Category: Eastern Europe

Turkey Welcomes NATO-Russia Military Cooperation

Turkey Welcomes NATO-Russia Military Cooperation

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 125

June 30, 2009

By: Saban Kardas

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu attended the informal meeting of OSCE foreign ministers on the Greek island of Corfu on June 27-28. In addition to presenting Ankara’s views on the future of the European security architecture, Davutoglu also discussed Turkey’s bilateral relations on the sidelines of the meeting. The OSCE foreign ministers initiated the “Corfu Process” to discuss concrete steps that might be taken to manage European security challenges, and prepare the way for the next ministerial meeting in December. OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni, outlined the new security challenges facing the members. She said that in addition to traditional security issues, new threats and challenges continuously emerge. She added that the participants “concurred that the OSCE is a natural forum to anchor [an open, sustained, wide-ranging and inclusive dialogue on security], because it is the only regional organization bringing together all states from Vancouver to Vladivostok on an equal basis” (www.osce.org, June 28).

These declarations for improving security cooperation aside, in concrete terms, the meeting served as an important test for whether the divisions created following the Russo-Georgian war could be overcome. The NATO-Russia dialogue received a serious blow due to increased tension after the war. Since then, Russia has expected the West to accept the “new realities” in the region, particularly the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions. Moreover, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called for a treaty to launch a new Europe-wide security structure.

Although NATO-Russia relations thawed gradually after Obama’s election, formal military cooperation remained suspended. The NATO-Russia Council met on the margins of the OSCE’s Corfu meeting, which marked the highest level contact since the Georgian war. The outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced that the parties agreed to resume military cooperation, but noted that “fundamental differences of opinion” over Georgia remained. He added that the details of the cooperation will be fleshed out through further meetings. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, stressed that Moscow’s decision to recognize Georgia’s two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after the war is “irreversible” (www.rferl.org, June 27; www.greeknews.com, June 29).

Davutoglu attended the OSCE discussions, and held several bilateral meetings with his counterparts and E.U. officials. Davutoglu expressed Turkey’s satisfaction with the resumption of NATO-Russia dialogue and the OSCE’s decision to develop mechanisms to deal with future security threats. He added that maintaining institutional ties is needed for the promotion of effective security cooperation (Cihan, June 29).

Turkey’s bilateral relations with Armenia and Greece were also on Davutoglu’s agenda. Diplomatic observers speculated on whether Davutoglu would meet the Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan. Although former Foreign Minister Ali Babacan met Nalbandyan several times during such multilateral meetings, Davutoglu has not held an official meeting with him since being appointed. He told reporters that he talked briefly with Nalbandyan, but his busy schedule did not allow time for an official meeting. Nonetheless, the Turkish-Armenian normalization process occupied an important part of Davutoglu’s agenda during his other contacts. He met the Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy Rey who is moderating the secret talks between Ankara and Yerevan, which resulted in the announcement of a roadmap for normalization (EDM, April 29). Rey also held a separate meeting with Nalbandyan. Since the announcement of the roadmap, however, Ankara has come under criticism for stalling the process in order to allay Baku’s concerns, and no concrete steps have since been taken towards normalization. Although this long silence raised fears that the dialogue might have prematurely ended, Swiss diplomatic sources reportedly told the Turkish daily Zaman that the parties had reached consensus, and the details of the roadmap might be announced soon (Zaman, June 29).

Davutoglu also met his Greek counterpart Bakoyanni. Following the meeting, Davutoglu said that they had a very fruitful conversation and that the two sides agreed to “change Turkish-Greek relations from an area of risk into pursuing mutual interests through high-level contacts.” However, he added that differences of opinion between both countries remain deep rooted and cannot be resolved overnight. “It is essential that the parties appreciate each other’s positions and concerns,” he added (www.cnnturk.com, June 28). Greek media interpreted his attitude as maintaining Ankara’s stubborn position, and claimed that no common ground could be reached (Milliyet, June 29). Indeed, despite their ability to break the decades-old security dilemma, several issues continue to bedevil relations between Ankara and Athens, such as the Aegean disputes, Cyprus, concerns over illegal immigrants and the condition of minorities (EDM, June 22).

Given its policy during the Russia-Georgia war and its flourishing ties with Russia, one might argue that Turkey is one of the few countries that wholeheartedly welcomed the resumption of NATO-Russia cooperation. Though disturbed by the Russian aggression last year, Turkey expressed openly its opposition to punitive NATO measures against Russia, and instead charted an independent course to balance its ties between the West and Moscow. This foreign policy approach even led to charges that Turkey might be drifting away from its traditional alliance commitments, which it vehemently refuted (EDM, August 27, 2008). Moreover, Turkey initiated the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform to bring a permanent solution to regional problems (EDM, September 2, 2008). Now that Russia and Turkey are seeking to mend fences, this new development removes an important source of tension in Ankara’s relations with the West.

