KORKMAZCAN: ALL PROPAGANDISTIC STEPS REGARDING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ARE NOTHING BUT INHUMAN ACTS FOR AIDING AND ABETTING TERROR
Anatolian Times, Turkey
May 15 2006
ANKARA – “All propagandistic steps regarding the so-called Armenian
genocide are nothing but inhuman acts for aiding and abetting terror,”
said Turkish Parliamentarians’ Union Chairman Hasan Korkmazcan
on Monday.
Holding a news conference about the draft law which will be debated by
the French parliament on May 18th and considers denial of the so-called
genocide a crime, Korkmazcan said, “Turkish-French friendly relations
will be put to test on May 18th. The Armenian lobby, which has limited
political impact in France, has launched a dirty campaign to defame
Turkey. Those who are behind this campaign, are, in fact, international
underground powers which directed the terrorist organization ASALA.”
“A number of western countries have committed such crimes against
humanity since 1974. The draft is an assassination of the humanity’s
struggle throughout the history for freedom of scientific research
and expression. We call on French parliamentarians not to ignore a
500-year history for the sake of 3-5 thousand bloody votes,” he said.
Korkmazcan added, “if our warnings are ignored, the Turkish parliament
will make several arrangements about ‘active response’ and make
several decisions.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FRENCH GOVERNMENT OPPOSES TO VOTING IN FRENCH PARLIAMENT, POUDADE
Anatolian Times, Turkey
May 15 2006
TOKAT – “French government opposes to the voting that will take
place in the French parliament pertaining to the draft resolution
on so-called Armenian genocide,” French Ambassador in Ankara Paul
Poudade said on Monday.
Speaking after his meeting with Erdogan Gurbuz, governor of Black Sea
city of Tokat, Poudade said, “we hope this resolution would not harm
Turkish-French relations. French parliament opposes to the voting.
The sensitivity of this issue was earlier disclosed by French President
Jacques Chirac and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
French Socialist Party submitted a resolution to the French parliament
which makes any denial of the so-called Armenian genocide a crime.

US AMB OF AZERBAIJAN NOMINEE AFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO PEACEFUL RESOLUTION
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
May 15 2006
Senator Sarbanes submits questions for the hearing record Washington,
DC – During her Senate confirmation hearing today, Ambassador-designate
Anne Derse reiterated U.S. policy for a peaceful, mutually acceptable
resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, stating that “a return
to violence would be a tragedy.”
Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), a senior member of the Foreign Relations
Committee, submitted a series of questions for the record, including
the government of Azerbaijan’s continuing war rhetoric and other
bellicose actions taken against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
Specifically, the Senator inquired about the impact of such acts
on the Karabakh peace process, and what steps will be taken to end
Azerbaijan’s ongoing blockade of Armenia.
Further, he addressed Azerbaijan’s attempts to isolate Armenia via a
proposed railway that would connect Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey,
but not traverse Armenia. The Senator also raised questions regarding
the decision of the Administration to provide asymmetrical military
assistance to Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as on Azerbaijan’s
human rights record. “The Assembly commends Senator Sarbanes for
his outstanding leadership on these issues of great significance,”
said Assembly Board of Trustees Executive Committee Member Annie Totah.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-IN)
asked Derse about the status of the Karabakh issue and her general
assessment of democracy in the Azerbaijan. Lugar added that Azerbaijan
will not reach its full potential if the rule of law is not improved.
Derse responded that if confirmed, she will work toward expanding and
strengthening U.S.-Azerbaijan security cooperation and help promote
democracy and governance. She said a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict is critical to achieving this goal and expressed
hope that President of Armenia Robert Kocharian and President of
Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev will work together on this issue.
She further stated that as Co-Chair of the Minsk Group, the U.S. will
also urge Armenia and Azerbaijan to remain engaged in the process and
demonstrate political courage. Derse also expressed her commitment
to work with both countries towards a peaceful resolution.
