Against such a regional backdrop, the South Caucasus –consisting of three post-Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia – might seem like an instance of relative stability, albeit a precariously fragile one. The conflict persists between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno Karabakh region and adjacent territories with intractable differences between the sides that are still far from resolution. Of even deeper concern, the periodic flare-ups of violence along the “line of contact” in Nagorno Karabakh and along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have reached levels unseen since the signing of the ceasefire in 1994, with greater casualties and the use of heavy military equipment, including tanks.

Experts familiar with the conflict regularly express fears over the growing risk that miscalculations could ignite another full-fledged war not by design but accident.[1] In Georgia tensions have grown amid reports that Russia is unilaterally redrawing the borders of the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia through a process “creeping annexations.” [2] Many Georgians see Russia’s aggression in Eastern Ukraine as an extension of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war and openly worry of a Ukraine-like fate for them. Lastly, with the region wedged between Turkey and Russia, the South Caucasus may fall victim to the face-off between the two powers over Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter jet in late November, 2015. [3]

The problems of the South Caucasus are linked to the security crises occurring to the north and south of the region, but they are of a much different nature and scale. Although violence still erupts periodically in the South Caucasus, civilian deaths are rare. Even with over a million refugees and internally displaced persons in the South Caucasus, the magnitude of the displacement has never been close to the massive uprooting of people currently taking place in the Middle East. The US State Department estimates that up to 100 Georgians are fighting for Islamist organizations in Iraq and Syria, and Azerbaijan also faces problems with radicalization. However, while the region may increasingly become a transit route for Syria-bound foreign fighters, the South Caucasus is not a traditional incubator of radicalism. Furthermore, the South Caucasus has not suffered from the same economic deterioration experienced by its neighbors. Against the odds, the economies of the three countries of the South Caucasus have continued to grow at around 3.5 percent during the last two years. [4]

Regional economic integration is often advocated as a policy for promoting economic growth, but also for stability and peace. The various European integration mechanisms, and the European Union itself, are frequently cited as prime examples of this approach. The South Caucasus, however, is one of the least integrated regions of its size in the world and lacks any formal institutions to support intra-regional economic and political development as means to achieve greater security, peace, and prosperity. [5] If anything, the countries of the region have very different external economic, political, and security orientations. Georgia is deeply oriented towards the West, aspires to become a member of NATO and has had a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU since 2014. Armenia has close relations with Russia and dropped its association negotiations with the EU in September, 2013, announcing instead its decision to join the Eurasian Union. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, has tried to maintain a calculated distance from both Russia and the West by following a “multi-vector” policy. However, domestic political developments, tense rhetoric, and numerous human right violations are increasingly straining Azerbaijan’s relations with the West. The fall in energy prices has forced the local currency to lose significant value, leading to concerns about the vulnerability of Azerbaijan’s economy. [6] These developments may well strain Azerbaijan’s ability to pursue its traditional policy of balanced relations between Russia and the West.

Given the instability confronting the South Caucasus on several sides, the region now appears to be at a watershed moment, with its future trajectory in question. If the three states are able to keep out the spreading disorder and violence on their peripheries, it will likely require greater regional integration, which could ultimately lead to progress in resolving the long-standing conflicts that have crippled the area for decades. On the other hand, if the three countries once again take on their traditional roles as battlegrounds at the crossroads of empires, their foreign policy orientations and allegiances to opposing global powers will be tested, likely splintering the region even further.

[1] For a detailed assessment of these violations and concerns about escalation see: Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan, Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly Report, Doc. 13930, December 11, 2015. Available at: http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2HXref-ViewPDF.asp?FileID= 22255&lang=en. 

[2] Georgian FM Fears Russia’s “Creeping Annexation” of Breakaway Regions, February 27, 2015. Available at: http://www.novinite.com/articles/166881/ Georgian+FM+Fears+Russia’s+%E2%80%9CCreeping+Annexaion%E2%80%9 D+of+Breakaway+Regions#sthash.c1pPxodp.dpuf. 

[3] Richard Giragosian, Resurgent Russia takes on tenacious Turkey. Al-Jazeera, December 9, 2015. Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015 /12/resurgent-russia-takes-tenacious-turkey-151209071618920.html. 

[4] Calculated from the World Bank. Available at: http://data.worldbank.org/ indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG. 

[5] The South Caucasus between Integration and Fragmentation. Baku: SAM, and Brussels: EPC, May 2015, pp. 9-10. Available at: http://www.epc.eu/pub_details. php?cat_id=1&pub_id=5598. 

[6] Jack Farchy, Azerbaijani manat collapses after government abandons dollar peg. Financial Times, December 21, 2015. 

