Kosovo wishes in Caucasus

While Washington and its allies in the South Caucasus say Kosovo’s bid for independence from Serbia is a unique situation, separatist republics across the former Soviet Union and their sympathizers among Russia’s ruling elite are publicly debating how far the Kosovo precedent could propel them to independence of their own.

In late January, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the debate by pointing out at a press conference that independence for Kosovo would bolster similar bids of de facto independent republics in the former Soviet Union.

“If someone thinks that Kosovo can be granted full independence as a state, then why should the Abkhaz or the South Ossetian peoples not also have the right to statehood?” he said, referring to Georgia’s separatist republics.

“I am not talking here about how Russia would act. But we know, for example, that Turkey recognized the Republic of Northern Cyprus,” Putin told the 31 January press conference. “I am not saying that Russia would immediately recognize Abkhazia or South Ossetia as independent states, but international life knows such precedents. I am not saying whether these precedents are a good or a bad thing, but in order to act fairly, in the interests of all people living on this or that territory, we need generally accepted, universal principles for resolving these problems.”

The following weeks saw officials from the separatist governments of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority enclave which fought a war to win de facto independence from Azerbaijan, hold up the Kosovo situation as a future precedent. At the same time, senior officials from Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan challenged the argument.

Giorgi Khaindrava, Georgia’s minister for conflict resolution, said Putin’s statement was not at all surprising, given Moscow’s “unilateral support” for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. “Kosovo model is not an universal one,” said Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, echoed those sentiments, agreeing that Kosovo was a unique situation and should not set any precedents for the future.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Rosemary DiCarlo also weighed in on the debate, telling the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant that a unique situation had arisen in Kosovo because of the violent break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

According to independent experts, claims that independence for Kosovo would not have a ripple effect through the former Soviet Union were wishful thinking, at best.

And while the case of Transdniestria looks weak, given the lack of a dominant ethnic group, South Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are nurturing hopes that a vote for independence in Kosovo could be replicated in their de facto independent republics, leading to subsequent recognition of their states by the international community.

Monica Duffy Toft, professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government and an expert on ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union, said it would be difficult for proponents of Kosovo’s uniqueness to come up with sufficient parameters to make their case that is disparate from conflicts in former Soviet Union.

“How many parameters can one list to make their case unique. Is Kosovo all that unique - I don’t think so,” she told ISN Security Watch.

“In spite of the [fact that the] American argument that Kosovo is a disparate when compared to conflicts in former Soviet Union is not convincing, the Kosovo referendum will open the floodgates, it will be a wake-up call that the principle of territorial integrity is no longer absolute in the trade-off with the right to self-determination,” Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center told ISN Security Watch.

Both Toft and Malashenko agreed that independence for Kosovo would set a precedent that the separatist regimes of South Ossetia, Abkhazian, and Nagorno-Karabakh would rely on to strengthen their own independence bids.

And the Russian leadership reportedly is already trying out the precedent with Georgia’s separatist South Ossetia.

Gennady Bukaev, assistant to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, told a joint session of government of South Ossetia and Russia’s North Ossetia last week that the federal government had made a principle decision to incorporate the former into the Russian Federation. The two republics will then be united into one subject of the Russian Federation “the name of which is already known to the world – Alania”, two Russian dailies quoted Bukaev as saying.

The attending officials from North and South Ossetia received Bukaev’s report enthusiastically, interjecting several times throughout with applause, Madina Dzhanaeva, a reporter with Russia’s state-owned Itar-Tass news agency who was present at the Wednesday sitting in the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz, told Vedomosti newspaper.

Hours after Bukaev’s statement was reported in the Russian press, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement asserting that Moscow had no plans to incorporate South Ossetia even if the separatist province held another referendum to breakaway from Georgia.

Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said the following day that Russia’s position was that South Ossetia’s status should be determined within the existing Joint Control Commission framework, which includes the separatist province, Russia, and Georgia.

