Author: Karabekian Emil

TURKISH COURT LAUNCHES PROBE INTO APOLOGY CAMPAIGN TO ARMENIA

Hurriyet
Jan 9 2009
Turkey

The office of the Ankara Public Prosecutor launched Friday an
investigation into an Internet campaign to issue a public apology
to Armenians.

Six prosecutors submitted a petition calling for a penalty for the
organizers of the apology campaign for "insulting the Turkish nation
openly" under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).

The Ankara public prosecutor’s office started an investigation into
the issue following the prosecutors’ demand.

Around 200 Turkish academics, writers and journalists launched a
website issuing an apology to Armenians regarding the 1915 incidents
and called for people to sign on in support.

The efforts of the intellectuals drew fierce reaction in Turkey
and incited counter website campaigns, and exhibitions containing
information and photographs from studies conducted into the events.

Opening a file in the Article 301, a law that makes insulting
Turkishness a crime, requires the permission of the Justice Ministry.

Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million
of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915.Turkey
rejects the claims saying that 300,000 Armenians, along with at least
as many Turks, died in civil strife that emerged when Armenians took
up arms, backed by Russia, for independence in eastern Anatolia.

The issue remains unsolved as Armenia drags its feet on accepting
Turkey’s proposal to form an independent commission to investigate
the claims.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version: nian.htm

THE AMBASSADOR OF LEBANON TO ARMENIA
VISITS HIS HOLINESS ARAM I

On the Occasion of Christmas and New Year, His Excellency Gabriel Ja’ara
visited His Holiness Aram I to convey his good wishes on the occasion of
Christmas and New Year. Ambassador Ja’ara briefed His Holiness on the
situation in Armenia. His Excellency also updated His Holiness on
Lebanon-Armenia relations, particularly in the economic and cultural
domains.

At the end of the visit, His Holiness expressed the hope that relations
between Armenia and Lebanon be further strengthened.

##
View the photo here:
tos/Photos352.htm
*****
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician
Catholicosate, the administrative center of the church is located in
Antelias, Lebanon.

, Turkey
Jan 2 2009

Turkish president says apology campaign no good for Armenia ties

Asked about future of Turkish-U.S. relations after the new Washington
administration, Gul said relations would become stronger.

Friday, 02 January 2009 09:55

Turkish President Abdullah Gul said that recent internet campaign
launched by Turkish intellectuals to apologize for the incidents of
1915 would negatively affect relations between Turkey and Armenia.

"People do not ask government’s permission while doing something in
this country. But considering its consequences, I do not believe that
recent debates would have contributions," Gul told private ATV channel
in an interview.

Gul said talks between the two countries were under way.

"Sometimes you work silent, sometimes you carry out works before the
public eye. But I can say that works are under way regarding this
matter," he said.

"Who could have thought that Turkey and Armenia would play in the same
group in the World Cup qualifiers? China and United States started
relations during a table tennis tournament," Gul said.

Asked about future of Turkish-U.S. relations after the new Washington
administration, Gul said relations would become stronger.

"I believe that it will be a very good era and I think we will work
together very well," he said

AA

ARMENPRESS

NA SPEAKER HOVIK ABRAHAMIAN MAKES NEW YEAR CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS

YEREVAN, JANUARY 1, ARMENPRESS: Speaker of Armenian parliament
Hovik Abrahamian addressed a New Year congratulatory message. Press
service of the Armenian parliament told Armenpress that the message
particularly says:
`Dear compatriots,
at the end of the year usually the activity of the passing year is
being summed up and the future work planned. Surely the passing year
was a year of trials and achievements.
Throwing a glance back to 2008 we must note that after 2007-2008
elections a time for post-electoral reforms started in Armenia at the
end of which we may register that our country made a step forward
towards the establishment of democracy and improvement of
social-economic situation.
As a speaker of Armenian parliament I wish harmony, tolerance and
successes to all our compatriots living in Armenia and outside of
it. We live in difficult but interesting times and have all the
prerequisites to inherit our generations a more welfare country with
more stable and developed economy.
I wish you merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, peace, health and
happiness’.

Wall Street Journal
Dec 30 2008

Samuel Huntington’s Warning
He predicted a ‘clash of civilizations,’ not the illusion of Davos Man.

By FOUAD AJAMI

The last of Samuel Huntington’s books — "Who Are We? The Challenges
to America’s National Identity," published four years ago — may have
been his most passionate work. It was like that with the celebrated
Harvard political scientist, who died last week at 81. He was a man of
diffidence and reserve, yet he was always caught up in the political
storms of recent decades.

Zina Saunders"This book is shaped by my own identities as a patriot
and a scholar," he wrote. "As a patriot I am deeply concerned about
the unity and strength of my country as a society based on liberty,
equality, law and individual rights." Huntington lived the life of his
choice, neither seeking controversies, nor ducking them. "Who Are We?"
had the signature of this great scholar — the bold, sweeping
assertions sustained by exacting details, and the engagement with the
issues of the time.

He wrote in that book of the "American Creed," and of its erosion
among the elites. Its key elements — the English language,
Christianity, religious commitment, English concepts of the rule of
law, the responsibility of rulers, and the rights of individuals — he
said are derived from the "distinct Anglo-Protestant culture of the
founding settlers of America in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries."

Critics who branded the book as a work of undisguised nativism missed
an essential point. Huntington observed that his was an "argument for
the importance of Anglo-Protestant culture, not for the importance of
Anglo-Protestant people." The success of this great republic, he said,
had hitherto depended on the willingness of generations of Americans
to honor the creed of the founding settlers and to shed their old
affinities. But that willingness was being battered by globalization
and multiculturalism, and by new waves of immigrants with no deep
attachments to America’s national identity. "The Stars and Stripes
were at half-mast," he wrote in "Who Are We?", "and other flags flew
higher on the flagpole of American identities."

Three possible American futures beckoned, Huntington said:
cosmopolitan, imperial and national. In the first, the world remakes
America, and globalization and multiculturalism trump national
identity. In the second, America remakes the world: Unchallenged by a
rival superpower, America would attempt to reshape the world according
to its values, taking to other shores its democratic norms and
aspirations. In the third, America remains America: It resists the
blandishments — and falseness — of cosmopolitanism, and reins in the
imperial impulse.

Huntington made no secret of his own preference: an American
nationalism "devoted to the preservation and enhancement of those
qualities that have defined America since its founding." His stark
sense of realism had no patience for the globalism of the Clinton
era. The culture of "Davos Man" — named for the watering hole of the
global elite — was disconnected from the call of home and hearth and
national soil.

But he looked with a skeptical eye on the American expedition to Iraq,
uneasy with those American conservatives who had come to believe in an
"imperial" American mission. He foresaw frustration for this drive to
democratize other lands. The American people would not sustain this
project, he observed, and there was the "paradox of democracy":
Democratic experiments often bring in their wake nationalistic
populist movements (Latin America) or fundamentalist movements (Muslim
countries). The world tempts power, and denies it. It is the
Huntingtonian world; no false hopes and no redemption.

In the 1990s, when the Davos crowd and other believers in a borderless
world reigned supreme, Huntington crossed over from the academy into
global renown, with his "clash of civilizations" thesis. In an article
first published in Foreign Affairs in 1993 (then expanded into a
book), Huntington foresaw the shape of the post-Cold War world. The
war of ideologies would yield to a civilizational struggle of soil and
blood. It would be the West versus the eight civilizations dividing
the rest — Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox,
Buddhist and Japanese.

In this civilizational struggle, Islam would emerge as the principal
challenge to the West. "The relations between Islam and Christianity,
both orthodox and Western, have often been stormy. Each has been the
other’s Other. The 20th-century conflict between liberal democracy and
Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting and superficial historical
phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relation
between Islam and Christianity."

He had assaulted the zeitgeist of the era. The world took notice, and
his book was translated into 39 languages. Critics insisted that men
want Sony, not soil. But on 9/11, young Arabs — 19 of them — would
weigh in. They punctured the illusions of an era, and gave evidence of
the truth of Huntington’s vision. With his typical precision, he had
written of a "youth bulge" unsettling Muslim societies, and young,
radicalized Arabs, unhinged by modernity and unable to master it,
emerging as the children of this radical age.

If I may be permitted a personal narrative: In 1993, I had written the
lead critique in Foreign Affairs of his thesis. I admired his work but
was unconvinced. My faith was invested in the order of states that the
West itself built. The ways of the West had become the ways of the
world, I argued, and the modernist consensus would hold in key
Third-World countries like Egypt, India and Turkey. Fifteen years
later, I was given a chance in the pages of The New York Times Book
Review to acknowledge that I had erred and that Huntington had been
correct all along.

