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This was originally published in December 22, 2007 Armenian Reporter.
by Emil Sanamyan
Congressional appropriators agree on aid levels below Armenian-American recommendations
Appropriators from the Senate and House of Representatives this week agreed on a $555 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2008, which provides for continued funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and about a dozen other spending bills, including foreign assistance.
According to the finalized amended budget document published on the web site of the House Rules Committee on December 17, allocations have fallen largely short of recommendations made by Armenian-American organizations nine months ago.
In separate testimonies submitted to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations on March 29, the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), and the U.S.–Armenia Public Affairs Committee (USAPAC) recommended $75 million in economic and $5.3 million in military aid to Armenia, $10 million in aid to Karabakh, as well as constraints on military aid to Azerbaijan. (See this page in the April 7 Armenian Reporter.)
The recommendations came following the February 3 Bush Administration request for just $35 million in economic aid to Armenia, down from $69 million spent in fiscal 2006, and more military assistance to Azerbaijan than Armenia.
As a result of the compromise, the United States will provide just under $400 million in assistance to former Soviet republics, down from $452 million approved for fiscal 2007. The largest allocations are set aside for Ukraine ($73 million) and Russia ($72.2 million). Armenia is the next largest recipient by volume at $58.5 million; Georgia is to get $50.5 million, and Azerbaijan, $19 million.
The spending bill also approved more than $1.5 billion in performance-based Millennium
Challenge programs worldwide, down from $1.75 billion approved the previous year. Armenia is currently completing the first year of its five-year $235 million program.
Congress also approved $4.5 billion in military aid under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, the amount largely unchanged from 2007. Most of these funds are set aside for Israel ($2.4 billion), Egypt ($1.3 billion), Jordan ($300 million) and Pakistan ($300 million). Armenia and Azerbaijan are due to get $3 million in FMF assistance each, with no funds specifically allocated to Georgia.
The spending bill did not make a specific allocation for aid to Karabakh, although the House Appropriations Committee recommended that “up to $6,000,000 should be made available to address ongoing humanitarian needs in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The appropriators further supported funding to address the needs of Christian minorities in Iraq and also recommended that U.S. State Department consider a proposal by the “Armenian Youth Federation for support of exchanges with Armenia.”
Top Swiss court upholds Genocide denial conviction
Switzerland’s highest court ruled on December 19 to uphold an earlier judgment by a lower court that convicted a Turkish politician for denying the Armenian Genocide.
Last March, Dogu Perincek was first convicted of “moral injury” and given a suspended 90-day jail term and an additional fine of $2,600, under a 1995 Swiss law that bans denying, belittling, or justifying genocide. In that conviction Judge Pierre-Henri Winzap described Mr. Perincek, who publicly denied the Armenian Genocide at events in Switzerland, an “arrogant instigator” and “racist.”
That ruling was held on appeal in June (see this page in the June 20 Armenian Reporter) and again in the latest ruling by Switzerland’s Federal Tribunal, which confirmed that there is a historical consensus on the veracity of the Armenian Genocide.
In a statement, the Swiss-Armenia Association noted that for the first time since the Genocide “a supreme court of criminal law hand[ed] down a conviction for denying the genocide of the Armenians.”
Mr. Perincek will now appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, Agence France Presse reported.
Russia seals Turkmenistan gas deal
Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan agreed on December 19 to build a new pipeline that will transport Turkmen natural gas to Russia for further export to Europe, news agencies reported. The agreement is a setback for the United States and many in the European Union, who seek to channel Turkmenistan’s gas resources to Europe while skirting Russia.
Russia, which has the biggest natural gas supplies in the world, already dominates Europe’s market for natural gas. Americans and Europeans hope that some of Turkmenistan’s gas resources, believed to be fourth-largest in the world behind Iran and Qatar, could be transported under the Caspian Sea and through the Caucasus to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russia.
According to the BBC, “prospects for pipelines under the Caspian have been clouded by high costs, environmental concerns and disputes over ownership of the sea resources.”
Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have yet to demarcate their maritime border in the Caspian.
Georgia faces tight presidential contest
The January 5 presidential elections in Georgia will be the most closely-fought since its independence in 1991, according to nonpartisan www.civil.ge. The previous elections were all dominated by a single front-runner – Zviad Gamsakhurdia won 86.5 percent in 1991, Eduard Shevardnadze won 70 and 80 percent in 1995 and 2000, respectively, and Mikhail Saakashvili won with 96 percent in 2004.
In response to public discontent over the economy, Mr. Saakashvili is campaigning with a program pledging to focus on social needs. The Georgian government said this week it will increase social allocations while reducing military spending to about $300 million out of $3.6 billion in total projected expenditure in 2008. Georgia’s military spending this year amounted to about $783 million.
While according to the Eurasinet.org, Mr. Saakashvili leads the field of eight candidates, it is unclear if he will be able to collect more than half of all votes to avoid a second round. In polls, Mr. Saakashvili is followed by the joint opposition candidate Levan Gachechiladze, who pledged to turn Georgia into a parliamentary republic if elected. They are trailed by billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili and populist politician Shalva Natelashvili.
This week, the New York–based Human Rights Watch and Brussels-based International Crisis Group issued reports criticizing Mr. Saakashvili’s crackdown on the opposition last month. Faced with international criticism the Georgian government has since eased restrictions.
The U.S. News Corp.–owned Imedi TV, previously co-owned by Mr. Patarkatsishvili, has resumed broadcasting last week (although the billionaire himself has not returned to Georgia fearing arrest and is running his campaign from Israel).
This was originally published in August 18, 2007 Armenian Reporter.
From Washington, in brief
by Emil Sanamyan
More than 400 believed killed in attack on Iraqi Yezidis
Four trucks packed with explosives and fuel detonated in a Yezidi-populated area in northern Iraq on August 15, killing at least 400 people and wounding hundreds more. The
Sinjar district where the attack occurred is 75 miles west of Mosul, the area that is home to most of the world’s half a million Yezidis and a stronghold of Sunni Muslim militants.
While the bulk of the Yezidis reside in northern Iraq, they are also the biggest minority group in Armenia, where most of them fled in the early 20th century due to persecution in Ottoman Turkey. The group, which is considered to be ethnically Kurdish, follows a pre-Muslim faith that is typically described as a mix of Zoroastrianism and Manichean beliefs. Yezidis have been persecuted both under Saddam Hussein and since his overthrow. Last April, gunmen shot 23 Yezidis in Mosul.
The Sinjar district massacre, centered on villages of Kahtaniya, al-Jazeera, and Tal Uzair, became the deadliest single incident since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Guardian newspaper reported that “the Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, warned residents last week that an attack on Yezidis was imminent,” and the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said he believed the group carried out the attack. According to Kurdish intelligence officials, cited by the newspaper, Sunni extremists have become more active in northern Iraq following the “surge” in U.S. military presence in Baghdad, as well as in Anbar and Diyala provinces to the south of Mosul.
Armenia’s Ambassador, Defense Attaché meet top Pentagon official
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England met with Armenia’s Ambassador to the U.S. Tatoul Markarian and Defense Attaché Col. Armen Sargsyan on August 14, the Armenian Embassy reported. Secretary England is the second most senior official in the Pentagon hierarchy.
According to the Embassy release, the meeting focused on “bilateral military cooperation and regional security issues.” Since 2002 the U.S. has provided the Armenian army with more than $10 million in aid and the two countries have stepped up security cooperation.
Amb. Markarian also relayed the Armenian government’s gratitude for “organizing the full medical treatment and rehabilitation of Lt. Georgi Nalbandian at Washington’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center.” The Armenian officer was seriously wounded in action last November and was first evacuated to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. Following eight months of treatment and rehabilitation there and at Walter Reed, Capt. Nalbandian just returned to active duty in the Armenian Army.
The Armenian contingent of military engineers, medical and logistics personnel have been in Iraq since January 2005. Armenians are part of the Polish-led Multi-National Division Central South, and they are based near Iraq’s border with Iran.
Foreign Minister Gul to be re-nominated for Turkish presidency
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will re-nominate Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as its candidate for president. The Turkish parliament is set to elect a president in three rounds of voting between August 20 and 28. Mr. Gul’s previous bid for the presidency was blocked by the military and secular nationalist opposition last May, forcing an early general election.
While prime ministers have greater political clout in Turkey (AKP’s Recep Tayyib Erdogan has been in that job since 2003), presidents have key influence onthe judiciary and the military. The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal argued that if Mr. Gul is elected, “Turkey’s political balances will change [and it] will be transformed into a country with an overbearing religious and Middle Eastern identity,” the Radikal newspaper reported.
But AKP’s strong electoral performance on July 22 is expected to make Mr. Gul’s election this time around more likely, with smaller opposition groups pledging to participate in the vote and thus securing the required two-thirds quorum.
On August 9, Koksal Toptan, a secular AKP member and former minister in pre-AKP governments, was elected Parliament chairman, the New Anatolian reported. In that vote CHP as well as independent Kurdish parliamentarians voted for the AKP nominee, with opposition coming only from the right-wing National Action Party (MHP).
U.S. continues consultations with Azerbaijan
Assistant Secretary of State Dan Sullivan became the third State Department official of that rank to hold consultations with Azerbaijan so far this month. On August 15 and 16, he discussed economic and security issues with Azerbaijani officials in Baku, according to APA news agency.
Mr. Sullivan, who heads the State Department’s Bureau for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs, co-chairs the U.S.-Azerbaijan Economic Partnership Commission first launched last February in place of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Task Force on Economic Issues, which had not met since 2005.
On August 3 and 4, Assistant Secretaries Barry Lowenkron and Dan Fried, who respectively head the Democracy and European bureaus, together with Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mamediyarov held the “third round of their bilateral dialogue on democracy and human rights in Azerbaijan” – first initiated by the U.S. last December. That consultation was held via a video link.
Serbia, Kosovo oppose partition, remain deadlocked on status
Leaders of Serbia and its internationally-administered breakaway province of Kosovo ruled out the region’s division as part of a settlement, international news agencies reported this week. Serbia has proposed granting ethnically Albanian-majority Kosovo a high-level of autonomy within Serbia, but Kosovo insists on independence, a stance also supported by the United States.
In an August 13 interview with the BBC, Amb. Wolfgang Ischinger, the European envoy to the contact “troika” – which also includes U.S. and Russian representatives and coordinates an international effort to reach an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo – said that mediators might support a territorial division of Kosovo along ethnic lines, if the two sides agree to it. “We are urging parties to think outside the box,” he said.
A division that would leave Kosovo’s ethnically Serb-populated northern part within Serbia has been supported by some influential but unofficial circles in Belgrade, but Kosovars have ruled it out. Last month, Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu promised to declare independence on November 28, which is also Albania’s independence day.
A United Nations Security Council resolution that would bring Kosovo closer to international recognition was withdrawn by the United States last month, after Russia threatened to veto it. Officials suggested that the U.S. may break the impasse by recognizing Kosovo unilaterally before the end of the year, unless another accommodation is reached through ongoing talks or at the UN.
Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic was in Washington last month and according to a Scripps Howard July 27 report, he lobbied for the U.S. to drop its support for Kosovo’s independence, or at least to extend the ongoing negotiations beyond this year. But following that visit the State Department spokesman Sean McCormack reiterated, most recently on August 14, that the U.S. continues to support “independence for Kosovo.”
