CO-CHAIRS ADOPTED COMMUNIQUE ON RESULTS OF AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS’ MEETING
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan –
Oct 25 2006
A communique was adopted on the results of Azerbaijani and Armenian
Foreign Ministers’ meeting held with the participation of Minsk Group
co-chairs and OSCE Secretary General’s Personal Representative Andrey
Kasprzyk in the France Foreign Ministry, APA European bureau reports.
The communique says: “It was a constructive and sincere meeting. It
will help the conflicting sides to continue the discussions of Main
Principles document. The ministers looked through the additional
elements of principles suggested by the coordinators on October 6. The
ministers agreed to meet on November 14 in Brussels.”
The communique also says that the co-chairs will visit the region in
late October. The aim of the visit is to discuss the possibility of
organizing the third meeting of the presidents within 2006.

TURKS LESS KEEN TO JOIN EU
The Media Line, NY
Oct 25 2006
More than a quarter of the Turkish population believes Turkey should
not enter the European Union, a recent public opinion poll suggests.
Only about 10 percent of the population felt the same way in a similar
poll conducted last year.
The survey was published in the Turkish newspaper Milliyet. It
questioned 2,408 people and was carried out in late September.
Anti-EU sentiments have increased since the poll was conducted due
to the law passed in the French parliament that outlaws denial of
the Turkish genocide against the Armenians in 1915.
Fewer than a third of the respondents thought Turkey must enter the
EU, compared to more than two thirds who espoused this opinion in a
similar poll conducted in 2004.
The survey also indicated that 78% of Turks had no confidence in
the EU.
Turkey began accession talks with the EU a year ago, negotiations that
are likely to last at least a decade. Ankara has come under pressure
for its sluggishness in incorporating reforms.

ABDULVAHABOV: I INFORMED AZERBAIJAN AND USSR KGB ABOUT ARMENIANS PLAN
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 25 2006
Azerbaijan’s Court of Grave Crimes today continued the trial of
the gang led by Haji Mammadov, former high ranking official of the
Interior Ministry Crime Investigation Department, APA reports.
26 members of the gang stand trial presided by Judge Ali Seyfaliyev.
Defendant Ibrahim Bagirov answered lawyer Adil Ismayilov’s questions
on the murder of criminalist Rovshan Aliyev. He said that he planned
to meet with Haji Mammadov that day, but they could not meet.
Then Agil Huseynov, deputy chairman of International Bank Sebayel
branch gave free testimony and found himself innocent. He said that
he gave a credit illegally by Elchin Aliyev’s order.
The third defendant Hussain Abdulvahabov gave testimony about his
visit to Azerbaijani.
“I brought my family to Azerbaijan because of the war in Chechnya. My
brother Sidek Abdulvahabov also lived here. I wanted to go back to
Chechnya, but the border was closed. I always wanted to work in favour
of Azerbaijan. I informed USSR and Azerbaijan KGB (State Security
Committee) about Armenian’s plan to occupy Nagorno Garabagh a year
before the war,” he said.
Abdulvahabov accused the court of a loyal attitude to Haji Mammadov.
“Haji blames me in his testimonies. But the court does not let me to
clarify the accusations,” he said.
The trial will continue with Abdulvahabov’s testimony in the second
half of the day.

OSKANYAN: THERE IS NO NEED FOR AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN PRESIDENT’S MEETING
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 25 2006
Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers Elmar Mammadyarov and
Vardan Oskanyan held five-hour meeting with the participation of
OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in Paris on October 24, Tahir Tagizadeh,
the chief of Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry Press and Information Policy
Department told the APA.
They discussed new principles of the settlement of Nagorno Garabagh
conflict suggested by co-chairs. The conflict sides expressed their
positions.
“The co-chairs and ministers agreed to meet in Brussels on November
14 to bring the negotiations one step forward. After the meeting the
co-chairs will visit the region,” he said.
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan told to Radio Liberty that
Paris meeting was very constructive.
“Azerbaijan’s and Armenia’s positions are coming closer. We tried
to discuss the new principles suggested in Moscow meeting. Nagorno
Garabagh Republic was also familiarized with the documents, but it
does not mean that they agree with all the items of the document. We
have divergence with co-chairs,” he said.
Oskanyan also said that there is no need for Presidents’ meeting.
“We might discuss their meeting in Brussels on November 14,” the
minister said.

FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA HAS NOT CONFIRMED JACQUES CHIRAC’S PLANS TO VISIT KARABAKH
Regnum, Russia
Oct 25 2006
The matter may not concern economical development without peace;
on October 24, French Ambassador to Armenia Henry Cuny stated at a
news conference ending his diplomatic mission in Armenia. According
to him, at present, fact should be clearly recognized that Nagorno
Karabakh settlement starts from the both parties’ interests.
As a REGNUM correspondent informs, the diplomat stressed that Armenia
may not be considered as separate market now, in particular, because of
its insolvency and population’s fewness. “At the same time, Armenia’s
geographic location is rather attractive for business because it
‘opens doors to the Middle East and Central Asia; that is why, play
might be quite different, if there were no closed borders,” Cuny said,
adding that it is necessary to remember both Azerbaijan and Armenia
have not been included into the EU New Neighborhood Policy. “In this
connection, conflict’s pendency leads the program’s realization into
a dead end. In such case, situation arises when two countries included
into the program have closed borders; moreover, there are no diplomatic
relations, i.e. the program will not function per se,” he pointed out.
Responding to question of journalists to what extent publications
of Azerbaijani mass media concerning French president’s visit to
Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh are truthful, he informed that he did
not have such information. At that, the French diplomat added that
being an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair, France has no right on one-sided
demonstrations.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ITHACA HIGH TENNIS: MEHRABYAN EYES ANOTHER RUN AT STATES
By Maria Wolman
Ithaca Journal, NY
Oct 25 2006
ITHACA – Ithaca High School student Lucy Mehrabyan learned a lot
about hard work and winning as a youth on the tennis courts of Armenia.
Mehrabyan was born in Armenia and began playing tennis there at the
age of 4 before coming to the United States.
“In Armenia, we play on red clay. We don’t have many sponsored
tournaments and there are not too many opportunities, but we do train
very hard. The coaches are very serious,” Mehrabyan said.
That hard work, plus a lot of tennis skill, has paid dividends for
Mehrabyan. She has not lost a high school tennis match all year.
This weekend, she will attempt to qualify for her third straight trip
to the New York state high school tennis tournament.
The Section 4 state qualifier begins Friday at the Binghamton Tennis
Center. Mehrabyan won the past two state qualifier meets and hopes
to do the same this year.
“I expect her to win it this year,” Ithaca High School tennis coach
Sue Redding said.
What’s remarkable about Mehrabyan’s accomplishments is that the she
is just a freshman, meaning her previous state qualifier victories
came when she was in only seventh and eighth grades.
The top three finishers in the Section 4 state qualifier advance to
the state tournament, held the following weekend in Syracuse.
Although Mehra-byan has advanced to states the past two years, only
last year did she play well enough to advance to the second day of
state competition.
The state field will likely be wide open this year.
“I can’t say if I will win,” Mehrabyan said. “I would like to play
the best tennis I can. For me, playing the best tennis I can is better
than winning.”
Despite Redding’s 20 years of experience coaching high school tennis,
she too is unsure of whether Mehrabyan will be the 2006 state champion.
“I can’t say [if Lucy will win states] because I haven’t seen what’s
out there,” Redding said. “I think she should do pretty well, but to
win it, I just can’t say. If she continues at the rate she’s going,
then she’s bound to win it sometime – she’s only a freshman.”
Mehrabyan’s off-season is dedicated to training and practicing. She
takes lessons from a coach at Cornell University and also spends time
playing with her father and sister.
“She is very well-respected and works well on the court and helps out
members of her team. She does very well in school, and she’s got a very
hard work ethic and is very consistent [in her game],” Redding said.
Consistent tennis success has produced thoughts of turning
professional.
“I’ve been wanting to turn pro for a long time, but turning pro is
very serious. It’s a lot of moving from one place to another, and
I’d have to leave my school. For now, I think I want to try to play
at a good college,” Mehrabyan said.
With professional dreams and the limitless possibilities of a college
career, Mehrabyan recognizes that her introduction to tennis in
Armenia has allowed her to keep her tennis options open.
“I know she can play at a Division I college,” Redding said. “She’s
very consistent and she loves the game. This is my 23rd season [around
high school tennis] and Lucy is the best female I’ve seen out there
at such a young age.”

ONLY THIRD OF TURKS SAY EU A MUST
CNN International
Oct 25 2006
ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) — Less than a third of Turks think Turkey
must enter the European Union, a poll showed, the latest sign of
waning support for membership as Ankara faces increasing pressure
from Brussels.
The survey, carried out by pollsters A&G and published in newspaper
Milliyet, showed 32.2 percent thought Turkey “must certainly enter
the EU”, a sharp decline on last year’s 57.4 percent and 67.5 percent
in 2004.
The poll, which shows a more dramatic decline in EU support than other
recent surveys, comes as Brussels urges Turkey to step up reforms and
make concessions over the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus if
it is to avoid a possible freeze in membership talks later this year.
The poll results could make it harder for Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan, who faces a general election in November 2007, to push
through unpopular measures demanded by the EU.
Of the 2,408 people polled, 25.6 percent said Turkey “should certainly
not enter the EU”, more than twice the 10.3 percent who felt that
way last year, when Turkey began entry talks.
The survey was carried out in late September, and since then
nationalism and anti-EU feeling has been fuelled further by a law
passed in the French parliament making it a crime to deny — as Ankara
does — that Ottoman Turks carried out a genocide against Armenians
in 1915.
The poll also showed that 76.5 percent of Turks expect tougher
conditions to be imposed on them in the future and only 7.2 percent
trust the EU. Many Turks, including the government, complain that
Brussels is changing the rules as it goes along over Cyprus.
The EU is due to present a report on Turkey’s progress on Nov. 8,
which will likely criticize Ankara for a lack of reform on issues
such as minority and religious rights, and freedom of speech after
nationalist prosecutors have continued to take journalists and writers
to court over insulting “Turkishness”.
Meanwhile conflict over Cyprus still threatens talks as Turkey
continues to refuse to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot
planes and vessels, without concessions from Brussels.
Ankara supports a breakaway Cyprus in the north, refusing to recognize
the EU-member Cypriot government in the south.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY CAUGHT AT A CROSSROADS
By Simon Hooper for CNN
CNN International
Oct 25 2006
(CNN) — Standing at the south-easterly edge of mainland Europe,
Turkey’s fortunes have always been closely linked to the continent’s
wider historical currents.
In 1683 the Ottoman Turks marched to the gates of Vienna as they
built an empire stretching from the Balkans to the Middle East.
Even in terminal decline at the start of the 20th century, the Ottoman
Empire’s nickname, the “sick man of Europe,” was tacit acknowledgement
that Turkey — at least once — had deserved a place among the great
continental powers.
In the 1920s, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern
republic, set about restoring Turkey to that status with an intensive
program of “Europeanization” which included replacing Arabic with a
new Roman alphabet and banning the fez.
Since the 1950s Turkey has been a key member of NATO, contributing
the second largest armed forces to the military alliance after the U.S.
And just as wealthy Europeans once took the Orient Express to savour
the exotic sights and flavors of Istanbul, now western holidaymakers
flock to the beach resorts of Turkey’s cosmopolitan coastline.
In a world shrunk by globalization and with Bulgaria’s imminent entry
set to expand the EU’s eastern border with Turkey, one might imagine
the ties between Europe and Ankara had never been closer.
Yet on Tuesday a poll in the Turkish newspaper Milliyet revealed that
only a third of Turkey’s population believe their country should
join the EU, less than a year after the country began negotiations
to become a full member — having been an associate member since 1963.
(Full Story)
Amid sharpened anti-European sentiment, more than three-quarters of
Turks also said they don’t trust it.
Turkish economy minister Ali Babacan, who is leading his country’s
negotiations in Brussels, believes those attitudes will change in time.
He said last week: “It will take time for Turkey to go through a
reform in mindsets. Political reforms sometimes are easy on paper
but the implementation becomes difficult.”
But talks so far only seem to have accentuated cultural and political
differences that many critics opposed to Turkish membership believe
are so profound that discussions should never have started.
Ankara and Brussels are already at odds over the conditions imposed
for entry which include Turkey making concessions on Cyprus, divided
since a Turkish invasion in 1974. The Greek half of the island is
already a full EU member. (Full Story)
Ahead of a full European Commission report on Turkish progress next
month, MEPs recently voiced concerns over the “slowing down of the
reform process.”
A more controversial issue has proved to be the ongoing dispute over
Turkey’s refusal to recognize as genocide the massacre of up to 1.5
million Armenians under Ottoman rule in 1915.
Last week the French parliament passed a bill that would make it a
crime to deny that the killings constituted a “genocide.”
“Should Turkey recognize the genocide of Armenia to join the European
Union?” asked French President Jacques Chirac during a recent visit to
Armenia. “Honestly, I believe so. Each country grows by acknowledging
its dramas and errors of the past.”
The Armenian question is also at the heart of another obstacle to
Turkish membership: the limits placed on freedom of speech by a law
making it a crime to insult “Turkishness” which has been used to
prosecute writers and publishers including Orhan Pamuk, who this
month won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
With that case dropped amid international pressure earlier this year,
many Turks considered the prestigious prize to be as much a statement
about Pamuk’s political activities as his literary skills.
The case has only served to highlight further concerns. As recently as
1997 Turkey’s military intervened to overthrow a democratic government
while the country’s vast size, extremes of poverty and the ongoing
dispute within its borders with Kurdish separatists hardly make it
a model of a modern stable democracy.
A survey in June showed 55 percent of Europeans opposed Turkish
membership. In Austria — where long memories of the Turks’ assault
on their capital perhaps linger — the figure was 81 percent.
But backers for Turkish entry into the EU believe the ultimate benefits
far out-weigh any short-term obstacles.
“We have the chance to show that a Muslim country can become a
full-fledged European democracy,” said Hans-Joerg Kretschmer, the
EU’s envoy to Ankara.
Yet, ultimately, it is likely to be Turkey’s economic and strategic
importance that forces the EU into securing closer relations, whether
its citizens and politicians like it or not.
With a market of 73 million people currently experiencing eight percent
growth a year, Turkey’s economy is growing too quickly to be ignored.
“[Turkish membership] is going to happen because it is in everybody’s
economic interests,” said Angel Gurria, head of the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development. “It already is happening,
the benefits are already accruing for Turkey.”
And as the Silk Road once brought oriental riches to the salons of
Paris and London, so Turkey’s access to the energy rich regions of
the Caucacus, the Middle East and Central Asia will make it a key
gateway for Europe’s gas and oil supplies in the coming decades.
Others warn that the dangers of an economically powerful but
politically isolated Turkey are simply too dangerous to ignore.
British lawmaker Dennis McShane, a former UK government minister to
Europe, wrote this month in the Financial Times that a Turkey spurned
by the EU could form a Black Sea alliance with Russia, or turn towards
Iran and Pakistan to form a “crescent of influence and power” linking
a series of semi-military Islamic states from the Mediterranean to
the Indian Ocean.
“An independent Turkey, free of ties to the EU, could also clash with
European foreign policy goals by aggressively pursuing its interests
in the Mediterranean or the Middle East,” warned McShane.
“Europe is doing its level best to tell Turkey it is no longer wanted
as part of the European Union. It is a high-risk game with little to
gain and everything to lose.”

ABOUT THE IDENTITY OF EUROPE : WHY IT IS A PROBLEM ? (1)
Hans-Peter Geissen
Turquie Europeenne, France
Oct 25 2006
Certainly, we may assume that everybody who speaks about Europe
knows that “Erep” is an ancient Syrian (Semitic) term meaning sunset,
or west; and that its opposite is “Assu”, the sunrise, or east.
