The Moscow Times
Arts & Ideas
July 23 – 29, 2004
The Iron Grip
Even Stalin’s most fearsome henchmen were putty in the dictator’s hands, a
new study by Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk maintains.
By Sam Thorne
Published: July 23, 2004
Of the numerous books that have been written about Josef Stalin, relatively
few have focused on the twilight years of his dictatorship, from the end of
World War II to his death in March 1953. Those works that do address this
period tend to depict Stalin as an increasingly paranoid figure, struggling
to cling to health and power as his deputies jockey for position to succeed
him. In “Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945-1953,”
historians Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk challenge the prevailing
version, using formerly unavailable archive material to shed light on the
internal workings of the top Soviet leadership during Stalin’s final years.
They attempt to show a clear political logic to Stalin’s behavior, however
irrational it may seem, and dispel the notion that there were ever any
serious contenders to usurp him (or even conspirators to kill him).
Following the war, Gorlizki and Khlevniuk contend, Stalin’s consistent aim
was to consolidate the Soviet Union’s status as a superpower, and, in the
face of growing decrepitude, to maintain his hold as leader of that power.
The authors describe how Stalin created a dual political order: informal and
personalized in some spheres, orderly and institutionalized in others.
Realizing, for example, that he no longer had the energy to oversee many
aspects of government, Stalin initiated key organizational changes, setting
up a Council of Ministers to manage the economy, while he and his inner
circle in the Politburo concentrated on a smaller set of policy issues,
among them state security, ideology and foreign affairs. Unlike the
Politburo, the Council of Ministers met regularly, worked to deadlines on
individual assignments with a clear division of labor and suffered minimal
interference from Stalin — except when economic issues touched on matters
of state.
The other side of this arrangement was a Politburo entirely obedient to
Stalin’s whims, comprising five members in 1945 and 10 by 1953, including
Stalin himself, two long-standing colleagues in Vyacheslav Molotov and
Anastas Mikoyan, and younger members, such as Lavrenty Beria and Nikita
Khrushchev. In contrast to the Council of Ministers, Stalin personally
selected the Politburo’s membership, set its agendas, fashioned its
procedures and organized the locations and timings of its meetings to suit
himself. Often, meetings would take place in the dining room of Stalin’s
dacha in the early hours of the morning — and when not dining with the
leader, Politburo members were often phoned by Stalin’s secretary as late as
4 or 5 a.m. to be told that Stalin had gone to bed and that they, too, could
leave their desks and go home. A Yugoslav envoy who visited Stalin during
this period described how a significant part of Soviet policy was shaped at
these dinners. “It all resembled,” he wrote, “a patriarchal family with a
crotchety head who made his kinsfolk apprehensive.” Gorlizki and Khlevniuk
term Stalin’s style of leadership “neo-patrimonial” in that he attempted to
combine a modern, committee-based system of administration with a more
primitive method of rule based on personal fealty.
After World War II, Stalin moved quickly to reassert his authority over his
deputies, who had come to enjoy a measure of autonomy in their respective
fields as the war took its toll on the dictator’s health and stamina. Within
a year, Stalin launched a series of savage attacks on every member of the
Politburo, using a variety of methods to intimidate them, including
face-to-face confrontations, demotions, assaults on allies and the threat of
physical repression. In each case, the victim was required to apologize
speedily and abjectly, usually in writing. Mikoyan, for example, after being
blamed by Stalin for grain shortages that crippled the country in 1946,
issued this cringing statement: “Of course, neither I nor others can frame
questions quite like you [Stalin]. I shall devote all my energy so that I
may learn from you how to work correctly. I shall do all I can to draw the
lessons from your stern criticism, so that it is turned to good use in my
further work under your fatherly guidance.”
In the years that followed, Stalin continued to exert fierce psychological
pressure on his deputies. Whenever they showed signs of independence, he
slapped them down ruthlessly. Molotov was even forced to divorce his wife,
who was subsequently arrested on trumped-up charges that she was linked to
“Jewish nationalists.” The lesson was that nobody, not even a spouse, could
get in the way of a Politburo member’s primary allegiance to Stalin. More
important still was the demand that personal devotion to Stalin should
supersede any loyalty to an “office.” At the drop of a hat, Stalin could
create or destroy institutional positions and all the personal incentives
and authority that came with them.
AP
Stalin established a dual political order — part informal, part unyielding
— to maintain a hold over his subordinates.
Although Stalin sought to inspire in the last years of his dictatorship the
submissive attitude that the Politburo had displayed toward him immediately
after the Great Terror, he did not plumb the same depths of brutality to
achieve it. There were none of the large-scale purges of the political elite
seen in the 1930s; instead, Stalin appeared to value order and continuity
within his entourage. When he denounced his closest colleagues, the ensuing
charade of repentance and chastisement was usually played out in front of
only a small audience. If the victim was less important, Stalin’s criticism
might leak out into wider circles or appear in the papers.
At the same time, members of the Politburo learned not to rock the boat,
knowing that any advantage they might gain from having a rival removed could
not make up for the lethal climate of uncertainty and suspicion that
inevitably followed. If they needed reminding of this, it came in 1950 when
Stalin executed the head of the state planning agency, Nikolai Voznesensky,
for allowing a trade fair to go ahead in Leningrad without permission from a
high enough authority: As ever, Stalin hated any sign of autonomy in others.
Gorlizki and Khlevniuk write persuasively of how fear of Stalin’s
unpredictable behavior united members of the Politburo in a tacit alliance,
and how their experience of working together laid the foundations of
collective leadership after Stalin’s death. Whereas earlier historians of
this period have relied largely on newspaper articles, leaked reports and
memoirs — many colored to show Khrushchev, Stalin’s eventual successor, in
a positive light — Gorlizki and Khlevniuk have trawled through piles of
newly available Central Committee paperwork and personal correspondence to
create an admirably objective and balanced account of Stalin’s relationship
with his ruling circle, backed up with copious notes.
For the lay reader there is, if anything, too much detail, and the book
sometimes becomes bogged down in tracking the constant reorganizations and
personnel changes that Stalin made to keep his subordinates on their toes.
Even the personalities of the main actors become submerged eventually in
this morass of intrigue, although perhaps this is how things really were:
Certainly the underlying banality of Stalin’s dying regime comes through
strongly. Ultimately, the “cold peace” alluded to in the title is perhaps a
bit too glacial to appeal to a popular readership, but for scholars seeking
a hard-nosed analysis of high-level Soviet politics after the war, this book
could hardly be bettered.
A former editor at The Moscow Times, Sam Thorne now free-lances from
Britain.
Copyright © 2004 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
_________________________________________ ____________________
RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 4, No. 28, 22 July 2004
A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic Politics
************************************************************
HEADLINES:
* TAKE YOUR SPIN DOCTORS, PLEASE
* TELEVISION: THE KREMLIN’S TOOL IN THE NEAR ABROAD
* PUTIN DISMISSES HEAD OF GENERAL STAFF IN MILITARY SHAKE-UP
************************************************************
ELECTIONS
TAKE YOUR SPIN DOCTORS, PLEASE
By Julie A. Corwin
Russia and Ukraine have generally maintained a healthy
cross-border trade, but in the run-up to the 31 October Ukrainian
presidential elections, some Ukrainians are questioning whether they
really want Russia’s latest export: political consultants. On 19
July, youth activists rallied in Kyiv outside a building where
Effective Politics Foundation head Gleb Pavlovskii was holding a
press conference, TV 5 in Kyiv reported. A week earlier, almost two
dozen activists from the Youth — The Hope of Ukraine organization
picketed the Russian Embassy in Kyiv to demand that Moscow not
interfere in the presidential race, bearing signs saying “Russian
Political Consultants: Suitcase, Train Station, Russia!,” utro.ru
reported on 12 July.
The picketers also demanded that the Ukrainian authorities
expel Russian consultants — particularly Marat Gelman. Gelman, a
former deputy general director at ORT, most recently organized the
surprisingly successful election effort of the Motherland party in
Russia’s 2003 State Duma race. Pavlovskii is perhaps best known
for his role in shaping Unity’s message during the State Duma
elections in 1999. He has also taken credit for creating Vladimir
Putin’s image. Another Russian political consultant who is
sparking interest in Ukraine is Igor Shuvalov (not to be confused
with Russian presidential aide Igor Shuvalov). Consultant Shuvalov is
better known in Ukraine than in Russia and works for the Ukrainian
presidential administration. Shuvalov has reportedly authored many of
the “temnyky,” or secret written instructions, issued by the
presidential administration to media outlets regarding their coverage
— or noncoverage — of certain news events. In addition, according
to opposition website “Ukrayinska pravda” on 16 June (see “RFE/RL
Newsline,” 17 October 2002). A Ukrainian branch of Pavlovskii’s
Effective Politics Foundation has also reportedly played a key role
in the invention and distribution of temnyky.
The October ballot is not the first Ukrainian election in
which Russian spin doctors have taken part. They had a relatively
high profile during the 2002 campaign for the Verkhovna Rada,
although some Ukrainian political activists have questioned their
effectiveness in that race. In an interview with “Kommersant-Daily”
on 5 July, Our Ukraine lawmaker Mykola Tomenko said that Gelman
worked for the pro-government Social Democratic Party-united (SPDU-o)
during the 2002 race. Gelman and Pavlovskii, according to Tomenko,
promised that they would secure 10 percent of the total votes for
SDPU-o but managed to get only 6.3 percent. Shuvalov, together with
Petr Shchedrovitskii, worked on the campaign for Winter Crop
Generation, which finished with even just 2.02 percent of the vote,
according to “Ukrayinska pravda” on 16 June. Shchedrovitskii is
perhaps best known for his work consulting presidential envoy to the
Volga Federal District and former co-leader of the Union of Rightist
Forces (SPS) Sergei Kirienko.
In this year’s presidential election, the top contenders
are Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and Our Ukraine leader Viktor
Yushchenko. Gelman, Pavlovskii, and Shuvalov are all reportedly
working for Yanukovych. In a press conference in Moscow on 1 July,
Pavlovskii denied that he is working for any candidate in Ukraine.
However, he severely criticized Yushchenko in remarks that were
picked up by a variety of Russian and Ukrainian media outlets. He
said that a “victory for Yushchenko could be seen as a victory for
Western Ukraine over Eastern Ukraine, something that is dangerous for
the country itself,” “Nezavisimaya gazeta” reported on 2 July.
Pavlovskii added that if Russia wants to see chaos in the former
Soviet Union, then it should back Yushchenko, “a weak man and a
politician who is being controlled, who is lacking in independence
and who will take society toward disintegration, first politically,
and then perhaps, territorially.”
In an interview with Hromadske Radio in Kyiv on 19 May,
Gelman too denied that he is working as anything other than an
art-gallery owner during his stay in the Ukrainian capital. However
he, like Pavlovskii, has an opinion about the race. He said that “my
personal position is that if Yushchenko becomes president, I will
consider it a personal defeat. But I have no clients here.” Later in
the same interview, when queried about the poor performance of his
clients in the 2002 elections, Gelman insisted that “the
customer-contractor relationship is very intimate one, and
conclusions about whether a political consultant has fulfilled his
task can be drawn based on whether he continues his relationship with
his clients. I can state in this respect that I have not lost any
major clients either in Russia or here in Ukraine.” Therefore, if
Viktor Medvedchuk, SPDU-o leader and presidential-administration
chief, can be considered “major,” then apparently Gelman still works
for him.
Despite their denials, the perception that Gelman and
Pavlovskii are involved in the election persists. In an interview
with RBK on 5 July, Kirill Frolov, director of the Ukraine department
at the Institute for CIS Countries, went so far as to characterize
Gelman’s strategy for Yanukovych. He said that Gelman is
rejecting the use of the resources of the Russian Orthodox Church in
the campaign and is instead trying to create a “carnival-like”
atmosphere.
Yushchenko’s supporters have accused Gelman and
Pavlovskii of using “black public relations” against Yushchenko. In
comments published by Ekspert-tsentr on 5 July, Tomenko implied that
Yanukovych’s campaign is using “unprincipled methods” against
Yushchenko. He noted the broken windows at the Russian Cultural
Center in Lviv and the meetings of Ukrainian National
Assembly-Ukrainian National Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO) where fascist
symbols were used in support of Yushchenko. An article in “Moskovskii
komsomolets” on 16 July linked a public rally held by the
ultranationalist Ukrainian National Assembly in Kyiv’s central
square with Yanukovych’s headquarters and with Pavlovskii and
Gelman in particular, calling the gathering “Gelmanjudend.” The
daily, which cited no sources, commented: “The question is: Why
should a democratically minded, pan-national candidate initiate such
a threat, when only a silovik no one currently knows can benefit?
There is absolutely no sense in it.”
It should perhaps be noted that consultants sometimes will
not only orchestrate an public event, but will also arrange to have
articles published about it, and they will sometimes arrange for a
trick against their own candidate that can be blamed on the campaign
of the opposition or be used to generate voter sympathy.
It could be argued that the protests against the Russian spin
doctors help rather than hurt their cause, since presumably no one
would object to their presence if they were completely ineffectual.
In comments to “Politicheskii zhurnal,” No. 24, Andrei Konovalov,
president of the Institute for Strategic Evaluations and Analysis,
joined his Ukrainian counterparts in criticizing the presence of
Gelman, Pavlovskii, and others, saying that all they can create are
“provocations.”
Konovalov concluded that regardless of whether Yanukovych or
Yushchenko is elected president, the general direction of Ukraine
will be the same: toward the West. “The basic tendency of foreign
policy in Ukraine is a movement toward the West, a striving for
integration into European structures and NATO,” he said. “Whoever
wins the election, this situation will not change.” Vladimir
Zharikhin, deputy director of the Institute for CIS Countries,
agreed, noting that the fundamental relationship between Russia and
Ukraine will not change “cardinally” under either candidate. “In the
end, the Donetsk group, to which Yanukovych belongs, has its own
interests which frequently diverge from those of Russian businesses,”
he added.
