Turkish Forum

Category: Europe

  • Military Relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey

    Military Relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey

    After the collapse of USSR, necessaries of new states were that economic, politic, military and educational relations with each other and other international platforms and countries. On that way all former Soviet countries created Commonwealth of Independence States union. With creation of CIS, these countries which were unificated on old Soviet map will create new relations on the new world system. Also for regulating new systems, geopolitical situation was very important. Firstly a state can create strong relations where it was near another state.

    If we describe relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, we will see influence of border factor. Strong relations of Turkey with Azerbaijan are result of near abroad condition.
    Cooperations of Turkey and Azerbaijan had been decreased sometimes. But it ended in new powerful authorities.

    Pro Russian politics of Ayaz Muttalibov influenced Turkish relations as only embassy found. In short time of Muttalibov administrative Turkey was working to make new perspective for other Turkish countries.

    Ebulfez Elchibey who came to power after Muttalibov followed new way Pro Turkish politics as opposite to Muttalibov. So many agreements had been created in economy, military, education, energy, politics and new activities started. First military cooperations between Azerbaijan and Turkey borned in that time.

    In 1992 military education agreement signed between Azerbaijani and Turkish government. In this period Azerbaijan was working to create international pressure circumstances on Armenia about Nagorno Karabakh conflict. So military agreements with Turkey, created new tensions in this region. We can say a diminish symbol with Russia as military.

    Military conventions were less than next years in new political actions to make strong authority and balanced actions period. Haydar Aliyev’s balance political way made a cooperation as pragmatist mind of Azerbaijan. We will see importance of Turkish military agreements. Because if Azerbaijan want to be important actor on this region, it should regulate new relations for the USA and NATO via Turkey.

    In 1996 between the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the government of the Republic of Turkey on base of cooperation of staff members of supporting service of Armed Forces protocol signed.

    In 1997 between the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the government of the Republic of Turkey on regulation of civil and military flying in 10 km of astride Azerbaijan-Turkey border protocol signed.

    In that time agreements of Azerbaijan with Iran and Russia were targeting only friendship situation and solve problems on bounds And agreements with the USA were not totally military cooperations. It is important to not forget that Russian embargo on Azerbaijan because of Chechen problem increased Turkish inclination on military subjects. Strong relations with Turkey of Azerbaijan will create new diplomatical positions from Cyprus to Yerevan.

    Military positions as international importance of Azerbaijan borned with agreement between the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the government of the Republic of Turkey on activities of platoon of Azerbaijan is going to the Kosovo in the staff of Turkey battalion.
    Azerbaijan will keep its soldiers untill period of independence of Kosovo. With this step Azerbaijan became an important and strategical country on extend to East policy of NATO. Azerbaijan won a good position on Caucasus region with taking some other militaryal duties via Turkey in different countries.

    In 2000 between the Ministry of defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Head of Naval Forces of Republic of Turkey about giving the attack launch of AB-34 P-134 to the Azerbaijan protocol signed and :

    – Protocol between the Ministry of defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Ministry of national security of Republic of Turkey on cooperation in the topographical area,
    – Protocol between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Turkey on forming and training of profession school of forces kind of Baku,
    – Protocol between the Ministry of defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey on carrying out of the material and technical purchasing,
    – Agreement between the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the government of the Republic of Turkey on military industry cooperation signed.

    In 2001 between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey on development of Nakhchivan 5th army protocol;

    In 2002 Ministry of defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey on cooperation in the area of war history, military archive and museum work and military publication protocol and in 2003 between the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the government of the Republic of on training, material and technical assistance of State Border Service of Azerbaijan by Armed Forces of Turkey and Protocol between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey on cooperation in the safety of the West-East energy corridor protocol signed.

    Since 1999 Azerbaijan took steps quickly. As opposite to Azerbaijan and Turkey, Armenia and Greece signed an agreement as “Send Armenian soldiers to Kosovo via Greek army”. Armenian parliament agreed this on 13 December 2003. According to this agreement 30 Armenian soldiers had gone to Kosovo with ratification of Ministry of Defence of Armenia. It had been explained as to support European-Atlantic integration on South Caucasus. Against to modernization of Azerbaijan by Turkish Military Forces, Greece take a decision to support to Armenian army. Also military cooperations created influences on political problems. In that time mix circumstances about these events will share a balance of situations on energy and trade agreements.

    After the September 11 terrorist acts, Azerbaijan supported the decision of counter attack to terrorism of the USA. So it sent some peacekeepers to Afghanistan and opened air space for American forces. These actions share Turkish support and modernisation to Azerbaijani army. Azerbaijan use this experiment to be main actor in the region.

    In 2004 and 2005 between the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the government of the Republic of Turkey on long-term economical and military cooperation and between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey on application of the financial aid protocol signed.

    And in 2006 between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey on application of material and technical provision protocol shared new improvements of new actor.

    Since 2006 new approaches regulated cooperations with other states :
    – Supports of Azerbaijan to Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,
    – Turkey purchases rockets from the USA,
    – New relations of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey as result of alternative energy way against to Russia.

    Same year new circumstances created balance regulations for Azerbaijan with agreement of natural gas project with Greece. It was political and militaryal goal of Azerbaijan because Yerevan loosed its good militaryal and political relations with Greece. So it must choose a new way as balance politics.

    There is a balance activities with military cooperations of Azerbaijani relations from the independence time. Pro Turkish military activities regulated international perspective on problems of Azerbaijan. Example, mainly Azerbaijan use Cyprus card about Greek support to Armenia. And also it used totally the USA and NATO supports and created new politics as alternative to Russia. We can say thay experiments of Elchibey’s totally Pro Turkish politics and Aliyev’s balance politics which agree all region as a whole will regulate positions of Caucasus region.

    Mehmet Fatih ÖZTARSU / Baku Qafqaz University

  • Greek Americans gain a seat in the House of Representatives and all major friends re-elected

    Greek Americans gain a seat in the House of Representatives and all major friends re-elected


    Washington, D.C.- The National Coordinated Effort of Hellenes (CEH) released an analysis of how the U.S. Congress changed, following the elections on November 4, particularly with regard to Greece and Cyprus’ top advocates (and detractors) and how Hellenic and Orthodox issues may be handled differently with the new line-up.While a number of our strongest supporters seemed vulnerable to being defeated, including those on the key Committees and Subcommittees that handle U.S. policy toward Cyprus, almost all were re-elected. As well, of the over 59 Members of Congress and 10 Senators who will not be in office next year (because they were defeated, elected to another office or are retiring), very few were strong supporters. In fact, a vast majority had not been engaged in Hellenic and Orthodox issues at all. In the end, the greatest determinant of how Hellenic and Orthodox issues may be handled differently in the 111th Congress (2009 – 2010) will be who are the Chairmen, Ranking Members, and Members of the key Committees and Subcommittees that handle the Cyprus issue. These changes are just beginning and won’t be finalized until December or later.

    All six “Greek-Americans” in the House and Senate will remain. Greek-Americans Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), John Sarbanes (D-MD) and Zack Space (D-OH) were re-elected, with 63%, 70% and 60% of the vote, respectively. At the beginning of this election cycle, Congressman Space was one of the top three Members of Congress targeted by the Republican party to defeat, as he was elected in a traditionally Republican district. However, he ran an excellent campaign and won by a wide margin. Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D-NV), whose family is from the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, Greece, was re-elected with 68% of the vote. Greek Orthodox Christian, and wife of a former Greek-American Senator and Presidential candidate, Niki Tsongas (D-MA), was re-elected, running unopposed. In the U.S. Senate, Greek-American Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) was not up for re-election (and will not be so until 2012).

    And there will be two new “Greek-Americans” in the 111th Congress. Greek-American Dina Titus (D-NV), for whom Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Congresswoman Berkley campaigned very hard, won with 47% of the vote over 5 other challengers, the closest of whom was incumbent Congressman Jon Porter who received 42% of the vote. Dina’s grandfather, Arthur Costandinos Cathones, after whom she is named, came to America in 1911. As well, Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) defeated Congressman Tom Feeney 57% to 41%. While Suzanne is not Greek, her ex-husband, with whom she had four children and still keeps in touch, is.

    Two other “Greek-Americans” were unsuccessful in their run for Congress. Greek-American Jim Trakas (R-OH) lost to Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) 57% to 39% and Jane Mitakides (D-OH), who is married to a Greek-American, lost to Congressman Michael Turner (R-OH) 64% to 36%.

    Other Strong Supporters

    Just weeks before the election, four of our top supporters (who had “A+” grades for their support of our issues) were on the list of the top 25 most likely Republican Members of Congress to lose. Three of them survived. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) won with 58% and 53% of the vote, respectively. And, Congressman Henry Brown (R-SC) won with 54% of the vote. Unfortunately, Congressman Joe Knollenberg (R-MI), who was also a member of the crucial House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, was defeated 52% to 43%.

    Two other advocates who play a crucial role in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy toward Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, were soundly re-elected despite being considered vulnerable in recent months. House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) won with 58%. Chairman of the House Europe Subcommittee, Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL), won with 66% of the vote, against two opponents. While Chairman Wexler is the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Turkish Issues, he has also engaged the Greek-American community and has taken a positive step on all of the major Hellenic and Orthodox issues.

    The most significant change, from the Congressional perspective only, will be the loss of Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), who was elected as Vice President of the United States. Senator Biden’s advocacy for Hellenic and Orthodox issues is legendary. After former Senator Paul Sarbanes and current Senators Bob Menendez and Hellene Olympia Snowe, no one in the Senate surpasses Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in terms of advocacy for our issues. As well, the loss in the U.S. Senate of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), who was elected President of the United States, and was the Chairman of the Senate European Affairs Subcommittee, will be significant. Obviously, the movement of these Senators into the positions of President and Vice President will enable them to have an even more profound impact on our issues.

    In addition, five other Republican Senators with “B+” grades for their support of Hellenic and Orthodox issues, will not be serving in the 111th Congress. This is somewhat significant, as far fewer Republican Senators have been supportive. Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and John Sununu (R-NH) were defeated, and Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Pete Domenici (R-NM) and John Warner (R-VA) retired.

    Key Committees and Subcommittees

    While the Chairman, Ranking Members and Members of the key Committees and Subcommittees that handle U.S. policy toward Cyprus, Greece and Turkey will not be finalized until next month, if not later, there are some significant changes already.

    As mentioned earlier, in the Senate the Chairman of both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate European Affairs Subcommittee will be new. Also, there will likely be several open slots to fill on that full Committee. As well, in the Senate, Turkey’s number one advocate, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), recently agreed to step down as Chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.

  • Obama Adviser Brzezinski’s Off-the-record Speech to British Elites

    Obama Adviser Brzezinski’s Off-the-record Speech to British Elites

    Written by William F. Jasper

    Friday, 21 November 2008 13:31

    Zbigniew Brzezinski, a senior adviser to President-elect Barack Obama on matters of national security and foreign policy, was the featured speaker at Chatham House in London on November 17, 2008. The title of his lecture was “Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President.” Although Chatham House events are known to attract “the great and the good” of England’s political, financial, and academic elites — as well as many of its top media representatives — there has been virtually no word as to what Brzezinski had to say in any of the world’s press.

    Type “Brzezinski” and “Chatham” into your Internet search engines and you will come up with … virtually zilch, nada, nothing.

    The esteemed Times of London had only this to say on November 16, the day before the lecture: “Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democrat former national security adviser … will give an address tomorrow at Chatham House, the international relations think tank, in London.” No report on the event the day after — or since. Ditto for the Telegraph, the BBC, and other British media. Same for the U.S. media: no reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CNS, CNN, Fox, etc.

    This is but the latest example of the hermetic seal known as the “Chatham House Rule,” which states:

    When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

    Chatham House, in St. James Square, London, is the headquarters of the powerful Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), founded in 1920 as the principal front organization of the secret Round Table network of Cecil Rhodes, famous for his fabulous wealth from Africa’s gold and diamond mines. The RIIA was founded in conjunction with its sister organization in the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which is headquartered at the Pratt House in New York. Pratt House also has formally adopted the Chatham House Rule, as has the U.S. State Department (which has been dominated by CFR members for seven decades) and other U.S. agencies.

    Thus, we frequently have top U.S. officials speaking privately to audiences of American and foreign elites concerning matters of great importance to the American people, but the content of those talks is off-limits to the American public. This especially should be a matter of concern if the matters these elites are discussing involve plans that will dramatically impact our society, our economy, and our political system.

    Brzezinski and his friends at the RIIA and CFR assure us that nothing of the sort ever happens at these gatherings. However, I did attend one of Brzezinski’s lectures at a globalist conference, where the content certainly was disturbing. It was Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1995 State of the World Forum in San Francisco, and Brzezinski was one of the key speakers. He was frustrated that the new millennium was only five years away, but his long-sought goal of world government was still far off.  “We do not have a new world order,” he told the audience, a veritable Who’s Who of world finance, business, politics, media, and academia. “We cannot leap into world government in one quick step,” Brzezinski noted. Attaining that objective, he explained, would require a gradual process of “globalization,” building the new world order “step by step, stone by stone” through “progressive regionalization.”

    Through his writings — as well as his policies while President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser — Brzezinski has demonstrated that he is committed to the globalist world view of the RIIA/CFR and the Trilateral Commission (which he helped found, becoming its first director) rather than the constitutionalist view of our Founding Fathers. Rather than a sovereign, independent, constitutional republic, he is committed to a “new world order” that proposes steadily encroaching international controls and institutions, leading gradually, steadily to an America that is submerged and subsumed in a world government.

    Those familiar with the writings, speeches, policies, and public records of the many public figures who attend (and speak before) these globalist gatherings understand that Brzezinski’s views on these matters are not his alone; they are shared by many (if not most) of those in attendance. They are the people who set policies and determine the course our nation will take. They prattle regularly about their commitment to “transparency” in government. Yet they themselves speak at off-the-record gatherings such as the recent Chatham House event where Brzezinski was the featured speaker.

    Source: www.thenewamerican.com, 21 November 2008

    [This is what Chatham House website has about the event -h]

    The Whitehead Lecture: Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President

    Monday 17 November 2008 18:30 to 19:30

    Location

    Held at Chatham House

    Participants

    Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor and Trustee, Center for Strategic and International Studies; National Security Advisor to the President of the United States (1977-81)

    Type: Members event

    In the wake of the US election the speaker will discuss the major foreign policy issues which will confront the incoming President from the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the competitive pursuit of resources.

    This event will be followed by an open reception.

    Resources:

    Meeting Recording
    Q&A Recording

    Source: www.chathamhouse.org.uk

  • Violent nationalism blights Turkey

    Violent nationalism blights Turkey

    Story from BBC NEWS:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7737413.stm

    Turkey is fiercely patriotic and proud of it. But the country’s bid to join the European Union has sparked a nationalist backlash that has turned murderous, the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford reports from Istanbul.

    Writer Hrant Dink was the first victim, killed last year because some in Turkey could not tolerate what he stood for. To nationalists, he was a traitor.

    In a country where every citizen is defined as a Turk, Hrant Dink defined himself as ethnic Armenian. That was already subversive to some. But Mr Dink went further.

    He wrote about the expulsion and killing of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Armenians from eastern Turkey in 1915. To Armenians, and others, that was genocide – a claim Ankara vigorously denies.

    Hrant’s cause

    Hrant Dink was convicted of insulting the Turkish nation. That is a crime here. Nationalist protesters surrounded his office shouting “Love Turkey or leave it!” and he received hundreds of death threats.

    Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

    Rakel Dink on her husband and his murder

    Already low-profile, after Mr Dink’s murder most Armenians retreated into scared silence. But almost two years on, his widow has decided to speak out.

    “Hrant was really affected by those protests,” Rakel says, fighting back tears. “After that, we said only a miracle could help us live here.”

    But the family stayed.

    “Hrant could never abandon his cause,” says Rakel, explaining that he wanted to convince Turkey that diversity and dissent were a strength, not a threat.

    His killers disagreed.

    “I don’t know if I should say this, but the origins of this murder go back to 1915,” Rakel says.

    “An Armenian told the truth to the face of the Turkish state and the law. That’s why Hrant was murdered. It offended them, it dishonoured them.”

    Critical flashpoints

    To Turks, honour is everything. From childhood they learn of a glorious history: how a soldier – Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – forged a new nation from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

    Turkey needs time to adjust – the EU process may help, but my husband’s death is their biggest loss
    Rakel Dink

    To most, the allegation their ancestors were guilty of genocide is an unacceptable slur.

    Turkey’s justice minister underlined that view himself this week, defending his decision to allow the trial of another writer to proceed for referring to “genocide”.

    “The man describes Turkey as a murderer state,” Mehmet Ali Sahin is quoted as saying.

    It seems freedom of expression is no defence.

    “That is why they were against Hrant,” Rakel says. “They could not digest what he was writing about, even though he used very soft language.”

    But Turkey’s drive to enter the EU has made nationalists feel threatened, and that has made them aggressive.

    The Armenian issue, and the treatment of millions of Kurds in Turkey, have become critical flashpoints.

    ‘Once-and-for-all fight’

    Almost 50 writers have been brought to trial since May for insulting the nation.

    “Democracy means questioning, it means self-critique – and this is the thing they [nationalists] would not like,” explains Umut Ozkirimli, from Istanbul’s Bilgi University.

    “For them, when you start questioning things you become a traitor.”

    That is why Hrant Dink was murdered.

    It is also why at least 20 writers in Istanbul are now living with bodyguards.

    Oral Calislar is one of them. A close friend of Hrant Dink, he is also a well-known critic of the Turkish military – particularly its policy towards ethnic Kurds.

    He has had dozens of death threats. Now, wherever he goes his armed guard goes with him.

    “We want to change this country into a democratic country and the EU accession process is important for that,” the journalist says.

    “I think because of that, some powers in the state want to shut our mouths.”

    Mr Calislar is sure Mr Dink’s murder is part of a far broader resistance to reform. He sees that deep within institutions of the Turkish state; groups clinging to power – and to their own vision of the republic.

    “This is a once-and-for-all fight. It’s been going on in the closet for 80 years, between those who want change and those who don’t,” Mr Ozkirimli agrees.

    “If the whole project of EU membership goes away, [then] the democratic forces will lose, and forever,” he adds.

    ‘Ergenekon’ trial

    In that battle for democracy, Hrant Dink was on the frontline. Now there is another sign the fight will be fierce.

    Eighty ultra-nationalists are currently on trial just outside Istanbul, accused of plotting to overthrow the government and block democratic reforms.

    The prosecutor claims the group – known as Ergenekon – planned a campaign of murder and violence. It was meant to create chaos – and force the military to step in and take control.

    Hrant Dink believed Turkey could change. His vision was of a truly democratic republic and the EU accession process was a vital part of that.

    To his widow, such change now looks a long way off.

    “[Turkey] doesn’t want people to express their ethnic identity, or live freely. That doesn’t fit the founding ideas of this country,” Rakel says.

    “Turkey needs time to adjust. The EU process may help, but my husband’s death is their biggest loss.”

    You can watch Sarah Rainsford’s full report at 2230 GMT tonight on BBC2’s Newsnight programme.

