Agence France Presse
Dec 15 2004
After long wait, EU decision at hand for Turkey
BRUSSELS, Dec 15 (AFP) – Turkey will soon learn if its long-running
campaign to enter the European Union is reaching fruition as EU
leaders prepare to resolve one of the most divisive issues facing the
bloc.
When they convene Thursday evening for the EU’s winter summit, the 25
heads of government are expected to give the green light that Turkey
has long sought for the opening of accession negotiations.
But diplomats say the leaders will likely defer the actual start of
the talks until the autumn of 2005, and their approval will come
hedged with a raft of caveats unprecedented for an EU candidate
state.
And last-minute objections that might stymie Turkey’s hopes cannot be
ruled out. Cyprus is one obstacle.
As the price for its accord, the internationally backed Greek-Cypriot
government wants Turkey to move on normalising relations frozen since
Turkish troops occupied the Mediterranean island’s northern third in
1974.
France, though nominally on Turkey’s side, has fuelled Turkish
frustration by using the word “genocide” for the first time to
describe the 1915-1917 Ottoman Empire massacre of Armenians.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told parliament Tuesday that
Paris would ask many questions, “notably that of the Armenian
genocide”, in eventual EU-Turkey negotiations.
It is French pressure above all that is likely to result in the EU
failing to abide by a promise to launch accession talks with Turkey
“without delay” once the leaders give their approval.
Fearful of the Turkey question overshadowing a referendum on the EU’s
first constitution, the French government wants the launch of the
negotiations put back to the second half of next year.
The French government’s fears are not without foundation given that
in France, as in Germany, public opinion is largely hostile to
Turkey’s EU bid.
With an eye on winning their publics over, the EU leaders are
expected to impose a series of stringent conditions on Turkey and
warn that the accession talks will last a decade at least, with no
guarantee of success.
Turkey, which physically spans the Bosphorus divide between Europe
and Asia, has been knocking on the European bloc’s door for more than
four decades, first signing an association agreement with the
then-EEC in 1963.
Its big breakthrough came two years ago, when the EU agreed — at the
same time as agreeing to let in 10 states in the bloc’s biggest-ever
expansion — to decide in December 2004 on whether to start talks
with Turkey.
Now that moment has come, and the arguments are, if anything,
stormier than ever.
The most pro-Turkey EU states — including Britain, Italy, Spain and
Germany — argue that admitting Turkey is a strategic priority as a
bridge to the Muslim world.
But there is a hardcore of sceptics including Austria, Denmark and
Cyprus. They argue that Turkey is simply too big, too different and
too poor to join. The alternative proposed is a “special partnership”
rather than membership.
But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will be in
Brussels for the summit, has insisted time and again that the EU must
treat Turkey like any other candidate.
He said Tuesday his government had met all the criteria required to
begin accession talks through major democratic and human rights
reforms adopted over the past two years, and now expects the EU to do
its part.
“I believe the EU will not undersign a historic mistake which will
weaken its own foundations and will make a decision in line with
Turkey’s expectations,” Erdogan said.

Macedonian Press Agency, Greece
Dec 15 2004
STATEMENT BY BEGLITIS ON THE ADOPTION OF A RESOLUTION ON TURKEY
Strasbourg, 15 December 2004 (18:23 UTC+2)

Greek Euro-deputy of the main opposition Socialist Party of PASOK,
Mr. Panos Beglitis characterized the adoption by the European
Parliament of the resolution on Turkey as a significant decision for
the course of the Euro-Turkish relations and a clear message to the
European Council and Turkey.
Mr. Beglitis mentioned that the firm will for the strengthening of
Turkey’s European prospect has been confirmed, while a clear
framework of terms and obligations for Ankara has been formed.
The issues mentioned in the resolution concern the Greek minority
rights in Istanbul, Imvros and Tenedos, the Ecumenical Patriarchate
and the Theology School of Halki, the recognition of the Armenian
genocide, the diplomatic recognition of the Cypriot Republic by
Turkey and the gradual withdrawal of the occupation forces from
Cyprus.

RIA Novosti, Russia
Dec 15 2004
STATE DUMA SPEAKER DISCUSSES ARMENIAN-RUSSIAN RELATIONS IN YEREVAN
YEREVAN, December 15, 2004 (RIA Novosti’s Gamlet Matevosyan) –
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Russian State Duma Speaker
Boris Gryzlov, currently in Yerevan, discussed prospects of
development of Armenian-Russian relations.
Mr. Kocharyan expressed satisfaction with the improvement of the
structure of bilateral trade turnover in 2004, the Armenian
President’s press service said.
On his part, Mr. Gryzlov stressed that the high level of
Armenian-Russian relations would let us achieve much progress in the
future.
The sides pointed out the importance of the forthcoming session of
the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission for economic
cooperation in December 2004 in Moscow. This meeting is to focus on
the enterprises Russia purchased from Armenia in compliance with the
Property for Debt interstate agreement.
According to Boris Gryzlov, the modernization and full-fledged
functioning of one of these enterprises, the Mars plant, is a top
priority. Placement of Russian orders is currently under discussion.
Moreover, the sides considered the possibilities to develop transport
communications between Armenia and Russia. At issue were railway
communications and the Kavkaz ferry complex on the Russian bank of
the Kerch Strait which separates the Crimean peninsula and the
Russian Krasnodar territory.

IranMania News, Iran
Dec 15 2004
Iran sports news in brief
LONDON, Dec 15 (IranMania)
– Farhad Kazemi, head coach of Iran’s Sepahan Club banned the players
belonging to the ethnic Armenian minority in Iran from going on
Christmas vacation. Sepahan is to represent Iran in the Asian Clubs
contests which will kick off in December.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Daily Telegraph, UK
Dec 15 2004
EU urged to begin Turkey talks
(Filed: 15/12/2004)
The European Parliament has called the EU to open membership talks
with Turkey “without undue delay,” and told Ankara to carry out more
democratic reforms.
The resolution, which was passed by MEPs in Strasbourg by a vote of
407 to 262, is not binding but is likely to influence EU leaders as
they gather in Brussels to discuss admitting Turkey.

Josep Borrell, president of the European Parliament
During the two-day European Council, which begins tomorrow, the 25 EU
leaders are expected to approve opening membership talks with Ankara
sometime next year.
MEPs called on Turkey to meet demands for a “zero-tolerance” approach
to torture, which the legislature says is still being carried out by
authorities in Turkey.
The resolution also requires Turkey to recognise Cyprus, which joined
the EU in May.
Finally, the parliament urged Turkey to acknowledge “the genocide
perpetrated against the Armenians” nearly a century ago. Ankara still
vehemently denies killing as many as 1.5 million Armenians between
1915 and 1923.
However, Josep Borrell, the president of the European Parliament said
that acknowledging the genocide of the Armenians was not a condition
of membership. “We are just recognizing certain historical events,”
he said.
MEPs rejected a bid from French and German conservatives to create a
“partnership” between the EU and Turkey as an alternative to
membership.

PolitInfo, Germany
Dec 15 2004
EU Executive, Parliament, Support Turkish Entry Talks
Brussels
The European Parliament has urged European Union leaders to open
membership talks with Turkey when they meet in Brussels Thursday and
Friday. The parliament voiced its support for the beginning of talks
just after the head of the EU’s executive body said the moment has
come for negotiations on Turkey’s membership in the 25-nation bloc to
begin.
The decision that EU leaders must make at their two-day summit this
week is whether to start entry talks with Turkey. They will not be
deciding whether to let Turkey join the Union.
But even the decision to start talks with a relatively poor,
populous, overwhelmingly Muslim country sitting on the cusp between
Europe and the Middle East has sparked a huge debate within the EU.
Doubts about whether Europe has been able to or ever can absorb its
growing Muslim population has turned many ordinary Europeans against
the idea of bringing Turkey into the EU. And many politicians are
playing to those fears in the run-up to the summit. Opposition to
Turkish membership is especially strong in Austria, France and
Germany.
Richard Howitt, a British member of the European Parliament’s
Socialist bloc, says domestic political considerations could still
thwart an EU decision to start negotiations with Turkey, despite a
recommendation by the European Commission — the EU’s executive body
— that such talks begin.
“The assessment was done. It was done by the European Commission. It
showed that political and human rights and democracy criteria, known
as the Copenhagen criteria had been met by Turkey. And it is only
political intervention, perhaps some of the countries playing to
their own electorates, that could get in the way between now and a
positive decision,” Mr. Howitt said.
Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, the commission’s president, told French
television Wednesday that EU nations should recognize Turkey’s
efforts and set a date for talks to begin next year, although he
acknowledged that Turkey is still not ready to join the bloc.
Negotiations are expected to take at least 10 years.
Analyst Kirsty Hughes, at the London School of Economics, says she
expects the EU leaders to decide in favor of starting talks with
Turkey.
“I think we’re going to get the EU leaders saying ‘yes’ to Turkey,
that it can start negotiations. That’s going to be the big decision
and the big plus. It’s going to come wrapped with some slightly more
conditional language, perhaps some slightly grudging language, but
that’s what we’re looking for on Friday,” she says.
EU diplomats are working on a compromise package that will try to
satisfy governments that oppose Turkey’s eventual membership. One
diplomat involved in putting together the statement says it will say
that the negotiations will be open-ended and that their outcome
cannot be guaranteed.
The European Parliament, in a non-binding resolution, called on EU
leaders to open negotiations with Turkey. But the legislators also
urged Turkey to recognize Cyprus and suggested Ankara acknowledge the
mass killings of ethnic Armenians from 1915 to 1923.
Turkey has always denied that such killings occurred, and it refuses
to recognize the government of Cyprus.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country will say
“no” to the EU if the bloc imposes what he calls “unacceptable
conditions” on starting negotiations.
EU diplomats say the Armenian issue will not be used as a
pre-condition for Turkish entry talks. But they say that the bloc’s
leaders will urge Turkey to sign a protocol extending its customs
union with the EU to the 10 members that joined this year, one of
which is Cyprus. That, they say, would signal a de-facto recognition
of Cyprus.

EurasiaNet Organization
Dec 15 2004
TURKEY APPLIES LAST-MINUTE PRESSURE FOR EU “YES” DECISION
Mevlut Katik 12/15/04
On the eve of a crucial summit that may determine the outcome of
Turkey’s 41-year campaign for European Union membership, Brussels has
mulled fresh conditions for Ankara to meet before accession talks
could begin. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayipp Erdogan was sharply
critical of proposed new criteria, cautioning the EU that it would be
making a “historic mistake” if it rebuffed Turkey’s membership bid.
Among the most sensitive draft conditions reportedly under
consideration by the EU’s Dutch presidency is a stipulation that
Turkey recognize 10 countries — including Cyprus, which joined the
EU in May — as members of the bloc before membership talks can
begin. Such a move would amount to de facto recognition of Cyprus
itself – a difficult demand for Ankara to meet given its own support
of the self-declared Turkish Cypriot state in the north of the
island.
In a statement to the Turkish parliament on December 14, Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul rejected recognition of Cyprus in any form
while a peace deal for the island, divided between Turkish and Greek
Cypriots since 1973, remains unsigned. “Turkey will not take any
steps which would mean recognizing [Cyprus] directly or indirectly,”
Gul said.
What that will mean for Turkey’s membership bid remains unclear, but
already a lobbying campaign is underway to block the imposition of
fresh EU conditions. Also in Ankara’s sights: a suggestion for a
so-called “privileged membership” as a fallback in case accession
talks with Ankara fail. Removal of permanent caps on the free
movement of Turkish workers within the EU is another goal.
Turkish and international media have reported Erdogan as telling EU
envoys that Ankara will reject the EU if it offers membership with
strings attached. “We have said on several occasions that we will not
accept a decision that is not based on a perspective of full
membership and which offers special status,” Erdogan told members of
his Justice and Development Party on December 14. “I believe the EU
will not undersign a historic mistake which will weaken its own
foundations and will make a decision in line with Turkey’s
expectations.”
Erdogan and Gul are scheduled to fly to Brussels on Wednesday for
last-minute talks with EU leaders ahead of the summit, which is
scheduled to begin December 16. A final decision on Turkey’s
membership bid – widely expected to be affirmative – should be made
public the next day.
Obstacles beyond the criteria under consideration by the EU
presidency could hamper Turkey’s accession efforts. Critics within
the EU believe that attempting to integrate a Muslim majority country
such as Turkey with a relatively poor population of 70 million could
cause excessive turmoil. Of particular concern is what low-cost
Turkish workers would mean for the EU’s moribund labor markets.
France has been perhaps the most outspoken opponent of EU membership
for Turkey. As part of Turkey’s membership negotiations, the French
government has announced that it might consider questioning Turkey
about the Ottoman Empire’s 1915-1917 mass killing of roughly 1.5
million Armenians. In announcing French intentions on December 14,
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier described the Ottoman action as
“genocide,” a controversial term likely to further spark Erdogan’s
ire. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].
French President Jacques Chirac planned to make a televised address
on December 15 to explain his support for Turkey’s accession, but has
promised that France would hold a national referendum on the issue
once membership talks with Ankara were completed. Meanwhile, Austria
has proposed that EU leaders make clear to Turkey that membership
talks will not have a guaranteed outcome.
Ankara is already smarting from a series of conditions attached to an
EU progress report on Turkey’s membership bid, released October 6.
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In its report, the
European Commission said it needed more proof of Turkey’s commitment
to reforms before it could wholeheartedly endorse Ankara’s accession
to the bloc. A monitoring system was also proposed to track Turkey’s
progress in ongoing legal and human rights reforms as a condition for
membership talks. In the past five years, Turkey has already
undergone a series of fast-track reforms to bring its legal code,
minority policies and political institutions in line with European
standards.
Returning from a trip to Brussels on December 10, Erdogan reasserted
the claim that the EU is discriminating against Turkey. “No other
country had to wait 41 years at the door of the EU. We have fulfilled
all the criteria, but despite this Europeans are hesitating.”
Turkey has made full membership in the EU a main foreign policy goal
since it signed an association agreement, known as the Ankara
Agreement, with the bloc in 1963. A customs union agreement followed
33 years later, and in 1999, Turkey was declared an official
candidate for EU membership and asked to fulfill a set of criteria,
known as the Copenhagen Criteria, to bring the country in line with
EU political norms. The European Commission’s progress report paved
the way for the final decision on Turkey’s membership bid at this
week’s summit. Even if accession talks begin, however, full EU
membership could take another decade, making Turkey’s EU campaign a
half-century journey.
Meanwhile, in response to the conditions sought by Brussels, Turkey
has set down its own criteria. Erdogan has stated that Ankara expects
full membership talks without additional conditions to come out of
the December 16-17 summit. A concrete date for talks to begin in 2005
is also anticipated. Some Turkish media had reported that the EU may
decide instead to hold an intergovernmental conference in the second
half of 2005 to decide on a start date for talks to begin after an
initial, six-month monitoring process.
Erdogan has rejected any additional political conditions not already
included in the Copenhagen criteria, and argued that placing
permanent limitations on Turkish workers would be against EU law. The
notion of “privileged partnership” – a concept reportedly conceived
by France and Austria – was rejected “as a status that does not exist
in the EU.”
Nor has Erdogan hesitated at raising the possibility of terrorism as
part of his pre-summit pressure campaign. If Turkey is not invited to
join the EU, he warned the audience at the opening of Istanbul’s
Modern Art Museum on December 10, violence from Islamic terrorists
could escalate. “There is nothing we can do if the EU feels that it
can live with being simply a Christian club,” Erdogan was quoted as
saying by The Times of London, “but if these countries burn their
bridges with the rest of the world, history will not forgive them.”
Editor’s Note: Mevlut Katik is a London-based journalist and analyst.
He is a former BBC correspondent and also worked for The Economist
group.

Big News Network, Australia
Dec 15 2004
Turkey riled by genocide reference

France’s demand that Turkey accept responsibility for the alleged
1915 Armenian genocide has drawn an angry denial from Ankara, The
Times of London reports.
In preliminary talks among European foreign ministers on Turkey’s
entry into the European Union, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier
said Turkey must first officially recognize the 1915 genocide.
When the time comes, Turkey should face up to the requirement of
remembrance, Barnier said. The European project itself is founded on
reconciliation.
Historians claim Turkish authorities orchestrated the killing of 1.5
million Armenian Christians, who were indigenous inhabitants of
Turkey, in an attempt to make an ethnically pure nation. However,
subsequent Turkish governments have maintained only a small number
were killed in spontaneous violence.
Tuesday saw a similar denial from an unidentified government official
in Ankara.
They are just trying to make us angry. It is their last chance to
cause trouble against us, the official said.

Jakarta Post, Indonesia
Dec 15 2004
Dividing the Ukraine, Putin’s imperial dream
Vytautas Landsbergis, Project Syndicate
To divide a people in order to conquer them is an immoral strategy
that has endured throughout recorded history. From Alexander the
Great to Stalin the Cruel, variants of that strategy have been used
to keep nations in thrall to the will of an emperor.
We are now seeing this strategy at work again as President Vladimir
Putin stealthily seeks to restore Kremlin supremacy over the lands
treated as “lost” when the USSR imploded in 1991. In so overplaying
his hand in Ukraine’s recent election, however, Putin clearly
revealed to the world his neo-imperialist designs.
In the wake of the euphoric mass protests in Kyiv, Russia’s president
has since said that he can work with whatever government Ukraine’s
people choose. These are mere words, for in mind and action Putin
does not want anyone to rule Ukraine that he has not put in place. No
price is too high to achieve that end, so traditional threats about
dividing Ukraine have been used.
I speak as someone who has been on the receiving end of Russian
imperialist designs. When Lithuania and then the other Baltic States
— Estonia and Latvia — which were occupied by Stalin early in World
War II, seized their opportunity for freedom in 1990-1991, the
Kremlin did not sit on its hands. It knew that the rest of Russia’s
colonies — the so-called “Soviet republics” — would want to follow
the ungrateful Baltic countries into freedom.
Although Russia’s rulers were by then communists in name only, they
didn’t hesitate to reach for the old Leninist recipes. They began to
foster and incite splits and confrontations. They stoked supposed
resentments among different national or ethnic communities based on
Lenin’s idea that even small groups of villages could demand
territorial autonomy.
Note the word “territory.” The demands were never about normal
cultural autonomy as a means of continued identity and supposed
self-protection. Only territorial autonomy, it seems, would do.
This way, minorities become easily manipulated majorities. Divide
enough, stoke enough resentment, and a nation becomes nothing more
than a ruined society within a national territory. Arm some of these
manufactured minority structures so that they can demand autonomy at
the barrel of a gun, and you get the kind of chaos the Kremlin can
use to reassert its control.
Fortunately, Lithuanians — as well as Estonians and Latvians —
understood this game. It failed also in Crimea when Russia sought to
deploy its old strategy of divide and rule there in 1991. But these
defeats did not inspire the Kremlin to abandon the basic strategy. On
the contrary, Russia’s imperial ambitions persisted, and persistence
has paid off.
Around the Black Sea, Russia has called into being a series of
artificial statelets. Georgia and Moldova have both been partitioned
through the creation of criminal mini-states nurtured by the Kremlin
and which remain under its military umbrella. Indeed, in the very
week that Putin was meddling in Ukraine’s presidential election, he
was threatening to blockade one of those statelets, Georgia’s
Abkhazia region, after it had the temerity to vote for a president
the Kremlin did not like.
Moldova has been particularly helpless in the face of the Kremlin’s
imperial designs. A huge Russian garrison remains deployed in
Transdneister, where it rules in collaboration with local gangs.
Proximity to this lawless territory has helped make Moldova the
poorest land in Europe. To the east, Armenia and Azerbaijan were
pushed into such bloody confrontation at the Kremlin’s instigation
that the only way for them to end their ethnic wars was to call in
the Russians — as in Transdneister — for a kind of “Pax Ruthena.”
Now Ukraine’s people may face a similar test after supporters of
Viktor Yanukovich threatened to seek autonomy should the rightful
winner of the country’s presidential vote, Viktor Yushchenko,
actually become president. Who can doubt that the hand of Russia is
behind this? Would Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzkhov, a loyal creature of
Putin, have dared to attend the rally where autonomy was demanded
without the sanction of the Kremlin’s elected monarch? Indeed, Putin
openly claims this part of Ukraine as a Russian “internal matter.”
It is to be hoped that Ukraine’s Russian-speaking citizens, having
witnessed the economic despair — and sometimes the bloodshed —
caused by the Kremlin’s manufactured pro-autonomy movements, will
realize that they are being turned into Putin’s pawns. The test for
Viktor Yushchenko and his Orange revolutionaries, as it was for
Lithuania’s democrats in 1990-1991, is to show that democracy does
not mean that the majority suppresses any minority. Lithuania passed
that test; I am confident that Viktor Yushchenko and his team will do
so as well.
But Europe and the world are also being tested. Russia is passing
from being the Russian Federation of Boris Yeltsin to a unitary
authoritarian regime under Vladimir Putin and his former KGB
colleagues. Europe, America, and the wider world must see Putin’s
so-called “managed democracy” in its true light, and must stand
united against his neo-imperialist dreams.
The first step is to make Russia honor its binding commitment to the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as to
the Council of Europe, to remove its troops from Moldova and Georgia.
Any plans to “defend” Yanukovich and the eastern part of Ukraine by
military force must be confronted.
Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania’s first President after independence
from the Soviet Union, is now a Member of the European Parliament.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Mehr News Agency, Iran
Dec 15 2004
Ardebil governor meets Armenian officials
TEHRAN (MNA) – Heading an industrial, economic delegation, Ardebil
governor, Javad Negarandeh paid a four-day visit to Yerevan, capital
of Armenia.
In his meeting with Armenian Minister of Agriculture Tavit Lokian,
Negarandeh underlined the establishment of joint workgroups in both
countries, especially for boosting economic and trade relations. The
two sides had met each other this summer in Ardebil. On his part,
Lokian stated that a large exchange market could be established on
the borderline of Armenian Syunic Province and Ardebil Province.