Author: Jalatian Sonya

RUDOLF PERINA COMPLETING HIS MISSION IN ARMENIA

armradio.am
24.10.2007 15:40

October 26 US Charge d’Affaires in Armenia, Ambassador Rudolf Perina
is completing his diplomatic mission in our country, Press Secretary of
the US Embassy in Armenia Taguhi Jahukyan told ArmInfo correspondent.

October 26 the term of Mr. Perina’s three-month mission is coming to
an end. "Starting October 29 the responsibilities of the US Charge
d’Affaires will be carried out by Deputy Ambassador Joseph Pennington,"
the Press Secretary noted. She added that there is no information
about the candidacy of the US Ambassador to Armenia.

WILL A CROSS-BORDER OPERATION END TERRORISM?
By Dr. Davut ÞahÝner

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 24 2007

In the event the operation lasts longer than planned, trade with
northern Iraq will be negatively affected.

In this case Turkey would be alienated in the region, which might
fall into the control of non-regional forces, leaving Turkey with a
chronic problem.

Possible mistakes during the operation may cause permanent scars in
bilateral relations between the Turks and the Kurds. Thus the targets
within the operation should be specific and well defined. The targets
should be determined and identified through prior intelligence.

Further political and military goals should be built around this
intelligence. It should include extensive information on the social
fabric, economic situation and other aspects.

The long presence of Turkey in northern Iraq may be perceived
as occupation and divert it from the path to the EU. The latest
developments within EU countries may also contribute to this process.

Considering that there are influential lobbies inside the EU working
hard to prevent Turkey’s full membership, the developments in northern
Iraq may be exploited by these opponents.

The role of the military in the administration of the country in
Turkey could be exaggerated and Turkey could be labeled a military
dictatorship. It should be noted that the Armenian, Greek and Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) lobbies are waiting for the proper moment to use
this sort of propaganda to erode Turkey’s prestige and image in the
world. Such propaganda would seriously undermine Turkey’s political
and economic interests. For example, export and tourism revenues
would substantially decline.

Turkey may lose ground in the battles on the Armenian and Cyprus
questions, currently the most important national causes. In an
environment where Turkey’s image has been tarnished, the Armenian and
Greek lobbies may take serious steps that would inflict the greatest
harm on Turkey in regards to these issues.

It should be noted that the current essay reviews the risks involved
in the invasion of northern Iraq without proper preparations rather
than a limited cross-border operation. A real cross-border operation
could be fruitful under the following conditions:

Turkey should prescribe precise targets beforehand. The goal should
be the elimination of the most influential terrorists and the
higher members of the organizations rather than killing hundreds of
terrorists. To do this the targets should be determined very carefully
and the terrorist shelters should be effectively rooted out. Expert
teams rather than thousands of ordinary soldiers are required for
this sort of operation. The raids should be held under cover of night.

A number of small operations rather than a few comprehensive ones
should be considered. A couple of small, limited operations in a
week is a good target. That way the world and the region can become
accustomed to Turkey’s interventions.

The commercial and technical activities of the terrorists rather than
the terrorists themselves should be targeted. It may be difficult to
bomb their shelters on Kandil Mountains. However, equipment supply to
the terrorist organization could be halted. Moreover, the supporters
of the terrorist organization in Iraq could be punished.

The heavy weaponry, electric generators and equipment of the terrorist
organization could be targeted. Regular attacks on these sorts of
targets would diminish the power of the organization and lower morale
among its members.

Privates and reserve officers should not be employed in the
cross-border operations. Instead, professional and expert military
staff should be utilized. Special teams should be created for the
operations in the region; classic warfare based on regular units
should be avoided.

Increasing the number of warring troops against a low number of
terrorists is not a plausible solution. Quality rather than quantity
matters in the fight against this sort of organization. Increase in
the number of troops who are not trained for guerilla warfare will
lead to further losses in the battle.

The PKK terrorists should be made ineffective, dead or alive, in the
Iraqi cities. It is pretty surprising that the PKK militants have
sustained not a single wound in Iraq, where almost every day a number
of people are dying. For this reason, the relevant security units
should be legally authorized to render the terrorists ineffective.

