Briefly on pro-Israel lobbyists in DC, Armenia [and Turkey], Turkey's UN SC goal, Turkmen gas

First published in June 7, 2008 Armenian Reporter

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

U.S. presidential hopefuls flock to pro-Israel lobby event

Underscoring the strong influence of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual policy conference held in Washington between June 2 and 4.

Sen. John McCain (R.-Az.), the GOP’s presumptive presidential candidate, sought to portray Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.), as soft on Israel’s security, pointing to his previously stated readiness to negotiate with Iran’s leaders.

Sen. Obama, who this week became the presumptive Democratic nominee, hit back saying that the Bush Administration’s policies have strengthened Iran’s hand in recent years, leaving Israel less secure. He pledged to remain a “true friend” of Israel.

Also addressing the annual gathering were Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as well Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.), who had not yet conceded defeat in the Democratic Party’s primary race.

American Jewish Committee reps. visit Armenia

Armenia’s President Serge Sargsian, Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian, and Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian separately received Peter Rosenblatt and Barry Jacobs of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), who visited Yerevan between May 28 and 30.

AJC officials were accompanied by Ross Vartian of the U.S.–Armenia Public Affairs Committee (USAPAC). According to government press releases, the meetings focused on Armenia’s relations with U.S., Turkey, and Israel.

Mr. Rosenblatt, a retired U.S. ambassador who is AJC’s chair for strategic policy, and Mr. Jacobs, also a former U.S. diplomat and AJC’s director for strategic studies, were last in Armenia in July 1999 during a regional trip that included visits to Stepanakert, Tbilisi, and Baku.

The AJC officials’ latest trip to the region also included a visit to Turkey. Ankara has long counted on support from Jewish groups for its Washington advocacy efforts. But during last year’s debate on the Armenian Genocide resolution, AJC did not take a public position on the issue.

Minister outlines Turkey’s foreign policy ambitions

Over the next year, Turkey will open 30 new diplomatic missions, mostly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, as part of its effort to raise the country’s global profile, Turkish foreign minister Ali Babacan said at the Atlantic Council of the United States, a Washington think tank, on June 3.

According to the Turkish press, as part of his working visit to the United States, Mr. Babacan will be meeting Vice President Dick Cheney, the secretaries of state, treasury, and energy, and members of Congress; he then will proceed to New York for a United Nations conference on June 10–11.

Since 2004 Turkey has been actively courting international support, including through financial aid to distant Pacific and Carribean island states, in the effort to win a two-year term (2009–10) on the United Nations’ Security Council.

The election is scheduled for October 16. In recent years, Turkey has been active as a mediator between rival factions in Lebanon as well as between Syria and Israel.

During his June 3 presentation, Mr. Babacan also pointed to the recent correspondence from Turkish leaders to newly elected and appointed Armenian leaders as reflecting Ankara’s desire to normalize relations with Armenia.

“Of course we have to address the past, the issue of the events of 1915,” Mr. Babacan said and restated his government’s offer of a joint commission of historians, first articulated in 2005, and Turkey’s readiness “to accept any conclusion of the commission.”

On the subject of Karabakh, he expressed support for a peaceful settlement along the lines acceptable to Turkey’s ethnic ally Azerbaijan.

Hopes revive for U.S.-backed Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan gas link

The Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan, believed to possess the world’s fourth-largest natural gas resources (after Russia, Iran, and Qatar), may be again considering building a pipeline under the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan to export its gas to Europe while bypassing existing lines through Russia and Iran, recent diplomatic forays and media reports suggest.

Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov visited Baku on May 19, the first such visit by a Turkmen leader since 1996. The ethnically linked nations have had frosty relations over the past decade, postponing any bilateral engagement or projects. The two countries have not yet resolved disputes over several offshore hydrocarbon deposits.

The Turkmen visit was followed by Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev’s trip to Ukraine on May 22, where he was reported to have discussed energy issues. And on May 29–30, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher and Deputy Assistant Secretary David Merkel, officials responsible for U.S. relations with Central Asia and Eastern Europe, respectively, followed up with a visit to Baku.

Most European states, especially those in Eastern Europe, are strongly dependent on Russia for natural gas supplies. Since the early 1990s the United States has facilitated the development of the Caspian-Caucasus-Turkey energy transportation route in an effort to break Europe’s reliance on Russian supplies.

—Haik Gugarats contributed to this week’s Briefing.

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Watchdog cites Turkey for denial campaign

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The latest issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report, released on June 3, includes a report on the Turkish government’s campaign to recruit allies in its effort to deny the Armenian Genocide.

The Intelligence Report, a quarterly investigative journal that monitors the radical right, has some 300,000 subscribers, mainly in law enforcement, academia, and political activism, plus free Internet access.

A network of U.S. scholars funded by the government of Turkey is part of an energetic campaign to cover up the Turkish genocide of as many as 1.5 million Armenians during World War I, an effort that has found success in Congress and the White House, the article notes.

The article, “State of Denial: Turkey Spends Millions to Cover Up Armenian Genocide,” by David Holthouse, tracks genocide denial from the time when Armenians were still wasting away in the Syrian desert to the present day.

“What we are seeing is a despicable rewriting of history aimed at absolving the perpetrators of mass murder and demonizing their victims,” said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report.

“It is no different than the Holocaust denial of Nazi sympathizers who claim there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and Treblinka.”

The summer 2008 issue of the Intelligence Report can be read at www.splcenter.org.
Ex-Speaker Hastert now a lobbyist Meanwhile, Former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.) has joined the Washington offices of Dickstein Shapiro, a law and lobby firm. The firm has done work for the government of Turkey and Turkish companies. Reached by ABC News, a spokesperson for the firm could not say whether or not Mr. Hastert would be working on projects involving that country.

A 2005 Vanity Fair article alleged that Turkish groups and individuals at the Turkish Consulate in Chicago had discussed funneling tens of thousands of dollars
to Mr. Hastert in exchange for political favors.

Mr. Hastert’s spokesperson at the time denied that Mr. Hastert had any knowledge of Turkish groups and had done no favors, Justin Rood reports for ABC News.

Briefly: “Genocide Prevention Task Force” launched, ICG warns of war in Karabakh, AIPAC visits Azerbaijan

This was originally published in November 17, 2007 Armenian Reporter.
by Emil Sanamyan

Former administration officials face credibility questions as they launch anti-genocide effort
Former Secretaries of State and Defense Madeleine Albright and William Cohen this week announced the formation of the “Genocide prevention task force,” which they will co-chair. But while launching the effort at a press conference at the National Press Club on November 13, they repeatedly heard questions, including from the Armenian Reporter, about their credibility on the issue.

In addition to working against Armenian Genocide affirmation while in government, last September both Ms. Albright and Mr.Cohen co-signed letters opposing House Resolution 106, which affirms the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide. The former defense secretary’s lobby shop, the Cohen Group, maintains a “strategic alliance” with DLA Piper, one of the major lobbyists for the Turkish government.

Asked if their opposition to Armenian Genocide affirmation meant that the U.S. “shouldn’t be taking action on future genocides because of what it could mean to U.S. interests,” the former secretaries appeared to agree.

“There are no absolutes in this,” said Mr. Cohen. “There is an element of pragmatism... I think anyone serving in public office necessarily has to have a set of balancing factors to take into account.” In a follow-up comment one of the journalists noted: “It sounds as if both of you are saying that ‘if our friends do it, it’s not genocide, if our enemies do it, it is genocide.’”

“Secretaries Albright and Cohen can’t have it both ways,” argued the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) executive director Aram Hamparian. “Either they stand unconditionally against all genocides all the time, or, by choosing to only raise their voices when it’s convenient, they surrender their moral standing on this, the core human rights and humanitarian issue of our time.”

The Albright-Cohen “task force,” established jointly by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, “will generate practical recommendations to enhance the U.S. government’s capacity to respond to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities” in a report scheduled for release in December 2008.

Connect at http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/taskforce/press/?content=2007-11-13


Think tank warns of increased risk of war in Karabakh by 2012
The International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank this week renewed its call on Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders to make progress toward a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, although admitting that “the oil boom and extensive military development in Azerbaijan and steady economic growth in Armenia suggest that neither will feel compelled to compromise.”

In its “Nagorno Karabakh: Risking War” report issued on November 14, ICG said that the international community should do more to prevent a potential military escalation. Its analysts concluded that while an “all-out war” was unlikely in the near future, the risk of war “may reach a new level around 2012, however, when Azerbaijan’s oil revenues are expected to begin to decline.”

“At that point, Baku might be tempted to conclude that the balance of power was at its most favorable and that an appeal to extreme nationalism could counteract popular disenchantment with the regime. Before this happens, the international community needs to lose its complacency and lobby with all available pressure for peace.”

The peace formula currently on the table involves withdrawal of Armenian forces from around Karabakh, with “special modalities for Lachin and Kelbajar,” and parties agreeing that Karabakh’s status should be finalized through a new referendum. ICG suggested that parties should endorse basic principles of settlement, while also noting their disagreements, as soon as possible.

ICG is co-chaired by retired former senior British and U.S. officials Chris Patten and Thomas Pickering and led by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans. Its previous report on “Nagorno Karabakh: Plan for Peace” issued in October 2005 also warned that increased defense spending and war rhetoric were “ominous signs that time for a peace agreement is running out.”

Connect at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5157&l=1
See also the Armenian Reporter’s editorial on page A10.


Members of U.S. Israeli lobby visit Azerbaijan
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) National Board member Ron Barness led the organization’s delegation on a visit to Azerbaijan, which included a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev on November 9, the latter’s press office reported the same day.

In the meeting Mr. Barness reportedly “stressed existence of tolerance and attention to the representatives of different confessions, including representatives of the Jewish community, in Azerbaijan.”

Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan Artur Lenk told the Trend news agency on October 25 that the group intended to visit to Azerbaijan, as well as Turkey, to promote these countries’ relations with the U.S. and Israel, and that “after the visit to the region the issue will be raised at the U.S. Congress.”

There have been no public reports about the AIPAC group’s trip to Turkey.


Armenia declines to join another Russian demarche at OSCE
Russia along with Belarus, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan suggested more restrictive guidelines for registration of nongovernmental organizations at the Vienna-based Organizations for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Washington-based Freedom House reported on November 6.

The initiative is unlikely to be endorsed by the OSCE, which operates on a consensus basis, but Moscow has used such proposals to gain leverage for concessions on other issues of interest.

Armenia, which joined an earlier proposal by Russia to curtail OSCE election monitoring (see Tatul Hakobyan’s report and analysis in the November 10 Armenian Reporter), declined to endorse the latest effort.

According to a source familiar with OSCE proceedings, the Armenian government resisted Russian lobbying because it has generally good relations with Armenian NGOs. After Armenia pulled out from the initiative, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyz Republic followed suit.

Nareg Seferian contributed to this week’s column.