South Caucasus-Europe linkage mostly artificial

PanARMENIAN.Net - Each Caucasus state should feel secure, according to a Russian expert.



"The South Caucasus-Europe linkage is mostly artificial, since the European Union doesn't plan to accept Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and its activities in the region seem to be ambiguous experiments," Andrey Areshev, expert at Strategic Initiative Foundation, wrote in a piece of opinion titled "Stability in the Caucasus after five-day war: the role of Russia, Iran and Turkey."



"Turkey's Caucasus stability and cooperation initiative stands a good chance to be realized. However, it will not be sufficient without Iran. The Iranian-Russian interaction is a stabilizing factor which will help some European states pursue an independent from the U.S. policy toward Tehran," he continued.



Georgia's accession to NATO and rehabilitation of the republic's military infrastructure will hamper implementation of peace initiatives in the Caucasus. Moreover, any initiative should be advanced taking into account the existence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. And the last but not least, there are attempts to attach an anti-Russian coloring to the Turkish initiative and this will hardly gladden Russia," Areshev concluded.