"We Want Full Relationship": Yuri Kim On U.S. Policy Towards Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia

The State Department's number-two official on Europe and Eurasia on Wednesday laid down the Biden administration's current policy towards the South Caucasus saying that there's a "sweet spot of opportunity" in the region where all three countries have very important choices to make, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

“We want a full relationship with Azerbaijan,” Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Yuri Kim told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, a global think tank based in Washington D.C.

What that means is, along with Azerbaijan's energy cooperation with Europe — such as Southern Gas Corridor, which Washington supports and points in the right direction, — the U.S. is also "pretty straightforward" about areas where President Ilham Aliyev "has responsibility and opportunity to do better," as she put it.

More specifically, Kim highlighted the issues of human rights, saying that, for instance, Azerbaijan's recent release of scholar Gubad Ibadoghlu from prison indicated "right direction" however "job's not done", as he has been put into house arrest.

"President Aliyev has a golden opportunity with the world coming to Baku in November, this year, for COP 29. And he's got to decide what is Azerbaijan — the modern Azerbaijan — under his tenure? What does he want to present to the world? I think he's got a big opportunity... if he takes it." she added.

Kim also spoke about the threats that Russia has been posing in its neighborhood, adding that every neighbor of Russia "should be sleeping with one eye open."
 
Armenia, she said, "is smart to be seeking" alternatives:  "It doesn't mean that they suffer relations [with Russia]. You live where you live, and you got to learn to live with your neighbor. That's not going to change.... We very much want to be as supportive as possible of Armenia's effort to diversify its relationships, strengthen its ability to provide security and prosperity for its people, and thirdly, to be in a position where it has the confidence to sign a peace treaty with an ancient enemy. That is hard to do," she explained.

While Washington is trying to build up connections between Baku and Yerevan to bring them into a peace agreement, it's also looking at "other elements as well," Kim said, citing developmental assistance provided to Yerevan by USAID. "I think it's something like 77 million in this current fiscal year, which is just about double from only two years ago. And what we want to do with that, is to create resilience for Armenia on issues like climate, and food security, again, that connects back up with breaking Armenia out of isolation," she said.

Kim also spoke about Georgia and its recently passed "foreign agent" law, a copycat piece of legislation imported from Moscow, which forces Georgian civil society groups to register as foreign agents if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.

"Countries that are democracies, as Georgia is, are obligated to listen to their people. And their people have been consistent and overwhelming in saying that they want to be with Europe — not just in terms of integrating the economy, but institutional cultural values, the way they govern. And so, I think the law that Georgians just passed on foreign agents is exactly the wrong thing to do," she said. "We're talking about a law that essentially mimics what the Kremlin... It's such a bad law."

Kim went on to add that the recent developments in Georgia have been "heartbreaking" because Georgia "used to be the golden child of the region."   "And now we have a situation in which our affinity and our connection with the Georgian people remains as close as ever, but the relationship with the 'Georgian Dream' is not what we would wish it to be - even if as hard as we have tried."

Part of it, she said, is that the Georgian Dream has gone intentionally, and said things that are, what she described as "fake news."

She went on to explain: "When you claim that the United States wants to open up a second front, in Georgia — that is fake news!  When you claim that the American ambassador, the personal representative of the American President, is somehow running a rogue operation, to implement a coup against the elected government of a friendly country like Georgia — again, fake news!!!  When you claim that there is 'a global war party' that wants to harm Georgia — fake news!"

The 'Georgian Dream' government, Kim added, "can't have it both ways."  "You can't claim that you represent your people, and you want a future in Europe, and a strong relationship with the United States, and then do things that your people and your friends have pointed out to you are exactly what Russia does, and what Russia wants. This is nuts, especially when 20% of the country is occupied by Russia," she said.

Kim also spoke about the 'Georgian Dream' government's increasingly warm relationship with China and Russia.

Russia has invaded several of its neighbors for no good reason besides a twisted revision of history and a belief that the Kremlin should have command over its near abroad. Consider that!," she said. "I'm not sure it's real smart to try to be friends with the country that is occupying your sovereign territory"

As for China, she said:  "Consider the fact that plenty of reports out there about the way in which the People's Republic of China uses technology, uses loans, debt traps, uses its involvement in infrastructure projects to create dependencies that ultimately do not benefit the local people and, in fact, harm them. Ask the people of Montenegro what it was like to get into a debt trap. Ask Sri Lanka. The list goes on and on." 

"Ask the neighbors in the region, what it's like to have a close relationship with China." she concluded.