RUSSIAN PAPER VIEWS GUAM AS PEACEKEEPING RIVAL
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow
1 Jun 06
The formation of a GUAM peacekeeping unit, which was announced
at the Baku meeting of CIS defence ministers, will put an end to
Russian peacekeeping operations in the CIS, a Russian newspaper has
predicted. The following is the text of the article by Sokhbet Mamedov
and Svetlana Gamova: “Hot Spots for Sale. Ukraine Suggests Setting Up
a CIS Peacekeeping Force As an Alternative to Russian Peacekeepers”
published by Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 1 June:
Russia will have to prove the effectiveness of its peacekeeping
contingent in the immediate future: Serious rivals have appeared in
the post-Soviet area. This became obvious at the latest 50th session
of the CIS Defence Ministers Council. On the eve of the session,
Ukrainian Defence Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko met with his Azeri
counterpart Safar Abiyev and expressed the need to set up a separate
peacekeeping unit within GUAM.
The Ukrainian minister’s statement caused a sensation. Moreover,
it was clearly aimed at weakening the positions of Russia, which
remains the main peacekeeping force in the CIS. It is the Russian
“blue helmets” who have been on peacekeeping missions in Abkhazia,
South Ossetia, and the Dniester region since the early 1990s. The
point is that the same morning Azeri Defence Minister Safar Abiyev
directly linked the viability of the CIS to the organization’s ability
to settle internal conflicts in the member states. The Ukrainian and
Azeri defence ministers’ statements became a kind of death sentence
on Russia’s peacekeeping missions and the entire CIS as a structure
performing mediator functions in the peaceful settlement of conflicts.
Moreover, all the indications are that the concept of setting up
GUAM’s peacekeeping force has already been prepared very thoroughly.
At any rate the Ukrainian minister mentioned in Baku the date for
the appearance of the new “blue helmets” in the post Soviet area:
around mid-June this year. According to Hrytsenko, the deputy chiefs of
the General Staffs of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova should gather
in Kiev around that time specifically to discuss the creation of a
joint peacekeeping subunit, its goals, and structures. It is easy to
guess under whose auspices it will be formed: Hrytsenko proposed to
his Azerbaijani counterpart that these issues be discussed in detail
in Brussels where, as we know, the NATO Headquarters is situated. All
organizational issues will be finally resolved in the fall during the
meeting of the GUAM member states’ defence ministers. The Ukrainian
minister said that the venue and date for the meeting will be set
during the course of work. According to Anatoliy Hrytsenko, the
GUAM peacekeeping force will fulfil its mission based on a UN or
OSCE mandate.
The Georgian and Moldovan defence ministers’ opinions on the plans
articulated by Anatoliy Hrytsenko are not known yet, for they did
not take part in the Baku session of the CIS Defence Ministers Council.
Meanwhile, Azeri Defence Minister Safar Abiyev expressed his attitude
to the Ukrainian minister’s statements very cautiously. According to
him, discussions on setting up the GUAM peacekeeping force have been
held for a long time now, but this issue is still in the development
phase. “When we arrive at the unanimous decision we will submit it
for the state leaders’ consideration following the defence ministers’
meeting,” Safar Abiyev pointed out. At the same time, he did not rule
out that should the peacekeeping subunit be formed, it could also be
deployed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.
Safar Abiyev also pointed out that the Azerbaijani people will never
put up with the occupation of their land and that “Azerbaijan will
use all its rights guaranteed by international norms to restore its
territorial integrity.” “It is time we took a categorical objective
stance: declared Armenia an aggressor and demanded that it observe
international norms and leave the occupied Azeri territory,” the
minister said.
We would point out that a peacekeeping force within GUAM set up at
Ukraine’s initiative would allow the states comprising the organization
(unsettled conflicts smoulder in three of them) to jointly cope with
the existing territorial problems. This will mean that Russia will be
automatically excluded from the peacekeeping effort in the former USSR.
Awareness of the consequences of the Ukrainian minister’s statement
urged Russian Federation Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov to respond.
He launched an attack and stated in Baku that Russian peacekeepers will
stay in the Dniester region until the Chisinau-Tiraspol conflict has
been resolved. “We are going to protect the artillery depots in the
Dniester region village of Kolbasna until a political solution to the
Dniester problem has been found,” Ivanov said at the press conference
following the CIS defence ministers’ meeting. According to Ivanov,
Russia cannot allow a situation where ammunition would fall into
terrorists’ hands. In addition to this, the defence minister pointed
out that peacekeeping subunits might be deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh
in the immediate future, because its problems are not being solved
in any way. Admittedly, the Russian minister did not specify whose
peacekeepers would be stationed in the Armenian-Azeri confrontation
zone.
As regards the GUAM peacekeeping force’s prospects, the countries
comprising the organization have the experience of international
peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Liberia.
Georgia is particularly experienced in this field: Its soldiers
serve in peacekeeping units in a number of hot spots and in the
Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone.