Ohran Pamuk, il genocidio armeno e il nazionalismo turco

Wirepullers: Turchia e Armenia sarebbero sul punto di risolvere un conflitto in atto dal secolo scorso. Precisamente dal 1915-1916, biennio in cui un numero variabile tra i 950.000 e i 3.500.000 Armeni, a seconda che a dirlo sia Ankara o Yerevan, furono deportati e uccisi dall'esercito turco e da milizie curde. Il genocidio è ancora oggi una ferita aperta per Ankara, a tal punto che parlarne in pubblico può costare il carcere. Ad accelerare questo riavvicinamento tra i due paesi ha contribuito la guerra dell'anno scorso in Georgia, la quale avrebbe creato un blocco all'economia locale, costringendo gli attori dell'area a cercare nuove strade. Ed ecco quindi che viene istituita una commissione mista turco-armena, che dovrà stabilire se il genocidio ci sia veramente stato e in che misura. Come dire, se gli affari in qualche modo devono andare avanti, la storia non può essere un intralcio. Con la brutta sensazione che il gas che scalderà le nostre case tra qualche anno passerà sopra quei morti. (4)

Forse si riapre il processo contro lo scrittore turco, colpevole di aver parlato del genocidio armeno e dei massacri contro i curdi. La Turchia sta scivolando verso un misto di fondamentalismo islamico e di nazionalismo. Fra i segnali: l’amicizia con la Siria e con l’Iran. Articolo del 18.05.2009

Torna di attualità il famigerato articolo 301 del Codice Penale turco che prevede severe condanne per chi osa portare “vilipendio all'identità nazionale turca”. Nel corso degli ultimi anni esso ha messo a tacere numerosi intellettuali che osavano contestare il “democratico Governo turco”. Nel mirino è ancora lo scrittore Orhan Pamuk, per un caso archiviato da tre anni.

Proprio mentre lo scrittore, primo turco ad essere insignito del Premio Nobel per la Letteratura (2006), si trovava a Firenze per ricevere la laurea honoris causa, si è sparsa la voce che con ogni probabilità dovrà di nuovo comparire di fronte ai giudici turchi per aver “offeso l’identità turca”.
In realtà si tratta di un’accusa ormai vecchia, seppure ben presente nella memoria di tutti.

Nato a Istanbul nel 1952, nel 2005 Pamuk è stato accusato per aver dichiarato al settimanale svizzero Das Magazin che “noi turchi abbiamo ucciso 30 mila curdi e un milione di armeni e nessuno, tranne me, in Turchia osa parlarne”. È stato però assolto dal tribunale di Istanbul, anche e soprattutto grazie all'intermediazione della comunità internazionale che ha sollecitato la parziale modifica dell'art. 301, approvata nel maggio 2008, cancellando la generica “offesa dell'identità turca” e sostituendola con una più dettagliata “offesa allo Stato o agli organi dello Stato turco”.

Il 14 maggio scorso la Corte suprema ad Ankara ha deciso, però, di rigettare la decisione del Tribunale di primo grado e di procedere contro Pamuk proprio per aver riconosciuto il suo Paese responsabile del “genocidio” armeno – parola tabù per la nazione turca - ai tempi dell'Impero Ottomano, e commettendo così un grave reato secondo quanto stabilisce il codice penale turco.

Narratore di fama internazionale Pamuk è riconosciuto come uno degli scrittori contemporanei più tradotti, non solo nelle lingue europee. Dal suo esordio, nel 1982, infatti, ha pubblicato nove romanzi e altri scritti, insigniti di prestigiosi premi internazionali in Europa e negli Stati Uniti. Ha elaborato forme narrative originali, benché complesse e non sempre di facile interpretazioni, attraverso le quali esplora, sotto un punto di vista storico, le problematiche dell’arte, dell’espressione, dell’identità e del rapporto fra le tradizioni dell’Oriente e dell’Occidente. In patria e all’estero Pamuk riscuote un grande successo letterario. Ma nonostante ciò, egli continua ad essere osteggiato da una parte dell'opinione pubblica del suo Paese. Un sottoprefetto di Isparta ha addirittura ordinato la distruzione dei suoi romanzi nelle librerie e nelle biblioteche in tutta sua provincia.

Pamuk, invitato alla Fiera internazionale del Libro a Torino, aveva deciso di non fare cenno a questa questione. In passato egli aveva pure rifiutato di partecipare a dibattiti e discussioni sui mandanti dell'omicidio del giornalista armeno Hrant Dink, suo amico. A Torino, sollecitato sulla sua vicenda giudiziaria ancora in corso, ha commentato : “Non credo che si tratti di una questione seria, anche se non conosco ancora gli ultimi dettagli, non c’è ancora nulla di ufficiale, ma da quel che ho capito potrei essere nuovamente processato. Purtroppo nella mia nazione la giustizia è politicizzata - ha detto Pamuk - e voi sapete che se in un paese non c'è libertà non ci può essere neppure vera giustizia. Per questo sento il dovere di parlare liberamente”.

I giornali turchi per ora preferiscono tacere e solo il quotidiano Hurriyet osa accennare a questa probabile nuova apertura di processo. Nessuno dà nulla per certo e tutti mantengono il silenzio, visto quanto si è scatenato negli anni scorsi a livello internazionale proprio intorno al caso Pamuk e all’articolo 301. Molti si augurano che questo episodio non sia l'ennesimo segnale dell'irrigidimento autoritario e nazionalista in corso in Turchia da parte dell'attuale governo, un fatto che va ad aggiungersi ai recenti avvicinamenti alla Siria e all'Iran, confermando il sospetto verso un governo che, dimenticando la laicità kemalista, si dirige verso un Islam più estremista, in cui nazionalismo e fondamentalismo si fondono pericolosamente.

Autore: Geries Othman

Fonte: www.asianews.it

Armenia-Turkey: genocide, blockade, diplomacy

Wirepullers: Turchia e Armenia sarebbero sul punto di risolvere un conflitto in atto dal secolo scorso. Precisamente dal 1915-1916, biennio in cui un numero variabile tra i 950.000 e i 3.500.000 Armeni, a seconda che a dirlo sia Ankara o Yerevan, furono deportati e uccisi dall'esercito turco e da milizie curde. Il genocidio è ancora oggi una ferita aperta per Ankara, a tal punto che parlarne in pubblico può costare il carcere. Ad accelerare questo riavvicinamento tra i due paesi ha contribuito la guerra dell'anno scorso in Georgia, la quale avrebbe creato un blocco all'economia locale, costringendo gli attori dell'area a cercare nuove strade. Ed ecco quindi che viene istituita una commissione mista turco-armena, che dovrà stabilire se il genocidio ci sia veramente stato e in che misura. Come dire, se gli affari in qualche modo devono andare avanti, la storia non può essere un intralcio. Con la brutta sensazione che il gas che scalderà le nostre case tra qualche anno passerà sopra quei morti. (3)

A bad agreement cannot turn old adversaries into good neighbours, says Vicken Cheterian.

A process that began with "football diplomacy" between Armenia and Turkey has developed into the real thing, as the countries' foreign ministers signed two protocols on their future relationship at a ceremony in Switzerland on 10 October 2009. The presence of senior international dignitaries at the event - among them United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, European Union foreign-policy chief Javier Solana - reflects the geopolitical importance of the deal.

But this is but a stage in a long story, not its culmination; and the context and content of the agreement between these bitter adversaries reveal that the most serious problem between them - the genocide of the Armenians in 1915 and after - has been handled in a very bad way. This guarantees further dispute and tension, with the likelihood of ultimate breakdown.

The denial
When Turkey's president visited Yerevan to attend a World Cup qualifier between the two national football teams on 6 September 2008, I was hopeful that Turkey was seriously shifting its foreign policy in the direction of its proclaimed "zero problems" with its neighbours. In particular, I thought that Turkey would as part of a rapprochement with Armenia put an end to its sixteen-year long blockade of Armenia (imposed at the time of the post-Soviet conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh).

This expectation was overturned when I read the protocols on establishing diplomatic relations and opening borders, which were made public on 31 August 2009. My impression was that Armenia was being forced to pay a high price, both morally and politically; that the documents set a bad precedent, in allowing strong states with a dark past to revise history at the negotiation-tables, with the blessing of world powers; and that the existing international political framework seems unable as a result to accommodate the grievances carried by the descendants of genocide victims.

To understand the limits of the Armenia-Turkey accord, a brief survey of the history they fail to address is unavoidable.

The heart of the issue that divides Armenia and Turkey is the uprooting, exile and massacre of almost the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman empire during the first world war, when the powerful Young Turk leaders Enver and Talat came to the view that the empire's Armenian subjects of the empire constituted an "enemy within". Only a very few Armenians, mainly in the then capital Istanbul, survived out of a pre-genocide population of around 1.5 million.

There is copious documentation in many national archives - German, British, French, as well as Turkish and other - about what Armenians call the meds yeghern (great catastrophe). But despite this, and vast subsequent research material, the modern Turkish state continues - after ninety-four years - to deny the genocidal intention of its Ottoman predecessor. Turkey's official narrative claims by turn that the relevant events were part of a civil war, in which Armenians also were agents of massacre against "Muslims"; and that in any case the Armenians deserved whatever happened to them because they had betrayed the empire and collaborated with the Russian and Tsarist enemy. Either version is governed by denial: of the reality of genocide, of the experience of victims, of the responsibility of perpetrators.

The Turkish state has made huge investments to spread this narrative via support for publications and payment of researchers, journalists and lobbyists. Against this, Armenian diaspora organisations have been active from 1965 in lobbying to seek international recognition of the genocide. Many researchers have continued to document and deepen understanding of the tragedy; these include Turkish scholars such as Taner Akcam.

The reshuffle
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent Armenia in 1989-91 gave the whole affair a new dimension. Turkey recognised the Republic of Armenia, but did not establish diplomatic contacts. As the war in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated, Turkey shut down even the limited cross-border exchange (principally the Gyumri-Kars rail link) that had existed in Soviet times.

In 1993, Turkey joined Azerbaijan in imposing a blockade on Armenia in the attempt to force Yerevan to abandon its military (and political) support of the Karabakh authorities. Turkey later added two new preconditions before it would consider establishing diplomatic relations and raising the blockade: that Armenia accepted the 1921 treaty of Kars between Kemalist Turkey and Soviet Russia (which established the current state borders), and that Armenia ceased pursuing international recognition of the genocide.

The US state department acted as mediator between Ankara and Yerevan for over a decade, without result. The event that shuffled the cards in the region was the war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008. This made the opening of the Armenia-Turkey border look more attractive to both Moscow and Ankara for trade and security reasons, and fuelled Turkish diplomatic talk of "zero problems" with its neighbours. The election of Barack Obama, who during his campaign had promised to recognise the Armenian genocide, acted as a further pressure on Ankara. The status quo was starting to appear untenable.

It was in the wake of the short, vicious August 2008 war that Armenia's president (Serzh Sarkisian) invited his Turkish counterpart (Abdullah Gül) to visit Yerevan to attend the scheduled football match. This in turn ignited a chain of intensive consultations and rumours, including about an early reopening of the border. The next, and sudden, breakthrough occurred on 23 April 2009 - the eve of the day each year when Armenians commemorate the genocide - when Turkey and Armenia along with their Swiss mediators announced a "roadmap" towards normalisation.

This announcement also allowed Barack Obama in his 24 April address to use the term meds yeghern and thus avoid the juridical meaningful "genocide" - thus in effect retreating from his campaign promise. In the ensuing weeks Ankara also took a step back and insisted that the opening of borders could not take place before the solution of the Karabakh conflict - a clear concession to Azerbaijani interests. Now, with the protocols (which have to be ratified by the respective parliaments before they come into effect) Turkey can continue to press Armenia by saying that the process will be halted unless there is "progress" on the Karabakh issue.

