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  • OSC: Russia- Iran Alliance?

    OSC: Russia- Iran Alliance?

    Informed Comment

    Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion

     Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

     

    Saturday, August 30, 2008

    The USG Open Source Center translates an article from the Russian press proposing a strategic alliance between Russia and Iran.

    Pundit on Possible Russia-Iran Alliance To Counter ‘Unfriendly’ US Moves
    Article by Radzhab Safarov, General Director of the Russian Center for Iranian Studies: “Iranian Trump Card. Russia Can Take Control of Persian Gulf”
    Vremya Novostey
    Friday, August 29, 2008
    Document Type: OSC Translated Text

    The recognition of South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s independence by Russia is a timely step to protect these republics from new Georgian aggression. However, taking into account the United States’ plans to expedite Georgia’s and Ukraine’s accession to the NATO military-political bloc, the situation near the Russian border remains alarming. At the same time Moscow has a lot of possibilities to take balanced counter measures to the United States’ and entire NATO’s unfriendly plans. In particular, Russia can rely on those countries that effectively oppose the United States’ and their satellites’ expansion. Only collective efforts can help to create a situation which would, if not eliminate then at least reduce the risk of the Cold War’s transformation into local and global conflicts.

    For instance, Moscow could strengthen its military-technical ties with Syria and launch negotiations on the reestablishment of its military presence in Cuba. However, the most serious step which the United States and especially Israel fear (incidentally, Israel supplied arms to Georgia) is hypothetical revision of Russia’s foreign policy with regard to Iran. A strategic alliance presuming the signing of a new large-scale military political treaty with Iran could change the entire geopolitical picture of the contemporary world.

    New allied relations may result in the deployment of at least two military bases in strategic regions of Iran. One military base could be deployed in the north of the country in the Iranian province of Eastern Azerbaijan and the other one in the south, on the Island of Qeshm in the Persian Gulf. Due to the base in Iran’s Eastern Azerbaijan Russia would be able to monitor military activities in the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and share this information with Iran.

    The deployment of a military base on the Island of Qeshm would allow Russia to monitor the United States’ and NATO’s activities in the Persian Gulf zone, Iraq and other Arab states. With the help of special equipment Russia could effectively monitor whois sailing toward this sea bottleneck, from where, and with what cargo on board to enter the World Ocean or to return.

    For the first time ever Russia will have a possibility to stop suspicious vessels and ships and inspect their cargo, which the Americans have been cynically doing in that zone for many decades. In exchange for the deployment of its military bases Russia could help the Iranians to deploy modern air defense and missile defense systems along the perimeter of its borders. Tehran, for instance, needs Russia’s modern S-400 SAMs.

    The Iranian leadership paid close attention to reports stating that the Georgian Government’s secret resolution gave the United States and Israel a carte blanche to use Georgian territory and local military bases for delivering missile and bomb strikes against Iranian facilities in the event of need. Another neighbor, Turkey, is not only a NATO member, but also a powerful regional opponent and economic rival of Iran. In addition to this, the Republic of Azerbaijan has become the West’s key partner on the issue of transportation of Caspian energy resources to world markets. The Iranians are also concerned at Baku’s plans to give Western (above all American) capital access to the so-called Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, which is fraught with new conflicts, because the legal status of the Caspian Sea has not been defined to date.

    Russia and Iran can also accelerate the process of setting up a cartel of leading gas producers, which journalists have already dubbed the “gas OPEC.” Russia and Iran occupy first and second place in the world respectively in terms of natural gas reserves. They jointly possess more than 60 percent of the world’s gas deposits. Therefore, even small coordination in the elaboration of a single pricing policy may force one-half of the world, at least virtually entire Europe, to moderate its ambitions and treat gas exporters in a friendlier manner.

    While moving toward allied relations, Russia can develop cooperation with Iran in virtually all areas, including nuclear power engineering. Russia can earn tens of billions of dollars on the construction of nuclear power plants in Iran alone. Tehran can receive not only economic, but also political support from Russia in the development of its own atomic energy sector.

    In addition to this,in view of the imminent breakup of the CIS from which Georgia already pulled out, Russia could accelerate the process of accepting Iran as an equal member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). By accepting Iran, one of the key countries of the Islamic world, the organization could change fundamentally both in terms of its potential and in terms of its regional role. Meanwhile, as an SCO member Iran will find itself under the collective umbrella of this organization, including under the protection of such nuclear states as Russia and China. This will lay foundations for a powerful Russia-Iran-China axis,which the United States and its allies fear so much.

    (Description of Source: Moscow Vremya Novostey in Russian — Liberal, small-circulation paper that sometimes criticizes the government)

    posted by Juan Cole @ 8/30/2008 12:05:00 AM

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  • What Israel Lost in the Georgia War

    What Israel Lost in the Georgia War

    “It is important that the entire world understands that what is happening in Georgia now will affect the entire world order,” Georgian Cabinet Minister Temur Yakobashvili said last weekend. “It’s not just Georgia’s business, but the entire world’s business.” Such sentiments would have been unremarkable but for the fact that Yakobashvili was expressing himself in fluent Hebrew, telling Israeli Army Radio that “Israel should be proud of its military, which trained Georgian soldiers.”

    However, the impression that Israel had helped bolster the Georgian military was one the Israeli Foreign Ministry was anxious to avoid. Last Saturday it reportedly recommended a freeze on the further supply of equipment and expertise to Georgia by Israeli defense contractors. (Israel doesn’t supply foreign militaries directly, but its private contractors must get Defense Ministry approval for such deals.) The Israelis decided to refrain from authorizing new defense contracts, although those currently in effect will be fulfilled. Israel stressed that the contracts are to provide equipment for defensive purposes. But if the Israelis were looking to downplay the significance of military ties, they weren’t helped by comments like Yakobashvili’s — or by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s enthusing at a press conference earlier this week that “the Israeli weapons have been very effective.”

    Nor did the Russians fail to notice. “Israel armed the Georgian army,” grumbled General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of staff of the Russian military, at a press conference in Moscow earlier this week. An Israeli paper had, last weekend, quoted an unnamed official warning that Israel needed “to be very careful and sensitive these days. The Russians are selling many arms to Iran and Syria, and there is no need to offer them an excuse to sell even more advanced weapons.” As if on cue, on Wednesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Moscow hoping to persuade Russia to sell him sophisticated air-defense systems — and reportedly offering the Russian navy the use of one of its Mediterranean ports. Late on Wednesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had spoken on the phone to clear the air over the Georgia conflict and Russian arms sales to Syria.

    The extent of involvement in Georgia by Israeli defense contractors may be overstated, and most of the equipment used by the Georgian military comes from the U.S. and other suppliers. Still, Israeli companies had been sufficiently involved in supplying specialized equipment and advanced tactical training to the Georgian military that the connection — and Russia’s perception of it — created a ripple of anxiety in Israeli government circles. Israeli officials say that, in anticipation of a showdown between Georgia and Russia, Israel began to scale back the involvement of Israeli companies in Georgia as early as the end of 2007. Georgia’s Yakobashvili charged this week that Israel, “at Russia’s behest,” had downgraded military ties with Georgia, a decision he branded a “disgrace.”

    Israel’s weapons sales, just like Russia’s, are driven by the commercial interests of domestic arms industries. Israeli military exports to Georgia are driven more by the logic of business than by a strategic choice to back Tbilisi against Moscow — indeed, the Israeli response since the outbreak of hostilities is a reminder that, on balance, even a relatively cool friendship with Russia may be more important to Israel than a close alliance with tiny Georgia. Despite Israel’s pecuniary imperative, Georgia has used these commercial military ties to press closer ties on Israel.

    President Saakashvili has noted that both his minister responsible for negotiations over South Ossetia (Yakobashvili) and his Defense Minister, Davit Kezerashvili, had lived in Israel before moving to post-Soviet Georgia. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the Georgian leader this week enthused that in Tbilisi, “both war and peace are in the hands of Israeli Jews.” Working through the Georgian Defense Ministry (and with the approval of its Israeli counterpart), Israeli companies are reported to have supplied the Georgians with pilotless drones, night-vision equipment, anti-aircraft equipment, shells, rockets and various electronic systems. Even more important than equipment may have been the advanced tactical training and consultancy provided, as private contractors, by retired top Israeli generals such as Yisrael Ziv and Gal Hirsch, the man who commanded Israeli ground forces during their disastrous foray into Lebanon in 2006. (Never one to resist an opportunity to mock his enemies, Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah quipped in a speech this week, “Gal Hirsch, who was defeated in Lebanon, went to Georgia, and they too lost because of him.”) Not necessarily: Russia applied overwhelming force against the tiny Georgian military, which, according to Israeli assessments, still managed to punch above its weight.

    The Russians were piqued by Israel’s military trade with Georgia even before the latest outbreak of hostilities — Moscow expressed its annoyance over the pilotless drones supplied by an Israeli company to the Georgians, three of which were downed by Russian aircraft over South Ossetia in recent months. Obviously mindful of the need to avoid provoking Russia, Israel declared off-limits certain weapons systems the Georgians had asked for, such as Merkava tanks and advanced anti-aircraft systems. “We have turned down many requests involving arms sales to Georgia, and the ones that have been approved have been duly scrutinized,” a Defense Ministry official told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahoronot amid concerns raised over a possible fallout from the Israeli ties to the Georgian military. The extent of damage to the Israeli-Russia relationship — if indeed there is any — remains to be seen. Despite General Nogovitsyn’s comments, Israeli officials say they have received no formal complaints from Russia over ties with Georgia.

    Israel’s strategic priority now is countering the threat it sees in Iran’s nuclear program, and on that front, Russian cooperation is essential. If the Israelis are to achieve their objective of forcing Iran to end uranium enrichment through diplomatic coercion, they will need Russian support for escalating U.N. sanctions — a course of action for which Russia has thus far shown little enthusiasm. And if Israel were to opt for trying to destroy Tehran’s nuclear facilities through a series of air strikes, then the presence of the sophisticated Russian S-300 missile system in Iran would considerably raise the risk to Israeli pilots. Unfortunately for Israel, however, there may be little it can do to shape Moscow’s Iran policy for the simple reason that Israel is not a major factor in Russia’s strategic outlook. Moscow’s actions on Iran are less likely to be determined by Israel supplying a few drones to Georgia than they are to be shaped, for example, by the deployment over extreme Russian objections of U.S. interceptor missiles on Polish soil.

    —With reporting by Aaron J. Klein / Jerusalem

    Source: TIME

  • War in Georgia: The Israeli connection

    War in Georgia: The Israeli connection

    For past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping Gerogian army to preparer for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice

    Arie Egozi

    The fighting which broke out over the weekend between Russia and Georgia has brought Israel’s intensive involvement in the region into the limelight. This involvement includes the sale of advanced weapons to Georgia and the training of the Georgian army’s infantry forces.

    The Defense Ministry held a special meeting Sunday to discuss the various arms deals held by Israelis in Georgia, but no change in policy has been announced as of yet.

    “The subject is closely monitored,” said sources in the Defense Ministry. “We are not operating in any way which may counter Israeli interests. We have turned down many requests involving arms sales to Georgia; and the ones which have been approves have been duly scrutinized. So far, we have placed no limitations on the sale of protective measures.”

    Israel began selling arms to Georgia about seven years ago following an initiative by Georgian citizens who immigrated to Israel and became businesspeople.

    “They contacted defense industry officials and arms dealers and told them that Georgia had relatively large budgets and could be interested in purchasing Israeli weapons,” says a source involved in arms exports.

    The military cooperation between the countries developed swiftly. The fact that Georgia’s defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation.

    “His door was always open to the Israelis who came and offered his country arms systems made in Israel,” the source said. “Compared to countries in Eastern Europe, the deals in this country were conducted fast, mainly due to the defense minister’s personal involvement.”

    Among the Israelis who took advantage of the opportunity and began doing business in Georgia were former Minister Roni Milo and his brother Shlomo, former director-general of the Military Industries, Brigadier-General (Res.) Gal Hirsch and Major-General (Res.) Yisrael Ziv.

    Roni Milo conducted business in Georgia for Elbit Systems and the Military Industries, and with his help Israel’s defense industries managed to sell to Georgia remote-piloted vehicles (RPVs), automatic turrets for armored vehicles, antiaircraft systems, communication systems, shells and rockets.

    According to Israeli sources, Gal Hirsch gave the Georgian army advice on the establishment of elite units such as Sayeret Matkal and on rearmament, and gave various courses in the fields of combat intelligence and fighting in built-up areas.

    ‘Don’t anger the Russians’

    The Israelis operating in Georgia attempted to convince the Israeli Aerospace Industries to sell various systems to the Georgian air force, but were turned down. The reason for the refusal was “special” relations created between the Aerospace Industries and Russia in terms of improving fighter jets produced in the former USSR and the fear that selling weapons to Georgia would anger the Russians and prompt them to cancel the deals.

    Israelis’ activity in Georgia and the deals they struck there were all authorized by the Defense Ministry. Israel viewed Georgia as a friendly state to which there is no reason not to sell arms systems similar to those Israel exports to other countries in the world.

    As the tension between Russia and Georgia grew, however, increasing voices were heard in Israel – particularly in the Foreign Ministry – calling on the Defense Ministry to be more selective in the approval of the deals with Georgia for fear that they would anger Russia.

    “It was clear that too many unmistakable Israeli systems in the possesion of the Georgian army would be like a red cloth in the face of a raging bull as far as Russia is concerned,”     explained a source in the defense establishment.

    For inctance, the Russians viewed the operation of the Elbit System’s RPVs as a real provocation.

    “It was clear that the Russians were angry,” says a defense establishment source, “and that the interception of three of these RPVs in the past three months was an expression of this anger. Not everyone in Israel understood the sensitive nerve Israel touched when it supplied such an advanced arms system to a country whose relations with Russia are highly tense.”

    In May it was eventually decide to approve future deals with Georgia only for the sale of non-offensive weapon systems, such as intelligence, communications and computer systems, and not to approve deals for the sale of rifles, aircraft, sells, etc.

    A senior source in the Military Industry said Saturday that despite some reporters, the activity of Georgia’s military industry was extremely limited.

    “We conducted a small job for them several years ago,” he said. “The rest of the deals remained on paper.”

    Dov Pikulin, one of the owners of the Authentico company specializing in trips and journeys to the area, says however that “the Israeli is the main investor in the Georgian economy. Everyone is there, directly or indirectly.”

    Georgian minister: Israel should be proud

    “The Israelis should be proud of themselves for the Israeli training and education received by the Georgian soldiers,” Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili said Saturday.

    Yakobashvili is a Jew and is fluent in Hebrew. “We are now in a fight against the great Russia,” he said, “and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House, because Georgia cannot survive on its own.

    “It’s important that the entire world understands that what is happening in Georgia now will affect the entire world order. It’s not just Georgia’s business, but the entire world’s business.”

    One of the Georgian parliament members did not settle Saturday for the call for American aid, urging Israel to help stop the Russian offensive as well: “We need help from the UN and from our friends, headed by the United States and Israel. Today Georgia is in danger – tomorrow all the democratic countries in the region and in the entire world will be in danger too.”

    Zvi Zinger and Hanan Greenberg contributed to this report

    Source: YnetNews.com

  • The Pipeline War

    The Pipeline War

    Editorial

    Thu. Aug 14, 2008

    Scenes of Russian tanks rumbling through Georgia, the former Soviet republic on the shore of the Black Sea, have touched hearts and consciences around the world, and rightly so. The bloody Russian incursion brings to mind other Russian tanks rolling into Prague in 1968 and Budapest in 1956, crushing hopeful sparks of democracy while the world looked on. For some protesters, especially in Georgia itself, the scenes also recalled another moment, Munich 1938, when the Western allies conceded Czechoslovakia to the Nazi murderers. In a perfect world, such images might serve as timely calls to action.

    But the world is not perfect. Russia is not Nazi Germany, and Georgia is not Czechoslovakia. The Russian-Georgian war is not a battle of absolute evil versus absolute innocence, and the onlooking world should not behave as though it is. Too much is at stake.

    Georgia is a tiny nation, one of the many squabbling tribes — Armenians, Azeris, Ossetians, Abkhaz, Mingrelians, Chechens and more — that make up the volatile Caucasus region. Once a proud kingdom, Georgia was dismembered in the Middle Ages and reestablished only after World War I, whereupon it was promptly absorbed by the new Soviet Union. Moscow generously padded its Georgian “socialist republic” — the beloved birthplace of dictator Joseph Stalin — by appending two small ethnic regions along the Russian-Georgian border, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

    Neither of the annexed regions had any love for Georgia. As soon as Georgia declared independence from the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991, they declared independence from Georgia. No nation recognized the breakaways, but Georgia was unable to recapture them. A long standoff ensued — until this month, when Georgia sent in its troops.

    Russia’s brutal response was, it must be said, entirely predictable. Russian leader Vladimir Putin had been working for years to erase his nation’s post-Soviet humiliation and regain great-power status. After restoring state control of oil and other privatized industries, his next essential step was reasserting Russia’s dominance of its neighbors. Georgia was fixed in his sights.

    Georgia has irritated Moscow since the Rose Revolution in 2003, when Georgians overthrew their ex-communist leader and elected a staunchly pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili. A onetime New York lawyer with close ties to Washington neoconservatives, Saakashvili has been pushing hard to join NATO, which Moscow sees as encroaching on its backyard. He has also cultivated close economic and military ties with Israel, which has a large community of Georgian Jewish émigrés. One former Georgian-Israeli is Georgia’s defense minister. Another Georgian Jew is the government minister in charge of efforts to recapture the breakaway regions, which some Georgians compare wistfully to Israel’s struggle to control the West Bank.

    Outweighing all those irritants, however, is Russia’s drive to control the flow of oil and gas to Europe from Central Asia. Russian pipelines now carry Europe’s fuel, allowing Moscow to control prices and earning billions of dollars. They also enable Russia to shut the tap, giving Putin a useful weapon against NATO growth and America’s missile defense plans. But negotiations are underway to build a new international pipeline through Georgia, bypassing Russia. Putin is determined to prevent it.

    This month’s fighting shut down pipelines that now run through Georgia from Caspian Sea oilfields. Some European investors now question the safety of the Georgian route, just as Putin hoped. In European business circles, the conflict is known simply as the Pipeline War.

    If Putin’s motives are clear, Saakashvili’s are a mystery. Why grab for the breakaway regions at this moment and invite an overpowering Russian response? True, he has made recapturing the breakaways a signature issue, but he also had a reputation for sensible pragmatism. Some observers say he was caught up in neoconservative rhetoric about defending democracy, and failed to consider the sapping of American power in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also may have underestimated the difficulty of facing down a nuclear-armed Russia at a time when Moscow’s help is needed on Iran, oil supplies and other global crises.

    Whatever his reasoning, Saakashvili ended up subjecting his nation to a cruel and unnecessary war. He gave Russia an excuse for a brutal and cynical power play. And he exposed America’s helplessness at a dangerous moment.

    Israel, for its part, prudently responded to the fighting by stopping military aid to Georgia, understanding that Russia’s help is needed to confront Iran. America has less wiggle room; it must make at least a show of standing up for democracy, however weak its hand.

    America and the West have a number of accounts to settle with Putin’s aggressively autocratic regime. But the timing must be of the allies’ choosing, not minor players with their own agendas. Weakening America weakens all its friends.

    Source: FORWARD

  • Israel Sees Immigration Opportunity in Georgian Strife

    Israel Sees Immigration Opportunity in Georgian Strife

    Israel Gears up for Wave of Immigrants from War-Torn Georgia

    Tuesday, August 12, 2008
    By Julie Stahl

    Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) – Israel is gearing up to receive a wave of Jewish immigrants from war-torn Georgia, officials here said.

    “Since last Friday night, with the eruption of battles in the South Ossetia region of Georgia, the Jewish Agency embarked on an extensive and immediate operation in Israel and in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to render all the necessary assistance to the Georgian Jewish community,” said Jewish Agency Chairman Zeev Bielski.

    That includes the accelerated handling of paperwork for those who want to immigrate as well as preparations here to absorb them, Bielski said in an open letter on Monday.

    The Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental organization, is responsible for immigration to Israel. Since before the founding of the State, the agency has sought to rescue Jews from life-threatening situations around the world and resettle them here.

    According to Bielski, the Jewish Agency rescued a number of Georgian Jews at the beginning of the 1990s during the civil war in the Abkhazia region, bringing most of them to Israel.

    According to Israeli law, every Jew throughout the world has a right to immigrate to the country. Israel has encouraged immigration for decades, partly as a way of boosting the country’s Jewish population. More than three million Jews have immigrated to Israel since the founding of the state.

    “The return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is an integral part of what Israel stands for,” says the Jewish Agency’s Web site. Between January and July 2008, 8,542 people arrived in Israel under the auspices of the Jewish Agency, a 16 percent decrease compared to the number that arrived in the same period last year.

    Jewish Agency spokesman Michael Jankelowitz told CNSNews.com that some 25 Georgians are expected in Israel on Tuesday night, if there is enough room for them on the planes that are bringing Israeli citizens home.

    Dozens of Georgians have applied to immigrate to Israel since fighting broke out on Friday, Jankelowitz said.

    Since 1989, about two-thirds of the Georgian Jewish community – some 25,000 people – has immigrated to Israel and only about one-third — 12,000 – of the Jewish community was left behind, he said.

    On Tuesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he had ordered an end to the military operation in Georgia, but reports from the region said the fighting has not ended.

    Zvi Avisar, spokesman for Israel’s Immigration and Absorption minister, said that a let-up in hostilities probably wouldn’t have an impact on emigration from Georgia.

    “The geo-political situation won’t change,” Avisar told CNSNews.com.

    The pressure from Russia probably is going to continue, and it would more than likely have an impact on the socio-economic situation in general. It is easier for people to make a decision to come to Israel when they are affected in such a way, Avisar said.

    According to Avisar, Israel is expecting two waves of immigration from Georgia.

    The first will consist of those who have passports and visas and are able to leave Georgia within the next two weeks. Sixty people already have applied to come immediately, he said.

    The second wave will take longer, even up to a year, as Georgian Jews work to get their travel documents in order. “We don’t know if it will be hundreds or dozens,” Avisar said.

    One immigrant who arrived from Georgia in 1992 said the situation is difficult in Georgia right now. But it’s not clear how many Jewish people will want to leave.

    The people still have hope now that the world will take Georgia’s side and force Russia to back down, she told CNSNews.com. So far, she added, it’s all talk.

    Many Georgians say it’s clear that Russia had been planning this attack for some time, prompted by Georgia’s desire to become part of NATO and its friendship with America.

    The U.S. has condemned the Russian bombing raids and called for an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia.

    According to Avisar, the Jewish Agency plans to launch an information campaign in Georgia about the benefits offered to immigrants. Most of the Jewish community is based in Tbilisi.

    Israel has always depended on immigration to boost its population and fuel its rise as a modern state.

    In 1949, (a year after Israel’s founding) the Jewish Agency brought 239,000 Holocaust survivors here from Displaced Persons camps in Europe and detention camps on Cyprus.

    During the first four years of its existence, Israel absorbed more than 700,000 new immigrants, including 3,800 from Yemen, 343,000 from Eastern Europe and North Africa, 110,000 from Iraq, 40,000 Jews from Turkey and 18,000 from Iran.

    In 1991, more than 14,300 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in just 36 hours in what was known as Operation Solomon. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in about 1991, nearly one million Jews have immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union.

    Source: CNSNews

  • Georgia war boosts Turkey-Armenia thaw

    Georgia war boosts Turkey-Armenia thaw

    By Paul de Bendern

    ANKARA (Reuters) – The first visit by a Turkish leader to Armenia should give momentum to help mend almost a century of hostility with the Caucasus country made more urgent since Russia’s war with Georgia.

    President Abdullah Gul’s trip to Yeveran on Saturday carried huge symbolic importance for neighbours with no diplomatic ties and whose relationship is haunted by the killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War One.

    “A beautiful beginning,” Turkish newspaper Vatan said on its front page. “A hope-inspiring meeting,” said the daily Radikal.

    The presidents of Turkey and Armenia held talks and watched a World Cup qualifier soccer match together during an encounter they said could help herald a new beginning in ties and aid regional security. Their foreign ministers would now work to build on what was achieved during Gul’s one-day visit.

    Georgia war boosts Turkey-Armenia thaw | World | Reuters.