By Erik Davtyan (08/14/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On August 10, a trilateral meeting took place between the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. After the Kazan meeting in 2011, this was the first such meeting hosted by a Russian president. On August 8, Presidents Sargsyan and Aliyev had both paid a working visit to Sochi in order to discuss a wide range of issues, concerning Armenian-Russian and Azerbaijani-Russian relations respectively. Since both parties had expressed their willingness to hold a trilateral meeting, their official visits to Sochi presented a good opportunity for the dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The last meeting of the two presidents took place on November 19, 2013, in Vienna and was conducted with the participation of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.

The meeting focused on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the recent clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the line of contact. While the working visit also pursued some other important issues (e.g. Armenian-Russian relations), the concerns among Armenia’s population over the events on the borderline and the possibility of a state-level discussion of that situation became the main point of interest during the trilateral meeting. Many Armenians attached great importance to the Sochi meeting due to the tense situation on the line of contact, which has since early August caused the deaths of over 20 soldiers. The recent skirmishes were the bloodiest fighting in two decades, and the proceedings at Sochi were therefore followed closely in Armenia.

In the first week of August, the developing situation on the frontline raised concerns among the Armenian public, fearing a possible escalation of the conflict. While clashes on the line of contact have occurred from time to time in past years, the massive breach of the cease-fire for a relatively long period of time, and the everyday news on the tense situation triggered perceptions that a return to large-scale military operations could be imminent. The death of 18 20-year-old soldiers in a week raised deep concerns among almost all Armenians, in Armenia as well as in the diaspora.

On August 7, President Aliyev’s military rhetoric on Twitter raised additional concerns in Armenia. Aliyev stated that Azerbaijanis “have beaten the Armenians on the political and economic fronts,” hence they “are able to defeat them on the battlefield.” These statements, which were actually made on the level of president, where received with a deep anger among Armenia’s population.

Both the borderline situation and Aliyev’s statements received reactions from Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and were widely covered in Armenian mass media. Moreover, the international reactions to the events served to further underline the seriousness of the situation. The U.S. Department of State and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs both expressed their stances towards the situation on the line of contact, which was one of the rare cases when the co-chairing states expressed their opinion not on the level of co-chairs, but foreign offices.

Russia’s mediation attempt was largely in line with the expectations of the Armenian public. Hence, most Armenians welcomed the chance for a meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents. Despite the fact that Armenian society has an ambiguous attitude towards Russia and its relationship with Armenia, there was a relative unanimity towards the necessity of the Sochi meeting. Russia is considered to be Armenia’s strategic partner, and to secure part of Armenia’s state borders. Besides, Russia is one of the three members of the OSCE Minsk Group, as well as Armenia’s most significant arms supplier.

As the working visits of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents started on August 8, some Armenian experts are inclined to link that circumstance with the 6th anniversary of the August war between Russia and Georgia, thereby implying that there is an indirect message to Georgia’s neighboring states, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, the Sochi meeting drew the attention of Armenia’s population primarily due to its consequences for the acute situation on the frontline, rather than the prospects for approaching solutions to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict itself. Therefore, this meeting, followed by a 10-month pause, largely satisfied the expectations of the Armenian public.

By Eka Janashia (08/05/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst) 

The Investigation Service of Georgia’s Ministry of Finance detained Gigi Ugulava, a former mayor of Tbilisi and election campaign chief of the opposition party United National Movement (UNM), at Tbilisi’s airport before boarding a flight to Kiev, on July 3. Ugulava’s arrest sparked apprehension ahead of the decisive second round of the local elections held on July 12.

On July 2, the Tbilisi City Court turned down the prosecution’s motion to prevent Ugulava from traveling to Ukraine by depriving him of his passport and ID card. Since Ugulava has traveled abroad several times and returned back to Georgia for the last two years, the court found it inadvisable to ban his trip. However, the Investigation Service justified the arrest with the “urgent need” to interrogate Ugulava.

Two days earlier, the Investigation Service revealed new criminal charges against Ugulava related to the misspending of public funds and abuse of authority during his term as mayor. In 2009 and 2011, Ugulava allegedly granted preferential treatment to the car parking company CT Park in the distribution of revenues garnered through fines that incurred misspending of around US$ 614,000 in budgetary funds.

After the arrest, Ugulava was incriminated with additional accusations of money laundering and hooliganism taking place at the Marneuli District Election Commission in early June.

Ugulava has purportedly received “black” money amounting to US$ 760,000 from an offshore registered company affiliated with the former Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili to fund UNM’s election campaign. In relation to the Marneuli incident, Ugulava was charged under articles 150 and 226 of the criminal code dealing with “coercion” and “organizing actions by a group which violate public order.”

Aside from the most recent indictments, Ugulava has already faced multiple criminal charges since February 2013. The allegations involve misspending and embezzlement of large amounts of public funds (around US$ 28.2 million) in 2011-2012. Although the court suspended Ugulava from the Tbilisi mayor’s office in 2013, it declined the prosecution’s motion for Ugulava’s pre-trial detention and freed him on bail. It was only on July 4, 2014 that the Tbilisi City Court eventually ruled in favor of the prosecution’s request and ordered pre-trial custody for Ugulava.

The court’s decision boosted the protests of UNM supporters rallying outside the court building. The dissent rapidly turned into a clash between police and activists. Several people were detained, including UNM lawmaker Levan Bezhashvili and former ambassador to Italy Kote Gabashvili for the administrative offense of petty hooliganism and disobeying police orders.

