South Caucasus

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 1:45 pm on 25 October 2005.

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Photo of Douglas Alexander Douglas Alexander Minister of State (Europe) 1:45, 25 October 2005

I congratulate Angus Robertson on securing this debate. As the founder of the all-party group on the south Caucasus, he has a particular interest in the region. Notwithstanding what I would charge was a somewhat partial account of the events under discussion, I pay tribute to his efforts in recent years on behalf of the south Caucasus, which is of considerable strategic importance for international security and stability, bordering as it does on Russia, Iran and Turkey.

Let me begin by placing an emphasis on the European Union, which the hon. Gentleman came to only at the end of his speech. To have dealt with it earlier might have got in the way of some of the points that he was keen to make at the beginning of his remarks.

As part of the near neighbourhood of the European Union, the three countries in the region—Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia—have been invited to enter the European neighbourhood policy. The ENP is a key instrument for the EU in developing relationships with our nearest neighbours on the basis of shared common values and effective implementation of political, economic and institutional reforms. The ENP action plans will offer the three countries a closer relationship with the EU in return for progress on internal reform. They will also encourage greater regional and cross-border co-operation and, most importantly in the context of this debate, progress on conflict prevention and resolution.

The UK and European interests in the region include the security of energy supplies. The Caspian basin resources are a vital source of supply for western markets. BP's largest overseas investment, some $22 billion, is in Azerbaijan.

The south Caucasus states have undergone considerable reform during the 15 years since the turbulent collapse of the Soviet Union, but they still face major challenges. As we heard, the "frozen conflicts" over the Georgian separatist regions of Abkhazia and south Ossetia, and between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh are a serious impediment to regional stability and economic development.

I remind the House that the global conflict prevention pool, which featured prominently in the hon. Gentleman's remarks, was established precisely to help countries such as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve the conflicts that are holding back their development. GCPP funds are invested in projects that we hope will help to prevent conflict and to promote peace and stability by improving governance, expanding democracy and increasing regional and economic co-operation.

The GCPP was set up in 2001 to improve the co-ordination and effectiveness of the Government's international conflict prevention work. Teams from the three Departments that jointly fund the pool—the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development—closely work together to achieve a more strategic and cost-effective approach to conflict prevention.

The GCPP has a unique funding arrangement specifically voted by Parliament. For 2005–06, the figure for the global pool is £74 million, which is shared among 15 regional and thematic strategies including Iraq, Afghanistan and Afghan counter-narcotics. The Russia and Commonwealth of Independent States GCPP strategy received £6.5 million, or almost 9 per cent. of the total GCPP budget, this financial year. The south Caucasus region is a top priority of the strategy.

One of the initiatives funded by the Russia-CIS strategy was the appointment in 2002 of Sir Brian Fall, a former British ambassador to Moscow, as the UK special representative to Georgia. I met that gentleman only recently. In 2003, his remit was extended to cover the whole of the south Caucasus. I assure the House that the region is of continuing interest and importance to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the British Government.

Sir Brian's work in the region gives the Government added diplomatic weight in international attempts to resolve the region's "frozen conflicts". He is the UK's senior representative in the UN Secretary-General's Group of Friends, which is working with the Government of Georgia and Abkhaz leaders to try to resolve the Abkhazia dispute.

"The Friends", as they are called, met for a fourth round of talks in Geneva earlier this year where some progress was made. They restated their commitment to finding a peaceful settlement to the dispute. They also welcomed an offer of a UN conference on economic confidence-building measures, and agreed in principle on a strategic paper presented by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the problem of internally displaced people in the region.

The situation in south Ossetia is more volatile. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, in the summer of 2004, some 30 to 40 people were killed in an outbreak of hostilities in the region. South Ossetia remains tense following recent kidnappings, shootings and general lawlessness, which included the shelling of a south Ossetian village earlier this month. We are monitoring the situation closely through our embassies and through the regular dialogue we and Sir Brian Fall have with the parties to the dispute.

I am, however, particularly encouraged by signs that the Georgia-Russia relationship is improving. The agreement earlier this year on Russian base withdrawal from Georgian territory was a positive step. I discussed the conflicts with the then Foreign Minister, Mrs. Zourabishvili, in London on 11 October, and I encouraged the Georgian Government to continue to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflicts in south Ossetia and Abkhazia.

I mentioned the ongoing conflict over Nagorno Karabakh. The UK strongly supports the work of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Minsk group, which was mentioned in the hon. Gentleman's contribution, and the framework for facilitating negotiations on Nagorno Karabakh. Although not a member of the group, Sir Brian Fall remains in close contact with the co-chairmen from the United States, France and Russia. There are clear signs of progress there, too.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers have met on several occasions this year and their Presidents met in Warsaw in May and again at the CIS summit in Kazan, Russia in August. The Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, Mr. Mammadyarov, was optimistic about the possibility of progress when I discussed it with him in September in the margins of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. Encouraging greater democracy is vital to long-term efforts to promote peace and stability in conflict-ridden countries.

Through the GCPP, we are funding an OSCE election observation mission for the Azerbaijan parliamentary elections on 6 November. The UK is providing 50 short-term and three long-term observers, making us one of the largest contributors to the mission. The GCPP is also supporting other south Caucasus OSCE missions and leading NGOs that are working to resolve conflict and to build trust and understanding between divided communities in the region. It is important to place those observations on record to balance other observations that we heard recently.

The hon. Gentleman specifically raised the SCPI— "skippy", as it is commonly pronounced. That project was launched by British NGO LINKS—the London Information Network on Conflicts and State Building—in 2001. The project forms part of a wider regional project called the consortium initiative. The consortium initiative is a coalition of four NGOs and it has been funded from the Russia-CIS GCPP strategy over three years to the tune of £2 million.

SCPI provides a framework for dialogue, contacts, exchange of views and joint analysis between the Parliaments of the three south Caucasus countries. The objective of the project is to improve prospects for a permanent settlement to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict by encouraging dialogue at political, parliamentary, media and grass-roots levels.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his important and excellent work in chairing the first half-yearly plenary assembly of SCPI in Scotland at the end of 2003, and for his active involvement and interest in the initiative subsequently. As he knows, the GCPP funding arrangement for SCPI ended in June of this year. However, I am glad to say that the UK Government have contributed a further £65,000 from other budgets to enable the SCPI project to continue to the end of this year. That should be sufficient to keep the secretariat of SCPI open, and to hold a plenary session in the south Caucasus at the end of the year. The work of SCPI has been greatly valued not only by the British Government, but by other bilateral and multilateral donors, including the EU.

The British Government hope that, from next year, other donors will step in to support the initiative and that the south Caucasus Governments themselves will start to take more ownership of the initiative. We have been lobbying the European Commission to provide financial support for SCPI. It was also at the United Kingdom's instigation that the first drafts of the south Caucasus country action plans made specific reference to the importance of co-operation within the parliamentary sphere, in the context of enhanced regional co-operation.

The Government are keen that SCPI should continue for as long as there is a need. I am pleased that the United Kingdom has been able to support the successful initiative in its first three years. As for the hon. Gentleman's specific queries about funding, a distinction must be drawn between the sources of funding for a specific initiative and who should rightfully bear the burden of responsibility for continuing that funding in future, and broader questions about the British Government's commitment to the south Caucasus. It is right and reasonable that we should look to the European Commission and to the Governments of the nations in question to take responsibility after what has rightfully been acknowledged as a successful British initiative.