THE "SNAKE" SLIPS AWAY, LEAVING ITS MARK ON HISTORY

Azerbaijan

The main political event for Azerbaijan in the past year was the presidential elections, where a convincing victory was won by the incumbent head of state and chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party, Ilham Aliyev, who took 84.55 per cent of the vote. Voting was held in a calm atmosphere and was technically well organized, a point that was noted by virtually all international observers. According to the Central Electoral Commission [CEC], 72.31 per cent of the electorate took part in the ballot. The country, therefore, voted for stability and further steady social and economic development which is firmly linked with Ilham Aliyev's work as head of state.

As far as a Nagornyy Karabakh settlement is concerned, the very end of the year was notable for a resumption of top-level negotiations. This is no bad thing when you consider the feeling of impasse in the negotiations process and fatigue from pointless beating about the bush by the Armenians at various levels and venues on the subject of the opening of the Xocali [Khojaly] airport, which were particularly emphasized by the middle of summer. Azerbaijan, for its part, has made every effort to reach a just solution to the conflict based on international norms and principles, at the same time making it clear that regional cooperation with Armenia will not begin in any form until there is a settlement to the territorial dispute.

A fresh wind started to blow as winter approached. For the first time in the last few years, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia - Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan - held a summit meeting in Baku on 19 November. Then, during a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE in Kiev on 4-5 December, there took place a record lengthy conversation between the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers, Elmar Mammadyarov and Edvard Nalbandyan. As Mammadyarov stated, "specific questions were raised" during the talks. The co-chairs of the OSCE's Minsk Group also stressed that "for the first time in many years an agreed statement of the heads of the foreign ministers of the conflicting sides appeared".

And so, the main outcome of the past year was a clear agreement to continue to work together to try and achieve real results. The next meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia is due to be held in January.

Neighbours

Presidential elections were also held in October in Georgia where the candidate from the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party, Georgi Margvelashvili, triumphed. Immediately after his inauguration, constitutional amendments came into force restricting the powers of the president in favour of the government. Margvelashvili's coming to power did not generally alter the country's domestic and foreign policy, but the process of developing relations with Russia has been gaining pace in many respects.

The latest presidential elections were also held in Armenia this year and Serzh Sargsyan succeeded in keeping his post as head of state. In the almost a year since then Armenia's political course has surprised no-one - the country is still gripped by an acute economic crisis and it still stands back from the main energy and infrastructural projects of the region. Furthermore, Armenia is suffering from an unprecedented exodus of the population.

One of the most notable events for the whole region was the "Eastern Partnership" summit in Vilnius on 28-29 November which, on the one hand, set the record straight on many issues, but on the other its results will finally come clear in the coming year. However much the two sides might deny it, the "front line" of a geopolitical stand-off between Russia and the West was again drawn through Independence Square in Kiev. Whatever assurances Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych might have given that his refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU a week before the summit was dictated purely by "considerations of national security"; hard as the representatives of the American State Department tried to give the impression that dishing out goodies to the protesters in the square was a normal thing for them and however stubbornly the Kremlin repeated the mantra about "Kiev's independent choice", the audience was not taken in by this show. For example, the majority of the commentaries in the social networks boiled down to sincere feelings that the Euromaidan had in fact split Ukraine in two…The acute phase of the stand-off eventually ended before the Catholic Christmas and the New Year - the Kremlin agreed to reduce gas prices and to allocate Ukraine credit of 15bn dollars, adding in passing that the door to the Customs Union remained open. Kiev has not yet gone down that road, but it has taken time-out in the process of drawing closer to the European Union. So, 2014 promises to be an interesting year.

Armenia also rejected association with "Eastern Partnership" at almost the last moment. On 3 September, the country's President Sargsyan spoke in Moscow about Yerevan's intention to join the Customs Union, thereby putting an end to the fairy tale about Armenia's independent policy of European integration. 

It is significant that 2013 left the Customs Union with the same question that has always faced "European Partnership" - how can you speak about comprehensive projects about economic integration when there are still territorial disputes? This was pointed out by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at a session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on 24 December, when he said that when signing the "road map" about Armenia's joining the CU one should not disregard the question of the limits of the Customs Union in connection with the problem of Nagornyy Karabakh.

Emotions ran particularly high in Turkey in 2013. In May there were large-scale protests in the country caused by the authorities' plans to develop Gezi Park in Istanbul. The protests grew fairly quickly into opposition to the whole political course of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, which is accused of attempting to dismantle the secular republic founded by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s. The authorities found it very difficult to pacify the demonstrations. 

