Turkmen President and the recent events in Khurvaleti

Another Russian strike – this time in Khurvaleti…

Now let’s try to figure out – what is the Russia’s new aggression linked to?

Prototypical answer would be something like “Russia is an invader and dare-devil state that has gall to do anything” or “Russia tries to provoke us”,“Russia wants us to go back on NATO integration”, etc.

Some reviewers, having certain background for it, shall link the new wave of borderization or occupation to the planed official visit of Stoltenberg or, say, upcoming military trainings to be held in Georgia that were assigned in 2014.

The Fact is that Russia still didn’t manage to achieve the desirable goal – Georgia is not speeding but step by step still keeps on going towards NATO integration and the shape of European Union borders became more vivid since it seems like Georgia will get its visa-liberalization package in December which will get effective in July or August, 2016.

Well, those things really frustrates Russia since its soft powers are week and ineffective: I would avoid setting down the certain names but I mean people who accept money from Russia and then permanently advocate Russia, who try to make Georgia a member of the Eurasian Union or insist on Georgia declaring neutrality – in fact, those people fail to succeed.

Anyway, let’s get back to the main point – why did Russia became so irritated? Why now and why today? Why did it hit again? Why did it plan a new provocation?

In order to explain clearly what the one of the main or even most important cause of Khurvaleti incidents, you should close your eyes for a second and think of the major role of Georgia as a global player – its transit potential.

Georgia is the non-competitive hub able to connect Europe and Asia. This includes the states of the Central Asia region –states that Russia seems to have friendly relations with or, at least, keeps officially friendly relations.

It is not just about the pipeline load transfer capability and its more or less regulated routes (obviously, Russia has some kind of desire of intervention in here as well), but also about all the cargo that can be transferred from Asia to Europe via overland transport.

Total sum of this turnover (concerning all goods) is significantly higher than the income from the gas and the oil running through the pipelines, as it covers not only the above mentioned oil and gas, but other important products as well.

These are the projects that Russia aims to wreck and they are the real target of its aggression.

Turkmenistan plays a very important role in implementation of those projects. Turkmenistan, like Azerbaijan, is located by the Caspian Sea and is a neighboring country to Iran (it’s high time to mention the “major” mission of Obama – re-integration of Iran into the global political and economic processes), Kazakhstan – the wealthiest Central Asian state, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, which remains the pain in the neck for the rest of the world. In other words, Turkmenistan, in some terms, plays the role of a hub itself for other very important players.

Current leader of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov implements that policy. About three weeks ago President Berdimuhamedov visited Georgia as a main hub-state.

By the way, President Margvelashvili openly discussed the prospects of economic cooperation. According to the President of Georgia:

“…our joint strategic visions completely match.

Turkmenistan has quite clear and strategic vision of the state development and cooperation with Georgia. This cooperation is beneficial not only for Georgia and Turkmenistan, but also for many states of the Eurasian region.

Our joint transit and energy projects and their implementation allow excess Turkmen energy resources and other important assetsto be delivered to the European markets, and many states are involved in this transportation and cooperation processes”…

What are the states that President Margvelashvili is talking about?

Theoretically, if a quite probable alliance of Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan becomes a reality and Georgia is cooperating with them as a hub-state (as well as Turkey later on), we would be able to see not only the weakening, but complete failure of Russia in the region.

Finally, two projects within the others are of outmost importance – one of them is AGRI which aims to compress Azerbaijan natural gas, deliver it to tankers and transfer them to Romania (gas is subjected to liquefaction in Romania) and the another project is Lapis Lazuli, that implies the transportation of different goods (including goods from Afghanistan) to Europe.

It can be said on a safe side that if the issues considered by Georgian and Turkmen Presidents are implemented (and this would require reconstruction of Poti Port), or Anaklia Port is built, it will be a breakthrough just like a historical Baku-Jeihan project.

This is where we should look for the causes of Russia’s renewed aggression, this is the cause of the recent events in Khurvaleti and there is a high probability of other provocations to take place in other villages.

How should we react?

Obviously, mobilization of the European community is the adequate response, but beyond the European Union, it is crucial to officially establishGeorgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan alliance and as a member-state of NATO, involve Turkey in this alliance.

Let me conclude this long article with the quotes from the speech of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov which he performed at the joint press conference held together with President Margvelashvili:

“We would like to see each transit state, each consumer state and all the states involved in the projects to gain equal profits and benefits from this cooperation.

Transportation is another issue and it is related to the transit corridors.Georgian President has already stated and I absolutely agree with him that our cooperation has great potential in these direction, both our states have great opportunities concerning the cooperation between Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.”

And one more quote from the speech of Turkmen President:

“We plan to unite the regions of Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and establish the South Caucasus corridor, in order to have access to the European market through this corridor.”

Author: Irakli Tabliashvili

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