THE WEST "FENCES" ARMENIA FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE
VARDAN GRIGORYAN

Hayots Ashkharh Daily
24 Dec 2008
Armenia

A few days after the strict warnings issued by the Monitoring Committee
of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (December 17),
the heated developments in the South Caucasus come to reveal the true
motives of the "concerns over the situation with democracy".

The exacerbations observed in the Russian-American relations over
the past week currently receive responses on the "regional level."

On December 22, Georgian Foreign Minister Grogol Vashadze and the
representative delegation of the Turkish armed forces (headed by
Hasan Iksiz, Deputy Head of the General Headquarters) arrived in Baku.

The former did not even try to conceal the fact that his visit pursued
a goal of extending the Georgian-Azerbaijani cooperation with the
aim of ruling out the possibility of Russia’s new aggression. "The
aggression launched by Russia in August revealed the fragility of
peace in our region and the need for cooperation for being able to
rule out such tragedy in future," G. Vashadeze announced.

Having paid a three-day visit to Baku during the Georgian-Azerbaijani
talks, the delegation of the Turkish armed forces has started an
intensive Turkish-Azerbaijani dialogue. What is meant here is the
prospect of signing a Turkish-Azerbaijan imilitary cooperation
agreement in the near future.

The fact that this step of the Turkish General Headquarters is not
coordinated with the United States is also confirmed by the Azerbaijani
military experts. One of them – Uzeyir Jafarov, openly makes the
following statement, "NATO has probably decided that the United States
will take Russia and Ukraine under its patronage." Moreover, the
Azeri expert believes that this is the first stage of the formation
of the military-political alliance which will probably be followed
by the signature of an agreement between Azerbaijan and United.

In this connection, both the Turkish and Azerbaijani experts are, to
a certain extent, anxious about the possibility of Moscow’s adopting
a tougher stance on the Karabakh issue, but they believe that after
the signature of the Georgian-American defense agreement envisaging
security guarantees for Georgia, Azerbaijan will also be able to
enter into a bold dialogue with its northern neighbor.

Thus, the rumors on the formation of a Russian-Turkish alliance in
the South Caucasus after the Russian-Georgian war will lose their
actuality.

However, we believe that it is still early to speak about the freezing
of the Russian-Azerbaijani relations. It is obvious that Baku has
become faced with the undesirable prospect of making a choice between
Turkey and Russia.

Here is the second reason accounting for the activeness o f the United
States and NATO. Involving Turkey in the game, they are trying to
push Ankara to normalize its relations with Armenia on the one hand
and a taking Azerbaijan under their political-military patronage on
the other.

Realizing that fact, Khazar Ibrahim, Press Secretary of the
Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, has already adopted "understanding
approaches" with regard to the steps towards the normalization of
the Armenian-Turkish relations, considering them as the right of the
two countries.

But can Armenia also have an "understanding approach" towards the
possibility of signing an Azerbaijani-Turkish agreement, in view
of the continuing Karabakh conflict? Obviously, not because in that
case Turkey will automatically assume the responsibility of realizing
Azerbaijan’s aggressive ambitions in relation to the self-determined
state of Nagorno Karabakh. Therefore, the signature of an Azeri-Turkish
military agreement may impede the bilateral and unilateral efforts
towards the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations and at the
same time, cause a sharp deterioration in the Russian-Azeri relations.

Thus, the serious geo-political motives of the current efforts towards
"fencing" our country on all sides and leaving open only the "door
to Turkey show the primitiveness and shabbiness of the opposition’s
‘serious expectations’ from the PACE Monitoring Committee and the
winter se ssion of the Assembly. The issue of the existence of
prisoners in Armenia is nothing more than a motive of intensifying
the pressure upon Yerevan, the ally of Moscow."