Regnum, Russia
June 6 2008

`We are not transferring weapons to the Georgians’ – interview with US
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza

Today, on June 5, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza
arrived in Moscow. In the Russian capital, he met with Russia’s Deputy
Secretary of the Security Council Yuri Zubakov and Deputy Foreign
Minister Grigory Karasin. According to the American diplomat, key
topics of the discussions were to be the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. On June 6, Bryza will go to
St. Petersburg where he will meet with Presidents of Azerbaijan Ilham
Aliyev and of Armenia Serge Sargsyan, who are to take part in the 12th
St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. In an interview to a
REGNUM correspondent Mr. Bryza shared his ideas on the Georgian-Abkhaz
conflict, commented on deployment of the Russian railway troops in
Abkhazia, spoke on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement and
expressed his expectations from the forthcoming presidential election
in Azerbaijan.

REGNUM: The tension in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict has been
increasing every day. Georgia has reportedly become the most
militarized country in the region with the help of other powers,
including the United States. Do you find it appropriate that a
conflict party in two ethnic conflicts is being supplied with weapons
and at the same time a stir is generated about deployment of unarmed
railway troops in Abkhazia?

We believe there is no military solution to the Abkhazia conflict. I
want to make that clear. We urge our Georgian friends not to consider
a military resolution, because we think that would be a disaster for
everybody. The only way forward is through a peace plan that is
agreed by both parties – by both the Georgians and the Abkhaz – and
that becomes a plan that we all can guarantee in the international
community, especially, but not only, Russia and the United States.
There is no military solution.

In response to the specific question about arming parties to a
conflict – if people are asking that question in Russia, then I wonder
what the [Russians] are doing with the Armenians and others in the
area who have benefited from large transfers of weaponry including the
relocation of Russian military forces from Georgia, when the bases
closed, to Guimry and elsewhere in Armenia. I’m not complaining about
the relocation of Russian forces or the arms transfers to Armenia, I’m
just saying that Russia sees the need to help one of its friends,
Armenia, strengthen its military forces. From our perspective, there
is nothing illegitimate in that, nor is there anything illegitimate in
our helping the Georgians develop a professional military, because
that’s what we’ve done.

We are not transferring weapons to the Georgians. We had a very
limited training and equipping program that began back in 2001 to
create a professional force that was capable to do what? To clean up
the Pankisi Gorge. That’s how that whole program began back in 2001 –
02. We thought we were responding to a legitimate Russian desire/
request/ demand that the problem in the Pankisi Gorge be cleaned up,
and that Georgia restore its authority and rule of law. That’s what
happened and we are proud of that. We helped train these forces, and
they have been serving with us in Iraq, but we never intended that
they would be used for any military operation in Abkhazia, and we’ve
made that clear repeatedly to our Georgian colleagues and Georgians
friends.

In terms of arms transfers, it happens pretty extensively from Russia,
including to other countries in the region. I just want to make clear
as well – Armenia is a friend too, Armenia is a party to a conflict,
and Azerbaijan is a friend, and Azerbaijan is re-arming itself – I am
not criticizing Russia for helping Armenia develop its armed forces,
and we think it’s important that Azerbaijan has a professional
military, as does Georgia. I just wanted to be clear about that.

On the railways troops, our concern is not that railroads are being
rebuilt. It’s good to restore communication, help the Abkhaz gain
access to markets in Georgia, and help build economic cooperation.
Our complaint is that there was no consultation. Why did the step
just happen without somebody in the Russian government picking up the
phone and saying to the Georgian leadership, `beware this is going to
happen; we’ve talked about developing railroad together; let’s do it
together.’ Doing it unilaterally raised tension, and that’s just not
necessary. In fact, it’s counterproductive at a point that we need to
decrease the tension between the parties.

