, all those parties represent the opposition, while the
national-minded west and center of Ukraine have stayed loyal to the
parties that used to form the Orange Revolution coalition. Playing the
Russian-language card is nothing new for the radical leftists — the
Communist Party (CPU) and the Progressive Socialist Party (PSPU) of
Natalya Vitrenko. Elevating the status of Russian to a second state
language has always been among their main slogans. In the current
campaign, however, they have at least two very strong rivals playing in
the same field: the United Social Democratic Party (SDPUO) of Viktor
Medvedchuk, who was a key aide to former president Leonid Kuchma, and
the Party of Regions (PRU) of former presidential candidate Viktor
Yanukovych.
One of the main slogans of the SDPUO’s campaign reads: “Against NATO,
for the Single Economic Space with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, and
for the Russian language.” The text reads more like a communist leaflet.
The appearance of strong rivals playing in the same field is arguably
the main reason behind dwindling popular support for the CPU and the
PSPU. One telling example is the Russophone Donetsk Region, which was
the main electoral base of the CPU a decade ago, but now is the
stronghold of the PRU.
PRU leader Viktor Yanukovych, who routinely spoke Ukrainian when he was
prime minister in 2002-2004, ostensibly speaks Russian on his campaign
trips. The PRU’s campaign brochure “50 questions and answers” promises a
nationwide referendum in order to give Russian “the state status, on par
with Ukrainian,” as “56% of Ukrainian citizens routinely use the Russian
language in everyday life.”
The PRU collected 300,000 signatures for a local referendum on the
status of the Russian language earlier this year in Crimea, which is,
ironically, the only region where Russian actually enjoys a special
status, according to the local constitution. Based on this, on February
22 the Crimean parliament voted to hold a local non-binding referendum
on the status of Russian on March 26, to coincide with the general
elections. The Ukrainian Justice Ministry, however, warned that the
referendum would be illegal.
For the moment, it is not clear whether the referendum will be held at
all. It is clear, however, that it will have no legal consequences,
which its organizers readily admit, saying that their goal is just to
raise public awareness of the problem. The Crimean Tatars, who back the
government in Kyiv, will ignore the Russian language referendum, their
leader, Mustafa Dzhemilev, told Glavred web site.
On March 6, the city council of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine voted to
grant Russian the status of a regional language. President Yushchenko’s
legal adviser, Mykola Poludyony, said the council’s decision was
illegal, as the council had acted outside its remit. Kyiv’s official
position is that there is no Russian language problem. “This is
speculation by certain politicians ahead of the election,” Yushchenko
said on a trip to western Ivano-Frankivsk last month. On March 11, in
his regular weekly radio address to the nation, Yushchenko warned
against “provoking conflicts around the language issue in the heat of
the election campaign.”
(LIGABiznesInform, May 5, 2005; proUA.com, February 22;
Interfax-Ukraine, February 24; Glavred.info, March 3; Itar-Tass, UT1,
March 6; UNIAN, February 7, March 7; Ukrainian radio, March 11)
–Oleg Varfolomeyev
KARABAKH CONFLICT HANGS OVER GEORGIA’S ARMENIAN-POPULATED REGIONS
Tensions are running high in Tsalka and Akhalkalaki, two regions of
Georgia that are predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians.
The latest problem began in Tsalka on March 9, when a trivial brawl at a
restaurant between local Armenians and Georgians resulted in the death
of Gevork Gevorkian, a 24-year-old Armenian, and injuries to four other
Armenians. However, Maria Mikoyan of the Armenian Union in Georgia (Nor
Serund) claimed that the fight began because the Georgian young men were
irritated by the Armenian music playing in the restaurant.
Although police have arrested five Georgian suspects, about 500 Armenian
protesters gathered outside the Tsalka administrative building on March
10, calling for prosecution of the suspects. On March 11, the upheaval
spread to Akhalkalaki, a town in the predominately Armenian populated
Samtskhe-Javakheti region in southern Georgia.
About 300 participants in the Akhalkalaki rally were Tsalka Armenians.
They later took their appeal to the Georgian government and demanded
that Tbilisi “stop the policy of pressure by fueling interethnic
tensions” and “stop the settlement of other nationalities in
Armenian-populated regions.” Later, the protesters voiced demands
related to the right to conduct court proceedings and government
business in the Armenian language. Specifically, they want the central
government to make the Armenian language a state language equal to
Georgian in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. Reiterating the alleged
threat to the rights of Armenians in Georgia, the appeal also demanded
political autonomy for the region.
