Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said Ukraine might be having problems paying for gas, raising new concerns over European supplies.
Mr Putin said the European Union had not yet given Ukraine the money it had promised to help provide stable supplies of Russian gas to Europe.
He also blamed Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for blocking payment.
In January, many countries were left short of gas because of a payment dispute between Moscow and Kiev.
'Blocking funds'
"It appears we are again having problems with payments for our energy supplies, which is extremely regrettable. The EU has still not provided Ukraine with the money it has promised for that purpose," Mr Putin said.
"European leaders are referring us to the European Commission, while the European Commission leadership are evading discussing the issue with us."
But Mr Putin said that despite the lack of funding from the EU, Ukraine still had plenty of cash to pay its gas bills.
Referring to the country's large gold and foreign currency reserves, he said: "According to the Ukrainian Prime Minister [Yulia Tymoshenko], Yushchenko is obstructing normal co-operation between the central bank and the Ukrainian government and is blocking the transfer of relevant funds."
In August, the EU and international lending institutions agreed a $1.7bn (£1bn at the time) loan deal to help secure European gas supplies.
This was specifically designed to ensure that the disruptions to supplies that occurred earlier in the year were not repeated.
Mr Putin's comments have raised concerns that disruptions may happen again.
Russia provides about a quarter of the gas consumed in the EU and 80% of that is piped through Ukraine.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Cyprus downbeat on unification talks
By Tony Barber
Demetris Christofias, president of Cyprus, painted a gloomy picture on Thursday of the prospects for overcoming the island’s division, saying negotiations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots were making little progress.
“Unfortunately, I must say my expectations, and the expectations of the great majority of the people of Cyprus of both communities, have not been justified up to now,” Mr Christofias told reporters in Brussels, where he was preparing for a European Union summit.
Cyprus has been divided into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkey invaded the island in response to a Greek-inspired coup aimed at absorbing Cyprus into Greece.
Mr Christofias, leader of the internationally recognised republic of Cyprus, and Mehmet Ali Talat, leader of a secessionist Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that no country except Turkey recognises, opened talks in September 2008 on reuniting the country as a bizonal, bicommunal federation.
Experts on the Cyprus dispute say the talks are approaching a critical moment because Mr Talat, widely regarded as a moderate who is keen on a settlement, faces a presidential election next April that he appears in danger of losing to a hardline candidate.
However, Mr Christofias said: “These are artificial deadlines. Talat must show more understanding, instead of putting forward intransigent positions. Otherwise, it’s blackmail. I’m not a political fellow who accepts blackmail. I’m ready for a solution before April.”
The EU and US are keen to keep the talks alive, fearing that a breakdown will wreck Turkey’s EU membership bid and hobble efforts to forge closer relations between the EU and Nato.
Mr Christofias put much of the blame on Turkey’s political and military leadership, saying: “The main problem for me is that Turkey must assist in a solution of the Cyprus problem. They must recognise the Republic of Cyprus. They refuse.”
He said he had made a concession by offering citizenship of a reunited Cypriot state to 50,000 Anatolian Turks who have settled in northern Cyprus since 1974. The precise number of Turkish settlers on Cyprus is disputed. Many estimates run to more than 100,000.
Mr Christofias laughed as he described Mr Talat’s response. “He said to me: ‘There are no settlers, there are only citizens of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.’”
Mr Talat, interviewed by the Financial Times in September, said the present talks were “the last chance for a solution”.
Both sides say property disputes are an especially difficult issue, with many Greek Cypriots who lost their homes after 1974 wanting them back, and Turkish Cypriot negotiators defending the new owners and emphasising compensation for the dispossessed. “We have deep, deep differences here,” Mr Christofias said.
Another disagreement concerns a Turkish Cypriot demand for equal numerical representation in some 50 institutions, such as the island’s central bank and competition authority, Mr Christofias said.
Turkish Cypriots accounted for about 20 per cent of Cyprus’s population in 1974, but tens of thousands have since left the island, with arrivals from mainland Turkey more than making up the difference.
Demetris Christofias, president of Cyprus, painted a gloomy picture on Thursday of the prospects for overcoming the island’s division, saying negotiations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots were making little progress.
“Unfortunately, I must say my expectations, and the expectations of the great majority of the people of Cyprus of both communities, have not been justified up to now,” Mr Christofias told reporters in Brussels, where he was preparing for a European Union summit.
Cyprus has been divided into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkey invaded the island in response to a Greek-inspired coup aimed at absorbing Cyprus into Greece.
Mr Christofias, leader of the internationally recognised republic of Cyprus, and Mehmet Ali Talat, leader of a secessionist Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that no country except Turkey recognises, opened talks in September 2008 on reuniting the country as a bizonal, bicommunal federation.
Experts on the Cyprus dispute say the talks are approaching a critical moment because Mr Talat, widely regarded as a moderate who is keen on a settlement, faces a presidential election next April that he appears in danger of losing to a hardline candidate.
However, Mr Christofias said: “These are artificial deadlines. Talat must show more understanding, instead of putting forward intransigent positions. Otherwise, it’s blackmail. I’m not a political fellow who accepts blackmail. I’m ready for a solution before April.”
The EU and US are keen to keep the talks alive, fearing that a breakdown will wreck Turkey’s EU membership bid and hobble efforts to forge closer relations between the EU and Nato.
Mr Christofias put much of the blame on Turkey’s political and military leadership, saying: “The main problem for me is that Turkey must assist in a solution of the Cyprus problem. They must recognise the Republic of Cyprus. They refuse.”
He said he had made a concession by offering citizenship of a reunited Cypriot state to 50,000 Anatolian Turks who have settled in northern Cyprus since 1974. The precise number of Turkish settlers on Cyprus is disputed. Many estimates run to more than 100,000.
Mr Christofias laughed as he described Mr Talat’s response. “He said to me: ‘There are no settlers, there are only citizens of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.’”
Mr Talat, interviewed by the Financial Times in September, said the present talks were “the last chance for a solution”.
Both sides say property disputes are an especially difficult issue, with many Greek Cypriots who lost their homes after 1974 wanting them back, and Turkish Cypriot negotiators defending the new owners and emphasising compensation for the dispossessed. “We have deep, deep differences here,” Mr Christofias said.
Another disagreement concerns a Turkish Cypriot demand for equal numerical representation in some 50 institutions, such as the island’s central bank and competition authority, Mr Christofias said.
Turkish Cypriots accounted for about 20 per cent of Cyprus’s population in 1974, but tens of thousands have since left the island, with arrivals from mainland Turkey more than making up the difference.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Turkey turns east as Europe clings to past
By Philip Stephens
Small incidents can illuminate a bigger picture. A couple of weeks ago, President Abdullah Gul of Turkey opened an exhibition of Ottoman treasures in Paris. The display is the centrepiece of an effort to promote Turkey’s rich heritage. Mr Gul was joined by Nicolas Sarkozy. The French president arrived chewing a piece of gum.
I was told this story during a visit to Istanbul. Mr Sarkozy’s gum-chewing, I heard, served as a metaphor for France’s disdain for Turkey’s European aspirations. The lack of respect set the tone for the two leaders’ working lunch at the Elysée Palace. The atmosphere was described as “polite”. We know what that means.
French officials will doubtless protest that the swaggering Mr Sarkozy had not intended any slight. The president of the French republic has never fully acquainted himself with diplomatic niceties. Yet the sensitivity of his guest was unsurprising. Mr Sarkozy has put himself in the vanguard of European leaders – they include Germany’s Angela Merkel – who are viscerally opposed to Turkish accession to the European Union.
It is half a century since Turkey first knocked on Europe’s door with a bid to join the Common Market. There were plenty of detours on the way to the start of formal accession talks in 2004. Often, it must be said, the fault lay with Turkey. Military coups and political repression did not help make the case for membership of Europe’s democratic club.
That was then. Turkey is still a long way from meeting the democratic terms of EU membership, but few can doubt that it has taken big steps in the right direction. It is the fear that Turkey is within sight of doing what has been asked of it that has led Mr Sarkozy and others to repudiate the original bargain. Admitting Turkey, Mr Sarkozy says, would “dilute” the Union. What he really means is that Europe does not want 70-odd million Muslims.
Unsurprisingly, Turkey’s political classes have run short of patience. They are not interested in the “privileged partnership” offered as a substitute for EU membership. The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, has decided to look eastwards.
Turkey is establishing itself as a power-broker and a peace-maker in the Middle East. It is fixing troubled relationships with its neighbours. And it is finding the respect it receives in Arab capitals a lot more convivial than the snubs it is accustomed to in Europe.
Mr Erdogan set out the strategy at the inaugural meeting this week of the Istanbul Forum, hosted by Turkey’s Centre for Strategic Communication, and supported by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The government, said Mr Erdogan, would continue to pursue its European vocation. But it has no intention of behaving as a helpless supplicant. Turkey is instead assuming a role commensurate with its status as a fast-rising power at the strategic crossroads of east and west.
The strategy has been a big success. A few years ago, Turkey massed tens of thousands of troops on its border with Syria because of that country’s support for PKK Kurdish separatists. Now, detente has seen the two countries open the frontier to visa-free travel. There has been a rapprochement with the Iraqi government and an effort to reach an accommodation with the Kurdish minority. Trade and economic ties with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are growing rapidly. Turkey, one forum participant told me, knows where the money is.
In the Caucasus, the government has reached an agreement with Armenia that, with luck and effort, could end a century of mutual hostility. Relations with Russia are cordial and with Greece stable.
Ignoring anxieties in western capitals, Turkey has engaged with the Palestinian Hamas and with the Iranian-sponsored Hizbollah in Lebanon. Next week, Mr Erdogan is due in Tehran as Turkey assumes the role of broker between Iran and the west. Ask high-ranking Turkish officials as to the wisdom of some of these relationships and they refer to Barack Obama. Had he not proposed to replace a clenched fist with an outstretched hand? Turkey has to deal with the region as it is, one of Mr Erdogan’s advisers told me.
On the other side of the ledger, the Israeli invasion of Gaza has led to a rupture in the long-standing relationship with Israel. Mr Erdogan sees an Israeli-Palestinian settlement as the sine qua non of strategic stability in Turkey’s back yard. But he has concluded that the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has no interest in a deal.
Not everyone is happy with the eastwards turn. Those who have long carried the European torch see the Islamist character of Mr Erdogan’s administration as a serious threat to the secular settlement bequeathed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. They worry that the prime minister and his ministers seem more comfortable with regional despots than with the democratic leaders of Europe: that the Muslim may trump the European identity.
The focus and energy devoted to building Turkey’s influence in the Middle East, the critics say, has been at the expense of reforms to strengthen the democratic and secular character of the Turkish state. They point to curbs on free speech and the imposition of Muslim social mores. Mr Erdogan’s government stands accused of imposing a multi-billion-dollar fine on the Dogan group, the country’s leading media business, in a campaign to stifle opposition.
Disquiet is heard also among Turkey’s partners in the Nato alliance. Making peace with old enemies is one thing – Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, played a pivotal role in the deal with Armenia. But cuddling up to regional actors still committed to violence risks taking Turkey beyond a sensible good-neighbours policy.
This may be so. But the west is losing its leverage. US power is being challenged across the Middle East; and Europe seems intent on irrelevance. Mr Erdogan’s Turkey still wants to be part of Europe. And on every challenge – from energy, from terrorism, drugs and migration to trade and investment – Europe has an immutable interest in nurturing a democratic, west-facing Turkey. Its security is the west’s security. But Mr Sarkozy and his like want nothing more than to hold on to the past. Turkey speaks to the world as it is becoming.
Small incidents can illuminate a bigger picture. A couple of weeks ago, President Abdullah Gul of Turkey opened an exhibition of Ottoman treasures in Paris. The display is the centrepiece of an effort to promote Turkey’s rich heritage. Mr Gul was joined by Nicolas Sarkozy. The French president arrived chewing a piece of gum.
