Turkish Forum

Category: Middle East

  • Israeli army chief visits Turkey amid tension

    Israeli army chief visits Turkey amid tension

    JERUSALEM, March 15 (Xinhua) — Israeli army chief headed for Turkey Monday morning for a one-day visit amid tension between the two countries.

    Gabi Ashkenazi, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of the general staff, is scheduled to take part in a NATO conference on terrorism and international cooperation, and hold a meeting with his Turkish counterpart during the trip, IDF said in a statement.

    It is the first time in five years that an Israeli army chief has visited Turkey, according to the statement.

    The once close ties between Israel and Turkey were strained after the Jewish state launched a massive attack at the Gaza Strip at the end of 2008.

    Turkish military cancelled a joint air force drill with Israel last October due to the offensive.

    The relation hit a freezing point when Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon in January humiliated Turkish ambassador to Israel by deny the latter a handshake and sitting him on a lower chair at a meeting.

    An IDF spokesperson told Israeli army radio on Monday that Ashkenazi’s visit “is on the military-strategic level, not a diplomatic level.”

    xinhua net

  • An Expert’s Long View on Iran

    An Expert’s Long View on Iran

    gsBy GERALD F. SEIB

    Iran is both today’s paramount foreign-policy challenge, and a quandary of the first order. Its nuclear program keeps expanding, its concern about international opprobrium seems limited, and nobody can be sure the United Nations Security Council will find the courage to impose more economic sanctions.

    So where do we go from here? Few have thought about that challenge longer or harder than Zbigniew Brzezinski, the provocative foreign-policy icon who was White House national security adviser when the Iranian revolution erupted three decades ago and has followed the case ever since.

    In an interview, Mr. Brzezinski lays out his formula. Try to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and make Tehran pay a price if it keeps pursuing it, but don’t count too much on sanctions; offer a robust American defense umbrella to protect friends in the region if Iran crosses the nuclear threshold; give rhetorical support to Iran’s opposition while accepting America’s limited ability to help it; eschew thought of a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities; and keep talking to Tehran.

    Above all: Play the long game, because time, demographics and generational change aren’t on the side of the current regime.

    “This is a country with a growing urban middle class, a country with fairly high access to higher education, a country where women play a great role in the professions,” he says. “So it is a country which I think, basically, objectively is capable of moving the way Turkey has moved.” That is, it can evolve into a country where Islam and modernity co-exist, even if somewhat uncomfortably.

    Mr. Brzezinski’s views are noteworthy because he touches so many bases in the Iran debate. He hails from the hawkish wing of the Democratic party, and has a record of working comfortably with Republican administrations.

    He was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser when the Iranian Islamic revolution exploded in 1979. More recently, he teamed up with current Defense Secretary Robert Gates on a milestone 2004 Council on Foreign Relations report that advocated that the U.S. begin to “engage selectively with Iran.” Shortly thereafter, former President George W. Bush summoned Mr. Gates to be defense secretary, a job he retains under President Barack Obama.

    Today, Mr. Brzezinski sees two American goals in Iran: “One is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, assuming that is its objective, and to neutralize its strategic political significance if it does. The second goal is to facilitate, carefully and cautiously, the political evolution in Iran toward a more acceptable regional role.” As he notes, those two goals—stopping Iran’s nuclear program while coaxing it into more responsible behavior—can conflict.

    On the nuclear-weapons front: There’s a chance, he thinks, that Iran isn’t seeking to possess actual nuclear weapons, but trying to become “more like Japan, a proto-nuclear power” with a demonstrated ability to make nuclear arms without actually crossing that line.

    But it’s impossible to know. And if a halt to Iran’s nuclear program can’t be negotiated, “then I think we have no choice but to impose sanctions on Iran, isolate it.” But sanctions alone, he says, won’t “determine the outcome.”

    So if Iran crosses the line, the U.S. should “make commitments to any country nearby that America would see itself engaged if Iran threatened to use nuclear weapons against that country, or worse, if it used them.”

    What does being “engaged” mean, exactly? “That means if [the Iranians] attack somebody, we have to strike at them,” Mr. Brzezinski says bluntly. “I don’t think every country in the region would want to have a formal agreement with the U.S. Some would want an understanding.”

    This American defense umbrella “should be sufficient to deter Iran,” Mr. Brzezinski says. He thinks it significant that Ehud Barak, the defense minister of Israel, the nation most threatened by Iran’s nuclear program, said in a Washington speech last week that Iranian leaders were “sophisticated” enough to “fully understand what might follow” the actual use of nuclear arms, and likely would use them for intimidation.

    Meantime, on changing Iran’s character: The U.S. should adopt “a kind of posture of support and endorsement” of the forces inside Iran now openly opposing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Brzezinski says, without deluding itself into thinking it has the ability to propel a regime change.

    Crucially, Mr. Brzezinski instead thinks forces at work within Iran will undermine the regime over time, so long as the U.S. and the West don’t take actions that actually interfere with that process.

    Thus, it’s important to craft sanctions in a way that “doesn’t stimulate more anti-Westernism, or a fusion of Islamic extremism and nationalism.” He’d keep talking to Iran too: “Most major issues internationally that have been resolved by negotiation have involved negotiations over a long period of time.”

    And he would avoid at all costs a military strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran, he said, would make no distinction between an Israeli or an American strike. “The Iranians would strike out at us, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in the Strait of Hormuz.” If energy prices then soar, “we will suffer, the Chinese will suffer, the Russians will be the beneficiaries. The Europeans will have to go to the Russians for energy.” In effect, he argues, America, more than Iran, would be isolated.

    Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A2

  • Jewish lobby behind U.S. Armenia genocide vote

    Jewish lobby behind U.S. Armenia genocide vote

    Pro-Israel activists manipulated Congress to damage Turkey, says London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

    Jewish lobbyists contrived a U.S. congressional vote that labeled the World War One-era massacre of Armenians by Turkish forces as genocide, a London-based Arabic-language newspaper claimed on Saturday.

    Pro-Israel lobbyists had previously backed Turkey on the issue ? but changed tack in retaliation for Turkish condemnation of Israel’s policies in the Gaza Strip, the Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily said in an editorial, according to Israel Radio reports.

    Israel and Turkey are traditional allies but ties took a downturn in 2009 when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Israel’s offensive in Gaza, in which some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

    A crisis in diplomatic relations came to a head in January when when Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon publicly humiliated Turkey’s ambassador in front of press cameras.

    In his leading article, Al-Quds Al-Arabi editor Abd al-Bari Atwan curged Erdogan not to give in to the Jewish lobby’s “extortion” tactics.

    Erdogan on Thursday recalled Turkey’s ambassador to Washington after the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee voted 23-22 to approve the non-binding resolution, clearing it for consideration by the full House.

    “The decision of the Foreign Affairs Committee will not hurt Turkey, but it will greatly harm bilateral relations, interests and vision. Turkey will not be the one who loses,” said Erdogan, speaking at a summit of Turkish businessmen.

    Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said the vote was a boost for human rights.

    The vote calls on President Barack Obama to ensure U.S. policy formally refers to the massacre as genocide, putting him in a tight spot.

    In a telephone call with Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Wednesday, Obama emphasized his administration had urged lawmakers to consider the potential damage to efforts to normalize Armenian-Turkish ties, a senior administration official said.

    At a news conference in Costa Rica on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she and Obama, who both supported proposed Armenia genocide resolutions as presidential candidates, had changed their minds because they believed the drive to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia was bearing fruit.

    Turkey, a Muslim secular democracy that plays a vital role for U.S. interests from Iraq to Iran and in Afghanistan and the Middle East, accepts that many Armenians were killed by Ottoman forces but denies that up to 1.5 million died and that it amounted to genocide – a term employed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments.

    Turkey regards such accusations as an affront to its national honor.

    Haaretz

  • Armenian Genocide Vote Threatens US-Turkish Ties at Key Moment

    Armenian Genocide Vote Threatens US-Turkish Ties at Key Moment

    Thursday’s vote by a Congressional committee condemning the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians during World War I as “genocide” is almost certain to complicate U.S. ties with Turkey, a long-time strategic ally and increasingly influential player in the Middle East and central and southwest Asia.

    The 23-22 vote by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives prompted the immediate recall of Turkey’s ambassador here and an announcement by Ankara that ratification of a pending U.S.-backed treaty with Armenia will be frozen.

    And the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which sent several senior Turkish lawmakers and hired a high-priced public relations firm, as well as a former House speaker, to lobby against the resolution, is likely to take much stronger measures if it reaches the House floor later this year, according to both U.S. and Turkish analysts.

    “We are seriously concerned that the adoption of this draft resolution …will harm Turkey-U.S. relations and impede the efforts for the normalization of Turkey-Armenia relations,” the Turkish embassy said in a release after the vote.

    “This decision, which could adversely affect our cooperation on a wide common agenda with the United States, also regrettably attests to a lack of strategic vision,” it added.

    After maintaining silence about the resolution for several weeks, the administration of President Barack Obama came out against it just hours before the vote – apparently too late to affect the final outcome, according to a number of lawmakers.

    “We do not believe that the full Congress will or should vote on that resolution and we have made that clear to all the parties involved,” Clinton said during a press conference in San Jose, Costa Rica, Thursday morning in the administration’s first official statement on the issue.

    The administration, which needs Turkey’s support on a slew of key issues, ranging from Arab-Israeli peace to Iran and Afghanistan, is likely to lobby hard against any effort by lawmakers to bring the resolution to the floor, despite the fact that both Obama and Clinton promised to support some version of it during their 2008 presidential primary campaigns.

    At least half a million U.S. citizens, many of them concentrated in the electorally powerful state of California, claim Armenian ancestry.

    The Armenian-American community, which is among the wealthiest and best organized of the many U.S. ethnic minorities, has long sought recognition of the 1915 death toll as a genocide. In 1975 and again in 1984, it succeeded in getting such resolutions passed by the House, although never in the Senate.

    In 2007, the Foreign Affairs committee approved a similar “genocide” resolution. However, it was never referred to the floor of the House due to intense opposition by the administration of President George W. Bush backed by the powerful “Israel Lobby,” which has frequently intervened in Congress on behalf since the late 1980s when Ankara and Israel began building a strategic alliance.

    But Israeli-Turkish ties have become increasingly strained in recent years, particularly since Israel’s “Cast Lead” military campaign in Gaza, which Erdogan strongly denounced in a heated exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in late January last year, just days after the offensive had ended.

    A number of subsequent incidents, most recently the apparently deliberate televised humiliation in January by Israel’s deputy foreign minister of Ankara’s ambassador in Tel Aviv, have added to the strains.

    Indeed, some analysts here and in Turkey suggested that the resolution’s passage was due as much to the Israel Lobby’s failure to oppose it, as to the Obama administration’s delay in coming out against it. Several key lawmakers who are considered close to the Lobby, notably Gary Ackerman, Brad Sherman, and committee chair Howard Berman, spoke in favor of its approval.

    “In the past, the pro-Israel community has lobbied hard against previous attempts to pass similar resolutions, citing warnings from Turkish officials that it could harm the alliance not only with the United States but with Israel…,” noted the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) Friday.

    “In the last year or so, however, officials of American pro-Israel groups have said that while they will not support new resolutions, they will no longer oppose them, citing Turkey’s heightened rhetorical attacks on Israel and a flourishing of outright anti-Semitism the government has done little to stem,” it asserted.

    The resolution, which was introduced by a California Democrat, calls on the president to use the annual presidential statement on the 1915 mass deaths next month to “accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide.”

    Turkey has argued that the Armenian deaths were a great tragedy played out under the chaotic conditions of World War I when the collapsing Ottoman Empire was under attack on many fronts, including internally in the form of a Russian-backed Armenian insurgency.

    Unlike most of its predecessors, the Erdogan government has indicated a willingness to review the events of that time, possibly even in cooperation with Armenia with which it agreed only last September to establish diplomatic relations and re-open borders that have been closed since 1993.

    It was hoped that that agreement, which was mediated by Switzerland with strong backing from Washington, would be quickly ratified by both countries and lead to the resolution of the territorial dispute between Armenia and oil-rich Azerbaijan over the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh.

    Despite U.S. urging – most recently in a conversation between Obama and Turkish President Abdullah Gul Wednesday – Erdogan has insisted that implementation of the treaty is dependent on progress in resolving the territorial dispute. Ankara’s decision to freeze the ratification process in the wake of Thursday’s committee vote here could deal a lethal blow to the treaty’s prospects.

    In the four years since the committee last voted out a genocide resolution, Turkey’s strategic importance to Washington has significantly increased.

    In addition to having the largest army among the European members of NATO and having recently increased its troop contribution to U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, Turkey continues to permit the U.S. access to key military bases on its territory, provides critical supply routes to Iraq, and acts as an increasingly important transit route – bypassing both Russia and Iran – for Caspian and Central Asian oil and gas.

    Ankara’s influence and involvement in the Arab world, particularly in Iraq and Syria, have grown sharply in recent years, and its friendly ties with Iran have positioned itself as a potential mediator between Tehran and the West.

    Turkey has thus far resisted U.S. pressure to host a radar base that would be part of larger regional defense network designed to intercept Iranian missiles and to vote for stronger economic sanctions against Tehran on the U.N. Security Council, of which it is a member.

    Some sectors, particularly those most closely associated with Israel here, have become increasingly concerned about Turkey’s growing orientation toward the Muslim world under Erdogan, who heads the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), in both its foreign and domestic policies.

    Indeed, neoconservatives, whose views often reflect those of Israel’s Likud Party, have been attacking Erdogan and the AKP with growing fervor in recent months, accusing them of a systematic effort to weaken Turkey’s traditionally secular institutions, notably the once-dominant armed forces.

    In a column coincidentally published Friday by the neoconservative Wall Street Journal, Soner Cagaptay, a Turkish-born specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), accused Erdogan of transforming Turkey into a “police state.”

    At the same time, hard-line neo-conservatives, such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Journal’s editorial board, opposed the genocide resolution precisely because of fears that it will serve only to further poison bilateral relations with a country whose geo-strategic importance to Washington and its Israeli ally is simply too great.

    www.antiwar.com

  • Iran’s Growing Role In The South Caucasus

    Iran’s Growing Role In The South Caucasus

    source


    Gulnara Inandzh
    Director
    International Online Information Analytic Center Ethnoglobus

    [email protected]

    [email protected]

    In the aftermath of the Russian-Georgian war, Iran has assumed a greater role in the calculations of all the states of the South Caucasus as well as in the thinking of the Russian Federation, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel, on the other.  Its location alone makes it a key player, especially given the disruptions in trade routes that the war has caused.  And its growing power – including its moves toward the acquisition of a nuclear capability if not nuclear weapons – means that it can no longer be ignored.

    But precisely what role Iran will be able to play depends not only on its own resources but also on the attitudes of other players, and they are much divided.  On the one hand, Russia and Armenia would like to see Tehran brought into discussions about the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and about the formation of the Ankara-proposed Platform for regional security.  On the other, the United States and Israel hope to continue to isolate Iran and to use Turkey as their agent in the region, although it appears that the two have dropped any immediate plans to use force against it lest such actions further destabilize the entire region.

    Whether Turkey will be willing to be used in this way, of course, is far from clear.  It has its own economic interests in the region which are better served by a cooperative relationship with countries nearby rather than by following the lead of its traditional partners further away.  And its government is now committed to a more independent foreign policy, one that means it may sometimes support Washington and Jerusalem and sometimes Moscow and Tehran.

    But in addition to questions about Turkey’s role in this situation, there is another factor at work.  Many outside powers, and the United States in particular, have tended to ignore Iranian moves other than in the nuclear area.  And consequently, Tehran has been able to expand its influence under the radar screen not only among Shiite groups across the Middle East but with other governments there that it has long been at odds with.  And that is reinforcing its own view of itself as a major regional power.

    These new realities appear likely to lead to a correction in the policies of the United States after Barak Obama assumes office.  His personal background is generating great hopes for the resolution of Middle Eastern and Iranian problems, including in Tehran.  President Ahmadinejad welcomed Obama’s victory as a possible turning point in relations between Washington and Iran.

    And there may be changes in the year ahead from within Iran.  That country faces a presidential election, and at least some of the key leaders in the country are unhappy with the aggressive approach Ahmadinejad has adopted toward Israel and the United States.  Consequently, Iran may prove more open to a new approach, especially if its leaders believe that an end to their diplomatic isolation in the West will pay dividends in the region, such as an invitation to be a participant in discussions about the resolution of local conflicts.

    One of the wild cards in this situation is the possibility that the United States and Israel will try to play the Azerbaijani card against Tehran.  Nearly a third of Iran’s population consists of ethnic Azerbaijanis.  Most of them are well integrated into Iranian life: indeed, the supreme ruler Ayatollah Khamenei is an Azerbaijani.  Baku has been reluctant to cooperate with any Western projects in this regard, but the danger exists that efforts by the US (broadcasting) or Israel (agricultural cooperation) could lead the Iranian government to revise its approach to the Caucasus.

    And Israel’s interest in developing contacts with the 20,000 Jews of Iran, combined with its close relations to Baku could also play a role in changing Iran’s approach, possibly in quite unpredictable ways in the coming months.  Interestingly, the Jewish community in Azerbaijan is also keen to make its contribution to the further developments in the region.  In this context, the following appeal of the chairman of the religious community The Jews of Azerbaijan, Director General of the Jewish educational complex Habad or-Avner, and the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazim Jews of Azerbaijan Meier Bruk to Iran’s ambassador in Baku, Nasiri Hamidi Zare, is a logical extension of the actions of the other Jewish organizations in the broader region:

    “The development of relations between the two countries has always been based on mutually profitable and vitally necessary conditions and as a rule the principles of public diplomacy have provided the foundation of these ties…  In the Islamic Republic of Iran are living a sufficiently large Jewish community, and according to reports by its members, all the conditions for fruitful activity exist….”  Also, the Jewish educational complex Habad or-Avner whose construction began in 2007 in Azerbaijan is envisaged to have an intake of Jewish students from the entire region, including Iran.

    In this situation, because it enjoys good relations with both, Azerbaijan has the chance to serve as an intermediary between the West and Israel, on the one hand, and Iran and other Muslim countries, on the other; or it might be expected to in one quarter or another, expectations that could drive policies as well.

  • Did Moscow Prevent a US Attack On Iran By Its Moves In Georgia?

    Did Moscow Prevent a US Attack On Iran By Its Moves In Georgia?

    soursce –

    Gulnara Inandzh

    Director International Online Information Analytic Center Ethnoglobus

    [email protected]

    [email protected]

    While it is still too early to speak in detail about the results of the behind the scenes talks between Moscow and Washington about the resolution of the Georgian-Russian conflict, it is clear that these discussions, like the calculations of all those involved in this conflict, reflected not just the immediate situation in Georgia and its two breakaway republics, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  Some of these larger or more distant goals have been mentioned by various officials and analysts, but some of the most interesting, even if they remain in the realm of speculation, say a great deal about just how consequential this conflict is.

    Many, especially in the Russian capital, saw Georgia’s moves as part of a larger U.S.-sponsored effort to push Russia out of the Caucasus and to place American bases there in order to protect American energy interests.  Others, especially in Washington, viewed what happened as a Russian effort to bring a former Soviet republic to heel and thus to demonstrate not only that it is a world power that can take actions independently of what others think but also that other former Soviet republics must consider Moscow’s views first and foremost.

    There is more than a little truth in each of these perceptions.  Obviously, the Georgian conflict has had a serious impact on the energy situation throughout the Caspian region and thus on the dynamics of prices in the world market, and equally obviously, both the United States and Russia want to be able to protect their interests in the region, interests that are sufficiently at odds that it is difficult to imagine just what a negotiated settlement in this area will look like.

    Indeed, by provoking a war with Georgia, the Kremlin was able to create obstacles to the transportation of energy resources via routes bypassing Russia.  As a result, it created the conditions for the realization of Iran’s Neka-Jask project, which envisages the transportation of the Caspian oil and thus allows for Moscow to preserve its control over the transportation of energy resources from the region.  The statement made by the deputy executive director of the Iranian National Oil Company for investment issues Hojatollah Ghanimifard that the Iranian Neja-Jask pipeline will be a serious competitor to and eventual replacement of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline [4] attests to this line of thinking.  In the meantime, the problems arising with pipelines in Georgia have forced Azerbaijan for the first time to send its oil into Iran. [5]

    But as large an issue as the control of the flow of hydrocarbons out of the Caspian basin is, there are clearly still greater equities involved.  When Russia launched its drive against Georgia, the international community did not devote much attention to the ways in which this may have been a move by a great power in the complicated politics in the Middle East.  It is important to note that almost at the same time as the events in Tskhvinvali began, there were major American, British and French naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, an action that dramatically increased the number of ships and hence firepower in that region.  The exercises were explicitly intended to prevent Iran from taking any action in the Straits of Hormus which might impede the flow of oil, but at least some analysts, pointing to statements in Washington and Jerusalem, have suggested that these forces might have been assembled to launch an attack on Iran. [1] And hence it could well be that in the complex play of forces which always affect international relations, the Russian move into Georgia may have prevented an American-led move against Iran.  Some evidence points in that direction.

    Most notably, as the events in Tskhinvali and the international reaction to it were unfolding, Turkish prime-minister Erdogan visited Russia with his new “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform” – an initiative Moscow wholeheartedly embraced.  Shortly afterwards Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad paid a “working visit” to Turkey – his first visit to a NATO country which Israel harshly objected. [2] These developments attest to the fact that Ankara and Russia combined their efforts to prevent the United States and Israel from an attack against Iran.

    One additional report that lends credence to this reading was the statement of Haled Mashal, the head of Hamas which won the Palestinian elections.  He too was received both in Moscow and in Ankara.  And by this maneuver, Turkish and Russian officials demonstrated their willingness to use the Palestinian lever of influence in the event of the use of force against Iran, something that neither saw as being in its economic or geopolitical interests.

    Of course, the place Azerbaijan with its rapidly developing economy has in the calculations about the Georgian-Russian military conflict should not and cannot be ignored.  Some in Azerbaijan were extremely critical of the government for failing to react sharply against Russian aggression, given Azerbaijan’s membership in GUAM and its strategic partnership with Tbilisi.  But President Ilham Aliyev continued to pursue his step by step balanced diplomacy and spoke only about the importance of maintaining the territorial integrity of states, something Azerbaijan itself is very much interested in.

    That was striking given the role Baku had always played in maintaining friendly ties with Georgia, in supplying its neighbor with oil and gas and thereby mitigating its energy, and hence political as well, dependence on Russia.

    But of course there is yet another implicit negotiation going on here.  That concerns the competition between Moscow and Washington for influence in the former Soviet republics.  Moscow’s actions in Georgia sent a clear message to Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan, who also have frozen conflicts on their territories that Russia can intervene if it chooses to, a new element in the foreign policy calculations of all these states.  Indeed, it may be that Moscow was especially interested in sending this message to Azerbaijan given the upcoming electoral campaign in which some candidates will push for greater integration with the West.

    In that connection, it is worth noting that at the time of the crisis, David Harris, the executive director of the Jewish Committee of America, was in Baku.  Considering the role of the Jewish lobby in the US and the well-known sympathy of that lobby for Azerbaijan, it is entirely possible that Harris made clear that Baku would be defended from aggression from its northern neighbor. [3] Whether that message was received, however, is unclear, given that the United States has not yet taken any dramatic actions as opposed to tougher rhetoric in response to Russian moves in Georgia.

    In short, Baku appears likely to become a place des armes not for military action but rather political discussions not only about its own status but about the status of Iran in the world and the influence of Moscow and Washington in the post-Soviet states.

    Notes

    [1] See http://www.ethnoglobus.com/?page=full&id=344 (last accessed August 21, 2008).

    [2] “Iranian President Makes First Visit to Turkey”, VOA News, August 14, 2008, available at (last accessed August 21, 2008).

    [3] (last accessed August 21, 2008).

    [4] “Иран планирует составить конкуренцию экспортному нефтепроводу Баку-Джейхан”, Iran News, August 12, 2008, available at https://iran.ru/news/politics/52773/Iran_planiruet_sostavit_konkurenciyu_eksportnomu_nefteprovodu_Baku_Dzheyhan (last accessed August 30, 2008).

    [5] “Азербайджан впервые отправил через Иран партию нефти на Запад”, Iran News, August 27, 2008, available at https://iran.ru/news/economics/53024/Azerbaydzhan_vpervye_otpravil_cherez_Iran_partiyu_nefti_na_Zapad (last accessed August 30, 2008).