Georgiandaily, NY
Nov 15 2008
Toward a Dangerous New Era of Partially Recognized States in the
Post-Soviet Space?
November 14, 2008
WINDOW ON EURASIA
Paul Goble
London, November 14 ` Moscow’s decision to extend diplomatic
recognition to the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
a step only one other country has followed so far, raises the
possibility that other countries may recognize an entity that no other
state is likely to, a development that could usher in a dangerous era
of partially recognized states.
One place where this could happen, according to Yuri Sigov, a
Washington correspondent for `Delovaya nedelya,’ is Nagorno-Karabakh,
a breakaway region that he suggests could `follow the example of
Tskhinvali and Sukhumi, but besides Armenia, no one would like’.
Moscow’s claim that what it has done with Abkhazia and South Ossetia
is nothing more than what the West has done with Kosovo is
disingenuous. While many countries have refrained from recognizing the
latter, vastly more have done so than have followed Moscow’s example
in the southern Caucasus.
In fact, the relevant case is Turkey’s lone recognition of Northern
Cyprus, an action no one else has followed but one that has frozen
that conflict for several decades, thus providing a possible model for
other countries especially now that Moscow has acted and making
Sigov’s analysis both timely and disturbing.
In Sigov’s view, all the so-called frozen conflict on the territory of
the former Soviet Union have the potential to break out at any time
and thus `radically change the entire system of security which now
exists along the perimeter of the former Soviet borders,’ all the more
so because various powers have an interest in destabilizing the
situation.
The most immediately obvious and hence most dangerous of these
conflicts, he suggests, is over Nagorno-Karabakh, which most of the
parties are interested in avoiding entering a new hot phase but which
is one that could nonetheless do so if anyone of the parties acts in a
way different than the others expect.
That explains why, Sigov says, Moscow got involved as a supplement to
the Minsk Group. But `the diametrically opposed positions’ of the
sides mean that neither Azerbaijan nor Yerevan can back down, the
first from a position based on the territorial integrity of states and
the latter on the right of nations to self-determination.
And that is something that nationalist activists in Karabakh itself,
as well as in Armenia, understand fully and are prepared to act upon,
the Moscow correspondent in Washington suggests.
What then could happen next? One possible answer is the holding of a
referendum in Karabakh, where the residents, almost all of them are
Armenians will vote for unity with Armenia or independence, either of
which could set off a conflict in the south Caucasus that neither
Russia, nor the United States and the West, nor Armenia or Azerbaijan
want.
Because of these dangers, all the sides `fear the holding of
referendum in Karabakh.’ If one were held and it called for
independence, `no one, `except perhaps Armenia’ would recognize it, a
situation that would resemble the one that Abkhazia and South Ossetia
now find themselves in,’ with like those an outside power having taken
a position.
Such Armenian recognition, as incomplete as it might appear, would
likely delay American and even Western involvement in this issue
beyond the summer of next year, the first time that Washington is
likely to get involved in any case, given the change in
administrations there, Sigov says.
Thus, `it remains unclear what to do if Nagorno-Karabakh declares its
independence,’ Sigov says. For neither South Ossetia nor Abkhazia is
the world community prepared to recognize and not a little amount of
time must pass until the positions of these countries will somehow
change.’
The American don’t want a violent conflict in the region, especially
after the war in Georgia, but the dangers that arise from the partial
recognition of a so-called self-proclaimed republic are sufficiently
dangerous that everyone involved should think about what they might
mean for the future of this and other conflicts.
As a result, Sigov suggests, Moscow’s moves in Georgia will have an
even larger set of consequences on the region than people are now
thinking, possibly freezing some conflicts for a long time to come as
happened in Cyprus or igniting a new conflict in a region where any
action has the chance of setting off a new conflagration.
And because there are other places in the former Soviet space, which
are left over from Stalin’s ethnic engineering, it is entirely
possible that the recognition of one or more of them by one state but
not more could complicate the resolution of that conflict or even all
of them well into the future.