Victoria Panfilova "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
Yesterday, the president of Georgia began his two-day visit to Armenia. The visit was to be expected, as Georgi Margvelashvili has already visited other neighboring countries. In Yerevan, the Georgian delegation was received at the highest level. During the two days, the messengers from Georgia met with the Armenian President, the Speaker of Parliament, the Prime Minister, members of the government, and finally, with the Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II.
With all the warmth and hospitality that guests are surrounded with in the Caucasus, the Georgian delegation always have difficult moments in neighboring countries. Namely, when it comes to territorial integrity. Baku wants the guests to consider Nagorno-Karabakh part of their country that has been just temporarily torn away. Here it is much easier to respond for the representatives of Georgia, who are experiencing the same problems with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, than in Yerevan, where they hear the usual question from some media representatives about their attitude to Nagorno-Karabakh. Declaring that it is part of Azerbaijan is equivalent to insulting the host country. To support the Armenian stance means to condemn Georgia not only to problems with Azerbaijan, but dig themselves a deeper hole for the negotiations in Geneva on Abkhazia and South Ossetia issues. Naturally, supporters of independence of the former Georgian autonomies will put the question bluntly in the negotiations: Dear Georgians, recently in Yerevan you talked about Karabakh as an independent state, and on what basis are you denying independence to partially-recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia?
Therefore, Georgian delegations visiting neighbors have to be extremely careful and scrupulous in their choice of definitions. The previous authorities, by the way, were not exactly subtle. For example, one of Mikheil Saakashvili's visits to Azerbaijan turned into a real scandal with Armenia. Going into a rage, the Georgian leader said that Tbilisi and Baku should join forces and stifle the separatist sentiments in the region, be it Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia or South Ossetia. And it was said in a context that implied not only diplomatic efforts. Then the heat between Tbilisi and Yerevan reached such a degree that some time later, visiting Yerevan, Saakashvili was forced to move away from such vague comments on Nagorno-Karabakh about compulsory "non-violent solutions to the problem of justice," surprising Baku. The only thing to save him from a new scandal was the wise remark of a senior Azerbaijani official: "the gentleman answered the way he was asked - it is necessary to take the context into account."
It certainly was not the only case where the expressive Georgian leader put himself and Georgia in an awkward position. Just remember the hasty congratulations to Yulia Tymoshenko on victory in the presidential elections in Ukraine, when in fact Yanukovych was the one to win! Or declaring Alexander Lukashenko to be a dictator ... in response to the Belorussian president's decision not to recognize the sovereignty of Belarus in Abkhazia and South Ossetia - it turned out that Tbilisi misunderstood the official assessment of Minsk.
Georgia's new authorities are trying to manoeuvre, to avoid sharp corners. They proclaimed the continuation of the foreign policy vector to the West, but try not to "dance and chant" on this aspect too much, in order not to tease Russia. Especially taking into account that the date of entry into the EU and NATO is not so close, even if it is marked in someone's calendar. Such caution is understandable, but also naive. It is naive if Tbilisi seriously believes that Russia, evaluating their restraint, will change its position on the painful for Georgia issues of territorial integrity. Firstly, such a price offered by the new authorities is much too low, and secondly, they seem to repeat the mistake of their predecessors, transforming conflicts with Sukhumi and Tskhinvali into a conflict with Moscow. In words, they refused this, but in fact it is not visible.
Such caution is manifested today in the Ukrainian question, as well. It is easy to imagine Tbilisi's attitude to the processes in the Maidan if Saakashvili remained in power. He himself so many times spoke in Kiev in support of the Maidan, that his reasonable countrymen encouraged him to know when to stop "bothering the Ukrainians." And the new authorities are in a quandary again. Not to support the "revolutionaries of Kiev" (when some time ago, Georgia's policy had an element of support from the Ukraine against Russia, when Kiev made repeated proposals to send Ukrainian peacekeepers to conflict zones) would be quite impolite. To express solidarity with the Maidan, to welcome the change of power, while Moscow is everything but happy about the Ukrainian processes, means to "perplex" Russia - and no relationship recovery can be dreamed in Georgia. And now the Deputy Prime Minister, Kakha Kaladze, has made a statement in which he tried to explain that Yanukovych's resignation is only supported in Georgia by ex-President Saakashvili and former representatives of the authorities, making themselves known thanks to the events in Ukraine. Okay, let's assume it's true. But what is the position of the current Tbilisi authorities?
So far, the Foreign Ministry of Georgia has only expressed concern about the violence in its official statement. As an anonymous former Western diplomat dealing with the problems of the South Caucasus told Vestnik Kavkaza, "Tbilisi thinks that they are building a multi-vector policy. But this is not the way to do it - not with so much uncertainty on many key issues." A multi-vector, or complementarity policy was typical for Armenia, where the president of Georgia is now on a two-day visit. However, under severe pressure from various sides, such a policy is rarely viable. Especially in more or less the long term. The same complementary policy of Yerevan in recent years narrowed like shagreen leather and today has become largely focused only on Moscow.
