REPUBLIC DOMAIN
by julian dibbell

Village Voice (New York, NY)
February 15, 2005, Tuesday

In olden times, when music was “sold” on shiny discs called “CDs”
and people took photographs with cameras instead of telephones,
there was this thing called an ency-clopedia, which cost as much
as a round-trip to Hong Kong, took up more shelf space than a home
entertainment center, and contained basic information on every topic
worth knowing about. Four years ago, a couple of dotcom dreamers
were inspired to reinvent the encyclopedia in the freewheeling,
massively collaborative image of the Internet itself. The result was
wikipedia.org, today the biggest encyclopedia ever compiled, with over
1 million copyright-free online articles and growing–every word of
it composed and edited by, literally, anybody who feels like it.

No, really. Go to any Wikipedia entry you choose–“Jack Fingleton”
(cricket batsman, pictured below), “Drunk Driving,” “Pataphysics”–and
click on the Edit This Page tab. Bingo: Whatever you write immediately
becomes the last word on the subject. And if this sounds like a
recipe for mob rule, that’s because it is. But mob rule turns out to
be a surprisingly good way to write an encyclopedia. Typos abound,
and especially in articles on controversial topics like the Armenian
genocide or George W. Bush, the constant wars between opposing camps
of revisers can reduce texts to a state of almost Heisenbergian
indeterminacy. But outright factual errors generally get corrected
fast (within minutes, on average), and in the range and depth of
its articles, Wikipedia handily holds its own against encyclopedias
produced the old-fashioned way. Funny: It’s almost as if the great
intellectual unwashed could be trusted to manage its own culture.

‘Economic Viability of Our City Warrants More Vigilance’
By PRANAY GUPTE, Special to the Sun

The New York Sun
February 14, 2005 Monday

Taking lunch with Robert M. Morgenthau, the most powerful prosecutor in
America, the reporter is immediately conscious of the fact that he’s
a living legend – and has been so since he became Manhattan district
attorney 30 years ago. Other famous people in this Midtown restaurant
discreetly stare. Some come up to shake his hand. Others wave at him,
and he waves back. Still others avert their eyes.

But when a reporter asks what it feels like to be a living legend –
he’s the second-longest serving district attorney in American history
(one of his predecessors, Frank Hogan, was Manhattan DA for 32 years);
he’s had cumulatively the longest prosecutorial tenure in any country;
he’s been the scourge of international money-launderers, murderers,
and Wall Street fraudsters – Mr. Morgenthau doesn’t seem particularly
inclined to respond to the question.

It was a natural question to ask. It’s not just his record as district
attorney that’s the stuff of legends. Mr. Morgenthau was a celebrated
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District for several years before he
became district attorney, having prosecuted the socialite lawyer Roy
Cohn and also having created the country’s first securities fraud
bureau. If New York corporations are more vigilant today with regard
to their books, and if their CEOs are less inclined to raid their
treasuries, and if shareholder interests are better served, it’s
substantially because of the tough standards of vigilance and scrutiny
that Mr. Morgenthau has brought to the financial community – and to
the severe penalties he’s sought for white-collar criminals. Just last
week, for example, Arab Bank closed down its Madison Avenue branch
after the district attorney’s office found a damning trail of money
from its premises to terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

So the reporter asked again: “Well, do you ever think of yourself as
a living legend?”

“Living legend?” Mr. Morgenthau said in his dulcet voice, chuckling
ever so slightly as he carefully worked his way through a salad and
scallops at lunch, as though he was somewhat amused by the question.
“Those aren’t my words. I would never use those words.”

Of course he wouldn’t. He’s a remarkably modest man, almost painfully
reluctant to talk about his accomplishments. His work has been
validated not only by a lengthy string of convictions obtained over
five decades in public office, it has been honored by awards and
memorabilia that fill his office, spill over into his Upper East Side
home, and occupy yards of shelves and walls in the homes of some of
his seven children.

The reporter persisted. “But a lot of people look up to you as a role
model,” he ventured, also noting that many movies, and the long running
“Law and Order” franchise on television, have featured characters
clearly based on Mr. Morgenthau.

“Role model?” Mr. Morgenthau said. “Well, I leave that to others to
decide, too.”

That verdict, in fact, has long been in. He has inspired and
encouraged at least two generations of lawyers and prosecutors,
including New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who was part
of Mr. Morgenthau’s rackets bureau. Former mayor Rudolf Giuliani, who
was U.S. attorney for the Southern District, is another figure who
acknowledges the Morgenthau influence on his prosecutorial pathway.
Four other U.S. Attorneys also served under Mr. Morgenthau, as
did eight federal judges in the Southern District and 30 current
criminal-court judges. The late John F. Kennedy Jr. worked for him.
If a man’s lifework is to be assessed by how he shaped the careers and
professional sensibilities of those who served under him, then it’s
certainly no hyperbole to say that Mr. Morgenthau is a living legend.

His downtown office, at One Hogan Place, is legendary, too. With
502 lawyers, it is the one of the busiest district attorney offices
in America, handling more than 110,000 cases each year. When Mr.
Morgenthau first became district attorney – after defeating Richard
Kuh, who’d been appointed by then Governor Malcolm Wilson when Frank
Hogan died in 1974 – Manhattan was No. 1 in murders in New York’s
five boroughs. Each year, nearly 700 murders occurred in Manhattan,
or almost 40% of the city’s total. Last year, that figure was down
to 91, representing just 16% of the city’s murders annually.

Mr. Morgenthau is quick to share that success with the city’s Police
Department and to the men and women he calls “indefatigable enforcers
of the law.” He’s always liked cops, even though his office has put
some 100 corrupt ones behind bars. Cops have liked him, too, not the
least because of his intense involvement with the Police Athletic
League, which organizes educational and sports programs for more
than 70,000 minority-group youths and other boys and girls – ages
5 to 18 – from the less privileged of New York’s neighborhoods. He
became president of the PAL in 1962 and held that office until 10
years ago, when he was elevated to chairman. Rare is the PAL event
or NYPD ceremony where Mr. Morgenthau isn’t present.

Rare is the occasion, too, when he doesn’t attend the games of the
baseball league that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has put
together. Mr. Morgenthau, a spry, wiry man who could be easily taken
for a man decades younger, is especially attentive to the importance
of physical fitness: when he talks to young people about looking after
themselves, he’s alluding to his own daily regimen of an hour on the
treadmill, of lifting weights, and watching his diet.

On a different plane, rare, too, is the occasion when Mr. Morgenthau
doesn’t speak out forcefully about two social issues – among others
– that he deeply cares about: the hiring of women and minorities,
and tackling domestic violence.

‘When I became district attorney, the office had 10 minority assistant
district attorneys, and 19 women ADAs,” he said. “Now we have 110
minority-group ADAs, and 244 women ADAs.”

Indeed, half of the lawyers who work with Mr. Morgenthau are women – by
far the best percentile representation of women in any law-enforcement
agency in America. Nearly 50 lawyers attend exclusively to domestic
violence and spousal-abuse cases. Mr. Morgenthau may be a man of
extraordinary social tolerance, but he will not condone domestic
violence. “Women, and all those who find themselves vulnerable in
domestic situations, must feel that they are protected at all times,”
he said.

But how much of his hiring and the emphasis on issues such as domestic
violence and women’s rights is a result of social activism on his part,
the reporter wanted to know, how much of it flowed from a desire to
be politically correct?

“Our hiring is done by a committee of 30,” Mr. Morgenthau replied.
“We hire strictly on merit. We don’t vet people for their social
beliefs. We hire people to uphold the laws that are on the books.”

That means, above all, that he wants people to be committed to public
service. It means that he wants them to work long hours. It means
that he wants people who display humility, not arrogance. “I want my
staff members to never abuse the power and authority that come from
being a prosecutor,” Mr. Morgenthau said. “I give all ADAs heavy
responsibility early on.”

“Unlike in a law firm, where you have to slog for years before you
become a partner, in my office everyone’s a partner from the day he
or she is hired,” Mr. Morgenthau said. His own rise after World War
II from an associate to partner at Patterson, Belknap & Webb took
only six years.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a seniority system in the
Manhattan district attorney’s office. Nor does it mean that different
units within the office aren’t competitive with one another. Indeed,
some staff members have even been known to shout at each other over
the question of grabbing big cases. (Top prosecutors in his office
get about $90,000 a year, far less than starting associates fresh
out of law school, who many big law firms hire at $150,000 annually;
starting lawyers in the DA’s office get $48,000 a year.)

But Mr. Morgenthau’s emollient personality – and his status – doesn’t
invite anyone to shout at him. And unlike several top prosecutors
around America, he’s not one to grab major cases from his subordinates.

“I’m not one for grandstanding,” he told The New York Sun. “I don’t do
showboating. I pick good people, I give them lots of responsibility,
and I don’t take away the big cases from them.”

“I believe in mentoring,” Mr. Morgenthau added. “I believe in sharing
my experience with young people.”

That belief surely stems from the fact that he himself benefited from
wisdom and guidance of mentors early in his professional life. One
major mentor was Robert Porter Patterson, a legendary figure in legal
and government circles. “He was an absolute straight arrow,” Mr.
Morgenthau said of him. “But if he liked you, you couldn’t do
anything wrong. Because of his own tenure in government, he left
an extraordinary impression on me about the importance of public
service. It’s an impression that I always relay to the young people who
I hire. It’s important for older lawyers to take interest in developing
the careers of younger lawyers. I’ve always tried to do that.”

Mr. Morgenthau’s professional relationship with Mr. Patterson –
who also served as U.S. secretary of war, as a judge on the Second
Circuit Court of Appeals, and as the president of the Council on
Foreign Relations, and of Freedom House – was such that the older
lawyer would take Mr. Morgenthau on virtually every business trip
around the country. On January 22, 1952, Mr. Patterson went on a trip
to Buffalo, but Mr. Morgenthau begged off because he was preparing
a brief for a Supreme Court case. That evening, the plane that Mr.
Patterson had

boarded to take him back to New York, crashed in a driving snow storm
in Elizabeth, N.J. Mr. Morgenthau almost surely would have been among
the fatalities.

It wasn’t the first time that he escaped an encounter with death.
During World War II,when he was the 23-year-old executive officer
of the USS Lansdale, a Nazi torpedo sank his ship. He drifted in the
Mediterranean on a lifebelt for four hours off the shores of Algeria
before he was rescued. “I didn’t have much of a bargaining chip, but
I made a deal with the Almighty in those hours – the deal was that
if I survived my ordeal, I’d give something back to society,” Mr.
Morgenthau said. “Everything that I’ve done in life since has been
a payback.”

Some months later, he got an opportunity to renew that deal. Serving
aboard the USS Harry F. Bauer just north of Okinawa in the Pacific,
the American fleet was attacked by 1,900 Japanese kamikaze planes.
Some 700 of those planes met their targets; Mr. Morgenthau’s ship,
which was the target of seven separate attacks, was hit by a torpedo
and a 500-pound bomb, neither of which detonated. He recalled that the
day of one of the Japanese attacks, May 11, 1945, was the birthday of
his father, Henry Morgenthau Jr., President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s
secretary of war.

“I didn’t want to get killed on my father’s birthday,” he said. He
wound up shooting down 17 Japanese planes. For his bravery in action,
he and his fellow sailors were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.

“Of all the awards that I’ve received in life, I’m proudest of this
one,” Mr. Morgenthau said, quietly. “I really am. Those aboard my
ship were incredibly brave. You learn very quickly what teamwork
is all about, how important it is in life to support the people you
work with.”

That support manifests itself in the manner in which Mr. Morgenthau
ensures that his staff is insulated from the political pressures that
inevitably come from the Establishment.

“I never tell my assistants about the political calls I get,” Mr.
Morgenthau said. “They must always feel free to do what is right
in the cases that they handle. I believe in approaching every case
without fear or favor, and my staff members share that thinking.”

When those political calls come – usually to ask for deferring or
delaying an investigation – Mr. Morgenthau’s typical response, as he
put it, is: “I ask my assistants to expedite the case. By now people
know better than to try and muscle me.”

His response to unseemly political pressures from important members
of New York’s Establishment has, in fact, resulted in a long parade of
prominent indictments and convictions, including those of state Senator
Guy Velella. A powerful Bronx Republican, Mr. Velella pleaded guilty
to a felony – which involved influencing state agencies – lost his
law license, and was sent to prison. He also resigned from the New
York State Legislature. Mr. Morgenthau has been equally unyielding
about prosecuting errant Democrats, including the majority whip
of the state Assembly, Gloria Davis of the Bronx, and the former
chairman of the Bronx Democratic county committee, Richard Gidron,
who was indicted for evading more than $2 million in sales taxes
(and who wound up paying the money).

But being an elected official – Mr. Morgenthau is up for re-election
in November – who must depend on political fund-raising, isn’t it
hard to resist political pressures?

“It gets easier each year,” the district attorney said. “You have
fewer pressures put on you to grant favors. People know I don’t
grant favors.”

Have there ever been physical threats against him? Has anyone every
tried to bribe him?

“Never,” Mr. Morgenthau said. “Not once. And I don’t worry about these
things either. I don’t get paid to worry.”(His salary is $150,000
a year.)

Some have suggested that Mr. Morgenthau’s indifference to political
pressures as well as physical threats that a high-octane prosecutor
might attract flows from his remarkable family history. His
father, Henry Morgenthau Jr., not only served in FDR’s Cabinet with
distinction, he was also the president’s confidant. His grandfather,
Henry Morgenthau, was President Woodrow Wilson’s ambassador to Turkey,
the creator of Israel bonds and a founder of the United Jewish
Appeal. As chairman of the Greek Resettlement Commision, which had
been set up by the League of Nations, Ambassador Morgenthau helped
stop the genocide of the Armenian people. Streets in Greece – in
Salonika, Piraeus and other places – have been named after Ambassador
Morgenthau, who remains a much revered figure in the worldwide Armenian
and Greek communities.

“I was extremely close to both my father and grandfather,” Mr.
Morgenthau said. “They were certainly role models. But I also realized
early in life that I didn’t want to ride on my father’s back all my
life. I had the need to establish my own independent identity.”

That need propelled him through Amherst College and Yale Law School.
It drove him through the ranks of Patterson, Belknap & Webb. It fetched
him an appointment by President John F. Kennedy as U.S. attorney for
the Southern District. It has driven him to participate in humanitarian
activities ranging from the chairman of the Museum of Jewish Heritage –
A Living Memorial to the Holocaust to being a trustee of Smith College.

The influence of his father and grandfather, above all, has meant
a continuing emphasis by Mr. Morgenthau on probity in public and
corporate life.

“New York City has a special obligation to be an exemplar,” the
district attorney said. “We are the financial capital of the world.
We want our citizens – and the world’s citizens who come here – to feel
safe, to feel that they don’t get caught up in corrupt transactions.”

But doesn’t his emphasis on prosecuting crimes in the financial and
corporate communities dampen enthusiasm for doing business in New York?

“It’s important to pursue these cases because corporate – and political
– behavior has an impact on the cost of living in the city, and on the
cost of doing business,” Mr. Morgenthau said. “As financial pressures
mount for companies and CEOs to perform, too many tend to look the
other way when improper things are going on.

“My concern is for the economic viability of the city. Some 79% of New
York’s payroll jobs are in Manhattan. If companies and individuals
don’t pay sales and other taxes, then somebody else – usually the
common citizen – winds up making up for the slack. My office has
brought in $125 million in uncollected sales tax revenues for New
York. I also like to think that my office has made a positive impact
on generating better corporate governance.”

His office has also had setbacks in some high profile cases. The
much-publicized moves against Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz
ended in mistrial, when one juror held out on a guilt verdict. Tyco
counsel Mark Belnick was recently acquitted on all counts.

He’s surely upset by such setbacks, the reporter asked?

“I never look back,” Mr. Morgenthau said. “I’m an incorrigible
optimist. You’re always going to win some and lose some. – there’s
always that risk. Even Ted Williams had a batting average of .406.
That meant 60% of the time he wouldn’t even get to first base. I
always do the best that I can, I always want to be satisfied that
my office has put in its best efforts. Then let the chips fall where
they may. Judges can make mistakes, too. But I’m a firm believer in
the jury system. I believe that there’s no place like America.”

That is why he’s especially concerned about the country’s – and city’s
– security. As he seeks another four-year term, Mr. Morgenthau says
he will stress anti-terrorism measures even more, developing stronger
ties with the Police Department, and accelerating cooperation with
federal and state authorities.

“We will devote more resources to interrupting the money going to
Middle East terrorist organizations,” he said, recalling earlier
successful campaigns against Arab Bank, Hudson United Bank – which
paid $5 million in fines – and others.

Then there will be greater emphasis on the use of DNA to solve crimes
and also in cases where such evidence can exonerate those wrongfully
convicted. “I believe in total fairness,” Mr. Morgenthau said. “That
also happens to be the basis of American jurisprudence.”

There will be closer scrutiny of alleged wrongdoing in the financial
community, and there will be careful examination of how persons in
positions of public trust conduct their affairs.

