Hollande in the Caucasus

By Victoria Panfilova, a columnist of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza

French President Francois Hollande started his visit to the South Caucasus with Azerbaijan. He will arrive in Armenia tomorrow and visit Georgia after. The French president has two days to visit three countries.

The visit of such a high-ranking politician is certainly a historic one, especially in the complicated and disputed South Caucasus and in the light of the catastrophic events in Ukraine. The latter are momentous for the post-Soviet space.

The programs of Hollande for every South Caucasus state were made exceptionally consistent, in terms of equipollence. Each includes meetings with the president, officials of the political establishment, economic sub-program and humanitarian talks.

Hollande took part in the founding of a French lycee in Baku. In Yerevan, he will attend a concert of Charles Aznavour and the opening of a park named after Misak Manushyan, a resistance activist executed by German occupiers in Paris in 1944. He will partake in a presentation of a cableway in Chiatura (Georgia). The cableway will be built by a French company.

In Baku and Yerevan, Hollande, whose country co-chairs the OSCE Minsk Group, plans to discuss the most topical problems, such as the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. It looks even more intriguing, considering the three scenarios U.S. co-chair of the OSCE MG James Warlick has recently made for the Nagorno-Karabakh process: settlement via negotiations, continuation of the status quo or war.

The sides in the conflict, which hardly find common ground, have given the same interpretation to the diplomat’s words: the U.S. is ready to activate its role in settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the context of the Ukrainian events. The point is that Moscow, Washington and Paris, coordinating the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process and interested in achieving progress, do not want one of themselves to make the breakthrough. Clearly, such a deed would automatically strengthen the positions of a certain mediator in the strategic region. The interests of Washington, Moscow and Paris differ here. It is either progress and maybe even a resolution of the conflict together or further stagnation. Azerbaijani and Armenian expert societies are dominated by pessimism: Francois Hollande is unlikely to bring sensational mutually-acceptable proposals and his mission will most likely consist of peacekeeping and sedative declarations.

Baku does not rule out the chances that France may discuss the activities of its Total. The latter, engaged in several large-scale projects in Azerbaijan, suddenly ceased work in the country. It is still unclear why the French sold their assets in Caspian projects. The hastiness of the decisions, however, seems very suspicious. This is why Hollande may discuss the return of Total or keep France involved in energy projects of Azerbaijan.

In Armenia, Hollande will pay special attention to the potential of economic cooperation, in addition the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. No wonder he will be assisted by the head of the Web-ISI company, specializing in information technologies. The company has good ties with Armenia. Paris and Yerevan have had special ties, giving relations a special quality for a long time. Half a million Armenians living in France are closely connected with their historic homeland. Obviously, simplification of the investment regime and activation of economic cooperation in general will be discussed.

President’s Hollande’s visit to Georgia is peculiar for the fact that such a high-ranking politician has not visited it since the formation of the new government. Now, the old authorities cannot boast that Europe had forgotten about Tbilisi after President Mikheil Saakashvili’s resignation. Defense Minister Irakly Alasania’s request to send NATO missile forces to Georgia may become another topic during the visit. The request was made in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

Tbilisi has already received signals that any problems with Moscow could be resolved in a different fashion. Having put a lot of effort into the cease-fire in the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, France is not interested in escalation of the conflict. New tensions are especially likely in the light of Tbilisi’s European choice and readiness to sign the EU association agreement this summer. The French president will be curious to know the mood of the Georgian authorities over the event, bearing the Ukrainian crisis in mind.