I was told this story during a visit to Istanbul. Mr Sarkozy’s gum-chewing, I heard, served as a metaphor for France’s disdain for Turkey’s European aspirations. The lack of respect set the tone for the two leaders’ working lunch at the Elysée Palace. The atmosphere was described as “polite”. We know what that means.
French officials will doubtless protest that the swaggering Mr Sarkozy had not intended any slight. The president of the French republic has never fully acquainted himself with diplomatic niceties. Yet the sensitivity of his guest was unsurprising. Mr Sarkozy has put himself in the vanguard of European leaders – they include Germany’s Angela Merkel – who are viscerally opposed to Turkish accession to the European Union.
It is half a century since Turkey first knocked on Europe’s door with a bid to join the Common Market. There were plenty of detours on the way to the start of formal accession talks in 2004. Often, it must be said, the fault lay with Turkey. Military coups and political repression did not help make the case for membership of Europe’s democratic club.
That was then. Turkey is still a long way from meeting the democratic terms of EU membership, but few can doubt that it has taken big steps in the right direction. It is the fear that Turkey is within sight of doing what has been asked of it that has led Mr Sarkozy and others to repudiate the original bargain. Admitting Turkey, Mr Sarkozy says, would “dilute” the Union. What he really means is that Europe does not want 70-odd million Muslims.
Unsurprisingly, Turkey’s political classes have run short of patience. They are not interested in the “privileged partnership” offered as a substitute for EU membership. The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, has decided to look eastwards.
Turkey is establishing itself as a power-broker and a peace-maker in the Middle East. It is fixing troubled relationships with its neighbours. And it is finding the respect it receives in Arab capitals a lot more convivial than the snubs it is accustomed to in Europe.
Mr Erdogan set out the strategy at the inaugural meeting this week of the Istanbul Forum, hosted by Turkey’s Centre for Strategic Communication, and supported by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The government, said Mr Erdogan, would continue to pursue its European vocation. But it has no intention of behaving as a helpless supplicant. Turkey is instead assuming a role commensurate with its status as a fast-rising power at the strategic crossroads of east and west.
The strategy has been a big success. A few years ago, Turkey massed tens of thousands of troops on its border with Syria because of that country’s support for PKK Kurdish separatists. Now, detente has seen the two countries open the frontier to visa-free travel. There has been a rapprochement with the Iraqi government and an effort to reach an accommodation with the Kurdish minority. Trade and economic ties with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are growing rapidly. Turkey, one forum participant told me, knows where the money is.
In the Caucasus, the government has reached an agreement with Armenia that, with luck and effort, could end a century of mutual hostility. Relations with Russia are cordial and with Greece stable.
Ignoring anxieties in western capitals, Turkey has engaged with the Palestinian Hamas and with the Iranian-sponsored Hizbollah in Lebanon. Next week, Mr Erdogan is due in Tehran as Turkey assumes the role of broker between Iran and the west. Ask high-ranking Turkish officials as to the wisdom of some of these relationships and they refer to Barack Obama. Had he not proposed to replace a clenched fist with an outstretched hand? Turkey has to deal with the region as it is, one of Mr Erdogan’s advisers told me.
On the other side of the ledger, the Israeli invasion of Gaza has led to a rupture in the long-standing relationship with Israel. Mr Erdogan sees an Israeli-Palestinian settlement as the sine qua non of strategic stability in Turkey’s back yard. But he has concluded that the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has no interest in a deal.
Not everyone is happy with the eastwards turn. Those who have long carried the European torch see the Islamist character of Mr Erdogan’s administration as a serious threat to the secular settlement bequeathed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. They worry that the prime minister and his ministers seem more comfortable with regional despots than with the democratic leaders of Europe: that the Muslim may trump the European identity.
The focus and energy devoted to building Turkey’s influence in the Middle East, the critics say, has been at the expense of reforms to strengthen the democratic and secular character of the Turkish state. They point to curbs on free speech and the imposition of Muslim social mores. Mr Erdogan’s government stands accused of imposing a multi-billion-dollar fine on the Dogan group, the country’s leading media business, in a campaign to stifle opposition.
Disquiet is heard also among Turkey’s partners in the Nato alliance. Making peace with old enemies is one thing – Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, played a pivotal role in the deal with Armenia. But cuddling up to regional actors still committed to violence risks taking Turkey beyond a sensible good-neighbours policy.
This may be so. But the west is losing its leverage. US power is being challenged across the Middle East; and Europe seems intent on irrelevance. Mr Erdogan’s Turkey still wants to be part of Europe. And on every challenge – from energy, from terrorism, drugs and migration to trade and investment – Europe has an immutable interest in nurturing a democratic, west-facing Turkey. Its security is the west’s security. But Mr Sarkozy and his like want nothing more than to hold on to the past. Turkey speaks to the world as it is becoming.
Ahmadi-Nejad praises Turkish stance on Israel
By Delphine Strauss
Recep Tayyip Erdogan won praise from Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad on Tuesday for his public criticism of Israel as the Turkish and Iranian leaders mounted a display of friendship in sharp contrast to the recent low in Turkish-Israeli relations .
“Your clear stance against the Zionist regime [as Iran terms Israel] had a positive impact in the world which undoubtedly made all nations happy,” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad told his guest, in comments reported by Iran’s official media.
His approval of Mr Erdogan’s frequent outbursts against Israeli policy is a potential embarrassment as Turkey seeks to convince western partners it is not abandoning old alliances to forge a new role in the Middle East and in regional diplomacy.
Ankara fears having a nuclear-armed neighbour and declares itself ready to help in talks over Iran’s nuclear programme as an interlocutor trusted by all sides, but some in the US already doubt whether it is delivering a tough enough message.
“This is an energy project that is peaceful and humanitarian,” Mr Erdogan said in a televised news conference, adding that Iran had shown a “positive attitude” in the recent talks with six world powers in Geneva. Diplomats in Ankara argue Turkey’s message is more effective for being delivered in friendly fashion, behind closed doors.
But Ian Lesser, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told a recent conference: “The US is really going to want to know that Turkey is taking tough messages to Iran, and I think a lot of Americans are uncertain about that.”
Mr Erdogan’s visit to Tehran – the first by any influential leader since Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s controversial re-election – is also aimed at securing closer economic ties.
Turkey’s state oil company TPAO will begin exploration next month in Iran’s South Pars gas field, aiming to produce an annual 35bn cubic metres of gas, Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz said on Tuesday, according to the state-run Anatolian news agency. A multi-billion dollar deal reached in 2007 has been long-delayed.
Turkey relies on Iran for a significant part of its gas imports and would like Iranian gas to flow through the planned Nabucco pipeline to European markets – something the US opposes under current political conditions.
Additional reporting by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Recep Tayyip Erdogan won praise from Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad on Tuesday for his public criticism of Israel as the Turkish and Iranian leaders mounted a display of friendship in sharp contrast to the recent low in Turkish-Israeli relations .
“Your clear stance against the Zionist regime [as Iran terms Israel] had a positive impact in the world which undoubtedly made all nations happy,” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad told his guest, in comments reported by Iran’s official media.
His approval of Mr Erdogan’s frequent outbursts against Israeli policy is a potential embarrassment as Turkey seeks to convince western partners it is not abandoning old alliances to forge a new role in the Middle East and in regional diplomacy.
Ankara fears having a nuclear-armed neighbour and declares itself ready to help in talks over Iran’s nuclear programme as an interlocutor trusted by all sides, but some in the US already doubt whether it is delivering a tough enough message.
“This is an energy project that is peaceful and humanitarian,” Mr Erdogan said in a televised news conference, adding that Iran had shown a “positive attitude” in the recent talks with six world powers in Geneva. Diplomats in Ankara argue Turkey’s message is more effective for being delivered in friendly fashion, behind closed doors.
But Ian Lesser, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told a recent conference: “The US is really going to want to know that Turkey is taking tough messages to Iran, and I think a lot of Americans are uncertain about that.”
Mr Erdogan’s visit to Tehran – the first by any influential leader since Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s controversial re-election – is also aimed at securing closer economic ties.
Turkey’s state oil company TPAO will begin exploration next month in Iran’s South Pars gas field, aiming to produce an annual 35bn cubic metres of gas, Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz said on Tuesday, according to the state-run Anatolian news agency. A multi-billion dollar deal reached in 2007 has been long-delayed.
Turkey relies on Iran for a significant part of its gas imports and would like Iranian gas to flow through the planned Nabucco pipeline to European markets – something the US opposes under current political conditions.
Additional reporting by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Stratejik derinlik' Batı'yı ikinci plana itiyor
Daniel Pipes
Türkiye Başbakanı Tayyip Erdoğan, İran Cumhurbaşkanı Mahmud Ahmedinecad hakkında “Kuşkusuz ki o bizim dostumuzdur” diyor, hemen ardından da İsrail Dışişleri Bakanı Avigdor Lieberman’ı Gazze’de nükleer silah kullanma tehdidinde bulunmakla suçluyor. Bu aşırı değerlendirmeler, Türkiye hükümetinin yönelimindeki derin değişime işaret ediyor. Türkiye 60 yıldır Batı’nın en yakın Müslüman müttefikiydi, ta ki Erdoğan’ın AKP’si 2002’de iktidara gelene kadar.
Ekimde yaşanan üç olay, bu değişimin boyutunu açığa vuruyor. İlki, uzun yıllardır laikliğin kalesi ve İsrail’le işbirliğinin savunucusu olan Türk ordusunun 11 Ekim’de aniden, İsrail güçlerinin Anadolu Kartalı tatbikatına katılmamasını istemesiydi. Erdoğan ‘diplomatik hassasiyetleri’ gerekçe gösterdi; Dışişleri Bakanı Ahmet Davutoğlu da ‘Gazze, Doğu Kudüs ve El Aksa Camii’yle ilgili hassasiyetten’ dem vurdu. Türkler, Gazze operasyonunda Hamas’a saldırmış olabilecek İsrail uçaklarını özellikle reddetti. Şam bu kararı alkışlarken, ABD ve İtalya güçlerini Anadolu Kartalı’ndan çekki; bunun üzerine uluslararası tatbikat iptal edildi.
İsrailliler içinse bu ‘ani ve beklenmedik’ değişim, Türkiye’yle 1996’dan beri sürdürülen askeri işbirliğini temelinden sarstı. Sözgelimi eski hava kuvvetleri komutanı Eitan Ben-Eliyahu iptali ‘ciddi endişelere yol açan bir gelişme’ diye niteledi. Kudüs buna derhal, İsrail’in Türkiye’ye ileri teknoloji ürünü silah tedarikini (sözgelimi Türk hava kuvvetlerine 140 milyon dolarlık savaş uçağı hedef sistemleri satışını öngören son anlaşma) gözden geçirme kararı alarak karşılık verdi. ABD Kongresi’ne sunulan Ermeni soykırımı
tasarılarının alt edilmesi konusunda Türklere yardım etmekten vazgeçme fikri de gündeme geldi.
İkinci olay iki gün sonra, 13 Ekim’de gerçekleşti.
Suriye Dışişleri Bakanı Velid Muallim, Türkiye ve Suriye güçlerinin geçenlerde ‘Ankara yakınlarında tatbikat yaptığını’ açıkladı. Muallim bunun önemli bir olduğunu söylüyordu, ‘zira böylece Türkiye’deki askeri ve siyasi kurumların Suriye’yle stratejik ilişkiler konusunda anlaşmazlık yaşadığı iddiaları boşa çıkıyordu’. Tercümesi şu: Türkiye’nin silahlı kuvvetleri siyasetçilere yenildi.
