AZERBAIJAN BLACKMAILS REGION AGAIN

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
21.05.2009 23:51 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Over the past few weeks, energy-rich Azerbaijan has
turned up the flame under this geographic cauldron. It was furious
with Turkey for agreeing in April to a "road map" to normal relations
with Armenia, which backs Nagorno Karabakh, the site of a bloody war
in the early 1990s after the Soviet empire broke up, and has since
become the oldest "frozen conflict" in the south Caucasus, Christian
Science Monitor reports.

So Azerbaijan has used the only leverage it has – oil and gas – to
influence Turkey. It’s an influence that extends even to European
energy goals.

Unless the Turks make resolving Nagorno Karabakh part of normalizing
ties with Armenia (and Armenia objects to this), the longer gas
pipeline will end as a pipe dream – or so the Azeris hinted. They
threatened to withdraw Turkey’s status as "most favored customer"
and as the main Azeri export route for oil and gas. There’s Russia
as an alternative, the Azeris warned.

Azerbaijan has a self-interest in a diversified export energy
market, but its overture to Russia is more than bluff. The Azeris and
Russians recently signed a memo of understanding about gas sales. The
concern is that this could go further and that Azerbaijan, fed up
with delays over a gas pipeline to Europe, would make Russia its gas
patron. Because supplies are not enough to support two gas pipelines,
European governments are now pushing to realize their dream of a gas
line that reaches them.

If Russia eventually gets the gas deal, it not only locks in energy
supplies, it also solidifies its leverage over the Caucasus.

Multiple fears are at work in the Caucasus: at the local level about
the preservation of ethnic culture, at the national level about
territorial integrity, and at the international level about regional
influence and access to energy markets.

This calls for a sophisticated approach that seeks to build trust
in all these areas. Earlier this month, international mediators
for Nagorno Karabakh quietly brought the presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan together to talk on the sidelines of a conference in
Prague. In June, the two presidents are expected to meet again in
Russia. These are positive steps.

Last week, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited
Azerbaijan and Russia to try to reduce the simmering ethnic and energy
tensions in the region. He made progress with Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin on a new north-south Russian-Turkish gas pipeline
that would supply Israel and other countries. That, plus renewing
a contract for Russian gas supplies to Turkey, should help reassure
Moscow of its continued energy influence.

But when Mr. Erdogan, on his visit to Azerbaijan, gave in to the
demand that Turkey not reopen its borders with Armenia until Nagorno
Karabakh is resolved, he reignited flames in Armenia. Some speculate
that the normalization process is now at risk.

This region is too small, the stakes too high, to separate politics
from energy. Both will have to be handled at the same time, if perhaps
on different tracks, the article says.