How to stay safe in the South Caucasus?

"The South Caucasus and some questions of regional security and conflict resolution" is the theme of the round table organized on May 19 by the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Baku.

Opening the discussion, the representative of the Fund Yuergen Vickert noted that the search for security in the South Caucasus is complicated by "uneasy neighborhood" in the region.

Keynote speaker, head of the Research Center Atlas, Elkhan Shahinoglu recalled that the conflicts in the region - Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, for 20 years have not been resolved, but some have become more acute after the Georgian- Russian war in 2008

Achieving regional security is prevented by contradictions between constituents of the regional formats: Azerbaijani-Georgian-Turkish and Russian-Armenian-Iranian.

At the time, Turkey took the initiative of creating a semblance of a "regional OSCE." However, this initiative was torpedoed by Russia unwilling equal partnership with the countries of the region.

Russia makes destructive effect on Armenia, which was actually forced to renounce the Association Agreement with the EU. Now Yerevan is on the verge of joining the Customs Union.

A new trend in regional cooperation is best triple partnership between Azerbaijan, Turkey and Turkmenistan based on energy interests. However, according to Shahinoglu, the EU does not provide adequate support for the Trans-Caspian pipeline project.

He noted that if the West made a timely assistance to Ukraine, now these tragic events could have been avoided. The West did not give the $ 15 billion needed for Ukraine’s entry into the Association Agreement and now the West has to provide much more for that.

According to the Director of Turan News Agency, Mehman Aliyev, events in Ukraine are the beginning of the global changes in the Eurasian space, which will not pass side also the South Caucasus.

This year will be launched the railway Baku-Tbilisi-Kars and the active phase of negotiations on the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline will enter. The President of Turkmenistan last month ordered the government to speed up work on the project and in the coming days a summit of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan will be held.

According to Aliyev, after the presidential elections in Ukraine major changes should be expected in this country and other regions of the former Soviet Union, including the South Caucasus.

These processes will be positively influenced also by the normalization of relations between the West and Iran.

The head of the Research Center East-West, Arastun Orujlu noted that the settlement of the Karabakh conflict is negatively affected by internal factors.

In particular, the illegitimate authoritarian corrupt regimes of Armenia and Azerbaijan turned the conflict into a factor of domestic and foreign policy.

Despite the serious impact of external factors, the parties could, if desired, take steps to a peaceful settlement. But in Armenia that is prevented by aggressive anti-Azerbaijani and anti-Turk nationalism, while in Azerbaijan the order is to avoid any, even interpersonal, contacts with the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Orujlu considers permissible the visits of Karabakh separatists to the regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. In his opinion, NK residents should be offered Azerbaijani citizenship and access to government assistance programs in the social and educational sphere.

Orujlu also believes that the policy of isolation of Armenia has led to the fact that it has evolved into a military outpost of Russia, and the opening of borders between Turkey and Armenia would help to bring these countries and reduce dependence on Russia.

The Deputy Chairman of the Unified Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, Elchin Mirzabeyli believes that neither Armenia nor Karabakh separatists are able to make independent decisions. A proposal to establish contacts with the separatists is an unjustifiable "hypocritical policy of the West."

According to Mirzabeyli, the West does not have support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, which it does for Ukraine, and earlier – for Georgia.

Therefore, for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, mechanisms of international law should be used and sanctions should be imposed against the aggressor.

Many other participants also pointed manifestation of "double standards" of the West regarding the Karabakh conflict. -06c -