ZONE OF INTERESTS

Last week, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland visited the three countries of the South Caucasus. The official aim of the visits was diplomatically vague (to discuss the strengthening of bilateral relations, issues related to security and democracy), which gave observers the freedom to interpret the American diplomat's true intentions. And if Nuland's visit to Azerbaijan and Georgia seemed natural, her visit to Armenia and the statements she made there give rise to many questions.

Nuland started her tour of the South Caucasus in Azerbaijan, and there is a reason for this. The arrival of a high-ranking State Department envoy in Baku was arguably the most understandable and even longest-awaited. The last few months have not been the best in the history of Azerbaijani-American relations. Washington cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that Azerbaijan, a key partner of the USA in the fields of energy and security, is drifting further and further away from its influence. While Baku has not been swayed by Russia's attempts to entice it to join the Eurasian Union, neither has it thrown its support behind the West's anti-Russian sanctions. Instead, Azerbaijan has chosen to build a comprehensive, bilateral partnership with its northern neighbour and even submitted an application to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, in which Russia plays one of the leading roles. Of course, these developments do not sit well with the USA, especially in light of what is happening in Ukraine. And we see now that the Obama administration, whose policies in the South Caucasus and the former Soviet Union have never been consistent, decided rather than risk losing influence in this important region of the world which sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, it would organise a visit of one of the State Department's top officials to the South Caucasus. 

During talks with Azerbaijan's top officials, Nuland said that the USA intended to continue maintaining strong ties with the country with which it is shared important energy and security interests. "Today, we need an effective structured dialogue. I am very pleased that President Ilham Aliyev has agreed to the establishment of such a dialogue format," said the assistant secretary of state at a final press conference in Baku. According to her, she also discussed in a meeting with the president the diversification of Azerbaijan's economy, particularly in the areas of information technology, transportation and agriculture, and they agreed as well to intensify their cooperation in the fight against corruption, which Nuland called a "killer of democracy".

At a meeting with reporters, the US diplomat tried to dispel rumours that Washington was planning a revolution in Azerbaijan: "A colour revolution is not necessary when government and civil society are talking with each other. They occur only when there is tension and alienation." Nuland thus welcomed the resumption of dialogue between the Azerbaijani authorities and the country's political forces, in particular, the agreement to establish a special format: a US-Azerbaijani dialogue on civil society and democratisation in which, from all appearances, misunderstandings on human rights issues will be addressed. This bilateral structure will work in parallel with a similar initiative between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe.

Meanwhile, Nuland, who has been informally dubbed the "storm petrel of the colour revolutions", went on to visit Yerevan in what turned out to be a truly mysterious visit that gave the Armenian public and others much to speculate about. The agenda of the talks with the country's leadership did not contain anything unusual, and that is easily explained: US-Armenian economic relations are insignificant, which, according to the former and new US ambassadors to Armenia, is due to the lack of investor interest in Armenia because of corruption in government systems. With respect to the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Turkey, where the US is the mediator, there are no developments to report except setbacks. There is also no point in reporting on any meaningful cooperation on other issues of regional security with its military and political ally/vassal of Russia. So while nothing original came out of the meetings between Nuland and the leadership of this country, her closed-door meeting with a group of Armenian NGOs led many local and foreign media to conclude, to the distress of the Sargsyan regime, that "the United States is preparing for a Maidan in Armenia" [reference to Kiev's Independence Square, the site of anti-government rallies that resulted in the ousting of President Yanukovych in 2014]. 

It was not clear from Victoria Nuland's press conference what issues were discussed during her meetings with Armenian officials, the newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak writes. "So it was not clear what Nuland actually talked about with our high-ranking officials, what messages she sent, what our leaders said in response, or what the purpose of her visit as a whole was?", asks the author of the article.

