Analytical Articles

BACKGROUND: Today Armenia stands at a major crossroads between a politics based on war and a politics based on peace. Numerous observers have noted that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, and indeed the constituency that supports the war over that province and its annexation to Armenia, has hijacked Armenian politics. Yet at the same time even presidents who come to power from that constituency and with its support, like the current president, Robert Kocharian, come to see the issue in a different perspective.  Those leaders realize that continued war prevents economic progress, improved relations with the West and any significant gains from the forthcoming silk road and overall integration of the Caucasus with the European economy. An insistence on holding onto Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Armenia plus other territories seized from Azerbaijan also ensures Armenia's militarization, insecurity, and most of all dependence upon Russia.  The recent American initiative to bring the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan together in Key West apparently made real progress and thus opens up possibilities for peace that confront Armenia with the choice of a more diversified security policy based on reconciliation with Turkey, integration with the West, and a less militarized domestic policy or continuing isolation from Turkey and the West, dependence upon an impoverished Russia, and a continuing reliance upon military conquest.

The first visit to Dushanbe by General Tommy Franks, the head of the US Central Command, and a US$430 million pledge by the Consultative Group for Tajikistan spread over two years constitute the first major recognition by the international community of the need to bolster Tajikistan as it faces renewed threats to its stability and a worsening economic crisis. The country is threatened by economic recession, drought, the activities of the IMU on its territory, drug trafficking, and the Afghan war, which threaten to unsettle the fragile peace in the country.

Central Asia is in danger of becoming a permanent war zone.  Numerous reports, ranging from German intelligence to foreign journalistic and internal governmental assessments converge around the point that conflicts, presumably triggered by the IMU, will once again embroil Central Asia.  We can also see the rising likelihood of war in Russia’s and Central Asian states’ publicly announced increases in defense spending and the maneuvers, exercises, and activities of these armed forces, either singly or in various bilateral or multilateral combinations.  Moreover,the multilateral CIS exercises led by Russia are becoming more comprehensive and larger as is Russia’s previous commitment to earmark 50,000 troops for its Southern frontier by 2003.  Should conflict break out soon it would be the third straight year of such conflicts; nor can we discount the possibility of Tajikistan’s frail peace breaking down. Given the extent of domestic unrest throughout Central Asia and of sufficient foreign support to sustain insurgencies,  the danger of long-term war in Central Asia could destabilize it for years to come.

More recently, there has been a clear convergence between the two countries over their policy towards the Taleban regime in Afghanistan. Indeed, Vajpayee signed an important political declaration with the Iranian President Syed Mohammed Khatami that denounced international terrorism ‘in all its forms,’ and the two leaders urged a broad-based government be formed in Afghanistan.  Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar responded by telling India it had a right to be concerned about Afghanistan but no business doing anything about it.

Though the military clashes ceased seven years ago, the political battles in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are as high-pitched as ever. Yet, in a way not dreamed of only a few years ago, Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev and Armenian President Robert Kocharian initiated a direct dialogue to move the situation in the conflict out of the deadlock in which it had been since 1994. The April 3-7 OSCE-led peace talks on the conflict in Key West, Florida brought a further narrowing of differences between the positions of the two presidents. Although no major breakthrough has been announced, the negotiating trio of the US, Russian and French mediators remained cautiously optimistic about chances of a peace agreement to be made after Key West.

The Georgian Government’s and people’s constant thinking of territorial wars, energy crises, undistributed wages, etc. has shifted the issue of the country’s future economic priorities back. No economic plan will be workable until the electricity, budget, corruption and similar problems are eliminated, but setting a clear long-term agenda is necessary. While different multi-million transit projects are being implemented, Georgia is not taking care of what, at a glance, looks obvious: developing its tourism potential, which, by reliable estimates, can generate some $1,5 billion by 2005. 

A confrontation with enormous international consequences is brewing in the heartland of Asia. The two largest underground opposition Islamic movements in Uzbekistan have regional ambitions to overthrow all of the Central Asian regimes and reconstitute the borders of these states in order to recreate an Islamic Turkestan. The leader of Hizb-e Tehrir (HT) or Party of Liberation, believed to be the largest and most popular Islamic movement in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, plans to establish an Islamic Caliphate in the historical region once known as Turkestan.

The ongoing insurgency in southern Central Asia is the outer demonstration of a recent broader developing trend. Central Asia, especially the three southern states of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, are becoming increasingly tied in security matters to the areas to their South and East, that is to Asia. This negates the nearly decade-old paradigm of a 'Turkish-Iranian-Russian triangle' in the geopolitics of the region. Turkey and Iran play only a small role in Central Asian security, but the Central Asia region is becoming part of an emerging security complex centering on Afghanistan. In the new equation, US-Russian collusion in Central Asia signals a break in the confrontation that has marked NATO-Russian relations since the 1999 Kosovo war.

In the first interview of a prominent leader of Central Asia’s largest underground Islamic party, Hizb-e Tahrir, the leader explains the party's philosophy and aims. The party is intensely secretive and the interview was carried out on the basis that his name and the location of the interview would not be revealed.

During the recent elections, foreign observers watched in astonishment as boxes were stuffed with false ballots and opposition politicians were threatened with arrest. Over the past five years, the Azerbaijan parliament has served as a tool of President Aliev’s government. Parliamentary inquiries into the nation’s socio-political problems, corruption, oil contracts, and Nagorno-Karabakh have largely been ignored or treated as an attempt to destabilize the country. Akaev’s ruling party claimed during the November 2000 parliamentary elections that the country was enjoying peace and prosperity and thus deserved to lead the country into 21st century. Opposition parties have refused to participate in the new parliament and will work together to nullify the election results and hold new parliamentary elections.