Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
July 12, 2006 Wednesday

THE KARABAKH FRACTURE;
Deployment of NATO contingents in the conflict area will dramatically
change the geopolitical situation in the Caucasus

by Andrei Korbut

THE PROBLEM OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH IS DETERIORATING FROM REGIONAL INTO
GLOBAL; Once a regional headache, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is
deteriorating into a geopolitical problem.

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister, Serj Sargsjan, made a trip to
Moscow. Sargsjan came to the Russian capital from the OSCE summit in
Minsk where President of Armenia Robert Kocharjan had criticized OSCE
documents as "weak" in the matter of mechanism of military aid to
OSCE member states. Kocharjan was convinced of the necessity to
"specify parameters of the mechanism of military-technical assistance
to OSCE members against external aggression." The president’s anxiety
is understandable. The latest attempt at negotiations with his
Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev being another fiasco, official
Baku is now obsessed with a military solution to the
Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict.

Addressing graduates from three military colleges, Aliyev once again
mentioned the possibility of "using strength of arms to restore
territorial integrity of the country." "How much longer are we
supposed to waste our time in talks?" Aliyev said. "How much waiting
is needed? Our patience has its limits. Azerbaijan is a fast
developing country. Armenia is not our match economically,
politically, or from a military standpoint. Let them in Armenia give
a thought to where Azerbaijan will be a year or three or five from
now and where Armenia will be."

Aliyev pointed out that Baku expected to earn $140 billion in
realization of oil projects in the next two decades. "We will use the
opportunity to strengthen the army so that it will be able to regain
our land at any moment," he promised then to "his people".

In the meantime, the United States is displaying more and more
interest in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution. That is essentially
why US Assistant Undersecretary for Europe and Eurasia Matthew Brize
was appointed the new American chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group. The
US Embassy in Yerevan has already published some principles of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution that Washington offers to the
OSCE Minsk Group. This is what is offered for discussion by
presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan;

– step-by-step withdrawal of Armenian armed formations from the areas
surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh;

– a special approach to the problems of the Kelbajar and Lachi
districts;

– a referendum or vote to define the legal status of
Nagorno-Karabakh;

– deployment of an international peacekeeping contingent in the
conflict area.

Neither Baku nor Yerevan accept all of that in total. Their
protestations notwithstanding, the Americans just may force a
peacekeeping operation on the warring sides, and deployment of
international peacekeepers in at least some conflict areas will mark
the beginning of a practical phase of conflict resolution. What
countries will these contingents represent? Experts suspect that they
will represent NATO countries. Baku does not mind but Yerevan seems
to mind it. Sergei Ivanov, Deputy Premier and Defense Minister of
Russia, visited Azerbaijan and Armenia in early 2006, and said that
it might be a Russian contingent in fact that would be deployed in
the conflict area.

Official Baku chose to ignore these words but Azerbaijani spokesmen
never miss a chance to point out that contingents of peacekeepers
must be international. Will Russia agree to that? The question is
quite serious, what with the Iranian factor and Washington’s resolve
to neutralize Tehran. Yerevan is thinking along these lines too as
Kocharjan admitted at the OSCE summit in Minsk. "Let us refrain from
the steps that may challenge the interests of OSCE members," he urged
his colleagues from the Collective Security Council. Moscow in the
meantime seems to favor the idea of peacekeepers in the conflict
area. It is hardly surprising at this point (on the eve of the G8
summit) but what its stand on the matter will be afterwards?

Lieutenant General Yuri Netkachev, former second-in-command of the
Russian Army Group in the Caucasus, believes that it will be "a
geopolitical catastrophe" if Russia and Armenia are forced to accept
a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through NATO
peacekeepers. "The conflict will not be resolved," Netkachev said,"
meaning that peacekeepers will remain here preparing everything for a
bridgehead for a NATO aggression against Iran."

It follows that once a regional headache, the problem of
Nagorno-Karabakh is rapidly deteriorating into global. The United
States and its allies promote far-reaching plans. Moscow in its turn
has not defined its position yet and even that may undermine its
standing in the region.

Source: Voyenno-Promyshlenny Kurier, No 25, July 5 – 11, 2006, EV