Armenia’s Economy Choked by Undeclared War

This new railway system not only will punish the nation of Armenia but also ethnic Armenians living in Akhalkalaki, where a train station is being built.

Tweeting from Georgia, Bradley Jardine states, “Georgia’s authorities hope the BTK will provide jobs and security for isolated Akhalkalaki, in a region with a large ethnic Armenian population that Tbilisi authorities have long suspected of harboring separatist ambitions. Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirkashvili has stressed that the railroad’s potential to achieve greater economic and sustainable development … but Akhalkalaki locals complain they have seen little benefit so far from the station’s opening. The mood among Armenians in the town is that the project is not for us.”

The Turks and the Azeris have built apartment complexes to bring their workers to settle and take those jobs. Even the Georgian government is encouraging Turkish Metskhets to resettle in the area to scare away the Armenians. In 2015, red graffiti appeared on Old Ottoman fortress in Akhalkalaki warning the local Armenians, “We will return.”

Georgia’s Turkification is progressing at a very fast pace. The Turks have overtaken Ajaria’s economy and they even treat the local Georgians as second-class citizens.

The Georgians are concerned and they are up in arms. Recently, residents of another village called Dardash, on Georgia’s border with Turkey, blocked the main highway connecting Turkey to Georgia to protest the lawlessness introduced in Georgia since the opening of the border with Turkey in 2015.

President Erdogan himself publically announced that Ajaria has been part of the Ottoman Empire and has to be returned to Turkey.

Now comes another railway system to circumvent Armenia: the North-South Corridor (NSTC). NSTC is the Armenian-Iranian railway link, also known as the South Armenian Railway, which would connect Iran’s southern port of Bandar Abbas with the Black Sea and Russia through Armenia and Georgia.

Writing in Eurasian Daily Monitor, Rahim Rahimov, a London-based correspondent states: “President Aliyev pointedly mentioned last month that two transport corridors would be integrated. This effectively puts an end to Armenia’s ambitions to become a regional transit country and adversely affects it politically and economically. Yet, Armenia’s closest ally, Russia, has essentially been unsupportive of Yerevan’s position in this issue.”

Incidentally, Tbilisi took advantage of Azerbaijan’s determination to exclude Armenia and to include Georgia in the BTK system. The Georgian government claimed that it did not possess enough funds to construct its share of the railway system, thus forcing Aliyev to cough up another $775 million in terms of a loan to Georgia.

In this war of monopolizing land transport routes and energy systems, Baku and Ankara seem to be more motivated by isolating and stifling Armenia than truly reaping the rewards of the economic benefits these developments bring.

This is an undeclared war against Armenia; a war of attrition with Georgia’s active participation and Russia’s passive negligence.