However, right at the end of the year the disturbances flared up again with new force. The reason was the "Big Bribe" corruption scandal. Over 50 people, mainly state apparatus employees and relatives of high-ranking officials, including the sons of three ministers, as well as several well-known businessmen, were taken into custody. Prime Minister Erdogan described the operation as an attempt to undermine the authority of the incumbent power and responded by a mass sacking of security officials. At the same time, the Turkish prime minister almost revamped the Cabinet of Ministers which was minus those ministers whose names were involved in the scandal. Experts believe that the scandal was the result of a behind-the-scenes struggle between Erdogan and his former ally Fethullah Gulen, leader of an influential Islamic movement which has supporters in the law-enforcement bodies. By all accounts, the domestic political situation in Turkey will remain one of the event-driven trends of the coming year.

2013 will be remembered for the events in the Moscow region of Biryulevo Zapadnoye where disturbances occurred when an Azerbaijani citizen, Orxan Zeynalov, was accused of the tragic death of 25-year old Yegor Shcherbakov. This domestic murder, not without active assistance from the Russian media, was suddenly deemed to have been "committed on ethnic grounds", and then there was the particularly demonstrative arrest of Zeynalov, who was even brought to the very head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Anti-Azerbaijani hysteria was also stoked up by a number of Russian public figures. Official Baku's reaction was very restrained and amounted mainly to the need to act within the rule of law and not to create "a nationalistic boomerang effect", especially in such a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country as Russia. As regards the main reason for the protests of the residents of the Biryulevo-Pokrovskaya [fruit and vegetable] base, gossip about it was very quickly reduced to zero, which only confirms the opinion that the hullabaloo over the trading outlet with a turnover of about 9bn dollars a year was, most likely, caused by commonplace redistribution of property.  

Migration policy will certainly continue to remain a headache for the Russian authorities in 2014. The Kremlin is quite unable to make up its mind about what to do next in this area - there has been talk about introducing visas, especially with the countries of Central Asia, there is confusion in the legal sphere - documents, tests in knowledge of the Russian language, etc, a lack of a proper reaction to at times openly chauvinistic comments by some public politicians, and so on.

Russia again made the headlines of the world's news agencies because of the two terrorist acts in Volgograd. On 29 December a suicide bomber blew up the building of the railway station, claiming the lives of 17 people. The next day, 30 December, a trolleybus carrying passengers was also blown up. Official reports say ten people were killed. This is the third terrorist act in Volgograd this year: in October the terrorist Naida Asiyalova blew up a bus, killing seven people. The proximity of Volgograd to Russia's North Caucasus region and Sochi, the venue for the Winter Olympics, is not without significance.

The world

2013 will always be remembered for the war, the humanitarian disaster and chaos in Syria. There was fighting throughout the country and no-one knows the exact number of deaths among the civilian population. In March, in the town of Aleppo, one of the sides in the conflict used chemical weapons, and in August the story was repeated in a suburb of Damascus. The opposition accused the army of using them, as a result of which the West announced the possibility of using force in Syria bypassing the UN Security Council. Fortunately, external interference was avoided and on 28 September the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria. This document was seen by many as a success for Russian diplomacy, their representatives opposing the plans of the US and its European allies at every opportunity. The complete destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal is due to end by the middle of 2014. For the time being the armed confrontation in Syria continues and the situation in that country is still the main threat to regional security. The "Geneva-2" peace conference on Syria is finally due to take place in January, the date for which was agreed after much wrangling. The discussions between the participants are not going to be easy.  

The celebrated "Egyptian spring" also continued along its stormy path over the past year. On 3 July the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi from power, leading to long and bloody mass demonstrations by the "Muslim Brotherhood". On 14 August special police units stormed a tent village in a square in Cairo and 550 people were killed, and that is according to official figures only. In September the courts adopted a decision to ban the activities of the "Muslim Brotherhood" and in November a law on the restriction of demonstrations. Egypt has been gripped by a serious political and economic crisis. Urgent reforms are needed and to do that the country requires a working parliament and government. To what extent Egypt will be able to recover from the turmoil in domestic politics and once again be one of the leading players in the Middle East will in many ways depend on the decisions taken in 2014.

And in relation to the years of crisis around Iran's nuclear programme 2013 proved to be more favourable. Observers even got wind of a "thaw" in relations between the USA and Iran. On 15 June presidential elections were held in the Islamic Republic of Iran, victory going to the moderate centrist Hassan Rouhani. He expressed his willingness to cooperate with the world community on the question of resolving the country's nuclear programme. On 28 September a telephone conversation was held between Hassan Rouhani and the head of the White House Barack Obama. This was the first contact between American and Iranian presidents since 1979. In November, at talks between the six international mediators and Iran, agreement was reached providing for an end to Iran's enrichment of uranium above 5 per cent and the IAEA's access to the nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow in exchange for an easing of the sanctions regime on trading in oil, gas and gold. Washington is meeting Tehran half way, despite the displeasure of Israel and Saudi Arabia. It is being forced into this by its own economic problems, the need to create a balance in relations with Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni monarchies, and also the chance to sow discord in relations between Russia and the Islamic Republic. It also benefits Moscow because it can obtain strong arguments against the deployment of the American ABM system in Europe. A final agreement on a settlement to Iran's nuclear programme is due to be signed during the course of the year.

The Asia-Pacific region, which the key players in the world arena are more and more often naming among their main geopolitical priorities, has also been at the centre of attention. In 2013 differences became strained between China and Japan over disputed islands (rich in natural resources) in the East China Sea. Many analysts believe that stability in the Asia-Pacific region will in many ways depend on relations between the USA and Japan. The events in North Korea also continue to hold the world in a state of tension. On 12 February North Korea carried out a new nuclear test, leading to a UN Security Council resolution on 7 March tightening sanctions against that country. In response Pyongyang terminated its non-aggression agreement with South Korea and declared its readiness to engage in war against the South. Fortunately, an escalation of the crisis has so far been avoided.

The main event in the EU was the bank crisis in Cyprus in March which led to a review of the regulations of the banking system, in particular its "pillar" as a "bank secret". In addition, all year there were numerous acts of protest in Spain, Germany, Greece and Italy against the economic policy of the authorities. The so-called "Eurosceptics" were also given a significant lease of life over the past year, considerably sustained by the moods coming out of Great Britain. One of the more recent such signals from Foggy Albion was Prime Minister David Cameron's proposal about a number of restrictions on freedom of movement of manpower resources in the EU. Earlier Great Britain also threatened to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. The outcome of the Bundestag elections, as a result of which Angela Merkel's bloc remained in power, was clearly a positive occurrence. Germany's significant role in the EU was particularly evident in 2013, and out of earshot Merkel gained the nickname "Empress of all Europe". The coming year will also clearly not be a dull one for Europe. In May the people in the 28 member-countries of the European Union will elect the European Parliament, and referendums on Scotland's independence from Britain and Catalonia's from Spain will be held in the autumn.

People of the Year

The most controversial and scandalous symbol of 2013 was the former CIA operative Edward Snowden, who stole secret documents about the surveillance programmes of the special services of the USA and Britain on the Internet and shared them freely with the whole world. So we learned abut the espionage activities carried out by the American special services against the leaders of a number of countries, including traditionally close allies of the US. The whole world watched with interest Snowden's game of hide-and-seek in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. In August the fugitive obtained a one-year temporary asylum in Russia.

The Catholic Church found itself the centre of attention in 2013. The abdication of Benedict XVI and the subsequent election to the throne of St. Peter of the Argentine cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who took the name Francis, on 13 March came as a real shock. The new Pontiff immediately pledged to break the centuries-old principles of the Vatican; he gave up his privileges and symbols of authority, replacing his gold cross and Piscatory ring with silver ones, celebrated his birthday among the homeless, and at the height of the Syrian crisis wrote a meaningful public letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

2013 saw the passing of such vivid historical personalities and symbols as the former British Prime Minister, the famous "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, and the former President of South Africa and fighter against apartheid, Nelson Mandela. At the end of March the death was announced of the odious Russian oligarch Boris Berezovskiy.

Meanwhile, one of the most discussed events in the media was the birth of Crown Prince George, the British heir to the throne, who became third in line to the crown after his grandfather Charles and his father William.

The outgoing Year of the Snake turned out to be quite a complex one. Basically, major conflicts and invasions were avoided, and even all acute problems when it appeared that the sparks were there for a major conflagration were able to be put out and transferred to a path of peace. And this gives hope that mankind is still capable of reaching agreement without resorting to force.