This is an excerpt from a piece that was originally published in Spectrum: Center for Strategic Analysis.

      

 

 

Two articles have appeared in prominent Western outlets in the past month addressing developments in the South Caucasus and the need for adjustments in U.S. (and Western) policy toward the region. The first was an excellent, in-depth Brookings report titled “Retracing the Caucasian Circle—Considerations and Constraints for U.S., EU, and Turkish Engagement in the South Caucasus”; the second was a shorter essay that Bill Courtney, Denis Corboy, and I penned for Newsweek on the need to reboot policy toward Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Both reflected the difficulty of writing about the “South Caucasus” as if the three countries had common interests and objectives. Increasingly these interests and objectives are diverging, except for a growing unhappiness with the United States and the West for not paying attention to—or doing enough to support—the region. In the case of Azerbaijan, the frustration stems from U.S. leaders paying too much attention to the appalling human rights situation in the country.

What’s making the Azerbaijanis so upset with the West?

The authors of the Brookings report point to elite cynicism over Western disinterest and policy failures in the region as sources of Azerbaijani leaders’ unhappiness. This, in their view, is causing Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan—for different reasons and in different ways—to tack toward Russia.

We have a different take in our Newsweek piece. We argue that the unhappiness results from governing elites recognizing that U.S. and Western policy regarding human rights, democracy building, corruption, and conflict resolution (especially the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict) threaten regime stability. Therefore, the tacking toward Russia is a conscious choice to avoid pressure and the transparency that closer association with the United States and Europe would involve.

The new orientation of these countries requires serious adjustment in Western policies. There are four new drivers prompting change (beyond the role of Russia): the regional consequences of the Iran nuclear agreement; the growing economic crisis, which is affecting the South Caucasian states in different ways; the threat of renewed military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan; and the internal security implications of suppression of human rights. While each country responds to these drivers in different ways, they are the source of a new dynamic in the South Caucasus that requires a fresh Western policy approach.

Three wild cards will shape these drivers and the Western approach to them: First, how hard will Russian President Vladimir Putin push his objective of rolling back the degree of Western influence achieved since the fall of the Soviet Union? Second, how well will Iran play the nuclear agreement card, especially regarding its reentry into global energy markets? Third, how distracting will Turkey’s military response to the Islamic State and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) be for Turkey’s interests in the South Caucasus and its objective of becoming a regional energy hub?

The shortcomings of soft regionalism

What is to be done? Faced with such a challenging situation, the default policy response is to provide more assistance (economic and military), dispatch senior officials from Western capitals to visit the region, and indulge (rather than criticize) democracy and human rights abuses, all in the name of developing a strategic partnership. In other words: Show more love.

That business-as-usual approach is inappropriate for these challenging times. In the case of Azerbaijan, it is an inappropriate response to the continued violations by the Baku regime of basic human rights and freedom of expression.

The Brookings paper suggests a multilateral approach (involving the United States, EU, and Turkey) based on soft regionalism. I do not believe that soft regionalism will work. The best we can hope for is parallel bilateral engagement on the basis of common interests (e.g. conflict prevention) and shared values (e.g. democratic evolution, observance of human rights). We need to treat the energy issue in the region as a commercial rather than geopolitical one. Changes in the global energy market have undermined the geopolitical significance of Caspian energy resources compared to two decades ago. With low energy prices likely the norm for the near future, energy no longer plays a strategic role for the region. Among other weaknesses, the soft regionalism prescription implies coordinated interests with Turkey—this will be difficult absent an opening in Turkish-Armenian relations.

Who needs who more?

The burden of choice in this relationship with the West must shift from the outside parties to the South Caucasian states themselves. The outsiders should stop talking about “strategic” partnerships, trans-Caspian pipelines and Silk Roads because this perpetuates a “you-need-us-more-than-we-need-you” starting point. Rather, the time has come for Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to decide on their own where their interests coincide with those of the West. That’s where we and they can begin to develop meaningful relationships, rather than trying to invent a veneer to cover differences—as in the case of Azerbaijan’s record on human rights.

Another recent article in Newsweek, by Theodore Gerber and Jane Zavisca, raised questions about promoting democracy and human rights where populations and elites are skeptical of U.S. motivations in promoting these issues. Fairly, the article questions the effectiveness of the traditional instruments of promoting opposition political parties and local NGOs as a way of winning “hearts and minds” in the former Soviet Union. Unfortunately, these traditional instruments tend to emphasize the attractiveness of the “American way of life” through student and scientific exchanges. This offers a variant on the soft regionalism theme advanced in the Brookings paper. Both require a receptivity to change that both elites and populations increasingly find threatening. Developing a values-based relationship is difficult when values diverge.

To the extent our interests do not coincide, then the Western policy focus must be transactional and rest exclusively on conflict prevention and/or amelioration. It also should not shy away from pressing all three South Caucasian states on their obligations to observe international standards regarding human rights, democracy, and freedom of expression.

      

 

 

Stability and integration in the region are clearly important to the West—the region is a strategic global crossroads and a traditional scrum of great power interests. But the region is also of relatively low priority, and the West has limited capacity for major initiatives that might solve the region’s intractable problems. Within this reality, there is still much that the United States, Europe, and particularly Turkey can do “below the radar” to encourage the countries of the region onto a better trajectory. Together with my colleagues Fiona Hill and Kemal Kirişci, we have published a new report, Retracing the Caucasian Circle—Considerations and Constraints for U.S., EU, and Turkish Engagement in the South Caucasus, that proposes a policy of “soft regionalism” that focuses on long-term efforts, mostly at the societal level, that might move toward overcoming the fragility and fragmentation of the region.

High hopes, dashed

Soft regionalism is not the traditional Western policy in the region. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the South Caucasus countries drew considerable Western attention for three principal reasons: The newly independent nations held untapped potential for developing a new route for exporting Caspian hydrocarbons; the West aspired to further its associations with Euro-Atlantic institutions to enhance security and stability on the periphery of Europe; and the West had an interest in offsetting long-standing Russian and Iranian influences. The countries appeared keen to transform their states into modern democratic societies, integrate their countries into the global economy, and forge new political and security relations with the West. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, this orientation—combined with assistance from the United States and Europe—led to considerable economic and institutional developments and reforms in the South Caucasus, including the launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in May 2005 and a promise to Georgia in 2008 that it would one day join NATO.

Since 2008, however, the trajectory of the South Caucasus has radically changed. The brief Georgian-Russian war in August of that year starkly revealed Russia’s interpretation of the region as part of its privileged sphere of interests. For the West, other foreign policy crises—from the Arab Spring to Syria and Iran—overwhelmed its agenda and led to an unintentional disengagement in the South Caucasus. The global economic downturn eroded its international aid financing, and the eurozone crisis diminished both the attractiveness of EU integration for aspirants and the EU’s own appetite for enlargement. Western-supported efforts to bring about greater stability and regional integration, including the EU’s Eastern Partnership framework and the diplomatic push to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia, have either foundered or backfired. Lastly, changes in the global energy market, including diminished European demand for gas, have revised strategic calculations about the value of Caspian resources for European energy security.

More recently, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its backing of separatists in Eastern Ukraine have heightened the sense of insecurity and instability in the South Caucasus and exposed the risks for post-Soviet states of pursuing a Western orientation. Russian assertiveness has also reignited long simmering tensions surrounding the unresolved conflicts in the South Caucasus, especially in Nagorno-Karabakh where violence has reached its highest level since the ceasefire was signed in 1994.

Ready for the long haul?

The West now finds itself looking toward the South Caucasus with fewer resources and less overall foreign policy capacity, while the three countries themselves no longer share an unambiguous orientation toward Euro-Atlantic integration. Across the region, government officials and the foreign policy elites have become cynical about Western intentions and commitment after the failure of past policy initiatives. The United States and Europe have struggled to formulate a sustainable policy approach that adapts its vision for the region and the tools available to engage it with the changing geopolitical realities.

This reality means that the United States and EU need to resist the urge to “fix” the region through grand gestures that will ultimately lack sustainability. To make the most of limited capacity and sustain efforts over the long term, U.S. and EU engagement should complement and potentially build upon Turkey’s regional involvement. More generally, for the countries to move forward in resolving conflicts and improving internal and external relations, an informal regional understanding needs to be created that could encourage trade, civil society contacts, and conflict management exercises. The absence of formal regional institutions, or even a shared sense of belonging, remains a fundamental impediment to untangling the knots of the South Caucasus and realizing its potential.

This is a long-term policy, requiring great strategic patience. It lacks the satisfaction of grand pronouncements and media-friendly summits. But it is a realistic expression of both Western interests and Western capacities, and it holds out hope of effectively promoting regional integration into a more stable order.

      

 

 

Constraints and considerations for U.S., EU, and Turkish engagement in the South Caucasus:

• Divergent trends in the South Caucasus
• Russia’s influence in the South Caucasus
• Regional conflicts
• The United States’ diminishing role in the South Caucasus
• Failure to integrate the South Caucasus into the EU
• Foundering relations with Turkey
• Dashed expectations in the South Caucasus of Western engagement

Despite the challenges that have beset the West’s relations with the South Caucasus and the growing disillusionment in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, giving up on engagement is not an option.

