Civil Georgia, Georgia
Nov. 4, 2004

Georgia Matters for NATO

Scheffer: “there is no doubt that Russia has
to fulfill fully its commitment” and pull out
its military bases from Georgia.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who paid one-day visit to
Georgia on November 4 as a part of his South Caucasus trip, made it
clear that `Georgia matters for NATO’ and recommended the Georgian
authorities to `get on work’ on implementing Georgia’s Individual
Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), which has been endorsed by the North
Atlantic Alliance in late October.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer met with President Mikhail Saakashvili, Prime
Minister Zurab Zhvania, Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili, Defense
Minister Giorgi Baramidze, Ambassadors of the NATO member states
accredited in Georgia and representatives from the non-governmental
organizations in country.

At a joint new conference with President Saakashvili, the NATO
Secretary General said that endorsement of Georgia’s IPAP marked `a
very important moment in the relationship between Georgia and NATO.’

`As I have discussed it with the President it will be now a question of
doing homework [by the Georgian authorities]. And where NATO can assist
Georgia in this respect, NATO will assist Georgia… Let’s get on work on
IPAP,’ Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

President Saakashvili said that Georgia has become the first country
whose IPAP has been approved by the NATO. `This was recognition by NATO
those achievements, which Georgia has made in respect of reforms and
development in recent months,’ Mikheil Saakashvili said.

Saakashvili also said that Georgia is `getting close to NATO.’ `But do
not ask when we will become NATO members, for example in one year, two
or three. You won’t get my answer on this question. But it will happen
much sooner than many might suppose. And when it happens I might still
be in this office’ Mikheil Saakashvili said referring to his
presidential term.

The NATO Secretary General has also refrained from speaking about
dates. `I am not going to give the dates, because the dates will
deviate our attention from what we should do now – make IPAP into the
success and NATO will assist and we will help to make it work,’ Jaap de
Hoop Scheffer said.

`I am a realist and I am an optimist. I am realist because I know that
Georgia’s NATO membership will be a difficult, long and winding road.
But I am optimistic as well, because I see an enormous drive of the
Georgian government and the Georgian people to fulfill the ambitions
Georgia has vis-à-vis to Euro-Atlantic integration,’ he added.

The North Atlantic Council, which is the decision-making body of NATO,
approved the Individual Partnership Action Plan of Georgia (IPAP) on
October 29.

`The IPAP deals with implementing defense, political, economic reforms
and it also concern the human rights in the country. It is a two-year
program and by the end of each year there will be an assessment
conference to find out if there are any flaws or indicate on progress,’
Gela Bezhuashvili, the Secretary of the Georgian National Security
Council, told Civil Georgia on November 4.

At a news conference Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also reiterated NATO’s
support for Georgia’s territorial integrity and called for peaceful
solution of Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts.

The Georgian president said that Tbilisi is `ready for a compromise.
But not at the expanse of Georgia’s territorial integrity.’

`No one should expect that it will be possible to change our
fundamental foreign policy course by mounting pressure on us. But I
also want to say that good relations with Russia is also a part of our
fundamental foreign policy course,’ Mikheil Saakashvili added.

The NATO Secretary General has also called on Russia to follow its
commitment undertaken during the OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999 and pull
out remaining military bases from Georgia.

`There is no doubt that Russia has to fulfill fully its commitments
Russia has entered in 1999 in Istanbul [OSCE Summit]. NATO has good
relationship with the Russian Federation and Russia is very well
informed about the NATO’s position I have just stated… let’s say that
fundamental opinion can not be any other that Russia has to fulfill the
Istanbul commitments fully,’ the NATO Secretary General said.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also said that NATO is not competing with any of
the country in the region.

`Let me make it very clear, that I have not come here and the NATO has
not come here to compete with any other country or to compete with any
other organization. I’ve come here because the NATO has an open door
for any nation, including Georgia, who want to share and defense those
same values, which have always been in the core of the NATO,’ Jaap de
Hoop Scheffer said.

`No one should expect that it will be possible to change our
fundamental foreign policy course by mounting pressure on us. But I
also want to say that good relations with Russia is also a part of our
fundamental foreign policy course,’ Mikheil Saakashvili stated.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that his trip to the South Caucasus
countries is a part of implementation of decisions of the NATO Istanbul
Summit, which was held this June. The governments from the NATO states
decided at the summit to make a focus on Caucasus and Central Asia.

To implement this decision Robert Simmons, a special representative for
these two regions, has been appointed. Simmons is also NATO’s Deputy
Assistant Secretary General for Security Cooperation and Partnership.

In addition, two NATO liaison officers, who will be in close
cooperation with the NATO’s special envoy, will be permanently
stationed in each of the two regions. Robert Simmons said in September
that the NATO liaison officer in the Caucasus will be stationed in
Tbilisi and will work closely with the Georgian Defense Ministry.

`I am now in Georgia – focusing on IPAP, focusing on reforms. I’ll go
Armenia and Azerbaijan as well to see where they are in the
relationship with NATO, and whether they want to be in the relationship
with NATO. Do not forget every sovereign country is fully sovereign in
deciding itself where it wants to go vis-à-vis NATO. Some countries are
more ambitious than others. I want to focus on this region, like two
weeks ago I was in Central Asia. Because these regions matter, they are
of strategic importance. So Georgia matters for NATO,’ Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer said.

Agence France Presse
Nov. 4, 2004

NATO chief to meet with Azeri leadership during visit

BAKU (AFP) Nov 04, 2004

NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer arrived in Azerbaijan Thursday where
he is expected to hold talks with top officials including President
Ilham Aliyev as part of a Caucasus tour.
De Hoop Scheffer is on a two-day visit to the Caucasus, a region that
hosts a massive pipeline to carry Caspian Sea oil to the West but is
torn apart by three separatist conflicts.

De Hoop Scheffer is scheduled to meet defense officials in Baku and
address students at the Baku State University Friday morning.

He arrives in Azerbaijan form Georgia and is expected to leave for high
level talks in Armenia Friday afternoon. All three Caucasus countries
are signatories to NATO’s partnership for peace plan.

“One thing (de Hoop Scheffer) will say is that we, as NATO, are
interested in stability in the region,” a spokesman for the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels said when asked what the
military alliance’s chief would discuss here.

Aliyev has pledged to hold to the course set out by his father, Heidar,
whom he succeeded as president last year, and further integrate into
Euro-Atlantic structures.

But he has stopped short of asking for NATO membership as Azerbaijan
navigates the choppy diplomatic waters between the US-backed military
alliance and its cold war foe Russia.

Although oil-rich, Azerbaijan’s underdeveloped energy sector and
stunted economy still rely on its biggest trade partner and the
traditional power broker in the region Russia, were an estimated 2
million Azeris live.

Heidar Aliyev, who died last December, had offered NATO the opportunity
to open military bases on its territory, said Vafa Guluzade, a former
aide to the late Aliyev.

“The offer was met with silence and smiles, so I think NATO is not
ready for us yet. We should wait until they are before making
announcements that would irritate Russia and Iran,” Guluzade said.

Agence France Presse
Nov. 4, 2004

NATO chief meets with Georgian leader during Caucasus tour

TBILISI (AFP) Nov 04, 2004

NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer Thursday met with Georgian President
Mikhail Saakashvili, the youthful leader of the strategic former Soviet
republic in the Caucasus who has vowed to join the alliance within four
years.
De Hoop Scheffer’s visit is part of a Caucasus tour and comes days
after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization decided to extend an
Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) to the country.

“NATO values highly the efforts by Georgia’s people and leadership to
intergrate the the country into the alliance,” de Hoop Scheffer said at
a briefing following the meeting.

“I am a realist and an optimist,” he said. “As a realist, I dont’ want
to talk about (specific) dates. I know that Georgia has a long way to
go to join

“As an optimist, I am certain that all efforts by Georgia’s leadership
will be aimed at doing everything to join the alliance,” he said.

Saakashvili, for his part, said he was certain that “Georgia can join
NATO much sooner than many think.”

“It’s possible this will happen while I am still in office,” said the
36-year-old who was elected Georgia’s president for five years in
January 2004.

Saakashvili, a US-educated lawyer, has repeatedly vowed to turn
westward his small country that lies in what has traditionally been
considered Russia’s sphere of influence, the Caucasus.

The adoption of the IPAP shows that “Georgia has entered the final
stretch of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” Irakly
Aladashvili, a military analyst in Tbilisi, told AFP.

“We have actively conducted reforms according to NATO standards,”
Defense Minister Georgy Baramidze said Wednesday.

Georgia, a nation of less than five million people nestled in the
Caucausus mountains, treads a delicate line with its NATO ambitions —
Moscow has been the traditional power broker in the region and is wary
of pro-Western Saakashvili.

Washington has been vying with Russia for influence over Georgia that
hosts a vital oil pipeline due to take Caspian Sea oil to Western
markets.

NATO spread up to the borders of Russia earlier this year when it
admitted the former Soviet republics in the Baltics and the Kremlin
frowns upon the alliance reaching its southern border as well.

Saakashvili has repeatedly sought to reassure Kremlin concerns,
insisting that Georgia will not play host to foreign bases even in the
event it does join NATO.

“NATO integration does not mean that we will have to host foreign
military bases on Georgian territory,” he said last week.

“We are surprised the sensitive reaction in Russia to Georgia’s aim to
be closer to the European Union and NATO,” Nino Burjanadze, speaker of
parliament, said while on a visit to Moscow last week.

“Our aim is membership in the EU and NATO, but not to the detriment of
Russia,” she said.

The question of military bases has a special resonance with Tbilisi, as
Russia still has two bases on Georgian territory from Soviet times.

Although it has agreed to vacate the installations, Moscow has dragged
its feet, saying the logistics of withdrawal could take up to 10 years.

“The question of Georgian integration into NATO is all the more
important in light of relations between Russia and Georgia,” said
Irakly Aladashvili, an analyst.

“First of all, Georgian adhesion to… NATO means the inevitability
that Russia will have to withdraw its bases,” he explained.

De Hoop Scheffer was due to fly out to Azerbaijan late Thursday, where
he was to hold talks with President Ilham Aliyev, before traveling on
to Armenia on Friday afternoon.

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Nov. 4, 2004

STATEMENT OF THE PRESS CENTER OF FOREIGN MINISTRY OF THE AZERBAIJAN
REPUBLIC
[November 04, 2004, 20:59:24]

The press center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Azerbaijan
Republic has made a statement in connection with the presidential
elections carried out in the USA, AzerTAj reports. The Statement runs:

`As is known, Mr. President George Bush has won at the presidential
elections carried out on November 2 this year in the United States of
America.

Last years, there was open a new stage of relations between the USA and
Azerbaijan. After waiver of the notorious 907 Section, the USA began to
assist Azerbaijan due to which in our country various projects have
been carried out. Currently, with direct participation and political
support of the USA, the oil recovery on the Caspian and construction of
such large oil pipeline, as to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan continues. After
the known events on September 11, 2001, Azerbaijan as the close partner
of the United States of America takes part in combat against terrorism.

The Republic of Azerbaijan hopes that the pursued policy will continue
and after the presidential elections carried out in the USA, that due
to efforts of Administration of the USA, will be strengthened the
successes achieved within the framework of the American-Azerbaijan
relations, and the strategic partnership will rise on a new level.

The Republic of Azerbaijan also wishes to be confident that the USA
will make further active the efforts in the field of elimination of
problems, establishment of peace and safety in region of the South
Caucasus, and first of all, in the cause of peace settlement of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorny Karabakh conflict’.

Atlantic Online
Nov. 4, 2004

At the Gates of Brussels

If Recep Tayyip Erdogan gets his way, Turkey will be more Islamic and
Europe will be more Turkish. Both would be good news

by Robert D. Kaplan

…..

ho says empires are bad? The multi-ethnic Ottoman Turkish Empire, like
the coeval multi-ethnic Hapsburg Austrian one, was more hospitable to
minorities than the uni-ethnic democratic states that immediately
succeeded it. The Ottoman caliphate welcomed Turkish, Kurdish, and
other Muslims with open arms, and tolerated Christian Armenians and
Jews. The secular-minded, modernizing “Young Turk” politicians who
brought down the empire did not. They used Kurds as subcontractors in a
full-scale assault on Armenians, which scholars now argue about calling
genocide. Ottoman toleration was built on territorial indifference.
Because the same loosely administered imperial rule extended from the
Balkans to Mesopotamia, and as far south as Yemen, minorities could
live anywhere within this space without provoking issues of
sovereignty. Violent discussions over what group got to control which
territory emerged only when the empire came to an end, after World War
I.

The collapse of the Ottoman sultanate continues to haunt geopolitics:
it gave birth to questions about the territorial status of Christians
in Lebanon and of Jews in Palestine, and about whether Kurds north of
Baghdad should live in the same polity as Mesopotamian Arabs to the
south. Moreover, it changed the direction of Muslim thought. For 850
years – from 1071, when the Seljuks defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert,
in eastern Anatolia, to the end of World War I – the House of Islam had
drawn its spiritual direction from Turkey, not from Arabia or Iran. But
with the official abolition of the Constantinople-based caliphate, in
1924, there was no longer any universally accepted authority for the
interpretation of Muslim law. In the competition for doctrinal
legitimacy that has followed, the most radical interpretations have won
out.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Nov. 4, 2004

EU to prepare report on S Caucasus countries

The European Union intends to prepare a report on the South Caucasus
countries.
Based on the document to reflect the real situation in each regional
state, the organization will develop an action plan on its cooperation
with the three countries, the EU special envoy on South Caucasus Heikki
Talvitie told a news conference in Baku on Friday.

The report on Azerbaijan will be prepared by the European Commission
special envoy in Baku Antonias De Vris.
Talvitie, who was in Baku as part of his tour of the region, said his
visit to Azerbaijan was ‘very fruitful’.
He said the EU will be closely following the December 2004 municipal
and the 2005 parliamentary elections, and ‘hopes the elections will be
free and transparent’.

Speaking about his meeting with leaders of seven opposition parties,
the special envoy underlined that he believes that the opposition will
take part in the municipal election.
“By taking part in the elections the opposition will get a chance to
influence future policy-making.”
Touching upon the ruling on the seven opposition leaders recently
convicted in court, he said that it was necessary to ensure
independence of courts in all South Caucasus states.
“Some obstacles for this exist in Azerbaijan”, Talvitie said.
With regard to the European Union’s position on the Upper Garabagh
conflict, Talvitie said the EU is not involved in peace talks but
supports the OSCE Minsk Group in charge of the conflict resolution
process.
“If the sides reach an agreement, the EU will support it and assist in
the rehabilitation process,” he concluded.
Asked why the EU persistently refuses to recognize Armenia as
aggressor, Talvitie said that EU believes that making harsh statements
concerning one of the parties to the conflict does not promote
successful course of the talks and can even impede the settlement
process.
The EU special envoy also spoke of the problem of Azerbaijani refugees.
He said that refugees’ rights to repatriation must be protected.
“The peace agreement to be concluded between Azerbaijan and Armenia
must envision refugees’ rights to repatriation,” he underlined.
Refugees must be able to return home but this should not be mandatory,
Talvitie said.
“I was born in Vyborg. Prior to World War II, this town was a part of
Finland, and is currently a part of Russia. When the war started, I was
just a baby and was evacuated from there. Therefore, I am a refugee
too.”
While in Baku, the EU special envoy met with President Aliyev, Foreign
Minister Mammadyarov, Central Election Commission Chairman Panahov, as
well as leaders of major opposition parties and ambassadors of EU
member-states accredited in Baku.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Nov. 4, 2004

CE Political Committee to hear report by new rapporteur

A meeting of the Council of Europe’s (CE) Political Committee will be
held in Paris on November 17, MP Asim Mollazada, member of the
Azerbaijani delegation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe, told AssA-Irada on Wednesday.
The meeting participants will hear a report on the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict over Upper Garabagh from the Committee’s new rapporteur David
Atkinson.*

ArmenPress
Nov. 4, 2004

OSCE DID NOT SEND A LETTER TO KOCHARIAN, PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESMAN SAYS

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS: A spokesman for Armenian president
denied today allegations by a local daily Haykakan Zhamanak, which
claimed in its November 3 issue that the Vienna-based Secretariat of
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sent
separate letters to the presidents of Armenia and several other CIS
countries, who signed under a statement last June that was criticizing
the OSCE for double standards which it uses when assessing democratic
processes in the former Soviet and Western countries.
The Armenian daily alleged that the OSCE letter told president
Kocharian that it was appalled by defense minister Serzh Sarkisian’s
last year’s remarks in the wake of presidential election that Armenians
and Europeans have different mentality and different ideas of
democracy.
“I would like to disillusion the daily’s correspondent, as no such
letter was ever sent to president Kocharian,” the spokesman, Ashot
Kocharian, told Armenpress today. “Unfortunately, this was just another
misinformation, spread by this newspaper,” he said.

ArmenPress
Nov. 4, 2004

US NOT TO REVISE ITS POLICY ON ARMENIA

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS: Kiro Manoyan, the head of the
Armenian Cause office, closely affiliated with the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation, downplayed today concerns that the re-elected
president George W. Bush may revise the US policy on Armenia as the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) and other American
organizations voted for John Kerry. He said defending a candidate in US
elections does implicate hostility.
“At any rate if the US’s Armenian policy is revised following the
outcome of this election I think it will be revised for the better, as
all those policy- makers who saw the decisiveness and consistency of
ANCA and the Armenian community will try to win its support,” he told
Armenpress. He added many American Armenians voted, however, in favor
of Bush.

ArmenPress
Nov. 4, 2004

IMF TO RELEASE ANOTHER $13 MILLION TO ARMENIA

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS: The International Monetary Fund
(IMF) office in Yerevan said today the Fund’s Executive Board is going
to approve in early December the release of $13 million to Armenian
Central Bank as the last tranche of an $87 million credit, which is
part of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) Program.
The IMF Resident Representative James McHugh told a news conference
the money would arrive in Armenia in a couple of days after the
Executive Board approves the release. He said the money will be
directed to maintain the sufficient level of forex reserves.
McHugh said the Armenian government and the Fund are working now on
prospects for implementation of new joint projects, expressing also
hopes that the relevant talks will start in 2005 January or February.
He said it was so far difficult to define the direction of new
projects, but added that they would most likely apply to tax reforms
and administration improvement.