    Story from BBC NEWS:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7737413.stm
    Published: 2008/11/19 16:31:29 GMT

  • Kurds in N. Iraq Receive Arms From Bulgaria

    Kurds in N. Iraq Receive Arms From Bulgaria

    3 Planeloads of Munitions Worry Officials in Baghdad

    By Ernesto Londoño
    Washington Post Foreign Service
    Sunday, November 23, 2008; A01

    BAGHDAD — Kurdish officials this fall took delivery of three planeloads of small arms and ammunition imported from Bulgaria, three U.S. military officials said, an acquisition that occurred outside the weapons procurement procedures of Iraq’s central government.

    The large quantity of weapons and the timing of the shipment alarmed U.S. officials, who have grown concerned about the prospect of an armed confrontation between Iraqi Kurds and the government at a time when the Kurds are attempting to expand their control over parts of northern Iraq.

    The weapons arrived in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah in September on three C-130 cargo planes, according to the three officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

    Kurdish officials declined to answer questions about the shipments but released the following statement: “The Kurdistan Regional Government continues to be on the forefront of the war on terrorism in Iraq. With that continued threat, nothing in the constitution prevents the KRG from obtaining defense materials for its regional defense.”

    Iraq’s ethnic Kurds maintain an autonomous region that comprises three of the country’s 18 provinces. In recent months, the Shiite-led central government in Baghdad, which includes some Kurds in prominent positions, has accused Kurdish leaders of attempting to expand their territory by deploying their militia, known as pesh merga, to areas south of the autonomous region. Among other things, the Kurds and Iraq’s government are at odds over control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which lies outside the autonomous region, and over how Iraq’s oil revenue ought to be distributed.

    The Kurds of northern Iraq have run their affairs with increasing autonomy since 1991, when U.S. and British forces began enforcing a no-fly zone in northern Iraq to protect the region from President Saddam Hussein‘s military. The U.S.-led invasion in 2003 sparked concern that Iraqi Kurds would seek independence, but the Kurds have insisted that they wish to remain part of a federal Iraq.

    Neighboring countries with large Kurdish minorities, including Turkey and Iran, have said they would oppose the emergence of an independent Kurdistan, as the autonomous region is known.

    Iraq’s interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, said in an interview that central government officials did not authorize the purchase of weapons from Bulgaria. He said such an acquisition would constitute a “violation” of Iraqi law because only the Ministries of Interior and Defense are authorized to import weapons.

    Experts on Iraq’s constitution said the document does not clearly say whether provincial officials have the authority to import weapons. However, Iraqi and U.S. officials said the Ministries of Interior and Defense are the only entities authorized to import weapons. The Defense Ministry provides weapons to the Iraqi army, and the Interior Ministry procures arms for the country’s police forces.

    The Iraqi government has acquired the vast majority of its weapons through the Foreign Military Sales program, a U.S.-run procurement system, Brig. Gen. Charles D. Luckey, who assists the Iraqi government with weapons purchases, said Saturday. He said he knew of no instances in which provincial authorities had independently purchased weapons from abroad.

    With thousands of American military officials involved in the training of Iraq’s security forces, there is little the U.S. government does not know about weapons that are legally imported to Iraq. The shipments from Bulgaria in September caught the American military off guard, the three officials said. They first learned of the shipments from a source in Bulgaria, the officials said.

    The three said they did not know whether U.S. officials had confronted Kurdish leaders about the shipments or alerted Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki‘s government.

    “Yes, the Kurds have this autonomous region and they’re authorized to keep the pesh,” one of the officials said, referring to the militia. “But arming themselves and bringing in weapons stealthily like that — if I were the Iraqi government, I’d be pretty concerned.”

    While violence in Iraq has decreased markedly in recent months, political tension is rising as Iraqi leaders gear up for provincial and national elections scheduled to take place next year, and as they prepare for an era in which the U.S. military will have a smaller presence there.

    Of the primary fault lines — which include tension between Sunnis and Shiites and rivalry among Shiite political parties — the rift between Kurds and the Arab-dominated Iraqi government has become a top concern in recent months. Senior government officials have engaged in a war of words, and Iraqi army and pesh merga units have come close to clashing.

    “You could easily have a huge eruption of violence in the north,” said Kenneth B. Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. “Nothing having to do with the Kurds is resolved.”

    Because Arab Sunnis largely boycotted the 2005 election, Kurds obtained disproportionate political power in key provinces such as Tamim, which includes Kirkuk, and Nineveh. Both abut the Kurdish autonomous region. Kurds also control 75 of the 275 seats in parliament.

    This year, violence broke out in Kirkuk amid political squabbling over an Arab proposal that seats on the Tamim provincial council should be divided evenly among ethnic Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. In the end, Iraqi lawmakers had to shelve plans to hold provincial elections in Tamim because the sides were unable to reach a deal.

    In August, U.S. officials narrowly averted an armed confrontation between an Iraqi army unit and pesh merga fighters in the town of Khanaqin, in Diyala province.

    In recent weeks, Maliki and Kurdish leaders have exchanged sharp words over Maliki’s creation of so-called support councils. Maliki has said the councils, which are made up of pro-government tribal leaders, are the central government’s eyes and ears in provinces. But Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani and other Iraqi leaders have accused the prime minister of using the councils to bolster Maliki’s influence in areas where he has little political support. In a recent news conference, Barzani said Maliki was “playing with fire.”

    Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, recently sent Maliki a letter saying the money being spent on councils should go to the country’s armed forces.

    The pesh merga, which began as a militia controlled by powerful Kurdish families, fought Iraqi troops when Hussein was in power. Since the 2003 invasion, its primary role has been to patrol predominantly Kurdish areas in the north. However, pesh merga units were deployed to the northern city of Mosul in 2004 to help quell an insurgent uprising, and others were dispatched to Baghdad as part of the 2007 buildup of U.S. troops.

    Recently, the Iraqi government has refrained from using pesh merga forces outside of the Kurdish region and has taken steps to replace predominantly Kurdish forces with Sunni and Shiite soldiers in Nineveh, one of the most violent areas in Iraq.

    Central government officials recently bristled at Barzani’s offer to allow U.S. troops to establish bases in the Kurdish autonomous region, saying the regional government had no authority to make such an overture, especially as Iraqi officials are calling for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops.

    “There is a lot of tension,” Kurdish parliament member Mahmoud Othman said. “Maliki and his administration are accusing the Kurdish authorities of violating the constitution. And the Kurds are accusing Maliki of violating the constitution.”

  • Uzbek History Textbook Denounces Soviet Totalitarianism But Downplays Popular Movements in Uzbekistan

    Uzbek History Textbook Denounces Soviet Totalitarianism But Downplays Popular Movements in Uzbekistan

    Paul Goble

    Kuressaare, November 21 – A history textbook prepared for tenth graders in Uzbekistan on the Soviet period denounces communist totalitarianism in sweeping terms, but it downplays popular movements that have struggled for democracy in that Central Asian country in recent years and ignores many events that the current Tashkent regime finds inconvenient.
    Because most people “conceive the history of their country as [they] are told about it in school,” Mariya Yanovskaya says in an article posted on the Ferghana.ru portal, history as presented in school texts is one of the most sensitive political issues in many countries, including all the post-Soviet states (www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=5959).
    Recently, there have been intense discussions over new texts in the Russian Federation which portray Stalin’s terror as an appropriate modernization technique and school books in Ukraine that argue the 1932-33 famine was a genocide that Moscow launched against the Ukrainian people.
    Because the media inside Uzbekistan is more tightly controlled than in either of those countries, this history textbook is unlikely to provoke similar debates. But that makes Yanovskaya’s review especially important because it provides important insights into what the next generation of Uzbeks is likely to think about their past and hence their future.
    The book opens with the following declaration: “Dear Students! The textbook which you are holding in your hands covers the most complex and contradictory period of the history of the Fatherland, a period of heavy losses, tragic events and also of heroic struggle for freedom and independence, a period of victories and defeats and of self-sacrificing labor of our people.”
    Then, Yanovskaya says, the book stresses that the Uzbeks not only resisted but hated Soviet power from the beginning. It denounces the Bolshevik destruction of the Kokand autonomy, pointing out that the Bolsheviks and their Red Army allies killed more than 100,000 people in that city alone.
    “The basic part of the indigenous population did not recognize the Bolsheviks or the Soviet system,” the text says, in large measure because that system pursued “a colonialist policy,” sought to destroy religion, and acted in other ways to denigrate the dignity of the people of Uzbekistan.
    The Uzbeks and the other peoples of Central Asia struggled for many years in a movement that the Soviets dismissively call “the basmachi movement” but which the people there referred as “the freeman’s movement,” the textbook continues in increasingly emotional terms.
    And the book points out that “the totalitarian regime destroyed not only thousands of fighters who sacrificed themselves for the interests of the people but also tens of thousands of innocent victims. Soviet power throughout the ensuing years continued to conduct a repressive policy which brought the population much grief and suffering.”
    In other passages, the new textbook talked about Stalinist crimes “against whole peoples” during and after World War II, a reference to the deportation of nationalities which it calls “unforgivable criminal acts.” The book talks about the brutal transformation of Uzbek society and the Uzbek economy by Moscow and its agents.
    Yanovskaya says that she “would like to read such lines” in a textbook prepared by Moscow historians for schools in the Russian Federation, but her comments throughout the review make it clear that she doesn’t have that chance now and does not expect to have it anytime soon.
    But as the Uzbek textbook deals with more recent events, she says, it falls far short of what she would like to see in three respects. First, it utterly fails to explain how the Soviet Union in fact brought some real benefits to the people there, benefits that led them to vote overwhelmingly for the preservation of the USSR.
    “About that referendum,” she writes, “there is not a word in the textbook,” although “like a red thread” throughout this period it specifies that “the dream of independence never left the minds and hearts of advanced people. … In the heart of the people never were extinguished a striving for independence and dreams about the freedom of the Fatherland.”
    And it suggests in her words “that when Islam Abduganiyevich Karimov came to power, the dreams were realized. The country is now happy, independent and proceeding in giant steps toward a bright future, which is being build under the leadership … [and Yanovskaya says she almost wrote “ ‘the communist party.’”
    Second, the textbook specifically criticizes those national movements which sought democracy rather than the solidification of the Karimov regime. “One of the main errors of the ‘Birlik’ movement,” the textbook insists, “consisted in its lack of understanding of the true interests of our people.”
    Its activists “involved themselves with the organization of meetings and demonstrations thus putting psychological pressure on local leaders and searching for errors and shortcomings in the activity of the government and local organs of power. Therefore, the movement could not capture the support of the broad strata of the population.”
    And as for the Erk Party, the textbook simply says that it “did not have a precise program for the construction of a new society,” the kind of language and attitude about opponents that was such a prominent feature of Soviet textbooks and that continues to inform, albeit with new targets, the textbooks of Uzbekistan and other post-Soviet states.
    And third, and again like Soviet textbooks, the Uzbek history text simply ignores many inconvenient events or describes them in such generalized terms that only those who already know something about the history of the republic could possibly understand as references to these events.
    Thus, there is not a single word about the destructive earthquake in Tashkent in April 1966, nor is there any real information about the conflicts with the Meskhetian Turks or with the Kyrgyz in the late 1980s or about “the modernizing, developing and innovative role” of Moscow and the Soviet system in the development of Uzbekistan.
    In short, she suggests, the children of Uzbekistan are getting a Soviet-style version of reality, albeit one in which the things Moscow took pride in are denounced and the things Moscow denounced are praised, a pattern that does no more to promote independent thought than did the one in the Soviet textbooks. But that of course is almost certainly the point.

    http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/11/window-on-eurasia-uzbek-history.html