Russia hails improvement in Armenia-Turkey relations

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow welcomes Armenia and Turkey's intention to normalize bilateral relations, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Turkey and Armenia reached an agreement on Monday to start "internal political consultations" on re-establishing diplomatic relations and opening their borders. The negotiations were mediated by Switzerland.

"We hope that an improvement in relations between the two neighbors will revitalize bilateral trade and economic contacts and will have a positive impact on the socio-economic situation of both states," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

It added that a better relationship between Armenia and Turkey "will help normalize the situation in the region and strengthen peace and security."

The two countries agreed to a "roadmap" to normalize their relations this April.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called on Tuesday for an early settlement to the long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh, a mountainous region in Azerbaijan with a largely Armenian population.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090901/155990584.html

Caucasus to bridge between Turkey, Russia

Dr. Burcu Gültekin Punsmann

Monday, January 25, 2010


Turks and Russians have never had such amicable contacts, never intermingled and cooperated so closely. The historical reconciliation process between Turkey and Russia should generate the same degree of enthusiasm as the French-German reconciliation process.

The main actors of the advanced many-faceted partnership promoted by the Russian and Turkish governments are indeed civilians, namely businessmen and tourists. The increasing interdependence and interactions are rapidly eliminating many of the remaining traces of enmity. The recent announcement that both countries can agree on a visa-free regime by the spring is very good news.

Prime Minister Erdoğan depicted, during his visit to Moscow on Jan. 12 and 13, the Turkish-Russian energy cooperation as exemplary. The deals reached during Prime Minister Putin’s visit to Ankara in August raised the Turkish-Russian energy cooperation to a strategic level. Turkey allowed Russia's Gazprom to use its sector of the Black Sea for the South Stream pipeline to pump Russian and Central Asian gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine. And Russia agreed to join a consortium to build the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean supporting Turkey's drive to become a regional hub for gas and oil transit.

Efforts underway aimed at strengthening transportation across the Black Sea between the two countries. Turkey and Russia are planning to build a logistics center in Krasnodar, located 1,500 kilometers south of Moscow and close to the Black Sea ports of Novorossiysk, Temruk, Taman, Kavkaz, Gelendzhik and Tuapse. Turkey, which seeks to export to Russia and other countries in the Black Sea and Caucasus region more efficiently, began feasibility studies in 2008. The center is expected to be a key base reaching all countries around the Black Sea in addition to Russia. Some 98 percent of cargo from Russia to Turkey is carried to Black Sea ports via railways.

Russia and Turkey are being linked across the Black Sea, whereas the Caucasus has become a barrier between them. The situation arisen from the conflicts of the South Caucasus are indeed less than optimal from a Turkish and Russian perspectives. The communications links through the Caucasus are severed. A major part of the infrastructure connecting the Caucasus to eastern Anatolia and Turkey’s Black Sea region – valuable legacy from the Russian empire – is not operational. Kars lost its traditional function of the key to the Trans-Caucasus. Sochi cannot be Russia’s southern gate and access to Vladikavkaz is dependent on the Upper Lars crossing at Kazbegi.

The Black Sea-Caucasus region had historically suffered from being a grey area of confrontation in the managed rivalry between Turkey and Russia. The current Turkish-Russian rapprochement should affect positively the region. Is there a possibility to transfer the model of economic bilateral cooperation between Russia and Turkey that verges on interdependence to the shared neighborhood, the Caucasus?

Turkish-Russian relations have been steadily developing throughout the 90s while, on a parallel track, Moscow and Ankara have been extremely cautious to prevent a spill over of tension emanating from the Caucasus into their bilateral relations.

Although neither Turkey nor Russia have any vital interest in the South Caucasus, they are not given the option to forget about the region. The Action Plan for Cooperation in Eurasia signed Nov. 16, 2001 by the foreign ministers of Russia and Turkey, Igor Ivanov and Ismail Cem, in New York during the U.N. General Assembly, created new room for cooperation. In the post 9/11 context, both countries expressed thereby their determination to carry their relations to a level of enhanced constructive partnership, extending to Eurasia and being based on “the shared belief that dialogue and cooperation in Eurasia will positively contribute to bring about peaceful, just and lasting political solutions to disputes in the region.” In accordance with the Eurasia Action Plan, a Russian-Turkish High-Level Joint Working Group and a Caucasus Task Force were established, bringing together high-level officials from the Russian and Turkish ministries of foreign affairs.

The cost of the return of war to the South Caucasus in August 2008 has been very high for the entire region. The initiative for a “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform,” or CSCP, was made public Aug. 13, 2008 by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Moscow. Announced by Turkey in a context of increasing polarization and harsh rhetoric, the CSCP maintained the channels of communication and dialogue open with Russia and has been a good tactical move to overcome tensions between Georgia and Russia. Furthermore, it helped Turkey to develop at least at the discourse level a pro-active policy in the Caucasus. Despite the fact that Russia dislikes encroachments into its spheres of influence, it recognized the commonality of interests with Turkey and welcomed the initiative by adopting a pragmatic approach and accepting political dynamism on behalf of Turkey in the Caucasus. The Caucasus Platform initiative has brought about a new development: for the first time, good Turkish-Russian understanding was being openly used to resolve problems in the common geographic neighborhood. Contrary to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, or BSEC, that has always avoided such issues, it was stated that the CSCP would be orientated toward problem solving.

The CSCP revealed a Turkish-Russian shared desire to change the regional context characterized by the state of neither peace nor war. The explicit linkage between regional stability and conflict resolution came as an innovation. The Caucasus platform aims at developing a functional method of finding solutions to the problems within the region and is based on the acknowledgement that tensions stem from a profound lack of confidence among states of the region. Furthermore it is a step forward in developing a sense of regional accountability and ownership from insiders. Russia has the potential to become a more active peace broker between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Turkey can contribute more actively to the settlement of the conflict between Georgians and Abkhazians.

The new momentum in the process of the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations has been a major source of legitimacy for the CSCP, which 1.5 years after its announcement has still not been precisely formulated. At this stage, the interruption of the Turkish-Armenian bilateral relations will dissipate the international attention focused on the region and decrease the chances to reach in a foreseeable future an agreement on the conflict over Karabakh. Russia expressed openly its support for the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations. The opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, the last closed one of Europe, will bring new opportunities for Turkish and Russian business sectors active on the Armenian side of the border in infrastructure projects.

Prime Minister Vladimer Putin stated during his talks with Prime Minister Erdoğan in Moscow that “the sooner the two countries ratify the protocols, the better for the region it will be” and that “Russia, like no other country, is interested in the normalization of relations in the region among all the countries, our neighbors.”

The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is one of the underlying root causes of insecurity in the region. The term of “frozen conflict.” The term has been depicted as misleading and potentially dangerous: actually the dispute is in a state of constant dynamic change. With roughly 60,000 Armenian and Azerbaijani troops separated by a 175-km self-regulating ceasefire line (Line of Contact), the situation is inherently unstable. For the time being, the Line of Contact is occasionally monitored by a very small team of five OSCE observers, which means that the sides will always have the possibility to blame each other for any serious violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreement.

There is a pressing need to try to change the status quo in a predictable and controllable manner. It seems there is a possibility that Russian President Dimitry Medvedev will host Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serge Sarkisian at a trilateral meeting in Moscow in late January. A joint declaration of the sides’ full consent over the updated version of the Madrid Principles is expected.

The resumption of the flight connection between Moscow and Tbilisi and the announcement of the reopening in March of the Verkhny Lars crossing between Russia and Georgia have been welcomed by Turkey. Turkey can play a major role in overcoming the isolation of Abkhazia and help to open up north-south transit routes between Turkey and Russia.

There is a pressing need to transfer the unique economic cooperation between Russia and Turkey – a cooperation that verges on interdependence – to the South Caucasus. Foreign investments are still being often associated with ownership, control and territorial gain. There is a need to promote pragmatically oriented approaches based on self-interest and business initiatives, and to stress the importance of competition, rather than confrontation and domination. In this regard, Turkey and Russia can set the example. The two traditional foes found a political common ground. Economics and private sector actors have been the driving force in this rapprochement.

The Caucasus has the potential to become a land bridge between Turkey and Russia. Being perceived as a buffer zone has proved very harmful. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan can be at the heart of an economically attractive region enlarged to southern Russia (Rostov and Krasnodar territories) and to eastern Turkey (East Anatolia and the eastern Black Sea regions).

* Dr. Burcu Gültekin Punsmann is a Foreign Policy Analyst, TEPAV.

www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=thinking-about-the-caucasus-as-a-land-bridge-between-turkey-and-russia-2010-01-25

Turkey: Ankara-Washington Differences Could Disrupt NATO Missile Shield Plans

Nicholas Birch [1]Turkey [2]Geopolitics [3]NATO [4]



October 25, 2010 - 2:14pm
Turkey’s misgivings about NATO plans to build ballistic missile interceptor system are clouding relations between Ankara and its Western allies.

The shield, a reworking of the Star Wars program developed during the Reagan era in the United States, has been described by its chief proponent, the United States, as a means to thwart potential missile strikes carried out by 'rogue' states. It would cover North America, Europe and Israel.

Turkish concerns about the plan center on the way its NATO partners are explicitly describing the shield with Iran in mind. The United States and Iran have long been at odds over Tehran’s nuclear program. Ankara is no more eager than is Washington to see its neighbor and rival for regional hegemony [5] build nuclear weapons. But recent years have seen a vast improvement in both trade and political relations among Tehran, Ankara and other countries in the Middle East. Turkey does not want to put those improving ties at risk [6] by being seen as taking NATO’s side.

It remains unclear whether Turkey is expected to play an active role in the shield scheme. Speaking in Washington on October 17, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates dismissed media speculation that Turkey was being asked to host early warning radar systems.

Even with no active role, Ankara could play the role of spoiler. NATO decisions are adopted by unanimous vote, and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has signaled that he wants a decision by November 19, when Alliance heads of state meet in Lisbon.

Hakan Albayrak, a columnist for the pro-government daily Yeni Safak, said that a cornerstone of the Turkish leadership’s foreign policy is diplomatic independence in Middle Eastern affairs. He added that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears unwilling to sacrifice that room for maneuver in exchange for the missile-defense umbrella. "Sacrificing the Iranian friendship to NATO," he said, "would mean an end to the independent foreign policy Turkey has followed in recent years, and the respect that that has earned it in the Islamic world."

Turkish ambivalence about Iran came to a head this June, when it was the only NATO member to vote against stiffer United Nations sanctions.

The Turkish veto stoked anti-Turkish feeling in the US Congress. Displeasure with Ankara has been growing since Turkey's relations with Israel took a dive in late 2008, and came close to collapse when Israeli soldiers killed eight Turkish civilians [7] in international waters last May.

With mid-term congressional elections due in the United States on November 2, Turkish fence-sitting on the NATO scheme risks exacerbating bilateral tension, senior administration figures have warned.

Kadri Gursel, a foreign policy analyst with Milliyet, a secular daily staunchly critical of the Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), said Ankara and Washington have genuinely different perspectives on several key foreign policy points. He added that reducing those differences to the AKP's "Islamic foreign policy" is simplistic. "If a secular government had been in power today, Turkey would have been just as unwilling to have anti-missile radar on its territory," he maintained.

For Gursel, the real source of the "centrifugal effect" on Turkey's relations with the West was the end of the Cold War.

At a press conference he gave in Brussels in mid-October, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made a similar point. "We do not want international conditions which would lead to Cold War-style polarization to develop," he said. "We do not want Turkey to be seen, as it was during the Cold War, as ... a front-line country."

"We do not have a perception of threat from any of our neighbors, and we are not of the opinion that our neighbors constitute a threat to NATO," Davutoglu continued.

The timing of Davutoglu's comments was telling. He was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers aimed at preparing the agenda for the November 19 NATO summit. The gathering is expected to map the Alliance’s strategy for the coming decade.

Perhaps more than the anti-missile shield, it is this new Strategic Concept that worries the Turkish government.

In a set of strategic recommendations published this May, NATO experts headed by former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright stated that "defending against the threat of a possible ballistic missile attack from Iran has given birth to what has become, for NATO, an essential military mission."

Permitted to join NATO in 1952 after two rebuffs, Turkey played a frontline role in the Cold War, noted Bulent Aliriza, head of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Since the end of the Cold War, everybody has been fudging the fact that the common threat holding the Alliance together - the Soviet Union - had disappeared," Aliriza says. "Today's reorganization brings into question the nature of the Alliance."

Following Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul mid-October statement that he welcomed the missile system as long as it was developed "within the NATO context" and designed to counter "the full range of ballistic missile threats," most Turkish analysts believe that careful wording should be enough to bring Ankara onside by November 19.

But Aliriza hinted that existing differences between Turkey and its NATO allies, especially the United States, cannot be papered over forever, and at some point in the not too distant future, honest and difficult discussions need to take place. "Turkey has century-long links with Europe and the Middle East," he said. "With the United States it has nothing but a cold-eyed relationship. The time has come for both countries to sit down seriously and talk about what it is that they agree on."

Editor's note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.
Nicholas BirchTurkeyGeopoliticsNATO
2010 © Eurasianet

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Source URL: http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62238
Links:
[1] http://www.eurasianet.org/taxonomy/term/2562
[2] http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/turkey
[3] http://www.eurasianet.org/taxonomy/term/2717
[4] http://www.eurasianet.org/taxonomy/term/3171
[5] http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav062509a.shtml
[6] http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62201
[7] http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61216

European governments have joined the international sanctions effort. But Beijing and Moscow aren't going along.


Monday, 13 September 2010
The Wall Street Journal




OPINION

By REUEL MARC GERECHT AND MARK DUBOWITZ

In 1996 Congress passed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act with the aim of, among other things, pressuring the regime in Tehran to stop sponsoring terrorism. For a time, the sanctions did annoy those who wanted to invest in the Islamic Republic. But they soon withered away, since neither President Clinton nor President Bush wanted to sanction our European allies, who were among Iran's biggest trading partners.

Today, nearly 15 years later, the major European states have tired of Tehran's mendacity and begun to cut business ties with Iran. Even the Japanese, who have always been resistant to American-backed sanctions, recently announced the suspension of new oil and gas investments. But China and Russia have filled the void—and will continue to undermine any sanctions effort unless the U.S. decides to punish their subversiveness.

The State Department will soon announce a new list of foreign companies blacklisted for Iranian transgressions. In doing so, Foggy Bottom must understand the futility of naming and fining a few companies while allowing major sanctions-busters, and the governments behind them, to go unpunished. The administration is going to have to choose between maintaining the broadest diplomatic coalition possible—with enormous Russian and Chinese holes in the sanctions regime—and taking on Moscow and Beijing.

The State Department's sanctions czar, Robert Einhorn, likes to tout that the threat of sanctions has led to about $60 billion in energy projects being terminated in Iran. This figure mostly reflects the decision of European firms to back off. Germany and Italy, Iran's most important European trade partners, have recently developed a political consensus—albeit a fragile one—in favor of tougher sanctions. Businessmen, however, remain wary. As Ulrich Ackermann, a spokesman for the German Engineering Federation, remarked: If "German companies pull out, will other, non-German companies replace us?" Thanks to Russia and China, the answer is "Yes."

Russia and China have made it clear that the Iranian energy sector is still open for their business. In 2009, the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) replaced France's Total in a contract to develop a major part of Iran's South Pars gas field. Total had withdrawn from the deal because of increasing pressure from Paris and Washington.

Chinaoil, the trading arm of CNPC, had not delivered gasoline to Iran in 2009 but began doing so in 2010. Unipec, the trading arm of Sinopec—the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation—also resumed gasoline sales to Iran in the spring of 2010 after a nearly six-year hiatus. According to Reuters, China's Zhuhai Zhenrong has also started shipping gasoline to Iran, sometimes in cooperation with Litasco, the trading arm of Lukoil, Russia's petroleum giant.

Since the passage of Washington's Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Act and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929—which emphasized in its preamble "the potential connection between Iran's revenues derived from its energy-sector and the funding of Iran's proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities"—Russian and Chinese officials have met openly with Iranian officials on joint energy-sector projects.

Sinopec is developing Iranian oil fields and increasing Iran's capacity to refine crude oil at the Tabriz, Arak and Abadan refineries. CNPC, too, is expanding Iranian oil production, including the important fields in North Azadegan, South Azadegan and Kuhdasht. The China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) has agreed to help Iran develop its natural gas reserves in the Northern Pars field and build gas liquefaction facilities, the development of which has been severely hampered by recent unilateral EU restrictions.

Russian energy giant Gazprom, meanwhile, continues to explore whether to expand Iran's oil and gas pipelines, a critical development for Tehran so long as a European ban on the transfer of liquefied-gas technology remains in place.

For all this, the U.S. government has the capacity to make both Russia and China feel considerable pain. For starters, CNPC has a U.S. subsidiary, PetroChina, which has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) since 2000. CNPC owns 86% of its shares, valued at approximately $170 billion. The Obama administration or Congress could consider banning CNPC from holding any U.S. assets, including shares in its subsidiary. They could also target the interests of Sinopec and CNOOC in their NYSE-traded subsidiaries, which are worth billions.

PetroChina also spent $1.9 billion to acquire oil sands in Alberta, Canada and committed to spend $250 million on oil sands development. The U.S. is the largest consumer of oil from these projects.

The Obama administration could encourage Ottawa, which has been alarmed by Iran's nuclear program and human rights abuses, to use its new energy-sanctions laws to force Chinese companies to choose between Canada's lucrative energy sector and Iran's. Ottawa could easily eliminate the legal fiction in Canadian sanctions law that lets foreign companies off the hook if their parent companies are operating in Iran and their subsidiaries are operating in Canada.

As for Russia, Lukoil sells gasoline in over 2,000 facilities in 13 U.S. states. Those facilities could be a target of sanctions. Gazprom Marketing and Trade, the U.S. subsidiary of Gazprom, should be barred from further natural gas business in the U.S. All of the offending Russian and Chinese companies could be banned from receiving U.S. government contracts and forcibly divested from state pension funds.

And there is strong evidence that U.S. sanctions can successfully hurt Chinese and Russian firms: Moscow and Beijing fought hard, with some success, to have earlier, smaller punitive designations lifted in exchange for Sino-Russian support of Resolution 1929.

Any U.S. action will surely infuriate Moscow and Beijing, as well as those in Washington who have worked to "reset" our relations with both countries. Russia and China could retaliate in a variety of hardball ways that could greatly complicate American and European strategic interests. If Russia were to start delivering S-300 antiaircraft missiles to Tehran, for example, it could well provoke an Israeli preventive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

But if the Obama administration does nothing or only sanctions small Russian and Chinese violators (or politically easier targets in Switzerland and Venezuela), growing Russian and Chinese trade with the Islamic Republic will probably crack European resolve, collapsing our Iran policy.

We were always going to have a test of wills with Russia and China over Iran. That day has arrived. Connoisseurs of power politics—Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and Ali Khamenei—are watching. So is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will decide one of these days whether a nuclear-armed Iran is acceptable, or not.

Mr. Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Dubowitz is the executive director of that foundation and heads its Iran Energy Project.

Why Russia and China Joined on Iran SanctionsBy Max Fisher
May 18 2010

Ever since Iran's accelerated nuclear program was discovered in September, few observers have been optimistic that China and Russia would allow the United Nations Security Council to go forward with the tough economic sanctions sought by President Obama. Pessimism has since persisted that the president could secure the essential Russian and Chinese support; Russia has resisted and China has regularly hinted that it would consider sanctions, only to withdraw later. Obama's failure to emerge from April's nuclear security summit with a sanctions agreement, along with Iran's recent deal to export some uranium to Turkey, reinforced fears that multilateral, Security Council-backed sanctions would be impossible. So Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement today that Russia and China will support sanctions comes as a big surprise. It raises the question, why did the two states ultimately come around?

In the past year, Russian leadership, particularly President Dmitri Medvedev, has made a concerted effort to strengthen diplomatic and economic ties to Europe and the U.S., slowly reversing the country's nearly century-long antagonism with the West. Russia has pursued rapprochement with Poland, economic ties with France, a key military partnership with the Ukraine, and the historic nuclear non-proliferation treaty with the U.S. Last week, the Russian edition of Newsweek reprinted a secret government document stating a new policy of abandoning Putin-era isolationism for greater engagement and cooperation with the West. Russia had opposed anti-Iran sanctions because the Russian government did not wish to establish precedents of a strong UN and of punishing states that pursued globally unpopular security policies. But, in its new role of international cooperation, Russia has less to fear from those precedents and more reasons to support them.

Russia also stands to make both economic and security gains from Iran sanctions. Because President Obama has rolled back President Bush's pledge for Eastern European missile shields, Russia is less protected from the potential threat of Iranian weaponry. Ironically, the missile shields were designed to protect Europe from Russia as well as from Iran, but they indirectly benefited Russia by providing a layer of defense against possible Middle East-based missiles. With Russia more vulnerable to such attacks, it has a security interest in not just curbing Iranian nuclear weapons, but in preventing the Middle Eastern arms race that would likely result from a nuclear Iran. Economically, Russia and Iran are increasingly tense competitors in the natural gas market, which is central to both their economies. They are the world's two greatest producers of natural gas. Iran's 2001 deal to sell Turkey 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas was likely just the beginning. Iran has laid its pipeline into Central Asia. By extending its Turkey pipeline into Europe, Iran could compete with Russia in one of the world's largest and most profitable energy markets. But economic sanctions against Iran would likely block it from selling in Europe and make Iran more reliant on its own energy, leaving it with less to export.

Economic concerns may also be key for China's decision to join in sanctions. Obama has looked the other way on currency manipulation, delaying a report which was expected to denounce Chinese currency policy and could have been a blow to the country's vital trade income. Though China and the U.S. may experience periods of diplomatic tension, the fact is that the two states' economic ties are essential for both economies. If China felt it had to choose between the benefits of U.S. trade and the unwanted international precedent of Security Council-led sanctions, the former likely won out. While China was happy to join with Russia in opposing sanctions, Medvedev's months of cooperation with the West and his supportive signals on sanctions plausibly made it clear that China would have to stand alone or follow Russia's support.