A gracious letter came to me from Nancy Arkelyan Huntington, his wife
of 51 years (her Armenian descent an irony lost on those who dubbed
him a defender of nativism). He was in ill-health, suffering the
aftermath of a small stroke. They were spending the winter at their
summer house on Martha’s Vineyard. She had read him my essay as he lay
in bed. He was pleased with it: "He will be writing you himself
shortly." Of course, he did not write, and knowing of his frail state
I did not expect him to do so. He had been a source of great wisdom,
an exemplar, and it had been an honor to write of him, and to know him
in the regrettably small way I did.

We don’t have his likes in the academy today. Political science, the
field he devoted his working life to, has been in the main
commandeered by a new generation. They are "rational choice" people
who work with models and numbers and write arid, impenetrable jargon.

More importantly, nowadays in the academy and beyond, the patriotism
that marked Samuel Huntington’s life and work is derided, and the
American Creed he upheld is thought to be the ideology of rubes and
simpletons, the affliction of people clinging to old ways. The Davos
men have perhaps won. No wonder the sorrow and the concern that ran
through the work of Huntington’s final years.

Mr. Ajami is professor of Middle East Studies at The Johns Hopkins
University, School of Advanced International Studies. He is also an
adjunct research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

60172023141417.html

EuropeNews, Denmark
Dec 28 2008

Turkey in the European Union: A Bridge Too Far

Book essay by Henrik R Clausen. December 28 2008

Turkey in the European Union:
A Bridge Too Far
By Philip Claeys & Koen Dillen
ISBN 978-90-78898-13-9
Uitgeverij Egmont, Belgium

Public debate about admitting Turkey as a full member of the European
Union has been vague and late, the details of the matter as well as
major decisions being taken by the European Commission and the heads
of state. This book sets out to set the record straight, and despite
occasional flaws does so with a vengeance.

The book is structured in eleven chapters by subject, and is actually
quite brief, just under 150 pages ahead of 70 pages of notes and
documentation.

Admittedly, the foreword by Taki Theodoracopulos almost put me off. I
hate being served my conclusions in advance, in the bluntest of
words. But the subject is important, and proceeding proved richly
rewarding.

It sets out in chapter 1: The Unthinkable Becomes Reality by
describing the process that, surprisingly, granted Turkey candidate
status for the European Union at the summit in Helsinki 1999. This was
based on promises stemming back from 1963. In context, public debate
or assessment of Turkish adherence to the Copenhagen Criteria were
deemed unnecessary.

At this point, one has to admire the quality of the Turkish diplomacy:
Shifting instantly between the finest politesse and outright rudeness,
the Turks are extremely good of getting what they want. Their European
counterparts do not deserve this kind of praise.

A central issue is debated in chapter 2: Is Turkey a European country?
>From an EU enlargement point of view, the required answer to this
question is ‘Yes’, or the enlargement process with Turkey would be
illegal right from the outset. The authors start out well, but then
head off into constitutional matters rather than historical
background, which would be natural at this point.

Then, in chapter 3: Turkey is not a European-style Democracy, the
authors come out with all guns blazing. Particular damning is the
analysis from the US Department of State, which with no undue
hesitation describes a series of severe deficiencies in the Turkish
society.

This chapter moves from strength to strength, on points regarding
freedom of press, women’s role, torture, the Kurds, the Armenians and
finally the oft-criticized article 301 that makes ‘insulting
Turkishness’ a criminal offence. All documented from human rights or
government sources who, in contrast with similar EU documents, do not
attempt to sugar-coat the details. The US Department of State is
oft-quoted, and it is obvious that president George W. Bush speaks
against the opinion of his own foreign policy office when he declares
that Turkey fulfils the Copenhagen criteria.

One may wonder, at this point, what the motivation of the US
government really is?

At every crucial point regarding Turkey, where the Europeans have
resisted the idea, the Turkish government has ` successfully `
requested the US government to intervene on their behalf. This,
presumably, is what is known as ‘leadership’, forging ahead with
unpopular ideas in spite of resistance from allies and the general
public. But leadership short of democratic legitimacy belongs in the
realm of fascism, not of democracy.

Chapter 4, Social and Economic Integration is Impossible, deals with
economical aspects of a potential Turkish membership. It challenges
the notion of Turkey as a functioning market economy (few have
discussed this before), and details the expenses Turkish membership
would cost the existing EU members and citizens. Since these are
purely economical issues, they usually don’t cause much
discussion. After all, who would protest against billions of taxpayer
Euro being transferred to Turkey? Well, Claeys and Dillen do.

Chapter 5, Towards Massive New Immigration, dives into something that
few like to mention ` that Turkish membership would open the doors to
further mass immigration from Turkey to EU countries. Given the
difficulties, not least in Germany, with integrating the current
Turkish immigrants, this issue should be a major cause of concern in
Europe.

A brief chapter 6, Europe Must Decide its Own Future, touches the
thorny issue of why the EU elite refuse to hear the public opinion on
the matter. How could Turkish membership be legitimate without the
consent of the European public at large? The European elite does not
seem to be concerned about this, or how the widening gap between
themselves and the public opinion might damage democracy as such.

Chapter 7 asks the question: What Drives the Pro-accession Lobby?,
about the motivations of the groups that support Turkish accession, is
arguably the weakest in the book. The support of the left, in
particular, seems mysterious, as the left traditionally has been
strong on human right issues. The book, unfortunately, meanders off
into lightly substantiated guesswork on a subject that would demand
much more detailed and stringent analysis.

Chapter 8, Turkeys New Islamism, gets back on the track of solid
arguments by looking at the role of Islam in Turkey, and how it is
increasingly dubious that Turkey will ever genuinely respect
non-Islamic minorities, or be able to separate religion and
politics. Alarming quotes from Turkish PM Erdogan, President
Gül and others makes the point: It’s not directly proven that
the AK Party or the government is Islamistic, but the details are
suspicious enough to make it clear that we can’t trust it at face
value. The EU Commission, in particular Commissioner of Enlargement
Olli Rehn, does not seem to understand this, as demonstrated for
example by its interference in the recent constitutional case against
AKP.

Chapter 9 concerns itself with the Armenian genocide and others, as
well as the ethnic cleansings that took place before and after the
founding of the modern Turkish state, as documented by Taner Akcam and
others. This problem is particular unsettling, for it concerns the
very identity of the Turkish state and Turkishness. Debating this is
punishable in Turkey under article 301, and, as in the case of the
late Hrant Dink, can have serious consequences.

The Turkish attitude to the Armenian genocide can, in principle, be
compared to a hypothetical situation where Germany would officially
justify the Holocaust by denigrating Jews, ban dissenting opinion, and
praise the architects of the Holocaust as national heroes. Respect for
and protection of minorities is an explicit item in the Copenhagen
Criteria. The Armenians are not getting either.

Chapter 9 also includes this memorable quote, adopted by the European
Parliament in 1987:

The European Parliament believes that the refusal by the present
Turkish Government to acknowledge the genocide against the Armenian
people committed by the Young Turk government, its reluctance to apply
the principles of international law in differences of opinion with
Greece, the maintenance of Turkish occupation forces in Cyprus and the
denial of the existence of the Kurdish question, together with the
lack of true parliamentary democracy and the failure to respect
individual and collective freedoms, in particular freedom of religion,
in that country are insurmountable obstacles to consideration of the
possibility of Turkey’s accession to the Community.

Not a single of these problems issues had been solved when Turkey was
granted candidate status. Even now, at the end of 2008, no solid
solution seems in sight for any of these problems.

A brief but efficient chapter 10 deals with the Turkish occupation of
Cyprus. Rich in historical detail and tearing apart the UN `Annan
Plan’ on the way, this chapter alone ` like several others ` should
cause the Turkish accession process to be suspended. Turkey doesn’t
even recognize the Republic of Cyprus.

One may wonder what the Turkish motivations for refusing this might be
` and wonder still more why the EU does not make explicit recognition
of Cyprus a condition for Turkish accession. An implicit recognition
by way of the customs union just doesn’t cut it. Let Turkey make it
clear, openly and unconditionally, that it respects the Republic of
Cyprus as a sovereign nation.

One issue, unfortunately, does not have a chapter: the Kurdish
situation. The Kurdish problem has from the outset largely been
written out of the EU-Turkey equation. But in a book like this, it
does deserve more extensive coverage than the causal mentions it gets
in other contexts.

Chapter 11 rounds up the book by looking at some principles, and some
historical issues that one would have expected earlier on. Opinion
polls showing rapid increase in European opposition to the project are
quoted, polls that obviously makes no impression on the European
Commission. A roundup on page 149 of the fundamental criteria for
accession makes it clear, once again, that Turkey does not qualify,
and is not even close to doing so.

Which leads us to another interesting ` and troubling ` aspect of this
book:

Even though it does not set out to be so, it becomes a profound
criticism of the European Union as such, and the Commission in
particular. The European Union is founded on noble principles of human
rights, democracy and freedom, and touted as being the staunch
defender of these.

When these noble principles get bogged down by Byzantine negotiations,
vital decisions being taken away from the scrutiny of the press and
the public, how can we trust the elite to represent the Europeans in a
democratic fashion? When statements, speeches and progress reports get
filled with duplicity and avoidance of the facts on the ground, how
can we have confidence in the EU civil servants accurately and loyally
addressing crucial issues of paramount importance to the Union and its
citizens?

As former French President Valéry Gisgard d’Estaing said
regarding a possible Turkish membership: `It will be the end of the
European Union.’

The end of the Union, should it comes about, would come not from
external causes, but rather from corruption of the ideals of the Union
itself. Turkey will be Turkey, regardless of what the EU will do, but
the legitimacy of the European Union rests, ultimately, on its
citizens haven confidence in its actions and the willingness of the
Union to courageously defend its fundamental ideals.

This book, despite occasional weaknesses and editing that could be
better, launches a concerted and serious challenge to the EU-Turkey
process. It raises many issues that should have been tackled well
before Turkey was granted EU candidacy status.

Given the details, it would seem unlikely that Turkey will suddenly
turn around from three years of reform neglect and show clear
sincerity for its Europeanization process. Should that happen,
fine. If not, what we need from the European Union would be a clear,
uncompromising willingness to stand for European values, even at the
expense of its empire-building process with Turkey.

The title, `A Bridge Too Far’, is apt. Turkey has been touted as a
‘bridge’ to the Middle East, to Iran, Iraq, Syria etc. One may wonder,
of course, what the point would be in extending the borders of the
Union to these obviously problematic countries. That would look like
more trouble than benefit.

But even more in a metaphorical sense, the project of admitting Turkey
increasingly looks like the ill-fated attempt of the Allies to gain a
swift victory over Germany in WWII. Mired in problems that refuse to
go away, the European Commission will have to either show swift and
decisive gains, or abandon their ill-fated mission in face of the
stiff reform resistance shown by the Turkish society.

HAKOBYAN DEFEATED BY CHEPARINOV

Panorama.am
14:53 26/12/2008

In the tenth round on December 25 GM Vladimir Hakobyan encountered GM
Ivan Cheparinov (Bulgaria) at the FIDE Grand Prix Tournament. Armenian
GM has been defeated in this round and gained no points. Currently
Hakobyan is on the 13th horizontal.

Dmitry Jakovenko and Ernesto Inarkiev meeting ended by the victory
of Jakovenko who leads the championship.

NO MILITARY SOLUTION FOR NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT: OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRMAN

Trend
Dec 25 2008
Azerbaijan

The non-use of force must be the basic component in solution of the
Nagorno- Karabakh conflict, OSCE Minsk Group co- chairman Matthew
Bryza, said.

"It is obvious to me that no military solution of the Nagorno- Karabakh
conflict do exists", Bryza, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State,
said in the interview for Mediamax.

Both the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia do not desire new war,
which will become tragedy for both sides. Sides attained an essential
progress in settlement of conflict, he believes."I think that the
main achievement in the settlement process in 2008 became rising
of constructive relations between Presidents Sargsyan and Aliyev",
Bryza said.

A Moscow declaration was signed as a result of the last meeting of
Presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia ad Russia -Ilham Aliyev, Serzh
Sargysyan and Dmitri Medvedev on Nov. 2. This document envisages
settlement of the conflict on the basis of international law and made
decisions and documents. This creates favorable terms for economic
development and comprehensive cooperation in the region.

Presidents Sargsyan and Aliyev noted in the Moscow declaration that
the sides must intensify efforts to approve main principles in close
cooperation with Minsk Group co-chairs.

According to Bryza, Presidents should prepare their community to make
compromise, resulted in peace, stability and prospecting.

The states-co-chairs ( Russia, France, and the US) and all OSCE Minsk
Group participating states recognize the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan, Bryza said.

At the early 2009 co-chairs will visit the region with an aim to make
preparation for Presidents’ meeting.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began
in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since
1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In
1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which
time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group ( Russia, France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful
negotiations.

OPEC INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND TO PROVIDE 14 MILLION USD TO ARMENIA

ARMENPRESS
Dec 25, 2008
YEREVAN

Armenian ambassador to Austria Ashot Hovakimian and General Director
of OPEC International Development Fund Suleyman al Herbish signed
December 23 an agreement on providing 14 million US Dollar credit to
Armenian government.

Armenian Foreign Ministry press service told Armenpress that the credit
is provided for the implementation of "Marketing Opportunities for
Farmers" program which intends to promote the economy of Armenia’s
rural areas.

The general director of the fund noted that this is the third joint
program with Armenia. He said he is pleased that cooperation has been
established with the Armenian government and expressed hope that in
future as well the effective cooperation will continue.

A. Hovakimian expressed gratitude on behalf of the Armenian government
for the provided credit and support. He highly underscored cooperation
with the fund and noted that during the coming visit to Armenia
scheduled for the next year the general director will have an
opportunity to see with his own eyes the results of the programs
carried out by the means of the fund.

THE CAUCASUS: A BROKEN REGION
By Thomas de Waal

Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Dec 23 2008
UK

Short-term interests continue to impede hopes of a broad transformation
of this dysfunctional region.

The Caucasus region is a small and troubled place. It should be a
common endeavour for its small and diverse nationalities in Georgia,
Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as the Russian North Caucasus to work
together to build an integrated region.

Unfortunately, no sense of common purpose is discernible: the sad
reality is, that with its tangle of closed borders and ceasefire lines,
the Caucasus more resembles a suicide pact.

Nowhere in the world can there be so many roadblocks. The two long
borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Russia and Georgia are
almost permanently closed. Only two neighbours – Azerbaijan and Georgia
– can be said to have a genuinely close relationship and even that
is based primarily on energy politics rather than common values and
does not translate into many tangible benefits for ordinary people.

Yet, given the chance, the ordinary folk of the Caucasus eagerly
take the opportunity to do business with one another. A tale of two
markets confirms this. The first was the one at Ergneti where, right
on the administrative border with South Ossetia, the busiest wholesale
market in the Caucasus used to flourish. The Ossetians brought untaxed
goods from Russia – from cigarettes to cars – to sell. The Georgians
mainly sold agricultural produce. Because it was unregulated, the new
Georgian government of President Mikheil Saakashvili argued that the
market was knocking a big hole in the state budget and had to be shut
down, which they duly did in June 2004.

The closure of the market was a justifiable step on legal grounds,
except in the words of former Georgian conflict resolution minister
Giorgy Khaindrava, "If Ergneti didn’t exist it would have to be
invented." Ergneti was possibly the widest "confidence-building
measure" in the entire Caucasus region, with people of all
nationalities doing business. Arguably the day it closed was the day
the countdown to war in South Ossetia began.

On the Georgian-Armenian border, the Georgian village of
Sadakhlo used to be home to another astonishing spectacle: a mass
Armenian-Azerbaijani market on Georgian territory with virtually
no Georgians in sight. Azerbaijanis bought Armenian produce,
Armenians Azerbaijani goods that flooded the shops of Yerevan. Again,
governmental pressures have curtailed the market, although it has
not shut down entirely. Again, a magnificent example of inter-ethnic
cooperation has been suppressed.

What politics drives apart, common economic and security interests
should drive together. The South Caucasus is a delicate mechanism
in which the malfunctioning of one part affects what is going in
the others.

That became obvious during this August’s war in Georgia. Azerbaijan’s
prime revenue-earners, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa
pipelines, were shut down. When the Grakali railway bridge in central
Georgia on August 16 was blown up, it also shut the only railway line
linking Armenia to the Black Sea coast, thereby cutting Armenia’s
entire imports for a week and costing it at least half a billion
dollars in revenue.

