GEORGIA, AZERBAIJAN DEBATE CONTROL OF ANCIENT MONASTERY’S TERRITORY
By Diana Petriashvili and Rovshan Ismayilov 11/03/06
Friday, November 3, 2006
EURASIA INSIGHT EurasiaNet, NY
An unresolved border between Georgia and Azerbaijan has put under
question one of the South Caucasus’s most significant cultural and
religious landmarks, the medieval David-Gareja monastery complex,
located in Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Set in semi-desert some 70 kilometers southeast from Tbilisi along
the Georgian border with Azerbaijan and within Azerbaijan proper,
the complex, which contains a rich collection of cave frescoes, has
been a site for conflict as well as for contemplation, ever since
construction began in the 6th century.
The best-known part of the complex, the Udabno cave monastery,
which contain frescoes dating approximately from the 8th to the 13th
centuries, as well as the monastery headquarters at Lavra, are located
within Georgia. Additional monasteries, some nearly inaccessible and
largely ruined, are also on Georgian territory. Azerbaijan contains
the monastery of Bertubani, which features frescoes of the legendary
12th-13th century Georgian Queen Tamara and her son, Giorgi IV.
But who should control the David-Gareja monastery? When the Soviet
Union defined the borders between the then Soviet republics of
Azerbaijan and Georgia, the monastery complex was split in two. The
border between the two now independent countries has remained
unchanged since 1991. Part of the border passes through the top of
the 813-meter-high Udabno ridge (known in Azerbaijan as Keshishdag),
which harbors cave monasteries on its top and also on the northern
(Georgian-controlled) and southern (Azerbaijani-controlled) slopes.
The monastery complex, which has withstood attacks by Tamerlane and
Shah Abbas alike, holds strategic significance for both Azerbaijan
and Georgia. From the Udabno ridge, both Azerbaijani and Georgian
territory can be easily monitored. "From the military point of view,
this position has importance for both countries," said Uzeir Jafarov,
an independent Azerbaijani military expert in Baku and a retired
colonel. "Theoretically, in the case of military conflict, the side
which enjoys control over these heights will get a big advantage."
Border talks, ongoing since 1991, recently reentered the news when
Zviad Dzidziguri, a Georgian member of parliament for the opposition
Conservative Party, and chairman of the Democratic Front faction,
claimed that Azerbaijan had moved its border with Georgia so that one
of the complex’s monasteries, Chichkhituri, was now within Azerbaijani
territory, putting at risk the remaining monasteries under Georgian
control.
The Georgian foreign ministry has denied the report. In an interview
with EurasiaNet, a high-level Azerbaijani State Border Control Service
official, who asked to remain anonymous, also stated that Azerbaijan
had never moved its border. Yet, still, the debate continues.
To hold on to the churches on Georgian territory, Tbilisi has proposed
giving Azerbaijan an as yet publicly unspecified section of Georgian
land near the Azerbaijani border. "All we need to do is to find a
common language with our Azerbaijani colleagues," Georgian Deputy
Foreign Minister Giorgi Manigaladze, who oversees the State Commission
on Border Delimitation and Demarcation, told reporters in Tbilisi on
October 30.
Azerbaijani officials, however, say that they are unwilling to consider
the exchange.
"There is no room for territorial exchange [with Georgia]. There
are no negotiations over this issue," Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf
Khalafov, co-chairman of the intergovernmental commission on border
delimitation with Georgia, said at a press briefing in Baku on
November 2. Azerbaijani officials say that in the past three years
Georgia has twice offered sections of Georgian territory in exchange
for recognition of the current border division of the David-Gareja
monastery, but that Baku has rejected the offers both times.
"This territory [Azerbaijan’s part of the monastery] has strategic
importance for Azerbaijan. And we have no intention of giving it
to anybody," Garib Mammadov, chairman of the Azerbaijani State Land
and Cartography Committee, said in an April 2004 interview with the
Azerbaijani daily newspaper Echo. "This is a strategic overlook. The
whole South Caucasus might be monitored from this overlook very
well. Why should we give it away?"
