During the past year, at a time of record-high energy prices, many European officials have decried what they see as Russia’s state-owned Gazprom natural gas company being used as a tool to promote the Kremlin’s policies by indulging in hardball “pipeline politics.” Gazprom’s favored tool is variable prices being used to send political signals to recalcitrant former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia, with the pressure ramping up in direct proportion to a government’s inclination to look westward, The United Press International reports.
Of all the former Soviet republics, Armenia receives the most preferential pricing; effective April 1, Armenia pays a mere $154 per thousand cubic meters for Russian gas. In contrast, three months ago Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev noted, in reference to Gazprom’s intention to ramp up Ukraine’s cost from $179 per tcm to $250 per tcm, “The rest of Europe pays more than $400 for each thousand cubic meters of gas it gets from Russia.”
However, great political changes are moving in the southern Caucasus under one of the region’s last “frozen conflicts,” which may well spell the end for Armenia’s cozy arrangement for subsidized Russian gas. The longstanding triangular dispute between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia over the 1988-1994 Azeri-Armenian conflict, during which Turkey in 1993 closed its border with Armenia in a show of solidarity with Baku, has recently seen Ankara and Yerevan tentatively moving toward normalizing relations.
However, great political changes are moving in the southern Caucasus under one of the region’s last “frozen conflicts,” which may well spell the end for Armenia’s cozy arrangement for subsidized Russian gas. The longstanding triangular dispute between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia over the 1988-1994 Karabakh conflict, during which Turkey in 1993 closed its border with Armenia in a show of solidarity with Baku, has recently seen Ankara and Yerevan tentatively moving toward normalizing relations.
Should the framework result in full normalization of relations, it will represent yet another turn in the kaleidoscope of Caucasian politics, and Baku, worried about potential abandonment by its erstwhile ally Turkey, is making its displeasure widely known. If the discussions result in normalization, then it will prove a major step toward resolving a 20-year-old dispute, the longest remaining “frozen conflict” on former Soviet territory, which predates the collapse of the Soviet Union by three years.
Last but hardly least, a normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations, if Azerbaijan could be mollified, could have a dramatic impact on any potential future export routes for the rising volumes of Caspian oil and natural gas, as routes transiting Armenia would be far shorter and less expensive than those developed up to now.
Throw in Armenia’s insistence that Turkey recognize the events in eastern Anatolia in 1915 as genocide, and the adjective seemingly best suited for prospects for a final pacification of the southern Caucasus, despite its energy potential, would seem to be “murky.” As geopolitical alliances thaw and shift, the only apparent certainty is that Caspian energy producers will signal their displeasure to neighboring client and transit nations with more “bizarre” behavior, the article says.