The block
The four-page text agreed on 31 August 2009 - the basis of the 10 October accords - made reference to recognising the "existing borders": a hint in the direction of the Kars treaty. But the real disaster lies in the pledge to "implement a dialogue on the historic dimension with the aim to restore mutual confidence between the two nations, including an impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archives to define problems and formulate recommendations".

This is the equivalent of a coup d'état by diplomats and politicians over the work of historians. This is not these gentlemen's job; the best they can do is to regulate the political problems between their two states, and leave study of the historic records - opened to all - to scholars. It is a bitter twist that two days before the protocols were signed, Turkey's supreme court of appeals found that the Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk can be sued for an interview given to the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in which he said "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians have been killed and almost nobody dares to mention that."

The Armenian foreign ministry says that the protocols do not include preconditions, especially over the main Turkish demand that opening the borders should be linked to progress over the Karabakh conflict; and that therefore the accords are a great success for them. But the protocols do refer to the Kars treaty, and satisfy Turkey's key aim of deflecting or halting the process of international recognition of the genocide. For it is all too predictable that in future Obama or his European counterparts will refrain from use of the term "genocide" on the grounds that the two sides are engaged in sensitive negotiations and thus it is better not to disturb them.

Thus, the way the protocols indirectly put the genocide on the negotiating table allows Turkey to win twice: by creating a process that deters foreign powers from intervening and putting pressure on Turkey, and by granting Turkey the formal possibility of questioning the genocide.
The leading genocide scholar Roger W Smith has written an open letter to the Armenian president, which says:

"Scholars have identified the Armenian genocide as the archetypal case of modern genocide, whose pattern has many similarities with subsequent cases. Therefore, any commission that purports now to conduct ‘an impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archives' in effect dismisses all of the extensive research that has already been conducted for decades and implies that none of it was impartial or scientific. This is offensive to all genocide scholars, but particularly non-Armenian scholars, who feel their work is now being truly politicised."

He concludes: "the scholars are concerned that a historical commission would embolden those who would consider perpetrating genocide in future years by showing how easily genocide can be relativised, especially by the powerful."

The deal of 10 October 2009 entails that several intergovernmental commissions will be assigned to study Armenian-Turkish relations in such areas as economy, trade and culture (including, for example, the fate of thousands of Armenian churches and cultural monuments in Turkey), as well as the events of 1915 and after. The two countries' diplomats will need to agree on 4,000 pages rather than just the four of the protocols. It is a recipe lacking the key ingredient: a recognition by Turkey of the dark pages of its own history.

Autore: Vicken Cheterian

Fonte: www.opendemocracy.net

Also read: http://stefanotorelli.blogsome.com/2009/10/09/turchia-e-armenia-al-bivio/

Turkey's Guilty Conscience

Wirepullers: Turchia e Armenia sarebbero sul punto di risolvere un conflitto in atto dal secolo scorso. Precisamente dal 1915-1916, biennio in cui un numero variabile tra i 950.000 e i 3.500.000 Armeni, a seconda che a dirlo sia Ankara o Yerevan, furono deportati e uccisi dall'esercito turco e da milizie curde. Il genocidio è ancora oggi una ferita aperta per Ankara, a tal punto che parlarne in pubblico può costare il carcere. Ad accelerare questo riavvicinamento tra i due paesi ha contribuito la guerra dell'anno scorso in Georgia, la quale avrebbe creato un blocco all'economia locale, costringendo gli attori dell'area a cercare nuove strade. Ed ecco quindi che viene istituita una commissione mista turco-armena, che dovrà stabilire se il genocidio ci sia veramente stato e in che misura. Come dire, se gli affari in qualche modo devono andare avanti, la storia non può essere un intralcio. Con la brutta sensazione che il gas che scalderà le nostre case tra qualche anno passerà sopra quei morti. (2)

One of the world's thorniest historical conflicts is on the verge of being solved. But long-term peace between Turkey and Armenia might be as hard to achieve as a lasting Middle East truce.

Pop quiz: Can you name one part of the world where the United States and the Russian Federation have been making common cause? Correct answer: in Turkey and Armenia, where the two powers have been collaborating of late.

And that's only one of the many remarkable twists to emerge from a diplomatic quest that, for sheer complexity and emotional explosiveness, is likely rivaled only by the search for peace in the Middle East. It has been a wild ride, and it's not over yet. Ankara and Yerevan are signing two historic agreements that could pave the way toward a major diplomatic rapprochement and an opening of the two countries' common 325-kilometer border, which has been closed for the past 16 years.

"I think we're seeing a series of high-water marks in a long process," says the International Crisis Group's Hugh Pope. "Considering where we've come from 10 years ago to where we are today, it's nothing short of amazing."

still a long way to go. Like the Israelis and Palestinians, the Turks and Armenians share a lot of history, and that's not always a good thing. As in the Middle East, the Turks and the Armenians are separated by religion, harshly felt territorial disputes, and the poisonous legacy of killing on a scale so vast that it boggles the mind. Small wonder that the two peoples have spent most of the past 100 years locked in mutual antipathy.

The issue that looms over all else is 1915's "Great Calamity," when more than 1 million overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian Armenians met their deaths at the hands of mostly Muslim Ottoman Turks during the turmoil of World War I. Armenians, and most non-Turkish historians, say it was genocide. The Turks, for their part, have long denied that it ever happened -- perhaps because admitting the massacres would cast a stain on the birth of the present-day Republic of Turkey, which was established in the aftermath of the war. A controversial Turkish law that prohibits insults to "Turkishness" has sometimes been used as a basis for prosecuting those who would dare refer to the events of 1915 as genocide.

Understandably, many Armenians have insisted that a clear Turkish acknowledgment of the 1915 massacres precede any diplomatic opening between the two countries -- and that's precisely what hasn't happened. Instead the two governments have agreed to sidestep the issue by appointing an independent historical commission to discuss it. Armen Ayvazyan, director of the Ararat Center for Strategic Research in Yerevan, speaks for many Armenian nationalists when he denounces this move as "outrageous." Imagine, he says, that an unrepentant Nazi Germany had called for a "historical commission" to debate the Holocaust. Politically, the move has also enabled the Turks to argue that countries that have been considering parliamentary resolutions officially condemning Ottoman actions in 1915 as genocide -- read "the United States" -- should postpone doing so, at risk of derailing the current rapprochement.

And yet, as Pope insists, merely denouncing the current normalization process as a sellout to an unrepentant Turkey misses a key point. He notes that, since 2000, a growing number of Turkish intellectuals have been steadily challenging the traditional taboos, openly challenging the official version that downplays the 1915 massacres as a few random atrocities rather than a systematic state-orchestrated campaign of killing. (Among the dissenters: Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk.) They've been organizing academic conferences and pushing for the publication of long-suppressed documents, such as the diaries of senior Ottoman official Talat Pasha, which clearly show his intimate involvement in the killings. Last December, a group of 200 Turks even organized a petition expressing a Turkish apology for 1915, and it's since been signed by some 30,000 people.

Given the history on both sides, one of the most surprising things about the normalization process is how much support it has managed to find. When Turkish President Abdullah Gül launched the present initiative by heading to a September 2008 soccer match in Yerevan, a poll in Turkey found that 69.6 percent approved, while some 62.8 percent thought Turkey should develop economic and political ties with Armenia. "The more they [Turks and Armenians] meet, the more they realize how similar they are," notes Diba Nigar Göksel of the European Stability Initiative, pointing out that there are already some 70,000 Armenian guest workers in Turkey. (At the same time she bemoans the lack of the myriad exchanges and contacts of the kind that have considerably enlivened relations between Turkey and Greece over the past two decades). Still, she notes, public opinion in Armenia itself predictably remains more complicated: Ask Armenians if they support opening the border, and they overwhelmingly approve; ask them if the border should be opened if Turkey doesn't acknowledge the 1915 genocide, and they overwhelmingly don't.

There's another complicating factor waiting in the wings: the status of the "frozen conflict" between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Azeris are ethnic Turks and have been viewed with corresponding suspicion by the Armenians, even when both groups were living in their own titular republics back in the old Soviet Union. In 1988, fighting broke out when the majority Armenian inhabitants of the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan insisted on joining their brethren in Armenia proper.

The war ended in 1994 with Armenian forces in tight control of Nagorno-Karabakh and the two republics -- which became independent countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union -- locked in a state of mutual hostility that remains to this day. At first the Turkish push for normal relations with Armenia didn't make resolving the Azeri-Armenian logjam a precondition. But an outcry in Baku, as well as harsh criticism from the powerful nationalist opposition in the parliament in Ankara, forced the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to put Nagorno-Karabakh back on the agenda -- despite apparent promises he'd made to the Armenians on that score. Lately Erdogan's government has reaffirmed that the rapprochement with Yerevan will go ahead regardless of progress on the Azeri-Armenian peace talks.

The stakes are enormous for both sides. The Turks closed their border with Armenia in 1993 as a rebuke for Armenia's seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, and since then Armenia's only land link with the rest of the Caucasus has been through Georgia. Opening the border would give a huge boost to the Armenian economy. The Turks would benefit from vastly expanded geopolitical influence in the strategically sensitive Caucasus. Over the long term, say analysts, the Erdogan government would also be able to demonstrate much greater diplomatic credibility in its dealings with Greek Cypriots, and, beyond that, with the European Union (which maintains reservations about Turkey's human rights record and democratic bona fides). Ankara would also, potentially, be able to counter the chronic bad publicity it has received around the world for its persistent denial of the genocide -- no small thing given the enormous political traction of the Armenian diaspora in Europe and the United States.

Moscow and Washington apparently think they have something to gain, too -- even if they hold that belief "for very different reasons," Pope notes. Washington wants to see a reduction of conflict in the Caucasus that would enable energy from the region (and the neighboring countries of Central Asia) to find alternate routes to the West (a desire shared, if less assertively, by many in Brussels). Moscow, meanwhile, thinks that bringing its old ally Armenia and its new friend Turkey closer together will diminish the pull of "extraregional actors" (i.e., the Americans and the Europeans) in the Caucasus. And the fact that lifting the iron curtain between Turkey and Armenia will substantially reduce the geopolitical weight of Georgia, Moscow's declared enemy, probably contributes as well.

Yet the deal is still a long way from done. The protocols that will be presented by the two governments this month still have to be approved by the Turkish and Armenian parliaments. "The crucial point is ratification," says Sinan Ülgen of the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies in Istanbul. "This is going to be ratified if, and only if, Azerbaijan and Armenia can come to agreement on Karabakh." And that is far from a sure thing, given the long legacy of mistrust. Laurence Broers of the London-based nonprofit Conciliation Resources points out that there are precedents from Turkish and Armenian leaders who tried to build rapprochement without sufficient backing from their own peoples -- they failed. "So I am not very optimistic."
Let's see what happens next.

Autore: Christian Caryl

Fonte: www.foreignpolicy.com

Armenia-Turchia: segnali di pace dal Caucaso

Wirepullers: Turchia e Armenia sarebbero sul punto di risolvere un conflitto in atto dal secolo scorso. Precisamente dal 1915-1916, biennio in cui un numero variabile tra i 950.000 e i 3.500.000 Armeni, a seconda che a dirlo sia Ankara o Yerevan, furono deportati e uccisi dall'esercito turco e da milizie curde. Il genocidio è ancora oggi una ferita aperta per Ankara, a tal punto che parlarne in pubblico può costare il carcere. Ad accelerare questo riavvicinamento tra i due paesi ha contribuito la guerra dell'anno scorso in Georgia, la quale avrebbe creato un blocco all'economia locale, costringendo gli attori dell'area a cercare nuove strade. Ed ecco quindi che viene istituita una commissione mista turco-armena, che dovrà stabilire se il genocidio ci sia veramente stato e in che misura. Come dire, se gli affari in qualche modo devono andare avanti, la storia non può essere un intralcio. Con la brutta sensazione che il gas che scalderà le nostre case tra qualche anno passerà sopra quei morti. (1)

A ovest riapre il confine con la Turchia, a est lancia segnali di distensione all'Azerbaigian. Lo storico accordo tra Ankara e Yerevan, le proteste dell'Azerbaigian e la questione del Nagorno-Karabakah.

Ci vorrà tempo, ma Mediterraneo e Caspio si riavvicineranno. La notizia di uno storico accordo tra Turchia e Armenia, che apre la strada alla normalizzazione e alla riapertura della frontiera tra i due paesi, aveva innervosito l'Azerbaigian, ultimo tassello della via che unisce i due mari. A Baku, infatti, non andava già che gli storici alleati turchi brindassero insieme ai nemici armeni senza affrontare la questione del Nagorno Karabakh. Nel 1993 l'Azerbaigian perse il controllo su questa regione, trasformatasi in enclave armena sotto il controllo dei soldati di Yerevan: fu allora che Ankara dimostrò la sua solidarietà ai fratelli turcofoni chiudendo le sue frontiere orientali.

E, a dispetto delle polemiche azere, i turchi dimostrano di voler ancora risolvere la questione: sul quotidiano di Istanbul Yeni Safaq, giusto all'indomani dello storico accordo tra i due vicini, sono apparse indiscrezioni sul possibile ritiro delle truppe armene dal Karabakh. Secondo il giornale, nei colloqui che hanno portato ai protocolli di riconciliazione con Ankara, Yerevan ha promesso che i suoi soldati abbandoneranno l'enclave prima della riapertura del confine.

Un passo che sarebbe epocale per l'Armenia, dove l'opinione pubblica non è decisamente disposta ad abbandonare a sé stessa una regione che la guerra e la retorica nazionalista hanno trasformato nel simbolo stesso dell'orgoglio patriottico. Per questo motivo il presidente Sargsyan temporeggia, ribattendo alle indiscrezioni apparse su Yeni Safak con dichiarazioni ambigue: qualunque soluzione riguardante l'enclave sarà basata sul consenso e la libera volontà della popolazione armena che vive lì.

Per distogliere l'attenzione dell'elettorato, Sargsyan sposta il terreno dello scontro più a nord. Più precisamente in Samtskhe-Javakheti, la regione georgiana a maggioranza armena: ai "fratelli" d'oltreconfine il presidente promette di combattere per il riconoscimento dell'idioma comune come lingua regionale ufficiale. Un'altra spina nel fianco per il governo di Tbilisi, che deve controllare un territorio sempre più diviso dalle rivendicazioni identitarie.

Mentre il sud accoglie le lusinghe di Yerevan, le due regioni separatiste settentrionali, Abkhazia e Ossezia del Sud, consolidano il loro status di repubbliche indipendenti. Dopo quello di Russia e Nicaragua, infatti, stanno per incassare il terzo riconoscimento internazionale: quello del Venezuela, annunciato da Hugo Chavez al ritorno dal red carpet di Venezia.

Autore: Cecilia Tosi

Fonte: www.limesonline.it

Also read: http://temi.repubblica.it/limes/erdogan-e-i-giannizzeri-dell%e2%80%99impero-neo-ottomano/7077

Joined-up piping

Wirepullers: mezzo mondo è a caccia di gas. L'Europa per non morire di freddo, la Cina per alimentare la sua vertiginosa crescita economica, la Russia per mantenere il monopolio sulla vendita. Gli occhi di questi attori sono puntati sulla regione del Caspio, ricca non solo di gas ma anche di petrolio. E' qui che si giocherà il futuro energetico di Asia ed Europa, con Bruxelles che cercherà di interrompere la propria dipendenza da Mosca attraverso la creazione di un canale privilegiato con l'area, in particolare con il Turkmenistan. Ma se le cose dovessero andare male è pronta la carta di riserva, che porterebbe le attenzioni europee in Qatar. Minimo comune denominatore ai due piani la Turchia che, favorita dalla geografia, si pone come intermediario in entrambe le soluzioni. E chissà che queste pipeline, oltre al gas, all'interno dei confini del Vecchio Continente non ci portino anche Ankara. (2)

A Qatar-Turkey-EU gas pipeline could become an important part of Europe's and the Gulf's energy infrastructure. The interdependence created by networks like these should be celebrated.

Turkey and Qatar have announced that they are forming a working committee to see whether they could build a pipeline to ship Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from Qatar to Turkey across Saudi Arabia. This would be a good deal for both parties. Qatar has massive reserves of gas and consistently looks to sell to an ever-wider audience. Turkey would no doubt welcome a relationship with the world's largest exporter of LNG to lessen their dependence on Russia who currently supplies 73% of their gas.

David B Roberts is a doctoral student at Durham University focusing on Qatar. Along with two book chapters looking at aspects of politics on the Arabian Peninsula, he has published book reviews for Millennium Journal of International Studies, Political Studies Review and the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) and has written for the Kuwait Times, Egypt Daily News and Asia Time Online. His blog can be found at http://www.thegulfblog.com/. However, this raises a number of issues. First and foremost, in the past Saudi Arabia has stood in the way of Qatar seeking to expand its pipelines around the region. In 2006 Saudi attempted (and failed) to veto the Dolphin gas pipeline from Qatar to the UAE and Oman in much the same way they successfully blocked a pipeline to Kuwait the year before. This was, however, at a time of significant Qatar-Saudi tension. Riyadh was angry with the powers that be in Doha for, amongst other things, not reigning in Al Jazeera, the TV news channel based in Qatar, from its often savage coverage of Saudi issues. The fact that the Saudi ambassador to Doha was withdrawn from 2002-2008 shows just how critical the break in relations was. Yet, now that Al Jazeera has started to significantly tone down its overtly negative coverage of Saudi Arabia, relations have improved.

Despite this recent rapprochement, there is, nevertheless, little love lost between the two countries. Recently, Qatar has sought to replace Saudi Arabia as a key regional peace and power broker. Tying up peace deals in Lebanon (where Saudi failed), seeking peace in Darfur and Yemen and hosting a rival summit at the start of this year over the Israeli Gaza invasion are just a few examples of Qatar's diplomatic forays. Crucially, these place a tiny country that Saudi used to have significant power over on the world stage, often at the expense of Saudi prestige. Meccan diplomacy is a key strategy of Saudi's international relations and they have not taken kindly to Qatar stealing their thunder. Furthermore, an eclectic bunch of policies such as founding and funding Al Jazeera, hosting the Asian Games in 2006, having limited relations with Israel, generous international munificence and opening the world's best Islamic Art Museum further seeks to permanently and pointedly remove Qatar from Saudi's centuries old shadow.

It does seem, therefore, unlikely that Saudi would allow this pipeline to go ahead. Yet whilst some might not like the ascendance of Qatar, more pragmatically it needs to be acknowledged that it is inevitable and that a constructive relationship is preferable to one that is antagonistic and mutually disadvantageous. Moreover, if Saudi allows this pipeline to go through their territory, it offers them a degree of leverage over Qatar, especially when one considers the logical future for such a pipe.

Indeed, this pipeline, were it to come to fruition, may well come to be of vital importance to Qatar. All the Gulf States fear the closing off of the Straits of Hormuz and a repeat of the Tanker Wars of the 1980s, were some kind of military conflagration with Iran to occur. This would have two immediate implications for Qatar. First, the potential inability to ship their oil and gas would have an immediate and direct affect on their income, which could become debilitating if the blockage of the Strait persisted. Second, if Qatar's LNG ships tried to run the Strait, as many did during the Tanker Wars, then the risk of damage to their new generation $300 million per-ship Q-Max LNG fleet is significant.

Therefore, a pipe over Saudi Arabia to Turkey could potentially offer Qatar a way to stave off the worst effects of any closure of the Straits of Hormuz. Moreover, it would seem unlikely that the pipe would simply end up in Turkey. Only in July, Turkey and four EU countries signed the Nabucco pipeline deal to pipe Caspian gas to Europe to hedge against the EU's dependence on Russian gas. Qatar, with the largest gas field in the world, the third largest proven supplies of gas, the world's best LNG infrastructure and a good supplier pedigree would be a most tempting target for a Nabucco-esque deal, assuming that technological hurdles of such a long LNG pipeline could be overcome.

Preferable partners
Moreover, Qatar may well be seen as far more preferable a partner than the Caspian states. Initially, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan will be sending gas Europe's way with Kazakhstan possibly entering at a later date. Whilst these countries are not quite plumbing the depths of despotism as is their neighbour Uzbekistan (boiling dissidents alive according to the former UK Ambassador, Andijan riots etc), they are not overly far away, Turkmenistan in particular.

Qatar, by contrast, whilst no paragon of democracy, has been going to great lengths in recent times to make itself as attractive as possible to, in particular, Western states. Erudite culture has been heavily promoted with Sotheby's, the afore mentioned Islamic Art Museum and the Tribeka Film Festival setting up in the country. Western education has been lavishly funded with the creation of pristine new campuses and - more importantly - unfettered curricula and rigorous entry standards for top US and UK Universities such as Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Cornell Medical School as well as mooted research campus for UCL. Doha investors have also been ploughing money into some of Europe's bluest of blue chip companies such as Barclays, EADS and Porsche. Whilst Qataris are primarily investing for profits, a not insignificant corollary bonus of this is that contacts are fostered between the two sides and Qatar's image as a trustworthy and business-savvy partner is furthered.

Consequently, engaging with Qatar may well prove to be easier than with Caucasus countries in terms of the public and political palatability and the ease of doing business in each country. The fact that Transparency International rates Qatar 28th in their 2008 corruption perception index and Azerbaijan some 130 places below them at 158th and Turkmenistan 13 places off the bottom of the list at 166th, may also give EU negotiators some significant pause for thought.

Interdependence not independence
At a more fundamental level, more interaction, more cooperation and more agreements anchored in long-term gas contracts along with the physical infrastructure required is surely a recipe for stronger bonds, something approaching a better working understanding and a narrowing of common interests.

Recent America notions of seeking some kind of energy ‘independence' are actually quite damaging, but thankfully they are also pure folly too. What America needs to be seeking, as does any large importer of a key commodity, is in fact a form of interdependence. Look at the curiously close bond that had bound America and Saudi Arabia together for nearly a century. Neither a common language, culture, experience, history, manner, heritage nor way of life was and is the basis of their relationship today. This remarkable alliance that survived and rebounded quickly after being on bitterly different sides in the 1967 Six Day War and ensuing oil embargo. If it even withstood the predominance of Saudis in the 9/11 attacks, both in number of attackers and in progenitor of the movement itself, this can be based on nothing whatsoever aside from mutual interdependence. America needs Saudi Arabia just as Saudi Arabia needs America.

Even when one looks towards the Russian-Ukrainian-Europe gas politics, it is easy to forget amid the acrimony and nationalistic dogma that Russia needs European cash. It is no use being an energy superpower if you do not actually sell your wares. A recent study on this very relationship concluded, "the reality of gas trading between Russia and Europe is determined by market principles and the need for a long-term contractual agreements based on credible commitments" (p.29). Whilst there will always be heated feelings between these three actors owing to their particularly colourful and intertwined histories, this kind of energy interdependence is, it can be forcefully argued, the key to a slow but sure rapprochement. For there are surely only so many times that rational actors can go through the same mutually painful recriminations before - eventually - the weight of their common interest finally tells.

Pipes - what are they good for?
There are those that will perennially oppose such joint ventures. People will say that investing at least $5 billion in laying masses of pipelines across disparate, often conflicted and truly foreign lands is not only foolish but a huge investment in yesterday's technology at the time when greener technologies are in need of exactly such an injection. Whilst this is an understandable criticism, there are two significant caveats that must be raised.

First, whilst it might be nice if gas was less critical to European economies and if there was a suitable cleaner replacement ready to usurp its place, wishing does not make it so. Gas not only supplies a quarter of OECD Europe's energy requirements but, being cleaner than both coal and oil, its demand is widely expected to rise to provide at least a third of Europe's primary energy needs in the next decade or two.

Second, Qatar's huge investment in LNG technologies in recent years has spurred on the technology immensely driving costs down and efficiencies up. Their latest LNG transport tankers, for example, carry 80% more cargo and are thought to use up to 40% less energy per given unit of cargo then the previous generation. Whether analogous savings could be made in the piped transportation of LNG over such distances is, of course, impossible to say. Yet, where there is the will to slash costs and boosts efficiencies and the way to do so with large capital investments, such improvements in search of greener gas are not necessarily improbable. An investor today must be pricing in a substantial probability of a carbon content tax, and the LNG pipe will almost certainly have to find a commercial return in an environment that gives climate impacts proper, disuasive penalties.

Some strategic thinking
Yet all of this is completely moot without the initial go-ahead from Riyadh. If Saudi authorities think strategically, they will encourage the pipeline to be built. Whilst the Qatar-EU potential is, as they say, most certainly a pipe dream at the moment, it would surely be considered, potentially offering Saudi not insignificant influence at the forefront of Europe's energy debates. Yet even if it does not come to pass then Saudi are still left with what would most likely be Qatar's largest pipeline crossing their territory, an acute bargaining chip to be used the next time Al Jazeera runs a salacious documentary at Saudi's expense.

As much as Saudi Arabia might gain from this round of pipeline politics, it pales into comparison when compared to the potential strengthening of Turkey's strategic position. The plethora of diverse options at their doorstep for energy supplier is something that most European states can only dream of. Moreover, not only will Turkey take advantage of their closer position to the suppliers lowering their transport and associated costs, but also they will be the key cog in the onward flow of the oil. This is both literally as the distances required mandate frequent pumping stations to keep up the pressure and throughput in the pipes, as well as figuratively. Turkey, if they play it correctly, could find themselves playing a key role at the centre of Europe's energy future. Many already see Turkey as a key intermediary between Europe, the Caucasus and to some extent the Mediterranean countries. Taking up this mantle will not be easy but, based on the bonds that interdependence necessarily fosters, this could well be seen as a significant step on the road to European Union membership.

Autore: David B Roberts

Fonte: www.opendemocracy.org

La via dell’Ue al gas del Caspio

Wirepullers: mezzo mondo è a caccia di gas. L'Europa per non morire di freddo, la Cina per alimentare la sua vertiginosa crescita economica, la Russia per mantenere il monopolio sulla vendita. Gli occhi di questi attori sono puntati sulla regione del Caspio, ricca non solo di gas ma anche di petrolio. E' qui che si giocherà il futuro energetico di Asia ed Europa, con Bruxelles che cercherà di interrompere la propria dipendenza da Mosca attraverso la creazione di un canale privilegiato con l'area, in particolare con il Turkmenistan. Ma se le cose dovessero andare male è pronta la carta di riserva, che porterebbe le attenzioni europee in Qatar. Minimo comune denominatore ai due piani la Turchia che, favorita dalla geografia, si pone come intermediario in entrambe le soluzioni. E chissà che queste pipeline, oltre al gas, all'interno dei confini del Vecchio Continente non ci portino anche Ankara. (1)

Il costante aumento della domanda di gas nell’Ue e le ripetute crisi russo-ucraine degli ultimi anni hanno spinto la Commissione europea ad elaborare un progetto per la costituzione di un consorzio di imprese europee, il Caspian Gas Development Corporation (Cdc), per l’acquisto del gas dalla regione del Mar Caspio.

Fin dalla prima metà degli anni novanta la regione del Caspio ha attirato l’attenzione dei principali gruppi energetici mondiali, che hanno fatto notevoli investimenti nelle repubbliche centroasiatiche - gli “Stan States” - per sviluppare la produzione prima del petrolio e successivamente del gas. Si stima che la regione, senza considerare Russia e Iran, detenga il 3,3% delle riserve mondiali di gas ed il 3,8% di quelle petrolifere. Sebbene finora i maggiori investimenti siano stati effettuati in Azerbajian e Kazakhistan, il paese con le maggiori potenzialità per il gas risulta essere il Turkmenistan. Infatti il governo di Ashgabat, pur detenendo l’1,5% delle riserve mondiali di gas, fino al 2007 non aveva avviato progetti per la piena utilizzazione delle proprie risorse, lasciando molti giacimenti inesplorati. Tale approccio è stato in parte superato dagli accordi sulla fornitura di gas siglati nel corso degli ultimi due anni con Russia (50 miliardi di metri cubi di gas) e Cina (30-40 miliardi di metri cubi).

Struttura ed obiettivi del consorzio europeo

L’obiettivo primario del consorzio consiste nell’aggregazione di più compagnie europee interessate all’acquisto di gas estratto o nel Caspio o in Russia, ma da produttori indipendenti, con lo scopo di rivenderlo all’interno dell’Ue. Quest’ultima potrà così avere a disposizione un maggior quantitativo di gas e allo stesso tempo differenziare le proprie fonti di approvvigionamento.

Il Cdc non potrà avere l’esclusiva sull’acquisto del gas dalla regione del Caspio e dovrà essere indipendente rispetto ai progetti di gasdotti quali Itgi-Poseidon, Nabucco, Tap e White Stream, che collegheranno la regione con l’Ue. Tuttavia la Commissione sembra orientata a permettere al Cdc, qualora lo ritenesse necessario, di investire anche nelle infrastrutture di trasporto del gas, ma nei soli paesi produttori.

Il progetto prevede che il Cdc si impegni a stipulare contratti con i paesi produttori per l’acquisto di quantitativi di gas sufficienti a finanziare l’esplorazione di nuovi giacimenti nell’area. Inoltre dovrà garantire l’approvvigionamento nel lungo periodo da tali paesi, al fine di permettere il finanziamento e lo sviluppo delle reti di trasporto e di stoccaggio del gas.

L’assetto societario dovrebbe consistere in un consorzio costituito da massimo 4-5 imprese. Sebbene la Commissione sia propensa a vietare la partecipazione alle compagnie di gas i cui investimenti nell’area superano una determinata soglia ancora da definire, non sono previsti dei veri e propri limiti riguardo alla tipologia di imprese che possono essere coinvolte (banche di investimento, compagnie energetiche, istituzioni finanziarie internazionali, etc.).

I sospetti della Russia e le ambizioni della Turchia

La Russia considera la costituzione di questo consorzio come una manovra per diminuire il ruolo di Gazprom, il suo monopolista del gas, nel mercato europeo, e come una minaccia ai propri interessi nell’area. La Russia è infatti il primo fornitore di gas dell’Ue, nonché il maggiore acquirente del gas estratto nel Caspio. Grazie alla recente acquisizione della compagnia petrolifera serba Nis, Gazprom ha peraltro ottenuto l’accesso ai principali mercati del gas dell’ex-Jugoslavia, gettando le basi per un futuro controllo anche del più ampio mercato dell’Europa sudorientale. Ciò non preclude la realizzazione del corridoio meridionale del gas (southern gas corridor), un insieme di infrastrutture di trasporto del gas dal Caspio all’Ue ritenute prioritarie dalla Commissione per il completamento del mercato europeo, ma potrebbe diminuirne l’importanza.

Un ruolo centrale sarà ricoperto dalla Turchia, sul cui territorio dovrebbe transitare il gas estratto nel Caspio e successivamente importato nell’Ue. La Turchia non accetta di essere solo un paese di transito: mira a divenire un hub regionale tramite l’acquisto diretto del gas dai paesi produttori e la successiva rivendita ai paesi Ue. La domanda di gas in Turchia sta crescendo a ritmi elevati ed è probabile che il gas avrà un ruolo sempre più importante nel mix energetico del paese. I difficili rapporti della Turchia con l’Azebaijan sono però un ostacolo non da poco. Il governo di Baku ha infatti dichiarato di non essere disposto a vendere gas al Cdc proprio a causa dei problemi diplomatici con la Turchia, lasciando comunque aperta la possibilità di far transitare sul proprio territorio il gas estratto negli altri paesi dell’area e venduto all’Ue.

Dubbi sulla realizzabilità del progetto

Un ulteriore problema è rappresentato dai quantitativi di gas che le compagnie europee del Cdc sarebbero interessate ad acquistare dai paesi dell’area. Infatti molti analisti ritengono che tali quantitativi siano insufficienti per convincere i paesi del Caspio ad invertire la rotta delle proprie esportazioni di gas dalla Russia e dalla Cina verso l’Ue. Attualmente l’88% del gas estratto in Kazakhistan, Uzbekistan e Turkmenistan (il Paese con il maggior numero di riserve di gas inesplorate) è esportato in Russia, mentre, come si è detto, la Cina a breve inizierà ad importare 30-40 miliardi di metri cubi di gas dal Turkmenistan.

Inoltre molti funzionari della Commissione europea si mostrano scettici per quanto riguarda il rispetto della legislazione anti-trust da parte del consorzio. Il Cdc potrebbe aumentare la quantità di gas importato in Europa e facilitare l’accesso degli operatori a nuove forniture di gas, ma alcuni funzionari sottolineano che il consorzio potrebbe inficiare la competizione sul mercato europeo: potrebbe determinarsi un abuso di posizione dominante che violerebbe la normativa anti-trust.

Contrari alla costituzione di tale consorzio sarebbero anche i principali gruppi energetici, europei e non. La Cdc non avrebbe l’esclusiva sul gas del Caspio, ma i principali gruppi mondiali attivi nell’area preferiscono, in ogni caso, avere a che fare con una pluralità di possibili acquirenti piuttosto che con uno solo, che avrebbe un maggiore potere contrattuale. Alcuni gruppi energetici stanno quindi considerando la possibilità di esportare il gas prodotto nell’area non ai paesi Ue, ma a quelli del Medioriente bisognosi di gas, o a quelli dell’Estremo Oriente.

Sei mesi decisivi

La realizzazione del Cdc potrebbe aumentare la sicurezza energetica dell’Ue, favorendo l’importazione di gas in Europa. Il Commissario europeo all’energia Andris Piebalgs si è sempre detto convinto della fattibilità del progetto. Tuttavia gli ostacoli alla sua costituzione sono tutt’altro che trascurabili. Da un lato gli aspetti geopolitici (l’irritazione della Russia e i problemi diplomatici fra Turchia e Azebaijan) e dall’altro le questioni meramente tecniche (il rispetto della legislazione anti-trust e gli scarsi quantitativi di gas che il Cds potrebbe acquistare) sollevano seri dubbi sull’effettiva realizzabilità del progetto. I prossimi mesi saranno cruciali. I negoziati russo-ucraini per i pagamenti delle forniture di gas, l’attivismo cinese e russo per strappare nuovi contratti di fornitura di gas, le velleità turche di divenire un hub energetico regionale: tutto sembra indicare che l’Ue ha al massimo sei mesi per decidere se realizzare o meno il consorzio.

Autore: Antonio Dai Pra

Fonte: www.affarinternazionali.it