“It’s always got to be a level playing field,” Mr. Morgenthau said.
“Everybody’s got to play fair, everybody’s got to pay their taxes
– and everyone from the bodega to the hallowed corridors of money
need to be treated the same in the eyes of the law. I want people
to have confidence in their government, and in their law-enforcement
apparatus.”

As much as anything Mr. Morgenthau said, this last bit seemed to
capture his ethos. But there remained an important question to
ask him: He’s being challenged this year by Leslie Crocker Snyder,
a 62-year-old former judge, prosecutor, and television commentator.
Implicit in her challenge is the question of the district attorney’s
age – whether he is physically fit for the rigors of the job.

But the reporter got his answer without even having to ask the
question.

It happened this way: Mr. Morgenthau offered to drop him at his
office, which isn’t very far from the district attorney’s downtown
headquarters. On the way to Mr. Morgenthau’s car, which was parked
near the restaurant, the prosecutor walked so briskly that it was the
reporter – admittedly portly but considerably younger than his guest –
and not Robert Morgenthau, who was left short of breath.

AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT GOING TO DISCUSS KARABAKH SETTLEMENT WITH VLADIMIR PUTIN

PanArmenian News
Feb 14 2005

14.02.2005 15:27

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In the interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta Russian
newspaper Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated of his intention to
discuss the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement with Vladimir Putin
during his visit to Moscow. In his words, similar discussions were
held in the course of the previous meetings and this summit will not
be an exception. “Moreover, during the Armenia-Azerbaijan meeting held
within the frames of the CIS summit last year Russian President joined
out talks thus proving Russia’s interest in the conflict settlement”,
he said.

Patience running out over Nagorno-Karabakh dispute: Azeri president

Agence France Presse — English
February 14, 2005 Monday

MOSCOW Feb 14 — The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, criticized
Monday mediators seeking to resolve a dispute between his country
and Armenia over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, and threatened to
use force.

“We are unhappy with the work of the Minsk group which has failed to
produce any results,” Aliyev said in an interview with the Russian
daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

The Minsk Group, comprised of France, Russia and the United States
and operating under a mandate from the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been mediating peace talks between
the two countries for the past decade.

An ethnic Armenian enclave that had a 25 percent Azeri population
before the war, Nagorno-Karabakh was the object of a war between
Armenia and Azerbaijan until 1994 when the active phase of the conflict
ended with Armenia in control of the territory inside Azerbaijan.

Aliyev threatened again on Monday that Azerbaijan would resort to
force to get the territory back.

“The patience of the Azeri people has its limits. We can’t continue to
negotiate for another 10 years. We will strengthen our army,” he said.

He also said he believed other international organisations could help
resolve the conflict.

“That’s why we’ve raised this question in the United Nations and the
Council of Europe despite protests from the Armenians,” he said.

The conflict has cost an estimated 35,000 lives and forced about one
million people on both sides to flee their homes.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
February 14, 2005, Monday

UKRAINE WARNS RUSSIA

SOURCE: Kommersant, February 11, 2005, p. 10

by Ivan Safronov

KYIV DEMANDS THAT MOSCOW RAISE RUSSIA’S PAY FOR INFORMATION OBTAINED
BY RADAR STATIONS IN MUKACHEVO AND SEVASTOPOL

The meeting of the CIS Coordinating Committee for Air Defense took
place in Moscow on February 9; participants of the meeting discussed
the problems of co-operation in the cause of defending their air
borders. It turned out that the allies sometimes fail to reach an
accord. According to Colonel General Anatoly Toropchin,
commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Air Force, Kyiv demanded that
Moscow raise the pay for information of early missile warning radar
stations in Mukachevo and Sevastopol provided for the Russian early
missile warning system.

The state and prospects of developing the Unified Air Defense System
of the CIS set up by 10 CIS states a decade ago were discussed at the
meeting. Only Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and
Tajikistan continue developing this system (some 2 billion rubles
will be used to develop it in 2005, according to Lieutenant General
Aitech Bizhev, deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force).
Ukraine and Uzbekistan are co-operating with Moscow exclusively on a
bilateral basis, while over past seven years Georgia and Turkmenistan
have avoided any co-operation in the aid defense sphere.

However, in 2005, Moscow and Minsk will set up the Unified Regional
Air Defense System, led by a commander appointed by the Supreme
Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, Russian Air Force
Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Mikhailov said. According to Lieutenant
General Oleg Paferov, commander of the Belarusian Air and Air Defense
Forces, this commander will be in charge of all troops and military
equipment affiliated with this system.