While officials and experts in Baku maintain that their position will
not change, an official within the Azerbaijani foreign ministry,
who asked to remain anonymous, told EurasiaNet that Azerbaijan "is
open to the implementation of joint projects [with Georgia] for the
restoration of the complex."
At a joint press conference with Georgian Foreign Minister Gela
Bezhuashvili on October 31 in Baku, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister
Elmar Mamedyarov said that a fresh round of border talks would be
held in Baku in November. Two meetings have been held on the topic
since March 2006, Georgian officials say.
"During the commission’s meeting in November, the demarcation
will concern several areas of a 170-kilometer-long segment of the
border," the Azerbaijani State Land and Cartography Committee’s
Garib Mammadov, a member of the intergovernmental commission, told
journalists on November 1. "The areas have already been investigated
thoroughly." Mammadov did not specify which parts of the border
segment will be discussed.
Monks at the monastery say that they see the dispute as the result
of Soviet scheming to undermine relations between Christian Georgians
and Muslim Azerbaijanis.
"As the Soviet border is set on the territory of an important
cultural and religious monument, it is possible that the atheistic
Soviet leadership tried to cause misunderstanding between Georgia
and Azerbaijan someday in the future," said Father Superior Ilarion.
"Right now, we have the result of this [plan]."
"I hope that Azerbaijan takes in consideration that David-Gareja
monastery is an important spiritual and cultural unit for Georgia,"
he continued. "We hope that Azerbaijan will not claim the territory."
Monks at David-Gareja claim that they are unable to visit the church
of Bertubani, located two kilometers inside the Azerbaijani border in
the region of Agstafa, and are concerned about its maintenance. "We
are not let in by the border guards," one of the monks said, adding
that the monastery’s leadership fears that the church’s interior has
been damaged. "All we know about Bertubani is that it is not used as
a church. There are unique frescos [there] that need special care,"
he said.
The Azerbaijani Border Service official states that a simplified
border control regime allows monks, Georgian pilgrims and tourists to
travel to the part of the complex located on Azerbaijani territory
without trouble. One Azerbaijani journalist who visited the area in
the summer of 2006, however, reported that "bureaucratic procedures"
for access could prove troublesome.
Questions, however, remain about the condition of the David-Gareja
monastery complex within Azerbaijan. One Azerbaijani scholar concedes
that the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and Tourism does not pay
sufficient attention to the question. "Neither restoration work
nor serious historical research has been held at the Azerbaijani
part of the monastery so far," said Mekhti Mansurov, a historian at
the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences. Azerbaijan added the
monastery’s churches to its list of national historical monuments in
2003, "only after Georgia did so," he added, in comments published
by the Baku-based newspaper Kaspiy on November 1.
Some Georgian observers note that the thought of the monastery and
its condition brings particular poignancy to the delay in concluding
the border discussions with Azerbaijan. The topic is "painful" for
ordinary Georgians, said Caucasian affairs expert Mamuka Areshidze,
"The problem has been discussed by people for a long time, but the
authorities have been inactive" until opposition MP Dzidziguri’s
statement about Azerbaijan moving its border, Areshidze said. "There
are problems with other borders as well — for example, with Russia —
but that issue is not currently on the agenda."
Some Azerbaijani historians are strongly against the transfer of any
part of the David Gareja monastery complex to Georgia, arguing that
the monastery is not Georgian, but Caucasian Albanian, a reference
to an ancient people, believed to be Christian, who are thought to
have once inhabited northern Azerbaijan.
In the end, the key may be to proceed with moderation, cautions
one Georgian analyst. "There is nothing special in having undefined
borders," said Paata Zakareishvili, an independent political analyst
in Tbilisi. "If the issue is studied professionally by both sides’
experts, no political tensions should be expected."
Editor’s Note: Diana Petriashvili is a freelance reporter based
in Tbilisi. Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance reporter in Baku.
Alexander Klimchuk is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.