Obama, Islam, Turkey, Jews, Eurogas, etc.

This was first published in January 31, 2009 Armenian Reporter.

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

Obama seeks dialogue with Iran, Muslim world

"As I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us," President Barack Obama said in his first White House interview, granted to Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television on January 27.

In response, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would "welcome" a change in U.S. policy. But, as BBC News reported, that statement came after the Iranian president, who is facing re-election this June, issued a tirade of grievances against the United States.

Earlier, in an unusual gesture, Mr. Ahmadinejad sent a letter congratulating Mr. Obama on his election. The White House is reported to be currently drafting a letter to Iran. According to the Daily Telegraph "diplomatic drafts [of the letter] give assurances that Washington does not want to overthrow the Islamic regime, but merely seek a change in its behavior."

In the interview this week, Mr. Obama stressed the importance of dialogue. "It [is] important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress," he said.

By contrast, the former president, George W. Bush, refused to talk to Iran and pushed for tougher sanctions over Iran's enrichment of uranium.

In October 2007, both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney issued dire warnings. Mr. Cheney said that the United States "will not allow" Iran to have a nuclear weapon, while Mr. Bush spoke of possible "World War III" should Iran acquire a nuclear weapon.

But in December 2007, a U.S. intelligence assessment determined that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Although members of the U.S. and Israeli political establishments disagreed with the assessment, the Bush Administration began to tone down its Iran rhetoric.

Notwithstanding the Obama administration's emphasis on dialogue, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hinted recently that a military option remains on the table. In her January 13 Senate testimony, she said the new administration was "not taking any option off the table at all . . . to try to prevent" Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

(As a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton had threatened to "obliterate" Iran if it used nuclear weapons against Israel and had criticized her ultimately victorious rival's readiness to talk to Iran without preconditions.)

Mr. Obama, while reiterating the importance of Israel's security to the United States, said he wanted to convince the Muslims "that Americans are not your enemy."

Among steps designed to reach that goal, the Obama Administration is closing the Guantánamo Bay detention center, making preparations for pulling out of Iraq, and pledging a renewed focus on settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the wake of Israel's devastating attack on Gaza.

U.S. envoy George Mitchell will be visiting Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The Turkish media noted that the visit will be the first high-level U.S.-Turkish contact since the new president's inauguration.

Separately, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to the president inviting to him to attend the summit dubbed the Alliance of Civilizations planned for April 6-7 in Istanbul.

That initiative was first launched by Turkey and Spain under the United Nations umbrella in 2007. Its first forum in January 2008 did not include U.S. officials.

World optimistic about Obama presidency

A majority of more than 17,000 respondents queried in 17 countries around the world believe that their nations will enjoy better ties with the United States under President Barack Obama, according to a BBC World Service study released on January 20.

Fifty-one percent of Turks and 47 percent of Russians - groups that have in recent years been especially suspicious of U.S. intentions - were optimistic about positive change under President Obama.

Respondents were also asked about what they thought should be the top priority of the new U.S. administration, with most identifying "dealing with global financial crisis." See www.worldpublicopinion.org.

Jewish Americans “gravely distressed” with Turkey

Leaders of five Jewish-American organizations expressed profound concern over what they described as "the current wave of anti-Semitic manifestations in Turkey."

In a January 21 letter addressed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and made available to the Armenian Reporter, the letter's co-signers said their "Jewish friends in Turkey feel besieged and threatened" and called on Turkey to address "these disturbing developments."

They also disagreed with Turkey's harsh criticism of Israel's recent campaign in Gaza.

Mr. Erdogan called the Israeli operation a "crime against humanity" and an "evil" deed and went so far as to suggest that Israel should be barred from the United Nations. There have been numerous public demonstrations in Turkey in solidarity with Gaza.

On January 29, Mr. Erdogan joined Israel's President Shimon Peres at the Global Economic Forum in Switzerland and accused Israel of "barbarism" in Gaza, BBC News reported. The Turkish premier left the panel after the moderator, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, tried to cut off his microphone.

"We're not convinced that Turkey has earned the right to lecture Israelis about human rights," the Jerusalem Post had written in an editorial on January 5, citing Turkey's decades-long campaign against Kurdish rebels that has left tens of thousands of people dead.

The five co-signers of the letter are senior executives from the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), B'nai B'rith International, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

The organizations have in the past supported Turkey's agenda in Washington, including opposition to congressional resolutions on the Armenian Genocide. But following recent exchanges, Turkish daily Milliyet cited Jewish-American leaders as saying they are not inclined do so any more.

U.S. study: China, India, Russia to dominate headlines in next decade

U.S. global influence will diminish and that of China and India will increase in the next decade and half, according to a study prepared by the National Intelligence Council, an in-house think tank of the U.S. intelligence community.

Predictions made in the report, "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," released last November, see the world moving away from post-Cold War dominance by the United States to what political scientists have described as a multipolar or nonpolar world.

The report also underscores importance of Russia and Iran as major exporters of fossil energy, particularly natural gas, and in case of Russia also coal.

While none of the Caucasus states was mentioned individually, the Caucasus region was mentioned four times (three times as a source of conflicts and once as an energy corridor) and Caspian energy was mentioned twice.

Below is a table showing the number of times sixteen select countries are mentioned in the report, along with size of their economies.

Country Number of mentions 2007 GDP (in bn. USD)

China 190 3280

India 138 1100

Russia 138 1290

Iran 84 285

Japan 57 4381

Pakistan 25 144

Afghanistan 22 10

Iraq 20 55

Korea (N. & S.) 20 1000+

Israel 15 164

Turkey 15 659

Saudi Arabia 8 382

United Kingdom 6 2804

Germany 6 3320

France 4 2594

Ukraine 4 142

See report at http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf

European Union promises funding for Russia gas bypass

The European Commission has proposed $330 million in initial funding for what is known as the Nabucco gas pipeline. The proposal unveiled at a European Union (EU) conference held in Hungary on January 28 would need member-states' approval to go ahead. It comes shortly after the Russian-Ukrainian spat over gas supplies that left several Balkan countries without heating earlier this month.

In theory, the Nabucco pipeline would bring natural gas from Central Asia to Turkey and then on to Europe, substantially eroding Russia's current dominance in Europe's natural gas market. (The pipeline's unusual name is short for Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who according to the Old Testament freed the Jews and rebuilt their temple; there is also an opera of the same name.)

The pipeline, with an estimated price tag of more than $10 billion, has been slow to take off since it is still unclear where the gas would come from.

The United States and some of its European allies legally restrict energy cooperation with Iran, which is the second-largest gas producer after Russia and is the only real alternative.

Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, which have signed off as the only suppliers so far, are unlikely to be able to supply the needed 30 billion cubic meters of gas a year; Iraq and Egypt have also been courted as potential suppliers.

At the same time, Germany and Turkey and others are supporting the North and South stream pipelines that would bring Russian gas to them via the Baltic and Black Seas, respectively.

Officials seeking to reduce Europe's reliance on Russia have called the twin pipelines a "direct threat to Nabucco project," according to RFE/RL.

Russia expands Georgia sanctions

Russian government could slap sanctions on countries and companies supplying the Georgian military, according to President Dmitry Medvedev's executive order issued on January 19.

The order "On measures banning supplies of military and dual use technology to Georgia" threatens curtailment of military cooperation between Russia and countries providing Georgia with military support and would be in effect through the end of 2011.

Prior to the war in South Ossetia last August, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey, and the United States were the largest suppliers of weapons systems to Georgia. Israel reportedly halted military cooperation with Georgia shortly before the war.

In Turkey: Dink murder trial, apology petition, and curriculum changes

The trial of the accused assassins of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink rambled on in Istanbul this week, as his friends marked the second anniversary of his death.

The Paris-based Reporters without Borders issued a statement on January 28 urging the court to keep trial proceedings "dignified," noting that one of the accused and his lawyer had repeatedly used ethnic slurs against the late Mr. Dink and his family members in attendance.

The Economist meanwhile reported that prosecutors were probing a connection between the Dink murder and the so-called Ergenekon case of alleged coup plotters. Dozens more arrests were made in the Ergenekon case on January 22.

Prosecutors refused to file "insulting Turkishness" charges against intellectuals who initiated a public apology to Armenians over the Turkey's "insensitivity" to the memory of the "Great Catastrophe," The Associated Press reported on January 26.

More than 28,000 individuals signed on to the online petition launched last December on a web site, www.ozurdiliyoruz.com, which repeatedly has been hacked, presumably by its opponents. Meanwhile, a rival site "I do not apologize" popped up and claimed the support of more than 65,000 Turks.

A state entity known as "Coordination Board to Fight Baseless Genocide Claims" decided to amend the Turkish school curriculum to remove terms like "baseless" and "so-called Armenian genocide" from eighth-grade textbooks. (The board's own name was not reported to have been changed.)

According to the newspaper Milliyet, Turkish children will now study "Turkish-Armenian relations, 1915 events, and related Armenian allegations."

Similarly in July 2007, the Turkish government reportedly instructed state officials not to refer to the term "so called Armenian genocide allegations," UlulasKanal.com reported at the time. The recommended usage was "1915 incidents" or "Armenian allegations regarding incidents in 1915," shifting official rhetoric from straightforward denial to a more ambiguous wording.

Briefly: Russian displeasure on U.S.-Armenia nuclear proposal, Fried on Karabakh, GUAM issues a new draft resolution, Dink honored in Austria

This was originally published in December 15, 2007 Armenian Reporter.

by Emil Sanamyan

Russia displeased with U.S. role in Armenia’s nuclear energy plans
Russia’s former minister of nuclear energy Viktor Mikhailov expressed hope that “Armenia would accept Russia’s proposal and decline U.S. assistance” in the effort to build a new nuclear power plant, the Regnum news agency reported on December 6.

On November 21, the United States agreed to fund a $2 million feasibility study that would help determine the best technical solutions to replacing the aging reactor at the Metsamor power plant with a new nuclear energy-generating capacity. (See the story on page A1 of the November 24 Armenian Reporter.)

Armenia’s government has made building a new nuclear energy plant in the next several years a top priority and has reached out to the United States as well as Russia and other states for potential assistance.

Russia was first to react positively. During a visit to Armenia last April, Russian nuclear energy director Sergei Kirienko offered assistance with both construction and funding for the new plant, which is estimated to cost up to $2 billion. Since then U.S. officials have also expressed interest, resulting in the feasibility agreement.

Speaking on November 29, Armenia’s energy minister, Armen Movsisian, expressed confidence that several countries would be ultimately involved in the project.

Mr. Mikhailov, who currently holds a senior position at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, was the nuclear energy minister at the time when Russia assisted Armenia in reactivating the Metsamor plant in the mid-1990s.

“When someone is playing a double game, it is difficult to make predictions,” Mr. Mikhailov said, but expressed hope that Armenia would stick with Russia on nuclear energy. He agreed with a suggestion that U.S. assistance was part of an effort to “strengthen political influence in Armenia.”


Senior U.S. diplomat takes issue with Azerbaijani policies, urges deal on Karabakh
“It is time to wrap up agreement on the Basic Principles of a Nagorno Karabakh settlement,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried speaking at an Azerbaijani-government organized conference in Washington on December 10.

Mr. Fried was referring to the joint proposal made by U.S., Russian, and French diplomats during the November 28 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting in Madrid. (See this page in the December 1 and 8 Armenian Reporter.)

Speaking at that meeting, Armenia’s Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, broadly welcomed the proposal. Azerbaijani officials did not react immediately with President Ilham Aliyev taking a two-week vacation. On December 10, they requested additional time to study it, local media reported.

“The South Caucasus cannot achieve its full potential in the absence of a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement,” Mr. Fried said, according to a transcript released by the State Department. “As long as Armenia remains isolated in its region, a common vision of prosperity and freedom, and therefore stability, will not be attainable.”

Speaking with regional journalists last April, Mr. Fried addressed Azerbaijani military threats against Armenians, warning that “war will destroy everything Azerbaijan is trying to do.”

This week, the State Department official was also blunt about the continued crackdown on dissent in Azerbaijan, saying that the United States was “deeply disturbed” by it. Mr. Fried referred to Azerbaijan’s growing oil revenues and urged democratization, arguing that “sudden wealth unchecked by strong, honest institutions to handle it can fatten a small group of well-placed leaders rather than strengthen a nation.”

The conference on “The Azerbaijan-Turkey-U.S. Relationship,” which Mr. Fried addressed, continued in Los Angeles on December 13. According to the Azerbaijani consulate there, in addition to Azerbaijani and Turkish speakers, it also featured Beverly Hills, Calif., mayor Jimmy Jamshid Delshad.

GUAM states introduce a new UN draft resolution on post-Soviet conflicts
The governments of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova (GUAM) have again requested that the United National General Assembly express support for Soviet-era administrative borders as the basis for their territorial integrity.

The four-state grouping formally introduced the draft on December 4. The draft resolution’s text refers to Nagorno-Karabakh as a “region of the Republic of Azerbaijan” and calls for “support to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the Republic of Moldova and the inviolability of their internationally recognized borders.”

It is so far unclear when and if the UN General Assembly may consider the draft resolution. GUAM states had introduced a similar resolution last year, but then withdrew it prior to a vote being scheduled. (See this page in September 8 and November 3 Armenian Reporter.)

Unlike UN Security Council resolutions, those by the UN General Assembly are nonbinding, but they carry symbolic and political significance.

Armenia has already expressed its opposition to the most recent proposal. Speaking on November 28, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian noted Azerbaijan’s “active and aggressive search for alternative international forums in which to present their case” among the factors that undermine the peace process.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vladimir Karapetian told Regnum news agency on December 10 that Armenia will work to prevent the proposal’s passage.


Late Hrant Dink recognized as “World Press Freedom Hero”
The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) – a network of journalists, editors, and others who work in the media – this week honored Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian editor who was killed in Istanbul last January, as one of its World Press Freedom Heroes.

The award was presented to Mrs. Rakel Dink on December 10. Mr. Dink worked to improve Turkish-Armenian relations and opposed the Turkish government’s censorship of topics such as the Armenian Genocide and continued discrimination against the remaining members of the Armenian community. (http://www.freemedia.at)


Minority Rights Group issues new report on Turkey
Also this week, the Minority Rights Group International, a Britain-based charity, issued a report that highlighted the Turkish government’s continued repression of minority groups.

The report “A Quest for Equality: Minorities in Turkey” noted that “instead of celebrating diversity, the history of the Republic of Turkey is one of severe and sometimes violent repression of minorities in the name of nationalism.”
(www.minorityrights.org)

Nareg Seferian contributed to this week’s column.

In Brief on Amb. Evans, State Dept. report, Fatullayev, Dink murder, Elections in Turkey and France

First published in the Armenian Reporter on April 28, 2007

From Washington, in Brief
By Emil Sanamyan

Amb. Evans sees Turkish government’s role in his forced retirement

Pressure by Turkey may have played a role in his forced retirement, former U.S. Ambassador John M. Evans said at the National Press Club in Washington on April 24. Asked if he thought the Turkish government was involved, Mr. Evans said “I believe possibly so. I want to tell this story in my [upcoming] book. I do know that there were some telephone calls made.”

Last September, in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the State Department admitted that three of its officials were contacted by Turkish lobbyists from the Livingston Group within days of Mr. Evans’ comments in February 2005.

Mr. Evans also mentioned that he “did not write the apology” that was issued in his name following the remarks. “It was dictated to me and it was posted on the web site,” he said. That statement described his remarks as “personal” and “improper.”
Asked if there was a written State Department directive not to use the word Genocide in the reference to the Armenian experience, Mr. Evans responded “I have never seen such a piece of paper. It is more an omission that it is a commandment. It is simply a kind of a taboo.”

In April 2005, Mr. Evans was selected for the American Foreign Service Association’s Constructive Dissent Award. “That announcement was made in a State Department telegram signed by [the Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice,” he recalled. But in June 2005 Mr. Evans was summoned to Washington and “interrogated about the fact that [he] did not decline the award.” The award was ultimately withdrawn on a technicality.

Speaking in reference to the proposed House Resolution 106 (H. Res. 106), Evans said that “I do believe this Congress should pass [the Armenian Genocide] resolution.” He argued that unless there is political pressure on Turkey on this issue, the “natural default reaction” there will prevail and no substantial steps towards Armenian-Turkish normalization would be taken.

A book by Mr. Evans about his experience and views on ways to address the Armenian Genocide issue is currently with an editor and is expected to be released in spring 2008.

State Department flip-flops on controversial passage in Human Rights report

The latest annual State Department Report on Human Rights Practices, first released on March 6, caused controversy in Armenia because of a sentence that sounded like official lingo in its suggestion that Armenia “continues to occupy the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories.”

The sentence was at odds with the carefully crafted U.S. policy language on Karabakh. While the U.S. recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in principle (as it does that of Iraq, for example), U.S. officials typical clarify that “Karabakh’s status is a matter negotiations.”

The implication is that while the U.S. does not officially recognize Karabakh’s de-facto independence from Azerbaijan, it does not side in favor of Azerbaijan’s claim on Karabakh either.

Furthermore, every known peace proposal that U.S. mediators have helped draft in the last seven years would, if implemented, open the way to international recognition of Karabakh’s secession.

Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian took issue with the report’s wording and Armenian officials have requested that State Department correct the language. According to Mr. Oskanian, U.S. officials said it was an “obvious mistake on their part” and promised to “try to make a correction in that document.” Such corrections are rare because of the bureaucratic hurdles involved.

Last week, the text was revised to say that “Armenian forces occupy large portions of Azerbaijan territory adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian officials maintain that they do not "occupy" Nagorno-Karabakh itself.”

While the revised version included a strange negation of the obvious (Iraqi Kurds are not accused of “occupying” Iraqi Kurdistan, for example), and the Azerbaijan portion of the report remained unedited (another bureaucratic hurdle), the change still “caused bewilderment” in Baku, which protested by calling off a previously planned official visit to Washington.

On April 26, State Department, apparently as a result of the Azeri protest, went back to the initial language. The Mediamax news agency cited Armenia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that the second change was a reflection of “frivolous attitude” to the report.

Asked by the Reporter to clarify the issue, State Department’s Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey admitted that his agency can be “fallible,” but stressed that “the bottom line here is that U.S. policy with respect to Karabakh is long-standing and it has not changed.”

Azerbaijan imprisons journalist for [allegedly] taking a moderate line on Karabakh

The frequently persecuted Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison on charges of “libel” on April 20, local and international news agencies reported. International organizations and media watchdogs criticized the move.

Mr. Fatullayev is the editor of the twice shut down “Realny Azerbaijan” and former deputy editor for even more frequently shut down “Monitor.” That publication finally closed after the March 2005 assassination of its chief editor Elmar Huseynov (who, Mr. Fatullayev believes, was killed with government’s involvement; perpetrators have not been found to date).

Unlike most of Azerbaijan’s media, Mr. Fatullayev, and the late Mr. Huseynov before him, allowed for relatively free discussion of issues related to the Karabakh conflict and refused to tow the government’s anti-Armenian hate-mongering. Mr. Fatullayev first earned nationalists’ ire after he visited Nagorno Karabakh in 2005, shortly before Mr. Huseynov’s murder.

The current “libel” charges arose from accusations that Mr. Fatullayev was “an Armenian agent of influence” who played down Azerbaijani civilian deaths during the Karabakh war, which he says he did not. In a sense, Mr. Fatullayev’s prosecution is similar to that of Hrant Dink, who was charged with writing what he did not and targeted for assassination as a result.

Turkish media soul-searching again, as Dink investigation appears stalled

Following the heinous murder of three Christians in the town of Malatya on April 18, the Turkish media is again full of introspective articles on the nature of nationalist violence in Turkey. The Turkish Daily News editor Yusuf Kanli wrote on April 20 that murders such as those in Malatya, that of Hrant Dink last January and others, continue to take place because “the real culprits,” those who organized the crimes are still “at large.”

Investigators have arrested 11 individuals in connection to Dink’s murder. The 11 are assorted nationalists from the Black Sea city of Trabzon and include the self-confessed assassin and the head of the local chapter of the nationalist Grand Unity Party. (For investigation details see February 24 Reporter). But none of the security officials believed to be involved have been legally sanctioned.

Asked by the Reporter on April 17, when organizers of the murder might be found, Chairman of the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee Mehmet Dulger produced a copy of a Turkish newspaper with a picture of crowds at Dink’s funeral and said that it showed how “Turkey is fed up with allegations concerning its behavior towards Armenians.” He said that “investigation is continuing and there may be some secrecy.”

Gul set to become Turkey’s President, French race still undecided

Turkey’s majority Justice and Development Party (AKP) selected Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as their choice for Turkey’s next President, news media reported. Since presidents in Turkey are elected for a single seven-year term in a vote by Parliament (where AKP currently has a majority) Gul’s election is virtually assured. The nomination came about after AKP leader and Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan decided not to seek the presidency himself. The move is seen as a partial concession to the military-secular establishment, which has campaigned against Erdogan’s election. The formal parliamentary votes will be held in three rounds on May 2, 9 and 15.

In France, Nicolas Sarkozy from the ruling right-of center party and Socialist Segolene Royal advanced to the second round of elections on May 6. In the first round held on April 23, Sarkozy and Royal received 31 and 26 percent of the vote, respectively. Incidentally, both are supporters of the Armenian Genocide affirmation. Sarkozy, the current favorite, is also strongly opposed to Turkey’s membership in the European Union.