Month: August 2008

OPPOSITION SLAMS ERDOGAN’S CAUCASUS ALLIANCE PROPOSAL

Today’s Zaman
Aug 20 2008
Turkey

A leading member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party
(CHP) objected yesterday to the government’s initiative to establish
a regional stability and cooperation platform to resolve crises in
the Caucasus, calling an alliance in the Caucasus "a dream."

The reaction against the government initiative came a day before a
visit by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Baku, where he is
to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and discuss recent
developments in neighboring Georgia as well as Turkey’s initiative
for a union in the Caucasus.

"This is against nature. It is contrary to reason to assume that
countries which have daggers drawn can gather under a pact. Moreover,
only Russia will be pleased with such an attempt because it can
increase its clout in the region in this way [the Caucasia platform],"
CHP Deputy Chairman Onur Oymen told the ANKA news agency.

In Ä°stanbul, delivering a speech at the Turkey-Africa Cooperation
Summit, Erdogan yesterday touched upon the initiative, saying that
meetings to include Armenia in the platform would also be held.

"By rapidly improving efforts within the five countries [Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia and Turkey], we will bring stability
to the region," Erdogan said. Oymen, a former undersecretary of the
Foreign Ministry, also suggested that Turkey has "remained away" from
the developments in the Caucasus, while criticizing policies of the
ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) concerning the region.

"Both regional countries and Western countries have been asserting
for the last 15 years that these countries should not be under one
large country’s ascendancy, that they should gain their independence
in the literal sense and that they should stand on their own two
feet. When you propose a pact which is to include Russia, you lead to
the re-ascendancy of Russia in the region. This would be very wrong,"
Oymen told the agency.

Turkey is a close ally of Georgia, cooperating in the field of energy
and providing the former Soviet Union country with critical military
assistance and training. But it also has strategic ties with Russia,
and trade between the two countries has grown tremendously in past
years. Last Wednesday, Erdogan flew to Russia and Georgia in a surprise
move and called on Russian and Georgian leaders to heed his proposal
for a Caucasus pact.

He said the regional platform would aim at preserving peace and
common security and furthering cooperation in the areas of economy
and energy. It will also include crisis management mechanisms based
on the principles of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE). Such a platform, he said, would play a key role in
preventing similar clashes in the future. Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili backed the idea, saying it would be beneficial to create
a common security mechanism in the region. He also thanked Turkey
for its efforts for lasting peace in the region and asked Ankara to
continue these efforts.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin also welcomed the proposal, and Erdogan said after talks in
Moscow that the foreign ministries of the two countries would start
working on the idea.

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ADL HIRES DIRECTOR OF N.E. OFFICE
By Michael Levenson

Boston Globe
Aug 20 2008
MA

The Anti-Defamation League, which has been riven by conflict over its
refusal to fully acknowledge the Armenian genocide, turned yesterday
to a politically seasoned official from a prominent pro-Israel lobby
to help rejuvenate its New England office.

Derrek L. Shulman, who will take over as the ADL’s New England regional
director in October, worked for the past 5 1/2 years as political
director in the Boston office of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee and for nine years before that as a top official in the
state Executive Office of Elder Affairs.

He takes over at a time of turmoil for the ADL, a 95-year-old
organization that was founded to fight anti-Semitism and now has a
stated mission to combat "all forms of bigotry."

More than a dozen Massachusetts cities and towns have withdrawn
from one of the ADL’s signature initiatives, the No Place For Hate
program, to protest the national office’s refusal to acknowledge as
genocide the killing of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923 in
present-day Turkey.

Shulman said he sees a "tremendous opportunity" for progress on the
issue, but declined to offer specifics.

"I’ll be looking to talk to a lot of people, to get input, to get
into look-learn-listen mode before I start to set a course," he
said yesterday.

The ADL has battled controversy since last August, when Watertown,
which has a sizeable Armenian community, pulled out of the No Place
For Hate program to protest the organization’s stance on the Armenian
genocide.

When Andrew H. Tarsy, the ADL’s New England regional director at the
time, spoke out and said the group should acknowledge the genocide,
he was fired by the national office. Local Jewish and Armenian leaders
reacted angrily, calling his firing vindictive.

Under mounting pressure, the national ADL modified its stance,
saying that the massacre was "tantamount to genocide" but that a
congressional resolution acknowledging it was counterproductive.

