Armenia Bets on NATO

As part of its expansion into the South Caucasus, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is taking a more active interest in longtime Russian ally Armenia. A visit by NATO Secretary General envoy Robert Simmons last month marked the high point for Armenia's ties with the Western defense alliance, and Yerevan seems eager to maintain the momentum.

Simmons' February 23-24 visit at times appeared a careful balancing act. In statements with Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian, the NATO representative took care to emphasize that stronger relations with NATO should not be cause for concern in Moscow about the country's participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the post-Soviet defense alliance made up of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan and Russia.

"We do not compete in the region, but are building a constructive partnership, including also [with] Russia, which is an active player in CSTO [the Collective Security Treaty Organization]," Simmons told reporters. "Armenia's participation in CSTO does not affect in any way the degree of its relationship with NATO."

To reinforce that line, emphasis was placed on collective initiatives that have included Russian participation or an international focus – in particular, the deployment of Armenian peacekeepers to Kosovo and Iraq as well as contributions made by Yerevan to the US-backed campaign against international terrorism. A group of NATO consultants is scheduled to travel to Armenia to advise the Armenian defense ministry on various defense programs, but details of this assistance have not been released.

Nonetheless, NATO has not been reticent about carving out its own niche in the region. In March 1 testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, NATO Supreme Allied Commander General James Jones stated that the Caucasus has become a strategically important region for the alliance.

"The Caucasus is increasingly important to our interests. Its air corridor has become a crucial lifeline between coalition forces in Afghanistan and our bases in Europe", said Jones. "In addition to maintaining our traditional lines of communication and access, we seek access to new facilities and routine freedom of transit to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Levant, and Africa in order to advance U.S. national interests."

As part of that initiative, NATO signed a transit agreement with Georgia on March 2 that would allow the alliance to ferry supplies for its International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan via Georgian air space, roads and railways.

Over the past year, Armenia has been actively developing its own cooperation with the collective, too. In November 2004, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer paid an official visit to Yerevan in which he described NATO's relationship with Armenia as "developing very well, indeed." The government has turned a deaf ear to public protests about the deployment of peacekeeping troops to Iraq, and is currently at work on an Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), reportedly scheduled for release soon, that would form a crucial first step toward eventual NATO membership. In September 2004 President Robert Kocharian appointed veteran diplomat Samvel Mkrtchian to act as the country's representative to NATO headquarters in Brussels, a position previously filled by Armenia's Belgian ambassador.

But more than a desire to stay on the right side of the West – a rising influence in the Caucasus -- could drive Armenia's NATO interest. A December 2004 poll by the Armenian Center for National and International Studies showed that most Armenians favor membership in both NATO and the expanding European Union. [For additional information, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. One opposition bloc – made up of the Liberal Progressive Party, the Republic Party and former Foreign Affairs Minister Raffi Hovannisian – has already been formed with the express intention of securing Armenia's exit from the CTSO in favor of NATO and strengthening Armenia's focus on the West.

Commenting on the results of Simmons' visit, Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian emphasized that further cooperation with the defense collective is in the works. "I'd like to once again state that we are going to keep up the adopted direction and develop our ties," he stressed.

That cooperation, however, has not been without its stumbling blocks. In June 2004, President Robert Kocharian refused to attend a NATO summit meeting in Istanbul, citing strained relations with Turkey, a NATO member state with which Armenia's dealings have long been acrimonious. Nor have ties with fellow Partnership for Peace member Azerbaijan proven particularly collegial. Much attention continues to focus on an Azerbaijani military officer's brutal axe murder of an Armenian counterpart at a February 2004 Partnership for Peace training session in Budapest. Fearing for their security, two Armenian parliamentarians did not attend a November 2004 NATO seminar in Baku.

Armenia's dispute with Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh perhaps poses one of the largest obstacles to further NATO cooperation, government officials say. "If we didn't have an unsettled conflict, we would have more opportunities to participate in such programs," the defense ministry's press service quoted Sarkisian as saying.

If meant as a diplomatic hint for NATO assistance with Nagorno-Karabakh, however, the statement failed to secure a desirable response. Simmons categorically rejected the notion that NATO might dispatch peacekeeping troops to Nagorno-Karabakh in a bid to end that conflict. "NATO does not directly participate in conflict resolution and doesn't discuss the issue of locating its peacekeeping forces in the region."