In addition to the military measures, diplomatic and political attempts
should be made for an effective outcome. Particularly, policies should
be developed to ensure that Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani withdraw
their support from the PKK. Both carrot and stick policies should be
employed simultaneously. Turkey cannot obtain satisfactory results
by threatening the countries from which it expects support.

Other countries and groups should not be threatened if the threats
and the promises associated with the threats cannot be carried out.

Acting otherwise places Turkey’s credibility in question and makes
its resolve appear weak on the matter.

It is particularly essential to rely on the information and
intelligence supplied by the National Intelligence Organization
(MÝT) and the police. A separate unit that will deal with terrorism
may also be considered. However, it should be recalled that regular
armies often fail to address terrorist threats. Therefore, small,
flexible and professional units should be seriously considered.

Subtle border violations should be tolerated. Turkish troops have
already crossed the border at some points. The troops should advance
a little further through these already violated points. All these
activities should be carried out discretely. There is no requirement
to make a statement or explanation to the world in relation to such
discreet operations, or even overt ones. The Israeli case should be
examined thoroughly.

Communication and contact with other countries through the media
should be specifically avoided and third parties should not be
forced to make statements. The claims indicating that terror could
be eliminated and resolved in Iraq should be avoided. Unnecessary
promises should not be made to the public. Allies should be sought
inside Iraq and direct contacts should be established with the
people. To this end, TV broadcasts in Arabic and Kurdish should be
considered as an effective avenue. At no stage should dialogue and
discussion stop. Turkey is not at a point where there are no other
options outside of an operation. If politics is unable to generate
new alternatives, the security units cannot proceed further.

*Davut Þahiner is an international security expert working with the
International Strategic Research Organization (ISRO/USAK) 24.10.2007

–Boundary_(ID_dXsyp1QRGj5W/T0l5FbI2w) —

LET THE ARMENIANS REST

Chattanooga Times Free Press
October 24, 2007 Wednesday
Tennessee

One stares in dumb amazement at the war front because, incredibly,
front-page news in the past few days has had to do with what did or
did not happen almost a hundred years ago. More exactly, what should
what happened a hundred years ago be called?

The quarrel, put simply, is over the question, What do we call what
was done to the Armenians by the Turks in the early years of World War
I? The matter of interest is the persecution of the Armenians by the
Young Turks and ancillaries in the final days of the Ottoman Empire,
when the map of the Middle East was changing.

The dispute hit the front pages when a congressional resolution
affirming that the events of 1915-17 constituted genocide appeared
likely to pass in the House of Representatives. The Turkish government
reacted strongly, and President Bush urged Congress not to drive this
wedge between the United States and an important ally in the region.

It may be of historical terminological interest what to call the
Young Turks’ action. But it is worthwhile to remember that it has
been dubbed a "genocide" for many years, even though there has been
technical resistance to the use of the holy word. A Polish-born
lawyer named Raphael Lemkin coined the term "genocide" in 1943. "I
became interested in genocide," he said, "because it happened so many
times." His writings before World War II had concentrated heavily
on the events in Armenia. More than one international organization
has conducted studies of those events, each in turn determining that
the term "genocide" accurately describes what also has been called a
"massacre."

True, Lemkin did not have dispositive authority on the correct
use of the word, and after the Nazi Holocaust became widely known,
there were those who insisted that the Turkish holocaust should not
be thought a member of the same family. Their point has been that
Hitler’s war against the Jews was ethnic and cultural, while the
Turkish assault on the Armenians had to do with more conventional
geopolitical issues. The Turks themselves contended that the Armenians
were a fifth column working on behalf of the Russian Empire.

The questions are not uninteresting, but that they should have a
bearing on the Iraq war seems strange until one studies the geography
of the region. The interfaces are in the northeastern part of Iraq,
the area known as South Kurdistan. There we have an irredentist
passion among some Kurdish militants to sever formal ties to the
government of Iraq, in favor of a new-old nation unified by cultural
and historical factors. And, not incidentally, by physical control
of rich oil deposits.

The Turks do not wish a new state bulging up between them and Iraq —
especially because their own Kurds would surely be emboldened if the
Iraqi Kurds were successful. The situation could get "ugly," one U.S.

military officer is quoted as saying, if Turkey were to send troops
across the border to deal with Kurdish militants inside Iraq.

It was into this tense situation that the House resolution erupted.

Every day one member of Congress or another associates himself with,
or dissociates himself from, the resolution classifying as genocidal
the Turkish activity of 90 years ago.

We are asked to believe that the Turkish high command judges it more
important to resist such classification affirmed by an ally than to
pursue the common aims in the region. On the moral point, there is no
way in which Turkey can advance its credentials by trivializing what
in fact was done to the Armenians, more than 1 million of them having
been killed, allowed to starve, or exiled. But this ought not to be a
quarrel that affects contemporary points of contention in Iraq. Those
who linger with the muse of Clio are giving no aid whatever to the
dead Armenians, but are jeopardizing our Iraq enterprise by provoking
Turkish hubris.

The implications of this breach are horrendous. Turkey is a NATO power,
and if it were to act singularly it would damage a military-political
venture in which the United States — the father and mainstay of NATO
— is engaged at high pitch.

It is almost always relevant to ask the classical question, Cui bono?

Who stands to gain?

No postmortem aid to the dead Armenians is in prospect. On the
other hand, the Turks can’t permanently commandeer the historical
classification of actions by one state against a cultural or ethnic
minority. So is it a matter of pride?

We are constantly being told about the high-octane pride of Turks,
Kurds, Iraqis, whomever. Is the congressional resolution simply an
exercise in American pride?

COMPANIES SHOULD BE FINED IN AMOUNT OF 5% OF THEIR INCOMES IN CASE OF ANTICOMPETITIVE AGREEMENT, ABGAR YEGHOYAN PROPOSES

Noyan Tapan
Oct 24, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 24, NOYAN TAPAN. "Protection of Armenian Consmer
Rights" NGO will soon submit a draft law, according to which companies
should be fined in the amount of 5% (instead of 2%) of their incomes
in case of an anticompetitive agreement. The chairman of the NGO
Abgar Yeghoyan suggested at the October 24 press conference that
part of the fine should be transferred to the state budget, while
the remaining part should be used to conduct monitoring and raise
awareness of consumers. According to him, price monitoring should have
a continuous character. The draft law also proposes reducing the period
of a market study conducted by the RA State Commission on Protection
of Economic Competition, making it 15 days instead of 3 months.

A. Yeghoyan said that in recent period, egg and butter prices have not
grown in the country not in proportion with international prices. In
his words, a fall in prices of these foodstuffs will be observed
within a month as a result of the fines imposed by the commission,
otherwise, the commission must use other penalties.

A KURDISH LESSON
Bret Stephens

Wall Street Journal
46067790.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Oct 23 2007

A debate among U.S. military brass over whether to declare victory
over al Qaeda in Iraq coincides with threats by Turkey to strike
terrorist camps in northern Iraq belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’
Party, or PKK. Note the irony: The PKK, which in recent days has
killed scores of Turkish soldiers, was itself declared dead as a
terrorist group in 1999.

There are excellent reasons to avoid pronouncements concerning AQI’s
defeat. One is to deny the group the chance to offer testaments in
blood to its own resilience. A second is to avoid another political
embarrassment of the "Mission Accomplished" kind. But the main reason
is that the experience of terrorist organizations world-wide shows that
even in defeat they are rarely truly finished. Like Douglas MacArthur’s
old soldiers, terrorist groups never die. At best they just fade away.

Some examples: In its heyday in the 1980s, Peru’s Maoist Shining
Path was every bit as brutal as al Qaeda. The 1992 capture of its
charismatic leader, former philosophy professor Abimael Guzman,
was supposed to have dealt a fatal blow to the group’s capacity
to operate, as was the capture seven years later of his successor,
Óscar Ramírez. Yet as recently as last year, the Peruvian government
was forced to declare a state of emergency in the Huanuco region to
deal with terrorist activities by the group.

Or take the Taliban. In April 2005, American Gen. David Barno told
reporters he believed that, with the exception of a few bitter-enders,
the Taliban would be a memory within two years. The opposite
happened. In 2006, the rate of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan soared,
and the Bush administration was forced to deploy 6,000 additional
troops to recover territory lost to the Taliban and turn back their
anticipated spring offensive.

What about the PKK? Late in 1998 Turkey massed troops on its border
with Syria, with the declared intention of expelling the PKK and
its leader Abdullah Ocalan from Damascus if the Syrians didn’t do so
themselves. (A banner headline in the Turkish paper Hurriyet declared
"We’re going to say ‘shalom’ to the Israelis on the Golan Heights.")
The late Syrian strongman Hafez Assad got the message, and sent Ocalan
packing. He was eventually captured by Turkish intelligence in Nairobi,
and sentenced to death by a Turkish court (commuted to a life sentence
when Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002).

Ocalan has since apologized to the Turkish people for the 37,000
deaths he caused in the 1980s and ’90s and called for a peaceful
solution to the Kurdish issue. The PKK itself declared a ceasefire.

That should have been the end of it. As Turkish analyst Soner Cagaptay
of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy observes, Ocalan was a
cult-of-personality figure in an organization that, unlike the cellular
structure of al Qaeda, was run along strictly hierarchical lines.

For the next few years the Turkish government made real, if limited,
strides in accommodating peaceful ethnic Kurdish cultural demands
in education and broadcasting. What remained of the PKK — 5,000 or
so fighters — mainly retreated to northern Iraq, where their bases
were attacked by Turkish forces no fewer than 24 times.

So might things have remained had the U.S. invasion of Iraq not
rearranged the strategic chessboard. The Turks did not help themselves
by failing to support the war, which caused strains with Washington
and prevented them from carrying out further cross-border raids. That,
in turn, created an opening for Iran, which until then had been the
PKK’s sole remaining state sponsor. Concerned about its isolation
in the region, and sensing an opportunity to make common cause with
the moderately Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Tehran
abruptly switched sides, going so far as to shell PKK positions
in northern Iraq. Not surprisingly, the Turks began to take a more
favorable view of Iran.

The U.S. role is scarcely more creditable. The Ankara government has
been pressing the Bush administration to hit PKK bases for at least
four years. The administration has responded with a combination of
empty promises of future action and excuses that U.S. forces are
already overstretched in Iraq. For the Turks, who contribute more
than 1,000 troops to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, U.S. nonfeasance
is a mystery, if not an outright conspiracy. "How is it that Turkey
fights America’s terrorists, but America does not fight Turkey’s
terrorists?" is how Mr. Cagaptay sums up the prevailing mood.

Yet the real mystery isn’t U.S. behavior, which was mainly dictated by
a desire not to rock the boat in what was (at least until this month),
the only relatively stable region of Iraq. It is the forbearance
shown to the PKK by Massoud Barzani, Kurdistan’s president, who has
otherwise sought to cultivate better relations with Ankara and Kurdish
moderates in Turkey, and who would have much to lose if an invading
Turkish army turned his province into a free-fire zone. One theory
is that Mr. Barzani wants to use the PKK as a diplomatic card, to be
exchanged for Turkish concessions in some future negotiation. But all
that depends on his ability to rein in the PKK at the last minute
and avert a Turkish invasion. Yesterday’s kidnapping (or killing)
of another eight Turkish troops puts that in doubt.

Meanwhile, the PKK has fully reconstituted itself as an effective
fighting force under the leadership of Murat Karayilan, who was canny
enough to see Congress’s Armenian genocide resolution as an opportunity
to take scissors to the already frayed U.S.-Turkish relationship. The
resolution was turned back at the 11th hour, but it remains to be
seen whether it has already done its damage.

All the more reason, then, for the U.S. to pre-empt the Turks by
taking the decisive action against the PKK it has promised for too
long. But the story of the PKK’s resurgence should also remind us of
the dangers of premature declarations of victory against terrorist
groups, especially when such declarations foster the illusion that
you can finally come home. Against this kind of enemy, there are no
final victories, and no true homecomings, and no real alternatives
other than to keep on fighting.

–Boundary_(ID_Bpnn9P7E9MzR1S3n3Y4q9Q)- –

LAUNCHING OF RUSSIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA ON CRIMINAL LAW HELD IN YEREVAN

Noyan Tapan
Oct 23, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 23, NOYAN TAPAN. The launching of the multi-volume
"Encyclopedia on Criminal Law" published by the University of
St. Petersburg was held in Yerevan on October 22. 9 volumes of the
35-volume publication have been published since 2005, the publication
of the encyclopedia is envisaged to be finished by 2011.

Serjik Avetisian, the judge of the RA Court of Criminal Appeal, is the
author of the article concerning the institute of accessories, which
was included in the sixth volume of the encyclopedia. Another article
written by him, which is dedicated to crimes committed against property
(brigand attack, robbery, extortion) is expected to be included in
the encyclopedia.

SUGAR PRICE IN ARMENIA ALMOST DOUBLES IN A DAY

ArmInfo
2007-10-22 17:37:00

Sugar prices in Armenia have abruptly increased in a day. On October
21, the price per 1 kg of granulated sugar rose from 220-250 AMD to
400-450 AMD.

Armenian MP Samvel Alexanyan, the main supplier of sugar to Armenia,
told ArmInfo correspondent that the almost doubled price of sugar
is not only ungrounded, but has no logic explanation either, as the
sugar price in world markets remains unchanged. Moreover, when the
supplier learned about the unjustified excitement caused by retail
trading, he himself ordered to decrease the wholesale sugar prices
by 10 AMD. However, this decision of the wholesaler caused another
excitement – today the demand for this product totalled 1 thsd tons
as against the former 150-200 tons that were daily sold to retail
traders. "I think, the leap in consumer prices can be explained by
the ungrounded panic caused by the abrupt increase in prices of such
products as vegetable oil and butter, as well as flour and flour
products," he said. He added that in the world market these products
have grown in price only by 17-18%, and not by 80% as it is observed
in Armenia. He also noted that sugar is imported to Armenia mainly
from Brazil.

For his part, Press Secretary of the State Commission on Protection of
Economic Competition Armine Udumyan told ArmInfo that the Commission
starts studying justification of leap in sugar prices, from today
on. It will take the Commission 1-3 weeks to make out what is
what. This term is in accordance with the Regulations.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that the Commission fined 50 organizations
at the rate of 2% of the annual turnover for unjustified rise in
vegetable oil and butter price last week, the market situation didn’t
change. Moreover, vegetable oil and butter deficit is artificially
created in food stores.

While the state "anti-monopoly" organ and the economic entities puzzle
out who is to blame, today the majority of Armenian citizens return
home with half-empty bags, as their budget with an average salary of
40 000 AMD is not calculated for the unexpected price run-up.

New Statesman

The ‘desecration’ of Cyprus
Posted by Brian Coleman
22 October 2007

The deaths of a couple of dozen Turkish troops in operations against
the Kurds and the vote by the Turkish Parliament to in effect invade
Northern Iraq to pursue operations against the Kurdish people has
focused world attention on a conflict which the modern state of Turkey
has pursued for many decades.
Last weekend I was in Cyprus (and yes my expenses were paid by my
hosts) to attend events to continue to protest about the Turkish
occupation of North Cyprus in particular the beautiful town of Morphu,
twinned with my home Borough of Barnet.
Whereas over the last few years the legitimate Republic of Cyprus has
made huge economic strides.
On the back of EU membership it operates as a mainstream European
Country. The occupied north meanwhile continues to exist in a form of
Asiatic poverty with an army of occupation of about 40,000 troops.
Most of the native Cypriots (both Greek and Turkish) have long since
given up and abandoned the place to settlers flown in from Anatolia.
The desecration of Orthodox churches and the wholesale stripping and
sale abroad of religious icons and archaeological treasures has to be
seen to be believed and the ethnic cleansing carried out in the north
of this magnificent island is as bad as anything experienced in the
former Yugoslavia.
Yet as the new female Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato
Kozakou-Marcoullis told me in rather a forceful manner – she has a
touch of the Margaret Thatcher about her – there are thousands of
Britons buying property illegally confiscated from Cypriots many of
whom are my constituents in North London. In fact 95% of sales in the
occupied area are to Brits.
Quite why anyone would buy property they have no legal entitlement to
and which, when the eventual reunion of Cyprus comes, they may well
lose with no compensation at all is beyond me. However the British
Government sits back and does little to prevent these sales and the
environmental damage to picturesque North Cyprus which the huge
building boom is causing.
This last fortnight has also shown that Britain is not alone in
playing softball with Turkey; the attitude of President Bush to
Congress which was discussing the Armenian genocide was bizarre.
As the Armenian ambassador explained in his excellent piece on the New
Statesman website last week, nobody with any common sense denies that
the Armenian Genocide of 1915 onwards took place. Yet if the Germans
can admit their guilt over the Nazi Holocaust why cannot the Turks do
likewise?
The plucky little democratic country of Armenia still has to contend
with a blockade by Turkey not to mention the aggression of its
neighbour Azerbaijan whose idea of Democracy is to pass the presidency
down from father to son.
So why this desire by Britain and the US to butter up Turkey? Gone is
the Cold war threat from the Soviet Union and, with the election of
President Gul, the Islamists are taking over Turkey anyway. Quite how
the Turks imagine they can have any place in the EU whilst maintaining
their belligerence on Cyprus, Armenia and towards the Kurds is beyond
me.
Exactly why does the British Government continue to promote Turkey’s
EU membership? Could it by any chance be to do with Labour’s need of
the Muslim vote?

GATES MEETS TURKISH DEFENSE MINISTER SUNDAY ON IRAQ TENSION
By Al Pessin

Voice of America
Oct 21 2007
Washington

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will meet with Turkey’s defense
minister in Ukraine on Sunday to urge restraint in Turkey’s desire
to attack Kurdish insurgents based in Northern Iraq. The meeting
will be one of the first items on the secretary’s five-day visit to
Europe, which will also involve talks on U.S. effort to install a
part of its new missile defense system in Europe and on the need for
more capability to support NATO-led operations in Afghanistan. VOA
Pentagon Correspondent Al Pessin is traveling with the secretary,
and filed this report shortly before their departure Saturday night.

The U.S. and Turkish ministers will have much to discuss during
their scheduled half-hour meeting, including the Turkish government’s
request, approved by parliament last week, for permission to invade
Northern Iraq to hunt for Kurdish guerrillas. Secretary Gates spoke
about the issue during a news conference on Thursday.

"We call on Turkey to refrain from military action into Iraq that
would create an international crisis, and further undermine stability
in Iraq," said Gates.

Secretary Gates went on to say the U.S. and Iraqi governments would "do
the appropriate thing" if they received specific information about the
activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) [which is blamed for a
series of deadly raids inside Turkey]. Iraqi officials have also been
involved in intense, high-level diplomacy with Turkey about the issue.

Turkey is also concerned about a U.S. congressional resolution that
would label the Turkish mass killing of Armenians early in the last
century as "genocide." It now appears that the resolution may not pass,
but Secretary Gates says, if it does, he has no doubt that Turkey
will retaliate by cutting U.S. access to the key base at Incirlik. He
has said that would have a significant impact on supplies flowing to
U.S. forces in Iraq.

The other main focus of the secretary’s trip will be NATO’s lead
security role in Afghanistan.

"One of the problems that we encountered is that, while we have
40 countries cooperating in Afghanistan to help Afghanistan, both
in terms of security and in terms of development, not all of those
countries have delivered on the commitments they made at Riga, at
the NATO summit," he said.

Secretary Gates says that will be the "centerpiece" of his meetings
with NATO defense ministers in Holland later in the week. He says the
most pressing needs are for training teams for Afghanistan’s army and
police force. The American general in charge of the training program
says he needs about 60 more teams, each with about 16 members. In
addition, officials say, the NATO effort needs more airlift and fewer
restrictions on the use of the forces it has.

Secretary Gates says NATO prevented a Taliban offensive during the
spring. But he acknowledges violence has increased in Afghanistan this
year, and he wants the NATO ministers to develop a long-term strategy.

"We need to look ahead and see what we’re going to do over the next
year or two to have a strategic plan that moves us in the right
direction in terms of the security situation, but also better
coordination of the economic and civil development part of the
challenge," added Gates.

The NATO ministers are also expected to discuss progress reports from
Albania, Croatia and Macedonia on steps they are taking to qualify
for invitations to join the alliance.

Secretary Gates will also visit Prague during his trip for talks
focused on the U.S. desire to put a sophisticated anti-missile radar
in the country. It would be linked to an anti-missile launch site the
United States wants to put in Poland. A senior U.S. defense official
says negotiations over the Czech facility are ahead of schedule,
and could be completed in time for construction to begin next year.

Russia is strongly opposed to the plan, and during a visit to Moscow
earlier this month, Secretary Gates presented some secret proposals
designed to ease Russian concerns. The U.S. official who spoke on
condition of anonymity Friday said Russia had not yet responded to
the ideas.

Secretary Gates will also meet with members of the Southeastern Europe
Defense Ministers organization. The U.S. official who spoke Friday
says the group will discuss possible future deployments of its joint
force. The organization deployed about 100 troops to Afghanistan last
years to provide headquarters services for the NATO-led operation
there.

PELOSI’S JUDGMENT QUESTIONED OVER ARMENIA ISSUE
By Susan Cornwell

ABC News
Oct 21 2007

Share WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s pledge of a
new direction took a detour when she fumbled an Armenian genocide
resolution and raised questions about her leadership as the highest
ranking member of the U.S. Congress.

Pelosi, 67, speaker of the House of Representatives and next in line
to the presidency after the vice president, swore she would push the
controversial resolution to a vote, then blinked when some fellow
Democrats withdrew their support in the face of furious reaction
from Turkey.

President George W. Bush warned the symbolic resolution to affirm
the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide would
harm Washington’s relations with Ankara. But as long as it looked
like it would pass, Pelosi stuck to her guns.

When Democratic support started waning last week amid protests from
NATO ally Turkey — which denounced the measure as "insulting" and
hinted at halting logistical support for the U.S. war effort in Iraq —
Pelosi wavered.

Critics say she miscalculated.

"It’s certainly not her finest moment," said Michael O’Hanlon,
senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution
in Washington.

"There’s been no great harm done, but we do have to find some ways
to mend the U.S.-Turkish relationship."

Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed in World War One,
but denies they were victims of a systematic genocide.

Pelosi took office amid much fanfare 10 months ago. She proposed
"a new direction" for America and vowed to challenge Bush on a host
of fronts, including the Iraq war.

Her stumble on the Armenia resolution gave Republican critics more
ammunition.

They called the bill another "irresponsible" or "dangerous" foreign
policy gambit by Pelosi, who flew to Syria last spring when the White
House was not on speaking terms with Damascus.

Pelosi also has tried for months without success to defy Bush’s policy
on Iraq with legislation forcing a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

NO ‘DAMN ALLIES’

Even some of Pelosi’s closest allies, like Pennsylvania Rep. John
Murtha, say she misjudged the Armenian resolution.

Murtha, who opposes the measure on the grounds the United States
doesn’t have any "damn allies" and therefore needs to keep Turkey on
its side, counted up to 60 Democratic votes against it and said it
would fail if brought up.

Pelosi is one of several Californians in Congress with many
Armenian-Americans in their districts. They have pushed similar
proposals for years.

"She feels morally committed to this issue," said Murtha. "It’s just,
is it practical at this point to go forward with it?"

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich offered another excuse for Pelosi’s misstep:
she had too much on her plate.

This week House Democrats also tried and failed to override Bush’s veto
on a children’s health program. A bill to revise rules for government
eavesdropping on terrorism suspects had to be pulled from the floor
at the last minute.

"The pace of this institution is not always conducive to a
well-thought-out approach, to considering the consequences of a
certain type of action," Kucinich said.

Pelosi still has not ruled out calling a full House vote on the
Armenian resolution, which the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed
on October 10.

Some conservative commentators suggested the genocide measure was
part of a hidden Democratic agenda to undermine the Iraq war effort,
but other analysts said that was unlikely.

"I think it’s more domestic politics, playing to interest groups,
than backdoor foreign policy," said George Washington University
professor of international affairs Henry Nau.

"If members of Congress are plotting with interest groups to weaken
Turkish support of U.S. policy in Iraq and thus undermine American
forces in Iraq, the drama thickens beyond my capacity to comprehend,"
he said.