>”We appreciate Ambassador-designate Derse’s intentions to promote
democracy in Azerbaijan and the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict,” said Totah. “But the Nagorno Karabakh problem calls
for the full commitment of the United States to require Azerbaijan
to end its threats of renewed warfare and to defend the right of the
population of Nagorno Karabakh to determine its political future
through a democratic government of their free choice. Regional
security, economic prosperity, and peace will be possible only if
these principles are followed.”
On the issue of good governance, Derse stressed the importance of
a genuine effort by Azerbaijan to respect human rights in order to
pursue democratic reform and ensure long-term political stability.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

USE OF ‘HOLOCAUST’ OFFENSIVE
by: Alex Chazen
New University, CA
University of California, Irvine
May 15 2006
The word “holocaust” stirs up emotions among people all over the
world for many different reasons. The word “genocide,” which most
people agree the Holocaust was, is defined as “the systematic and
planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political or
ethnic group.” As you are walking around campus this week, you are
going to see fliers talking about Israel as being the Fourth Reich
and there being a “Holocaust in the Holy Land.” The question becomes,
are these assertions truthful?
The Holocaust (the attempted genocide of Jews in Europe) saw 6 million
Jews murdered, and countless others displaced, many permanently. The
Armenian Genocide saw 1.5 million Armenians murdered at the hands
of the Turks, although many have (sadly) long forgotten about this
horrible period in world history. Currently, in the Darfur region
of the Sudan, over 400,000 people have been murdered, warranting the
label of “genocide” by the American government. Now that this has been
presented to you, I assume you think that the number of Palestinians
who have died since the beginning of the first Intifada in 1987
(no earlier data is available, including at the Muslim Student Union
Web site) would be at least in the hundreds of thousands. Would you
be surprised to find out that the number isn’t even in the tens of
thousands? Despite claims that there is a holocaust in the Holy Land,
not more than 6,000 Palestinians have died since the start of the
first Intifada.
Lumping the “genocide” that is occurring in “Palestine” in with the
other historical genocides is not only shameful, it is hurtful.
Writing as a Jewish person, I know that one of the major historical
narratives of American Jewry is the Holocaust. We know that it
happened. Germany is forced to teach their youth about what happened.
The United Nations has declared Jan. 27 the International
Holocaust Remembrance Day. To hear the word being used to describe
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict angered me. I went back to the
dictionary and looked up “holocaust.” Meriam-Webster defines it as
“a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially
through fire.” Jews were put into ovens and cremated, literally thrown
into the fire. To my knowledge, nobody, including radical Palestinian
advocates, has claimed that Israel is throwing Palestinians into ovens.
Due to my acceptance and approval of the free speech policies of the
UC Irvine campus, I can’t say that I want the MSU to change the title
of their anti-Zionism week, which is what the week truly is. I can’t
ask the president of the MSU to take down signs that compare Israelis
to Nazis, even though typing those words, in such close proximity, is
painful for me. All that I can do is appeal to the campus community
to realize what is being said and what the truth is. Please, don’t
take this the wrong way. I am not decrying the MSU’s policies
of anti-Semitism, nor am I saying that the anti-Israel argument
shouldn’t be heard on campus. I am merely asking that students at
UCI show other students a modicum of respect when it comes to the
history of the group that they belong to.
To compare the plight of the Palestinians (which is substantial)
with that of Jews in Europe, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, or the
people of Darfur is extremely hurtful to those directly involved in
those conflicts, and to cheapen the loss of life suffered in those
conflicts is nothing more than a sad plea for attention.
Alex Chazen is a second-year political science major. He can be
reached at [email protected].

MISSILE OBSTACLE FROM GREEK CYPRIOT-ARMENIAN LOBBIES
By Anadolu News Agency (aa), Washington
Zaman, Turkey
May 15 2006
The Armenian and Greek Cypriot lobbies in the US Congress have begun a
joint initiative to prevent the US from selling smart missile systems
AGM-84K SLAM-ER Stand-off land attack to Turkey.
Lobby authorities, asserting that “the power balance in Cyprus would
be upset even further and that Turkey may threaten Armenia with these
weapons” should the missile sale go ahead, wrote a joint letter to top
level authorities of the Congress Armed Services and the International
Relations committees asking that the sale decision be reviewed. In
the letter signed by Michael Bilirakis and Carolyn Maloney, important
names in the Greek Cypriot lobby, as well as Armenian lobby leaders
Frank Pallone and George Radonovich, claimed the missile sale “will
worsen the uneasy, insecure and disadvantageous position of the Greek
Cypriot Part.” In the letter, it is also claimed “there is no guarantee
that Turkey that supports Azerbaijan in the problem of Upper Karabagh
will not threaten Armenia,” in the case of the transfer of the newly
developed weapons.
Armenian National Committee of America Executive Director Aram
Hamparian claimed the sale of the smart missile systems to Turkey
is against US’s benefits and American values. The US Department of
Defense informed Congress on April 28 about the sale of 50 AGM-84K
SLAM-ER type smart missiles as well as the relevant support units to
Turkey. SLAM-ER missiles manufactured by Boeing can be effectively
used by F-16s against land targets. Following the Armenian and Greek
Cypriot lobbies’ objections to the sale, it has not yet been clarified
as to how the process will continue.

HARPER’S APPEASEMENT OF ARMENIANS COMES AT A COST
By Scott Taylor / On Target
The Chronicle Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia
May 15 2006
html
AS THIS IS obviously an incredibly sensitive issue, I wish to state
from the outset that I have close contact and a good relationship with
a number of senior Turkish officials. Turkish intelligence officers
successfully negotiated my release from the hands of Iraqi insurgents
in September 2004 and, having visited the Turkish residency in Ottawa
on numerous occasions, I consider Ambassador Aydemir Erman a personal
friend. The fact that Erman has temporarily been recalled to Ankara
in protest over comments made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper has
hit close to home. I believe the recent statement made by Harper
concerning the Armenian tragedy of 1915 was not only damaging to
Turkish-Canadian relations, but unnecessary.
Two years ago, Bloc MP Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral brought forward
a bill condemning the mass deportation of Armenians from eastern
Anatolia during the First World War that resulted in the death of
hundreds of thousands. According to the bill, it was genocide on the
part of the Ottoman Empire.
While some may wonder why Canadian parliamentarians would spend their
time passing judgment on events 90 years ago in the Middle East,
Bill M-380 was passed on April 21, 2004, after a free vote in the
House of Commons.
The Turkish government voiced its opposition and offered up its
own version of events. While not denying that the Armenians died
in droves, the Turks pointed out that in 1915, eastern Anatolia was
being threatened by Czarist Russian troops, the Ottoman Empire was
crumbling and Armenian nationalists chose to rise up in open revolt.
The forced relocation of the potentially hostile Armenian
population into northern Iraq and Syria was undertaken by an Ottoman
administration so cash-strapped and inept that 80,000 Turkish troops
died that year on the Russian front from frostbite and starvation.
The Armenians claim the resultant death of their refugees was genocide,
while the Turks say it was a regrettable tragedy exacerbated by brutal
wartime conditions.
Realizing that Bill M-380 was an impediment to Canadian-Turkish
relations, the cabinet of then-prime minister Jean Chretien voted
against the motion and the bill was considered non-binding.
In the interim, the Turkish government has proposed a joint commission
of historians from Armenia and Turkey to attempt to thoroughly
re-examine the past to determine a “true” account of the 1915
tragedy. Although modern Turkey was founded in 1923 from the ashes
of the Ottoman Empire, the actions of the former ruling Caliphate
leadership still affects the nationalist psyche of the Turks. For
this reason, Turkey has agreed to reopen the archives and share the
documentation with the Armenians. Surprisingly, the Armenians have
yet to agree to participate in the study.
Nevertheless, on April 18, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan forwarded a letter to Stephen Harper urging him to support
the study. Instead, Harper reaffirmed his support of M-380 at a press
conference the next day. Somewhat prophetically, Erdogan had written
warning Harper that “the Armenian lobby has not given up its intention
to create problems in Turkish-Canadian relations.”
Although the prime minister’s official website only briefly displayed
Harper’s statement concerning M-380, Armenian-Canadian websites
continue to post the comments. Turkey responded by temporarily
recalling Erman and withdrawing from a NATO fighter jet exercise
in Alberta.
While these actions may seem harmless and petty, remember that Turkey
is a key NATO ally and a vital partner to the mission in Afghanistan.
More importantly, if Stephen Harper is anxious to mend fences with
the U.S. State Department, he should have consulted their position
on the issue. The U.S. does not insist on using the word “genocide”
and is prepared to wait for the study’s results. As a secular
Muslim democracy that recognizes Israel, Turkey is the cornerstone
to America’s Middle East policies. Maintaining good relations with
Ankara is a high priority for the U.S.
Closer to home, the fanatical elements of the Armenian nationalists
have not always resorted to diplomatic measures to bring attention to
their cause. In 1982, an Armenian assailant gunned down the Turkish
military attache, and in 1985 the Turkish ambassador narrowly escaped
when Armenian gunmen forced their way into the official residence.
Historical records are all too often written by the victors at the
expense of the vanquished. However, in the case of the Ottomans and
Armenians, both sides lost that war and suffered terrible casualties.
Clarification of this tragedy needs to be addressed by historians
examining the facts, not politicians appeasing a lobby group.
Canada’s current relations with a vital ally and trading partner should
have taken precedence over passing judgment on a 90-year-old incident.
From: Baghdasarian

THE CANCER OF ETHIOPIAN MUSIC: THE SYNTHESIZER
Ha’aretz, Israel
May 15 2006
At the Sheraton Hotel bookshop in Addis Ababa – an infuriatingly
luxurious building, which indifferently overlooks an ocean of shanties
and mud houses spread out at its feet – one’s eye is caught by the
book “Abyssinia Swing.” The book, written by French music producer
and scholar Francis Falceto, documents the development of Ethiopian
music from the late 19th century, through the initiative of Emperor
Haile Selassie in the 1920s to bring an orchestra of Armenian orphans
from Jerusalem to Addis Ababa, and up to the golden age of the 1960s,
which produced sophisticated and groovy music such as that of Mulatu
Astatke, featured in Jim Jarmusch’s film “Broken Flowers.”
The books ends in the mid-seventies, and specifically declares its
unwillingness to deal with present-day Ethiopian music. The reason for
that is brought in one clear-cut sentence: “In the year 2000 nothing
remains of the golden age of Ethiopian music, except for recordings
and photos.”
Who is to blame for the creative collapse of Ethiopian music? The
Communist regime and the synthesizer. The Communist government, which
carried out a military coup in the mid-seventies, marked American
soul music, which more than anything else had fueled the musical
blossoming in Addis Ababa, as the music of the enemy, persecuted
the musicians who continued to remain loyal to it, and directed the
entire preoccupation with music to military-patriotic channels. The
synthesizer, which captured the market in the 1990s, turned the
wind instruments, the source of the vitality of modern Ethiopian
music, into superfluous objects, and enabled untrained musicians,
who were often untalented as well, to issue discs at one-tenth the
price demanded previously. Abate Barihon calls the synthesizer “the
cancer of Ethiopian music,” thus expressing the feelings of many. “At
a certain point, a few years before I left Addis, the entire city
suddenly became filled with the cancers,” he says.
A visit to the nightclubs in Addis Ababa makes it clear that the
synthesizer continues to rule unchallenged. It is placed in the center
of every stage and fires its programmed synthetic drums into the
air of the club. All the other instruments are optional: Who needs
a bass or a saxophone or a guitar when the synthesizer can imitate
their sound and avoid the need to pay another player?
A visit to the nightclubs therefore begins with reservations about
the rule of the computerized keys, which flatten the music. But
after a few minutes in the first club, Select Pub, something strange
happens. Suddenly it turns out that a lot of interesting things are
actually happening here. The most obvious is the insane turnover of
singers on the improvised stage, which has nothing separating it from
the small dance floor. Instead of the singer being the fixed item and
the many instruments accompanying him supplying variety and interest,
the synthesizer is the fixed item and the many singers who surround
it provide the variety.
Two boys of about 18 are performing a song that sounds like reggae,
but which is still clearly rooted in Ethiopian scales. When it is
finished, they get off the stage, and immediately a man of about 40,
plump and balding, enters from the door next to the bar, and sings
in a style reminiscent of unctuous R & B songs. The plump man is
then replaced by a flirty female singer in 15-cm heels, singing in a
thin, screechy voice, reminiscent of the singers in Indian films and,
finally, a singer in an elegant beige suit gets onstage. The moment he
begins to sing, the gang at the back of the nightclub, who had looked
totally bored, jumps to its feet and begins to dance enthusiastically.
“It’s a Sudanese song, and this group comes from Sudan. That’s why
they’re so excited,” explains a 31-year-old real estate agent, who
now lives in Washington and is visiting her parents in Addis. Why
does she like the Select Pub? “Because when I come here, the last
thing I want to do is to go to a nightclub where most of the people
are Westerners, as happens in the Sheraton, for example.” The
singers, she says, are not professionals, but not total amateurs,
either. Some of them make a living from singing in the club and hope
to be discovered and to develop a successful career, and others have
ordinary jobs and moonlight in the club. The songs they sing are
“hits that every Ethiopian is familiar with. Songs of Mahmoud Ahmed,
and other great singers.”
When the plump, bald man returns to the stage, the young Sudanese
return to nap in their armchairs, and when he leaves, the lighting
gets stronger and two female dancers get onstage, dressed in gilt
tank tops and short-shorts. It would be an understatement to describe
their dance as very energetic pelvic movements. Afterwards the unending
parade of male and female singers returns.
Two days later, at the Mandigo club, Yitzhak Yedid of the Ras Deshen
ensemble is full of admiration at the level of the singers. “All of
them, without exception, sing very precisely,” he says. “But they
are not only precise, they are also very creative, and each of them
has his own style. I think that I have never seen so many outstanding
singers in one room.” (B.S.)
.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RUSSIA BEGINS MOVING ARMS, EQUIPMENT FROM GEORGIAN BASE OUT OF COUNTRY
Kyiv Post, Ukraine
May 15 2006
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) – A train carrying Russian tanks and other arms
and equipment headed toward Georgia’s border on Monday, marking the
start of the withdrawal of Russia’s military bases from the former
Soviet republic under an agreement reached last year.
The train, loaded with equipment removed from the Russian base in the
southern town of Akhalkalaki, which is to be shut by the end of 2007,
was to take its cargo first to Azerbaijan, east of Georgia, and then
north to Russia.
It carried seven T-72 tanks, four armored personnel carriers, eight
combat reconnaissance vehicles, four communications vehicles and
340 cases of artillery shells, said Col. Vladimir Kuparadze, deputy
commander of Russian forces in the Transcaucasus.
Kuparadze said all heavy weapons and vehicles from the Akhalkalaki base
are to be pulled out of Georgia by Oct. 15, including on three more
trains this month and a total of 19 this year. Personnel, firearms
and base property are to be withdrawn and the base closed by the end
of next year, he said.
The other Russian base left over from the Soviet era, in the Black Sea
port of Batumi, is to be withdrawn by the end 2008 under the deal,
which represented a victory for Georgia’s pro-Western President
Mikhail Saakashvili in his effort to reduce Russian influence. The
bases were established in the Soviet era.
Some weaponry and equipment from Akhalkalaki is to be moved to
Russia’s military base in neighboring Armenia – an arrangement that
displeases Armenia’s enemy Azerbaijan. Armenian forces have held
parts of Azerbaijan since a war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh
enclave that ended with a shaky cease-fire in 1994.

EQUIPMENT TO RECOVER BLACK SEA AIRBUS RECORDERS ARRIVES AT PORT
RIA Novosti, Russia
May 15 2006
SOCHI, May 15 (RIA Novosti) – Equipment to recover what are believed
to be the flight recorders from an Armenian airliner that crashed
in the Black Sea has been delivered to the scene, a Russian official
said Monday.
The black boxes are seen as the key to discovering why the Airbus
crashed May 3 six kilometers (3.7 miles) off the Russian coast with
the loss of all 113 people on board.
“The equipment has been loaded on a vessel,” the official from the
Emergency Situations Ministry said. “Today, it will be fixed, tuned
and tested.”
On Saturday, recovery teams said a deep-sea search vehicle had recorded
images of objects believed to be the flight recorders and other parts
of the airliner.
The objects were located using the same coordinates as the radio
signals presumed to be coming from the flight recorders.
Transportation Minister Igor Levitin, who is overseeing the recovery
effort, said Saturday the recovery of the objects would start May 16,
adding that the effort could take two or three days, depending on
the weather.
He said the objects were at a depth of 496 meters (1,627 feet) and
at a distance of five meters (16 feet) from each other.
The Airbus A-320 operated by Armenia’s Armavia was flying from the
Armenian capital, Yerevan, to Adler airport, which services the
popular Russian resort of Sochi, when it came down in stormy weather.

KOSOVO, MONTENEGRO, AND THEN WHAT NEXT?
Polina Slavcheva
Sofia Echo, Bulgaria
May 15 2006
EXTENDED HANDS: Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov, right, meets
Macedonian and Serbian-Montenegrin colleagues Branko Crvenovski,
centre, and Boris Tadic, left, on December 15 2005 in Ohrid, where
Mecadonia signed its Ohrid Agreement, setting relations with its
ethnic Albanian minority. Bulgaria has repeatedly stated its bid to
be a factor of stability in the region.It may be hard to notice, but
it is there: the anxiety that the future of Kosovo and Montenegro,
two slabs of land on their way to a possible chip-off from Serbia,
might affect other countries and open a Pandora’s box of separatism,
as Ukrainian prime minister Boris Tarasyuk put it.
Hungarians in Vojvodina, Moldova’s Transdniestria, Caucasus republics,
European Muslims, Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and, why not,
Bulgaria’s Turks in the Rhodope Mountains are all examples of potential
provocateurs. Even if most of those are in the sphere of speculation,
however, when the ghost of separatism in Southern Europe and the
Caucasus is awake, it seems that anxiety and caution is “the game of
the rule”, to quote Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco, or helpful
to those temporary glitches in logic so terribly reminiscent of the
Balkans and the wider Eastern European region, not just of Ionesco’s
dramas about discordant families.
When the Contact Group for Kosovo issued hints in January that Kosovo
may become independent by the end of the year, too few were those
convinced that a Kosovo status solved like this would be timely or
enhance regional stability. That uncertainty was recently expressed
by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at a conference on NATO
expansion held in Sofia, the above-mentioned Tarasyuk, and Serbian
foreign minister Vuk Draskovic. Draskovic said on May 3 in an interview
with Greek news agency ANA-MPA that a change of the existing borders of
his country would be an omen of “a new Balkan catastrophe”, and Lavrov
told Bulgarian newspaper Standart that “Kosovo’s independence is a
dangerous road that could not only lead to many dangerous consequences
in the region, but set a precedent to other conflict situations”.
A quick peek at Caucasus reveals what he means. Òhe predominantly
Muslim Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, Russia’s separatist
republics, might ask for independence, and so might the
breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and the
Armenian-occupied Azerbaijan region Nagorno-Karabakh, UK-based analyst
Oksana Antonenko told the EU Observer in February. All of that makes
Russia quite sour about the prospects for independence, with China
the only other country supporting Serbia’s territorial claim to Kosovo.
Moldova’s Transdniestria and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska
have also said that they would call for independence if Kosovo gets it.
What the European Union should worry about is Nagorno-Karabakh because
a conflict there would spell trouble for the EU’s Caspian Sea gas
link and ambitions to move away from Russian gas dependency, the EU
Observer said. The EU has promised peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh
but refuses to recognise it, just as it wouldn’t recognise Abkhazia or
South Ossetia. Since it would, seemingly, recognise Kosovo, discussion
on that obvious discrepancy appears to be what the EU should have on
its to do list.
At the moment, however, a international community priority is avoiding
disunity on the issue of Kosovo before the next stage of negotiations,
as UN special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari said in Sofia on May 8.
So, as to whether independence is a timely and inevitable move or
a United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
move out of its inability to solve the province’s problems, as
the International Crisis Group said last year, is of secondary
importance. And that makes debate on how status talks would promote
a multi-ethnic society, enhance regional stability and Serbia’s
Euro-Atlantic perspectives a bit vague.
While the EU prospect helped in the case of Romania’s Hungarian
minority in Vovodina (in 1995, Hungary renounced all territorial
claims to Vojvodina and Romania reiterated its respect for the rights
of its Hungarian minority), it would take a while to help Serbia,
especially since accession negotiations were stopped on May 3.
What’s a more serious problem, however, is that the international
community itself fails to discuss its own principles on the issue of
sovereignty. Even to some European observers, diplomats and experts,
certain dilemmas of the western Balkans look unsolvable without
a change of borders, as a Bulgarian European Community Studies
Association report said in 2004.
Still, the discourse on Kosovo seems to stop at saying that there
shouldn’t be a change of borders, period. A decision on what to
do about borders should be reached through a consensus both within
the EU and the region itself, the report says. The latter, however,
would be quite difficult.
>>From the inside, it looks like Kosovo would be a time bomb if
it remains a UN protectorate for long. From the outside, though,
an independent Kosovo looks a bit scary.
Macedonia, for one, might be a bit ruffled about its dubious border
with the province, although a visit by Kosovar prime minister Agim Ceku
to Macedonia seemed to settle the issue with a friendly handshake:
Ceku and Macedonian foreign minister Vlado Buckovski agreed that the
problem should be treated as a technical, rather than a political,
one and that its settlement should only be a matter of time and US
cartographic co-operation. Previously, Ceku had said he would push
for a renegotiation of the 2001-set and UN-approved border (then
quite porous and a route for smugglers and rebels).
As to the wider Muslim community in the Balkans, and the potential
for further country splits, the problems that seem to arise come from
the lack of deep knowledge about the Muslim community as a whole.
During a debate on the the Muslim community in Bulgaria and the global
challenges it faces, Bulgarian journalist Georgi Koritarov said that
his impressions from a study on media coverage of Muslim topics in
Bulgaria was that media coverage showed a negative approach and lack
of deep understanding of Bulgarian Muslims’ problems.
However, he also expressed concern about the conflict potential of
Muslim societies, which he said had still not been exhausted because
of the unsolved Kosovo status.
“I am not sure that things are moving toward a stable formula,”
he said. Bulgaria was, so far, successful in painting itself as an
island of stability to a backdrop of war, he said. It also did well
in promoting its Bulgarian ethnic model. What it will do from then on,
however, is another issue.
The Muslim community in Bulgaria, Koritarov said, has the potential to
become the representative of Balkan Muslims in the EU as an integral
party of a future multicultural Europe. However, at the moment
Bulgaria lacks the civil and intellectual resources to capitalise on
this potential. Moreover, whoever pronounces such an idea in Bulgaria
automatically gets shoved to the sphere of so-called corruption rings
of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, he said.
If Bulgaria can use its Muslim minority as part of a successful EU
diplomacy, choices and decisions for Serbia are much harder: it is
either Kosovo, or the EU, as former US ambassador to the UN Richard
Holbrooke told Serbian television. At least at the moment, however,
gazes seem turned toward Montenegro and its May 21 Montenegrin
referendum on independence. If Montenegro and then Kosovo become
independent, that would be the end of Balkan and Eastern European
disintegration, or would it?
–Boundary_(ID_K+1EU2GU+w4NdqkndowOhA)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress