Turkish Forum

Tag: Crimea

  • Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev in the Light of the Developments in Crimea

    Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev in the Light of the Developments in Crimea

    The Western actors were almost shocked with the annexation of Crimea to Russia through Putin’s play chess tactics. The latest events that are going on in some cities of Ukraine next to Russia could also be seen as a part of this game. Russian supporters already got the controls of some cities of Ukraine and put the Russian flags on some public buildings. At this stage it could be expected that only Russia which “swallowed” Crimea could solve the conflict. It is possible that the choice of cooperation with Putin may be put on the agenda in order not to let Ukraine to divide and more blood to be shed.
    Generally the poblems come to the political agenda and become a part of political studies only after they occured. However there is capability of foreseeing and taking precautions or agenda setting behind grand strategies. That’s why the strategy that is implemented by Nazarbayev in Northern KazakhstAlaeddin Yalçınkayaan which has similiar characteristics with Crimea is one of the greatest in this field.
    The milestone in the disintegration process of the USSR had astonished Russian nationsalists very much. Furthermore socialists outside the USSR had wanted that “dramatic dream” to come to end as soon as possible. When there was a coup d’etat attempt in Moscow on 19 June 1991, because Gorbachev had violated the main principles of socialism, one of the prominent scholars of Turkey wrote in his column that “the real communism will come from then, and nobody should wait Soviet Union to be disintegrated. However only two days were enough this attempt to be declared as failure.
    After the failed coup the republics declared their independences. At that time Ukraine’s (to which Crimea was given as a present in 1954) declaration of independence in 1991 was not a serious problem for Russia. In fact, the three Slavic republics namely Russia, Belarussia and Ukraine were the co-founders of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) before Almatı Declaration. Even though Russian strategists had various worries about the future.
    At the phase of the deconstruction of Berlin Wall and the disintegration of Warsaw Pact, instabilities in the republics started to be seen and in 1990 they declared their sovereignty one after one. It was a great step towards independence which was reached in 1991.
    A Russian physicist Alexandre Soljenitsyne, in one of his article written on 18 September 1990, wrote that eastern and northern parts of Kazakhstan where Russians were in majority were in fact part of Russia, therefore if the USSR disintegrates this region should be returned to Russian Federation. The reason of this physicist who had to live in camps in Kazakhstan because of his activities against communist regime was very interesting: This region is historically part of Russia, due to the maps which were drawn by “unconscious” communist leaders it is seen within the boundaries of Kazakhstan. In fact the Russian population in the region was the people who were migrated there in Tsarist era especially in 1950s as a result of the “Project of Virgin Lands” for the Russification of the land and therefore historically there were no evidence that the region was a “Russian land”. Those claims of Soljenitsyne were also taken up by some of the institutions and politicians and got their place in the agenda. In those regions Russian population were almost 80% of the whole population and the weight of Russians in Kazakhstan’s politics, economy and technology was very big. Even in military and at decision makers’ levels in the country the effects of Russians very decisive. After all, due to various problems, especially the economic ones Russia faced, Moscow had to recognize the independences and existing boundaries of the republics and establish new forms of cooperation like CIS without taking into consideration the above mentioned discussions.
    Nazarbayev who is still the President of Kazakhstan, by taking into consideration the future dangers, gave priority to confidence and coperation based policies in its relation with Russia. The charter (Almatı Declaration) of the CIS which was also the product of those worries and precautions was signed in the capital city of Kazakstan in those days as a diplomatic masterpiece of Nazarbayev. Nazarbayev moved the capital city of his country from Almatı to Akmola that is situated in Northern Kazakhstan in 1994. He changed the name of the capital city as Astana in 1998. He encouraged the settlement of youngsters in the city which had a population of 10.000 at the beginning. Throughout the 1990s, as in many other republics, a great deal of Russians in Kazakhstan also found a way to migrate to Russia. During that period Nazarbayev administration pursued relations with Russia in cooperation and confidence. He performed a very successful “soft power” policy that could be tought at political science lectures.
    If the Ukraine leaders took the example of Kazakhstan policy that made Kazakhstan to keep the region where Russian population is in majority under their control and to keep apart from the aggressive policies of Russia to which it shares 6.477 km borders, there was no need to have all these not-yet completed bloody events and happenings in Ukraine. The main misfortune of Ukraine here is its being a neighbour of EU and its trust to western organizations. This misfortune as for many other countries could be defined as becoming a toy for the great powers in strategically important areas, not to be able to put forward one’s own real position and policies.
    We should also specify that the Kazakhstan’s move to get the issue of possible allegations of Russian in Russian populated areas in Kazakhstan from the agenda, was not a great loss for Russia. On the contrary, Russia and Russians benefitted from that process. If, for example, the conflicts reached to the point of “hot conflict”, even if Russia that was strong once upon a time won, just because of the reciprocal revenge feelings, both sides would loose like in Ukraine. The developments funded by Soros did not bring peace and ease to that country. One should not also depend on KGB supported ones.

    alaeddin.yalcinkaya@marmara.edu.tr

  • Turkey Torn Over ‘Brothers’ In Crimea, Good Ties With Russia

    A woman holds a sign reading, “Yesterday Stalin, Today Putin” at a protest in Istanbul against Russian actions in Crimea.

    By Glenn Kates

    March 09, 2014

    ISTANBUL — Serkan Sava’s ancestors left Crimea in a mass exodus some 150 years ago, after the Ottoman Empire staved off Russian pressure in the Crimean War but could not reverse the slow tumble that would lead to its dissolution after World War I.

    A century later, the 35-year-old IT consultant’s grandparents, by then rooted in the post-Ottoman Turkish Republic, would hear of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s deportation of hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia, in 1944, that cost the lives of more than 100,000 people.

    This week, Sava stood under a steady rain at a protest of about 250 people — mostly Turkish Crimean Tatars — outside the Russian consulate in Istanbul. Noting that Crimean Tatars “have bad memories” of life under Moscow’s thumb, Sava argued that Turkey should use its influence to ensure that the Black Sea peninsula remains a part of Ukraine and is not annexed by Russia.

    With Crimea now occupied by Russian forces, the peninsula’s Russian-majority parliament clamoring to join the Russian Federation, and a referendum on the issue scheduled for March 16, Crimean Tatars are fearful of what another chapter of life under Russian rule could mean.

    But if the Crimean Tatar relationship with Russia is rife with tragedy, the Turkish reaction to any potential conflict with Moscow is one of trepidation.

    It recalls a past marked by a series of demoralizing military defeats and recognizes a present in which the country enjoys deep trade ties with its Black Sea neighbor, on which it relies for half of its natural-gas supplies.

    “Russia is the only neighbor that Turkey really fears for historic and contemporary reasons,” says Soner Cagaptay, author of “The Rise Of Turkey: 21st Century’s First Muslim Power” and director of the Turkish program at the Washington Institute, a U.S.-based think tank. “Historically, there’s a deep-rooted fear among many Turks about not waking up the Russian bear.”

    The Crimean Tatars, an ethnic-Turkic people with millions of its diaspora living inside Turkey, would appear to fit in with the role Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has carved out for himself.

    Erdogan, the leader of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP), has spent much political capital casting Ankara as a protector of Muslims along its periphery. Erdogan was a harsh critic of the overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood leader and Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi, and was one of the first world leaders to call for military intervention in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the Arab Spring uprising.

    Amid the recent political upheaval in Ukraine, Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, was the first envoy to meet with Ukraine’s new government in Kyiv, following months of protests that led to the ouster of the country’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych.

    With an eye on the past, Erdogan himself has promised not to “leave Crimean Tatars in the lurch.”

    But Erdogan, who has appeared at times to relish conflict with other world leaders, has carefully nurtured his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and appears unlikely to stake out a position that would put Ankara-Moscow ties at serious risk.

    “If you look at Erdogan’s mercurial political style, he has pretty much yelled at every and any head of government he has dealt with with the exception of the Russian and the Iranian president,” Cagaptay says, “not because he likes them necessarily but because Turkey gets about three-quarters of its gas and oil from Iran and Russia.”

    Ottoman-Russian history is also a factor, says Cagaptay, who wrote in a recent paper that, over a period of almost 400 years, the Ottoman Empire fought in at least 17 wars with Russia and lost all of them.

    Further complicating matters is that the 1936 Montreaux treaty, which gives Turkey control over the straits that link the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, also limits the weight of warships that would be allowed to pass through from states not located on the Black Sea.

    Any adaptation of this restriction by Turkey in favor of its NATO partners would put the treaty at risk.

    But as Celal Icten, the president of the Istanbul branch of Turkey’s Crimea Tatar Association, points out, it may be that the current domestic political climate provides the main hindrance to a greater role by Ankara in helping resolve the crisis in Ukraine.

    Erdogan, who has been embroiled in a months-long corruption scandal, is fighting for his political career, and municipal elections at the end of March are seen as a barometer of the remaining strength of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

    Icten says Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul are doing all they can, given the circumstances.

    “Turkey’s current political climate is hectic and that’s why the president and prime minister’s support for Crimean Tatars gets lost among other things on the political agenda,” Icten says. “But [they’ve] given support to Crimean Tatars and continue cooperation with Western powers in Europe.”

    Cagaptay agrees that Ankara will cooperate with Europe, which has proposed limited sanctions, but is unlikely to take a leading role unless serious violence is inflicted on the Crimean Tatar population.

    That might not assuage Crimean Tatars like Sava, who say the protection of a Turkic minority that is under threat should outweigh any political concerns.

    While Moscow refuses to recognize Ukraine’s new government because it is led by “fascists” who pose a threat to ethnic Russians, Tatars in Crimea — some of whose homes have reportedly been marked with an ominous “X”–  say they are being singled out by Russian “self-defense” brigades.

    At the Istanbul demonstration, protesters chanted, “Turkey, help your brothers!” and, “We are shoulder-to-shoulder against the enemy!”

    Erugrul Toksoy, a 47-year-old account manager sporting a blue scarf with the Crimean Tatar insignia, says Erdogan “has done nothing” to help Crimean Tatars, who make up 12 percent of the peninsula’s population.

    Sava, the IT consultant, riffing on a quote from the late British statesman Winston Churchill about the dangers of appeasement, warns that waiting for action will have its own costs.

    “The one who tries to protect the current state [of affairs] is hopeful that the crocodile will eat him last,” Sava says.

  • Turkey voices fears for Tatar minority in Ukraine

    Turkey voices fears for Tatar minority in Ukraine

    Turkey is “closely following” the crisis in Ukraine amid fears about the fate of the Turkish-speaking Tatar minority in Crimea, a government source said on Monday.

    “We have an important duty to remember the Tatars, and we are in discussion with concerned parties so that this dispute does not degenerate into armed conflict. We cannot remain mere spectators of what is happening there,” the Turkish government source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    Members of the Tatar community held demonstrations in Ankara, Istanbul and the central city of Konya over the weekend to protest the Russian intervention in Ukraine.

    “No to Russia — Crimea must stay Ukrainian!” read one of the protesters’ placards outside the Russian embassy in Ankara on Sunday.

    Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu traveled to Kiev on Saturday and has held talks with representatives from the United States, France, Germany and Poland over the phone, according to a foreign ministry spokesman.

    He also hopes to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov as soon as possible, the spokesman added.

    Davutoglu was due to meet representatives of the Tatar community in Ukraine on Monday.

    “Turkey will do everything possible to ensure the stability of Crimea at the heart of a united Ukraine,” he said in a televised interview on Sunday.

    “The rights of the Tatars and their existence must be guaranteed.”

    Turkey, a NATO ally, says that 12 percent of Crimea’s population are Turkish-speaking Tatars who are Sunni Muslims, like the majority of Turks.

    Crimea was part of the Ottoman Empire until it was conquered by Russia in the late 18th century. Tatars — the majority population at the time — have been gradually pushed out since then.

    Turkey has maintained strong cultural links to the Tatars in Ukraine, funding development projects including housing, roads and schools in Crimea through an aid programme based in the Crimean capital Simferopol.

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    via Turkey voices fears for Tatar minority in Ukraine | GlobalPost.

  • Turkey caught in the Russia-Crimea snowstorm

    As I am writing this article, Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoğlu is still in Ukraine to discuss the situation in the Crimea region. The persistent political disorder in Kiev following the collapse of President Viktor Yanukovych’s government – and his subsequent flight to Russia – are creating broad repercussions in the Crimean Autonomous Republic. After the Chairman of the Crimean Parliament Volodimir Konstantinov’s statement that they would seek to secede from Ukraine if tensions grew worse, the situation has deteriorated swiftly, including direct Russian military intervention in violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty. In an article in last week’s Russian Pravda, it was noted that if Ukraine was divided, then the status of the Crimean Peninsula – returned to Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Kruschev, would be open to discussion, and that would include Turkey having a say in the future of Crimea.

    Russia gains control over Crimea

    The reference to this claim is the “Küçük Kaynarca” (Karlowitz I) signed 230 years ago. As per this agreement, signed by the Russian Tsarina Catherine II on April 19, 1783, the Crimean Peninsula was taken away from the dominion of the Ottomans and handed over to Russia. However, one of the most important provisions of this treaty was the debarment of independence for the Peninsula and outlawing its submission to a third party: Should any such attempt be made, then Crimea would automatically have to be returned to the sovereignty of Turkey.

    When Ukraine appeared as an independent nation following the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, Turkey acquired the right to claim the Peninsula back based on the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca; however, this was not brought up by the Turgut Ozal administration of the time. Turkey was content with advocating for the rights of the Tatar minority living on the Crimean Peninsula.

    What Turkey needs to do at this point is to make efforts to calm down both parties in order to preserve the unity of Ukraine

    Ceylan Ozbudak

    That being the case, we may acknowledge that Crimea has always been a particularly indispensable region for Turkey on account of the close relations of the Ottoman State with the Crimean Khanate and the presence of the Crimean Tatars there. In addition, Ukraine is one of the foremost neighbors of Turkey, and in terms of the balance in the Black Sea region, it is important. Just as the name “Crimea” implies the largest Russian naval base at Sevastopol for Russia, the same “Crimea” connotes brotherhood with Turkic Muslims from the Ottoman times. For that reason, both Russia and Turkey have excluded the Autonomous Republic of Crimea from their policies related with Ukraine.

    Stalin’s genocide of Crimean Turks

    On top of that, for the majority of Turkish people who are well-read in history, the Crimean land has a distinct place when compared with other Turkic Republics, because similar to Hitler’s “holocaust” against the Jews, Stalin carried out atrocities against the Crimean Turks. Stalin’s campaign of forced ethnic cleansing and the relocation of the Crimean Turks is still well-remembered.

    The Crimean Tatars and the Noghai were peoples of the Crimean Khanate and amongst the largest groups who emigrated to the Ottoman State and the Republic of Turkey. The settlement of hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars and Noghai made dramatic changes in the demography of the Ottoman State and its successor, the Republic of Turkey.

    While the Turkish population in Crimea in 1783 was 98 percent, following the Russian invasion this was reduced to 35 percent.
    The Crimean People’s Republic, which was founded following the Bolshevik Revolution, was brought to an end with the martyrdom of the president, Numan Celebi Cihan. The “Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” established in 1921 under the supervision of Moscow did not grant the Crimeans any freedom; the Crimean intellectuals who opposed the propaganda of the Communists against Islam and Turkish identity were deported to Siberia and the Ural mountains (mostly to die in GULAG camps).

    The period following WWII was perhaps the most difficult for the Muslim – Turk community in the region. When Crimea was seized by the Russians, the entire Turkish population living in those lands for the last 1,500 years was promptly exiled. By means of a decree issued in 1945 by the Soviet government, the “Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” was abolished. The Crimean land attained the status of a state which belonged first to Russia, and then under the Kruschev government was transferred to Ukraine.