Critics of Obama's sanctions plan have persistently argued that sanctions don't change state behavior, will not effectively deter Iran, or that Iran's nuclear program is at this point inevitable. Whether or not they are right, China and Russia joining on sanctions could become a watershed moment for Obama's mission to make rogue nuclear states synonymous with pariah states -- and for the United Nations' ability to take collective, multinational action. Even if this moment of international cooperation does not work, the precedent will make future cooperation easier and more likely.
This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/05/why-russia-and-china-joined-on-iran-sanctions/56905/

Will Obama Slam China and Russia with Sanctions over Iran?Robert Dreyfuss | September 17, 2010
Earlier this week, I posted [1]about the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Iran Energy Report [2]calling for the United States to target nearly a dozen Chinese oil and energy firms for doing business with Iran. Accompanying that report, Reuel Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz of FDD penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal [3] putting the challenge in starker terms: they want a direct showdown with China and Russia over Iran.

Gerecht and Dubowitz noted that the Iran sanctions imposed by the United States in 1996 fizzled out, but that lately both Europe and Japan have started to cut back commercial ties with Iran, especially in the energy field. “But,” the authors assert, “China and Russia have filled the void.”

That’s not strictly true. Neither China nor Russia have the financial and technological ability to replace US and Western investment in Iran’s lagging energy sector. Iran is suffering enormously from a collapsing energy infrastructure, although that crisis has been gathering for three decades, thanks to bungling and economic mismanagement by Iran’s mullah regime. Both the Chinese and the Russians would dearly love to exploit the West’s abandonment of Iran, and to make money there and to secure oil and gas contracts, but they’re not exactly “filling the void.” Indeed, if Iraq has any hope of breaking away from Iran’s gravitational pull in the next five or ten years, it’s because Iran can’t provide Iraq what it needs, namely, hundreds of billions of dollars in oil and gas investment to rebuilt Iraq’s shattered industry—sums that can only come from the West and from the Arab Gulf states.

Yet, as Gerecht and Dubowitz correctly point out in some detail [3], key Chinese firms such as CNPC and CNOOC, along with Russia’s Lukoil, have intensified their involvement in Iran. That’s too much for the authors, who want the United States to slam both countries with economic sanctions, even though it was “surely infuriate Moscow and Beijing, as well those in Washington who have worked to ‘reset’ our relations with both countries.” Soon, they note, the State Department will issue its much-anticipated “blacklist” of foreign firms doing business with Iran, and the authors hope and pray that CNPC, CNOOC and Lukoil will be on it. Helpfully, they suggest tough measures that could be mobilized against the holdings of all three companies in the United States and, possibly, Canada. They conclude, ominously:

“We were always going to have a test of wills with Russia and China over Iran. That day has arrived. Connoisseurs of power politics—Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and Ali Khamenei—are watching. So is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will decide one of these days whether a nuclear-armed Iran is acceptable, or not.”


But, writing in their essential blog [4], The Race for Iran, Flynt Leverett and Hilary Mann Leverett throw cold water on the idea that, despite legislation enacted earlier this year, the United States can or should target foreign firms dealing with Iran. They write that such sanctions are “blatantly illegal”:

“We have long been critical of congressional infatuation with Iran-related secondary sanctions bills—and successive US administrations’ supine acquiescence to such measures. We think, first of all, that secondary sanctions are bad Iran policy: they do not generate anything approaching strategic leverage over Iranian decision-making, but help to undercut whatever credibility Tehran might still be willing to ascribe to American professions of interest in ‘engagement.’

“But, beyond this, secondary sanctions are lousy foreign policy: they potentially antagonize some of America’s most important international partners, for no constructive purpose. One of the more antagonistic qualities of secondary sanctions is that, as a lawyer would put it, they represent an extraterritorial application of national law—in other words, they are blatantly illegal. America’s closest allies—including Britain along with the rest of the European Union—have made clear that, if Washington were ever so foolish as to apply Iran-related secondary sanctions to an “EU” company, the EU would file a complaint against the United States in the World Trade Organization.”


And, they point out, because of all this, secondary sanctions have never been used: “Not once.” That, among other considerations, explains why the post-1996 sanctions mentioned by Gerecht and Dubowitz didn’t work.


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Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/154843/will-obama-slam-china-and-russia-sanctions-over-iran

İran'la ilişkilerini kesen şirketler listesi açıklandı
İran'la enerjide faaliyetlerine devam etmeyeceğini ABD'ye bildiren şirketler listesinde Tüpraş da var.
ABD Dışişleri Bakanlığı, İran'ın enerji sektöründeki faaliyetlerine devam etmeyeceklerini bildiren bazı şirketlerin isimlerini açıklarken, bu şirketler arasında Türkiye Petrol Rafinerileri A.Ş'ni (TÜPRAŞ) de saydı.

Bakanlıktan yapılan yazılı açıklamada, "İran hükümetine uluslararası yükümlülüklerine uyması için baskıyı artırma çabalarımızın bir parçası olarak ABD yönetimi, yabancı hükümetlere ve şirketlere, uluslararası yükümlülüklerine uyana kadar İran'ın enerji sektörüne ilişkin faaliyetlerden kaçınmaları yönünde şiddetle çağrıda bulunuyor" denildi.

"Dışişleri Bakanlığının çabalarının sonuçlarının açık olduğu" belirtilen açıklamada, "Şirketler, İran ile iş yapmanın artan risklerinin farkına varıyor ve oradaki faaliyetlerine son veriyor ya da İran'da hiçbir yeni faaliyet içine girmeme taahhüdünde bulunuyor" ifadesi kullanıldı.

Bakanlık açıklamasında, İran'ın enerji sektörüne ilişkin faaliyetlerine devam etmeyeceklerini açıklayan şirketlerin bir listesi de yayımlandı.

Listenin yer aldığı açıklamada şunlar kaydedildi

"-TÜPRAŞ, Ağustos ayında ABD Dışişleri Bakanlığına, İran'a petrol ürünleri tedarikini öngören kontratları iptal ettiğini açıkladı.

