According to the Head of the NATO Liaison Office in the South Caucasus, William Lahue, Russia sees a big problem in the fact that it has lost the control over the territories that had occupied once, and now it is losing the control over them.
– In the “Vaziani” military base near Tbilisi, recently a “NATO-Georgia Exercise 2016″ military exercises were conducted in the territory of the NATO-Georgia Joint Force Training Center (JTEC). The main objective of the joint military exercises was to ensure the mutual compatibility of armed forces of Georgia and NATO, however, this event deserved tough assessments by Moscow. Russia’s Foreign Ministry simply announced that Russia views similar activity as a serious threat to stability and peace in the region. Russian Foreign Ministry statement reads, “the military exercises complicate the positive healing process of Russian-Georgian relations.” Today, Russia has quite impressive relations with Azerbaijan, Armenia is an EaEU member and a CSTO member country, the growth of Russia’s influence in our region is obvious. In these conditions, does NATO view Moscow’s policy in terms of growth of influence in the South Caucasus?
– The fact that Russia finds the presence of 50 unarmed officers as such a threat that we should be proud of ourselves. And particularly since they have 5 thousand soldiers with modernized rifle brigades sitting 40 kilometers away. This issue of Russia is it does not matter what NATO does, there is a hysteria about it. So this exercise that they are so concerned about involved about 200 people sitting behind computers. So these officers learn how to operate in a multinational headquarters. And this is opposed to the Russian exercise which takes place in South Ossetia where you have tens and thousands of soldiers maneuvering tanks and artillery and missiles systems.
And there is, of course, a concern among the allies about the Russian military presence but that is the concern about the potential threats and not just potential, the open discussion of their military capabilities to force the Georgians to change their directions.
So, despite the fact that the Russian ay they are being surrounded by NATO, the reality is there is nothing new, if Georgia became a member today, what would be the difference tomorrow. Nothing. No difference. Not any. The same Georgian army will be sitting in the same place. The only difference is now they have the article 5 security guarantee meaning if Russia attacks them, then the other 20 allies would come to Georgia’s defense. So, the difficulty I think is there is a huge difference of perception from Europe and between Europe and Moscow of what NATO means and what their understanding of national security is. For the individual allies the fact that they are in this collective gives them a security guarantee and this is especially important for the little nations, like the Baltic states and they are not alone and if Russian can’t use the military force against them to be able to pressure them to do something they don’t want.
Now, you remember, if you look at Russia, look at history. Russia was a colonial empire. And it is still acting like a colonial empire in many ways. It is no different than the Great Britain or France or Germany for some time or the Netherlands that had colonial holdings. The difference is Russia is all on the ground, it’s contiguous territory whereas European colonialism was across the seas. And Russia is very uncomfortable with the idea that they lost control over these territories that they feel were theirs that they have conquered and were theirs.
The challenge with NATO is NATO provides a vehicle for these countries to protect their sovereignty so they don’t have to be under being dominating neighbor anymore. From the Russian perspective, I understand, they see their security in terms of their ability to control the territory around them. If they can’t control it they don’t feel it’s secure. And their idea of the control means exactly that they have to be able to be in control of their government, they have to have a great degree of influence inside the government to be able to control the national security directions, the foreign policy directions, and the military policy directions. And the benefits are not mutual. The benefits go back to Moscow. And the difference is that in this collective, these individuals and nations are there because they see it in their best interest that they benefit from being in this collective. And they have the freedom to leave whenever they want. But only one time in history it has happened where the French pulled out from NATO but only from the political element as they wanted to have a political influence but then they came back.
– Have the NATO officials ever discussed the possibilities for the establishment of Armenia-Turkey relations with Turkish counterparts in NATO–Turkey discussions without the issue of Karabakh conflict at least not in the public?
– There is no format that I know of to discuss bilateral relations between any allied nation in their neighbor unless it’s an issue of potential threat to an ally. And as far as Turkey and Armenia relations are outside of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is not discussed as far as I know. Because it’s not a NATO issue. There is a discussion of course about Nagorno-Karabakh in terms of regional security and stability and the potential war, and that is discussed.
– The Armenia-Turkey border is also an Armenia-NATO border, a closed border. Years ago, Ankara put the Armenian-Turkish Zurich Protocols aside by laying down its precondition. What are the possible conditions for the revitalization of the Armenia-Turkey contacts, in your opinion?
– That falls far outside of the NATO’s business. Because we don’t think in terms of borders with NATO because NATO is again a collective of sovereign nations so the borders of our sovereign members. The relationships between NATO’s members and their neighbors are determined by the members themselves. From the perspective of allies and others what we are looking at is do we have peace and stability and security and what allies consistently always saying that in any conflict between nations should be resolved in a peaceful way. And this issue about the border being closed between Armenia and Turkey has to be resolved by Turkey and Armenia, between yourselves.
Emma GABRIELYAN
