Thursday 31 May 2012

TURKEY – SHIITE PERSIANS VERSUS WAHHABI SAUDIS




THE MIDDLE EAST IS PERVADED AND INCREASINGLY INFECTED BY THE SECTARIAN RIVALRY BETWEEN THE SHIITE PERSIANS AND THE WAHHABI SAUDIS, WHO ARE NOW FIGHTING PROXY WARS ALL OVER THE REGION


By Barry Rubin
Via STRATIM 

If you want a sense of where the MIDDLE EAST is going, consider this viewpoint from an unlikely source. Suat Kiniklioglu is not just a member of the TURKISH Parliament for the ruling (Islamist) AK party, he’s a member of the party’s Central Executive Committee and deputy chair of the party’s foreign affairs commission. In other words, he’s a very important person in TURKEY’S ruling establishment and especially foreign policy.

Yet rather than take an optimistic view about the advance of Islamic politics in the region, he’s very worried, worried enough to write a column entitled, “Back to a Barbarian Age” in the May 16 edition of the Islamist newspaper, Today’s Zaman.

What is this barbarianism? It consists of rising group hatred and looking down on others as culturally inferior and uncivilized. One might think he’s about to launch still another attack on the West as evil, imperialistic, and anti-Muslim. Not at all.

His complaint is:

“We are now back to the very primordial identities that once dominated our political behavior and determined the group to which we belonged or were seen as belonging. We are no longer socialists, conservatives or liberals. These days we are first judged by what tribe we belong to and more increasingly what faith we believe in.”
Yes, he continues, “I am constantly reminded in Europe and the US that I am a Muslim.” It is interesting to note that he was born in GERMANY and clearly that played a role in making him identify himself as a Muslim (and not just a TURK) that he ended up in the AK party.

But his complaints are about the MIDDLE EAST:

“When I travel in THE MIDDLE EAST, I am reminded that I am a SUNNI. The MIDDLE EAST is being ravaged by barbarians who want to divide the world into SUNNI and SHIITE. We can no longer make any political assessment without entertaining these ethnic, religious and sectarian identities. We are truly back to the Middle Ages. All of our accumulated knowledge, sophistication and political culture seems to have been lost. The Middle East is pervaded and increasingly infected by the sectarian rivalry between the SHIITE PERSIANS and the WAHHABI SAUDIS, who are now fighting proxy wars all over the region. As if we are all in agreement with the Saudis’ extremely harsh interpretation of WAHHABISM, we SUNNIS find ourselves in the same camp.”



Note what he’s saying here. On one hand, there is a SHIA bloc led by IRAN; on the other is a hardline SUNNI ISLAMISM which he blames on SAUDI ARABIA but might just as well refer to the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD. These two camps are now waging war in SYRIA for their “primordial and primitive agenda.” These “barbarians” (Islamists) “have blatantly hijacked the push for a normal democratic order in SYRIA,” instead committing acts of terrorism that must be condemned.

And then he concludes:

“With all its sins and shortcomings, the secular order we [TURKS] established over the last eight decades has taken hold and promises to support our sociopolitical order.”
Why would a leading figure in an Islamist party identify the era of rising Islamism as a “great shame…[in which the Middle East ] fell prey to the thirst of barbarian bloodshed”?

Part of the answer is specifically TURKISH:

– Kiniklioglu is one of those moderates swept up into the AK, in his case an expert on communications and foreign affairs, who may not be comfortable with the party’s program.
– In addition, he is (correctly) asserting that (up to now) TURKISH ISLAM has been more moderate than the versions in IRAN and the ARABIC-speaking world. This is common, however, among others — I’ve often heard it from EGYPTIANS — seeking to blame everything on the SAUDIS and IRANIANS. Ironically, (perhaps subversively?) he is praising the (secular) TURKISH republic which his own party is now dismantling.

– He’s describing the biggest headache for TURKISH foreign policy since a battle between SUNNI (ARAB) MUSLIMS AND SHIA (IRANIAN-LED) MUSLIMS is crowding TURKEY out of any real influence in the region.

But I note something else here, too: Genuine fear of what ISLAMIC and ISLAMIST politics have unleashed. Not the utopian brotherhood of the international Islamic community (umma) pushing out competing nationalist conflicts, but rather the evil genie of hatred, jihad among “brothers,” war, murder, and intolerance.

It involves the persecution of Christians and turning them into refugees, as well as the threat of renewed war with ISRAEL. But it also puts a fuse to set off bloody conflicts in IRAQ (as we have already seen), LEBANON, SYRIA, and BAHRAIN. Just as Arab nationalism pledged unity and brought decades of strife among Arab regimes, political Islam is the weapon and motive for new conflicts.

We have already seen its devastating role in AFGHANISTAN, IRAN, the GAZA STRIP, IRAQ, LEBANON, and SUDAN. Many in the West are in denial. (Even the use of the word “barbarian” in this context would bring down charges of second-degree hate crime upon a non-Muslim.) But I think Kiniklioglu and a lot of other Muslims are beginning to see the scary new world that he and his counterparts have set into motion.

Monday 28 May 2012

BBC propaganda:Photo used to document the massacre in Houla Syria was taken in 2003 in Iraq





Oops, BBC: Iraq photo to illustrate Houla massacre?

With the shock of the Houla tragedy ringing across the world, the BBC has released a story with a harrowing picture of rows and rows of children's bodies awaiting burial… But isn’t that post-Saddam Iraq?
­Photographer Marco di Lauro who took the shot grabbed by the BBC says he nearly “fell off his chair” after finding the picture on the network’s website with a caption reading: “Photo from Activist. This image – which cannot be independently verified – is believed to show bodies of children in Houla awaiting funeral.

The picture was actually taken on March 27, 2003; it depicts an Iraqi boy jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad. The image, which is published on Marco di Lauro’s website, is part of his story Iraq, the Aftermath of Saddam.
Marco di Lauro takes photographs for Getty Images picture agency, his works have been published across Europe and the US. But the indication that the BBC picked his image from the internet, not from official stock worries him somewhat.

What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all,” the photographer told The Daily Telegraph.
Someone is using someone else’s picture for propaganda on purpose,” he added.
A BBC spokesman says the picture, illustrating Sunday night’s story "Syria Massacre in Houla Condemned as Outrage Grows," was taken down “immediately” when the source was identified.
We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria. We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified,” he added.

These words about information “which cannot be independently verified” have become a trademark of media coverage of the 14-month conflict in Syria. Before UN special envoy Kofi Annan brought his peace plan to the troubled Arab country, the Syrian government had remained reluctant to open borders to most international journalists.

But even now the bulk of information comes from people calling themselves opposition activists – via amateur videos uploaded to YouTube or eyewitness reports.
But sometimes it looks that the mantra “cannot be independently verified” serves as a disclaimer to publish information which wouldn’t stand a chance of ever being verified.

See also:

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/news-about-syria-information-or.html
http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/truth-nothing-but-truth.html
http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2011/08/food-for-thought_18.html

Saturday 26 May 2012

CHINA and TURKEY





CHINA’S LAND BRIDGE TO TURKEY CREATES NEW EURASIAN GEOPOLITICAL POTENTIALS

by F. William Engdahl
 
The prospect of an unparalleled EURASIAN economic boom has been further solidified following recent talks between TURKISH and CHINESE leaders. The first steps are being constructed with a number of little-publicized rail links envisioned to connect CHINA and parts of WESTERN EUROPE. It is increasingly clear to all nations concerned, especially CHINA and RUSSIA, that their natural tendency to develop these markets faces only one major hurdle: NATO and the US Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance obsession. According to Engdahl, rail infrastructure is a major geopolitical tool for obviating that obstacle.

Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring previously stated that:

The Romans created cobblestone roads to move its armies faster and became an Empire

The British created railroads to connect trade routes and became an Empire

The Americans created the Information Highway and became an Empire 

CHINESE - TURKISH GEOPOLITICAL AND ECONOMIC AMBITIONS COINCIDE 

CHINA and TURKEY are in discussions to build a new high-speed railway link across TURKEY. If completed it would be the country’s largest railway project ever, even including the pre-World War I Berlin-Baghdad Railway link. The project was perhaps the most important agenda item, far more so than SYRIA during talks in Beijing between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the CHINESE leadership in early April.
The proposed rail link would run from Kars on the easternmost border with ARMENIA, through the TURKISH interior on to Istanbul where it would connect to the Marmaray rail tunnel now under construction that runs under the Bosphorus strait. Then it would continue to Edirne near the border to GREECE and BULGARIA in the EUROPEAN UNION. It will cost an estimated $35 billion. The realization of the TURKISH link would complete a CHINESE Trans-Eurasian Rail Bridge project that would bring freight from CHINA to SPAIN and ENGLAND.

