The South Caucasus beyond Borders, Boundaries and Division Lines Conflicts, Cooperation and Development Edited by Mikko Palonkorpi 2015 ii The publication has been supported by the Ministry for For- eign Affairs of Finland. Papers in this volume reflect the per- sonal opinions of the authors and not those of the publishers, sponsors or any other organizations including ones with which the authors are or were affiliated. The South Caucasus beyond Borders, Boundaries and Division Lines Conflicts, Cooperation and Development Edited by Mikko Palonkorpi Layout & cover design Petteri Linnakangas ISBN 978-951-51-0018-4 © 2015 Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland © 2015 Aleksanteri Institute © 2015 The authors Juvenes Print – Suomen yliopistopaino Oy Turku, Finland 2015 Contents Preface Mikko Palonkorpi v 1 A Region of Regions: The Historical Failure of Integra- tion in the South Caucasus Jeremy Smith 1 2 Nagorno Karabakh under Soviet Rule Jeremy Smith 9 3 The Åland Autonomy – an Alternative to Secession and Independence? Elisabeth Nauclér 29 4 Azerbaijan and Energy Security in Europe: balancing Na- tional Priorities and International Commitments Gulmira Rzayeva 49 5 Azerbaijan, the EU and Migration Policy Sergey Rumyantsev and Tiina Sotkasiira 71 6 The Situation of Young People in Armenia Arseniy Svynarenko 93 7 The 2008 War in Georgia: Lessons from the Caucasus Heikki Talvitie 119 iii iv 8 Politics of Insecurity: Cross-Border Conflict Dynamics and Security Challenges in Georgia Kornely Kakachia 171 9 The EEU, the EU and the New Spheres of Influence Game in the South Caucasus Suvi Kansikas and Mikko Palonkorpi 197 10Policy Recommendations Mikko Palonkorpi 231 List of Contributors 237 Preface Mikko Palonkorpi In the past twenty-five years, the Caucasus region – North and South Caucasus combined – has been a semi-permanent epicenter of reoc- curring ethno-separatist conflicts and inter-state wars. This has led not only to redefinitions of identities, borders and boundaries in the region, but also to the contested and controversial political and le- gal statuses among the regions’ recognized and unrecognized con- stituent parts. In recent decades the military clashes in the area of former Soviet Union (FSU) have concentrated in the Caucasus region, with just a few exceptions due to conflict flare-ups in Cen- tral Asia (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) and in Moldova (Transnistria). Given the fact that the entire Caucasus region is only a minuscule slice of the total landmass and population of the FSU, its proven tendency for conflict and over-representation in this regard are all the more surprising. The military crises in Crimea and in Eastern Ukraine that succeeded the prolonged violent standoff between President Victor Yanukovych and the protestors in the Maidan Square sent shock waves to the West partly because these crises brought epicenter of the FSU conflicts hundreds of kilometers westward, closer to the doorsteps of the EU and NATO. At the heart of the demonstrations which eventually ousted the pro-Russian Yanukovych from the power in Ukraine was a widespread dissatisfaction to the U-turn in its negotiations with the EU, and in particular the abandonment of the Accession Agreement at the very last minute in November 2013. What made matters worse was a declared intention of the v vi Ukrainian leadership at the time to deepen trade relations with Russia and the Eurasian Union. Much less attention has been paid to the fact that the small Ar- menia, highly dependent on Russia for its energy, security and trade, also had to turn down its Accession Agreement with the EU (allegedly also due to a Russia’s pressure) months before Euromaidan. Now that Armenia is about to sign a treaty on joining the Eurasian Union, and Georgia has already signed Association Agreement with the EU, these two decisions will have an impact on the power and trade dy- namics of the South Caucasus. One of the outcomes of the recent developments is an introduction of a new dimension into the concepts of borders and boundaries in the South Caucasus. From the geopolitical (or rather geo-economic) perspective, the South Caucasus is becoming one of many border regions between two integrationist projects: the European Union and the Eurasian Union. These border regions – South Caucasus in- cluded – could be regarded as buffer zones between the integration processes or spheres of influence rivalry areas between them. In recent years, the states comprising the European Union and the Eurasian Union have been relatively stable and tranquil, unlike some of the countries in the border regions between two blocks (Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova for example) which have been riddled with conflicts and instability. Although this might be true in very gen- eral terms, a closer look reveals a somewhat different picture. The Eurozone has had its financial crisis, which affected most severely the economies of Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. The financial crisis also led to various degrees of domestic political turmoil in these southern EU-member states. In a slightly longer historical perspective, the stability and tranquility of the Eurasian Union mem- ber states is even more questionable. Russia’s two wars in Chech- nya are not too distant in memory, and ongoing armed clashes be- tween Islamist militants and Russian security services in the volatile North Caucasus are often recurring phenomena in this restless part of the Russian Federation bordering the South Caucasus. Add to this the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, in which Russia was an ac- tive party of the conflict. Also exchange of fire over the line of con- tact in Nagorno-Karabakh has intensified recently, and August 2014 witnessed fiercest fighting since 1994 ceasefire between Azerbai- jani and Karabakh Armenian forces, leaving up to forty people killed vii and many more wounded. Downing of an Armenian helicopter over Karabakh by Azerbaijani forces in November has increased tensions even further. Therefore, the member states of the Eurasian Union appear far less stable and far more threatened by military conflicts inside or near their borders than their counterparts in the EU. Even the wider Eurasian geopolitical landscape is in flux. Pak- istan and India are expected to become new member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2015. This would im- ply greater security integration of the Central Asian states with the South Asia (India & Pakistan) and the East Asia (China). Not only could this signify further orientation of Central Asian states away from Europe, but in a long run it could also erode Russia’s dom- inant role in Central Asia and add to Russia’s fears that China is becoming the dominant partner in the SCO. This would be detrimen- tal to Russia’s proclaimed aim to recapture the FSU (excluding the Baltic States) in its sphere of influence. The end result could be Russia’s further emphasis on the importance of the Eurasian Union and such organizations, where its leadership of the block remains unchallenged. The recent developments in the adjacent regions like the Middle East also need to be taken into consideration. The latest round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict further strained the relations between Is- rael and Turkey, but the strategic cooperation between Israel and Azerbaijan has remained on a high level. The ISIS advancement in Iraq and Syria has almost put Turkey and the Kurds back on the war path, but ISIS threatens the security of all three regional powers surrounding the South Caucasus (Turkey, Iran and Russia) more di- rectly, Russia’s volatile North Caucasus being the main concern in this regard. This, in turn, has raised fears for the security of the Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge. Just over two years ago, Georgian security forces battled with the armed militants in Lapankuri near Pankisi Gorge. The same is true for Azerbaijan, which also shares the fear of Islamist radicalism. Armenia, on the other hand, has to cope with the influx of Armenian refugees from Syria and Iraq, as they have fled the fights and the ISIS rule. Some of these refugees have been resettled in Nagorno-Karabakh, which in turn has had an impact on the ethnic composition of the enclave. This could complicate con- flict resolution efforts in the future by adding a new obstacle for any referendum on the political status of the Nagorno-Karabakh. viii In many respects, the prospects for cross-border cooperation in the South Caucasus appeared much more optimistic in the beginning of 2010, when the project “The South Caucasus Beyond Borders, Boundaries and Division Lines: Conflicts, Cooperation and Develop- ment” was launched than what the prospects are now. The Turkish- Armenian rapprochement seemed in 2010 like a promising exception for conflict transformation in the South Caucasus, but currently the normalization process is as frozen as the conflicts in the region. Rus- sia has been erecting physical obstacles for movement across the ad- ministrative boundary line (ABL) in South Ossetia and Abkhazia as part of its “borderization” policy. The new draft treaty on alliance and partnership between Russia and Abkhazia will further reduce possibilities for cross-border cooperation. Heightened tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh are not promising any progress in this regard ei- ther. Therefore the quick pace of the developments on the ground in the South Caucasus region and beyond has reshaped the empirical reality of the study, and as a result, the project has at times resem- bled the effort to catch a moving train. Paradoxically, at a same time as the environment for the cross-border cooperation in the South Caucasus has become more difficult, the importance of the CBC as one of the few instruments for conflict resolution and trust-building has remained. The Aleksanteri Institute’s project was implemented within the Security Cluster of the Wider Europe Initiative (WEI), funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, as a part of a research con- sortium with the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI) and the Karelian Institute at the University of Eastern Finland.