Two weeks later, Tarsy was rehired. But the conflict continued to
mushroom.

Late last August , Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the
ADL’s "tantamount to genocide" statement, calling it "an injustice to
the unique character of the holocaust, as well as to the memories of
its victims." Armenian-American leaders, meanwhile, expressed anger
at the ADL’s refusal to support the congressional resolution.

In December, Tarsy resigned, saying he made a "professional judgment
based on knowing when it’s your time."

Jewish leaders praised Shulman’s appointment, while Armenian leaders
said they would wait to see what action, if any, Shulman takes on
the genocide issue.

"Our concern has never been as much with the person who holds the
position, as with the policy of the ADL," said Aram Suren Hamparian,
executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America.

Ara Nazarian, spokesman for the No Place For Denial campaign,
which opposes the national ADL’s stance on the genocide, echoed
the sentiment.

"The ball is in their court at this point, and we’re waiting for them
to do the right thing," he said.

Nancy K. Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations
Council of Greater Boston, said Shulman has "got his eyes wide open
and he knows what his challenges will be."

"My guess is he will try to build bridges and do everything that he
can to get ADL back on the footing it once had in the community,"
Kaufman said. "It is a big job and it’s an important job, and he has
big shoes to fill."

The ADL selected Shulman, 40, from among several candidates identified
by a search firm. The Needham resident also teaches at Lasell College
in Newton.

"We think he’s got great leadership and political skills," said James
L. Rudolph, chairman of the New England board.

The national ADL declined to comment yesterday on the controversy
surrounding the Armenian genocide, but released a statement calling
Shulman "a terrific choice."

Steve Grossman, a past president of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee and a former member of the New England ADL board, said
Shulman would rebuild trust in the ADL and attract younger members.

"I’m thrilled that they brought in somebody of Derrek’s caliber and
experience, but who is comparatively untested in executive leadership,"
Grossman said. "They took a chance on Derrek, but I think it’s exactly
the kind of risk-taking that will pay off in days to come."

IRAN, ARMENIA CALL FOR STRONGER TIES

Tehran Times
Aug 20 2008
Iran

TEHRAN — Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Alireza Sheikh Attar on
Tuesday held talks with a visiting Armenian delegation on ways to
further improve bilateral relations.

Armenian Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Armen Movsisian,
who was accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister Gegham Gharibjanyan,
told Sheikh Attar that Yerevan is determined to boost cooperation
with the Islamic Republic.

He said Iran enjoys a high status in the region.

Sheikh Attar, for his part, expressed Iran’s interest in further
expansion of friendly relations with neighboring nations.

BLOODY DIVISIONS STALKING MULTI-ETHNIC CAUCASUS REGION
By Sebastian Smith

China Post
Aug 20 2008
Taiwan

MOSCOW — In the Caucasus, even the mountains seem unable to escape the
region’s bloody feuds. Legend tells that the twin summits of Elbrus,
a 5,642-meter (18,510-foot) colossus at the Russian-Georgian border,
are the cleaved skull of an ancient giant.

Elbrus, the tale goes, was attacked by his son Mount Beshtau in an
argument over a local beauty, Mount Mashuk. Her tears now form one
of southern Russia’s most celebrated mineral springs.

The exotic story captures the real life complexity of the Caucasus —
and the way fallings out here quickly turn bloody.

Today the world’s focus is on Russia’s attack against Georgia
in response to a Georgian assault on a separatist enclave of
ethnic-Ossetians.

But the Ossetians are just one of more than 50 tiny ethnic groups
in this beautiful region, each speaking a separate language, each
fiercely protective of ancestral lands.

"The Caucasus has the typical complications of a mountain region,
where people from different ethnicities live in isolation from each
other," says Alexander Cherkasov, an expert on the region with the
Memorial human rights group.

The amazing ethnic patchwork of Papua New Guinea and the clan system
of highland Scotland bear similarities, Cherkasov points out.

Add the post-Soviet legacy of corruption, brutality, and floods of
weaponry, and you have the Caucasus.

Other than the fighting over South Ossetia in Georgia, there are bloody
conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Georgian separatist province of
Abkhazia, and the quagmire of Chechnya, where an estimated 100,000
people have lost their lives in a failed independence bid from Russia.

And yet Caucasian peoples are often able to live in harmony.

Despite today’s horrors, many Georgians and Ossetians are related
through marriage. In Abkhazia, where thousands have died since the
1990s, the ethnic-Abkhaz separatist leader himself is married to
a Georgian.

Even Dagestan, a remarkable district on the Russian side of the
mountains, with more than 30 distinct ethnic groups, has little
history of inter-communal fighting.

The trouble, analysts say, comes when outsiders deliberately stir the
pot. Russians have long been masters at this, strengthening their
dominance by setting different ethnic groups against each other,
said Sergei Arutunov, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"Every empire from the Romans on has marched under the idea of ‘divide
and conquer,’" he said. "That’s how it’s been here and always will be."

In the 19th century, the tsars used an alliance with the strategically
placed Ossetians to derail anti-Russian resistance leader Imam Shamil’s
attempts to unite the northern Caucasus tribes.

The main Ossetian town, which controls two key mountain passes between
Russia and Georgia, was named Vladikavkaz — literally "ruler of
the Caucasus."

Stalin took the divide and rule concept to extremes, splitting
related groups into different administrative districts and using
forced resettlement to transform the ethnic balance.

Decades on, the effects of Stalin’s machinations keep tearing at the
Caucasus, whether in the Abkhaz struggle for independence to the south,
or a vicious dispute between Ossetians and their Ingush neighbors to
the north.

And Grigory Shvedov, editor of Caucasian Knot, a specialist Internet
site, says the Kremlin still relies on divide and rule, regardless
of the subsequent suffering.

But he also blames local leaders, like Georgia’s first president,
Zviad Gamsakhurdia, an ultra-nationalist who in the early 1990s fueled
hatred between Georgians and their Ossetian and Abkhaz neighbors,
with disastrous results.

"These are conflicts were started artificially, rather than based on
real ethnic feelings," Shvedov said. "Politicians play a big role in
stirring this up."

Arutunov said the dangers of nationalism are well understood in the
Caucasus, but that young hotheads are easily seduced by the rhetoric.

"I hope the wise will prevail," Arutunov said. "They must. Otherwise
they will all slaughter each other and the Caucasus will end up
a desert."

PM ERDOGAN SEEKS AZERBAIJANI SUPPORT FOR CAUCASUS ALLIANCE

Today’s Zaman
Aug 21 2008
Turkey

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev yesterday to seek Baku’s support for a proposed
cooperation platform for the Caucasus that Ankara says will also
include Azerbaijan’s enemy Armenia.

Erdogan, speaking before his departure to Baku for a one-day visit,
reiterated once again that there will be talks with Armenia on the
proposed Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform. The proposal
is still in the preparatory stage but diplomats say it is envisaged
to start as a regional economic cooperation platform before tackling
issues of conflict. Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan
are planned to be members of the initiative, which was proposed after a
regional crisis erupted following a Georgian military offensive in its
Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia earlier this month.

But with Armenia and Azerbaijan in a state of enmity due to Armenia’s
continued occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, observers
say a regional alliance including both countries as members may be
difficult to implement.

With Armenian troops still in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani leadership
is unlikely to warm to any sort of cooperation with Yerevan.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Aliyev, Erdogan did not refer
to Armenia and said instead Turkey was willing to further cooperation
with Azerbaijan and Georgia for peace and stability in the Caucasus. He
also said the Nagorno-Karabakh problem should be resolved on the
basis of principles of international law and through peaceful ways.

Aliyev, for his part, thanked Turkey for its supportive stance.

In initial reaction to the Turkish plans to involve Armenia in the
Caucasus talks, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said
Yerevan welcomed the Turkish initiative. "Armenia was always in
favor of dialogue and talks, particularly on the issues concerning
cooperation and security in our region. The Turkish prime minister’s
statement on the intention to start talks with Armenia on this agenda
could be welcomed," he was quoted as saying in a statement to Today’s
Zaman yesterday.

It is not clear what shape the planned talks with Armenia will
take. Turkey severed its ties with Armenia in the early 1990s in
protest of the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh. According to
official Turkish policy, normalization of ties depends on Armenian
withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh, the termination of the Armenian
policy of supporting claims of an Armenian genocide at the hands of
the late Ottoman Empire and an official endorsement by Armenia of
the current borders between the two countries.

But signs have appeared recently that there could be a rapprochement
between the two countries. Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan invited
his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul to a World Cup qualifying
match between the national soccer teams of the two countries in
September. Gul says he is still considering the invitation. Turkish
diplomats have also confirmed recent reports that Turkish and Armenian
diplomats had secret talks to discuss normalization of ties.

Erdogan said details concerning talks with Armenia will be clearer
after Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, who accompanied him during the
visit to Baku, has talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
this week. He did not say where or exactly when the meeting will
take place.

Erdogan has already visited Georgia and Russia to promote the proposed
Caucasus platform and both countries have said they would welcome the
idea. The proposal is not designed to end hostilities between Georgia
and Russia, which invaded part of Georgian territory in response to
Georgia’s South Ossetia offensive. It is a rather long-term initiative
to provide a platform for regional countries to resolve crises through
a conflict resolution mechanism that diplomats are still working on. In
Baku, he said he won backing from Baku for the proposed alliance as
well. "We are pleased that Azerbaijan is taking a positive approach
to our proposal," he said at the joint press conference with Aliyev.

US ‘surprised’ over Caucasus proposal

Despite assurances of support from the regional countries, Erdogan’s
proposal for a Caucasus cooperation platform appears to have received
a lukewarm response from Washington. "I must say I was surprised,"
Matt Bryza, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for European
affairs, was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency at a meeting
with journalists at the State Department.

The government’s plans to improve dialogue with Armenia as part of
the Caucasus proposal are not popular at home either. In remarks
published yesterday, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP)
leader Deniz Baykal warned the government against alienating Azerbaijan
for better ties with Armenia.

"Armenia is neither giving up backing genocide claims nor withdrawing
from Azerbaijani territory. But Turkey still wants to take some
steps [for dialogue]," Baykal was quoted as saying by the Hurriyet
daily. "Azerbaijan is a brother nation that we should never offend. Our
commercial ties will further expand by cooperation in natural gas
and oil. Azerbaijan should never be offended while [Turkey] seeks
dialogue with Armenia," he said.

ERGENEKON COLONEL’S $1 MLN TRANSFER EXPOSED

Today’s Zaman
Aug 21 2008
Turkey

A former army colonel detained on Thursday in connection with the
ongoing Ergenekon investigation transferred $1 million to a relative
in the US while serving in Yalova as commander of the provincial
gendarmerie unit, but the source of this money is entirely unknown,
Turkish newspapers reported yesterday.

According to documents published yesterday in daily Milliyet, retired
Col. Arif Dogan, detained as part of the Ergenekon investigation last
Thursday, sent $1 million to Arzu IÅ~_ıl Dogan, a relative residing
in the US. Arif Dogan was detained last week after the discovery
that a house belonging to him in Ä°stanbul’s Beykoz district was
being used as a military arms depot. Col. Dogan is said to be one
of the founders of JÄ°TEM — an intelligence unit in the gendarmerie
whose existence is officially denied. Other alleged JÄ°TEM founders,
including a retired general, Veli Kucuk, have been arrested in the
operation on charges of Ergenekon membership.

In addition to a large amount of explosives, TNT blocks, Kalashnikovs,
bullets and other munitions, intelligence reports on Kurdish clans of
the East and the Southeast and a satellite communications device as
well as secret maps detailing various provincial gendarmerie command
centers were found.

The documents were unearthed days after the initial discovery last
Thursday, and only after a search warrant from Ergenekon Prosecutor
Zekeriya Oz was available. In addition to the mysterious intelligence
reports, a receipt documenting the large money transfer Dogan made
to Arzu IÅ~_ıl Dogan was found here.

A personal daily organizer from 1995 kept by Kucuk, currently being
indicted on charges of being one of Ergenekon’s founding members,
seized in the suspect’s home in Ä°stanbul’s BeÅ~_iktaÅ~_ district
during the investigation, has proven key to many dealings of Ergenekon,
including to those of Dogan. The planner sheds light on some very
shady relations.

One of the notes taken by Kucuk in the notebook from Nov. 19, 1990
describes in detail an arms transfer ordered by none other than
Col. Dogan to a member of the left-wing terrorist organization the
Turkish Workers and Peasants’ Liberation Army (TÄ°KKO). According to
Kucuk’s notes, the arms transfer took place in fall 1989.

The revelation from the organizer comes a few weeks after evidence
suggesting that Ergenekon was involved in the sale of 24,000 guns of
the Turkish military to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The prosecutors, in an indictment they made public last month, claim
that the Ergenekon network is behind a series of earth-shattering
political assassinations over the past two decades. The victims include
a secularist journalist, Ugur Mumcu, long believed to have been
assassinated by Islamic extremists in 1993; the head of a business
conglomerate, Ozdemir Sabancı, who was shot dead by militants
of the extreme-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front
(DHKP/C) in his high-security office in 1996; secularist academic
Necip Hablemitoglu, who was also believed to have been killed by
Islamic extremists, in 2002; and a 2006 attack on the Council of State
that left a senior judge dead. Alparslan Arslan, found guilty of the
Council of State killing, said he attacked the court in protest of an
anti-headscarf ruling it had made. But the indictment contains evidence
that he was connected with Ergenekon and that his family received
large sums of money from unidentified sources after the shooting.

The indictment also says Kucuk, believed to be one of the leading
members of the network, had threatened Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian
journalist slain by a teenager in 2007, before his murder — a sign
that Ergenekon could be behind that killing as well.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SAMANTHA POWER’S SPECIAL PLEADING

The Plank on TNR.com
rchive/2008/08/20/samantha-power-s-special-pleadin g.aspx
Aug 20 2008
DC

Some 38, maybe 39 years ago, I received a phone call from someone I
had vaguely known. She was frantic. "Biafra," she cried, with reason
enough, I agreed, to be frantic. "Poets, poets, we must save the
poets of Biafra," she went on. Which is where she lost me.

After the birth of our son in 1968 I had become involved in what was
loosely called the Biafra movement. The provoking moment for me was
very simple: we were on our bed with three-day old Jesse and there on
the tube were three, four, five year olds, gaunt in face, bloated in
belly, starving. The next morning I enlisted in the American Committee
to Keep Biafra Alive. Recalling now that moment from the genocide
against the Ibo people of Biafra brings back what are frankly bitter
memories: the fiction of the territorial integrity of United Nations
member states as a shield against rescue of those damned within
these member states. There were enough international relief efforts,
all right, but what was collected and purchased, food and medicine,
mostly, was warehoused in Sao Tome and Fernando Po, two small islands
off the coast of west Africa, never to be delivered to Biafra because
that would violate the, yes, territorial integrity of Nigeria. Many
good people were just plumb afraid to intrude on a black intra-African
dispute. Of course, some day, Nigeria will itself implode and maybe
the brainy, industrious, morally conscientious and tolerant people
of Biafra will have their freedom…and the opportunity to show what
a true black African democracy is like.

I’ve rambled. So back to the poets. I didn’t understand why we had
to rescue Ibo poets but not Ibo musicians, farmers, gas station
attendants, mothers, fathers, children. In every disaster, there are
those who wish to save whom they think the most deserving.

All of this came to mind when I read in Tuesday’s Times the special
pleading by Samantha Power for U.N. personnel and other, mostly
non-governmental (NGO) aid workers posted to countries beset by
terror. Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the Baghdad murder of
Sergio Vieira de Mello, the subject of Power’s recent hagiography,
Chasing the Flame, and 21 other international public servants. Who
were their killers? The same bloodthirsty men (and women) who target
soldiers, civilians and just anybody who happens to be in a market,
a bus, a mosque almost anywhere in Iraq and the rest of the Muslim
crescent. I don’t mean to be churlish but the fifth anniversary of the
murder fest, although a slim excuse for a meditation on the world’s
responsibility to protect its would-be protectors, was the author’s
last chance to gin up some interest in her book. There are, after all,
only so many book emporia and Unitarian churches you can go to with it.

Ms. Power notes really quite out of the blue in her piece that
five years minus a week after the slaying of Viera de Mello and
his comrades, forces of the Taliban took down in Afghanistan (as if
these were the only victims in the interim) "three female educators
and a driver from the International Rescue Committee," a group with
a slightly different record than other relief organizations since it
was organized by Albert Einstein to save Jewish and other victims of
Naziism. The I.R.C. was thought to have gone slightish rightish since
it also salvaged the lives of people in West Berlin whose food was
blockaded by the Soviet Union and of refugees from Hungary in 1956,
Cubans escaping the Castro regime after 1960, Chinese fleeing the
Mao regime, Asian nationals from Uganda, and the avalanche of human
wreckage from Paraguay, Guatemala, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos,
Armenians and Jews from the U.S.S.R., refugees from the Red Army
invasion of Afghanistan all the way on through to the genocides in
Yugoslavia and Rwanda to which the United Nations itself (with Kofi
Annan in the lead role) was complicit. (The I.R.C. long ago had on
its staff the former literary editor of The New Republic. His name
was Varian Fry.)

And now also back to Ms. Power’s special pleading for U.N. officials
and other aid workers. I am sure they are estimable men and women. As
it happens, on the very day when Power’s op-ed appeared in the Times,
there was a dispatch (from Paris) reporting that "a suicide bomber"
(the Times refuses to calls such individuals "terrorists," oh so
gentle) had killed in Algeria "at least 43 people, mostly civilians
and young people who had been waiting to take an entrance exam"
for a police academy. At least 11 other utterly innocent Algerians
were cut down by two car bombs today. How many thousands of ordinary
men and women and children have been murdered in the streets and
in railroad station and on their way to prayer since the attack on
the office of the U.N. in Baghdad five years ago? Thousands upon
thousands upon thousands. Power is still mourning her friend and his
comrades. Fine. He is no more dear to me, and shouldn’t be any dearer
to you, than one of the young academy applicants killed yesterday
east of Algiers.

CAUCASIAN ALLIANCE

Sabah
Aug 21 2008
Turkey

After Russia and Georgia, Azerbaijan has also agreed with the PM
Erdogan’s suggestion for establishing a Caucasian Platform.

The Prime Minister Erdogan has started a diplomatic solution after
the war between Russia and Georgia and met with the Azerbaijani
president Aliyev. Erdogan got his support on Caucasian Cooperation
and Stability Platform.

Baku in favor of Caucasian pact, too

Erdogan held a visit to Baku and got the support of Azerbaijan for
Caucasian Stability and Cooperation Forum.

The Prime Minister Erdogan started his efforts for diplomatic
solutions after the war between Russia and Georgia and met Azerbaijani
president Ä°lham Aliyev within the scope of these efforts. Erdogan got
support from Azerbaijan for the Caucasian Stability and Cooperation
Platform. Erdogan stated that the recent conflicts in the region
has made the security climate in the Southern Caucasia very fragile
and added: "Turkey believes that everyone should use their energy to
remove the animosities between the peoples of the region."

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GEORGIA FACING REALITY OF DEFEAT
By Thomas de Waal

BBC NEWS
urope/7571002.stm
2008/08/20 09:05:10 GMT

Institute for War and Peace Reporting

When Russian troops eventually pull out of Georgian towns such as
Gori and Zugdidi, ordinary Georgians will heave a sigh of relief.

But that will also be the moment that they take on board the fact that
the two territories at the heart of the conflict with Moscow, South
Ossetia and Abkhazia, although formally still regarded internationally
as Georgian territory, are now essentially lost to them.

The people who will suffer most in the long term from this conflict
are more than 20,000 ethnic Georgians from a mosaic of villages in
South Ossetia who have now mostly fled.

Relatively few Georgians left during or after the small-scale 1990-92
conflict over South Ossetia and despite intermittent skirmishes and
incidents, neighbourly contacts continued.

Reporters who have passed through many of the villages in the last
few days say they are now in ruins.

The Russian authorities and their South Ossetian allies are now saying
that they will not allow the Georgians back any time soon.

A Russian foreign ministry statement on August 18 said, "It is clear
that some time Â- and not a short period of time Â- must pass in
order to heal the wounds and to restore confidence. Only after this,
the =0 Aconditions will be created for discussing practical aspects
related to the problems of refugees."

Hundreds of South Ossetians also lost their homes in the Georgian
military assault of 7-8 August and, it appears, in the ensuing Russian
counter-attack – but they have the small consolation of knowing they
can start rebuilding them.

Russian leverage

The prospect is also now much bleaker for the 240,000 or so ethnic
Georgians who were registered as displaced from the 1992-3 conflict
in Abkhazia.

Their hopes of return were predicated on a successful peace agreement
which now looks more elusive than ever.

Around 50,000 Georgians live in Abkhazia’s southernmost Gali district
under an Abkhaz administration.

So far they have managed to stay in their homes, but their future is
also more precarious.

It is not just a matter of Georgian control. It will also be harder
now to maintain an international presence in the two disputed regions.

The final point in the six-point ceasefire plan reads: "Pending an
international mechanism [in South Ossetia], Russian peacekeeping
forces will implement additional security measures."

That effectively puts an end to the former Joint Peacekeeping Forces,
which had a Georgian contingent.

It also gives Moscow even more leverage than before over the shape
of any security arrangements for the region.

Moscow is already insisting it can have the only real security presence
t here.

"We are of course not against international peacekeepers… but the
problem is that the Abkhaz and the Ossetians do not trust anyone
except Russian peacekeepers," Russian president Dmitry Medvedev told
German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Unattainable dream

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
the only international organization with a mandate in South Ossetia,
wants to dispatch an additional 100 monitors to South Ossetia.

But Russia has dragged its feet, saying it wanted to agree the terms
of their deployment in more detail and the OSCE has so far agreed to
send just 20 more monitors.

The OSCE had just nine military monitors on the ground in South
Ossetia when fighting started there on 7-8 August.

The European Union, with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner
taking the lead, also says it want to provide peacekeepers, but
Mr Kouchner’s Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, admitted this might
not work.

"There are no signs of the Russians letting in anyone else," he said.

In Abkhazia, the United Nations has a small contingent of around 130
unarmed monitors, who were bystanders in the recent crisis.

When the Abkhaz, with Russian support, wanted to capture the
mountainous Upper Kodori Gorge district from the Georgians, they
merely gave the UN monitors there a 24-hour warning to leave.

The EU has approved small aid programmes for both Abkhazia and South
Ossetia in th e last few years, but they have looked relatively
modest when compared to the vast amount of Russian money coming into
both regions.

Abkhazia is bigger and more diverse than South Ossetia with a lively
media and many non-governmental organizations.

Many Abkhaz intellectuals dreamed of having some kind of independence
free of both Georgia and Russia and with links across the Black Sea
to the EU but that now looks unattainable.

‘Double standards’

Internationally mediated peace talks over both disputes had stalled
and there is little chance of them resuming properly any time soon.

Faced with a tightening Russian grip, Western leaders can only fall
back on expressing support for Georgia’s right to these territories.

US President George W Bush made this commitment on 16 August, saying:
"Georgia’s borders should command the same respect as every other
nation’s.

There’s no room for debate on this matter."

This becomes a moral argument, with the Russians answering that after
supporting Kosovo’s unilateral secession from Serbia, the West is
guilty of "double standards" in the Caucasus.

Caught in the middle of these international wrangles are the current
and former populations of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia Â- Abkhaz,
Ossetians and other nationalities such as Armenians on the one hand,
and the displaced Georgians on the other.

They often get along fine when they have a chance to engage in
low-level me etings arranged by foreign organisations or across
market stalls.

Now, unfortunately, they are being wrenched apart further than ever
by conflict.

Thomas de Waal is Caucasus Editor at the Institute for War and Peace
Reporting in London.

–Boundary_(ID_3vBwZFwQJk4iuMPcc+05Jw)–

ARMENIA WANTS IRAN’S AID IN PROJECTS

press tv
Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:15:35 GMT

Armenian Energy and Natural Resources Minister Movsisyan has called
for Iran’s participation in dam and power plant projects in Armenia.

Armen Movsisyan in his meeting with Iranian Energy Minister Parviz
Fattah stressed the need to finance the Aras hydroelectric power plant,
hoping the agreement would be finalized and signed during Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Armenia early next year.

Movsisyan expressed his country’s desire to benefit from Iranian
expertise in Armenian development projects particularly dam
construction as well as a boost in Iran’s export of technical and
engineering services to Armenia.

Iranian minister Fattah said Iran attaches great importance to
enhancing cooperation with regional states and is therefore willing
to forge ties with Armenia.

He said that feasibility studies for the Meghri and Aras hydroelectric
power plant projects are near completion and that construction will
commence shortly after project funding is approved.

The two countries signed two memoranda of understanding on construction
of a hydroelectric power plant on Aras River.

Given the unprecedented draught in Iran and shortage of electricity,
Iran also welcomes importing electricity from Armenia, Fattah added.

Tehran and Yerevan are constructing a 140-km pipeline to carry natural
gas from gas-abundant Iran to Armenia. The two countries also plan
to work together to construct a railroad that would link the two
neighboring countries.