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Category: Russian Federation

  • Azerbaijan confirms participation in military drills in Georgia

    Azerbaijan confirms participation in military drills in Georgia

    BAKU, May 1 (RIA Novosti) – Azerbaijani troops will take part in controversial NATO military exercises in Georgia, the defense ministry said in a press release.

    The Cooperative Longbow/Cooperative Lancer 2009 exercises have been slammed by Russia despite reassurances from NATO that they will not involve feature light or heavy weaponry. Some 1,300 troops from 19 NATO countries and its partners are expected to participate, although Serbia, Moldova and Kazakhstan have withdrawn.

    Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said “NATO’s plans to hold exercises in Georgia…are an open provocation. Exercises must not be held there where a war has been fought,” and warned that the exercises could have negative consequences for those who made the decision to hold them.

    The announcement follows a meeting on Wednesday in Brussels between the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

    Aliyev stressed Azerbaijan’s commitment to NATO-Azerbaijan relations and the country’s active participation in the Individual Partnership Action Plan.

    The row between Russia and the military alliance intensified on Thursday following the expulsion of two Russian diplomats to NATO over spying claims and the signing of a border protection agreement between Russia and Georgia’s former republic’s of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

    Russia recognized the two former republics as independent states following a brief war with Tbilisi over South Ossetia.

    The two Russian diplomats, one of whom is the son of Russia’s EU envoy Vladimir Chizhov, were expelled in connection with a spy scandal involving an Estonian official, Herman Simm, who was jailed for 12 years for handing over secret documents to Russian intelligence operatives.

    Russia’s foreign ministry called the move “scandalous” and added “Naturally, we will draw our own conclusions about this provocation.”

    And in a ceremony at the Kremlin on Thursday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a joint border-protection agreement with the two former republics.

    NATO responded to the signing saying that the agreements were a “clear contravention” of a French-brokered ceasefire deal.

    And U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said: “This action contravenes Russia’s commitments under the Aug. 12 cease-fire agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.”

    Russia expressed its surprise to the reaction with Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko saying in a statement: “It is a surprising point to make as Russia has not signed any truce agreements with anyone in that region.”

  • TURKEY: ANKARA-YEREVAN RAPPROCHEMENT INITIATIVE FACES PUBLIC SKEPTICISM

    TURKEY: ANKARA-YEREVAN RAPPROCHEMENT INITIATIVE FACES PUBLIC SKEPTICISM

    Yigal Schleifer 4/28/09

    Turkey and Armenia have announced they are close to reaching an agreement to restore ties and reopen their borders. But observers caution that getting to a final deal will require both Turkey and Armenia to navigate through difficult domestic and external challenges.

    “There’s no going back now, that’s for sure. Everybody wants to solve this problem now. Both countries are very committed and being very careful,” said Noyan Soyak, the Istanbul-based vice-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council, referring to the April 22 joint announcement that Ankara and Yerevan had agreed on a “road map” to normalize relations.

    “Now it’s a question of timing and the implementation and how it’s going to be presented to the public. That’s very important,” Soyak added.

    Turkey severed ties and closed its border with Armenia in 1993, in protest of Yerevan’s war with Turkish ally Azerbaijan in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. In recent years, diplomatic and civil society traffic between Turkey and Armenia has increased, capped off by last September’s visit to Yerevan by Turkish president Abdullah Gul to watch a football game between the two countries’ national teams. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

    In their April 22 communiqué, Armenian and Turkish leaders said that, with the help of Swiss mediation, “the two parties have achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding in this process and they have agreed on a comprehensive framework for the normalization of their bilateral relations in a mutually satisfactory manner. In this context, a road map has been identified.” The brief, 95-word statement was released only two days before Armenian commemoration of the mass slaughter of 1915 that Yerevan is striving to gain international recognition as genocide.

    Although the statement was thin on details, observers familiar with the negotiations said the basic parameters of the deal involve establishing diplomatic relations, opening borders and creating a bilateral commission that will have subcommittees that address the two countries’ outstanding issues, including historical matters.

    Both countries hope that opening their borders and engaging in a dialogue will boost trade, improve regional stability and help them move beyond the genocide debate.

    Sorting out the differences between Turkey and Armenia might be the easy part, experts say. It’s the other actors involved in the issue that may prove to be difficult, says Semih Idiz, a foreign affairs columnist with Milliyet, a Turkish daily. “There are more factors that are lining up to spoil this than to bolster this. These factors have to play themselves out in the coming weeks and months and we’ll see where we go,” said Idiz.

    One significant hurdle to the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement is Azerbaijan, which insists that the Nagorno-Karabakh problem must be resolved before Ankara restores its ties with Yerevan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The Azeris have reacted angrily to the April 22 announcement, signaling that if Turkey proceeds unilaterally, then Baku may respond by strengthening ties with Moscow. The clear implication is that Azerbaijan may be willing to reorient its energy focus, and make Russia, not Turkey its main energy-export option.

    “I don’t think Turkey expected the strong Azeri reaction. At the moment there is anger on both sides,” Idiz says. “Turkey is not going to lose Azerbaijan — there are pipelines and trade that connect the countries, whether they like it or not — but it will cool relations for a while.”

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials have tried to placate Baku by saying no final deal with be signed with Armenia until there is an agreement on Karabakh. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in slow moving negotiations over the territory’s fate as part of the Minsk Group process, which is overseen by the United States, Russia and France. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

    Hugh Pope, a Turkey analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, says linking the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border with the fate of the Karabakh issue is a mistake. “Ankara would be ill-advised to hold up rapprochement with Yerevan because of protests from its ally, Azerbaijan,” Pope said. “In fact, normalizing relations with Armenia is the best way for Turkey to help its ethnic and linguistic Azerbaijani cousins. It would make Armenia feel more secure, making it perhaps also more open to a compromise over Nagorno-Karabakh.”

    “The way the Azeris are dealing with it now is that they are telling their people that they didn’t lose the war and they are talking about military reconquest and that’s completely unrealistic,” Pope continued. “Turkey obviously has a lot of work to do to convince the Azeris that their current concept is not working and that your only way to get their land back is through the Minsk Group process.”

    Turkish and Armenian leaders, meanwhile, are also facing rising domestic anger about the possibility of a deal. In Armenia, the hard-line nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation Party on April 27 quit the country’s governing coalition. In Turkey, the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) have criticized the government for its overtures to Armenia, claiming it has sold out Azerbaijan.

    “This demonstrates the fragility of the agreement, in that neither Turkey, nor Armenia nor Azerbaijan has done anything to prepare their societies or shape public opinion to prepare for an agreement,” said Richard Giragosian, director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies, a Yerevan-based think tank.

    “The same can be said for Nagorno-Karabakh, where neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan has done anything to prepare society for an agreement,” Giragosian added. “I would also stress that right now we are only talking about normalization. Normalization infers open borders and even historical commissions. But the second step is reconciliation and for that to happen we need civil society and public opinion involved, especially for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, because that means dealing with the genocide issue.”

    “If the public isn’t on board, we can’t sustain normalization or transform it into a deeper reconciliation,” Giragosian emphasized.

     

    Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.

  • The Obama Administration’s Emerging Caucasus Policy

    The Obama Administration’s Emerging Caucasus Policy

    CAUCASUS UPDATE

    In this new section, we publish the weekly analysis of the major events taking place in the Caucasus. The Caucasus Update is written by our Editorial Assistant Alexander Jackson.

     

    On April 20 the US State Department announced that Richard J. Morningstar had been appointed special envoy on Eurasian energy issues to Secretary Clinton (State Department, April 20). Morningstar will “provide the Secretary with strategic advice on policy issues relating to development, transit, and distribution of energy resources in Eurasia”. He is certainly well qualified for the job – he served as special advisor on Caspian basin energy diplomacy in 1998-1999, prior to which he served as a special advisor on assistance to the former Soviet Union.

    The appointment of the special envoy suggests that the Obama Administration’s policy on the Caspian region is finally beginning to take shape. This should come as no surprise – the area does, after all, lie between two of President Obama’s biggest foreign-policy challenges, Russia and Iran, as well as Turkey, which has been highlighted as a key US ally in the drive to rebuild America’s image in the Muslim world.

    But even in these critical areas the delay in appointing officials – which is so clear elsewhere in the US government, particularly the Treasury – is also visible. As of April 23, the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Russia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine was still vacant. Although most of the headline-grabbing policies towards Moscow so far have been initiated by President Obama or Secretary Clinton, the lack of a dedicated high-level official for Russia is alarming.

    The profile of the Administration’s other Eurasia specialists suggests that the Obama Administration does not intend to make a radical break with the Bush era. Heading the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs as a replacement to Daniel Fried will be Philip H. Gordon, a Europe and Turkey specialist (Joshua Kucera over at Eurasianet wrote an excellent profile of Gordon on March 18). However, Gordon’s confirmation has been held up in the Senate by John Ensign, a Republican with links to the Armenian lobby. Ensign has allegedly blocked the confirmation in response to Gordon’s refusal, in a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to classify the tragic events of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire as ‘genocide’. This is not something new. Similar “refusals” prevented several other key appointments in the past including the appointment of an ambassador to Armenia for a couple of years up until 2008.

    Gordon’s argument, which appears to be echoed by President Obama, is that use of the term would inflame Turkish public opinion and embolden hardliners, ruining the new Administration’s attempts to rebuild ties with Ankara. This suggests a new emphasis on pragmatism, a trend also clearly visible in efforts to rebuild relations with Russia even if this means toning down support for Georgia. 

    However, a change in tone does not reflect a wholesale change in policy. This is to be expected. The parameters of US involvement in the Caspian region – energy, counter-terrorism, peaceful conflict resolution, containing Iran and providing a bridgehead for operational support in Central Asia, are not likely to change. It was therefore logical that Matthew Bryza, the State Department’s top official for the South Caucasus and co-chair from the US in the OSCE Minsk Group, remained at his post. He has built up a solid reputation in the region and possesses extensive experience of its problems.

    As noted above, any shifts in the new Administration’s policy towards the Caspian and the South Caucasus are likely to come through changing policies towards Russia, Iran, or Turkey. President Obama’s desire to reset relations with Russia has had mixed results so far, with agreements, for instance on strategic arms reductions, alternating with aggressive rhetoric against continued cooperation between NATO and Georgia (BBC News, April 16). The US so far has shown rhetorical restraint, and has made little fuss about the retrial of the ex-Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

    This pragmatism is also visible in the Caucasus: the Obama Administration has held back from the unequivocal declarations of support for Georgia’s President Saakashvili that he received during the Bush Administration. Seeing him replaced with someone less bombastic towards Russia would probably be a quiet relief for Washington. As for Georgia’s NATO aspirations, the Obama administration will probably stick to the line agreed at the December 2008 summit – Georgia will be a member of NATO, but not yet.

    There are three big questions with regard to Georgia. Firstly, how much military assistance is the US willing to offer to rebuild the country’s shattered armed forces? The cost of irritating Russia is likely to outweigh the benefits of re-equipping the Georgian military with American kit. Secondly, how would the US treat a revolution in Georgia? Its reaction to 2003’s Rose Revolution was generally supportive: it strongly criticised the falsified election which triggered the protests and was quick to congratulate President Saakashvili. His replacement by a Russia hawk would provoke grave concern in Washington. Thirdly, what would the new Administration do in a new Russia-Georgia war? Speculating on such a chaotic event is of course fanciful, but the US would certainly not go any further than the Bush Administration did in last August’s war. If John McCain – a noted Russia hawk and supporter of President Saakashvili – had won the election, things might be different.

    The second big issue is Nagorno-Karabakh. Matters are largely out of Washington’s hands here. Although it co-chairs the OSCE Minsk Group tasked with resolving the conflict, Russia is far more dominant in this framework and the US has been increasingly hedged out of the peace process by Moscow and, to an extent, Ankara. Turkey’s Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform, which is apparently already operating despite a lack of fanfare (RFE/RL, April 20), was specifically designed to minimise the impact of outside powers on the Karabakh process.

    Nonetheless, Ankara remains Washington’s main way of leveraging the conflict, partly through its rapprochement with Armenia. President Obama’s high-profile visit to Turkey in March was an explicit attempt to enlist the assistance of Washington’s main Muslim partner in Eurasia and a key NATO member to improve the US’s standing in the Islamic world. The appointment of Gordon indicates the new importance of Turkey, as well as a clear-headed desire to solve the Armenian issue.

    Finally, Caspian energy, Morningstar’s new portfolio. His appointment suggests that the Obama Administration is hoping for the Nabucco project to be a repeat of the successful BTC pipeline, whose inception was overseen by Morningstar in 1999. This is optimistic, but there are few people with a better chance. His European expertise (he was ambassador to the EU 1999-2001) may help to nudge Europe into more active support of Nabucco, but once again there is only so much that Washington can do here. At an energy conference in Bulgaria on April 25, Morningstar bluntly stated that Nabucco is not a panacea for Europe’s energy problems.

    Although it is still early days, the outlines of Obama’s Caucasus policy are becoming clear. A renewed partnership with Turkey and a willingness to work with Russia are the core elements. The Armenian diaspora in the US will be a clear loser from this, but Washington’s support of the Turkish-Armenian thaw will certainly benefit Armenia itself. Georgia, or more specifically President Saakashvili, may also lose out. Azerbaijan may gain if the Administration invests more energy in the Karabakh conflict, notwithstanding its limited influence there. In any case, the big question mark remains the new period of détente with Russia: if ‘pressing the reset button’ fails, the Bush-era cycle of confrontation in the Caucasus could easily resume.

  • Conviction of Activist Who Protested Baptism of Tatar Infants Decried

    Conviction of Activist Who Protested Baptism of Tatar Infants Decried

    Paul Goble

    Vienna, April 28 – Last Friday’s conviction in a Naberezhny Chelny court of a Tatar activist who had spoken out against the baptism of Tatar infants by a Russian Orthodox priest without the permission of their parents or guardians has sparked protests from the Tatar Social Center (TOTs) as well as from human and religious rights groups elsewhere,.
    On Friday, the court found TOTs leader Rafiz Kashapov guilty of provoking interethnic and inter-religious hostility (under Section 1 of Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code) for his article “No to Christianization!” in which he protested the baptism of infants of Tatar nationality, a traditionally Muslim people, and gave him a suspended sentence of 18 months
    That article appeared on Kashapov’s blog shortly after a Russian Orthodox priest baptized the children on January 16th of this year without the knowledge or agreement of their parents. His article led to protests in several cities of Tatarstan, and his blog was subsequently suppressed by the authorities.
    Now, following Kashapov’s conviction and protests by several rights groups, his own Tatar Social Center has issued an appeal to human rights groups, social and political organizations, and the media of Tatarstan and Russia, denouncing this action and demanding that the authorities reverse course.
    But it is a measure of the extent to which the Russian government is in control of the media that the appeal has so far appeared only on other blogs – see, for example, the complete text at blogs.mail.ru/mail/hamm77/38E6454E2B52C97F.html – or on websites hosted beyond the borders of Russia — mariuver.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/sud-kashapovym/#more-7976.
    The declaration, signed by A.Sh. Zalyalutdinov, the chairman of the regional TOTs Assembly, and M.A. Shakirova, the secretary of that group, provides a remarkable portrait of the increasingly frequent misuse of Russia’s anti-extremist laws and the also increasingly frequent cases of official and especially judicial malfeasance in that country.
    After outlining the history of Kashapov’s own protest, the declaration states that the investigation of his case occurred “with crude violations of the law,” including moves by officials that prevented the accused attorneys from gaining access to information gathered by the government.
    The trial itself, the declaration continues, was “closely controlled by the Moscow FSB and the court was subject to strong pressure from the prosecutor.” Moreover, the court’s decision reflected only the testimony of “experts” from Moscow and Kazan because the judge refused to consider “the declarations of independent experts” that were offered by Kashapov.
    Both the facts of the case and these violations of judicial procedure, the authors of the declaration say, provide the basis for considering that “the sentence of the court is both without foundation and illegal.” And they say that lawyers for the accused will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Tatarstan.
    “Many human rights activists, public figures and journalists,” the declaration continues, not only in Tatarstan and Russia but in foreign countries have raised their voices in defense of Rafiz Kashapov, an important public figures who has stood up for the rights and interests of the Tatars and other peoples.”
    “We express our deep gratitude to them!” the appeal concludes, especially since some of them, like Ulyanovsk journalist Sergey Kryukov, have themselves become the object of Russian government persecution as a result. Kryukov’s location at the present time, the appeal notes, is unknown.
    The Kashapov case, as tragic as it is for him and for the Tatars, highlights two more widespread problems in the Russian Federation, both of which have been well-documented in recent times. On the one hand, Russian courts, as Moscow statistics show, are ever more willing to convict anyone the regime brings charges against (www.vestnikcivitas.ru/pbls/650).
    And on the other, the Russian government, for all the talk about “a thaw” under Dmitry Medvedev, appears to be increasingly willing to control reporting about what is actually going on, either by taking down websites as in Kashapov’s case or directly corrupting journalists (www.russiamediamonitor.com/News.html).
    In Soviet times, the Western media could be counted on to report such things, but unfortunately, their interest in doing so for whatever reason has declined. And as a result, those who do notice such abuses in Russia especially beyond Moscow’s ring road have a special obligation to try to bring them to the attention of others.

    http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2009/04/window-on-eurasia-conviction-of.html

  • Cautious expectations for relationship between Russia and the US

    Cautious expectations for relationship between Russia and the US

    This online supplement is produced and published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russia), which takes sole responsibility for the contents

    Anatoly Torkunov, Professor and Diplomat
    27 Apr 2009

    The estrangement between Moscow and Washington has lately given way – with the election of Barack Obama – to a cautious sense of expectation. The apprehension is palpable in both Russia and the US. Given how much effort both countries have put into improving relations over the last 20 years, it would be a pity to lose the fruits of this difficult rapprochement.

    Having said that, one cannot deal with a partner who does not value the partnership and who ignores your interests. No matter how important America is, friendship or enmity with her is not paramount in the life of the Russian people.

    A new feature of American politics is the recent spate of moderately concerned pronouncements about Russia. Also the changes in personnel. Russia experts have been appointed to the National Security Council, to the State Department and to intelligence. Former ambassadors to Moscow were behind a recent report published by the Bipartisan Commission on US Policy Toward Russia.

    in any case, for the first time in 20 years the American public has been told in no uncertain terms that US interests and those of Russian-border states are not one and the same thing. The commission’s report says that there is no reason to fear Russian investments outside the energy-sector in the US and the EU.

    The report recommends extending the Start 1 treaty, suspending the Jackson-Vanick amendment, and making Russia a member of the World Trade Organisation. It also urges new negotiations on Russia’s participation in the planned American ABM systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

    Most revolutionary of all is the report’s idea that America should not try to build spheres of influence along Russia’s borders while counting on a “constructive response” from Moscow.

    The report’s key theme is that the US administration must stop ignoring Russia’s interests since co-operation with Russia will be important in achieving American goals such as the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and solving the “Iran problem”.

