The Turkish government has signed an agreement with the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR) to train imams and mullahs for Russian mosques. The SMR leadership hailed this decision because of what it described as the secular nature of Turkey and hence that country’s understanding of what Islam should be in a country like Russia (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=27334).
Category: Eastern Europe
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U.S. State Department strives to put Kyrgyzstan under control
14/11-2008 14:46, Bishkek – News Agency “24.kg”,
By Anton LYMAR
“Kyrgyzstan is located in the very heart of Central Asia, which makes it possible to influence Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and even China. To have this region under control is the main aim of the U.S. State Department’s current policy,” independent experts of the Russian media observer Russian Peacekeeper said.
Today Condoleezza Rice is the main idea generator in issues of the “Central Asian states’ domestication”. Here she has overbid even her teacher Zbigniew Brzezinski. Kyrgyzstan, in her eyes, is a key to settling all tensions in Central Asian region. If Kyrgyzstan is a ‘key’, it should be ‘kept in a pocket’. It is a long-studied method.
“It is enough to remember that before the ‘tulip revolution’ in Kyrgyzstan, staff of the U.S. embassy in Bishkek counted at least 30-40 persons. This number grew dramatically right before the revolution, and now counts up to 150 workers. It is strange why the United States has such a large-numbered diplomatic mission in a country, which is way far from the world leading states,” the experts wonder.
Source: eng.24.kg, 14-11-2008
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Obama’s Foreign Policy Adviser Brzezinski about Obama
“Very different from most American politicians”
© Mandel Ngan/AFP Zbigniew Brzezinski: "I cannot imagine another country which could have elected someone as uniquely different as Barack Obama is." He was Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, a hawk in terms of foreign policy. In an interview with Stern magazine Zbigniew Brzezinski explains why President-elect Obama reminds him of John F. Kennedy, what he expects from the new administration’s foreign policy – and why the US will demand a greater European military commitment in Afghanistan
Dr. Brzezinksi, as one of Washington’s ultimate insiders you have witnessed many presidential elections. How did you experience Obama’s victory last Tuesday?I was with friends, watching television. I had predicted his win. But when it actually really happened, it was exactly 11.01 p.m., I was very moved.
You? During your time as National Security Advisor, you were regarded to be one of the toughest politicians ever.I saw the faces of so many citizens, black and white, reacting to their choice. And it just dramatized to me, that this was really a historically significant election. We might witness the birth of a 21st century America. In fact, this election could define America as the prototype of an eventual global society.
And why should this be America?I cannot imagine another country, neither in Europe, neither in Asia, which could have elected someone as uniquely different as Barack Obama is. Barack Hussein Obama is accepted and cherished, really cherished, because he epitomizes the unique diversity of American society and shares the dominant values of that society.
Which are?Racial equality, a basic commitment to democracy, a notion of elementary social justice. The notion that some people should not be allowed to be as poor as they are – and that some are not entitled be quite as rich as they think they can be.
Don’t you expect a little too much from a relatively inexperienced Senator from Illinois?I met him last year, and he made the best impression on me of anyone since John F. Kennedy. He is better equipped in intellect and temperament for the highest office than anyone I can think of in recent memory. He is very different from most American politicians.
What makes him so unique?A kind of intellectual self-confidence, which reflects real intelligence, not arrogance. A friendliness – but with a distance and a dignity. A little patrician, almost. And a calculating rationality. He does not wave the do-gooders flag. He is an idealist, but not an ideologue. He knows, that compromises will be needed.
Will Obama be the President of a superpower in decline?No. That’s nonsense and often said with a lot of schadenfreude. The matter of fact is, that the era of American superpower stupidity is over, the time of self-isolation. Under President Bush, we acted arrogant, unilateralist and – worst of all – driven by fear. A culture of fear was cultivated by this administration, which replaced the Statue of Liberty as a symbol for America with Guantanamo. America has lost its confidence. This is one of the worst legacies of the Bush era. But that will come to an end now, very quickly.
Obama already claims the dawn of a new American leadership. How could he achieve this while the country faces the worst economical crisis since 70 years?He will inherit a grim reality. But the painful financial crisis also teaches us an important lesson: without America the world is in trouble. If America is declining, the rest of the world is falling apart. And have no illusions: the German economy will not recover without an American recovery. America can recover without Germany. At the same time, we understand: we have to cooperate with the world in order to do well.
What will be the biggest foreign policy challenges for the new President?Afghanistan is certainly one of them. There, for he time being, we would need to deploy more troops. But more soldiers are not the solution. The solution is a demilitarization of our engagement.
By negotiating with the Taliban, as Obama already indicated?By negotiating wit the various groups of Taliban. We should be able to reach local and regional arrangements with them. If they would stop al-Qaeda activities, for example, we would locally disengage.
You are promoting a de facto withdrawal of Nato troops?No. Nato has to continue our military activities in the meantime. And if we are serious about our alliance and about consultations, we have to be also serious about sharing burdens. You cannot have arrangements, where some soldiers risk their lives day and night and some soldiers cannot even go on patrols at night. That is not an alliance.
Will Obama expect more engagement from Europe, Germany?The American people expect this. If the Europeans want to give us only nice advise, but expect us to do the heavy lifting – then don’t expect America necessarily to listen to these advises. Europeans will no longer have the alibi of Bush’s bad policy. But let’s be clear: there are no alibis for us any more, either. We will have to consult, share decisions and cooperate.
Russia’s President greeted Obama by announcing he would deploy short range missiles along the Baltic Sea.Yes, but I think we can relax.
Relax?Russia is a country with enormous problems. Its leaders should know, that Russia cannot isolate itself from the world or base its foreign policy on the assertion that it is entitled to an imperialist sphere of influence. It is baffling to me, how unintelligent its leaders are. Self-isolation will be destructive for Russia, not for us.
Would you suggest relaxing also in regard to Iran and its nuclear ambitions?We need a more realistic, a more flexible and sensible approach. We should negotiate; we might negotiate even without preconditions. A successful approach to Iran has to accommodate its security interests and ours. This new diplomatic approach could help bring Iran back into its traditional role of strategic cooperation with the United States in stabilizing the Gulf region. This would be a sensible path.
Interview: Katja Gloger
Source: www.stern.de, 14. November 2008
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Russia Supports Kurdish Future
by Martin Zehr
November 11, 2008
In the latest Presidential election the U.S. has chosen to withdraw from Iraq. There will be an inevitable vacuum in the region. Many expect Turkey and Iran to become dominate in the region. Clearly, in a region that has depended on the U.S. to define the balance of powers for so many years, this is a possibility. Turkey has been pumped up over the years with U.S. military aid and supplies and looks to aggressively define its role. Syria as a Ba´athist power would be most likely to align with the militaristic Turkish regime.
Iran has social forces in the region but no real military power. Iran´s effort to acquire a nuclear weapon is clearly an attempt to address this. Should some power demonstrate a willingness to act decisively the influences of Hezbollah and Hamas on the ground could be eliminated in a week´s time. Iranian influence is based on its programs for dispossessed populations and military supplies to its sponsored militias. Iran´s performance in the Iran-Iraq war demonstrated that its military capabilities are limited. Iran may be able to influence the political landscape of Lebanon and Gaza, but it is unable to consolidate these gains territorially or economically. Militarily, Hamas and Hezbollah are engaged in a war for the Safavid Empire and its restoration. The Palestinian national question has been subordinated and redefined as an Islamic trust.
At issue is land power versus military power. Russia presents itself in this context as the dominating Asian power in the region. Economically, Turkey is dependent on Russia depends on Russia for 29 percent of its oil and 63 percent of its natural gas. Turkey´s bubble as a regional power is dependent on its alliance with the United States. Otherwise, it pops and becomes just one of several Islamist powers trying to configure a new caliphate capable of governing. Turkey´s secular status is based on its military rule and is decreasing as the Turkish military accommodates the Islamism of Justice and Development (AK). Russia has obviously faced a contentious Turkey in agricultural trade disputes, energy issues and in Turkey´s supplying Georgia with military equipment.
Last year Russia opened a consulate within the Kurdish Autonomous Region. The statement by Nechirvan Barzani Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government declared: “We in the Kurdistan Region believe in friendship and good relations with the international community, and have been trying hard to achieve this, especially with countries like Russia with whom we share a common history.” Russia´s economic and political role in the region is growing. Its recognition of the KRG and its work with the KRG on economic and political issues are significant.
Moving forward means learning to address old problems with new solutions. Turkey remains a threat poised on the border of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. Russia is a power that has recognized the Kurdish nation. IntelliBriefs website reports: “Russia has made significant strategic forays in the Middle East especially in countries which were known to be strong military allies of the United States. Today it has both a political and strategic foothold in the Middle East.”
Russia has not been oblivious to Turkish actions on the border of northern Iraq in its plans against the Kurdish peoples and nation. In 2007, Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences in Moscow, elaborated that such an invasion would create a “hotspot” for Russia close to its borders. He predicted that such a Turkish invasion would create “instability, risks and challenges that would be very hard to deal with.” The Russian parliament passed an appeal in 2007 to the Turkish government calling on it to show “wisdom and restraint,” and warning about possible negative consequences of a cross-border military campaign.
In the meantime, in October the Turkish Parliament passed 511-18 an extension authorizing Turkish troops to invade Iraq. As indicated in my article “Turkish Troops Enforce Baghdad´s Violation of the Kirkuk Referendum” such an action is simply a means of enforcing what Baghdad is not capable of enforcing itself, the refusal to implement Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution. It is clear that Russia is a more significant power in the region and has a much longer historical role in the region than the United States. As the United States relinquishes its influence in the region there will be new decisions to be made. One thing is assured: Turkish antipathy towards the Kurdish nation and peoples has shown no indications of changing.
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Moscow’s Moves in Georgia Open Door for Pan-Turkist Projects in North Caucasus
Paul Goble
Tallinn, November 14 – By recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow has opened the door for an expansion of pan-Turkist activity in the North Caucasus, thus falling into a trap set by Western countries when they recognized Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia and setting the stage for a new “parade of sovereignties” in the North Caucasus.
And consequently, however much the Russian moves in Georgia corresponded to Russia’s national interests in the short term, commentator Igor Bokov argues in an essay posted online this week, they could prove fatal to Russian control of the broader region unless Moscow takes preventive measures (www.apn.ru/publications/article20992.htm).
In recent months, many analysts have focused on the growing activism of Circassian groups in the North Caucasus not only because of their support for the independence of Abkhazia and opposition to the Sochi Olympics but also because of the large and influential Circassian diasporas in Turkey and Jordan.
Much less attention has been given to the Turkic language groups in the region, which include the Karachay, Balkars, Nogays and Kumyks, but because of their location near Russia’s southern border and the activities of Turks abroad, they may prove even more important in the political development of the Caucasus in the coming months, the Moscow researcher argues.
Like many Russian analysts, Bokov discusses these trends in terms of what he sees as a broader effort by the West to promote the disintegration of multi-national states like the Russian Federation in order to strengthen the power of capitalist economics by weakening any alternative political arrangements.
But despite that, his article represents an intriguing contribution to the understanding of the Caucasus not only because of what he writes about two major Turkic groups in the North Caucasus but also because of what he says about the “unofficial” efforts by Turkey and other countries to reach out to them.
The Turkic-speaking Balkars, who form 10 percent of the population of Kabardino-Balkaria, have nonetheless formed a Council of Elders of the Balkar People and demanded that the constitution of that republic be amended to give them equal representation in the parliament to the much larger Kabardinian (Circassian) and Russian communities.
If that does not happen by January 31, 2009, this group says, the Council of Elders has declared, then it will proclaim the independence of Balkaria, an action that would undermine not only all the other multi-national republics in the North Caucasus but create a new hotspot for Moscow there.
What makes this movement intriguing, Bokov says, is not just the small size of the Balkar community but the fact that most of the leaders of the Balkar Council of Elders are militia officers who were fired after Arsen Kanokov became president of the republic and who seek to return to power and a new element in their ideology.
For the first time ever, the Balkars are saying “we are not simply a minority, there are 500 million of us” – “the first time in history of Russia or at least post-Soviet Russia,” the Moscow analyst says, when an openly “pan-Turkist” ideological agenda was articulated in the region with such vigor.
The situation in neighboring Karachayevo-Cherkessia represents another Turkic challenge, Bokov suggests. There, “the Turkic ethnos, the Karachay, is the dominant one, and the Cherkess [Circassians] the minority. But again the Turkic group is advancing its interests by ignoring the practice of giving the second most powerful position in the republic to a Cherkess.
Bokov argues that Turkey and other countries interested in weakening Russia. While Ankara carefully avoids public support of such groups lest it offend the Europeans or stimulate its own Kurdish minority, various groups in Turkey are increasingly active because “what is impossible at the official level is completely permissible at others.”
He points to groups like TIKA, the Turkish Agency for Cooperation and Development, Turksoy, an organization involved in cultural ties with Turkic peoples abroad, and Tusam, an information-analytic center supported by the metal workers union, as being especially active in this regard.
But he suggests that pan-Turkist ideas are being pushed not only by Turkey but by various Western countries and by both Georgia and Ukraine, who have an obvious interest in weakening Moscow’s influence and power in the region. And he concludes by arguing that Moscow must be prepared to counter all these groups.http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/11/window-on-eurasia-moscows-moves-in.html
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Mustafa Jemilev Observes His 65th Birthday
The recognized leader of Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Jemilev observed his 65th
birthday yesterday.Born in Crimea on 13 November 1943, he was only six months old when his
family and the rest of the Crimean Tatar population were deported by Soviet
authorities in May 1944. His family lived in a special settlement camp in
Uzbekistan until 1956, when tight restrictions were relaxed. At the age of
18, he and several of his activist friends established the Union of Young
Crimean Tatars. His first arrest came in 1966, when he was sentenced for
refusing to serve in the Soviet Army.A well-known Soviet dissident, He spent almost one fourth of his life in
Soviet prisons and labor camps. He is also remembered for staging the
longest hunger strike in the history of human rights movement. The hunger
strike, which lasted for 303 days (but he survived due to forced feeding),
drew world’s attention to the predicament of Crimean Tatars.In 1986, as Jemilev was completing his sixth prison term in a hard-labor
camp, he was charged and tried for anti-Soviet activities once again. During
the summit held by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, however, the
American President asked for the release of five political prisoners as part
of the negotiations. Jemilev was one of those prisoners and he was released
with the condition that he refrain from any political activity.In May 1989, he was elected to head the Crimean Tatar National Movement.
That year he returned to Crimea with his family, a move that would be
followed by the eventual return of 250,000 Tatars to their homeland. He is
currently serving as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament (Kyiv) and as
Chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis (Simferopol) .Jemilev received the Nansen Medal, awarded by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees for his persistent efforts and commitment to
defend the rights of Crimean Tatars to repatriate. The Crimean Tatar
leadership has always sought to solve conflicts by non-violent means. In an
interview Jemilev gave shortly after receiving the Nansen Medal in October
1998, he stated that “when violent means are used innocent people die, and
no just cause can justify the taking of innocent lives.”We extend our birthday greetings to Mustafa Jemilev and our best wishes for
a long, healthy and successful life.Inci Bowman, Ph.D.
International Committee for Crimea
Washington, DC