During the third episode of the television show “The Pacific” which started airing on March 14th, 2010 in the USA, the dialogue between Marine soldier Lecky and the Greek woman is in contradiction with historical facts and aims to offend Turkey in the eyes of the international community. This scene suggests that Turks have invaded and ransacked Izmir.
First and foremost, we believe that this dialogue has been intentionally included in the script:
1. Even though a dialogue like this is not present in the original book the movie based on, “Helmet for My Pillow” written by Robert Leckie. In the HBO show, The Marine sadly listens to this “fictitious invasion”.
2. Although the movie describes WW2, Japan and the United States and the truth about the Pacific front in the 1940’s; the audience is strangely left to see the story of a sacked Anatolian city in the 20’s, which is totally false.
Millions of people who watched the show probably don’t know that Izmir (Smyrna) was in fact a Turkish City which was invaded by the Greeks. They probably have no idea about the history of Turkey and her struggles to become a free republic after WWI. You are letting them believe that Izmir was a Greek city and that it was invaded and sacked by the Turks. In fact, Izmir (Smyrna) is a Turkish city where both Greeks and Turks live together and governed by Turkish states since the 14th century.
Izmir and western part of Turkey was invaded by the Greek army on May 15, 1919; the city was besieged for 3 years, 3 months and 24 days by the Greeks and was saved by the national war waged by the Turkish people on September 9, 1922. In short, Izmir is not a Greek city that was sacked by the Turks, but rather a Turkish city that was sacked by the Greek government.
And when it comes to the great fire of Izmir, there are various theories. It is said that either the soldiers under Nurettin Pasha, fleeing Greeks or resisting Armenians might be responsible for the fire. In fact, there are some stories that suggest that the fire started in a cathedral where armory that belonged to resisting Armenians blew up. We would like to stress that it is not ethical to suggest statements in such a certain manner in a situation even when historians don’t agree upon them. The Greek invaders, “genetic arsonists” had used the Scorched Earth tactics, and burned most of western Turkey to the ground, while raping innocent women and stealing people’s moneys. Why would the Turks, who were in desperate straits at the time, burn one of their most beautiful cities. How can anyone who doesn’t have rocks between their ears, believe that The Turks burned their second largest city?
This scene, which has apparently nothing to do with the entire concept of the show, looks like a clear case of lobbying. Once again, we would like to point out that this situation is blackening the independence struggle of a nation and wish that HBO would not be a mediator for misleading and provocative maneuvers such as this one.
I am herewith enclosing a clipping of San Antonia Express on January 22, 1923 whose reporter had interviewed with Mr. Mark Prentice, American Representative to Near East Relief Fund who was at the site at the time of Izmir (Smyrna) fire and was in a position to figure out the truth, which seems to have escaped HBO. Certainly no one has ever accused Near East Relief Fund to be pro Turkish. HBO should be smart enough to figure out that it has more Turkish viewers than Greeks!
Syrian President Bashar Asad’s visit to Baku, which took place immediately after Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Azerbaijan and which Asad said bore a strategic character, points to a possible mediating role for Azerbaijan in negotiations between Syria and Israel. [1] That is all the more the case because over the last several years, both Israel and the United States have pushed for the strengthening of the position of Azerbaijan in the Middle East in order to have another partner there alongside Turkey.
Indeed, now a suitable time has arisen as a result of that effort, and consequently, Tel Aviv and Washington have offered Azerbaijan a mediating mission in the Middle East and the role of a gas transit route to Europe bypassing Russia. For the first role, Azerbaijan is a key to American and Israeli efforts to reduce Russian influence in Iran and Syria and more precisely to cut the tie among the members of this triangle. And consequently, Israel and the US have offered concessions and attractive proposals.
In the dialogue between Damascus and Jerusalem, the primary focus is on the return to Syria of the Golan Heights which have been under Israeli occupation since the Six day way in 1967. During his visit to Baku, President Peres said that “Syrian President Bashar Asad must understand that he cannot receive on a silver platter the Golan Heights if he continues his ties with Iran and his support of Hezbollah. [2] At the same time, he sent a message to Tehran with whom a discussion on the Syrian question appears to be in the offing.