Colonel General Anatoly Toropchin’s statement with regard to the
early missile warning system was a discord against this backdrop.
Toropchin told us after the meeting ended on February 9, that Kyiv
demanded that a raise in the pay for information of the early missile
warning radar stations in Mukachevo and Sevastopol provided for the
Russian early missile warning system.

Dnepr radar stations located in Mukachevo have been the property of
Ukraine since 1992 and are maintained by Ukrainian servicemen. As per
Russian-Ukrainian agreement data received by the radar stations,
which monitor the space above Southern Europe and the Mediterranean,
is transferred to the central command post of the early missile
warning system subordinate to the Russian Space Forces. Kyiv is
annually paid $1.2 million for this.

In the opinion of General Toropchin, this amount does not make up for
expenses of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, primarily on upkeep of the
personnel, which is solely working to suit Russia’s interests. In
Toropchin’s words, Moscow must bear all expenses on paying wages,
medical and pension services of the Ukrainian military, who are
working at Dnepr radar stations. “Russia annually pays $5 million for
leasing Daryal radar station in Azerbaijan, while we only get $1.2
million for data obtained from two stations. This is unfair!”
Toropchin complained to us. The general thinks presidents and
governments of both states must eliminate this injustice.

The Russian Defense Ministry withheld any comments on General
Toropchin’s statement.

ARMENIAN, AZERI AND GEORGIAN ENVIRONMENTALISTS MEET IN BRUSSELS

ArmenPress
Feb 14 2005

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 14, ARMENPRESS: Representatives of Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia and the European Union, the founders of the
Caucasian Regional Nature Protection Center, held a two-day meeting
in Brussels in February 8-9 to sum up the results of the Center’s
five year-long work and outline its future plans. The Armenian
delegation was headed by deputy nature protection minister S. Papian.
The ministry said among other issues the participants discussed
also ways for improvement of cooperation.
The Armenian minister suggested that a joint task force be set up
to prepare a package of reforms aimed at improving the Center’s
activity.

ArmenPress
Feb 14 2005

ARMENIAN CHURCH MARKS TRNDEZ FEBRUARY 14

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 14, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian Church marked today
a feast called Trndez. According to religious custom this holiday is
connected with the idea of coming forward to the Lord with fire,
after 40 days of his birth. The Armenian Church celebrates it on
February 14th – 40 days after January 6th, when Armenians mark their
Christmas, from which it derives the religious name: “Tearn end
aradj” or “Trndez”- Coming Forward to the Lord. The main ceremony of
the holiday is a bonfire, symbolizing the coming of spring.
Songs and dances around the fire continue until the fire dies
down. Domestic animals and seeds are brought to the area of the
festivities. Newly married couples are the first to leap over the
fire. This leaves the bad events of the past behind. The couple
lands, purified and cleansed, amid the blessings of the next year.
Recent mothers also jump over the fire to leave behind the
traditional isolation period of forty days and to be freed from any
evil.
The direction the smoke blows is used to forecast the crop for the
year. If it goes South or East, it is a good omen for the wheat crop.
If it blows to the North or West, however, the forecast is not
favorable. The direction of the winds in February is an indication of
the abundance of the autumn crop.

ArmenPress
Feb 14 2005

ARMENIANS IN JAVAKHK AGAINST PULLOUT OF RUSSIAN MILITARY BASE

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 14, ARMENPRESS: Ararat Yesoyan, the chairman of
Reforms and Democracy Center, a non-governmental organization in
Georgia’s Samtskhe-Javakhk province, that has a predominantly
Armenian population, told today in Yerevan that Armenians there will
be looking at Russia for a long time as the sole guarantor of their
physical security.
He said many people in the region still remember that had not
Russians hurried to their help in 1918 the invading Turkey should
have eliminated the Armenian population of the region, as it did in
other areas of the Ottoman empire.
He said the Russian military base in the region, which Georgia
wants to be pulled out as soon as possible, has, apart from security,
also economic importance, as it gives jobs to thousands of local
Armenians. “Two regions, Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda which have
128,000 Armenian population, receive from Georgia’s state budget 6
million laris (about $3 million, though some 70 million laris are
necessary to provide minimum life support. Many ethnic Georgians who
work for the base are also against its withdrawal,” he said.
“If there were a NATO base there, people would get higher wages,
working for it, but there is no need to talk about a third force. As
a Georgian citizen I think we have to develop out country by our own
efforts, but if Georgia joins NATO the Armenians in the region would
not be prepared to look at Turkey’s troops as their security
guarantee. We would agree rather to having French or Canadian troops
there,” he said.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
February 14, 2005, Monday

