Can Europe end the lose-lose game with Iran?

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=20798
On the one hand, Europe must remain tough and steadfast against Iran’s defiance of two UN Security Council Resolutions. On the other, it must redefine suspension of enrichment in order to kick-start much needed negotiations and end the current lose-lose game being played between the West and Iran, says Trita Parsi.

Washington, DC – Back in the summer of 2006, European diplomats feared that escalation in the Security Council would aggravate the Iranian nuclear stand-off and render a solution more difficult. These fears have now been realised, as Iran has defied two Chapter VII UN Security Council Resolutions demanding that it suspend its uranium enrichment programme, and has retaliated by scaling down its cooperation with the IAEA.

Thus far, the pressure from the Security Council – or the financial sanctions imposed unilaterally by the US – has not softened Iran’s position. On the contrary, both sides in the standoff have dug in their heels and limited the space for compromise. In spite of the cost of US financial sanctions on the Iranian economy, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared earlier this week that Tehran was prepared to „pay the price“ for continuing its nuclear programme.

„What has been the result of three (UN) Security Council resolutions, two introducing sanctions?“ he asked. „Iran has quickened the pace of its peaceful activities and reduced its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency… This can go on, but the result is an escalation of the crisis.“

Moreover, non-proliferation experts warn that Iran sooner or later will master the technology, after which a compromise limiting its nuclear activities may be out of reach.

Ironically, the lose-lose situation has created balanced incentives on all sides to seek a face-saving way out of the standoff. With the two key states in the equation standing so far from each other – Iran refusing to give up enrichment and the US seeing zero enrichment as the only acceptable outcome – significant out-of-the box thinking is required from the Europeans in order to bridge these seemingly incompatible positions.

On the one hand, Europe must remain tough and steadfast against Iran’s defiance of two U.N. Security Council Resolutions. On the other, it must redefine suspension of enrichment in order to kick-start much needed negotiations and end the current lose-lose game being played between the West and Iran.

Lately, Europe has emboldened its diplomatic efforts. EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana has publicly called for direct US-Iran talks, a message the Europeans preferred to make in private only up until recently. Furthermore, Solana has acknowledged that reform of the non-proliferation treaty is needed and that the Iranian case cannot be seen in isolation from that larger issue.

Furthermore, the Europeans have floated several different ideas in order to get Iran to agree to the suspension precondition for negotiations, including an international enrichment consortium on Iranian soil.

In the earlier negotiations with Europe, Iran entered the talks with the impression that the parties would identify „objective criteria“ that would enable Iran to exercise its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while providing the international community with guarantees that the Iranian nuclear programme would remain strictly civilian. As the negotiations progressed, however, Europe gravitated towards the U.S. view that the only acceptable criterion would be for Iran not to engage in uranium enrichment in the first place.

As a result, Tehran felt trapped in the talks since the EU wasn’t pursuing solutions that would ensure that Iran’s enrichment activities would remain peaceful; rather, the objective was to eliminate Iran’s enrichment programme altogether.

Tehran may continue to reject the call for suspension unless the framework for the negotiations does not just include solutions that would permit enrichment on Iranian soil, but more importantly, that would exclude any potential solution that would deprive Tehran of that activity. But agreeing to such a framework will create another headache for Europe though – Washington has thus far shown no appetite for any negotiations that wouldn’t have the explicit aim of ending all Iranian enrichment.

An alternative path may be to revamp an old idea that was floated around last summer in various track-II meetings. The idea, termed „freeze for freeze,“ would require both sides to freeze their activities from further advancement, but not require these activities to be halted. This would enable talks to begin while evading the suspension requirement, yet still prevent both sides from enhancing their positions by creating new facts on the ground.

Under this idea, Iran would continue its current nuclear activities, but it would be prohibited from expanding the programme or adding new centrifuges. Iran would freeze its programme, but not suspend it.

Western powers, on the other hand, would not have to roll back the U.N. sanctions against Iran – a step that Washington seems to appreciate, being mindful of the difficulties it faced getting the Security Council to impose them in the first place. By keeping the sanctions intact, the U.S. would avoid a scenario in which Russia and China would resist efforts to re-impose sanctions after a failed negotiations attempt.

The „freeze for freeze“ concept would, however, prohibit Washington from seeking to enhance the sanctions regime during the duration of the negotiations. Much like the Iranian programme, the Security Council track would be frozen, but not suspended.

Political support for the freeze-for-freeze concept remains weak, but as all sides start to feel the pain of the continuation of the current stalemate, the idea may pick up steam and provide the parties with a face-saving way out of the lose-lose game.

