[Senate Hearing 109-112]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-112
THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE BLACK SEA AREA
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 8, 2005
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire BILL NELSON, Florida
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska BARACK OBAMA, Illinois
MEL MARTINEZ, Florida
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Staff Director
Antony J. Blinken, Democratic Staff Director
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia, Chairman
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
(ii)
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Allen, Hon. George, U.S. Senator from Virginia, opening statement 1
Baran, Zeyno, director, International Security and Energy
Programs, the Nixon Center, Washington, DC..................... 36
Prepared statement........................................... 41
Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, prepared
statement...................................................... 5
Jackson, Bruce, president, Project on Transitional Democracies,
Washington, DC................................................. 21
Prepared statement........................................... 25
Socor, Vladimir, senior fellow, Jamestown Foundation, Washington,
DC............................................................. 30
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Tefft, Hon. John F., Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
European and Eurasian Affairs, Department of State, Washington,
DC............................................................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 11
(iii)
THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE BLACK SEA AREA
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TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on European Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:38 p.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. George Allen,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Allen.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE ALLEN, U.S. SENATOR FROM
VIRGINIA
Senator Allen. Good afternoon and welcome to all who have
gathered. We're a little delayed. We had a vote on the floor,
and thank you all for your forbearance.
I'm proud to call this hearing to order. This is the first
subcommittee hearing of any subcommittee on the Foreign
Relations Committee in this term, and this Subcommittee on
European Affairs is going to examine the future of democracy in
the Black Sea area.
I will introduce--we have two panels of witnesses this
afternoon. I'll introduce each in greater detail as they
present themselves. First we'll hear from Ambassador John Tefft
who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian
Affairs at the Department of State. On the second panel the
subcommittee will be hearing testimony from Mr. Bruce Jackson,
who is the president of the Project on Transitional
Democracies; Mr. Vladimir Socor, senior fellow at the Jamestown
Foundation; and Ms. Zeyno Baran, the director of International
Security and Energy Programs at the Nixon Center. We welcome
you all.
Also, Senator Biden will not be able to be here this
afternoon, and his statement will be made part of the record.
I do understand that the Ambassador from Georgia to the
United States, Levan Mikeladze, is here. Mr. Ambassador, wave
your hand so we can see where you are. There you are. Welcome.
And we have a good sized delegation of leaders from Turkey
with us, led by Faruk Celik, who is the deputy chair, the
equivalent of the majority whip here, and so we welcome all our
visitors and friends from Turkey. Thank you all for being here
as well.
We all know that the Black Sea region is strategically
located. It lies in close proximity to Europe, to Russia, and
the former Soviet Republics, as well as the Middle East. Given
its geographic importance and the threats facing both the
United States and the world, it's clear that the United States
should carefully examine the role that we play in the Black Sea
region, and determine whether it's in our interest to become
even more engaged.
In making such a determination, we first must examine where
today's threats are coming from and where tomorrow's threats
are likely to emerge, assess the situation presently,
anticipate the future, and then determine the appropriate
actions one should take.
Now, we all recognize that there are many trouble spots all
over the world. But most would agree that the Middle East is
going to continue to be a home of many governments and also
groups that will threaten the interests of the United States
and our allies in one form or another. And it is important, in
my point of view, that we be engaged in this region, and it's
not going to be just for a short period of time. It's going to
be for many years to come.
Therefore, it's logical that the United States shore up its
alliances with countries that surround the Middle East. It is
clearly in our interest to have the governments and the
countries on the Black Sea move closer toward the principles of
freedom and justice.
So, given this interest, the question becomes: How can the
United States help promote reform in this region? At the
outset, we should take note that the recent revolutions in
Georgia and the Ukraine have ushered in proreform leaders in
governments that have pledged transparency, accountability, and
the end of corruption. These are positive developments that we
must support, when and where appropriate, to ensure their
sustainability.
