Zangezur
Zangezur
UPDATE: Observers, especially in the non-mainstream media community, were misled about the geostrategic calculations and powerful influence wielded by Armenia’s ultra-nationalist diaspora lobby, the most pernicious elements of which are based in France, the US, and Lebanon.
UNSC members arrived this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for their 17th annual joint consultative meeting with the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC), which will be held on Friday (6 October). Mozambique, as the chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa, and Brazil, in its capacity as October’s Council President, are the co-leads of the Council’s visit to Addis Ababa.
Amid the re-orientation of trade from the West to Asian markets, Russia has been expanding its trade and, to some degree, investments ties with South Asian countries. Among them Myanmar stands out as a promising market for Russian companies expanding into the niche created by major Western companies fleeing Myanmar.
Russia, Iran and the Zangezur Corridor
By Andrew Korybko (amended)
The question therefore naturally arises of why so many people, especially in the non-mainstream media community, were misled about those two’s geostrategic calculations. The answer can arguably be found by paying attention to the powerful influence wielded by Armenia’s ultra-nationalist diaspora lobby, the most pernicious elements of which are based in France and the US, but some also reside in Lebanon too.
One of the most successful disinformation narratives about the South Caucasus is that Russia and Iran allegedly fear the Zangezur Corridor, which is another name for the planned regional transport corridor connecting Azerbaijan and Turkiye via Armenia. Those who’ve fallen for this false claim wrongly think that this project is a “Trojan Horse” for undercutting those two’s influence, but official Russian and Iranian statements show that they both actually support this initiative.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said late last week that “There are plans to develop transport communications and logistics in the region. This is extremely important for Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia. We hope that this work will continue.” This stance aligns with the Moscow-mediated November 2020 ceasefire, the last part of which stipulates that Armenia must unblock all regional transport links. It also has to open up a Russian-guarded corridor from Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan (and then Turkiye).
Shortly afterwards, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee revealed that there are plans to run this route through their country in the event that Armenia remains obstinate. Ali Alizadeh said that “It was Tehran’s idea to connect the two regions in Azerbaijan’s territory via a road in Iran.” He described this option as a so-called “Plan B” and claimed that Iran prefers it to the original plan since Tehran is concerned that the latter could lead to war.
Up until this point, most of the non-mainstream media community thought that streamlining Azeri-Turkish economic connectivity would accelerate the trend of “Pan-Turkism”, which they were convinced is a latent but nevertheless extremely serious geostrategic threat to Russia and Iran’s shared interests. This impression ignored the fact that Azerbaijan and Turkiye are already connected via Georgia, not to mention that Turkiye currently trades with Russia and Iran’s shared Chinese partner via this route.
Nevertheless, it was explained here prior to the latest – and likely last – round of the Karabakh Conflict that “Russia & Iran Are On The Same Page Regarding Armenia”. Peskov and Alizadeh’s subsequent statements about their respective country’s support for the Zangezur Corridor confirm the aforesaid analysis. The question therefore naturally arises of why so many people, especially in the non-mainstream media community, were misled about those two’s geostrategic calculations.
The answer can arguably be found by paying attention to the powerful influence wielded by Armenia’s ultra-nationalist diaspora lobby, the most pernicious elements of which are based in France and the US, but some also reside in Lebanon too. They masterfully infiltrated the non-mainstream media community over the past decade by raising awareness of the threat to Syria’s Christian community, particularly their fellow co-ethnics there, throughout the course of its over decade-long hybrid civil-international conflict.
They were driven to do so out of solidarity with their diaspora, but their fact-based information campaigns aligned with Russian and Iranian interests in Syria, both of which sought to expose how many Western-backed fighters there are actually terrorists who want to genocide Christians. Accordingly, these Armenian activists were welcomed into those two’s information ecosystems and embraced by supporters of their anti-Western worldview, even though some of them were actually pro-Western.
In the years since, many genuinely anti-Western activists were misled into thinking that these Armenian activists shared their worldview due to their outspoken criticism of Western policy in Syria, during which time these activists exploited their newfound fame to maximally push their ethno-centric agenda. In the context of the present analysis, this took the form of manipulating perceptions about the Karabakh Conflict to frame Azerbaijan and Turkiye as allegedly posing a threat to Russia and Iran.
