1 April, 2014, ISET Economist's special correspondent in Geneva. The ISET Economist was invited to attend the signing ceremony concluding the last round of trilateral negotiations held in Geneva under the joint sponsorship of the Swiss Confederation, the US, Russia and Turkey. The three countries, represented by heads of states, agreed to join the newly created Transcaucasian Confederation and thus bring peace and a promise of prosperity to a deeply divided region that has provided the setting for yet another round in the Great Game – the battle between Russia and Western powers for political and ideological hegemony in Central Asia and South Caucasus; control over strategic trade routes (the traditional Silk Road); and access to the vast natural resources of the Caspian basin.
The agreement, carrying the signatures of Ilham Aliev, Serge Sarksyan and Irakli Gharibashvili, charts the political and economic contours of the future Transcaucasian Confederation (TC). It also envisions a series of shorter-term confidence-building measures seeking to dissolve existing political tensions, open borders, and normalize economic and cultural relations between the three neighboring nations.
The agreement consists of ten points outlining the main principles of the future economic, social and political arrangements:
- Political arrangements.
- Territorial conflicts. Currently disputed territories, such as Nagorno-Karabakh, will be assigned the status of autonomous tax free zones exempting their residents (legal and physical persons) from any taxes levied by the Armenian, Azeri and Georgian cantons. A similar status will be granted to South Ossetia and Abkhazia should they decide to join TC at a later time.
- Borders. The parties agree to eliminate state borders and any other internal barriers to the movement of goods, physical persons and capital on the territory of the newly formed Transcaucasian Confederation (TC). Follow up negotiations with South Ossetia and Abkhazia will be conducted in Moscow and Istanbul to agree on a set of confidence-building measures such as direct dialog and the resumption of trade, transport and tourism linkages, eventually leading to the elimination of borders between TC and these territories.
- Modeled after the Swiss Confederation, TC will be governed by the Federal Council, serving as collective Head of State. It will be a collegial body of 7 members (three representing Azerbaijan and two the Georgian and Armenian cantons, each). As a compromise between Georgia and Azerbaijan, membership in the Federal Council will be limited to three consecutive terms, candidates must have attained the age of forty to be elected, and would not be allowed to serve past the age of 65.
- The President of the Confederation will be elected by the Federal Assembly from among the seven members, in rotation and for a one-year term; the President chairs the government and assumes representative functions. However, the President will be a primus inter pares with no additional powers.
- TC Parliament will consist of two houses: the Senate with equal representation for each canton and autonomous region; and Congress elected under a system of proportional representation. When both houses are in joint session, they will be known collectively as the Federal Assembly.
- Neutrality. TC will adhere to the principles of military and political neutrality and will not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union, the Eurasian Union or any other military or political bloc.
- International trade and transit. TC will simultaneously seek deep and comprehensive trade liberalization agreements with the EU, the Eurasian Union, Turkey, Iran, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries. Punitive transit fees will be applied on goods originating in countries imposing tariff and non-tariff restrictions on trade with TC.
- Collective investment in and, ownership of, rail and road transport, pipelines and electricity transmission infrastructure. The parties recognize the vast opportunity for TC in restoring the role of the traditional Silk Road route linking Central Asia to the Black Sea and Europe, on the one hand, and forging North-South transport, trade and energy links between Russia and Turkey, on the other. To expedite the necessary investment in transport, pipeline and electricity transmission infrastructure, the parties agree to the principle of joint investment, collective ownership, building, and operation of all existing infrastructure.
- Capping military spending and promoting inclusive growth. The creation of TC brings to an end a series of frozen conflicts undermining regional security, threatening investors’ property rights and slowing down economic development. In recognition of the above and to address pressing social challenges, the parties agree to cap military expenditures at 3% of TC’s combined gross domestic product (GDP). An aggressive “military conversion” plan will be implemented over the next five years (until 2019) to retrain former military personnel for suitable civic occupations (e.g. drivers of tanks and armored vehicles will be trained in the operation of tractors and other types of heavy agricultural and construction machinery). Every dollar saved in military expenditures will be used to promote inclusive growth and reduce inequality.
- Economic specialization. TC will promote regional specialization corresponding to the natural comparative advantages of its constituent parts. The Azerbaijani canton will mainly specialize in agriculture and fuel production; TC’s manufacturing base will be established in the Armenian canton. The Georgian canton will be tasked with maintaining law &order and hospitality services. The parties realize the risk of picking the wrong specializations such as making Armenians responsible for fuel production; leaving law and order in the Azeri hands; and/or counting on Georgian males to man assembly lines.
- The teaching of history. To stop arguing whose ancestors were the first to populate this or that hill, whose poetry had greater impact on the world literature, and which nation was the first to adopt a monotheistic religion, the parties agree to a joint rewriting of regional history textbooks. In particular, the most important technological and cultural achievements will be randomly assigned to prominent historical figures representing the various ethnic groups populating the region since times immemorial. As a gesture of good will, Georgia agrees to rename “Homo Erectus Georgicus” to “Homo Erectus Caucasicus”. Conversely, all great follies and attempts at ethnic cleansing will be non-randomly assigned to villains of unclear ethnic descent who shall be branded as “ultra-nationalist fascists” and demonized.
- Official languages, anthem, and national symbols. The three cantons will pull their resources to construct the world’s largest Alphabet Tower featuring all three national alphabets at the intersection of the three national state borders. The three main languages of the region will be given the status of state languages and will be taught in all cantons. Nomination to any civil service position will be conditioned on Google Translate-assisted fluency in all three languages. TC’s anthem will include three verses, one in each language, to be performed in a randomly assigned order. The anthem will have as its general theme a famous aphorism by Aristotle: “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.
Speaking to journalists after the signing ceremony held at Geneva’s Grand Kempinski hotel, the three leaders explained that the breakthrough in negotiations (which have been slowly progressing behind the scenes since November 2012) was triggered by the recent crisis in Ukraine. The political and military confrontation in Ukraine provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for countries along the Caucasus Transport Corridor (CTC) to attract investment and compete with alternative trade routes via Ukrainian and Russian ports on the Black Sea and via the Baltic ports and Russia to Central Asia. The only way to act on this opportunity was to make peace. “And since peace was blocked by disagreement about (arbitrary) border lines we had to think out of the box and eliminate the root cause of the conflict – the borders”, concluded Ilham Aliev.
Comments
no jokes?
History repeats itself. No one takes lessons from it. When the same confederation was created in 1917-1918 it had life of less than a year. If it were to solve the problems in the region it would do even before. Everyone knows what happened after the collapse of Soviet Union, wars all around the region. Thus referring to what Ilham Aliev "concluded", I want to point out that it does not eliminate the root cause of the conflict, it just passes the conflict to the next generations.
So, what will happen after the dissolution of that Confederation? That is what everyone need to think about.
P.S. I completely agree with the economic advantages of TC.
Dear Narek, if/when TC is formed (and then dissolved), we shall all become citizens of the world, Insha'Allah!!! On a more serious note, I strongly believe that in the long run (but before we are all dead :-)), borders will not have much significance. Just like they have no significance in today's Europe. This pretty much drives my thinking on all territorial conflicts, including the ones between Russia and Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Israel and Palestine, etc. It will take time, perhaps generations, but people will understand each other's narratives, open borders, renew trade and transport connections, start visiting each other, falling in love, etc... Then borders will become a huge pain, leading to their eventual disappearance.
Dear Eric, dreaming is always good.
) This time your post touched my dreams and that's why I left a comment (what I hardly do). I have been thinking of that union for quite a very long time and it is important for me even if it is an April 1 blog post. I just wanted to share with you what I learnt while thinking about it for all these years and discuss them seriously. Believe me it was always my dream to live in "THE WORLD OF CITIES". Yes, and I hope that's what GOD wills.
)
P.S. I hope to see that TC but when the right time comes.
Narek, I understand your doubts and honestly speaking, I have always been skeptic about such negotiations, but I still wanna share Mr. Eric's pure and optimistic belief! Let's really see what happens in the right time and contribute ourselves to bring closer that right time
Dear Dali and Narek, it gives me immense pleasure to read your reactions. We should not lose hope...
I would vote for!
In 1920, Armen Garo headed to Moscow from Yerevan to ask Lenin's help to assist the newly established Republic of Armenia against Turkish expected invasion.
In Karakhanov's office he saw a map of the region that pinpointed to "Great Armenia", excluding the names of Georgia and Azerbaijan. All three countries under one flag,,,Great Armenia. A total of 300,000 square miles.
Lenin and Karakhanov thought that Armen Garo will take the message to the government of Armenia. He did not even bother himself to mention it to his superiors.
Read Armen Garo Bastermajian's memoirs which was published in Beirut by the ARF in mid-fifties of the last century.
I forgot to mention that this bit of information was mentioned first by Professor Hovahannes Pilikian in his article. Follow the link.
http://norkhosq.net/2013/11/vasily-grossman-armenian-questions-and-a-question-of-armenia/
This is a lousy joke.
For good reason, Armenians don't trust the Georgians. Re Armenia and Azerbaijan, need I mention the Artsakh and Nakhichevan conflicts?
By the way, 'Georgia' as a conglomeration of various races and nations who are dominated by the minority Georgians. Thus any agreement with Georgia would be built on Jello.
If it's not a joke, it certainly must be a western construct to signal to Russia that its land route to the Middle East is blocked.
Mike, the fact that neighbors don't trust each other (show me neighbors who do) is a poor excuse for not even trying to unlock the deadlock preventing the three Caucasus nations from embracing the 21 century idea of open borders and free movement. Poland and Germany, Czechoslovakia and Germany, France and Germany had little mutual trust or affection and were at each other's throat over disputed territories in the first half of the 20th century. Who remembers or cares for these disputes in today's Europe?
It's natural that a country would quarrel with its neighbor rather than a country half way around the world, unless the former is the United States.
Because Germany, etc. made peace, it doesn't follow that other neighboring states want or can make peace. Take Georgia/Armenia as example:
In addition to the traditional hostility, jealousy, rivalry with Armenia, Georgia is unfriendly with Russia while Armenia is friendly; Georgia is friendly with Turkey, a state which makes no secret that it would like Armenians erased from the face of the Earth; Georgia oppresses and tries to assimilate the mostly Armenians of Javakh; after 100 years of evidence, Georgia doesn't recognize the Genocide of Armenians by Turkey; when the earlier Caucasian confederation was created, Georgia speedily stabbed Armenia; because Georgia culturally (cuisine, architecture, alphabet, religion, etc.) owes so much to Armenia, it resents its neighbor; Georgians haven't forgotten than in the late 19th and early 20 century, their capital was as much Armenian as it was Georgian; looking over 2,000 years of history, times of friendship between the two countries have been few and short lived; because the closest port to landlocked Armenia is in Georgia, the latter enjoys using the access to wring Armenia's arm. It does the same as the land bridge between Armenia and Russia.
I'm sure someone can make a Georgian list of reasons when Georgia and Armenia can't form a confederation. I wouldn't touch Armenian/Azeri relations because the problems there are too obvious... and I am not talking about Artsakh (Nagorno Karapagh) and Nakhichevan which Stalin arbitrarily sliced from Armenia and gave to Baku to appease Turkey.
Mike, have you ever thought about our histories rewritten in a way to make our cooperation impossible? Every educated person understands that nothing is straightforward. Cohabitation made our histories and cultures interdependent. And there is nothing bad in that. Nobody owes anything to anybody else. And there are no reasons to be jealous or hostile towards each other. Georgia cooperating with Turkey and Armenia with Russia for now is not the reason for our non-cooperation either. We are too small nations to obey to moral principles only at the expense of national interests of survival that we are struggling for during the most part of our histories. Moreover, you can ask Georgian Armenians about their living conditions in Georgia. I guess your argument does not have a solid basis for that. Wrong stereotypes are the only factor hindering our further cooperation. If only our people could get read of them ...
Dear Mike, you may be right about the past, but why not look forward and imagine what life could look like if... A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. And this one step has to be made in people's minds...All they have to do is use their imagination...Am not sure about you, but I remain hopeful...
Dear Eric, nobody wants caonflict, especially Armenians who have been torn apart by greedy and cruel empires, most recently by the Ottomans, for centuries. Armenians have also been led down the garden path, in the past century, by Turkey and Russia. Meanwhile, Georgia has been treacherous and conniving neighbor. Many Georgians are so narrow-minded and ignorant that they envy Armenia for having a strong Diaspora. They don't seem to care that a diaspora is not a happy state and it was created, thanks to Georgia' friend--Turkey--at the loss of 1.5 million Armenians, the deportation of 500,000 and the loss of Western Armenia. I will not bother talking about the Azeris since their crimes are ongoing.
My point: Georgia and Azerbaijan should gain the confidence of Armenians, not just of Armenia. We need from Georgia and Azerbaijan confidence-building acts, not words. Armenia, the smallest of the three and with the least population, and on the defensive, has the right to expect serious friendship moves. But I doubt Georgia would even recognize the Genocide of Armenians because Tbilisi wouldn't want to anger its more important neighbors--Turkey and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan should recognize that Artsakh (aka Nagorno Karapagh) was never legally Azeri territory. Baku should stop demanding lands from Artsakh, unless it gives up Nakhichevan (a part of Armenia until Stalin gave it illegally to Baku) which the Azeris depopulated of Armenians during the Soviet years and in recent years shattered even Armenian gravestones to prove that Armenians never lived in Nakhichevan. We are not dealing with civilized people (Azeris) here. Only a week ago Baby Aliev stated--not for the first time--that Armenia was historically part of Azerbaijan, although it's a historic fact that Azerbaijan is a recent Russian fabrication. Azeris are a mix of Tatars and Turks, speak Turkish, officially say that Azerbaijan and Turkey are one nation and two states, That is, they are Turks. They are part of the Central Asian barbarians who ravaged Armenia, the rest of the Middle East and even threatened Vienna (twice). And yet... these people who are proud to say they are Turks, also say they are descendants of the ancient Alans and Iberians. Pleeeeeeeeezzze.
