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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 2, No. 81, 98-04-28Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 2, No. 81, 28 April 1998CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] AZERBAIJANI, GEORGIAN, TURKISH PRESIDENTS ISSUE JOINT STATEMENTAt their summit in Trabzon on 26 April, Heidar Aliev, Eduard Shevardnadze, and Suleyman Demirel affirmed their collective support for the planned Baku-Ceyhan pipeline as the optimum means of exporting Caspian oil. They also stressed their commitment to the TRACECA project, including the planned rail link from the south Georgian town of Akhalkalaki to Kars, and their readiness to cooperate to resolve regional conflicts in Nagorno- Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia while preserving the territorial integrity of the states involved. The three presidents noted that deepening neighborly relations is a necessary precondition for peace, stability, and economic development throughout the Caucasus. LF[02] NEW GEORGIAN DEFENSE MINISTER NAMEDShevardnadze on 27 April named Colonel David Tevzadze, head of the Georgian military inspectorate, to succeed Vardiko Nadibaidze as defense minister. Tevzadze joined the Georgian military during the early 1990s after graduating from NATO training courses and a U.S. military college. Shevardnadze fired Nadibaidze for his failure to provide military aircraft to escort Shevardnadze's plane to Trabzon (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 27 April 1998). LF[03] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT SAYS HE IS 'PURE AS CHRIST'Shevardnadze has denied that either he or former Prime Minister Otar Patsatsia were culpable to any extent in the sale of nine Georgian ships, saying he is as "pure as Christ," Caucasus Press reported on 27 April. Shevardnadze was responding to allegations made by Adjar Supreme Council chairman Aslan Abashidze at a press conference in Batumi on 24 April that the president made a huge personal profit from those sales. Shevardnadze said that he had issued an edict empowering the Georgian navigation department to sell the vessels for scrap in order to finance the purchase of new ones. LF[04] ABKHAZ PRESIDENT MAY DISREGARD CIS SUMMIT RULINGVladislav Ardzinba told journalists in Sukhumi on 27 April that Abkhazia will refuse to endorse any ruling adopted at the 29 April CIS summit revising the mandate of the CIS peacekeeping force in Abkhazia unless such a ruling is coordinated beforehand with the Abkhaz leadership, Interfax reported. A draft document on resolving the conflict was approved by Abkhazia and subsequently amended without consulting the Abkhaz leadership (see "RFE/RL Caucasus Report," Vol. 1, No. 8, 1998). Meanwhile the chief of police in the west Georgian town of Zugdidi has appealed to the local branch of the youth wing of the Union of Citizens of Georgia to abandon plans to hold a mass demonstration on 29 April at the Rukhi bridge on the border between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia. The police fear violent reprisals by the Abkhaz, Caucasus Press reported on 28 April. LF[05] ARMENIA MOVES TOWARD LEGALIZING POSSESSION OF WEAPONSLawmakers on 27 April approved in the first reading a bill permitting citizens to acquire non-automatic weapons provided that they have a license from the local police, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. The draft law also permits the production of and private trade in such arms but imposes restrictions on the purchase of ammunition. Razmik Martirosian, the chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security and a member of the majority Yerkrapah group, argued in favor of the bill. State and Legal Affairs Committee Chairman Viktor Dallakian, also a member of the Yerkrapah group, opposed it, arguing it will contribute to an upsurge in violent crime. LF[06] AZERBAIJANI PARTY SUPPORTS "CONFEDERATION" WITH IRANIAN AZERBAIJANFazail Agamaly, chairman of the pro-government Ana Vatan Party, has advocated creating a confederation of the Azerbajian Republic and Iranian Azerbaijan as the first step toward unification of the two regions, Turan reported on 27 April. In December 1997, former President Abulfaz Elchibey founded the Single Azerbaijan Union to lobby for the unification of the two Azerbaijans. Speaking at Ana Vatan's third congress in Baku on 25 April, Agamaly expressed support for the leadership of President Heidar Aliev, in whose favor he rejected a bid by delegates to nominate his candidacy for the October presidential elections. Agamaly also affirmed that if a peaceful solution is not found to the Karabakh conflict, "we are all ready to put on full-dress uniforms." LF[07] KYRGYZ PRESIDENT IN CHINAMeeting in Beijing on 27 April, Askar Akayev and his Chinese counterpart, Jiang Zemin, signed a declaration of friendship and vowed to further improve ties, RFE/RL correspondents in the Chinese capital reported. The two presidents also exchanged the ratification instruments of the border demarcation agreements they signed in June 1996. China has promised to invest 100 million yuan (some $8 million) to build a factory producing cardboard in the Kyrgyz city of Tokmok, near Bishkek and will provide a 1 million yuan grant to help develop the Kyrgyz health care system. Akayev said his government "stands wholly on the side of China and firmly opposes national separatism and religious extremism," a reference to China's western Xinjiang Province, which is inhabited mostly by Turkic Muslim peoples and borders Kyrgyzstan, AFP reported. BP[08] IRAN WANTS INFORMATION ON U.S.-TURKMEN DEALSIranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said at a press conference in Tehran on 27 April that his country will "at the first opportunity" ask Turkmenistan about a deal to build a pipeline on the bed of the Caspian Sea with help from the U.S., AFP and Iranian Television reported. Kharazi said that once Turkmen authorities have clarified the details of the agreement, Iran will "adopt a position." He noted that both his country and Russia are opposed to such a pipeline "because of environmental considerations." Last week, the Iranian ambassador to Russia complained about a Russian-Kazakh proposal for dividing the sea (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 27 April 1998). BP[09] KAZAKHSTAN LOOKS TO SELL SOVIET-ERA WEAPONSKazakh Defense Minister General Mukhtar Altynbayev told reporters on 27 April that his country is considering selling military hardware inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Reuters reported. Altynbayev admitted that the weaponry is outdated and that "therefore it looks like third-world countries will buy [it]." Reuters quotes an unnamed Kazakh army colonel as saying MiG-21 and MiG-25 fighters would retail for $150,000- 180,000 and Mi-8 helicopters for $70,000. BP[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[10] U.S. MAY 'GO IT ALONE' ON KOSOVAAn unnamed top U.S. official said in Washington on 27 April that the U.S. will propose a package of both positive and negative incentives at the international Contact Group meeting in Rome on 29 April. The aim of the measures is to persuade Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end the violence in Kosova and launch talks with representatives of the ethnic Albanian majority there about the province's future. The official said that Washington is prepared "to show much more leadership" on the political and diplomatic fronts if the Contact Group does not accept the package unaltered. The official stressed that "consensus is not [Washington's] goal; a strong substantive package is the goal. We will not settle for an agreement just for the sake of an agreement. We will not settle for a lowest common denominator solution." PM[11] EU FOREIGN MINISTERS TAKE MEASURES AGAINST SERBIAThe foreign ministers of the EU member countries agreed in Luxembourg on 27 April to ban the export of police equipment and armored vehicles to Serbia and to deny visas to Serbian officials. The ministers turned down a proposal to freeze export credits already approved for Belgrade, the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" wrote. They took no decision on a proposed freeze of Serbian assets abroad. The ministers praised Macedonia as a "stabilizing factor" in the Balkans and approved an emergency credit of $3.3 million for Montenegro. They agreed that there has been no improvement in relations between the EU on the one hand and Bosnia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia on the other. Meanwhile in Thessaloniki, Greek Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos said that Kosova is "a hand grenade, and if we pull the pin just a little bit more, it will explode." PM[12] OSCE DISPUTES SERBIAN VERSION OF CLASHES...Daan Everts, who is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's ambassador to Albania, said in Tirana on 27 April that he calls into question Serbian charges that large numbers of fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) recently crossed into Yugoslavia from Albania (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 27 April 1998). Everts added that "that must have been an incident much deeper [within Kosova]. I haven't even seen proper confirmation there, and it's been all Serb sources. There is reason to be suspicious of this reporting out of that area unless it is really documented properly." The ambassador argued that Albania does not support hostile acts against Yugoslavia and has shown "great restraint" in the Kosovar crisis. Everts suggested that Belgrade wants world opinion to think that Albania is partly responsible for the crisis in order to reduce pressures for new sanctions against Yugoslavia. PM[13] ...AS DO KOSOVARSIn Prishtina, Kosovar spokesmen said on 27 April that some of the bodies of Kosovars killed in recent days by the Serbian paramilitary police and the Yugoslav army have no bullet wounds. The spokesmen charged that the authorities executed the ethnic Albanians well inside Yugoslav territory after capturing them in recent raids on villages. Also in the Kosovar capital, the leading Democratic League of Kosova said in a statement that the Serbian campaign of violence and "psychological warfare" is aimed at promoting "ethnic cleansing" by forcing Kosovars to flee the province. Meanwhile in Moscow, Foreign Minister Yevgenii Primakov stated on 28 April that his ministry "possesses information that there are camps for training terrorists in Albania" and that this information is known to all the Contact Group countries, ITAR-TASS reported. PM[14] DID SERBIAN COMMANDOS ENTER ALBANIA?Albanian Interior Ministry officials told "Koha Jone" and "Gazeta Shqiptare" on 27 April that approximately 10 soldiers entered the village of Pogaj in the Has Mountains from Kosova in the night of 25 April. Villagers told police that the soldiers wore masks, spoke broken Albanian and claimed to be from the UCK. The men asked the villagers about where to make contact with UCK fighters in Albania, to which the villagers did not reply. The intruders then asked some locals to guide them back into Kosova, which the villagers refused to do. The villagers, suspecting that the visitors were Serbian soldiers on an intelligence mission, alerted the Albanian police. FS[15] MONTENEGRO BARS YUGOSLAV TV CHANNELMontenegrin Information Minister Bozidar Jaredic said in a 27 April letter to his Yugoslav counterpart, Goran Matic, that Montenegro will not relay the signals of the federal station RTJ, which went on the air the same day. Jaredic said Podgorica has no objection to creating a federal television station, but he added that it must be independent and its activities transparent. He noted that Montenegro has no say in the activities of RTJ, an RFE/RL correspondent reported from Podgorica. PM[16] KINKEL WARNS TUDJMAN ON BOSNIAGerman Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said in a letter to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman on 27 April that he expects Croatia to help end attacks by Croats in Drvar against recently returned Serbian refugees. "I ask you to urgently help to put an immediate end to the violence against Serbs.... This recalls the time of ethnic cleansing [which] must not be repeated." Kinkel added that it is "not acceptable that Serbian apartments be ransacked and possessions torched" (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 27 April 1998). Meanwhile in Tuzla, a UN police spokesman said on 28 April that peacekeepers removed the Serbian roadblock on the Doboj-Tuzla highway during the night and that Muslims took down their own roadblock at the same time. PM[17] TIRANA ROUNDTABLE ON KOSOVA FAILS TO PRODUCE RESOLUTIONA roundtable that included representatives of Albania's main political parties failed to draft a joint resolution on Kosova in time for the 29 April Contact Group meeting. The session broke up after Democratic Party General Secretary Ridvan Bode demanded the resignation of the current government and the setting up of a new government of experts to "defend pan- national interests." Government representatives at the roundtable declined to discuss that demand, BETA news agency reported. FS[18] ALBANIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT ELECTS NEW CHIEF JUSTICEThe Constitutional Court on 27 April elected Socialist legislator Fehmi Abdiu as chief justice, Albanian state-run television reported. Abdiu, who is currently head of the parliament's legal commission, replaces Rustem Gjata. Legislators voted to sack Gjata last month after the parliamentary lustration committee charged him with having cooperated with the communist- era secret service (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 16 March 1998). FS[19] IMF CHIEF NEGOTIATOR IN ROMANIAPoul Thompsen, who is on a three-day visit to Romania, met with Premier Radu Vasile and Finance Minister Daniel Daianu on 27 April, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. Daianu told journalists that Thompsen's visit was aimed not at negotiating the terms of a new stand-by loan but at "getting acquainted" with the new government and its program. He added that a team of IMF negotiators will come to Bucharest at a later date to discuss the terms of a new stand-by agreement. Vasile said last week that Romania would like the IMF to agree to an increase in the budget deficit from 3.5 percent of GDP to about 4.5 percent. He also said Bucharest would like to negotiate a three-year stand-by accord. An existing agreement expires next month. MS[20] FALLOUT FROM CIGARETTE-SMUGGLING AFFAIRThe opposition Party of Social Democracy in Romania is demanding that the parliament set up a special commission to investigate the "cigarette- smuggling affair," RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported on 27 April. The same day, presidential counselors Zoe Petre and Dorin Marian asked the Prosecutor-General's Office to launch criminal proceedings against Senator Corneliu Vadim Tudor. Both counselors say Tudor libeled them in the letter he addressed to several Euro-Atlantic organizations about the affair (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 27 April 1998). Meanwhile, the Prosecutor-General's office said it has issued a warrant for the arrest of Protection and Guard Service Colonel Gheorghe Trutulescu in connection with the affair. Trutulescu took leave of absence when the affair was uncovered and has not returned to his workplace. MS[21] BULGARIA, RUSSIA SETTLE GAS DISPUTEBulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Evgeni Bakardzhiev and visiting Gazprom chief Rem Vyakhirev have signed an agreement on gas deliveries, an RFE/RL correspondent in Sofia reported on 27 April. The agreement, which is valid until 2010, provides for expanding Russian pipeline transit rights across Bulgaria to Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia. Vyakhirev declined to give details about the price of Russian gas deliveries to Bulgaria but said some of the payment will take the form of barter trade and pipeline construction work. Gazprom recently acquired a 100 percent stake in Topenergy--the firm that had the monopoly in Bulgaria on gas supplies and was a joint venture between Gazprom, state-owned Bulgargas, and Bulgaria's private conglomerate Multigroup. MS[C] END NOTE[22] BENEFITING FROM NATO EXPANSIONby Paul GobleAs the debate on NATO expansion intensifies, its supporters are pointing to the benefits it offers to new members, while its opponents are calling attention to how a larger NATO might harm Moscow's relationship with the West. But neither side in this ongoing debate has acknowledged that the expansion of the Western alliance-- at least in the way that it is now taking place-- may ultimately bring the greatest benefits not so much to the new members but to Russia itself--the country that some people suggest the alliance is still directed against. First, in managing the expansion of NATO, Western countries have worked hard to give Moscow an unprecedented role in alliance decision-making. The NATO- Russia Charter signed last June certainly grants the Russian government a voice, if not a veto, in what the alliance will do in the future. Indeed, as Russian diplomats have regularly pointed out, Moscow obtained a seat in NATO councils long before the alliance offered membership to any of the other former Warsaw Pact states. The new Russian presence at alliance headquarters in Brussels means that the alliance itself has been transformed even before it has expanded. Second, in the course of the often intense public discussions about the expansion of the alliance, Western leaders have been at pains to specify what the alliance will and will not do in Eastern Europe. They have made commitments about the basing of various kinds of weaponry, the level of integration of commands, and transparency of the alliance with respect to Russia. In virtually every case, those Western statements have been intended to reassure Moscow that, as all alliance spokesman point out, NATO is not and never will be directed against Russia. Some have even suggested that at some future time, Russia itself could join the alliance, which was created to contain its Soviet predecessor. Consequently, even as Russian officials, politicians and commentators have complained about the growth of NATO, they have often welcomed, if far more quietly, those alliance commitments as a form of Western acknowledgment of a special Russian role in Eastern Europe and especially on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Moreover, the most thoughtful of Russian commentators have noted that the process of NATO expansion has led the West to make commitments to Moscow that it could not have made any other way. Third, the expansion of the alliance eastward benefits Russia in ways that many Russians may not appreciate now but will likely see in the future as a major force pushing for the democratic reform of that country and its further integration into Europe. By including some of the countries of Eastern Europe into its ranks, NATO effectively removes them as possible targets for those in Russia who would like to reverse the events of recent years or at least project Russian power in ways that will likely make it more difficult for Russia to reform itself. On the one hand, by providing a security guarantee to the new members, NATO will help transform the political debate in those countries, just as it did in Western Europe four decades ago. By taking foreign policy out of the center of that debate, NATO will give those countries both a chance to direct their primary energies to domestic affairs and the confidence to deal with Russia less as a political threat than as an economic opportunity. And on the other hand, by defining more precisely the immediate international environment within which Moscow must operate, the Western alliance will help to limit the influence of nationalists in Russia who may be interested in reversing the changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But as was the case when NATO introduced forces into Bosnia, the chief beneficiaries of the alliance's preparations for expansion will be Russian reformers who find a way to use the opportunities the alliance offers rather than simply oppose it for domestic purposes. 28-04-98 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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