DESPITE DELAYING ITS MEMBERSHIP BID, EU IS PIGGYBACKING ON TURKEY’S INFLUENCE IN CAUCASUS

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.05.2009 14:59 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Under pressure from Brussels, Europe’s ‘wild east’
is coming in from the cold – but plenty of obstacles still remain

The EU’s invitation to Belarus to attend a special summit in Prague
next week is the latest sign a spring thaw may be taking hold along
the ragged, fraught frontiers of Europe’s "wild east". The so-called
frozen conflicts that have disfigured the region since the end of
the cold war are beginning to melt at the edges. Under pressure from
Brussels, the ice is starting to shift.

Most significant in strategic and economic terms is the burgeoning
rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, which last week unveiled
a joint road map to normalise relations after almost a century of
hostility. The plan includes re-opening the border closed by Turkey
in 1993 in protest at Armenian support for separatists contesting
Azerbaijan’s control of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Despite effectively placing its membership bid on hold, the EU is happy
to piggyback on Turkey’s considerable influence in the Caucasus and
the Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions for its own purposes. These
include the advancing of common trade, development, security and
human rights agendas and most importantly, perhaps, the securing of
non-Russian controlled energy supply routes from central Asia.

The kiss-and-make-up scenario now developing between Ankara and Yerevan
has thus been warmly welcomed in Brussels, and in the US. Prospectively
it makes it easier to draw relatively isolated Armenia, which has
long lived in Moscow’s shadow, closer towards the western fold. And
that in turn dovetails nicely with developing western ties other
post-Soviet republics such as Georgia and Ukraine.

A parallel thaw is underway between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have
begun talks on de-icing Nagorno-Karabakh. Oil-producing Azerbaijan,
on the shores of the Caspian, is a crucial player in terms of future
European energy supply and transit. It pays to keep it happy. Once
again the EU, along with Turkey, has been active in promoting the
nascent peace process. And the EU’s Prague summit will host the next
encounter of the two countries’ presidents, The Guardian reported.