Category: Asia and Pacific

Turkish politician detained in Armenia, says party

A minor political party that is not represented in Parliament said on Friday that its leader has been detained in Armenia.

Tuna Bekleviç was detained by Armenian intelligence following a press conference he held in Yerevan, according to the Strong Turkey Party (GTP). Bekleviç recently entered Armenia from Turkey by crossing the Arpaçay River in protest of the two countries failing to take further action for a year after signing protocols in Zurich to normalize relations.

The GTP leader had headed to Armenia to hold a press conference about his party’s protest of the status quo in relations between the two countries. Turkey closed its border with its eastern neighbor in the early ‘90s in solidarity with Azerbaijan in its war with landlocked Armenia. An attempt at rapprochement was initiated last year, but very little progress has been made since then.

30 October 2010, Saturday

TODAY’S ZAMAN İSTANBUL

October 30, 2010
Turkey says returning to normal in ties with China

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu met with Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, in Urumqi on the first day of his visit to China.

Turkey’s willingness to build a strategic bilateral cooperation with China should not be regarded as an exceptional move, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has stated, arguing that, on the contrary, such a move is a sign of normalization. Davutoğlu departed Ankara on Wednesday for a six-day official visit to China, with Kashgar, where Muslim Uighurs make up the vast majority of the population, being his first stop during the visit.

Turkey already has exemplary relations with Western countries, and its bilateral relations with globally rising powers such as Brazil, China, India and Russia have been expanding recently, Davutoğlu said, while speaking to a group of journalists on board a plane en route to Kashgar from Ankara.

“The basis of our entire policy is the normalization of history. Our relations being good with China at the moment is not something abnormal; it was abnormal to have bad relations,” Davutoğlu was quoted as saying in apparent response to comments displaying developing ties between Turkey and China as proof of a so-called axis shift from the West to the East in Turkish foreign policy.

With his conception of the “normalization” of history, Davutoğlu underlines the importance of eliminating Cold War and colonial abnormalities. “[The] end of the Cold War — [Francis] Fukuyama claimed [it] was the end of history. I claimed history had begun because there was an abnormality [during] the Cold War and that history will try to normalize it,” Davutoğlu said at the time.

Turkey’s developing relations with these global powers are not emerging at the expense of neglecting its cooperation with the West, Davutoğlu said. “They should not consider these relations as an alternative [to existing relations with Western countries],” he stressed, while underlining that Turkey has been continuing its intense diplomatic contact with Western powers as well.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu met with Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, in Urumqi on the first day of his visit to China.

“My trip to Brussels is no longer news,” the minister said and added that US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were meeting six or seven times a year while the US and Turkish leaders met at most two times a year a decade ago.

Davutoğlu’s visit to China came weeks after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Turkey during which the two countries took a landmark step in developing their bilateral ties, which they have begun to define as a “strategic partnership.”

During the visit, China and Turkey agreed to use their own currencies, rather than dollars, in bilateral trade, while Wen and Erdoğan signed eight deals in areas including transportation and trade. In October 2009 Erdoğan announced that Turkey and Iran had prepared a legal framework to transition to agreements in national currencies. According to Davutoğlu, Ankara’s policy that insists on using diplomatic means to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program has increased China’s interest in developing bilateral relations with Turkey.

“They have noticed the big potential,” Davutoğlu said, arguing that maintaining stability in the Middle East would be highly beneficial, particularly for Turkey and China.

Ankara and Beijing have both increased their commercial ties with Iran, signing deals on oil and gas fields to the frustration of Western powers, who suspect the Islamic republic of seeking to build a secret nuclear weapons program, an allegation the latter denies. China reluctantly backed the last round of UN sanctions on Iran while Turkey, along with Brazil, voted against the sanctions. Both China and Turkey have defended their trade with Iran as legitimate.

Bilateral cooperation in the military field is a significant aspect of relations between Turkey and China. In September, they held joint aerial exercises at Turkey’s training range in the Central Anatolian town of Konya, where Anatolian Eagle exercises are taking place between NATO allies and friendly countries. Some eyebrows were raised following the exercises, with reports suggesting that the US and Israel were watching with concern the growing military cooperation among Turkey, China and Iran.

Increasing support to Xinjiang

Davutoğlu told reporters that his visit to China is part of an action plan jointly drawn up by Turkey and China following the violent clashes between local ethnic-Turkic Muslim Uighurs and the dominant Han Chinese community in June 2009. Calling the clashes, which came days after President Abdullah Gül’s landmark visit to this country last year, as a tough crisis, Davutoğlu said the crisis had now been overcome, with high-level visits taking place between the countries at a regular pace. The clashes that broke out in July in Urumqi left 197 dead and several hundred wounded, according to official Chinese numbers.

Davutoğlu, who proceeded to Urumqi following his visit to Kashgar, highlighted the symbolic importance of his itinerary. According to him, better relations between Turkey and the Chinese administration will help Turkey increase its contribution to people living in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, populated by ethnic Turkic Muslim Uighurs.

With Ankara and Beijing planning to have at least one leader-level visit per year, Erdoğan will pay an official visit to this country next year, Davutoğlu announced.

29 October 2010, Friday

SERVET YANATMA/OSMAN EROL KASHGAR/URUMQI

October 30, 2010
Pan-Turkic Summit in Istanbul Looks to Foster Unified Turkic Identity

ISTANBUL (Hurriyet)–Delegates from Turkic countries gathered Thursday in Istanbul at the World Turkic Forum to highlight the common ties among their countries while promoting steps toward the creation of a more overarching Turkic identity.

“In a globalized world, we want to spread our message to the world as Turkic citizens,” said Nazim Ibrahimov, Azerbaijan’s Diaspora minister.

Participants made many references to the Silk Road and military conquests in the same breath as goals for the countries to unite under a common set of values.

“The main target of the forum is to improve our values, expand our national values and make them international,” said Mahir Yagcilar, the minister of environment for Kosovo, which has a sizeable Turkish population. “The Turkish Republic is the mainland.”

Ahat Andıcan, a former state minister and professor at Istanbul University, echoed Ibrahimov’s call, saying: “In the 21st century, we will be the part [of the world] that is shaping the world. We should. We must.”

Many proposed that Turkey adopt the role of steward and leader for the Turkic world. But the idea didn’t receive unanimous support, with some delegates raising issues with the notion.

“Our main problem is that we can’t put forward a country as the regional leader. We lack a regional state that will pile up the other countries under its roof,” said Fazil Mustafa, a member of the Azerbaijan National assembly.

Turkey, in the past, had been unable to fulfill this role, Mustafa said, citing as evidence the country’s inability to prevent the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh from breaking free from Azeri rule.

Meanwhile, Hakan Kirimli of Bilkent University said Turkey’s most important task was to first protect the Turkic diaspora within its own borders, including Tatars, Kazakhs, Turkmens, and people from the Caucasus, Crimea, and the Balkan area.

He said many of these diaspora groups in Turkey actually outnumber the population of their groups in their own homelands. “Protecting those societies means protecting a whole culture.”

Pinar Akcali from Middle East Technical University said Turkey’s improving relationship with Turkic countries was partly the result of its deteriorating relationship with the West and added that such a trend would give Turkey a chance to develop its relations with other parts of the world, including the Turkic one.

Although some Turkic countries are performing well economically and others have the benefit of natural resources, many Turkic countries are not particularly rich economically, according to Mustafa. “The 21st century, in terms of the economy, will not be a Turkic century,” he said.

There are also many political problems between Turkic countries, with Hasan Ali Karasar calling attention to the brutal violence that has sporadically occurred between the local Uzbek community and ethnic Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan.

“For four years we have been discussing how to improve inter-Turkic relations,” said Karasar. “Still the government [of Kyrgyzstan] has not been effective. The Kyrgyz president made some important steps. Luckily we have stopped the violence – for now.”

October 28, 2010
Turkey Seeks to Boost Investment in Nakhichevan

BAKU (APA)–Nakhichevan has a ‘special place’ in Turkey’s foreign policy as a territory that isolates Armenia from the rest of the region, Turkey’s State Minister for Foreign Trade Zafer Caglavan said Wednesday speaking at a Turkish-Azeri business forum hosted in Kahkichevan , the Azeri Press Agency reported.

“Armenia has been stuck between Nakhchivan and the rest of Azerbaijan with access only to Iran and Turkey,” Caglavan said. “Nakhchivan has a special place in the foreign policy of our government. That’s why we are here today.”

The forum attracted influential businessmen from Turkey and Azerbaijan and presented them with information about Nakhichevan’s history, its course of economic development, and various business and investment opportunities in the area.

According to APA, the meeting will end with the signing of a series of cooperation documents.

Speaking to reporters during the event, Caglayan said Turkish businessmen have a “serious” interest in making investments into the Azeri controlled territory. He added that discussions were ongoing to establish the Nakhchivan-Turkey Business Council.

“We want to establish a council that will help the businessmen. One should take advantage of bordering Nakhchivan. It would be better to create free trade zone on the border. It would increase mutual trade,” said Caglayan. “We can create a region without customs and trade with every part of the world. I gave necessary instructions. Turkey’s General Directorate of Free Trade Zones will study the issue. It will be possible to set up this system without losing time.”

Caglayan said he had already appealed to Nakhichevan’s authorities to support the endeavor.

October 28, 2010
Short-Term Politics Trumps US Strategy in the South Caucasus

October 26, 2010 05:58 PM Eurasia Daily Monitor, By: Vladimir Socor Center for American Progress President John Podesta in Turkey. (Daily News)

A new study from the Center for American Progress, the think-tank closely linked with the Obama White House, urges the US government to adopt a new, “comprehensive policy” toward Georgia and the Russia-Georgia conflict (“A New Approach to the Russia-Georgia Conflict,” October 2010, www.americanprogress.org.) The new approach implicitly removes Georgia from the framework of a US strategy in the South Caucasus-Caspian region. Instead, it treats Georgia in isolation from that region; and, in practice, subordinates US policy toward Georgia to the goal of protecting the administration’s own relationship with Russia.

The abandonment of a regional strategy is also apparent in the administration’s policy toward Azerbaijan. That strategy, while it existed, had treated Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey as parts of a whole: linchpins in the East-West energy corridor to Europe, a bridge from Central Asia to the European Union, and a foundation for regional security arrangements under Western aegis. Successfully initiated during the Clinton administration, and continued less successfully under the Bush presidency, this strategy seems consigned to oblivion by the current White House.

In a recent speech to the Turkish business association TUSKON in Ankara, Center for American Progress President and CEO, John Podesta, described former President Bill Clinton’s 1999 visit to Turkey as a tour of mosques, ancient monuments, and dispensing earthquake relief. The speech, however, omitted the oil and gas pipeline projects and the conventional arms control agreements, which were signed during that same Clinton visit as parts of a coherent US strategy in the South Caucasus. Although delivered to a business audience, the lengthy speech made no reference to Turkey’s present and prospective role in Caspian energy transit to Europe; and never mentioned Turkey’s regional partners Georgia and Azerbaijan. Instead, Podesta urged Turkey again on the administration’s behalf to open unconditionally the border with Armenia: “This is a major priority for the Obama administration, and senior US officials have spent considerable time in support of this initiative … It is my hope that we will see a revival of these initiatives soon” (www.americanprogress.org, October 19).

This border-opening proposal stems mainly from US electoral politics. During the 2008 campaign, candidate Barack Obama had pledged to support US recognition of an Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, but could not deliver it as president without destroying US-Turkey relations. In lieu of genocide recognition, and to defuse US Armenian pressure toward that goal in Congress, the administration initiated a rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, centered on reopening the border unconditionally, in Armenia’s economic interest.

Under this proposal, Azerbaijan and Turkey would in effect bear the costs of the administration’s electoral calculus. The trade-off involves Turkey breaking ranks with Azerbaijan, while Armenia would desist from seeking genocide recognition in the US, thus easing pressure on the administration from its US-Armenian voters. Codified in the October 2009 Zurich protocols, the US initiative has stalled since December 2009-January 2010 as Turkey would not lightly abandon Azerbaijan, while Armenia would not give up its trump card of the genocide recognition campaign. Nevertheless, some US officials such as Assistant Secretary of State, Philip Gordon, now suggest (as has Podesta in Ankara) that the administration awaits a more favorable context for re-launching that proposal, calling again for ratification of the Zurich protocols (Armenian Reporter, October 18; News.az, October 20).

Opening the border unconditionally would remove the only major positive incentive by which Azerbaijan and Turkey can persuade Armenia to withdraw its troops from Azerbaijani districts around the Armenian-inhabited Karabakh. Opening of borders in return for withdrawal of Armenian troops from those districts is the trade-off that has all along underpinned the Azerbaijani-Turkish common position on the Karabakh conflict. This joint position does not oppose the opening of borders as such; on the contrary, it proposes to open the Azerbaijan-Armenia border as well as the Turkey-Armenia border, as part of the first stage of resolving the Karabakh conflict. This conditional linkage is also basic to the ongoing process of negotiations under the “Minsk Group” co-chairs’ mediation.

Breaking this linkage could derail that negotiating process. It would also further undermine Azerbaijan’s heavily-tested confidence in a resolution through peaceful means. Asking Turkey to turn away from Azerbaijan could fracture the mutually indispensable partnership between these two countries, which the US had encouraged when a US strategy for this region existed.

Unilateral, unconditional opening of the Turkish-Armenian border may cause Turkey to lose Azerbaijan, while pushing Baku into seeking Russia’s support for regaining those Armenian-occupied districts. Russia would undoubtedly exploit the situation in trying to change Azerbaijan’s Western orientation and its role in energy projects of Western interest. The Obama administration in any case is taking a back seat to Russia in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict-resolution negotiations. In August, Yerevan prolonged the basing of Russian forces in Armenia for almost half-a-century, and authorized possible increases in Russian forces based in that country. This development with region-wide implications does not seem to have occasioned a reassessment of US policy.

The proposal for unilateral border-opening alienated Azerbaijan, a US strategic partner, without inducing Armenia to distance itself from genocide-recognition efforts in the US, as the administration had hoped. The administration seemed willing to trade off a strategic position in Baku for domestic political points courtesy of Yerevan. However, Baku reached out to Turkey at the governmental, parliamentary, and public opinion levels, helping to forestall Turkish ratification of the Zurich protocols. US officials responded in frustration by declining to invite Azerbaijan’s president to the nuclear-safety summit in Washington. Domestic politics and short-term diplomatic improvisation seemed to trump regional strategy –an impression strengthened when the administration briefly used the Armenian genocide-recognition debate in the US House of Representatives to influence Turkish policies on current issues. Some Turkish officials and analysts are concerned by a possible repeat of this tactic, in connection with Turkish policy decisions (on Israel, Iran, anti-missile defense) during the coming weeks and months (Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review, October 21).

President Obama’s meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September was a symbolic step toward reestablishing top-level communication. However, the normal institutional channel cannot operate without a US ambassador in Baku –a post vacant since July 2009. The administration waited for more than one year before nominating a successor. However, the nomination is blocked by two Democratic senators, one of them (Barbara Boxer of California) relying on the militant Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) to mobilize its followers for Boxer’s re-election in the ongoing mid-term campaign. President Obama has weighed in, personally for Boxer in California (www.news.am, October 23). Preoccupied at this stage to retain that Senate seat for its party, the administration has again postponed moving on the ambassadorial nomination.

De-linking the re-opening of borders from the first stage of Karabakh conflict-resolution (Armenian troop withdrawal from inner-Azerbaijani districts) is a policy that failed. Ankara has re-instated that linkage and seems highly unlikely to de-link the two issues at US behest, at least until after the 2011 elections in Turkey. The US needs Turkey’s cooperation more than the other way around, on issues that Washington defines as top priorities. Thus, Washington has limited political capital to spend in Ankara. Rather than persisting with the Zurich protocols, Washington needs a graceful exit from this poorly conceived policy.

https://jamestown.org/program/short-term-politics-trumps-us-strategy-in-the-south-caucasus/

October 27, 2010
Teens dip their lids to war hero

Two young Gallipoli descendants are among the first Victorians in decades to touch the helmet that once protected our greatest military mind.

Mitchell Hutchinson, 15, and Ekrem Eren, 16, ( son of John H. Eren MLA ) were invited to the Shrine of Remembrance, where Sir John Monash’s tin hat will go on public display for the first time before Anzac Day. They held in their hands, just as the great commander Monash held in his hands the lives of their great-grandfathers–and many others–from 1915 to 1918. Ninety years ago the fore fathers of the two Aussie teens were enemies on the Turkish battle field where Monash was a colonel under that helmet.

Mitchell’s great-grandfather, William Paul McKenzie, was a Digger in Monash’s 14th Battalion, while Ekrem’s great-grandfather, Hamdi Isteni, was a Turkish officer. (under the command of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk..)

The Herald Sun, Tuesday, April 12 2005

October 26, 2010