According to Kamynin, Bukaev said nothing about any pending incorporation of South Ossetia, but was rather referring to the need to establish and develop common economic space in North Ossetia, South Ossetia, and Georgia's Gori district to revive the local economies and facilitate the return of refugees in line with a 2000 Russian-Georgian agreement.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website that Bukaev’s Wednesday speech had been misinterpreted and he would brief the Joint Control Commission on what he said at a session this week.

However, the Foreign Ministry’s attempt to contain the news was unsuccessful, as both government officials and experts picked up the issue and began debating whether South Ossetia would become a part of Russia de jure.

According to North Ossetia’s president, Taimuraz Mansurov, the unification of North and South Ossetias is “inevitable”. “When and how it will happen is a different issue,” Mansurov told Interfax last Thursday.

Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, was only a bit more diplomatic when asked to comment on prospects of North Ossetia and South Ossetia. Whether South Ossetia would become part of Russia would depend on Kosovo’s final status, he told Interfax.

“We are closely watching what is happening in Kosovo. The situation there is very similar to South Ossetia and they are heading towards establishment of an independent state,” Mironov said. “The peoples of North Ossetia and South Ossetia are one people, even it is divided, and as history shows such people unify in the final run,” he added.

South Ossetia fought and won a bloody war to achieve de facto independence from Georgia in 1992. Since then, the separatist republic has been relying on Russia for economic ties while also periodically calling on Moscow to incorporate their province in Russia.

South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity made the latest of attempts last Wednesday by telling the joint session of North and South Ossetian governments that he would ask the Russian Constitutional Court to look into whether his province could be “re-integrated” into Russia. He cited the 1774 treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji between Russia and the Ottoman Empire that made South Ossetia part of Russia, claiming that no treaty afterwards was made to transfer the province to Georgia.

Both Georgia and the US blasted Kokoity. Julie Finley, US ambassador to the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said the US reconfirmed “our unequivocal support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and the peaceful resolution of both the South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts based on that principle”, according to the Associated Press.

Giorgi Khaindrava, Georgia’s minister for conflict resolution, also attacked on Thursday Bukaev’s statement, calling it “absolutely irresponsible” and urging the Russian government to condemn it.

Moscow officially maintains that it honors Georgia’s territorial integrity and maintains a peacekeeping force in the separatist republic, but Tbilisi has accused Moscow of supporting South Ossetian separatists through trade, economic aide, and citizenship.

As of 2003, there were 70,000 people residing in South Ossetia, of which 67 per cent were ethnic Ossetian and 25 per cent were ethnic Georgians, according to Izvestia. Ninety-five per cent of residents of South Ossetia hold Russian passports in what Georgian officials said reflect Russia’s tacit support for independence. Similarly, a majority of residents in Abkhazia and a sizeable part of the population of Transdniestria also hold Russian passports.

Both Malashenko and Mikhail Roshchin, Caucasus expert at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, expressed doubts that Russia had any imminent plans to incorporate South Ossetia, saying Bukaev’s statement could be a trial balloon. “They might be probing to see what the reaction is,” Roshchin said.

However, even such a trial balloon should not have been allowed, if Russia were indeed interested in absorbing South Ossetia, Malashenko said, adding that Moscow should have left the issue alone until a decision on Kosovo was made.

Nikolai Silaev of the Center for Caucasus Studies at the Moscow State University of Foreign Relations also believes it could have been a trial balloon and questioned the wisdom of incorporating South Ossetia. He said the economically depressed region would become another burden for the federal budget and that unification of the two Ossetias might fuel Ossetian nationalism.

Silaev said Russia would rather benefit if Georgia formed a confederation state with breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which would be anchored to Russia.

Toft also questioned the viability of Russia setting its sights on South Ossetia, by noting that it would be preceded by a referendum of independence and then subsequent recognition of the international community in what could bode ill for Russia itself, given that republics in the North Caucasus, dominated by one or two ethnic groups, could follow the lead.

Simon Saradzhyan is a veteran security and defense reporter based in Moscow, Russia. He is a co-founder of the Eurasian Security Studies Center in Moscow.