With the planned connection of the Marmaray project under the Bosphorus to the Edirne-Kars high-speed railway line, a train line from China’s easternmost Lianyungang to Spain and England would be completed.
(Map: Yunus Emre HatunoÄŸlu)

 The Kars-Edirne line would reduce travel time across TURKEY by two-thirds from 36 hours down to 12. Under an agreement signed between CHINA and TURKEY in October 2010, CHINA has agreed to extend loans of $30 billion for the planned rail network. In addition a Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway connecting AZERBAIJAN’S capital of Baku to Kars is under construction, which greatly increases the strategic importance of the Edirne-Kars line. For CHINA it would put a critical new link in its railway infrastructure across EURASIA to markets in EUROPE and beyond.

Erdogan’s visit to Beijing was significant for other reasons. It was the first such high level trip of a TURKISH Prime Minister to CHINA since 1985. The fact that Erdogan was also granted a high-level meeting with CHINESE Vice President Xi Jinping, the man slated to be next CHINESE President, and was granted an extraordinary visit to CHINA’S oil-rich Xinjiang Province also shows the high priority CHINA is placing on its relations with TURKEY, a key emerging strategic force in the MIDDLE EAST.

ECONOMIC PRIORITIES FROM BOTH SIDES HAVE CHANGED THE POLITICAL CALCULUS

Xinjiang is a highly sensitive part of CHINA as it hosts some 9 million ethnic Uyghurs who share a TURKIC heritage with TURKEY as well as nominal adherence to the TURKISH SUNNI branch of Islam. In July 2009 the US government, acting through the National Endowment for Democracy, the regime-change NGO it finances, backed a major Uyghur uprising in which many HAN CHINESE shop owners were killed or injured. Washington in turn blamed the riots on Beijing as part of a strategy of escalating pressure on CHINA. During Uyghur riots in Xinjiang in 2009, Erdogan accused Beijing of “genocide” and attacked the CHINESE on human rights, a dicey issue for TURKEY given their KURD ethnic problems. Clearly economic priorities from both sides have now changed the political calculus.

BUILDING THE WORLD’S GREATEST MARKET

With the end of the Cold War in 1990 the vast under-developed land space of EURASIA became open again. This space contains some forty percent of total land in the world, much of it prime unspoiled agriculture land; it contains three-fourth of the entire world population, an asset of incalculable worth. It consists of some eighty eight of the world’s countries and three-fourths of known world energy resources as well as every mineral known needed for industrialization. NORTH AMERICA as an economic potential, rich as she is, pales by comparison.

The TURKISH-CHINA railway discussion is but one part of a vast CHINESE strategy to weave a network of inland rail connections across the EURASIAN Continent. The aim is to literally create the world’s greatest new economic space and in turn a huge new market for not just CHINA but all EURASIAN countries, the MIDDLE EAST and WESTERN EUROPE. Direct rail service is faster and cheaper than either ships or trucks, and much cheaper than airplanes. For manufactured CHINESE or other EURASIAN products the rail land bridge links are creating vast new economic trading activity all along the rail line.

Two factors have made this prospect realizable for the first time since the Second World War. First the collapse of the SOVIET UNION has opened up the land space of EURASIA in entirely new ways as has the opening of CHINA to RUSSIA and its EURASIAN neighbors, overcoming decades of mistrust. This is being met by the eastward expansion of the EUROPEAN UNION to the countries of the former WARSAW PACT.

Comment by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring:
The European Union’s indecisiveness regarding its directions on Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia reflect the current geopolitical development in the region and will most probably end in losing the leverage, the EU once had in the region, to Turkey and other influential Muslim countries who have been focusing on this region for some time now. More details regarding this topic can be read on Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring under the Title: Europe’s ignorance: The Balkan (to be published soon)

WORLDWIDE CONTAINER TRAFFIC HAS REACHED SATURATION POINT

The demand for faster rail transport over the vast EURASIAN distances is clear. CHINA’S container port activity and that of its EUROPEAN and NORTH AMERICAN destinations is reaching a saturation point as volumes of container traffic explode at double-digit rates. SINGAPORE recently displaced Rotterdam as the world’s largest port in volume terms. The growth rate for container port throughput in CHINA in 2006, before outbreak of the world financial crisis was some 25% annually. In 2007 CHINESE ports accounted for some 28 per cent of world container port throughput. 

CHINESE GEO-STRATEGIC VULNERABILITY: SOUTH CHINA SEA SHIPPING PASSAGES 

However there is another aspect to the CHINESE and, to an extent, the RUSSIAN land bridge strategies. By moving trade flows over land, it is more secure in the face of escalating military tensions between the nations of the SHANGHAI Cooperation Organization, especially CHINA and RUSSIA, and NATO. Sea transport must flow through highly vulnerable narrow passageways or choke-points such as the MALAYSIAN STRAITS of Malacca.

WESTERN SOLE FOCUS ON SHIPPING INDUSTRY HAS MISSED CHINA'S EXTENDING RAIL LINKS INTO CENTRAL ASIAN AND BEYOND 

The TURKISH Kars-Edirne railway would form an integral part of an entire web of CHINESE-initiated rail corridors across the EURASIAN landmass. Following the example of how rail infrastructure transformed the economic space of EUROPE and later of AMERICA during the late 19th Century, the CHINESE government, which today stands as the world’s most efficient railroad constructor, has quietly been extending its rail links into CENTRAL ASIA and beyond for several years. They have proceeded in segments, one reason the vast ambition of their grand rail infrastructure has drawn so little attention to date in the WEST outside the shipping industry.

CHINA BUILDS SECOND EURASIAN LAND BRIDGE

By 2011 CHINA had completed a Second EURASIAN Land Bridge running from CHINA’S port of Lianyungang on the EAST CHINA SEA through to KAZAKHSTAN’S Druzhba and on to CENTRAL ASIA, WEST ASIA and EUROPE to various EUROPEAN destinations and finally to Rotterdam Port of HOLLAND on the Atlantic coast.


The Second EURASIAN Land Bridge is a new railway connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic that was completed by CHINA to Druzhba in KAZAKHSTAN. This newest EURASIA land bridge extends west in CHINA through six provinces—Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang autonomous region, which neighbors respectively with Shandong Province, Shanxi Province, Hubei Province, Sichuan Province, Qinghai Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Inner MONGOLIA. That covers about 360,000 square kilometers, some 37% of the total land space of CHINA. About 400 million people live in the areas, which accounts for 30% of the total population of the country. Outside of CHINA, the land bridge covers over 40 countries and regions in both ASIA and EUROPE, and is particularly important for the countries in Central and WEST ASIA that don’t have sea outlets.

GERMAN INDUSTRY PROFITS FROM RAIL LINK

In 2011 CHINA’S Vice Premier Wang Qishan announced plans to build a new high-speed railway link within KAZAKHSTAN, linking the cities of Astana and Almaty, to be ready in 2015. The Astana-Almaty line, with a total length of 1050 kilometers, employing CHINA’S advanced rail-building technology, will allow high-speed trains to run at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

DB Schenker Rail Automotive is now transporting auto parts from Leipzig to Shenyang in northeastern CHINA for BMW. Trains loaded with parts and components depart from DB Schenker’s Leipzig trans-shipment terminal in a three-week, 11,000 km journey to BMW’s Shenyang plant in the Liaoning province, where components are used in the assembly of BMW vehicles. Beginning in late November 2011, trains bound for Shenyang departed Leipzig once each day. "With a transit time of 23 days, the direct trains are twice as fast as maritime transport, followed by over-the-road transport to the CHINESE hinterland," says Dr. Karl-Friedrich Rausch, member of the management board for DB Mobility Logistics’ Transportation and Logistics division. The route reaches CHINA via POLAND, BELARUS, and RUSSIA. Containers have to be transferred by crane to different gauges twice—first to RUSSIAN broad gauge at the POLAND-BELARUS border, and then back to standard gauge at the RUSSIA-CHINA border in Manzhouli.

TRAIN VERSUS SHIP 

In May 2011 a daily direct rail freight service was launched between the Port of Antwerp, EUROPE’S second-largest port, and Chongqing, the industrial hub in CHINA’S southwest. That greatly speed-ed rail freight transport across EURASIA to EUROPE. 

Compared to the 36 days for maritime transport from east CHINA’S ports to west EUROPE, the Antwerp-Chongqing Rail Freight service now takes 20 to 25 days, and the aim is to cut that to 15 to 20 days. Westbound cargo includes automotive and technological goods, eastbound shipments are mostly chemicals. The project was a major priority for the Antwerp Port and the BELGIAN government in cooperation with CHINA and other partners. The service is run by SWISS inter-modal logistics provider Hupac, their RUSSIAN partner Russkaya Troyka and EURASIA Good Transport over a distance of more than 10,000km, starting from Port of Antwerp through to GERMANY and POLAND, and further to UKRAINE, RUSSIA and MONGOLIA before reaching Chongqing in CHINA.

The Second EURASIAN Land Bridge runs 10,900 kilometers in length, with some 4100 kilometers of that in CHINA. Within CHINA the line runs parallel to one of the ancient routes of the SILK ROAD. The rail line continues across CHINA into DRUZHBA where it links with the broader gauge rail lines of KAZAKHSTAN. KAZAKHSTAN is the largest inland country in the world. As CHINESE rail and highways have expanded west, trade between KAZAKHSTAN and CHINA has been booming. 

From January to October 2008, goods passing through the Khorgos port between the two nations reached 880,000 tons - over 250% growth compared with the same period a year before. Trade between CHINA and KAZAKHSTAN is expected to grow 3 to 5 fold by 2013. As of 2008, only about 1% of the goods shipped from Asia to Europe were delivered by overland routes, meaning the room for expansion is considerable.

From KAZAKHSTAN the lines go on via RUSSIA and BELARUS over POLAND to the markets of the EUROPEAN UNION.
Another line goes to Tashkent in UZBEKISTAN, CENTRAL ASIA’S largest city of some two millions. Another line goes west to TURKMENISTAN’S capital Asgabat and to the border of IRAN. 

With some additional investment, these links, now tied to the vast expanse and markets of CHINA could open new economic possibilities in much-neglected regions of CENTRAL ASIA. The SHANGHAI Cooperation Organization (SCO) could provide a well-suited vehicle for coordination of a broad EURASIAN rail infrastructure coordination to maximize these initial rail links. The members of the SCO, formed in 2001, include CHINA, KAZAKHSTAN, RUSSIA, KYRGYZSTAN, TAJIKSTAN, UZBEKISTAN with IRAN, INDIA, MONGOLIA and PAKISTAN as Observer Status countries.

RUSSIA’S LAND BRIDGE

RUSSIA is well positioned to benefit greatly from such an SCO strategy. The First EURASIAN Land Bridge runs through RUSSIA along the TRANS-SIBERIAN Railway, first completed in 1916 to unify the RUSSIAN Empire. The Trans-Siberian remains the longest single rail line in the world at 9,297 kilometers, a tribute to the vision OF RUSSIAN Sergei Witte in the 1890s. The Trans-Siberian Railway, also called the Northern East-West Corridor, runs from the RUSSIAN Far East Port of Vladivostok and links in EUROPE to the Port of Rotterdam some 13,000 kilometers. At present it is the less attractive for Pacific-to-Atlantic freight because of maintenance problems and maximum speeds of 55 km.

There are attempts to better use the Trans-Siberian Land Bridge. In January 2008 a long distance EURASIAN rail freight service, the "Beijing-Hamburg Container Express" was successfully tested by the GERMAN railway Deutsche Bahn. It completed the 10,000 km (6,200 miles) journey in 15 days to link the CHINESE capital to the GERMAN port city, going through MONGOLIA, the RUSSIAN FEDERATION, BELARUS and POLAND. By ship to the same markets takes double the time or some 30 days. 

This route, which began commercial service in 2010 incorporates a section of the existing Trans-Siberian Railway, a rail link using a broader gauge than either CHINESE or EUROPEAN trains, meaning two offloads and reloads onto other trains at the CHINA-MONGOLIA border and again at the BELARUS-POLAND border.
Were the Trans-Siberian railway passage across RUSSIAN EURASIAN space to be modernized and upgraded to accommodate high-speed freight traffic, it would add a significant new economic dimension to the economic development of RUSSIA’S interior regions. The Trans-Siberian is double-tracked and electrified. The need is minimally to improve some segments to insure a better integration of all the elements to make it a more attractive option for EURASIAN freight to the west.

