Ghia Nodia, a professor and advocate of democratization in the Caucasus, has said the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform, created by Turkey following the brief war between Georgia and Russia, should include Western institutions to be successful.
“From the Georgian perspective, the main thing is security from Russia, and it can only come from the US, NATO and the EU, which have some weight with Russia. Any moves to weaken NATO or EU influence in the region is considered bad for Georgia,” he said, speaking with Monday Talk for Today’s Zaman.
He added that Georgian experts think the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform is too general.
“We have had lots of initiatives for the South Caucasus dialogue, but we know that it never works because Armenians and Azeris start to quarrel over Karabakh, and Georgians just listen. Dialogue should be about achieving results, not just talking.”
Under Turkey’s initiative, the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform will have its fourth meeting in September with technical experts from Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkish officials have maintained that the platform will facilitate the resolution of frozen conflicts in the region, including Nagorno-Karabakh. The initiative was welcomed by Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia. Georgia later participated, even though it had initial reservations about being at the same table as Russia.
The Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, had claimed that Russian tanks advanced into South Ossetia on the evening of Aug. 7. While some experts say Russia’s invasion of Georgia had been planned in advance, others say the Russian army did not enter South Ossetia until Aug. 8. In the meantime, Russia has repeatedly accused Washington of fueling the conflict with its military support for Georgia. The question of which side started the war has always been hotly debated.
For Monday Talk, Professor Nodia elaborates on the topic. Monday Talk spoke with the professor when he came to “stanbul to participate in the Turkey-Georgia Relations Workshop organized by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) from July 22 to 24.
What is the political situation in Georgia one year after the war?
We have had internal political tensions which have not been directly linked to the war. First of all there is a general legitimacy problem within the political institutions. The opposition did not accept the results of the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008, so a part of the opposition does not recognize Saakashvili as the legitimate president. Some of the opposition refused to enter the parliament. Those problems were there before the war.
What has the war changed in Georgia?
The war had an impact in two ways. One thing was that immediately after the war it was considered unpatriotic to be active against the government because Russia obviously wanted to replace Saakashvili. Oppositional activities were suspended. But on the other hand, Saakashvili has lost some support from the West because of the war, and that has given the opposition an argument to force Saakashvili to resign, so the opposition resumed demonstrations in March demanding his resignation.
Do you think it will happen?
No. The assumption was that Saakashvili would respond in a violent manner and his support from the West would erode further. But Saakashvili responded in a calm and moderate way, so the West did not support the opposition and eventually the opposition lost the support of the public. They are divided and there are more than 10 parties forming the opposition. As a result, they stopped protests.
How do you think the Europeans view Saakashvili in relation to the war?
He was criticized by the West a lot. He was more criticized in Western Europe, where he is seen as too
Does Saakashvili think that he made some mistakes?
I don’t think he thinks he made grave mistakes. Some Georgian moves were not good, but Georgia was forced to do them. They did not have any other options. Georgia did not like attacking South Ossetia, but it was self-defense against Russia. That is how the Georgian government sees it, but there was a miscalculation. Before the war, there was some hope that Russia would not enter the war so openly and directly and occupy places outside South Ossetia. That was not expected. We saw Russia’s readiness to go to war with Georgia. Russia asserted itself militarily.
Is there a possibility for a similar conflict?
In this war Russia was successful in creating this perception: Georgia started the war, Russia intervened later but overreacted. But if Russia attacks Georgia again, it will be an open aggression against Georgia without this kind of pretext. The presence of the European observers in Georgia is important because Russia cannot blame any provocations on Georgians.
How long are the European observers going to be there?
I don’t know about their mandate. Americans are expected to join them, and even Turkish observers. Now everybody understands that some threat — it may not be at a high level at the moment — of Russian aggression is there. The observers are very important so as not to allow the Russians to invent some kind of pretext for invasion.
Does the Georgian political establishment still favor Georgia’s membership in NATO?
Yes, absolutely. The Saakashvili government never had doubts about that. But some of the opposition has expressed some doubt. For example, the Labor Party supports Georgian neutrality, but it is a small party. Recently, radical opposition parties came together and signed a memorandum on their values. In the memorandum they included their support for Georgia’s NATO membership. The parliamentary opposition also supports NATO membership. So a large majority of the political establishment continues to support Georgia’s NATO membership. That’s the best available guarantee against Russian threat.
