Taiwan
Germany
South Korea
By George Friedman
Azerbaijan, constantly changing world affairs and here is what George Friedman who is publicly know as shadow CIA has to say about Azerbaijan and history.
I arrive in Azerbaijan as the country celebrates Victory Day, the day successor states of the former Soviet Union celebrate the defeat of Germany in World War II. No one knows how many Soviet citizens died in that war — perhaps 22 million. The number is staggering and represents both the incompetence and magnificence of Russia, which led the Soviets in war. Any understanding of Russia that speaks of one without the other is flawed.
As I write, fireworks are going off over the Caspian Sea. The pyrotechnics are long and elaborate, sounding like an artillery barrage. They are a reminder that Baku was perhaps the most important place in the Nazi-Soviet war. It produced almost all of the Soviet Union’s petroleum. The Germans were desperate for it and wanted to deny it to Moscow. Germany’s strategy after 1942, including the infamous battle of Stalingrad, turned on Baku’s oil. In the end, the Germans threw an army against the high Caucasus guarding Baku. In response, an army raised in the Caucasus fought and defeated them. The Soviets won the war. They wouldn’t have if the Germans had reached Baku. It is symbolic, at least to me, that these celebrations blend into the anniversary of the birth of Heydar Aliyev, the late president of Azerbaijan who endured the war and later forged the post-Soviet identity of his country. He would have been 91 on May 10.
Baku is strategic again today, partly because of oil. I’ve started the journey here partly by convenience and partly because Azerbaijan is key to any counter-Russian strategy that might emerge. My purpose on this trip is to get a sense of the degree to which individual European states feel threatened by Russia, and if they do, the level of effort and risk they are prepared to endure. For Europe does not exist as anything more than a geographic expression; it is the fears and efforts of the individual nation-states constituting it that will determine the course of this affair. Each nation is different, and each makes its own calculus of interest. My interest is to understand their thinking, not only about Russia but also about the European Union, the United States and ultimately themselves. Each is unique; it isn’t possible to make a general statement about them.
Some question whether the Caucasus region and neighboring Turkey are geographically part of Europe. There are many academic ways to approach this question. My approach, however, is less sophisticated. Modern European history cannot be understood without understanding the Ottoman Empire and the fact that it conquered much of the southeastern part of the European peninsula. Russia conquered the three Caucasian states — Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan — and many of their institutions are Russian, hence European. If an organic European expression does exist, it can be argued to be Eurovision, the pan-continental music competition. The Azerbaijanis won it in 2011, which should settle any debate on their “Europeanness.”
But more important, a strategy to block Russia is hard to imagine without including its southern flank. There is much talk of sanctions on Russia. But sanctions can be countered and always ignore a key truth: Russia has always been economically dysfunctional. It has created great empires and defeated Napoleon and Hitler in spite of that. Undermining Russia’s economy may be possible, but that does not always undermine Russia’s military power. That Soviet military power outlived the economically driven collapse of the Soviet Union confirms this point. And the issue at the moment is military.
The solution found for dealing with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was containment. The architect of this strategy was diplomat George Kennan, whose realist approach to geopolitics may have lost some adherents but not its relevance. A cordon sanitaire was constructed around the Soviet Union through a system of alliances. In the end, the Soviets were unable to expand and choked on their own inefficiency. There is a strange view abroad that the 21st century is dramatically different from all prior centuries and such thinking is obsolete. I have no idea why this should be so. The 21st century is simply another century, and there has been no transcendence of history. Containment was a core strategy and it seems likely that it will be adopted again — if countries like Azerbaijan are prepared to participate.
To understand Azerbaijan you must begin with two issues: oil and a unique approach to Islam. At the beginning of the 20th century, over half the world’s oil production originated near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Hence Hitler’s strategy after 1942. Today, Azerbaijani energy production is massive, but it cannot substitute for Russia’s production. Russian energy production, meanwhile, defines part of the strategic equation. Many European countries depend substantially on Russian energy, particularly natural gas. They have few alternatives. There is talk of U.S. energy being shipped to Europe, but building the infrastructure for that (even if there are supplies) will take many years before it can reduce Europe’s dependence on Russia.
Withholding energy would be part of any Russian counter to Western pressure, even if Russia were to suffer itself. Any strategy against Russia must address the energy issue, begin with Azerbaijan, and be about more than production. Azerbaijan is not a major producer of gas compared to oil. On the other side of the Caspian Sea, however, Turkmenistan is. Its resources, coupled with Azerbaijan’s, would provide a significant alternative to Russian energy. Turkmenistan has an interest in not selling through Russia and would be interested in a Trans-Caspian pipeline. That pipeline would have to pass through Azerbaijan, connecting onward to infrastructure in Turkey. Assuming Moscow had no effective counters, this would begin to provide a serious alternative to Russian energy and decrease Moscow’s leverage. But this would all depend on Baku’s willingness and ability to resist pressure from every direction.
Azerbaijan lies between Russia and Iran. Russia is the traditional occupier of Azerbaijan and its return is what Baku fears the most. Iran is partly an Azeri country. Nearly a quarter of its citizens, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are Azeri. But while both Azerbaijan and Iran are predominantly Shiite, Azerbaijan is a militantly secular state. Partly due to the Soviet experience and partly because of the unique evolution of Azeri identity since the 19th century, Azerbaijan separates the private practice of Islam from public life. I recall once attending a Jewish Passover feast in Baku that was presided over by an Orthodox rabbi, with security provided by the state. To be fair, Iran has a Jewish minority that has its own lawmaker in parliament. But any tolerance in Iran flows from theocratic dogma, whereas in Azerbaijan it is rooted in a constitution that is more explicitly secular than any in the European Union, save that of France.
This is just one obvious wedge between Azerbaijan and Iran, and Tehran has made efforts to influence the Azeri population. For the moment, relations are somewhat better but there is an insoluble tension that derives from geopolitical reality and the fact that any attack on Iran could come from Azerbaijan. Furthering this wedge are the close relations between Azerbaijan and Israel. The United States currently blocks most weapons sales to Azerbaijan. Israel — with U.S. approval — sells the needed weapons. This gives us a sense of the complexity of the relationship, recalling that complexity undermines alliances.
The complexity of alliances also defines Russia’s reality. It occupies the high Caucasus overlooking the plains of Azerbaijan. Armenia is a Russian ally, bound by an agreement that permits Russian bases through 2044. Yerevan also plans to join the Moscow-led Customs Union, and Russian firms own a large swath of the Armenian economy. Armenia feels isolated. It remains hostile to Turkey for Ankara’s unwillingness to acknowledge events of a century ago as genocide. Armenia also fought a war with Azerbaijan in the 1990s, shortly after independence, for a region called Nagorno-Karabakh that had been part of Azerbaijan — a region that it lost in the war and wants back. Armenia, caught between Turkey and an increasingly powerful Azerbaijan, regards Russia as a guarantor of its national security.
For Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh remains a critical issue. Azerbaijan holds that U.N. resolutions have made it clear that Armenia’s attack constituted a violation of international law, and a diplomatic process set up in Minsk to resolve the crisis has proven ineffective. Azerbaijan operates on two tracks on this issue. It pursues national development, as can be seen in Baku, a city that reflects the oil wealth of the country. It will not endanger that development, nor will it forget about Nagorno-Karabakh. At some point, any nation aligning itself with Azerbaijan will need to take a stand on this frozen conflict, and that is a high price for most.
Which leads me to an interesting symmetry of incomprehension between the United States and Azerbaijan. The United States does not want to sell weapons directly to Azerbaijan because of what it regards as violations of human rights by the Azerbaijani government. The Americans find it incomprehensible that Baku, facing Russia and Iran and needing the United States, cannot satisfy American sensibilities by avoiding repression — a change that would not threaten the regime. Azerbaijan’s answer is that it is precisely the threats it faces from Iran and Russia that require Baku to maintain a security state. Both countries send operatives into Azerbaijan to destabilize it. What the Americans consider dissidents, Azerbaijan sees as agents of foreign powers. Washington disputes this and continually offends Baku with its pronouncements. The Azerbaijanis, meanwhile, continually offend the Americans.
This is similar to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Most Americans have never heard of it and don’t care who owns it. For the Azerbaijanis, this is an issue of fundamental historical importance. They cannot understand how, after assisting the United States in Afghanistan, risking close ties with Israel, maintaining a secular Islamic state and more, the United States not only cannot help Baku with Nagorno-Karabakh but also insists on criticizing Azerbaijan.
The question on human rights revolves around the interpretation of who is being arrested and for what reason. For a long time this was an issue that didn’t need to be settled. But after the Ukrainian crisis, U.S.-Azerbaijani relations became critical. It is not just energy; rather, in the event of the creation of a containment alliance, Azerbaijan is the southeastern anchor of the line on the Caspian Sea. In addition, since Georgia is absolutely essential as a route for pipelines, given Armenia’s alliance with Russia, Azerbaijan’s support for Georgian independence is essential. Azerbaijan is the cornerstone for any U.S.-sponsored Caucasus strategy, should it develop.
I do not want to get into the question of either Nagorno-Karabakh or human rights in Azerbaijan. It is, for me, a fruitless issue arising from the deep historical and cultural imperatives of each. But I must take exception to one principle that the U.S. State Department has: an unwillingness to do comparative analysis. In other words, the State Department condemns all violations equally, whether by nations hostile to the United States or friendly to it, whether by countries with wholesale violations or those with more limited violations. When the State Department does pull punches, there is a whiff of bias, as with Georgia and Armenia, which — while occasionally scolded — absorb less criticism than Azerbaijan, despite each country’s own imperfect record.
Even assuming the validity of State Department criticism, no one argues that Azerbaijani repression rises anywhere near the horrors of Joseph Stalin. I use Stalin as an example because Franklin Roosevelt allied the United States with Stalin to defeat Hitler and didn’t find it necessary to regularly condemn Stalin while the Soviet Union was carrying the burden of fighting the war, thereby protecting American interests. That same geopolitical realism animated Kennan and ultimately created the alliance architecture that served the United States throughout the Cold War. Is it necessary to offend someone who will not change his behavior and whom you need for your strategy? The State Department of an earlier era would say no.
It was interesting to attend a celebration of U.S.-Azerbaijani relations in Washington the week before I came to Baku. In the past, these events were subdued. This one was different, because many members of Congress attended. Two guests were particularly significant. One was Charles Schumer of New York, who declared the United States and Azerbaijan to be great democracies. The second was Nancy Pelosi, long a loyalist to Armenian interests. She didn’t say much but chose to show up. It is clear that the Ukrainian crisis triggered this turnout. It is clear that Azerbaijan’s importance is actually obvious to some in Congress, and it is also clear that it signals tension over the policy of criticizing human rights records without comparing them to those of other countries and of ignoring the criticized country’s importance to American strategy.
This is not just about Azerbaijan. The United States will need to work with Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary — all of whom have been found wanting by the State Department in some ways. This criticism does not — and will not — produce change. Endless repetition of the same is the height of ineffectiveness. It will instead make any strategy the United States wants to construct in Europe ineffective. In the end, I would argue that a comparison between Russia and these other countries matters. Perfect friends are hard to find. Refusing to sell weapons to someone you need is not a good way to create an alliance.
In the past, it seemed that such an alliance was merely Cold War nostalgia by people who did not realize and appreciate that we had reached an age too wise to think of war and geopolitics. But the events in Ukraine raise the possibility that those unreconstructed in their cynicism toward the human condition may well have been right. Alliances may in fact be needed. In that case, Roosevelt’s attitude toward Stalin is instructive.
Edited By Tolga CAKIR
As the eurozone crisis shows signs of further deepening with the new uncertainties in the wake of Italian ‘non-elections’, Germany is increasingly under strain to keep the European Union intact.
Berlin has to deal not only with the brewing anti-austerity and anti-unionism in the Mediterranean strip of the EU (all the way from Cyprus through Portugal, except, perhaps, France), but also with an uneasy Britain and loudly impatient Turkey on the continent’s both flanks.
In that context, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Turkey must be added as another positive step toward melting the icy relationship between Ankara and the EU.
It follows two other important recent steps. First, France unblocked a chapter (of five) of Ankara’s negotiations with Brussels, coming during its current peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and secondly, Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly (57.5 percent) voted for the Democratic Rally (DISY) leader, Nicos Anastasiades in the presidential election, a strong signal of a mood change on the island.
Merkel’s visit was long overdue. It has been well-noted that she has visited Turkey only once in three years, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has visited Germany four times.
Should it be interpreted as the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) now being in accord with its coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), about the strategic importance, economic performance and crucial democratic transformation of Turkey? Perhaps. Does this mean that the German chancellor comes closer to CDU heavyweights who have been vocally pro-Turkish membership, such as Ruprecht Polenz, Chariman of the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, and gets ready to be challenged by others within?
Could be. Deep down she knows that she has the backing of those CDU strong figures, on central and local level, although a few, about remaining committed to coalition protocol on Turkey’s accession and support for it to continue. But a slight challenge nevertheless.
No matter what,one can hope that the visit and the positive sound of her messages indicate a long-lasting change of mind.
Cynics in Turkey and Germany think they have seen “no progress” between Erdoğan and Merkel on Turkey’s EU accession process. Populist Bild Zeitung, in another outburst of sensationalist Turkophobia, totally insensitive to Turkey’s internationally important democratization process as ever, declared that ‘Turkey would never be a full member of the EU’ — despite its powerful economy. (This view reveals more about some parts of the Europe than Turkey itself).
Bild is joined in Turkey by voices that have been anti-reform, anti-AKP and anti-Europe.
The truth, and the good news, is, Merkel not only endorsed France’s unblocking move, but also signaled that other chapters may follow, with perhaps a second one even before the end of the Irish term presidency in the EU. One understands that she needs to balance very carefully in an election year for Germany on a subject which can shake and stir the votes.
There are many aspects to why Germany should be more active, frank and clear about its relations with Turkey and its policy on the EU negotiations. Pro-EU arguments based on today’s Turkish economy speak for themselves, as outlined by Kemal Derviş, the vice president of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a former minister of economic affairs of Turkey, for the daily Handelsblatt on Feb. 25, 2013 in an article titled “Die Politik ist am Zug” (“The policy is on track”).
Apart from fine figures on inflation, growth, reduced deficit, employment, strong currency and reserves, German politicians do look with admiration at “hardworking” Turks (a virtue they value highly), when they compare them with the Mediterranean citizens of the EU.
Turkey with such an economy is now too big for Germany to ignore, and far too important to be seen only as a simple trading partner, no doubt. Therefore, the tough visa regulations and the particularly rigid implementation of it attributed to German general councils in Turkey must be eased — liberalized in the sense that, once having passed a security check, Turkish citizens must be given five-year, multiple-entry Schengen visas.
Nor should there be any doubt that increasing defense cooperation through NATO on Syria creates a new momentum for Berlin to realize more deeply Turkey’s significance on the southeastern flank of the continent, as it shoulders increasing burdens. Stability in Turkey, in that sense, can be said to be serving the stability of Germany, and of Europe as a whole.
Merkel did not say much on Turkey’s Kurdish peace process, but given the presence of large, politicized Turkish communities; Alevi and Kurdish diasporas in her own country — take it for granted that solutions on all social rifts here will ease tensions there. Interests overlap.
And in that case, it is demanded that Germany more thoroughly consider indirect, discreet assistance to endorse Turkey in its struggle against historical demons. The EU membership process, kept alive and well, is the best help.
What Bild Zeitung and other populist tabloids do miss is that, what still matters most for Turkey’s reformist camp is the perspective of, and not necessarily, membership.
Given the current turmoil and identity crisis the EU is in, it can be said that there will have to be referendums on Turkish membership — in Europe and Turkey – between now and the final decision. The process is still premature: It needs a decade or more. So, no need for myopia.
Merkel is certainly right in her arguments about Cyprus (that Turkey opens its sea and airports to its flights and vessels), even if it is an issue that still needs time, given the stalemate. Before that, both sides on the island must show a concrete, willful progress on reaching a settlement.
It has become also clear that Erdoğan is willing to resolve the issue in a broader context.
He expects a complementary signal from Anastasiades, and has in mind a “package solution” that should involve Cypriots as well as Greece, energy, security and economic cooperation in Eastern Mediterranean, with the backing of Britain and the U.S.
Germany can play a crucial role, in both EU and NATO context, if Erdoğan’s ideas make any sense.
Thilo Sarrazin sits on the board of Germany’s conservative Central Bank and has worked for the IMF, and so when he makes racist remarks about Jews and Muslims, you can be pretty sure he is making them with the blessing of the entire German power elite.
The big guns of the country’s corporate media, Bild and Spiegel newspapers, have devoted acres of print to Sarrazin’s racist views, and his book on „immigration“ and „integratin“ has just been published by Bertelsmann in a fanfare of publicity.
Caught red-handed trying to inject their own population with toxic swine flu vaccines as well as wrecking the economy with an engineered financial crisis and now facing an awakening among the German people thanks to the alternative media, the German branch of Bilderberg elite, including their corporate media arm, are desperate to play the race card to divide and conquer and, above all, divert attention away from themselves.
Sarrazin’s remarks that all “Jews share a certain gene…which make them different from other people” were made in an interview with Germany’s “Welt am Sonntag” this Sunday.
In the politically correct atmosphere of Germany, the blatant racism of Sarrazin is theclearest sign yet that the German elite are modelling themselves on the Nazis.
The Nazis also considered Jews to be genetically different – and crucially racially inferior. This alleged racial inferiority was supposed to be the justification for butchering millions of Jews in concentration camps in world war two.
By positing the existence of a Jewish gene, Sarrazin is only one step away from criminalising it and then punishing it just as the Nazi did.
Sarrazin regularly launches racist tirades against Muslims and scathing attacks on the millions of Germans impoverished by the bankers scams who are forced to draw the meagre Hartz IV benefits while the bankers get billions if not trillions of tax payer money thrown at them under the pretext of one bailout or another by their friends in government.
Sarrazins’s views are a chilling echo of the statements of NSDAP Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, who complained in 1933 about the low birth rate among Germans and the growing proportion of „inferior people“.
Predictably, Sarrazin’s remarks have met with only luke warm condemnation for the public from Germany’s Bilderberg political elite.
Helmut Schmidt, the former Social Demcorat Chancellor, said that he would have agreed with much of what Sarrazin said if he had expressed himself more carefully. CDU Chancellor and Bilderberg member Angela Merkel made a half-hearted attempt to appear outraged on television on Sunday.
But there can be no doubt that Sarrazin is just a puppet of the elite and from his remarks, it is clear the Jews and the Muslims look set to be made the scapegoats again for Germany’s very real decline, which has been caused by the Bilderberg elite and the bankers like Sarrazin.
It is this global elite that has introduced policies that have led to the decimation of the middle class in Germany, the erosion of the education system and the collapse of social security, the impoverishment of large sections of the population through the euro and financial crisis scam as well as the introducion of a police surveillance state just as has happened in the USA.
The global “elite’s” agenda for a one world government and police state has been documented by websites such as Infowars.
To achieve their goal of igniting world war three with Iran in 2011, the German power eilite clearly believe they have to whip up hatred against the Muslims and Jews living inside the country as a first step.
Cue Sarrazin: the central banker, former finance senator of deeply-indebted Berlin and a top manager of German state railways is wheeled onto the corporate media stage to portray the Muslims and Jews as the „enemy within“. He implies they are racially despoiling the German people with their low „IQs“ and foreign „genes“.
A false flag (bio?) terrorism incident is all that is needed to provide the pretext for a big internal crackdown as well as for world war three. We can all read the script.
In the meantime, hardly a day goes by without Bild newspaper showing the Defence Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg – the George Bush of Germany from the pampered Bilderberg elite circle – parading around as a psdeuo patriot, visiting German troops in Afghanistan while placing yet more orders for weapons, which will generate yet more profits for his banker and industrialist friends.
Aside from engaging in photo opportunities for mass media war mongering, Guttenberg is also pushing plans to scrap military conscription, the last block to Germany engaging in another disastrous offensive war. Conscripts, at least, can only serve on German territory.
At a time when the German people are increasingly waking up to the fact that it is their own corrupted government and corporations that are their biggest problem, the country’s elite cannot, it seems, divert attention away from their activities fast enough.
An example of the growing grass roots anger among Germans were the demonstractions against the Stuttgart 21 project: more than four billion euro is to be devoted to plans to build a supermodern, underground station which will benefit only a tiny corporate elite will use the expensive trains.
Germans from all age groups marched together in Stuttgart to demand an end to the waste of their tax money money on the pet projects of the elite when budgets for schools, hospitals are being slashed and not even the climate conditioners of the trains work.
State railways manager elite have — with typical disdain for the ordinary people who have to fund their many lavish projects — vowed to press on with their pet hi-tech railway project in Stuttgart and called in the police to guard the station while slashing social budgets to the bone.
It is not just in Germany but also in Austria that political parties are whipping up racism: the far right Freedom Party is also scape goating Muslims while the OVP Interior Minister Maria Fekter has made insulting remarks about the Roma.
In France, President Nioclas Sarkozy has ordered police to raid Roma camps and deport Gypsies, sparking protests The Roma were another target of Nazi racism during the second world war.
The Germans and Austrians have seen this all before, and awakened by the independent media, they will reject the barbaric brew racism and wars being concocted by the Bilderberg elite this time round, and bring this group to court to account for their many financial and other crimes.
Source:
I am not racist, but very frequently you hear these words in Germany, and they are often used before a tirade against foreigners. Of course, racism is a worldwide phenomenon, but it is a fact that Germans have a reputation for being an extremely racist people. Many Germans are very offended by this and claim that it is not true. Haven’t we taken in more refugees than all other European Union member states together? Don’t they owe their lives to us? Don’t we give them homes? What is racist about that? These are tirades that they argue vehemently. However, if you look at the matter more closely, you will see that those arguments are neither sufficient nor convincing.