There are strong indications the new Putin presidency will turn more of its attention to EURASIA. Modernization of the First Eurasian Land Bridge would be a logical way to accomplish much of that development by literally creating new markets and new economic activity. With the bond markets of the UNITED STATES and EUROPE flooded with toxic waste and state bankruptcy fears, issuance of RUSSIAN state bonds for modernization or even a new parallel high-speed rail Land Bridge linking to the certainty of growing freight traffic across EURASIA would have little difficulty finding eager investors.

RUSSIA is currently in discussion with CHINA and CHINESE rail constructors who are bidding on construction of a planned $20 billion of new high-speed RUSSIAN rail track to be completed before the 2018 RUSSIAN hosting of the Soccer World Cup. CHINA’S experience in building some 12,000 km of high speed rail in record time is a major asset for CHINA’S bid. Significantly, RUSSIA plans to raise $10 billion of the cost by issuing new railroad bonds.

A THIRD EURASIAN LAND BRIDGE? ENHANCING TURKEYS AMBITIONS OF BECOMING THE KEY PLAYER IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

In 2009 at the Fifth Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional (PPRD) Cooperation and Development Forum, a government-sponsored event, the Yunnan provincial government announced its intention to accelerate construction of needed infrastructure to build a third EURASIAN continental land bridge that will link south CHINA to Rotterdam via TURKEY over land. This is part of what Erdogan and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao discussed in Beijing this April. The network of inland roads for the land bridge within Yunnan province will be completed by 2015, said Yunnan governor Qin Guangrong. The project starts from coastal ports in Guangdong, with the Port of Shenzhen being the most important. It will ultimately go all the way through Kunming to MYANMAR, BANGLADESH, INDIA, PAKISTAN and IRAN, entering EUROPE from TURKEY.

The route would cut some 6,000-km from the sea journey between the Pearl River Delta and Rotterdam and allow production from CHINA’S eastern manufacturing centers to reach ASIA, AFRICA and EUROPE. The proposal is for completing a series of missing rail and modern highway links totaling some 1,000 Km, not that inconceivable. In neighboring MYANMAR a mere 300 km of railways and highways are lacking in order to link the railways in Yunnan with the highway network of MYANMAR and SOUTH ASIA. It will help CHINA pave the way for building a land channel to the Indian Ocean.

The third Eurasian Land Bridge will cross 20 countries in ASIA and EUROPE and have a total length of about 15,000 kilometers, which is 3,000 to 6,000 kilometers shorter than the sea route entering at the Indian Ocean from the southeast coast via the Malacca Straits. The total annual trade volume of the region’s the route passes through was nearly US$300 billion in 2009. Ultimately the plan is for a branch line that would also start in TURKEY, cross SYRIA and ISRAEL, and end in EGYPT, facilitating transportation from CHINA to AFRICA. Clearly the Pentagon’s AFRICOM and the US-backed Arab Spring unrest directly impacts that extension, though for how long at this point is unclear. 


Wednesday 23 May 2012

RUSSIA AND CYPRUS




RUSSIA AND THE CYPRUS GAMBIT

 By Robert Ellis via Defense News

RUSSIA’S age-old ambition of securing a foothold in the MEDITERRANEAN has been achieved not only through the establishment of a naval base at Tartus in SYRIA but also because of its long-standing relationship with CYPRUS.

In 1955 the GREEK Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios, attended the Bandung Conference in INDONESIA, which laid the foundation for the Non-Aligned Movement.
It was as the first president of CYPRUS that Makarios six years later took part in the founding meeting of the NAM in Belgrade. When CYPRUS became independent in 1960, it was with ‘a fettered independence’ that shared power between the GREEK CYPRIOT majority and the TURKISH CYPRIOT minority and was guaranteed by the UNITED KINGDOM, GREECE and TURKEY.

The GREEK CYPRIOT struggle for self-determination began with the EOKA revolt against BRITAIN in 1955 and the constitution that was imposed on CYPRUS was seen by both the GREEK CYPRIOTS and the TURKISH CYPRIOTS as an interim measure before they could achieve their ultimate aims – enosis (union with GREECE) and taksim (partition). As Christopher Hitchens put it, “both sides circled around each other like scorpions in a bottle.”

It was in the name of self-determination that Makarios enlisted the support of the Non-Aligned Movement and the SOVIET BLOC, which ultimately led to the GREEK junta’s coup against Makarios and TURKEY’S intervention in 1974. As the GREEK Prime Minister George Papandreou wrote to President Johnson in June 1964, “If Natification [NATO membership] of CYPRUS does not occur; the island will inevitably be transformed into another CUBA”.

