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<<>><<>><<>>_____TURKISTAN NEWSLETTER...ISSN:--1386-6265____<<>><<>><<>>
<<>><<>><<>>____________________________________________<<>><<>><<>><<>>
<<>><<>><<>>________Editor/Manager: Mehmet Tutuncu______<<>><<>><<>><<>>
<<>><<>><<>>______Business:S.Bogut,H.Savas______________<<>><<>><<>><<>>
<<>><<>><<>>___Features: I. Noyan-Izmirli,Y. Puersuen___<<>><<>><<>><<>>
<<>><<>><<>>______Technical: T. Ates, K. Cagiltay_______<<>><<>><<>><<>>
<<>><<>>______Associate Editors: A.Baguirov, A. Eren,Z.Kadir____<<>><<>>
<<>><<>>____Editorial Board:Dr.Robert M.Cutler, Dr.H.M.Hubey____<<>><<>>
<<>><<>>___Dr.T.Kocaoglu, Dr. H.B. Paksoy, Dr.N.Sariahmetoglu___<<>><<>>
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<<>><<>><<>><<>>.....Volume:97-1:26--24-July--1997.....<<>><<>><<>><<>>
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<>Uze kok tengri asra yagiz yer kilintukta ekin ara kisi ogli kilinmis<>
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0. From the Editor
1. Turkestan Leaders meet in Cholpan Ata (Naryn Aiyp)
2.a. Turkish State Minister Andican meets Afgan and Uzbek Amabassadors
(with comment from Editor)
2.b. Turkeys Relations with Turkic Republics
TURKISH DAILY NEWS 23 July 1997
3. US policy toward Central Asia and the Caucasus, speech delivered by
Acting Secretary of State Strobe Talbott at the Central Asia Institute on
July 21,
1997.
4. Analysis From Washington--The New Geopolitics Of Oil (Paul Goble on
Talbotts Speech)
5. VOA: US Senate Hearing on Caucasus
6. RFE RL Newsline: 23 July 1997
One State, Two Foreign Policies: Liz Fuller On Armenian Foreign Policy
7. Tatar Leader Ishaki remembered
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0. From the editor
Dear Readers Turkistan Newsletter is a great success. It reaches at this
moment
more than 1300 subscribers all over the world. Our initiative on gathering
and disseminating information about the great family of Turkish peoples and
their neighbours seems to be an attracking formula.
This Newsletter is for you and we are surely waiting for more contribution
and input from our members.
Send us your comments analysis or news-items which could be of interest to
us.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Newsletter so far and keep up
the good work!
Please feel free to let me know if there are ways in which you think
that the Newsletter could be improved, surely we are aware of the
shortcomings of the Newsletter, therefore we are searching other
editors/volunteers. Please suggest yourself or other persons who could help
us to volunteer this newsletter, we would be glad to cooperate with more
people from different disciplines and background.
Please remember this list is not for Turk*s but about the Turk* people. So
we would be glad to cooperate with experts and persons of different nations.
Mehmet Tutuncu
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1. Turkestan Leaders meet in Cholpan Ata tomorrow (Naryn Aiyp)
Kyrgyz President press service announced in Bishkek today that meeting of
the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan would begin in the
town of Cholpon-Ata tomorrow. Islam Karimov and Nursultan Nazarbayev will
come to
Cholpon-Ata directly from Tashkent and Almaty in the morning of 24 July. There
will be a meeting behind the closed doors first and then the meeting will be
continued together with other repersentatives of the countries.
Results of the 3 years of cooperation between 3 Central Asian states will be
discussed. Also, 3 president will discuss:
- situation in Afghanistan,
- activity of the Central Asian bank,
- formation of the inter-parliamentarian council,
- founding of the 'Central Asia' journal, would-to-be published in Tashkent.
Leaders of the foreign ministries of 3 states met in Bishkek today,
discusssing agenda of the tomorrow's meeting and preparations for it. Uzbek
foreign minister Abdulaziz Komilov, Kyrgyz foreign minister Muratbek
Imanaliyev and Kazakh deputy foreign minister Vladimir Aleksin took part in
it.
-Naryn Aiyp
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2a. Turkish State Minister Andican meets Afghan and Uzbek Ambassadors
State Minister Ahad Andican met with the Afghanistan's
Ambassador Sayed Zahir Shah and Uzbekistan's Ambassador
Abdulgafur Abdurahmonov to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
Andican told his visitors that the future of Afghanistan would
affect the entire region, including Turkey, and therefore Ankara
was very interested in what was going on there.
Andican later told reporters that the two ambassadors were
good friends and met to evaluate the situation in Afghanistan
together. He noted that the current peaceful situation in
Tajikistan had reassured Uzbekistan.
Andican said that the new Turkish government would deal with
the political situation in Afghanistan in more realistic way
than the previous administration.
The Afghan ambassador said his fellow citizens considered
Turkey to their second homeland and he wished success for the
new government.
The Uzbek ambassador pointed out that his country wanted a
durable, just and permanent peace and urged Turkey to help
establish peace in Afghanistan.
*******
Comment from the Edirot of Turkestan Newsletter:
Andican is self of Uzbek decent born in Afganistan. He is considered as the
best expert in Turkey on Turkestan affairs in general and Afgan and Uzbek
affairs especially. It is expected that he will use his knowledge of the
region to develop and initiate new policies on cooperation between the
Turkish republics in Turkestan and Caucasus and Turkey.
His writings and analyses of last years are published in a recent book:
Prof. dr. A. Ahat Andican: Degisim surecindeki Turk Dunyasi; Istanbul 1996,
Emre Yayinlari. 539s. (Turkish World in Transition period) - Mehmet T.-
**************
2.b. Turkeys Relations with Turkic Republics
Meanwhile Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ismet
Sezgin met with the Azerbaijani Culture Minister Polat
Bulbuloglu and said that Armenia should withdraw from Azeri soil
without any preconditions. Bulbuloglu said that he was visiting
Turkey in his capacity as the chairman of the Turkic Republics
Culture and Arts Common Administration (TURKSOY).
Bulbuloglu said that they were pleased with the priority given
to the Turkic Republics by the new government.
Sezgin said that during the last few years relations between
Turkey and the Turkic Republics had weakened but the new
government was giving a special importance to these ties. He
added that Turkey would do its best to improve the political and
economic situation in those republics. \
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3. US policy toward Central Asia and the Caucasus, was delivered by Acting
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott at the Central Asia Institute of The Paul
H. Nitze School Of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins
University on July 21,
1997.
NOTE: The enclosed address, which represents the most
comprehensive statement to date of US policy toward Central
Asia and the Caucasus, was delivered by Acting Secretary of
State Strobe Talbott at the Central Asia Institute on July 21,
1997.
American Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia
An Address by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott
July 21, 1997
Thank you very much, Fred [Starr], and thanks to you, too,
Paul [Wolfowitz]. I#ve followed the Institute#s work since it opened
up shop ten months ago. In that short time, it has become a
major source of scholarship and public education. You have
already made an important contribution to the American national
interest in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
That region is opening up, and reaching out, to us and to
the other established democracies. Let me illustrate that point
with an image from a scene I witnessed almost exactly two
weeks ago. It was in Madrid, at a meeting of the 44 countries
that make up the new Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.
President Clinton found himself seated between the Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom and the foreign minister of
Uzbekistan, and directly across from the foreign minister of
Armenia and the President of Azerbaijan. The protocol may have
been an accident of the alphabet, but it was appropriate
nonetheless.
The Euro-Atlantic Community is evolving and expanding.
It stretches to the west side of the Atlantic and to the east side of
the Urals. The emergence of such a community represents a
profound break with the past for all the peoples involved, but for
none more than those of the Caucasus and Central Asia, who
have, for so much of their history, been subjected to foreign
domination.
Today, they have the chance to put behind them forever
the experience of being pawns on a chess board, as big powers
vie for wealth and influence at their expense. For them, genuine
independence, prosperity and security are mutually reinforcing
goals.
The United States has a stake in their success. If
reform in the nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia
continues and ultimately succeeds, it will encourage similar
progress in the other New Independent States of the former
Soviet Union, including in Russia and Ukraine. It will contribute
to stability in a strategically vital region that borders China,
Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, and that has growing economic
and social ties with Pakistan and India. The consolidation of
free societies, at peace with themselves and with each other,
stretching from the Black Sea to the Pamir mountains, will open
up a valuable trade and transport corridor along the old Silk
Road, between Europe with Asia.
The ominous converse is also true. If economic and
political reform in the countries of the Caucasus and Central
Asia does not succeed # if internal and cross-border conflicts
simmer and flare # the region could become a breeding ground
of terrorism, a hotbed of religious and political extremism and a
battleground for outright war.
It would matter profoundly to the United States if that
were to happen in an area that sits on as much as two hundred
billion barrels of oil. That is yet another reason why
conflict-resolution must be Job One for US policy in the region: it
is both the prerequisite for, and an accompaniment to, energy
development.
Let me review very briefly what has happened in the five
and a half years since the hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered
for the last time over the Kremlin # and over government
buildings throughout the former USSR. Thanks to the prompt
and far-sighted response of the Bush Administration, we were
the first country to open embassies in every capital. We airlifted
essential humanitarian assistance to these countries in their
first winter of independence.
By the way, it was at Paul Wolfowitz#s insistence, when
he was at the Pentagon, that the US established Defense
Attach# offices at these embassies; and it was at his behest that
the first military-to-military contacts took place.
In the four and a half years since the Clinton
Administration came into office, our message to the states of the
region has been simple: as long as they move in the direction of
political and economic freedom, of national and international
reconciliation, we will be with them. That is what President
Clinton told Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia last Friday. It is
what vice President Gore told Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan earlier
in the week. It is what President Clinton will tell President Aliyev
next week. And it is the message that the First Lady will carry
directly to the peoples and governments of Kazakstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan this fall.
Our support has four dimensions:
- The promotion of democracy;
- The creation of free market economies;
- The sponsorship of peace and cooperation
within and among the countries of the region,
- and their integration with the larger
international community.
Over the course of the past year we have broadened and
deepened our engagement with the region in each of these
areas. Let me take them one at a time.
First, democracy. The requisite institutions and attitudes
# rule of law, civilian control and parliamentary oversight of the
military, and respect for human rights # are not, to put it mildly,
deeply rooted in the region. The very newness of democracy is
itself a major obstacle to the process of democratization. After at
least seven decades of being ruled from Russia # and in some
cases much longer than that # these states were, when they
gained their independence overnight on Christmas Day 1991, ill
prepared for the challenge of modern statehood. Many
observers asserted that of the twelve New Independent States
that emerged from the USSR, the eight of Central Asia and the
Caucasus would be the least likely to survive.
President Shevardnadze has been particularly
courageous in proving that pessimism wrong # and in warning
us, during his two visits to Washington, to make sure it is not
self-fulfilling. The Georgian elections in 1995 were the first in the
region that international observers judged to be free and fair.
Elsewhere, the picture is mixed. Kyrgyzstan is the only
Central Asian state to have held an open, multi-candidate
presidential election, but the government has launched criminal
proceedings against some of its critics. Other states have
committed serious violations of their citizens# human rights.
For our part, the United States has worked with
international organizations like the OSCE, as well as with
non-governmental organizations like the National Democratic
Institute and the International Republican Institute to provide
training and assistance to nascent political parties. We have
also supported a wide range of home-grown NGOs, such as an
association for the defense of women#s rights in Azerbaijan, a
Young Lawyers# Association in Georgia and the Association of
Youth Leaders in Kazakstan.
All the while we have spoken out publicly about human
rights abuses and flaws in the democratic process, such as the
shortcomings in the elections in Azerbaijan two years ago and in
Armenia last fall.
In promoting democracy, we make the case it is a
condition for lasting economic progress. Only if the citizenry and
the growing private sectors in these states have a say in the
policies of the government will reform have the necessary
backing; and only if these countries develop the rule of law will
they attract the foreign investment they so desperately need.
As in politics, some states have proceeded more rapidly
than others in the economic realm. Armenia and Georgia
deserve a lot of credit, literally and figuratively. Both lack mineral
wealth and have been caught up in serious regional conflicts.
Yet they have been pace-setters in fiscal stabilization,
privatization and progress toward real growth.
In Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan reached that
last milestone in 1996. Other countries, however, have yet to
take the most difficult steps toward building a market economy.
Our goal is to help them in that direction. Since 1992,
the US has obligated more than 2.2 billion dollars in overall
assistance to the eight states of the Caucasus and Central
Asian region. Initially much of this aid was directed at pressing
humanitarian needs. We have also been a major donor to
refugee programs throughout the area.
But we are now shifting our focus in the region from
humanitarian to development assistance. That is the priority in
the plan we have submitted to Congress for expanded
assistance programs within the NIS in FY98. We are asking
Congress to increase our assistance by 34 percent, to $900
million. These additional resources will allow us to increase our
support for democratic and economic reform in Central Asia and
the Caucasus by over 40%. Even in straitened budgetary times,
that is a prudent investment in our nation#s future.
But there are obviously limits to what we can do
ourselves. That is why, in our support for reform in the
Caucasus and Central Asia, we have been close partners with
the major international financial institutions. Working through
the IFIs allows us to leverage our scarce aid dollars with those of
the international community.
American assistance has helped Kazakstan and
Kyrgyzstan implement one of the most modern and transparent
tax reform laws in the NIS, and we have helped Kazakstan and
Armenia with ambitious privatization programs. We have also
aided Kyrgyzstan in establishing a stock market. Throughout the
region we#re encouraging the states there to establish ties with
the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the Council of
Europe, the European Union and other international financial
and political institutions. We hope to welcome Armenia,
Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan into the World Trade
Organization on the commercial terms generally applied to new
members before the end of 1998. We have supported the efforts
by states in the region to develop a Eurasian transportation
corridor, to eliminate trade barriers among them, and to create a
region-wide market through the Central Asian Free Economic
Zone.
Meanwhile, we are also providing funding and technical
advice to help the nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia
overcome another grim legacy of Soviet rule, environmental
degradation, such as the disaster that has befallen the Aral Sea.
This summer we will open a regional environmental office in
Tashkent to coordinate our environmental efforts in Central Asia.
We are advocating similar regional approaches to transnational
issues like weapons proliferation, drug trafficking, and organized
crime.
Let me turn now to the security dimension of our
engagement in the Caucasus and Central Asia. This
September, the Central Asian Peacekeeping Battalion, made up
of armed forces from Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, will
host troops from the United States, Russia, Turkey and other
nations in a joint peacekeeping exercise. These units will
practice together their skills in minesweeping and distributing
humanitarian aid. The image of American, Russian and Turkish
troops participating together # very much on the same side # in
combating threats to the stability and security of the region # is
worth keeping in mind when listening to conventional wisdom
about how the region is heading back to the future.
For the last several years, it has been fashionable to
proclaim, or at least to predict, a replay of the #Great Game# in
the Caucasus and Central Asia. The implication, of course, is
that the driving dynamic of the region, fueled and lubricated by
oil, will be the competition of the great powers to the
disadvantage of the people who live there.
Our goal is to avoid, and actively to discourage, that
atavistic outcome. In pondering and practicing the geopolitics of
oil, let#s make sure that we are thinking in terms appropriate to
the 21st century and not the 19th. Let#s leave Rudyard Kipling
and George McDonald Fraser where they belong # on the
shelves of fiction. The Great Game which starred Kipling#s Kim
and Fraser#s Flashman was very much of the zero-sum variety.
What we want help bring about is just the opposite; we want to
see all responsible players in the Caucasus and Central Asia be
winners.
An essential step in that direction is the resolution of
conflicts within and between countries and peoples in the
region. In the last century, internal instability and division
provided a pretext for foreign intervention and adventurism. In
the last decade, since the breakup of the USSR, several such
conflicts have erupted again. Let me touch on three, and on
what the United Stated and the international community are
doing to help resolve them.
The first is the war over Nagorno-Karabakh. Even
though the guns are, for the moment, silent, the fighting of the
past decade has displaced nearly 800,000 Azeris. That#s over
ten percent of the population of Azerbaijan. While the cease-fire
is welcome, it is also precarious, and the absence of real peace
has hurt both Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The United States, through its involvement in the OSCE,
is determined to help find a solution in Nagorno-Karabakh # a
solution that, by definition, will require difficult compromises on
all sides. This is an effort in which I#ve been personally involved
for over four years, particularly in recent months.
Along with Russia and France, the United States is
conducting an OSCE initiative under the auspices of the
so-called Minsk Conference. I traveled to the region at the end of
May, and Lynn Pascoe, our special envoy, has been back there
in the last several days.
The US, Russian and French co-chairs have achieved
an extraordinary degree of harmony. That solidarity seems to
have induced some flexibility among the three parties to the
conflict. But there are still plenty of obstacles to further progress.
One of those is domestic # we have inflicted it on ourselves. I
am referring to Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, which
limits our ability to provide assistance to the Government of
Azerbaijan. This legislation, written in 1992, was intended to
help Armenia overcome an Azerbaijani embargo. But it has had
the negative effect of limiting our leverage with Baku and
complicating our ability to be as effective as we could otherwise
be as an honest broker. It has also made it impossible for us to
provide the Azerbaijanis with assistance on elections, economic
reform, energy development and in other areas where it is in our
national interest to do so. Hence our opposition to Section 907.
I suspect you#ll be hearing more on the subject when President
Aliyev arrives here next week.
There is, of course, another conflict in the Caucasus,
about which we heard a great deal from President Shevardnadze
last week. This is the one in Abkhazia. President Clinton told
President Shevardnadze that the United States is prepared to
intensify its diplomatic efforts on behalf of a United
Nations-backed settlement.
As for the five-year-old civil war in Tajikistan, that
situation remains fragile and dangerous. We have provided
funding for the UN-brokered peace process, and we welcomed
the signing last month of a comprehensive peace accord in
Moscow. We are prepared to provide aid for demobilization,
start-up assistance for political parties, and preparation for new
elections. The difficulties in implementation are sobering, but
the recent accord offers a real opportunity for reconciliation, not
only within Tajikistan, but with benefits for the surrounding
countries as well.
That is the more general point to which I would like now
to turn: the big states that border the eight nations of the
Caucasus and Central Asia have much to gain from regional
peace, and much to lose from regional conflict. Some would say
that is self-evident, but others would say it is ahistorical in that it
disregards the inevitable, and irresistible, temptation of the Great
Powers to replay the Great Game for the prize of oil and gas from
the Caspian Basin.
Overcoming old prejudices and predispositions from the
Era of Lieutenant Flashman needs to be a constant theme in our
diplomacy in the region, and we are using our good offices to
that end. On all my trips to or from the Caucasus, I#ve made a
point of stopping in Ankara. The Turks are making major
investments in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, and developing
trading relationships with the entire region.
Turkey#s increased attention and activism has been a
source of solace and support to those who rightly worry about
the projection of Iranian influence. But many Russians see the
Turkish role differently. They worry that Turkey#s growing
involvement in the region might cut them off from the former
Soviet republics.
Russia, of course, is the target of concern itself, for
reasons rooted in history # including very recent history. Under
Czars and commissars alike, Russia#s leaders in the past
seemed capable of feeling strong, secure and proud only if
others felt weak, insecure and humiliated.
Today there are still plenty of questions # and, among
Russia#s neighbors, plenty of anxieties # about how Moscow will
handle its relations with the other members of the CIS. Whether
that grouping of states survives will depend in large measure on
whether it evolves in a way that vindicates the name # that is,
whether it develops as a genuine commonwealth of genuinely
independent states. If it goes in another direction # if its largest
member tries to make #commonwealth# into a euphemism for
infringement on the independence of its neighbors # then the
CIS will deserve to join that other set of initials, USSR, on the
ash heap of history.
President Clinton has addressed this question
frequently over the past four years. #How will Russia define its
role as a great power?# he asks. #In yesterday#s terms, or
tomorrow#s?# Russia, he has said, has #a chance to show that a
great power can promote patriotism without expansionism; that
a great power can promote national pride without national
prejudice# the measure of Russia#s greatness in the future will
be whether the big neighbor can be the good neighbor.#
One of the watchwords of our dialogue with Russia is
integration # the right kind of integration. Integration means that
the doors # and benefits # of international institutions will be
open to Russia as long as Russia stays on a path of reform,
including in the way it conducts its relations with its neighbors,
and that means the way it defines integration in the context of the
CIS.
As I indicated at the outset, that is consonant with the
message we are conveying to all the New Independent States,
notably including those of the Caucasus and Central Asia. We
believe that our presence and influence in the region can itself
be a force for the right kind of integration.
Let me close by stressing that support for reform,
democracy, economic development and integration in that vitally
important region is not just a task for the US government, or even
for governments in general. Ultimate success will also depend
upon the efforts of non-governmental organizations and
businesses like those represented by many of you here today.
And it will require the kind of clear thinking, new ideas #
and constructive criticism # that that this Institute has generated
in its first year of existence # some of which I look forward to
hearing from you right now.
Thank you very much.
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Analysis From Washington--The New Geopolitics Of Oil
By Paul Goble
Washington, 23 July 1997 (RFE/RL) - The United States wants to promote a
new geopolitics of oil in Central Asia and the Caucasus, one in which
all involved can come away winners.
That optimistic goal was sketched out in a speech in Washington on
Monday by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. He said that
the Clinton Administration wants to avoid a repetition of the nineteenth
century "Great Game" between Russia and Britain.
That struggle for power, influence and oil was "very much of the
zero-sum variety," Talbott said, one in which every victory by one side
represented a defeat by the other.
In the future, Talbott continued, "what we want to help bring about is
just the opposite. We want to see all the responsible players in Central
Asia and the Caucasus be winners."
Talbott's sketch of a new kind of geopolitics comes at a time of
dramatically expanding U.S. interest in this region. Last week,
Washington hosted Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. Next
week, Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev will arrive for talks.
In the fall, First Lady Hillary Clinton is scheduled to visit
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. And Armenian President Levon Ter
Petrosyan may visit the American capital sometime later this year.
Meanwhile, both Congress and foreign policy experts have pressed for
expanded American attention to the Caspian Sea basin. Following a speech
on this subject to the Heritage Foundation
on Monday, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) yesterday chaired a hearing
on this subject.
And the American press has been filled with opinion pieces calling on
Washington to pay greater attention to this area. Among those speaking
out on this subject was former Secretary of State James Baker.
The reason for all this attention, of course, is the American interest
in gaining access to the vast reserves of oil and gas in the region. But
is the new kind of geopolitics sketched out by Talbott actually
possible?
There would appear to be at least three serious obstacles to his
optimistic plan.
First, Talbott suggested that the United States wants "all the
responsible players" to be winners. But there are two groups of people
that he and Washington are likely to exclude.
On the one hand, Washington is unlikely to include Iran in that category
because of Tehran's past support of terrorist acts against the West.
And on the other, the U.S. is unlikely to press to include a number of
groups in the region -- such as the Chechens and Lezgins -- who
currently lack statehood but who live along proposed pipeline routes.
And to the extent that they are excluded, they will feel fully justified
in meddling, something that even the smallest groups are capable of
doing against pipelines.
Second, the argument about having everyone be a winner presupposes
that all the players define winning in much the same, economic way. But
many of the countries in the region define winning in an entirely
different way.
Some in Russia have made it clear that Moscow would like to prevent oil
from flowing out of this region in order to keep countries there weak
and politically dependent on it.
The Armenian government has explicitly said that it will not allow oil
to flow until there is a settlement of the Karabakh dispute.
And still other groups may see the political victories they can achieve
by holding hostage those interested in exporting oil as far greater than
any financial rewards the flow of oil might bring them.
And third, even if over time all potential actors in this drama did
accept economic profit as the measure of winning, there would still be a
competition among some of them over who would win and who would lose.
Russia, for example, is a major exporter of both oil and gas. If other
countries in the region are able to export these commodities, that will
inevitably put on a hold on price increases and thus reduce the
potential profits of Russian exporters.
The American approach to the region sketched out by Deputy Secretary
Talbott may in fact help the geopolitics of this region move away from
the old zero-sum game. But there seems little chance that the result
will be a world without losers as well as winners.
) 1997 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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5. VOA: US Senate Hearing on Caucasus
INTRO: THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION HAS VOICED CONCERN ABOUT
IRAN'S INFLUENCE IN THE CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA, WHILE SAYING
RUSSIA'S CONDUCT IN THE REGION STILL BEARS WATCHING AS WELL.
SOME MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ARE ALSO TAKING INTEREST IN THE AREA.
DAVID SWAN REPORTS.
TEXT: AT A SENATE HEARING (TUESDAY), UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE
STUART EIZENSTAT VOWED THE UNITED STATES WILL BE ACTIVE IN THE
OIL-RICH, STRATEGIC REGION, LARGELY TO KEEP TEHRAN FROM FILLING A
VOID.
// EIZENSTAT ACT //
WE REMAIN HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS OF IRAN'S MOTIVES. WE HAVE
ALL TOO MUCH EXPERIENCE WITH IRAN'S SUPPORT FOR
TERRORISM, EFFORTS TO OBTAIN WEAPONS BY ALL POSSIBLE
MEANS, AND OTHER UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR NOT TO BE
DEEPLY CONCERNED. WE'VE MADE OUR CONCERNS KNOWN TO OUR
FRIENDS IN THE CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA.
// END ACT //
THE WHITE HOUSE IS ALSO READJUSTING ITS FOREIGN AID PRIORITIES IN
A BID TO PROVIDE MORE ASSISTANCE TO THESE COUNTRIES. AND WHILE
THEY WORK TOGETHER WITH RUSSIA ON REGIONAL ISSUES, MR. EIZENSTAT
SAYS OFFICIALS REMAIN CONCERNED ABOUT MOSCOW'S LONG-RANGE
INTENTIONS FOR ITS FORMER REPUBLICS.
// EIZENSTAT ACT //
THE JURY IS OUT. THERE ARE POSITIVE ASPECTS, FOR
EXAMPLE THE RUSSIANS HAVE MADE CONSTRUCTIVE
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SETTLEMENT OF SOME OF THE CIVIL
WARS, THEY PARTICIPATE WITH US AS CO-CHAIRS IN THE MINSK
GROUP ON THE ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN DISPUTE. SO THAT ONE
SHOULD NOT PAINT AN OVERLY DARK PICTURE. BUT IT
CERTAINLY HAS TINCTURES OF GRAY AND WE HAVE TO BE ON
ALERT.
// END ACT //
CRITICS SAY THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION HAS OFTEN SOUGHT TO
APPEASE RUSSIA, AND FAILED TO TREAT THE SOUTH CAUCASUS AND
CENTRAL ASIA AS TRULY INDEPENDENT. FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY
CASPAR WEINBERGER URGED THE U-S GOVERNMENT TO REACH OUT TO
AZERBAIJAN, WHICH UNLIKE OTHER STATES IN THE AREA, DID NOT
ALLOW RUSSIAN TROOPS ON ITS TERRITORY.
// WEINBERGER ACT //
I THINK WE SHOULD DEVOTE SOME AID TO AZERBAIJAN AND NOT
JUST HUMANITARIAN AND NOT JUST ECONOMIC BUT MILITARY
AID, TO GIVE THEM THE CAPABILITY OF RESISTING ANY
ATTEMPTS TO DOMINATE THEM.