To combat Ukraine’s drift toward the West, Konovalov
suggests that rather than importing Russian “political technologies,”
Russian enterprises should engage in a gradual but relentless
penetration of Ukraine’s energy complex, so that “Russian
businesses control the Ukrainian economy.” It is possible that
Konovalov’s suggested strategy is already being implemented, and
the push to elect Yanukovych is simply a supplementary effort rather
than a competing one.
FOREIGN POLICY
TELEVISION: THE KREMLIN’S TOOL IN THE NEAR ABROAD
By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Russian media, especially Kremlin-controlled television which
is viewed widely in Russia and neighboring states, is instrumental in
promoting President Vladimir Putin’s policies for the former
Soviet Union and in maintaining Russian hegemony over the
“information space” of the CIS and in securing Russian geopolitical
objectives in the region. With a far more professional and
wide-reaching television system than in the Soviet era, in part
enhanced by Western investment and training, Russia now has a subtle
— sometimes, not-so-subtle — means of covering the news and views
of the region, and of shaping that news to its own ends.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is featured virtually every
evening on prime-time television, as concerned about Russian-language
textbooks in Latvia as he is about evacuating Russian energy workers
from Iraq following terrorist attacks. Breaking with diplomatic
protocol, Putin is shown rushing in person to the airport to greet
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and listen to him praise
Russia’s new emergency-rescue planes.
But it was to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma that Putin
granted his very first long, televised conversation immediately after
his March re-election, opening with a friendly suggestion to “take a
walk after dinner and then come over to my house for tea and
we’ll chat.” Comradely moments like that perhaps remove the sting
of the publicly televised humiliation Putin dealt Ukraine when he
remonstrated leaders for thinking they could live off any kind of
exports other than beets and when extracted the prime-time admission
from Kuchma, who is often courted by the West, that the CIS “cannot
look out to sea for the weather to be made” from the European Union,
but must make it themselves in the CIS.
Carefully staged meetings with CIS leaders are given ample
airtime on the official RTR and other stations and are designed to
shape the views of millions of Russians in the Russian Federation and
the mindset of millions of Russian-speakers in the near abroad. The
coverage from Moscow influences their thinking about local elections
and regional issues.
The power of this electronic reach might not be immediately
evident, but it is amply demonstrated by incidents such as
Minsk’s shut-off of Russian programming during politically
delicate moments and battles in Central Asia over frequencies for
certain Russian programs. Pictures, as they say, always speak 1,000
words. When a record nine CIS presidents came to Moscow in early
July, Putin took the first three — Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev,
Kyrgyzstan’s Askar Akaev, and Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili
— to the Bolshoi Theater. The message is not only about the
ostensible superiority of Russian culture or the closeness of ties
with CIS allies, but the age-old practice of supplicants needing to
make their way to the top to solve their problems.
Negative coverage on prime-time Russian television can have a
devastating effect. For months, the Ukrainian parliament was
portrayed as uncouth and undemocratic, wrecking voting equipment.
Never was there any discussion about whether an abrupt switch away
from popularly electing the president to having the parliament select
him was a threat to democracy. When candidates began to register for
the presidential election this week, RTR focused on the antics of
Brotherhood candidate Dmitrii Kolchunskii and his entourage, who
rolled up to the Central Election Commission in armored vehicles, and
on a frenzied support rally of his followers. By contrast, a
safety-suited Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was shown threading
his way among steelworkers at a blast furnace in Dniepropetrovsk,
waxing reminiscent about having first met his wife at a steel plant,
and still appearing later that evening crisp and cool to sing a
romantic duet with Ukraine’s celebrated Ruslana on stage before
screaming fans.
Not that Russian television is above playing the democracy
card when necessary. During the chilly winter months when Russian gas
companies were shutting off the pipelines to Belarus over payment
disputes, RTR featured scenes of urbane Russian energy officials
speaking ironically about President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, contrasted
with the sputterings of a clownish Lukashenka and, later, his
about-face on paying market rates for natural gas. And suddenly, RTR,
ORT, and other Russian media outlets found time for the Belarusian
opposition, featuring demonstrations and speaking in sympathetic
tones of beaten activists and expelled journalists. But as soon as
the energy deals were settled, coverage of the Belarusian opposition
dried up.
Nonetheless, Lukashenka’s recent announcement that he is
willing to seek a third presidential term “if the people allow him to
run” proved too much for Russian television. “The Belarusian leader
refers to himself in the third person,” dryly cracked RTR’s
Mikhail Antonov in the set-up to unflattering scenes of
Lukashenka’s populist claims of public support for violating the
constitution.
While Russian television and newspapers already have a great
influence in the near abroad, lately the Kremlin appears almost
panicked about what Putin called the danger of the “erosion” of
Russian interests in the CIS. In an unprecedented move, the topic of
the CIS was placed on the agenda of the Security Council as a matter
of national defense, with Kremlin-access television camera operators
on hand to witness the choreographed discussion, replete with
tanned-and-rested Muscovite bureaucrats and pale CIS representatives
in Moscow hanging their heads. Stern calls were made to open Russian
cultural centers throughout the CIS and step up Russian-language
training.
Within minutes into the news hour that same day, Kremlin
political consultant Gleb Pavlovskii was featured in Kyiv opening up
a Russian club and taking questions from Ukrainian journalists about
Russian influence on the Ukrainian presidential election. “What, some
Russian citizen will come here and start handing out ratings??” fumed
Pavlovskii, coquettishly discounting the possibility. “They’ll
kick him out.”
To be sure, Russian television and print media, which are far
freer than most local CIS media, are a boon for local democrats. Yet
their coverage on Russian television is decidedly mixed.
Georgia’s President Saakashvili is unabashedly compared with
Hitler in teaser ads for strana.ru, and even the smallest street
vendors’ demonstration is played up to look like proof of the
alleged “ungovernable” nature of Caucasians. Demonstrators in Yerevan
are shown mainly overturning cars or setting fires. By contrast,
Armenian President Robert Kocharian is invited to Moscow to give a
sober soliloquy in a lengthy pan on RTR about why stability and trust
in his government should prevail over disgruntled activists
complaining about election corruption.
Far out of proportion to their size and actual importance to
Russia’s security concerns is coverage of the Baltic states. Many
weeks, the nightly news features demonstrations, alternately, of
veterans alleged to be Nazi collaborators and students angry about
language requirements in Latvia, or stories about Estonia’s
recent announcement that Russian university diplomas must be
certified by national education offices. Estonia’s move, said to
be in keeping with its European Union commitments, was juxtaposed on
RTR with a similar move by Turkmenistan not to recognize Russian
diplomas.
Turkmenistan comes in for hot-and-cold coverage, depending on
the state of negotiations about the status of Russians there.
Sometimes President Sapurmurat Niyazov is called “Turkmenbashi” and
portrayed unflatteringly in scenes reminiscent of Soviet dictator
Josef Stalin, with thousands of dancing children paying homage to
their beloved leader. On other occasions, he is shown as an important
trade partner and placed in artificially flattering settings, such as
at his desk in his library, enthusing about how he has had domestic
architects copy designs from St. Petersburg. Any subscriber to the
top oil newsletters in the region following the status of various
energy deals between Russia and the near abroad could probably fairly
accurately determine the temperature of coverage of this or that CIS
state in that week’s news on Russian television.
Ashgabat recently shut down Russia’s Mayak radio station,
but then promised this week to restore it, leaving it unclear whether
the closure was a demonstration of muscle-flexing or the consequence
of a technical breakdown. Some other CIS leaders have instituted
requirements for percentages of domestic content in native languages,
in part to counter Moscow’s influence.
When terrorists attacked in Uzbekistan in March, Russian
media gave saturation coverage to the bombings and the police raids
to capture the suspects — more coverage than local television did.
Indeed, Russian media have generally covered terrorism around the
world more intensely than some regional media and have been an
alternative source of information for CIS populations. Usually the
responsibility or negligence of CIS governments is not the focus of
the coverage, however, and usually some sort of link is made between
domestic resistance movements and international terrorism movements.
Often, what little can be gleaned in the way of hypotheses for
various terrorist attacks comes from the Russian media, particularly
from websites with breaking news.
The media also accomplish by silence or evasion what they
cannot accomplish by propagandistic set pieces. Little is seen, for
example, about the drug trade in Tajikistan or Tajik migrant laborers
on television, although newspapers have been somewhat bolder in
covering their plight.
Whether through distorted images or the absence of accurate
coverage, the Russian media will continue to have a far-reaching
impact on governments and publics throughout the CIS. It is an era in
which broadcast images with the right spin and setting will prove
more powerful than armies or missiles because they are capable of
reaching people’s hearts and minds instantly.
MILITARY POLICY
PUTIN DISMISSES HEAD OF GENERAL STAFF IN MILITARY SHAKE-UP
By Jeremy Bransten
President Vladimir Putin fired on 19 July the chief of the
General Staff, Army General Anatolii Kvashnin, along with three other
top military commanders. Few in Russia’s military are sorry to
see Kvashnin leave.
Moscow-based military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer called
Kvashnin “the most hated general in the Russian military,” according
to “The New York Times.” He has now been replaced by his deputy,
Colonel General Yurii Baluevskii, a man who is far more respected.
Kvashnin is most closely associated with Russia’s two
ill-fated wars in Chechnya and especially the 1994-95 winter
offensive aimed at taking Grozny, which ended in catastrophe and cost
the lives of hundreds of Russian soldiers. That has not made him
popular with the rank and file. Kvashnin’s bureaucratic battles
with the Defense Ministry over control of military planning have also
earned him the dislike of the top brass.
Now, the Defense Ministry appears to have won the upper hand
as Russia enters another phase of its military restructuring.
Although many analysts point to last month’s deadly raid
in Ingushetia as the catalyst for the dismissal of Kvashnin and three
top military commanders for the North Caucasus region, the shake-up
appears to be the result of a long-term plan.
Kvashnin’s dismissal follows adoption of a law that cut
the powers of the General Staff and reduced it to a department of the
Defense Ministry that will function as an advisory group responsible
for strategic planning. For years, the two institutions had existed
as rival centers of power and fought a tug-of-war over operational
control of Russia’s armed forces.
Those opposing Kvashnin accused him of being stuck in the
past, actively undermining efforts to transform the military into a
smaller, more technologically advanced force.
Moscow-based military analyst Aleksandr Golts told RFE/RL
that Kvashnin was ill suited for the General Staff’s new role, so
in this respect his replacement by Baluevskii makes sense. “The
Russian General Staff is being excluded from the chain of operational
command of the armed forces and will have to concentrate exclusively
on strategic planning,” according to Golts. “[In this regard,]
Anatolii Kvashnin was the least suitable person, due to his
intellect, for any kind of planning. His first deputy, Yurii
Baluevskii, has demonstrated his great analytical skills and that he
is capable of such tasks. So, at first glance, everything appears
very logical.”
The problem, according to Golts, is that the newly positioned
General Staff is set to operate in a vacuum. Reforms at the lower
levels have not been carried out, meaning that a system of regional
commands — which could provide input for the General Staff’s
strategic planning — simply does not exist. “[For example,] the
Americans plan their operations in these commands,” he said. “The
entire war against Iraq was planned in the Central Command. In
Russia, the role of the commands is performed by the military
districts. But they do not have the ability to plan because their
main duty is the mobilization of reservists in case of war. That is
what they are trained to do. They cannot take on operational
planning. This is just one of many questions that come up when you
analyze how this new General Staff is supposed to perform.”
Golts says this latest reshuffle is symptomatic of the way
military reform is being carried out in Russia, which is from the top
down, exactly in the wrong order. “In my view, what is happening with
the General Staff is similar to the decision to create several
rapid-reaction units made up of professional, contract soldiers. The
idea is correct, but it is introduced as a first step when instead it
should come as the final decision after a series of complicated
reforms. So the decision is made without the requisite preparation.
One can assume that it is done out of naivety or on purpose, so that
the military brass — after a period of time — can approach the
president and tell him: ‘Esteemed commander in chief, this is not
working out. This [reform] is not right for Russia.'”
One thing is clear, however. When it comes to Russia’s
troubles in the North Caucasus, no amount of military reshuffles will
end the prolonged war in Chechnya, as Yurii Baluevskii himself
indicated in an interview with RFE/RL two months ago. “How do you
take away a machine gun from a young man who has held it for 10 or 12
years?” he said. “How do you make him work, till the land, sell
goods? This is a problem. And there is no military solution. The only
solution is an economic recovery [in Chechnya], employment of the
population, education.”
Whether Putin — who gives the orders — sees it this way is
another question.
COMINGS & GOINGS
IN: President Putin on 19 July named Colonel General
Yurii Baluevskii chief of the General Staff, RIA-Novosti and other
Russian media reported. Baluevskii, who previously served as first
deputy chief of the General Staff, replaced Army General Anatolii
Kvashnin, who was dismissed earlier the same day. RIA-Novosti also
reported on 19 July that Colonel General Aleksandr Belousov has been
named first deputy defense minister.
UP: President Putin on 12 July named Andrei Denisov as
Russia’s ambassador to the UN and its representative on the UN
Security Council. Denisov was most recently a deputy foreign minister
in charge of foreign economic policy, according to “Profil,” No. 27.
Denisov replaces Sergei Lavrov, who was named foreign minister in
March.
RESHUFFLED: First Deputy Foreign Minister Valerii Loshchinin
will remain Foreign Minister Lavrov’s only first deputy foreign
minister, while Lavrov’s second first deputy, Vyacheslav
Trubnikov, will now serve as ambassador to India, Russian media
reported on 13 July. Another former first deputy foreign minister,
Eleonora Mitrofanova, will now head the ministry’s new Agency for
Relations with Russians Abroad. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Razov
was named ambassador to China, and special presidential adviser on
Caspian affairs with the rank of deputy foreign minister Viktor
Kalyuzhnyi will serve as the new ambassador to Latvia.
IN: Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has named Andrei
Dolgorukov as Russia’s trade representative to the United States,
replacing Mikhail Barkov. Dolgorukov most recently headed the
Americas department of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry,
“Rodnaya gazeta,” No. 27, reported.