Dr. Trita Parsi is the author of „Treacherous Alliance – The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States“ (Yale University Press, 2007). He is also president of the National Iranian American Council (This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service and can be accessed at GCNews. It was originally published by the Inter Press Service News Agency

Egyptian Copt Patriarch Shinoda: The Vatican Was Wrong to Exonerate the Jews from the Killing of Christ

http://memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1432

4/8/2007 Clip No. 1432

Following are excerpts of an interview with Egyptian Copt Patriarch Shinoda III, which aired on Dream 2 TV on April 8, 2007:

Interviewer: The Vatican offered a kind of apology to contemporary Jews, and exonerated them from spilling the blood of Christ. But the Coptic Church insisted on a position that dissented from that of the Vatican.

[...]

Egyptian Copt Patriarch Shinoda III: What is the Vatican apologizing for? It has done nothing that warrants an apology. I don’t like things that are done for appearance’s sake. Everything must have depth and reasons. What are they apologizing for?

Interviewer: It is an apology for describing the Jews as the killers of Christ. That was the context.

Patriarch Shinoda III: The New Testament says that they are. Is the Vatican against the teachings of the New Testament?

[...]

I have prevented the Copts from visiting Jerusalem because of my faith and for [various] reasons, and I don’t care about the consequences. First of all, many Copts want to visit Jerusalem. If I permitted this, dozens of thousands would go.

Interviewer: They yearn to go to Jerusalem.

Patriarch Shinoda III: If dozens of thousands go to Israel, they will be influenced by the Israeli media, and we will not be able to prevent this. Who knows what ideas they will return with? That’s one thing. In addition, this will revive Israel in terms of economy and propaganda. Israel will be the one to benefit from this, not them.

The EU gets a second chance in the Balkans

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/05/23/2003362129

The decision on Kosovo’s status raises serious questions for Europe’s relations with Russia and the US, as well as for future stability throughout the Balkans

By Morton Abramowitz

Wednesday, May 23, 2007, Page 9

Confronting the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, former EU Council president Jacques Poos made his famous but now derided statement: „This is the hour of Europe … not the hour of the Americans.“

What the EU learned from the subsequent four years of Balkan disasters under its management is now being tested by another major turning point and potential crisis — when and how Kosovo is to become independent. Once again, Europe’s role may well prove decisive.

The decision on Kosovo may not imply the prospect of renewed large-scale conflict, but it does raise serious questions for Europe’s relations with Russia and the US, as well as for stability throughout the Balkans.

While the US has a major stake in the outcome, EU countries obviously have the most significant interests in the region, and perhaps this time they will assume a corresponding leadership role.

For at least the next two months, the UN Security Council will debate a blueprint for Kosovo’s future, arduously worked out during a year of „negotiations“ between the governments in Belgrade and Pristina by UN envoy and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari.

The blueprint provides for Kosovo’s „supervised independence,“ maximum protection for Serb and other minorities, and a supervisory role for the EU.

Ahtisaari’s proposal is an acknowledgement that no agreement between the parties is possible, and that there is no constructive alternative to Kosovo’s independence.

Together with the US, the EU collectively has rallied around the Ahtisaari proposal. But individually, a number of European countries — Spain, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia and Austria — are skeptical or negative toward Kosovo independence, which raises profound questions about the EU’s resolve.

Meanwhile, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is waging a tireless and remarkably effective diplomatic campaign denouncing both Ahtisaari and his proposal. He has strengthened the position of many in Europe and elsewhere who are skeptical of challenging a country’s territorial integrity or who still claim to believe in a negotiated settlement.

More worrisome is the current uncertainty about whether a shaky Europe will stand up to Russia, upon which Serbia depends to maintain sovereignty over Kosovo. So far, the Kremlin has resolutely stated that it will accept only a settlement agreed to by both parties, in effect endorsing Serbia’s position.

While conveying the possibility of a veto, Russia’s current strategy is to delay a Security Council vote as long as possible by prompting a new fact-finding mission to Kosovo, which will most likely be followed by renewed insistence on another effort to negotiate a settlement. Serbia welcomes delay in the hope that this will stimulate violence by frustrated Kosovars, thereby increasing Europe’s opposition to independence and bolstering Serbia’s dedication to maintaining the status quo, or, as a last resort, to partitioning Kosovo.

Some European countries apparently believe that they can maintain an EU consensus in support of Ahtisaari’s plan but allow Russian foot-dragging on the grounds that delay is not unreasonable and something better may turn up with additional negotiations. But, by adopting such a stance, they thwart their own envoy and may well stimulate the violence they profess to abhor.

History offers little consolation. The EU’s handling of relations with Serbia in the past only encouraged intransigence. Instead of repeatedly making clear that Kosovo independence is an indispensable requirement for EU membership — so important to Serbia’s modernization and Balkan stability — EU leaders like Secretary-General of the Council of the EU Javier Solana laud Kostunica as a great democratic leader. They relentlessly but unsuccessfully pressured Montenegro’s leaders to remain in a dysfunctional union with Serbia, condoned Kostunica’s dubious referendum last year on a new constitution enshrining Kosovo as a part of Serbia, and weakened demands for Serbia’s cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.

Realizing Ahtisaari’s proposal will depend on EU solidarity and persistence, coupled with strong US support, to manage the vicissitudes of UN debate, lobby skeptical non-permanent Security Council members, such as Indonesia and South Africa, and persuade Russia to abstain rather than exercise its veto.

Many believe that Russia will not risk its relations with Europe and the US, ultimately abstaining if Western countries hold firm. But Russia appears to be in a Gaullist mood, and has other outstanding issues causing friction with the US and Europe. Putin’s Russia is not Yeltsin’s Russia, when the West could simply shunt aside Russian concerns.

Europe is vulnerable on many fronts, particularly in view of its dependence on Russian energy, while the US’ weakened presidency has diminished US influence in Russia.

If Russia does veto the Ahtisaari plan, the EU’s united facade will likely fracture, with many countries refusing either to join the US in recognizing an independent Kosovo without the UN’s blessing or to send a supervisory mission there.

That would open a new and tumultuous era in the Balkans, with more than Kosovo at stake. Indeed, with the UN and the Western alliance in disarray, the region could fall victim to further Russian policy mischief.

Morton Abramowitz is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Copyright: Project Syndicate

Will Russia Block Kosovo Independence?

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1624851,00.html

By YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW

„We agreed to seek a solution that will satisfy all parties,“ said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on recent talks between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Kosovo. Except, added Lavrov, „No such solution is immediately in sight.“

The Serbian province of Kosovo, whose 2 million people are predominantly ethnic Albanians and want independence, has been administered as a U.N. protectorate since NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign forced Serbian withdrawal in 1999. Now, U.N.’s special envoy Marti Ahtisaari has proposed de facto independence under European Union supervision for Kosovo, with a view to subsequently integrating both it and Serbia into the EU. Ahtisaari’s plan is backed by the U.S. and NATO countries, but Russia strongly objects to what it describes as a dangerous precedent for separatists elsewhere. And as an historical ally of Serbia, Russia cannot turn down Belgrade’s pleas of help, particularly at a time when Putin is promoting an image of himself as a strident defender of Russia and its allies against the designs of NATO. In the year of Russia’s parliamentary and presidential elections — however token those may be — Putin wants Russians to feel proud of Moscow’s growing readiness to challenge the U.S. and bully the EU, which is increasingly dependent on Russian fuel supplies.

Still, the grim reality for Russia, summed up by Secretary Rice to Echo Moskvi Radio station during her recent visit, is that „Kosovo will never again be part of Serbia. It’s not possible.“ And Russia does not have sufficient leverage to change that reality — although it can use its U.N. Security Council veto to freeze the process, once the Ahtisaari plan is put to vote. Off the record, Russian officials indicate that this is, indeed, what Russia will most likely do, for the lack of other options.

The separatism theme is played differently by Moscow in different contexts: Russia brutally burns out separatism in Chechnya, but it endorses the efforts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to break away from pro-NATO Georgia, as well as those of Moldova’s breakaway region of Trans-Dniestria. Russia uses these separatist entities to turn up heat on Georgia and Moldova, and the separatist movements in all three demand Russian recognition, and subsequent incorporation into Russia. Hence, Moscow’s headache: Should it go along with the Ahtisaari plan, it must insist that the same approach be applied to Russian allies, lest it loses face both with them and with its own increasingly nationalist population. But should Russia derail the Ahtisaari plan on grounds of opposing separatism, it has to find a better rationale to encourage its own separatist clientele.

The issue also has implications for the image of the protagonists in the Islamic world: Helping Muslim Albanians win independence may help the Western powers repair their image in the Muslim world, whereas resisting the Albanians’ secession will cause a lot of bad blood in the Muslim world for Russia. Another factor is Serbia’s own unreliability. Over centuries, Serbia always asked for Russia’s protection first, and ended up siding with the West second, leaving Russia with a lot of egg on the face and in a lot of trouble for all its pains. Even with the current rise of Serbian nationalism, piqued by the West’s position on Kosovo, Belgrade is more likely to cut a deal with the West and opt for the EU’s patronage rather than for Moscow’s.

Serbia certainly has reasons to be piqued. Despite the NATO countries pledging even handedness, they appear oblivious to the fact that the tables in Kosovo have been turned since 1999. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 on Kosovo, demanded to guarantee the safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons to their homes. But since 1999, the Albanians have forced out some 200,000 Serbs, who cannot freely return. NATO peacekeepers always are not always able to calm down clashes between Albanians and the few Serbian enclaves still remaining in Kosovo. Though Kosovo will never again be a part of Serbia, the U.S. might be too hasty seeking to have both peoples integrated into the EU before they have learned how to co-exist. Helping develop functioning — and inevitably cooperative — economies in Serbia and Kosovo might prove a necessary pre-requisite. It takes time. In this respect, the likelihood of a desperate Russian veto may be a blessing in disguise for the region.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!