However, there are still a number of countries in the
region that have significant progress to make before they can
objectively be viewed as representative governments or free and
just societies. During the recent hearing, that I chaired, on
the President's international assistance budget for Europe and
Eurasia, officials from USAID provided several graphs and
charts, and they were from different organizations, Freedom
House and others, which measured economic reforms and
democratic freedoms.
I'm one who believes that objective measurements are very,
very helpful, because whatever can be measured can be made
better. There needs to be something that measures progress. The
graphs that they had--they had all sorts of reform charts,
economic reforms on one axis, democratic reforms on another
axis, and then rated each country in Europe and Eurasia on a
scale of one to five.
Not surprisingly, the countries in the European Union,
particularly Western Europe, rated the highest as far as
economic freedoms and also democratic freedoms. The West was
No. 1, but then you had countries in this order: Northern
Europe, Southeastern Europe, and finally was Eurasia.
What that showed were, there are a number of countries on
the Black Sea that have made significant progress, such as
Bulgaria and Romania, while in the South Caucasus, it was clear
that a number of changes had to become--had to come into
fruition to really have free and market-oriented societies.
What was also instructive about these graphs and these
measurements were how these countries with the highest levels
of freedom and the most economic reform not only enjoyed
greater economic prosperity and opportunities and security, but
they also had a higher life expectancy. So it's not just jobs,
it's not just economic, it's not just investment. It's also--
there's a correlation also with the life expectancy of their
citizens.
Now, I find these to be very helpful and somewhat powerful
arguments and ones that our country should continue to
emphasize to those nations in the Black Sea region that may
have regressed from the initial democratic free market reforms
that were made following the fall of the Soviet empire.
Representative government and free enterprise, of course,
are noble principles. But to be successful, they must be
coupled with transparency and accountability. An impediment to
progress in many Black Sea countries has been the systemic
corruption that drains the public of all confidence in the
government and reinforces the belief that cronyism is the only
path to success, with individuals not judged on their merits,
but by--on their proximity to people in power.
There has been some progress, notably the efforts of the
Georgian Government to purge crooked officials from ministries
and law enforcement agencies. However, until national
governments make the eradication of corruption a top priority,
they will continue to lag.
It's clear that foreign businesses will not invest in
countries where they cannot expect equal justice under the law,
and where bribes are the common business practice. That's not
going to give any company any confidence in the stability, the
credibility they need to be making large investments when
choosing among many places around the world.
Also hindering further progress in the region is the role
of Russia. The Russian Government is playing an unconstructive
role by maintaining troops in Moldova and in Georgia. Those
troops are not maintaining order, and are often posted in
regions where lawlessness and smuggling are rampant.
Russian involvement in last year's Ukrainian elections and
its habit of punishing neighbors by withholding oil and natural
gas are additional examples of Russia's unconstructive policy
in the region.
Russia may somehow feel threatened by the emergence of
democracy so close to its borders and may stubbornly want to
maintain control or influence over the former republics. Now,
while the United States should acknowledge how these changes
are perceived by Russia, I believe that our country must take a
firm stance against policies and activities that inhibit
progress and fuel instability in several Black Sea areas.
Further impediments are--to greater reform are long--are in
some of the longstanding conflicts that continue in the region,
for example, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. If it could be
resolved, it could have far-reaching, positive implications for
the entire region. Peace between the Armenians and the Azeris
would stabilize the region in question and would lead to
normalized relations between Armenia and Turkey, opening the
border between the two countries, and obviously access to more
markets. Peace between these two neighbors would provide
Armenia, also, with greater prospects for economic success and
diminish the need for closer ties with Iran.
Now, given the strategic significance of the Black Sea and
the prospects for movement toward democracy, I continue to
believe that the United States should begin basing more assets
at locations within the region. I understand that this is a
decision for the Department of Defense, it's not a State
Department decision. However, the threats facing the United
States and our allies may require swift and sometimes massive
response to remote places anywhere in the world, but especially
in Central Asia, and we know, in the Middle East. We must
objectively consider the merits of repositioning a portion of
the U.S. bases and assets where they're more likely or more
useful for the missions that are predictable ahead.
Another consideration to this argument is cost. Countries
like Romania and Bulgaria offer existing infrastructure and
lower costs than Western Europe. Knowing the need to maximize
every dollar we spend, it makes sense that we take a hard look
at an area that is geographically advantageous and reduces the
cost to American taxpayers.
We all recognize our military is undergoing a
transformation to become a lighter, more agile fighting force.
It makes sense also, therefore, to examine how our forces are
aligned around the world to make sure they're ready to confront
the threats quickly and effectively.
The majority, in closing, of the countries in the Black Sea
have seen the importance of aligning themselves with the United
States in the overall war on terrorism and the campaigns in
Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, the United States needs
to recognize the strategic importance of the Black Sea.
Further progress toward establishment of free and just
societies throughout the region would bring economic prosperity
to the people in those countries that unfortunately continue to
lag behind their Western neighbors. And at the same time, it
serves our foreign policy and economic interests that they do
so move in the right direction.
I want to thank our witnesses again for appearing before
the subcommittee this afternoon. I look forward to your
testimony. I'm going to first introduce our first panel of one,
Ambassador John Tefft. Ambassador Tefft is presently the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs at the
Department of State. Long, distinguished career, more recently
from 2000 to 2003 he was our Ambassador to Lithuania, and he's
also served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in
Moscow from 1996 to 1999, and was a Charge d'Affaires at the
Embassy from November 1996 until September 1997.
Ambassador Tefft has also served as Director of the Office
of Northern European Affairs from 1992 to 1994, and also Deputy
Director in the Office of the Soviet Union, later Russia and
CIS Affairs from 1989 to 1992. Also--at least you had one in a
warm place--the Embassy in Rome from 1986 to 1989.
He has also had foreign assignments in Budapest and
Jerusalem, as well as service on the United States delegation
on the START arms control negotiations in 1985. In his current
position as Deputy Assistant Secretary, Ambassador Tefft
supervises the offices in the European Bureau responsible for
United States bilateral relations with Russia, Ukraine,
Moldova, and Belarus, as well as the Office of Policy and
Regional Affairs, which coordinates nonproliferation, security
assistance, export control, and other related issues throughout
the European Bureau.
[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this important
hearing.
Since September 2001 we have, understandably, been concentrating on
the Middle East and central Asia. Of late, a neighboring region, the
area surrounding the Black Sea, has increasingly claimed our attention.
It has vital strategic importance. It contains examples of significant
progress, but also cases of unresolved conflicts.
Several large trends can be discerned in recent events in the Black
Sea area, among them:
A rising tide of democracy, first in Georgia, and then in
Ukraine;
Receding Russian influence and Moscow's efforts to reverse
this process;
Connected with Russia's efforts, the persistence of the so-
called ``frozen conflicts'' in Georgia's Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh, and in Moldova's
Transnistria; and
The drawing closer to Euro-Atlantic institutions by Romania,
Bulgaria, and Turkey.
Mr. Chairman, we are fortunate to have four outstanding witnesses
this afternoon with expertise on these and other relevant issues.
Therefore, I will not take up valuable time with a country-by-country
recitation of details.
Rather, I would like to make a few analytical comments on the topic
of this hearing, the future of democracy in the Black Sea area.
First and foremost, I would emphasize that democratization is not a
zero-sum game. Obviously, in large part I am directing this observation
at our friends in the Kremlin.
To be specific: A democratic, independent Georgia or Ukraine or
Moldova--that deepens its ties with the United States, the European
Union, or NATO does not represent a threat to, or setback for Russia.
The Soviet Union is dead and buried. It will not return in some new
guise, and for its own good Moscow should come to terms with the
realities of the 21st century.
On the contrary, a strengthened and increasingly western-looking
Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova would stabilize Russia's southwestern and
western borders, enabling more effective controls against terrorism and
providing legitimate commercial opportunities for Russia's
international entrepreneurs.
I would add that the inhabitants of the break-away regions--
Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Transnistria--would also
profit from peaceful settlement of their conflicts. Normalization would
lead to more foreign investment and economic development.
Second, I would hold up Georgia's ``Rose Revolution'' and Ukraine's
``Orange Revolution'' as hopeful examples to still-oppressed peoples
elsewhere, above all to the brave people of Belarus who continue to
suffer under the brutal repression of Alexander Lukashenka. Lukashenka
is running scared, and he should be, for his days in power are
numbered.
Third, the run-up to Ukraine's elections last fall and the reaction
to the fraud perpetrated in the first round provided an encouraging
example of successful high-stakes cooperation between the United States
and countries of the European Union.
Such cooperation can, and should continue elsewhere.
Fourth, Romania and Bulgaria demonstrate that even countries that
for decades were cursed with two of the worst Communist dictatorships
in Eastern Europe can achieve remarkable success.
Today, both Romania and Bulgaria are members of NATO, and both
stand on the threshold of joining the European Union. Neither country
is perfect. Both have continuing challenges. But no one--and I mean no
one--in Bucharest or Sofia less than 20 years ago could have dreamed
how incomparably better their country would be in 2005.
Fifth and finally, I would caution that progress rarely follows a
linear trajectory. In most countries there will be false starts,
mistakes, and setbacks.
In that regard, I confess to considerable disappointment in reports
I have been hearing about recent developments in Turkey. I had been
favorably impressed with the pragmatism of Prime Minister Erdogan, both
in domestic and foreign policy. Then came the runup to the Iraq war,
during which the Bush administration badly mishandled our relations
with Turkey.
A negative reaction from the Turkish public was perhaps to be
expected, but not the virulent anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism that
has been described in the western press.
I hope that this ugliness is just a transient phenomenon, and that
Erdogan and other moderate Turkish leaders will guide opinion back into
the time-tested close cooperation with the United States, even as
Ankara embarks upon the lengthy process of qualifying for EU
membership.
Welcome, again, to our witnesses, and thank you for your
leadership, Mr. Chairman.
Sen Allen. Mr. Tefft, if you have an opening statement
you'd like to give, we'd be pleased to hear from you.
Mr. Ambassador.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. TEFFT, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Tefft. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I'm
really delighted to be here this afternoon to discuss the state
of democracy in the Black Sea region and the prospects for
further democratic evolution there.
While we address aspects of this important issue in one way
or another literally every day at the State Department,
occasions for reflecting comprehensively on the region are
frankly very rare. So I, especially, value the chance to share
with you today our thoughts on where we are with U.S. policy
toward the countries of the region and where we're headed.
Let me try to summarize in this opening statement the
prepared testimony which we have submitted for the record.
Senator Allen. Mr. Ambassador and all our witnesses, we
have your statements. Your statements will be made part of the
record, and if you wanted to paraphrase or summarize your
remarks, that would also be welcome.
Ambassador Tefft. The nine nations of the Black Sea region,
Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Russia, are diverse and hard to categorize as a
group. Geographical proximity and overlapping histories have
created rivalry and friction, as well as cooperation and
alliance. Centrifugal forces impelling countries outward
compete with a strong pull toward greater regional integration.
U.S. policy, by necessity, takes the specific
characteristics of each country and its unique geopolitical
situation into account and deals with each one of them
accordingly. There are some broad commonalities. Black Sea
States are all members of the Organization of Security and
Cooperation in Europe, and they're either members of NATO or
NATO's Partnership for Peace.
They belong, together with Greece, Albania, and Serbia
Montenegro, to the Organization for Black Sea Economic
Cooperation. Incidentally, Mr. Chairman, we're now considering,
in consultation with the members of the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation Organization, the possibility that we will
participate soon as an observer to that organization.
Energy transport is one of the strongest links among the
Black Sea nations. Energy pipelines that are both existing or
under construction or planned crisscross the region and create
real opportunities for cooperation and development of a
regional dialog. Coordination between energy-exporting states
and transit nations is needed to solve Bosporus bottlenecks and
develop efficient solutions to ensure that energy supplies
reach the world market. The United States has consistently
worked toward this goal through encouragement of multiple
pipelines and export routes.
But with a closer look, the similarities among these
countries start to break down. They vary in size from the huge,
Russia with over 140 million people, to the rather small,
Moldova with 4 million and Armenia with 3 million. They are at
various stages of economic development. Turkey, Russia,
Romania, and Bulgaria fall firmly in the World Bank's middle-
income category with annual GDP per capita well over $2,000.
Others such as Moldova and the Caucasus countries lag behind
with yearly income under $1,000 per person. Most of the
countries belong to the World Trade Organization. Russia,
Ukraine, and Azerbaijan are the exceptions.
On the other end of the economic integration schedule--
integration scale--Romania and Bulgaria are solid candidates
for EU membership this decade. Turkey, already an OECD member,
is likely to be next after them.
Geostrategic differences are also striking. Three
countries, Turkey since the cold war, and Romania and Bulgaria
since last year, are NATO members. The others, former republics
of the U.S.S.R., belong, however loosely, to the Commonwealth
of Independent States. Four of these, Georgia, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan, and Moldova, together with Uzbekistan, form GUUAM,
an organization with projects on law enforcement cooperation
and development of essential economic infrastructure. Last week
in Chisinau, Presidents Saakashvili, Yushchenko, and Voronin
jointly called for revitalizing GUUAM as Moldova assumes
chairmanship next month.
Separatist conflicts impede nation building and
democratization in a number of the Black Sea region's
countries, and the United States is actively engaged in trying
to solve those conflicts. Significant differences remain
between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh, but
Presidents Kocharian and Aliyev are committed to a peaceful
resolution. We support the OSCE Minsk group's efforts to
advance toward a settlement there, and we're encouraged by
discussions over the last year toward a negotiated settlement.
Transnistrian provocations caused the collapse of Moldovan
political settlement talks last summer. Nevertheless, we
continue to work with Moldova and OSCE partners to press Russia
to work with us and the international community to promote
progress on settlement in Moldova.
In Georgia, we support President Saakashvili's goal of
reuniting the country and encourage Georgia to resolve the
conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in a peaceful manner.
We also continue to insist that Russia fulfill its
remaining Istanbul Commitments on the withdrawal of its forces
from Moldova, and on reaching agreement with Georgia on the
duration and status of Russian forces there.
Throughout these protracted conflicts, the United States
has been consistent in supporting the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Georgia, as well as the Russian
Federation with respect to the Chechen separatist movement.
These facts provide a context for the discussion of these
countries' different levels of democratic development as well.
Freedom House, in its 2005 comparative ranking of world's
countries, found two of the Black Sea states, Romania and
Bulgaria, met its standards as free countries. Another two,
Russia and Azerbaijan, fall so far short of these standards
that they are rated not free.
The other five fall in between. Freedom House categorizes
them as partly free. Our human rights report for 2004, which
was just released to the Congress on February 28, while it does
not use such specific categories, also reflects the divergence
Freedom House found in the democracy and human rights records
of these countries.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to highlight, briefly, the democracy
and democratization processes in each of these countries and
describe what the U.S. Government is going to do to improve the
record. My prepared remarks have a much more extensive
discussion of each one of the countries, but let me just hit
brief highlights.
Romania. In December 2004, Romania underwent a democratic
transition with the candidate representing an alliance of
opposition parties winning a very close Presidential run-off.
Civil society organizations, including some that received U.S.
assistance, played a strong role as election monitors in
advocating an issue-based political campaign and in pressing
for nonbiased media coverage of the campaign.
President Basescu is scheduled to meet with President Bush
here, tomorrow, in Washington. The leaders of the former
government, including the former President and Prime Minister,
now serve in Romania's Parliament. Romania believes its
location on the Black Sea, its membership in NATO, and its
respective membership in the European Union, leaves it well
placed to provide a bridge to Europe for the countries of the
Caucasus. In particular, the Romanians believe they can serve
as a model for these democratizing countries. To this end,
Romania has been active in the community of democracies
initiative, and recently organized an international mission to
Georgia of NGO and other experts to discuss media freedom,
judicial reform, and other democracy issues.
Bulgaria. Bulgaria's six national elections since 1990 are
scheduled for June 2005 with a wide but moderate political
spectrum expected to participate. Elections since 1990 have met
acceptable standards and reflect the will of the Bulgarian
people. Over the last 15 years, Bulgaria has established a full
functioning free-market democracy marked by strong public
support for full Euro-Atlantic integration.
Bulgaria entered NATO in March 2004 and is scheduled to
sign an EU accession agreement in April 2005 leading to full
membership in 2007. Aside from supporting Euro-Atlantic
integration, our efforts in Bulgaria are designed to ensure
stable democratic focus on strengthening local governments,
civil society, and a free press.
Bulgaria has a natural route for trafficking in narcotics,
contraband, and persons. Like many countries in this region,
Bulgaria suffers from substantial organized crime and
corruption that threatens democratic development and successful
Euro-Atlantic integration.
Reform of the weak judicial system is a pressing need, as
is greater transparency in public procurement and
privatizations. Bilateral law enforcement cooperation with the
United States has expanded significantly over the last 2 years.
The Embassy now hosts the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI plans
to open an office early in fiscal year 2005.
Turkey is a staunch NATO ally and a functioning secular
democracy with a constitutional government. In an effort to
meet requirements for EU membership, the government has carried
out extensive democratic legal reforms during the past year.
For example, in September 2003, Parliament adopted a new penal
code, and in May 2004, adopted a new package of constitutional
amendments. These reforms are designed to crack down on
torture, on honor killings, and expand freedom of religion and
association.
Turkey's made rapid progress in meeting the EU political
criteria laid out during the Copenhagen summit in 2002. And on
December 17, 2004, the European Union decided that accession
talks with Turkey would start in October. The EU's historic
decision to start these talks is a major success, not only for
the Turkish people, but we believe for Europe as well.
Nonetheless, some problems remain. We continue to press
Turkey to resolve Greek Orthodox church property issues, and to
open the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary. Alevis, heterodox
offshoot of Shi'a Islam, is concerned with discrimination by
the majority Sunni population and Sunni-run religious affairs
directorate. And Kurdish rights within general civil rights
remain a sensitive issue.
The United States supports Turkey's efforts to implement
the reforms instituted in order to gain accession to the
European Union. We continue to urge Turkey to respect fully
human rights, including freedom of speech and the press,
freedom of religion, as well as the rule of law. I might note,
Mr. Chairman, that we were appalled by the violent dispersal of
demonstrators in Istanbul that we saw on film on Sunday, and
we've let the Turkish Government know our views quite clearly
about that.
Ukraine. One of the most significant events of 2004 was,
obviously, the Orange Revolution. This was an event marking a
victory for democracy. The Ukrainian people succeeded in
overturning a fraudulent Presidential election and achieving a
final outcome that reflected the will of the voters. Ukraine's
democratic institutions demonstrated surprising strength in the
face of persistent attempts by elements within the previous
government and among oligarchic plans to subvert democratic
processes.
When confronted with the allegations of widespread fraud,
the judicial system ultimately acted in an independent manner.
The legislative branch behaved responsibly in helping to broker
a political solution.
