Category: America

Poor Richard’s Report

Turkey, U.S.: Strengthening Ties as Ankara Rises
March 19, 2009 | 1837 GMT ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty ImagesTurkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoganSummary
U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Turkey on April 6-7 and meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The United States and Turkey have many areas of mutual interest, including Iraq, Middle Eastern diplomatic efforts, Iran and Central Asia. Obama’s visit indicates that his administration recognizes Turkey’s growing prominence, and it gives the United States a chance to coordinate policy with a rising power.

Analysis
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed late March 18 that U.S. President Barack Obama will be visiting Turkey on April 6-7. In an interview with Turkish news channel Kanal 7, Erdogan said he had invited Obama to attend a meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations initiative in Istanbul on April 7, but “did not expect” Obama to arrive a day early for an official state visit to Ankara. “Combining the two occasions is very meaningful for us,” he added. Obama’s trip to Turkey will follow a visit to London for the G-20 summit on the global financial crisis, a NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, and a trip to Prague to meet with EU leaders.

Obama’s decision to visit Turkey this early in the game highlights his administration’s recognition of Turkey’s growing prominence in the region. The Turks have woken up after 90 years of post-Ottoman hibernation and are in the process of rediscovering a sphere of influence extending far beyond the Anatolian Peninsula. The Americans, on the other hand, are in the process of drawing down their presence in the Middle East in order to free up U.S. military capabilities to address pressing needs in Afghanistan. With the Turks stepping forward and the Americans stepping back, there are a number of issues of common interest that Obama and Erdogan will need to discuss.

The first order of business is Iraq. The United States is putting its exit strategy into motion and is looking to Turkey to serve as an exit route for U.S. troops and equipment from Iraq. The Turks would not have a problem with granting the United States such access, but they also want to make sure that U.S. withdrawal plans will not interfere with Turkey’s intentions of keeping Iraqi Kurdistan in check. With key Kurdish leader and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani retiring soon and Kurdish demands over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk intensifying, the Turks want to make clear to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq that Ankara promptly will shut down any attempts to expand Kurdish autonomy. Turkey will not hesitate to use the issue of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters hiding out in northern Ir aq as a pretext for future military incursions should the need arise to pressure the KRG in a more forceful way, but such tactics could run into complications if the United States intends to withdraw the bulk of its forces through northern Iraq. Therefore, the decision on where to base U.S. troops during the withdrawal process will be a political one, and one that will have to address Turkish concerns over the Kurds. Washington likely will see this as a reasonable price to pay, as it has other problems to handle.

Related Special Topic Page
Turkey’s Re-Emergence
Beyond Iraq, the United States is looking to Turkey as the Muslim regional heavyweight to take the lead in handling some of the knottier issues in the Middle East. The Israeli-Syrian peace talks that went public in 2008 were a Turkish initiative. These negotiations are now in limbo, with the Israelis still working to form a new government, but the Turks are looking to revive them in the near future. Turkey, Israel, the United States and the Arab states all share an interest in bringing Syria into a Western alliance structure, with the aim of depriving Iran of its leverage in the Levant. However, the Syrians are setting an equally high price for their cooperation: Syrian domination over Lebanon. These negotiations are packed with potential deal breakers, but Turkey intends to take on the challenge in the interest of securing its southern flank.

Iran is another critical area where the United States and Turkey see eye to eye. The fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of the Shia in Iraq have given Iran a platform for projecting influence in the Arab world. But the Turks far outpace the Iranians in a geopolitical contest and will be instrumental in keeping Iranian expansionist goals in check. Erdogan’s outburst over Israel’s Gaza offensive was just one of many ways Turkey has been working to assert its regional leadership, build up its credibility among Sunnis in the Arab world and override Iranian attempts to reach beyond its borders. At the same time, the Turks carry weight with the Iranians, who view Turkey as a fellow great empire of the past and non-Arab partner in the Middle East. Washington may not necessarily need the Turks to mediate in its rocky negotiations with Iran, but it will rely heavily on Turkish clout in the region to help put the Iranians in their place.

