VARTAN OSKANIAN SPOKE TO BBC WORLD SERVICE’S OWEN BENNETT JONES

August 27, 2008

Mr. Vartan Oskanian, founder of the Civilitas Foundation, and
former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, spoke to BBC World
Service’s Owen Bennett Jones on Wednesday, August 27, 2008, about
the Caucasus region in the wake of Russia’s recognition of S. Ossetia
and Abkhazia. Below, Mr. Oskanian’s responses.

What do you think NATO should do?

I think there’s a big responsibility here. I believe NATO at least
publicly but more so through diplomatic channels should talk to
Russia and consider reviewing their policy vis-a-vis the Caucasus,
Ukraine. I’m not suggesting that they change anything, but at least
they should be prepared at this stage to sit down and talk with
Russia and express the willingness to review things, to see if they
can come up with an option that will be viable and also acceptable
to all parties.

So you’re suggesting NATO should back down on their positions on
membership?

That has to be mutually agreed upon. I understand NATO’s position,
that they don’t want to be dictated to by anybody as they decide what
they will do with membership issues, but given the circumstances and
what we have seen in these past three weeks and particularly after
Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, I think it would
be worthwhile to put that ‘pride’ aside and sit down for the benefit
of global harmony and also for the benefit of the Caucasus, sit down
and talk with each other and come up with a viable option that will
be beneficial for all.

Don’t you feel vulnerable to Russian expansion?

We’ve never felt that. We do not have any particular problem with
Russia. What concerns us today is that our room to maneuver will
be extremely limited given the fact that Russia and Georgia, for
Armenia, are vital neighbors. If Russia is our strategic partner,
then Georgia is our natural partner. Our trade goes thru Georgia,
historically we have had excellent ties. So this tension between Russia
and Georgia, and I would even go a step further to qualify this as
tension between the West and Russia, by proxy, will put Armenia in
a difficult situation. For a decade, when I was foreign minister, we
implemented a policy of complementarity clearly saying to everybody
that we will not choose between Russia and the U.S. Armenia can not
afford to choose. I think that whole issue now has come closer to
home and Armenia should even enhance that complementarity by clearly
telling everybody that choosing is not an option for Armenia.

Why not? Russia is expanding, why not choose against Russia?

We shouldn’t rush to the conclusion that Russia is expanding. Maybe
what Russia has done is a consequence of a sequence of steps and
missteps by both sides. I’m not putting blame on any one side,
or, maybe I’m putting the blame on everybody. This is the time
when cool heads should prevail, not just in Russia and Georgia but
also the West. In the heat of things, lots of resentments are being
expressed. I think there is a moment there. There is an opportunity so
that we sit down and talk – all of us, Brussels, Moscow and Washington
should sit down with Yerevan, Tbilisi and Baku — and come up with
a viable option for this region, so that we turn the Caucasus into a
non-aligned Caucasus. Because the Caucasus is too small to accommodate
several security alliances especially when they are exclusionary.

So, keep the Russians out, keep the Americans out, make the Caucasus
a non-aligned neutral area.

I think that will be a viable option. I don’t see how we can proceed
with this kind of tension. It’s not just detrimental for our region
but also for global politics. I don’t think the world these days
can afford this kind of tension, this Cold War redux, because there
are more pressing issues before Russia, the US and the international
community. Our focus should be on those issues rather than fighting
proxy wars in different regions.

But it has to be said that with Russia in its current mood and the
US in its current mood, this is not going to happen, is it?

Let’s look at the reasons for those moods. There’s lots of resentment
there that have accumulated since the collapse of the USSR. There
has been a sequence of misunderstandings that have led to this kind
of situation. In the past 400 years, the world has gone through at
least four, five major transformations. After each major war and
conflict, a new system has emerged, at each new mechanisms and new
institutions have emerged to constitute a new world order to regulate
state relationships. The end of the Cold War is the exception. The
very institutions that contributed to the defeat of the USSR remained
as the main pillars of the so-called new world order. That was natural
back then when Russia and China were weak. Today’s Russia and China
are not the same. Insisting on those institutions particularly the
security ones, to operate the way they used to, is not sustainable.