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  • Ukraine aims at Armenia

    Agency WPS
    DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
    June 17, 2005, Friday

    UKRAINE AIMS AT ARMENIA

    SOURCE: Voyenno-Promyshlenny Kurier, No 21, June 15 - 21, 2005, p. 3

    by Samvel Martirosjan

    UKRAINIAN MILITARY IS PREPARED TO BECOME PEACEKEEPERS IN THE KARABAKH
    CONFLICT AREA

    Kyiv aspires for the role of a serious player in the Caucasus.
    Lieutenant General Valery Frolov, Senior Second-in-Command of the
    Ukrainian Ground Forces, said the other day that the Ukrainian
    Defense Ministry could send peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh after
    two months' worth of training provided the Rada authorized it. Pyotr
    Poroshenko, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council,
    does not rule out the possibility of deployment of Ukrainian
    peacekeepers in the conflict area with the consent of all involved
    parties. Poroshenko is convinced that the peacekeeping mission in the
    region - just like in all other latent conflict areas - will boost
    the image of Ukraine as a national leader. Ukraine merely needs trust
    of both warring sides and it will certainly become the regional
    guarantor of peace.

    It does not seem, however, that Ukraine itself is unanimous on the
    matter. Georgy Kryuchkov, Chairman of the Rada Committee of National
    Security and Defense, was extremely critical of the statements on the
    possibility of peacekeeping deployment. He said that it would not
    have hurt to know what the Rada thought on the matter before making
    statements like that.

    Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh took the offer of Ukrainian peacekeepers
    without enthusiasm. Masis Mailjan, Deputy Foreign Minister of
    Nagorno-Karabakh, said that it was not time yet to talk of
    peacekeepers. Mailjan is convinced that the truce on the
    Azerbaijani-Karabakh front this last 11 years has been maintained
    only through preservation of parity. The diplomat added that the
    composition of peacekeepers must be run by all involved parties
    including Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, in any case.
    "According to the decision of the 1994 OSCE Budapest summit,
    deployment of international peacekeeping contingent in the Karabakh
    conflict area requires a political agreement signed by all warring
    sides," he said.

    Foreign Minister of Armenia, Vardan Oskanjan, also called Kyiv's
    statement untimely. "It may become necessary when the conflict is
    over, but statements like that are certainly untimely at this point,"
    he said.

    Despite what Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia might be thinking on the
    matter, there is more to the statement on the agreement of all
    involved parties than meets the eye. Ukraine cannot be neutral in the
    Karabakh conflict. It does not even matter that a great deal of
    Ukrainian mercenaries fought on the side of Azerbaijan in the war
    over Nagorno-Karabakh (detachments of mercenaries were formed under
    the aegis of UNA-UNSO or the so called Kyiv Patriarchate). Along with
    everything else, Ukraine was major supplier of arms for Azerbaijan in
    the war. In 1993, official Kyiv confessed to the UN Conventional Arms
    Roster the delivery of 100 tanks and 110 helicopters to Azerbaijan.
    Information on larger quantities of munitions, artillery pieces,
    armored vehicles, aircraft, and spare parts delivered to Azerbaijan
    from Ukraine appeared both before and after that document.

    What with its practically direct involvement in the Karabakh conflict
    in the past, Kyiv's aspirations for the role of peacekeeper in the
    area look certainly quaint. Moreover, Ukraine's ambitions in the
    Caucasus are not even restricted to that. Practically simultaneously
    with the offer of Ukrainian peacekeepers for the Karabakh conflict
    area, Kyiv invited Armenia to join GUAM. Addressing journalists in
    the wake of the meeting of GUAM Parliamentary Assembly in Yalta, Rada
    Chairman, Vladimir Litvin, said that countries like Russia,
    Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Armenia could join the organization in
    future. According to Litvin, every country should aspire for
    membership in international structures for the purpose of advancing
    its interests, provided interests of other countries are taken into
    account too. "This is what processes of globalization demand. Unless
    one is present, others will make decisions for him," Litvin said.

    Oskanjan responded to Litvin's words the following day. Speaking on
    behalf of official Yerevan, he denied any knowledge of offers of this
    sort. "Whenever one joins some organization, he must have faith in
    its principles and goals," Oskanjan said. "GUAM itself as an
    organization is revising its goals and programs at this point..."

    As a matter of fact, Kyiv seems to have succeeded in persuading the
    Armenian authorities at least on one matter. The matter concerns
    transit of Iranian gas via Armenia to Georgia, Ukraine, and on to
    Europe. This is one of the worst problems that mar the
    Russian-Armenian relations at this point. Moscow is doing what it can
    to prevent this turn of events, suggesting that Armenia be content
    with getting Iranian gas exclusively for its own needs.

    In short, all of a sudden Kyiv grew extremely interested in Armenia.
    >>From the political point of view, Ukraine's actions look clumsy. The
    impression is that official Kyiv is trying to elbow its way into some
    niches in the region by driving Russia out. How independent the
    Ukrainian leadership is in the matter is impossible to say. It is
    clear, however, that the statements with far-reaching implications
    are made in haste which is why their effect sort of falls flat. If
    Kyiv's advances to Armenia are clumsy from the political point of
    view, then it can be certainly relied on to be better prepared in the
    sphere of economic relations. Anything to elbow Moscow out.

    ORIGINAL-LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN
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