US foreign policy towards South Caucasus confusing, biased, inconsistent Article by Taras Kuzio on Emerging Europe

The British website Emerging Europe has featured an article by Taras Kuzio that critiques the perceived bias in US policy toward the South Caucasus. Caliber.Az presents key excerpts from the article for its readers.

Washington ignores Armenia’s growing integration with Russia, Yerevan’s infringement of Western sanctions against Russia, and its close relationship with Iran, an enemy of Israel and the US, while seeing no value in Israel’s strategic alliance with Azerbaijan.

United States foreign and security policy towards the South Caucasus is confusing, biased and inconsistent with America’s other security interests in the region.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Washington has pursued a one-sided pro-Armenian approach that was condemned as long ago as 1998 by the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

In the last year alone both houses of the US Congress adopted a long list of legislation, resolutions, and open letters demanding tough action be taken against Azerbaijan. No comparable volume of legislation, resolutions, and open letters have been issued by the US Congress against Armenia for its ethnic cleansing of three-quarters of a million Azerbaijanis in the 1988-1992 First Karabakh War, or for occupying a fifth of Azerbaijan for nearly three decades.

In November-December 2020, both houses of the French parliament, the National Assembly and Senate, similarly supported the ‘independence’ of Karabakh. The US and French policy have contradictorily undermined Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity while at the same time supporting Georgia and Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

The ‘Schiff Letter’ urging the US to protect Armenian cultural heritage called on the US to prioritise the protection of Armenian heritage sites in Karabakh during future diplomatic engagements with Azerbaijani officials. No similar demands were ever raised by the US Congress condemning the destruction of countless Azerbaijani historical, cultural, and religious sites during Armenia’s nearly three-decade occupation of western Azerbaijan.

Bias and inconsistency

US confusion, bias and inconsistency are manifested in five areas. Firstly, in 1992, Armenia’s victory in the First Karabakh War led to its occupation of one-fifth of Azerbaijan, the ethnic cleansing of three-quarters of a million Azerbaijanis from occupied lands and Armenia, and the killing of thousands of civilians and military.

The US ignored its commitments to the territorial integrity of states when it punished Azerbaijan through Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act which banned direct US aid to the government of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan was the only post-Soviet state to not receive US government aid.

As former Secretary of State Albright pointed out, “Section 907 damages US national interests by undermining the administration’s neutrality in promoting a settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh, its ability to encourage economic and broad legal reforms in Azerbaijan, and efforts to advance an East-West energy transport corridor.”

Confusion and contradictions

The US has adopted a confusing and contradictory policy towards Azerbaijan. In 2020, the US Congress adopted amendments to legislation recognising Karabakh and the other territories as illegally occupied by Armenia. Three years later the US Congress ‘strongly condemned the military operation carried out by Azerbaijan in Karabakh on 19-20 September 2023’.

A year following that the US Helsinki Commission condemned ‘apparent ethnic cleansing’ by Azerbaijan in Karabakh. US Senator Bob Mendendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was a vocal lobbyist for Armenia and called for US sanctions against Azerbaijan. Mendendez, his wife, and three businessmen have been charged with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from foreign governments.

In 2020, during the Second Karabakh War, Azerbaijan liberated most of its land which had been illegally occupied by Armenia. In 2023, Azerbaijan liberated Karabakh which was internationally recognised as Azerbaijani land. Military force was used after two decades of failed talks and Armenian obstruction to returning occupied land.

Secondly, the US has been distrustful towards Russia-led integration of Eurasia but has ignored this when dealing with the South Caucasus. Armenia is a founding member of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation—created by the Kremlin to emulate the defunct Warsaw Pact and act as an alternative to NATO).

Armenia turned its back on the EU’s Eastern Partnership and instead opted to join the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU), the Kremlin’s alternative to the EU. Azerbaijan is not a member of either the CSTO or the EaEU.

Russia has two military bases in Armenia. Azerbaijan has none. Whether the Kremlin would allow Armenia to slip from its grasp is doubtful.

The US and Europe have ignored South Caucasian realities and pursued pro-Armenian policies. The US has targeted Azerbaijan with threats of sanctions and new discriminatory legislation.

Thirdly, Armenia is one of at least four Eurasian countries (the main culprits being Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan) breaking Western sanctions against Russia. Armenia’s trade with Russia has rocketed since 2022 through the re-export of large quantities of Western goods. Azerbaijan is not breaking Western sanctions against Russia.

Fourthly, Armenia has poor relations with Israel. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has long and very good relations with Israel. Azerbaijan and Israel have cooperated on military and security affairs since the 2000s and Azerbaijan purchased Israeli drones a decade before it began using Turkish Bayraktars.

Fifth, Azerbaijan and Israel share a common security threat from Iran. The US has had poor relations with Iran since the theocratic regime came to power in 1979. Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen wage war against US and Western interests in the Greater Middle East and the Red Sea.

The Dona Gracia Center for Diplomacy, an Israeli think tank, condemned US bipartisanship and double standards on Armenia and Azerbaijan. While condemning ‘ethnic cleansing’ from Karabakh the US Congress ignored the far larger and earlier ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis.

US policy to the South Caucasus is confusing, biased and inconsistent. The US runs roughshod over the principle of the territorial integrity of states, as in the case of Azerbaijan.

Dr Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.