Xenophon Paper 2 pdf - ICBSS

Affirming their determination to make the best use of all possibilities and opportunities for
expanding and multiplying their cooperation in the fields of economics (e.g. trade and
industrial cooperation, science and technology, and of the environment) the Participating
States declared that they would thereafter take concrete steps in this process by identifying,
developing, and carrying out with, inter alia, the participation of their competent organisations,
enterprises, and firms, projects of common interest, in the following areas:
- transport and communications (including their infrastructure)
- informatics
- exchange of economic and commercial information
(including statistics)
- standardisation and certification of products
- energy
- mining and processing of mineral raw materials
- tourism
- agriculture and agro-industries
- veterinary and sanitary protection
- health care and pharmaceutics
- science and technology
Since the BSEC was still being formed from 1992 until 1999 (or, its founding documents
– i.e. the Bucharest Declaration of 30 June 1995, high-level meeting of BSEC countries;
the October 1996 Moscow Declaration of the heads of states and governments of
BSEC countries; the Declaration of the Yalta Summit on 5 June 1998; and the Declaration
of the Istanbul Summit on 17 November 1999 - were being submitted), and its institutional
bodies were being established, the areas for cooperation were being determined,
and projects being prepared (in terms of real and tangible results), the organisation
could not meet the huge expectations of newly independent Armenia after it regained
its independence in the early 1990s. The primary reason behind this frustration was
the fact that the prospect for economic cooperation between the BSEC and Armenia’s
neighbouring countries became captive to unresolved political and historical problems
and regional turbulences. Consequently, the “prosperity, peace and security through
economic cooperation” formula could not bring forth huge success and, in the case
of some bilateral relations among participating countries, no success at all.
Months after the Istanbul Declaration and the Bosphorus Statement was signed in the summer
of 1992, the challenges facing Armenia’s security reached their pinnacle. The country’s entire
eastern boundary-zone became involved in the undeclared war of Azerbaijan and, as of fall
1992, more than 45 percent of Mountainous Karabakh was captured by the Azeri armed forces. 4
Thereafter, effective defence of the Armenian side in the conflict zone, and the subsequent
4 Seven Years of Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Helsinki Report, Human Rights Watch, December 1994.
16 UNFOLDING THE BLACK SEA ECONOMIC COOPERATION VIEWS FROM THE REGION