ARMENIAN, AZERI PRESIDENTS REKINDLE HOPES FOR KARABAKH PEACE
By Emil Danielyan

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Nov 30 2006

President Robert Kocharian The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
have produced a new glimmer of hope for a resolution of the Karabakh
conflict following their third face-to-face meeting in less than
a year. Robert Kocharian and Ilham Aliyev have indicated that they
made further progress towards a mutually acceptable settlement during
their talks held on the sidelines of a Commonwealth of Independent
States summit in Minsk on November 28. It is not yet clear, however,
whether they are seeking to sign any peace accords before next spring’s
Armenian parliamentary elections, or the presidential elections due
in both South Caucasus states in 2008.

The latest Armenian-Azerbaijani summit was widely seen as the last
opportunity to achieve a breakthrough in the protracted search
for Karabakh peace before those polls. The fact that it started in
the presence of the foreign ministers of Russia and Belgium, which
currently holds the OSCE’s rotating presidency, only underlined its
importance for the international community. Aliyev and Kocharian
reportedly continued the discussion in a tete-a-tete format for
about two hours before flying home without making any statements
in the Belarusian capital. The U.S., French and Russian diplomats
co-chairing the OSCE’s Minsk Group on Karabakh, who arranged the
encounter, likewise declined comment.

Aliyev’s subsequent assessment of the talks was particularly
positive. "I can say that we are already approaching the final phase
of negotiations," he told state television in Baku, in remarks cited
by Azerbaijani newspapers on November 30. Significantly, Aliyev stated
that he and his Armenian counterpart reached agreement on a number of
unspecified sticking points that had prevented a breakthrough in their
two previous meetings held in February and June. He did not elaborate.

Kocharian also expressed, through his Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian, his satisfaction with the results of the negotiations. "I
cannot say concretely whether progress was made or not, but both
presidents assessed the meeting as positive in terms of atmosphere
and constructive approaches," Oskanian told journalists in Yerevan.

"I think that the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents will analyze
everything in detail within a few days and give precise instructions
to the foreign ministers about their future work," he added.

The Aliyev-Kocharian talks were preceded (and made possible) by a
flurry of diplomatic activity by the Minsk Group co-chairs, Oskanian,
and his Azerbaijani opposite number Elmar Mammadyarov. The two foreign
ministers met for three times in less than a month, most recently in
Brussels on November 14. The meetings focused on what the mediators
have described as "complementary elements" to their existing Karabakh
peace plan that were put forward following the failure of the previous
Armenian-Azerbaijani summits. Neither the co-chairs nor the conflicting
parties have disclosed those elements so far.

The parties, meanwhile, continue to make differing interpretations
of a key point of the Minsk Group plan: a referendum in Karabakh that
would determine the disputed region’s future status. Official Yerevan
insists that the territory’s predominantly ethnic Armenian population
would be able to decide whether it wants to be independent, become
a part of Armenia or return under Azerbaijani rule. The Karabakh
Armenians would almost certainly reject the latter option.

Azerbaijani leaders, for their part, say that the proposed referendum
should only determine the extent of Karabakh’s future autonomy within
Azerbaijan. In his latest televised remarks, Aliyev reiterated that
Baku would only agree to give Karabakh a "maximum degree of self-rule,"
something that is a non-starter for the Armenian side.

Even assuming that the two sides have managed to find common ground
on their main bone of contention, they will not necessarily rush to
announce any agreements in the coming months. In particular, Armenia’s
government and its political allies have already started preparations
for the 2007 parliamentary elections and will hardly be willing to
let the domestic opposition exploit unpopular Armenian concessions
to Azerbaijan. Those include liberation of at least six of the seven
Azerbaijani districts surrounding Karabakh that were fully or partly
occupied by Armenian forces during their 1991-94 war.

(The scale and timetable of the Armenian troop withdrawal has been
another contentious issue.) Oskanian implied that the signing of
any Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements before the upcoming polls is
not in the offing. Still, he insisted that the election period "will
not interrupt" the peace process, disagreeing with the widely held
belief that failure to cut a framework peace deal now would keep the
conflict unresolved at least until 2009.

The Minsk Group’s U.S. co-chair, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State Matthew Bryza, likewise claimed in July that the Armenian and
Azerbaijani elections are not an insurmountable obstacle to Karabakh
peace. "If they come up with an agreement that’s mutually acceptable,
that should be a plus in an election," he said, referring to Aliyev
and Kocharian. "That’s a huge achievement that should actually help
political leaders and their parties to win votes."

