CAUCASUS SUMMIT CEMENTS COOPERATION AMONG TURKEY, AZERBAIJAN AND GEORGIA
Mevlut Katik: 5/03/02

One week after the five-nation Caspian Summit of April 23 produced no agreement on dividing the Caspian Sea’s resources among the five states bordering it, the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey met in the Turkish Black Sea town of Trabzon for what was called a "Caucasus summit."

After two days of talks, Presidents Heidar Aliyev, Eduard Shevardnadze and Ahmet Necdet Sezer signed a series of cooperation agreements on oil pipeline security, terrorism, and the fight against organized crime, including drug smuggling and illegal weapons trafficking. These agreements may indicate new patterns of friendship among the countries. Turkish President Sezer said at the opening of the summit that "new conditions after the September 11 terrorist attacks have made it necessary for the three countries to take common action."

Those friendships have been developing fast since the independence of Georgia and Azerbaijan in 1991. Due to historic and cultural ties, Turkey is Azerbaijan’s closest ally and supports Baku militarily. Turkish fighters flew over Baku soon after Iran chased off a BP research vessel in a disputed oil field last July [for more information, see the Eurasia Insight archive], and some Turkish officials were quoted during the incident as saying that Turkey would support Azerbaijan militarily if Baku attacked. Georgian President Shevardnadze said in 2001 that his country would rather form the northern end of a security axis starting in Turkey than be the southern extension of a Russian-led axis, a statement which irritated Moscow.

Shevardnadze said that he hoped that the Trabzon agreements would lay a solid foundation for Georgia’s strategic security. However, elements of the summit will provoke or annoy Armenia and Russia, the other Caucasus states. Azerbaijani President Aliyev told reporters in Baku upon his return from the summit that Turkey would not open its borders with Armenia before all Armenian forces are withdrawn from "occupied territories" and that he discussed his country’s dispute with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh issue with the Turkish President. The foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey will all attend the same NATO meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland in May, further distancing them from Russia.

Russia may feel annoyed at another element of the Trabzon agreements. The countries affirmed sectional responsibility for the security of the proposed $2.8 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, but agreed to cooperate with each other if any security problem were to arise. Russia would not benefit from the development of the pipeline, which would bypass it entirely. Washington has expressed support for the pipeline.

The summit implements a Washington-backed Turkish foreign policy that aims to institutionalize cooperation between countries that view regional and international developments similarly. The initiative follows the late Turkish President Suleyman Demirel’s "Caucasus Stability Pact" initiative endorsed by Azerbaijan and Georgia at another meeting in Trabzon in April of 1998.

Perhaps leery of angering Russia, Sezer dismissed the idea that the Trabzon agreement formed a new coalition. He described the agreements as a blueprint by which "to search for security and cooperation among the three countries…not against any country, but open to every country."

Participants said they expect to hold the next meeting in Tbilisi and open it to other countries. "There may be more participants, that is other states," said Shevardnadze, without naming prospects. However, a Georgian oil official expressed the optimistic notion that Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and even Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania – the countries he said are interested in oil production, transit or import – might join the talks.

Participants’ interior ministers signed an agreement to cooperate against organized crime and coordinate the fight against terrorism, drug smuggling and money laundering. Georgian interior minister Koba Narchemashvili called it one of the most important agreements signed recently in terms of security in the region.

Aliyev, while also batting away talk of a coalition, described the three countries as a strategically crucial "east-west corridor" (presumably for oil and gas, as well as trade) and the Trabzon agreements as the foundation for its security. The Turkish military’s Chief of Staff already runs occasional small-scale joint exercises with the Georgian army to train them on pipeline security.

Georgian foreign minister Irakli Menagharishvili said that the Trabzon agreement can only enhance stability in the region and thus everyone should welcome it. This sort of message could reassure pipeline investors and potential trading partners shaken by the American troops and general lawlessness in Georgia. However, Russia, Armenia and Iran will no doubt keep a cautious eye on the three countries’ relations going forward.

Editor’s Note: Mevlut Katik is a London-based journalist and analyst. He is a former BBC correspondent and also worked for The Economist group.

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Posted May 3, 2002 © Eurasianet
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