Some problems may arise, however, when U.S.-Turkish talks venture beyond the Middle East and enter areas where the Turkish and Russian spheres of influence overlap. Turkey’s influence extends into Central Asia and deep into the Caucasus, where the Turks have a strong foothold in Azerbaijan and ties to Georgia, and are in the process of patching things up with the Armenians. As the land bridge between Europe and Asia, Turkey is also the key non-Russian energy transit hub for the European market, and through its control of the Bosporus, it is the gatekeeper to the Black Sea. In each of these areas, the Turks bump into the Russians, another resurgent power that is on a tight timetable for extracting key concessions from the United States on a range of issues that revolve around Russia’s core imperative of protecting its former Soviet periphery from Western meddling.

The U.S. administration and the Kremlin have been involved in intense negotiations over these demands. Washington is still sorting out which concessions it can make in return for Russian cooperation in allowing the United States access to Central Asia for supply routes to Afghanistan, and in applying pressure on Iran. As part of these negotiations, Obama will be meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at the G-20 summit and later in the summer in Moscow. Though it is still unclear just how much the United States is willing to give the Russians at this juncture — and how flexible the Turks will be in challenging Russia — Washington wants to make sure its allies, like Turkey, are on the same page.

But as STRATFOR has discussed in depth, Russia and Turkey now have more reason to cooperate than collide, and recent diplomatic traffic between Moscow and Ankara certainly reflects this reality. In areas where the United States will want to apply pressure on Russia, such as on energy security for the Europeans, the Turks likely will resist rocking the boat with Moscow. The last thing Turkey wants at this point is to give Russia a reason to politicize its trade relationship with Ankara, cause trouble for the Turks in the Caucasus or meddle in Turkey’s Middle Eastern backyard. In short, there are real limits to what the United States can expect from Turkey in its strategy against Russia.

Obama and Erdogan evidently will have plenty to talk about when they meet in Ankara. Though the United States and Turkey have much to sort out regarding Iraq, Syria, Iran and Russia, this visit will give Obama the stage to formally recognize Turkey’s regional prowess and demonstrate a U.S. understanding of Turkey’s growing independence. Washington can see that the Turks are already brimming with confidence in conducting their regional affairs, and can expect some bumps down the road when interests collide. But the sooner the Americans can start coordinating policy with a resurgent power like Turkey, the better equipped Washington will be for conducting negotiations in other parts of the globe.

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March 19, 2009
Sarkisian In Phone Call With Clinton

By Emil Danielyan

President Serzh Sarkisian discussed a wide range of issues, including Armenia’s ongoing rapprochement with Turkey, in a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reported by his office on Wednesday.

As they spoke, U.S. lawmakers formally introduced a fresh draft resolution that refers to the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide and urges President Barack Obama to do the same. The Obama administration did not immediately react to the initiative strongly backed by the influential Armenian community in the United States.

A short statement issued by the Armenian presidential press service said Sarkisian and Clinton discussed U.S.-Armenian relations and, in particular, the recent extension of a freeze on some of American economic assistance to Yerevan. The U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation made the decision, citing the “status of democratic governance” in Armenia, at a March 11 meeting of its governing board chaired by Clinton.

The statement said that Sarkisian and Clinton also touched upon international efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and “the Turkish-Armenian political dialogue.” It gave no details.

The U.S. State Department issued no statements on Clinton’s first-ever conversation with the Armenian leader. The acting department spokesman, Robert Wood, did not mention it at a daily press briefing in Washington on Tuesday.

The current and previous U.S. administrations have welcomed the dramatic thaw in the traditionally strained Turkish-Armenian relations. After months of high-level negotiations, the two neighboring states appear to be on the verge of to establishing diplomatic relations and opening their border.

Official Ankara has repeatedly warned that Obama will set back the long-awaited normalization of Turkish-Armenian ties if he publicly describes the 1915-1918 massacres of Armenians as genocide. “A bad step by the United States would only worsen the process,” Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said on March 8.

Babacan’s Armenian counterpart, Eduard Nalbandian, dismissed Turkish warnings during a visit to Paris last week.

The highly sensitive issue is expected to feature large during Obama’s trip to Turkey scheduled for April 5. Turkish leaders already raised their concerns with Clinton when she visited Ankara earlier this month.

During the U.S. presidential race, both Obama and Clinton repeatedly called the slaughter of more than a million Ottoman Armenians a genocide and pledged to reaffirm such declarations once in office. Neither leader has publicly commented on the subject since taking office.

“The Los Angeles Times” reported on Tuesday that the Obama administration is now considering postponing an official U.S. recognition of the genocide in view of the unprecedented Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and Turkey’s importance for the success of U.S. plans on Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. “At this moment, our focus is on how, moving forward, the United States can help Armenia and Turkey work together to come to terms with the past,” Michael Hammer, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, told the paper.

The Armenian-American community and its allies in the U.S. Congress, meanwhile, hope that Obama will honor his campaign pledges. “We do not minimize Ankara’s threats of adverse action when you recognize the genocide, or when Congress takes action to formally recognize the genocide, but we believe that our alliance is strong enough to withstand the truth,” a group of congressmen wrote in a recent letter to the president.

Stepping up the pressure on the White House, the lawmakers on Tuesday submitted to the House of Representatives a bill that calls on Obama to “accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide” in his statement due on April 24, the genocide remembrance day.

Armenian-American lobbying groups, meanwhile, seem confident that Obama will not bow to the Turkish pressure. “The Armenian government has been clear that no linkage exists between normalizing relations and U.S. genocide recognition, and aside from Turkish lobbying efforts, no one seriously thinks that President Obama, Vice President Biden or Secretary Clinton will jeopardize U.S. and their own credibility in opposing genocide recognition,” Van Krikorian, a senior member of the Armenian Assembly of America, told RFE/RL. “Turkey continues to come to terms with its own past and a reversion to the policy of accommodating denial will cut that off at the knees.”

https://www.azatutyun.am/a/1600437.html

March 18, 2009
US-Russian partnership will end shield row

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:11:00 GMT

Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski believes if the US and Russia work together they would eliminate the need to install a defense shield in central Europe against the "Iranian threat."

A former US national security adviser says the US-Russian “cooperation” on Iran would lead to the shelving of a defense shield plan in Europe.

In an interview with a Polish daily, President Jimmy Carter’s advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said pushing the “reset button” in Russia-US relations is likely to change the situation created by Iran’s nuclear activities.

He added that if the US and Russia join forces to mount pressure on Iran it would reduce or even eliminate the need for Washington to deploy a missile shield in Central Europe.

Russian daily Kommersant cited White House sources as saying earlier last week that President Barack Obama had made a proposal to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev asking him to change position on Iran in exchange for a halt to the US missile shield plan.

Plans for the installation of anti-ballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic have contributed to the deterioration of White House-Kremlin relations over the past few years.

The missile shield plan has rankled Moscow, as it sees the system as a threat to its national security. President Obama has addressed the Russian concern by saying that he wants to press the “reset button” and build better relations with Moscow.

The White House under former President George W. Bush said the missile defense shield is necessary to counter a threat posed by “rogue states”, such as Iran.

Russia, however, says it will not be taken in by the “missile threat” excuse.

“No sensible person believes in fairy tales about the Iranian missile threat, and that thousands of kilometers from Tehran on the coast of the Baltic Sea, it is necessary to station a missile interceptor system,” Russia’s NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin said in November 2008.

The US, Israel and their European allies — Britain, France and Germany — claim that Iran is developing a military nuclear program.

Tehran, however, denies the charge that it is seeking to build a bomb and argues that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – to which it is a signatory – allows for a domestic, civilian nuclear industry.

CS/HGH

Source: www.presstv.ir, 16 Mar 2009

March 18, 2009
Obama adviser urges talks with Hamas

Paul Volcker, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, has urged him to break with US policy and open talks with Hamas in order to test the militant group’s willingness to join a unified Palestinian government.

