United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has concluded a five-day,
five-country tour of Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus meant to impart a
critical message: we haven't forgotten you.
On July 2 in Ukraine, Clinton told Ukrainians they could "count on the support
and friendship of the United States" as they "chart your own course toward your
own future".
And two days later in Azerbaijan, she said Washington was "committed to helping
you and your fellow citizens build a prosperous, independent, democratic,
sovereign Azerbaijan".
And closing out her trip on July 5 in Georgia, Clinton pledged to "do
everything we can to assist our partners, inside and outside
the Georgian government, as they strive to strengthen democratic institutions
and processes".
With her repeated vows of support, Clinton appeared to be attempting what could
be called a "readjustment to the 'reset'" - a pledge that the United States
could be friends with Russia without abandoning its smaller allies in the
region.
Chiding Moscow
It's a delicate balancing act. Clinton - who lashed out at Russia's
"occupation" of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and
signed a deal with Polish officials on a missile-defense shield that has raised
Kremlin hackles - has already provoked an angry response from Moscow.
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday dismissed the US defense shield - a
plan Washington says will protect its European allies from Iranian missiles -
as unfounded.
And on July 5, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin defended his country's role in
"liberating" South Ossetia in the August 2008 war. He also chided Georgian
officials about turning to outsiders for help in what he said was essentially a
bilateral issue.
"Some believe that it has been occupied, but others think that it has been
liberated," Putin said. "It is the subject of dialogue between the Georgian
people and the South Ossetian people and they should conduct this dialogue
without referring to third parties."
Warmer abroad
Despite the heated rhetoric, however, ties between Washington and Moscow have
grown unmistakably warmer during the past year, marked by renewed cooperation
on both the bilateral and foreign policy fronts.
Matthew Rojansky, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the
Carnegie Endowment, a Washington-based think-tank, says the Kremlin's response
to Clinton's statements doesn't indicate a setback in relations.
“I don't read a tremendous amount into it. Just like with the spy scandal, for
example, the Russians are going to be obligated to maintain face - to express a
certain level of dissatisfaction with anything that doesn't jive with what they
have long pursued as their policies," Rojansky said. "But by the same token,
what are they doing?"
Working with the United States on issues ranging from Iran sanctions to support
for Kyrgyzstan, he says.
Moreover, ties between Moscow and many of its former satellites have warmed as
well.
Ukraine, which this year elected Viktor Yanukovych to the presidency, is no
longer the bastion of anti-Moscow opposition it was under Viktor Yushchenko.
Poland, after years of rabble-rousing against Russia's resurgent authority, has
likewise cooled its resentment in favor of friendly dialogue.
And oil-rich Azerbaijan, whose ties to Washington have soured over US attempts
to forge a Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, has turned to Moscow as its
preferred mediator in its prolonged impasse with Yerevan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In each of these countries, Clinton's mission was to re-establish a channel for
dialogue with the United States that runs more parallel than counter to
Moscow's own.
Looking for progress
Officials and observers in the region are reacting to Clinton's visit with a
mixture of admiration and frustration.
In Azerbaijan, Mehman Aliyev, who directs the Turan news agency and serves as
the chairman of the Azerbaijani branch of the Open Society Institute, says that
Clinton's trip signaled that Baku was willing to accept some responsibility for
improving the country's human rights record.
Aliyev says that before Clinton's visit, US-Azerbaijani relations "were in
crisis". He says that "in its previous messages", Washington referred to
problems that it said were political, related to the lack of democratic
reforms, the lack of freedom of speech and human rights. I think the
Azerbaijani government accepted part of that criticism, and that's why the
visit was made. Secretary Clinton came to Baku to hear from Azerbaijani
officials that they are going to undertake those reforms. I think [the US]
political message is still valid; we'll see in future elections."
But Clinton was notably muted in her criticism of Azerbaijan's human-rights
record, which includes near-daily attacks on the few remaining members of the
country's free press - including Eynulla Fatullayev, the imprisoned editor of
the independent Realny Azerbaijan, who one day after Clinton's visit was given
an additional 30-month sentence on drug charges.
Noting a separate case - that of Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada, two bloggers
who were jailed after their political commentaries angered officials in Baku -
the US secretary of state said she and President Barack Obama had received
"many letters" about the case.
But she went on to speak generally about "the kinds of issues which every
society has to deal with" and praised Azerbaijan for the "considerable
progress" it had made.
Thawing out Karabakh
In both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Clinton appeared intent on focusing on the two
countries' protracted dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a largely ethnic-Armenian
enclave located within Azerbaijani territory.
Talks on Nagorno-Karabakh have remained at an impasse despite more than 15
years of international mediation. The frozen conflict has shown signs of
heating up in recent weeks, with four ethnic Armenian troops and an Azerbaijani
soldier killed in an exchange of fire close to the territory.
Speaking in Yerevan, Clinton condemned the violence as "unacceptable
violations" of the 1994 ceasefire agreement that ended open hostilities there,
and said the United States "would hope to see real progress" toward a final
peace settlement.
Clinton also used the Yerevan leg of her journey to push the stumbling issue of
Turkish-Armenian rapprochement back onto the agenda, saying "the ball was in
[Turkey's] court" to revitalize the talks and reconsider opening the border
between the two countries.
Clinton's comments were warmly welcomed by officials like Eduard Sharmazanov, a
senior lawmaker and spokesman for Armenia's ruling Republican Party, who said
the remarks were "a message to Turkey that in these relations, the United
States backs Armenia and agrees with Armenia's estimations that Turkey is
unconstructive and speaks the language of preconditions".
Resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh and normalization of ties between Yerevan and
Ankara would both be big-ticket achievements for US foreign policy.
But Levon Zurabian, a member of the opposition Armenian National Congress, said
he was disappointed that those high-profile issues had squeezed domestic
concerns like civil liberties and democratic reforms off of Clinton's to-do
list.
"I think that the visit mainly focused on the Karabakh issue. Indirect evidence
of this was the fact that while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did meet
with the oppositions in Ukraine and Georgia, she did not have similar meetings
in either Azerbaijan or Armenia," Zurabian said.
"In my opinion, the explanation for this is that, as a mediator in the
Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on the Karabakh settlement, the United States
is trying to do everything not to cause the displeasure of either Ilham Aliyev
or Serzh Sarkisian in their dealings with the oppositions. Therefore, this
shows that political issues in both Armenia and Azerbaijan have been pushed to
the background for the United States. For them [the United States], it is more
important to achieve serious results in the Karabakh settlement."
Welcome In Tbilisi, mostly
It was Clinton's final stop, Georgia, where she was likely most warmly
welcomed. Tbilisi under President Mikheil Saakashvili has been a staunch friend
of the United States, contributing troops to Iraq and Afghanistan even as US
support for the country appeared to wane.
Clinton's sharply worded critique of Russia's "occupation" and her pledge of
"steadfast" US commitment to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity no
doubt came as music to the ears of officials who had begun to worry the reset
had cost them a valuable ally.
Saakashvili went so far as to say his initial concerns about the US-Russian
rapprochement had faded, and that Georgia was convinced the reset was being
done "the right way ... not just changing relations with Russia at the expense
of others".
At the same time, Clinton used her Georgia trip to urge restraint on the part
of Saakashvili, who she said should not pursue a military buildup that could
trigger a fresh war.
She also called on Georgia to continue the work of the "Rose" revolution - the
2003 peaceful government overthrow that brought Saakashvili to power - and met
with prominent members of the political opposition, including former United
Nations ambassador Irakli Alasania and Giorgi Targamadze of the Christian
Democratic Movement.
In a country with an unusually fractious and active opposition, Clinton's
gesture caused more resentment than cheers. The party led by former parliament
speaker Nino Burjanadze issued a statement complaining, "It seems the American
side is not very interested in opposition viewpoints."
That sentiment was echoed by Levan Berdzenishvili of the Republican Party, who
said: "They didn't let her meet with the opposition. Whoever was arranging
those meetings, they made sure that the only people who would be allowed would
be the kind who wouldn't cause any problems for Ms. Clinton. They basically
made sure she'd have it easy during this long trip."
In Washington, observers like Rojansky see Clinton's trip as a success.
"The visit served the purpose that it was intended to serve. It was much needed
in terms of atmospherics - the general impression of attention being paid to
the region - and you send a high-level official and that's the impression that
you get," he said.
"From what I've seen, she really was refining this message - that the US has
not given up on the former Soviet space, has not given up on leading with our
values in our foreign policy, but that we're resolved to have a productive
relationship with Russia at the same time," Rojansky added.
Or, as Clinton put it during her visit to Tbilisi, "The United States can walk
and chew gum at the same time."
RFE/RL's Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian services contributed to this
report
Copyright (c) 2010, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
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