Kommersant, Russia

United Nations Gets Involved in Conflicts in the CIS

Sep. 16, 2006Print | E-mail | Home United Nations
Gets Involved in Conflicts in the CIS

// Against Moscow’s Will

At its 61st session in New York, the UN General
Assembly resolved to discuss frozen conflicts in the
former USSR. The initiative was put forth by the GUAM
association of countries (Georgia, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan, and Moldova), which managed to get the
question included in the session’s agency despite
vigorous opposition from Russia. The fact that the
General Assembly agreed to discuss the question
amounts to an admission by the international community
that the activities of Russian peacekeepers in the
conflict zones are ineffective.
The resolution was adopted on Thursday by the General
Assembly after a fierce struggle in which 16 countries
sided with the GUAM countries and 15 opposed the
motion, with 65 abstaining. The request of the GUAM
countries to include the matter in the General
Assembly’s agenda was originally turned down two days
ago by the UN general committee, but with the help of
the US and Great Britain, among others, the motion was
passed in a second attempt.

A spokesman from the Azerbaijani government blamed
Armenia and, especially, Russia for trying to hush up
the problem of frozen conflicts in regions of the
former USSR. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still locked
in a dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region that
lies between them and is claimed by both countries.
Russia’s influence in the region’s frozen conflicts is
felt most keenly in Moldova and Georgia, however,
where the breakaway regions of Transdniestr in Moldova
and South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia are seen as
being courted by Moscow. Georgia’s Foreign Ministry
likewise took aim at Russia for its unwillingness to
see the problem of such conflicts discussed in the
General Assembly.

Diplomats from the GUAM countries did not hide their
satisfaction at the adoption of the motion, calling it
testimony to the rising political clout of their union
and a show of interest by the UN in conflicts in the
territory of the former USSR. The Russian Foreign
Ministry, however, noted dryly in response that the
fact that only 16 countries were for the motion, while
80 either opposed it or abstained from voting, does
not point to any particular interest in the matter on
the part of the UN.

Although the resolutions adopted by the UN General
Assembly, unlike those of the Security Council, have
no legal force, the beginning of a broad discussion in
the international community of the problem of frozen
conflicts is still widely seen as an unexpected
success for the GUAM countries and as a diplomatic
defeat for Moscow. Though it is too early to talk
about what the General Assembly’s final words on the
matter will be, it is possible that the discussion
could lead to success for the GUAM countries in
replacing Russian peacekeepers in the regions with an
international peacekeeping contingent.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress