A Baku memorial to the victims of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh
Photo: Valery Melnikov
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United Nations Gets Involved in Conflicts in the CIS
// Against Moscow's Will
At its 61st session in New York, the UN General Assembly resolved to discuss frozen conflicts in the former USSR. The initiative was put forth by the GUAM association of countries (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova), which managed to get the question included in the session's agency despite vigorous opposition from Russia. The fact that the General Assembly agreed to discuss the question amounts to an admission by the international community that the activities of Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zones are ineffective.
The resolution was adopted on Thursday by the General Assembly after a fierce struggle in which 16 countries sided with the GUAM countries and 15 opposed the motion, with 65 abstaining. The request of the GUAM countries to include the matter in the General Assembly's agenda was originally turned down two days ago by the UN general committee, but with the help of the US and Great Britain, among others, the motion was passed in a second attempt.
A spokesman from the Azerbaijani government blamed Armenia and, especially, Russia for trying to hush up the problem of frozen conflicts in regions of the former USSR. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still locked in a dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region that lies between them and is claimed by both countries. Russia's influence in the region's frozen conflicts is felt most keenly in Moldova and Georgia, however, where the breakaway regions of Transdniestr in Moldova and South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia are seen as being courted by Moscow. Georgia's Foreign Ministry likewise took aim at Russia for its unwillingness to see the problem of such conflicts discussed in the General Assembly.
Diplomats from the GUAM countries did not hide their satisfaction at the adoption of the motion, calling it testimony to the rising political clout of their union and a show of interest by the UN in conflicts in the territory of the former USSR. The Russian Foreign Ministry, however, noted dryly in response that the fact that only 16 countries were for the motion, while 80 either opposed it or abstained from voting, does not point to any particular interest in the matter on the part of the UN.
Although the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, unlike those of the Security Council, have no legal force, the beginning of a broad discussion in the international community of the problem of frozen conflicts is still widely seen as an unexpected success for the GUAM countries and as a diplomatic defeat for Moscow. Though it is too early to talk about what the General Assembly's final words on the matter will be, it is possible that the discussion could lead to success for the GUAM countries in replacing Russian peacekeepers in the regions with an international peacekeeping contingent.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 16, 2006
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