Üçüncüsü de Davutoğlu liderliğindeki 10 Türk bakanın 13 Ekim’de Suriyeli muadilleriyle, yeni kurulan ‘Türkiye-Suriye Üst Düzey Stratejik İşbirliği Konseyi’nin himayesindeki görüşmelere katılmasıydı. Bakanlar 10 gün içinde uygulanacak 40’a yakın anlaşma imzaladıklarını; nisanda ilkinden ‘daha kapsamlı ve büyük’ bir ortak kara tatbikatı düzenleneceğini ve iki ülke liderlerinin kasımda stratejik bir anlaşma imzalayacağını açıkladı.
Konseyin ortak nihai bildirisi, iki taraf arasında ‘karşılıklı yarar ve çıkar temelindeki geniş bir alanda işbirliğini güçlendirmek ve yaygınlaştırmak, halklar arasındaki kültürel bağları ve dayanışmayı pekiştirmek için uzun vadeli bir stratejik ortaklığın’ kurulduğunu ilan etti. Davutoğlu’na göre konseyin ruhu, ‘ortak kader, tarih ve gelecek’ti ve ‘geleceği birlikte inşa edeceklerdi’. Muallim’se bu birlikteliğin iki halkın ‘kutlaması gereken bir bayram’ olduğunu söylüyordu.
Ankara’nın Suriye’yle savaşın eşiğine geldiği 10 yıl öncesine kıyasla ilişkilerde gerçekten de müthiş bir dönüşüm söz konusu. Fakat Şam’la ilişkilerin iyileştirilmesi, Ankara’nın bölgede Müslüman ülkelerle ilişkilerini güçlendirmek yönündeki daha kapsamlı çabasının sadece bir parçası. Davutoğlu’nun 2000’de yayımlanan ‘Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Konumu’ adlı etkili kitabında dile getirdiği bir strateji bu.
Batılı yetkililer büyük hata yapıyor
Özetlersek, Davutoğlu komşularla gerilimin azaltılmasını ve Türkiye’nin bir tür modernleşmiş Osmanlı
İmparatorluğu misali, bölgesel bir güç olarak ortaya çıkmasını öngörüyor. Bu stratejiye içkin olan şey, Türkiye genelde Batı’dan, özelde de İsrail’den uzaklaşması. İslamcı kavramlarla sunulmasa da, ‘stratejik derinlik’ AKP’nin İslamcı dünya görüşüne oldukça uygun.
Barry Rubin’in de dikkat çektiği gibi, “Türkiye hükümeti siyasi olarak İran’a ve Suriye’ye, ABD ve İsrail’e olduğundan daha yakın.” Jerusalem Post yazarlarından Caroline Glick daha da ileri gidiyor: “Ankara Batı ittifakını çoktan terk etti ve İran mihverinin dört dörtlük bir üyesi haline geldi.” Fakat Batı’daki yetkililer Türkiye’nin ittifaklarındaki bu önemli değişimi ve bu değişimin sonuçlarını neredeyse hiç görmüyor. Bu hatanın bedeli çok geçmeden açığa çıkacaktır. (İsrail gazetesi, Ortadoğu Forumu adlı düşünce kuruluşunun yöneticisi, 27 Ekim 2009)
Türkiye Başbakanı Tayyip Erdoğan, İran Cumhurbaşkanı Mahmud Ahmedinecad hakkında “Kuşkusuz ki o bizim dostumuzdur” diyor, hemen ardından da İsrail Dışişleri Bakanı Avigdor Lieberman’ı Gazze’de nükleer silah kullanma tehdidinde bulunmakla suçluyor. Bu aşırı değerlendirmeler, Türkiye hükümetinin yönelimindeki derin değişime işaret ediyor. Türkiye 60 yıldır Batı’nın en yakın Müslüman müttefikiydi, ta ki Erdoğan’ın AKP’si 2002’de iktidara gelene kadar.
Ekimde yaşanan üç olay, bu değişimin boyutunu açığa vuruyor. İlki, uzun yıllardır laikliğin kalesi ve İsrail’le işbirliğinin savunucusu olan Türk ordusunun 11 Ekim’de aniden, İsrail güçlerinin Anadolu Kartalı tatbikatına katılmamasını istemesiydi. Erdoğan ‘diplomatik hassasiyetleri’ gerekçe gösterdi; Dışişleri Bakanı Ahmet Davutoğlu da ‘Gazze, Doğu Kudüs ve El Aksa Camii’yle ilgili hassasiyetten’ dem vurdu. Türkler, Gazze operasyonunda Hamas’a saldırmış olabilecek İsrail uçaklarını özellikle reddetti. Şam bu kararı alkışlarken, ABD ve İtalya güçlerini Anadolu Kartalı’ndan çekki; bunun üzerine uluslararası tatbikat iptal edildi.
İsrailliler içinse bu ‘ani ve beklenmedik’ değişim, Türkiye’yle 1996’dan beri sürdürülen askeri işbirliğini temelinden sarstı. Sözgelimi eski hava kuvvetleri komutanı Eitan Ben-Eliyahu iptali ‘ciddi endişelere yol açan bir gelişme’ diye niteledi. Kudüs buna derhal, İsrail’in Türkiye’ye ileri teknoloji ürünü silah tedarikini (sözgelimi Türk hava kuvvetlerine 140 milyon dolarlık savaş uçağı hedef sistemleri satışını öngören son anlaşma) gözden geçirme kararı alarak karşılık verdi. ABD Kongresi’ne sunulan Ermeni soykırımı
tasarılarının alt edilmesi konusunda Türklere yardım etmekten vazgeçme fikri de gündeme geldi.
İkinci olay iki gün sonra, 13 Ekim’de gerçekleşti.
Suriye Dışişleri Bakanı Velid Muallim, Türkiye ve Suriye güçlerinin geçenlerde ‘Ankara yakınlarında tatbikat yaptığını’ açıkladı. Muallim bunun önemli bir olduğunu söylüyordu, ‘zira böylece Türkiye’deki askeri ve siyasi kurumların Suriye’yle stratejik ilişkiler konusunda anlaşmazlık yaşadığı iddiaları boşa çıkıyordu’. Tercümesi şu: Türkiye’nin silahlı kuvvetleri siyasetçilere yenildi.
Üçüncüsü de Davutoğlu liderliğindeki 10 Türk bakanın 13 Ekim’de Suriyeli muadilleriyle, yeni kurulan ‘Türkiye-Suriye Üst Düzey Stratejik İşbirliği Konseyi’nin himayesindeki görüşmelere katılmasıydı. Bakanlar 10 gün içinde uygulanacak 40’a yakın anlaşma imzaladıklarını; nisanda ilkinden ‘daha kapsamlı ve büyük’ bir ortak kara tatbikatı düzenleneceğini ve iki ülke liderlerinin kasımda stratejik bir anlaşma imzalayacağını açıkladı.
Konseyin ortak nihai bildirisi, iki taraf arasında ‘karşılıklı yarar ve çıkar temelindeki geniş bir alanda işbirliğini güçlendirmek ve yaygınlaştırmak, halklar arasındaki kültürel bağları ve dayanışmayı pekiştirmek için uzun vadeli bir stratejik ortaklığın’ kurulduğunu ilan etti. Davutoğlu’na göre konseyin ruhu, ‘ortak kader, tarih ve gelecek’ti ve ‘geleceği birlikte inşa edeceklerdi’. Muallim’se bu birlikteliğin iki halkın ‘kutlaması gereken bir bayram’ olduğunu söylüyordu.
Ankara’nın Suriye’yle savaşın eşiğine geldiği 10 yıl öncesine kıyasla ilişkilerde gerçekten de müthiş bir dönüşüm söz konusu. Fakat Şam’la ilişkilerin iyileştirilmesi, Ankara’nın bölgede Müslüman ülkelerle ilişkilerini güçlendirmek yönündeki daha kapsamlı çabasının sadece bir parçası. Davutoğlu’nun 2000’de yayımlanan ‘Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Konumu’ adlı etkili kitabında dile getirdiği bir strateji bu.
Batılı yetkililer büyük hata yapıyor
Özetlersek, Davutoğlu komşularla gerilimin azaltılmasını ve Türkiye’nin bir tür modernleşmiş Osmanlı
İmparatorluğu misali, bölgesel bir güç olarak ortaya çıkmasını öngörüyor. Bu stratejiye içkin olan şey, Türkiye genelde Batı’dan, özelde de İsrail’den uzaklaşması. İslamcı kavramlarla sunulmasa da, ‘stratejik derinlik’ AKP’nin İslamcı dünya görüşüne oldukça uygun.
Barry Rubin’in de dikkat çektiği gibi, “Türkiye hükümeti siyasi olarak İran’a ve Suriye’ye, ABD ve İsrail’e olduğundan daha yakın.” Jerusalem Post yazarlarından Caroline Glick daha da ileri gidiyor: “Ankara Batı ittifakını çoktan terk etti ve İran mihverinin dört dörtlük bir üyesi haline geldi.” Fakat Batı’daki yetkililer Türkiye’nin ittifaklarındaki bu önemli değişimi ve bu değişimin sonuçlarını neredeyse hiç görmüyor. Bu hatanın bedeli çok geçmeden açığa çıkacaktır. (İsrail gazetesi, Ortadoğu Forumu adlı düşünce kuruluşunun yöneticisi, 27 Ekim 2009)
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Armenia and Turkey normalise ties
Turkey and Armenia have signed a historic accord normalising relations after a century of hostility.
The deal was signed by the two foreign ministers after last-minute problems delayed the ceremony in Switzerland.
Under the agreement, Turkey and Armenia are to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their shared border.
The accord has been met by protests in Armenia, where many people say it does not fully address the 1915 killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians.
Objections
Armenia wants Turkey to recognise the killings as an act of genocide, but successive Turkish governments have refused to do so.
The agreement calls for a joint commission of independent historians to study the genocide issue.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Armenian counterpart, Edward Nalbandian, signed the protocols in Switzerland after a delay of more than three hours.
The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Zurich says the Armenians had apparently raised objections to remarks due to be read out by the Turkish delegation.
After the signing neither side issued a statement, and our correspondent says this seems to have been the compromise arranged by US officials.
The administration of President Barack Obama had been pressing the parties to reach agreement.
The ceremony was attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the EU's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana.
Mrs Clinton later said the US would build on the "milestone" that had been achieved, but admitted "concerns on both sides" had delayed the signing.
A senior state department official told Associated Press that Mr Obama had called Mrs Clinton "to congratulate her and the team" on their role in the signing.
The accord needs to be ratified by the parliaments of both Armenia and Turkey.
On Friday thousands of people protested against the deal in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
"The international recognition of the Armenian genocide will be hindered by this signature, or ratification," said Vahan Hovanissyan, a member of parliament for the nationalist Dashnaktsutyun party.
One protester told the BBC he was not opposed to the opening of the border, but was "against the setting up of a commission that will allow Turkey to further postpone declaring the killings as genocide".
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915, when they were deported en masse from eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire. They were killed by troops or died from starvation and disease.
It is in the best interest of both countries that they forget about the past and start a new era in their relationship Abdul Malik Niazi, Kabul
Armenians have campaigned for the killings to be recognised internationally as genocide - and more than 20 countries have done so.
Turkey admits that many Armenians were killed but says the deaths were part of the widespread fighting that took place in World War I.
A roadmap for normalising relations between Turkey and Armenia was agreed in April.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 because of its war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh.
Correspondents say most people in Armenia feel their landlocked country has been too isolated since the Turkish border closed and are ready for it to reopen.
The deal was signed by the two foreign ministers after last-minute problems delayed the ceremony in Switzerland.
Under the agreement, Turkey and Armenia are to establish diplomatic ties and reopen their shared border.
The accord has been met by protests in Armenia, where many people say it does not fully address the 1915 killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians.
Objections
Armenia wants Turkey to recognise the killings as an act of genocide, but successive Turkish governments have refused to do so.
The agreement calls for a joint commission of independent historians to study the genocide issue.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Armenian counterpart, Edward Nalbandian, signed the protocols in Switzerland after a delay of more than three hours.
The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Zurich says the Armenians had apparently raised objections to remarks due to be read out by the Turkish delegation.
After the signing neither side issued a statement, and our correspondent says this seems to have been the compromise arranged by US officials.
The administration of President Barack Obama had been pressing the parties to reach agreement.
The ceremony was attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the EU's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana.
Mrs Clinton later said the US would build on the "milestone" that had been achieved, but admitted "concerns on both sides" had delayed the signing.
A senior state department official told Associated Press that Mr Obama had called Mrs Clinton "to congratulate her and the team" on their role in the signing.
The accord needs to be ratified by the parliaments of both Armenia and Turkey.
On Friday thousands of people protested against the deal in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
"The international recognition of the Armenian genocide will be hindered by this signature, or ratification," said Vahan Hovanissyan, a member of parliament for the nationalist Dashnaktsutyun party.
One protester told the BBC he was not opposed to the opening of the border, but was "against the setting up of a commission that will allow Turkey to further postpone declaring the killings as genocide".
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915, when they were deported en masse from eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire. They were killed by troops or died from starvation and disease.
It is in the best interest of both countries that they forget about the past and start a new era in their relationship Abdul Malik Niazi, Kabul
Armenians have campaigned for the killings to be recognised internationally as genocide - and more than 20 countries have done so.
Turkey admits that many Armenians were killed but says the deaths were part of the widespread fighting that took place in World War I.
A roadmap for normalising relations between Turkey and Armenia was agreed in April.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 because of its war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh.
Correspondents say most people in Armenia feel their landlocked country has been too isolated since the Turkish border closed and are ready for it to reopen.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Papandreou’s task
As Greeks are fond of saying, their country is not like others. Just as the rest of the world is pulling out of a recession, Greece’s service-oriented economy is entering one. While recent European elections have tended to favour the centre-right, Greek voters have awarded a stunning victory to the socialists of Pasok and their leader George Papandreou. After five years at the helm, Costas Karamanlis is out.
This was a very Greek election. It is not just that Mr Karamanlis and Mr Papandreou are scions of Greece’s two leading political dynasties (occupying the presidency or premiership for most of the republic’s short history). In an introspective contest, Europe was hardly mentioned. Without visible enthusiasm, voters preferred the vague promises of the Papandreou brand to the conservative Mr Karamanlis’ promises of austerity – and repudiated New Democracy’s failure to clamp down on corruption. Pasok has won a holding mandate from a fickle electorate. What Greece needs, however, is reform.
Even as Greece enters recession – and before Mr Papandreou doles out a promised €2.5bn fiscal stimulus – the budget deficit is far too high. A crackdown on tax evasion is a fine aspiration. But the new government’s first budget should go much further. Mr Papandreou should freeze most new recruitment into the public sector, get a handle on corruption (particularly in healthcare and defence), tighten control of departmental budgets, enhance cross-checking for tax returns and depoliticise national accounting. But whereas a previous socialist premier credited with squeezing Greece into the euro, Costas Simitis, had a reliable economic team, it is not even clear who Mr Papandreou’s finance minister will be.
There are more grounds for optimism in foreign affairs. As foreign minister in 1999, Mr Papandreou used the shared tragedy of earthquakes in Istanbul and Athens to improve relations with Turkey. He may now try to put pressure on the Greek Cypriot government to accept reunification on terms more acceptable to the Turkish community (though leverage over Nicosia has diminished sharply since the island was allowed to join the EU). Greece’s obduracy on Macedonia’s official name may now be tempered, holding out the possibility of an end to a sterile dispute that has cooled relations with Washington and Brussels.
To win election for Pasok, Mr Papandreou has been studiously vague. To govern for Greece he needs to be altogether more precise and determined.
This was a very Greek election. It is not just that Mr Karamanlis and Mr Papandreou are scions of Greece’s two leading political dynasties (occupying the presidency or premiership for most of the republic’s short history). In an introspective contest, Europe was hardly mentioned. Without visible enthusiasm, voters preferred the vague promises of the Papandreou brand to the conservative Mr Karamanlis’ promises of austerity – and repudiated New Democracy’s failure to clamp down on corruption. Pasok has won a holding mandate from a fickle electorate. What Greece needs, however, is reform.
Even as Greece enters recession – and before Mr Papandreou doles out a promised €2.5bn fiscal stimulus – the budget deficit is far too high. A crackdown on tax evasion is a fine aspiration. But the new government’s first budget should go much further. Mr Papandreou should freeze most new recruitment into the public sector, get a handle on corruption (particularly in healthcare and defence), tighten control of departmental budgets, enhance cross-checking for tax returns and depoliticise national accounting. But whereas a previous socialist premier credited with squeezing Greece into the euro, Costas Simitis, had a reliable economic team, it is not even clear who Mr Papandreou’s finance minister will be.
There are more grounds for optimism in foreign affairs. As foreign minister in 1999, Mr Papandreou used the shared tragedy of earthquakes in Istanbul and Athens to improve relations with Turkey. He may now try to put pressure on the Greek Cypriot government to accept reunification on terms more acceptable to the Turkish community (though leverage over Nicosia has diminished sharply since the island was allowed to join the EU). Greece’s obduracy on Macedonia’s official name may now be tempered, holding out the possibility of an end to a sterile dispute that has cooled relations with Washington and Brussels.
To win election for Pasok, Mr Papandreou has been studiously vague. To govern for Greece he needs to be altogether more precise and determined.
Papandreou sworn in as Greek PM
George Papandreou has been sworn in as Greece's prime minister after his Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) won general elections on Sunday.
The son and grandson of former prime ministers was sworn in at a ceremony in the president's Athens mansion.
Mr Papandreou, 57, is to announce his cabinet appointments later.
Pasok won 44% of votes in the snap polls, ending five years of governance by the conservative New Democracy party of Costas Karamanlis, who has resigned.
Mr Karamanlis' party won just 33.5% of vote - its worst ever election result.
Having won an absolute majority with 160 seats in the country's 300-member parliament, Mr Papandreou has said he will inject up to 3bn euros ($4.4bn: £2.7bn) into the economy in an effort to pull Greece out of a financial crisis.
"Nothing is going to be easy. It will take a lot of hard work," he said after the results were announced.
"I will always be upfront with the Greek people, so we can solve the country's problems together."
Mr Karamanlis called the snap general election half way through his four-year term.
He said he wanted a new mandate to tackle Greece's economic problems, but his opponents said he failed to fulfil promises to clean up public office and to modernise the country.
The government has also been hit by a series of corruption scandals.
The son and grandson of former prime ministers was sworn in at a ceremony in the president's Athens mansion.
Mr Papandreou, 57, is to announce his cabinet appointments later.
Pasok won 44% of votes in the snap polls, ending five years of governance by the conservative New Democracy party of Costas Karamanlis, who has resigned.
Mr Karamanlis' party won just 33.5% of vote - its worst ever election result.
Having won an absolute majority with 160 seats in the country's 300-member parliament, Mr Papandreou has said he will inject up to 3bn euros ($4.4bn: £2.7bn) into the economy in an effort to pull Greece out of a financial crisis.
"Nothing is going to be easy. It will take a lot of hard work," he said after the results were announced.
"I will always be upfront with the Greek people, so we can solve the country's problems together."
Mr Karamanlis called the snap general election half way through his four-year term.
He said he wanted a new mandate to tackle Greece's economic problems, but his opponents said he failed to fulfil promises to clean up public office and to modernise the country.
The government has also been hit by a series of corruption scandals.
Yunanistan'da sol kazanır da, bizde neden kazanamaz?
ORAL ÇALIŞLAR
Sabahın erken saatinde cep telefonuma gelen mesaj Yunanistan’daki seçimleri solcuların kazandığını bildiriyordu. PASOK lideri Papandreu, komşu ülkenin yeni başbakanı olacaktı. Yani solcular, sağcıları yenerek iktidara gelmişlerdi.
Bizdeki sol üzerine düşüncelere daldım tekrar... Sol, bizde sanki yüzyıldan bu yana seçim kazanamıyordu. Bir arkadaşım şöyle dedi: “Türkiye’de sol mu var ki?” Türkiye’de kendisini solda tanımlayan sosyal demokrat partilerin tamamının devletçi ve milliyetçi olduğunu biliyoruz. Evrensel ölçüler içinde bir sol-sosyal demokrat partinin ülkemizde bulunmadığı gerçeği, giderek daha geniş kesimler tarafından fark ediliyor.
Denebilir ki, diğer ülkelerdeki sol partiler de ‘milliyetçi’likten arınmış değiller. Örneğin Yunanistan’da seçimleri kazanan PASOK’un da milliyetçi olduğu öne sürülebilir. Bu bağlamda, Yunan sosyalizminin samimiyeti de tartışmaya açılabilir.
Ancak Yunan solunun ve Avrupa solunun birçok konuda daha demokrat, daha evrenselliğe yatkın bir çizgi izlediğini rahatlıkla söyleyebiliriz. PASOK’un ‘milliyetçi’lik boyutu, bizim solculardan farklı olarak, devletçiliğe ve militarizmle mesafeli olan bir boyuttur.
Merkel, Sarkozy gibi Avrupa sağının önde gelen isimleri, yabancı düşmanlığı, Türklere düşmanlık gibi konularda ittifak içindeler. Yunanistan’da solcu Papandreu Türkiye ile ilişkiler, Kıbrıs sorununun barışçı çözümü noktasında sağcı Karamanlis’e göre daha olumlu bir çizgiyi savunuyor. Kıbrıs’ta Annan Planı’nı da PASOK desteklemişti.
Genel olarak, Avrupa’da sol partiler, o ülkelerde yaşayan azınlıklara, yabancılara, göçmenlere karşı diğer partilere oranla daha olumlu bir tutum gösteriyorlar. Avrupa’da yabancı düşmanlığının öncülüğünü sağcı partiler yapıyorlar. Bu sağcı
partiler Türkiye’nin AB üyeliğine karşı da daha olumsuz bir tutum içindeler. Bütün bunlar şaşırtıcı şeyler de değil, tam tersine, sağ ve solun evrensel/genel tanımlarıyla uyumlu olan şeyler.
***
İspanya, Portekiz ve Yunanistan uzun yıllar askeri yönetimlerin, militarizmin acısını çektiler. Bu acı, büyük bir hesaplaşmayla sona erdi. Bu ülkeler, askeri yönetimleri, onların bıraktığı kurumları temizlediler. Bu temizliğin başını da bu ülkelerdeki sosyalistler, sosyal demokratlar ve komünistler çektiler.
Türkiye’deki sol hareket ise bu alanda karışık ve karmaşık tutumlar gösterdi. CHP zaten devletçi ve militarist bir gelenekten geldiği için darbelerin pek uzağında durmadı. 12 Mart 1971 askeri darbesine karşı Bülent Ecevit’in çıkışı, geleneksel CHP’den bir kopuş anlamına geliyordu. Bu kopuş çok uzun sürmedi. CHP’nin çizgisi 12 Eylül 1980 askeri darbesinin de etkisiyle, aslına, militarizmin savunuculuğuna dönüştü.
CHP, bugün militarizme en yakın siyasi akım olarak öne çıkıyor. Bu ülkenin farklı renklerine olan yaklaşımı açısından da CHP’yi bir sol parti olarak değerlendirmek imkânsız. DSP’nin de bu bağlamda CHP’den farksız olduğunu söylemek mümkün.
Türkiye sosyalist hareketinin önemli bir ağırlığı, ne yazık ki milliyetçiliğin, militarizmin, devletçiliğin, bürokratik elitizmin, statükonun yanı başında duruyor. Bu genel tablo içinde baktığımız zaman Türkiye’de evrensel standartlar içinde bir sol hareketten söz etmek elbette ki mümkün görünmüyor. Ülkemizdeki sol hareketler Avrupa solu arasındaki temel ayrım noktasının militarizm ve demokrasi konusu olduğu tezi, her geçen gün kendini yeni örneklerle doğruluyor.
Bülent Ecevit’in 1971 askeri darbesine karşı çıkması ve anti-militarist bir çizgiyi savunması CHP’nin evrensel sol hareketle temasa geçmesine neden olmuştu. Şimdiki CHP, o mirasın üzerinde Sosyalist Enternasyonal’de yer alıyor. Bugün ise dünya sosyal demokrasisi CHP’yi kendi parçaları olarak görmüyor.
Şu anda Türkiye’de sol hareket iktidar adayı değil. Yakın zamanda da olacak gibi görünmüyor. “Türkiye bir değişim yaşarken, temel konularda yeniden yapılanma gereği duyarken, sol hareketin bunun dışında kalması kaderin ve yeni koşulların ironisi olarak mı görülmeli, yoksa ‘zaten bizdeki sol değildi ki’ diyerek normal mi karşılamalı?” sorusu üzerine kapsamlı olarak düşünmekte yarar görmekteyim.
***
Yunanistan’da yıllar önce tanık olduğum bir olayı burada bir kez tekrar ederek ne demek istediğimi örnekli aktarmak niyetindeydim. Çoğunluğu Avrupa’da yaşayan bir grup yurttaşımızla Atina’daydık. Türkiye Büyükelçiliği’ni de ziyarete gittik.
Büyükelçiliğin giriş bölümündeki masanın üzerinde Kenan Evren’in büyükelçiye imzaladığı fotoğraf duruyordu. Hatırladığım kadarıyla, yıl 2000 civarında olmalı. Askeri darbenin üzerinden 20 seneye yakın zaman geçtiği halde, demokrasiyle yönetildiği söylenen bir ülkenin büyükelçiliğinin şeref masasında bir darbecinin fotoğrafı yer alıyordu..
O tarihlerde, Yunanistan’da 1974 yılında yıkılan askeri darbenin önde gelen iki liderinden birisi cezaevinde ölmüştü. Diğeri, 20 yıldan fazla bir süredir cezaevinde yatmaya devam ediyordu. Cezaevinde ölen darbecinin cenazesine katılan bir milletvekili, sağcı Yeni Demokrasi Partisi’nden ihraç edilmişti.
Biz darbe anayasasıyla yönetilmeye devam ediyoruz. Değişiminin önündeki en büyük engel de ne yazık ki kendilerini solcu diye tanımlayanlar. Ve acı olan şu ki, bu gerçeği dile getirmeniz, onun değişimi konusunda somut bir katkı da sağlamıyor.
Halka güvenmeyen, militarizme, devlete, iktidara ve elitlere yaslanan bir solun, toplumun desteğini almasını beklemek, zaten gerçekçilikle bağdaşmaz.
Sabahın erken saatinde cep telefonuma gelen mesaj Yunanistan’daki seçimleri solcuların kazandığını bildiriyordu. PASOK lideri Papandreu, komşu ülkenin yeni başbakanı olacaktı. Yani solcular, sağcıları yenerek iktidara gelmişlerdi.
Bizdeki sol üzerine düşüncelere daldım tekrar... Sol, bizde sanki yüzyıldan bu yana seçim kazanamıyordu. Bir arkadaşım şöyle dedi: “Türkiye’de sol mu var ki?” Türkiye’de kendisini solda tanımlayan sosyal demokrat partilerin tamamının devletçi ve milliyetçi olduğunu biliyoruz. Evrensel ölçüler içinde bir sol-sosyal demokrat partinin ülkemizde bulunmadığı gerçeği, giderek daha geniş kesimler tarafından fark ediliyor.
Denebilir ki, diğer ülkelerdeki sol partiler de ‘milliyetçi’likten arınmış değiller. Örneğin Yunanistan’da seçimleri kazanan PASOK’un da milliyetçi olduğu öne sürülebilir. Bu bağlamda, Yunan sosyalizminin samimiyeti de tartışmaya açılabilir.
Ancak Yunan solunun ve Avrupa solunun birçok konuda daha demokrat, daha evrenselliğe yatkın bir çizgi izlediğini rahatlıkla söyleyebiliriz. PASOK’un ‘milliyetçi’lik boyutu, bizim solculardan farklı olarak, devletçiliğe ve militarizmle mesafeli olan bir boyuttur.
Merkel, Sarkozy gibi Avrupa sağının önde gelen isimleri, yabancı düşmanlığı, Türklere düşmanlık gibi konularda ittifak içindeler. Yunanistan’da solcu Papandreu Türkiye ile ilişkiler, Kıbrıs sorununun barışçı çözümü noktasında sağcı Karamanlis’e göre daha olumlu bir çizgiyi savunuyor. Kıbrıs’ta Annan Planı’nı da PASOK desteklemişti.
Genel olarak, Avrupa’da sol partiler, o ülkelerde yaşayan azınlıklara, yabancılara, göçmenlere karşı diğer partilere oranla daha olumlu bir tutum gösteriyorlar. Avrupa’da yabancı düşmanlığının öncülüğünü sağcı partiler yapıyorlar. Bu sağcı
partiler Türkiye’nin AB üyeliğine karşı da daha olumsuz bir tutum içindeler. Bütün bunlar şaşırtıcı şeyler de değil, tam tersine, sağ ve solun evrensel/genel tanımlarıyla uyumlu olan şeyler.
***
İspanya, Portekiz ve Yunanistan uzun yıllar askeri yönetimlerin, militarizmin acısını çektiler. Bu acı, büyük bir hesaplaşmayla sona erdi. Bu ülkeler, askeri yönetimleri, onların bıraktığı kurumları temizlediler. Bu temizliğin başını da bu ülkelerdeki sosyalistler, sosyal demokratlar ve komünistler çektiler.
Türkiye’deki sol hareket ise bu alanda karışık ve karmaşık tutumlar gösterdi. CHP zaten devletçi ve militarist bir gelenekten geldiği için darbelerin pek uzağında durmadı. 12 Mart 1971 askeri darbesine karşı Bülent Ecevit’in çıkışı, geleneksel CHP’den bir kopuş anlamına geliyordu. Bu kopuş çok uzun sürmedi. CHP’nin çizgisi 12 Eylül 1980 askeri darbesinin de etkisiyle, aslına, militarizmin savunuculuğuna dönüştü.
CHP, bugün militarizme en yakın siyasi akım olarak öne çıkıyor. Bu ülkenin farklı renklerine olan yaklaşımı açısından da CHP’yi bir sol parti olarak değerlendirmek imkânsız. DSP’nin de bu bağlamda CHP’den farksız olduğunu söylemek mümkün.
Türkiye sosyalist hareketinin önemli bir ağırlığı, ne yazık ki milliyetçiliğin, militarizmin, devletçiliğin, bürokratik elitizmin, statükonun yanı başında duruyor. Bu genel tablo içinde baktığımız zaman Türkiye’de evrensel standartlar içinde bir sol hareketten söz etmek elbette ki mümkün görünmüyor. Ülkemizdeki sol hareketler Avrupa solu arasındaki temel ayrım noktasının militarizm ve demokrasi konusu olduğu tezi, her geçen gün kendini yeni örneklerle doğruluyor.
Bülent Ecevit’in 1971 askeri darbesine karşı çıkması ve anti-militarist bir çizgiyi savunması CHP’nin evrensel sol hareketle temasa geçmesine neden olmuştu. Şimdiki CHP, o mirasın üzerinde Sosyalist Enternasyonal’de yer alıyor. Bugün ise dünya sosyal demokrasisi CHP’yi kendi parçaları olarak görmüyor.
Şu anda Türkiye’de sol hareket iktidar adayı değil. Yakın zamanda da olacak gibi görünmüyor. “Türkiye bir değişim yaşarken, temel konularda yeniden yapılanma gereği duyarken, sol hareketin bunun dışında kalması kaderin ve yeni koşulların ironisi olarak mı görülmeli, yoksa ‘zaten bizdeki sol değildi ki’ diyerek normal mi karşılamalı?” sorusu üzerine kapsamlı olarak düşünmekte yarar görmekteyim.
***
Yunanistan’da yıllar önce tanık olduğum bir olayı burada bir kez tekrar ederek ne demek istediğimi örnekli aktarmak niyetindeydim. Çoğunluğu Avrupa’da yaşayan bir grup yurttaşımızla Atina’daydık. Türkiye Büyükelçiliği’ni de ziyarete gittik.
Büyükelçiliğin giriş bölümündeki masanın üzerinde Kenan Evren’in büyükelçiye imzaladığı fotoğraf duruyordu. Hatırladığım kadarıyla, yıl 2000 civarında olmalı. Askeri darbenin üzerinden 20 seneye yakın zaman geçtiği halde, demokrasiyle yönetildiği söylenen bir ülkenin büyükelçiliğinin şeref masasında bir darbecinin fotoğrafı yer alıyordu..
O tarihlerde, Yunanistan’da 1974 yılında yıkılan askeri darbenin önde gelen iki liderinden birisi cezaevinde ölmüştü. Diğeri, 20 yıldan fazla bir süredir cezaevinde yatmaya devam ediyordu. Cezaevinde ölen darbecinin cenazesine katılan bir milletvekili, sağcı Yeni Demokrasi Partisi’nden ihraç edilmişti.
Biz darbe anayasasıyla yönetilmeye devam ediyoruz. Değişiminin önündeki en büyük engel de ne yazık ki kendilerini solcu diye tanımlayanlar. Ve acı olan şu ki, bu gerçeği dile getirmeniz, onun değişimi konusunda somut bir katkı da sağlamıyor.
Halka güvenmeyen, militarizme, devlete, iktidara ve elitlere yaslanan bir solun, toplumun desteğini almasını beklemek, zaten gerçekçilikle bağdaşmaz.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
France: Protesting Armenia’s President
Riot police officers fought back belligerent demonstrators on Friday in Paris as President Serge Sarkisian of Armenia started a tour of Armenian communities worldwide. Protesters shouted “Traitor!” and denounced his plans to establish ties with Turkey. He embarked on the tour — which will also take him to the United States, Russia and Lebanon — to seek support for his bid for diplomatic ties with Turkey after a century of enmity. At least 200 protesters from the Armenian diaspora in France showed up at a public appearance. The genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire has been the main barrier to reconciliation with Turkey. Turkey rejects the label of genocide and says the death toll is inflated.
Greek Socialists Count on Dissatisfied Voters, but Fail to Inspire Their Confidence
By RACHEL DONADIO and ANTHEE CARASSAVA
ATHENS — After five years of a center-right government plagued by corruption scandals, violent protests and a moribund economy, Greece will hold national elections here on Sunday with the Socialist party poised to make a comeback. But for all their enthusiasm, even the party’s supporters question whether the Socialists have what it takes to steer Greece out of trouble.
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis came to power in 2004, pledging to improve the economy and restore trust in government after a generation of Socialist rule. Yet last month, two years into his second term and holding a one-vote margin in Parliament, he called early elections to forestall labor unrest and avoid a lame-duck period before elections called for March by the emboldened Socialist party, Pasok.
In the midst of the worst financial crisis in decades, with a soaring public debt and rising unemployment, many Greeks say they see no major substantive difference between Mr. Karamanlis’s center-right New Democracy Party and the Socialists.
As he stood in his souvenir shop near the new Acropolis Museum, Prokopis Hadjiioannides, 53, said he would vote for the Socialists, as he always had. But he said he had no illusions about the party. “I’m not saying they’re saints,” he said. “But they started stealing and being corrupt after 20 years in power. These guys” — the New Democracy incumbents — “were corrupt from the first day.”
In his campaign, the Socialist leader, George Papandreou, an American-educated sociologist and former Greek foreign minister, has pledged to turn around the economy and restore trust in a government most Greeks see as corrupt. He has also vowed to increase meritocracy in a culture of Ottoman-style patronage where party affiliation has often trumped skill in fierce competition for public-sector jobs.
But that is a practice his own Socialist party has long been accused of nurturing. So why, many Greeks want to know, should they believe that the Socialists are different this time around, or that they can instigate change?
“You are asking me what people in the street ask me every day,” said Anna Diamantopoulou, a senior Socialist party member and a former European commissioner. The answer, she said, is that Greeks are fed up.
“There is always a moment in history and in political life when people say, ‘That’s enough,’ ” she said. “And I believe that the country is in a crisis — an economic crisis, a political crisis, a social crisis. So that’s enough for many people.”
Offsetting the need for reform is a deep Mediterranean resignation; many Greeks find the status quo, however problematic, more convenient than a new order, and aspire to find what is known as “volema,” the term for a comfortable setup within the prevailing system.
Adding to the skepticism here is a widespread disdain for politicians. Although Mr. Karamanlis came to power promising to clean up government, his efforts to persuade Greeks to pay their taxes and register their land were less effective after senior members of his government were found to have done neither.
One of his closest aides was accused of orchestrating a controversial land swap in which the state lost an estimated $150 million after exchanging prime Athens real estate for much less valuable property. The aide denied wrongdoing and stepped down.
Mr. Karamanlis was accused of covering for other high government officials who were accused of having profited from the deal, and who later stepped down. He denied that anyone in his government had done anything illegal.
Greeks also found Mr. Karamanlis’s government ineffective and puzzlingly passive in response to several crises, including a series of devastating forest fires in recent years, and the shooting by the police of a 15-year-old last December, which set off violent student protests that raged uncontrolled for weeks and caused millions of dollars of damage. (In a country with frequent demonstrations, many Greeks viewed the protests as political theater or a rite of youth, not as a social uprising.) Fresh protests are expected on the first anniversary of the shooting this December, and the dire economic situation may well precipitate other demonstrations.
The economy is the central issue in Sunday’s elections. After 15 years of sustained growth, buoyed by Greece’s entry into the euro zone, the economy has stalled. Unemployment is at 9 percent and is expected to rise to 10 percent, if not higher, in 2010.
Analysts say the recession is exacerbated by deep structural problems. The underground economy is estimated at 30 percent of gross domestic product. Experts say that Greece loses about $17.5 billion annually in unpaid income taxes and $13 billion in unpaid payroll taxes to cover social costs. And with two pensioners for every worker, employment levels cannot sustain social spending.
Greece also has a longstanding tradition of hiring more state workers in order to stave off social unrest, a practice that has bloated the public sector — one in four Greek workers is employed by the state — and increased public debt, which is estimated to reach 108 percent of gross domestic product.
Both New Democracy and Pasok say they will try to convince Brussels to give Greece more time to bring its deficit below the ceiling of 3 percent of gross domestic product set by the European Commission.
If the government does not take stimulus measures and banks do not extend credit, “come January, the economy will be strangled,” said Savas Robolis, a labor economist and the scientific director at INE/GSEE, a prominent labor research institute.
“If that happens,” he said, “it will dampen all the new energy and hope built up for Pasok.”
ATHENS — After five years of a center-right government plagued by corruption scandals, violent protests and a moribund economy, Greece will hold national elections here on Sunday with the Socialist party poised to make a comeback. But for all their enthusiasm, even the party’s supporters question whether the Socialists have what it takes to steer Greece out of trouble.
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis came to power in 2004, pledging to improve the economy and restore trust in government after a generation of Socialist rule. Yet last month, two years into his second term and holding a one-vote margin in Parliament, he called early elections to forestall labor unrest and avoid a lame-duck period before elections called for March by the emboldened Socialist party, Pasok.
In the midst of the worst financial crisis in decades, with a soaring public debt and rising unemployment, many Greeks say they see no major substantive difference between Mr. Karamanlis’s center-right New Democracy Party and the Socialists.
As he stood in his souvenir shop near the new Acropolis Museum, Prokopis Hadjiioannides, 53, said he would vote for the Socialists, as he always had. But he said he had no illusions about the party. “I’m not saying they’re saints,” he said. “But they started stealing and being corrupt after 20 years in power. These guys” — the New Democracy incumbents — “were corrupt from the first day.”
In his campaign, the Socialist leader, George Papandreou, an American-educated sociologist and former Greek foreign minister, has pledged to turn around the economy and restore trust in a government most Greeks see as corrupt. He has also vowed to increase meritocracy in a culture of Ottoman-style patronage where party affiliation has often trumped skill in fierce competition for public-sector jobs.
But that is a practice his own Socialist party has long been accused of nurturing. So why, many Greeks want to know, should they believe that the Socialists are different this time around, or that they can instigate change?
“You are asking me what people in the street ask me every day,” said Anna Diamantopoulou, a senior Socialist party member and a former European commissioner. The answer, she said, is that Greeks are fed up.
“There is always a moment in history and in political life when people say, ‘That’s enough,’ ” she said. “And I believe that the country is in a crisis — an economic crisis, a political crisis, a social crisis. So that’s enough for many people.”
Offsetting the need for reform is a deep Mediterranean resignation; many Greeks find the status quo, however problematic, more convenient than a new order, and aspire to find what is known as “volema,” the term for a comfortable setup within the prevailing system.
Adding to the skepticism here is a widespread disdain for politicians. Although Mr. Karamanlis came to power promising to clean up government, his efforts to persuade Greeks to pay their taxes and register their land were less effective after senior members of his government were found to have done neither.
One of his closest aides was accused of orchestrating a controversial land swap in which the state lost an estimated $150 million after exchanging prime Athens real estate for much less valuable property. The aide denied wrongdoing and stepped down.
Mr. Karamanlis was accused of covering for other high government officials who were accused of having profited from the deal, and who later stepped down. He denied that anyone in his government had done anything illegal.
Greeks also found Mr. Karamanlis’s government ineffective and puzzlingly passive in response to several crises, including a series of devastating forest fires in recent years, and the shooting by the police of a 15-year-old last December, which set off violent student protests that raged uncontrolled for weeks and caused millions of dollars of damage. (In a country with frequent demonstrations, many Greeks viewed the protests as political theater or a rite of youth, not as a social uprising.) Fresh protests are expected on the first anniversary of the shooting this December, and the dire economic situation may well precipitate other demonstrations.
The economy is the central issue in Sunday’s elections. After 15 years of sustained growth, buoyed by Greece’s entry into the euro zone, the economy has stalled. Unemployment is at 9 percent and is expected to rise to 10 percent, if not higher, in 2010.
Analysts say the recession is exacerbated by deep structural problems. The underground economy is estimated at 30 percent of gross domestic product. Experts say that Greece loses about $17.5 billion annually in unpaid income taxes and $13 billion in unpaid payroll taxes to cover social costs. And with two pensioners for every worker, employment levels cannot sustain social spending.
Greece also has a longstanding tradition of hiring more state workers in order to stave off social unrest, a practice that has bloated the public sector — one in four Greek workers is employed by the state — and increased public debt, which is estimated to reach 108 percent of gross domestic product.
Both New Democracy and Pasok say they will try to convince Brussels to give Greece more time to bring its deficit below the ceiling of 3 percent of gross domestic product set by the European Commission.
If the government does not take stimulus measures and banks do not extend credit, “come January, the economy will be strangled,” said Savas Robolis, a labor economist and the scientific director at INE/GSEE, a prominent labor research institute.
“If that happens,” he said, “it will dampen all the new energy and hope built up for Pasok.”
Europe’s centre-left suffers in the squeezed middle
By John Lloyd
Published: October 2 2009 21:00 | Last updated: October 2 2009 21:00
September was the cruellest month for Europe’s centre-left. The greatest bloodbath came a week ago, when the Social Democratic party – Germany’s oldest, the foundation stone of social democracy across the continent – garnered less than a quarter of votes cast. Britain’s Labour party, whose polls are little better than the SPD’s result, put on a creditable show at its annual conference. But Gordon Brown’s generally well-received speech was instantly undercut by The Sun newspaper, which ended a 12-year policy of New Labour support with a front page proclaiming: “Labour’s lost it.”
In Italy, the continuing weakness of the left was exacerbated by a book published this past week – La Svolta (the turning point) – in which Francesco Rutelli, a former leader of the left in the 2001 parliamentary elections and co-founder of the Democratic party, the main left group, flatly states that “if the party turns to the left, it’s finished”. In a talk in Rome last week, Mr Rutelli told me he thought such a turn was overwhelmingly likely.
In France, the Socialist party remains transfixed by the feud between its former leader, Ségolène Royal, and the woman who narrowly secured a fiercely disputed succession, Martine Aubry, the mayor of Lille. The latter has sought a working truce with her rival; but, as the commentator Michel Noblecourt wrote in Le Monde, this “will be tainted with distrust, each doubting the legitimacy of the other and staying on guard”.
The irony – that the left fails together with the banks – has been much noted, but may be less of a contradiction than is apparent. In different ways, European social democracy was pro-market and pro-globalisation – especially New Labour, which in Tony Blair’s early years in power was both leader and exemplar. Liberal social reforms, a lesser role for trade unions and, above all, mass immigration were all part of centre-left politics and were broadly acceptable to the mass of the people so long as living standards rose and public services improved. Now, that implicit deal is threatened.
In this situation, it is not only the right that exults. The left, within these mainstream parties and outside, now sees a chance. The times are propitious: those charged with writing a manifesto for a party such as Die Linke (The Left, founded by Oskar Lafontaine, the renegade former SPD finance minister whose vote increased last week) would have a pleasant task. The widely mooted collapse of capitalism; rapidly rising unemployment; the determined resumption of the habits of greed by bankers and others able to skim off fresh supplies of cream; the present or coming cuts in public services and pay; the continuing human cost and fiscal drain of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – these are a rich menu on which to make a meal of a centre-left that did well out of a successful capitalism’s surplus and now struggles in its decline. John Harris, the left-Labour commentator, encapsulated his position’s scorn for New Labour in the current issue of Prospect magazine, describing its policies as “a mishmash of beliefs that only entrenched the changes wrought by Margaret Thatcher”.
It will be no balm to centre-left leaders to observe that they are victims of the success of many of their central projects – in particular, the maintenance of generous welfare states. No governing party of the right in Europe, from Sweden to Italy, has sought radically to reduce taxes or make cuts to big social programmes; and though the latter may increasingly be the order of the day as the cost of anti-recessionary measures must be paid, the centre-left governments of Britain and Spain are as much implicated in this as the right.
Further, the right steals leftist clothes: an anti-elitist populism in Italy; a co-option of admired figures of the left into government in France; and in Britain, a resurgent Conservative party rails against Labour’s “top down” and “bureaucratic” reforms and talks of helping communities to help themselves. In ground long scorched for Conservatives – the constituency of Glasgow Central – the Tory candidate John Bradley brought in young Conservative students to work with local residents to clean up the Strathbungo area of the constituency. Mr Bradley claimed, on the website Conservative Home, that “bringing in local communities, and seeing their delight at what all of us have achieved at the end of a day’s work, is simply magnificent.”
The great causes – race, women’s and homosexual equality, community involvement, the spread of democratic practice – which had been significantly dominated by the left, are now largely uncontroversial on the western European right, except on its fringes and in parts of Italy’s governing coalition. The very success of decades of struggle render archaic the feminist rhetoric of Harriet Harman, Labour’s deputy leader, and has caused a debilitating split in Britain’s Equality Commission between those who, like Ms Harman, believe the struggle must continue and those who seek a targeted, post-equality agenda.
Neither success nor failure are permanent in politics; and in the gross inequalities of contemporary market societies, the centre-left may – as Mr Brown sought to do with his appeal to the “squeezed middle” of British society – recover a cause. But a remedy will be harder. For now, their party is over.
Published: October 2 2009 21:00 | Last updated: October 2 2009 21:00
September was the cruellest month for Europe’s centre-left. The greatest bloodbath came a week ago, when the Social Democratic party – Germany’s oldest, the foundation stone of social democracy across the continent – garnered less than a quarter of votes cast. Britain’s Labour party, whose polls are little better than the SPD’s result, put on a creditable show at its annual conference. But Gordon Brown’s generally well-received speech was instantly undercut by The Sun newspaper, which ended a 12-year policy of New Labour support with a front page proclaiming: “Labour’s lost it.”
In Italy, the continuing weakness of the left was exacerbated by a book published this past week – La Svolta (the turning point) – in which Francesco Rutelli, a former leader of the left in the 2001 parliamentary elections and co-founder of the Democratic party, the main left group, flatly states that “if the party turns to the left, it’s finished”. In a talk in Rome last week, Mr Rutelli told me he thought such a turn was overwhelmingly likely.
In France, the Socialist party remains transfixed by the feud between its former leader, Ségolène Royal, and the woman who narrowly secured a fiercely disputed succession, Martine Aubry, the mayor of Lille. The latter has sought a working truce with her rival; but, as the commentator Michel Noblecourt wrote in Le Monde, this “will be tainted with distrust, each doubting the legitimacy of the other and staying on guard”.
The irony – that the left fails together with the banks – has been much noted, but may be less of a contradiction than is apparent. In different ways, European social democracy was pro-market and pro-globalisation – especially New Labour, which in Tony Blair’s early years in power was both leader and exemplar. Liberal social reforms, a lesser role for trade unions and, above all, mass immigration were all part of centre-left politics and were broadly acceptable to the mass of the people so long as living standards rose and public services improved. Now, that implicit deal is threatened.
In this situation, it is not only the right that exults. The left, within these mainstream parties and outside, now sees a chance. The times are propitious: those charged with writing a manifesto for a party such as Die Linke (The Left, founded by Oskar Lafontaine, the renegade former SPD finance minister whose vote increased last week) would have a pleasant task. The widely mooted collapse of capitalism; rapidly rising unemployment; the determined resumption of the habits of greed by bankers and others able to skim off fresh supplies of cream; the present or coming cuts in public services and pay; the continuing human cost and fiscal drain of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – these are a rich menu on which to make a meal of a centre-left that did well out of a successful capitalism’s surplus and now struggles in its decline. John Harris, the left-Labour commentator, encapsulated his position’s scorn for New Labour in the current issue of Prospect magazine, describing its policies as “a mishmash of beliefs that only entrenched the changes wrought by Margaret Thatcher”.
It will be no balm to centre-left leaders to observe that they are victims of the success of many of their central projects – in particular, the maintenance of generous welfare states. No governing party of the right in Europe, from Sweden to Italy, has sought radically to reduce taxes or make cuts to big social programmes; and though the latter may increasingly be the order of the day as the cost of anti-recessionary measures must be paid, the centre-left governments of Britain and Spain are as much implicated in this as the right.
Further, the right steals leftist clothes: an anti-elitist populism in Italy; a co-option of admired figures of the left into government in France; and in Britain, a resurgent Conservative party rails against Labour’s “top down” and “bureaucratic” reforms and talks of helping communities to help themselves. In ground long scorched for Conservatives – the constituency of Glasgow Central – the Tory candidate John Bradley brought in young Conservative students to work with local residents to clean up the Strathbungo area of the constituency. Mr Bradley claimed, on the website Conservative Home, that “bringing in local communities, and seeing their delight at what all of us have achieved at the end of a day’s work, is simply magnificent.”
The great causes – race, women’s and homosexual equality, community involvement, the spread of democratic practice – which had been significantly dominated by the left, are now largely uncontroversial on the western European right, except on its fringes and in parts of Italy’s governing coalition. The very success of decades of struggle render archaic the feminist rhetoric of Harriet Harman, Labour’s deputy leader, and has caused a debilitating split in Britain’s Equality Commission between those who, like Ms Harman, believe the struggle must continue and those who seek a targeted, post-equality agenda.
Neither success nor failure are permanent in politics; and in the gross inequalities of contemporary market societies, the centre-left may – as Mr Brown sought to do with his appeal to the “squeezed middle” of British society – recover a cause. But a remedy will be harder. For now, their party is over.
Greek socialists ride wave of discontent
By Kerin Hope in Athens
Athenians sipping cappuccino freddo applaud as Athina Dretta, a parliamentary candidate with the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, arrives on a motorcycle to make a 15-minute speech at the “Face Place” café.
But beyond the brightly lit café strip, empty shops displaying “for rent” signs and stalled construction projects give the Neo Iraklio suburb a depressed look. “Greece was booming until last year. Now we face recession and anxiety about the future. Will our kids be able to find jobs?” asks Mrs Dretta, a dentist and mother of two.
With a 5-7 percentage point lead over the governing New Democracy party, the socialists are poised to win Sunday’s general election and buck a European trend of backing centre-right political parties. The socialists under George Papandreou, a former foreign minister, are riding a wave of popular discontent over ND’s economic policies. Greece faces a long period of recession, with the economy set to shrink by about 1 per cent this year and 0.5 per cent in 2010.
While Kostas Karamanlis, prime minister, proposes two years of tight fiscal policies, the socialists plan to launch a €2.5bn ($3.6bn, £2.3bn) stimulus package for small and medium businesses and raise revenues through tax rises on high incomes. “We can’t have a recovery if we don’t take steps to get the economy moving again,” Mr Papandreou tells his supporters.
Until this year, Mr Papandreou struggled to persuade his party to set aside its militant leftwing tradition and adopt a social democrat platform of “soft development”.
“This is a time for institutional change,” Mr Papandreou said last week as he outlined plans for overhauling the state healthcare and pension systems and environmentally sound “green growth”.
New Democracy has lost credibility over a series of corruption scandals, the government’s failure to curb last December’s riots, and a disastrous forest fire last August that highlighted inefficiencies in public administration.
“As long as the economy was OK, you could overlook other things. Disappointingly, Greece faces not just a recession but several years of stagnation,” says Carolos Anastasiades, a businessman and ND supporter.
Public finances are in disarray, with the budget deficit projected to reach 6-8 per cent of gross domestic product this year. A 50 per cent increase in borrowing to fund the public debt – at 105 per cent of GDP, the eurozone’s second-highest – undermines the conservatives’ claim that Greece can weather the crisis without lasting problems.
Yet despite the socialists’ clear lead, under Greece’s proportional poll system, a last-minute swing to the far left could deprive them of an absolute majority.
Mr Papandreou has declared the socialists open to co-operation with smaller parties, but rules out a coalition or a minority government. If they fail to win outright, he is ready to fight another election next month.
“Every vote can make a difference, we mustn’t lose any. Only a stable government with a strong majority can implement the changes we need,” he says.
Athenians sipping cappuccino freddo applaud as Athina Dretta, a parliamentary candidate with the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, arrives on a motorcycle to make a 15-minute speech at the “Face Place” café.
But beyond the brightly lit café strip, empty shops displaying “for rent” signs and stalled construction projects give the Neo Iraklio suburb a depressed look. “Greece was booming until last year. Now we face recession and anxiety about the future. Will our kids be able to find jobs?” asks Mrs Dretta, a dentist and mother of two.
With a 5-7 percentage point lead over the governing New Democracy party, the socialists are poised to win Sunday’s general election and buck a European trend of backing centre-right political parties. The socialists under George Papandreou, a former foreign minister, are riding a wave of popular discontent over ND’s economic policies. Greece faces a long period of recession, with the economy set to shrink by about 1 per cent this year and 0.5 per cent in 2010.
While Kostas Karamanlis, prime minister, proposes two years of tight fiscal policies, the socialists plan to launch a €2.5bn ($3.6bn, £2.3bn) stimulus package for small and medium businesses and raise revenues through tax rises on high incomes. “We can’t have a recovery if we don’t take steps to get the economy moving again,” Mr Papandreou tells his supporters.
Until this year, Mr Papandreou struggled to persuade his party to set aside its militant leftwing tradition and adopt a social democrat platform of “soft development”.
“This is a time for institutional change,” Mr Papandreou said last week as he outlined plans for overhauling the state healthcare and pension systems and environmentally sound “green growth”.
New Democracy has lost credibility over a series of corruption scandals, the government’s failure to curb last December’s riots, and a disastrous forest fire last August that highlighted inefficiencies in public administration.
“As long as the economy was OK, you could overlook other things. Disappointingly, Greece faces not just a recession but several years of stagnation,” says Carolos Anastasiades, a businessman and ND supporter.
Public finances are in disarray, with the budget deficit projected to reach 6-8 per cent of gross domestic product this year. A 50 per cent increase in borrowing to fund the public debt – at 105 per cent of GDP, the eurozone’s second-highest – undermines the conservatives’ claim that Greece can weather the crisis without lasting problems.
Yet despite the socialists’ clear lead, under Greece’s proportional poll system, a last-minute swing to the far left could deprive them of an absolute majority.
Mr Papandreou has declared the socialists open to co-operation with smaller parties, but rules out a coalition or a minority government. If they fail to win outright, he is ready to fight another election next month.
“Every vote can make a difference, we mustn’t lose any. Only a stable government with a strong majority can implement the changes we need,” he says.
Irish 'Yes' to EU treaty expected
Voters appear to have backed the EU's Lisbon Treaty in the Republic of Ireland's crucial second referendum.
Early returns are showing clear majorities for the "Yes" campaign - just 18 months after voters rejected the treaty first time round.
The treaty, aimed at streamlining decision-making in the 27-nation EU, cannot take effect unless all member states ratify it.
Ireland's foreign minister predicted a convincing win for the "Yes" campaign.
"I am delighted for the country," Micheal Martin told Irish radio on Saturday.
The official result is expected late on Saturday afternoon.
Ireland was the only EU member state to hold a referendum on Lisbon, though there have been calls for referendums in several countries.
The leader of the anti-Lisbon lobby group Libertas, Declan Ganley, said the result marked a "very convincing win" for the "Yes" camp.
Counting started at centres across the country at 0900 (0800 GMT) and results are being relayed to the national count centre in Dublin Castle.
Tallies based on partial results indicate a 60:40 "Yes" vote in some constituencies.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, called it "an important victory for Ireland and for all of Europe".
He said it was just a matter of time until the EU "finally can push the button for the better European co-operation that the Lisbon Treaty will give us".
Turnout was higher than 50% when polling stations closed at 2200 on Friday.
Taoiseach optimistic
Many voters said they had switched from "No" to "Yes" this time around, the BBC's Jonny Dymond reports.
Opinion is thought to have swung behind the "Yes" vote this time because of the severity of the economic downturn, as well as the legal "guarantees" on Irish sovereignty that the EU pledged after the first referendum.
The legally binding "guarantees" state that Lisbon will not affect key areas of Irish sovereignty, such as taxation, military neutrality and family matters such as abortion - significant issues in last year's campaign in Ireland. But they have not yet been attached to the treaty.
The treaty is intended to make EU institutions better suited to the enlarged bloc of 27. The current Nice Treaty was designed for a 15-nation bloc and predates the EU's eastward expansion of 2004.
Opponents see Lisbon as part of a federalist agenda that threatens national sovereignty.
Big 'Yes' swing
Early count centre tallies showed constituencies in the capital Dublin had voted 56% in favour, with early indications from Galway putting the "Yes" vote at 63%, Irish broadcaster RTE reported.
An informal exit poll by the main opposition Fine Gael party estimated a 60% "Yes" vote, RTE said earlier.
Irish bookmaker Paddy Power was offering odds of 1/25 on a "Yes" vote - suggesting it was the overwhelming favourite.
In last year's vote, 46.6% of Irish voted "Yes" and 53.4% "No", and the rejection of the treaty plunged the EU into political gridlock.
The Irish anti-Lisbon group Coir said on Saturday voters appeared to have approved the treaty.
"We are extremely disappointed that the voice of the people was not heard the first time around," said Richard Greene, a spokesman for Coir, which means Justice in English.
Analysts say Irish approval of the Lisbon Treaty would be a big step towards full ratification across the EU. The only other countries yet to ratify the treaty are Poland and the Czech Republic.
Three million people were eligible to vote in the referendum.
All of the republic's major parties campaigned for a "Yes" vote except the nationalist Sinn Fein. The party believes rejecting the treaty would mean a more democratic EU.
Early returns are showing clear majorities for the "Yes" campaign - just 18 months after voters rejected the treaty first time round.
The treaty, aimed at streamlining decision-making in the 27-nation EU, cannot take effect unless all member states ratify it.
Ireland's foreign minister predicted a convincing win for the "Yes" campaign.
"I am delighted for the country," Micheal Martin told Irish radio on Saturday.
The official result is expected late on Saturday afternoon.
Ireland was the only EU member state to hold a referendum on Lisbon, though there have been calls for referendums in several countries.
The leader of the anti-Lisbon lobby group Libertas, Declan Ganley, said the result marked a "very convincing win" for the "Yes" camp.
Counting started at centres across the country at 0900 (0800 GMT) and results are being relayed to the national count centre in Dublin Castle.
Tallies based on partial results indicate a 60:40 "Yes" vote in some constituencies.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, called it "an important victory for Ireland and for all of Europe".
He said it was just a matter of time until the EU "finally can push the button for the better European co-operation that the Lisbon Treaty will give us".
Turnout was higher than 50% when polling stations closed at 2200 on Friday.
Taoiseach optimistic
Many voters said they had switched from "No" to "Yes" this time around, the BBC's Jonny Dymond reports.
Opinion is thought to have swung behind the "Yes" vote this time because of the severity of the economic downturn, as well as the legal "guarantees" on Irish sovereignty that the EU pledged after the first referendum.
The legally binding "guarantees" state that Lisbon will not affect key areas of Irish sovereignty, such as taxation, military neutrality and family matters such as abortion - significant issues in last year's campaign in Ireland. But they have not yet been attached to the treaty.
The treaty is intended to make EU institutions better suited to the enlarged bloc of 27. The current Nice Treaty was designed for a 15-nation bloc and predates the EU's eastward expansion of 2004.
Opponents see Lisbon as part of a federalist agenda that threatens national sovereignty.
Big 'Yes' swing
Early count centre tallies showed constituencies in the capital Dublin had voted 56% in favour, with early indications from Galway putting the "Yes" vote at 63%, Irish broadcaster RTE reported.
An informal exit poll by the main opposition Fine Gael party estimated a 60% "Yes" vote, RTE said earlier.
Irish bookmaker Paddy Power was offering odds of 1/25 on a "Yes" vote - suggesting it was the overwhelming favourite.
In last year's vote, 46.6% of Irish voted "Yes" and 53.4% "No", and the rejection of the treaty plunged the EU into political gridlock.
The Irish anti-Lisbon group Coir said on Saturday voters appeared to have approved the treaty.
"We are extremely disappointed that the voice of the people was not heard the first time around," said Richard Greene, a spokesman for Coir, which means Justice in English.
Analysts say Irish approval of the Lisbon Treaty would be a big step towards full ratification across the EU. The only other countries yet to ratify the treaty are Poland and the Czech Republic.
Three million people were eligible to vote in the referendum.
All of the republic's major parties campaigned for a "Yes" vote except the nationalist Sinn Fein. The party believes rejecting the treaty would mean a more democratic EU.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Georgia 'started unjustified war'
Georgia 'started unjustified war'
The war in Georgia last year was started by a Georgian attack that was not justified by international law, an EU-sponsored report has concluded.
However, the attack followed months of provocation, and both sides violated international law, the report said.
Russia said the report delivered an "unequivocal answer" on the question of who started the conflict.
But Georgia said the investigation proved that Russia had been preparing for war all along.
The report said about 850 people were killed in the August 2008 war, and that more than 100,000 fled their homes, about 35,000 of whom are still displaced.
The conflict erupted on 7 August 2008, as Georgia shelled the breakaway region of South Ossetia, in an attempt to regain control over it. The previous months had seen a series of clashes.
Russian forces quickly repelled the assault, and pushed further into Georgia.
The conflict lasted for five days before a ceasefire was agreed. Russia pulled back, but built up its military presence in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
'Not justifiable'
"The shelling of Tskhinvali (the South Ossetian capital) by the Georgian armed forces during the night of 7 to 8 August 2008 marked the beginning of the large-scale armed conflict in Georgia," the report says.
It adds later: "There is the question of whether [this] use of force... was justifiable under international law. It was not."
It also says Georgia's claim that there had been a large-scale Russian military incursion into South Ossetia before the outbreak of war could not be "sufficiently substantiated", though it said there was evidence of a lower-level military build-up.
The report states that while Russia's initial actions in fighting back against attacks on its personnel in South Ossetia were justified, its subsequent actions, in pushing far into Georgia proper "went far beyond the reasonable limits of defence" and was "in violation of international law".
"Furthermore, continued destruction which came after the ceasefire agreement was not justifiable by any means."
Given the European Union's relations with Russia have improved compared to a year ago, the EU may welcome the report itself, but may want to distance itself from the content, says the BBC Brussels correspondent Dominic Hughes.
EU countries said in a statement the report was not about apportioning blame, but they hoped it could "contribute toward a better understanding of the origins and the course of last year's conflict".
Russia has recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent and has vowed to protect them.
However, Georgia and the vast majority of the international community still views them as part of Georgia, and the report's author said Russia's recognition "must be considered as being not valid in the context of international law, and as violations of Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty."
Aid agencies say a refugee crisis continues in the region, with the Russian-backed authorities in South Ossetia refusing to allow tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians back to their homes in the region.
The war in Georgia last year was started by a Georgian attack that was not justified by international law, an EU-sponsored report has concluded.
However, the attack followed months of provocation, and both sides violated international law, the report said.
Russia said the report delivered an "unequivocal answer" on the question of who started the conflict.
But Georgia said the investigation proved that Russia had been preparing for war all along.
The report said about 850 people were killed in the August 2008 war, and that more than 100,000 fled their homes, about 35,000 of whom are still displaced.
The conflict erupted on 7 August 2008, as Georgia shelled the breakaway region of South Ossetia, in an attempt to regain control over it. The previous months had seen a series of clashes.
Russian forces quickly repelled the assault, and pushed further into Georgia.
The conflict lasted for five days before a ceasefire was agreed. Russia pulled back, but built up its military presence in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
'Not justifiable'
"The shelling of Tskhinvali (the South Ossetian capital) by the Georgian armed forces during the night of 7 to 8 August 2008 marked the beginning of the large-scale armed conflict in Georgia," the report says.
It adds later: "There is the question of whether [this] use of force... was justifiable under international law. It was not."
It also says Georgia's claim that there had been a large-scale Russian military incursion into South Ossetia before the outbreak of war could not be "sufficiently substantiated", though it said there was evidence of a lower-level military build-up.
The report states that while Russia's initial actions in fighting back against attacks on its personnel in South Ossetia were justified, its subsequent actions, in pushing far into Georgia proper "went far beyond the reasonable limits of defence" and was "in violation of international law".
"Furthermore, continued destruction which came after the ceasefire agreement was not justifiable by any means."
Given the European Union's relations with Russia have improved compared to a year ago, the EU may welcome the report itself, but may want to distance itself from the content, says the BBC Brussels correspondent Dominic Hughes.
EU countries said in a statement the report was not about apportioning blame, but they hoped it could "contribute toward a better understanding of the origins and the course of last year's conflict".
Russia has recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent and has vowed to protect them.
However, Georgia and the vast majority of the international community still views them as part of Georgia, and the report's author said Russia's recognition "must be considered as being not valid in the context of international law, and as violations of Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty."
Aid agencies say a refugee crisis continues in the region, with the Russian-backed authorities in South Ossetia refusing to allow tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians back to their homes in the region.
ICG warns of possible Cyprus partition
By Delphine Strauss in Ankara
A de facto partition of Cyprus will be the only option remaining if talks to reunify the island have not produced a settlement by the spring, the International Crisis Group warns in a report published on Wednesday.
A year of United Nations-brokered talks between Demetris Christofias, president of the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government of Cyprus, and Mehmet Ali Talat, his Turkish Cypriot counterpart and friend, have made only limited progress on the most controversial issues of property, security and power sharing.
If a referendum on reunification does not take place before April’s elections in the north, which is recognised as a state only by Turkey, Mr Talat is likely to be replaced by a candidate sceptical of the basic formula of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation.
Mr Talat told the FT in an interview earlier this month that it was the “last chance for a solution”, although he gave no deadline by which talks must be concluded.
“The future is either federation or partition,” according to a senior diplomat from the region cited in the report.
The ICG notes it would be difficult to revive talks, as the UN and other possible brokers are reluctant to be implicated in further failures, and young people in both communities are growing increasingly indifferent to the issue.
A permanent split, whether formally recognised or not, would mean slower economic growth, higher defence spending and reduced international credibility for both sides, the report argues. It could also persuade many Turkish Cypriots to seek better prospects elsewhere, whether overseas or in the south of the island.
A UN-sponsored reunification plan, which would have turned Cyprus into a loose federation, was derailed in 2004 when Turkish Cypriots approved it by 65 to 35 per cent in a referendum but Greek Cypriots rejected it by 76 to 24 per cent. The European Union admitted the Greek Cypriots as the island’s sole representatives, a step that has severely complicated Turkey’s EU accession talks.
The ICG urges Turkey to end a boycott on direct talks with Greek Cypriots, saying: “The gravest disconnect plaguing the talks is mistrust between two of the principal actors.” But it warns: “Today’s stronger, more prosperous Turkey is more ready than in the past to defy the EU and risk irreversible damage to the relationship over what it also sees as issues of national interest and justice.”
A de facto partition of Cyprus will be the only option remaining if talks to reunify the island have not produced a settlement by the spring, the International Crisis Group warns in a report published on Wednesday.
A year of United Nations-brokered talks between Demetris Christofias, president of the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government of Cyprus, and Mehmet Ali Talat, his Turkish Cypriot counterpart and friend, have made only limited progress on the most controversial issues of property, security and power sharing.
If a referendum on reunification does not take place before April’s elections in the north, which is recognised as a state only by Turkey, Mr Talat is likely to be replaced by a candidate sceptical of the basic formula of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation.
Mr Talat told the FT in an interview earlier this month that it was the “last chance for a solution”, although he gave no deadline by which talks must be concluded.
“The future is either federation or partition,” according to a senior diplomat from the region cited in the report.
The ICG notes it would be difficult to revive talks, as the UN and other possible brokers are reluctant to be implicated in further failures, and young people in both communities are growing increasingly indifferent to the issue.
A permanent split, whether formally recognised or not, would mean slower economic growth, higher defence spending and reduced international credibility for both sides, the report argues. It could also persuade many Turkish Cypriots to seek better prospects elsewhere, whether overseas or in the south of the island.
A UN-sponsored reunification plan, which would have turned Cyprus into a loose federation, was derailed in 2004 when Turkish Cypriots approved it by 65 to 35 per cent in a referendum but Greek Cypriots rejected it by 76 to 24 per cent. The European Union admitted the Greek Cypriots as the island’s sole representatives, a step that has severely complicated Turkey’s EU accession talks.
The ICG urges Turkey to end a boycott on direct talks with Greek Cypriots, saying: “The gravest disconnect plaguing the talks is mistrust between two of the principal actors.” But it warns: “Today’s stronger, more prosperous Turkey is more ready than in the past to defy the EU and risk irreversible damage to the relationship over what it also sees as issues of national interest and justice.”
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