Policy options for the future:

• The United States, EU, and Turkey must work together, rather than separately
• “Under the radar” coordination on creative interim solutions and working with other mediators
• Focus on the development of “soft regionalism”
• Work with Georgia as the hub for furthering soft regionalism
• Devise adaptable policies as relations with Iran and China develop in the region

      

 

 

On July 15, the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) hosted a panel to discuss a new report, Retracing the Caucasian Circle, co-authored by Fiona Hill, Kemal Kirişci, and Andrew Moffatt. In the paper, the authors provide an overview of the geopolitical and security issues facing Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia and their consequences for relations with the West. The report advocates that in spite of major challenges these three actors should not give up on their engagement of the region and should adopt realistic approaches which can be sustained.

Following a presentation of the report by CUSE Director Fiona Hill, Deputy Assistant Secretary European and Eurasian Affairs Eric Rubin, retired Turkish Ambassador and President of Ankara Policy Center Ünal Çeviköz, and Klaus Botzet of the EU Delegation to the U.S. provided comments. Brookings TÜSİAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci moderated the discussion.

The event is part of the TÜSİAD U.S.-Turkey Forum at Brookings, which hosts conferences, seminars, and workshops to consider topics of relevance to U.S.-Turkish and transatlantic relations.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #SouthCaucasus

      

 

 

The European Games are an Olympics-style sporting event with 6,000 athletes representing more than 50 countries. Azerbaijan has spent an estimated eight to 10 billion U.S. dollars on the Games––including constructing five new sport venues and covering airfares and accommodations for participating teams.

For Azerbaijan, the Games are an opportunity to combine much-needed image management with a global coming-out party. Having hosted the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, the country’s leaders hope to reinforce its European connections while acquainting an international television audience with Baku, its stylish capital on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Reversal of fortune

Successfully staging a huge and complex multi-sport event, the government hopes, will stand as a testament to Azerbaijan’s socio-economic transformation over the last decade. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Baku was the capital of a war-torn hinterland on the grey fringes between Asia and Europe. It was saddled with the vestiges of a moribund planned economy and a major refugee crisis after the outbreak of conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Since the mid-1990s, the country has had a dramatic reversal of fortune. Major oil and gas projects, led by international energy companies with political support from the United States and Europe, unlocked Azerbaijan’s revenue-generating export potential. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and other infrastructure have put Azerbaijan on the map as part of a “Southern Energy Corridor” bringing Caspian Basin energy to European markets as an alternative to Russian supplies. The state’s geostrategic location, bordering Russia, Iran, and the Caspian, elevated its status in U.S. security calculations.

Since the early 2000s, Azerbaijan has been one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, more than tripling its GDP, reducing its official poverty rate from 50 to six percent, and lowering its unemployment to an enviable 4.9 percent in 2013. In Baku, sleek office towers, high-end luxury shops, a glittering cultural center, concert hall, and airport display this new wealth. Juxtaposed with images of Baku’s Inner City––with its 12th-century stone walls and iconic Maiden Tower––the modern new buildings and seaside promenades will form a telegenic backdrop for the Games.

The darker side

The international attention leading up to the Games, however, has also cast light on issues Azerbaijan would prefer left in the shadows. The country has come under Western media scrutiny and government criticism for the persecution and imprisonment of journalists, civil society activists, opposition politicians, and human rights defenders. Azerbaijan now has nearly 100 political prisoners, twice as many as Russia and Belarus together. In recent months, the government has frozen the assets of Western-funded NGOs and closed down foreign nonprofits that promote democracy and cross-cultural exchanges.

This negative attention has triggered a strident counter-reaction in Baku. Several foreign journalists and representatives of human rights organizations have been barred from attending the Games or refused press accreditation. Azerbaijani officials have accused the West of slandering the country through “black PR” campaigns and attempting to orchestrate a color revolution by backing dissident activists and NGOs. These assertions reveal a profound deterioration of trust in Azerbaijan’s relations with the United States in particular. Indeed, many of the domestic journalists and Azerbaijani activists targeted by the government seem to have been singled out precisely because of their close ties with U.S. entities almost as a form of proxy punishment.

The rift in Azerbaijan’s relationship with the West has been evident for some time, fueled on both sides by different understandings of what the oft-professed “strategic partnership” means. The concept has been oversold by Washington, and Baku had unreasonable expectations about what the partnership would deliver. Azerbaijan also perceives a double standard in the U.S. and West’s variable support for international principles, especially territorial integrity. For Azerbaijan, the West’s forceful response and sanctions against Moscow after its annexation of Crimea stands in sharp contrast to the muted international reactions to the decades-long occupation by Armenian-backed forces of nearly one-fifth of Azerbaijan’s territory. To Baku, the West seems to have forgotten this violation despite the four U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for an Armenian withdrawal. Azerbaijan insists that Washington’s policy toward the region has been influenced by the U.S.-Armenian diaspora, which successfully lobbied to have Azerbaijan excluded from receiving direct U.S. government assistance during the early phases of the war over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Refresh and play fair

The problems in the relationship cannot be brushed away, but the European Games can be an opportunity for the West and Azerbaijan to stand back, take a fresh look, and see if they can re-engage constructively. To do this, both sides will need to be realistic, consistent, and in the spirit of good sportsmanship, play fair.

Practical steps can begin the process of rebuilding eroded confidence and mutual respect. Incremental measures towards resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be developed and backed by real incentives that boost the benefits of peace for both sides. The West should also revive its support for Azerbaijan’s independence and territorial integrity, but be realistic about the limits of its leverage and careful not to over promise.

Baku should curb its anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric, cease its intimidation and imprisonment of activists, and respect democratic rights. For Azerbaijan to realize its goal of using the Games to position the country on the map of Europe, it must do more than just put on a good show.

      

 

 

On May 13, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE), together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for International Studies, the Hrant Dink Memorial Human Rights and Justice Lectureship at MIT, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace held a conference with several leading scholars of the Armenian genocide and other international experts. Speakers considered the historical record and circumstances of the genocide amid the disorder of World War I; how Turkey, Armenia, and other key actors have dealt with the legacy of 1915; and how this legacy continues to reverberate in the region today, with protracted conflicts in the Caucasus and where religious and ethnic minority groups have been deliberately targeted for expulsion and death amid the upheavals in Iraq, Syria, and other states that emerged from the rubble of the Ottoman Empire.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #Armenia1915

      

 

 

I did not join the Foreign Service because I was detained almost 20 years ago, when I was a 25-year-old tour guide. The reason? I dared to answer a couple of questions about 1915 from a group of American tourists visiting the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. That day changed my life. I’m not naïve; I knew answering their question in public would be risky. And I would have probably refrained from doing so had they not asked me first whether there is freedom of speech in Turkey. Trying to make light of it, I quipped: “Yes, there is freedom of speech, but freedom after speech can get tricky.” I did not know my joke would turn into self-fulfilling prophecy.

Shortly after explaining to my group why the term “genocide” is problematic for Turkish officialdom, I was arrested by guards in the museum, taken to a police station and interrogated for five hours. This unexpected encounter with Turkish law enforcement convinced me about a couple of things. First, I realized how difficult life in Turkey would be if I were of Armenian descent. “Are you Armenian?” was the first question I was asked in the police station. When I said “No,” the police officer laughed and said I was not the first Turkish traitor they had interrogated. To this day, I wonder how life in Turkey would be if my name was Onik instead of Ömer.

Second, I was also convinced that I no longer wanted to become a diplomat. As a diplomat, I knew you turn into a defense attorney for your country. I also knew that in the larger scheme of things, what happened to me that day was not tragic or even very consequential. But the idea of defending a country that arrests a tour guide for speaking about what happened 100 years ago turned me off intellectually and emotionally. All of a sudden, Turkey’s predicament had gained a disturbingly personal dimension in my eyes and thoughts. I remember having a conversation the night I was arrested with my father, a Turkish diplomat himself and in disbelief about my lack of situational awareness. “Do you think you think you live in Sweden?” he asked me with sarcasm and some anger. Anyway, the case was closed for me. I now had a police detention record. And this was enough to disqualify me from the Foreign Ministry exam.

Since the Turkish Foreign Service had now lost a brilliant (!) future diplomat, I turned my gaze to academia and decided to continue my seditious activities in the United States by writing a dissertation on Turkey’s identity problem. My focus was on the interplay between Kemalism, the official ideology of the republic and the Kurdish question and political Islam. Ever since I started working in academia and think-tanks, I made an involuntary reputation for myself as a public intellectual with pro-Kurdish, pro-Islamic, pro-Armenian tendencies. I guess that’s a small price to pay for trying to be a liberal in today’s Turkey. The alternative would have been a life in Turkish diplomacy talking about the “so-called Armenian Genocide,” the separatist-terrorist organization called the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and various “coup” attempts against the sacred Turkish state during the Gezi protests and the corruption investigations.

At the end of day, my arrest 20 years ago was a blessing in disguise. I’m happy my Armenian journey took me where I am.

This article was originally published in
Today’s Zaman
.