Category: Eastern Europe

  • THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF TATARSTAN

    THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF TATARSTAN

    The Tatar people have already spent 456 years in slavery to Russian colonialism, which was as brutal as ever was known in the history of humankind. During this time many rulers of Russia came to power, as czars, emperors, first secretaries and presidents. Also, the social structure of this country changed: feudalism, capitalism, socialism, etc. Only one thing remained unchanged during all this time: a policy of forced conversion to Christianity, Russification, inhuman exploitation and physical elimination of the Tatar through permanent and goal-oriented genocide. At the beginning of the 18th century, according to a Census taken by Peter the Great, there were 5.5 million Russians and 5.5 million Tatars, and yet by the end of the 20th century there are 120 million Russians and the same 5.5 million Tatars.

    At the end of the 1990s, Tatars in their final despair rose up to struggle with Russian colonialism and adopted a Declaration of Tatar State Sovereignty. They organized a referendum with supervision of foreign observers, including some form the USA, during which 61.4% of Tatarstan\’s population approved a claim for independence from Russia. Moreover, Tatarstan refused to participate in the referendum on the modern Constitution of Russia and to sign the Federative Agreement on the creation of the Russian Federation, confirming by this its illegitimacy. There are not any legal treaties whatsoever on the joining of the later to the Russian Federation.

    The first president of Russia B. Yeltsin agreed to give to the Tatars as much liberty as they could handle. Unfortunately, this was the same kind of deceit as before, aimed only at pacifying Tatars and buying time. Whereas Russia was forced to agree to the escape of 14 colonies from their domination, it categorically refused to recognize the independence of Tatarstan, and it made its rule over this colony more severe, by the destruction of elementary rights of its people, including the right to have local legislative bodies and to select the president of Tatarstan. Right now, the Kremlin is appointing its Vice Roy from Moscow. Moreover, the Kremlin has deprived Tatars of the right to use the Latin alphabet as their own and has forced them to use the Cyrillic alphabet which is entirely unsuitable for the Tatar language. Recently it has deprived the Tatars of the opportunity to teach their children in Tatar.

    Muslim Tatars are subject to severe prosecution, torture and many years of prison for refusal to worship in the mosques that are under the supervision of mullahs appointed by the Vice Roy administration, and for having Muslim books written in Arabic in their homes. At the same time the merciless robbery of the national resources of Tatarstan is continuing. The Kremlin is taking 85% of all the revenues from the sale of Tatarstan\’s oil for itself, and by this way depriving Tatarstan of their vital means for survival.

    All of this is happening at the same time that the Russian Federation cynically and hypocritically recognized the independence of the Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. One can only ask what is the difference between the rights of the aforementioned republics and Tatarstan – a Russian colony? It is absolutely clear – there is no difference. The truth is that Russia practically enslaved the people of these republics by converting them into their citizens. Consequently, for Tatars there is no hope any more for the good will of the Russian colonizers to accomplish any kind of decolonization whatsoever.

    Expressing the will of the Tatar People and in order to save them from entire elimination the Milli Mejlis (Parliament) of the Tatar People is:

    1. Declaring support for the Declaration of State Sovereignty of August 30, 1990 and confirming the illegitimacy of including the Republic of Tatarstan into the Russian Federation without its consent.
    2. Asking all governments and the United Nations to recognize the Independence of Tatarstan.
    3. Creating the Government of Tatarstan in Exile for the protection of the interests of the Tatar People.
    4. Calling all Tatars around the world to organize a permanent mass campaign in support of the Independence of Tatarstan before their governments and societies.

    Adopted at a Special Meeting of the Milli Mejlis of the Tatar People on December 20, 2008.

    Vil Mirzayanov
    [email protected]

  • Soyun Sadikhov: “Vladimir Zhirinovsky should publicly apologize to Azerbaijani People”

    Soyun Sadikhov: “Vladimir Zhirinovsky should publicly apologize to Azerbaijani People”

     

     
     

    Moscow – APA. “We want the court to assess the book “The last march to the south” by Vladimir Zhirinovsky and publicly apologize to Azerbaijani people.

    We can not allow anyone to stir up national and religious conflicts,” says the article written by Soyun Sadikhov, president of “AzerRos” National-Cultural Autonomy of Azerbaijanis in Russia, member of Public Council of Russian Regional Development Ministry.

    AzerRos sued Vladimir Zhirinovsky grounding that Azerbaijanis people were insulted in the above-mentioned book. The article says that the book written by Vladimir Zhirinovsky insults Islamic world and Azerbaijani people.
    “Separation of Muslim world is to the advantage of the entire humanity. The danger coming from the Islamic world should be prevented. Other religions are not able to conduct large-scale religious wars. We should realize finally who has brought civilization? Who conquered space and invaded other countries? Who plundered other nations, turned them into slaves, turned Christian churches into mosques? What culture did the Turks bring to the Central Asia? There is no such a notion as Turkish culture, those riding horses with swords in their hands can not have culture. Janissaries forming the basis of the Turkish army are Slavonic children captured together with their parents. They killed their parents and brought up their children in Turkish, Muslim spirit, and strengthened their army. Slavonic children killed Slavonic peoples under the Turkish flag, this is horrible. Who will answer for this? Who will answer for the humiliation of Byzantine culture, Slavonic peoples?”
    Zhirinovsky’s unique ideas about the Nagorno Karabakh conflict were also involved in the article. “How long will the confrontation between Azerbaijanis and Armenians continue? Will it continue until the liquidation of all Armenian people by not the Turks already, but by Azerbaijanis, the another Turkic-speaking people? The Turks and Azerbaijanis are the same people in substance. The Turks killed one and half million Armenians in 1915 and Azerbaijanis started to do it in 1988. The Turks committed it within three days, but Azerbaijanis are doing it for almost 15 years. They intend to wipe out both Armenian people and state. Why? because, they are Christians. Armenians tackled uniting of Turks and Azerbaijanis. What is Nakhchivan? It is an artificial institution, the place in Armenian lands populated by Azerbaijanis, the territory set for direct links with Turks. Those lands always belonged to Armenia, the great Armenia from sea to sea. What is Armenia today? It is only small piece remained after the Urartu, a powerful state with a great culture. The civilization began there and moved to other territories. Azerbaijanis are the Persian tribe revived by the way of conquest. Seldjug Turks moved from the East in that time and made this Persian tribe the Turks. Who are the Azerbaijanis? It is a tribe lived in the Caspian cost. It is a country equaled to the territory of one district of Moscow. Can you imagine the Sokolniki is the state and people living there are Sokolniki nation. Azerbaijan is like this, the populated region in the Caspian cost”.

    Soyun Sadikhov said many offensive phrases were used in the book against Azerbaijani and Turkish peoples and made some refreshers for Zhirinovsky: “I would like to remind Mr. Zhirinovsky that Azerbaijan’s history and culture have very ancient roots. Unfortunately Vladimir Zhirinovsky doesn’t know Ismayil bin Yassar, Musa Shehevat, Abdul Faraj Isfahani, Khatib Tabrizi, Ibn Sina’s student Bahmanyar, genius poets Nizami, Fuzuli, Molla Panah Vagif, great dramatist Mirza Fathali Akhundov, or their names are not interesting for him. A list of Azerbaijani world-known doctors, philosophers, writers, poets, musicians, architects can be extended more and more. But if you consider it not as culture, but barbarism, there is no need to extend this list. I believe that any person not depending on his nationality and religion must secure the national solidarity. The government officials have to take responsibility for these issues, because these persons are heard. We asked the court to evaluate the Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s book “Attack toward the South” and demanded the author to apologize demonstratively to the Azerbaijani people. We cannot allow the building up a fire in the ethnic and religious conflicts”.

  • Foreign Currency Mechanism in Azerbaijan

    Foreign Currency Mechanism in Azerbaijan

    Trade banks started to work by permission of Russian Gosbank in 1991. They had been founded by state organs. As field of activity, giving credits to industry, special sector and small enterprises. In this area Azakbank and Ilkbank were famous. Important point is that these banks had a speciality as authority to foreign currency regulations.

    Azerbaijan declared Manat as national monetary in 1994 and founded Baku Interbanks Foreign Currency Market to regulate foreign currency activities in country. Azerbaijan decided to increase flow of Manat activities. Early time government used ruble as minor rate by giving them from Russian Central Bank. But this function as 4 billiard Ruble was inefficient to pay salaries and fees. So government decided to create a mechanism for regulating Manat and foreign currency. Firstly Manat had been published as 1, 10 and 250 Manat banknotes and gave to common market with ruble.

    In that time official foreign currency values was determined accordingly values of Moscow Interbank. But market foreign currency values was determined by Azerbaijan International Bank. So there are two value lines in market.

    Additionally, trade firms decided values according to their agreements.

    On the other hand, fourth value borned in foreign exchange in free market.

    National Bank of Azerbaijan defined rates of authoritative banks to declare Manat and ruble exchange rate. So 16 monetary values of other countries had been agreed as convertible by International Bank. (Turkish Lira, American Dolar, German Mark, Norway Cron…)

    According to decides of Baku Interbanks Foreign Currency, International Bank and other banks which have a right to determine foreign currency are in common market. Law regulated that any external body can not decide and activite in foreign currency. So illegal and other mix functions came to an end.

    Since 1995 these banks can determine rate of foreign currency. Main actor National Bank declares buy and sell of foreign currency on second day of every week. Also National Bank keeps stability every year according to situations of state.

    National Bank have an obligation as save and administration of foreign currency reserves of state. In a time, functions of National Bank and International Bank united to stabilize Manat. But after law declared a point as all corporations should give % 30 profits which are gaining foreign currency to Interbanks Foreign Currency. So National Bank is a unique unit to save and stabilize foreign currency reserves.

    National Bank can give a right to some special banks for foreign currency transaction. These banks can activite in transfer of foreign currency.

    Mehmet Fatih ÖZTARSU

    Qafqaz University – Interes Club

  • Chingiz Aitmatov’s Lifelong Journey Toward Eternity

    Chingiz Aitmatov’s Lifelong Journey Toward Eternity

    Chingiz Aitmatov

    December 12, 2008
    By Tyntchtykbek Tchoroev

     

    This week marks the culmination of a yearlong celebration in Kyrgyzstan of the writer and thinker Chingiz Aitmatov, who died on June 10, a few months short of his 80th birthday.

    Aitmatov is revered for building a bridge between the world of traditional Kyrgyz folklore and modern Eurasian literature. His writings illuminate the challenges that faced the peoples of the Soviet Union both before and after its demise, and his own life is an integral part of that broader turbulent pattern.

    He was born on December 12, 1928, and brought up in the village of Sheker in the Talas region of northern Kyrgyzstan. He studied in Jambul (in present-day Kazakhstan), Frunze (now Bishkek), and Moscow. He witnessed Josef Stalin’s purges of the 1930s firsthand: his father Torokul, a prominent political figure, was arrested in 1937 and executed the following year as an alleged enemy of the people and counterrevolutionary.

    It was only after Kyrgyzstan became independent that Torokul Aitmatov’s remains were found, together with those of other prominent intellectuals and politicians. He was given a state funeral in August 1992. Chyngyz Aitmatov named the new cemetery near Bishkek for victims of Stalinism “Ata Beyit,” or “The Graveyard Of Our Fathers.”

    Some superficial critics of Aitmatov argue that he was simply serving the communist system. They point to the numerous honors and awards — including the Order of Lenin and Hero of Socialist Labor — that he received for his work.

    But Aitmatov was equally respected outside the USSR: He received India’s Jawaharlal Nehru award, and was named a member of the World Academy of Science and Arts and the European Academy of Science, Arts, and Literature. His works were translated into more than 170 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, showing that their appeal transcends communist ideology.

    Changing From Within

    Aitmatov can be compared with Voltaire, the 18th-century French Enlightenment writer who revolted against the old system while enjoying all the benefits it had to offer. The intellectual war against authoritarianism found expression not only in the works of openly dissident writers such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, but in a milder and more sophisticated way in Aitmatov’s novels.

    As a student in the then-Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic, I could not find Solzhenitsyn’s main works in public libraries. But we could and did discuss Aitmatov’s easily available works relentlessly, deciphering the hidden meanings between the lines. How can anyone argue that the writings of exiled dissidents were the only effective weapon against totalitarianism when they remained unattainable to most readers?

    The Czech writer and playwright Karel Capek coined the word “robot” to describe a machine that resembles a human being; Aitmatov resurrected the old Kyrgyz word “mankurt,” meaning a robot-like human stripped of his intellect by a process of physical brainwashing imposed by a brutal, oriental tyranny.

    Aitmatov in 1963

    Defying the ideology of mature socialism that promoted and glorified the merger of the USSR’s smaller ethnic groups with the Russian people as their only path to a “bright future,” albeit one in which their sense of national identity was lost, Aitmatov wrote a novel about a Kazakh woman, Mother Naiman, who begs her “mankurt” son to remember his father’s name, his ancestors, and his personal identity.

    Aitmatov’s famous predecessor Makhmud Kashghari, born near Lake Issyk-Kul in the 11th century, wrote a famous monograph on the Turkic languages (in Arabic), challenging the acknowledged supremacy of the Arabic language by likening Arabic and the Turkic languages to two horses galloping neck-and-neck.
    Aitmatov repeated the same challenge in the 1980s, urging the Kirghiz Soviet authorities to treat the Kyrgyz language with dignity and to elevate its official position to that of Russian, which one communist leader in Kirghizia at the time described as “the second mother tongue” of the Kyrgyz people.

    At that time, because of the emphasis placed on the “leading role” of the Russian language, there were only a few schools in Frunze with instruction in Kyrgyz. But on September 23, 1989, at the height of Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s famous “perestroika,” the Kyrgyz language was declared the sole state language of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic, with Russian downgraded to the status of the lingua franca in a multiethnic society.

    Hero To Kyrgyz Nation

    Some of Aitmatov’s early works from the 1950s, written in Kyrgyz, incurred harsh condemnation from his enemies. One of his critics lambasted his early love story “Jamiyla” — which the French poet Louis Aragon described as “the world’s most beautiful love story” — arguing that it was immoral to praise the heroine, who fell in love with someone else while her husband was courageously fighting Nazi Germany during World War II.

    Aitmatov’s subsequent decision to write in Russian undoubtedly furthered his career. So too did his willingness to promote the Soviet authorities’ slant on specific developments. In 1977, two years after the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, he published an article entitled “There Is No Alternate To Helsinki,” in which he affirmed: “We are changing the world, and the world is changing us.”

    In October 1986, Aitmatov founded the famous Issyk-Kul Forum, which brought intellectuals from the Soviet bloc and the West together at a lakeside resort to discuss major global challenges face to face. He served as an adviser to Gorbachev during the perestroika years, and after Kyrgyzstan became independent as Kyrgyz ambassador to UNESCO, EU, NATO, and the Benelux countries.

    In 1989, I was part of a group of young Kyrgyz historians that organized to challenge official Soviet historiography. We appealed to Aitmatov, at that time chairman of the Union of Writers of Kirghizia, and to his deputy, the poet Asan Jakshylykov, to allow us to hold the founding conference of our Young Kyrgyz Historians Association in the conference hall of the Union of Writers. And despite increasing pressure from the central authorities, they said yes, and thereby contributed to the emergence of a new generation of Kyrgyz historians.

    Throughout his life, Aitmatov preserved his love for his fellow men, and for nature and the animal world. His last novel, titled “When The Mountains Fall Down: The Eternal Bride,” was written in 2005 as a final appeal to his people to preserve the beauty of the Celestial Mountains (Tengir-Too in Kyrgyz, Tian-Shan in Chinese), which the Kyrgyz have traditionally regarded as sacred. The two heroes of the novel, a journalist named Arsen Samanchin and an indigenous snow leopard (Jaa Bars), both become victims of international poaching in a tale of the perils of the greedy and careless exploitation of the environment.

    Tyntchtykbek Tchoroev (Chorotegin) is the director of RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service. The views expressed in this commentary are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL

  • The Crisis in Georgia Is an Opening for the West: The Case for Tatarstan

    The Crisis in Georgia Is an Opening for the West: The Case for Tatarstan

    By Katherine E. Graney

    Besides sending shock waves through the international system and shaking up conventional wisdom about the post-Cold War European balance of power, the recent and brief Russo-Georgian war and Russia’s subsequent recognition of the “independent” states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has also led to speculation about Russia’s own ethnic homelands and about its future as an ethno-federal state. In the wake of these events, independence-minded activists in the Russian national republics of Tatarstan and Ingushetia have made prominent claims that if Russia is willing to recognize the right of self-determination of Georgia’s former constituent ethno-federal units up to and including the right to independence, it must also logically do so for its own ethno-federal units. Such claims, while provocative, and useful as reminders that Russia is both in fact and by law and a multi-ethnic federation where fully one-fifth of the population is non-ethnic Russian and fully one-quarter of the over 80 federal constituent units in Russia has some form of designation as an ethnic homeland (as does Quebec in Canada), should not be taken as evidence that Russia is about to find itself ablaze in secessionist ferment. Rather, they should point us to look more closely at Russia’s ethno-federal situation, and in particular to realize that the quest for autonomy on the part of some of Russia’s constituent ethno-federal units, particularly Tatarstan, provides an opportunity for the United States and its Western allies to reaffirm and strengthen our ties with some of the most pro-Western, pro-federalist, pro-liberal democratic forces in Russia.

    Since declaring itself to be a “sovereign state” in August 1990, the Republic of Tatarstan, under the able leadership of its first and only president, Mintimer Shaimiyev, has embarked on a remarkably diverse yet consistent set of initiatives aimed at fulfilling that declaration with real meaning while simultaneously avoiding the type of destructive claims to independence and secessionism that helped lead to the two wars in Chechnya and to the civil wars in Georgia of the early 1990s. Taking as its model the successful drives for meaningful sovereignty within an ethno-federal framework negotiated by Quebec in Canada and Catalonia in Spain during the 1980s and 1990s, Tatarstan’s leadership has also sought to take on as many of the administrative, cultural and economic attributes of a modern nation-state as it can while staying within (if also attempting to expand) the legal boundaries of Russia’s post-Soviet ethnofederal system. These include innovative legal reforms and economic policies that have resulted in Tatarstan having one of the highest standards of living in the Russian Federation and recently led the Russian-language version of Forbes magazine to name Kazan, Tatarstan’s capital, as the third-best city in Russia for foreigners to do business. Tatarstan’s leadership has also pursued what is at once both the most ambitious program of ethnic revival for a non-Russian people in Russia (in terms of promoting the Tatar language and culture and Tatar history among Tatars both in the republic and in the rest of Russia and the CIS) and the most sincerely multi-cultural program of cultural revival for other non-Russian peoples living in Tatarstan (including Bashkirs, Mari, and Udmurts). Tatarstan’s leadership has claimed, rightly, that in the absence of a meaningful commitment by the federal government in Moscow to protect and promote the cultural and linguistic rights of non-Russian minorities in Russia (despite the presence of such protections in the Russian Constitution), it has a moral obligation to provide for these needs.

    The other significant aspect of Tatarstan’s quest for sovereignty over the past two decades is its extremely pro-Western and internationalist character. Since 1990, Tatarstan has taken the lead in establishing contacts between Russian ethno-federal units and their European counterparts, participating since 1990 in the activities of the Assembly of Regions of Europe and Committee of the Regions of the European Parliament. It has also sought closer ties with other all-European institutions, such as the EBRD, which held its annual meeting of shareholders in Kazan in May 2007, the first time it had been held anywhere in Russian since 1994. In its attempt to construct some sort of “international personality” that will help it to further its stated goal of “building a meaningful form of federalism in Russia,” Tatarstan has also instituted firm ties with the United States, Canada including Quebec), the United Nations and, as befitting a state where the 50% ethnic Tatar population is almost entirely self-declared Muslim, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, where the OIC’s 2001 invitation for Tatarstan to join the OIC as an observer state paved the way for Putin’s decision in August 2003 to pursue OIC membership for the Russian Federation. Indeed, another important part of Tatarstan’s attempt to institute its cultural, political and economic autonomy in the name of building a real and functional federalism in Russia is its self-promotion as a the home of “Euro-Islam”, an ecumenical, tolerant form of Islam, whose experience Tatarstan feels can be useful for the West in terms of both their domestic and international issues with Islam.

    While Tatarstan’s leadership is not the crystal clean beacon of democracy that it often claims to be, plagued as it is by the same types of nepotism, corruption and authoritarianism that characterize all post-Soviet leadership in Moscow and the rest of Russia, on the matter of the liberal democratic commitment to federalism as a way of increasing representation in general and ethno-federalism as a way of ensuring the protection of the cultural rights of ethnic minorities in particular, Tatarstan’s leadership is the most consistent and authentic, and quite nearly the only, voice left in Russia today. Tatarstan’s leaders have also consistently turned to the West for support in their quest to make Moscow live up to its constitutional commitments to protect and promote a democratic form of ethno-federalism in Russia. The Georgia crisis has given us the opportunity to remember these requests, and honor them.

    Katherine E. Graney is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Government at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her book, Of Khans and Kremlins: Tatarstan and the Future of Ethno-Federalism, was published by Lexington Books in November.

    This editorial was posted to the Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Blog at:

  • ANOTHER SMALL STEP FOR NABUCCO

    ANOTHER SMALL STEP FOR NABUCCO

    Caucasus Update, Issue 13, December 8, 2008

    Released by Caucasian Review of International Affairs (www.cria-online.org)

     

    In late November a trilateral summit was hosted in the city of Turkmenbashi , on Turkmenistan ’s Caspian coast. In attendance were President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov, the host; President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan , and President Abdullah Gul of Turkey . Apart from a number of cultural and transportation agreements, the three leaders were there to discuss the much-hyped Nabucco project. Nabucco would transport Central Asian and Azerbaijani gas to Europe, via an undersea pipeline in the Caspian Sea, through Azerbaijan , Georgia and Turkey . The project would do for gas what the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline did for oil – tap into Central Asian resources bypassing Russian territory.

     

    The concluding statements emerging from the summit were typically vague. However, Vladimir Socor at the Jamestown Foundation has suggested that the official line was to avoid publicly naming particular projects for fear of offending Russia (although the Kremlin can hardly have doubted the topic of discussions). This explains the oblique reference to Azerbaijan and Turkmeniatan’s “common position on the policy of diversification of exports of energy resources to the world”, and President Gul’s ‘keen interest’ in energy collaboration. Similar rectitude with the name of Nabucco was observed during a recent oil and gas conference in Ashgabat.

     

    Such reluctance on the part of the Turkmen government was to be expected, however frustrating to Western energy pundits. The country’s secretive attitude towards its oil and gas wealth is a reflection of its isolationist political stance. It is highly unlikely that President Berdimuhammedov will be prepared to publicly back a project of Nabucco’s size without cast-iron guarantees on transit infrastructure, destination markets, and prices. However, the references to energy diversification and the role of the Caspian region’s energy potential as a bridge between Asia and Europe are extremely significant, signalling that, in principle at least, Turkmenistan is on board.

     

    Where would this leave Moscow ? Russia currently accounts for almost all of Turkmenistan ’s gas exports, and has been staging a rearguard action – or a determined offensive, depending on your viewpoint – against Nabucco for months. In November 2007 Gazprom struck a gas deal with Turkmenistan in which the Russian gas corporation would pay $130 per thousand cubic metres (tcm) in the first half of 2008, and $150tcm in the second half. This was a major rise from the 2007 level of $100, but it pales into significance next to the deal that Gazprom chief Alexei Miller made with Ashgabat in July. This would raise the price to around $350tcm: according to Mr Socor, once an expected rise in transit fees by other states is accounted for, Turkmenistan would still pocket between $225 and $295/tcm. An attractive offer. But President Berdimuhammedov remains unwilling to place all his eggs in one basket, however financially appealing, hence his moves towards Nabucco. It is not implausible that Gazprom will offer to pay even higher prices, since the July deal was already underpinned by political, rather than economic, motives. Pushing the price even higher would be a gamble for the Kremlin, already reeling from the financial crisis. In any case, even a price hike will not be enough to tempt Turkmenistan , provided that Nabucco’s other backers, principally the EU and Azerbaijan , remain committed. Azerbaijan has not yet given a positive response to Russia ’s offer to buy its whole gas at European prices, judging that such a Faustian pact would cost more in political terms than it would provide in economic terms. President Aliyev has insisted that, since Azerbaijan lacks the reserves to fill Nabucco alone, “this is not only our project”, implying that the West must apply pressure to Ashgabat instead of Baku .

     

    The EU is a different matter. The Union’s backing of Nabucco has been, like much of the EU’s policy towards the former Soviet Union , fitful and patchy. In mid-November President Berdimuhammedov made an unprecedented visit to Germany and Austria . As at the Turkmenbashi summit, no concrete plans were formally announced, but much noise was made about the chances for co-operation in the energy sector amongst others. Germany’s reputation as something of an apologist for Russia within the EU (certainly in the eyes of Britain and Scandinavia) makes these statements of intent rather interesting, suggesting that Berlin is willing to throw its weight behind Nabucco (the growing German support for Nabucco could also be linked to the ongoing difficulties with the construction of the North European Gas Pipeline from Russia to Germany). This probably reflects growing support for Nabucco amongst the Union as a whole. For instance, EU special representative to Central Asia Pierre Morel announced, after talks with President Berdimuhammedov on December 3, that the Union would take “concrete steps” towards including Turkmenistan in Nabucco (somewhat undermining the official veil of silence on the project in Ashgabat). It may take a dramatic event, such as an escalation of the current Ukraine-Russia gas dispute, to underline the urgent need for supply diversification and prod Europe into action.

     

    It would be unfair to characterise the EU as the only obstacle to Nabucco, however. Turkey has been surprisingly obstructive for a country so eager to portray itself as a regional energy hub. The prices it has offered for Azeri gas are unacceptably low for Baku , and it has also allegedly demanded 15% of the project’s supply to feed its own rising demand. In the light of Russia ’s ongoing offer to buy Azeri gas, this is a move that could conceivably backfire on Ankara . Although it will calculate – correctly – that Azerbaijan ’s commitment to Nabucco will force it into concessions regarding Turkish transit, this would sour relations at a time when Azerbaijan is already wary of Turkey ’s diplomatic overtures to Armenia .

     

    Energy analyst Andrew Neff has argued that planned gas links between Iran and Turkey will allow Ankara to use Iranian gas for domestic consumption and therefore allow Turkmen and Azeri gas to pass to Europe : the political complications with such an approach are obvious. This situation would create an uncomfortable scenario in which Europe was indirectly reliant on Tehran for the security of its gas security, since any cuts in supply to Turkey would draw off Azeri and Turkmen gas from the European route to feed Turkey ’s internal consumption.

     

    Nabucco still has a long way to go before becoming reality. Although there is a tendency to overstate the political, as opposed to economic, risks involved in any trans-national pipeline project, in this case the tendency seems justified. The problems with implementing Nabucco tap into a whole range of wider (geo)political issues – the EU’s relationship with Turkey , the future of the landlocked Central Asian states, Russia ’s role in Eurasia, and the isolation of Iran – of profound significance. One should not, therefore, underestimate the importance of the Turkmenbashi summit. Although it produced no clear victories for Nabucco, negotiating these obstacles will only be possible one small step at a time.