FROZEN CONFLICTS IN THE TERRITORY OF THE CIS CEASE BEING INTERNAL
Svetlana Gamova

Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 08, 2006, p. 6
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
September 11, 2006 Monday

Guam Appeals To UN;
Guam Requests Un To Discuss The "Drawn Out Conflicts" In Moldova,
Georgia And Azerbaijan Again; unregulated conflicts in post-Soviet
space may receive a new status if they are discussed at the next
session of the General Assembly of the UN to be held at the end
of September.

Unregulated conflicts in post-Soviet space may receive a new status
if they are discussed at the next session of the General Assembly of
the UN to be held at the end of September. Four GUAM member states
(Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) sent a relevant request
to the headquarters of the UN. The letter sent to New York says that
"the drawn out conflicts in GUAM space, namely in Moldova, Georgia
and Azerbaijan, have been impacting life of more than 16 million
people for more than 15 years and for more than 15 years have
been endangering international peace and security and threatening
sovereignty and territorial integrity of the three member states
of UN." In their letter GUAM member states said that international
mediation in resolving these conflicts did not have any results and
this circumstance forced the countries with unregulated conflicts to
turn to the UN.

This is not the first address of GUAM to the UN. However, last
year a similar request failed to receive support of members of the
General Committee who recommended the General Assembly include these
or those issues into the agenda. This year, opinion of the members
of the committee may be influenced by the recent events in Georgia
and Moldova. Situation grew worse in South Ossetia; a state coup was
prevented in Tbilisi and Georgian authorities connected this directly
with Russia. Moreover, Georgian authorities openly accused Russia
of subversion activity in the territory of another country. Chisinau
has reasons to complain about Russia too. One of the reasons is the
referendum planned by the Trans-Dniester Republic for September 17,
and regarding possible entrance of the republic into Russia. It is
known that this event is supported by Russian politicians. Neither
Moldova nor Georgia needs this intermediary and they try to get rid of
Russian participation in the negotiation process with the separatist
regions. The tribune of UN may play an important role in this aspect.

So far, discussion of only one former hot spot in the CIS was
included in the agenda. This is discussion of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. Its formulation does not require comment, "Situation on
occupied territories of Azerbaijan." This issue was included in
the agenda of the 59th session of UN in autumn of 2004, for the
first time according to the initiative of Azerbaijan. Official Baku
explains that "the goal of this initiative is discussion of the
situation by the UN due to illegal actions that Armenia undertakes
on occupied territories of Azerbaijan including establishment of
illegal settlements, exploitation of natural resources etc." This
issue remains on the agenda of the autumn session of 2006.

Yerevan did not like the news. Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan announced that attraction of the UN to the problem on which
OSCE was working was inappropriate.