// END ACT //
ANY DIRECT AMERICAN AID IS BANNED BY A FIVE-YEAR-OLD LAW. THE
WHITE HOUSE AND U-S OIL COMPANIES WITH INTERESTS IN AZERBAIJAN
ARE CALLING FOR A CHANGE. (SIGNED)
NEB/DS/ENE/LWM
22-Jul-97 5:47 PM EDT (2147 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
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6.ONE STATE, TWO FOREIGN POLICIES?
by Liz Fuller
Armenia has traditionally considered itself, and been regarded
by the international community, as Russia's closest ally in the
Transcaucasus, not least because of the two countries' shared
mistrust of Turkey. True, since coming to power in August 1990, the
post-communist leadership of Levon Ter-Petrossyan has consistently
sought to pursue a balanced foreign policy and to establish cordial
relations with all neighboring states, including Turkey. Russia
nonetheless remained the primary focus, and relations between
Yerevan and Moscow were so harmonious that, during his visit to
Armenia in fall 1994, Russian Federation Council chairman Vladimir
Shumeiko was hard put to name a single issue on which the two
countries' leaderships disagreed. (This is not to suggest that
Armenia's sovereignty is in any way subservient to Russia: it
behaves as a "model geo-political citizen" but not as a satellite.) From
Moscow's standpoint, the most crucial component of this "special
relationship" is military cooperation. Under a series of bilateral
agreements signed over the past few years, Russia maintains a
military base in Armenia, and the countries' armed forces regularly
conduct joint maneuvers.
In terms of regional geo-politics, Russia and Armenia, together
with Iran, were until recently perceived as a counterweight to the
Western-oriented axis that originally comprised Azerbaijan and
Turkey. Over the past year, however, Georgia and Ukraine have
aligned themselves with Azerbaijan. Two factors contributed to this
configuration change: the search for the economically most viable
export route for Azerbaijan's Caspian oil that bypasses Russian
territory, and the ongoing debate over NATO's eastward expansion,
which offered the (admittedly long-term) possibility of alternative
security guarantees to the CIS Collective Security Treaty.
The views of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine on both those
issues have not always corresponded to those of the Turkish
leadership. Georgia and Ukraine propose pumping Azerbaijan's
Caspian oil to the Georgian terminal of Supsa, shipping it by tanker to
Odessa, and transporting it by pipeline from there to Western
Europe. Ankara, for its part, is intent on building a major export
pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan in southeastern Turkey. As for NATO
expansion, Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller threatened in
January to veto acceptance of any new NATO members unless
concrete assurances were given that Ankara would finally be granted
entry into the EU.
The emergence of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Ukraine axis appears
to have served as the catalyst for a revision of Armenia's
traditionally Russia-oriented foreign and security policies. (This
policy shift may also have been prompted by apprehension that
some circles within the Russian leadership who want Azerbaijan's oil
to be exported via the Baku-Grozny-Tikhoretsk-Novorossiisk pipeline
would make major concessions to Baku that could negatively impact
on the search for an acceptable solution to the Karabakh conflict.)
Yerevan has in recent months engaged in an intensive dialogue with
Kyiv. The Armenian Foreign Ministry has also drafted a new security
doctrine that provides for military cooperation with Russia and the
CIS as well as for Armenia's more active participation in NATO's
Partnership for Peace program; a role for Armenia, together with
international organizations, in guaranteeing the security of Nagorno-
Karabakh; and the proposed creation of a sub-regional security and
arms control system.
(In this context Armenia is likely to support the recently
resurrected Russian proposal to beef up the security component of
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Greek
Defense Minister Apostolos Tsohatzopoulos may have had this in
mind when he commented after recent talks in Yerevan with his
Armenian counterpart, Vazgen Sargsian, that "it is necessary to
establish a new body of collective security, proceeding from the
existence of regional institutions.")
In late April, the Armenian Foreign Ministry advised
postponing ratification of a treaty permitting Russia to maintain a
military base in Armenia. In a document circulated among
parliamentary deputies and subsequently published in the
independent newspaper "Molorak," the ministry argued that by
formalizing the Russian military presence in Armenia, the treaty
limited the amount of heavy weaponry that Yerevan would be
permitted under the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. If
Russia withdrew its troops, Armenia would not be automatically
entitled to increase its arms holdings and could therefore find itself
vulnerable to attack. However, this reasoning failed to convince the
parliament, which ratified the treaty by a large majority.
To interpret this episode simply as a clash between two
foreign-policy visions--one traditional and static and the other
evolving in response to a more complex and changing geo-strategic
environment--would overlook three key points. First, the
phenomenon of two apparently divergent foreign policy orientations
reflects the growing professionalization of the foreign-policy
establishments of the former Soviet republics and, as such, is not
unique to Armenia. Second, the debate focuses on the priority to be
given to Armenia's relations with Russia; that is, it is a question of
degree, rather than of two mutually exclusive alternatives. Third,
both these orientations have their supporters within the Armenian
leadership and the opposition, as does the proposal that Armenia
accede to the Russia-Belarus Union. Which vision prevails will likely
be determined not by the relative strength of the domestic political
lobbies but by the nature and extent of the long-term security
guarantees provided for Nagorno-Karabakh under any proposed
political settlement of the conflict.
Copyright (c) 1997 RFE/RL, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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7. Tatar Leader Ishaki remmebered
---------------------
Forwarded message:
From: SabirzyanB@aol.com
To: iskender@endeavour.exar.com
Date: 97-07-22 05:15:49 EDT
On July 22 Tatarstan observes the 43d anniversary of the death of Ayaz
Ishaki. Ayaz Ishaki was one of the greatest leaders of the Tatar national
liberation movement at the turn of the century. He is one of the truly
outstanding personalities in the history of the Tatar people.
Why is there such a great interest in his life and activities today, almost a
century after he started his political and literary career? In part, this
could be explained by the fact that during the Soviet period any knowledge of
the pre-revolutionary and emigree history of the Tatar people was rigidly
censored or suppressed by Moscow.
Another reason for this acute interest has to do with the current political
situation in Tatarstan. As we know, Tatarstan is gradually moving towards
total economic and political independence from Moscow. Ayaz Ishaki's dream
and the goal of his life was to save the Tatar nation from assimilation and
help it to achieve national self-determination.
Below is a short biography of Ayaz Ishaki, which was published as a foreword
to Ayaz Ishaki's book "Idel-Ural" (Paris, 1933). The foreword was added to
the book's latest edition published in 1988 by The Society for Central Asian
Studies.
"Mohammed Ayaz Ishaki was one of the most brilliant among the leading figures
of the Tatar political and cultural renaissance. He was born on 23 February
1878, in the village of Evshirma, Kazan gubernia, to the family of a mullah.
His earliest schooling was in his father's own mektep (school). He went on
to study in the madrassah of "Marjani". Ayaz Ishaki was admitted in 1899 to
the Rusian-Tatar Pedagogical School, which was the main breeding ground of
young Tatar radicals.
In 1905-06 Ishaki became one of the leaders of the Islah ("Reform")
revolutionary movement among students of the Tatar madrassah, and was editor
of the movement's clandestine periodicals Hurriyet ("Liberty") and Taraqqi
("Progress"). Both publications were seized by the police, and Ishaki was
arrested. In the spring of 1906 he founded the political group Tangchylar,
which was close to the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries. Between 1905 and
1917 he was arrested several times for revolutionary activity, and was
deported to Siberia and to Arkhangelsk.
Until the February Revolution Ishaki was a dedicated left-wing jadid (a
follower of the reform movement) and patriot, stongly opposed to Russian
colonialist policy with regards to Kazan Tatars. During this period he
contributed to or directed several Tatar periodicals: the moderate Qazan
Mukhbire ("Kazan Messenger"), published by Yusuf Akchura and Saidgirey Alkin,
who were at that time close to the Russian K.D. Party, and also several
radical socialist papers including Tang Yoldyzy ("Morning Star"), Tang
Mejmugasi ("Dawn Review") and Tavysh ("The Voice"), published in Kazan. All
three were soon seized by the Russian police.
In these various journals Ishaki expressed his radical political ideas and
his disapproval of the moderate leadership of the Tatar national movement.
During the same period, between 1898 and 1917, he wrote and published 29
novels and theatrical dramas or comedies, which expressed his daring
reformist ideas. A few were translated to into Russian (Aldim Birdem,
Sunnetche Babay, Lokman Hakim) and into Turkish (Zuleyha, Sunnetche Babay).
His most significant novel was probably the highly political science fiction
work Ike Yoz Yeldan Song Inkiraz ("Final Destruction in Two Hundred Years"),
published in several editions in Orenburg (1902) and Kazan (1904). The novel
prophesied the disappearance of the Tatar nation if it remained attached to
its traditional way of life.
Ayaz Ishaki was among the first Muslim radicals to make curious political
evolution from Revolutionary Socialism to nationalism and Islam. He played a
major role at the first All-Russian congress held in Moscow on May 1 1917,
and was elected Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the National
Council ("Milli Shura") established in Moscow. After the October Revolution
Ishaki became a resolute enemy of the Bolsheviks. He left the Soviet Union
and emigrated first to Japan, then to Paris and Berlin, and finally to Turkey
where he died in 1954. he was intensely involved in anti-Soviet activities
while abroad. He took active part in the Third World Muslim Congress held in
Jerusalem in 1931, and organized political groups in Manchuria, Berlin and
Turkey, including the Tatar Association in Berlin in 1925, and the Committee
for the Independence of Idel-Ural in 1928. In Paris, Ishaki was one of the
founders of the "Promethee" group.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
************************************************
Mehmet Tutuncu
(SOTA) Research centre for Turkestan, Azerbaijan, Crimea, Caucasus and Siberia
P.o. box 9642
2003 LP Haarlem
The Netherlands
e-mail: <mtutuncu@turkiye.net> or <sota@euronet.nl>
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Crimean Tatars Home-Page: <http://www.euronet.nl/users/sota/krimtatar.html>
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