However, at meetings in the third country of the South Caucasus, Georgia, the State Department representative demonstrated that the USA does not plan to abandon its policy of double standards when analysing identical events in the former Soviet Union. Thus, in Tbilisi, she said that Georgia and Ukraine are interconnected. "At present, Georgia and Ukraine aspire to Europe. Today is a very important moment for your countries, which is why every Georgian citizen must stand beside a Ukrainian citizen, and vice versa, since you need each other to address the vital issues," said the US assistant secretary of state.

"The USA supports 100 per cent the ongoing reforms in Georgia, Georgia's integration into the EU and NATO, as well as Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the press service of the Georgian prime minister reported following his meeting with the US assistant secretary of state.

But not a word was heard from the lips of Nuland during her visit to Baku, much less in Yerevan, about 100 per cent support for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity nor even a mention of the need to restore Azerbaijani sovereignty over its occupied lands.

Meanwhile, the path to improving Azerbaijani-American relations is through an adequate approach by Washington and the other big players in world politics to security threats, or more precisely, to the problem of the occupation of part of Azerbaijan's territory. "The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan has the same value as the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which everyone is talking about now," said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, speaking at the beginning of February at the Munich Security Conference.

Armenia is a weak country, completely devoid of the ability to act independently and entirely dependent on external forces. Paradoxically, these external forces are mostly the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group. That is, those who should be impartial are instead indirectly contributing to the conflict's prolongation, helping one side of the conflict (and if we're being completely open, the aggressor country) to survive as a state. And, accordingly, continue to keep Azerbaijani lands under occupation.

If Nuland's visit to the region was intended as an opportunity to make known Washington's interests in the South Caucasus, then it is clear that the American way to the South Caucasus today must pass through Armenia. Washington need not bother to convince Azerbaijan, let alone Georgia, of the strategic interests of cooperation with the USA. But even if Georgia has gone out of its way in recent years to exclude a possible path of development, Azerbaijan always has an alternative vector of development. Moreover, that partner does not have to be Russia, but can be any of the major players in world politics, including, at the very least, Azerbaijan's neighbour much despised by the USA, Iran.

In a symbolic move, talks in Baku with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif were held almost concurrently with Nuland's visit. Enhanced cooperation both bilaterally and in the tripartite format of Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey were discussed at the meeting. The parties agreed to hold a meeting of the foreign ministers of the three countries in Iran in the near future. Also of significance was Iran's decision to undertake the restoration of railway links with Azerbaijan, which were interrupted because of the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories. According to Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, the restoration of the railway is important for both sides and has great prospects for the future in terms of joining up with Russian and European railways.

If the Americans do not just want to win Azerbaijan's favour, but also significantly strengthen their influence in the region, then they must eliminate the repercussions of Armenian aggression. But it is impossible to achieve this under the regime of Sargsyan, as evidenced by Azerbaijan's unsuccessful attempts to resolve the issue peacefully over the last 20 plus years.

Thus, the main message of Nuland's visit to the South Caucasus can be seen as the USA's intention to show that the battle between Washington and Moscow for influence over the region is far from over. For Azerbaijan, the visit can be regarded as an indication of Washington's desire to align relations with Azerbaijan in strategic areas, confirming its commitment to develop a relationship with Azerbaijan without regard for its internal affairs. The assistant secretary of state's visit on the heels of the traditionally long-awaited arrival of US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta speaks to the formulation of the White House's new strategy for the South Caucasus in the new geopolitical conditions in which the region finds itself. For Georgia, the visit was designed to reaffirm Washington's support for the republic's strategic course to integrate with the West and enter into Euro-Atlantic structures. For Armenia, this visit should be a kind of "black mark" for the local authorities. The USA will never be able to gain a foothold in the South Caucasus region, a particularly important region for Washington, as long as Armenia bears the status of "Russian outpost". Whether or not the Americans succeed in tearing Armenia from the clutches of all-out Russia is another question. After all, it doesn't hurt to try, but post-Soviet countries are not used to the clumsy methods employed by American political strategists.