AN AZERBAIJANI SOLDIER CRITICALLY WOUNDED AT THE LINE DIVIDING THE
AZERBAIJANI AND ARMENIAN ARMED FORCES

Positions of the Azerbaijani army came under enemy fire at the Agdam
direction on the line dividing the Armenian and Azerbaijani armed
forces. Serviceman Samir Bekirov of the Azerbaijani army was
critically wounded. (…) This has been the fifth case of gross
violation of the ceasefire agreement by Armenia since the start of
2005. According to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, soldier Adyl
Akhmedov was killed when positions of the Azerbaijani army in the
village of Shurabad (Agdam district) came under fire on January 26.
Positions of the Azerbaijani troops deployed near the village of Ayag
Garvand (Agdam region) came under intense fire from the same
direction on January 27 and 28, soldier Fuad Shikhiyev was critically
wounded in Armenia’s fire in the same area on January 31.

Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin

Global Politician, NY
Feb 14 2005

Turkish-Russian Relations and Eurasia’s Geopolitics

2/14/2005

By Dr. Bulent Aras

As a result of its geography, Turkey maintains a multi-dimensional
and dynamic foreign policy. Turkish foreign policymakers are
carefully analyzing their foreign policy options in light of the 9/11
attacks and the war in Iraq. Within this set of complex links,
Turkish-Russian relations appear rather perplexing. Historically,
there have been many wars between these two states up until the end
of WWI. Both countries have imperial legacies and have experienced a
post-imperial traumatic loneliness. Great imperial legacies and the
feelings of isolation after the collapse of the previous empires are
important factors that shape the national memory of these countries.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Turkey in December
of last year, Turkey’s prime minister paid a one day official visit
to Russia on January 10, 2005. It is relevant to analyze current
factors that determine the relations between these two states.
Domestic politics in Russia is often the result of competing views of
Westerners, anti-Westerners, Eurasianists, ultra-nationalists and
nostalgic communists. Russian foreign policy is generally determined
along the line of domestic political preferences. There is a symbolic
pendulum in Russian foreign policy that vacillates between Europe and
Asia depending on the political balances currently at play. Russian
foreign policy is today more critical of the West and follows a more
Eurasian-oriented path.

For Moscow, the existence of such national memory and geopolitical
orientation makes it difficult to determine a fixed and
well-functioning foreign policy towards Turkey. Like Russia, Turkey
has Caucasian, Balkan, Middle Eastern and European identities and
different interests at stake in all of these regions. Another
significant factor is that both countries are going through dynamic
domestic and economic transformations. The change in the early four
years of the current decade is surely dramatic at both societal and
state levels.

Issues at Stake

More specifically, the future of Turkish-Russian relations will be a
product of bilateral, regional and international developments.
High-level mutual visits in the recent period underline a number of
important issues between the two states. Although observers seem to
have an optimistic perception of the relations both in Moscow and
Ankara, there are issues of contention between the two states.

The issues of bilateral relations will be trade, investments by
Turkish and Russian businessmen, tourism, natural gas purchases,
Russian oil tankers transiting the straits, future pipeline projects
that may pass through the Trace or Anatolia, the Chechen question,
Russian arms sales, and the actions of Kurdish separatists on Russian
soil. A major recent development is the Russian leader’s statement
that the Turkish society in Northern Cyprus deserves better treatment
from the international community, since the Turkish Cypriots voted in
favor of the U.N. plan designed to put an end to the division of the
island.

Although there is much talk about the convergence of interests
between Turkey and Russia, one should also point out the conflicting
ones. Both countries favor improving their current relations and
adopting a more pragmatic stance on the international arena.
Officials on both sides signed a number of agreements, which will
surely facilitate the establishment of constructive relations.

The volume of bilateral trade reached $10 billion in 2004, and both
sides aim to increase this volume to $25 billion by 2007. Turkey’s
construction sector is active in Moscow and is increasing its market
share in Russia. Russian businessmen closely follow Turkey’s
privatization process and want to take part in energy projects in
Turkey. Another major cooperation area is Russian arms sales to
Turkey. Considering the Iraq crisis and potential instability in Iran
and Syria, Ankara pays serious attention to military modernization
projects and has an interest in Russian arms supplies. Finally,
Russian tourists increasingly prefer Turkey’s Mediterranean coast for
their vacations.

At another level, the mutual agenda is set around Russia’s energy
geopolitics, its near abroad policies, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
(B.T.C.) oil pipeline, ethnic secessionist movements in the Caucasus,
the reduction of Russian military forces in the region in accordance
with international agreements, and the problems emerging after the
Iraq war. Russia dislikes the B.T.C. pipeline, which is expected to
transit Azeri and Kazak oil to the West. Moscow regards this pipeline
as a challenge to its status in the Caspian basin and an obstacle to
its oil trade. Although the major conflict surrounding the B.T.C.
pipeline was between Russia and a number of former Soviet states, it
indirectly influenced Turkish-Russian relations. However, the Blue
Stream project — a natural gas pipeline that runs from Russia to
Turkey via the Black Sea — and several other Turkish-Russian oil
pipeline projects have led to the emergence of a “low profile” policy
concerning oil politics on the part of Russia. Although it is
speculative at the moment, the head of British Petroleum Company in
Azerbaijan recently floated the possibility of carrying Russian oil
through the B.T.C.

According to the official Turkish policy line, the Chechen question
is a Russian internal problem. Turkish officials frequently declare
that Russian security measures should not violate human rights in
Chechnya. However, a large Chechen diaspora in Turkey follows a
different line and tries its best to assist Chechen guerrillas,
creating significant tensions between the Turkish and Russian
governments. In return, Turkish officials have expressed discontent
about the Kurdistan Workers Party’s — a separatist Kurdish armed
movement — activities in Russian territories. For the time being,
both sides extend considerable vigor in order not to sever their
relations on account of trans-boundary ethnic problems.

Toward a New Geopolitics

Russia has a regional profile and is sensitive about losing its
influence in ex-Soviet territories. Since 1991, Turkey has emerged as
a significant regional player, pursuing a special relationship with
the E.U. and paying serious attention to building good relations in
the Caucasus and Central Asia. How closer Turkish-Russian relations
will be interpreted in Brussels and Washington is another important
question.

The U.S. military deployment in different parts of Eurasia, the
pro-Western change in domestic landscapes of Georgia and Ukraine, the
U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are, among others, the developments
that have paved the way for the emergence of a new geopolitics in
Eurasia. The European and U.S. expansion into former Soviet
territories influences Russian policymakers to seek new alliances in
Asia. Russian rapprochement with Iran, China and India are examples
of this new policy. In this sense, the new developments in the
aftermath of the 9/11 attacks are bringing together the policies of
not only Russia and other major Asian powers, but also of some
critical European states such as France and Germany.

After receiving a negotiation date for E.U. membership, Turkey is
emerging as a European actor in the region. However, Turkey’s new
orientation was tested during the subsequent domestic transformations
of Georgia and Ukraine. Turkey adopted a low-profile attitude toward
the Russian policies vis-à-vis Ukraine and Georgia, and sensitively
displayed a constructive outlook by pointing to the relevant
international norms and agreements as the way to resolve the crises.
Ankara tries to avoid taking sides in any “Russia versus the West”
struggles, while developing its own relations with Moscow.

One other important area of contention is Turkish-Armenian relations,
which are held hostage to historical enmities and Turkey’s
pro-Azerbaijan policies in the Caucasus. Currently, Russia is the
main ally of Armenia, and possible Russian mediation between Turkey
and Armenia on a number of issues can be expected. Following recent
positive developments on this front, there may be Russian-Turkish
joint attempts to solve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

Conclusion

By looking at the current developments, it can be concluded that
Turkish-Russian relations will improve in the political, economic and
security realms. However, the relations are not free from a number of
serious problems that could threaten to derail these growing ties;
both countries have converging and conflicting interests in
neighboring regions, and this status makes Turkish-Russian relations
promising yet difficult. Turkey and Russia are two influential actors
in the Eurasian geopolitics and their relations have implications for
the whole Eurasian region. Because of this, internal and external
players in Eurasian geopolitical gambling will keep an eye on this
growing relationship.

Dr. Bulent Aras is an independent political consultant on Eurasian
and Middle Eastern affairs and an Associate Professor of
International Relations at Fatih University in Istanbul. Email:
[email protected]

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