OUT: Prime Minister Fradkov dismissed Nikolai Gusev from his
post as deputy property relations minister; Petr Sadovnik as deputy
natural resources minister; and Ilya Budnitskii and Valerii
Sirozhenko as deputy media ministers, “Kommersant-Daily” reported on
17 and 14 July.
POLITICAL CALENDAR
22 July: Cabinet will discuss plan for privatization of state
property in 2005
22 July: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari will visit
Moscow
24 July: Aeroflot shareholders meeting will elect new board
of directors
29 July: Celebration honoring the 250th anniversary of the
birth of Saint Serafim of Sarov will be held in Nizhnii Novgorod
31 July: State Duma will hold a special session
1 August: Deadline for the Finance Ministry to present its
draft 2005 budget to the government
3 August: State Duma will hold a special session
8 August: Supreme Court will consider an appeal by Pavel
Zaitsev, the special police investigator who headed a high-profile
corruption probe into the Grand and Tri Kita furniture stores and who
was found guilty of exceeding the authority of his office
12 August: Fourth anniversary of the sinking of the “Kursk”
nuclear submarine
12-15 August: BMW Russian Open Golf Tournament in Moscow
13-29 August: Russian athletes will participate in the Summer
Olympics in Greece
23 August: The trial of the accused murderers of State Duma
Deputy Galina Starovoitova will reopen
26 August: Deadline for the government to submit its draft
2005 budget to the State Duma
29 August: Presidential elections will be held in Chechnya
September: St. Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum plans
to open the Hermitage Center, which will exhibit works from the
Hermitage’s collection, in the city of Kazan
15-18 September: The third International Conference of Mayors
of World Cities will be held in Moscow
20 September: The State Duma’s fall session will begin
October: President Putin will visit China
October: International forum of the Organization of the
Islamic Conference will be held in Moscow
7 October: President Putin’s birthday
23-26 October: Second anniversary of the Moscow theater
hostage crisis
25 October: First anniversary of Yukos head
Khodorkovskii’s arrest at an airport in Novosibirsk
31 October: Presidential election in Ukraine
November: Gubernatorial election in Pskov Oblast
20 November: Sixth anniversary of the killing of State Duma
Deputy Galina Starovoitova
22 November: President Putin to visit Brazil
December: A draft law on toll roads will be submitted to the
Russian government, according to the Federal Highways Agency’s
Construction Department on 6 April
December: Gubernatorial elections in Bryansk, Kamchatka,
Ulyanovsk, and Ivanovo oblasts
29 December: State Duma’s fall session will come to a
close
1 February 2005: Former President Boris Yeltsin’s 74th
birthday
March 2005: Gubernatorial election in Saratov Oblast
*********************************************************
Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
The “RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly” is prepared by Julie A. Corwin
on the basis of a variety of sources. It is distributed every
Wednesday.
Direct comments to Julie A. Corwin at [email protected].
For information on reprints, see:
Back issues are online at

alllAfrica.com
MCA-Eligible Countries ‘Proud’ of Recognition, Aid Official Says
United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
July 20, 2004
Posted to the web July 21, 2004
Washington, DC
Enthusiastic about country ownership concept, Applegarth adds
The 16 developing countries selected as the first eligible to submit
proposals for supplemental aid from the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)
are “uniformly proud” of being recognized for their accomplishments in
implementing political and economic reforms, says John Applegarth, head of
the agency that administers the fund.
Speaking July 20 at the start of the quarterly meeting of the Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC) in Washington, Applegarth added that the 16 also
are enthusiastic about the concept of “country ownership” of development
priorities that is at the core of the MCA program.
Applegarth said MCC teams recently visited all 16 nations to review with
government officials how their proposals for MCA funding will be evaluated.
The teams also communicated to members of civil society, the private sector
and the general public in each country how they can participate in the
proposal-development process.
The MCA is the administration’s supplemental aid program for developing
countries that meet certain political and economic standards. The House of
Representatives July 15 approved funding the account at $1.25 billion in the
fiscal year beginning October 1 (FY05), an amount that is 25 percent more
than the current, first-year spending.
Applegarth gave examples of how selected countries are altering their views
of receiving aid from the United States. A senior official in Armenia, he
said, stated that his country’s inclusion in the program helped it focused
more strongly on governing, governance and democracy.
Cape Verde is treating its selection as MCA-eligible as the country’s
third-most-significant achievement after gaining independence from Portugal
and making the transition to democracy, he said.
Applegarth said there are no specific timelines for countries to submit
funding proposals. The countries want to “stop, take stock and rethink about
how they could really use this new resource,” he said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who conducted the meeting as chair of the
MCC, said countries that were not selected have asked: “What did we do wrong
or what is it we have to do right to get into this game?”
“We lay it out for them,” he said. “You can be a recipient, you can work out
a compact [agreement] with us, but you have got to do the right things” to
create conditions for attracting investment and trade, he said.
The MCA is “the most significant development program since the [post-World
War II] Marshall Plan,” he said.
Powell added that the MCA is in addition to and not at the expense of other
aid programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID).
The 16 selected countries are Armenia, Benin, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Georgia,
Ghana, Honduras, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua,
Senegal, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu.

ROBERT KOCHARIAN: ARMENIA CANDIDLY INTERESTED IN STABILITY IN GEORGIA
22.07.2004 14:12
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia is candidly interested in stability in
Georgia, Armenian President Robert Kocharian stated at a meeting with
Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili in Yerevan today. The
President said he hoped that the Georgian leaders would find ways to
overcome problems in the country as soon as possible. In the course of
the conversation R. Kocharian said he was satisfied with the current
level of relations between the two countries. At the same time the
parties considered the opportunities of further development of
Armenian-Georgia ties, as well as discussed the key questions of
future prospects in the region.

The Globe and Mail, Canada
July 22 2004
The gentleman writer’s epic

The remarkable success of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin in 1994 has
allowed Louis de Bernières to write his latest exotic epic at a
leisurely pace at his English country house, he tells REBECCA
CALDWELL
By REBECCA CALDWELL
Thursday, July 22, 2004 – Page R1
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Louis de Bernières’s latest
novel, Birds Without Wings, is a grand saga encompassing the full
range of human experience in the lives of villagers in the tiny
hamlet of Eskibahce in Turkey around the time of the First World War.
Fans of the author’s 1994 sleeper bestseller Captain Corelli’s
Mandolin, an epic tale fleshing out the extent of humanity on a tiny
village on a Greek island during the Second World War, would hope for
no less. No, the real shocker of Birds Without Wings is that the book
began not in some sun-drenched Mediterranean paradise, but in
Calgary.
Before Cowtowners start rejoicing at their newly minted literary
importance, it should be noted that the first line of the book that
de Bernières wrote in 1996 while a writer-in-residence at the
University of Calgary’s Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers program
is shot through with insanity and tragedy: “The people who remained
in this place have often wondered why Ibrahim went mad.”
“It might have been from being in a tiny little office with no
windows at a university,” he jokes during a phone interview from his
home, a country house in Norfolk, England. “No, I’d had this going
through my mind for some time, and I think I was waiting for one of
my victims to arrive and I just had this idea about what the first
page should be.”
Although he ended up completing his manuscript on a return journey to
Calgary last year as well, the real inspiration for Birds Without
Wings was a visit to a ghost town in Turkey about a decade ago.
De Bernières was struck by how he could still see the pretty pastels
of the ruined houses of a once-harmonious multicultural community,
home to Christians and Muslims, Greeks and Turks, that was devastated
by political turmoil and a disastrous policy of expulsions and
resettlements, first of Armenians, then of Christian Greeks,
following the First World War, one of the first swellings of a new
wave of 20th-century nationalism.
“They obviously used to have a sophisticated and pleasant life. All
the houses had water systems that filled up off the gutter on the
roofs and had an outside loo on the corner,” he said. “When [the
Christians] left, the local economy collapsed. They lost everybody
who knew how to make anything, and everybody who knew how to do
anything. Some people did come to replace the Christians, but they
were never the same again.”
It was in such a town where de Bernières imagined the setting for his
sketches of young lovers, Christian Philothei and Muslim Ibrahim;
childhood friends Karatavuk and Mehmetcik; the two spiritual leaders
of the town, Father Kristoforos and Abdulhamid Hodja; and the wealthy
landlord, Rustem Bey, his wife Tamara and his Circassian mistress
Leyla.
Interspersed between their vignettes are nearly straight segments of
the historical events of the early 20th century that would shatter
the bucolic world, notably the rise of Mustafa Kemal. Better known as
Mustafa Ataturk, he would lead the disintegrating Ottoman Empire
through the First World War and the savage Gallipoli campaign,
eventually consolidating his own power as the first chief of the new
nation of Turkey.
With 625 pages broken into 95 chapters, plus six epilogues and a
postscript, Birds Without Wings feels a bit episodic, a result not of
intended structural design but how his work evolves from short
stories, he says. De Bernières’s seemingly characteristic impulse to
write about Big Ideas such as nationalism and religious intolerance
also wasn’t a deliberate artistic aim. That he happened to write a
book about the historical failure of nationalism and religious
fanaticism at a time when issues of nationalism and religious
fanaticism are once again radically dividing the world was
coincidental, he says. If anything, the civil and religious wars that
tore through the former Yugoslavia in the nineties were more salient
when he started the book, he points out.
“What gets me interested in a story is a narrative,” said de
Bernières. “The themes, I suppose, come up almost by accident when
you’re writing a book like this. They’re there, but you don’t have to
put them in on purpose. There’s all sorts of things, you know,
there’s nationalism and religion and honour and love, war,
comradeship, all of these things. But I would never sit down and
think, ooh, I must write a book about comradeship.”
For the record, though, the abuse of nationalism and religion is
something he feels strongly about. In a way, writing about the topic
is his inheritance: De Bernières may be a French name, but he is
English, a descendent of Huguenots fleeing persecution in
18th-century France.
“I actually think religion is evil when it’s in its militant phase,”
he said. “When you’re militant, and you think you have God on your
side and you have a direct telephone line to him, then you’re going
to start all sorts of unpleasant mayhem. I actually think it is
absurd to claim to know things that are actually unknowable. And I
know that nationalism is a load of rubbish. Look at my country. There
is no such thing as a purebred Englishman.”
In the slow summer book season, newspapers in Britain have been
anxiously awaiting their turn to weigh in on what’s being touted as
the adult equivalent of a Harry Potter novel. As with Captain
Corelli’s Mandolin, the initial critical reception to Birds Without
Wings in Britain has been mixed (North American reviews will wait
until the book’s official release date on July 24). The Independent
declared it a masterpiece; while Peter Kemp of The Sunday Times
accused him of “stereotypes spray-painted with exoticism.”
The somewhat publicity-reluctant de Bernières — he’s not doing any
television interviews in Britain because, “As soon as you are on the
television, you become interesting to the tabloid newspapers, and
then you have people on the lawn with cameras” — doesn’t go out of
his way to read reviews, although people will call him up with
congratulations or commiserations.
“Sometimes you read criticism which is actually quite helpful, and
you think, hmm, yes, that’s a good point,” he said. “The Peter Kemp
one — he was annoyed with me that everyone was called Ali the
Broken-Nosed or Ali the Snowbringer, or etc, etc. The fact is that
back in those days, Turks didn’t have surnames, so that’s what they
were being called, but Peter Kemp thought that was just me trying to
be fake-exotic. That kind of criticism is just so ignorant, it just
makes you feel contemptuous rather than hurt.”
De Bernières, 49, is in the fortunate position of being able to take
the occasional bad review in stride. He’s earned his professional
cred long ago, selected as one of the Best of Young British Novelists
by Granta in 1993 and claiming a fistful of Eurasia-region
Commonwealth Writers Prizes — for a double-dose of magic realism,
1990’s The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts and 1991’s Senor Vivo
and the Coca Lord. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin won the overall
Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1995, but more important, Corelli won
him some creative breathing space.
Since being released in 1994, Corelli has sold 2.5-million copies in
the Commonwealth alone, propelled by a marketer’s impossible dream —
word-of-mouth sales. The film rights were sold for roughly £200,000
(almost $486,000 Canadian). With his money, de Bernières was able to
stop scratching out a living as a substitute teacher and buy his
country house, which he shares with his partner, an actress and
director. There, the rural-Surrey-bred, prep-school-educated author
has built his own Arcadia.
In the 10 years since Corelli, he’s leisurely produced Red Dog, a
children’s book about a legendary Australian mutt, and Sunday Morning
at the Centre of the Universe, a radio play meant as a farewell to
his old London community before he left for the country. De Bernières
has plans for two more novels as well as two books of short stories,
but he’s not racing to write them, although not because the success
of Corelli means he doesn’t have to.
“I only ever wrote when I felt like it, so that hasn’t changed,” he
said. “There was never a time when I suddenly thought, ooh, my life
has changed, everything is completely different, because it was all
happening so gradually. The best thing is that I bought myself a
house in the country where I can live with lots of space and
tranquillity.”
He spends his newly purchased spare time not writing more, but
tinkering about with cars (he has fixed up three, his oldest a 1947
Ford Pilot) and indulging in his one real obsession: playing music
and restoring instruments. He’s fond of woodwinds, and “things with
frets and strings” including guitars, banjos and, of course,
mandolins.
“It was the first time I’d had any money or spare time and I found
that when I quit teaching, I suddenly had that much more time for
hobbies, so I didn’t write any more than I did before,” he said. “I
also wanted time for my style and approach to change a bit, to
mature. I didn’t want to write Captain Corelli’s Mandolin twice.”

Baku Today
July 22 2004
Russian Azerbaijanis Protest Armenian Occupation
Nearly 50 Azerbaijanis staged an authorized picket in front of the
Armenian embassy in Moscow Wednesday, demanding that Yerevan withdraw
from Azerbaijan’s occupied territories.
The protest marked the 11th anniversary of the occupation of
Azerbaijan’s Aghdam District by Armenia.
The picketers urged international organizations to give up double
standards in their approach to the occupation of the Azerbaijani
territories, chanting anti-Armenian slogans, such as `There is no
Azerbaijan without Karabakh,’ `Take your hands out of Karabakh,’
among others.
Ilqar Qasimov, head of the coordination council of the Movement for
Azerbaijan and also a General of the Russian army, told a news
briefing following the picket that although more Azerbaijanis had a
desire to attend the action, the Moscow authorities did not give
permission for a larger action.
Armenian troops occupied Aghdam and six other administrative
districts along with Nagorno-Karabakh – Azerbaijan’s western region
that was home to nearly 100,000 ethnic-Armenians in 1989 – during
1991-94 war.
A cease-fire agreement reached between the two countries in May 1994
is frequently violated by exchange of fire while peace talks mediated
by the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
of Europe since 1992 have yielded no result.

Interfax
July 22 2004
South Ossetia makes contacts with Abkhazia, Transdnestr,
Nagorno-Karabakh permanent
MOSCOW/TSKHINVALI. July 22 (Interfax) – The South Ossetian Foreign
Ministry has made permanent contacts with the foreign ministries of
other unrecognized republics, Abkhazia, the Transdnestr Moldovan
Republic and Nagorno-Karabakh, due to the escalating tension in the
Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone.
“We need regular contacts to supply the public with objective
information about the developments in Tskhinvali and to gain military
support if necessary,” South Ossetian Foreign Minister Murad Jioyev
told Interfax by telephone on Thursday.
“Nearly all volunteers, who had came to South Ossetia, left but they
would return as need be,” he said. “I must stress though that
Tskhinvali wants a peaceful settlement of the crisis and is ready to
continue negotiations.”
“OSCE intermediaries in the conflict zone should be more active and
objective,” he said. “The OSCE pays almost no attention to our
statements on the Georgian breach of agreements.”
South Ossetian representatives may soon meet with head of the OSCE
Mission in Georgia Roy Reeve, the minister said.
South Ossetia (Tskhinvali) and Abkhazia (Sukhumi) are de jure
provinces of Georgia, which gained de facto independence from Georgia
(Tbilisi) in the 1990s. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is
urging Abkhazia and South Ossetia to restore state relations, but
they have been declining the offer. Nevertheless Saakashvili pledges
that his victory over the separatist leader of Ajaria will be
followed by regained control of two breakaway provinces.
Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdnestr are also self- proclaimed republics.
Azerbaijan lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh in a fierce conflict with
Armenia, and Moldova lost control of Transdnestr in the 1990s. <>

Azer News, Azerbaijan
July 22 2004
Azerbaijan says ‘no’ to OSCE Minsk Group

The long-anticipated visit by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to the
region has yielded absolutely no results, as this high-ranking group
lost even more credibility in the eyes of the Azerbaijani public. On
Thursday the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish hosted a
reception dedicated to
the co-chairs’ visit. Over 100 people were invited to the reception,
including representatives of political parties and NGOs, parliament
members, foreign ambassadors and journalists. Touching upon the Upper
Garabagh conflict, all the three co-chairs, Steven Mann of the United
States, Yuri Merzlyakov of Russia and Henry Jacolin of France,
pointed out the need for reconciliation, compromises and concessions,
without which a peace resolution would be impossible.
One of the co-chairs said that no third party will be able to resolve
the conflict and that the conflicting parties need to come to terms
on their own. The gist of all statements made by the co-chairs is
that Azerbaijan must submit to occupation, give up its demands on
restoring its territorial integrity and accept the independence of
Upper Garabagh. Addressing the meeting, former state adviser,
political scholar Vafa Guluzada said explicitly that such statements
are absolutely unacceptable, as they are aimed at compelling
Azerbaijan to relinquish its struggle for the liberation of its
territories. Guluzada told reporters after the reception that the
co-chairs are trying to blame Azerbaijan for the protracted conflict.
Azerbaijan is a victim of aggression, and instead of considering
liberation of its land, the co-chairing countries demand the country
to submit to occupation. The co-chairs are deliberately making this
blatant mistake by regarding the aggression as a conflict, Guluzada
said. The former state adviser emphasized the four resolutions,
passed by the UN Security Council on liberation of Azerbaijan’s
occupied territories. Particularly reprehensible is the position of
Russia, which is supplying arms to Armenia and has a military
cooperation agreement with this country, Guluzada said. Guluzada’s
statement caused confusion among the co-chairs, who subsequently
suggested that another speaker take the floor, but the other
participants supported Guluzada with an applause. Guluzada also said
he was confident that the goal of the meeting was to convince the
Azerbaijani public that the country must make concessions to Armenia.
Nonetheless, this attempt has failed again. The position of the OSCE
MG co-chairs has triggered a public outcry in Azerbaijan. Chairman of
the Party of National Independence of Azerbaijan (PNIA) Etibar
Mammadov said the co-chairs are making the same mistakes as before.
He said that they are not interested in a fair settlement of the
conflict and demand concessions only from Azerbaijan. Mammadov
further voiced his approval of Guluzada’s statement, saying that it
reflects the real state of affairs. “The co-chairs must understand
that neither the authorities nor the opposition of Azerbaijan will
make any concessions”, Mammadov said. Leader of Musavat Party Isa
Gambar also censured the position of OSCE MG co-chairs. He approved
of Guluzada’s statement, confirming that Azerbaijan will not make any
concessions to Armenia. Former Foreign Minister Tofig Zulfugarov said
the co-chairs must criticize the non-constructive position of one of
the conflicting parties. As for Guluzada’s statement, it was overly
emotional, Mammadov said and added that he still agrees with some of
its parts. Another political scholar Eldar Namazov gave a negative
assessment to the co-chairs’ utterances. He said the co-chairs do not
understand the real state of affairs and that nothing has changed in
their position. Moreover, the OSCE MG is absolutely unaware of the
public opinion in Azerbaijan and this statement by Guluzada was
unexpected for the co-chairs, Namazov said. “Vafa Guluzada gave a
very harsh response”, he added.
Disappointment
In a meeting with the co-chairs on Friday, President Ilham Aliyev
expressed his dissatisfaction with the inefficient activity of the
OSCE Minsk Group. He underlined that the co-chairs are well aware of
Azerbaijan’s position stated during the meetings of Azerbaijani and
Armenian presidents and foreign ministers. Aliyev said his country
aspires to a conflict settlement within international legal norms and
noted that all conflicts should be settled this way. The President
underlined that Armenia has not honored the UN Security Council’s
four resolutions on an unconditional withdrawal of its armed forces
from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan. On the same day, the MG
co-chairs held a private meeting with Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov. Commenting on the results of the meeting, Jacolin told
journalists that it was fruitful.
UN resolutions rejected
A heated debate unfolded during a meeting of Azerbaijani Defense
Minister, Colonel General Safar Abiyev with the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairs on Friday. Jacolin stated that peace talks have entered a
new stage. “If the conflicting sides do not make compromises, there
will be no progress in the Upper Garabagh conflict settlement. Any
incident occurring on the contact line of the military troops may
lead to military action.” General Abiyev underlined that Armenian
armed forces must pull out of the occupied Azerbaijani lands. “It is
necessary to comply with the UN Security Council’s four resolutions
on unconditional withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the
occupied land of Azerbaijan in order to fully settle the conflict.
Finally, the OSCE should pass a relevant decision on the matter.”
With regard to the MG co-chairs, Abiyev said that the group’s mission
is to settle the conflict and ensure that the conflicting sides come
to terms. The US co-chair Steven Mann argued that the Upper Garabagh
conflict should be solved by the governments of Azerbaijan and
Armenia, but not by the OSCE Minsk Group. He added that the co-chairs
would only assist in this. In reply to General Abiyev’s question on
the priorities for the conflict resolution and the principles the MG
proposed to the conflicting sides, the Russian co-chair Merzlyakov
said international legal norms envision a peaceful solution and
litigation as options for settling conflicts. “Today, the UN
resolutions may not be executed as they were adopted in a different
atmosphere and new versions for a conflict resolution should be
sought” Merzlyakov noted. In reply, the Minister said that the UN
resolutions are still in force. “These resolutions have already been
executed in Yugoslavia and Iraq and one day they will be applied to
the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict,” Abiyev said.
Co-chairs indifferent to public opinion
In a news conference dedicated to the results of their tour of the
region at the International Press Center of Baku on Friday, the
co-chairs failed to elaborate on the work they carried out to resolve
the Garabagh conflict. The US co-chair Mann said that they were
confident of the peaceful settlement of the Upper Garabagh conflict.
Russian co-chair Merzlyakov said all the three countries co-chairing
the OSCE MG support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and do
not recognize the independence of the “Upper Garabagh Republic”.
Unlike in a meeting with Defense Minister, Merzlyakov, touching upon
the issue of observance to the mentioned UN resolutions, said he
believes they are still in effect. Some of the resolutions on
stopping military action adopted in 1994 have been observed. As for
other regulations, for instance, one on stopping the hostilities by
the conflicting parties, the MG continues working in this direction,
Merzlyakov added. Commenting on a possible mediation by Turkey,
Merzlyakov said that this country is already playing an active role
in the Minsk Group. “We are working closely with Turkey”, he said.
The French co-chair Henry Jacolin, in his turn, noted that the peace
talks entered a new stage after Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev’s
death and Vilayat Guliyev’s dismissal from the position of Foreign
Minister. Jacolin stressed that it would take Azerbaijani and
Armenian presidents as well as foreign ministers a certain period of
time to bring their positions closer. Asked about Minsk Group’s
failure in solving the Upper Garabagh conflict, the MG co-chairs
underlined that Azerbaijan and Armenia should be blamed for this.
They declined to answer a question about the occupation of
Azerbaijani lands. Asked about the Azerbaijani public’s distrust in
the Minsk Group, Jacolin admitted that the co-chairs were not
concerned over this, as they are recognized by the Presidents of
Azerbaijan and Armenia. He noted that neither the UN nor the European
Union have assumed responsibility for mediating the conflict.
Unplanned meeting
Although the OSCE MG co-chairs did not plan to meet with the
leadership of the Azerbaijani community of Upper Garabagh, the
meeting took place on the insistence of the community leader Nizami
Bahmanov. Bahmanov said that if the co-chairs meet with the
separatist regime of Garabagh, they are obliged to meet with the
Azerbaijani community as well. The MG co-chairs, in turn, said that
they could not meet with the leadership of the Azerbaijani community
due to their busy schedule. Just like in the previous meetings, the
co-chairs did not come up with any concrete proposals.
>From The Editor-in-Chief
I was among those who attended the meeting of the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairs with the Azerbaijani public on the first day of their visit
to Baku. The Azerbaijani public came out strongly against the
statements made by the co-chairs, backing their statements with
convincing arguments. I will try to look into the reasons behind such
a harsh objection by the public. First, it was apparent that the MG
co-chairs came to Baku to impose the idea of surrender on Azerbaijan.
Second, the MG co-chairs are far from recognizing the aggression of
Armenia, a country which has occupied Azerbaijan’s lands, driven out
about one million people from Garabagh by pursuing a policy of ethnic
cleansing, destroyed ancient historical monuments and residential
areas in this region. Third, the co-chairs claim that the mentioned
UN Security Council resolutions are no longer ‘valid’, as they were
adopted in ‘different conditions’. Fourth, they call on Azerbaijan
‘to accept realities’, saying that ‘if Azerbaijan does not make any
compromises today, the conflict will not be resolved for the next 60
years’. Although the co-chairs declined to explain what compromises
should be made, it is common knowledge that Azerbaijan is expected to
give up Upper Garabagh, the city of Shusha and the Lachin District,
which is unacceptable. Neither Azerbaijani authorities nor the
opposition can agree to sign such an unfair and disgraceful peace
agreement… It is amazing that Russian co-chair Merzlyakov expressed
conflicting opinions on the same issue in various meetings. These
utterances are not accidental and reflect the policy Russia is
pursuing in the region. It is common knowledge that Russia, a
mastermind of conflicts ongoing in South Caucasus, is not interested
in their settlement. Besides, Russia is still able to keep the two
countries under pressure using the Garabagh problem. I am amazed that
the United States, a superpower, which is, contrary to Russia,
interested in establishing stability in the region, is taking a
passive stance on the issue and following Russia’s path

Azer News, Azerbaijan
July 22 2004
President Aliyev satisfied with development of relations with Russia

President Ilham Aliyev received Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russian
Ambassador to the Ukraine, former Prime Minister of Russia on
Thursday.
President Aliyev said he attaches a particular importance to
strengthening the ties with Russia and stressed the dynamics of
developing relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, which are
strategic partners. Chernomyrdin, in turn, voiced a hope for the
strengthening of the Russo-Azeri ties.
Although the purpose of the unexpected visit by Chernomyrdin, who is
one of Russia’s gas tycoons, to Baku is not officially disclosed,
political observers relate this to the issue of the construction of
an Iranian gas pipeline transporting gas to Europe through
Azerbaijan. Russia, which opposes Iranian gas exports to Europe, has
managed to hinder the construction of a pipeline transporting gas via
Armenia.

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
July 22 2004
Erdogan Urges Armenians to Give up Genocide Claims
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said while on
an official visit to France that his country is willing to open its
gates to Armenia, but added that the main precondition for this is
the Armenians’ giving up the genocide claims.
“The Armenian Diaspora is making a mistake by keeping the so-called
Armenian genocide issue on the agenda,” Erdogan said in response to a
question from a member of the French Parliament about what Turkey
thinks of the Armenian issue.
“Progress in the relationship will be difficult to achieve as long as
the [genocide] campaigns continue. The border gates will not be
opened unless the campaigns are ended,” Turkey’s daily newspaper
Zaman quoted Erdogan as saying.
The Turkish premier suggested leaving the issues of the past to
historians and looking into ways to boost cooperation between the two
countries.
`We are well aware what situation Armenia is in,’ Erdogan said,
adding that a betterment of the Turkish-Armenian relations would be
in the interests of the latter.