THE US AND NATO APPLY ADDITIONAL PRESSURE TO ARMENIA
by Vadim Novikov

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
Source: Severny Kavkaz (Nalchik), No 42, October 24 – 30, 2006, EV
November 1, 2006 Wednesday

Putting Armenia Under Pressure, The United States And Nato Are Out
To Weaken Its Ties With Russia

Official Yerevan has found itself under pressure from the United
States and NATO to abandon Russia.

Judging by the latest developments affecting the Caucasus directly
or indirectly, it seems that tension will continue to escalate in
the region. Needless to say, reference to the latest developments
includes the recent EU-Russia informal summit in Lahti, Finland,
and the hasty visit to Moscow paid by US State Secretary Condoleezza
Rice and State Undersecretary Daniel Freed right in the wake of their
"working tour" of the Caucasus that included a stopover in Georgia.

Freed is the official of the US Administration who made it plain right
after the Georgian provocation involving arrests of Russian officers
that Washington intended to side up with Tbilisi in its conflicts with
Abkhazia and South Ossetia and to deploy its military contingent on
the southern Russian borders.

President Vladimir Putin in Lahti silenced unwarranted advocates of
Mikhail Saakashvili’s anti-people’s regime with a few well chosen
words. It seems that Rice and Freed were given approximately the same
retort in Moscow afterwards. By the way, Freed and Grigori Karasin
(State Secretary and Deputy Foreign Minister) did not restrict their
conversation last Saturday to "pressing issues of the Russian-American
cooperation on international and regional issues" alone. Press Service
of the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that same day that "the
American diplomat on his own request was explained Russia’s vision
of the situation with the Russian-Georgian relations and prospects
of resolution of the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia." Let us
hope that the US Department of State official received an exhaustive
answer to Washington’s aspirations to be the "prime controller"
of the Caucasus.

It wouldn’t have been like the Americans, however, to fail to try to
explode the Caucasus regardless of the ways and means. The Americans
and their "friends" (as Freed put it) are going active in Armenia now –
albeit using methods differing from what had been used in Georgia and
Azerbaijan. It is common knowledge that Armenia has been advancing
its relations with the Alliance on two levels at once: within the
framework of the so called Partnership for Peace NATO’s Program and
of the Individual Partnership Action Plan. The only problem is that
official Yerevan has never said it wants membership in the Alliance
while Tbilisi and Baku have been implying it since 1995-1996.

It is clear that Armenia as a member of the CIS Collective Security
Treaty Organization is in a delicate position indeed, made so by
its finding itself right on the frontier of the new line across the
Caucasus. If the majority of experts and observers are correct in
their belief that membership in NATO for Georgia and Azerbaijan is a
matter of time (and not so distant a future, at that), then Armenia
will soon find itself surrounded by the Alliance on three sides. The
border with Iran will remain its sole link with the rest of the world.

It is clear that once Armenia is surrounded by NATO bases and the
situation with the American-Iranian relations being what it is,
Washington will shortly put its "friend Armenia" under unprecedented
pressure. Only time will show if Armenian politicians and diplomats are
strong enough to withstand the pressure resembling arm-twisting more
than anything else. Americans and "their friends" are already doing
everything in their power to persuade the Armenian political and other
elites that the military alliance with Russia and cooperation with CIS
countries within the framework of the CIS Collective Security Treaty
Organization are not actually guarantees that Moscow and its partners
will respond in time to any threat to Armenia. That Armenia needs
membership in NATO to safeguard itself from aggressive encroachments
from Turkey or even Georgia.

What is that if not indirect action on the part of the external
players aiming to weaken Armenia’s ties with Russia? There can be no
other interpretation of US policy in the Caucasus nowadays.

Aware of quite natural and objective reasons compelling it to act in
this manner, the Armenian leadership keeps neutrality and silence. In
the meantime, Yerevan cannot help being aware of the fact that the
threat of direct pressure from the US and NATO may become a real
possibility after the Riga summit. President Robert Kocharjan’s
meeting with Robert Simmons of NATO on October 12 is also revealing
in its implications too. Kocharjan’s press service announced then
that Simmons and he had only discussed cooperation between Armenia
and the Alliance and NATO’s regional programs…

There is no need to talk of the Armenians’ sympathies and
antipathies. They are made quite clear even when the conversation
touches upon Turkey alone, a NATO member that keeps threatening Armenia
with this or that and that has not even lifted the land blockade of
Armenia yet. Neither the United States nor NATO put Turkey under any
pressure to force Ankara to stop its hostile action.

There are, however, some people in Armenia who would urge the country
to forget about Russia for the sake of Washington’s benevolence.

Worse than that, these people and forces they represent do not merely
talk. They act. Four political parties came up with veiled anti-Russian
statements between October 19 and 21.

The Americans never stop sending short messages to the authorities
and population of Armenia. Who will believe assurances of a Georgian
official that arrests of citizens of Armenia and Russian Armenians
for presence on the territories of Abkhazia or South Ossetia are
"not ethnic motivated"? In the meantime, more than twenty Armenians
are still in Georgian jails on these pretentious charges.

Everything shows that this is the "contribution" of the Georgian
authorities to the American propagandistic campaign aiming to "educate"
Armenia and the Armenians and to sever their contacts with Russia.

If that is not a factor of pressure applied to Armenia and the
Armenians, what is? Very many people in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
have relatives in Armenia. It follows that official Tbilisi interferes
with maintenance of Armenian families.

Another means of putting Armenia under pressure is used – speculations
that NATO troops may be used as peacekeepers once the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict is finally resolved.

Armenia does not need any reminder of how NATO’s peacekeeping ended
for Yugoslavia or Iraq…

All these fragmented reports and facts nevertheless comprise a single
picture – that of the Alliance’s pressure applied to Armenia. The
weak link NATO is already using and determined to keep using is the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and
adjacent lands.

Left to its own devices, Armenia cannot be counted on to withstand
the combined pressure from the United States and NATO. Is there anyone
to help it?