Ugulava’s defense lawyer appealed the decision at the Court of Appeals but the judge Giorgi Mirotadze considered the petition as irrelevant. UNM insisted that by this decision, Mirotadze, who became a judge in November 2013, approved to become one of the government’s favorite judges emerging within the judiciary since Georgian Dream came into power. Former PM David Bakradze said the UNM intends to submit Ugulava’s case to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights.

The U.S. ambassador to Georgia, Richard Norland, as well as the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said they are deeply concerned with Ugulava’s arrest and will follow the case closely. Their concerns were particularly raised due to the cancelation of a moratorium declared by PM Irakli Garibashvili on April 14, when Garibashvili called on the law enforcement agencies to refrain from detentions or other sorts of legal restrictions against political figures involved in the election campaign.

The head of the EU Delegation to Georgia, Ambassador Philip Dimitrov, warned that signing the Association Agreement does not mean that “everything else, including the liberalization of the visa regime, should be considered to be guaranteed.” More overtly, the Vice President of the European People’s Party (EPP), Jacek Saryusz-Wolski appraised Ugulava’s arrest as “unfortunate development” and blamed Georgian authorities for “political retribution” conducted against Georgia’s main opposition and EPP member-party.

Conversely, PM Garibashvili assessed the court’s decision as a “celebration of justice” and welcomed the reinforced independence of the judiciary. In response, Ugulava wrote on his Facebook account that “prison and exile do not stop political processes.” At the court hearing he denied all charges against him as politically motivated and expressed his determination to continue the fight against the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvi’s regime.

Ugulava’s detention prior to the second round of the local polls not only discredited the moratorium policy, but also triggered expectations about a new wave of politically inspired prosecutions labeled a “restoration of justice.” Maintaining this sort of policy might seriously damage Georgia’s EU-integration course. 

By Arslan Sabyrbekov (08/05/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On July 10, an exchange of fire on a disputed section of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border reportedly left at least seven border guards from both sides injured. One Tajik citizen died of gunshot wounds at the scene of the incident. The foreign Ministries of the neighboring countries, which generally enjoy good relations, exchanged official notes of protest accusing one another of breaching international law and asking for clarification of the circumstances.

The shootout took place on the outskirts of the Vorukh, an exclave of Tajik territory entirely enclosed within Kyrgyzstan’s southern region of Batken. The Vorukh enclave is a densely populated area with a population of 40,000 residents, mainly of Tajik ethnicity. Kyrgyz residents living around Vorukh have to drive through it to get to different parts of the Batken region.

To avoid this difficulty and the occasional frictions it causes, the Kyrgyz government last January decided to build a new road to bypass the enclave completely. Tajik authorities issued a statement demanding an immediate end to the construction works, saying that the road is being built on a contested territory and complaining that it would allow the Kyrgyz to blockade the Tajik enclave. At that time, the arguments over the road construction led to a one-hour shootout between the sides, leaving two Tajik and five Kyrgyz border guards heavily injured. After the shootout, Bishkek closed its border for almost two months and recalled its ambassador from Dushanbe for consultations.

The July 10 shootout at the border coincided with the upcoming talks between the heads of Border Services of the two countries. According to Kyrgyz official sources, the residents of the Vorukh enclave have purposefully taken unlawful actions to stop the negotiations over the construction of the aforementioned road. The Kyrgyz Border Service made an official statement claiming that around 30 Tajik citizens have tried to build a water pipeline from the territory of Kyrgyzstan (river Karavshin) to the Tajik village of Bedak, in Vorukh enclave. Kyrgyz border guards approached the scene, demanding a halt to the illegal actions after which local Tajiks threw stones at them. The situation escalated further and eventually led to a firefight between the sides.

In its official protest to Bishkek, Dushanbe gave a different description of the situation, claiming that their citizens were installing a water pipeline on the territory of the Vorukh cooperative at around 11.30 on July 10, when Kyrgyz border guards approached them and demanded to stop construction works in an aggressive and insulting manner. Tajik border guards, who were nearby, tried to stop the actions of their Kyrgyz counterparts, who opened fire with automatic firearms, injuring several and killing one civilian.

Indeed, the sides are throwing accusations at one another for starting the conflict, instead of demonstrating political will to resolve the pressing problem. The July 10 shooting is unlikely to be the last and the death of a local Vorukh enclave resident could further exacerbate nationalist feelings.

To prevent further escalation of the conflict between the relatively friendly countries, political analyst at Moskovskiye Novosti Arkady Dubnov suggested that mediation by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) could positively contribute to a peaceful development. In his words “Mr. Bordyuzha, Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, is not a representative of the Russian Federation, but heads an international organization, with both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as its members, and is in a position to talk to both sides and positively contribute to border conflict resolution.”

The proposal seems timely, since the issue of drawing a border cannot easily be resolved by two conflicting sides. Despite the creation of a Joint Border Drawing Commission, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have since 2006 not delimited a single kilometer of their contested border, which currently amounts to 460 kilometers. Negotiations are deadlocked for the simple reason that the Kyrgyz side refers to maps from the 1950s and the Tajik side to maps from the 1920s. Thus, continued negotiations along these lines are simply unproductive.

Additionally, with Kyrgyzstan joining the Russia-led Customs Union, drawing concrete state borders with its neighbors is one of the many priority tasks for Bishkek to address.

The author wrote this article in his personal capacity. The views expressed are his own and do not represent those of the organization for which the author works.