Next week Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan will discuss initiative of the platform of security and cooperation in the South Caucasus with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Turkish Prime Minister Receb Tayyip Erdogan told reporters at the press conference in Bodrum, Turkey, APA reports. (more…)
Category: Southern Caucasus
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Head of US Jewish Committee: “We are Azerbaijan’s friends”
Interview with David Harris, chief executive of the US Jewish committee.
– What is your visit to Azerbaijan related to?
– First of all, we have come here to observe the state of affairs in present-day Azerbaijan. It should be noted that this is my first visit to the country. Upon arrival to the United States, we will tell about everything, we have seen here. We are Azerbaijan’s friends.
– Azerbaijan is closely cooperating with the US Jews lobby. Which role can the Jewish committee play in the due presentation of Azerbaijan in the United States, including in the US congress? (more…)
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Armenia Scraps Visas For Turkish Soccer Fans
In a fresh overture to Ankara, Armenia decided on Thursday to unilaterally suspend its visa regime with Turkey to facilitate the arrival of Turkish fans for the upcoming first-ever match between the two countries’ national football teams.
The Armenian government said Turkish citizens traveling to Armenia from September 1-6 will not require entry visas. “The decision was taken to enable citizens of the Turkish Republic to attend the September 6 game between the football teams of Armenia and Turkey to be played in Yerevan,” read a government statement.
Armenia and Turkey were drawn into the same European group of the qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and are scheduled to play each other in Yerevan and Istanbul. The two teams have never faced each other before.
The forthcoming match in Yerevan’s Hrazdan stadium will come amid renewed hopes for a normalization of relations between the two bitterly estranged neighbors that have no diplomats relations and open border. Ankara offered to embark on a “dialogue” with Yerevan shortly after Armenia’s February 19 presidential election controversially won by Serzh Sarkisian. The latter responded positively to the offer, calling for a “fresh start” in Turkish-Armenian relations.
Earlier this summer, Sarkisian signaled his government readiness to accept, in principle, a Turkish proposal to form a joint commission of historians who would look into the 1915-1918 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. He also invited Turkish President Abdullah Gul to arrive in Yerevan and watch with him the World Cup qualifier.
Gul has yet to respond to the invitation. Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said last month that Gul’s decision will depend on unspecified “developments ahead of the match.” A senior U.S. diplomat told RFE/RL on July 18 that the first-ever trip to Armenia by a Turkish president would be a “real ground-breaking moment.”
Under the rules of world football’s governing body, FIFA, a country hosting a World Cup match must set aside at least 5 percent of stadium seats for traveling fans. The Hrazdan stadium has a capacity of more than 50,000 seats, meaning that 2,500 Turks are entitled to cheering for their team there.
The decision to waive the visa regime was meant to underscore Yerevan’s readiness to allow the presence of a sizable traveling crowd at Hrazdan. Media reports in Turkey have said that as many as 10,000 local fans are eager to travel to the Armenian capital.
The Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) said on Thursday, however, that it has still not been approached by the Turkish Football Federation, which is supposed to distribute game tickets in Turkey. “We still have no information about how many Turkish football fans would like to attend the game,” the FFA’s executive director, Armen Minasian, told RFE/RL. “We have received no applications from the Turkish Football Federation yet.”
With the widely anticipated match bound to arouse nationalist passions in both countries, the presence of a large number Turkey supporters would be a major security headache for the Armenian authorities. The unusual sight of visiting fans waving Turkish flags in a stadium adjacent to Yerevan’s 1915 genocide memorial could infuriate the home crowd.
But Minasian downplayed the security risk. “The government and the FFA are taking all necessary measures to prevent incidents during the march,” he said.
(Turkish Football Federation photo: Turkish players celebrate their dramatic quarter-final victory over Croatia during the 2008 European football championship in Austria.)
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EU wants peacekeepers ‘on the ground’ in Georgia
Today @ 09:54 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – EU foreign ministers on Wednesday (13 August) agreed to send peacekeepers to help supervise the fragile Russia-Georgia ceasefire, putting off discussions on potential diplomatic sanctions against Russia until next month.
“The European Union must be prepared to commit itself, including on the ground,” the EU joint statement said, asking EU top diplomat Javier Solana to draft more detailed proposals for the ministers’ next meeting on 5 September.
EU police in Bosnia – it is unclear what the EU peacekeeping mission in Georgia would consist of (Photo: The Council of the European Union)
“Many countries have said that they are ready to join in,” French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said, adding that any EU move would require a UN mandate. “We are encouraged by what we saw this morning, but we have to go through the United Nations.”
Ministers did not specify if the EU mission will compose EU-badge wearing soldiers, policemen or civilian monitors. It also remains unclear if it would be part of a wider force involving the UN and the OSCE, or when deployment might start.
“You call it peacekeeping troops, I don’t call it that…but controllers, monitors, European facilitators, I think the Russians would accept that,” Mr Kouchner told reporters.
The Georgian government has called for an EU presence in its rebel-held Abkhazia and South Ossetia provinces for at least three years, but the EU has always maintained that Russia and the Russian-backed separatists must agree first.
Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubb voiced optimism that Russia will now back the new initiative. “I’m convinced at the end of the day we will find an international peacekeeping [force] in the region, with the EU at its heart,” he said, according to AFP.
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt told Reuters he was less sure. “There are no signs of the Russians letting in anyone else…I don’t really see it happening – at the moment the Russians are firmly in control.”
The EU statement avoided any criticism of Moscow, despite widespread feeling among EU members that Russia’s massive assault on Georgia has overshadowed Georgia’s initial attack on the rebel town of Tskhinvali.
On Wednesday night, Russian soldiers continued to attack abandoned Georgian military facilities while Ossetian paramilitaries burned ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia and looted the Georgian town of Gori.
“I do not think we should get lost today in long discussions about responsibility or who caused the escalation of the last few days,” German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said.
Russia sanctions debate
A discussion on the potential suspension of talks on a new EU-Russia strategic pact or other diplomatic sanctions against Russia has been scheduled for the next EU foreign ministers meeting in September.
“We will speak very specifically about that,” France’s Mr Kouchner said.
“The European Union will want to consider how it proceeds with the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement,” UK foreign minister, David Miliband, said. “The sight of Russian tanks in Gori, Russian tanks in Senaki, a Russian blockade of Poti, the Georgian port are a chilling reminder of times that I think we had hoped had gone by.”
The Polish and Lithuanian ministers echoed the British position.
“Of course some consequences must appear of the aggression,” Lithuanian foreign minister, Petras Vaitiekunas, said. “There was clearly disproportionate force used by the Russians,” Poland’s Radoslaw Sikorski added.
In a separate event in Warsaw on Wednesday, the leaders of four former-communist EU states went further by calling for NATO to put Georgia firmly on the path to membership in order to “prevent similar acts of agression and occupation” in future.
The presidents of Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and the prime minister of Latvia also criticised the EU’s endorsement of the six-point Russia-Georgia peace plan, saying “the principal element – the respect of teritorial integrity of Georgia – is missing.”
The UK and eastern European states stand close to an increasingly hostile US line on excluding Russia from “the international system” and “international institutions” in punishment for the war.
‘This is not 1968’
“This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it,” US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said on Wednesday, before flying to Paris and Tbilisi this week.
Meanwhile, Russia is blaming the US for training and arming Georgian forces in a geopolitcal “project.”
“It is clear that Georgia wants this dispute to become something more than a short if bloody conflict in the region,” Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said.
“For decision-makers in the NATO countries of the West, it would be worth considering whether in future you want the men and women of your armed services to be answerable to [Georgian president] Mr Saakashvili’s declarations of war.”
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THE GEORGIAN-RUSSIAN CONFLICT THROUGH THE EYES OF BAKU
By Fariz Ismailzade
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The escalating conflict in Georgia–with its unexpected military developments and great humanitarian losses–seems to have caught Azerbaijani officials and the public off guard. Azerbaijanis are not new to the world of Russian political games in the Caucasus. Baku itself suffered greatly from Russian intervention in 1990 and after that from the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Yet, the rapid and aggressive style of Russian intervention in Georgia in the past few days has created far greater security and economic dilemmas for Azerbaijan than even the most pessimistic analysts in the country could have predicted only a week ago.Russian jet fighters have bombed both civilians and military airports in Georgia, forcing all airlines, including Azerbaijani Airlines (AZAL), to stop flights. Moreover, for several days in a row the Russians bombed the Black Sea port of Poti, which serves as the main terminal for the export of Azerbaijani energy products as well as other cargo. With the explosions on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline last week, Azerbaijan was looking for Georgian railways, ports and pipelines as an important alternative for the export of Caspian energy supplies to Western markets. All of this has stopped, putting both Georgia and Azerbaijan in economic difficulties. Nonetheless, there is little fear in official circles in Baku that Russia will bomb the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and other energy-related infrastructures to destroy the successful East-West transport and energy corridor between Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Azerbaijan is Georgia’s strategic ally. Both countries are united not only by geopolitical interests and world-class pipelines, but also by the regional security organization GUAM. GUAM, although passive for most of the decade, has lately been re-energized and even played with the idea of establishing its own peacekeeping and security forces. Under such a situation, it seems like GUAM would be a convenient venue to express support and solidarity with the Georgians.
Azerbaijan, however, finds itself in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, there is enormous public support for Georgia throughout Azerbaijan. In private conversations, almost all Azerbaijanis blame Russia for aggression and express frustration with the imperialist policies of the Kremlin in the South Caucasus. A group of intelligentsia went to the Russian embassy on August 10 to protest against the military actions in Georgia ). This was repeated by members of youth organizations (www.day.az, August 11). The main opposition party Musavat issued a statement on August 11, calling for “respect of the territorial integrity of Georgia and an immediate stop to the aggressive policy of Russia” (Musavat party press release). The party called on the Azerbaijani government to show a “principled position” on the conflict. A similar statement came from the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan.
For its pro-Georgian coverage of the events, the most popular Azerbaijani news website www.day.az was attacked by Russian special forces on August 11 and had to cease its activities temporarily (www.day.az press release, August 11). Elnur Baimov, the editor in chief of www.day.az said on August 11 that “we all saw the diplomatic loss of Russia.”
Government officials have been relatively calm about the situation, considering the fragile relations between Moscow and Baku and the desire of the latter not to ruin bilateral relations between the two countries. The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Khazar Ibrahim told journalists on August 8, however, that “Azerbaijan favors the solution of the South Ossetia conflict based on the territorial integrity of Georgia and Georgian adherence to international law” (www.day.az).
On August 11, ANS TV reported that 50 Azerbaijanis had gathered in Georgia’s Azerbaijani-populated provinces to go to the war for the defense of their country. It is noteworthy that Russians have bombed Azerbaijani populated areas of Georgia for three days in a row, killing four and wounding dozens. The possibility is not excluded that this was done in hopes of fomenting strife between Azeris and Georgians.
The present situation in Georgia presents huge security concerns for official Baku. If Russia manages to squeeze Georgia, then it would put an end to the economic independence of Azerbaijan as well. Many analysts in Baku believe that the real purpose of the pressure on Georgia is the Kremlin’s desire to control Azerbaijan.
Thus, it is vital for Azerbaijan to provide all necessary assistance to its strategic ally. Considering the political realities between Baku and Moscow, it is unlikely that the Azerbaijani government will provide any military assistance to Georgia. Economic and humanitarian assistance, however, is definitely an option. Azerbaijan remains the only viable international outlet for Georgia, and many Georgians have already started using the territory of Azerbaijan to travel abroad.
Azerbaijani political analysts believe that the war in Georgia is a long-term loss for the Kremlin. By showing its neo-imperialist face, Russia may have lost the Caucasus forever. The political analyst Ilgar Mammadov says that “If Georgia stays strong for few more days, we will all see the defeat of Russia from the Caucasus.” Another analyst Vugar Seidov says “The departure of Russia from Abkhazia and South Ossetia is historically inevitable” (Regnum, August 10).
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Surreal scenes: Stranded in istanbul
By Tom Clifford, Deputy Managing Editor
Istanbul: It was a surreal moment. At Istanbul’s modern international airport passengers due to board Turkish Airways flight 1382 to Tbilisi were watching their homes burn on TV news.
Three families from Georgia had been holidaying in Turkey when Gori was attacked and were desperately trying to get back into Georgia even though they knew that returning to Gori was out of the question. Other families had given up trying to get back and decided to extend their stay in Turkey for as long as their money could last.
“What choice do we have? We want to get back to Georgia but on Saturday we saw the place where we live had been attacked by Russian jets. We want to get to Tbilisi at least but it doesn’t look good,” they told Gulf News.