Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias gave Foreign Policy an interview earlier this week, where he offered an eloquent explanation of the factors that have conspired to leave his country his country divided [sic.], even after 36 years of diplomacy. But his answer to why the average U.S. citizen — or even the average diplomat in Foggy Bottom — should care about Cyprus’s plight was rather unsatisfying. “The United States of America is a bastion of freedom and human rights, isn’t it?” he said. “I call upon the Americans to respect the Cypriots as they respect themselves.”
That’s true, of course. Human rights are inalienable and universal, and if the approximately 1 million Cypriots are forced to live in a bifurcated nation, and the quarter million citizens of northern Cyprus exist in a state of international isolation, that’s an issue that deserves our concern. We should also be concerned with the treatment of the Uighur population in China, the work of Cambodia’s international tribunal, and the ongoing chaos in the Congo. In a world of finite resources, however, concern doesn’t necessarily translate into the United States spending time and money to resolve a problem.
However, there is a good reason that the United States should be paying active attention to the progress, or lack thereof, in resolving the Cyprus dispute. It just has less to do with the plight of Cypriots themselves, and more to do with the fate of Christofias’s primary rival: Turkey. The Turkish government, which is increasingly throwing its weight around in the Middle East, still refuses to recognize the Republic of Cyprus or let its vessels dock in Turkish ports. Cyprus, as a full member of the European Union, can be expected to continue to block Turkey’s EU accession bid until a resolution is reached. The fear is that, if Prime Minister Erdogan’s government finds its path blocked to the West, it will increasingly drift into the orbit of Iran and Syria.
Indeed, the lack of progress on the Cyprus issue is just one instance of how Erdogan’s ambitious foreign policy has been unable to resolve issues closer to its borders. While Erdogan travels the globe blasting Israel for its policy toward Gaza or mediating the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, his diplomats have also made little progress in normalizing relations with Armenia; efforts to resolve the increasingly violent conflict with Turkey’s Kurdish population have also stalled. Issues like Cyprus, Armenia, and Kurdish integration might not command the international spotlight in the same way as Iran and Israel can, but they are arguably more important for Turkey’s long-term well being.
Turkish troops arrive in the southeastern port city of Busan in 1950 to join the Korean War. Some 21 countries took part in the conflict. / Korea Times file
UNC waged crusade against communism
By Andrew Salmon
On 29 August, 1950, a bright summer day, a startlingly alien sound blasted across Busan docks: A series of flatulent drones followed by a piercing wail.
The sound was emanating from a group of young men pacing the gun turrets of an approaching heavy cruiser. Their appearance was even more bizarre: They were clad in skirts and chequered, tasseled headgear. The cacophonous lilt emanated from sack-like objects the men were plying.
The objects were bagpipes; the men were Scottish troops of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the lead battalion of 27th British Brigade. At an urgent American request, and in response to the deteriorating military situation, this unit had been dispatched. post-haste, from Hong Kong with such speed that they dubbed themselves the “For-God’s-sake-send-something Brigade.”
27th Brigade were just the first of the non-American contingents to arrive in Busan to help stem Kim Il-sung’s invasion. On the embattled peninsula, a new concept in world affairs was being born: A United Nations military intervention force, or, to give it its formal title in Korea, the United Nations Command, or UNC.
This was the force enabled by UN Security Council resolutions of 25th and 27th June and 7th July 1950 calling for the “restoration of international peace and security in the area” following Pyonyang’s 25th June invasion. Several contingents, however, would not land until 1951, by which time the South had been saved, the North defeated and counter-invaded – and then the entire situation reversed by the Chinese intervention at the end of 1950.
Under the U.N. banner, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Ethiopia, France, Greece, India (Field Ambulance), Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, Thailand and Turkey supplied ground combat troops, while South Africa deployed its “Flying Cheetah” fighter squadron. Denmark, Italy, Norway and Sweden provided non-combatant medical units.
The United States commanded this polyglot force, and, after South Korea, provided its main muscle, contributing seven infantry division and a marine division, as well as logistical support, and the largest naval and air units. In July 1953, a survey showed that South Korea had 590,911 troops in the UNC; the US, 302,482; and other U.N. contingents totaled only 39,145.
Most of the non-American UNC contingents were small. Once the war entered its static stage in late 1951, the Australian, British, Canadian, Indian and New Zealand units fought together, but the Commonwealth Division was the only unit in the UNC that was operationally independent. Turkey provided a brigade, but all other contingents ― except for little Luxembourg’s, which was a platoon fighting within the Belgian battalion ― were battalion-sized and were absorbed into American parent formations.
The cosmopolitan expansion of the coalition defending South Korea provided the U.S.-run logistics chain with a range of problems. While the U.S. Army was dry, the Dutch wanted gin, the French wine, and the Australians, Belgians and British, beer to fight on. On the rationing front, the Turks would not eat pork and like the Dutch, demanded fresh bread. The Greeks wanted figs, raisins and olive oil.
Yet, while these UNC units might cause cultural, linguistic and logistical headaches for U.S. commanders, and while they did not compare in size with the Americans, many of them proved to be exceptionally high quality fighting units. This was particularly so in the first six months of the war when, by comparison, the U.S. Army was suffering significant morale and leadership problems.
The Turks forged a legend in their first action. Sent to hold the flank of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, disintegrating under Chinese onslaught at the end of November 1950, the ferocity with which they employed their bayonets earned them global fame. At the same time, they took massive casualties, partly due to linguistic problems and poor liaison with American forces.
The French battalion proved a lynchpin at Chipyong-ni, a battle of encirclement in February 1951 that was widely considered the first UNC tactical victory against the onrushing Chinese.
At the heart of the greatest enemy offensive of the war in April 1951, stood the British 29th Brigade, which earned global attention for its tragic stand on the Imjin River. On the opposite end of the front, the Australian and Canadian battalions of 27th Commonwealth Brigade won plaudits for their masterly defensive battle at Kapyong during the same Chinese offensive.
The fighting quality of the Commonwealth Division would be evident in the key ground they were assigned to once the war entered its static stage: Flanking the U.S. Marine division, generally considered the best of the U.S. ground units, along the Samichon Valley, at the northern end of the so-called “Uijongbu Corridor” the traditional invasion route to Seoul.
The Belgians were noted for their enthusiastic professionalism, and the Greeks for their excellence in mountain warfare.
What compelled such a disparate group of nations to fight for a country that very few of their citizens had even heard of before 25 June 1950?
Although the ostensible causus belli was the defense of South Korea, Rhee Syngman’s government – a regime of questionable democratic credentials, and one which operated, in the view of many UNC men, with comparable brutality to Kim Il-sung’s – hardly made a compelling case for intervention.
There were, instead, three main reasons. National desires to win the goodwill of Washington; national suspicions of militant communism; and a more general desire to support the efforts of the then-fledgling, but promising, U.N.
For the U.K., which fielded the second-largest contingent, it was a fight to stem global communism, but the country was also under pressure to maintain its “special relationship” with the U.S. France, heavily engaged in Indochina, needed to earn American goodwill for aid in that struggle. It is fair to say that all the northern European contingents felt a debt of honor toward the U.S. after World War II, and the Greeks had even more recent reasons to thank the U.S. for its assistance in winning the Greek Civil War.
Two units that UNC officers were careful not to deploy alongside one another were the traditional enemies of southern Europe, the Greeks and the Turks. Ankara was keen to cement ties with Washington, in order to gain membership in NATO; ironically, Athens shared the same motive.
After the armistice was signed in July 1953, this international legion, a force as polyglot as any since the Crusades, dispersed. Australian and British veterans headed for a less intense anti-communist struggle in the jungles of Malaya, but for one contingent, the end of the Korean War spelled disaster. The French battalion was assigned to Indochina, where Paris’ position was deteriorating. The much-admired battalion was wiped out by Viet Minh forces in 1954.
Some who fought under the U.N. banner in Korea were disappointed at the organization’s less effectual role thereafter. The original U.N. resolutions that had underwritten the UNC’s existence had been made possible by the absence of the USSR’s envoy to the body, Josef Malik, who was boycotting the body in summer of 1950 (due to the U.N.’s refusal to grant a seat to communist China).
Once Moscow rejoined the world body and Cold War politics began affecting its operation, it became difficult to employ U.N. forces on anything other than “peacekeeping” missions — many of questionable effectiveness. It would not be until the end of the Cold War, and the U.N. intervention in the Gulf War of 1991, that the U.N. would again field a military force with real teeth.
Sixty years later, the leading nation in the UNC, the United States, is still South Korea’s most important political ally, but it is fair to say that the trade and commercial links forged between Seoul and other UNC capitals have fallen in importance since the end of the Cold War. Then-enemy China, for example, has replaced the United States as Korea’s top trade partner.
Still, emotional ties endure: South Korea and Turkey, for example, displayed a mutual affection during their World Cup semifinal match in 2002 that was born in the war years and after, when Turkish troops founded the “Ankara” orphanage.
The peninsula had seen international contingents fighting on its soil before. Kublai Khan’s multi-ethnic legions used Korea as a staging area for their doomed invasions of Japan in the 13th century, and Japanese, Manchu, White Russian, Chinese and Soviet troops would all leave blood on Korean soil in succeeding centuries.
But the UNC troops of 1950 made up of the most cosmopolitan army the peninsula had ever hosted; their ethnic and national diversity would not be witnessed again in Korea until the 1988 Summer Olympics. For modern Korea, the internationalization of its fight for survival in late 1950 was the first, if unacknowledged, step in a process that few South Koreans would start talking about until the early 1990s: Globalization.
Caught up in a smoldering feud between its President and Prime Minister, Russia is not making the most of the historic opportunity to deploy in the Middle East. Russian elites were unable to draw up a strategy for that region when they had the chance and, now, they are no longer capable of it. In Thierry Meyssan’s view, Moscow is paralyzed, having failed both to take full advantage of the botched US “remodeling” of the Middle East and to fulfill the hopes raised by Vladimir Putin.
President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. The understanding between the “30-year” friends has abruptly turned into an open war. Under these conditions, how could Moscow nurture any major ambition in the Middle East?
The Israeli defeat in the Summer of 2006 against the Lebanese resistance spelled the end of US supremacy in the Middle East. In only four years, the military, economic and diplomatic situation in that region underwent a complete change.
At present, the Turkey-Syria-Iran triangle has emerged as the leading pole while Russia and China expand their influence as that of the United States is fading. However, Moscow is reluctant to seize the opportunities it has at hand. First of all, its priority is not the Middle East; secondly because no project related to this region has the consensus of the Russian elites, finally because Middle East conflicts have sensitive implications for Russia’s own domestic problems. Let’s take stock of the situation.
2001-2006 and the myth of the remodeling of the “Great Middle East”
The Bush administration was able to rally the oil lobby, the military industrial complex and the Zionist movement around a huge project: securing control of the oil fields running from the Caspian Sea to the Horn of Africa by redesigning the political map based on small ethnic states.The zone, demarcated not according to its population but to the riches under its soil, was first called “Crescent Crisis” by University professor Bernard Lewis and later “Greater Middle East” by George W. Bush.
Washington did not skimp on its Middle East “remodeling” project. Huge sums of money were invested in buying local elites so that their personal interests would come before national interests in the context of a globalized economy. Most important was the deployment of a strong military force to Afghanistan and Iraq to hem in Iran, the main actor in the region that stands up to the empire. Maps of the new region were drawn up and circulated by the Chiefs of Staff. All countries in the region, including Washington’s allies, would be broken up into various emirates incapable of defending themselves, while vanquished Iraq would be divided into three federate states (a Kurdish, a Sunni and a Shiite).
When it seemed that nothing could prevent that domination process from going ahead, the Pentagon handed Israel the task of destroying all secondary fronts before attacking Iran. The aim was to wipe out the Lebanese Hezbollah and to overthrow the Syrian government. However, after submitting one third of the Lebanese territory to a bombing campaign the likes of which hadn’t seen since the Vietnam War, Israel was forced to retreat without having attained any of its goals. That defeat marked a strategic shift in the balance of forces.
Over the next months, US generals rebelled against the White House. They had lost control of the situation in Iraq and anticipated with apprehension the difficulties of a war against a well-armed and organized state—Iran—potentially setting the entire region ablaze. The generals, gathered around Admiral William Fallon and senior general Brent Scowcroft, forged an alliance with several realistic politicians who opposed the danger inherent in the excessive military deployment.
They used the Baker-Hamilton Commission to influence American voters until obtaining the dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his replacement with one of their allies: Robert Gates. Subsequently, these same individuals hoisted Obama to the White House, on condition that Robert Gates would remain the Pentagon.
In fact, the US General Staff has lacked an alternative strategy ever since the “remodeling” failed. Its only concern is to stabilize its positions. US soldiers withdrew from large Iraqi cities and retreated to their bases. They left the management of Iraq’s Kurdish areas in the hands of the Israelis while the Arab zones were left to the Iranians. The US State Department has stopped handing out sumptuous gifts to regional leaders and has become increasingly avaricious in these times of economic crisis. Yesterday’s beholden are looking for new masters to feed them.
Tel Aviv is the only one to still believe that the US withdrawal is but an eclipse and that the “remodelling” will resume once the economic crisis is over.
Formation of the Turkey-Syria-Iran Triangle
Washington thought that the dismantlement of Iraq would be contagious. The Sunni-Shiite civil war (the Fitna, in Arabic) was supposed to pit Iran against Saudi Arabia and split the whole Arab-Muslim world. The virtual independence of Iraqi Kurdistan was expected to cause a Kurdish secession in Turkey, Syria and Iran.
But the opposite happened. The easing of US pressure on Iraq sealed the alliance among the enemy brothers of Turkey, Syria and Iran. All three realized that in order to survive they had to unite and that once united they could exert regional leadership. In fact, Turkey, Syria and Iran, together, cover all crucial aspects of the regional political spectrum. As the heir to the Ottoman empire, Turkey incarnates political Sunni Islam. As the only remaining Baathist state after the destruction of Iraq, Syria embodies secularism. And, finally, since the Khomeiny Revolution, Iran represents political Shi’ism.
In just a few months, Ankara, Damascus and Teheran opened their common borders, lowered customs tariffs and paved the way for a common market. This opening provided them with a breath of fresh air and a sudden economic growth which, despite the memories of prior disputes, has also garnered genuine grassroots support.
However, each of these three states has its own Achilles’ heel which the United States and Israel, as well as some of their neighbors, will attempt to exploit.
For years, Tel Aviv and Washington have accused Iran of violating its obligations as signatory of the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty and of developing a secret military nuclear program. In the times of Shah Reza Pahlevi, both capitals – plus Paris – had set up a large program designed to provide Iran with the atomic bomb. In view of its history, it was generally accepted that Iran had no expansionit ambitions and that the great powers could safely provide it with such technology. A propaganda campaign based on deliberately fabricated information was later organized, painting current Iranian leaders as fanatic and capable of using the atomic bomb – if they had it – in an irrational manner, therefore posing a great threat to world peace.
Nevertheless, Iranian leaders affirm they have renounced to building, storing or using the atomic bomb, precisely due to ideological reasons. And their assertion to totally reliable. Let us simply recall what happened during the war led by the Iraq of Sadam Husein against the Iran of Imam Khomeiny.
When Baghdad unleashed a stream of missiles against Iranian cities, Teheran retaliated in the same way. But they were unguided missiles that were launched in any given direction and fell indicriminately. Imam Khomeiny intervened to denounce the use of such weapons by his own armed forces. Khomeiny stressed that good Muslims should refrain from shooting at the military if it entailed the risk of killing a large number of civilians. Khomeiny then prohibited the use of missiles against cities, which had an impact on the balance of forces, prolonged the war and brought new suffering to the Iranian people. At present, the successor of Khomeiny, Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Revolution, defends the same ethics in respect of nuclear weapons and it is unthinkable that any faction of the Iranian state would dare to violate the authority of the Supreme Leader and secretly build the atomic bomb.
The fact is that after the Iraqi offensive, Iran anticipated the eventual depletion of its hydrocarbon reserves and wanted to have a civil nuclear industry to guarantee its own long-term development and that of the rest of Third World nations. To this end, the Revolutionary Guards set up a special team of officials dedicated to scientific and technical research, which was organized in secret cities, according to the soviet model. These researchers are also working on other programs, such as those linked to conventional weapons. Iran has opened all its nuclear facilities for inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but it refuses to give them access to research facilities dedicated to conventional weapons. We therefore find ourselves in a déjà vu situation : IAEA inspectors assure there is nothing to accuse Iran of, while the CIA and the Mossad insist—without any evidence—that Iran hides its illegal activities within its vast scientific research sector.This situation is reminiscent of the intoxication campaign previously carried out by the Bush administration, accusing the UN inspectors of not doing their job properly and of overlooking the WMD programs supposedly developed by Sadam Husein.
No country in the world has been the object of so many IAEA inspections and it is not serious to keep accusing Iran, but it hasn’t made a dent in the bad faith displayed by Washington and Tel Aviv. The fallacy about the alleged threat is crucial for the military industrial complex, which has for years implemented the Israeli program known as “antimissile shield” with US taxperyers’ money. Without the Iranian threat, there is no budget!
Teheran has undertaken two operations to get out of the trap which was set against it. First, it organized an international conference for a nuclear-free world, during which Iran finally expounded its position to its principal partners (on April 17). Iran also accepted the mediation by Brazil, a country whose president Lula da Silva aspires to become the Secretary General of the United Nations. President Lula had asked his US counterpart Barack Obama what kind of measures would be likely to reestablish confidence. Obama replied in writing that the compromise concluded in November 2009, but never ratified, would suffice. President Lula travelled to Moscow to make sure Russian President Dimitri Medvedev had the same opinion. President Medvedev publicly confirmed his view that the November 2009 compromise would be enough to solve the crisis. The next day, May 18, President Lula co-signed with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a document that, from all perspectives, met the demands made by the United States and Russia. But the White House and the Kremlin did an about-face, going back on their position, and denounced the guarantees offered by the new document as insufficient.
However, there is no significant difference between the document negotiated in November 2009 and the one ratified [by Iran, Brazil and Turkey] in May 2010.
Turkey inherited from its past a large number of problems with its minorities and neighbors; the United States has been fueling these problems for decades to keep Turkey under its thumb. Professor Ahmet Davutoglu, a theorist of neo-ottomanism and new Turkish foreign minister, has drawn up a foreign policy aimed, in the first place, at freeing Turkey from the endless conflicts bogging it down, as well as at multiplying its alliances with various intergovernmental institutions.
The dispute with Syria was the first to be solved. Damascus stopped using the Kurds and abandoned its claim over the Hatay province. In return, Ankara yielded on the division of river waters and helped Damascus to come out of its diplomatic isolation; it even organized direct negotiations with Tel Aviv, which occupies the Syrian Golan. Syrian President Bachar el-Assad was received in Turkey (in 2004) and the Turkish President Abdullah Gull was welcomed in Syria (in 2009). A Strategic Cooperation Council was set up by the two countries.
As for Iraq, Ankara had opposed an invasion of this country by the Anglo-Americans (in 2003). It banned the United States from using the NATO bases on Turkish territory to attack Bagdad, thus upsetting Washington and delaying the start of the war. When the Anglo-Americans formally transferred power to the Iraqis, Ankara favored the electoral process and encouraged the Turkmen minority to take part in the vote. Later, Turkey relaxed border controls and boosted bilateral trade. There is only one aspect marring this panorama: relations between Ankara and the Bagdad national government are excellent, but they are chaotic with the Kurdish regional government of Erbil. The Turkish army even took the liberty of persecuting the PKK separatists inside Iraqi territory—needless to say, with the support of the Pentagon and under its control. Be that as it may, an accord was signed to guarantee the export of Iraqi oil through the Turkish harbor of Ceyhan.
Ankara took a series of initiatives to put an end to the secular conflict with the Armenians. Resorting to “football diplomacy”, Ankara acknowledged the 1915 massacre (but refused the term ‘genocide’), and managed to establish diplomatic relations with Erevan, while it seeks a solution to the High Karabaj conflict. Nevertheless, Armenia suspended the ratification of the Zurich bi-party accord.
Turkey’s liability in relation to Greece and Cyprus is also very significant. The division of the Aegean Sea has not yet been clarified and the Turkish army is still occupying Northern Cyprus. Ankara has proposed different measures to reestablish confidence, particularly the mutual reopening of harbors and airports. But relations are far from being normalized and, for the time being, Ankara does not appear willing to abandon the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Washington has accused Syria of continuing its war against Israel through various intermediaries: Iran’s secret services, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas. The United States thus falsely blamed Syrian President Bachar el Assad of having ordered the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and had a Special Penal Court set up to judge the Syrian President.
With astonishing ability, Bachar el-Assad, who had been depicted as a conceited and totally incompetent “daddy’s boy”, managed to wiggle out of that corner without making concessions or firing a single shot. The testimonies of his accusers wilted one after the other, and Saad Hariri, the son of the late Hariri, stopped demanding his arrest and even paid him a friendly visit in Damascus. Nobody wants to finance the Special Court any more and it is possible that the UN might decide to dismantle it even before it convenes, unless it will be used as a forum to accuse Hezbollah.
Finally, in response to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s injunctions to break relations with Iran and with Hezbollah, Bachar el-Assad organized a surprise Summit meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and with the top Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah
What about Russia?
The consolidation of the Turkey-Syria-Iran triangle is a consequence of US and Israeli military power decline. The vacuum created is being filled by others.
China has become Iran’s first commercial partner and draws on the expertise of the Revolutionary Guards to overcome the hurdles set up by the CIA in Africa. It also gives military back-up, as discreet as it is effective, to Hezbollah (which it probably equipped with land-to-air missiles and guiding systems to counter interference) and to Hamas (which opened a representation office in Pekin). However, China is advancing very slowly and cautiously on the Middle East stage where it has no intention of playing a decisive role.
All expectations point in Moscow’s direction, which has been absent from the region since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia wants to recover its former position of world power, but is reluctant to make a move before having solved the problems it currently faces in the former Warsaw Pact zone. The main drawback is that the Russian elites have no alternative policy to replace the US “remodeling” project and are stuck on precisely the same problem as the United Sates: in view of the shift in the regional power correlation, it is no longer possible to implement a balanced policy between Israel and the Arab countries. Any involvement in the region implies, sooner or later, a rupture with the Zionist regime.
Moscow’s clock stopped in 1991, at the moment when the Madrid Conference took place. Moscow has not yet registered the failure of the Oslo (signed in 1993) and the Wabi Araba (1994) accords in terms of implementing the so-called “Two-State Solution”, which is no longer viable. The only peaceful option is the one implemented by South Africa: the abandonment of Apartheid and the recognition of a single nationality for all citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike; and the reinstatement of a real democracy based on the principle of “one man, one vote.” That is already the official position adopted by Syria and Iran, which will soon be embraced also by Turkey.
The great diplomatic conference on the Middle East that the Kremlin wanted to organize in Moscow in 2009, and which was both announced at the Annapolis Summit and confirmed by several UN resolutions, never took place. Russia passed up its opportunity to act.
Those Russian elites which still enjoy great prestige in the Middle East, no longer frequent the region; they fantasize about it more than they understand it. In the 1990s, they were enthusiastic over the romantic theories of anthropologist Lev Gumilev and were in tune with Turkey, the only nation which, similar to Russia, is both European and Asian. Then, they fell for the geo-political charisma of Alexander Dugin, who detested western materialism, thought that Turkey was contaminated by western values, and was mesmerized by the asceticism of the Iranian Revolution.
However, that momentum evaporated in Chechnya before it began to materialize. Russia was brutally confronted with a form of religious extremism that received undercover support from the United States and was fueled by the Turkish and Saudi secret services. As a consequence, any alliance with a Muslim state seemed risky and dangerous. And when peace was reestablished in Grozny, Russia was unable, or did not want, to play on its colonial heritage. According to the President of the Islamic Committee of Russia, Gaidar Zhemal, Russia cannot aspire to become an euro-Asian nation and at the same time pretend that nothing happened nor can it continue to view itself as an orthodox state which is protecting its turbulent Muslim brothers. Russia had—and still has—to define itself by considering orthodox and Muslims as equals.
Rather than leaving for tomorrow the solution to the problems concerning minorities, and postponing for the day after tomorrow its involvement in the Middle East, Russia could consider interacting with Muslim partners abroad, as reliable third-party players, with a view to establishing an internal dialogue. The Syria of Bachar el-Assad constitutes a model of a post-socialist state on its way to democratization that has been able to preserve its lay institutions, has allowed the flourishing of major religions and their various ramifications, including hardcore Wahhabism, while also managing to preserve social peace.
The economic attraction
For the time being, the Russian elites are ignoring the warning issued by former Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces, General Leonid Ivashov, about the need to establish alliances in Asia and in the Middle East, in the face of US imperialism. As noted by political analyst Gleb Pavlovski, they prefer to think that geo-political antagonism will dissipate thanks to economic globalization. They also regard the Middle East primarily as a market.
President Dimitri Medvedev has recently concluded a tour that took him to Damascus and Ankara. He lifted visa requirements and opened the doors of the burgeoning common market (Turkey, Syria, Iran + Lebanon) for Russian companies. He also favored the sale of a large arsenal to all these countries. In particular, he negotiated the ten-year construction of nuclear power plants. Finally, he took advantage of Turkey’s strategic evolution to obtain support for the transit of Russia’s hydrocarbons. A Russian land oil pipeline would connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and Ankara might be attracted to the transnational South Stream gas pipeline project.
The limits of Russia’s involvement
Outside of the economic sphere, it is hard for Moscow to consolidate its position. Former Soviet naval bases in Syria have been reactivated and opened to the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean, all the more since naval deployment in the Black Sea is expected to be reduced. It is all happening as if Moscow were trying to gain time and postpone the Israeli issue.
The fact is that any condemnation [by Russia] of Jewish colonialism may revive internal problems. In the first place because, to express it in a caricatural and unflattering manner, Israeli apartheid is reminiscent of Russia’s treatment of the Chechnyans; and also because Russia is acting under the burden of a historical complex: that of anti-Semitism. Vladimir Putin has tried on several occasions to turn the page through symbolic gestures such as appointing a rabbi to the army, but Russia keeps feeling uncomfortable with this issue.
However, Russia ought to stop playing the waiting game; the dice have been tossed and Russia must face the consequences once and for all. Israel played a crucial role in arming and training the Georgian troops that attacked and killed Russian citizens in Southern Ossetia. In response, Georgia’s Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili, a double Israeli-Georgian national, rented two military air bases to the Israeli Tsahal enabling it to attack Iran from a closer distance.Moscow stood stoically by without lifting a finger against Israel.
The Middle East looked upon this lack of reaction with surprise. It is true that Tel Aviv has numerous relations with the Russian elites, networking with them by offering to some of the most influential people material privileges in Israel. But, Moscow has comparatively many more contacts in Israel, considering the presence of some one million Soviets immigrants. Conceivably, Moscow could bring to the fore some personality capable of playing in occupied Palestine the role played by Frederik de Klerk in South Africa: to abolish Apartheid and establish democracy in the heart of one single state. With this scenario in mind, Dimitri Medvedev anticipates a possible exodus of Israeli Jews who would not tolerate the new situation. Therefore, he blocked the formerly announced merger between the Krai of Jabarovsk with the autonomous Jewish Oblast of Birobidyan. The Russian president, who comes from a Jewish family and converted to the Russian Orthodox religion, plans to reactivate that administrative entity founded by Stalin in 1934 as an alternative to the creation of the State of Israel. What used to be a Jewish republic within the former Soviet Union could become the future home to refugees, who would certainly be welcomed since Russia is experiencing a plummeting demographic decline.
Ultimately, it is Russia’s procrastinations with respect to Iran’s nuclear program that surprise the most. It is a fact that Iranian businessmen have constantly questioned the bills submitted for the construction of the Bushehr nuclear plant. It is also true that the Persians have become sensitive after years of Anglo-American interference. But the Kremlim hasn’t stopped blowing hot and cold. President Medvedev speaks with the West and pledges Russia’s support in favor of the UN sanctions voted by the Security Council. Meanwhile, Putin assures the Iranians that Russia will not leave them unshielded if they accept to play the game of transparency. On the ground, officials are wondering whether the two leaders have split their roles according to the interlocutors in order to jack up the bids. Or, whether Russia has been paralysed by a conflict brewing at the apex of power? In reality, this is what appears to be happening: the Medvedev-Putin duo has gradually deteriorated and their relationship has abruptly turned into a fratricidal war.
Russian diplomacy had led the Non-Aligned countries to believe that a fourth resolution adopted by the UN Security Council condemning Iran would be preferable to the adoption of unilateral measures by the United States or the European Union. It was wrong since Washington and Brussels would automatically use the UN resolution to justify their own unilateral and additional sanctions.
During a joint press Conference, held on May 14, with his Brazilian counterpart, President Medvedev indicated that he had reached a common position with President Obama during a phone conversation: If Iran accepted the proposal made [in November 2009] to enrich uranium abroad, there would be no reason to adopt sanctions at the Security Council. But when Iran unexpectedly signed the Teheran Protocol with Brazil and Turkey, Washington withdrew and Moscow hurriedly followed suit, breaching its commitment.
It is a fact that Russia’s permanent representative at the Security Council, Vitaly Churkin, drained resolution 1929 of much of its substance by preventing a total energy embargo … but he nevertheless voted in favor. Short of being effective, the resolution is altogether an outrage for Iran, for Brazil, for Turkey as well as for all the Non-Aligned states that support Teheran’s position. The resolution is all the more shocking since it violates the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty which guarantee to all signatory countries the right to enrich uranium. Resolution 1929 of the UN Security Council denies Iran that right. Up to now Russia seemed to be the defender of international law. But it is not any longer. The Non-Aligned countries in general, and Iran in particular, have interpreted the Russian vote as the will on the part of a great power to prevent emerging powers from attaining the energy independence they need for their economic development. And it will be difficult to make them forget this Russian faux pas.
* Thierry Meyssan
French political analyst, founder and chairman of the Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace conference. He publishes columns dealing with international relations in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. Last books published in English :9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate
https://www.voltairenet.org/article166818.html, 24 August 2010
The Turkish edition of China Today magazine will go on sale in major cities of Turkey starting from Sept. 1, which is expected to promote mutual understanding between Turkish and Chinese people and facilitate the two countries’ business relations.
“We believe the biggest problem for further development in the Turkish-Chinese relations is the lack of reliable sources of cultural and economic information on China,” Chief Executive Officer Sadi Zengin of Dijitek Group, which is in charge of editing and publishing the magazine, told Xinhua in an interview.
As two large emerging economies, China and Turkey have a large potential to improve business relations but their economic ties were far from well developed, said Zengin.
“More reliable sources of information on China are desperately demanded especially by the business people, civil servants, scholars and certain institutions in the country,” he said, adding “Dijitek Group intends to help the improvement of the relations through undertaking the publication of China Today-Turkey.”
Dijitek Group signed an agreement in May with China’s state- owned China International Publishing Group (CIPG), which granted Dijitek the copyright of three English-language magazines, including China Today, Beijing Review and China Pictorial for ten years.
China Today-Turkey will specifically focus on information about China mostly needed by the Turkish business circles, with 70 percent of the content selected from China Today, Beijing Review and China Pictorial and 30 percent contributed by Turkish journalists and analysts, according to the publisher.
Chinese economy, management styles, economic regulations and the development of specific sectors and industries will be introduced in the magazine, while the magazine also intends to present a genuinely Turkish view of China, discuss the developments and problems in Turkish-Chinese economic, commercial and cultural relations and put forward suggestions, said Zengin.
“We’d like to give Turkish people a chance to see China through the view of the Chinese people instead of through rumors,” he said.
The first issue of the magazine features a cover story about China’s green energy industry, a subject on the economic development of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and an analysis of the revaluation of the Chinese currency, according to Zengin.
In the part contributed by the Turkish side, an interview with Chinese Ambassador to Turkey Gong Xiaosheng will be presented, together with the story of a Turkish silk company finding success in China and a macro-economic comparison of Chinese economy and other economies.
Other aspects of China such as its culture, philosophy, geography and language will also be included in the magazine, said Zengin.
Dijitek will publish 10,000 copies of the magazine per issue and distribute them in big bookstores and shopping malls of major cities, while its initial aim is to reach 2,000 subscribers in the first three months, said Zengin.
The company will also work to increase advertisements, especially those for Chinese companies eager to enter the Turkish market, in order to overcome the difficulty in marketing and advertisement, he said.
A launching cocktail of China Today-Turkey will be held on Sept. 24 with the hosting of the Chinese Embassy in Turkey ahead of the Chinese National Day, which falls on Oct. 1.
A bomb attack killed seven people and wounded 14 Thursday in China’s far west region of Xinjiang, an area beset by ethnic conflict and separatist violence.
The target of the attack wasn’t known, although an overseas activist for the region’s native Uighur ethnic group said the victims included members of the security forces.
The blast went off after a man drove a three-wheeled vehicle laden with explosives into a crowd of people in a suburb in Aksu city in southwestern Xinjiang, said Hou Hanmin, a spokeswoman for the Xinjiang government.
“Police say it was an intentional act because the suspect was carrying explosive devices,” Hou told a hastily arranged news conference in the regional capital of Urumqi, about 400 miles from Aksu.
She said the suspect, who was injured, was captured immediately.
Some of the wounded were in serious condition. “The casualties are innocent civilians of different ethnic minority backgrounds,” she said.
Xinjiang has been the site of ethnic conflict in recent years, including riots last summer when long-standing tensions between the Turkic Muslim Uighurs and China’s majority Han flared into open violence in Urumqi. The government said 197 people were killed, while hundreds of people were arrested and about two dozen sentenced to death. Many other Uighurs remain unaccounted for and are believed to be in custody.
While the riots marked China’s worst ethnic violence in decades, Xinjiang has seen a series of bombings and other violence, including attacks on security forces around the time of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The government also says it has broken up several groups intent on carrying out attacks, including a bomb-making operation near Aksu in 2009 and a gang last month that it said was linked to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a banned militant organization advocating independence for Xinjiang.
Anti-government sentiments among Uighurs are fed by the ruling Communist Party’s heavy-handed controls over their language, culture and Islamic faith, along with resentment of Chinese migrants and a perception that they are being favored economically to the detriment of Xinjiang’s native population.
The government claims attacks are often planned by exile Uighurs overseas, including across the border in Central Asia or Pakistan.
The target of Thursday’s attack remained unclear and it wasn’t known whether it was motivated by separatist or extremist views. Homemade bombs are used throughout China to seek revenge over personal or property disputes, and the country this year has seen a series of gory rampage attacks by people using knives, guns and construction equipment.
In contrast, past separatist attacks in Xinjiang have almost always been aimed clearly at government targets or other symbols of Han Chinese influence.
Germany-based Uighur activist Dilxat Raxit said security forces were the apparent target, with reports saying victims included one policeman and 14 members of a uniformed auxiliary force charged with monitoring the Uighur population. He declined to give the source of the information other than to say it was highly reliable.
Xinjiang Governor Nur Bekri, speaking at a news conference Thursday before the explosion was reported, said the government was battling separatist forces in Xinjiang.
“I believe we face a long and fierce and very complicated struggle. Separatism in Xinjiang has a very long history, it was there in the past, it is still here now and it will continue in the future,” Nur said.
Raxit said the authorities’ security crackdown may be encouraging further violence.
“Since last year’s riots, we have seen … systematic oppression and provocation,” said Raxit, whose World Uyghur Congress officially opposes violence.
Chinese authorities hold an elderly Uyghur farmer in Beijing.
RFA
Abdurehim Mollek says his land in Onsu county was sold to a resettled Han Chinese farmer by local officials.
HONG KONG-Authorities in Beijing are holding an 84-year-old Uyghur farmer after he traveled to the capital to lodge an official protest over the loss of his farmland, the man and his son said.
Abdurehim Mollek, a Muslim Uyghur from Aksu prefecture in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang, was being held by police after being taken from his motel room in the eastern Beijing suburb of Weigongcun, he said.
Traveling with his 29-year-old son, Abdurehim Mollek said Sunday he had already been detained without trial for two years by authorities in Aksu’s Onsu (in Chinese, Wensu) county after he tried to petition over the actions of local officials.
“We are in the Xinjiang Affairs Department’s motel with dozens of other Uyghur petitioners. I am allowed go out to the yard of the motel, but my father is not. There are two guards at the motel door who are always watching us. Probably in the next few days the police will come from Aksu to return us there,” his son said.
“The Xinjiang Affairs Department usually holds us until the local officials come to take us away. That’s how it has worked most of the previous 10 times,” he said, referring to earlier trips his father had made to Beijing to petition.
Abdurehim Mollek’s son said they had been planning to petition publicly at Tiananmen Square or at an international news bureau to make their voices heard.
An officer who answered the phone at the Wanshousi police station in Beijing confirmed Abdurehim Mollek’s detention.
“Yes, yes, that’s right … He is a petitioner. It says so in the system,” the officer said. “The system has identified him as a key petitioner.”
Taken from motel
He described their detention Monday by regular police officers at their motel in the capital.
“Three Beijing policemen came to our motel room in the morning [at 9 a.m.] and checked our documents,” Abdurehim Mollek’s son said.
“Abdurehim Mollek showed the police our IDs and papers about our case. Then the police took us to their office.”
“They asked no questions and conducted no investigation. We were not allowed to have any food to eat. We were finally released at 6 p.m.,” he said.
The father and son were placed in the custody of two police officers, a Uyghur and Han Chinese, who brought them to the Xinjiang Affairs Department and placed them, under guard, in a motel room at the department’s headquarters.
“Regardless of whether the authorities agree to solve our problem, we will stay here. If we go back [to our hometown], we might be detained or sentenced. The last time [my father] was brought back home, he was detained in a mental hospital for 60 days. [The police said] if we petition again, we will be detained in a mental hospital permanently,” his son said.
Years of petitioning
Abdurehim Mollek has been petitioning ever since local officials in Kizil [in Chinese, Qingnian] village took over 220 mu (36 acres) of his farmland in 1997.
His property was part of a total 3,000 mu (494 acres) of land which belonged to 20 Uyghur farmers, taken by local officials and sold to a Chinese farmer surnamed Chen who had recently settled in the village from another province.
The land was later resold to another Chinese farmer surnamed Lu, who is the current owner.
Abdurehim Mollek said the two Chinese farmers are close relatives of village chief Han Guoming, although calls to the village office to confirm this went unanswered.
After being provided only a portion of his promised compensation, Abdurehim Mollek petitioned local and provincial authorities for 10 years.
In 2007, he began to petition the central government and has since traveled to Beijing 11 times to plead his case.
In 2008, he was held without trial in a detention center in Onsu county for two years. His most recent visit to Beijing was his second trip in three months, and the second since his release.
After his previous trip to the capital, Abdurehim Mollek was forcibly repatriated to Aksu prefecture and held in a local mental hospital for 60 days.
He has been returned to Xinjiang under police guard nearly every time he has petitioned the central government.
Other petitioners targeted
Mamut Rozi, a Uyghur from Yarkent county, in Xinjiang’s western Kashgar prefecture, is also currently in Beijing petitioning the central government over the forced sale of his land by local officials to a resettled Chinese farmer.
In a telephone interview, Mamut Rozi said he feared being forcibly repatriated to Yarkent by local authorities.
Two of his Uyghur roommates in Beijing were arrested by Xinjiang provincial police and taken to Aksu prefecture.
The roommates, former workers at an Aksu sugar factory, had been chosen as representatives by a group of 200 workers recently fired by the plant to petition authorities in the capital over the loss of their jobs.
“[The police] said to my roommates, ‘Why are you organizing others to petition? Why don’t you just take care of your own case? We’re arresting you for illegal organizing,’” Mamut Rozi said.
“I couldn’t hold back my tears as I saw them handcuffed by the police.”
‘Cause for concern’
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said petitioners like Abdurehim Mollek are highly vulnerable to arbitrary detentions by Beijing authorities if they try to complain about their local government in the capital.
“And after they get sent back [to Xinjiang] they become a real cause for concern,” Raxit said.
“Every time a Uyghur is sent back to Xinjiang, they are either sentenced to labor camp, or they suffer some kind of economic punishment.”
Dilxat Raxit said this is routine. “All Uyghurs in this situation who get sent back home end up suffering for it to a greater or lesser degree.”
“Many petitioners who travel to Beijing to complain from all over China are picked up by officials from their hometowns, who run representative offices in the capital for this purpose, and are escorted back home, where they can face beatings, surveillance, and further detention.
China’s army of petitioners say they are repeatedly stonewalled, detained in “black jails,” beaten, and harassed by authorities if they try to take a complaint against local government actions to a higher level of government.
Millions of Uyghurs—a distinct, Turkic minority who are predominantly Muslim—populate Central Asia and Xinjiang.
Uyghurs say they have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness despite China’s ambitious plans to develop its vast northwestern frontier.
Those frustrations erupted in July 2009 in deadly riots that left nearly 200 people dead, by the Chinese government’s tally.
Chinese authorities blame Uyghur separatists for a series of deadly attacks in recent years and accuse one group in particular of maintaining links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Original reporting in Uyghur by Shohret Hoshur and in Mandarin by Qiao Long. Translated by Luisetta Mudie and Shohret Hoshur. Written in English by Joshua Lipes and Luisetta Mudie.
