YEAR OF 2009 MARKED BY ARMENIA’S "GEOPOLITICAL CAPITALIZATION", MARKEDONOV

news.az
Dec 23 2009
Azerbaijan

Sergey Markedonov Armenia’s "geopolitical capitalization", as titled
by economists, grew in 2009. This country has formed principal issues
for regional agenda.

Last year Armenia for the first time after gaining independence
agreed to sign legally binding documents with Turkey, says Russian
political scientist Sergey Markedonov in his article "The year or
three aggravations", posted on gazeta.ru newspaper.

The two protocols on normalizing ties with Ankara have become not
only a giant step of the two neighbor countries. They have created
provisions for serious transformation in the whole region.

These include Georgia’s loss of a status of a country of exclusive
transit, weakening of Baku-Ankara strategic axe, changes in Turkey’s
role in the region (its distancing from the role of the junior
brother for the United States and senior brother for Azerbaijan,
its formation as an independent regional Caucasus superpower),
significant diversification of Armenia’s external policy.

And though ratification of protocols have been protracted and the
prospects of their complete passage in the parliament are not seen,
these documents have already caused significant progress in the
South Caucasus.

Considering the whole complexity of reconciliation with Armenia for
Turkey, the leading world players (especially, the United States and
Russia) have accelerated the peacekeeping process on Nagorno Karabakh
(to compensate for Ankara’s loss of a role of Baku’s geopolitical
patron and a concerned party in the conflict). A document that
has no less importance for the whole South Caucasus than the
two Armenian-Turkish protocols appeared in July 2009. These are
the so-called renewed Madrid principles (named in honor of the OSCE
Madrid summit of 2007). Unlike the old principles, the renewed variant
was signed not by three diplomats co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group
but by three presidents leading the mediating countries. Meanwhile,
the acceleration of the Karabakh peace process is motivated not only
because of the Caucasus interests of the United States and Russia
but also wider geopolitical and even personal reasons of these states.

Russia should show its western partners that the revisionism of
the times of the "five-day war" is a situational event and it will
not be used for other points in the former USSR. For the United
States, Nagorno Karabakh is among the numerous fields for possible
"reloading" of ties with Russia and testing a "new coarse" of the US
foreign policy.

And though the renewed Madrid principles are a crude document which has
inner discrepancies, it is important as it sets frames for the future
resolution of the conflict. This is a disavowal of maximalistic demands
of the sides and the proposal of the veiled formula of peace and status
of Karabakh in exchange for lands. In fact, the coordination of details
(especially possible implications for the image of the two presidents)
might take much time.