Clinton, Jones reassure Armenians, EU on Ossetia war

This was first published at www.reporter.am on October 1, 2009

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

U.S. again insists on “reasonable timeframe” for Armenia-Turkey normalization

Clinton with Nalbandian of Armenia, New York, Sept. 28, 2009.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Assistant Secretary Philip Gordon reaffirmed U.S. support for the Armenia-Turkey normalization process this week.

Their comments were made on September 28 following meetings Mrs. Clinton held with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

President Barack Obama reportedly discussed the subject briefly with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on September 25.

As was the case six months ago, when the first joint statement by Armenia and Turkey was released, U.S. officials agreed with Armenia that normalization "should take place... within a reasonable timeframe."

While neither Armenian nor U.S. officials spoke of a concrete time period, Mr. Gordon explained, "when we say reasonable timeframe, we mean just that: that it's not just the process that we want to see - we welcome the process; but we also want to see a conclusion to the process, and that's what we're underscoring when we say that."

According to Zaman newspaper, Mr. Erdogan suggested the Armenia-Turkey protocols would be signed on October 10 in Zurich, Switzerland. The protocols are thereafter subject to parliamentary ratification, for which there is no announced timetable.

In his comments, Mr. Erdogan also hinted that further progress depended on Armenia's President Serge Sargsian accepting an invitation to watch the Armenia-Turkey soccer match in Turkey on October 14. Mr. Gordon said the United States thought it would be a "good thing" if the Armenian president went. Mr. Sargsian himself had indicated earlier that he would only go if there was real progress toward normalization of relations.

But, as Mr. Gordon noted in his comments, "There are things still to be finalized as to the details of a signature and submission to parliament." The remarks indicated persistent concerns about a speedy ratification of the agreement.

The United States has long promoted normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey, and while the United States is not formally involved in the current process, mediated by Switzerland, U.S. officials are believed to have had behind-the-scenes involvement.

In a September 30 letter to Secretary Clinton, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) suggested the U.S. statements were an indication of "heavy pressure" the United States was allegedly applying on the Armenian government to go through with the Turkey protocols. President Sargsian, who intensified talks with Turkey last year, has denied there was any pressure.

The ANCA also relayed "growing alarm and outrage among Armenian-Americans" over the protocols, and also reiterated its dissatisfaction with the Obama administration's policies on Armenian issues.

White House responds to congressional letter on Armenia policy

The Obama White House responded to 81 members of Congress more than six weeks after their letter raised concerns about the United States' Armenia-Turkey policy, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reported this week.

In that letter members of Congress urged President Barack Obama to "separate the issues" of normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations and recognition of the Armenian Genocide. During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama had promised repeatedly that he would recognize the Genocide as president.

The response letter, signed by National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones and dated September 17, did not directly address that request by members of Congress.

Instead the Jones letter repeated President Obama's comments last April that avoided the use of the term "genocide" - opposed by Turkey - while also stressing that the president's "view of that history has not changed" from his time as a U.S. senator, when he discussed the Genocide without reservations.

The letter also noted that the United States is "actively engaged at the highest levels to support full restoration of relations between Turkey and Armenia."

"Our interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts. We continue to believe the best way to advance that goal is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as part of their efforts to move forward. We will continue to pursue these efforts vigorously in the months ahead," the letter concluded.

Europeans issue report on Ossetia war

More than a year after the brief but devastating confrontation over South Ossetia was fought largely on live television, European Union investigators determined that it was Georgia after all that launched the war; but they also said Russia's response, while initially justifiable, soon became excessive.

For most of August 8, 2008, Georgian officials did not hide the fact that they had launched an operation to take control of South Ossetia, and they provided regular updates on their military's advances. But after the magnitude of Russian involvement became clear, they changed tack and claimed their military action was merely a response to a Russian invasion.

Finally, the three-volume, 1,200-page, EU-sponsored report determined that the Georgian attack was not justified by international law and was the reason for the war; but it also determined that Georgia and Russia shared blame for the conflict and both violated international law.

The report also set the war's death toll at 850 people and estimated that 35,000 people, mostly Georgians, remained displaced as a consequence of the war. After the war Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states and established a permanent military presence in both places.

Erdogan, Saakashvili at UN; More U.S. radar in Caucasus talk; Burns / Merry on Karabakh;

This was first published in the September 26, 2009 Armenian Reporter.

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan


Foreign leaders arrive in New York for annual meetings

The presidents of Georgia, Iran, and Russia and the prime minister of Turkey were among dozens of foreign leaders in attendance at the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York this week. Armenia and Azerbaijan dispatched their foreign ministers.

In a talk at Princeton University on September 23, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to submit the Armenia-
Turkey protocols for ratification on October 10–11, “if we don’t see prejudice or some domestic political considerations at play.” (It is unclear whether the Turkish parliament normally meets on the weekend, with October 10 and 11 being Saturday and Sunday.)

Mr. Erdogan was also due to raise Armenian issues in a meeting with President Barack Obama at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on September 25, six months after Mr. Obama publicly urged Turkey to come to terms with its past and to normalize relations with Armenia in an expeditious manner.

But before that meeting, Mr. Erdogan’s delegation reportedly scuffled with Mr. Obama’s security detail as their paths crossed at the Clinton Global Initiative offices in Manhattan, with the Turkish leader himself reportedly getting physically involved.

“A foreign delegation got confused and were trying to enter the president’s departure tent and didn’t understand the verbal instructions being given. They had to be physically restrained,” a spokesperson for the Secret Service told the Washington Times, whose correspondent witnessed the incident.

A frequent visitor to the United States in the past, Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili made his first public trip to New York since the August 2008 war over South Ossetia.

Mr. Saakashvili met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 21. Promised continued diplomatic support on South Ossetia and Abkhazia at that meeting, Mr. Saakashvili was also urged to remain patient with their de-facto annexation by Russia.

Separately, U.S. and Georgian officials were due to discuss potential resettlement of terrorism suspects released from the military prison in Guantanamo in Georgia, Civil.ge reported.

Pentagon wants anti-Iran radar in the Caucasus

A senior U.S. military official said that an American early-warning radar (referred to as X-Band radar) aimed at missiles potentially launched from Iran was “probably more likely to be in the Caucasus,” a region that is adjacent to Iran, rather than in European countries that are further away.

Vice-chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright made the comment during a September 17 Pentagon press conference intended to explain the cancellation of U.S. plans for missile and radar deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Chief of Russian General Staff Gen. Nikolay Makarov was quick to respond. He said that Russia would view a U.S. radar in the Caucasus “negatively” unless Russia and the United States were “to build it jointly.”

The United States first expressed interest in a Caucasus radar in March 2007, when the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency at the time, Gen. Henry Obering, floated the idea of a “mobile antimissile radar” in the Caucasus to monitor Iran; a U.S. official soon after denied there were any deployment plans.

In June 2007, Russian leader Vladimir Putin suggested the United States could receive information gathered by a Russian early warning radar base in Azerbaijan and other Russian facilities there instead of unilaterally deploying new radars. The Bush administration took interest in the offer, but U.S. officials argued that data supplied by Russia could not be a substitute for a U.S.-run missile defense system.

The United States has placed X-Band radars around the world, including one in Israel last year, marking the first foreign military deployment in Israel since its independence.

Of the three Caucasus states, only Georgia publicly welcomed the potential U.S. radar deployment, Eurasianet.org reported on September 18.

The same day, Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister Araz Azimov said that U.S. officials did not raise the issue during his Washington visit last week, Azerbaijani media reported.

U.S. sees “clear outline” for Karabakh peace, “tangible results” in weeks

“We hope that the recent progress made in talks between Presidents Aliyev and Sargsian will lead to tangible results when they meet next month,” U.S. Undersecretary of State Bill Burns said in prepared remarks delivered on September 18 at an event co-sponsored by Georgetown University and the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington.

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and his Armenian counterpart Serge Sargsian are expected to attend the next Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in Moldova on October 8-9.

The State Department’s most senior diplomat went on to note, “The outline of a possible settlement has been clear for some time, though as with all things, the devil lies in the details and further discussions will be needed to satisfy the concerns of both sides.”

Mr. Burns’ remarks appeared to be carefully calibrated and did not include any reference to U.S. recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Starting in August 2008, former U.S. negotiator for Karabakh Matt Bryza used language that emphasized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity as the starting point of a settlement.

