Russia’s attempts to have the key role in giving the valley lands of Karabakh were failed, after which the US and France got the right to “take the blankets on” and initiate new actions to tackle the issue of Karabakh conflict.
Meantime, the US is not interested in being too much active in this process. The main problem of the US has been solved and Russia has appeared in a secondary role. As for the US, they have a new task and they are busy with working out a new logistic scheme from the Black Sea to China. France has all the opportunities to act as a neutral power in South Caucasus by representing the European Union in addition to it. However, the problem is not the conflict of Karabakh. Europe tends to be present in the region as more influential power and make efforts to work out the main political and geo-economic tasks in the region. I the meantime, France believes that it is time to change the logics and content of the civic and political approaches of the West in South Caucasus, which means that they want to neutralize the policies and positions of the countries in the region. Status-quo is the basement of Sarkozy’s project, which means that the final goal is not the settlement of conflicts but provision of security.
The US and Russia cannot support this process because in fact they are interested in keeping the balance of their powers in the region. For Russia the role of France in that is very important because it gives some hope to the US that there will not be armed conflict in the region. For that reason there is no sense to think of cooperation between France and the US in this context in the region. Certainly Russia will closely follow the policy of France in the region but in some context this policy is in the interests of Russia.
In the meantime there is a component in the policy of France, which shows that France has certain geo-economic and geopolitical expectations from the region. Armenia is accepted by France with the same aspect as for US as a factor to resist the regional expansion of Turkey in consideration of the synthetic role of Armenia not only in relation to Turkey but the Europe as well. The US and France do not have detailed agreement to resist the expansion of Turkey but there must be something and common interests between these two western countries concerning Turkey. The problem is not the agreement or common interests but the independent policy of France to resist Turkey and for the policy of France the role of Armenia is a complex of tools towards Turkey. For this reason Armenia must rethink its role in this long-term process and try to get support in different sectors, including the sectors of defense and security because this role in fact does not bring to security in the region. This concerns economic issues as well. For example, is it realistic to transport gas from Iranian sources to Europe through the territories of Armenia, Georgia and the Black sea? The question is whether France understands and is reality to make efforts for this purpose or puts a part of that responsibility on Russia.
Igor Muradyan
lragir.am