Some analysts interpreted the remarks as a sign that the West, and
the United States in particular, will let the ruling regimes in Baku
and Yerevan get away with fresh vote rigging and cling to power if
they embrace the proposed peace formula. Peter Semneby, the European
Union’s special representative to the South Caucasus who accused the
two governments of "playing for time," seriously questioned their
commitment to mutual compromise on October 5. According to Semneby,
Azerbaijan is trying to use its soaring oil revenues to change the
balance of forces in its favor, while Armenia hopes that the Karabakh
status quo will "cement itself" in the coming years.

(Zerkalo, November 30; Aravot, November 30; Armenian Public Television,
November 29; RFE/RL Armenia Report, October 5; Interview with Matthew
Bryza, July 29)

AZERBAIJANI-RUSSIAN RELATIONS ENTER TURBULENT PHASE
By Fariz Ismailzade

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Nov 30 2006

Azerbaijani-Russian relations, increasingly warm in the past five
years, are about to enter a difficult phase that could turn both
countries into regional rivals. There are three reasons for the shift:
Azerbaijan’s increasing gas production, Russia’s fight against illegal
migration, and the recent visit by President Ilham Aliyev to Brussels
to sign an EU Neighborhood Policy with Azerbaijan. The fall-out,
however, will only affect a single, key issue: resolution of the
Karabakh conflict.

Many analysts expected President Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Moscow, and
his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin a few weeks ago,
to launch a new stage in bilateral ties. Both leaders have enjoyed
friendly relations in the past several years, and the relations
between two countries have been deepening at a gradual but steady
pace. Yet Putin gave Aliyev the cold shoulder. Analysts speculate
that Putin is wary of Azerbaijan’s growing capacity to produce and
even export natural gas, thus becoming a natural economic rival to
Russia in the region.

In fact, President Aliyev traveled to Moscow straight from Brussels,
where he had signed not only a new EU Neighborhood Policy with
Azerbaijan, which envisions more concrete steps towards integration
of the south Caucasus country into EU institutions and structures,
but also an agreement on energy transit to Europe. EU members, hungry
for alternative sources of energy, have welcomed such moves. Putin,
however, warned Aliyev that Moscow had carefully watched Azerbaijan
authorities negotiate in Brussels and that all energy projects in
the regions must be coordinated. This hint was a message to President
Aliyev not to try to bypass Russia in an attempt to secure European
energy markets. Some regional analysts have even indicated that Putin
has suggested creating an OPEC-style gas-export organization.

Following the tough negotiations over Azerbaijan’s gas exports,
the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom decided to triple the price of gas
deliveries to Azerbaijan. This decision follows the same pattern
observed toward Georgia and Ukraine last year. In fact Georgia,
facing the same problem this year, is already looking for alternative
energy sources.

Azerbaijani authorities have responded to the Gazprom decision by
planning to reduce gas imports from Russia and instead delay its own
gas exports from the Shah Deniz field for one year. Considering the
fact that Azerbaijan will also deliver gas to Georgia, as part of
the agreement reached between Aliyev and Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili in Minsk this week, it is unlikely that Baku will be able
to export much gas to the EU and Turkish markets in 2007 using the
recently built Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline. The agreement between
Saakashvili and Aliyev in itself is another reason for frustration
and anger in Kremlin circles, as Moscow has been trying to squeeze
Georgia economically for its pro-Western stance.

As if energy problems were not enough, the Russian government has
also decided to pass a new law on retail market operations and limit
the number of emigrants working in Russian bazaars. It is estimated
that close to 2 million Azerbaijani citizens are currently working
in Russian markets, earning meager incomes and sending payments home.

The expulsion of Azerbaijan emigrants would put a major strain on
Azerbaijan’s economy and increase socio-economic tensions in the
country. Although Azerbaijan’s economy is growing at one of the fastest
paces in the world, it will not be able to accommodate a large inflow
of unemployed persons from Russia.

Thus, President Aliyev has issued an urgent decree to establish a
state commission, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Eyyub Yagubov, to
deal with this issue and to plan activities to ease the transition
of these labor migrants from Russia to Azerbaijan. Local experts,
meanwhile, consider this move by Russia as another strike at Georgia
and Azerbaijan for their close ties with the EU and NATO.

Following the November 28 Minsk summit of the Commonwealth
of Independent States, President Aliyev said that Azerbaijan has
carried and will continue to carry out a balanced foreign policy. This
means that he will continue to form friendly and mutually respectful
relations with Russia. Yet, the recent trends show that both countries
are about to enter a turbulent phase, which will require significant
work from both sides to sort out economic and energy conflicts of
interests. If this does not happen, Russia is unlikely to help with
the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, which, in the words of President
Aliyev, has "entered the final stage."

(President Aliyev’s interview to AZTV on November 29, Xalq Qazeti,
Echo, Zerkalo, Turan News Agency)

HEAD OF PACE SUBCOMMITTEE FOR NAGORNO-KARABAKH: AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIAN SHOULD LAUNCH A GENERAL DIALOGUE
Author: A. Mammadova

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Nov 30 2006

"I think that it is extremely important for the two countries,
which have been in a serious dispute since the end of the war, to
start talking with each other, apart from the existing contact which
continues at a presidential level, as the meeting that recently
took place between President Ilham Aliyev and President Robert
Kocharyan", Lord Russell Johnston, Chairman of the Special Committee
for Nagorno-Karabakh of PACE, has exclusively told Trend today.

According to Lord Russell Johnston, the meeting between Azerbaijani and
Armenian MP’s is expected to be held under his chairmanship during the
session of PACE to be held in Strasburg at the end of January, 2007.

The Chairman of the PACE Subcommittee said that their first exercise
should be getting to know each other. "It is not necessary to tackle
big serious questions straight away. My objective is not suddenly
and magically to cure everything. That is not possible. But simply to
create a better atmosphere and then discuss the areas where possibly
one can pursue a dialogue, like, for example, the transport connection
issue", he said.

He also said that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could be settled only
by the Governments of the countries involved in the conflict, and
the task of the Subcommittee is to pave a way. "But I think that it
is extremely important to launch a general dialogue. On the one hand,
if there is a settlement of the issue, then it should occur after the
both parties making some concessions to each other. However, none of
the parties is ready to make a compromise. Therefore, the only
thing that could be done is to begin to talk to each other", said
Mr. Russell Johnston.

TIME TO ‘TALK TURKEY’ ABOUT TURKEY – AND THE EU
Mick Hume is editor of spiked

Spiked, UK
Nov 30 2006

The controversies over Turkey and the West will not be resolved by
people hiding their arguments behind the Pope, the Greek Cypriots or
the EU.

Many political Turks, I was assured in Istanbul last weekend, enjoy
nothing better than an opaque and multi-layered debate filled with
symbols, ciphers, and alleged conspiracies. If that is true, then
they will have been having a high old time this week, in the rows
over the Pope’s visit and Turkey’s accession to the European Union.

For in those international controversies, little is really as it might
appear to be, and almost everybody seems guilty of hiding their true
arguments and agendas behind a false front.

Take the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church,
to Muslim Turkey this week. The trip, following in the footsteps of
previous pontiffs, became the focus of huge controversy after the
Pope’s speech at a German university earlier this year, where he
quoted a fourteenth-century Byzantine Christian emperor who said the
Prophet Muhammad had brought only ‘evil and inhuman’ things.

Critics subsequently pointed out that, back when he was Cardinal
Ratzinger, the current Pope had opposed Turkey’s admission to the EU,
arguing that Christian Europe was a cultural, not merely economic,
entity, in which Muslim Turkey has no place.

So it was threatened that the papal visit to Turkey would be a symbol
of the clash of civilisations, more so after the Islamist prime
minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and leading ministers from his governing
Justice and Development Party (AKP) all said they were too busy to
greet the Pope. Yet come this week, it turned out to be something of
a phoney war. There have been some protests by Islamic radicals. But
Erdogan somehow found time to meet Benedict at Ankara after all. During
their meeting, the first thing the Pope seems to have done was to
declare his support for Turkey’s EU accession process. This should have
come as no surprise to those who noted that the Pope had effectively
withdrawn his remarks about Islam and violence, and apologised for
the offence, within a couple of days of the German speech.

If the papal visit is symbolic of something in international politics
today, it is less a symbol of a clash of civilisations than of a
climate in which posturing, shallow convictions and PR gestures take
the place of serious debate about big issues.

The debate about the EU’s relationship with Turkey, which will have
far more long-term significance than a papal tour, is marked by an even
greater gap between appearance and reality. This week it has been said
that the talks over Turkey’s entry to the EU are at ‘breaking point’
over the thorny issue of a settlement for Cyprus, the island divided
between the Greek Cypriot Republic (now itself a member of the EU)
in the South and the internationally unrecognised Turkish Cypriot
statelet in the North, where thousands of Turkish troops remain.

This dispute is now presented by some as a stand-off between the
Islamic and nationalist hardliners of Turkey, and the defenders of
the little Greek Cypriot republic in democratic Europe. In reality,
however, all sides are playing a rather more complex game.

Even if the drawn-out diplomatic process is completed, Turkey has
no prospect of joining the EU for a good few years. So why has this
dispute been blown up into such an urgent issue today? It seems
clear that many of those opposed to an Islamic country joining the
EU are now hiding behind the Greek Cypriots’ cause. Some who have
shown little interest in finding a solution for Cyprus over the
past 30 years have suddenly discovered that championing the Greek
Cypriots’ veto against Turkey is a matter of principle. For their
part, supporters of the Turkish Cypriots complain that 700,000 Greek
Cypriots are being allowed to hold the entire EU and Turkish nation
to ransom. But the Greek Cypriot statelet looks more like a Trojan
horse for more powerful anti-Turkish forces in the EU.

This is typical of the broader atmosphere of dishonesty in the
EU-Turkey debate. The overheated focus on the problems of Turkish
accession has become a welcome distraction from the crisis within
the EU. It allows the EU bureaucracy to present an image of a happy
Euro-family trying to cope with the external problem of Turkey. This
image conveniently ignores the real crisis that has afflicted the upper
echelons of the EU since the voters of France and Denmark threw out
their new Euro-constitution and threw all of their plans into disarray
(see The reawakening of European democracy, by Frank Furedi).

The democratic revolt captured in those referendum votes shook the
Euro-elite, which has since sought to deny that reality and find
something else to talk about. Posturing about the problems of making
Turkey an EU member shifts attention from the inconvenient detail that
millions at the heart of Europe have shown they are unsure whether the
EU as presently constituted is fit for their countries to belong to.

It is classic displacement activity. Leaders like Germany’s chancellor
Merkel and France’s president Chirac, uncertain of a troubled Europe’s
future, instead make bold statements about the trouble with Turkish
membership. The ploy is most obvious within the French elite, who
are now talking about holding another referendum, but on Turkey’s
accession; a case of ‘if we cannot get our people to vote for our plans
for the EU, maybe we can at least persuade them to vote for us against
the Turks’. This sort of posturing can only be counterproductive on
all fronts. As one Turkish commentator put it to me at the weekend,
if they keep pushing Turkey away the Turkish ‘bogeyman’ may decide
to go away, and how will that solve the EU’s problems?

However, despite the disputes there seems little immediate prospect
of that. The Turkish authorities, too, are being disingenuous in
their stand-off with the EU. They have to show willing to stand up
for the Turkish Cypriots. But despite appearances and images, the
Islamic government in Ankara needs the EU.

After coming to power in 2002, the AKP government used the prospect
of EU negotiations as a shield behind which to push forward its own
reform agenda for Turkish society. The government introduced reforms
on everything from advancing human rights law to restricting the
political power of the constitutional courts and the military, and
justified these politico-legal measures as necessary if Turks were
to reap the economic benefits of EU membership.

This may come as something of a surprise to those of us who have
seen the AKP through the images cast of it in the West, where many
look with fear at the very idea of an Islamist government in a state
that has been self-consciously secular since the Turkish republic was
established in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ‘father of the Turks’,
whose own image is still seen everywhere.

Yet here, too, things are a little different than the political
stunts and slogans might suggest. I was in Istanbul last weekend for
discussions on various aspects of EU-Turkish relations, organised by
the British Council and the Open Society Institute, with Turkish and
European academics and writers. No doubt these experts have their
own prejudices and preconceptions. But from some of the research
they presented, a strikingly different picture of Turkish politics
in general and the AKP in particular emerged.

The bloc of voters which gave the AKP their election victory turns
out to have been based, not in the traditional Islamic base of the
urban poor, but among the new entrepreneurial middle class in places
like the Turkish heartland of Anatolia, seeking to break away from
the old centralised Kemalist system in which, as one observer put it,
‘the state is the shepherd and the people the sheep’. The AKP is a
morally conservative, but in other ways liberal, pro-market party
of modernisation, and its leaders have less of an eye on the strict
teachings of the Koran than on the privatisation polices preached by
the IMF.

Many of those who have long been outsiders in Turkish politics have
supported the AKP’s advances to the EU as the means to restructuring
the relationship between the state and society. Where ‘Westernisation’
might once have been seen as a cause of their exclusion on the margins
of Turkish society, now, through the EU, these people see it as their
entry ticket. And others who could not support the Islamic government
on ‘cultural’ grounds, such as the women’s movement or the Kurdish
left, are pinning their hopes on the government’s overtures to the
EU to fulfil their own dreams of far-reaching reform, since they see
winning the argument in the committee rooms of Brussels easier than
winning them on the Turkish streets.

As one NGO spokesman put it: ‘The simplicities of the "threat from
Islam" need to be questioned.’ Turkish politics is more sophisticated
than these caricatures allow. There are deep divisions, but these do
not simply run along straight secular v religious lines. The debate
about the headscarf, for example, worn by around half of all Turkish
women, has come to be seen as another symbol of the struggle between
the new and the old – but in fact many of the ‘new’ energetic forces in
Turkish politics around the AKP are on the side of women who ‘cover’,
while the new urban middle classes are more likely to side with the
old statist and military elite in upholding the ban on headscarves
in public offices (which means that AKP ministers whose wives cover
have not been invited to presidential ceremonies).

Meanwhile, the supposedly hardline Islamist prime minister refused
to get involved in a row over whether university students should be
allowed to wear the headscarf.

Nor do the attitudes of Tukish voters on other social issues easily
fit into the stereotype of Muslim societies. According to a major
survey conducted earlier this year, for example, only nine per cent
would support the introduction of an Islamic sharia state – down
from 20 per cent in 1999. Even those 1999 figures were far lower,
especially among women, when people were asked about specific sharia
laws such as men having up to four wives; less than one per cent
favoured stoning adulterers.

The debate about Turkey and the EU raises some complicated questions.

But many in the EU do not much care about the subtleties, since the
Turkish accession has been turned into a symbol in the struggle to
resolve – or at least distract from – the EU’s own problems. Thus EU
commissioners have delighted in posing on the moral high ground for
once, lecturing Turkey about its human rights record, restrictions
on free speech, attitudes to women and Kurds and much else. They
have set unprecedented deadlines for Turkish complicance with their
instructions, and made it clear that, unlike any other candidate for
EU membership, Turkey may not be allowed to join the club even if it
meets all the stringent conditions.

Inevitably, this ‘they’re not like us’ attitude has proved
self-fulfilling, fuelling a backlash among sections of Turkish
opinion. With opposition parties crying conspiracy, and comparing
the EU conditions to the infamous Treaty of Sevres – the 1920 plan to
divide Turkey among the victorious Great Powers after the First World
War – public resentment has been rising and support for EU membership
falling, down to one-in-three according to some polls, around half
what it was not long ago. Polls also show increased sympathy among
Turks for the Islamic world, not least because of the war in Iraq,
Turkey’s nextdoor neighbour.

Against this background, it was extraordinary to hear British
officials at a dinner party in Istanbul at the weekend giving
yet another lecture about all the things that Turkey ‘must’ do if
it hopes ever to join their club. They talk about how the EU will
‘democratise Turkey’, seemingly unaware of the inherent contradiction
in any notion of democracy anywhere being imposed by the diktat
of foreign bureaucrats. And then in the next breath, supporters of
Turkish accession complain about the ‘reactionary nationalist upsurge’
they claim has mysteriously appeared as if from nowhere.

All of this raises the question, should Turkey want to be in the EU?

For us here at spiked, there has always been a difference between
Europe, the continent of free and creative peoples, and the EU,
the kingdom of bureaucrats and conservatism. In many ways the EU
is a dead weight around Europeans’ collective neck. That is why we
are more pro-Europe than anybody else – favouring, for example, free
migration – but not pro-EU. And it is why, while we want the Turkish
people to be fully integrated with Europeans, we doubt whether the
EU is in any way the means to do it.

Of course we believe that there is a need for reform and free speech
in Turkish society. But these are matters for the Turks to resolve
through democratic debate, not for the EU to dictate in the false name
of democratisation. On returning from Turkey, I saw the prime minister
of Estonia interviewed on an American TV channel. He said that the
process of joining the EU had been ‘like having every bone in your body
replaced’. The Turkish body politic is expected to undergo even more
serious surgery – while sleeping under general anaesthetic, of course.

It seems likely that several chapters in the Turkish-EU negotiations
will be suspended in the current Cyprus stand-off, and there is even
talk of a ‘time-out’ for the entire accession process. These things
will drag on and on no doubt. But the debate about them is helping
to shape the political climate now, not just in Turkey but elsewhere
in Europe, too.

That is why it is time, as the Americans say, to ‘talk turkey’ –
time for all sides to be frank and open about where they really stand.

Stop hiding behind the Pope, or the Greek Cypriots, or the Turkish
Cypriots, or the EU, or Ataturk, or history. Let us have an honest
argument about the sort of Europe we want to live in. One of the
conditions for that, of course, is that we have truly free speech –
in countries like Britain and France (with its absurd tit-for-tat law
making it a crime to deny the Turkish genocide against the Armenians)
as well as in Turkey.

Near my hotel in Istanbul, a fine mosque stands in the shadow of a
spectacular suspension bridge across the river Bosphorus, joining the
European side of the city with the Asian. When President Bush was in
Istanbul for a NATO conference, they brought him there to pose for a
photo opportunity against that background – supposedly an image that
captures the relationship between East and West, ancient and modern,
change and tradition.

It is a great view. But there are arguably far too many symbols
and postures and poses in the Turkish debate, and too few straight
arguments and honest principles in plain sight. The future of Europe,
and Turkey’s place in it, is surely too important for such games.

te/article/2197/

ARMENIAN PM COMMENTS ON RUSSO-GEORGIAN TENSIONS

Civil Georgia, Georgia
Nov 30 2006

Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan said in an interview
published in the November 30 edition of the Russian daily Kommersant
that Yerevan wants to see an improvement in Russo-Georgian ties.

