SITUATION IN S. CAUCASUS GETTING MORE COMPLICATED – CSTO CHIEF

Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS
March 12 2008
Russia

Extra-regional forces are having a destabilizing effect on the
situation in South Caucasus, which is the responsibility zone of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), said Nikolai Bordyuzha,
the CSTO Secretary General.

"The destabilized situation in Iraq that is going to remain so for
a long while increases security concerns in the region. Turkish
forces raids to the neighboring country increased the already high
degree of tensions, and the events in early March on the cease-fire
in the Nagorno Karabakh zone seriously thwart the Karabakh conflict
settlement process," Bordyuzha said at a roundtable session in Moscow
on Wednesday.

Speaking of the recent events in Armenia, Bordyuzha said: "In our view,
we should bear in mind that the events in Yerevan were to some extent
influenced by forces outside the region, as the media claim."

That these forces are interested in intervention "can be clearly
seen in the Central Asian region," he said. "In particular, probing
test statements by NATO officials about using Uzbekistan’s military
infrastructure for supporting military security operations by coalition
forces in Afghanistan," Bordyuzha said.

Behind this interest are geopolitical and economic motives, in
particular, the struggle for natural resources.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress