ASBAREZ ONLINE [10-12-2004]

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10/12/2004
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WEBSITE AT <;HTTP:// 1) Kerry Rep. Sets Record Straight on False Story in Turkish Press 2) Oskanian: Armenia Will Defend 'Package' Option of Settlement 3) Karabagh Prime Minister Meets with ARF-West Delegation 4) France 'Free' to Block Turkey's EU Membership: Jacques Chirac 5) Could the 'Deal of the Century' Still Live Up to its Name? 1) Kerry Rep. Sets Record Straight on False Story in Turkish Press Reinforces strong record on Armenian issues; stresses sharp differences with President Bush WASHINGTON, DC On October 9, John Kerry's Spokesman Mark Kitchens issued a statement in response to false reports in the Turkish newspaper Zaman about John Kerry's position on issues of importance to Armenia Americans. "There is no truth to the report published recently in the Turkish newspaper "Zaman." "John Kerry's record in the Senate and his statements during this campaign have consistently supported US recognition of the Armenian Genocide," noted Kitchens. "John Kerry is a long-time leader on issues of concern to Armenian Americans and is proud to have been endorsed by the Armenian National Committee of America." "We appreciate John Kerry's quick action to set the record straight regarding a blatantly fabricated attempt to misrepresent his 20-year record of principled support for US recognition of the Armenian Genocide, strong US-Armenia ties, and other issues of special importance to Armenian American voters," said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. "Senator Kerry's rapid response to this latest act of desperation by deniers of the Armenian Genocide underscores the depth of his commitment to recognizing the Armenian Genocide, highlights the importance he attaches to reaching out to Armenian American voters, and dramatically illustrates the contrast between his record of principled leadership and the President's neglect and opposition to a broad range of Armenian American issues," stated Hamparian. "The choice for Armenian Americans is clear," emphasized Kitchens's statement. "They can either have four more years of neglect and even outright opposition from the Bush administration, or a Kerry-Edwards administration that supports the issues they care about and welcomes their input." The text from the original Zaman article is as follows: Kerry Denies Acceptance of Armenian 'Genocide' The US Democratic Party's Presidential Candidate, Senator John F. Kerry, put a damper on the expectations of Armenian lobbyists on the issue of genocide. Zaman TurkeyKerry denied claims made by the Armenian lobby in late August that he will accept the Armenian Genocide resolution. The Presidential candidate told Zaman that he contributed to Senator Robert Dole's initiatives on the subject in 1990, but said he has not made any statement that he would accept the resolution either before the upcoming elections on November 2nd or within the last 10 years. Kerry said, "Turkey is one of America's oldest allies and it will remain so." In the first round of debates between the presidential candidates, Kerry narrowed the gap between him and his Republican rival, US President George W. Bush. Kerry, like Bush, gave his full support to Turkey's accession to the European Union (EU). The Massachusetts Senator added that Turkey's candidacy is a must for both Europe and Turkey. He said if he is elected President, the friendship between the two countries will be maintained as is. At a Democrat Party committee meeting on October 2nd, the Senator paused when he was told that his statement that he intends to accept the alleged Armenian genocide deeply upset Turkish society and voters of Turkish origin. He asked when he had made the statement and was told "last month." Kerry responded by absolutely denying it and stressed that he has said no such thing over the past ten years. At a musical festival titled "Armenstock-Kef for Kerry" held on August 28, 2004 that was organized by the American National Committee for Armenians (ANCA) in Massachusetts, a letter allegedly sent by Kerry was read by Democratic Congressional member, Barney Frank. The letter conveyed that the Democratic Presidential candidate would accept the resolution on April 24, 2005, the 90th anniversary of the alleged Armenian genocide. 2) Oskanian: Armenia Will Defend 'Package' Option of Settlement YEREVAN (Yerkir)--In an interview to Armenian Public Television, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said that even if Armenia were to relinquish territory to Azerbaijan, that country is unlikely to abandon its current rigid position on the Karabagh issue. "It would be naïve to think that returning some of the territories [to Azerbaijan], would lead to normalization of relations and the re-opening of borders. Nothing will change," Oskanian noted, adding he believes that the only viable solution for Armenia is the "package" option. "We should choose the 'package' option to ensure enduring peace and stability in the region." He also indicated that the international community must also realize that Karabagh cannot be a part of Azerbaijan and that Armenia should not be threatened by fears of isolation. 3) Karabagh Prime Minister Meets with ARF-West Delegation GLENDALEMountainous Karabagh Republic's Prime Minister Anoushavan Danielian met with a delegation from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation of the Western United States on Monday, in a meeting that spanned over two hours, and touched on a variety of crucial issues about Karabagh. The meeting between the ARF's Avedik Ismirlian, Hovig Saliba, and Dikran Sassounian and the Prime Minister, who was accompanied by Vartan Barseghian, the representative of the Office of the Mountainous Karabagh Republic in the United States, took place at the Hilton Hotel in Glendale, California. Danielian addressed the economic, political, and social programs actively implemented in Karabagh, while the ARF representatives focused on advancing the idea of a national dues payment system by way of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund. The ARF also proposed means to make the activities of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund run more smoothly in California, and addressed the fundamental need to charge resettlement activities in Karabagh, the necessity of 90th anniversary Armenian genocide commemorations to take on a Pan-Armenian nature, as well as the possible dangers Turkish membership to the European Union pose to Armenia, and more specifically to Mountainous Karabagh Republic. According to participants, the discussions were lively and pleasant. 4) France 'Free' to Block Turkey's EU Membership: Jacques Chirac PARIS (AFP)France reserves the right to veto Turkey's entry into the European Union "at any moment," President Jacques Chirac told state television Sunday in an interview during a state visit to Beijing. The French parliament would be consulted on the issue of Turkey's membership, he promised, stressing that in negotiations with Ankara "at any moment France can withdraw, can apply a veto, or can refuse." "At that moment, the negotiations end. We are thus totally free," said Chirac, who has previously stated he personally favors Turkey's eventual membership to the European bloc. "In any case, the French will have the last word through a referendum if it goes to that point," he said. "And it's a matter that will not be discussed for another 10 or 15 years at the earliest, if it is at all." The ambiguity of Chirac's stance on Turkey reflected differences between deputies in his ruling UMP party on the issue. The party has declared itself opposed to the idea of Turkey, a poor, predominantly Muslim state, joining the European Union, which itself already took on 10 new members this year, most of them former Soviet states from eastern Europe. Chirac has declared he would put the Turkey membership question to a referendum, apparently in a bid to separate the controversy from efforts to have the French electorate adopt an EU constitution. In related news, a recent poll published by the French newspaper Liberation showed that a projected 75% of the population oppose Turkey's accession to the EU and would vote against such a referendum. Taken after the European Commission's recommendation last week in favor of accession talks, the survey indicated that, among the 25 member EU states, France is the most firmly opposed to Turkey's bid. Compared to 75.3% figure projected by the poll, 64% of the supporters of the opposition Socialist Party, and 75% of the supporters of President Jacques Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) stated that they would opposed the referendum. Voters between the ages of 18 and 24 stood as the only group, whose majority65.1%would favor Turkey's efforts. The survey was published on Tuesday, two days before a debate in the national assembly called in response to growing pressure from parliamentarians for a chance to discuss the issue ahead of a final decision on starting Turkish accession talks expected from EU leaders on December 17. However, despite calls from many deputies, the debate will not be followed by a vote. Both of France's main parties are deeply split on the matter. Although Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande has voiced his support for Turkey's accession, a large bloc within the party, led by former prime minister Laurent Fabius who said earlier this month that "Turkey is geographically not part of Europe," stand firmly against it. 5) Could the 'Deal of the Century' Still Live Up to its Name? On September 20, Baku staged major celebrations, with Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvily present among the guests of honor. The cause for the festivities was the tenth anniversary of the first contract on delivering the Azerbaijani oil to the world market, dubbed 'the deal of the century' by the late president Heydar Aliyev. Many expectations were frustrated during this decade but the fast-approaching inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline could make good on many of the old promises. BACKGROUND Ten years ago, on September 20 1994, the newly-forged consortium of several international oil companies, called the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), signed the agreement with the government of Azerbaijan on the development of three oilfields: Azeri, Chirag, and Guneshli. It was BP that had worked hardest and lobbied the smartest in preparation for this agreement, but it had to cut in Amoco, Pennzoil, and Unocal from the US, Statoil from Norway, and several minor operators (Exxon joined the next year). What was more, seeking to secure a neutral or positive attitude from Russia, Azerbaijan's State Oil Company (SOCAR) invited Lukoil to join with a decent 10% of the total package, explaining the presence of a representative of Russia's Ministry for Fuel and Energy at the signing ceremony. In those days, however, powerful bureaucrats in the Yeltsin government were not accustomed to inform one another about their policies, so Foreign Minister Evgeni Primakov was furious at being kept in the dark. Three months later, the first Chechen War was unleashed and this unfolding disaster made Moscow even more nervous and disagreeable about Western plans for the Caspian. That started a chain of setbacks for the AIOC: a sharp drop in oil prices, downwards re-evaluations of the oil reserves in the Southern Caspian, disagreements about export routes, and endless quarrels about maritime borders and even an incident (fortunately, a single one) involving Iranian patrol crafts. In retrospect, three key sources of troubles for the project, as well as several other contracts signed in its wake, can be identified. The first was the (sometimes unnecessarily rude) rejections of Iran's proposals to channel some of the prospective oil flows towards the Gulf through its territory. The second was the failure to give Russia a meaningful stake in the project, thus making a partner with a clear interest in the success. The third and most complex Pandora box of troubles was full of local conflicts, and the oil contracts, excitingly promising as they were, failed to make any contribution towards their resolution. All these shortcomings are still present but at the start of the second decade of implementation, the situation looks significantly more promising for AIOC and its local partners. It is not only the unstoppable rise of oil prices that improves the overall prospects, but also the completion in the coming months, after many delays and complications, of the strategic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that could deliver as much as one million barrels of Caspian oil a day to meet steadily growing world demand. IMPLICATIONS The intensity of geopolitical competition for Caspian oil has visibly subsided since the late 1990s when Russia and the US appeared to be at loggerheads over the control of prospective Caspian pipelines. The present-day relative calm, however, might be misleading and the absence of any Russian guests at the celebrations in Baku (as well as the total silence about them in the Russian media) is a warning signal. While the technicalities of the ten-year-old deal are mostly resolved, its implementation is still threatened by three regional risks and three external challenges. The former are the uncertainties about President Ilham Aliyev's ability to control infighting among interest groups in Azerbaijan's ruling elite, the desperate efforts of President Mikhail Saakashvili to keep Georgia mobilized around his program of reforms, and the fragility of the ten years old cease-fire in Mountainous Karabagh with a perfectly deadlocked peace process. The external challenges are the disgruntlement of Iran, which seeks for means to reduce the international pressure focused on its nuclear program; the overstretched US, which is stuck in the quagmire of Iraq and seems to have few political resources left for the Caucasus; and the confused Russia, which seeks to expand its regional influence but remains unable to contain the war in Chechnya. Recent Russian efforts at re-orienting its foreign and security policies towards the 'war on terrorism,' triggered by the horrible tragedy in Beslan, are particularly worrisome. The doctrine of military prevention has been made an integral part of these efforts, and there is a visible desire to show the ability to deliver on the promises made by Minister of Defense Ivanov and Chief of General Staff Baluevsky. The Pankisi Gorge in Georgia has long been identified as the most probable area for a Russian 'counter-terrorist' operation, but it is entirely possible that targets for 'surprise attacks' could be found further south in Georgia and in Azerbaijan. The military base in Akhalkalaki, Georgia, would then prove its value and the radar station in Qabala, Azerbaijan, may provide a useful pretextand if such a penetrating 'counter-terrorist preventive strike' would also prevent oil from flowing to the West by damaging some of the BTC infrastructure, nobody in Moscow would be greatly upset. Such a scenario might appear entirely hypothetical, and its repercussions could be far more serious then a post-factum exchange of stern diplomatic notes. Every balanced assessment of immediate consequences and further implications would warn against reckless use of military instruments in the Caucasus, but the Russian leadership has been departing further and further away from its trademark pragmatism and increasingly shows the predisposition to inadequate responses in crisis situations. CONCLUSIONS The renewed enthusiasm around the decade-old 'deal of the century' is fueled by record-high oil prices and pinned on the forthcoming unveiling of the high-capacity pipeline. In unstable areas like the Caucasus, however, huge profits tend to attract big trouble. The recent cancellation of NATO Partnership for Peace exercises in Azerbaijan was certainly not an isolated diplomatic incident; the lack of real partnership is certainly an open secret but the absence of real peace needs to be addressed urgently. The list of things that might go wrong with delivering the Caspian oil to the world markets is excessively long, from implosion of regimes in the South Caucasus to Russia's aggressive move in reasserting its dominance. The deal would have deserved the pretentious name if it was used for promoting stability in the region. It may not be too late to give this emphasis to the oil policies, but the currently prevalent benign neglect is not the way to proceed. Dr. Pavel K. Baev is a Senior Researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). The Central Asia Caucasus Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, at Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, DC. All subscription inquiries and changes must be made through the proper carrier and not Asbarez Online. ASBAREZ ONLINE does not transmit address changes and subscription requests. (c) 2004 ASBAREZ ONLINE. All Rights Reserved. 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