Armenia, Georgia & Europe

Armenia, Georgia & Europe

From Oneworld Multimedia:

RFE/RL reports that the Georgian Prime Minister has reassured Armenia about plans to build a railway that runs from Turkey to Georgia, bypassing Armenia. Zurab Noghaideli gave these reassurances while visiting Armenia.

Noghaideli said that while pressing ahead with the $400 million projects implementation, Tbilisi will try to convince Ankara to reactivate the currently sole railway linking Turkey to Armenia and the rest of the South Caucasus.

Georgia will certainly take part in all economic projects that are beneficial for Georgia, Noghaideli said after a meeting in Yerevan of the Georgian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation. At the same time, we will do our best to contribute to the development of alternative transport routes for Armenia and the reactivation of the Kars-Gyumri railway in particular. But as you can understand, that does not depends only on us.

Armenia fears that the planned Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars rail link will dash its hopes to become a regional transport hub after a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the normalization of its relations with Turkey. An Armenian government statement said Prime Minister Markarian raised the issue during a t�te-�-t�te meeting with Noghaideli which was followed by a session of the bilateral commission. But it gave no details.

Its interesting to note that under Saakashvili, Armenian relations with Georgia have never been better. In fact, not only did

tens of thousands of Armenians take their holidays in Georgia this year but it would appear that Saakashvili is now spearheading the process of economic integration in the region. In return, Yerevan is even quiet about calls for autonomy from Armenians living in Georgias Samtshke-Javakheti region.

Official Yerevan has never backed the Javakheti Armenians demands for autonomy, offering instead to help to alleviate the regions problems. Noghaideli and Markarian toured Javakheti in July, pledging joint efforts to improve the difficult socioeconomic situation there.

In particular, the administration of President Mikhail Saakashvili has pledged to invest a large part of additional multimillion-dollar assistance provided to Georgia by the United States in the local infrastructure. Saakashvili has also said that local farmers will be the primary suppliers of agricultural produce to the Georgian army.

Meanwhile, the European Union has announced that it will start negotiations with Armenia which will afford the small republic privileged ties with the bloc. The talks should have started earlier, according to Heikki Talvitie, the EUs special representative to the South Caucasus, but were delayed because of a dispute between Azerbaijan and one EU country.

Talvitie, in Yerevan on yet another tour of the region, explained that the Azerbaijani-Cypriot dispute has affected Armenia and Georgia because the EU wanted to show a balanced approach and start the ENP talks with the three South Caucasus states simultaneously. We have one month settle the problem and start consultations simultaneously with the three countries, he said. If we fail to resolve it, we will start consultations with those countries that are ready [for the process].

[]

The plan is expected to be based on a report which was released by the EUs executive European Commission in March. The 30-page document calls for democratic elections, the rule of law, respect for human rights, anti-corruption measures as well as further economic reforms in Armenia.

[]

Speaking at a joint news conference with Oskanian, Talvitie reaffirmed EU support for Kocharians package of amendments to the Armenian constitution which is due to be put to a referendum in November. We do not want to take part in your referendum, but we support these changes and think they would be a very serious tool in the hands of both the government and the opposition, he said.

The unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was also on the agenda of the talks. Talvitie arrived in Yerevan from Baku where he discussed the issue with Azerbaijani leaders. The envoy urged the conflicting parties to build on progress in the peace process made over the past year.

At the same time, the Foreign Minister has welcomed a resolution from the European Parliament for Turkey to recognize the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians as Genocide.

We assess that resolution positively and consider it natural, said Oskanian. If Turkey wants to be a member of the European Union, it must behave like an EU country. That means it must have open borders with Armenia and openly confront its past and accept what happened in 1915.

So there you go. Lots of activity in the South Caucasus these days, and the process of European and regional integration appear to making ground. Whether the end objective is ever reached is another matter. Of course, it may just take a lot of time.

From Oneworld Multimedia (feed)
See also links to this feed and more from this feed