In fact, it was the threat of SOVIET intervention in the event of a TURKISH invasion in 1964 that brought East and West to the brink of a new CUBA crisis. CYPRUS also imported SOVIET arms from EGYPT and CZECHSLOVAKIA, and RUSSIAN support has continued to the present day. The purchase of S-300 missiles in 1997 resulted in a new confrontation with TURKEY and RUSSIAN hardware can be seen at Independence Day celebrations.

In 1978 an ANGLO-AMERICAN CANADIAN plan for the reunification of CYPRUS was initially accepted by both parties but was torpedoed by the CYPRIOT communist party, AKEL, acting on instructions from Moscow. And in April 2004 Cypriot Foreign Minister (and now Presidential Commissioner) George Iacovou was sent to Moscow to secure a RUSSIAN veto of the Security Council resolution in support of the Annan Plan.

Ironically, after the GREEK CYPRIOTS rejected the Annan Plan, the best hope for reunification was the election of AKEL’s general secretary, Demetris Christofias, as president in 2008. Educated in Moscow and a fluent RUSSIAN speaker, Christofias shared the same trade-union background as his TURKISH CYPRIOT counterpart, Mehmet Ali Talat.

However, talks suffered a major setback when Talat was replaced by Dervis Eroglu, who insisted on the equal sovereignty of two peoples rather than the single sovereignty of a federal state.
Last year the TURKISH CYPRIOT Trade Unions’ Platform organised two mass demonstrations against TURKISH rule and in a letter to Ban Ki-moon rejected any proposal based on two separate states but instead stated their will to be the politically equal co-founder of a UNITED FEDERAL CYPRUS.
Christofias has announced his intention not to run again in the presidential elections next February, ostensibly because he has failed to honour his election pledge to solve the CYPRUS problem.

The real reason is his catastrophic drop in popularity after the explosion at the Mari naval base in July last year, which killed 13 people and destroyed a nearby power station.
In January 2009, 98 containers of IRANIAN munitions were confiscated from a CYPRIOT-flagged RUSSIAN freighter bound for SYRIA and stored in an open field at the naval base.
According to a leaked report Christofias had assured Bashar al-Assad the cargo would remain in Cyprus until it could be returned to either SYRIA or IRAN. CYPRUS had also refused assistance from the US, BRITAIN, FRANCE and GERMANY to dispose of the munitions and a request by the UN Sanctions Committee to inspect the cargo was stalled.

There were mass demonstrations outside the presidential palace and an independent report found that the President had “failed miserably” to take the necessary measures. In a similar incident in January a RUSSIAN ship bound for SYRIA put in at Limassol because of bad weather and was found to carry “dangerous cargo”. Despite an assurance it would not sail to SYRIA, the ship continued to Tartus and unloaded 60 tonnes of ammunition.



CYPRUS FUNCTIONS AS AN OFFSHORE FINANCIAL CENTRE FOR RUSSIA

so that the island figures as RUSSIA’S largest source of foreign investment. On a state visit two years ago President Medvedev stated that investment in RUSSIA through CYPRUS exceeded 50 billion dollars, and in May 2010 alone an estimated $18.7 billion was paid into local banks from RUSSIAN sources. There are also over 60,000 RUSSIANS living in Cyprus and 40 percent of property buyers are RUSSIAN.
The CYPRIOT economy has been heavily hit by exposure to GREEK debt, but a RUSSIAN loan of €2.5 billion is expected to cover refinancing requirements for 2012. One CYPRIOT bank may need a bailout by the end of June, which might make it necessary for the government to apply to the EUROPEAN Financial Stability Facility for a loan.

RUSSIA also has a vested interest in the delivery route for the offshore gas finds in CYPRUS and ISRAEL’S Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). Gazprom has put in a bid for the construction of a gas transmission pipeline in GREECE and both Gazprom and Novatek have put in a bid in a second licensing round for CYPRUS’ offshore reserves.

However, TURKEY has given permission to the TURKISH Petroleum Corporation to drill in six areas that belong to CYPRUS’ EEZ. RUSSIA has already manifested its authority by dispatching a battle group to the eastern Mediterranean, and the RUSSIAN Ambassador to CYPRUS, has stated that Moscow fully supports the sovereign right of CYPRUS to exploit its natural resources.

Related Background Info: