MEDIAMAX INTERVIEWS BRITISH DIPLOMAT ON RELATIONS WITH SOUTH CAUCASUS

Mediamax
May 18 2009
Armenia

An exclusive interview of Mediamax news agency with British Foreign
Office Special Representative for the South Caucasus Brian Fall. Sir
Brian Fall visited Yerevan on May 13-15 and had meetings with the
Armenian president, the foreign and defence ministers, other officials
and NGO members. On 14 May he spoke to a Mediamax correspondent.

[Correspondent] What is your assessment of the internal political
situation in Armenia ahead of the Yerevan mayoral election due on May
31, which the opposition has already described as the "second round"
of last year’s presidential election?

[Fall] We see a lively political debate, which is good. The upcoming
elections for the mayor of the major city are not national political
elections, but as the national parties are involved, they are important
elections. We would like to see them conducted according to the best
international standards. I think it is important for Armenia that,
if it is difficult immediately to score a 100 per cent, there should
be a real sense of progress from one election to the next, so we
would hope that this could be open and fair elections. We hope that
there would be lessons learned from the previous experience and that
we will see a hotly contested, but peacefully contested election.

[Correspondent] Do you believe that if the opposition will be
represented in the city parliament, this can become a start for the
dialogue between the Armenian authorities and the opposition?

[Fall] I think that is a question for Armenians to decide, not
for visitors to decide. There are political systems, including the
British one, based on "winner takes all", and there are systems much
more in kind of coalitional or proportional representation. One is not
necessarily better or worse than the other. Surely, the opposition has
an important role to play in any city or national government, whether
as part of the coalition, or whether as part of what we would call in
Britain the loyal opposition, which means loyal to the Queen, not to
the government. And I think it’s very much for Armenia to decide where
in the spectrum of democratic possibilities is the best for Armenia.

[Correspondent] The mediators have definite hopes that the meeting
between Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, due in June in St
Petersburg, may become a "breakthrough". Do you share that optimism?

[Fall] I am an optimist. And a good friend of mine is perhaps the
most optimistic of the three co-chairs. Let’s hope that this year
there will be all the possibilities that they are. But it has been
very frustrating over the last two or three years – people walked
almost to the top of the hill and then it has gone down again. And
we need that extra push and we hope very much that that push will
be forthcoming on this occasion. The responsibility is primarily on
the two presidents, but the co-chairs need to show that they act on
behalf of the international community.

There are some people who say that the form is wrong and that it
should be done some other way. We don’t agree with that. We think
that the co-chairs are doing a good job and that the two presidents
have the opportunity to rise to a very important challenge and really
reach out now and find a common ground. So we hope for the best.

[Correspondent] Do you believe that Turkey has really renounced the
policy of preconditions and that Armenian-Turkish relations may be
regulated in a reasonable timeframe?

[Fall] There is an agreement between the Turkish and the Armenian
governments. And there is a timetable for the next steps, which
we hope will be followed. The scenes, judging by the press reports
from Baku [Brian Fall means the press coverage of the visit of the
Turkish prime minister to Baku on May 13 – Mediamax], to these
differences of interpretation, we have an English expression "a
storm in a teacup", and I hope that it will turn out to be that:
nothing more fundamentally important. But I think we’ll obviously
need now to renew contacts between the sides. I have not seen the
text of the agreement, I don’t know if anybody is accusing anybody
of going outside the agreement. That will be in the first place with
the two sides, and from outside there has been help, and the Swiss
government was involved in the past. That may be necessary.

We welcome what we have heard about the agreement. We want to see an
improvement in the Turkish-Armenian relations. It would be nice to
have the border opening, it would be nice to have bilateral talking
on a number of difficult points, and at the same time, we need to
make sure that we get this very serious, potentially very serious
dispute over Nagornyy Karabakh peacefully resolved, because it has
the potential to grow to a great real problem.

[Correspondent] There are opinions voiced that normalization of
Armenian-Turkish relations will change the entire geopolitical
situation in the South Caucasus. Are you of the same opinion?

[Fall] The context of the moment is abnormal because there are lots of
issues: many difficulties between Armenia and Turkey, difficulties
between Armenia and Azerbaijan, differences between Russia and
Georgia. It is difficult to envisage. The three countries of the South
Caucasus working together as members of a very important region, that
would be to economic and social benefit of the people who live in those
three countries. And that is what we would very much like to see. If
the border is opened, this will be a green light and a very positive
signal psychologically. So we hope very much that that goes ahead.

[Correspondent] We always heard that this region of the South Caucasus
has always been a place where the interests of great powers were always
clashing. But today, looking at these processes of Nagornyy Karabakh
peace settlement and Armenian-Turkish dialogue, we see that the United
States, Russia and the EU approach them from the same positions. What
was the reason for such good cooperation among the great powers?

[Fall] Certainly, the co-chairs work together effectively. But the
co-chairs are not the most senior political officials in their
respective countries. I think that there is Russian interest in
seeing a peaceful settlement, which is exactly what the Western
powers would like to see. Settlement of Nagornyy Karabakh would
have implications for Russian involvement with Armenia for a longer
term. There would most certainly have to be international at least
peace observation mission to make it sure that the territories from
which Armenia withdrew will not become militarized and used against
Nagornyy Karabakh. So there will be an international role there
and agreement will have to be made on precisely how that should
be done. In the old days people said "no co-chairs, no neighbours"
[Means that peacekeepers should not represent US, Russia, France, or
Turkey – Mediamax]. Now, maybe that is still the right formula. But
we don’t know whether the Russians are committed to it. We don’t
know whether US-Russian relations in the new US administration are
really going to build on the "reset" button. If they do, we will be
very happy. And I think the effect on the region here will be to see
cooperation where previously there was a sense of zero sum game. So,
let’s hope that the things that are encouraging now will look the
same by the end of the year.

[Correspondent] In political circles of Armenia there is an opinion,
according to which Great Britain does not have any special interests
in Armenia, especially if we draw parallels with Azerbaijan. How
justified is this opinion and do you see opportunities for deepening
the Armenian-British relations?

[Fall] I think people underestimate what is happening here – we
have active British Council programs, we have Chevening scholars,
John Smith Fellowships, etc. There is some tendency in Armenia to
say that that if we have chocolate cake in Baku, there should be
chocolate cake in Yerevan as well. But you can’t do that. For instance,
Britain’s relations with the Netherlands and with Belgium are both
very close. But nobody says why you don’t have three of these in
Netherlands and only one in Belgium. What’s wrong? That’s not the
way relations develop.

We have economical-commercial interests in Azerbaijan for obvious
geological reasons. We are, I think the major foreign investors
in Azerbaijan, it’s a huge commitment which brings in it the active
involvement of lot of British companies. And of course, it matters how
full the plane is and how often it flies. But this isn’t something
that Armenia should see as a sign that we politically are favouring
one party against another. In a non-governmental way, the people
on the plane aren’t there because the British government put them
on the plane, they are there to make some money, and as relations
develop, business, economic, cultural, so the plane gets fuller and
fuller. But it is much a question of the private sector, and not the
government. There is no way that the British government could sign
a paper and say next year we will send you more people than we did
this year. That is not the way it works. It is understandable that
you are close neighbours and you look at each other and say why not
me? The answer is that we are trying to develop relations with each
of these important countries to the extent that it makes a good sense
to our businessmen, to our cultural people. And the net result will
be progressively more this year than over the past few years. I have
no doubt about it. But it is impossible to conduct relations on the
basis of equal slices of a chocolate cake.