    While a struggle for independence was going on for the Crimean Turks who had been ruthlessly deported from their nation, the homeless Russian population was made to settle in the very same land. The nearly 40 years of exile of the Crimean Turks was partly ended in 1987 when their rally for independence in Red Square turned into a major display of political power. The Soviet regime, unable to resist, subsequently allowed the Crimeans to return to their homeland. While about 20,000 Turks were living in Crimea in 1989, this figure increased to 150,000 by 1991. Today, their population is estimated to be around 300,000 and growing.

    Today, the part of Crimea that strives for closer relations with Russia – and even aspires to annexing itself to Russia once full independence is achieved – is comprised of the ethnic Russians who settled in the Crimea post-World War II.

    What should Turkey do?

    Obviously what Turkey needs to do at this point is to make efforts to calm down both parties in order to preserve the unity of Ukraine and help them find a solution to their disagreements. Despite the obvious advantages for Ukraine in being a part of the European Union, there is no point in being surprised at Russia’s insistence that Ukraine should be part of its Customs Union and planned Eurasian Union.

    Under these conditions, what Turkey should do is strive to calm the parties in order to protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine and to help Ukraine remain a state that enjoys fruitful joint relations both with the EU and with Russia by solving their domestic problems through dialogue. It must not be forgotten that Ukraine is very important for Russia in transferring its energy resources to Europe. Turkey and Azerbaijan constitute the basic axis of the South Gas Corridor (SGC). The possibility of Israel getting involved in the energy business and getting connected to the SGC, not to mention Iran’s demand to join this energy axis raises the possibility of Russia cutting off this south passages completely. Let us not also forget that Russia attaches great importance to the Sevastopol naval base and doesn’t want to see it under any strategic threat.

    How can Turkey set an example to Ukraine?

    Crimea rests at the epicenter of all this and does not have the power to resist, neither economically or sociologically, such strong pressure. Under these conditions Turkey should get involved more deeply and help the region by adopting a policy that embraces all Ukrainians and all the Crimean population.

    Just as Turkey has been able to maintain both internal and external balances despite standing in what may well be the biggest intersection in the world, Turkey should lead the way for Ukraine as well. Anatolia sits at the junction of Europe, Asia and Africa, on prolific agricultural lands that are simultaneously poor in energy resources; yet ironically, Turkey is a hub of energy resources, as well as air and sea transportation. Turkey is also a melting pot of various ideologies and hostilities. She is the intersection of the European understanding of modern democracy, the old leftist ideologies of Russia and the Eastern Bloc, Arab nationalism and Islamic denominations. She holds a position that has been able to establish equal relations with Israel and Iran, Russia and the Gulf Countries, and has still been able to peacefully harbor all these factors inside the vastness of the Anatolian Steppes.

    When we evaluate all these factors, it would be a grave mistake to expect Turkey to adopt a policy that would harm the territorial integrity of Ukraine by making a claim in Crimea. As I have stated above, Turkey should help create a situation that would preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity with Crimea, one that would see Ukraine approach the European Union, yet not completely break away from Russia. The situation should also finally help in establishing a solid democracy with the norms of the European Union. We need a new policy approach in Europe with a model which will leave the Twentieth Century’s bi-polar world behind and keep alliances on the back burner. We need neighbors that can act in a more integrated manner by ridding themselves of obsolete worldviews, leftovers from the era of the Cold War. We need mature and wise statesmen who can hold the hands of parties in conflict in order to make them meet in the middle and make peace instead of picking sides or cowering behind barricades at the slightest complication. Turkey has been able to hold on to its moral values and has been able to stand tall and stand strong, even in the perennially restless Middle East, and can thus set an example for Ukraine.

    ______________________

    Ceylan Ozbudak is a Turkish political analyst, television presenter, and executive director of Building Bridges, an Istanbul-based NGO. As a representative of Harun Yahya organization, she frequently cites quotations from the author in her writings. She can be followed on Twitter via @ceylanozbudak

  • Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics: The Circassians Cry Genocide

    Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics: The Circassians Cry Genocide

    Sochi, the site for the 2014 winter Olympics, just happens to be where the russians dispossessed an entire nation exactly 150 years earlier. the survivors’ descendants say it was genocide—and now they’re demanding justice.

    1940: Circassian guards at the home of collaborationist Gen. Maxime Weygand. (Margaret Bourke-White / Time & Life Pictures-Getty Images)
    1940: Circassian guards at the home of collaborationist Gen. Maxime Weygand. (Margaret Bourke-White / Time & Life Pictures-Getty Images)

    Vladimir Putin may think he has trouble enough on Moscow’s streets without worrying about demonstrators outside the country. If so, perhaps he should think again. This week in Istanbul, New York, Brussels, and other world cities, protesters are taking aim at his most cherished project: the 2014 Winter Olympics. Although the facilities at the Caucasus Mountains resort of Sochi are already winning enthusiastic praise from visiting skiers, thousands of angry activists are determined to spoil Putin’s party.

    The marchers are Circassians, the descendants of a people who once had their own country on the shores of the Black Sea, between Crimea and the modern-day Republic of Georgia. They lost it a century and a half ago to a brutal campaign by the imperial Russian army to seize the entire Caucasus region. The Circassians resisted for four decades until May 21, 1864, when they finally surrendered and were expelled from the land of their fathers. Until recently their descendants marked the date only with quiet remembrance ceremonies. But in 2007 the International Olympic Committee accepted Russia’s bid to hold the 2014 Games at Sochi—the very place where the Circassians surrendered in 1864. Since then, May 21 has become a day of rage.

    “How would you feel—how would the Russians feel, if athletes came from all over the world to ski or ice-skate on the graves of their ancestors—and [the athletes] did not even know they were doing it?” demands Danyal Merza. Last May 21, the 29-year-old telephone technician, along with two other ethnic Circassians, his friends Clara and Allan Kadkoy, traveled from their homes in New Jersey all the way to Turkey, where most members of the Circassian diaspora now live. The four of us ended up near the head of a chanting crowd of thousands of Circassians. The human wave, topped by a foam of anti-Sochi banners, poured down Istanbul’s Istiklal Street before breaking against a triple line of police who stood with truncheons and tear gas outside the Russian consulate.

    Speaking into a bullhorn, Merza squared his shoulders and shouted the group’s demands in English: no Sochi Olympics, recognition of the Circassian genocide, and the right to move back to the homeland the Russians seized a century and a half ago. His listeners roared their approval in Turkish, and their voices resounded from the steep houses on either side: “We don’t want Olympics in Sochi!” Allan pumped his fist and shouted along with them. “It’s the first time I’ve chanted without knowing what the words mean,” he told me afterward. His wife was similarly transported. “I could never imagine feeling like this,” she said. “We might not speak Turkish, but we’re all saying the same thing in different languages.”

    more: Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics: The Circassians Cry Genocide – The Daily Beast.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/20/sochi-2014-winter-olympics-the-circassians-cry-genocide.html

  • Western Armenians demand Turkey’s recognition of Genocide

    Western Armenians demand Turkey’s recognition of Genocide

    73280PanARMENIAN.Net – On June 25, Moscow hosted Western Armenians’ convention, with 100 delegates from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov, Sochi, Adler, Krasnodar, Omsk, Petrozavodsk, Vladivostok, Crimea and Abkhazia attending.

    39 Russian delegates to participate in The Third Congress of Western Armenians due December 2011 in Paris were selected during the convention, Hyusisapayl Moscow-based newspaper reported.

    “National Council of Western Armenians will defend the legal rights of the descendants of Western Armenians in international organizations, negotiate with Turkish authorities and other interested parties to achieve Turkey’s recognition of Armenian Genocide as well as condemnation of 1915 massacres and compensation of moral, material and territorial damages,” the statement issued during the convention stressed.

    via Western Armenians demand Turkey’s recognition of Genocide – PanARMENIAN.Net.