This disinformation campaign aimed to mislead influential members of those two’s media ecosystems, both formal ones such as their publicly financed international flagships as well as those independent outlets that largely support Russia and Iran’s anti-Western worldviews. These activists hoped that those two states’ policymaking communities would then be influenced by the newly reshaped views of their respective media ecosystems towards the Karabakh Conflict, Azerbaijan, and Turkiye.
The end goal of these Syrian-focused Armenian diaspora activists and their “fellow traveler’s”, meaning those non-Armenian Syrian-focused activists whose views towards the preceding three subjects were influenced by these efforts over the decade, was to turn Russia and Iran against Azerbaijan and Turkiye. This long-term influence campaign failed as proven by the latest conflict and was exposed in hindsight after these same “anti-Western activists” united to aggressively push false Western narratives about “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide.” Russia insists that its peacekeepers are helping to meet local Armenians’ humanitarian needs. The Armenian diaspora and their Western government allies, however, claim the exact opposite and have exploited these false concerns to push for military intervention.
It’s now known for a fact that Russia doesn’t believe that either crime is being committed in Karabakh, and that the Kremlin doesn’t fear Azerbaijan’s Zangezur Corridor either, nor does Iran. Nobody should be faulted for earlier thinking that Iran was against the Zangezur Corridor prior to Alizadeh’s statement, though there was no reason to think that Russia was since this corridor’s creation is stipulated in the Moscow-mediated November 2020 ceasefire. The Karabakh Conflict, might stir Armenian separatism, but fear mongering about alleged crimes there together with insisting that Russia and Iran are supposedly against the Zangezur Corridor is bonafide disinformation. The only ones who still do this are the Armenian diaspora’s “agents of influence” and “useful idiots”.
Average members of the non-mainstream media community should be aware of which influential figures are playing such roles in order to avoid being further misled by them. They’ve proven themselves untrustworthy by parroting Western lies about the Karabakh Conflict after becoming famous over the past decade for presenting themselves as supposedly being “anti-Western” activists. Anyone who continues looking to these figures for guidance is setting themselves up to be misled even more.
Read more here.
UN met AU Peace and Security Council
Source: UNSC
Council members arrived this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for their 17th annual joint consultative meeting with the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC), which will be held on Friday (6 October). This meeting will be preceded tomorrow (5 October) by the eighth informal joint seminar of the Security Council and the AUPSC. Mozambique, as the chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa, and Brazil, in its capacity as October’s Council President, are the co-leads of the Council’s visit to Addis Ababa.
Security Council members and AUPSC members have held annual joint consultative meetings since 2007, alternating between their respective headquarters in New York and Addis Ababa. The general practice has been to issue a joint communiqué following these annual meetings. The informal seminars became a yearly practice in 2016.
Tomorrow, prior to the informal joint seminar, Council members will hold a meeting with Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the AU and head of the UN Office to the African Union (UNOAU) Parfait Onanga-Anyanga and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Horn of Africa Hanna Serwaa Tetteh. They are also expected to meet Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Demeke Mekonnen Hassen.
Over the last couple of years, the AU Committee of Experts has visited New York ahead of the annual consultations to meet with Security Council counterparts and negotiate the draft outcome document of the meeting. This year, for the first time, Security Council experts travelled to Addis Ababa ahead of time to meet their AUPSC counterparts and negotiate the communiqué prior to the consultative meeting. The Council experts arrived on Monday (2 October) and have held two rounds of negotiations with their AU counterparts, yesterday (3 October) and today (4 October), on the draft communiqué, which was proposed by the AUPSC. Negotiations on the draft communiqué were ongoing at the time of writing. The rest of the Council delegation—comprising Permanent Representatives, Deputy Representatives, and Political Coordinators—arrived in Addis Ababa today.
The agreed agenda for Friday’s (6 October) consultative meeting includes the situations in Sudan, the Sahel region, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as Somalia, including the activities of the AU Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS). Thursday’s (5 October) joint seminar aims to take a strategic look at how to enhance cooperation between the two Councils, including through improving the bodies’ joint working methods. The seventh informal joint seminar last year in New York welcomed the monthly meetings of the President of the Security Council and the Chairperson of the AUPSC. Participants also encouraged the UN and the AU to undertake joint assessment missions, as well as greater working-level coordination and consultation ahead of their joint meetings.
An expected key area of discussion at the joint seminar is the long-standing issue of securing adequate, predictable, and sustainable financing for AU peace support operations (AUPSOs). This matter has gathered momentum in the Security Council since last year, and the AUPSC requested the Security Council’s A3 members (represented this year by Gabon, Ghana, and Mozambique) in May 2023 to “resume consultations with the relevant stakeholders towards the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution on financing AU-led PSOs”. (For more information, see our 26 April research report titled The Financing of AU Peace Support Operations: Prospects for Progress in the Security Council?) On 23 September, the AUPSC held a ministerial-level meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly’s high-level segment to discuss this issue. In his statement at the meeting, AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed the Commission’s readiness to support the A3 in advancing a draft resolution that is expected to be considered by the Security Council in December 2023.
The joint seminar will also address issues related to youth, peace and security, at the initiative of the A3. This has been a priority issue for Ghana, which convened a Security Council Arria-formula meeting titled “Reinforcing the implementation of the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda for a peaceful and stable Africa” on 28 August. (For more information, see our 25 August What’s in Blue story.) Today, the embassies of Ghana and Switzerland in Addis Ababa co-hosted a side event on the margins of the UN-AU annual consultative meeting which aimed, among other matters, to identify the role that the Secretary-General’s policy brief A New Agenda for Peace can play in promoting the youth, peace and security agenda. At the meeting, Ghana expressed its desire to institutionalise youth, peace and security as an item in the UN-AU annual exchanges.
The regular meetings of the two Councils—originally a joint UK-South African initiative—made the AUPSC the first international body with which members of the UN Security Council have had regular interactions. The idea behind starting such meetings resulted from the realisation that, since conflicts in Africa occupied more than half of the UN Security Council’s time and resources, the need for various forms of conflict prevention and management had surpassed the capacity of the UN and that new approaches and burden-sharing were needed.
This relationship, however, has not always been entirely smooth and has experienced its share of challenges. The key provisions of the short communiqués between 2007 and 2010 were that the relationship would continue and that within a year there would be another meeting in one of the headquarters. The communiqués gradually became more substantive, but their agreement sometimes required a great deal of work. While some communiqués were issued on the day of the meeting or very soon after, others took months—in one case more than a year—to be published.
The negotiations on the communiqué that was issued following last year’s joint consultative meeting, which was held on 14 October in New York, were apparently difficult. It seems that a divisive issue during the negotiations was language related to sanctions. In the past few years, African members of the Council have criticised the adverse effects of Security Council sanctions and have questioned their utility. The joint communiqué adopted at the consultative meeting’s conclusion contained strong language which, among other things, emphasised the need to “review, adjust and terminate, when appropriate, sanctions regimes taking into account the evolution of the situation on the ground and minimize any unintended adverse humanitarian effects”. Although some Security Council members opposed such language, consensus was eventually reached because these members apparently took the view that the content of the joint communiqué may not set a precedent for future negotiations on Security Council-related products.
Tags:Insights on Interaction with Regional and other International Organisations,Interaction with Regional and other International Organisations
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Russia and Myanmar: The Trade and Investment Dynamics
Trade up from US$15.7 million in 2021 to US$400 million in 2023
By Emil Avdaliani (amended)
Amid the re-orientation of trade from the West to Asian markets, Russia has been expanding its trade and, to some degree, investments ties with South Asian countries. Among them Myanmar stands out as a promising market for Russian companies which are willing fill in the niche created by the fleeing of major Western companies also from Myanmar.
The Western sanctions imposed on Russia pushed the latter to re-assess its approach to Southeast Asia. With limited trade and investments relations in pre-2022, Moscow has since then re-invigorated bilateral political and economic ties with Naypyidaw. This expansion fits into the overall Russian thinking toward foreign trade but also serves as preparation for further growth of commercial ties with South and Southeast Asia especially given the fact that Myanmar is a significant member of ASEAN. Myanmar also enjoys direct access to China, India and ASEAN countries through ports in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
Russia – Myanmar Bilateral Trade
In the period of 2018-2021 imports from Myanmar to Russia were increasing. Similar dynamics were observed in exports from Russia – with the exception of 2020, a relative decline caused by the pandemic. In 2022 exports from Russia to Myanmar amounted to US$284.3 million, and Russian imports from Myanmar amounted to US$147.3 million.
The progress in bilateral trade between the two countries has been impressive. In 2020-21 it stood at US$15.7 million, by late 2022, it has increased to more than US$335 million. In the first half of 2023, trade turnover between Russia and Myanmar amounted to about US$200 million. Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce projects that the trade between the two countries has a potential to increase to US$1 billion. As a sign of growing trade potential in November 2022 Russia announced it plans to open its trade representation in Myanmar.
Russia’s exports to Myanmar mainly consist of hard coal, three-component fertilizers, diammonium phosphate, refined sunflower oil, ammonium sulfate, anthracite, bulk semi-finished products and products made of unvulcanized rubber, except tread blanks. The top Russian imports from Myanmar include men and women outerwear made from chemical threads, Shoes with textile uppers, except sports shoes, Sports shoes, Cotton sewn women’s trousers and shorts, Sweaters, vests and similar products, T-shirts and T-shirts, and non-cotton knitted fabrics.
However, Myanmar’s trade with Russia is only a small fraction of the Asia country’s overall trade. For instance, in 2022 Russia was 44th biggest exporting partner to Myanmar and 34th biggest partner in imports. In 2021, Myanmar ranked only 85th in the list of Russia’s trade partners. The figures are dwarfed by other countries trading with Myanmar, but the upward trajectory of Russia-Myanmar trade might soon change the statistics.
In December 2022 Russia and Myanmar agreed to develop cooperation in a number of key sectors such as facilitation in the customs sphere and bilateral trade. The agreement is built on earlier economic cooperation strategy signed in August 2022. Myanmar expressed interest in exporting liquefied natural gas and other energy resources from Russia.
In June 2023 a memorandum of cooperation was signed between the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the directive body of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and Myanmar which
aims at increasing cooperation in such areas as regional economic integration, customs regulation, energy and transport. Related to this, in September this year, direct air traffic between Russia and Myanmar has resumed after a 30-year break and the two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding on tourism development the same month.
Myanmar has also announced plans to join the Russian equivalent of SWIFT (SPFS) and in June the country’s officials proposed using the Chinese RMB Yuan and Ruble in settlements between the two EAEU and ASEAN countries.
Russia – Myanmar Bilateral Investments
Myanmar’s government have made efforts to attract Russian investments into agriculture, production of electric vehicles, the production of oilseeds, fertilizers, cement, food, iron and steel, as well as pharmaceutical and medical products. In November 2022, the country’s Ministry of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Russian RK-Investment Foundation aiming at developing investments cooperation in major areas of mutual interest.
Myanmar is also interested in expanding the presence of Russian oil and gas companies. Myanmar has significant reserves of unexplored oil, natural gas, minerals and forest resources. This sector has traditionally attracted a significant portion of FDI into the country and has also made a significant contribution to GDP and growth of exports.
The Southeast Asian country is keen in developing logistics and transport and trade corridors. This is especially important in the context of the ongoing expansion of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) between Russian and Iran/India. Given a high pace of trade between India and Myanmar the latter hopes it will help establish strong logistic connections and trade routes between South Asia, the Middle East and Russia.
Another promising area of potential Russia investments in Myanmar is nuclear energy. The two countries plan to expand their cooperation in this area Myanmar intends to reach significant agreements with Rosatom this year on the construction of nuclear power plants of various capacities.
At the latest St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Rosatom signed a memorandum with Myanmar on the development of non-energy nuclear technologies in the country. Generally, Russia is interested in the projects abandoned by large Western investors. For example, the Shweli-3 hydropower project of the Swedish-Finnish engineering company AFRY and the French EDF.
Another area where Russian companies could invest is Myanmar’s expanding textile industry, which receives significant foreign investment and orders to produce clothing for global brands as H&M, Adidas, KIABI, Next, Mango, New Yorker and many others. Given the flight of major Western companies from Russia, the investments in textile industry would make sense.
No less interesting is a proposed project related to agriculture – an innovative technology for the use of biological fertilizers in Myanmar – discussed at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum between Russian and Myanmar officials.
Read more here.