If it is able to achieve its goals, Israel may return the Golan Heights, but having given up these territories, Tel Aviv must receive a security guarantee for Israel. However, Damascus cannot completely break its ties with Teheran and its satellite Hezbollah and give a full guarantee that after the return of the strategically important Heights, Iran will not terrorize Israel. Only Tehran can give a guarantee of non-aggression against Israel whether or not the Golan Heights are returned. [3]
The Golan Heights are only the visible part of a game behind which stand the economic security of the Middle East and the West. After Peres and Asad visited Baku, US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg arrived, along with Philip Gordon, the assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia. During the visit, they discussed with Azerbaijan’s leadership the issue of US support for the diversification of energy supplies. Stressing that the US is not seeking to exclude Russia from this process, he pointed to a variety of energy plans that would involve Azerbaijan with Syria and Iran. At the same time, with this set of talks, conversations about the Nabucco gas pipeline, which would reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, took off.
And at the same time, US President Barak Obama decided to reopen the American embassy in Damascus which had been closed four years ago.
All these statements and actions help explain why Damascus has now declared its readiness to be part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline and to purchase oil from Iraq.
Of course, the US and Israel, by attracting Syria to their side, intend to isolate Iran, but since all the major Iranian gas fields remain beyond the control of the West, it is hardly possible to gain the complete isolation of Iran. Therefore, for the US and Israel, it is important to involve Iran in a dialogue through one or another third country, including among them Azerbaijan. But the most important link in this chain is the freeing of Iran from Russian manipulation. For that, Iran must become involved in one of the Western gas projects, otherwise the Iranian-Armenian gas pipeline through Georgia will become tied to Russia and Iranian gas will be under the control of the Kremlin.
In addition to this, the time has come for the development of new gas fields in the Caspian, part of which are in disputed areas. And here too it is necessary to free Iran from Russian influence since official Iranian circles consider that not Tehran but rather Russia is preventing the resolution of the status of the Caspian. Therefore, a mediating role for Azerbaijan among the US, Israel and Syria will require the intensification of negotiations between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Iran.
Notes
[1] “Azerbaijan will reconcile Syria with Israel” [in Russian], 11 July, available at: (accessed 3 August 2009).
[2] RosBalt (2009) “Israel: Syria will not be able to both get the Golan Heights and continue its friendship with Iran” [in Russian], RosBalt, 6 July, available at: (accessed 3 August 2009).
[3] IzRus (2009) “Azerbaijan is ready to mediate in reconciling Israel with Syria and Iran”, 19 July, available at: http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2009-07-19/5372.html (accessed 3 August 2009).
The upcoming June 28th 2009 visit to Baku by Israeli President Shimon Peres, a visit arranged during the May 6th meeting in Prague between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, opens a new stage in Azerbaijani-Israeli relations and reflects among other things Jerusalem’s desire to strengthen relations with former Soviet republics in the aftermath of Israeli operations in Gaza.
In support of that effort, one marked out in the middle of 2008, the Israeli foreign ministry has established separate departments to deal with the European portion of the CIS, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, regions that had been the responsibility of the ministry’s broader Central European and Eurasian Department. The new units are provisionally called Eurasia I (dealing with the European portion of the CIS) and Eurasia II (dealing with the South Caucasus and Central Asia). The head of Eurasia II, which will also deal with Azerbaijan, is Shemi Tsur, the son of a Jewish returnee from the Iranian province of Eastern Azerbaijan (Falkov & Kogan 2009).
Apparently, Israeli political technologists have been working on the strengthening of official contacts with Azerbaijan intensively. Jewish groups in the West have been playing a major role in this and have conditioned their support for Azerbaijani interests on Baku’s opening of an embassy in Israel. As official representatives of the two countries have noted, despite the absence of an Azerbaijani embassy in Israel and of a general treaty between Azerbaijan and Israel, there exist various interagency accords which are working extremely well. As a result, Israel receives 30 percent of the oil it needs for internal use through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and bilateral trade is constantly expanding.
The absence of anti-Semitism in Azerbaijan, the good relations with Jews living in the country also help to fill the diplomatic vacuum. At the same time, the opening of an embassy of a Muslim-majority state in Israel and the visit of the Israeli president to a Muslim country are a moral support and example for Jews of the entire world and the Jewish state itself.
In this connection, it is worth noting that this is the second official visit of a senior Israeli official to Baku over the last decade. In 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu, then and now the prime minister of Israel, after completing a visit to China spent the night in Baku. After that time, no senior Israeli officials visited Azerbaijan for some years. But beginning in 2006, when Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of the Our Home is Israel party became minister for strategic affairs, the number of visits increased. Lieberman himself visited Baku in the summer of 2007 just after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did.
These efforts by Israeli and Western companies and organizations in Azerbaijan have been viewed by Iranian ideologues as part of a network directed against Iran. One cannot deny that the overthrow of the current Tehran government or the forced change of its aggressive policy and the weakening of its position in the region are one of the key issues for Israel and the West and in particular the US. As a result, the concern of Iran on this score cannot be considered baseless paranoia.
On the other hand, with the assignment at the end of April 2009 of a new director of the Asian infrastructure of the Bureau for Ties with the Russian-language Jewish Diaspora Natif, Israel specified its policy concerning work with the diaspora in the CIS countries. In that, Azerbaijan is presented as a major focus of Natif’s activities (Izrus 2009). It could hardly be otherwise, given the Jewish communities of that country, as well as in Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The Jewish lobby and Israel in recent years have attempted to establish contacts with their compatriots living in Iran. In the meantime, the Southern Azerbaijanis who live in Iran represent another issue for relations between Baku and Tehran. With the goal of removing the World Congress of Azerbaijanis out from under the influence of Iran, for example, a change in the leadership of the organization has occurred. The Committee for work with compatriots was reformed into a structure for work with the diaspora, which thus reduced its focus on compatriots in areas adjoining Azerbaijan where Azerbaijanis have lived from time immemorial on their historical lands.
As was already noted, if the visit of Shimon Peres to Baku bears a moral character for Jews, for Azerbaijan it is one additional opportunity to attract the attention of the world community and the entire Jewish world to Azerbaijan and to define new patterns of cooperation and the inclusion of Azerbaijan in new major trans-regional projects. But as one might expect, Iran’s reaction has been aggressive, including overt threats to Azerbaijan. Baku responded diplomatically but made it very clear that it did not intend to retreat from the meeting or from its expanding ties with the Jewish state.
In spite of its threatening language, it is completely clear that Iran will not violate the borders of Azerbaijan as it did earlier. And clearly, Azerbaijan was prepared for such an Iranian reaction, but in preparing for it, Baku recognized that neither the US nor Israel could advance an effective policy toward Iran without taking Azerbaijan into account. Indeed, now economically and politically strong, Azerbaijan is capable of engaging itself in pro-active regional politics, as opposed to a defensive one it had adhered to before.
References
Falkov, Mikhail & Kogan, Alexander (2009) “Izrail’ otdel’no vzyalsya za Kavkaz I Tsentral’nuyu Aziyu” [“Israel Moved to Separately Deal with the Caucasus and Central Asia”], Izrus, 19 January, available at http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2009-01-19/3449.html, accessed 13 June 2009.
Izrus (2009) “’Nativ’ Izbral Kuratora po Tsentral’noy Azii I Kavkazu”, Izrus, 1 March, available at http://izrus.co.il/diasporaIL/article/2009-03-01/3883.html, accessed 14 June 2009.
Cabinet ministers rounded on their former colleagues, including Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon, who were caught trying to sell their influence for cash.
Cabinet members have vowed to tighten up lobbying laws
Related Tags:
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They vowed to tighten up lobbying laws after MPs including Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon were secretly filmed talking to undercover reporters.
‘There is absolutely no room for the sort of innuendo or promises that seem to have been floated in this case,’ said foreign secretary David Miliband.
Chancellor Alistair Darling sugges ted the MPs had been naive to fall for the sting targeting 20 MPs standing down at the next general election.
‘Really, what on earth did they think they were doing?’ he said.
‘The best answer when you get a call like that is to put the receiver back down again – it’s obvious.’
In the footage for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, former transport secretary Mr Byers described himself as ‘like a sort of cab for hire’ – charging £5,000 a day to pull the strings of movers and shakers. He also claimed to have influenced Lord Adonis in his dealings with National Express.
Former health secretary Ms Hewitt allegedly said she had helped a client paying her £3,000 a day to win a seat on a government advisory group.
And ex-defence secretary Geoff Hoon is said to have offered introductions to current ministers, in return for fees of £5,000 a day.
Mr Byers last night insisted he had ‘never lobbied ministers on behalf of commercial organisations’. He said he had made ‘exaggerated claims’ in the discussions caught on camera.
, 21st March, 2010
[2]
Calls for inquiry into ‘MPs for hire’ scandal
Damian Whitworth, Francis Elliott and Alex Ralph
David Cameron demanded yesterday that Gordon Brown investigate a boast by the former Cabinet minister Stephen Byers that he had used his influence to change policies to favour businesses.
The former Transport Secretary [Lord Adonis], who was secretly filmed offering himself “like a sort of cab for hire” for up to £5,000 a day, will be referred to the parliamentary standards watchdog today.
Mr Byers told an undercover reporter that he had secured secret deals with ministers and said that he received confidential information from No 10 and was able to help firms involved in price fixing to get around the law.
The claims gravely embarrassed Labour, which rushed forward a promise to introduce a compulsory register of lobbying which it said had been planned for the election manifesto.
Thirteen Labour MPs and seven Tories were approached by investigators for Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Sunday Times, pretending to be executives from a fictitious American lobbying firm. The others to feature in the documentary to be screened tonight are Labour’s Geoff Hoon, Patricia Hewitt, Margaret Moran and Baroness Morgan and the Tory MP Sir John Butterfill, who is understood to have boasted about his closeness to Mr Cameron.
Mr Byers was covertly filmed telling the reporter that he would be able to lobby ministers and gave examples of where he had done so before. He said he would charge £3,000-£5,000 a day and claimed he had done a deal with Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, to benefit National Express. He later retracted his claims and he, Lord Adonis and National Express all strongly denied any deal yesterday.
All of the MPs filmed, including Ms Hewitt and Mr Hoon, former Cabinet ministers, denied any wrongdoing and insisted that they had breached no rules. “I am confident that any investigation from the Standards Commissioner will confirm that I have always fully complied with the MPs’ code of conduct,” Mr Byers said. “I have never lobbied ministers on behalf of commercial organisations and have always fully disclosed my outside interests.”
Mr Hoon, a former Defence Secretary, reportedly said that he charged £3,000 a day and was looking to turn his knowledge and contacts into “something that frankly makes money”. He said: “At no stage did I offer, nor would I attempt to, sell confidential or privileged information arising from my time in government.”
Ms Hewitt said she “completely rejected” the allegation that she helped to obtain a key seat on a government advisory group for a client paying £3,000 a day.
The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats said they would table parliamentary questions about the claims in an attempt to see if there had been breaches of the ministerial code.
“I have been warning for some time that lobbying is the next scandal to hit British politics,” Mr Cameron said. “These are shocking allegations. The House of Commons needs to conduct a thorough investigation into these ex-Labour ministers.”
He said that the Prime Minister “would want to get to the bottom of the accusations being made about his Government — and real change is needed”.
Senior Cabinet ministers distanced themselves from their former colleagues.
Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, said it was “ridiculous” that the MPs had been caught out in the sting. “The best answer when you get a call like that is to put the receiver back down again. There are rules about serving MPs — we’ve said that we are going to have to get a statutory-backed code of conduct to deal with former ministers. But really, what on earth did they think they were doing?”
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that he was “appalled” and added: “There is absolutely no room for anyone to trade on their ministerial office.”
Research by The Times shows eight former ministers have made up to £370,000 in outside work of various kinds since announcing they would be stepping down as MPs. They include John Prescott, John Reid, John Hutton, Alan Milburn and Ms Hewitt. Mr Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister, has made up to £166,000, mostly through television documentaries and his autobiography.
, March 22, 2010
[3]
[4]
MPs’ foreign visit rules breached
Hundreds of breaches of parliamentary rules by MPs who accepted free overseas trips from foreign governments have been uncovered by a BBC investigation.
More than 20 MPs broke rules on declaring hospitality in questions or debates after visiting locations such as the Maldives, Cyprus and Gibraltar.
Between them, the MPs – from all the major parties – breached parliamentary regulations on more than 400 occasions.
One former standards watchdog says it shows MPs cannot regulate themselves.
Some MPs dismissed the breaches as technical errors or oversights.
However, the former Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, Sir Alistair Graham, told the BBC repeated rule breaches threatened to “undermine the integrity” of the democratic system.
He said it “demonstrated the failure of the self-regulating system of discipline in the Commons” and called for a shake-up of the way MPs’ behaviour is monitored.
“This is a very worrying situation which will further demean the standing of Parliament,” he said.
BBC home editor Mark Easton, who led the investigation, said it would raise further questions about the Commons’ ability to regulate itself.
The rules on overseas visits are there to ensure that no-one can accuse MPs of accepting foreign hospitality in return for political favours, for example pressing the UK government for financial assistance.
They require MPs to register such visits and then declare relevant trips in questions, motions or debates.
One of those who appears to have fallen foul of the code of conduct is Labour’s Andrew Dismore, a member ofthe Commons Standards and Privileges Committee – the very body which polices MPs’ behaviour.
He broke rules more than 90 times, following annual visits to Cyprus, by failing to declare the hospitality when raising issues about the island in Parliament.
In total, he has tabled more than 200 Commons questions about Cyprus since the last election in 2005, on topics such as missing persons from the island and its victims of past conflict between Turkey and Greece.
The Commons information office estimates it costs on average £149 to answer a written question.
Mr Dismore has also signed motions and led debates about Cyprus. However, he denies any wrongdoing and claims his questions about Cyprus were not sufficiently relevant to his trips to require a declaration.
Conservative David Amess has admitted failing to register a free trip to the Maldives – regarded as a “very serious” breach of the rules by the Committee on Standards and Privileges, according to the MPs’ code of conduct.
He also accepts he did not register a second trip for almost a year, blaming an administrative error by his office staff.
‘Paradise’
During a debate he tabled about the Maldives in 2007, Mr Amess told the Commons how his “splendid visit” had given him “an early taste of paradise”.
“No words can describe adequately just how beautiful the islands are,” he added, before suggesting the UK Government “could be encouraged to do a little more than is being done at the moment” for the islands in the Indian Ocean.
Despite leading two debates about UK support for the Maldives and asking 15 questions about the islands, he failed to declare an interest. Referring to the MPs’ code of conduct, Mr Amess told the BBC: “It is for the member to judge whether a financial interest is sufficiently relevant.”
Liberal Democrat Norman Baker, who has been actively calling for a clean-up of Parliament following the expenses scandal, has admitted breaching the rules on 37 occasions.
In a statement to the BBC, Mr Baker accepts he failed to declare an interest when leading debates and tabling questions about topics such as human rights in Tibet. He has travelled to India twice, courtesy of the Tibet Society and the Tibet government-in-exile.
“I should have then declared a relevant interest in respect of the parliamentary activities you list,” he said. “It is an unintended oversight that I did not.”
The MP who heads the Commons Public Administration Select Committee, Tony Wright, told the BBC that such rule-breaking was “unacceptable” and that the system should be more transparent.
“Declarations should be the norm. It is quite proper for MPs to go on visits. Some of those visits will be financed by foreign governments. But… if they’re lobbying on behalf of governments who have paid for their visits, then clearly we need to know about it.”
The rules are enforced by MPs themselves. Breaches are only investigated if a formal complaint is made and there is no independent body to ensure that members stick to the regulations.
Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox has admitted breaking the rules on two occasions, having visited Sri Lanka five times in the past three years courtesy of its government. He failed to declare the hospitality when asking ministers how much UK aid had been given to Sri Lanka.
In a statement, Mr Fox said: “I should have noted an interest and will be writing to the registrar to make this clear.” He blamed a “changeover of staffing responsibilities” for registering one of his visits more than two months late.
During the current Parliament, Gibraltar’s government has funded 31 trips for MPs to attend an annual street party on the territory.
Street party
Labour’s Lindsay Hoyle has been a guest at these National Day Celebrations three times. Following his visits he has asked 30 questions, tabled three early day motions and signed a further seven, all without declaring his interest.
Mr Hoyle also broke the rules by failing to declare an interest following registered trips to the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
“I have never received or sought any financial benefit,” he told the BBC.
Conservative Andrew Rosindell has been a guest of Gibraltar’s government twice in recent years. He subsequently asked 48 questions and signed or sponsored nine motions related to the territory without declaring an interest.
Thirteen of his questions about Gibraltar were before a visit had been registered. The BBC put the matters to Mr Rosindell but has yet to receive a response.
The BBC has identified a further 10 MPs from all three major parties who have been guests of Gibraltar’s government and shortly afterwards breached rules when signing motions or tabling questions about the territory.
The investigation has also identified three more Labour MPs and another Conservative who failed to declare an interest following visits to Cyprus.
MPs who have breached the rules:
David Amess
Norman Baker
Crispin Blunt
Graham Brady
Colin Breed
David Burrowes
Andrew Dismore
Jim Dobbin
Alan Duncan
Liam Fox
Mike Hancock
Lindsay Hoyle
Paul Keetch
Bob Laxton
David Lepper
Andrew Love
Madeline Moon
Mike Penning
Andrew Rosindell
Richard Spring
Theresa Villiers
Rudi Vis
DECLARING FOREIGN TRIPS
Any MP who has an overseas trip paid for by a foreign government must register it within four weeks
They must declare a financial interest if it “might reasonably be thought by others to influence the speech, representation or communication in question”
This includes when tabling questions, motions, bills or amendments, and when speaking out during Commons proceedings
Members may not, for example, call for increased UK financial assistance to the government which provided the hospitality
Q&A – MPs’ foreign trips rules
ANALYSIS
By Mark Easton, BBC home editor
The point of the regulations is to ensure that a sceptical citizenry can be confident about the integrity of their elected representatives.
Transparency is key.
The whole system only works if members take this responsibility seriously. Declaration doesn’t imply wrongdoing, but a failure to declare might be interpreted that way.
The widespread abuse of the system uncovered by our investigation suggests some Members of Parliament don’t understand this.
But what really struck me as I conducted the investigation is that the system of scrutiny surrounding the rules clearly does not work.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8580183.stm, 22 March 2010
This article was written by my good friend Robert Ellis and first appeared in the print edition of Hürriyet Daily News.
The non-admissibility decision a fortnight ago by the European Court of Human Rights was welcomed as “historic” by the Turkish press and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, but it might be premature to pop the champagne corks. In fact, it is probably former Turkish Ambassador Tulay Uluçevik who struck the right note when he described the Court’s ruling as “a Pyrrhic victory.”
Apart from the issue of security, that of property can be considered a major stumbling block for a solution to the Cyprus question, and the Annan Plan did little to assuage Greek Cypriot concerns. The right to restitution and return was effectively limited by a number of restrictions so that the majority of displaced Greek Cypriots were faced with compensation in the form of what Tassos Papadopoulos called “dubious paper.”
The Property Board that the Annan Plan envisaged, which would have settled claims from both sides, would for the most part have been funded by the Greek Cypriots, so it would have been the merchant from Kayseri who fed his donkey with its own tail all over again.
However, the Immovable Property Commission, or IPC, which the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (“TRNC”) established in December 2005 to deal with Greek Cypriot property claims, will in effect be funded by Turkey, as the “TRNC” has the status of “a subordinate local administration” under Turkish jurisdiction.
The legal status of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”, which was proclaimed in 1983, has been a bone of contention for previous property cases appearing before the European court, but it has been established in admissibility decisions (for example, Loizidou v. Turkey in 1995 and Xenides-Arestis v. Turkey in 2005) that Turkey is the respondent state.
In the latter case, an attempt was made to avoid a judgment against Turkey by establishing an “Immovable Property Determination, Evaluation and Compensation Commission” in July 2003, so as to provide a domestic remedy that should be exhausted. Nevertheless, this only provided for compensation but not restitution, and as there were doubts about the impartiality of the Commission, the remedy was found to be neither effective nor adequate.
So, seen in those terms, the IPC must be considered an improved model as its provisions provide for restitution, exchange or compensation in return for rights over the immovable property and compensation for loss of use if claimed. Furthermore, two of the IPC’s five to seven members are independent international members, and persons who occupy Greek-Cypriot property are expressly excluded.
Consequently, on the basis of the 85 cases concluded by last November, the Court found that the IPC provides an accessible and effective framework of redress for property issues “in the current situation of occupation that it is beyond this Court’s competence to resolve.”
In view of the redress offered by the Annan Plan, it must be a disappointment for Greek Cypriots that the Court maintains its view that “it must leave the choice of implementation of redress for breaches of property rights to Contracting States” and that, from a Convention perspective, “property is a material commodity which can be valued and compensated for in monetary terms.” In fact, in more than 70 cases claimants opted for compensation.
A further bone of contention in the current talks between Dimitris Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat is whether it is the legal or the current owner of the property who should decide whether redress should be in the form of restitution, exchange or compensation.
On this issue, the Court states, “It is still necessary to ensure that the redress applied to those old injuries does not create disproportionate new wrongs.” Finally, the Court concludes that this decision is not to be interpreted as requiring that applicants make use of the IPC. They may choose not to do so and await a political settlement, but in the meantime the Court’s decision provides a legal basis.
Davutoğlu believes the Court’s decision has boosted the international legitimacy of the “TRNC”, in which case he has neglected to read the small print. “The Court maintains its opinion that allowing the respondent State to correct wrongs imputable to it does not amount to an indirect legitimization of a regime unlawful under international law.”
Furthermore, “Accepting the functional reality of remedies is not tantamount to holding that Turkey wields internationally-recognized sovereignty over northern Cyprus.” The European Parliament has, in a resolution, called on Turkey to immediately start to withdraw its troops from Cyprus and address the issue of the settlement of Turkish citizens as well as enable the return of the sealed-off section of Famagusta to its lawful inhabitants.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has indicated he is willing to withdraw Turkish troops in the event of a solution, but his chief EU negotiator, Egemen Bağış, has boasted that Turkey has not withdrawn a single soldier or given away territory.
Considering that not only the future of Cyprus but also Turkey’s prospects of EU membership hang in the balance, that kind of attitude is singularly unhelpful.
Robert Ellis is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish and international press.
The visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to Baku on February 8-11, which has attracted so much comment and speculation, is a constituent part of Tel Aviv’s policy in the post-Soviet space. An analysis of the results of this visit shows that the resonance arising from the Baku meetings of the Israeli minister serves only as a cover for the discussion behind the scenes of issues, which have strategic geopolitical importance.
Azerbaijani and Israeli media in their discussion of these meetings devoted most of their attention to several questions, including the broadening of Azerbaijani-Israeli ties at a time when contacts between Ankara and Jerusalem are increasingly tense, Azerbaijani permission for Israeli use of the territory of the country in the event of military actions against Iran, and a mediating role of official Baku in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. The links among these various issues become obvious upon close examination.
As far as the first question is concerned, one should note that Israel and part of the Jewish lobby, which has spoken out against military actions in Iran, do not consider the territory of Azerbaijan as a place des armes for military actions against Iran. Related to this and as part of an effort designed to restrain Iran, the United States and Georgia have signed an agreement on the use of Georgia’s territorial waters in the Black Sea if US military bases in the Persian Gulf are used for an attack on Iran.
Correctly assessing the situation, Israeli political analysts understand that Azerbaijan will not under any circumstances agree to the use of its territory for an invasion of Iran but rather will do everything it can to prevent the beginning of military actions against its southern neighbor. Any military invasion, be it a broad scale military action or surgical strike, would entail a humanitarian catastrophe (including an incalculable number of refugees from the northern part of Iran), a collapse of the economy, and a growth of terrorism in Azerbaijan. These threats in turn are entirely capable of delivering a destructive blow to the security of Azerbaijan. Consequently, official Baku cannot agree to such a step even in exchange for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
There is, however, a plethora of other issues that invite attention of Baku and Tel Aviv, as well as Ankara, and could hence serve as a solid foundation upon which the relations among the three could develop further. Since Lieberman’s visit to Baku, there have been several extremely interesting events. On February 16, Pinchas Avivi, the deputy director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and head of that organization’s Division for Central Europe and Eurasia, made a working visit to Ankara. Not only did the two parties discuss bilateral relations, but they also touched upon the issues of cooperation and interaction in “third countries,” in particular those in the South Caucasus (Goldenstein 2010). That suggests that the meeting in Ankara represented a continuation of the Baku negotiations. The possibility of tripartite cooperation in dealing with the regional issues at a time when Turkish-Israeli relations appear to be in “conflict” is not fantastic if one comes to analyze more closely recent events. Despite a certain public cooling in recent months, both countries have enough in common that cooperation with regard to regional issues is far from impossible. As one Turkish official put it, “populism is part of contemporary politics,” but “Turkey was and remains a most serious guarantor of Israel’s security” (Oguz 2010).
Consequently, while some experts have hurried to bury the Azerbaijan-Israel-Turkish military-political union, it is obvious that precisely this union and not individual states are capable of being a key geopolitical center and playing a defining role in the region. And local conflicts, which are taking place in these countries, are considered not in isolation but as part of regional policies.
This nexus also reflects Azerbaijan’s interest in playing a larger international role. Indeed, many countries hope that it will. In May 2009, for example, when Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov was in Washington, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Azerbaijan could take on itself greater responsibility and leadership in the resolution of important issues in the region of the South Caucasus. She stressed that “Azerbaijan is a strategic location which is important not only for Azerbaijanis, but also for the region and the entire world,” including not unimportantly not only the Caucasus but the areas to its south. [1]
Not surprisingly, therefore, during Lieberman’s visit to Baku, the two parties discussed in detail the possibility of Azerbaijan’s mediating role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Baku’s growing interest in playing a greater role in the broader region to its south is also reflected in its continuous reluctance to open up its embassy in Tel Aviv. Experts in Baku often cite relations with the Organization of the Islamic Conference and with Iran as the reasons Azerbaijan has not taken that step, but the experience of Turkey and Israel suggests that in reality there is another reason at work: a desire, on the part of Baku, to demonstrate its respect for, and solidarity with, the Palestinians and the Islamic world more generally, something which will help increase the influence of Azerbaijan as a mediator in the Middle Eastern conflict.
As the situation around the region heats up, the links between Azerbaijan, Turkey and Israel seem certain to become closer, and this axis is destined to bear a direct effect on the broader region for years to come.
Note
[1] See (accessed 25 February 2010).
References
Goldenstein, Alexander (2010) “Турция и Израиль сохраняют координацию по Кавказу” [“Turkey and Israel keep coordination on the Caucasus”], Izrus, 17 February, available at http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2010-02-17/8651.html (accessed 25 February 2010).
Oguz, Dzhem (2010) “Есть причины, вынудившие Турцию изменить отношение к Израилю” [“There are reasons that prompted Turkey to change its attitude to Israel”], Regnum, 11 February, available at (accessed 25 February 2010).
By Mark Easton, BBC home editor