The meeting of the military committee of the Collective Security Treaty Organization that was held last week suddenly turned into a controversy involving several states. Armenia was the cause of this new scandal as well. This country, which is an outpost of Russia, has released a statement on behalf of all member states that has caused discontent. The matter is, the chief of staff of Armenian Armed Forces, Yuri Khachaturov has declared that all member states support the Russian military intervention in Syria. And most importantly, he has called the Turkey shooting down a Russian airplane an act of aggression and a stab in the back. The Armenian general's statement have immediately been opposed by the military and political allies of Russia - Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Their stance has caused Russia react in a harsh manner. Later, Russian mass media has started to speculate about the reason for this stance of the countries who are supposedly Russia's allies. First, Kyrgyzstan has shared their thoughts on the matter. The General Staff of the said country has released a statement saying that Y.Khachaturov does not have the authority to speak on behalf of their country. He has no right to release statement on behalf of Kyrgyzstan. Gorky military servants have openly stated that they weren't aware of the statement: "Kyrgyzstan's stance is that, we are Turkey and Russia's strategic ally and we want the problems between the two countries to be resolved peacefully." Belarus and Kazakhstan has immediately released similar statements. Astana has declared that Armenia hasn't been given the authority to speak on behalf of their country: " The country's Defense Ministry does not interfere in foreign policy issues. Because this matter is within the authority of Foreign Affairs Ministry". He has also added that, Astana has made its stance on the shooting down of the plane clear many times. "We are still uncertain why Armenian representative have released such a statement and spoken on behalf of Kazakhstan" - says the statement released by Kazakh Defense Ministry. Russia's closest ally Belarus has a different approach to the problem. The head of the press service of the Belarusian Defense Ministry has announced that, in the meeting of the general staff of the member states of CSTO, the topics such as the partnership between member states and the the things that have been done in 2015 have been discussed. He has added that he is unaware of the statement released by the Armenian general. And it's not right for Armenian general to release a statement on their behalf: " We have no information about Khachaturov's statement. Thus we can't comment on it. And no one has the authority to speak on behalf of the Republic of Belarus" .
Thus, Armenia's reckless behavior was met with disagreement. Such pandering to Russia was bound to cause a disagreement and it did. We must also note that, in CSTO's meeting, Russia has attempted to make the organization to adopt harsh decisions with regards to Turkey. Despite the efforts of the head of Staff of the Russian Armed Forced, Valeriy Gerasimov to take a stance against Turkey, the member states have tried to avoid that. In the final document provided by Gerasimov, it is stated that, Russia's intervention in Syria is endorsed and in addition, the shooting down of a Russian place by Turkey is condemned. It was later noted that, majority of the member states want the issue to be resolved. But the Russian publications are trying to draw attention to something else. Why Russia's military and political allies, as well as CIS partners, does not unequivocally support Moscow? Why aren't they defending the big conflicts in geopolitical context?
They cite Kazakhstan as an example. The foreign economic trade exchange between the two countries is 2.8 %, this figure is 19% with Russia, 13% with China and 2.5 % with the USA. Publications note that, Turkey has never been the primary foreign economic partner for Kazakhstan. Russian media touches on the issue of Turkic speaking people. They say that, Turkey was the first country to recognize its Kazakhistan's independence and to establish diplomatic relations with it. Ankara has never deprived Astana of a positive attitude. For example, former president Abdulla Gul had called Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev "the Elder of Turkic countries" back in 2010. Turkey is well represented in this country in every sense of the word, in humanitarian, education and cultural areas. In 90s, the Turkish lyceums, universities names after Ahmed Yasevi and Suleyman Demirel were opened in the country. Turkey trains officers and experts for Astana and competes with Russia and the West on this issue. The attitude towards Kyrgyzstan is also the same. Turkish activity in this country is too strong. As well as being the first country to recognize Kyrgyzstan's independence, Turkey has signed close to a hundred documents with this country until 2000. In January-September of this year, the foreign trade turnover between these countries was 168 million dollars and 130 million dollars of it consists of imports to Kazakhstan. In comparison, the trade turnover between Russia and Kyrgyzstan is 1 billion dollars. Ankara has a close partnership with the country on humanitarian and educational fields and trains soldiers for the country. Although there are rumors that Gorky president Almazbek Atambayev owns a business in Turkey, the president denies the allegation. As for Belarus, Minsk, just like Ankara, has a multipolar approach in foreign policy. Even though Belarus has multilateral cooperation with Russia, it hasn't supported Russia's policy with regards to North and South Osetia. The same can be said about Ukraine too. It is interesting that, Turkey is not a primary foreign trade partner of Belarus. But Turkey has the same level of influence in Belarus as in Kazakhstan. Turkey has close economic ties to this country. Turkey's mobile company "Turkcell', and "Princess" casino chains and the biggest tour operator "TEZ TOUR" operates in the country. The foreign economic trade turnover is 500 million dollars.
So, Russia's plans to form a bloc against Turkey among its allies has failed. No country but Armenia wanted to defend this plan. Even the most dependent countries have refused to take a step against Turkey.
Azer NURIYEV
