Why Turkey is quiet on Ukraine?

Posted on 2 May 2014 by redaksiyon

German President Gauck’s visit to Turkey: The arrogance of German imperialism.

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the Increasing Tension in Ukraine and the Taking Hostage of OSCE Vienna Document Military Inspectors

It is a matter of concern that the incidents that have occurred in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine during the last week are continuing at an increasing pace despite the agreement reached in the Joint Statement adopted in Geneva by Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the USA and the EU on 17 April.

In this regard, we consider the acts violence in these regions, the occupation of public buildings, the detentions and especially the taking hostage of unarmed foreign military inspectors serving under the OSCE Vienna Document, as grave developments further deepening the current crisis. We hope these inspectors will be released immediately.

We call on the parties to implement fully and without delay the measures agreed in the Geneva Joint Statement in order to de-escalate the tensions and provide security for the civilian population.

We reiterate our full support to the efforts of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission for de-escalating the tensions and fostering peace, stability and security throughout the country. MFA of Turkey.

These very days we have been sparing no effort to address what I believe is the biggest threat to Europe’s stability and security since the fall of the Berlin Wall: the situation in Ukraine.

The current events started with the people of Ukraine expressing a clear wish to take their future into their own hands and come closer to the European Union, through an Agreement which would give them political association and economic integration.

Unfortunately instead of accepting the sovereign choices of Ukraine, Russia decided to interfere, to destabilize and to occupy part of the territory of a neighbouring country in a gesture that we hoped was long buried in history books.

We cannot accept nor condone this type of behavior. This is why we were quick in reacting together with our G7 partners in making clear that these actions carry a political, diplomatic and economic cost. And we also stand ready to support Ukraine in becoming a democratic, prosperous and independent country.

But this is not just an issue for Europe, the US or the G7 group. It should concern the rest of the world as well, as it is a direct threat to international law and to international peace. José Manuel Durão Barroso – President of the European Commission (Full transcript)

Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel’s visit to U.S.

There’s no question that the situation in Ukraine, the continued failure by Russia to abide by its commitments in the Geneva agreement, will be a focus of the conversation between President Obama and Chancellor Merkel. They have, of course, other items on the agenda between them. This is a very important friendship and relationship, and, as you know, the President and Chancellor Merkel have been working together for a long time. The alliance between the United States and Germany is indispensable to meeting the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the 21st century. One of those challenges now when it comes to Europe is the assault on the sovereignty and territorial integrity that Russia has been waging against Ukraine. So I’m sure that will be an issue.

We have worked very closely with Chancellor Merkel and other members of the EU and G7 in our approach toward imposing costs on Russia for what they have done and are doing in Ukraine, and we’ll continue to do that.
There has been a great deal of collaboration and cooperation in that effort between the United States and the EU, as well as all the members of the G7.

So we expect that effort to continue, and we expect to continue a path that sees an international coalition escalating the costs that Russia will have to endure and pay if Russia refuses to keep its commitments and instead either through the means that it’s been using thus far continues to destabilize the situation in eastern Ukraine and southern Ukraine or even goes further and uses its forces to cross the border, the Ukrainian border.

There was a rather remarkable statement by a senior Russian government official who said that — who called on Ukraine to remove its forces from its country, which is preposterous, if you think about it.

Well, I think that what is true is that each nation within the EU, and obviously the United States and other nations, have a different level of — a different kind of economic relationship with Russia, and so sanctions will affect different nations differently. And that’s something that I think we all take into account as we move forward with sanctions. And that’s, as we discussed yesterday, something that the United States takes into account, the economic impact of ratcheting up sanctions on individuals and entities and ultimately, if we have to get to that point, on sectors of the economy.

As the President said at the very beginning of this process, there’s no question that imposing sectoral sanctions on the Russian economy would have a negative impact on the global economy and therefore negative impact on the United States’ economy and on economies in Europe and elsewhere — an impact nowhere near as severe as they would have, those sanctions would have on the Russian economy. But these are something — these are issues that we obviously take into consideration and we study as we craft sanctions and work with our partners.

Ultimately, as leaders in Europe have said publicly, when it comes to the fundamental necessity of upholding international law and respecting sovereignty and the territorial integrity of sovereign nations, there is a requirement essentially that in order to make clear that these transgressions are unacceptable that everyone opposing them has to bear some of the burden of taking action. And we’ve seen that already, and that will continue to be the case as we move forward, if we have to move forward with more sanctions. Press Secretary Jay Carney (Full transcript)

İşadamları Merkel’e Rusya’ya karşı yaptırımı desteklememe çağrısı yaptı

Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel at the German side’s initiative.

The parties continued their discussion of the critical social and political developments in Ukraine. Ms Merkel made a request to assist Ukraine in releasing the military observers representing a number of European countries, including Germany, who were detained in the southeast of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin stressed that the most important thing now is to withdraw all military units from the south-eastern parts, stop the violence, and immediately start a national dialogue that would involve all regions and all political forces within the framework of a constitutional reform.

Both parties noted the importance of a maximum involvement of the OSCE’s intermediary potential all over Ukraine.

The two leaders agreed to have another telephone conversation shortly. Source.

Geopolitical Implications of the Ukraine Crisis

With the unfolding of the Ukraine crisis, Russian-American and Russian-EU relations have clearly reached their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, the impact and implications of Russia’s actions extend well beyond Europe and relations with the U.S., starting most notably with the Middle East. Western governments would do well to take account of the Kremlin’s efforts to reassert its influence in these regions and formulate a firm, committed, and unified response in defense of their shared interests.

Russia’s shocking abrogation of Ukraine’s sovereignty with its annexation of Crimea and subsequent incursions into eastern Ukraine have left policymakers around the world reeling. Putin’s unwillingness to comply with Washington’s and Brussels’ demands for Russia to honor Ukraine’s territorial integrity testifies to the death of the attempted “reset” of relations, launched five years ago at the London G20 summit. Since then, aside from a new nuclear arms reduction treaty and occasional bouts of diplomatic cooperation, relations have only deteriorated.
This regression is unsurprising given Russia’s trajectory under (…) Full analysis.

The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers

When the Cold War ended, many Americans and Europeans seemed to think that the most vexing geopolitical questions had largely been settled. With the exception of a handful of relatively minor problems, such as the woes of the former Yugoslavia and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the biggest issues in world politics, they assumed, would no longer concern boundaries, military bases, national self-determination, or spheres of influence.

One can’t blame people for hoping. The West’s approach to the realities of the post–Cold War world has made a great deal of sense, and it is hard to see how world peace can ever be achieved without replacing geopolitical competition with the construction of a liberal world order. Still, Westerners often forget that this project rests on the particular geopolitical foundations laid in the early 1990s.

In Europe, the post–Cold War settlement involved the unification of Germany, the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, and the integration of the former Warsaw Pact states and the Baltic republics into NATO and the EU. In the Middle East, it entailed the dominance of Sunni powers that were allied with the United States (Saudi Arabia, its Gulf allies, Egypt, and Turkey) and the double containment of Iran and Iraq. In Asia, it meant the uncontested dominance of the United States, embedded in a series of security relationships with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, and other allies.

This settlement reflected the power realities of (…) Full analysis.

Will Ukraine have any borders by 2015?

Political radicalization of Ukraine State Border Guard Service started in 2004 under Victor Yushenko’s presidency. Revised version of the official «Regulations for the military personnel in Ukraine State Border Guard Service» was printed on the United States and the European Union taxpayers’ money as part of the HUREMAS2 personnel management project.
Why is this document so important? It contains basic guidelines for all military personnel of the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service. The fundamental manual was finally approved by president Yushenko’s special decree № 1115/2009 on the 29th of December, 2009.

It is fair to assume that the U.S. State Department specialists and the European Union officials may have supervised the document that they funded. According to former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst, the State Department dropped at least $425 000 on the first HUREMAS initiative from 2006 to 2008. Former chief of the Delegation of EU to Ukraine Ian Tindall Boag promised up to €4 million funding till 2008. HUREMAS2 financial details are still unpublished but project closure is planned in 2015. Border Guard Services of Poland and Hungary are mentioned as junior partners that could help bring Ukraine State Border Guard Service in line with the EU legislation and NATO procedures.Full story.

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