RUSSIA BENEFITS FROM TENSIONS BETWEEN ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN, EXPERT
news.az
April 12 2010
Azerbaijan
Eugeny Volk News.Az interviews Eugeny Volk, chief of the Russian
representative office of the Heritage Foundation.
Can the Prague agreement of the US and Russian presidents on issues
of global security on mutual affect the mutual understanding between
these countries in the settlement of problems on the post-Soviet area
and the Karabakh conflict settlement?
I would say that the direct impact will be insignificant. The thing
is that this is just one though important sphere of the Russian-US
relations against the whole importance of the bloc of issues
connected with the control over nuclear armament. Here, the sides
have, undoubtedly, united to maintain strategic stability and balance
of strategic powers in order not to increase the threat of nuclear
conflict. At the same time, there is also an important circumstance
such as creation of a precedent for other countries actively striving
for nuclear weapon envisioning the restriction of nuclear potential of
the superpowers thus showing an example to others. But the conclusion
of this important agreement does not eliminate existing differences
between the United States and Russia in other spheres. This includes
expansion of NATO, problem of the common European treaty that Kremlin
promotes and the problems connected with independence of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia and discrepancies in relation of sanctions against Iran’s
nuclear program.
On the whole, the specter of problems is quite wide and, undoubtedly,
it includes differences on a number of regional issues, including on
the influence of both countries in the South Caucasus.
I think the South Caucasus remains the area of clash of the US and
Russian interests. The clash of interests regarding the democratic
development of Georgia also has an important role. The conflict
situation in the region also plays an important role. But I think
none of the sides- US or Russia- has a direct interest in achieving
a peace agreement by any mean. I think Russia even benefits from
preserving tensions in the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan at
least because this enables it to play a role of a mediator, raise its
influence on both conflict parties, maintain ties with both Yerevan
and Baku. Therefore, I think this Russian-US agreement will have no
direct impact on the conflict settlement.
But good relations between Russia and the United States are anyway
better for the conflict settlement than the differences between them
which would lead each of mediator hogging the blanket…
On the whole, the atmosphere of the US-Russian relations has improved
which promotes more favorable opportunities for a dialogue. But I
would like to repeat that I do not see the conflict settlement among
the top priorities of the US-Russian relations. Certainly, there are
more serious problems both for the United States and Russia. I would
like to mention Iran which is now growing into a serious problem
especially in a relation to effective sanctions aimed at preventing
Tehran’s possession of nuclear weapon. I think the negotiations will
be mostly concentrated in this direction and the United States will
attain Russia’s support and decisive steps in this very direction.
Can there establish a situation around Iran that will demand from
Azerbaijan which considers the Iranian and US direction to be a
priority of its foreign policy to support the United States?
It is about the form of cooperation. I think we cannot rule out any
forms of cooperation. But I believe official Baku’s position most
depends on the context of these possible military operations, on
their executers and scales. I think the decision here will depend on
definite circumstances and proofs of the degree of Iran’s possession
of nuclear technologies and arms.
The war in Georgia has shown that no conflict can be considered
frozen. Which is the possibility of a new war in the region and which
of the conflicts-Armenian-Azerbaijani or Iran- do you consider to be
most highly explosive?
I do not rule out any form of preventive strike against Iran if
the United States or Israel have substantiated evidences that Iran
is maximally close to the nuclear weapon and is able to use means
of its transportation. This will cause hostilities between Iran
and Israel or Iran and the United States in the Persian Gulf. All
these are hypothetical variants but I do not rule out this script
especially because Israel has quite serious sentiments in favor of
a warning strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran. This has already
been observed in relation to other countries.
At the same time, there is also an important circumstance such as
creation of a precedent for other countries actively striving for
nuclear weapon envisioning the restriction of nuclear potential of
the superpowers thus showing an example to others.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
