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The Black Sea ambitions of Armenia
Caucasian Review of International Affairs
Between 1 November 2008 and 30 April 2009, Armenia holds the rotating presidency of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), a regional economic body. One of the many groups, clubs and forums operating on Europe’s eastern fringes, BSEC rarely gets a high profile, unlike more political-security organisations such as NATO or the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation. However, BSEC should not be dismissed out of hand – its failures and achievements mirror the wider situation in the region, and it may yet prove a useful tool in stabilising the Caucasus. The timing of the Armenian chairmanship – in the middle of an ongoing push to settle the Karabakh conflict, and whilst the region struggles to cope with the financial crisis – could have a decisive effect.
To be clear, the impact of BSEC is limited by its nature. The organisation, which is the only sub-regional organisation to unite all the states of the wider Black Sea region, aims to turn its region “into one of peace, stability and prosperity” and to promote good-neighbourliness and mutual respect. However, its scope is restricted to trade, transport and economic co-operation, notwithstanding some limited work on combating crime and trans-border smuggling. In particular, BSEC acknowledges the oil and gas riches of the region (specifically, Caspian energy flows from and through Azerbaijan), and views this hydrocarbon wealth as a priority area of its activities, especially when it comes to dealing with the EU.
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December 2008
Progress made on Karabakh, says envoy
Reuters
Azerbaijan and Armenia are showing a new resolve to settle a conflict that could threaten oil exports to the West if it flares again into fighting, an international mediator said.
The ex-Soviet neighbors fought a war in the early 1990s over the mountainous territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Their troops still fight skirmishes there despite a ceasefire, and attempts to broker a peace deal have repeatedly foundered.
But the outlook for an agreement is now looking more positive because of a new rapport between the two countries’ presidents, said Matthew Bryza, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary State and one of three international mediators in the conflict.
“We can say there is progress,” Bryza told Reuters on late Thursday on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, in the Finnish capital. Armenian President Serge Sarkisian and his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev have held two rounds of talks in the last six months and their foreign ministers met in Helsinki.
Positive mood
“The mood between presidents Aliyev and Sarkisian has improved, significantly,” said Bryza. “They both respect each other, number one, and are beginning to trust each other, number two. And, number three, they have expressed a willingness to be constructive, meaning take into account what the other side needs to reach a deal.”
“Both presidents said ‘OK, I think I’m ready to move ahead. Let’s try to finalise these basic principles (for a peace deal). I’m ready to work with my counterpart’.” He said there was still a lot of work to be done before fundamental differences between the two sides on the future of Nagorno-Karabakh could be bridged. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Since the fighting it — along with surrounding Azeri districts — have been under the de facto control of ethnic Armenian separatists, with support from Armenia. The fighting killed about 35,000 people and displaced around one million civilians, with most of them still unable to return to their homes nearly two decades later.
Source: arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=10518071
Posted by admin Posted in: International Press No Comments » December 2008
Top U.S. Official Says Karabakh Deal ‘Possible’ By Year’s End
A senior U.S. official has said the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave could be resolved within the next two months.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried, in an exclusive interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service correspondent Ruzanna Stepanian, said that “there are hard decisions that have to be made on both sides. If this conflict were easy to resolve, it would have been resolved already.”
Armenian forces seized control of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian-populated enclave within Azerbaijan, in the early 1990s. The armed conflict claimed an estimated 25,000 lives and forced about 1 million people from their homes.
Fried noted that Yerevan and Baku were once close to reaching a peace deal in 2001 when the presidents of both countries held U.S.-mediated talks in Key West. The deal fell through in the following weeks.
The United States, France, and Russia have been attempting to negotiate a settlement of the conflict in the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group.
Posted by admin Posted in: International Press No Comments » October 2008
NATO Supports OSCE MG Endeavors for Peaceful Resolution of Karabakh Conflict
NATO supports the peace process for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict resolution, a NATO official said in Baku. “The Alliance supports the endeavors of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs to resolve the conflict,” Mr Diego Ruiz-Palmer said.
“Although not a participant in the process, NATO watches and backs the OSCE and UN efforts,” he said, Trend Azeri news agency reports.
Source: www.eraren.org/index.php?Lisan=tr&Page=GBultenDetay&BultenNo=13209
Posted by admin Posted in: International Press No Comments » June 2008
Karabakh Conflict Must Be Resolved Peacefully, The RF Foreign Minister Says
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is confident that there is no military solution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Mr Lavrov emphasized that the conflict should be resolved by “peaceful means exclusively.”
“As to the armament problem in the region, the parameters of armament and warlike equipment are regulated by international treaties supported by a number of verifying mechanisms,” he said Friday after talks with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, RIA Novosti reports.
Source: www.eraren.org/index.php?Lisan=tr&Page=GBultenDetay&BultenNo=13074
Posted by admin Posted in: International Press No Comments » June 2008