Moreover, in retrospect, Ankara might claim credit for its own policy of balancing and prioritizing its multidimensional security cooperation, during and in the aftermath of the Georgian crisis. Ankara’s new foreign policy approach prioritizes cooperative security to respond to traditional and non-conventional threats to regional and national security, an approach which is also shared by its military leadership (EDM, June 25). However, as the persistence of some disputes with its neighbors illustrate, it provides no magic bullet for the resolution of all disputes.

https://jamestown.org/program/turkey-welcomes-nato-russia-military-cooperation/

July 4, 2009
Azeri Delegation Makes Rare Trip To Karabakh

Armenia — Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbuloglu (C) and members of his delegation meet with President Serzh Sarkisian in Yerevan on July 3, 2009.

03.07.2009

Lusine Musayelian

An Azerbaijani delegation led by a prominent diplomat and public figure paid a rare visit to Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia on Friday as part of a Russian-backed initiative to rebuild bridges between the two estranged peoples.

“We are here to create relations between people,” Polad Bulbuloglu, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Russia, said after arriving in Stepanakert along with several Azerbaijani intellectuals, two of them parliament deputies.

The delegation crossed into Karabakh from a northern section of the heavily fortified Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact. Troops deployed there temporarily cleared the area of landmines to ensure the group’s safe passage.

The Azerbaijanis were accompanied by Mikhail Shvydkoy, a former Russian culture minister who acted on behalf of President Dmitry Medvedev. They were joined in Karabakh by Armen Smbatian, the Armenian ambassador in Moscow. Bulbuloglu and Smbatian already organized a similar trip two years ago.

“Unlike our first trip, we have had pretty heated debates here this time around,” Bulbuloglu told journalists after he and his companions met with Nagorno-Karabakh President Bako Sahakian, members of the Karabakh parliament and local intellectuals. He did not go into details.

Armenia — Polad Bulbuloglu in Yerevan on July 3, 2009.

Bulbuloglu, who had previously served Azerbaijan’s culture minister, said the initiative is aimed at strengthening trust between Armenians and Azerbaijanis and thereby facilitating a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh dispute. “Neither the Armenians, nor the Azerbaijanis are going to fly to outer space [for good,]” he said. “We have to live together. That is why we need to make contacts, to create relationships, to instill mutual respect.”

“Our peoples have for centuries lived side by side, and I am deeply convinced that after a certain number of years everything will be sorted out and we will again live together,” added the former popular singer.

The Azerbaijani visitors then traveled to the nearby town of Shushi, that had a predominantly Azerbaijani population before being captured by Karabakh Armenian forces in 1992. They went into a local house that belonged to Bulbuloglu’s late father.

The delegation proceeded to Yerevan later in the day to meet with President Serzh Sarkisian. “We have always been and remain of the opinion that it is possible to find solutions to difficult issues through cooperation and dialogue,” Sarkisian said, according to his office.

Joined by Smbatian and several other Armenians, the group traveled to Baku after the meeting. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev is due to meet them on Saturday.

http://www.armenialiberty.org/content/article/1768889.html

July 3, 2009
Medvedev had a telephone conversation with Abdullah Gul

July 3, 2009
14:45

The topics of discussion included Russian-Turkish cooperation in international affairs and current trends in trade and economic cooperation.

Both sides welcomed the stability of the Russian-Turkish strategic partnership and the continued trust-based, constructive dialogue at all levels. All these factors significantly contribute to resolving regional problems and have a positive influence on the overall international climate.

The parties also expressed satisfaction with the dynamic development of bilateral trade and economic cooperation, even in the difficult circumstances of the global crisis. When discussing specific issues, the Presidents gave particular attention to promoting cooperation in energy and fuels.

The conversation was initiated by the Turkish side.

July 3, 2009
Russia Angered At Armenia’s Saakashvili Award

June 30, 2009

Armenian nationalists and members of the Russian parliament are up in arms about Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian’s awarding of the country’s Medal of Honor to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili last week.

Valeri Bogomolov, a member of the Russian State Duma’s Foreign Relations Committee, called the award “very controversial.” He said countries are free to honor whomever they want, but “it is important to understand that you can’t spit into a well from which you will need to drink on more than one occasion,” Regnum news reports.

Another senior Duma member, Viktor Ilyukhin, denounced the decision, calling it “unfriendly towards Russia.”

Saakashvili received the medal at the start of his two-day official visit to Yerevan on June 24. Sarkisian’s office cited his contribution to “strengthening the centuries-old Georgian-Armenian friendship” in bestowing it on him.

Armenian nationalist activists accuse the Saakashvili government of deliberately neglecting the socioeconomic woes of Georgia’s Javakheti region and violating the rights of its predominantly ethnic-Armenian population.

Last week, dozens of nationalists gathered to protest the award outside Saakashvili’s hotel but were dispersed by the police.

Countries in the Caucasus have to be careful choosing their friends. Iran has just recalled its envoy to Azerbaijan, after Israeli President Shimon Peres paid Baku a visit.

— Armenian Service

https://www.rferl.org/a/Russia_Angered_At_Armenias_Saakashvili_Award/1766103.html

June 30, 2009
Armenian, Azeri Presidents Set For Another Meeting

Armenia — The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan meet in Paris on June 26, 2009.

29.06.2009

Emil Danielyan

The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan look set to hold soon yet another round of face-to-face negotiations which international mediators hope will remove the remaining obstacles to a framework peace agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh.

The foreign ministers of the two warring nations discussed the possibility of such a meeting during six-hour talks in Paris on Friday. The U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-chairing the OSCE were also in attendance.

“The meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan held in Paris was useful and took place in a constructive atmosphere,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It was decided that the Minsk Group co-chairs will again visit the conflict zone “in the first half of July,” said the statement.

“We coordinated our approaches to resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and continued to prepare the next meeting of [Presidents] Ilham Aliev and Serzh Sarkisian,” the Azerbaijani Trend news agency quoted the U.S. co-chair, Matthew Bryza, as saying after the talks. He said that meeting could take place in Moscow in July.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency last week, Bryza said the mediators hope that Aliev and Sarkisian will bridge their remaining differences over the basic principles of a Karabakh settlement proposed by the mediators. “We hope that if they meet in the middle of July, they will have agreed conceptually on all the elements of these basic principles,” he said.

He said the parties would then go line by line through the three-and-a-half pages of text to agree the details. “Once that happens, which we the co-chairs are shooting for by the end of the year, then we could say, it would be true, that a framework agreement has been reached,” added Bryza.

In a joint statement issued earlier this month, the co-chairs said Aliev and Sarkisian “narrowed the differences between the two countries on a number of the Basic Principles” at their last meeting held in Saint Petersburg, Russia on June 4. They did not give any details, sticking to the confidentiality of the protracted peace process.

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1765356.html

June 29, 2009
Ottoman Yolk

Jun 25th 2009
From Economist.com

What would a politicised east European menu look like?
“What’s “Cutlet Carpathian Style?”, your columnist asked innocently in a restaurant in Budapest recently. “You’re halfway through eating it when the Ukrainians take it away and say the rest belongs to them,” came an instant quip in return. The rest of the world may have forgotten, but Hungarians still remember the time when a large chunk of what is now Ukraine (and a lot more besides) was part of their old imperial kingdom.

The encoding of menus is a fascinating byway in gastro-linguistics. Any mention of “Hawaiian” means that chunks of pineapple have been added to the dish. Similarly, “Provençale” signals tomatoes and black olives. “Napolitano” means with basil and mozzarella; “Niçoise” is anchovies and eggs, “Veneziana” means onions. More generally, “traditional” usually means indigestible or overcooked. “Organic” means it costs more.

But rarely if ever do the menu terms have any political meaning. London’s best restaurant for real English cooking, Wilton’s, serves a dessert called “Guards’ Pudding”, invented in the trenches of the first world war (ingredients include breadcrumbs and raspberry jam). The officers who survived the wartime mincing machine apparently longed for the dish in peacetime London. The French “Macedoine” salad could be the big exception: it is a mixed fruit salad that some say was named after the ethnic confusion in Macedonia 100 years ago. But serious scholars have not endorsed that theory.

So it is tempting to try to create a menu with east European historical overtones. The starter might be Ottoman salad. That would be lazily prepared and slovenly served, and crowned with the yellow part of a boiled egg (the Ottoman yolk). Its unlikely ingredients range from sharp Balkan paprikas to gelatinous Levantine sweetmeats. It would stay on the table for ages, and some guests would end up picking bits out in order to create their own dishes (Bulgarian crudités, perhaps). Random offenders would be hauled off to the kitchen to spend a lifetime washing dishes, Janissary style.

The Hapsburger Auflauf (stew: but Hungarians would call it a goulash) would be equally varied but rather more successful, with Czech dumplings nestling quite snugly next to wisps of sauerkraut and paprika.

Romanov rissoles would be raw (and bleeding), prepared with extraordinary incompetence and bashed about by a madman. But they would be delicious compared with “Steak a la Soviet” (often known colloquially as Lenin’s Revenge): this would be a revolting mixture of gristle and animal fodder, enough to keep you alive but wishing that you were dead.

Diners would hastily turn to the more appetising part of the menu. Prague Spring Rolls would be a temptingly modern variation on traditional Czech cuisine, half-baked yet cooked with delightful enthusiasm by a kitchen crew of idealistic youngsters and hard-bitten types who have embraced nouvelle cuisine. Sadly, a jackbooted waiter stamps them to smithereens before you have begun to enjoy them. You then spend the next 20 years cleaning the restaurant windows.

Diners are told that Baltic Surprise is off the menu forever on seemingly dubious health grounds. Old people insist that it used to be delicious, involving herring and fresh herbs, eaten at midsummer with a lot of beer and dancing. Even trying to order it brings the threat that you will be locked in the cellar for life. But diners who persist will find it served with a flourish, having been cooked secretly in the kitchen from a recipe bravely preserved in the attic. Conversely, Kasha Putina (Putin’s porridge) is not on the menu either, though something is clearly cooking. Russians maintain that they love it, but the neighbours find the smell a bit overpowering.

June 29, 2009