Author: Kalashian Nyrie

ARLES DEVOILE LES TRESORS DE L’ARMENIE ANTIQUE
Anne-Marie Romero

Le Figaro, France
23 juin 2007

POUR comprendre et apprecier a sa juste valeur l’exposition du Musee
de l’Arles et de la Provence antique (1), il convient de faire le
vide dans nos esprits : oublions nos chronologies, nos repères, nos
premières ceramiques vers 5 000 avant J.-C., nos premiers objets
de bronze vers 1 200. La-bas, dans ce Caucase lointain, carrefour
entre mer Noire et mer Caspienne, entre Mesopotamie au sud et empire
scythe au nord, l’histoire des hommes et celle de l’art commencent
mille ans plus tôt. Temoin, dès la première vitrine : un gobelet
d’argent repousse, d’une facture raffinee, a six registres decores
d’un thème traditionnel en Orient, celui de la chasse royale au
lion. Un gobelet doublement important parce que temoin de la maîtrise
parfaite de la metallurgie au XXII e siècle avant J.-C. et source
d’information sur la culture spirituelle d’une societe contemporaine
de notre prehistoire. " Le roi, explique Claude Sintès, directeur
du musee, symbolise la force et la virilite, il protège son peuple
des animaux sauvages, eux aussi symboles, a la fois des ennemis
et des forces malfaisantes de l’au-dela. " Un thème que l’on a vu
largement developpe l’an dernier, dans l’exposition sur les Thraces
au Musee Jacquemart-Andre. Dans ce " croissant fertile " du III e
millenaire dont l’Armenie fait partie, tout ce qui a ete decouvert
est d’une perfection artistique stupefiante. Les bijoux d’or fondu,
martele, filigrane, cloisonne, grainete, soude, enveloppant agate et
sardoine, les haches de ceremonie d’argent, en forme d’ancre ; les
poteries, telle cette jarre geante dont la panse evasee symbolise la
fecondite feminine et les tetons qui entourent le col, les mamelles,
representation très originale du thème eternel de la fertilite. C’est
a cette epoque que l’on trouve une foule de petits personnages et
des animaux minuscules, metaphores des forces de la nature.

Fiches sur les montants des chars funeraires. Perces, ils contenaient
des billes qui en faisaient des grelots, destines a eloigner les
esprits malfaisants. Seule, la sculpture, reste fruste. La pierre, le
tuf, est omnipresente en Armenie, mais, plus difficile a travailler,
elle n’a guère inspire les artistes. C’est en ces temps recules aussi
que les ancetres des Armeniens ont represente d’une manière, encore
une fois symbolisee mais assez evidente, leur conception geocentrique
du système solaire sous la forme d’etranges objets en bronze ajoure,
qui montrent clairement qu’au XII e siècle avant notre ère, pour eux,
la Terre etait bien ronde ! L’ecriture cuneiforme Lorsqu’en – 950,
ces soixante-trois petits royaumes s’unissent pour constituer celui
d’Ourartou, l’influence assyrienne se fait sentir avec l’apparition
de l’ecriture cuneiforme. Mais le style de la production armenienne
ne change guère. Le travail de l’or s’affine encore avec des bijoux
arachneens et de la vaisselle somptueuse, les rhytons destines aux
libations prennent une tournure de plus en plus originale et meme
cocasse, comme cette botte a lacets peints en terre cuite. L’occupation
des Mèdes puis des Artaxides, heritiers du passage d’Alexandre,
n’entame pas le substrat d’un art très symbolique, avec ses petits
personnages ithyphalliques, allegorie de la force virile, ses animaux
miniaturises, et ses " femmes poteries ". L’hellenisation est faible :
elle se traduit dans d’admirables rhytons d’argent, de grande taille,
figurant de fringants cavaliers.

Et meme sous l’occupation romaine, le rouleau compresseur de la pensee
unique ne parvient pas a tuer la specificite armenienne : bien qu’on
moule une très belle tete en verre de l’empereur Caracalla et des
cohortes de petites deesses mères, la symbolique feminine des decors
qui ornent les enormes vases a vin et les rhytons en forme d’ours,
a la manière d’un Francois Pompon, montrent la resistance d’un art
autochtone qui ne veut pas mourir. (1) " Splendeurs de l’Armenie
antique " jusqu’au 29 juillet au Musee de l’Arles et de la Provence
antique, Presqu’île-du-Cirque-Romain, 13200 Arles. Tel. : 04 90 18
88 88.

–Boundary_(ID_/PKP//td2qKd4VcrMR6TZQ)–

PM, public servants at odds over policy

Bureaucrats, diplomats in foreign service resistant to changes, Harper says
on tape
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau

Toronto Star, June 25, 2007

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he is being under¬mined by public
servants who are uncomfortable with the Conserva¬tive government’s
aggressive ap¬proach to foreign policy matters.

The Star has obtained recordings of a June 15 closed-door roundtable with
Toronto-based ethnic media in which Harper complains at length about
reluctant bureaucrats and diplomats responsible for drafting and defending
Canadian policies abroad.

"What is not acceptable, and it does happen on occasion, is for a public
servant to say, `That may be the position of the elected guys, but that’s
not the position of the government,” Harper said in the meeting, held at a
hotel near the To¬ronto airport.

The comments, coming 17 months after the Tories were elect¬ed, suggest
Harper continues to find resistance from bureaucrats to his policy agenda.

"Every government in every coun¬try – all the leaders I’ve talked to –
complain to me that their foreign service wants to do what (it) be¬lieves is
foreign policy, not what the government-of-the-day’s foreign policy is. It’s
a universal problem."

The head of the union representing Canada’s foreign service said he was
"shocked" after hearing the Prime Minister’s com¬plaint, but said there have
been no formal complaints filed against its members.

"If this is true we’d like to know pore about it," said Ron Cochrane,
executive director of the Profes¬sional Association of Foreign Service
Officers.

A spokesperson for Kevin Lynch, the clerk of the Privy Council and head of
the public service, declined to comment, without asking about the substance
of Harper’s comments.

The Prime Minister’s comments were a response to questions about his 2006
decision to recognize the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in
Turkey in 1915 as genocide. The move was a significant departure from the
position of successive Canadian governments and so angered the Turkish
government that it briefly recalled its ambassador.

The row made international headlines, with Turkey pulling out of a May 2006
joint military exercise in protest and an adviser to the Turkish prime
minister complaining to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in an Ottawa
meeting. And this April, the Turkish foreign ministry warned Harper against
Canada’s continued recognition of the
genocide.

"Repeating these claims annually will not help in normalizing
Tur¬key-Armenia relations and will harm Turkish-Canadian bilateral relations
as well," Ankara advised Ottawa in a message sent through official
diplomatic channels, ac¬cording to the Turkish Daily News.

The row provides one of the best examples of the waves that origi¬nate in
the Prime Minister’s Office and ripple through government. Other flare-ups
include:

*A decision by bureaucrats to sponsor a November 2006 confer¬ence on Turkey,
featuring a lecture by a University of Massachusetts¬-Amherst professor,
Guenter Lewy, who has referred to the Armenian slaughter as a "disputed
genocide."

An Oct. 23, 2006 letter from the Armenian National Committee of Canada to
MacKay asks if the De¬partment of Foreign Affairs would even consider doing
the same if the conference was for Holocaust deni¬ers.

Just days before the conference was to go ahead, the government pulled its
sponsorship of the event and senior Tories backed out of promises to attend.

*Comments by Canada’s ambas¬sador to Turkey from April weigh¬ing in on the
dispute between Otta¬wa and Ankara. In comments to Turkish daily Zaman, Yves
Brodeur suggested Turkey has a simple pub¬lic relations problem.

"It’s about influence, it is about making sure that they have enough
knowledge to make a decision that makes sense, and it is about talking to
them and telling them (Turkey’s) side of the story. In this case I be¬lieve
that Turkey started much too late," Brodeur said.

On April 20, 2007, the Prime Min¬ister’s office was preparing to issue a
statement recognizing the 92nd anniversary of the genocide. A draft
statement from bureaucrats, which the Armenian National Committee later
described as watered down, landed in the hands of the commit¬tee at 9 p.m.

The statement referred to the 1915 slaughter as an event that "has been
called the first genocide of the 20th century," and suggested the deaths may
have been linked to World War I fighting.

Upon appeal to the Prime Min¬ister’s Office, the wording of bu¬reaucrats was
changed and a more forceful statement was released to the public.

At the June 15 roundtable, Harper likened the difficulty he has had shifting
Canada’s foreign policy to turning a massive ship, saying it takes great
force and requires time.

"Canada’s recognition of the Ar¬menian genocide, frankly, was a major change
in policy for the for¬eign service of Canada, not an easy one to
understand," he confided. "It has been difficult for some people."

Harper added that it is difficult for bureaucrats to defend one party’s
policies for more than a decade and then immediately adapt to a new party’s
policies.

"That’s difficult for them because they tend to believe in what they’ve been
doing," he said.

"All I can say is this: The way we overcome this is to provide very strong
direction."

BLACK SEA LEADERS TO BOOST TRADE, ENERGY COOPERATION
Sibel Utku Bila

Middle East Times, Egypt
AFP
ryID=20070625-032615-1579r
June 25 2007

ISTANBUL — The leaders of a dozen nations in the Black Sea region,
including Russian President Vladimir Putin, pledged in Turkey Monday
to increase cooperation in energy and trade.

A joint declaration issued at the end of the summit of the Organization
of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) acknowledged that
political problems between member states were hindering economic
exchange in the oil-rich region and called for their peaceful
settlement.

The member countries were ready "to deepen cooperation in the
area of energy … and cooperate with the European Union and other
international partners to ensure fair access to energy resources
and markets on a mutual basis for all interested countries," the
statement said.

The region the BSEC covers is the world’s second-largest source of
oil and natural gas after the Gulf and is a major transit corridor
for energy supplies bound for Europe.

Speaking at the meeting, Putin, whose country has been accused
of using its oil and gas riches as a political weapon, called for
"strengthening the stability of the energy markets of the Black Sea,
also by expanding the practice of long-term contracts."

He said Russia favored "the diversification of energy supply routes,
the creation of new insurance schemes, and the share of financial
risk between partners through the exchange of shares."

The BSEC, which celebrated its 15th anniversary Monday, comprises
the Black Sea littoral states – Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia,
Turkey, and Ukraine –as well as Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Greece,
Moldova, and Serbia.

The members pledged to speed up work on upgrading transport
infrastructure, including a projected 7,500-kilometer (4,660-mile)
ring road along the Black Sea coast and regular maritime links between
their ports, with the aim of boosting tourism and trade.

Removing trade barriers was another priority, and they also called
for closer cooperation with the European Union and for the "earliest"
settlement of political tensions and territorial conflicts between
member states.

"Political conflicts constitute an important hurdle in the way of
economic cooperation and development," Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan said at a lunch he hosted at the summit.

"We have to make efforts to find a solution to political problems by
ourselves within the region," he added.

Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul held a rare bilateral meeting
with Vardan Oskanian, his counterpart from arch-foe Armenia, with
which Turkey has no diplomatic ties.

Armenia was the only country to be represented by a foreign minister.

All other nations sent presidents or prime ministers.

Oskanian urged Turkey to open the border between the two countries,
saying that such a move would help build confidence.

"If you are serious about dialogue, please open the border first,"
Oskanian said.

Turkey dealt a heavy economic blow to impoverished Armenia in 1993 as
it shut the border between the two countries in a show of solidarity
with its close ally Azerbaijan, which was at war with Armenia over
the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Ankara also refuses to establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan
because of Armenia’s international campaign to have the mass killings
of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century
recognized as genocide.

The Turkish police stepped up security measures ahead of the summit,
and five people, among them Chechens, suspected of having links with
the Al Qaeda network were arrested in Istanbul Sunday.

The BSEC was established in 1992 to promote stability and economic ties
between nations that belonged to opposite camps during the Cold War.

It covers nearly 20 million square kilometers (7.7 million square
miles) with a population of 350 million people. Member states have
a total foreign trade volume of $300 billion a year.

SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR PETITIONS SPEAKER PELOSI TO PASS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

ArmRadio.am
22.06.2007 10:40

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom recently sent a letter to Speaker of
the House Nancy Pelosi urging her to support H. Res. 106, the Armenian
Genocide Resolution. Newsom, whose city falls into Pelosi’s eighth
congressional district, expressed his utmost support of the Armenian
Genocide Resolution, reports the Armenian National Committee of America
(ANCA).

In his correspondence to Speaker Pelosi, Newsom states, "I write this
letter in respect to House Resolution 106, which would officially
place the US House of Representatives as recognizing the Armenian
Genocide of 1915.

Along with San Francisco’s large and active Armenian- American
community, it is an honor to add my name to the growing number of
supporters to House Resolution 106."

Mayor Newsom also referred to the assassination of Hrant Dink as
being "silenced as he advocated for official Turkish recognition
of the Armenian Genocide." Mayor Newsom stated in his letter that,
"[he] can find no better way to honor the memory of Mr. Dink than to
ask that the House of Representatives pass this resolution."

Mayor Newsom was appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in
1997, representing District 2. He was elected Mayor of San Francisco in
2004 and has always been in support of the Armenian-American Community.

ASHTARAK KAT TO ESTABLISH THREE MILK COLLECTION AND MARKETING UNITS IN TAVUSH REGION

ArmInfo
2007-06-20 17:53:00

Today during a press-conference at the UN House, the United Nations
Development Programme, Center for Agribusiness and Rural Development
and Ashtarak Kat Closed Joint Stock Company signed a Memorandum of
Undertanding to establish three Milk Collection and Marketing Units
in Tavush marz.

The press release by UNDP says that the goal is to establish milk
collection and marketing units in Varagavan, Tovuz and Nerkin
Karmiraghbyur located in Tavush marz to assist local dairy farmers
from nearly 10 neighboring villages to organize milk collection and
distribution processes and contribute to the sustainable growth of
the marz.

The units will be located in physical premises provided by the
community, which will be renovated according to the international food
safety standards and equipped with contemporary testing and cooling
equipment. Centers will be operated by community based organizations
(cooperatives) and supported by large dairy producers.

The UNDP Resident Representative Ms Consuelo Vidal told the audience
that the Milk Collection and Marketing Units will serve local
communities of Tavush marz and more than 200 farmers will benefit
from them. She also added that partnership with private companies like
Ashtarak Kat help ensure the sustainability of the economic development
activities, such as this centers, leading to poverty reduction through
the creation of new jobs and business opportunities in this case,
in the dairy sector.

During the event Charge d’Affaires of the US Embassy Anthony Godfrey
said: "The US Government is happy to support through CARD this joint
initiative with UNDP aimed at strengthening private intitiatve in
the agricultural sector."

Within the scope of this Memorandum the parties agreed to share the
following responsibilities:

The UNDP "Performance Budgeting at the Local Level" and "Global
Compact Armenia" projects will renovate the buildings for the milk
collection centers provided by the communities in Varagavan, Tovuz
and Nerkin Karmiaghbyur and provide two milk collection trucks to
organize the milk collection in the communities.

The Center for Agribusiness and Rural Development (CARD) will install
milk collection and testing equipment. In addition CARD will provide
technical assistance to the local farmers to establish and operate
legal entities such as the cooperatives that will be formed.

Ashtarak Kat CJSC will buy the collected milk from the Milk Collection
and Marketing Units

Ashtarak Kat is a privare sector dairy producer in Armenia. It
cooperates with 4,500 farms located in 55 villages throughout the
country. In 2001 URS provided the company with ISO 9001:2000.

IN RESPONSE TO PKK CEASEFIRE, TURKEY DECIDES TO ERADICATE TERROR
By Hakob Chakrian

AZG Armenian Daily
15/06/2007

American Associated Agency announced worldwide about the PKK
unilateral ceasefire. Meanwhile, at the Council Meeting of Ministers
the Government of the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed
the issue "Fight against terror". The Chief of Turkish Armed Forces
General Yashar Buyakanyt was also invited to the meeting.

In all probability PKK announcement about the ceasefire in parallel
with the Council Meeting of Ministers aimed at influencing on the
process of the meeting, moreover on the decision of Turkish government
about the fight against terror.

Taking into consideration USA and European Union’s demand on Turkey for
politicizing Kurdish issue, and that they are against the military
actions against PKK, the latter, with its unilateral ceasefire
probably wants to show who are responsible for the violence in the
country and to stimulate the international pressure on Turkey.

In spite of the accountings of PKK, at the Council Meeting of the
Ministers Erdogan’s government took a decision about continuing the
fight against terror.

In response to the issue of invading North Iraq, Erdoghan told that
the invasion was the utmost thing that they would do. Then he added,
"Did we eradicate terror in Turkey? First of all we must destroy
the shelters of the terrorists inside the country. If there are 500
terrorists in North Iraq, the number of them reaches to 5000 in the
mountains of Turkey. Did we cope with the task of 5000 terrorists in
Turkey in order to fight against 500 terrorists in Iraq?"

WILL OMBUDSMAN BE APPOINTED BEFORE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?

KarabakhOpen
12-06-2007 12:21:57

The law on the human rights defender was passed two years ago. The
post of ombudsman is still vacant, however. They said let us first
adopt the Constitution then appoint ombudsman. We have already adopted
the Constitution but the ombudsman has not been appointed yet.

A few days ago amendments were made to the law on human rights
defender.

According to the amended law, the president no longer appoints
ombudsman.

The parliament elects ombudsman for 6 years. The ombudsman is named
by one third of the members of parliament, and is elected if three
fifths of the members of parliament vote for.

Yuri Hairapetyan, chair of the State and Legal Committee, said
the ombudsman will be appointed after the president ratifies the
amendments. The Democrat member of parliament said in an interview
with KarabakhOpen.com his faction is ready to solve this problem
as soon as possible. In answer to the question if the faction will
name ombudsman, Hairapetyan said: "The faction has political will to
fulfill the provisions of the law. As to a candidate, we have had no
consultations yet."

Will ombudsman be appointed before the presidential election? Yuri
Hairapetyan thinks it is impossible because "the session of parliament
ends in June." "If we do not manage, we will raise this issue in the
next session," Yuri Hairapetyan said.

By the way, the ombudsman must be a citizen aged 35 and up. Yuri
Hairapetyan said higher education is not obligatory. According to
the amendment, the ombudsman will not have a deputy but will have
representations to all the regions.

Any woman can do a career

11-06-2007 14:29:50 – KarabakhOpen

Women and men have different physiology, potential and therefore
different worldview. And these differences gave rise to the so-called
gender issues. For instance, many think there are mail jobs and female
jobs. Whether this true or not, there is discrimination of women in a
lot of countries.
Discrimination of women in Karabakh is hardly ever discussed. Perhaps
nobody has though there is discrimination in Karabakh or there is not.
`I am amazed about women who want equality,’ says Ashot Sargsyan, whose
wife works as a `housewife’. `A woman must work about the house, have
children, take care for her husband. We men will take care of the rest.
We make money and solve global problems.’
Ashot added with sarcasm: `We must love and cherish women for they give
us happiness and love.’
`I always feel discomfort because I am a woman,’ says Narine
Mnatsakanyan from Stepanakert. `I feel discomfort because I depend on
my husband. What to buy, what to wear, to work or not, because my
husband says I am a woman. I think a lot of women will understand me.’
However, a female journalist had a quite different opinion. `On the
whole, there is no discrimination in Karabakh, and if there is
discrimination, it is the woman’s fault. If the husband beats her, and
she bears it saying he’s jealous, so who is to blame? She because she
lacks dignity and awareness of her rights and freedoms.’
Most citizens we talked to think women and men in Karabakh enjoy equal
opportunities for career. And it is funny to divide jobs into male and
female.
`I have a family, and I have been in a high-ranking post in a
government agency for many years. I assure you there are no hindrances
for women. Any woman can do a career if she is eager,’ S. Petrosyan
said.

The Baltimore Sun
June 10, 2007 Sunday
FINAL EDITION

LET’S PRETEND

What to be skeptical about: the proposal by Russian President
Vladimir V. Putin to use a Russian radar site in Azerbaijan as an
outpost of America’s missile defense system.

What to be even more skeptical about: America’s missile defense
system.

Mr. Putin has been railing against plans by the Bush administration
to install a radar station in the Czech Republic and 10 missile
interceptors in Poland, which he portrays as provocations aimed more
at Russia than at Iran or some other Middle Eastern nation. He
threatened to re-target Russia’s missiles against European cities –
which may have been a ploy to try to divide Western Europe and the
U.S., but if it was, it went over very poorly with its intended
audience. Then, last week, he made his surprise suggestion: Why not
work together in Azerbaijan? Maybe, he added, the interceptors could
be set up in Turkey or Iraq, or be stationed at sea.

Let’s pretend for a moment that the missile defense system is a
workable idea. The Russian proposal, in that case, makes a small
amount of sense. Because Azerbaijan borders on Iran, radar there
would be able quickly to pick out a hostile missile; a problem is
that Azerbaijan would be almost as quickly overflown and it would be
difficult to hit the offending missile if the only guidance came from
its rear. But that Moscow has even opened the door to thinking about
cooperation with the U.S. comes close to being a triumph for
Washington.

Now, let’s drop the pretense. The missile defense system has to be
one of Washington’s all-time boondoggles. It costs about $10 billion
a year. Tests have overwhelmingly been failures, except those that
were so trumped up they were next to meaningless. Just last month, a
test was declared a "no test" by the Missile Defense Agency, because
the target missile didn’t end up in the right part of the sky to get
picked off.

Mr. Putin must know all this. There are probably people around
President Bush who know it, too. Indeed, someday in the distant
future, the U.S. may have a functioning system – but it’s important
to understand that the mode at the moment is strictly rhetorical (and
contractual, of course). The Russians may have suggested Azerbaijan
as a distraction, or to make it harder for the U.S. to move forward
against popular opinion in the Czech Republic and Poland. It may be
tied in with a recent tilt by Moscow in favor of Azerbaijan in its
long-simmering dispute with Armenia, which in turn has to be seen in
the context of Azerbaijan’s abundant and westward-flowing Caspian
oil.

Any opportunity to work together with Moscow, instead of against it,
would be welcome – if only the missile defense shield were something
worth working on.

Eurasia Daily Monitor

Thursday, May 31, 2007 — Volume 4, Issue 106

CENTRAL ASIA-EUROPE ENERGY PROJECTS IN CRISIS: ITEMIZING WHAT WENT
WRONG

by Vladimir Socor

The Kremlin-orchestrated summits in Central Asia and Austria this
month turned into a cascade of setbacks to Western-proposed energy transit
projects for Europe. At these summits from May 11 through 24, Turkmenistan
and Kazakhstan agreed to maximize gas deliveries to Russia while practically
disavowing the proposed trans-Caspian gas pipeline to Europe for lack of
Russian consent. Kazakhstan for the first time declined to join the
Odessa-Brody-Poland oil pipeline project, unless it is transformed to
include Russia. Moreover, Kazakhstan committed additional massive oil
volumes for export via Russia, instead of the proposed trans-Caspian oil
transport system by tankers, westward into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Finally, Austria, initiator of the European Union’s Nabucco project for
Caspian gas to Europe bypassing Russia, has now agreed to increase the
import and transit of Gazprom’s gas.

In retrospect, it is not difficult to itemize what went wrong on the
ground with each of the Western-backed projects. In most cases, what went
wrong was fairly clear all along (see EDM, March 13, 16, 26, April 5, May
10, 14, 16, 17, 29).

Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline Project

1) The U.S. and EU did not develop specific commercial offers to
Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan regarding the price for their gas and financing
of the proposed pipeline to Europe.

2) After 2003, Washington and Brussels made a political decision to
stop dealing on gas with Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s autocrat. This
was a criterion that the U.S. and EU never applied to oil-rich Middle
Eastern autocracies; that the Democratic Clinton administration had not
applied to Niyazov when it launched and promoted this project; and that the
Pentagon did not apply to its good relationship with Turkmenistan in support
of operations in Afghanistan.

3) Instead of targeting Turkmenistan’s vast reserves of gas, the U.S.
quite late in the game designated Kazakhstan as anchor of the trans-Caspian
project, although Kazakhstan’s gas export potential is far smaller than
Turkmenistan’s and also more expensive to bring on stream.

4) Having to bear alone the brunt of Russian pressure, Kazakhstan
announced in March-April 2007 that it could not join this project without
Russian consent.

5) When Washington and Brussels finally reactivated relations with
Turkmenistan in early 2007 following Niyazov’s death, they apparently
lacked — or had deprived themselves of — instruments and channels to
influence the new Turkmen leadership’s policy choices.

Trans-Caspian Oil Transport System Proposal

1) A strategic blunder, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) oil
pipeline, projected to take a staggering 64 million tons of oil annually
from Kazakhstan to Russia, was built by U.S. oil companies with U.S.
government approval from the late 1990s to 2001. It now haunts U.S. policy
in the region and the companies themselves. Currently operating at some 27
million tons annually pending enlargement, this pipeline exercises a
powerful suction effect on Kazakhstan’s growing oil output and export,
detracting from the proposed trans-Caspian oil transport system westward and
to the detriment of the U.S. government-backed Baku-Ceyhan pipeline.

2) The EU accepted without objection Russia’s agreement in March with
Bulgaria and Greece to construct the Burgas-Alexandropolis pipeline, the
first Russian state-controlled pipeline on EU territory. In effect
prolonging the CPC pipeline, this agreement enabled Russia’s decision in May
to enlarge the CPC pipeline’s capacity for an additional 17 million tons of
oil from Kazakhstan annually, long-term.

3) Washington (and to some extent Brussels) refrained from spending
political capital in opposing the Burgas-Alexandropolis project, deciding
instead to focus on keeping alive the troubled Nabucco project, only to face
the latter’s impending demise far sooner than anticipated.

Nabucco Gas Pipeline Project

1) Dramatically illustrating (as does CPC) the absence of a coherent
Western energy strategy in Eurasia, Italy’s state-controlled holding ENI
loaned the technology and financing for Gazprom’s pipeline, Blue Stream, on
the seabed of the Black Sea to Turkey. While making little commercial sense
in Turkey, this geopolitically motivated pipeline has positioned Gazprom one
long jump ahead of the EU-backed Nabucco in the race for European markets
through the Southern European Corridor (Turkey-Balkans-central Europe).

2) Initially designed by Austria to carry Iranian gas to Europe, the
Nabucco project was delayed for years by implacable and continuing U.S.
opposition to development of Iran’s gas fields.

3) Western failure to engage with Turkmenistan (see above) deprived
Nabucco of that possible source of gas for Europe.

4) Due to factors two and three, Washington had to insist that
Azerbaijani gas alone (expected to flow in coming years to eastern Turkey)
could support both Nabucco and the planned Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline
simultaneously. This argument led to more questions and uncertainties.

5) Turkey’s government, driven by short-term tactical and political
considerations (often unrelated to energy policy as such), never came fully
on board the Nabucco project.

6) Hungary’s Socialist-led government (in a linchpin country on the
Nabucco route) seemed to switch sides, signaling a preference for Gazprom’s
Blue Stream in 2006-early 2007, even as Brussels and Washington intensified
political backing for the Nabucco project. Thus the stage was set for
Gazprom to expand into Austria under the agreements signed in May during
Putin’s visit there.

7) Hungary and perhaps other governments would by now accept turning
Nabucco into a `joint’ project with Gazprom — a move that would negate the
Nabucco project’s strategic rationale of carrying non-Russian gas to Europe
through a pipeline not under Russian control.

Odessa-Brody-Poland Oil Pipeline Project

1) Although supported by the EU, the pipeline has a capacity of only 9
million tons annually (augmentable to 15), a far cry from the larger
projects in terms of commercial attractiveness.

2) Since 2001, Russia has successfully blocked oil deliveries to
Odessa from Kazakhstan, including oil owned by U.S. companies and pumped
through the American-built CPC pipeline to Novorossiysk.

3) The option of shipping Kazakhstani oil to Odessa from Georgia’s
Black Sea terminals does not seem to have been seriously considered.

4) Ukraine has recently sent confusing signals, such as detouring the
Odessa-Brody pipeline into Slovakia’s transit pipeline under partial Russian
control, rather than prolonging it from Brody into Poland. Both President
Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych have aired the Slovak
option in recent months, adding to uncertainty among potential investors.

5) Russia has indirectly signaled that it might lift the blockage on
oil to Odessa, if Russia were included in the pipeline project to Poland —
a move that would, as in Nabucco’s case, defeat the project’s raison d’etre.

Itemizing what went wrong need not turn into a post-mortem analysis of
these projects. The retrospective assessment could lead to adoption of a
real U.S. and EU energy strategy in Eurasia for the first time.

–Vladimir Socor