WPS Agency, Russia
What the Papers Say (Russia)
February 4, 2010 Thursday
UNITED STATES EXAMINES SOUTH CAUCASUS
By Yuri Simonjan
WASHINGTON REMINDED YEREVAN OF THE THREAT OF A WAR FOR KARABAKH;
Official Washington is sending envoys to the South Caucasus to abate
tension.
James B. Steinberg, Senior Assistant Secretary of State, will visit
Armenia and Georgia on February 4-5. In both countries, Steinberg will
meet with the national leadership and representatives of the
opposition. He will eventually depart Tbilisi for the international
security conference in Munich where he will meet with President of
Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
According to some sources, another senior American diplomat Philip H.
Gordon will visit the region right after Steinberg.
Activeness of the U.S. Department of State is attributed to escalation
of tension in the South Caucasus. National Intelligence Director
told the Senate that the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh might foment
another war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Blair also mentioned
Georgia and said that Russia’s efforts to strengthen its clout with
post-Soviet republics including Georgia had the potential to hurt the
relations with Washington.
Official Tbilisi was predictably happy to hear it. "This statement
shows that Georgia remains America’s important partner. It refutes all
these assumptions on how Washington is allegedly losing interest in
Tbilisi," a government official told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. A prominent
analyst from Tbilisi suggested that Blair’s words in Washington were a
response to the recent statement made by President Mikhail Saakashvili
when he had welcomed the Americans to strike at Afghanistan from the
territory of Georgia. "What Blair meant was that Washington knew
better than compromise relations with its strategic partner in the
South Caucasus just in order to please Moscow," the analyst said.
Even Yerevan seems to be taking the threat of another war with
Azerbaijan seriously, considering Baku’s never-ending aggressive
rhetorics. "Military-political balance is shifting Azerbaijan’s way.
Risk of an attempt to try a military solution increases," said Levon
Zurabjan, Armenian National Congress Coordinator. Zurabjan pinned the
blame for this turn of events on the Armenian authorities. According
to the opposition activist, President Serj Sargsjan’s "pushing" policy
only attached additional importance to Turkey, pressure on Armenia
never eased, and the process of Armenian-Turkish rapprochement
degenerated into another conflict between the two countries.
A source in Yerevan meanwhile suggested that Steinberg’s visit to
Armenia and his meetings with Aliyev and Davutoglu in Munich later on
were expected to abate tension some. Yesterday, Gordon urged Yerevan
and Ankara to hurry up with ratification of the Swiss Protocols and
confirmed official Washington’s conviction that it was necessary to
differentiate between the Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Azerbaijani
problems.
Turkish Hurriyet reported the other day that Feridum Sinirlioglu of
the Foreign Ministry was going to Switzerland on February 4.
Sinirlioglu will meet in Bern with Michael Ambul, Swiss diplomat
involved in organization of secret Armenian-Turkish talks. The
newspaper suggested that the two diplomats intended to discuss the
protocols which Yerevan had allegedly amended. Hurriyet assumed that
official Ankara might then send diplomats to countries of the OSCE
Minsk Group (United States, Russia, France) to ask them to put Yerevan
under pressure. Armenia meanwhile insists that Turkey is making fuss
over nothing because everything actually comes down to recommendations
of the Armenian Supreme Court which is required by the law to take a
look at every international document before the latter is submitted to
the parliament for ratification. Ankara, however, refuses to accept
this explanation.
Stepan Grigorjan of the Globalization Center (Yerevan) said that all
of that were links of one chain. "All political centers throughout the
world want the Armenian-Turkish border open. Following its diplomatic
traditions, Turkey is trying to barter its opening for as much as
possible. Armenia in the meantime observed its own legislation and
thus gave Ankara an excuse to condemn Yerevan for stalling. The Turks
angle for another round of bargaining. The Western community in the
meantime applies more and more pressure to Yerevan (Blair’s words
concerning another outbreak of hostilities), and to Ankara (Euronews
programs on human rights violation in Turkey and on the Kurd problem).
The U.S. Department of State is sending its envoys to the region in
the hope to abate tension some," Grigorjan said.
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, No 21, February 4, 2010, p. 6