Writing earlier this year, a former official at the State and Defense Departments, Wayne Merry, also suggested, “the outlines of a settlement have been clear for fifteen years”; he at the same time offered a more concrete formula for resolution that would “reflect both the realities of war and the needs of peace.”

“These realities transcend the standard rhetoric of ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity’ as well as that of ‘national self-determination,’” Mr. Merry argued in his paper “Karabakh: Is war inevitable?”

“In a settlement, Armenia will get Karabakh and a land corridor to Armenia, while Azerbaijan gets back the lowland surrounding territories. This is not about justice, nor right and wrong, but is the inescapable and necessary formula for peace.”

“To be sure, there are a multitude of details (where the devil always lurks) and implementation problems (where the costs for outside powers will be substantial),” Mr. Merry concluded.

Former Senator counsels patience in U.S. relations with ex-USSR

The United States should be more respectful of other countries’ sensitivities, former Senator Chuck Hagel advised, particularly as political and economic power becomes more diffused around the world and the United States is less capable of accomplishing its goals singlehandedly.

Mr. Hagel spoke at a Georgetown University event sponsored by the Azerbaijani Embassy on September 18. The former Republican senator from Nebraska (1997–2009) was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and a leading Senate voice on U.S. policy in the former Soviet areas.

The former senator counseled patience and “careful expectations” when dealing with former Soviet countries that have been “thrown into a new situation” in the last two decades.

He sidestepped more controversial issues such as Azerbaijan’s domestic politics and the Karabakh conflict, while also withholding the sort of praise for the sponsoring government that is frequently heard at such Washington events.

Mr. Hagel noted that the importance of the U.S. relationship with Azerbaijan, “a little country,” was first of all a function of it bordering on several larger countries such as Iran, Russia, and Turkey.

Earlier this year, Mr. Hagel was considered a candidate for a cabinet secretary post in the Obama administration. He is currently a professor at Georgetown and chairs the Atlantic Council of the United States, a group that promotes cooperation among NATO members and partners.

Azerbaijani official assails U.S. policies in “friendly talk”

A senior Azerbaijani official dismissed U.S. criticism of his government’s treatment of political opponents, restrictions on mass media and nongovernmental groups, and corruption, pointing to what he argued were similar restrictions or greater problems in the United States.

Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov also demanded that Washington do more to stimulate Azerbaijan’s motivation to cooperate with the United States.

In what he described as a “friendly talk,” Mr. Azimov recalled the scandal at the former Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the mistreatment of terrorism suspects at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo, and suggested that the United States had not fully investigated human-rights violations there. He further described U.S. military presence in Afghanistan as a “mess” and likened it to the ill-fated Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979–89.

Mr. Azimov also justified the recent ban on U.S.- and British-funded broadcasts in Azerbaijan, claiming that the United States “would not allow” such broadcasters to use its national frequencies. (In fact, a number of foreign-funded media are available on national frequencies in the United States.)

The Azerbaijani official went on to propose that he “could not measure corruption” and therefore could not judge whether there was more corruption in the United States or Azerbaijan.

Discussing the history of U.S.-Azerbaijan engagement, Mr. Azimov described the United States as “more clumsy than it could be.” He noted that not a single U.S. secretary of state had visited Azerbaijan since the “one-hour visit” by Jim Baker in 1992.

“The time which was necessary for the [Obama administration] to get prepared has elapsed,” he stressed. “We expect high[-level] visits, . . . we expect statements made publicly on U.S. strategy for the Caucasus,” as well as U.S.-Russia cooperation in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

Speaking on September 18 at the Georgetown University conference sponsored by the Azerbaijani Embassy, Mr. Azimov also took time to list what Azerbaijan believes are its contributions to the world civilization and the West.

Mr. Azimov arrived in Washington for the annual security dialogue meetings with U.S. officials. A deputy foreign minister managing Azerbaijan’s relations with the West, Mr. Azimov has worked in the same capacity under four different ministers since 1994.

New NK envoy, MCC aid cut, more ratings

This was first published in the September 12, 2009 Armenian Reporter.

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

U.S. appoints seasoned diplomat as next Karabakh envoy

Ambassador Robert Bradtke will serve as the U.S. co-chair of the international mediation group tasked with managing the Karabakh peace process, the State Department reported on September 7. The group, known as the OSCE Minsk Group, is co-chaired by Russia and France as well as the United States.

The State Department announcement reiterated the commitment of the Obama administration and Secretary Hillary Clinton "to doing everything possible" to bring about a "peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict." The newly appointed envoy is due to make "his first trip to the region in the coming weeks."

The appointment of Ambassador Bradtke is part of the larger transition from the Bush foreign policy team to the Obama team. It also marks a return to the past State Department approach, where the Karabakh issue was assigned to a senior diplomat as that diplomat's primary responsibility, rather than by the deputy assistant secretary in charge of regional affairs, as has been the case since 2004.

Mr. Bradtke is the ninth diplomat to serve as U.S. envoy for the Karabakh talks. Prior to this appointment, he served as ambassador to Croatia (2006-9) and before that as deputy assistant secretary of state dealing with Balkan and European security issues (2001-6).

A 36-year veteran of the Foreign Service, Mr. Bradtke worked at U.S. missions to the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, West Germany, and the United Kingdom. He was also executive assistant to Secretary of State Warren Christopher (1994-96) and executive secretary for President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (1999-2001).

As a congressional fellow in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr. Bradtke worked for the offices of then-Senator Charles Mathias (R.-Md.) and Rep. Dick Cheney (R.-Wyo.), who went on to become vice president of the United States.

A native of Chicago, the new envoy is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and di graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University and University of Virginia.

According to media reports, for the past several months the outgoing U.S. envoy for Karabakh, Matt Bryza has been under consideration for an assignment as the next U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan. But Mr. Bryza has also been a target of criticism over his allegedly close personal ties to Georgian and Azerbaijani leaders.

In an August 20 letter to Secretary Clinton, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) charged Mr. Bryza with anti-Armenian bias.

U.S. agency keeps Armenia aid cut in place

The U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) board held its regular quarterly meeting on September 9, with no new decisions on Armenia made public.

Last June, MCC cut $67 million out of Armenia's $235 million aid program, citing the Armenian government's handling of the 2008 presidential elections and subsequent opposition protests. With no new decisions taken, the aid cut in effect remains intact.

According to the agency's press release, its acting chief executive officer, Darius Mans, noted, "MCC is rapidly approaching cumulative disbursements of $1 billion and contract commitments of $2 billion focused on programs" in several dozen countries worldwide.

Among continuing programs is MCC's effort in Honduras, where an elected president was overthrown by the military earlier this summer. MCC said that it would hold $15 million in fresh funds, but will "continue with existing activities for which funds have been contractually obligated." The total MCC compact in Honduras is $215 million over five years.

The MCC board is chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Rankings measure economic competitiveness, extent of state failure

Armenia is behind its neighbors when it comes to the ability to attract foreign investments and do business, while it has done a relatively better job establishing state institutions, recent studies say.

According to the Global Competitiveness Index published by the World Economic Forum and released on September 8, Armenia's ranking was unchanged at 97th, behind Azerbaijan (51st, registering improvement from 69th place last year), Turkey (61st, up from 63rd), Russia (63rd, down from 51st), and Georgia (90th, with its rank unchanged in spite of last year's conflict) out of 133 countries ranked.

The index, published since 2004, takes into account factors that normally serve as a draw for foreign investments. These include wealth, economic and social development, and stability, as well as market size; this leaves countries with smaller populations with a built-in disadvantage. These data is then combined with executive opinion surveys conducted among individuals doing business in particular countries.

The World Bank's Doing Business Report, released on September 9, put Armenia (ranked 43rd) behind Georgia (11th), Azerbaijan (38th), but ahead of Turkey (73rd) and Russia (120th).

That report focuses on the legislative framework for doing business and considers criteria such as the availability of credit, employment regulations, and the ease of getting permits.

Meanwhile, the latest Failed States Index, published by the journal Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace, identified Armenia as the only country in its neighborhood to avoid being described as "in danger" of state failure.

In reverse rankings, where the lower the rank the better off the country is believed to be, Armenia was ranked 101st and described as a "borderline" case, with Turkey (85th), Russia (71st), Azerbaijan (56th), Iran (38th), and Georgia (33rd) exhibiting various degrees of state failure.

The index, published since 2005, looks at state cohesion and performance in 177 countries studied.

While the two surveys might seem to produce contradictory results for Armenia and its neighbors, there is substantial overlap when it comes to identifying the most competitive and least failing states.

Coming up: Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Turkish officials in the U.S.

On September 14, European Union officials will gather in Brussels for a fresh review of the EU's policy in the South Caucasus.

Azerbaijan's Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov will arrive in Washington the week of September 14 for the annual bilateral security dialogue session. On the 18th Mr. Azimov will join Undersecretary of State Bill Burns, former Sen. Chuck Hagel, and former State Department and congressional official David Kramer at a Georgetown University event.

Also is Washington next week will be Georgia's Deputy Prime Minister Georgi Baramidze. On September 15 he will discuss his country's priorities at the Atlantic Council of the United States.

Between September 20 and 23, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be in New York for the United Nations General Assembly and then in Pittsburgh for the summit of the world's 20 largest economies (the G20) on September 24-25.

Before proceeding to the G20 meeting, the presidents of the United States and Russia plan to meet in New York on September 23; the U.S. secretary of state will follow up on the talks with a visit to Moscow next month.

Interview with Congressman Pallone

Frank Pallone: U.S. recognition of NKR will be difficult
Veteran member of Congress discusses Armenian-American agenda
by Emil Sanamyan
Published: Thursday August 20, 2009

Rep. Frank Pallone during a meeting with NKR officials at his office on Capitol Hill. NKR Office in the United States photo.

Washington - A member of Congress for more than 20 years, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, is a national leader on Armenian-American issues and a founding co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues; he also chairs the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Health.

The interview that follows is based in large part on questions we solicited from the Armenian Reporter readers last week. Washington Editor Emil Sanamyan put them to Rep. Pallone on August 14.

Karabakh policy

Armenian Reporter: Kosovo, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia have recently set precedents of international recognition without the consent of countries that claimed sovereignty over them. Should friends of Armenians in the United States initiate Nagorno-Karabakh's recognition instead of deferring to talks with Azerbaijan? What work can be done in Congress to achieve this goal?

Rep. Frank Pallone: I believe personally that the United States should recognize Nagorno-Karabakh. I certainly would be willing to do whatever I can to have that happen.

But I will say that it will be difficult, because a lot of members of Congress are not that familiar [with the subject], I assume that the State Department would be against it, and I am not sure how much Armenia itself would be pushing for it. So it would probably be hard to do.

And while I support recognition of NKR, I do not know if the Armenian community wants to prioritize that. The community has to prioritize the issues and spend their time on things that are more likely [to be successfully accomplished]. And [since] this issue would be difficult, I would not recommend that they prioritize it.

AR: There has been quite a bit of criticism in Armenia of the outgoing U.S. envoy for Karabakh, Matt Bryza, as biased in favor of Azerbaijan and Turkey. What can Congress do to have a Karabakh envoy who would better reflect U.S. respect for Armenians' self-determination and democratic choice, and appreciation of security challenges Armenians are facing?

FP: Matt Bryza is only reflecting the policy of the State Department. The State Department takes a position that Nagorno-Karabakh doesn't have the status of a state. And they have traditionally highlighted territorial integrity over self-determination.

But they are wrong in this case because they do not realize that Nagorno-Karabakh has every right to be an independent nation. So, what you really need to do is to have the State Department change its position.

They have to realize that according to the Soviet legal framework, Nagorno-Karabakh had self-government and certain rights, including holding a referendum and becoming an independent country, which is what had happened.

So it's not simply an issue of territorial integrity versus self-determination. Nagorno-Karabakh is a successor state to the Soviet Union, and no different from Armenia or Russia in that respect.

AR: Armenia has been historically carved up by imperial powers and the current state occupies only a fraction of its historic homeland. Today, Armenians are urged to make substantial territorial concessions as part of a Karabakh settlement with no such concessions by the other side. How can Armenian-Americans get their pre-history and their interests to be better appreciated in the United States?

FP: Simply because Nagorno-Karabakh is a small area with a relatively small population, it is difficult for the State Department, and any administration to focus on it.

The argument that should be made is that this a powder keg. In other words if you do not work to solve this situation and come up with a compromise, there is a potential for another major war in the Caucasus that would have major implications for several neighboring countries, Turkey and Russia especially. And that this strategic concern must be appreciated.

The war between Russia and Georgia [in August 2008] is a recent example of the volatility in the Caucasus region.

Relations with Turkey

AR: Speaking of community priorities, how have you handled occasional disagreements between Armenian-American priorities and those of the Republic of Armenia? There were clearly divergent positions on the Armenia-Turkey "roadmap" announced on April 22.

FP: Most people in the community that I talk to are in favor of normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey. And of course I would like to see more normal relations between the two countries, including significant trade between them.

But Armenian-Americans also want genocide recognition and they felt that the Obama administration was trading the roadmap for genocide recognition. I believe that these two issues should be separated. The president should make a public statement recognizing the Armenian Genocide and Congress should pass its resolution. We should proceed with the roadmap as well; one should not be in lieu of the other.

The Armenian government was very supportive of the roadmap, but they did not want it to be an excuse not to recognize the Armenian Genocide. And after April 24, Turkish leaders began to step back from the "road map," and going back to their preconditions related to the Karabakh conflict.

These are all separate issues. Normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations should not be linked to the Karabakh conflict.

AR: Three or more administrations have been blocking congressional resolutions on Armenian Genocide. Have Armenian advocacy groups ever asked the administration for something in lieu of a congressional resolution that would both show respect for the genocide's victims and also benefit the Armenian-American agenda? In your mind, what could be such an alternative?

FP: I would note that the Obama administration is not opposed to the resolution, I have not heard that. And President [Barack Obama]'s position is that the Genocide occurred and should be recognized. But [because] all the emphasis was on the "road map" in April, the issue of the genocide was sort of put aside.

I do think that a presidential statement and a resolution by Congress are necessary to memorialize the Armenian Genocide. And while genocide recognition needs to remain a priority, the diaspora should spend time to prioritize other issues as well. These would include a settlement with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh as well as U.S. support of Armenia economically and militarily. We have the two Armenian republics and they need to be protected.

AR: Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds recently repeated her allegations about the Turkish government's attempts to bribe and even blackmail U.S. officials into supporting their agenda. Do you support a congressional inquiry based on these troubling allegations?

FP: I am not familiar enough with her to express an opinion.

Armenia aid and trips

AR: On the subject of aid to Armenia, the Obama administration's first aid request differed markedly from promises candidate Obama made in his campaign. Was that a reflection of the administration's lack of interest in Armenia, inertia from the Bush administration, or both? Can you explain how the budget request process works?

FP: The request comes out of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), but the figures basically reflect the recommendations of the State Department.

The Obama administration believed that their request was generous because it was above President Bush's request the previous year. They ignored the fact that Congress appropriated significantly more and that the Bush administration was not a friend.

So I told them that they cannot make their budget request based on the previous administration because Bush was not a friend of Armenia and they are. So, they have to be more generous and request more than Congress appropriated the previous year.

There is also this tendency to expect that Congress would always add aid to Armenia, and therefore the administration can request less. I have told them that that's the wrong approach for a friend.

Next year, we expect the administration to request at least as much as Congress put in the previous year or make a more robust request.

AR: In the last several years there have been markedly fewer visits by U.S. lawmakers to Armenia. What is the reason for that?

FP: That is totally a function of changes in the congressional ethics rules. I used to go to Armenia every year, and I haven't been back for a few years now because when the ethics rules were changed about four years ago, that precluded any trips being paid by advocacy groups or individuals associated with them.

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) or the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), and other Armenian groups can no longer pay for the trips.

Government-funded congressional delegations are still available, but those are normally subject to committee jurisdiction. So if you are not a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, you may not be included. And if they have a trip, they are more likely to go Iraq or Afghanistan or some of the major trouble spots.

World leaders talk Armenian business, Obama in Kremlin, U.S. aid to Armenia

This was first published in July 11, 2009 Armenian Reporter

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

Armenian issues get high-level attention at G8 summit and in phone conversations

G8 summit host Silvio Berlusconi gesturing to German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Indian, U.S., British, French, and Canadian leaders looking on, July 9, 2009. G8Italia2009.it

WASHINGTON - The presidents of France, Russia, and the United States were expected to issue a joint statement on Karabakh during the G8 summit of the world's leading economies being held on July 8-10 in Italy.

"There are ongoing consultations on the form of the statement on Nagorno-Karabakh; the content of the statement has already been agreed upon," Russian presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency after the first day of the summit.

The last time a statement on Karabakh was issued in such a high-level format was in June 1997 during G8 summit in Denver, Colorado.

President Barack Obama heard about Karabakh and Turkish-Armenian relations from his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gül in a July 5 phone conversation, according to the White House readout of the call made available the same day.

According to the readout, "President Gul updated President Obama on the status of Turkish-Armenian relations. They also discussed the Minsk Group's ongoing efforts to address [the] Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," in addition to other issues on bilateral agenda.

On July 3, the Turkish president also called his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

According to Azerbaijani media reports, Mr. Gül's calls were intended in part to put the Karabakh issue on the U.S.-Russia agenda ahead of the July 6-8 bilateral and subsequent G8 summit.

While it is unclear whether the issue was discussed at the presidential level, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, "the prospects of progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement" did come up during a July 7 meeting between Undersecretary of State William Burns and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigori Karasin.

U.S., Russia agree on Afghanistan transit, disagree on Georgia

Russia will allow the United States to transit supplies for U.S. and coalition forces via Russian territory, news agencies reported. The agreement was made public as President Barack Obama was hosted for a working visit to Moscow on July 6-8 that was supposed to "reset" bilateral relations that have long been troubled by tensions.

The Russian move came shortly after the United States succeeded in reversing a decision by Kyrgyzstan to close a U.S.-run air base in that Central Asian country. Kyrgyzstan announced the closure earlier this year, when Russia offered a substantial aid package to the country.

To secure the reversal, the U.S. government agreed to triple the base rent to $60 million a year and provide additional aid to the Kyrgyz government despite its increasingly authoritarian policies.

Following the Moscow meetings, no agreements were reported on a series of contentious issues such as U.S. plans for missile defense in Central Europe and NATO expansion into the former USSR, both strongly opposed by Russia, which sees them as undermining its interests.

"We're not going to reassure or trade or give anything to the Russians with regard to NATO expansion," Michael McFaul, the White House senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs, said on July 1, on the eve of the visit. "We are not in any way, in the name of the reset, abandoning our very close relationships with these two democracies, Ukraine and Georgia."

Speaking in Moscow, President Obama also underscored continued U.S. support for Georgia and Ukraine, saying that they and "all states should have the right to choose their leaders, have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies.

"Any system that cedes those rights will lead to anarchy," Mr. Obama warned.

Separately, U.S. and Russian leaders also agreed to continue to reduce stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons when the existing disarmament regime expires later this year.

U.S. praised for aiding Armenia

President Serge Sargsian on July 7 visited the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan to offer congratulations on the occasion of America's Independence Day. He reiterated Armenia's interest in cooperation, the president's press office reported.

"We view America not only as a powerful state, not only as Armenia's largest donor of humanitarian assistance, but also as a state which lent support to our people in the direst times of our history, opened itself for a great number of our people, provided with the opportunity to advance and bring their contribution to the empowerment of the United States - preserving at the same time their national identity," Mr. Sargsian was quoted as saying during the embassy visit.

[Speaking at a reception later that day at the Embassy, Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian was more explicit, noting that the United States let support to the Armenian people during the Genocide. -Ed.]

According to the presidential press service, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in turn shared her impressions from the two-week tour of Armenian American communities she just completed.

Since his election last year, Mr. Sargsian resumed the tradition of visiting the U.S. Embassy around the Fourth of July. The practice was first introduced under President Levon Ter-Petrossian, but was interrupted after U.S. criticism of Mr. Ter-Petrossian's re-election in 1996. It was then resumed under President Robert Kocharian, only to be interrupted again after U.S. criticism of his re-election in 2003.

U.S. official: “Democratic reforms” may lead to more rural aid

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza this week suggested that the recent amnesty of most Armenian opposition activists held in connection with deadly clashes on March 1, 2008, was a welcome, but insufficient step.

"There were these releases that we've asked for quite some time. It's positive," Mr. Bryza was quoted by the RFE/RL Armenian Service as saying during a July 8 visit to Yerevan in his capacity as U.S. envoy for the Karabakh conflict. "We welcome that and at the same time we hope there will be more. We hope they will all be released."

Mr. Bryza also connected the recent cut in Millennium Challenge aid to Armenia to the handling of Yerevan City Council elections, which he criticized, and said there was a need for "re-energizing of democratic reforms" in Armenia.

"We are willing to work with the government of Armenia, as these other reforms go forward, to find additional money," he offered. "Maybe not in the Millennium Challenge Corporation but elsewhere, so that these people in rural areas, who are suffering sometimes from poverty, have an easier life."

Senate committee endorses administration’s Armenia aid reduction
Figures to be reconciled with House version
by Emil Sanamyan
Published: Thursday July 09, 2009

WASHINGTON - The Senate Appropriations Committee on July 9 approved a $51.23 billion foreign aid bill for Fiscal Year 2010, including $745 million in assistance to Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia, the office of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.), who chairs the Senate's foreign operations subcommittee, reported the same day.

As part of the bill, senators endorsed President Barack Obama's request for $30 million for Armenia and no funds set aside for Nagorno-Karabakh. The president's request had been criticized by Armenian-American groups and congressional friends as inadequate.

The Senate subcommittee includes Sens. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.), Frank Lautenberg (D.-N.J.), Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) and Barbara Mikulski (D.-Md.) all of whom have been supportive of Armenian-American issues.

Separately, the House of Representatives was expected to pass before the end of the week its version of the foreign aid bill that includes $48 million for Armenia, $10 million for Nagorno-Karabakh, and $3.5 million each in military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The two versions will next need to be reconciled by a committee of Senate and House negotiators before the bill can be signed into law by the president.

Asked by the Armenian Reporter for comment, Ross Vartian of the U.S.-Armenia Public Affairs Committee said, "USAPAC is disappointed with the Senate version and will actively support the House version in the Senate-House conference process."

Earlier this year, the co-chairs of the congressional Armenian Caucus recommended $75 million in aid to Armenia and $10 million to Nagorno-Karabakh. They also called for strengthening of Section 907, which provides oversight for U.S. aid to Azerbaijan; that provision was adopted by House appropriators.

In a news release, the Armenian Assembly cited congressional sources that anticipated that the Senate version of the foreign-aid bill would also include language strengthening congressional oversight over a presidential waiver of Section 907, and provide equal amounts of military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan.

U.S. Ambassador to Armenia talk in DC

Yovanovitch: President Obama’s April 24 statement caused “severe disappointment”
U.S. ambassador discusses Armenian-American concerns in four-city tour
by Emil Sanamyan
Published: Thursday July 02, 2009

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch listens to a question from an audience member at the Library of Congress on June 30, 2009. Armenian Reporter photo

WASHINGTON - "I know there is disappointment, frustration, anger in the Armenian-American community about this year's April 24 Remembrance Day statement" by President Barack Obama, U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch acknowledged in a talk on June 30 organized by the Library of Congress.

Ms. Yovanovitch promised to communicate the "severe disappointment" she heard from Armenian-Americans to Washington policy makers, but argued that "President Obama went further in the statement this year than in any statement since Remembrance Day statements have been issued."

She also stuck very closely to U.S. policy language on the Ottoman-Armenian experience that describes its magnitude and horrors in detail, while avoiding the term genocide, in deference to Turkey.

A traditional tour

Following a custom established by Ambassador Michael Lemmon, who served as the U.S. envoy to Armenia from 1998 to 2001, in the last two weeks Ms. Yovanovitch held a series of meetings with members of Armenian-American communities. Prior to her appearance in Washington, the final stop, Ms. Yovanovitch spoke in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles.

The Washington speech covered the full spectrum of U.S.-Armenia relations, including U.S. concerns with economic and political developments in Armenia and U.S. efforts to mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Armenia and Turkey.

The Washington event, organized by the library's Armenia specialist Dr. Levon Avdoyan, drew a few hundred participants, including Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Turkish diplomats, and two former U.S. ambassadors to Armenia, Harry Gilmore (1993–95) and John Evans (2004–6).

It was in a tour like this in 2005 that Mr. Evans openly referred to the Armenian Genocide as genocide, a step that eventually led to his early recall as U.S. ambassador to Armenia the following year.

Armenia-Turkey progress "not inevitable"

Amb. Evans asks Amb. Yovanovitch a question. Armenian Reporter photo.

During the question-and-answer period that followed this week's talk, Ambassador Evans noted widespread skepticism about Armenia-Turkey talks; he asked about claims by at least one American Turkey expert who blamed Armenia for the lack of progress and who alleged "changing of the goalposts" by Armenia.

Ms. Yovanovitch acknowledged the skepticism and said that while progress was "possible" in Armenia-Turkey talks, it was also "not inevitable." She also denied claims that Armenia has changed its position during negotiations with Turkey.

Persistent concerns

Of the remaining six questions, three dealt with America's policy on the Armenian Genocide; two were on U.S. aid cuts; and one was about Armenia's democratic shortfalls.

Asked if she felt she would be punished were she to refer to the Armenian Genocide as genocide – as Mr. Evans was – Ms. Yovanovitch declined to speak on "personnel issues," while also noting that she was speaking as "a representative of the U.S. government" and had to tailor her remarks accordingly.

Asked by the Armenian Reporter whether a clear warning was given to Armenia prior to the recent reduction of Millennium Challenge Corporation funding to Armenia, Ms. Yovanovitch said there was.

"There is good communication between our government and government of Armenia," the U.S. Ambassador insisted, adding that issues related to political transition were hard to deal with.

Bryza & Baku, anti-trafficking progress, lobbying against Gen. Res., Kyrgyz and Iran elections

This was first published in June 20, 2009 Armenian Reporter

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

Possible pick for U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan criticized

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza, left, with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, right, during the latest Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in Russia, June 5. . Armenian president's press office

Matt Bryza, who has been the U.S. envoy for Karabakh negotiations since 2005, may be considered for a posting as U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, a well-connected Foreign Policy magazine blog, The Cable, reported on June 12.

Mr. Bryza declined to comment when asked about the report by the Armenian Reporter.

The Cable cited former Clinton and Bush administration officials who raised concerns that Mr. Bryza's reputed closeness to Georgia's leadership - and his handling of the Ossetia crisis last year - might irritate Moscow, thus undermining U.S. efforts to engage with Russia.

In his current capacity, Mr. Bryza was frequently a target of criticism for his contradictory and controversial remarks on Karabakh. Last February, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan charged him with "hindering the negotiation process," Arminfo reported at the time.

Writing in Harper's website on June 17, Washington-based investigative journalist Ken Silverstein described Mr. Bryza as a "friend of the Azeri dictator" Ilham Aliyev.

Prior to dealing with Karabakh as an deputy assistant secretary of state, Mr. Bryza managed Caucasus and Turkey affairs at the White House in 2001-2005 and before that was the deputy U.S. envoy for Caspian energy in 1998-2001, dealing mainly with Azerbaijan.

Armenian sources familiar with Mr. Bryza's work at the State Department were harsh in their assessments of his track record.

Asked to comment, California Courier publisher Harut Sassounian told the Armenian Reporter, "everyone is tired of Bryza's antics of repeatedly saying one thing in one capital and then denying it in a second capital. He has cried wolf too many times and has lost all credibility."

Another source, who asked not to be named, predicted that "should Mr. Bryza become the president's nominee, he can expect comprehensive congressional questioning over his role" in U.S. policy in the Caucasus.

Separately, The Cable reported that Nancy McEldowney, the former deputy chief of U.S. diplomatic missions in Ankara (2004-2007) and Baku (2001-2004), will become the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Eurasia.

State Dept. sees improvement in Armenia’s anti-trafficking policy

Armenia has been removed from the U.S. human trafficking "watch list," the State Department reported on June 16. After spending five years on the list, Armenia was credited with "significant efforts" to meet U.S. standards on fighting trafficking in persons, although it was still short of meeting them.

The U.S. Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2001, mandating that the State Department issue annual reports that rate the world's efforts to counter human trafficking for the purposes of forced labor or prostitution.

Theoretically, the most egregious offenders could see a cut in U.S. aid. But no sanctions have ever been implemented under the act. See http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/06/124872.htm for the complete report.

U.S. companies with Turkey interests lobby against Genocide resolution

Major arms producers BAE Systems Inc., Goodrich Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., Raytheon Co., and United Technologies Corp. and energy producer Chevron Corp. lobbied against the Armenian Genocide resolution introduced in U.S. Congress earlier this year, The Associated Press reported on June 12 citing mandatory lobbying disclosures.

The companies spent a total of $14 million on lobbying for contracts and tax incentives and it was unclear how much of the amount was spent against the congressional resolution. Additional lobbying for Turkey is done by firms hired directly by the Turkish government and Turkish-American entities.

Seeking to win Ankara's favor, U.S. corporations looking to do business in Turkey have long lobbied against honoring Armenian lives lost in the Genocide.

One the resolution's main sponsors, Rep. Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.) charged the companies involved with not being ‘‘good corporate citizens.''

U.S. seeks to keep Kyrgyzstan airbase

President Obama sent a letter to Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev emphasizing the importance of bilateral security ties, the Kyrgyz government reported on June 11, according to news agencies.

The letter was meant as a fresh appeal for the Central Asian nation to reverse its decision to close a U.S. air base on its soil that has been used in support of Afghanistan operations. Last February, Kyrgyzstan gave the United States six months to close the base after receiving a $2 billion aid package from Russia.

During a regional summit meeting in Yekatirinburg, Russia, on June 16, Mr. Bakiyev pledged continued cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan security.

Paul Quinn-Judge, the Bishkek-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels think tank, told Eurasianet.org on June 17 that current expectations are that the U.S. base would stay open in spite of an earlier decision to close it by August 18.

Mr. Bakiyev is seen as hedging his bets, as he faces an election contest on July 22.

World watching Iran’s post-election crisis

Street clashes and large-scale protests that followed Iran's June 12 presidential election continue to grab headlines as the United States and others try to make sense of the crisis, watching for any potential impact it might have on Iran's relations with the world.

Official figures gave the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad more than 60 percent of the vote and a first-round victory against former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was credited with about half as many votes. But Mr. Mousavi's supporters and sympathizers say the vote was a sham and have held protests demanding its annulment.

While President Barack Obama said he did not want to be seen as "meddling" in Iran's politics, he implicitly criticized the handling of the vote and most of America's political class remained overtly hopeful that Mr. Ahmadinejad, known for his controversial rhetoric, could be sidelined.

Meanwhile, China and Russia were quick to recognize Mr. Ahmadinejad's victory, with Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev hosting Iran's president on June 16 for a regional summit meeting.

In Europe, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy was most outspoken. Shortly before attending the funeral of Gabon's ruler of more than 40 years and France's protégé, Mr. Sarkozy criticized Iran's election as a "fraud" and its government reaction "brutal."

In scenes reminiscent of recent election-related crises in Armenia and Georgia, angry opposition supporters filled the streets of the capital Tehran and other major cities, while pro-government groups sought to counter with demonstrations of their own. On June 15 seven protestors were killed as they tried to make their way inside the headquarters of Basij, the pro-government militia.

Observers have compared the post-election ferment to demonstrations that preceded the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew Iran's Shah. But in a major difference, in addition to support in the streets, Mr. Mousavi has strong endorsements from within Iran's establishment, including two of Mr. Ahmadinejad's predecessors as president, Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005) and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989–97) – who continues to hold powerful posts – as well as many celebrities.

Iran's supreme leader for the last 20 years, Ali Khamenei, under pressure from some fellow religious leaders, has already called for a partial recount of votes.

The ongoing crisis follows an earlier setback for Iran in Lebanon, where a Tehran-backed coalition failed to unseat a ruling alliance backed by the West and Saudi Arabia in June 7 elections.

House Subcommittee on aid to Armenia

House panel ups Armenia, Karabakh aid levels, insists on military aid parity
Subcommittee chair Lowey lauded for “fixing” President Obama’s aid request
by Emil Sanamyan
Published: Friday June 19, 2009

Washington - A key congressional subcommittee responsible for U.S. foreign aid spending agreed this week to allocate $48 million in aid to Armenia and $10 million to Nagorno-Karabakh in Fiscal Year 2010. The June 17 decision by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs chaired by Rep. Nita Lowey (D.-N.Y.) set Armenia aid to the same level as it is in the current fiscal year and increased the allocation to Karabakh by $2 million.

The move was welcomed by Armenian-American organizations, which praised Rep. Lowey and subcommittee members for taking a step towards "fixing" the budget request submitted by the Obama administration last month.

The congressional panel also set military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan at $3.45 million each and introduced requirements for closer scrutiny for a presidential waiver of Section 907, which restricts U.S. aid to Azerbaijan, according to sources cited by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

The administration had requested $30 million for aid to Armenia, and had requested no funds for Nagorno-Karabakh. It had also asked for more military aid to Azerbaijan than to Armenia.

Last week the Millennium Challenge Corporation chaired by the secretary of state cancelled a separated $67 million aid program intended to rehabilitate Armenia's rural roads.

According to comments by Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon during his recent visit to Yerevan, the congressional revision of the aid request was anticipated by the State Department.

In a letter to the subcommittee leadership earlier this year, the co-chairs of the Armenian Caucus, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D.-N.J.), and Mark Kirk (R.-Ill.) recommended $70 million in economic and $5 million in military aid to Armenia and $10 million for Nagorno-Karabakh.

In addition to Rep. Kirk, the subcommittee includes Rep. Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.) and several other key supporters of Armenian issues.

Rep. Schiff issued a statement welcoming the subcommittee decision, saying it "will help ensure peace and greater economic stability in the Caucasus."

"As the Armenian Government prepares to send troops to join the NATO mission in Afghanistan, our Committee worked in a bipartisan fashion to provide robust economic and security assistance to this strong U.S. ally," Rep. Kirk was quoted by the ANCA as saying.

"Our Committee sent a strong message to the Government of Azerbaijan to keep its commitment to the OSCE peace process, end its bellicose rhetoric and stop meddling in the U.S.-backed Armenian-Turkish reconciliation process," Mr. Kirk added.

Clinton on Armenia-Turkey; MCC aid cut; Azerbaijan PNTR; new DoD manager for Eurasia

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

Secretary Clinton remains upbeat on Armenia-Turkey talks

There has been "no flagging of commitment" to the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on June 5. She was speaking at a joint press conference with visiting Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Asked whether she remained hopeful about a resolution of Armenian-Turkish relations on a bilateral track or in the Karabakh conflict since the statement by Armenia, Switzerland, and Turkey was issued on April 22, Mrs. Clinton said she remained "very encouraged by progress that has been made and commitment by governments involved."

Mrs. Clinton emphasized that Armenia and Turkey "have committed themselves to a process of normalization"; although she also counseled there was a need for "patience and perseverance" to achieve results in what she said was a "difficult undertaking" addressing longstanding issues.

She also pointed to this week's Armenia-Azerbaijan presidential summit in Saint Petersburg as evidence of progress in the Karabakh peace process.

Although immediately after the April 22 statement, the United States emphasized the need for the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations to take place "without preconditions and within a reasonable timeframe," U.S. officials have since linked progress in these talks to the Karabakh negotiations, describing the two processes as parallel.

Armenian officials insist there should be "no parallelism" or any other linkages between the two processes.

The United States also has not defined what it would consider to be "a reasonable timeframe," with Mrs. Clinton again saying that it was up to Armenia and Turkey to continue "on the path they themselves have set," and that the United States was only acting in a supporting role.

For his part, Mr. Davutoglu reiterated that Turkey "is fully committed to normalization with Armenia and resolution of Armenian-Azeri issues."

U.S. agency cuts $67 million in Armenia funding

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) board met on June 10 and decided that it "will not resume funding for any further road construction and rehabilitation" in Armenia, the agency said in a press release.

The MCC's five-year $235 million Armenia compact originally included $67 million for road construction and repair and $146 million for agriculture projects. The latter projects have continued.

"MCC regrets that it cannot move forward with funding road construction in Armenia," the corporation's acting CEO, Rodney Bent, said in a statement. "The responsibility for this outcome remains with the government of Armenia, whose actions have been inconsistent with the eligibility criteria that are at the heart of the MCC program. I do not anticipate that the Board will revisit this issue in the future."

The agency first introduced a hold on road projects after U.S. officials blamed the Armenian government for the violence that followed last year's presidential elections.

The latest ruling comes after the May 31 election for the Yerevan city council, the conduct of which received a mixed review from observers, including criticism from the U.S. Embassy.

The MCC is chaired by the secretary of state and its decisions are influenced by State Department determinations on whether a country is making progress toward meetings eligibility criteria.

[Asked by the Armenian Reporter for comment late on June 11, the head of media relations for Armenia's Foreign Ministry, Tigran Balayan, said the ministry had been focused on a visit from the Estonian foreign minister and had no immediate comment.]

Proposed removal of U.S. trade restrictions for Azerbaijan questioned

Armenian organizations are questioning the rationale and timing for the efforts to remove Soviet-era trade sanctions against Azerbaijan – commonly referred to as the Jackson-Vanik amendment.

On June 4 Reps. Robert Wexler (D.-Fla.) and Bill Shuster (R.-Pa.), who co-chair the Turkey and Azerbaijan caucuses, respectively, introduced House Resolution 2742 "to authorize the extension of nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations treatment) to the products of Azerbaijan," which would terminate the restriction vis-à-vis Azerbaijan. The bill has since been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee.

Azerbaijan and all other former Soviet republics and satellite states inherited the restriction in the aftermath of the Soviet breakup. It was originally intended to promote human rights, particularly freedom of emigration. Rarely enforced, it has been a symbolic measure and successive U.S. presidents have annually waived the restriction.

Jackson-Vanik restrictions had been previously removed for former Soviet republics that joined or were about to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). Although Azerbaijan first applied for WTO membership in 1997, it has until now showed little interest in joining the group.

"The consideration of this ill-timed legislation would afford Members of Congress a valuable opportunity to review Azerbaijan's unacceptable behavior on a range of issues – from its arms build-up and its threats of renewed aggression against Armenia to its authoritarian political system and systematic destruction of Christian Armenian cultural heritage," Aram Hamparian of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) told the Armenian Reporter.

Ross Vartian of the U.S.-Armenia Public Affairs Committee (USAPAC) added, "The United States cannot grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to a nation like Azerbaijan that blockades another nation, Armenia, in violation of U.S. law."

The Obama administration has not yet taken a public position on the proposed legislation.

Meanwhile, the State Department's incoming assistant secretary for political-military affairs, Andrew Shapiro, praised Azerbaijan for "cooperating in good faith" in the Karabakh peace process and indicated that the United States would continue security assistance to Azerbaijan, the ANCA reported on June 10.

The comment came as part of Mr. Shapiro's confirmation process and was in response to questions from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.) who raised the issue of Azerbaijani war threats against Armenia and continued U.S. security assistance to Azerbaijan.

Pentagon’s Eurasia manager appointed

American University professor Celeste Wallander was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia policy, the Department of Defense reported on June 9.

The new appointee is an expert on Russia and has also written on U.S. policy toward Iran. In her analyses, Ms. Wallander has sought to counter the frequently alarmist descriptions of Russia's intentions, portraying Moscow leaders as primarily pragmatic and their policies as seeking to manage rather than confront America's dominance in world affairs.

Prior to her appointment, Ms. Wallander led the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security (PONARS) that focused on the former Soviet space, particularly the Caucasus, and was first housed at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and since 2007 at Georgetown University.

Discussing last year's Russian-Georgian war, Ms. Wallander told PBS NewsHour that "in traditional security terms, the Caucasus is in a geostrategically important part of the world."

"The Caucasus is just north of Iraq and Iran," she elaborated. "It's just west of Central Asia, which involves Afghanistan. So all these regions are areas in which the United States is militarily engaged because these are where the security challenges of the 21st century are."

F. U.S. envoy on origins of Karabakh peace process

Maresca: “I would not have expected Karabakh cease-fire to last as long as it has”
Wartime U.S. envoy reflects on the origins of the 17-year peace process
by Emil Sanamyan
Published: Friday May 22, 2009

Washington, - Ambassador John (Jack) Maresca was the first U.S. official to directly deal with the Karabakh conflict as a special envoy between 1992 and 1994. His diplomatic career included postings as the U.S. representative to the Conference (now Organization) for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), chairperson of the delegation that negotiated the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe, and deputy head of the delegation that negotiated the Helsinki Final Act of 1975.

Following his Karabakh assignment, Mr. Maresca headed the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty-affiliated Open Media Research Institute in Prague, was vice president at Unocal, the oil company that has since merged with Chevron, and president of the Business Humanitarian Forum in Geneva.

Currently, a rector at the University for Peace, a United Nations institution in Costa Rica, Ambassador Maresca answered Washington Editor Emil Sanamyan's questions by e-mail on May 18.

Armenian Reporter: When the cease-fire in May 1994 was concluded, did you expect it to last as long as it has? Why do you think it has lasted so long?

John Maresca: No, I would not have expected it to last as long as it has, since there had previously been a number of cease-fires which did not last very long.

I am not close enough to the current situation to know why it has lasted.

Birth of the Minsk Group

AR: You were U.S. ambassador to CSCE in 1989-92. How did CSCE/OSCE first become involved in Karabakh mediation? In early 1992 the United Nations was first to dispatch its envoy, former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, to the conflict area. Why wasn't the Karabakh mandate given to the UN?

JM: Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, I pressed the CSCE to accept all the newly independent states as full members of the CSCE, on the grounds that they had already been members when they were within the USSR. Although there was some resistance to this, eventually it was accepted, and at a senior-level CSCE meeting in Prague [on January 30-31, 1992] all the newly independent states were accepted as full members.

At that same meeting it was noted that there was a conflict going on in the Caucasus region, involving newly admitted members, and the suggestion was made that the CSCE should look into it, and should host a conference to mediate a solution. The government of Belarus offered to host such a conference, which was from that moment called the "Minsk Conference."

It was agreed that a number of interested CSCE delegates would visit the region. I arranged for a U.S. Air Force plane to take us to both Baku and Yerevan, and Russia eventually provided a Russian army helicopter to take us to Stepanakert, in Nagorno-Karabakh.

AR: How did the Minsk Group come about? On what basis was its composition established? Why was a group set up rather than a CSCE envoy directly appointed? What were the Group's main accomplishments between 1992 and 1994?

JM: Although there had been agreement that there would be a peace conference in Minsk, and that there would be a visit to the region by senior representatives of the CSCE, there was no CSCE agreement on any ongoing mechanism of any kind.

Italy volunteered to chair the Minsk Conference, whenever it might take place, and nominated an Italian political figure [Mario Raffaelli] as the chairman of the Minsk Conference. On behalf of the United States, I pressed the new Italian chairman to convene an urgent negotiating process, to see if the basic issues of the conflict could be resolved and, theoretically, to prepare for the Minsk Conference.

At the Villa Madama

Under this pressure, the Italians convened a discussion session among the parties to the conflict. This took place [starting in June 1992] at the Villa Madama, a discreet conference center near Rome. It included representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh. There had to be a careful discussion of "seating arrangements" since Nagorno-Karabakh was not recognized as a sovereign state.

A few other countries volunteered to take part - notably the United States, Russia, France, Italy, Turkey, and Sweden, as observers and facilitators. This group of countries became the "Minsk Group."

There was no incentive to appoint a "special envoy." The issue was too sensitive, too far away, and possibly too hopeless for such a step, and spreading the responsibility among a number of interested countries seemed an easier way to go.

The Minsk Group's main accomplishment was to create the possibility for a cease-fire on the ground. Of course a cease-fire is not a complete or final solution, and can create a "frozen conflict," but it does at least stop the immediate bloodshed.

AR: As the first U.S. envoy involved in Karabakh talks, what resources did you draw on? Were you able to visit Karabakh itself? Without direct presence in the conflict area, what sources was the U.S. government using in trying to establish facts on the ground?

JM: Resources were limited, but I think we had pretty good information on developments. I had my own plane, supplied by the U.S. Air Force.

I visited Karabakh via Russian helicopter and/or land vehicles on several occasions, and traveled throughout Karabakh. I held discussions with the presidents, foreign ministers, and security officials in Baku, Yerevan, and Stepanakert. I also traveled to the frontier zones by vehicles on both the Armenian and the Azerbaijan sides. I was able to visit virtually any place I wanted to visit.

We also had close consultations with the Russian Foreign and Defense Ministries on what was going on in the region. Within a short time the United States established embassies in Baku and Yerevan.

AR: Following April 1993 fighting, when Kelbajar was captured, the UN Security Council passed its first resolution on the Karabakh issue. Who initiated that effort? Why were resolutions only passed in 1993 and not in 1992 when major military operations commenced? And not in 1994 when the bulk of war casualties were suffered by both sides?

JM: I was not following events in the UN. In general terms I believe there was hope that the Minsk Group could be successful, and so there was reluctance among the interested international community to "take over" the issue in another forum.

Competing interests

AR: How was your relationship with Russia's envoy for Karabakh talks at the time, Ambassador Vladimir Kazimirov? Mr. Kazimirov has said that throughout the peace process, the United States was often seeking to upstage Russia.

JM: I think my relations with Kazimirov were friendly, but obviously subject to mutual suspicions. Dealing with Russia in the period following the breakup of the Soviet Union was complicated and involved a lot of sensitivities. There were times when different branches of the Russian government were not in complete coordination with each other.

AR: Mr. Kazimirov has said publicly that in September 1993 in Moscow, U.S. officials showed him a so-called "non-paper" outlining U.S. opposition to any Karabakh peace deal that could result in the introduction of Russian peacekeepers in the region. Could you provide any details on that?

JM: I don't know what "non-paper" you are referring to here. However, I never favored the use of Russian peacekeepers, since I thought Russia had its own agenda in the region.

AR: Would it be fair to say that Caspian energy was a major motivating factor for the United States to become involved in the Caucasus? Having worked both for the U.S. government and a major oil company, how do you see the interplay between government and business interests?

JM: The U.S. became involved in the Minsk Group efforts because of concerns about the conflict, including those expressed by Armenian-Americans.

When U.S. energy-resource companies became involved in the region, a little later, access to Caspian-region energy also became a consideration.

But there have always been very severe limitations on what the U.S. was able or willing to undertake in the Caucasus region.

ANCA vs. Obama; Hillary to Serge; Gordon cleared; Turkish-Azeri lobby; Putin & Erdogan

This was first published in May 23, 2009 Armenian Reporter

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

ANCA charges Obama with “grave offense” to Armenian Americans

In a strongly worded communication, the Armenian National Committee of America's chair Ken Hachikian urged President Barack Obama to "revise the course your Administration has chosen on issues of special concern to Armenia Americans."

The May 18 letter by the largest Armenian-American advocacy organization identified President Obama's recent foreign-aid request but especially the failure to uphold his pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide as "a grave offense to Armenian Americans and a disservice to all Americans."

While continuing the Bush administration's policy of deference to Turkey and avoiding the term genocide when discussing the Ottoman-Armenian experience, President Obama and his officials have sought to emphasize the importance of Armenia-Turkey talks.

Sources familiar with discussions prior to the president's April 24 statement told the Armenian Reporter that a senior administration official had argued that the statement should forego the term genocide in order not to hinder an anticipated breakthrough between Armenia and Turkey. According to the Turkish press, the United States was also behind securing the April 22 Armenian-Turkish statement announcing progress in talks.

But the ANCA argued, "ongoing dialogue between Armenia and Turkey should have no bearing on [President Obama's] willingness to speak the truth about the Armenian Genocide; our stand against all instances of genocide should be unconditional."

[ANCA endorsed Mr. Obama's presidential bid in early 2008 and actively campaigned for his candidacy throughout the primary and general election.]

U.S. reassures Armenia on Turkey talks

A letter from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent to Armenian President Serge Sargsian last week reiterated U.S. support for Armenia-Turkey talks.

The letter came just as Turkish leaders again ruled out normalization of relations unless Armenia makes concessions on the Karabakh issue, and an aide to Azerbaijan's president alleged that there was no progress on that issue because the United States and other mediators had a "Christian bias" in favor of Armenia.

The United States has supported Armenia's efforts to normalize relations with Turkey quickly and without preconditions, but the administration has identified no concrete timeframe and is seeking to achieve "parallel" progress in Karabakh talks.

Asked about the letter's intent, a State Department spokesperson told the Armenian Reporter that the letter was private and he could not comment on it.

The Armenian president's office said on May 15 that the letter also dealt with bilateral relations, including U.S. aid to Armenia channeled through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, whose board is chaired by Mrs. Clinton, and stressed the importance of free and fair conduct of the May 31 elections for Yerevan city council.

State Department’s new Eurasia manager confirmed

Philip Gordon, the Obama administration's nominee for assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, was confirmed by the Senate on May 14, the Foreign Policy magazine blog The Cable reported the following morning.

According to earlier reports, Mr. Gordon's nomination was held up for over a month by Sen. John Ensign (R.-Nev.) because of Mr. Gordon's opposition to U.S. affirmation of the Armenian Genocide.

According to an anonymous source cited by Greek News on May 13, Mr. Ensign decided to drop his hold, first introduced in early April, after Armenia announced it had agreed to a normalization process with Turkey in a joint April 22 statement.

Meanwhile, in response to an inquiry from Sen. Robert Menendez (D.-N.J.) as part of the confirmation process, Mr. Gordon's previous employer the Brookings Institution reported receiving more than $710,000 in funding from Turkish corporate entities since 2006. Most of the money went toward Brookings' Turkey program, run by former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris.

In responses to Mr. Menendez's written questions, also published by Greek News, Mr. Gordon studiously avoided the term genocide, while "mourning" the deaths of 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians, recalled his support for Turkey "to come to terms with its history" and improve relations with Armenia, "if Armenia shows a real commitment to a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict."

Mr. Gordon's responses indicated no change to U.S. policy of restricted engagement with authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh and continued U.S. humanitarian aid to its residents.

Turkey, Azerbaijan boosters hold Washington events

Hardly a week goes by in the U.S. capital without a public event intended to extol the importance of Turkey to the world. Less frequently, but also on regular basis, the Azerbaijani government's mercenaries gather to discuss ways to ingratiate that eccentric regime to the Washington establishment.

On May 14 Rep. Robert Wexler (D.-Fla.), chair of the House Europe Subcommittee and co-chair of the congressional Turkey caucus, held what has become a biannual hearing on Turkey. This time the hearing was titled, "The United States and Turkey: A Model Partnership."

The hearing brought together Ian Lesser of the U.S. German Marshall Fund, David Phillips of the Atlantic Council of the United States, and Stephen Flanagan of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who testified to the partnership's virtues.

Also on May 14, an event, "Azerbaijan and the West: Strategic Partnership at Eurasia's Crossroads," included Glen Howard and Vlad Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, a local think tank; Brenda Shaffer of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy; and Dan Fata, until recently a deputy assistant secretary of defense dealing with the Caucasus and now vice president at Cohen Group, a lobby shop run by former defense secretary Bill Cohen.

Putin meets Erdogan, indicates no change in Russia’s Karabakh policy

Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a joint press conference in Sochi, Russia, May 16, 2009.

Meeting with visiting Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian premier Vladimir Putin appeared disinclined to lean on either Armenia or Azerbaijan to attempt any kind of settlement of the Karabakh standoff. Mr. Erdogan apparently had promised to raise the issue with Mr. Putin after visiting Azerbaijan last week.

Talking to the media following their May 16 meeting in the resort town of Sochi, Mr. Putin reiterated the Russian policy language that it was up to the parties to find an agreement.

"As to the difficult problems that we inherited from the past, which includes the Karabakh problem, a compromise must be found by the conflicting parties themselves," Mr. Putin said, when asked about the issue by a Turkish journalist. "All other states that are helping achieve that compromise can only serve as mediators and guarantors of implementation of agreements [that might be] achieved."

The talks focused on the expansion of Russian natural-gas exports to Turkey and plans to build four nuclear reactors in Turkey with Russia's participation.

According to RIA Novosti, this was the eighth meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan since December 2004, with these frequent contacts reflecting an expanding bilateral relationship. The 2008 bilateral trade turnover surpassed $33 billion, with Russia replacing Germany as Turkey's largest trade partner. Turkey is in turn Russia's fifth-largest trade partner.

On top of energy, economic relations include more than $20 billion in contracts won by Turkish construction companies in Russia over the last decade and growing Russian arms sales to Turkey.

Silva Harotonian update, Rxns to Obama aid request, UN HRC vote

This was first published in May 16, 2009 Armenian Reporter

Washington Briefing
by Emil Sanamyan

U.S., family continue to call for Iranian-Armenian’s release

With Roxana Saberi, an Iranian­-American journalist released this week, the family of Iranian-­Armenian aid worker Silva ­Harotonian urged Iranian authorities to offer her clemency as well.

In a May 13 statement distributed by Fox News, Klara Moradkhan, Ms. Harotonian's American cousin, suggested that "the very basis on which Ms. Saberi was freed - Iran's recognition that it and the United States are not in a state of hostility toward one another - would support Silva's release as well under Iranian law."

Ms. Harotonian was arrested in June 2008 and was last January sentenced to a three-year prison term. The Iranian legal system is currently considering her second and final appeal. Ms. Harotonian was an administrator for a U.S.-funded maternal and children's health program, but was charged with trying to undermine the Iranian government; she was reportedly pressured to testify against herself.

U.S. officials have called charges against both Ms. Harotonian and Ms. Saberi "baseless" and have called on Iran to release them.

According to media reports this week, the case against Ms. Saberi was based mostly on a confidential document she reportedly copied while working for an Iranian government entity several years earlier. Ms. Saberi was initially sentenced to eight years in prison before being released on parole.

Members of Congress react to administration’s Armenia aid request

Reps. Frank Pallone (D.-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R.-Ill.), co-chairs of the congressional Armenian caucus, said they "will work to restore funding for Armenia." Their statement came a day after the Obama administration requested aid levels that were lower than funds appropriated in Fiscal Year 2009.

"We are confident that as the [Fiscal Year 2010] appropriations process moves forward, Congress will increase economic assistance to Armenia beyond the Administration's budget proposal and will provide aid to Nagorno Karabakh," Reps. Pallone and Kirk said on May 8.

Also reacting to the request was Rep. Brad Sherman (D.-Calif.) who briefly raised the issue during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew on May 13. Mr. Sherman mentioned the issue along with several others, asking Mr. Lew for a written response.

Mr. Sherman also requested a comment on the issue from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her April 22 testimony at the committee; neither response was available as of press time.

In a March 24 letter to the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee leadership, Reps. Pallone and Kirk requested an increase in U.S. aid to Armenia (see table below). The subcommittee will review the administration's proposal in the next few months.

U.S. aid programs
(in millions of dollars)

FY2010 proposals FY2009 proposals and appropriated levels
Obama & Caucus requested Bush & Caucus requested Congress appropriated

Armenia 30.0 70 24.0 70 48.0
Karabakh N/A 10 N/A 10 8.0
Armenia
military 3.5 5 3.3 5 3.5
Azerbaijan
military 4.9 0 3.9 0 3.5

Ambassador to Armenia reacts to critics of aid request

In what is likely to form the basis for the State Department's response to critics of the administration's request, the U.S. Embassy in Armenia issued a letter from Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch that reiterated America's commitment to its "longstanding partnership with Armenia."

In her letter Ms. Yovanovitch noted that President Barack Obama's request was an increase over President George W. Bush's request last year, and that "actual levels of assistance" are determined by the U.S. Congress, which has traditionally revised administration requests upward.

"With respect to funding for Nagorno­-Karabakh, there has never been a budget request sent to Congress because there is no mechanism for doing so in the budget process," the ambassador noted. "Rather, the humanitarian assistance provided to Nagorno-Karabakh is worked out afterwards, during the budget negotiation between Congress and the Administration."

Ms. Yovanovitch also noted that a somewhat larger request for military aid to Azerbaijan "is linked to U.S. priorities in peacekeeping and maritime security on the Caspian Sea" and that "they do not adversely affect the military balance" between Armenia and Azerbaijan as is stipulated by U.S. law.

The Embassy noted that nearly $2 billion in U.S. aid has been provided to Armenia since the 1988 earthquake; that amounted included $68.9 million provided in 2008.

U.S., Armenian officials hold regular consultations

In a meeting of the U.S.-Armenia Economic Task Force (USATF) on May 13, delegations led by Economics Minister Nerses Yeritsian and State Department coordinator for aid to Eurasia Dan Rosenblum "discussed advancing economic and market reforms, strengthening rule of law, and other bilateral issues," the U.S. Embassy in Armenia said in a statement.

The discussions are intended to produce an "action plan [that] helps in tailoring assistance to Armenia coming from the United States Government."

Established nine years ago, USATF held its previous meeting in Washington last November.

Azerbaijan voted out of UN body

Hungary will replace Azerbaijan at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), having won more international support for one of two vacant seats on the council. The other seat went to Russia, which like Azerbaijan was first elected to the body in 2006. In the May 12 vote, Russia won the support of 146 countries, Hungary of 131 countries and Azerbaijan of 84 countries.

"The election of Hungary, especially over Azerbaijan, a country with a poor human rights record but with considerable influence thanks to its energy resources, is something to applaud," Vladimir Shkolnikov of the U.S.-based rights group Freedom House said in a statement. For UNHRC it "is a small but important step in the right direction," he added.

Also winning a three-year term on the council was the United States, backed by 167 of the total of 192 UN members. The United States was previously ousted from UNHRC's predecessor entity - the Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) - in 2001. (Armenia was elected to UNCHR twice - in 2002 and 2005.)

The UN human rights body was shunned by the Bush Administration for criticizing Israel and for including countries like Cuba. But the Obama administration argues that U.S. concerns would be better served through membership in the council.

The Geneva-based 47-member UNHRC makes recommendations to the General Assembly on human rights issues.