ARMENIA THIS WEEK
Monday, September 13, 2004
NATO CANCELS AZERBAIJAN EXERCISES OVER ARMENIA’S EXCLUSION
The U.S.’ military commander in Europe was forced this Monday to cancel the
Cooperative Best Effort (CBE) 2004 exercises planned to take place in
Azerbaijan from September 13-27, accusing the host country of violating NATO
principles. The last minute cancellation by the Supreme Allied Commander in
Europe (SACEUR) Gen. James Jones is without recent precedents and came after
months of Azeri efforts to exclude Armenia from the exercises conducted
under the NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program.
A statement issued by the NATO spokesman said that “all PfP exercises are
agreed and conducted on the principle of inclusiveness for all Allies and
Partners which wish to participate. Nations participating in Cooperative
Best Effort 2004 agreed and have supported the exercise based on this
principle. We regret that the principle of inclusiveness could not be upheld
in this case, leading to the cancellation of the exercise.” Set up in 1994,
the PfP aims to promote defense cooperation between NATO and Partner
countries, reinforce stability and reduce the risk of conflict through
exchanges and joint exercises, such as CBE-2004. Georgia and Armenia
successfully hosted similar exercises in 2002 and 2003.
Armenia was due to send several officers to take part in CBE-2004, but they
were refused permission to enter Azerbaijan. Azeri officials had similarly
barred Armenians from taking part in the first planning event in Baku last
January. The U.S. State Department expressed its “disappointment” over the
development at the time, while Armenia condemned Azerbaijan’s behavior and
urged NATO to “demonstrate a principled stance.” The co-chairs of the U.S.
Congressional Caucus on Armenian issues, Representatives Joe Knollenberg
(R-MI) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ), urged NATO leadership to move exercises to
another country should Azerbaijan continue to insist on excluding Armenia.
Last June, the Azeri leadership appeared to have come around on the issue
with President Ilham Aliyev pledging that no hurdles to Armenian
participation would be put up. Two Armenian officers then attended the
exercises’ final planning conference, which proceeded despite disruption
caused by government-linked protestors. Azeri Deputy Foreign Minister Araz
Azimov said at the time that his government was forced to acquiesce to the
Armenian presence or “risk cancellation of the exercises and cooling of
relations with NATO.”
Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov said that Azerbaijan should implement its
obligations. The Azeri government-controlled courts went as far as to issue
tough prison sentences against radicals who disrupted the NATO event in
June, although President Aliyev hinted that the decision would be overturned
on appeal. Even the Turkish envoy in Baku Ahmet Unal Cevikoz urged
Azerbaijan not to put up obstacles. Citing diplomatic sources last week, an
Azeri paper reported that Baku had agreed to an Armenian presence.
But on Friday, the Aliyev-controlled Azeri Parliament issued a written
protest to the NATO Secretary General demanding that Armenia be excluded and
Aliyev himself said that he “does not want” to see Armenians in Baku. He
further reiterated his view that all contacts with Armenians should be
limited to meetings between the two countries’ Presidents and key ministers,
saying that all other contacts are “inappropriate.”
Armenia’s Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, who met NATO Secretary General
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer this Monday, expressed regret over Azerbaijan’s stance
describing it as a blow to regional cooperation, but he also welcomed NATO’s
principled position. Scheffer agreed that the Azeri approach was
inadmissible. Oskanian was in Brussels to discuss Armenia’s expanding
cooperation with NATO and for the annual talks with the European Union
leaders. Last week, Armenia appointed Samvel Mkrtchian, previously the
Foreign Ministry’s Europe Director, as its Ambassador to NATO. (Sources:
Arm. This Week 1-16, 2-27, 4-2; 6-25; Arminfo 9-10, 13; Trend 9-10; Azertag
9-11; Express 9-11; NATO 9-13)
RUSSIA HOSTAGE TRAGEDY THREATENS TO UNDERMINE REGIONAL STABILITY
Armenia rushed to provide emergency aid to the victims of the gruesome
hostage taking in Russia, in which several hundred hostages, mostly
children, died. Armenian officials, including Defense Minister Serge
Sargsian, also expressed anxiety that the Caucasus region was becoming
increasingly unstable.
Terrorists linked to the Chechen rebel commander Shamil Basayev occupied a
school in the southern Russian town of Beslan (North Ossetia), taking over
1,000 children, their parents and teachers hostage on September 1,
traditionally celebrated as the first day of school. Most of the deaths
occurred as bombs set up by the terrorists went off during negotiations with
Russian emergency workers. Basayev had previously led a similar raid on a
hospital in southern Russia in 1995, and earlier fought on the Azeri side in
Karabakh.
