AGGRESSION WITHOUT BOUNDARIES
Messenger.ge
August 21, 2009
The major news issue of this past week has been Russian President
Medvedev’s attack on his Ukrainian counterpart, thankfully so far
only verbal, in which he accuses him of conducting an anti-Russian
policy. Now some yet more extraordinary news has been published on
Russian website Regnum.
Russia is surprising its neighbours by saying it might possibly
allow Armenian soldiers to organise small bases on Russian
territory to protect the transportation network which delivers
goods to Armenia. This information comes from the headquarters
and joint headquarters of the Collective Security Organisation,
a CIS structure, which says that the special rapid reaction force,
established in the CIS and Armenia according to an agreement concluded
on February 4, 2009, could undertake this work. This force, in effect
Armenian Special Forces, would allegedly be deployed in Dagestan in
the northern Caucasus and Dagomis, a town in the Krasnodar region of
the Russian Federation on the Black Sea coast.
Plenty of questions arise immediately. First, this is a direct
threat to Azerbaijan, and why is this being made? Second, it is
strange that Russia cannot secure the safety of its communication
network itself. Why does it need Armenian assistance? Furthermore,
what kind of communications pass through Dagestan which are so crucial
for Armenia that they need to be guarded by soldiers?
Stepan Saparian, an MP from Armenia’s opposition Heritage faction,
thinks that this suggestion is a Russian attempt to blackmail
Azerbaijan. There are several reasons why Russia is not happy with
Azeri conduct. The first could be that Azerbaijan has refused to sell
its whole output of natural gas to Russia, as Moscow wanted it to do
in order to undermine the potential supply of the proposed NABUCCO
project. This refusal frustrated Russia’s wicked plan to be the only
supplier of natural gas in Europe. Another reason is Moscow’s need to
supply the Russian military base in Gumri, Armenia, which obviously
Azerbaijan will not let it do. Before the August aggression Russia
supplied this base from Georgia, but now of course this route is
blocked. Moscow has tried to negotiate with Turkey on supplying it
from there but has apparently been told this will not happen.
Azeri military analyst Uzeir Japarov says the only way Russia can
now supply its base is through Iran. Russian cargo would have to be
transported through the Caspian Sea or through Central Asia to get to
Iran. Others suggest the Azeri Government should talk to the Iranian
leadership about this issue. Ildrim Mamedov says that Azerbaijan should
ask the USA to monitor what kind of weapons, in what quantities,
Russia would transport to Gumri through Iran. He also suggests that
the Americans should provide Azerbaijan with relevant data from US
space intelligence.
Of course, Moscow is not happy with the Azeri position and it is
presumed that this is why the possibility of Armenian soldiers being
based in Russia has started to be talked about. So far President
Medvedev has not written to Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri President, but
Moscow is indirectly hinting that it expects Azerbaijan will take
steps favourable to Moscow. The Messenger has previously written that
the Kremlin wants to play the first violin in the Caspian Sea region
and its policies are designed to achieve this.
Russian-Azeri relations cannot be considered in isolation from
Armenian-Azeri relations. However these are a knot which is not easily
to untangle. It is difficult to suggest that the Karabakh conflict
could be solved in a way which will satisfy both sides. Despite
the current threat to Azerbaijan, Moscow wants to simultaneously
influence both countries and present itself as an honest broker in
their conflict. However even in these circumstances it is acting
aggressively towards one side, Azerbaijan. Sooner or later it will
have to directly indicate which side is its genuine ally, and what
boundary will its aggression have then?