Author: Tvankchian Parkev

RENA EFFENDI CAPTURES THE FORGOTTEN FACES OF THE OIL BOOM
Tony Halpin

The Times
December 12, 2009
UK

A new book by the photographer charts the effect of a vital oil
pipeline on the people who live above it, but do not profit as it
feeds the appetite of the West

hey are the forgotten faces of an oil boom that is literally passing
them by, people connected by poverty along a billion-dollar pipeline
that threads through the volatile Caucasus to pump energy to the West.

Their lives are captured in a book of bleakly beautiful photographs by
Rena Effendi, who travelled along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline,
through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, to document some of the
effects of the new Great Game of power politics playing out in this
exotic region. Oil bonanzas usually conjure up images of wealth and
glamour but Effendi, an Azerbaijani, focused on those left high and
dry despite the flood of petro-dollars.

The pipeline, which is underground for its entire length of 1,768km, is
an invisible intruder into her pictures and the lives of her subjects,
who are mostly farmers, fishermen and the urban poor, struggling for
survival in the shadow of a building boom in the Azeri capital, Baku.

"I show the pipeline through the faces and homes of the people living
above it. They can’t see it and they have no control, they are up
against something big," Effendi says. "It is a good project, good for
the region. But it has a human cost and the book is about that cost."

Its title, Pipe Dreams, betrays her ambivalence about a project that
transformed her own prospects and those of her country, a former
Soviet republic of eight million people that was in turmoil after
a humiliating defeat by Armenia in a war over the breakaway enclave
of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The pipeline delivers one million barrels of crude oil a day from
vast Caspian Sea deposits, the output of a deal dubbed the "contract
of the century" when it was signed in 1994 between Azerbaijan and a
consortium of Western oil companies led by BP. The investment sparked
Baku’s second energy boom, a century after tycoons such as the Nobel
brothers, the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers had made the city the
source of half the world’s oil supplies.

Ironically, Effendi’s book examining the boom’s underbelly was born
of an assignment from BP to photograph a calendar highlighting the
company’s investment in schools and health facilities for people on
the Azerbaijani section of the pipeline.

"I was driven around from project to project and decided I needed
to go back and make a journey on my own, not just in Azerbaijan, but
also in Georgia and Turkey. The book is about the people who are not
participating, but I didn’t do it to paint a sad picture," she says.

"My purpose was to tell a human story about families living on $50
(£31) a month above a pipeline that is carrying almost $100 million
a day. A lot of people who see all this energy going to the West have
not had gas supplies in their own homes for decades."

The book took six years to complete, but Effendi’s life has been bound
up with the pipeline for much longer. Her first job was with BP, as
a translator, and she then worked with the US Embassy as an economic
assistant, interpreting for high-level delegations that visited Baku
to discuss the pipeline.

"I built up my life on this oil boom so I can’t judge it. We never
had Irish bars in Baku but after the contract was signed in ’94 we
had our first Irish pub," she says. "This was in a country that had
just had a military curfew and people were not being allowed on the
streets after 11pm. That dramatic change was quite fascinating. I
went to the bars myself and I liked them."

Her images speak of disappointment in all three countries among people
who believed that they were promised a better life with the arrival of
the pipeline. Villagers live in decaying homes in Sangachal, only 500m
from the modern oil terminal that marks the start of the pipeline. At
the other end, Turkish fishermen are photographed through nets that
no longer provide a living because fishing grounds have been damaged
by oil tankers docking at Ceyhan.

Oil money appears corrosively in Effendi’s photographs of Baku. Luxury
apartment blocks loom above residents of Mahalla, an historic
neighbourhood that is gradually being erased by developers whose
building permits were sold by corrupt officials. A man grips
a prostitute’s rear possessively in a disco, emblematic of a
freewheeling nightlife fuelled by the influx of foreign oil workers
and stiletto-heeled provincial women eager to stake their claim to
some of the capital’s new wealth.

It presents a stark contrast to the decaying remains of the Soviet
drilling industry, which has bequeathed poisonous oil lakes and waste
dumps populated by scavengers. War too has left its scars on this
ethnically diverse region. The pipeline weaves through five conflict
zones, its route determined as much by politics as economics. The
shortest route would have been through Armenia, something Azerbaijan
refused to countenance because of the unresolved conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh. Instead, it arcs expensively around Armenia and
through Georgia.

The pipeline was targeted, unsuccessfully, by Russian bombs during
the war with Georgia last year over another breakaway region, South
Ossetia. Because oil is the lifeblood of modern economies, the contest
over resources is the modern version of the 19th-century "great
game" between Russia and Britain. Russia and the West are locked in
a strategic struggle for control of the Caucasus as a gateway to the
energy riches of Caspian and Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan
and Turkmenistan.

"It’s dangerous ground. The pipeline goes through a minefield of
conflict zones and different cultures and avoids other areas for
political reasons, at great economic cost," Effendi says. "It
[the pipeline] is good for all three countries, it increases
our international profile. I am not against it. But these small
individuals living along its path have no power to decide and they
are being affected, they exist."

Effendi is in London to launch her book and to see her work displayed
at the HOST gallery as part of the first festival of Azerbaijani arts
in Britain. Still only 32, her social documentary style has earned
her recognition as a rising star and her pictures have been shown at
biennales in Venice and Istanbul.

Azerbaijan has been much less appreciative of her book. Customs
officials impounded 50 copies sent to Effendi by her publisher three
months ago after government ministers claimed that it damaged the
country’s image. "You can buy the book anywhere in Europe, but the 50
copies I had to give out to friends have been arrested," Effendi says,
laughing. "They are booing my book because it doesn’t show the usual
smiley face."

Rena Effendi’s exhibition at HOST gallery, London EC1, runs from
December 17 to January 16 and is part of the Buta Festival of
Azerbaijani Arts, which runs until March 7 across London (www.buta
festival.com).

Pipe Dreams is published by Schilt

ORHAN PAMUK PUTS TANPINAR’S TALE OF TWO CONTINENTS BACK ON THE MAP
Maya Jaggi

guardian.co.uk
Tuesday December 1 2009

Sixty years after it was first published, the "Turkish Ulysses"
finally gets its due, thanks to a literary festival and museum set
up in its honour

Twenty-four hours in Istanbul … the setting for Tanpinar’s ‘Turkish
Ulysses’. Photograph: Carson Ganci/Corbis

Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 Nobel literature laureate, is preparing to
open a Museum of Innocence in Istanbul next summer, and the city has
already seen a ripple effect from his prize. I sailed up a storm-hit
Bosphorus with writers from 30 countries during the inaugural Istanbul
Tanpinar literary festival in November. Run by Nermin Mollaoglu of
the dynamic literary agency Kalem, and coinciding with Istanbul’s
book fair, this is the city’s first international writers’ festival,
and aims to feed a growing interest abroad in writing from Turkey. It
is named after a dead Turkish novelist and poet whose resuscitated
reputation owes much to Pamuk’s praise.

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar described this as the "city of two continents"
in his modernist masterpiece A Mind at Peace. Published 60 years ago
– and only last year in an English translation from Erdag Goknar by
Archipelago Books – the novel unfolds over 24 hours on the eve of the
second world war, and has been tagged as the "Turkish Ulysses". Pamuk,
himself no mean chronicler of his home town, regards it as the
"greatest novel ever written about Istanbul".

So why is Tanpinar, who died in 1962, so little known? The short story
writer Ciler Ilhan told me he was "despised for years by writers who
believed only in the Turkish republic. He was seen as old-fashioned
– but he’s groundbreaking." Born in 1901 and steeped in the Ottoman
culture on which Kemal Ataturk’s republic of 1923 turned its back,
Tanpinar wrote a satire, The Time Regulation Institute (1961),
about a man striving to adapt to westward-looking "modernisation". He
ignored the 1928 drive to purge Turkish of Arabic and Persian – some
two-thirds of the Ottoman dictionary. Another writer, Ayfer Tunc,
believes this richness of style has contributed to an "ironic and
deplorable" ignorance of his genius among young Turkish readers.

The new annual festival may help change that. Largely reliant on
private sponsorship, it was launched in style in the Ciragan Palace,
once home to the Ottoman sultans, and now part of a luxury hotel on
the Bosphorus. Cosier venues ranged from bookshops and cafes along
the main shopping drag of Istiklal Caddesi, to the subterranean
Byzantine Basilica Cistern, near the great cathedral-turned-mosque
of Aghia Sophia. The festival was also a terminus for Word Express,
an ambitious project in south-east Europe backed by the Wales-based
Literature Across Frontiers. This brought 23 young writers on train
journeys through the Balkans from Ljubljana, Bucharest and Sarajevo,
in a move to relink areas sundered by politics and bloodshed.

Turkish writers are among those with a keen eye on history. A recent
novel by Can Eryumlu, Teardrops of Chios, looks back to Ottoman
massacres against Greeks on the Aegean island of Chios in the 1820s.

"Turks are amnesiac", says Eryumlu, who feels they were also encouraged
to forget that "we all have different ancestors", in order to forge
a unified state from a defeated empire after the first world war. He
spent time on the Greek island to research the novel, and sees it
as important to tackle topics that remain raw: "If Greeks say it,
Turks say it’s a lie. The only way is for a Turk to say it."

Some writers sense an opening up of the past. "It’s becoming easier
to talk about history," says Yigit Bengi, a young fiction writer for
whom Turkish nationalism is "officially created, and does not have
deep roots". His stories draw on a more ancient and layered history,
including Roman and Byzantine, and he is writing a novel about the
role of Turks in the Crusades, when they were "used as slave soldiers
on both sides – Christian and Muslim". Bengi was among 200 Turkish
writers and academics who issued an internet apology a year ago for
the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915.

Fethiye Cetin’s 2004 memoir My Grandmother (translated by Maureen
Freely in 2008), about her discovery that her beloved grandmother
was an Armenian Christian but had been adopted by a Turkish military
officer after the massacres and forced to deny her origins, was
a bestseller in Turkey. She was the lawyer of Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrank Dink, assassinated in 2007. For Cetin, whom I met
last year, the "only way to overcome the trauma of the past is to
talk; being silent destroys everybody". Her new book, Grandchildren,
consists of interviews with 25 other people who have also discovered
an Armenian grandparent, and whose family experience challenges an
official culture of denial.

Tanpinar’s Notebooks furnish an epigraph for Pamuk’s first novel
since his Nobel, The Museum of Innocence, which will be out in the
UK in January in Maureen Freely’s superb translation. It contains a
locator map for his museum, and a free entrance ticket. The actual
museum, in an Ottoman-style house along a stretch of antique shops
in hilly Cukurcuma, will hold Istanbul ephemera that Pamuk gathered
for inspiration while writing his Proustian (or Tanpinesque) epic of
lost love. I had a preview of the collection when the novel came out
in Turkish, in Pamuk’s nearby office apartment overlooking Cihangir
mosque and the stretch of water where the Golden Horn inlet meets
the Bosphorus. He told me his "museum of the everyday", which holds
everything from ferry tickets and women’s hair clips to a quince
grinder, would have a display for each of the novel’s 83 chapters. In a
conceit that might have pleased Tanpinar – as well as writers gathered
in his name – the mundane memorabilia are "vessels of a lost past".

Armenian National Committee of America
1711 N Street, NW Washington, DC 20036
Tel. (202) 775-1918
Fax. (202) 775-5648
Email. [email protected]
Internet

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
December 9, 2009
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918

HOUSE AND SENATE AGREE ON FY10 $41 MILLION FOR ARMENIA, $8 MILLION
FOR KARABAGH, PARITY IN FOREIGN MILITARY FINANCING

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. House and Senate today agreed upon a far-
reaching Fiscal Year 2010 (FY10) spending measure that includes a
$41 economic aid package for Armenia, $8 million for "programs and
activities" in Nagorno Karabagh, and parity in Foreign Military
Financing for Armenia and Azerbaijan, reported the Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA).

These figures were determined by a conference committee, comprised
of House and Senate appropriators tasked with reconciling the two
versions of the FY10 foreign aid bill. The House measure, overseen
by the State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee Chair Nita Lowey (D-
NY), included a $48 million allocation for Armenia, $10 for Nagorno
Karabagh, and across-the-board parity in military aid to Armenia
and Azerbaijan. The Senate version, presided over by the State-
Foreign Operations Subcommittee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT), set
aside just $30 million for Armenia, the figure proposed in
President Obama’s budget, and did not include any figures for
either aid to Nagorno Karabagh or military aid to Yerevan and Baku.
The President’s low aid request for Armenia – which represented a
dramatic 39% cut from the previous year, stood in stark contrast to
his campaign pledge to maintain aid levels and to foster the growth
and development of Armenia. Congress also rolled back President
Obama’s request to reverse the long-established policy of
maintaining military parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan in terms
of Foreign Military Financing. No figures were included in the
Conference Report regarding International Military Education and
Training.

"We want to thank all our friends, among them Chairwoman Lowey,
Adam Schiff, Mark Kirk, Steve Rothman, Jesse Jackson, Steve Israel,
and Frank Lobiondo, for restoring $11 million of the $18 million
reduction in aid to Armenia proposed by the Obama-Biden
Administration, and also for setting, for the first time,
unrestricted aid to Nagorno Karabagh at $8 million," said Aram
Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA. "While we remain
troubled by the overall decrease in support for Armenia, which is
now down to nearly half of what was appropriated just three years
ago, we are pleased that military parity in Foreign Military
Financing to Armenia and Azerbaijan has been maintained, and that
the Committee’s traditional description of aid to Nagorno Karabagh
as ‘humanitarian’ has been removed, reflecting a growing
appreciation among legislators of the need to implement development
programs with these funds."

The Conference Report includes language, added, by all accounts, at
the urging of legislators concerned about Azerbaijan’s escalating
war rhetoric, calling upon "all parties to the conflict to refrain
from threats of violence and the use of inflammatory rhetoric."
The report also notes the expectation of Congressional
appropriators that the Administration must continue to certify that
aid to Azerbaijan will not undermine a peaceful settlement to the
Karabakh conflict nor be used for offensive purposes against
Armenia before it can waive Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act.

In the months leading up to today’s decision, the Armenian Caucus,
in a series of letters and meetings, called for Senate and House
Appropriation Committee leaders to maintain $48 million in U.S.
assistance to Armenia, to increase aid to Nagorno Karabagh, and to
continue military assistance parity to Armenia and Azerbaijan. In
an October 26th letter to the Chairs and Ranking Republicans of the
Senate and House foreign aid subcommittees, several dozen Caucus
members reinforced these points, stressing that, "Armenia’s
cooperation in anti-terrorism efforts and its deployment of forces
to both Iraq and Kosovo are pivotal to U.S. interests. Armenia has
entered into a NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) and
has worked closely with both NATO and the Defense Department on a
range of bilateral and multilateral agreements, joint training
programs, and military exercises."

ERDOGAN’S U.S. VISIT WAS TEST FOR TURKISH LEADERSHIP’S PUBLIC ASSURANCES FOR AZERBAIJAN: POLITICAL ANALYST
I. Mammadov

Today.Az
09 December 2009 [13:17]

Most likely, Azerbaijan and Armenia watched Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the U.S. and his meeting with President
Obama with more tension than Turkey itself, Azerbaijani political
expert Rasim Musabayov said.

"Armenians hoped that President Obama will influence Erdogan so that
normalization of the Turkish-Armenian relations will progress without
regard to Azerbaijan. For Azerbaijan, this visit was a test for Turkish
leadership’s public assurances that Armenian-Turkish border will not
open till a progress in resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,"
the expert said.

"Apparently, Azerbaijanis can feel more satisfied from
Erdogan’sWashington visit than Armenians. The Turkish leader said at
a press conference that at the talks with President Obama he debated
intensification of efforts of the Minsk Group, co-chaired also by
the United States, in resolving the Karabakh conflict," he added.

"He has also publicly stated that without progress in this direction
the Turkish parliament will not ratify the protocols signed with
Armenia, and the government can not impose its will on the MPs. It is
important that Erdogan has publicly said it all while the U.S. did not
oppose, and prefers to keep silent for the time being. As a result,
the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) explicitly declares
that Turkey managed to push its preconditions through the normalization
of Armenian-Turkish relations," the analyst noted.

"It is difficult now to say how far Prime Minister Erdogan could push
the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh through the foreign policy priorities
of the United States, but it is obvious that Armenians should not
expect anything positive for them and distressing for the Azerbaijanis
atleast for the coming months. Armenian will fail to strengthen its
position in the negotiations held under the Minsk Group mediation,"
the expert said.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Director
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

ANNUAL MEETING OF ARMENIAN SCHOLARS AND INTELLECTUALS

On 2 December 2009, the Annual meeting of Armenian Scholars and
Intellectuals was held in Antelias. His Holiness Aram I had instituted these
meetings in order to provide a forum for the academics and writers to
discuss issues related to the Armenian community within the context of
global issues.

The agenda included covered three topics. One, the International Conference
on Cilicia held earlier in the year and the publication of its proceedings;
two, the conference commemorating the 100th anniversary of the "Adana
Tragedy" and the publication of historical, legal and military documents;
third, the recent Armenia Turkey Protocol.

After the presentation of the two publications, His Holiness Aram I thanked
the Director of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for sponsoring the
publication of the papers related to the two conferences. He then spoke of
the importance of these annual meetings because they provided the
opportunity to the participants to speak out their minds on issues that
touched the Armenian community.

##
View the photos here:
tos/Photos419.htm#4
*****
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician
Catholicosate, the administrative center of the church is located in
Antelias, Lebanon.

FORMER U.K. PM TONY BLAIR INVITED TO AZERBAIJAN: ‘EMBARRASSMENT TO BRITAIN,’ SAYS MP

Tert.am
13:01 ~U 08.12.09

Tony Blair made an estimated £75 per second for a speech in the former
Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, reports the U.K.’s The Daily Mail.

The former prime minister is thought to have been paid around £90,000
for his 1,000-word speech endorsing a new power plant, which is likely
to have taken no more than 20 minutes to deliver.

He was described as an ‘ embarrassment to Britain’ yesterday by MP
Norman Baker.

"Why doesn’t he just hang a For Sale sign around his neck?" asked
the Liberal Democrat. "There is no engagement he will not attend and
no opportunity to earn money he will turn down. It is no way for a
former Prime Minister to behave."

Blair’s lucrative trip to Azerbaijan included a meeting with Prince
Andrew, who was staying in the same hotel during a private three-day
visit. The prince has been to the Central Asian state seven times
in five years. According to The Daily Mail, Blair also met hard-line
president Ilham.

Aliyev, writes The Daily Mail, has been criticized for alleged human
rights abuses, and his recent election was described as ‘seriously
flawed’ by international observers.

The former PM’s paymaster in Azerbaijan was multi-millionaire Nizami
Piriyev, whose company AzMeCo is building a methanol power plant. The
oligarch, who has business links with Iran, Syria and Afghanistan,
is understood to have booked Blair through the Washington Speakers
Bureau and ‘ covered his expenses’ for the trip, flying him to the
capital, Baku.

In his speech, Blair lavished praise on the power plant and cracked
jokes about the weather.

According to Blair’s spokesperson, "Mr. Blair has no role in
British-Azerbaijan relations. It was simply a coincidence that he
and Prince Andrew were there at the same time. They were both on
unrelated programs."

EDWARD NALBANDIAN: RELATIONS BETWEEN ARMENIA AND ARAB COUNTRIES ARE BASED ON CENTURIES-OLD FRIENDSHIP AND MUTUAL RESPECT

ArmInfo
2009-12-05 19:37:00

ArmInfo. There are no obstacles to development of Armenia’s relations
with Arab countries, on the contrary, the centuries-old friendship,
deep mutual respect between our peoples are a very important basis
for development and expansion of our relations, Armenian Foreign
Minister Edward Nalbandian said at a joint press-conference with his
Arab counterpart Anwar Gargash, Saturday.

The minister pointed out that Armenia wants further development of
its relations with Arab countries, and this is proved by the recent
state visit of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to Kuwait.

Nalbandian also recalled the visit of Syrian leader Bashar Asad to
Armenia, as well as numerous visits at the level of ministers.

The Armenian foreign minister recalled that there are 4 Armenian
embassies in Arab countries and expressed hope that 2 more Armenian
embassies will be opened in 2010, one of them in Kuwait.

Nalbandian also pointed out that numerous joint projects are being
implemented. He said that in 2010 the mutual visits will continue at
various levels and stressed that this demonstrates the mutual striving
of Arab countries and Armenia to consolidate their relations.

MONITORING AND REPORTING THE PROGRESS OF THE ARMENIA-EU ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION

armradio.am
07.12.2009 10:55

On 8-9 December 2009, Armenian-European Policy and Legal Advice
Centre (AEPLAC) jointly with the European Union (EU) Advisory Group
to the Republic of Armenia (RA) is organizing a two-day workshop on
"Monitoring and Reporting the Progress of the Armenia-EU Action Plan
(AP) Implementation" for the Armenian government officials, which
will be held in Multi Rest House, Tsakhkadzor.

The RA President’s Instruction NK 68-A of May 6, 2009 endorsed the
"List of Actions for 2009-2011 to Ensure Implementation of European
Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) Republic of Armenia – European Union
Action Plan (ENP RA-EU AP)". Over 40 ministries and agencies are
in charge of implementation of measures under Armenia-EU Action
Plan. To ensure the timely preparation of high-quality information
on programs and works performed under the List of Actions to both
Armenian authorities and European partners, a general and uniform
system for submission of summary reports has been developed and will
be tested during the workshop.

This workshop aims at enhancing skills and understanding of the
progress reporting. It will introduce (1) basic tips for good
reporting; (2) specifics of reporting to the European Commission;
(3) the benchmarks of reporting on the ENP AP implementation; (4)
concept of e-monitoring and reporting system for measures to be
implemented under Armenia – EU ENP Action Plan in 2009-2011; (5)
demo model of the e-monitoring system and data input mechanisms.

The workshop is targeted at the governmental officials working with
the ENP AP implementation, in particular those working in the European
Integration Units. AEPLAC expert Dr. Klaudijus Maniokas, Chairman of
the Board of European Social, Legal and Economic Projects consulting
company (ESTEP), will deliver training on reporting skills. The
e-monitoring system will be presented by the experts of the EU
Advisory Group.

Transportation to Tsakhkadzor will be available on December 8 at 8:45
in front of the fountains of the Republic Square, Yerevan.

Agence France Press, France
Dec 5 2009

Turkey’s Erdogan to meet Obama on Afghanistan, Kurdish conflict
By Sibel Utku Bila (AFP)

ANKARA ‘ Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets Monday with
US President Barack Obama for talks expected to focus on NATO
reinforcements in Afghanistan and Ankara’s efforts to curb Kurdish
rebels based in Iraq.

Iran’s nuclear programme, which Erdogan has defended much to the
dismay of Turkey’s Western allies, is also likely to be high on the
agenda.

Erdogan, whose country is a key Muslim ally of the US, visits
Washington after Obama announced that 30,000 more soldiers would be
sent to Afghanistan and US allies followed suit Friday by pledging at
least 7,000 more troops to help defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Even though it has NATO’s second largest standing army, Turkey insists
it will not engage in combat missions and offered only three teams to
train Afghan security personnel, according to NATO sources.

Some 1,700 Turkish soldiers are currently deployed in Afghanistan, but
their mandate is limited to patroling Kabul and training Afghan
forces.

"The contribution that Turkey has made to the Afghan mission has been
tremendously important for many, many years," James Jones, Obama’s
national security advisor, said Friday.

"We appreciate any contribution Turkey will be able to make in order
to fulfil its very important mission in the capital region of Kabul,"
he said.

Turkey refuses to fight Islamist insurgents and drug traffickers, wary
of confronting fellow Muslims in a country with which it has close
historic ties.

It says more should be done for reconstruction and improving public
services to win over the Afghan people and argues its army is already
under strain, fighting a bloody 25-year Kurdish insurgency in the
southeast.

A recent drive by Erdogan’s government to expand Kurdish freedoms and
encourage the rebels to lay down arms is also expected to be discussed
at the White House.

US and Iraqi support is crucial against the rebels as an estimated
2,000 of them are based in mountainous hideouts in neighbouring
northern Iraq.

"The bargaining on Afghanistan is linked directly to Iraq since Obama
essentially wants to pull out from Iraq and move his forces to
Afghanistan," political analyst Rusen Cakir wrote in the Vatan daily.

"If the US withdraws from Iraq without taking the necessary measures,
the risk for Turkey will become more serious," he said.

Since 2007, the US has backed Turkish air raids against rebel bases
across the border by providing intelligence on militants’ movements.

Another major issue of common interest is Iran, but Turkey’s growing
ties with Tehran and Erdogan’s defence of its nuclear programme have
raised questions on whether Ankara is deviating from its traditionally
pro-Western path.

Erdogan, whose party hails from a now-banned Islamist movement, has
played down concerns that its eastern neighbour may be developing an
atomic bomb and slammed Western powers for turning a blind eye to
Israel, widely considered the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear
power.

Ankara insists the row with Iran should be resolved peacefully and has
sought to help mediate a settlement.