-Fransız petrol şirketi Total, İngiltere ve Hollanda'nın Royal Dutch Shell, Kuveyt'in Independent Petroleum Group ve Hindistan'ın Reliance şirketleri, Dışişleri Bakanlığını bu yıl içinde İran'a rafine ürün satışlarını durdurdukları yönünde bilgilendirdi.

-İsviçreli enerji ticaret şirketleri Vitol, Glencore ve Trafigura, bu yılın Mart ayında İran'a rafine petrol ürünleri tedarik etmeyecekleri yönünde kamuoyu önünde taahhütte bulundu.

-Rus petrol şirketi LUKOIL nisan ayında, İran'a benzin satışlarına son verdiğini açıkladı. LUKOIL, bu taahhüdünü 2 Eylülde Amerikalı yetkililere de teyit etti.

-BP ve Shell şirketleri, Dışişleri Bakanlığına, İran Havayollarına artık jet yakıtı sağlamayacaklarını bildirdi.

-Shell, Total, ENİ (İtalya) ve Statoil (Norveç), İran'daki faaliyetlerini durdurdu ya da durdurma sürecindeler ve bu şirketlerin tümü, İran'da yeni hiçbir faaliyette bulunmayacaklarının taahhüdünü verdi.

-Shell ve (İspanya ile Arjantin ortaklığındaki) Repsol şirketleri, Güney Pars gaz sahasının 13. ve 14. fazlarının geliştirilmesine ilişkin müzakerelerden çekildiler ve bize, İran'la daha başka diyalog içine girmeyecekleri yolunda taahhütte bulundular.

-Güney Kore'nin GS Engineering & Construction şirketi, 1 Temmuzda İran'da 1,2 milyar dolarlık gaz işleme projesini iptal ettiklerini açıkladı.

-İngiliz Lloyds şirketi, 9 Temmuzda İran'a giden petrol ürünleri nakliyatlarını sigortalamayacağını bildirdi.

-Önemli nakliyat dernekleri, kontratlarda, gemi sahiplerine İran'a rafine petrol ürünleri dağıtımını kabul etmemelerine imkan veren şartlar koydu.

-Hong Kong nakliyat şirketi NYK Line Ltd, İran ile ticaretten çekilme kararı aldığını belirtti."



AA

http://www.ekoayrinti.com/

Iran’s sanctions make China, Russia winners
TEHRAN - Bloomberg
Wednesday, August 18, 2010


Sanctions punishing Iran for its nuclear program are deepening the country’s ties with China and handing Russia opportunities to sell more gasoline while hurting suppliers in Europe and India.

Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi and Chinese officials pledged for their countries to cooperate more closely in the energy industry during talks in Beijing on Aug. 6, Iran’s government-run Press TV reported. Russia’s state-controlled Rosneft and Gazprom Neft may step up fuel shipments to the Islamic republic this month, the Iran Commission of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry said in July.

“These countries have long-term interests in the region,” said Gary Sick, a member of the U.S. National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan and the principal White House aide for Iran during the 1979-81 hostage crisis. China wants “to maintain relations with Iran for the sake of maintaining some access to the oil,” he said.

While sanctions against Iran are denting the country’s fuel imports, squeezing supplies to the country’s 73 million people, they are forcing refiners including India’s Reliance Industries Ltd. to pay higher costs to ship gasoline to more distant markets. Sanctions also translate into lost profit for Paris- based Total SA and other European refiners, which are facing their lowest returns on processing crude since December.

Rations reduction

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government cut gasoline rations by one-fourth on June 22 and may reduce fuel subsidies. The country, which has the second-biggest reserves of oil and gas, said in July it may stop exporting naphtha and use the petrochemical as a blending agent to increase gasoline production. National airline Iran Air was forced to redirect jetliners “for a period of time” when BP Plc refused to refuel them last month, Chairman Farhad Parvaresh said on July 28.

That’s giving China and Russia opportunities. Even before Iran’s Mir-Kazemi arrived in Beijing last week, his deputy, Alireza Zeighami, was meeting Chinese officials to press for investment in refineries in the Persian Gulf country, the Oil Ministry’s Shana news agency reported. The two sides committed in the talks to expand their cooperation, and Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang said afterward that China is “Iran’s main economic partner,” Press TV reported on Aug. 7, citing official China Central Television.

Russian companies are discussing “serious deliveries” to Iran in late August or September, Rajab Safarov, head of the Iran Commission of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said July 29.

“Looking at the political situation, I’m not sure if Europe and the U.S. were 100 percent sure about the possible responses from places like Russia and China,” said Alexander Poegl, an analyst at JBC Energy in Vienna. “Iran will find partners supplying them gasoline.”

The United Nations Security Council imposed a fourth set of sanctions on Iran June 9, curbing financial transactions and tightening an arms embargo. The U.S. introduced measures on July that target foreign suppliers of gasoline and block access to the American financial system for banks doing business in Iran. The European Union on July 26 banned investment and sales of equipment to the nation’s oil and natural-gas industries. UN spokesman Farhan Haq in New York declined to comment.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=iran8217s-sanctions-make-china-russia-winners-2010-08-18

To Pressure Iran, Squeeze Russia and China
European governments have joined the international sanctions effort. But Beijing and Moscow aren't going along.

By REUEL MARC GERECHT AND MARK DUBOWITZ



In 1996 Congress passed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act with the aim of, among other things, pressuring the regime in Tehran to stop sponsoring terrorism. For a time, the sanctions did annoy those who wanted to invest in the Islamic Republic. But they soon withered away, since neither President Clinton nor President Bush wanted to sanction our European allies, who were among Iran's biggest trading partners.

Today, nearly 15 years later, the major European states have tired of Tehran's mendacity and begun to cut business ties with Iran. Even the Japanese, who have always been resistant to American-backed sanctions, recently announced the suspension of new oil and gas investments. But China and Russia have filled the void—and will continue to undermine any sanctions effort unless the U.S. decides to punish their subversiveness.

The State Department will soon announce a new list of foreign companies blacklisted for Iranian transgressions. In doing so, Foggy Bottom must understand the futility of naming and fining a few companies while allowing major sanctions-busters, and the governments behind them, to go unpunished. The administration is going to have to choose between maintaining the broadest diplomatic coalition possible—with enormous Russian and Chinese holes in the sanctions regime—and taking on Moscow and Beijing.

The State Department's sanctions czar, Robert Einhorn, likes to tout that the threat of sanctions has led to about $60 billion in energy projects being terminated in Iran. This figure mostly reflects the decision of European firms to back off. Germany and Italy, Iran's most important European trade partners, have recently developed a political consensus—albeit a fragile one—in favor of tougher sanctions. Businessmen, however, remain wary. As Ulrich Ackermann, a spokesman for the German Engineering Federation, remarked: If "German companies pull out, will other, non-German companies replace us?" Thanks to Russia and China, the answer is "Yes."

Russia and China have made it clear that the Iranian energy sector is still open for their business. In 2009, the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) replaced France's Total in a contract to develop a major part of Iran's South Pars gas field. Total had withdrawn from the deal because of increasing pressure from Paris and Washington.

Chinaoil, the trading arm of CNPC, had not delivered gasoline to Iran in 2009 but began doing so in 2010. Unipec, the trading arm of Sinopec—the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation—also resumed gasoline sales to Iran in the spring of 2010 after a nearly six-year hiatus. According to Reuters, China's Zhuhai Zhenrong has also started shipping gasoline to Iran, sometimes in cooperation with Litasco, the trading arm of Lukoil, Russia's petroleum giant.

Since the passage of Washington's Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Act and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929—which emphasized in its preamble "the potential connection between Iran's revenues derived from its energy-sector and the funding of Iran's proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities"—Russian and Chinese officials have met openly with Iranian officials on joint energy-sector projects.

Sinopec is developing Iranian oil fields and increasing Iran's capacity to refine crude oil at the Tabriz, Arak and Abadan refineries. CNPC, too, is expanding Iranian oil production, including the important fields in North Azadegan, South Azadegan and Kuhdasht. The China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) has agreed to help Iran develop its natural gas reserves in the Northern Pars field and build gas liquefaction facilities, the development of which has been severely hampered by recent unilateral EU restrictions.

Russian energy giant Gazprom, meanwhile, continues to explore whether to expand Iran's oil and gas pipelines, a critical development for Tehran so long as a European ban on the transfer of liquefied-gas technology remains in place.

For all this, the U.S. government has the capacity to make both Russia and China feel considerable pain. For starters, CNPC has a U.S. subsidiary, PetroChina, which has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) since 2000. CNPC owns 86% of its shares, valued at approximately $170 billion. The Obama administration or Congress could consider banning CNPC from holding any U.S. assets, including shares in its subsidiary. They could also target the interests of Sinopec and CNOOC in their NYSE-traded subsidiaries, which are worth billions.

PetroChina also spent $1.9 billion to acquire oil sands in Alberta, Canada and committed to spend $250 million on oil sands development. The U.S. is the largest consumer of oil from these projects.

The Obama administration could encourage Ottawa, which has been alarmed by Iran's nuclear program and human rights abuses, to use its new energy-sanctions laws to force Chinese companies to choose between Canada's lucrative energy sector and Iran's. Ottawa could easily eliminate the legal fiction in Canadian sanctions law that lets foreign companies off the hook if their parent companies are operating in Iran and their subsidiaries are operating in Canada.

As for Russia, Lukoil sells gasoline in over 2,000 facilities in 13 U.S. states. Those facilities could be a target of sanctions. Gazprom Marketing and Trade, the U.S. subsidiary of Gazprom, should be barred from further natural gas business in the U.S. All of the offending Russian and Chinese companies could be banned from receiving U.S. government contracts and forcibly divested from state pension funds.

And there is strong evidence that U.S. sanctions can successfully hurt Chinese and Russian firms: Moscow and Beijing fought hard, with some success, to have earlier, smaller punitive designations lifted in exchange for Sino-Russian support of Resolution 1929.

Any U.S. action will surely infuriate Moscow and Beijing, as well as those in Washington who have worked to "reset" our relations with both countries. Russia and China could retaliate in a variety of hardball ways that could greatly complicate American and European strategic interests. If Russia were to start delivering S-300 antiaircraft missiles to Tehran, for example, it could well provoke an Israeli preventive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

But if the Obama administration does nothing or only sanctions small Russian and Chinese violators (or politically easier targets in Switzerland and Venezuela), growing Russian and Chinese trade with the Islamic Republic will probably crack European resolve, collapsing our Iran policy.

We were always going to have a test of wills with Russia and China over Iran. That day has arrived. Connoisseurs of power politics—Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and Ali Khamenei—are watching. So is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will decide one of these days whether a nuclear-armed Iran is acceptable, or not.

Mr. Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Dubowitz is the executive director of that foundation and heads its Iran Energy Project.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703453804575479791919603272.html

ABD Orta Asya’da oynadığı büyük oyunu sonlandırdı mı?
The New Republic

Sovyetler Birliği'nin yıkılışından bu yana Orta Asya ve Kafkas ülkeleri için yaşanan ABD-Rusya rekabeti, Obama'nın ABD Başkanı olmasıyla yeni bir döneme girdi. Ancak genel tabloya bakıldığında, işlerin Obama için iyi gittiği söylenemez.


Geçtiğimiz yaz Kırgızistan’da baş gösteren şiddet olayları ABD'nin büyük oyuna son verdiğinin işareti olabilir. Obama yönetimi, Kırgızistan’da neredeyse kontrolün ortadan kalkmasına neden olaylara müdahale etmekte hiç acele etmedi. Bu durum, 2005 senesinde Özbekistan’da yaşanan katliama hemen müdahale eden Washington’un o dönemki tavrıyla taban tabana zıt.



Kâğıt üzerinde, Obama yönetimi Rusya’nın Orta Asya’da bir etki alanı oluşturmasını istemiyor. Ancak Kırgızistan’da yaşananlar Beyaz Saray'ın bu aşılmaz çizgiden geri adım attığına işaret ediyor. Eğer bu trend devam ederse, Washington’un Orta Asya’da Kremlin’e boyun eğmesi, büyük güçlerin birbirlerinin arka bahçesini yavaşça arşınladığı, oldukça riskli bir döneme girmemize neden olabilir.



Ne olduğunu anlayabilmek için, ABD’nin politikalarının 1991’den beri nasıl değişim gösterdiğine bakmakta yarar var. Sovyetler Birliği'nin çöküşünden sonra ABD’nin Orta Asya’da ve Kafkaslardaki yeni sekiz cumhuriyetle nasıl bir ilişki kuracağını gösteren şey, Beyaz Saray'ın Moskova’ya yönelik tavrıydı. Bu, Rusya’nın komünist diktatörlükten serbest piyasa ekonomisine geçeceği evrimi yumuşatmaya söz vermekti.



BATIYA BAĞLANAN ENERJİ KOLLARI

Rusya Federasyonu’nda patlak veren iç savaşların başlamasıyla Kazakistan ve Türkmenistan, Washington’a doğalgaz ve petrol ihracında sıkıntı yaşadığı şikâyetinde bulundu. Azerbaycan’daki hükümetler arka arkaya çökerken, günlük kargaşalarda Rusya’nın parmağı olduğuna dair deliller ortaya çıktı. Bunun üzerine, Clinton yönetiminin dış politika ekibinden bazı isimler, Rusya ile daha mesafeli olunması gerektiğini belirtti.



Ulusal Güvenlik Konseyi yetkilisi Sheila Heslin, Washington’un Moskova üzerindeki yaklaşımının, aslında ortadan kaldırmak istediği politikaları cesaretlendirdiğini, Rusya’nın komşularının egemenliğine saygı göstermeye zorlandıkça otoriter yapısını kaybedeceğini belirtti. Yapılması gereken şey Orta Asya ve Kafkaslardaki cumhuriyetleri güçlendirmekti.



Heslin’in bu görüşü destek topladı ve bu büyük değişim, en iyi Türkiye tarafından algılandı. Ankara, Washington'ın bu girişimi sonrası birçoğu etnik Türk olan Orta Asya ve Kafkaslardaki ülkeleri, NATO şemsiyesi altına almak amacıyla kucak açtı. Görünüşte El Kaide’yi hedef alan ancak gerçekte Rusya’nın nüfuzuna zarar veren ABD askeri üsleri ise, dönemin Rusya Devlet Başkanı Vladimir Putin’ı kızdırdı.



OBAMA’DAN GERİ ADIM

ABD’nin bölgedeki varlığından ve Gürcistan’a silah satışından memnun olmayan Putin, 2008’de Tiflis’le savaşa girerek Washington'a yeni bir sinyal gönderdi. Bush yönetimi, bölgedeki hedefinden vazgeçmezken, Obama yönetimi Büyük Oyun’da geri adım atmaya başladı. Kırgızistan, Rusya ile başlatılan daha sakin bir diyalog ve üst düzey işbirliğinin en son örneği. Dahası, Obama, Polonya ve Çek Cumhuriyeti’ne konuşlandırılacak füze savunma sisteminden ve Gürcistan’a yeni bir silah satışı düşüncesinden vazgeçti




Obama’nın amaçları ise açık: Silah kontrolü anlaşmaları yapmak, Afganistan’da zafer kazanmak ve İran’ın nükleer silahsızlanmasının önüne geçmek. Bu amaçların tümünde Rusya önemli rol oynuyor. Rusya ile ilişkilerin sıfırlanması, savaş uçaklarının Kuzey Kutbu’ndan Kırgızistan'a uçmasına, Afganistan’a Rus askeri helikopterlerinin satılabilmesine ve İran üzerinde daha sıkı bir mali kontrol yapılmasını sağladı.



Dahası, 1990’ların aksine Obama’nın ekibi Orta Asya’da büyük güç rekabetinin modasının geçtiğine inanıyor. Heslin’in politikası, Orta Asya ve Kafkas ülkelerine Moskova’dan bağımsız finansal kanallar sağlamaktı. Alternatif piyasalara ulaşan enerji hatlarının, özellikle de Kafkaslardan Türkiye’ye uzanan Bakü-Ceyhan petrol boru hattının inşa edilmesi bu politikanın kalbini oluşturuyordu.



Başkan Obama, yeni politikasının nihayetinde bir tercih yapmasını gerektirdiğinin farkına varmalı. Büyük Oyun’un önemini azaltarak elde edilen jeopolitik kazançlar önemli ancak ABD’nin “ellerini çekme” politikasının maliyeti de oldukça yüksek.



Kısaca, sıfırlama politikası önemli bir geri adım oldu. Washington Orta Asya'daki politikalarını yeniden belirleyerek, bölgedeki siyasi ve ekonomik bağımsızlığın, koruyuculuğun ABD'ye kazandırdığı itibarı kaybetti.

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/planet/15995053_p.asp