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Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the Armenian
News Network, Groong, Week in
Review. We’re recording this show a couple of days late on January 11th, 2022.
This week we’re going to talk about the
following major topics:
●
Color Me Kazakhstan
●
Normalization Meeting on January 14
To talk about these issues, we have with us:
Benyamin Poghosyan, who is the Chairman of the Yerevan based think
tank Center for Political and Economic
Strategic Studies,
And
Pietro Shakarian,
who is a Lecturer in History at the
American University of Armenia in Yerevan. His research focuses on the history
of Soviet Armenia and the Caucasus.
Topics This Week
Color Me Kazakhstan
A week ago, in
Kazakhstan the doubling of the price for Liquified Natural Gas scheduled for
the 1st of January, gave rise to a popular movement sending large numbers of
protesters on the streets of the capital. Initially, the government acceded to
the demands and promised to continue subsidizing the price of gas, but protests
took a violent turn when rioters began to attack police and other law
enforcement agency headquarters.
While local
forces struggled to quell the riots and control the situation, Kazakh President
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev applied to the CSTO for
additional forces to stabilize the domestic situation. He hinted that the
rioters were organized through a “conspiracy of internal and external forces”, interested in bringing about a colored
revolution in Kazakhstan.
Who, What, When, Where, Why?
Where is
Kazakhstan, why do these events matter, and particularly for Armenians?
Are the protests
a truly “democratic” movement? Is what’s going on in Kazakhstan a “colored
revolution”?
Armenia’s Response
Armenia has the
chairmanship of the CSTO in 2022. As such, PM Pashinyan had to take the lead in
responding to President Tokayev’s request for help. In CSTO’s swift response to
help Tokayev, Pashinyan also included 100 Armenian servicemen, and he has been
slammed for that both domestically and also externally.
Did he do the
right thing? Could there have been a more appropriate response by Armenia?
Military expert Karen Vrtanesyan recently pointed out that Armenia’s NSC chairman Armen Grigoryan has essentially explained
why Armenia sent servicemen to help control Kazakhstan’s domestic unrest: it’s
because the Armenian government wants to show by example the kind of response
it wants to see, when and if it becomes destabilized with political unrest.
What do you think?
What is the
current status? It seems that Nazarbayev is out and if things continue to
stabilize then Tokayev will consolidate absolute power in Kazakhstan.
Russian Response
For Russia,
having stability in central Asia is of paramount importance and some say that
the loss of Kazakhstan to a “color revolution” could be catastrophic.
But let’s go back
a little bit and understand the state of Russian-Kazakh relations prior to this
incident. What was the nature of geopolitical relations between the two
countries?
In a tweet
shortly following the incident, Margarita Simonyan,
Editor in Chief of RT and also believed to be Putin’s unofficial spokesperson
wrote in a Tweet that Russia and the CSTO should help Kazakhstan, but also that
Russia should put forth a number of conditions on Kazakhstan, such as:
● Recognition of Crimea
● Return to the Cyrillic alphabet
● Make Russian the 2nd national language (like
Kyrgyzstan)
● Reduce pressure on Russian schools
● Oust anti-Russian NGOs
● Stop playing games with “Nazists”
in internal politics
What are Russia’s
interests in all this, do Simonyan’s points
unofficially hint at Russia’s demands of Kazakhstan? How does this bode for the
future of Russia-Kazakhstan relations?
If the situation
continues to stabilize, where does that leave Nazarbayev, and Tokayev?
Turkish Response
Erdogan offered
support for the Kazakh government and announced that the issue of Kazakhstan
will be discussed at the Council of Turkic Countries meeting in Baku that is
happening this week.
Turkey would love
an opportunity to increase its influence in Kazakhstan, but do they have a
long-enough arm to do this? Can it sustain yet another military confrontation
with Russia, especially with its economy in tatters? What are Ankara’s
interests here?
Azerbaijani Response
Official Baku’s
reaction to all this has been very reserved. But Azerbaijan never lets go of an opportunity to score points against Armenia.
Armenian media reported that Azerbaijani fake accounts were spreading rumors
that Armenian troops in Kazakhstan will commit a “2nd Khojaly” there.
Is Baku's being
strategic, or opportunistic? Does it have anything to gain or lose depending on
how things work out in Kazakhstan?
US and Western Response
The events in
Kazakhstan seem to be concerning all major world powers. While some Western
governments have called for peace, and none appear to explicitly support the
armed groups fighting the Kazakh government, some have gone a little further to
complain about Russia’s and CSTOs military involvement.
US Secretary of
State Anthony Blinken publicly proclaimed to reporters that: “...one lesson in recent
history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult
to get them to leave.”
The US Embassy in
Baku, quoting Blinken and in an apparent reference to
CSTO sending troops to Kazakhstan, sent out a tweet saying that: NATO did not
invade Georgia, Ukraine, nor Moldova “against the will of its peoples”. Of
course, maybe the Twitter character limitation did not allow the US Embassy in
Baku to comment on NATO’s activities in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya,
Serbia, Somalia… Did I miss anything?
These public
statements are especially interesting in light of the public Russia-US friction
that we’re observing.
Q: But besides
public statements, what can the West and NATO do about Kazakhstan? Are there
desired outcomes or less desired outcomes?
Additional points
to write:
● US and Russia deputy foreign ministers met
recently? Do you know if KZ was discussed and if so
what?
● “Armenian boots” in Kazakhstan. Slammed
domestically, slammed in Turkic countries.
● Azerbaijan’s Fake News social media in action.
● What are the demographics of Kazakhstan like?
What percentage of the population is Russian?
● Could these unrests turn ethnic?
● What has been the reaction of Baku?
Turkish-Armenian Normalization Meeting on
January 14
Serdar Kilic and Rouben Rubinyan will be in Moscow
on Friday, January 14th, for their first meeting of the Turkish-Armenian
Normalization negotiations.
Your thoughts and expectations of this meeting,
for any potential outcomes?
Topics from the Panelists
1. Benyamin - Progress in US/Iran (JCPOA) Negotiations
2. Pietro - The U.S. needs to talk with Russia
Wrap-up
That was our Week in Review
show, and we hope it helped you catch up with some of the issues in and around
Armenia from this past week. As always, we invite your feedback and your
suggestions. You can find us on most social media and podcast platforms, or our
website Groong.org.
Thanks to Laura Osborn for
the music on our podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel on YouTube,
Like our pages and follow us on
social media. On behalf of everyone in this episode, we wish you a good week,
thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
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Keywords
Benyamin Poghosyan, Pietro Shakarian,
Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan Protests, Central Asia, Kassym-Jomart
Tokayev, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Armenia, Azerbaijan, South Caucasus, Turkey,
Russia, Ukraine, Military reform, Armen Grigoryan,
JCPOA, United States, Iran, Iranian Gas, Soviet Union, Post-Soviet, FSU,
Mukhtar Ablyasov,