But at the same time isn’t it a further aggravating factor, considering Russia?
No, because even before Georgia’s official application to [join] NATO, we had bad relations with Russia. The main thing is that Russia wants to dominate Georgia because Georgia is the gateway to the Caucasus. Russia would like Georgia only as its satellite state.
“Turkey has strong image in Georgia”In the last year Georgia has been nervous about Turkey’s moves and intentions. How much of this uneasiness still continues today?
Since the independence of Georgia, relations with Turkey have been excellent. Not only the Georgian political establishment but the general public also considers Turkey an important ally. We have a lot of joint projects, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Turkey has a stable, strong image in Georgia. Against that image, there was some disappointment during the war. The Georgian public expected Turkey’s support, but although Turkey did not do anything particularly anti-Georgian, it was not clearly supportive of Georgia, either. And the decision to suspend the passage of the American ships through the Bosporus and Turkish Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdo“an’s visit to Moscow created some uneasiness. But Georgia recognizes that all countries have their own interests. Georgians did not expect that the whole world would become the enemy of Russia because of the Georgian-Russian conflict.
How does Georgia approach the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform set up after the war?
Georgian experts do not attach great importance to the platform because it is too general and there is no specific substance attached to it so far. Initially, there were some suspicions that the platform implied some kind of exclusion of NATO and the European Union from the region. The Georgian public does not know much about it, but the Georgian experts and the political community want to know what it really means.
The Turkish side apparently is of the idea that the conflict needs to be addressed regionally first and that building trust at the regional level is a must. Does the Georgian side think it is absolutely necessary to include the US and/or the EU to do that?
In practice, yes, because dialogue is a nice word and everybody is for it. But we need to now what it means specifically. We have had lots of initiatives for the South Caucasus dialogue, but we know that it never works because Armenians and Azeris start to quarrel over Karabakh and Georgians just listen. Dialogue should be about achieving results, not just talking. From the Georgian perspective, the main thing is security from Russia and it can only come from the US, NATO and the EU, which have some weight with Russia. Any moves to weaken NATO or EU influence in the region are considered bad for Georgia.
What does Georgia really expect from Turkey, then?
Georgia expects a lot from Turkey. We have a lot of energy and other projects.
I mean in political terms?
Turkey is a NATO member.
Any intermediary roles?
An intermediary role between Russia and Georgia would not be of any interest.
Why not?
It would not be practical because Russia would not accept it. Russia would not see Turkey as a great enough power. In addition, a Turkey less oriented toward the West would be in Russian interests. When it comes to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, one could think of an intermediary role for Turkey, but then Georgia would be concerned about the Russian involvement, and in that case Turkey’s intermediary role would have to go through Russia. Then Turkey would be concerned about not annoying Russia because anything you do with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which is de facto Russian territory, would be a challenge to Russia. So Georgia does not expect Turkey to take that role.
What about Abkhaz and Circassian diasporas in Turkey?
Georgia is interested in having better relations with them. In that sense, Turkey can play a role, and that would be very welcomed.
Turkey-Armenia rapprochement and Georgia’s reaction
“Officially, Georgia will never object to Turkish-Armenian relations in any way. But this is my expert opinion: Georgia has a monopoly over transit routes from Azerbaijan to Turkey. If Armenian-Turkish relations improve, Georgia would lose that monopoly; economically, that is not so desirable. However, there are already pipelines built and agreements signed, so I don’t expect a dramatic change in that regard. But there will be some negative impacts on the economy considering that the transit routes of trucks currently pass through Georgia,” Professor Ghia Nodia said. “There are also fears that the Armenian diaspora groups living in Georgia will become extremely nationalistic, similar to the Dashnaks [the Armenian Revolutionary Federation [ARF] because Armenia will be less dependent on Georgia.” “On the other hand, there are also pluses in the sense that the Armenian dependence on Russia will reduce. Now Armenia has no other strategic partner but Russia. It has an overdependence on Russia militarily. Armenia has this mentality of being squeezed between enemies. If Armenia does not see Turkey as an enemy, that will be a big change in the Armenian psyche. Then tensions will diminish as Russia will have less leverage in the region,” he said. “The visit of Saakashvili to Yerevan was quite notable. He was lavishly received, and Russia considers that a kind of offense. Russia is quite displeased with this demonstration of friendship by Armenia so personally to Saakashvili.”
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