If you look at the way refugees are treated instead at how many there are living here, you will not exactly find proof for Germany’s anti-racism. Some refugee camps are so run-down and filthy that even animals would be extremely unhappy there. Some refugees live in rooms without windows, and if they earn money, they even have to pay for such a place to live.
Moreover, even decent refugee camps are always very dangerous places, because they are popular targets for crazy neonazis who might throw bombs at them. This has happened far too often already. There is a huge amount of hatred behind all that. What is worst, and what scares me very much, is that nothing is really being done about neonazis. Even their political party called NPD (Germany’s nationalistic party, or Nationalsozialistische Partei Deutschlands) still exists, which I find unbelievable, especially considering Germanys history. To me, even the resemblance of that party’s name to Hitler’s NSDAP (Germany’s Nationalist workers party, or Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), which existed during the Third Reich, is very offensive. However, it is not only neonazis that foster so much hate against foreigners. Near my home town, for example, an African was killed by policemen some years ago.
Germans always claim to be tolerant and open-minded towards other cultures. This might be true for certain cultures, namely those similar to our own, like people from Europe, North America or Australia. However, the picture is totally different with foreigners from more exotic places, especially for those with a dark skin. Among those, refugees are certainly the least popular inhabitants of Germany, but they are by no means the only kind of foreigners being ostracized. I have nothing against them, but they should keep to themselves, and so should we, many Germans argue, completely unaware of the contradiction within this statement. For reasons probably not even clear to them, many people think that spending time with blacks will ruin someone’sreputation.
Any person who believes that the German society is not racist should look at the way many parents react when their daughter or son has a black partner. Some will even refuse to regard their child as a member of their family any longer. Moreover, Germans with black partners walking along the street will merely be stared at if they are lucky, or if not, they will be called abusive names. Watching such scenarios will surely make anyone at least doubt the fact that Germans are friendly towards foreigners.
As usual in such matters, one should be careful not to generalise. There are German people who are extremely open-minded. An old lady once invited me and an African friend to sit with her in the tram and spoke to us in a very friendly way throughout our journey. However, I have found such people and situations to be the exception. Certainly there is some degree of racism in any country, but I still have to say that Germany gives a particularly bad picture, especially compared to other European countries. During my holidays in Sweden, Ireland or England I have walked along the street with African, Japanese and Indian people, and I have never been stared at as I have in Germany.
To me, it is apparent that there is far too much racism in my country and that it must be fought with much more determination than politicians are showing at this stage.
The Cheers
A comment from a reader
Andreas Muller says on 2010-02-18 22:07:24 about Racism in Germany
Of course we are racist as German and we are very proud on that. But there are many racists in USA too. Racism in USA is other matter. Now the topic is about this fact, that Germans are centre of extreme racism and it’s true. Our racism is hidden and modernized into sadistically making pain to foreigners. We ruin the life of foreigners and we conspire against them. For us the foreigners are like home animal or prisoners. We as Germans want to make a new spread fascism around the world by our lobbies in other countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has arrived in Turkey for an official visit overshadowed by disagreements over Ankara’s plans to join the EU.
Mrs Merkel opposes full EU membership for Turkey, which began negotiations to become a member in 2005.
There are also disagreements over the education of Turkish children in Germany in the Turkish language.
Germany is Turkey’s biggest trading partner, and nearly three million Turks live in Germany.
Turkey’s sometimes fraught relationship with the European Union won’t be helped by this visit.
After months of avoiding the subject, Chancellor Merkel has chosen this moment to revive her idea of offering Turkey what she calls a privileged partnership with the EU, rather than full membership.
Mrs Merkel has stressed that she does see integration as possible in up to 28 of the 35 so-called chapters of EU law with which Turkey has to comply before it can become a full member of the union.
But her proposal has been firmly rejected by the Turkish government as a breach of the terms agreed when membership negotiations began five years ago.
‘Insulted’
“Such a thing as privileged partnership does not exist,” said Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for European affairs.
“So we do not take that option seriously because there is no legal foundation of it. At times I feel insulted for being offered something which does not exist.”
The chancellor does have plenty of other topics to discuss here, including Iran’s nuclear programme.
Turkey has recently strengthened its relations with Iran and opposes the tougher sanctions threatened by Western governments.
But their differences over EU membership will cast a shadow over any common ground they do find during this visit.
BBC