Author: Kanayan Tamar

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 4 2012

Genocide bill won’t end relations with France, AK Party deputy says

4 January 2012 / ALÄ° ASLAN KILIÃ?, ANKARA

The president of the Turko-French inter-parliamentary friendship
group, who resigned due to intense pressure from the Turkish public
following the passage of a bill through the French lower house of
parliament on Dec. 22 seeking to make it illegal to deny that the mass
killings of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks were genocide, stated
that the genocide bill does not spell the end of relations with
France, which have a long history.
The bill will now be placed on the agenda of the French senate.

In an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman on Tuesday, Mehmet Kasım
Gülpınar, head of the inter-parliamentary friendship group with France
and Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Å?anlıurfa deputy, said he
resigned against his will due to mounting public pressure, and
expressed his sadness over the deteriorating relations with France,
which has had diplomatic relations with Turkey for centuries.

Noting that the group still exists in legal terms even though most of
the lawmakers have resigned, Gülpınar pointed out that it would be
better to keep the channels of communication open with the French
parliament through the friendship group, at least until the senate
votes on the bill, which will probably be at the end of January. Open
communication might facilitate future efforts to stop approval of the
bill in the senate.

`The genocide bill is not the end of everything. The friendship
between the two countries has a history and must endure forever,’
Gülpınar said. He added that dropping the bill in the upcoming months
could restore the rancorous political ties between Turkey and France.

Gülpınar, educated at the French-speaking Tevfik Fikret High School in
Ankara, said he was puzzled by the French parliament’s decision,
saying he had a hard time explaining the significance of the bill to
his own family. `Even my kids asked me if we would still be able to go
to Disneyland in Paris after the passage of the bill,’ he said. He
added that the bill made his job of promoting bilateral ties very
difficult. `I found my French colleagues sharing my concerns over this
bill as well,’ he noted. Gülpınar expressed his hope that sensible
French politicians will set things right by killing the bill in the
senate.

Ankara reacted furiously when the lower house of the French parliament
approved the bill in late December, recalling its ambassador from
Paris, banning French military aircraft and warships from landing and
docking in Turkey and suspending political and economic meetings.

Prime Minister Tayyip Recep ErdoÄ?an slammed the bill as `politics
based on racism, discrimination and xenophobia’ and turned his anger
on French President Nicolas Sarkozy, accusing France of colonial
massacres in Algeria.

The bill makes denial of the alleged Armenian genocide a crime
punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros.

`The bill is a fatal blow to freedom of expression. The bill also put
the freedom to travel at risk, in view of the potential penalties
[that Turks might face in France],’ Gülpınar said, to emphasize that
the bill may negatively affect tourism, as most Turks might not choose
France as their vacation destination.

Gülpınar said he hopes the French senate will drop the bill. He noted
that the senate’s possible quashing of the bill will mend fences and
bolster cooperation between the two countries.

The inter-parliamentary group consisted of 357 members, most of whom
were lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK
Party), while there were also members from other parties in the
Turkish Parliament.

Unlike other inter-parliamentary groups, all parties from the Turkish
Parliament were represented in the executive council of the
Turko-French inter-parliamentary friendship group. Deputies from the
AK Party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Peace and Democracy
Party (BDP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) formed the
executive board, which comprised nine members. AK Party Å?anlıurfa
deputy Gülpınar led the group’s activities. Roughly 290 members of the
group were AK Party deputies.

Public Radio, Armenia
Jan 4 2012

Beginning in 1915 the Armenians were the victims of a methodic attempt
at annihilation, French philosopher writes

04.01.2012 16:20

`The law whose purpose is to penalize negationist revisionism, voted
before Christmas by the French parliament, does not propose to write
history in the place of historians. And this for the simple reason
that this history has been told and written, well written, for a long
time,’ French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy writes in an
article published in The Huffington Post.

`This we have always known: that, beginning in 1915, the Armenians
were the victims of a methodic attempt at annihilation,’ the author
writes. `In other words, this law has nothing to do with the will to
establish a truth of state. No representative of the French National
Assembly who voted for it saw himself as a substitute for historians
or their work. Together, they only intended to recall this simple
right, that of each of us not to be publicly attacked – and its
corollary, the right to demand reparations for this particularly
outrageous offense which is the insult to the memory of the dead. It
is a question of law, not one of history.’

`Presenting this law as one that denies liberty, one likely to hamper
the work of historians is another strange argument that makes one
wonder. It is the negationist revisionists who, up until now, have
hampered the work of historians. It is their mad ideas, their
hare-brained concepts, their twisting of facts, their terrifying and
breathtaking lies that shake the earth upon which, in principle, a
science should be built. And in punishing them, making their task more
complicated, alerting the public that it is dealing not with scholars
but with those who would enflame minds, that the law protects and
shelters history. Is there one historian who has been prevented from
working on the Shoah by the Gayssot law punishing denial of the
Holocaust? Is there one author who, in good conscience, can claim that
it has limited his freedom to do research and to raise questions? And
isn’t it clear that the only ones this law has seriously hindered are
the Faurissons, the Irvings, and the other Le Pens? Well, the same
applies to the genocide of the Armenians. This law, when the Senate
will have ratified it, will be a stroke of fortune for historians, who
can finally work in peace. Unless… Yes, unless those who oppose the
law express this other, cloudier reservation: that it would be a bit
premature to come to a conclusion, precisely and for nearly a century,
of “genocide,’ the author further writes.

`I would add that it’s time to stop mixing everything up and drowning
the Armenian tragedy in the ritualized blahblahblah assailing the
“memorial laws”. For this law is not a memorial law. It is not one of
those dangerous power plays capable of laying the path for dozens if
not hundreds of absurd or blackguardly rules, codifying what one has
the right to say about the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, the
meaning of colonization, slavery, the Civil War, the misdemeanor of
blasphemy and heaven knows what else. It is a law concerning a
genocide — which is not the same. It is a law sanctioning those who,
in denying it, intensify and perpetuate the genocidal act – which is
something else entirely. There are not, thank God, hundreds of
genocides, or even dozens. There are three. Four, if we add the
Cambodians to the Armenians, the Jews, and the Rwandans. And to place
these three or four genocides on the same level as all the rest, to
make their penalization the antechamber of a political correctness
that authorizes a stream of useless or perverse laws on the disputed
aspects of our national memory, to say, “Watch it! You’re opening a
Pandora’s box from which everything and anything can pop out !” is
another imbecility, exacerbated by another infamy and sealed with a
dishonesty that is, really, grotesque.’

`Let us confront this specious line of argument with the wisdom of
national representation. And may the senators complete the process by
refusing to be intimidated by this little band of historians,’
Bernard-Henri Lévy concludes.

Agence France Presse
January 3, 2012 Tuesday 10:29 AM GMT

Turkey’s ambassador will return to Paris: sources

ANKARA, Jan 3 2012

Turkey’s ambassador to Paris will soon return to France after he was
recalled as French lawmakers approved a bill criminalising denial of
the Armenian genocide, Turkish diplomatic sources said Tuesday.

Ambassador Tahsin Burcuoglu, who was recalled to Turkey for
consultations on December 23, will resume his work in Paris to try to
prevent the French Senate from approving the bill, they said.

“I do not rule out (the possibility) that he is going back. He was
recalled for consultations and it was not expected that he would stay
in Turkey forever,” a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Another diplomatic source said Burcuoglu planned to be back to Paris next week.

French lawmakers last month voted to jail and fine anyone in France
who denies that the 1915 killings of Armenians under the Ottoman
Empire amounted to genocide, prompting Turkey to suspend political and
military cooperation with Paris.

Turkey also threatened a new round of retaliations if the French
Senate passes the bill, a process which could take months.

In 1915 and 1916, during World War I many Armenians died in Ottoman
Turkey. Armenia says 1.5 million were killed in a genocide. Turkey
says around 500,000 died in fighting after Armenians sided with
Russian invaders.

ba-sft/ms/ss

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Jan 3 2012

Armenian group hails 2011 as year of success

ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News
Ümit Enginsoy

The head of the largest and most influential U.S. Armenian group has
declared 2011 as a year of great progress for the Armenian cause
against Turkey while requesting more donations from Armenian-Americans
to bolster the cause.

There were a number of pro-Armenian developments inside and outside
the U.S. Congress last year, Ken Hachikian, chairman of the Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA), said in a statement released
over the weekend.

`The historic adoption by the U.S. House of H. Res. 306, demanding
Turkey return stolen Christian churches, sounded our call for
reparations loud and clear,’ he said. `The high-profile failure of the
president’s deeply flawed nomination of Matt Bryza challenged the
State Department’s `business-as-usual’ approach to Azerbaijan’s
alarming march toward war. And, across the Atlantic, the adoption last
week by the French Parliament of an anti-Armenian Genocide denial law
set the stage for a renewed worldwide push in 2012 for a truthful and
just resolution of this crime against humanity.’
H. Res. 306, a non-binding resolution approved last year by the House
of Representatives, Congress’s lower chamber, calls for the return of
properties confiscated from Turkey’s Christian minorities over the
past century. U.S. Armenians had accused Bryza, who was nominated by
President Barack Obama as ambassador to Baku in 2009, of being overtly
pro-Turkish. Two pro-Armenian senators had placed a hold on him, and
the Senate failed to organize a vote on him last year, forcing him to
quit his job.
Late last month, the lower house in the French Parliament passed a
bill criminalizing the denial of what Armenians and their supporters
call the `Armenian genocide.’ The French Senate may hold a vote on
that bill later this month despite Turkish warnings that the bill’s
adoption would lead to a deterioration in ties in a major and lasting
way. Armenians describe the World War I-era killings of their kinsmen
in the Ottoman Empire as `genocide.’ Turkey rejects the claim and says
Turks and Muslims were also killed in ethnic strife in eastern
Anatolia toward the end of the war.

Hachikian also urged U.S. Armenians to donate funds to ANCA to
contribute the fight against Turkey.
`With your faith and renewed financial support, we will do so much
more,’ he said. `Will you consider giving $60, $100, $250 or more to
empower us to fight for our rights? Any amount makes a difference,
even a gift of $10.’
January/03/2012

news.am, Armenia
Jan 3 2012

More women but less children in Armenia

January 03, 2012 | 20:23

YEREVAN. – Women are more than men by 3% in Armenia, National
Statistics Service informs.

Men are 48.5%, while women 51.5% of population. The average age of men
is 33.3, while it is 36.7 for women. Children under 15 made 19.6% last
year.

Over 452 children and pensioners are counted for every 1000 citizen of
working age, as compared to 456 early in 2010.

Over 34.4% of population lives in the capital. Armenia’s Ararat,
Armavir, Lori, Kotayk and Shirak Regions have 8.6 – 8.7% of population
respectively, Gegharkunik 7.4%, Aragatsotn, Syunik and Tavush
4.1-4.7%, while only 1.7% of population lives in Vayots Dzor Region.

The following paper appeared in the print edition of 21st Century, an
international foreign policy journal produced by Yerevan-based think-tank
Noravank Foundation.

*U.S.** FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS THE SOUTH CAUCASUS*

*A Comparative Analysis from Inside Washington, DC’s Policy Circles*

A majority of articles written about the Caucasus seem to focus on
Azerbaijan and Caspian energy. Therefore, it is no surprise that talk about
U.S. and European policy toward the region is devoted to those two aspects.
Some even describe them as a top priority for U.S. interests in the region,
above and beyond democracy and civil freedoms, which have been on the
decline in recent years. At first glance, many Americans might ask: what
does the United States have to do with Europe’s energy needs? To put it
plainly, why do we care? Vincent O’Brien, Chief of Staff to Richard
Morningstar, Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy at the U.S. Department of
State, raised that exact question at the Woodrow Wilson Center earlier this
year.[1] He
stated that the United States and the European Union (EU) have the
largest trade relationship in the world, so it is natural that European
concerns are in our interest and vice versa. In 2009 the U.S. and the EU
established a bi-lateral Energy
Council.[2] According
to O’Brien, the central theme to the US-EU Energy Council is
energy security – make sure the gas keeps flowing to Europe. The U.S.-EU
Energy Council is focused on energy security and new markets, energy
efficiency, research and development for carbon capture and storage, new
and renewable resources, emissions and environment, and adopting universal
standards and policies.[3] A
strategic goal of the Council is to link the South Caucasus and
Eurasian
countries to the West – and to Western markets – through our energy policy.
As Philip Gordon, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and
Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State testified, `U.S.-European
cooperation is and remains essential to achieving our strategic objectives.’
[4] When
O’Brien was asked which specific project or pipeline does the U.S.
support, his response was that we support the least expensive and most
easily transportable energy
project.[5]

Also this year, the Center for Strategic & International Studies held its
second annual conference on the South Caucasus entitled `Outlook for U.S.
Strategy in the Southern Caucasus and the Caspian.’ The Atlantic Council’s
Ross Wilson, a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan, reflected
on the origins of American foreign policy in the region and its current
state of affairs. According to Wilson, four objectives defined American
foreign policy over the last 20 years: newly independent states should stay
independent; promote open, free market democracy; integrate the region into
the Euro-Atlantic community and global economy; and help where we could
with messy conflicts.[6] Wilson
stated that although our interests have not changed, `I would be
dishonest if I say that we are where we wanted to be.’ Wilson also stated
that as Georgia is sliding into a long haul stalemate, Armenia and
Azerbaijan are sliding out of one, alluding to the increasing likelihood of
a renewed war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.[7] According
to the International Crisis Group, `an arms race, escalating
front-line clashes, vitriolic war rhetoric and a virtual breakdown in peace
talks are increasing the chance Armenia and Azerbaijan will go back to war
over Nagorno-Karabakh. Preventing this is
urgent.'[8]

Stephen Blank from the U.S. Army War College followed Wilson, arguing that
the U.S. lacks a South Caucasus strategy. In regards to the U.S.-Russia
`reset,’ Blank commented that according to Russian press and analysts,
the
United States accepts the South Caucasus as Russia’s sphere of influence
and that Russia in turn doesn’t view the South Caucasus states as
independent, sovereign
states.[9] Blank
goes on to elaborate the positive and negative aspects of Obama’s
`reset’ policy. Positive outcomes to the reset policy include increased
cooperation and collaboration on Afghanistan and the signing and
ratification of the START treaty. A negative aspect of the reset is our
decreased involvement or attention to South East Europe, Eastern Europe and
the South Caucasus. Blank plainly revealed the pattern that had emerged in
practically all of the Washington policy discussions held on the South
Caucasus over the last few years – the U.S. doesn’t have a specified South
Caucasus strategy and our current approach is two fold – no war and peace
along pipelines.

Now that we know that we don’t have a detailed strategy towards the South
Caucasus, other than the fundamentals of preventing war and ensuring peace
along pipelines, and that we need to re-engage the region, there are some
important policy recommendations that are currently being discussed on how
to do just that. Last year Samuel Charap, Associate Director for Russia and
Eurasia at the Center for American Progress, co-authored with Alexandros
Peterson, Senior Fellow from the Atlantic Council, an important piece
in *Foreign
Affairs* entitled `Reimagining Eurasia.’ There are some key points that
sound great in theory and some which require further debate, especially in
the `Reimagining Azerbaijan’ segment that appeared separately. Charap and
Peterson reflect that `U.S. policy toward countries in the region
essentially became a derivative of Russia policy as a result. We failed to
forge long-term partnerships and instead sought leverage, neglecting
engagement that provided no benefit in the push and pull with
Moscow.'[10]

In their recommendations, Charap and Peterson state that `U.S. policy
makers must abandon the tired Russia-centric tack and develop new
individualized approaches to the states of the greater Black Sea region and
Central Asia’ in the attempt to `=85avoid re-creating a
nineteenth-century-style Great
Game.'[11] They
further state that `The Obama administration may have `reset’
relations with Russia, but it must now develop a clear parallel strategy to
reimagine its policies toward Eurasia – ones tailored to the specific U.S.
interests at stake in each country and transparent to all other states.’
These statements imply developing multiple foreign policies based on
detailed bi-lateral relationships with all the nations in the region. In
fact, Charap recommends that the U.S. `deepen bilateral U.S. engagement
with Azerbaijan,’ clearly referring to Azerbaijan’s energy potential while
discounting its horrendous human rights record and recent crackdown on
media and civil
liberties.[12] Of
the three South Caucasus states, only Azerbaijan was listed as `not
free’ in the 2010 `Freedom in the World’ report by *Freedom
House*.[13]

However, an alternative approach offered by Thomas de Waal, Senior
Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, looks at the
region in a much broader view. He states that `almost no one in Washington
is thinking of how to approach the South Caucasus as a region, whose
economic needs and security problems are inter-connected and best resolved
by a holistic approach.'[14] According
to de Waal, `Narrow bilateralism is an abiding problem in
Caucasus policy – a problem complicated by the multiple policy agendas of a
country such as Russia or the United
States.'[15]

Returning to Charap and Peterson’s assessments, they argue that `playing
the game not only brought Washington to the brink of confrontation with
Moscow (in the 2008 Russia-Georgia War) but also distorted the United
States’ priorities in Eurasia and hollowed out U.S. relationships with
states in the region.'[16] Eerily
reminiscent of Hollywood’s 1983 film `War Games,’ Charap and
Peterson conclude that `the only way for Washington to `win’ is not to play
the game.'[17]

These alternative approaches to encouraging a solid and just, long-term
relationship with the people of the South Caucasus are thought-provoking in
their own right and deserve much credit. Yet when we bring these issues
back home, faced with the daunting challenge of reducing the U.S. national
debt, it is difficult to see where this reality fits into these policy
recommendations. In fact, of all the discussions attended by the author
since the global economic crisis hit, only on one occasion did a panelist
ever raise the question of how these challenges can be met if we are
reducing foreign aid. At a Center for American Progress discussion, Dr.
Fiona Hill, Director and Senior Fellow at Brookings Institute, questioned,
`Do we, the U.S., have the resources and the people to underpin the years
of policy that the people of the region
want?'[18] As
all politics are local, it was refreshing to hear this domestic
reality
mentioned when discussing the formulation of U.S. foreign policy towards
the region. It appears that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI)
attempted to answer that question when he released his 85-page plan calling
for a drastic 44% cut in international affairs and foreign assistance
spending over the next 5 years.

Whether or not the entirety of Congressman Ryan’s `Path to Prosperity’ is
cemented, U.S. domestic challenges can not be overlooked when formulating a
new strategy to an important and delicate region. At the same time, our
approach to the South Caucasus region should not follow but rather stem
from efforts to promote greater civil liberties and media freedoms, freer
and fairer elections, enforcement of the rule of law, and more open
free-market economies. However, we have to be mindful of how far these
young republics have come in the 20 years since their independence. Our
policy should reflect a long-term investment in and understanding of the
people of the region, their culture and religion and, most importantly,
support for their struggle for a more peaceful and democratic society;
especially since that policy can shape the lives of thousands who work to
see it implemented over the course of the next century, and millions who
have to live with its outcome.

*Taniel Koushakjian***

*Grassroots Director*

*Armenian Assembly of America*

*June, 2011*

——————————

[1]Author
attended presentation entitled `The Future of U.S.-E.U. Energy
Cooperation’ at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. on February
9, 2011.

[2]Id.

[3]Id.

[4]Overview
of U.S. Relations with Europe and Eurasia, Testimony of Philip H.
Gordon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau if European and Eurasian Affairs at the
U.S. Department of State, before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia, Washington, D.C., on March 11, 2011.
Available online at:

[5]Author
attended presentation entitled `The Future of U.S.-E.U. Energy
Cooperation’ at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. on February
9, 2011.

[6]Author
attended presentation entitled `Outlook for U.S. Strategy in the
Southern Caucasus and the Caspian’ at the Center for Strategic &
International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. on February 18, 2011.

[7]Id.

[8]International
Crisis Group, Europe Briefing No. 60, `Armenia and
Azerbaijan: Preventing War,’ February 8, 2011.

[9]Author
attended presentation entitled `Outlook for U.S. Strategy in the
Southern Caucasus and the Caspian’ at the Center for Strategic &
International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. on February 18, 2011.

[10]Charap,
Samuel and Alexandros Peterson, `Reimagining Azerbaijan,’
*Center for American Progress*, August 23, 2010.

[11]Charap,
Samuel and Alexandros Peterson, `Reimagining Eurasia,’
*Foreign Affairs*, August 20, 2010.

[12]Charap,
Samuel and Alexandros Peterson, `Reimagining Azerbaijan,’
*Center for American Progress*, August 23, 2010.

[13]Freedom
House Country Report on Azerbaijan, Freedom in the World 2010.
Available online at:

[14]de
Waal, Thomas, `Call Off the Great Game,’
*Foreign Policy*, September 13, 2010.

[15]Id.

[16]Charap,
Samuel and Alexandros Peterson, `Reimagining Eurasia,’
*Foreign Affairs*, August 20, 2010.

[17]Id.

[18]Author
attended presentation entitled `Reimagining Eurasia: Devising a
Strategy for U.S. Engagement with the States of the Greater Black Sea
Region and Central Asia’ at the Center for American Progress in Washington,
D.C. on October 20, 2010.

The Associated Press
January 3, 2012 Tuesday 08:40 AM GMT

Russia’s Putin dreams of sweeping Eurasian Union

By PETER LEONARD, Associated Press
ALMATY, Kazakhstan

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has a vision for a Soviet
Union-lite he hopes will become a new Moscow-led global powerhouse.
But, his planned Eurasian Union won’t be grounded in ideology: This
time it’s about trade.

The concept of regional economic integration may be losing some of its
allure in Europe, where a debt crisis is threatening the existence of
the eurozone. But some countries across the former Soviet Union, still
struggling economically 20 years after becoming independent, are
embracing Putin’s grand ambition.

Russia has moved one step toward this goal under an agreement with
former fellow Soviet republics Belarus and Kazakhstan that as of
Sunday allows the free movement of goods and capital across their
common borders.

As Putin envisions it, the still-hypothetical union will eventually
stretch from the eastern fringes of Central Europe to the Pacific
Coast and south to the rugged Pamir Mountains abutting Afghanistan.

The drive to somehow reform at least a husk of the Soviet Union has
been around since 1991. The Commonwealth of Independent States, which
loosely brings together 11 of the original 15 republics, was an early
attempt that never amounted to much more than a glorified alumni club.

It was Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev who first raised
the notion of an Eurasian Union in the early 1990s, but the idea was
too premature for nations busy forging their own delicate statehoods.

Putin was president from 2000 to 2008 and intends to regain that
position in a March election. A wave of protests that began after a
fraud-tainted parliamentary election in December is posing the first
serious challenge to Putin’s authority, but his hold on power still
seems secure.

In anticipation of a new six-year term as president, Putin has made
forming a Eurasian Union by 2015 a foreign policy priority. He is
promoting the union as necessary for Russia and its neighbors to
compete in the modern global economy. His broader goal is to restore
some of Moscow’s economic and political clout across former Soviet
space and thus strengthen Russia’s position in the world.

If the poorer prospective members are clamoring for Putin’s union so
as to become Moscow’s financial beneficiaries, as was the case under
the Soviet Union, they may be sorely disappointed. Russia has in
recent years taken a more pragmatic line when extending its largesse
and that stance is expected to remain largely unchanged.

“Some years ago, Russia came to the position that assistance to former
Soviet republics should be monetized,” said Ivan Safranchuk, an
associate professor at the Moscow State Institute of International
Relations.

Safranchuk said this meant that Moscow issued lines of credit and then
sold countries oil, gas, electricity and military hardware at discount
prices.

That strategy has brought Russia closer to gaining control over energy
infrastructure in Ukraine, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. While giving Moscow
economic leverage over its former subjects, this approach has
precluded the exorbitant spending pressure that helped bankrupt the
Soviet Union.

The agreement to form a “common economic space” that went into effect
Jan. 1 gives Russia up to 30 million new customers in Belarus and
Kazakhstan, while these countries gain greater access to Russia’s
market of more than 140 million people. The risk to Russian
manufacturers is the relatively lower cost of production in the other
two countries, which could potentially drive them out of business.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, both economically struggling nations in
Central Asia, may be the next to join the free trade club.