Hans-Peter Geissen lives in Koblenz (Germany), at the confluence of the
Rhine and Moselle rivers. Interested in all what concerns faunistics
(data about animal species) of the Midrhine region, he is the author
of many scientific publications on these issues. He bent on the Turkish
issue with a very specific approach so as “to prevent a self-definition
of Europe on the grounds of historical or religious mythologies.”
It is therefore clear that Europe is not Asia, just as East is
not West. Moreover, there is no difficulty to understand that the
term means a direction on the surface on the earth and therefore is
geographical. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is a relative
term, depending on the viewpoint of the observer. From a North
American viewpoint, for instance, Erep is what we commonly call
Japan and China, and Assu may start in Iceland or France. But for
orientation as to what may be meant in global terms we may take the
ancient city of Assur, which is in today’s northern Iraq.
The “Christian Club” It may then seem astonishing that quite a many of
people claim that Europe’s identity would be harmed by a religion,
Islam. Or that “the European Union must decide whether it is a
Christian Club”, as Mr. Erdogan had put it some times ago. Religion is
not a geographical term. Then, how can it determine or harm something
geographical ?
That seems quite nonsensical.
Nevertheless, we may look at this from an empirical viewpoint and
establish that here the term has been shifted from a geographical to
a spiritual meaning.
We cannot henceforth discuss the issue in geographic terms, and
it would mean a serious confusion of mind were we to determine
geographical borders of spirit.
As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had it: “The Spirit blows wherever it
wants so.” Or not, as we might add.
However, we might move to a common denominator of geography and human
spirit, which we may find in history. It may reveal which spirit was
blowing where, and even when. And more.
Of course, then, we must restrict ourselves to times when Christianity
at least was in existence. In this sense, Cesar or Cicero, Socrates
or Aristoteles, Vercingetorix or Armin(ius) were not European. And
in fact, the term “European” was not in use in these times.
It came into use in the Middle Ages, when indeed spiritual and
geographical terms mingled. It is difficult for us today, to understand
what exactly the term “Holy Roman Empire” meant. Perhaps, it would
be wrong to search for accuracy in this context. But it is clear that
“holy” is a spiritual term and “Rome” a geographical one.
And “empire” relates to space, too, at least in effect.
However, “European” did not just relate to that empire, which roughly
contained what today is Germany and (north to central) Italy, and some
neighboring regions. “Europe” in this sense also contained France,
Britain and (northern) Spain as well. “European” was a political term
meaning those lands who provided warriors for crusades against the
Muslims, then established in what was not “Europe”.
The very term “crusade”, of course, related to the Christian cross,
so we may guess that the spiritual meaning is quite obvious.
“Europe”, then, is a bigger “Holy Empire”, or, in German, a “Reich”.
Moreover, it is anti-Islamic by definition. But if we look at crusades
in a broader context, they were, at times, also directed against
the “pagans” in eastern regions of what then became “Europe”, and
against the Orthodox church. “Crusades” were also directed against
deviant Western Christian groups like the Catharians, Albigensians,
or Waldensians.
We can, thus, not describe this Europe as simply Christian. It is
more precisely Roman-Christian.
The Problem
We may then ask why this should be a problem today. Didn’t we have
developments like Humanism and Enlightenment, which surpassed the
boundaries of (Western) Christianity. Hadn’t already the Anglicans,
the Lutherans and Calvinists, and finally the French Revolution
succeeded in breaking free of Roman domination? Hadn’t the popes
even been removed from Rome to Avignon and then, already in 1338,
even been denied a role in the elevation of the “Holy Roman” emperor?
Don’t we include Orthodox Christianity in Europe, relate our thinking
to Aristotle and Cicero, or even mention a “Jewo”-Christian heritage?
Aren’t we secularists today, isn’t even the Roman Church in favor
of secularism?
Yes. And yet, we inherited antiislamism. It is this inherited
antiislamism that is motivating the fundamental-opposition against
Turkey’s EU-accession, and it is in many of the more subtle forms of
opposition or even of apparent approval.
A matter of “evil” It may be fatal to underestimate the
consequences. Spiritually, what is inherited here implicates the
eradication of the evil. The physical appearance of the evil may be
Albigensians, Iberian or Balkan Muslims, or witches, or wolves, or the
“Jewish World Conspiracy”. Indeed, the “Third Reich” may be explicable
best in terms of this heritage. We may ask wether Stalinism isn’t
just another of its distant consequences, irrespective wether some
historians call it “Asiatic”. Stalinism is about eradication of the
(perceived) evil and is quite alien to any Asian culture, as far as
my limited knowledge can reach.
There are more subtle forms of this heritage. Despite we know well
about the importance of Islamic societies in the Iberian peninsula and
Sicily for the development of both European Humanism and Enlightenment,
and we don’t bother to use Arabic numerals and Arabic terms like
algebra and chemistry – “European History” ist mostly described as
if it were without an Islamic heritage. But in fact, its development
is not at all understandable without.
Not without Islamic cultures and not without antiislamism.
That is, we are dealing with an interaction, with synergistic and
antagonistic aspects. This in turn is of course just one of the
interactions that formed Europe, both on a European and global scale.
In fact, Islamic rule in Iberia tolerated large Christian and Jewish
populations, and here it was that ancient Greek and other (Roman,
Persian, Arabic) authors were translated from Arabic to West-European
languages. Ironically, while “the evil” was eradicated in the Iberian
peninsula, it expanded in the Balkan peninsula. And, still, in the
Anatolian peninsula, where however it had started earlier.
The Ottomans Ottoman expansion in the Balkans caused a flood of
antiturkish and antiislamic propaganda that is an essential part of our
“European Heritage”. The Ottoman proceedings in this conquest gave
considerable reasons for deepest fears. First, they were militarily
superior due to combined use of the disciplined (and quite Roman)
Jannissary phalanx and Turkmenic light cavallery, superior logistics on
campaign and in finance, and by the early use of cannons and musquets.
Moreover, they allied with and co-opted Christian princes of the
Balkan people, and finally the whole “Byzantine” (Orthodox) church.
For the commoners, things depended on their geographic position. In
the respective borderlands, they were subjected to the never-ending
“Akinci” raids, which were among the reasonable grounds to name
“the Turk” “terrible”. “He” indeed was.
Which doesn’t mean that “Christian” raids into Ottoman lands were
much different.
Whatsoever, once inside the Ottoman Empire, the “Pax Ottomanica”
had considerable advantages. Exploitation of the peasantry remained
comparativly low and didn’t imply serfdom. Nor were they forced to
change their religious creed. Even many of those who had been enslaved
in Akinci raids could hope to be manumitted some years later and find
acceptable conditions of life. However, in their case conversion to
Islam was strongly advisable.
Peasants and other commoners living further apart from Ottoman
frontiers could compare the rumours coming in from the “Turkish
empire”, relating to the absence of serfdom and of religious
persecution for instance, with their current conditions.
This in turn was probably reason enough to rain down as much defaming
propaganda against “the Turk” on the boorish people as possible. Most
efficiently from the church pulpits and at times in daily rhythm. Not
much fantasy is needed to imagine why the effects may still be seen
easily in Austria and Southern Germany, whereas they are much weaker
in Northern Germany, or in Scandinavia.
Ottoman effects on European Christianity There were several political
effects of Ottoman policies on European Christianity. First, they
inherited from the Seljuks and other Islamic principalities the
sympathy with the monophysite churches, especially the Armenian and
Syrian, and their protection against the impositions of the Greek
(Orthodox) church. Even more importantly, they first weakened but
then protected the Orthodox themselves.
Rather decisive for European history were their wars against Catholic
Habsburg, without which the survival and establishing of Lutheran
and Calvinist Protestantism would in all probability not have been
possible.
And then we have the example of Transsylvania, which under Ottoman
suzerainity saw the Orthodox, Lutherans, Catholics and Calvinists
(and a few Armenians) live together quite peacefully. Which means
that the first peaceful coexistence of the major European Christian
denominations was possible under Ottoman rule, and only under Ottoman
rule it was even thinkable.
One should probably not underestimate the pedagogical effects on the
whole of Europe. The autonomous principality of Transsylvania was at
that time a major trade post between Central and Southeastern Europe,
extending to Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands, Anatolia and the
Balkans, the northern Black Sea region, even to Italy and Sweden.
Unforeseen, or nearly so, here we are back in geography. Once again,
admittedly. History is used here as a common denominator of the two.
Spiritually, there were virtually no Muslims in this “second
convivenza”, and Jews were largely excluded from the public sphere.
And nonetheless, it was again Muslim request that enabled coexistence
of Christians.
Next we will see that secular Christians still imagine that they
developed secularism without the help of Muslims, and even against
“Asiatic Despotism”. Historically, of course, this is just a silly
and self-serving imagination.
icle1549.html

ARMENIA’S IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE
The Messenger, Georgia
Oct 25 2006
Visiting Yerevan last week, Vice-Speaker of the Russian Duma, Sergei
Baburin, delivered a stark message to Armenia. Clearly incensed by
complaints that the Russian sanctions on Georgia are hurting totally
innocent Armenia, he declared that Yerevan must choose between Moscow
and Tbilisi, or suffer in silence.
In so saying the nationalist leader, who reportedly counts Jean
Marie le Pen and Radovan Karad~^ic among his personal friends, not
only demonstrably thumbed his nose at ever reliable Armenia, he also
unwittingly pointed to a central reality of what it means to count
Russia as a strategic partner: it means nothing to count Russia as
a strategic partner.
Russia and Armenia are, on paper, strong allies. Armenian foreign
policy is consistently in line with Russia’s, Gazprom can buy whatever
they like and there is no unpleasant talk about wanting to join
NATO. In return Russia sides with Yerevan over Nagorno-Karabakh,
supplies cheap gas and hosts a huge number of Armenian workers,
whose remittances keep the country afloat financially.
But recently, Russia seems to be ignoring the interests of its only
friend in the region. Armenia’s only link with its fair weather
patron is through Georgia, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh meaning
the Turkish and Azeri borders are thoroughly closed. Armenia is still
technically at war with Azerbaijan, so the road north is actually a
vital lifeline. Yet Russia, in its haste to punish Georgia, totally
sets aside the interests Armenia time and time again. When the only
legally functioning border checkpoint between Russia and Georgia
was closed this summer, the Armenians were even more surprised-and
harmed-than the Georgians. Georgian goods and people could at least go
through Azerbaijan, but Armenia was left with only expensive flights
or ferries.
The fact that Russia did not even bother to inform its supposedly
strategic partner must have stung, but worse was to follow. With the
closure of maritime links Armenian goods now have to go to Georgia,
then on to Ukraine, Bulgaria or Romania and then on to Russia, making
them more expensive and less competitive. The anti-Georgian hornets’
nest the Kremlin has stirred up in Russia itself is hardly going
to benefit the Armenians, even if they aren’t going to be forcibly
deported for trumped up violations anyone with a tan is now at risk
in Russia.
If, as seems exceedingly likely, gas prices shoot up for Russian gas
for Georgia, Tbilisi is sure to try to recoup some of those losses by
upping the transit costs to Armenia, which receives its gas through
the same pipes as Georgia (indeed, the ‘mystery explosions’ on the
pipeline in North Ossetia last year would have been disastrous for
Armenia too, had it not been for their nuclear power station), yet
again hurting Armenia, which has totally stayed out of the duispute.
So quite why Armenia should ‘choose Russia’ is becoming increasingly
unclear. Yerevan clearly can’t do without its strong ally, but it
certainly can’t do without Georgia either. A hostile Georgia would
make Armenia an island in a sea of enemies, and its already shaky
security would become untenably weakened.
Baburin’s ‘choice’ also poses questions for the rest of Russia’s
neigbours, if Russia treats its loyal allies with such disdain,
ignoring their interests in order to pursue vengeful, xenophobic
policies towards states it considers ‘its turf’, then what is the
benefit of loyalty? Belarus’ autocrat Alexander Lukashenka has started
to question the benefit of his alliance, which is paying fewer and
fewer dividends as time goes by. Even the separatists in Abkhazia
and South Ossetia must be worrying that, if it serves a short term
objective, Russia might just sell them down the river.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress