Post by peterd on Sept 5, 2013 12:23:25 GMT -8
Putin Ridicules US While Defending Russia’s Democracy, Human and Gay Rights Record
Last month, the White House canceled President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow in the first week of September for a summit with President Vladimir Putin because of mounting deadlock in bilateral relations and the Russian decision to grant fugitive United States National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden official refuge in Russia (see EDM, August 8). Though the summit did not happen, Putin still granted a prolonged joint interview to the Associated Press news agency and Russian state-controlled Channel One TV, which was preplanned to provide the Kremlin’s take on US-Russian relations. With no Obama in Moscow, Putin used the interview to push back Western criticism of Russia’s human rights record and ridicule Obama over Snowden and Syria.
The G20 economic summit begins this week in St. Petersburg on September 5, and Obama will be attending. The preplanned agenda of the G20 does not reference any discussion of the conflict in Syria, but Putin agreed that “the situation is very serious” and it may be discussed by the world leaders. Putin expressed regret that the Moscow summit with Obama was canceled, but said he still hopes to a meet with the US president in St. Petersburg on the sidelines of the G20 (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143). In St. Petersburg, Obama will be meeting with a select group of Russian human rights activists on September 5. The Kremlin expressed disappointment and dismay at the US president’s meeting with Russian opposition figures, while Obama continues to avoid meeting with Putin (Kommersant, September 4). It is highly important for Putin—while not conceding anything on Syria or Snowden, or any other issue of substance—to clinch a meeting with Obama. And in his interview, Russia’s head of state did offer some bait: Moscow “may approve” military action against the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, if “convincing” evidence is presented that Syrian government forces indeed used chemical weapons on August 21 in Damascus (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143).
Putin added that the use of weapons of mass destruction is a crime. In the West, this statement was interpreted as a possible softening of the Russian stand on Syria. But in Russia, experts insist Putin’s remarks are “a form of diplomatic deceit.” Moscow may allow Washington to spend time presenting evidence of the al-Assad forces using chemical weapons but will never find them “convincing.” Russian diplomats have accused the Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons; and Putin, in fact, offered to use force against the rebel forces, not al-Assad (http://ria.ru/politics/20130904/960642994.html).
Russia’s president insists no concrete evidence exists that any nerve gas was used in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. Rather, he argues that the al-Assad forces “are winning, destroying the opposition and there is no sense for them to use chemical weapons” (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143). Moreover, Putin publicly accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of “lying” in Congress by saying there was no al-Qaeda presence in Syria (a statement Kerry did not make). Putin insists the US Congress does not have the legal right to approve military action in Syria and that any such action would be an act of “aggression,” which would destabilize the region (http://ria.ru/arab_riot/20130904/960795467.html).
Putin has refused to specify what action Moscow may take if the US eventually takes military action to punish al-Assad. Meanwhile, however, the Russian navy has been expanding its military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean: An intelligence-gathering ship “Priazovye,” has joined the flotilla to monitor possible US actions, and the missile cruiser “Moskva” and two landing craft ships are on their way. According to Russian naval sources, there is, apparently, at least one Russian nuclear attack submarine in the Mediterranean. Russia’s most powerful battle ship—the huge, cruise and S-300F anti-aircraft missile carrying nuclear-powered cruiser “Pyotr Veliky”—is also reportedly heading to the Mediterranean. The Russian naval command hopes its naval presence may possibly deter the US from going into action (Interfax, September 4).
On September 3, the Russian defense ministry created a commotion on world stock exchanges by publicly announcing that “two ballistic missiles were launched at Syria from the Mediterranean,” presumably by a US submarine (http://ria.ru/world/20130903/960420038.html). The Russian early warning radar near Armavir in the North Caucasus apparently mistook a small Israeli Sparrow decoy missile that was test launched by a jet over the Mediterranean for a US submarine ballistic missile launch. Before the mistake was clarified, the defense ministry told journalists that its chief, Sergei Shoigu, had personally reported the launch to Putin (http://www.interfax.ru/print.asp?sec=1446&id=326758). Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told journalists the Russian central nuclear command in the General Staff was placed on heightened alert on September 3. Antonov advised Israel “not to fan the flames” in the future by unannounced missile launches, “since the US submarines in the region may be carrying conventional as well as nuclear missiles” (http://ria.ru/world/20130903/960522356.html).
While raising the stakes on Syria to a nuclear threshold, Putin ridiculed Washington over Snowden. In particular, he officially disclosed that Snowden had a meeting with Russian diplomats in Hong Kong last June before flying to Moscow and, according to Putin, “simply left” without apparently reaching any solid agreement on refuge in Russia. Putin mocked the “unprofessionalism” of US diplomats and spies, who instead of creating a world-wide fuss demanding extradition, could have quietly allowed Snowden to transit to some Latin American or other country from which it would have been possible to kidnap the defector. “Now he is safe,” the Russian leader stated, adding, “We will not hand him over” (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143).
On September 8, Muscovites will be electing the city’s mayor, who is the governor of the richest, most populous and politically most important subject of the Russian Federation. Muscovites are free to elect anyone they choose, said Putin and added, that the Kremlin-appointed incumbent Sergei Sobyanin is a wonderful mayor and “is supported by a 60-percent majority,” while the leading opposition candidate, anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, is a thief and a convicted felon (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143).
Putin continued on and on, announcing “Ukraine and Russia are really one nation” and will eventually reunite despite all odds and attempts by the European Union to pull the two apart. Contrary to Western press reports, he went on, gays are tolerated in Russia and foreigners will not be arrested during the 2014 Sochi Olympics for exhibiting rainbow badges, while “in some US states” (Oklahoma and Texas, according to Putin) gay intercourse between adults is a felony (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143). And these people attempt to teach us human rights, democracy and what to do in Syria, exclaimed the frustrated authoritarian ruler—a sentiment any communist or feudal Russian tsar of the past could easily share.
--Pavel Felgenhauer
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Competition for Russia’s Top Landmarks Alienates Chechens
During the last two weeks of August, practically all the residents of Chechnya were busy voting for the republic’s main mosque, called the “Heart of Chechnya,” in the competition for Russia’s top ten landmarks (http://10russia.ru/rules). The contest was launched in March and will conclude at the end of September, when the ten top sites will be revealed.
The Russian Geographical Society together with the Rossiya TV channel organized the contest for Russia’s top ten landmarks. Few people heard about the competition during the period of March–June, but everything changed after the local branch of the Russian Geographical Society in Chechnya asked Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to support their idea of organizing voting for the Heart of Chechnya mosque (http://www.mosoblpress.ru/43/140901/). The organizers of the contest realized perfectly well that Kadyrov’s participation would not be limited to just him personally, but would engage his entire administrative apparatus, as happened subsequently. Kadyrov addressed all residents of Chechnya from his Instagram account, asking them to vote for the Chechen mosque. Naturally, this was not a matter of voluntary participation. Kadyrov launched the campaign in a speech at a governmental meeting on August 13 (http://www.ridus.ru/news/103735/), after which all of the republic’s ministries and agencies started daily voting. The Heart of Chechnya mosque consistently led the competition, taking the first position from mid-August onwards. Muslims from all over Russia also participated in supporting Chechnya’s bid. Muftis from all the North Caucasian republics were invited to Chechnya, and they called on everyone to vote for Heart of Chechnya, standing against the backdrop of the mosque.
The Chechen authorities’ proactive approach to voting provoked a massive wave of anti-Chechen statements on the Internet (http://www.yaplakal.com/forum28/topic634256.html). The very idea that a mosque might become Russia’s symbol was killing Russian nationalists and patriotic youth (http://topwar.ru/32271-simvol-rossii.html). As a result, serious battles broke out on the Internet. The slogan “Anything but the mosque” became widely used among Russians (http://www.kurer-sreda.ru/2013/08/22/111923).
During the three weeks of voting in the second round that ended on August 30, thirty-eight million votes were cast for the mosque. Nevertheless, the mosque came in second behind Kolomensky Kremlin, in the Moscow Oblast city of Kolomna, which placed first by a small margin—400,000 votes. Few people had heard of Kolomensky Kremlin. The site that came in third lagged behind the top two choices by nearly 36 million votes, winning only 1.6 million votes.
The ratio of 38 million votes to the total Chechen population of 1.3 million residents is explained by the rules of the contest, which allowed people to vote multiple times via texting. Residents of Chechnya actively texted to promote the mosque. An acquaintance of this author admitted having submitted nearly 5,000 texts in support of the mosque over just two days. The individual was surprised to find out that in the second round a site needed to become one of 30 sites in order to advance to the third and final round. So nearly everyone in Chechnya sincerely thought that Chechnya should become first in the second round, but there was no actual need to win the second tour beyond securing one of the 30 top slots. The organizers of the competition received about $7 million just from the active texting by Chechens and Russian nationalists, who voted for Kolomensky Kremlin. In the third round, all the votes from the previous round were eliminated. So the scramble was essentially for satisfying one’s own vanity.
Kadyrov was disappointed with the results and accused everyone of playing against the mosque, including the phone companies, which allegedly stopped accepting votes for the mosque on the evening of August 29. So the head of Chechnya made a personal decision to remove the Heart of Chechnya from the contest (http://www.grozny-inform.ru/main.mhtml?Part=11&PubID=44967). Moreover, in the best tradition of the Soviet past, “indignant” young Chechens pelted the offices of the cell phone companies Megafon and Beeline with eggs. In Kadyrov’s opinion, the companies were guilty of throwing away one million votes cast for the mosque on the last night (http://mosday.ru/news/item.php?214135).
For safety reasons, cell operators were forced to shut down their offices throughout Chechnya and reopened only a day later (http://www.echomsk.spb.ru/news/kriminal/bilayn-i-megafon-vnov.html). At the same time, the State Duma deputies from Chechnya were ordered to ask the Investigative Committee to launch a criminal investigation of those forces that blocked votes cast for the mosque in Grozny (http://chechnyatoday.com/content/view/274690). Further, the incident pushed Kadyrov to call on Chechens to stop using the services of Megafon and Beeline from Moscow and start using the republican operator Vainakh Telekom (http://ria.ru/society/20130830/959766073.html).
Even that was not enough. The Chechen branch of the Russian Geographical Society announced it was disbanding itself to protest the “falsified” results of the Russia-10 competition (http://www.rosbalt.ru/federal/2013/08/31/1170431.html). But this resulted in an outcry in Moscow, with Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating that the regional branch’s decision to disband was undesirable (http://www.aif.ru/politics/news/440435). Peksov’s comments signaled there is a limit to Chechen indignation, beyond which sanctions might follow.
The competition itself had multiple issues, such as the promotion of sites that many Russian knew nothing about, the voting procedure that allowed multiple votes by the same person and so on (http://www.aif.ru/society/article/66100). The primary result of the competition is that Russia continues to regard Chechens as enemies. Deliberately or not, the competition pushed Chechens back to the 1990s, when they trusted Moscow less. The reaction of the Chechen officials who called on cell phone users in the republic to switch to Vainakh Telekom is notable. Adherence to national enterprises became the symbolic defensive gesture against Russian chauvinism and its rejection of Chechens. Thus, the Russian authorities themselves are setting the Chechens on a path toward national separatism. The competition proved to be an utter disaster for the Chechen pro-Russian patriotism that the Kremlin carefully cultivated in Chechnya for the past 13 years.
--Mairbek Vatchagaev
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Armenia Chooses Russia and Eurasia over the European Union
On September 3, in Moscow, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia jointly sank Armenia’s association, trade and visa liberalization agreements with the European Union, which were due to be concluded at the Vilnius summit in November. Instead, Sargsyan announced his decision to join the Russia-led Customs Union now, and the even more ambitious Eurasian Union under Russian leadership by 2015.
Sargsyan took this step in full knowledge that joining the Russia-led Customs Union rules out association with the European Union. Both Moscow and Brussels regard these two options as mutually exclusive: Moscow mainly for political and geopolitical reasons, Brussels mainly from technical considerations as the two tariff systems are incompatible with one another. Armenia had to choose, and Sargsyan announced the choice.
The EU-Armenia association and free-trade agreements had taken three years to negotiate, were practically complete by July 2013, and were scheduled to be initialed in Vilnius in November, along with a first-phase visa liberalization document. Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are scheduled to conclude similar agreements with the European Union in November at the Vilnius summit. Armenia is out, its entrenched economic and military reliance on Russia simply outweighing the European option. Yerevan has itself built that heavy reliance assiduously since 1998 under two consecutive two-term presidencies, including that of Sargsyan who was last re-elected in February 2013.
Sargsyan announced his decision in a joint briefing with Putin to the media and separately through a Putin-Sargsyan joint communiqué. In the briefing, Sargsyan argued that joining the Russia-led integration structures was fully in line with Armenia’s interests. Moreover, he contended (“as I have stated on many occasions,” he pointed out) that Armenia’s membership in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) necessitates joining the economic structure that covers the same geographic space, under Russian leadership. Sargsyan portrayed these twin choices as rational and natural for Armenia in his briefing. The joint communiqué enumerates Russia’s flagship economic projects in Armenia and announces the bombshell decision toward the end of the document.
Putin was the first to announce Sargsyan’s decision at the joint briefing, before Sargsyan had spoken. Whether this humiliation was deliberate or inadvertent on Putin’s part, the Armenian president took it without murmur.
Sargsyan spoke in his own name as president, without invoking any Armenian institutional authority, not even referencing Armenian ratification procedures. He implicitly took the full responsibility onto himself. Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov explained that Yerevan’s next step would be to request the Customs Union’s founding countries (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan) as well as the Eurasian Economic Commission (Russian-led, supranational executive body) to admit Armenia as a member country. But, he clarified, “the political decision has already been made in Armenia and in Russia.”
Some Yerevan commentators initially clung to one sentence in which Sargsyan said that Armenia “desires” to join the Russia-led Customs Union and subsequently the Eurasian Union. Desire would have fallen short of commitment and could imply playing for time. However, the word “decision” is used everywhere else in the Russian- and English-language version of the briefing transcript, joint communiqué, and related statements in Moscow and press releases from Sargsyan’s office in Yerevan (Armenpress, Interfax, www.kremlin.ru, September 3, 4).
Putin and Sargsyan both used the Moscow meeting to highlight Russia’s massive economic presence in Armenia, including: Gazprom as majority owner of Armenia’s pipeline system and the sole gas supplier; Russia’s Inter-RAO Unified Electricity System owning almost in full Armenia’s hydro- and thermal power generating capacities; Rosatom working to prolong the service life of Armenia’s Medzamor nuclear power plant by a further 10 years, through 2026; Russian Railways operating Armenia’s railway system and allegedly envisaging $450 million worth of new investment there; Russian cumulative investment in Armenia currently exceeding $3 billion, or approximately one half of total foreign investment in this country whose total annual total GDP was reported at $9.8 billion in 2012 (Interfax, Armenpress, September 3, 4).
None of that has lifted Armenia from its deep poverty, but it does buy Russian political influence directly and political leverage in the background. Armenian mass labor migration to Russia provides a further source of leverage. It was not mentioned publicly by Putin and Sargsyan in Moscow, but it could become a compelling factor if Yerevan changes its mind. In that case, Russia could threaten to impose restrictions on visas and work permits unless Armenia joins the Customs Union.
In previous years, Yerevan used to draw a clear distinction between a military alliance with Russia/CSTO (deemed necessary by Armenia) and economic integration in Russian-led multilateral structures (long deemed disadvantageous by Yerevan’s influential oligarchs). That distinction has more recently been vanishing and Sargsyan seems to have officially erased it. By his own statements, he now seems to regard economic integration under Russian leadership as a corollary to Armenia’s military reliance on Russia (see above). References to the CSTO, however, serve primarily a ritualistic function. The bilateral alliance with Russia alone matters.
Armenia’s association and free-trade agreements with the European Union would have in no way or measure undermined Russia’s overwhelming economic and military presence in the country. It would have provided some export diversification opportunities to Europe, modest at first, and with potential to grow over time. More importantly it would have enabled Armenia to gradually assimilate the EU’s legal, regulatory, and product quality–standard acquis. These opportunities seem lost now.
Elements in the Armenian government, including Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan (no relation to Serzh Sargsyan) were clearly unenthusiastic all along about the Russia-led Customs Union. In 2012, Putin and the Armenian president began discussions about Armenia’s accession to the Customs Union, whereupon Tigran Sargsyan signed a memorandum of understanding on this with the Eurasian Economic Commission’s chief, Russian official Viktor Khristenko, in April 2013 (RFE/RL, August 6).
Armenia, however, is not contiguous to the Customs Union’s territory. This “little local difficulty” has no known solution thus far. It might motivate Russia to seek a solution by pressuring or luring the current Georgian government. Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili stated on September 4 (undoubtedly under the impression of Sargsyan’s Moscow visit) that the Russia-led Customs Union might perhaps be an “interesting” option for Georgia (EU Observer, September 4).
--Vladimir Socor
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Events in Adjara May Provoke Tensions Between Georgia and Turkey
The Georgian authorities’ decision to dismantle a mosque minaret in the village of Chela on August 26 triggered an incident in the Samtskhe-Javakheti and Adjara regions where tensions between Christians and Muslims have surfaced for the first time in many decades (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26386). Locals said that the actions of the police and construction workers, who were specifically brought for this purpose from the neighboring town of Akhaltsikhe, took them by complete surprise. “In the morning we saw that unknown people were dismantling our sacred minaret and trying to take it away, loading it on a truck. Young villagers tried to stop them, but several of them were beaten up and arrested,” Merab Tsetskhladze, a Chela resident recounted (Author’s interview, August 29).
It later came to light that the Tax Service of the Ministry of Finance hired the company to execute the dismantling. “We had information that the minaret construction was unlawfully imported from Turkey. So we had to examine the evidence. But we are prepared to return the minaret to its place at our own expense after the completion of all legal procedures,” a source in the Ministry of Finance that wished to remain anonymous reassured Jamestown (Author’s interview, August 29). For now Tbilisi and Ankara have kept quiet about the foreign policy implications of this serious incident.
Muslim residents of Chela do not believe that a tax audit was the actual cause of the dismantling of the religious building. The village is rife with rumors that the Georgian Orthodox Church is jealous of the rise of Islam’s popularity in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. According to the villagers, Georgian authorities resented the fact that the minaret was paid for by one of numerous Islamic funds in Turkey (http://www.interpressnews.ge/ge/sazogadoeba/251176-thurqul-mkhares-sofel-tcelas-minarethi-22-athasi-lira-daujda.html).
Georgian legislation does not explicitly prohibit the construction of minarets, but an unofficial ban persists in the country. The authorities invariably stand against such construction projects, fearing the rise of religious tensions. “A private person brought the minaret from Turkey without our consent, and it was installed in secret in Chela in one night. So we had all grounds to fear there would be tensions,” a regional official, Khatuna Khomasuridze, explained to Jamestown on August 29.
However, the phobias of the local authorities and among some Georgian Christians nearly ended in bloodshed as the Georgian Muslims attempted to liberate the villagers who were earlier arrested. Protesters broke the regional police station’s fence and entered into fistfights with Georgian special police forces. Several people received injuries, and 20 demonstrators were arrested (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26386). However, the authorities, fearing further escalation, soon released all of the arrested, serving them only with a symbolic fine of 400 lari ($240). Almost all participants of the protest then went to the Adjara autonomous republic and gathered in the primary mosque in Batumi. Adjara’s mufti and the head of the directorate of Georgian Muslims, Jemal Paskadze, issued a warning that if the minaret was not returned to Chela, the Muslims would perceive it as a brazen breach of their religious rights. Having come to the mosque, President Mikheil Saakashvili supported the mufti, stating that the actions of Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s government “are spoiling Georgia’s relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, and the country might end up facing Russian alone” (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26390).
The head of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, Archil Khabadze, told the Muslims in the mosque that he had persuaded Ivanishvili to return the minaret to Chela (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26395). However, the final decision was taken after talks between Christian and Muslim clerics in Tbilisi. Ilia II, the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, personally met the muftis (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26398). “We reached an agreement that the minaret will go back to its lawful owner,” but it will not be put back up, a spokesperson for the Georgian Orthodox Church stated. Christian residents of the Samtskhe-Javakheti region attempted to prevent the agreement’s implementation by blocking a central highway, but the orthodox clerics managed to calm them down to avoid invalidating the compromise (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26396).
Nevertheless, the situation remains tense. Georgian Christians fear that the minaret will secretly be restored onto the mosque again, while Georgian Muslims see no possibility to establish their religious life beyond the limits of Adjara.
Protests have shifted to Adjara’s capital, Batumi. The Muslim community now demands the right to construct a large mosque that would become the focal point for all Muslims in Georgia. However, Georgian authorities are cool to the idea, while Adjara’s Christians are gearing up to stage demonstrations against the proposed new mosque (http://www.pravda.ru/news/world/05-03-2012/1110344-batumi-0).
Experts differ on who is behind the rise of religious tensions in the country. Independent analyst Mikhail Tavkhelidze is convinced that accusing Turkey of involvement in the latest events is unjustified. “Turkey is not interested in Georgia’s destabilization [or in] provoking clashes between Christians and Muslims. The only country whose security services are interested in such an outcome and have the experience of provoking such conflicts is Russia,” Tavkhelidze said. According to the expert, “The KGB, GRU [military intelligence] and their contemporary successors have retained an extensive network of ‘agents of influence’ in Georgia, [who] provoke harmful excesses” (Author’s interview, August 29).
The leader of the political party “Georgian Assembly,” Jondi Bagaturia, holds the opposite view. Georgian authorities had to “curb the impertinent actions of the Turkish security services to advance political Islam in Georgia,” the politician said. “Turkey is trying to use Islam to strengthen its positions in Adjara and Samtskhe-Javakheti. They dream of establishing ‘a Greater Turkey’ inside the borders of the [former] Ottoman Empire, from Batumi to Benghazi. Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs [Ahmet] Davutoglu has recently stated this,” Bagaturia asserted (Author’s interview, August 29). The politician expressed his discontent with how “the Georgian authorities allow the agents of the Turkish security services to act freely and spread Islam for imperialist and aggressive purposes in the southern regions of [Georgia]” (Author’s interview, August 29).
However, not all experts interviewed by Jamestown agree with such conspiracy theories. “There is no need to explain the foolish decisions of particular officials to dismantle the minaret on the pretext of a financial oversight […] with foreign agents’ sabotage,” political analyst Georgi Nodia told Jamestown on August 29.
Ankara doubtlessly follows the events in Adjara very closely. According to the 1921 Kars Agreement, Turkey has legal rights to defend Muslims in this region (http://www.georgiatimes.info/en/analysis/89074-1.html). During the last meeting of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ivanishvili, the two sides reached an agreement about constructing a large mosque in Batumi. But Georgia’s head of government failed to make good on the promise because of the protests of Christians in Adjara. Diplomatic pressure from Ankara is bound to increase, since Erdogan’s government has traditionally paid great attention to the issue of protecting Muslims’ rights in neighboring countries. And contemporary Georgia is too dependent on Turkey economically to ignore Ankara’s concerns about the rising tensions around Adjara and its Georgian Muslim community.
--Giorgi Menabde
Last month, the White House canceled President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow in the first week of September for a summit with President Vladimir Putin because of mounting deadlock in bilateral relations and the Russian decision to grant fugitive United States National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden official refuge in Russia (see EDM, August 8). Though the summit did not happen, Putin still granted a prolonged joint interview to the Associated Press news agency and Russian state-controlled Channel One TV, which was preplanned to provide the Kremlin’s take on US-Russian relations. With no Obama in Moscow, Putin used the interview to push back Western criticism of Russia’s human rights record and ridicule Obama over Snowden and Syria.
The G20 economic summit begins this week in St. Petersburg on September 5, and Obama will be attending. The preplanned agenda of the G20 does not reference any discussion of the conflict in Syria, but Putin agreed that “the situation is very serious” and it may be discussed by the world leaders. Putin expressed regret that the Moscow summit with Obama was canceled, but said he still hopes to a meet with the US president in St. Petersburg on the sidelines of the G20 (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143). In St. Petersburg, Obama will be meeting with a select group of Russian human rights activists on September 5. The Kremlin expressed disappointment and dismay at the US president’s meeting with Russian opposition figures, while Obama continues to avoid meeting with Putin (Kommersant, September 4). It is highly important for Putin—while not conceding anything on Syria or Snowden, or any other issue of substance—to clinch a meeting with Obama. And in his interview, Russia’s head of state did offer some bait: Moscow “may approve” military action against the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, if “convincing” evidence is presented that Syrian government forces indeed used chemical weapons on August 21 in Damascus (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143).
Putin added that the use of weapons of mass destruction is a crime. In the West, this statement was interpreted as a possible softening of the Russian stand on Syria. But in Russia, experts insist Putin’s remarks are “a form of diplomatic deceit.” Moscow may allow Washington to spend time presenting evidence of the al-Assad forces using chemical weapons but will never find them “convincing.” Russian diplomats have accused the Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons; and Putin, in fact, offered to use force against the rebel forces, not al-Assad (http://ria.ru/politics/20130904/960642994.html).
Russia’s president insists no concrete evidence exists that any nerve gas was used in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. Rather, he argues that the al-Assad forces “are winning, destroying the opposition and there is no sense for them to use chemical weapons” (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143). Moreover, Putin publicly accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of “lying” in Congress by saying there was no al-Qaeda presence in Syria (a statement Kerry did not make). Putin insists the US Congress does not have the legal right to approve military action in Syria and that any such action would be an act of “aggression,” which would destabilize the region (http://ria.ru/arab_riot/20130904/960795467.html).
Putin has refused to specify what action Moscow may take if the US eventually takes military action to punish al-Assad. Meanwhile, however, the Russian navy has been expanding its military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean: An intelligence-gathering ship “Priazovye,” has joined the flotilla to monitor possible US actions, and the missile cruiser “Moskva” and two landing craft ships are on their way. According to Russian naval sources, there is, apparently, at least one Russian nuclear attack submarine in the Mediterranean. Russia’s most powerful battle ship—the huge, cruise and S-300F anti-aircraft missile carrying nuclear-powered cruiser “Pyotr Veliky”—is also reportedly heading to the Mediterranean. The Russian naval command hopes its naval presence may possibly deter the US from going into action (Interfax, September 4).
On September 3, the Russian defense ministry created a commotion on world stock exchanges by publicly announcing that “two ballistic missiles were launched at Syria from the Mediterranean,” presumably by a US submarine (http://ria.ru/world/20130903/960420038.html). The Russian early warning radar near Armavir in the North Caucasus apparently mistook a small Israeli Sparrow decoy missile that was test launched by a jet over the Mediterranean for a US submarine ballistic missile launch. Before the mistake was clarified, the defense ministry told journalists that its chief, Sergei Shoigu, had personally reported the launch to Putin (http://www.interfax.ru/print.asp?sec=1446&id=326758). Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told journalists the Russian central nuclear command in the General Staff was placed on heightened alert on September 3. Antonov advised Israel “not to fan the flames” in the future by unannounced missile launches, “since the US submarines in the region may be carrying conventional as well as nuclear missiles” (http://ria.ru/world/20130903/960522356.html).
While raising the stakes on Syria to a nuclear threshold, Putin ridiculed Washington over Snowden. In particular, he officially disclosed that Snowden had a meeting with Russian diplomats in Hong Kong last June before flying to Moscow and, according to Putin, “simply left” without apparently reaching any solid agreement on refuge in Russia. Putin mocked the “unprofessionalism” of US diplomats and spies, who instead of creating a world-wide fuss demanding extradition, could have quietly allowed Snowden to transit to some Latin American or other country from which it would have been possible to kidnap the defector. “Now he is safe,” the Russian leader stated, adding, “We will not hand him over” (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143).
On September 8, Muscovites will be electing the city’s mayor, who is the governor of the richest, most populous and politically most important subject of the Russian Federation. Muscovites are free to elect anyone they choose, said Putin and added, that the Kremlin-appointed incumbent Sergei Sobyanin is a wonderful mayor and “is supported by a 60-percent majority,” while the leading opposition candidate, anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, is a thief and a convicted felon (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143).
Putin continued on and on, announcing “Ukraine and Russia are really one nation” and will eventually reunite despite all odds and attempts by the European Union to pull the two apart. Contrary to Western press reports, he went on, gays are tolerated in Russia and foreigners will not be arrested during the 2014 Sochi Olympics for exhibiting rainbow badges, while “in some US states” (Oklahoma and Texas, according to Putin) gay intercourse between adults is a felony (http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19143). And these people attempt to teach us human rights, democracy and what to do in Syria, exclaimed the frustrated authoritarian ruler—a sentiment any communist or feudal Russian tsar of the past could easily share.
--Pavel Felgenhauer
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Competition for Russia’s Top Landmarks Alienates Chechens
During the last two weeks of August, practically all the residents of Chechnya were busy voting for the republic’s main mosque, called the “Heart of Chechnya,” in the competition for Russia’s top ten landmarks (http://10russia.ru/rules). The contest was launched in March and will conclude at the end of September, when the ten top sites will be revealed.
The Russian Geographical Society together with the Rossiya TV channel organized the contest for Russia’s top ten landmarks. Few people heard about the competition during the period of March–June, but everything changed after the local branch of the Russian Geographical Society in Chechnya asked Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to support their idea of organizing voting for the Heart of Chechnya mosque (http://www.mosoblpress.ru/43/140901/). The organizers of the contest realized perfectly well that Kadyrov’s participation would not be limited to just him personally, but would engage his entire administrative apparatus, as happened subsequently. Kadyrov addressed all residents of Chechnya from his Instagram account, asking them to vote for the Chechen mosque. Naturally, this was not a matter of voluntary participation. Kadyrov launched the campaign in a speech at a governmental meeting on August 13 (http://www.ridus.ru/news/103735/), after which all of the republic’s ministries and agencies started daily voting. The Heart of Chechnya mosque consistently led the competition, taking the first position from mid-August onwards. Muslims from all over Russia also participated in supporting Chechnya’s bid. Muftis from all the North Caucasian republics were invited to Chechnya, and they called on everyone to vote for Heart of Chechnya, standing against the backdrop of the mosque.
The Chechen authorities’ proactive approach to voting provoked a massive wave of anti-Chechen statements on the Internet (http://www.yaplakal.com/forum28/topic634256.html). The very idea that a mosque might become Russia’s symbol was killing Russian nationalists and patriotic youth (http://topwar.ru/32271-simvol-rossii.html). As a result, serious battles broke out on the Internet. The slogan “Anything but the mosque” became widely used among Russians (http://www.kurer-sreda.ru/2013/08/22/111923).
During the three weeks of voting in the second round that ended on August 30, thirty-eight million votes were cast for the mosque. Nevertheless, the mosque came in second behind Kolomensky Kremlin, in the Moscow Oblast city of Kolomna, which placed first by a small margin—400,000 votes. Few people had heard of Kolomensky Kremlin. The site that came in third lagged behind the top two choices by nearly 36 million votes, winning only 1.6 million votes.
The ratio of 38 million votes to the total Chechen population of 1.3 million residents is explained by the rules of the contest, which allowed people to vote multiple times via texting. Residents of Chechnya actively texted to promote the mosque. An acquaintance of this author admitted having submitted nearly 5,000 texts in support of the mosque over just two days. The individual was surprised to find out that in the second round a site needed to become one of 30 sites in order to advance to the third and final round. So nearly everyone in Chechnya sincerely thought that Chechnya should become first in the second round, but there was no actual need to win the second tour beyond securing one of the 30 top slots. The organizers of the competition received about $7 million just from the active texting by Chechens and Russian nationalists, who voted for Kolomensky Kremlin. In the third round, all the votes from the previous round were eliminated. So the scramble was essentially for satisfying one’s own vanity.
Kadyrov was disappointed with the results and accused everyone of playing against the mosque, including the phone companies, which allegedly stopped accepting votes for the mosque on the evening of August 29. So the head of Chechnya made a personal decision to remove the Heart of Chechnya from the contest (http://www.grozny-inform.ru/main.mhtml?Part=11&PubID=44967). Moreover, in the best tradition of the Soviet past, “indignant” young Chechens pelted the offices of the cell phone companies Megafon and Beeline with eggs. In Kadyrov’s opinion, the companies were guilty of throwing away one million votes cast for the mosque on the last night (http://mosday.ru/news/item.php?214135).
For safety reasons, cell operators were forced to shut down their offices throughout Chechnya and reopened only a day later (http://www.echomsk.spb.ru/news/kriminal/bilayn-i-megafon-vnov.html). At the same time, the State Duma deputies from Chechnya were ordered to ask the Investigative Committee to launch a criminal investigation of those forces that blocked votes cast for the mosque in Grozny (http://chechnyatoday.com/content/view/274690). Further, the incident pushed Kadyrov to call on Chechens to stop using the services of Megafon and Beeline from Moscow and start using the republican operator Vainakh Telekom (http://ria.ru/society/20130830/959766073.html).
Even that was not enough. The Chechen branch of the Russian Geographical Society announced it was disbanding itself to protest the “falsified” results of the Russia-10 competition (http://www.rosbalt.ru/federal/2013/08/31/1170431.html). But this resulted in an outcry in Moscow, with Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating that the regional branch’s decision to disband was undesirable (http://www.aif.ru/politics/news/440435). Peksov’s comments signaled there is a limit to Chechen indignation, beyond which sanctions might follow.
The competition itself had multiple issues, such as the promotion of sites that many Russian knew nothing about, the voting procedure that allowed multiple votes by the same person and so on (http://www.aif.ru/society/article/66100). The primary result of the competition is that Russia continues to regard Chechens as enemies. Deliberately or not, the competition pushed Chechens back to the 1990s, when they trusted Moscow less. The reaction of the Chechen officials who called on cell phone users in the republic to switch to Vainakh Telekom is notable. Adherence to national enterprises became the symbolic defensive gesture against Russian chauvinism and its rejection of Chechens. Thus, the Russian authorities themselves are setting the Chechens on a path toward national separatism. The competition proved to be an utter disaster for the Chechen pro-Russian patriotism that the Kremlin carefully cultivated in Chechnya for the past 13 years.
--Mairbek Vatchagaev
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Armenia Chooses Russia and Eurasia over the European Union
On September 3, in Moscow, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia jointly sank Armenia’s association, trade and visa liberalization agreements with the European Union, which were due to be concluded at the Vilnius summit in November. Instead, Sargsyan announced his decision to join the Russia-led Customs Union now, and the even more ambitious Eurasian Union under Russian leadership by 2015.
Sargsyan took this step in full knowledge that joining the Russia-led Customs Union rules out association with the European Union. Both Moscow and Brussels regard these two options as mutually exclusive: Moscow mainly for political and geopolitical reasons, Brussels mainly from technical considerations as the two tariff systems are incompatible with one another. Armenia had to choose, and Sargsyan announced the choice.
The EU-Armenia association and free-trade agreements had taken three years to negotiate, were practically complete by July 2013, and were scheduled to be initialed in Vilnius in November, along with a first-phase visa liberalization document. Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are scheduled to conclude similar agreements with the European Union in November at the Vilnius summit. Armenia is out, its entrenched economic and military reliance on Russia simply outweighing the European option. Yerevan has itself built that heavy reliance assiduously since 1998 under two consecutive two-term presidencies, including that of Sargsyan who was last re-elected in February 2013.
Sargsyan announced his decision in a joint briefing with Putin to the media and separately through a Putin-Sargsyan joint communiqué. In the briefing, Sargsyan argued that joining the Russia-led integration structures was fully in line with Armenia’s interests. Moreover, he contended (“as I have stated on many occasions,” he pointed out) that Armenia’s membership in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) necessitates joining the economic structure that covers the same geographic space, under Russian leadership. Sargsyan portrayed these twin choices as rational and natural for Armenia in his briefing. The joint communiqué enumerates Russia’s flagship economic projects in Armenia and announces the bombshell decision toward the end of the document.
Putin was the first to announce Sargsyan’s decision at the joint briefing, before Sargsyan had spoken. Whether this humiliation was deliberate or inadvertent on Putin’s part, the Armenian president took it without murmur.
Sargsyan spoke in his own name as president, without invoking any Armenian institutional authority, not even referencing Armenian ratification procedures. He implicitly took the full responsibility onto himself. Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov explained that Yerevan’s next step would be to request the Customs Union’s founding countries (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan) as well as the Eurasian Economic Commission (Russian-led, supranational executive body) to admit Armenia as a member country. But, he clarified, “the political decision has already been made in Armenia and in Russia.”
Some Yerevan commentators initially clung to one sentence in which Sargsyan said that Armenia “desires” to join the Russia-led Customs Union and subsequently the Eurasian Union. Desire would have fallen short of commitment and could imply playing for time. However, the word “decision” is used everywhere else in the Russian- and English-language version of the briefing transcript, joint communiqué, and related statements in Moscow and press releases from Sargsyan’s office in Yerevan (Armenpress, Interfax, www.kremlin.ru, September 3, 4).
Putin and Sargsyan both used the Moscow meeting to highlight Russia’s massive economic presence in Armenia, including: Gazprom as majority owner of Armenia’s pipeline system and the sole gas supplier; Russia’s Inter-RAO Unified Electricity System owning almost in full Armenia’s hydro- and thermal power generating capacities; Rosatom working to prolong the service life of Armenia’s Medzamor nuclear power plant by a further 10 years, through 2026; Russian Railways operating Armenia’s railway system and allegedly envisaging $450 million worth of new investment there; Russian cumulative investment in Armenia currently exceeding $3 billion, or approximately one half of total foreign investment in this country whose total annual total GDP was reported at $9.8 billion in 2012 (Interfax, Armenpress, September 3, 4).
None of that has lifted Armenia from its deep poverty, but it does buy Russian political influence directly and political leverage in the background. Armenian mass labor migration to Russia provides a further source of leverage. It was not mentioned publicly by Putin and Sargsyan in Moscow, but it could become a compelling factor if Yerevan changes its mind. In that case, Russia could threaten to impose restrictions on visas and work permits unless Armenia joins the Customs Union.
In previous years, Yerevan used to draw a clear distinction between a military alliance with Russia/CSTO (deemed necessary by Armenia) and economic integration in Russian-led multilateral structures (long deemed disadvantageous by Yerevan’s influential oligarchs). That distinction has more recently been vanishing and Sargsyan seems to have officially erased it. By his own statements, he now seems to regard economic integration under Russian leadership as a corollary to Armenia’s military reliance on Russia (see above). References to the CSTO, however, serve primarily a ritualistic function. The bilateral alliance with Russia alone matters.
Armenia’s association and free-trade agreements with the European Union would have in no way or measure undermined Russia’s overwhelming economic and military presence in the country. It would have provided some export diversification opportunities to Europe, modest at first, and with potential to grow over time. More importantly it would have enabled Armenia to gradually assimilate the EU’s legal, regulatory, and product quality–standard acquis. These opportunities seem lost now.
Elements in the Armenian government, including Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan (no relation to Serzh Sargsyan) were clearly unenthusiastic all along about the Russia-led Customs Union. In 2012, Putin and the Armenian president began discussions about Armenia’s accession to the Customs Union, whereupon Tigran Sargsyan signed a memorandum of understanding on this with the Eurasian Economic Commission’s chief, Russian official Viktor Khristenko, in April 2013 (RFE/RL, August 6).
Armenia, however, is not contiguous to the Customs Union’s territory. This “little local difficulty” has no known solution thus far. It might motivate Russia to seek a solution by pressuring or luring the current Georgian government. Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili stated on September 4 (undoubtedly under the impression of Sargsyan’s Moscow visit) that the Russia-led Customs Union might perhaps be an “interesting” option for Georgia (EU Observer, September 4).
--Vladimir Socor
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Events in Adjara May Provoke Tensions Between Georgia and Turkey
The Georgian authorities’ decision to dismantle a mosque minaret in the village of Chela on August 26 triggered an incident in the Samtskhe-Javakheti and Adjara regions where tensions between Christians and Muslims have surfaced for the first time in many decades (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26386). Locals said that the actions of the police and construction workers, who were specifically brought for this purpose from the neighboring town of Akhaltsikhe, took them by complete surprise. “In the morning we saw that unknown people were dismantling our sacred minaret and trying to take it away, loading it on a truck. Young villagers tried to stop them, but several of them were beaten up and arrested,” Merab Tsetskhladze, a Chela resident recounted (Author’s interview, August 29).
It later came to light that the Tax Service of the Ministry of Finance hired the company to execute the dismantling. “We had information that the minaret construction was unlawfully imported from Turkey. So we had to examine the evidence. But we are prepared to return the minaret to its place at our own expense after the completion of all legal procedures,” a source in the Ministry of Finance that wished to remain anonymous reassured Jamestown (Author’s interview, August 29). For now Tbilisi and Ankara have kept quiet about the foreign policy implications of this serious incident.
Muslim residents of Chela do not believe that a tax audit was the actual cause of the dismantling of the religious building. The village is rife with rumors that the Georgian Orthodox Church is jealous of the rise of Islam’s popularity in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region. According to the villagers, Georgian authorities resented the fact that the minaret was paid for by one of numerous Islamic funds in Turkey (http://www.interpressnews.ge/ge/sazogadoeba/251176-thurqul-mkhares-sofel-tcelas-minarethi-22-athasi-lira-daujda.html).
Georgian legislation does not explicitly prohibit the construction of minarets, but an unofficial ban persists in the country. The authorities invariably stand against such construction projects, fearing the rise of religious tensions. “A private person brought the minaret from Turkey without our consent, and it was installed in secret in Chela in one night. So we had all grounds to fear there would be tensions,” a regional official, Khatuna Khomasuridze, explained to Jamestown on August 29.
However, the phobias of the local authorities and among some Georgian Christians nearly ended in bloodshed as the Georgian Muslims attempted to liberate the villagers who were earlier arrested. Protesters broke the regional police station’s fence and entered into fistfights with Georgian special police forces. Several people received injuries, and 20 demonstrators were arrested (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26386). However, the authorities, fearing further escalation, soon released all of the arrested, serving them only with a symbolic fine of 400 lari ($240). Almost all participants of the protest then went to the Adjara autonomous republic and gathered in the primary mosque in Batumi. Adjara’s mufti and the head of the directorate of Georgian Muslims, Jemal Paskadze, issued a warning that if the minaret was not returned to Chela, the Muslims would perceive it as a brazen breach of their religious rights. Having come to the mosque, President Mikheil Saakashvili supported the mufti, stating that the actions of Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s government “are spoiling Georgia’s relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, and the country might end up facing Russian alone” (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26390).
The head of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, Archil Khabadze, told the Muslims in the mosque that he had persuaded Ivanishvili to return the minaret to Chela (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26395). However, the final decision was taken after talks between Christian and Muslim clerics in Tbilisi. Ilia II, the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, personally met the muftis (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26398). “We reached an agreement that the minaret will go back to its lawful owner,” but it will not be put back up, a spokesperson for the Georgian Orthodox Church stated. Christian residents of the Samtskhe-Javakheti region attempted to prevent the agreement’s implementation by blocking a central highway, but the orthodox clerics managed to calm them down to avoid invalidating the compromise (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26396).
Nevertheless, the situation remains tense. Georgian Christians fear that the minaret will secretly be restored onto the mosque again, while Georgian Muslims see no possibility to establish their religious life beyond the limits of Adjara.
Protests have shifted to Adjara’s capital, Batumi. The Muslim community now demands the right to construct a large mosque that would become the focal point for all Muslims in Georgia. However, Georgian authorities are cool to the idea, while Adjara’s Christians are gearing up to stage demonstrations against the proposed new mosque (http://www.pravda.ru/news/world/05-03-2012/1110344-batumi-0).
Experts differ on who is behind the rise of religious tensions in the country. Independent analyst Mikhail Tavkhelidze is convinced that accusing Turkey of involvement in the latest events is unjustified. “Turkey is not interested in Georgia’s destabilization [or in] provoking clashes between Christians and Muslims. The only country whose security services are interested in such an outcome and have the experience of provoking such conflicts is Russia,” Tavkhelidze said. According to the expert, “The KGB, GRU [military intelligence] and their contemporary successors have retained an extensive network of ‘agents of influence’ in Georgia, [who] provoke harmful excesses” (Author’s interview, August 29).
The leader of the political party “Georgian Assembly,” Jondi Bagaturia, holds the opposite view. Georgian authorities had to “curb the impertinent actions of the Turkish security services to advance political Islam in Georgia,” the politician said. “Turkey is trying to use Islam to strengthen its positions in Adjara and Samtskhe-Javakheti. They dream of establishing ‘a Greater Turkey’ inside the borders of the [former] Ottoman Empire, from Batumi to Benghazi. Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs [Ahmet] Davutoglu has recently stated this,” Bagaturia asserted (Author’s interview, August 29). The politician expressed his discontent with how “the Georgian authorities allow the agents of the Turkish security services to act freely and spread Islam for imperialist and aggressive purposes in the southern regions of [Georgia]” (Author’s interview, August 29).
However, not all experts interviewed by Jamestown agree with such conspiracy theories. “There is no need to explain the foolish decisions of particular officials to dismantle the minaret on the pretext of a financial oversight […] with foreign agents’ sabotage,” political analyst Georgi Nodia told Jamestown on August 29.
Ankara doubtlessly follows the events in Adjara very closely. According to the 1921 Kars Agreement, Turkey has legal rights to defend Muslims in this region (http://www.georgiatimes.info/en/analysis/89074-1.html). During the last meeting of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ivanishvili, the two sides reached an agreement about constructing a large mosque in Batumi. But Georgia’s head of government failed to make good on the promise because of the protests of Christians in Adjara. Diplomatic pressure from Ankara is bound to increase, since Erdogan’s government has traditionally paid great attention to the issue of protecting Muslims’ rights in neighboring countries. And contemporary Georgia is too dependent on Turkey economically to ignore Ankara’s concerns about the rising tensions around Adjara and its Georgian Muslim community.
--Giorgi Menabde