Sorry, Mike, but the kind of language you are using here does not promote the Armenian case. It is absolutely counterproductive. If you want to make peace with somebody (as your opening sentence goes), you don't call them barbarians (as you do in your last sentence).
Eric,
When I used "barbarian", I was referring to the ancestors of present-day Turks; not the Turks of today. The ancestors, who came from Central Asia, were barbarian marauders. Like the Mongols. They killed millions of people, destroyed civilizations, including those in the Middle East. Perhaps in these days of politically correctness, historic revisionism, and being ever so sensitive about saying an "inappropriate" word, we can't say the Goths, Huns, the Vandals...were not barbarian. Everybody was nice, nobody raped/looted, razed cities...
Mike, all of our ancestors lived on trees, killed, raped, looted and cannibalized their neighbors. The kind of atrocities committed by the supposedly democratic and civilized Athens (the massacres on Mytilene and Melos are but two famous examples) and Rome (I am currently reading The Jewish Wars by Josephus Flavius) qualify them at least as "barbarian" as the Vandals who supposedly "sacked and looted" Rome.
You want to forgive, forget. Fine. Armenians can't forget because Turkey is sitting on top of Western Armenia and Cilicia. Turkey killed 1.5 million Armenians and chased out the rest (mostly women, children, old people... most of them died of thirst, hunger, the elements in the desert... along the way they also raped women, turkified other. Not only did Turkey commit genocide against the Armenians, but to this day denies doing so despite mountains of evidence from non-Armenians. Turkey is sitting on 80% of historic Armenia. The children of the survivors of the genocide, like me, are spread all over the world. Turkey is hoping we would assimilate and forget what it did to my people. Turkey has also blockaded tiny and landlocked Armenia. Just two weeks ago Turkey allowed a bunch of Islamic extremists? terrorists? rebels? to march in from Turkey into a mostly Armenian-inhabited town of Kessab. Armenians knowing what to expect from these killers, fled to LAtakia. They are still there.
My point: Armenians can't follow your exalted view of forgetting, forgiving because the wound is still open.
Germany has apologized to Jews a million times, pumped billions of dollars into Israel, has supported Israel politically, diplomatically, militarily. To this day, German send monthly checks to Holocaust survivors. Despite these measures of asking to be forgiven, countless Jews will not forget and forgive Germans--Germans who were not even born during the Holocaust.
And don't forget that the hurt to the Armenian nation was bigger than the hit that Jews took. While more Jews than Armenians were killed, we lost 80% of our homeland, probably forever, to a barbaric (yes) fascist regime whose successors have signaled more than once that they would prefer tiny Armenia vanish so that there would be a contiguous Turkic "homeland" from Istanbul to China.
Eric, please don't ask us to forgive, forget.
Armenians want peace. Surrounded by enemies, what else would they desire. Since I covered a lot of territory in my previous email, I will focus on Georgia in this.
The goodwill and friendship gestures should come from Georgia. Armenia is no threat to Georgia. Just the opposite: since tiny and landlocked Armenia is blockaded and threatened in the east and the west by Turkic Azerbaijan and Turkey, Georgia is its only outlet north. If a single highway between Georgia and Armenia is blocked by Tbilisi, Armenia would face huge economic hardship.
Georgia can also show goodwill by halting its campaign of assimilating the Armenians of Javakh. Despite countless provocations by the Tbilisi government, Javakh Armenians have not demanded to join Armenia across the border. If they did and Armenia accepted them a resulting war will see the defeat of the Georgian armed forces, unless the opportunistic Azeris jump into the fray.
Georgians have a problem with Armenians. They resent the ancient (alphabet, religion, architecture,,,) influence of Armenia on their country. They resent that a century ago half of Tbilisi's population was Armenian and Armenians ran the city. To assert their identity, Georgians want to erase the Armenian influence on their culture. An example of this is their claim that the typical Armenian Church architecture (copied by Georgian churches) is Georgian.
Georgians should dispense with their childish ancient resentments and consider Armenians their good neighbors. This could, of course, be a naive wish because Georgia prefers to ally with Armenia's enemies--Turkey and Azerbaijan. Only a blind and stupid person would expect otherwise. Therefore, Georgian/Armenian relationship depends on the future of Armenia's relations with the Turkic pair.