"Currently, relations between Russia and Georgiaare not easy, but we
are sure that resources for resolving these problems between Tbilisi
and Moscow are far from being exhausted… We are interested in a
prompt resolution of these problems, as cooperation between Russia and
Georgia represents an important component of stability in our region;
without it, it is hard to imagine the implementation of mutually
beneficial regional economic projects," Margaryan said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TRANSPORT IN GEORGIA: PROBLEMS FACE POTI-KAVKAZ FERRY SERVICE

source: The Messenger
Railway Market Magazine, Poland
Nov 30 2006

General Director of Georgian Railway Ltd., Irakli Ezugbaia, says that
discussion of the renewal of the ferry service renewal Poti in Georgia
and Russia’s Port of Kavkaz has not been placed on the agenda yet.

He denied information released by the North Caucasus Railway press
department, which claimed rehabilitation of the ferry was moving at
an accelerated pace, and that the service will resume by February 2007.

"Kavkaz Port reconstruction has not been completed yet, therefore,
it is impossible to begin ferry transportation," said Ezugbaia,
reports the newspaper Akhali Versia.

According to him, renewal of the ferry service faces additional
problems as well. For example ferry transportation is not very
profitable because the ferry consists of only a few decks and
cannot carry large loads. The Poti-Kavkaz ferry is the only way
to transport railroad cars from Russia to Armenia via Georgia. The
transportation costs often exceed the amount of the income received
for their transportation.

Russia cut transport links with Georgia in October and so the route
will be changed to add the Turkish port Samsun. This has means that
cargo that would have been transported directly from Kavkaz to Poti
port will now first have to go through Samsun and then on to Poti.

This route will be more expensive for Armenia.

THE POPE AND THE PATRIARCH
Ali Bulac

Zaman Online, Turkey
Nov 30 2006

Patriarch Bartholomeos is the one who invited the Pope to Turkey last
year. Due to the Greek Orthodox Church’s "ecumenical" attribute not
being recognized, the invitation was intrpreted by Turkish President
Sezer as an intermediary formula. In other words, not only Pope
Benedict XVI wanted this visit, but Bartholomeos did as well.

The September 30th edition of the International Herald Tribune wrote,
"The goal of the Pope, who is to visit Turkey, is not dialogue with
Muslims, but an effort to reunite with the Orthodox." The quotation
from the Byzantine King that the Pope made during a speech in September
was a hidden message. No one who is going to visit someone, even if
it is just a courtesy call, would make a speech to distress them a few
days before the visit. As I mentioned on Monday, the Pope wants Europe
to unite around a Christian identity and the West to gain religious
internal unity. The deep infirmity that Christianity, the Church and
Europe in general, have entered has begun to give dangerous signals.

According to the Pope’s assessment, taking other churches under wing,
or at least playing a "protective" role in resolving the problems
they face, would be suitable steps to be taken in this area. If a
"positive result" is obtained from this visit, a similar strategy can
be followed for the Syrian Orthodox, Armenians and Nestorians. Well
then, is there a situation that demands the Pope’s becoming the
"defender" of the other churches and sects in their eyes?

What is obvious is that the Orthodox Church and other religious
minorities have some serious problems. Let Turkey resist as much as
it wants, the whole world and 250 million Orthodox, in particular,
accept the Phanariot Patriarch as "ecumenical." More importantly, the
Catholic Church has also confirmed this attribute of the Patriarch,
because it was the reason for the 1054 separation and bloody campaign
arranged in 1204. Turkey, straying from its own Ottoman tradition,
is taking on the whole world. It is interfering in the Orthodox
religion because of its groundless conjectures.

A second issue that bothers the Church is the absence of permission
to open the Heybeliada Monastic School. If it is necessary to talk
from a just and fair point of view, the Church is absolutely right
on this subject. Neither our religion nor our Ottoman experience
sees this behavior towards non-Muslims as proper. The Patriarch and
Orthodox Church are bound to the Caesar of the state they live in.

However, this does not mean that Caesar can interfere in the Church’s
theological doctrine and educational curriculum. Not even Roman
emperors and Ottoman sultans tried this. Treatment of community
foundations also leads to various difficulties like this, and this
problem has to be resolved according to just principles.

The Pharaniot Patriarch invited the Pope in hopes of receiving "aid
and support" from him. This is a dramatic situation resulting from
Turkey’s leaving its own non-Muslim citizens dependent on outside
help. If non-Muslims were able to take their places in the system as
citizens whose injustices had been redressed, the Phanariot Patriarch
would not have made this invitation, which was based somewhat on
"Orthodox suppression." The Orthodox Church has as great a claim as
the Vatican, both in respect to Christianity’s formulated doctrines
and in regard to its authority over Christians.

The Pope knows that there will not be a permanent and long-range
"unification" with Protestants. This is not only true in respect to
doctrine, but in respect to political and diplomatic power as well.

Protestants, particularly Evangelicals in America, are living
their "golden age." However, the Orthodox do not possess the same
opportunity and advantages. In fact, they are cornered in their
religious and spiritual center, Istanbul. This is the reason for
their being exploited. Just like in the Kurdish and Alawi issues,
by not allowing for their problems to be resolved, Turkey has led
these citizens to "seek hope from the outside." Before finding fault
with the Pope’s intentions and goals, Turkey should question its own
faults and, acting in a fair and just way, listen to its citizens
and throw aside unnecessary conjectures and fears.

THE ECUMENICAL DEBATE CALLED TO MIND BY THE POPE’S VISIT
Abdulhamit Bilici

Zaman Online, Turkey
Nov 30 2006

As a country, when we postpone problems facing us that we have been
unable to resolve, we feel we have made gains. However, even though it
may appear this way in the short run, in reality no postponed problem
disappears because we have delayed its resolution. To the contrary,
it grows. In fact, many problems, which until yesterday had a national
character, have now become gangrenous. Before long, they take on an
international nature and give us an even bigger headache.

Despite the reality of our history and society, the method we followed
in the Kurdish issue was precisely this. We weren’t able to accept
the existence of this matter for a long time. Today we are following
a similar path in regard to the Alawi issue. We employed the same
method in Cyprus until about four years ago. Except for one or two
steps taken recently against the Armenian genocide claim, we are not
able to take bold moves. It isn’t necessary to list problems with
non-Muslim minorities, because the government has not even been able
to resolve many issues in its relations with devout Muslims.

If we look carefully, we see that all of these problems have
become internationalized one way or another. An issue’s taking on an
international nature means this: Even if you do not want to, you lose
the freedom of resolving the matter on the basis of your own truths.

Most of the time problems that you did not solve become trump cards
in the hands of others.

Of course, every problem mentioned here may not have an easy
solution. However, the reason most problems grow is their being seen
as insignificant when they first appear or their being neglecting
over a long period. For this reason, the important thing is to have
the will to resolve problems before they develop gangrene. One of
our unresolved problems is the ecumenical issue.

Patriarch Bartholomeos, who is seen as religious leader of the Greek
Orthodox Community by the nearly three thousand Greeks living in
Turkey, uses the adjective "ecumenical," meaning the universal leader
of 300 million Orthodox Christians in the world. Turkey’s objection
to this extends back to Lausanne, where there was discussion of the
Patriarchate being moved outside the country. It is a debate that
has continued for years in the form of dialogue between the deaf, or
arm wrestling. However, the visit to Turkey by Pope Benedict XVI that
began yesterday has brought the issue to the surface again, because
the invitation made two years ago to the pope, religious leader of
1.2 billion Catholics, was an initiative begun by the Patriarchate.

The attempt of the Patriarch, who is just the leader of a handful of
Greeks, to take on the world-wide task of drawing the Orthodox and
Catholics closer together, is incomprehensible when viewed from the
perspective of official suppositions.

The final shape the pope’s visit became possible after intense
diplomatic efforts to salvage this odd situation. The most important
of these is the pope’s being invited as a head of state by Turkish
President Sezer. Actually, his heavy criticism of Islam in a
speech made at the Regensburg University on September 12th and the
subsequent reaction of the Islamic world overshadowed this aspect
of the crisis. However, the adjective "ecumenical" being used on the
press cards distributed by the Patriarchate to reporters who wanted
to follow the pope’s Istanbul program again inflamed the crisis.

The Patriarchate does not hesitate to use this adjective everywhere,
from its official website to international events it participates in.

Patriarch Bartholomeus expressed his approach to this issue in his
latest interview with the Sabah newspaper as follows: "Administering
a church is not easy. Churches in North and South America, England,
Germany, Western Europe, New Zealand, Korea and Hong Kong are tied
to us. But we are not ecumenical! We do not have an ecumenical problem.

We have carried this title since the sixth century. We carried this
title during the Byzantine, Ottoman and Republican periods and we
will continue to carry it. The ecumenical title has created some
difficulty in recent years. They write as if I had invented it…"

Actually there is no full concurrence among the Orthodox on this
subject. According to the Moscow Patriarchate, the concept which
only expresses respect is given other meanings by the Phanariot
administration. Of course, this does not change the fact that everyone
from the U.S. President to the pope accepts this title.

We have to immediately concentrate on a right solution. Personally,
I do not find it appropriate for Turkey’s being a forced to remain
witness to a situation it does not approve of.

ONE MAN’S BOOK, ANOTHER MAN’S PROMISE
by Khatchig Mouradian

ZNet, MA
Nov 30 2006

It is almost 3 a.m. A minute or so has passed since I turned the
last page of a book that now rests on my table, while I embark on a
journey down memory lane to late 1980s Bourj Hammoud-a Beirut suburb.

I walk up the stairs and knock on the door.

***

While we wait for her to open the door, I want to tell my readers
that back then, she is in her early 90s. I am in my early teens.

A smile greets me and invites me in. Aghavni mayrig is a distant
relative but a close friend of our family. I visit her every now and
then because she is one of the ever-dwindling numbers of old Armenian
women who have a horrible story to tell.

And her story is also mine.

Aghavni mayrig is a survivor of the Yeghern-the Armenian Genocide-the
forced deportations and mass killings executed by the Ottoman
government. A million-and-a-half Armenians fell victim to that massive
campaign of slaughter and grand theft of property in 1915.

The few thousand Armenians who survived found themselves in Syria, and
started to rebuild their lives and that of their nation from scratch.

Today, it is I who has a story for Aghavni mayrig. There is a new
campaign in some countries in Europe and South America to recognize
the Armenian Genocide and call Turkey to face its past. I break the
news to her with such anticipation of her joy-after all, she had lost
almost all members of her extended family and had been waiting for
justice for more than 75 years.

But Aghavni mayrig is not impressed. "Nayir, dghas (Look, my son),"
she says, "Even if the entire world one day unanimously adopts a
resolution recognizing our suffering, it will do little to relieve
my pain. It was the Turks who drove us from our lands, confiscated
all our property, and massacred us like sheep. It is they who must
recognize the horror they committed and compensate."

I promise her that the day Turkey recognizes the Genocide, I will
personally bring her the good news.

She smiles.

***

Aghavni mayrig passed away in 1995.

To this day, the Turkish state invests billions of dollars in
campaigns aimed at vehemently denying that what happened in 1915 was
genocide-the intent to destroy an ethnic group. And, adding insult to
injury, Turkey has begun to accuse the Armenians of killing millions
of muslims. Outside Turkey, very few people believe this ‘official’
thesis. But for the handful of survivors of the genocide, and their
descendents, the wound remains open.

Ever since that day at Aghavni mayrig’s house, I have made the journey
countless times in my mind telling her that Turkey finally recognized
the Genocide. I imagined going to Bourj Hammoud, climbing up the
stairs to her small apartment, knocking on the door and-the moment
she opens the door-telling her "the good news."

The book I was reading was Taner Akcam’s A Shameful Act: The Armenian
Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (Metropolitan
Books, 2006). Akcam is regarded as the first Turkish-born scholar to
publicly acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. His thoroughly researched
book on the history of the Genocide is a must-read-particularly for
every Turkish citizen.

In the last few years, attempts to shatter the taboo of the Armenian
Genocide in Turkey witnessed some success, as more Turkish journalists,
activists and scholars speak our about the massacres of the Armenians,
often risking being jailed and despite threats to their careers and
even their lives. And I have made that journey to Aghavni mayrig’s
apartment more and more often. I make that journey for every Turk
who is courageous enough to recognize his country’s dark past-whether
he lives outside of Turkey, or perhaps in the very house in Anatolia
where Aghavni mayrig was born.

Khatchig Mouradian is a Lebanese-Armenian writer, translator, and
journalist. He is an editor of the daily newspaper Aztag, published
in Beirut. He can be contacted at [email protected] .

ACCORDING TO SOCIOLOGICAL POLL, MOST KARABAKH PEOPLE TO PARTICIPATE IN REFERENDUM ON DRAFT CONSTITUTION

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Nov 30 2006

In connection with a referendum on the NKR Draft Constitution to be
held December 10, November 15 – 25 the NKR Union of Journalists held
a public opinion poll on the Republic’s territory.

500 people participated in the poll: 150 in Stepanakert and by 50
in the NKR administrative regions, DE FACTO own correspondent in
Stepanakert reports.

When asked "Have you read the NKR Draft Constitution?" 242 respondents
gave a positive answer, 154 answered negatively, while 101 stated
they had read it partially.

Answering the question "Does the Draft Constitution correspond to
the Artsakh movement’s logic?" 360 people answered positively, 29 –
negatively, 108 respondents found it difficult to answer.

As for the question "Are you going to participate in a referendum
on the Draft Constitution? ", 431 respondent gave a positive reply,
37 people said "no" and 29 persons stated they had not decided yet.

The poll showed irrespective of the fact if the respondents have read
the Draft Constitution, the overwhelming majority of the Karabakh
people have expressed their readiness to take part in the referendum.