Turkey’s warming ties with Iran and other countries frowned upon by
the West such as Libya, Sudan and Syria, have come against a backdrop
of a sharp downturn in relations with Israel, its main regional ally.

Angry over the devastating war on the Gaza Strip at the turn of the
year, Turkey excluded Israel from joint military drills in October,
prompting harsh reactions from the Jewish state and a rebuke from
Washington.

The government rejects criticism it is sliding away from the West and
says it is committed to Turkey’s European Union membership bid,
strongly backed by Washington but opposed by some key European
nations.

Obama and Erdogan are expected to discuss also Turkey’s fence-mending
efforts with historic foe Armenia and the long-standing Cyprus
conflict, a major obstacle for Turkey’s EU bid.

YEREVAN’S U.S. $5BN MESSAGE TO MOSCOW

news.am
Dec 4 2009
Armenia

On December 3, the Armenian Government made a decision establishing
a joint venture in cooperation with the AtomStroyEksport
(AtomConstructionExport) CJSC (Russia). The joint venture is supposed
to carry out the construction of a new nuclear-power unit in Armenia.

After the decision was made, RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan stated:
"We are making a political decision today. We agree to establish
an equally shared joint venture in cooperation with our Russian
partners." The RA Government represented by the RA Ministry of Energy
and Natural Resources will hold the Armenian side’s share.

The construction of a new nuclear power unit in Armenia is one of the
priority strategic tasks of the Armenian Government. AREVA (France)
and Westinghouse (USA) were competing with the Russian Rosatom Company,
with AtomConstructionExport constituting part thereof. The American
side attached high importance to the participation in the project,
which was repeatedly stated by high-ranking U.S. officials.

In any case, the decision was made, and, as the Armenian Premier
plainly stated, it was a political one.

This decision must be the unambiguous message addressed to Moscow by
RA President Serzh Sargsyan at his meeting with representatives of the
Armenian community in Rostov, Russia, as part of his pan-Armenian
tour. Responding to a question concerning the prospects of the
Armenian-Russian relations in the context of the Armenian-Turkish
reconciliation, the Armenian leader stated that the reopening of the
Armenian-Turkish border can by no means be to the detriment of the
Armenian-Russian relations. "An event will soon take place, which
will dispel all the doubts of sceptics claiming that Armenian-Russian
relations are on the decline," stated Serzh Sargsyan. Indeed, Rosatom’s
involvement in a project worth U.S. $4m to U.S. $5m is a serious step,
which leaves no doubts about Yerevan’s determination to carry out
mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia.

What about Russia? That country appears to be determined as well.

Especially after Turkey invalidated the results of a contest which
allowed AtomConstructionExport to carry out the construction of the
first nuclear-power plant in Turkey, Russia has lately been actively
seeking closer relations with. The Turkish authorities invalidated
the results without being afraid of the political consequences of
their step, which may not arise at all.

Moreover, the only result of the "restarted" Russia-U.S. relations
is Russia’s weakening international positions. Specifically, the
first and principal result of the much talked-about "restart" is
Russia’s dramatically worsened relations with Iran. While Washington
is applauding, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plainly stated
that Russia had committed a blunder. Moscow, in turn, postponed the
commissioning of the Bushehr nuclear power plant. That is, Russian
atomic scientists fell into a political trap in Iran as well.

Furthermore, the new Bulgarian Government that succeeded that headed by
Sergei Stanishev initiated the revision of all the major transactions
closed by their pro-Russian predecessors. Among them is also the
construction project of the Belene nuclear-power plant (NPP), which
was considered one of the most successful international projects
launched by Rosatom. The newly appointed Bulgarian Ministers claim
that their country does not need the Belene NPP, and the previous
Government made a political decision by allowing Russians to enter
the Bulgarian energy market.

Well, under the circumstances the Armenian Government’s decision really
appears to a political one. It enables the Russian state-run holding to
consolidate its positions in the South Caucasus-Turkey-Iran region, as
well as breaks the chain of hardly pleasant events in Russia’s rather
ambitious international nuclear policy. Let us hope that Russia will
act as a partner and continue supporting Armenia — its partner in
the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), where Russia has
its only military basis in the region – on the international scene
as well as in overcoming the global economic crisis. Supporting your
partners means strengthening yourself.