This sad state of affairs is partly everyone’s fault.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have adopted intransigent positions which
mean they have failed to resolve the biggest obstacle to peace and
prosperity in the Caucasus, the Nagorny Karabakh conflict. Georgia
has generally ignored its neighbours and Russia in its push
towards Euro-Atlantic integration. In the words of Georgian analyst
Archil Gegeshidze, one reason for Georgia’s problems is that the
Saakashvili government unwisely "put all its eggs in the basket of
mobilising western support" and did not pay sufficient attention to
its neighbours.

Europeans and Americans, though often paying lip service to the
idea of regional integration in the Caucasus, have generally pursued
narrower goals. Europe’s grand TRASECA project, a communication and
transport project linking the Caucasus to Europe and billed as a new
"Silk Road", has received less than 200 million euro of investment
since it was inaugurated in 1993 and its effects are negligible.

Instead, projects such as NATO expansion, energy security and the
claims of Armenian diasporas have all tended to divide Caucasian
policy into different segments. In Washington, it seems at times that
the Congress, the Pentagon and State Department all have different
policies, with a primary focus on, respectively, Armenia, Azerbaijan
and Georgia.

Moreover, several Washington strategists have suggested that Russia
could be "contained" in the Caucasus, overlooking the fact that the
region has figured in Russian minds and plans for two centuries and
that much of the Russian elite has family or childhood ties to places
that westerners barely know.

For good or ill, Russia still has a special role in the Caucasus. Its
own policies have done it no favours. Russia continues to see the
region in colonial terms, seeking to intimidate or control resources
rather than use the soft power of trade or – its biggest asset in the
region but a diminishing one – the Russian language, to help form a
new and friendly neighbourhood.

People-to-people ties are still in place, often despite the best
efforts of governments. Russians and Georgians are tied together
by innumerable ties of history, culture and business. Hundreds of
thousands of Georgians continue to work in Russia, despite the August
conflict. "[Russian and Georgians] leaders have tried to wreck a good
relationship between two peoples," said analyst Ivlian Khaindrava.

Previous Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze – who after all ran the
foreign ministry in Moscow in the perestroika years – understood this,
even if he was frequently unable to appease the harder-line elements
of the Russian elite when he had returned to Georgia as president.

In an interview with IWPR on December 3 in his residence outside
Tbilisi, Shevardnadze said – in a rebuke to his successor – that he
had always paid the Russians maximum respect. For example, Shevardnadze
said, when the decision was made in 2002 to invite American troops to
Georgia as part of the ground-breaking "Train and Equip" programme, he
had been careful to inform President Vladimir Putin in advance. Putin
went on the record to say that an American troop presence was "no
tragedy" for Russia.

"I always tried to emphasise that Russia for us is not a secondary
country, that it is a great neighbour with big military and economic
potential," said Shevardnadze.

Conflict gives birth to black-and-white thinking, the view that if your
opponent is suffering that is a good thinking. In the current crisis,
says Ivlian Khaindrava, "many in Georgia are just keeping quiet and
waiting for the situation in Russia to deteriorate, the oil price to
go down, tensions in the North Caucasus to escalate."

That approach, he believes, could be a disaster for Georgia, as
an economic downturn in Russia will hurt Georgian migrants and the
families back home they send remittances to, while new violence in
the North Caucasus could spill over into Georgia.

This kind of zero-sum thinking is most acute between Armenians and
Azerbaijanis, many of whom seem content to see their country suffer
so long as the other side in the Nagorny Karabakh conflict is feeling
pain too.

It is hard for locals to transcend these divisions. It is up to
outsiders to give the big picture and the broad vision of how the
Caucasus could begin to function more harmoniously, as a political and
economic entity rather than merely a dysfunctional geographical region.

Ultimately, it seems likely that only one big international
organisation – the European Union – has the transformative power to
treat these countries as a single region and promise them benefits
that make it worthwhile for them to overcome bad habits. The Balkans
provides good proof of it.

Sadly, the signs are that the EU is still too distant and too
inward-looking to care sufficiently about the Caucasus. A positive
development is that European monitors are now on the ground in
Georgia. But the reason that they are there is a tragic one and let
us hope they become the advance guard of a much broader engagement –
not just confirmation for Europeans that this beautiful mountainous
region is a permanent headache that can never be cured.

Thomas de Waal is IWPR’s outgoing Caucasus Editor. This is the last
edition of Caucasus Reporting Service he has edited, after almost
seven years with IWPR.

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views
of IWPR.