REGNUM: There is an assumption that in their aspiration to force
Russia out of the negotiation and the peacekeeping formats in
Abkhazia, the European Union and the United States can propose some
kind of initiatives of a draft status to Abkhazia and this can be
including even independence. Do the EU and the USA have any
ready-to-use initiatives for Abkhazia that can bring the conflict out
of the deadlock?

I don’t agree with the first thing you said, that the EU and United
States are trying to move Russia out of the negotiation and
peacekeeping format. Not at all. There is no way to resolve any of
these conflicts in the Caucasus without Russia, it’s impossible.
Russia has to play a role, a decisive role, a constructive role, or
there will never be a solution. Everything we do ought to be
developed in partnership in conjunction with Russian government to
make sure that we all are pushing in the same direction.

The United States and the EU don’t have any ready made plan. What we
do have is the sense that there needs to be a process – a new process
– that allows the Georgians and Abkhaz together to figure out whatever
the plan should be. All we can propose is a process; we do not have
ready made ideas. In discussions with my friends and colleagues in
Georgia, I suggested elements that I think could be useful in a peace
plan to make it attractive to the Abkhaz so that the Abkhaz want to
move forward. But that’s not a ready made plan, that’s just ideas out
there that we develop after we talk to the Abkhaz to see what their
needs are for security: physical security, political security, and
cultural security. It’s a consultative process that must involve
Russia, must involve the Abkhaz, and must involve the Georgians. If
we as outsiders, but concerned outsiders, can help then we want to do
everything we can.

REGNUM: Why does the West believe that the Kosovo conflict can be
settled only by granting independence to the Kosovars, but rejects the
same solution to the conflicts in the South Caucasus – especially for
Nagorno-Karabakh? Is there any reason to believe that Karabakh can
someday be returned to Azerbaijan?

I wonder why in Russia people sometimes say that Kosovo has to be a
universal precedent. That would mean there would have to be
independence not just of Abkhazia, but of many regions in the North
Caucasus. I don’t believe people in Russia who talk about universal
precedent want any of that to happen. My country is the country that
began with separatism, and after we get gained our independence, many
separatists appealed to us for support; sometimes we supported them,
sometimes we didn’t. The same in the case of Russia.

There is an international legal principle of territorial integrity,
and that has developed in recent years since the early days of my
country. It’s a principle we have to support, we are obligated to by
law. It’s only on an exceptional basis when we can deviate from that
principle. Kosovo was an exception; there was a series of Security
Council Resolutions, and direct UN action, in the case of Kosovo that
made that situation different, made it unique in terms of
international law, because it is the UN and its Security Council that
are the highest purveyors of international law. So there is a
fundamental difference there. I know that the Russian government and
my government certainly do not want Kosovo to become a precedent for
other separatist movements all over the world.

On Nagorno-Karabakh, it doesn’t matter whether I am as individual
American diplomat believe Karabakh will or will not return to
Azerbaijan, it legally is part of Azerbaijan, let’s start with that.
It happens to be under the political and military control of others,
of separatists, who are ethnically Armenian. What matters is simply
whether we succeed in developing an agreement or formula that would
allow the two sides here – Armenia and Azerbaijanis – to agree on the
status of Karabakh. I do not know what their agreement will be. All
I know is that we need to try to get two sides to get to an agreement
on status and that’s going to take a long, long time.

In the meantime, while the mood changes and evolves, while people
alter their views about status, because there is no way to move on
status if Armenia says one thing and Azerbaijan says another, there is
a lot we can do to reduce the risk of war and make the situation much
better on the ground for all the people there. We can get the seven
Azerbaijani territories around the Azerbaijani territory of Karabakh
returned to Azerbaijan, and we can bring the Armenians and Azeris back
to living together. The hope is as they live together and work
together and trade together, the issue of status will become less
acute. Eventually the parties can reach their own agreement on the
status of Karabakh.

REGNUM: In what time limits it possible that Armenia returns the Azeri
territories around Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijan? What will the
influence of it upon the situation in the region in general and the
political situation in Armenia?

Good question. I should underscore at the outset that the views I’m
expressing I think are absolutely shared by the Russian government, at
least my colleague Yuriy Nikolayevich Merzlyakov, who has helped me
understand this conflict in much greater depth, as has our French
colleague. The impact in Armenia of the return, I hope would be
positive. I hope there would be greater sense of security for our
Armenian friends knowing that the risk of war has deescalated
significantly. Again, once the territories go back to Azerbaijan they
will be demilitarized, there will be international peace keepers
there, the Armenian troops will pull back; they won’t be in this tense
situation they’re in now, where the Armenian troops are staring at
Azerbaijani troops and vice versa, across, in some cases, a hundred
meters of mine fields. That’s obviously a very dangerous situation.
People are killed every month by sniping, landmines. So I would hope
that our friends in Armenia would feel a heightened sense of security
once those territories go back to Azerbaijan. I hope that that echoes
throughout the political system in Armenia in very positive way.

REGNUM: I think this question is a bargaining point inside Armenia’s
political system. Do you think that this will not affect the current
authorities?

It depends on what sort of an overall package can be pulled together.
There will not be the return of Azerbaijani territories unless the
Armenian side feels it has gotten something in return that of
sufficient value. Your question will actually answer itself. The
agreement won’t be there unless it’s agreeable to the Armenians, but I
take your point that for an Armenian leader there is a risk to
agreeing to give the territories back to Azerbaijan. I accept that
point. Similarly on the Azerbaijani side there is a political risk to
giving to Armenia what Armenia needs to agree to give back the
territories.

That’s why tomorrow’s meeting is so important between Presidents
Aliyev and Sargsyan. They need to have a chance to get to know each
other and build a certain level of trust so they each can take those
difficult decisions to make return of the territories acceptable. I
want to make clear too that there are many elements of this peace plan
that are attractive to Armenia: there will be a corridor connecting
Karabakh to Armenia, there are question about procedure to determine
the status of Karabakh. That is a possibility that should say should
be appealing to the Armenian side as well. So again I just want to
emphasize that this agreement must be acceptable to Armenia as well.

REGNUM: Let’s talk about Azerbaijan where the presidential election is
to be held this fall. In the context of recent developments in Tbilisi
and Yerevan when people took to the streets to protest against current
authorities, do you expect the same thing to happen in Baku? Is the
Azeri opposition capable of taking people to the streets?

During the last round of elections there were street demonstrations.
I understand – I have not had a chance to look at it – that there is a
new package of electoral reforms just passed that allow for freedom of
assembly, however, as I understand it, not in the center of Baku. You
can argue over where the demonstrations are to take place. We are not
in favor of democracy or political change through street protest. We
are in favor of political change through voting and through democratic
institutions and processes. It’s not accurate to say we somehow
encouraged any revolution, the Rose Revolution, Orange Revolution,
Tulip Revolution. We did not to step in to try to block them, nor did
we encourage them.

In this current case in Azerbaijan, what we want to see is that the
Azerbaijani voters determine their country’s political future. We
have made our own statements about difficulties, problems with
limitations on freedom of the press. We’ve also commented on the
importance of the press being professional and adhering to
professional ethical standards in Azerbaijan, as in many countries.
The raw material is there for an election that could be the freest and
fairest that Azerbaijan has ever had. Demonstrations will be part of
that, but the real element of this moment in Azerbaijan’s democracy
will be how free and how fair the election is both in the campaign
period and then in the immediate aftermath of the election when the
vote counting happens. I feel that the leadership of Azerbaijan
understands what an important moment this is, but I can’t predict how
it’s going to play out. I do not have a clear feeling about what is
going to happen.

The last thing I’ll say is that Russia has to be a part of the
process, or there will never be any progress towards settlement.
That’s why I’m here, to explore how we can work together to develop
such a viable peace plan.