In a massive outpouring of sympathy for the Beslan victims, Armenians
donated blood and thousands brought flowers, candles and toys to a makeshift
memorial at the Russian Embassy. Armenia’s Consul in southern Russia Ararat
Gomtsian reported that of 33 ethnic Armenians taken hostage, nine died and
seven remained unaccounted for. Meanwhile last week, businesses owned by
ethnic Armenians and other Caucasus natives became targets of violence in
the Russian city of Yekatirinburg. (Sources: Armenpress 9-8; Baltic News
Service 9-8; ArmeniaNow 9-10; Itar-Tass 9-10; Turan 9-10)
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In The National Interest
September 1, 2004
Commentary: By the World Forgot: Realpolitik and the Armenian Genocide
By Nir Eisikovits
Between 1915 and 1916, through a campaign of slaughter and deportation, the
nationalist ‘Young Turk’ government of the Ottoman Empire killed over 1
Million Armenians. To this day, Turkey refuses to accept responsibility for
this genocide, claiming that the number of casualties was far smaller and
that most had been killed in fighting between the parties rather than in
one-sided massacres. It seems that Turkish genocide-deniers are now
receiving assistance from an unexpected source. In a recent article, the
Israeli daily Haaretz reported that several Jewish groups in Washington have
been involved in blocking attempts to procure Congressional recognition of
the atrocities.
This involvement was much more proactive last year than it is now, but, to
quote the article, “a central activist in a Jewish organization involved in
this matter clarified that if necessary, he would not hesitate to again
exert pressure to ensure the resolution is not passed and the Turks remain
satisfied.” Surprising? Not really. Israel has systematically refrained
from recognizing the extermination of Armenians. Senior officials, including
former foreign minister Shimon Peres, have spoken of a “tragedy,” which
“cannot be compared to genocide.” The position taken by Israel and some
Jewish organizations is animated by two considerations. One has to do with
the uniqueness of the Holocaust. The other is pure realpolitik. Let us
examine these in turn.
Recognizing the Armenian genocide, so the first argument goes, could eclipse
the singular magnitude of the crimes perpetrated against the Jews during
World War II.[1] This claim is both morally warped and empirically
unfounded. It is morally warped, because we Jews do not have a monopoly on
pain. Our catastrophes are not in a separate category; we do not feel any
more agony for the obliteration of our families than others do. When
Armenians are pricked, they bleed; when they are poisoned they die.[2] If
human suffering is essentially democratic, Jews cannot, simultaneously,
attack those who deny the Holocaust and assist others who deny the Armenian
genocide. The concern for the legacy of the Holocaust is empirically
unfounded, because other cases of genocide have been recognized without the
Holocaust being forgotten or sidelined. The massacres by the Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia and the Tutsi by the Hutu in Rwanda are now universally
acknowledged. Such recognition has not eclipsed the discussion of Nazi
atrocities. It has, rather, served as a reminder that human cruelty is as
much a reality now as it was in 1915 and 1939.
As for realpolitik, Israel sees Turkey as an all-important strategic ally in
the Middle East – a moderate democratic Muslim state in a region where both
moderation and democracy are in short supply. Thus, keeping the Turks happy
is taken to be an essential Israeli interest. Two observations are in order.
First, the appeasement of Turkey does not seem to be working. Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently accused Israel of “state terrorism” and
compared its policies towards Palestinians to the actions of the Spanish
Inquisition against Jews. Turkey is said to have rolled back planned
contracts to purchase military equipment from Israel and is now
reconsidering a planned deal to transport 15 Million cubes of water annually
to the water-poor Jewish State. Apparently we have sold our moral integrity
in vain. Second, realism in international affairs, with all its merits, must
be subordinate to a nation’s most basic principles rather than dictate them.
In the case of Israel, the most deep-seated of those principles is that the
state was founded as a barrier against genocide, as a safe-haven for Jews
the world over to protect them from future persecution. The refusal to
recognize other cases of genocide undermines this fundamental tenet. It
provides invaluable ammunition to those who claim that history is written by
the victors. If that position takes hold, no group, including the Jews,
would ever be safe from hounding, and Israel would have undermined the main
reason for its own existence.
On August 22, 1939, days before the Nazis invaded Poland, Hitler addressed
his military chiefs in Obersalzburg. “The aim of war is not to reach
definite lines,” he told them “but to annihilate the enemy physically. It is
by this means that we shall obtain the vital living space that we need.” He
then went on to ask them a rhetorical question: “Who today still speaks of
the massacre of the Armenians?” The Israeli government, for one, does not.
History, it would seem, has a cruel sense of humor.
Nir Eisikovits, an Israeli attorney, is completing his Ph.D. in legal and
political philosophy at Boston University.
[1] In early 2002, after Israeli ambassador to Georgia and Armenia Rivka
Cohen rejected any comparison between the Holocaust and the Armenian
Genocide, Israel’s foreign ministry released a statement including the
following text: ” …Israel asserted that the Holocaust was a singular event
in human history and was a premeditated crime against the Jewish people.
Israel recognizes the tragedy of the Armenians and the plight of the
Armenian people. However, the events cannot be compared to genocide. This
does not in any way diminish the magnitude of the tragedy.”
[2] W. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1.