Kyrgyzstan’s former President Roza Otunbayeva said before stepping
down in late October that she saw her nation’s fate as inevitably
linked with the Eurasian Union.

“The natural flow of the work force, services and movement of capital
is of course all directed to Russia and Kazakhstan,” she said.

Current President Almazbek Atambayev has made it clear he sees the
fate of Kyrgyzstan, which hosts a U.S. air base that acts as a crucial
transportation hub for military operations in Afghanistan, as very
much tied to Russia.

Neighboring Tajikistan, whose long and porous border with Afghanistan
keeps many a security analyst awake at night, has proven a more
recalcitrant partner and was recently embroiled in an unseemly
diplomatic spat with Russia. But with more than an estimated 1 million
Tajik migrants currently working in Russia, the lure of a border-free
future could be too compelling to refuse.

Other potential members of the Eurasian Union in the Kremlin’s sights
appear more wary about what this means for their sovereignty.

Ukraine, which has flirted uncertainly with membership, fears it could
further jeopardize its future economic and political engagement with
Western Europe. Others, such as Armenia, have proven positively cool
on the idea, while Georgia under President Mikheil Saakashvili will
likely always be hostile to anything coming out of Moscow.

Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, cautioned
against talking up the prospect of the Eurasian Union as a political
project.

“I see no absolutely no wish on behalf of the Kazakhstani leadership
to give up their sovereignty, and I see the Belarusian people not
wishing to become part of Russia,” he said.

Still, Russia’s neighbors may have reason to fear Kremlin attempts to
restore political domination.

Shortly after Putin came to power, the Foreign Ministry spelled out
Russia’s strategic vision in no uncertain terms. The document, which
dates back to 2000, argues for promoting policies that “best serve the
interests of Russia as a great power and as one of the most
influential centers in the modern world.”

The theme was recently reprised in campaign literature for Putin’s
United Russia party, which claimed that the “new union will allow our
country to become another pole of influence in the modern, multipolar
world.”

Trenin said that so far the fears of renewed Kremlin domination were
ungrounded, noting that Kazakhstan and Belarus only increase the reach
of Russia’s markets by one-fifth in terms of population.

“That’s fine, but it doesn’t make you a powerhouse,” he said.

Hurriyet, Turkey
Jan 1 2012

>From no problems with neighbors to no friends

YUSUF KANLI
Monday,January 2 2012, Your time is 9:45:55 PM

The year 2011 was more than different, definitely for Turkey. Perhaps
no one would think decades of absolute governments with leaders who
appeared strong as the legendary steel of Japanese swords would fall
apart within days or weeks.

What happened, and indeed what is still continuing to happen in the
Arab neighborhood, is a multifaceted challenge to Turkey, as the
developments are at the same time shaping the future of this country.

As rightly put by President Abdullah Gül at a recent conference,
perhaps Turkey has never been faced with so many challenges at the
same time, which are not only important, but also giving priority to
Turks as much as other peoples of this geography. The `No problems
with neighbors’ foreign policy strategy of Foreign Minister Ahmet
DavutoÄ?lu unfortunately evolved in the past year into a `No friends’
reality.

2011 was a year when — contrary to the post expectation of improved
relations with Armenia — a resolution to the Cyprus problem,
furthering intimate relations with Damascus of brother Bashar
al-Assad, enhancing peaceful influence in Libya and beyond, and such
lofty rhetoric of previous years fell victim to `proactive’ and
`pro-American’ foreign policy objectives and ambitions Turkey would
become a regional and perhaps global game setter.

The year started with Turkey firmly allied to Colonel Moammar Gadhafi
and yelling `What’s the place of NATO in Libya?’ Half way through the
year Turkey was proudly participating in the French and the British
led American-orchestrated Libyan operation of NATO. As if that was not
enough, to win back the sympathy of yesterday’s rebels who were
inclined to have `brotherly relations’ with Paris and London rather
than Ankara, $ 300 million in cash was carried in bags to Benghazi to
buy back their loyalty.

Syrian relations also showed a similar U-turn. After a six-hour long
meeting with al-Assad, Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu concluded the
Alevite leader of predominantly Sunni Syria was not sincere in his
pledges of stopping use of indiscriminate force, or indeed brutality,
towards civilians. Thus, yesterday’s `brother Assad’ became `dictator
Assad’ and Ankara, which has traditionally opposed sanctions on its
neighbors because of spillover impacts on Turkish border areas,
pioneered sanctions on Damascus.

Armenian relations could not be kept in the fridge like the previous
year when the so-called protocols of friendly relations remained in
the Foreign Ministry’s dusty archives of `caduceus documents.’

Palace in Paris, a handful of French politicians initiated a process
of criminalizing opposition to Armenian charges of genocide; relations
of Ankara not only with Armenia but France as well, seriously derailed

Furthermore, it does not require fortune telling capabilities to
estimate the probable impacts of the derailment on overall
Turkey-European Union relations, particularly in view of the upcoming
Greek Cypriot term presidency in the second half of the New Year.

We shall continue on Wednesday¦
January/02/2012

ITAR-TASS, Russia
January 1, 2012 Sunday 12:04 PM GMT+4

New year should be year of persistent work – Armenia’s president

YEREVAN January 1

The new year should be a year of work, of persistent work, Armenia’s
President Serzh Sargsyan told the nation in a traditional New Year
address.

“With work only can we cure, treat, care and improve life,” he said.

Sargsyan called for “leaving in the past indifference, inability to
hear each other, hostile,” and to take with us to the new year “a
promise to support each other and the readiness for new victories –
for the sake of our Fatherland – Armenia, for the sake of peace and
creation, for our families, children, for our sons who are guarding
our borders.”

It is true, that “in present-time Armenia much is not perfect,” the
president continued. In the republic, “there are families, which even
at this festive moment can barely heat their homes, there are
settlements and towns that do not answer our standards and criteria of
a civilised country.”

“No doubt, we should become a country, where everywhere we may feel
who we are, and heirs of what great victories and rich traditions and
civilisation we are,” Sargsyan said.

This year, the country will elect deputies of the National Assembly
/parliament/, he continued.

“In many cases, elections in this country are considered as means for
obtaining power or for keeping one,” Sargsyan said. “It is high time
to realize that there exist much more high objectives.”

The president said that he “has made his personal decision – to make
everything in his power to refuse from false stereotypes in order to
implement realistically national, truly state approaches in political
life.”

“It is not a secret: I have needed and do need assistance,” he said.

Tehran Times, Iran
Jan 2 2012

Christmas in the Iranian plateau Afshin Majlesi
02 January 2012 16:31

Photo: Detail showing religious celebrations of Christmas at the Vank
Cathedral, Isfahan

Decorated Christmas trees might not be seen in every corner of Iran
these days, but joy and merriment reigns supreme for the Christian
population all over the country. This year, the Iranian Christians
once again celebrated the birth of Christ in their homeland by
decorating Christmas trees, exchanging gifts, and attending services.

Predominantly a Muslim nation, Iran has a sizeable Christian
population including Assyrians, Armenians, Catholics, Protestants and
Evangelical Christians. Although a minority religious group in Iran,
Christians of Iran are free to practice their religion and perform
their religious rituals.

Christmas in Iran is known as the `Little Feast’ to the Assyrians
compared to the Easter which is called the Great Feast. For the first
25 days of December, a long fast is observed by the Assyrians. During
these days no meat, eggs, milk or cheese is eaten. It is a time of
peace and meditation, a time for attending services at the church.
After the church service of December 25, Iranian Christians enjoy
Christmas dinner which they call the `Little Feast.’

In fact, Christmas Eve is the last day of the fast. Almost before dawn
on Christmas Day, the people attend Mass to receive Communion and it
is not until they have received this Communion that they are permitted
to break their fast. The main dish for Christmas Day is a kind of
chicken barley stew called Harrissa. It is cooked in large quantities
and lasts for several days.

Nowadays Gifts are less exchanged, but children get new clothes which
they wear on Christmas Day. According to Dr. Ahmad Nourizadeh who has
done a lot of research on the history of Christians, particularly
Armenians in Iran, although Iranian Armenians who make up the majority
of the country’s Christian population take January 6th as the birth of
Christ, large numbers of Iranian Christians also celebrate the 25th of
December along with other Christians in the world.