    Right after the report was made public Moscow was visited by Henry Kissinger. Dr Kissinger was accompanied by a group of Russia experts, including the authors of the report. Now that they have gone, everyone is waiting anxiously for the results…

    Though some of the recommendations made informally by the Americans are encouraging, their formal proposals leave much to be desired. The Americans are trying to sell as a constructive idea a plan that would enhance their superiority of forces while forfeiting the last remnants of our former strategic parity – Russia’s only guarantee, in essence, of military-strategic security.

    The American proposal does not stipulate a parallel reduction of tactical weapons of mass destruction, conventional forces and so-called geographical offensive weapons, meaning America’s new Nato bases near and around Russia.

    The leitmotif of these expert recommendations is that America stop ignoring Russia’s interests. Yet US actions suggest a determination to restore America’s total strategic invulnerability. What does that have to do with Russian interests? Where is the opportunity to consider and defend them? The iron fist in the velvet glove…

    I do not think that Russian diplomacy can easily return to the romantic atmosphere of Soviet-American relations under Gorbachev. “Perestroika diplomacy” was never poisoned by the bitterness of deception. It remained the diplomacy of negotiated breakthroughs.

    But post-Soviet diplomacy is another matter entirely. It has been saturated with the spirit of the disappointments of the 1990s: the Nato-isation of Eastern Europe, Kosovo, poi-soned relations with Ukraine and – worst of all – the military destabilisation of Russia’s borders in the Caucasus.

    To restore honest and respectful relations with the US is one thing; to accept American proposals that do not benefit Russia in order to do so is quite another. If the US is as intent on improving relations with Russia as Russia is on improving relations with the US, it must be prepared for some very tough negotiations – tougher than any since the 1980s – on a broad range of issues, including regional security.

    The US is primarily interested in co-operation with Moscow over non-prolif-eration and Iran. Moscow, by contrast, is more interested in reforming the security system in Europe. We need to learn again how to link such things. The first meeting between presidents Medvedev and Obama seemed to have a generally stimulating effect on diplomats and politicians in both countries.

    At the same time one must be clear: while Russia wants stable and friendly relations with America, for Russian foreign policy this is not an end itself. Rather it is an important tool for building a safer and more prosperous world. Russia will advance along this path in any case – preferably with the US, but if necessary without.

    • Professor Anatoly V Torkunov, a former Washington diplomat, is rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations

    Source: www.telegraph.co.uk, 27 Apr 2009

  • Turkey hopes to buy S-400 air defense systems from Russia

    Turkey hopes to buy S-400 air defense systems from Russia

    ISTANBUL, April 27 (RIA Novosti) – Turkey, a NATO member, has expressed interest in buying S-400 Triumf air defense systems from Russia, a Russian defense industry official said on Monday.

    “Turkey has expressed a strong interest in buying S-400 air defense systems from Russia,” said Anatoly Aksenov, a senior adviser to the general director of Russian arms export monopoly Rosoboronexport.

    Russia is exhibiting over 120 types of weaponry at the IDEF 2009 arms show in Istanbul on April 27-30. The biennial exhibition has been organized by the Turkish defense industry since 1993.

    Aksenov, who leads the Russian delegation at the IDEF 2009 exhibition, said the possible deliveries of the S-400 to Turkey were discussed during talks with Turkey’s undersecretary for defense industries, Murad Bayar.

    A source in the Russian delegation later told RIA Novosti that the issue had a political aspect and strongly depended on the outcome of the ongoing dispute between Russia and NATO on the deployment of a U.S. missile shield in central Europe.

    “We have explained to Turkish officials that S-400 is not just a simple air defense system but an element of strategic missile defenses, which can be placed in one country but protect the airspace over a number of neighboring countries,” the source said.

    The S-400 Triumf (SA-21 Growler) is designed to intercept and destroy airborne targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers (250 miles), twice the range of the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot, and 2 1/2 times that of Russia’s S-300PMU-2.

    The system is also believed to be able to destroy stealth aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, and is effective at ranges up to 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) and speeds up to 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) per second.