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 4:19PM GMT 15 Mar 2009

Paul Volcker has urged talks with Hamas

Mr Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who was picked by the president to head his new economic recovery advisory board, signed a letter with nine other Washington veterans and senior ex-officials urging him to open dialogue.

Other signatories of the letter, delivered to the president days before he took office, include Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first George Bush, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who performed the same role under Jimmy Carter.

The group is expected to be granted an audience at the White House as early as this week to make their case that lines of communication should be opened with the group that is blacklisted as a terrorist organization and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians.

They are likely to make a forceful case given their personal experience of tortuous Middle East negotiations. “I see no reason not to talk to Hamas,” Mr Scowcroft told the Boston Globe. “The main gist is that you need to push hard on the Palestinian peace process. Don’t move it to end of your agenda and say you have too much to do.”

Mr Obama has made peace in the Middle East a central goal of his presidency. Within days of taking office he appointed former senator George Mitchell, a heavy-hitting veteran of the Northern Ireland peace process, as a special envoy to the region.

Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, made an early trip to the Middle East and swiftly held out an olive branch to Iran-backed Syria, sending in senior diplomats for talks.

Some in Washington see a rare opportunity to open talks with Hamas now that the group is discussing a unity government with Fatah, the more moderate Palestinian faction. Hamas was elected to power in Gaza in 2007 and has been shunned by the US for its refusal to renounce violence or recognize Israel’s legitimacy.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk, 15 Mar 2009

March 18, 2009
Turkish Involvement Could Stimulate Middle East Development

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) seems intent on increasing Turkey’s influence with such neighbors as Syria’s President Bashar Assad (2nd right).

March 17, 2009

By Abbas Djavadi

In the Middle East, Turkey could play a leading role in resolving political conflicts; boosting economic cooperation and investment within the region; and supporting political, economic, and social reforms.

As the most democratic Muslim country in the Middle East, one with rich experience dealing with and adapting to Western institutions, Turkey is the best-suited Middle Eastern country to lead the effort to advance regional stability and development. The European Union and the international community should support Turkey in this role.

Ankara has demonstrated a consistent commitment to good relationships with all countries of the region, regardless of their domestic, regional, or international policies. Except for occasional military actions against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) pockets in northern Iraq that Ankara considers essential for its national security, Turkey has abstained from interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

After some years of hesitation, Ankara has begun improving relations with the Kurdistan regional government in northern Iraq, a key factor in improving stability and security in that country. Turkey was also one of the first countries to contribute to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

Turkish efforts over the last two years to mediate between Syria and Israel, the Lebanese groups, and, more recently, Palestinian organizations — as well as its offer to mediate between Iran and the United States — have met with limited success so far. But they have nonetheless underscored Turkey’s capability and potentially suitable positioning to act as a regional leader.

While primarily leaning toward the West in the past, the Turkish government (controlled by the Justice and Development (AK) party) has — especially over the last few years — improved its relations and image among the Muslim countries of the region, occasionally at the cost of Western reservations or objections.

Leading The Middle East

Boosting economic relations and investment between Middle Eastern countries would — especially if accompanied by relaxation of travel, residence, and work-permit limitations — gradually contribute to the overall improvement of living standards, education, and social services in the region. The result would be the mitigation of the actual and potential dangers of extremism and ethnic conflict.

With its experience with its own democratic reforms (free and fair elections, media, education, privatization, and modernization), Turkey is in a position to help other Middle Eastern countries implement reforms. Doing so could also help Ankara unblock its own reform process and move ahead with EU-required measures that have been bogged down considerably for the last two years.

If the Middle East were developing economically and socially as a region and countries there had direct and growing interest in cooperation and integration, there would be much less grounds for repression, terrorism, and war.

The modalities of EU involvement in such a regional initiative remain undetermined, but it seems evident that a leading role for Turkey would be one of the best guarantees of success. Many Turkish officials have expressed a desire for greater Turkish engagement in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Ankara has signaled Washington’s support for Turkey’s role in the Middle East, and EU officials have seconded that support. The time seems ripe to build on these initiatives in order to keep the Middle East process active even as Brussels and Washington are preoccupied with immediate concerns closer to home.

Abbas Djavadi is associate director of broadcasting with RFE/RL. The views expressed in this commentary, which is a summary of an address he gave at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (Metropolitan University, Prague) are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL

March 17, 2009
Armenia and Armenians in Int’l Treaties, Ann Arbor, Mar. 19-21

International Conference
Armenia and Armenians in International Treaties

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, March 19-21, 2009

Day 1 – Thursday, March 19, 2009 – Michigan Union (Anderson D)

Session I – 9:00-12:00

Dr. Levon Avdoyan, “Unintended Consequences: Three Ancient Treaties
   and the Armenians” (63,299, 387 CE)
Prof. Robert H. Hewsen, “Armenia in the Treaty of Nisibis of 299 CE”
Prof. Seta B. Dadoyan,”From the ‘Medinan Oaths’ to the Shah’s
   ‘Compact’ for New Julfa-Isfahan: The Millennial Record of
   Islamic-Armenian Protocols”
Prof. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, “Armenian Aristocrats as Diplomatic
   Partners of Eastern Roman Emperors, 387-884/885 AD”

Session II – 2:00-5:00

Prof. Azat Bozoyan, “The Treaty of Deapolis (1107) as an Example of
   the Byzantine Policy of ‘Divide and Rule’”
Prof. Claude Mutafian, “The International Treaties of the Last Kingdom
   of Armenia”
Mr. Armen Kouyoumdjian, “When Madrid Was the Capital of Armenia”
Prof. Ali Kavani, “The Treaty of 1639 and its consequences for Armenia
   and Armenians”

Day 2 – Friday, March 20, 2009 – Michigan Union (Anderson D)

Session III – 9:00-12:00

Dr. Sebouh Aslanian, “Julfan Agreements with Foreign States and
   Chartered Companies: Exploring the limits of Julfan Collective
   Self-Representation in the Early Modern Age”
Prof. Kevork Bardakjian, “The National ‘Constitution’ of 1863: A
   Dhimmi-Muslim Contract?”
Prof. Aram Yengoyan, “No War, No Peace: The Treaty of Brest Litovsk, 1918″
Prof. Richard Hovannisian,”The Unratified Treaty of Alexandropol as
   the Basis for Subsequent Russian-Turkish-Armenian Relations”

Session IV – 2:00-4:00

Dr. Fuat Dundar, “Diplomacy of Statistics: Discussing the Number of
   Armenians during Diplomatic Negotiations (1878-1914)”
Dr. Vladimir Vardanyan, “Peace Treaties of Armenia and Relating to
   Armenia: A Legal Analysis”
Prof. Dennis Papazian, “The Treaty of Lausanne”

Day 3 – Saturday, March 21, 2009 – Michigan Union (Wolverine ABC)

Session V – 8:30-12:00

Dr. Lusine Taslakyan, “Armenia in International Environmental Conventions”
Mr. Emil Sanamyan, “The OSCE-CFE Treaty and Breaches in the
   International Legal System: Armenia’s Predicament Today”
Mr. Rouben Shougarian, “Yielding More to Gain the Essential: The
   Russo-Armenian Treaty of 1997”
Prof. Sevane Garibian, “From the 1915 Allied Declaration to the Treaty
   of Sevres: The Legacy of the Armenian Genocide in International
Criminal Law”

Session VI – 1:30-4:00

Prof. Keith Watenpaugh, “The League of Nations and the Formation of
   Armenian Genocide Denial”
Pascual Ohanian, JD, “International Treaties in International Penal
   Law Concerning Crimes Against Humanity: Applicability of the Juridical
   Experience in Argentina and Chile to the Turkish-Ottoman State and
   Turkish Republic for Acts Perpetrated from 1910 to 1923 and Beyond”
Prof. Catherine Kessedjian, “Beyond Treaties”

Live webcast:

March 17, 2009