The rally soon turned violent. The protesters, mostly youth, left the
government building and raided a local court chamber, ousting a Georgian
judge. They also attacked a building on Tbilisi State University’s
Akhalkalaki campus and a local Georgian Orthodox Church. Later on
Khachatur Stepanian, a representative of the council of Armenian civic
groups in Samtskhe-Javakheti, which organized the rally, attempted to
soften the anxiety and called the incident a “provocation” staged by
“someone else.”
On March 11, leaders of the public movement Multiethnic Georgia and the
Armenian Union in Georgia complained that police had brutally dispersed
the rally in Tsalka where “ethnic confrontation is increasingly becoming
a reason behind crimes.” They said that if tension in Tsalka and
Samtskhe-Javakheti continues, then Tbilisi would be forced to establish
direct presidential rule there.
Although Georgian Public Defender Sozar Subari investigated the Tsalka
incident and ruled it to be a “communal crime,” the majority of the
Armenian communities in these regions consider the incident to be a
demonstration of ethnic hatred towards Armenians, which they believe is
the result of the Georgian government’s misguided policies towards
ethnic minorities. They further alleged that Georgian law-enforcement
agents were working in tandem with those who committed the crime.
United Javakh, a radical Armenian organization in Samtskhe-Javakheti,
issued a statement accusing Tbilisi of “discriminatory policies” against
“the Armenian population of Javakh,” the Armenian nomenclature for the
region. They described the recent dismissal of the region’s ethnic
Armenian judges for ignorance of the Georgian language as “cynically
trampling on the rights of the Armenian-populated region.” Georgian
authorities insist the judges were dismissed for misconduct.
The United Javakh statement warned about “destructive trends in the
Georgian government’s policy” aimed at artificially creating a “climate
of ethnic intolerance” and “crushing the will of Javakh’s Armenian
population to protect its right to live in its motherland.” Finally the
statement demands that Tbilisi show “political prudence” and put an end
to the “infringement” of the Armenian community’s rights.
The content and tone of this and previous statements by United Javakh
and other radical Armenian organizations reportedly have strong backing
from political forces in Armenia. In fact, the statements recall the
language used by the Armenian community in Karabakh in its relations
with the Azerbaijani government before war erupted. Vardan Akopian,
chair of the Javakh Youth organization, argued, “The current situation
in Javakheti is a cross between situations in Nakhichevan and Karabakh.”
Several protestors explicitly cited the Karabakh precedent.
Symptomatically, on October 8, 2005, Garnik Isagulyan, the Armenian
president’s national security advisor, bluntly warned Tbilisi to be
“extremely cautious” with regard to Samtskhe-Javakheti “because any
minor provocation can turn into a large-scale clash” (EDM, October 12,
2005). Various Armenian political parties, officials, and media have
actively discussed the problems of the Armenian community in
Samtskhe-Javakheti. Some Armenian members of the Georgian parliament
linked this activity with the approaching parliamentary elections in
Armenia.
Recently Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian released a paper on
security issues in which he expressed concern over the situation in
Samtskhe-Javakheti. The excessively critical tone of the Armenian
minister towards Tbilisi’s policy in Samtskhe-Javakheti reportedly
alarmed Georgian politicians and analysts, but they preferred to stay
tight-lipped, perhaps to avoid upsetting the already-complex
Georgian-Armenian relationship (EDM, August 3, June 7, May 24, March 23,
2005). Russia has tried to capitalize on the problem by fueling tensions
in Akhalkalaki, location of a Russian military base slated for closure.
Although the Georgian government is continuously downplaying the ethnic
aspects of the disturbances in Armenian-populated regions, this factor
appears to lurk beneath the surface. Georgia remains Armenia’s sole
transport route to Russia and Europe due to the ongoing blockade by
Turkey and Azerbaijan. Thus an unstable Samtskhe-Javakheti would hardly
be a gain for Yerevan. However, the “Karabakh syndrome” should not be
removed from the agenda.
(Resonance, March 9, 11; Akhali Taoba, Civil Georgia, Rustavi-2, Regnum,
vesti.ru, March 11; Imedi-TV, March 10, 11)
–Zaal Anjaparidze
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