Moldova. On Sunday, Moldova elected a new government. While
the final results are not yet in, it appears that the governing
party, the Communist Party, will remain the leading party in
the country, although not with the numbers that they had
before. The Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe
delegation that was there made a statement that said that the
election generally complied with international standards that
voting on election day was generally fair. But they noted, as
we have noted in our statements and in the statement that the
U.S. Senate made, that there were severe irregularities during
the campaign period involving media access issues, harassment
of opposition, and misuse of administrative resources.
Georgia. The Rose Revolution of 2003 demonstrated that
Georgians desire fair elections and good governance, and are
capable of holding their government accountable. Since the Rose
Revolution, Georgia has made significant internal reforms to
fight official corruption, consolidate bureaucracy, and
increase revenue collection in order to provide better services
to its own citizens.
Progress in Georgia is hampered by ongoing separatist
conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The international
community should stand firm to encourage Georgia to resolve
these conflicts peacefully. Internal reform, in our view, will
strengthen the economy and create incentives for separate
regions to integrate into Georgia.
Armenia has made significant economic and social progress
since its independence. However, the flawed Presidential and
Parliamentary elections of 2003 demonstrate that it has some
way to go to strengthen its democratic institutions and ensure
an equitable balance of power between executive, legislative,
and judicial branches. Armenia needs to take steps to improve
its poor human rights record. We are providing extensive
assistance to strengthen the national assembly, the judiciary,
and local government institutions in Armenia.
Azerbaijan. The flawed Presidential elections in 2003
demonstrate that Azerbaijan has far to go to strengthen its
democratic institutions and ensure an equitable balance of
power between the various branches of government. We are
focusing our assistance programs and diplomacy on improving
election procedures, strengthening Azerbaijan's democratic
institutions as parliamentary elections approach this coming
fall.
These coming elections will be an important test of
Azerbaijan's process toward democratization. Azerbaijan also
needs to take steps to improve its poor human rights record.
Azerbaijan's economic progress in the next year will depend on
its ability to direct oil funds toward nonoil sector
development.
Finally, Russia. Russia is experiencing an erosion of its
democratic institutions and processes. Especially over the last
2 years, checks and balances among the branches of government
have weakened. The Duma offers no meaningful counterweight to
the executive. National television networks are under state
control. And democratic values have yet to be inculcated in
Russia's political culture.
At the same time, there has been little resistance to this
situation within Russia. While the electoral process was
flawed, President Putin was reelected last year with a solid
majority. Independent polling indicates that as living
standards improve and the threat of terrorism increases, a
majority of the population continues to favor order and
stability above all else. The Russian Government's efforts to
centralize control have taken advantage of this popular
sentiment, further postponing the development of democratic
accountable governance.
I think, Mr. Chairman, I'll stop at that point and I'll be
happy to answer any questions about any of the countries or the
processes in the region.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Tefft follows:]
Parepared Statement of Ambassador John F. Tefft, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, State Department,
Washington, DC
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman, Senators, I am delighted to be with you this
afternoon to discuss the current state of democracy in the Black Sea
region and the prospects for further democratic evolution there. While
we address aspects of this important issue in one way or another
literally every day at the State Department, occasions for reflecting
comprehensively on the region in its entirety are rare. So I especially
value the chance to share my thoughts with you today on where we are
with U.S. policy toward the countries of the region and where we are
headed. The topic is certainly timely, with this past Sunday's
parliamentary elections in Moldova, and the memory of Ukraine's
dramatic Presidential contest still fresh.
OVERVIEW
The nine nations of the Black Sea region--Romania, Bulgaria,
Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia--are
diverse and hard to characterize as a group. Geographical proximity and
overlapping histories have created rivalry and friction as well as
cooperation and alliance; centrifugal forces impelling countries
outward compete with a strong pull toward greater regional integration.
U.S. policy by necessity takes the specific characteristics of each
country and its unique geopolitical situation into account and deals
with each accordingly.
There are some broad commonalities: Black Sea States are all
members of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE), and either members of NATO or NATO's Partnership for Peace.
They belong, together with Greece, Albania, and Serbia-Montenegro, to
the Organization for Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC).
Incidentally, we are now considering, in consultation with BSEC
members, the possibility of U.S. participation as an observer at the
BSEC.
Energy transport is one of the strongest links among the Black Sea
nations. Energy pipelines; existing, (Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Blue
Stream, Odesa-Brody), under construction, (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan) and
planned (multiple Bosphorus bypass plans) crisscross the region and
create real opportunities for cooperation and the development of a
regional dialog. Coordination between energy exporting states and
transit nations is needed to solve Bosphorus bottlenecks and develop
efficient solutions to ensure that energy supplies reach the world
market. The United States has consistently worked toward this goal
through encouragement of multiple pipelines and export routes.
But with a closer look, the similarities among these countries
start to break down: They vary in size from huge (Russia, over 140
million people; next is Turkey with 70+ million) to rather small
(Moldova, some 4 million; Armenia, 3 million). They are also at
different stages of economic development. For example, Turkey, Russia,
Romania, Bulgaria fall firmly in the World Bank's middle-income
category, with annual GDP per capita well over $2,000. Others, such as
Moldova and the Caucasus countries, lag behind with yearly income under
$1,000 per person. Most of the countries belong to the World Trade
Organization--Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan are the exceptions. On
the other end of the economic integration scale, Romania and Bulgaria
are solid candidates for EU membership this decade; Turkey, already an
OECD member, is likely to be next after them.
Geostrategic differences are also striking. Three countries: Turkey
since the cold war, and Romania and Bulgaria since last year, are NATO
members; the others, former Republics of the U.S.S.R., belong, however
loosely, to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Four of these
CIS states, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, together with
Uzbekistan, form GUUAM, an organization with projects on law
enforcement cooperation and development of essential economic
infrastructure. Last week (March 2) in Chisinau Presidents Saakashvili,
Yushchenko, and Voronin jointly called for revitalizing GUUAM as
Moldova assumes chairmanship next month.
Separatist conflicts impede nation-building and democratization in
a number of the Black Sea region's countries, and the United States is
actively engaged in solving those conflicts. Significant differences
remain between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, but
Presidents Kocharian and Aliyev are committed to a peaceful resolution.
We support the OSCE Minsk Group's efforts to advance toward a
settlement there, and are encouraged by discussions over the last year
toward a negotiated settlement. Transnistrian provocations caused the
collapse of Moldovan political settlement talks last summer.
Nevertheless we continue to work with Moldova and OSCE partners, to
press Russia to work with us and the international community to promote
progress on settlement in Moldova. In Georgia, we support President
Saakashvili's goal of reuniting the country, and encourage Georgia to
resolve the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in a peaceful
manner. We also continue to insist that Russia fulfill its remaining
Istanbul commitments on the withdrawal of its forces from Moldova and
on reaching agreement with Georgia on the duration and status of Russia
forces there. Throughout these protracted conflicts, the United States
has been consistent in supporting the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Georgia, as well as of the Russian Federation
with respect to the Chechen separatist movement.
These facts provide a context for the discussion of these
countries' different levels of democratic development as well. Freedom
House, in its 2005 comparative ranking of the world's countries, found
two of the Black Sea States (Romania, Bulgaria) meet its standards for
``Free'' countries, another two (Russia, Azerbaijan) fall so far short
of those standards that they rated ``Not Free.'' The other five fall in
between; Freedom House categorizes them as ``Partly Free.'' Our Human
Rights Report for 2004, just released to Congress on February 28, while
it does not use such specific categories, also reflects the divergence
Freedom House found in the democracy and human rights records of these
countries.
I'd like to consider democracy and democratization in each of these
countries, and what the U.S. Government is doing to improve the record.
Romania
In December 2004 Romania underwent a democratic transition, with
the candidate representing an alliance of opposition parties winning a
very close Presidential runoff election. Civil society organizations
(including some that received U.S. assistance) played a strong role as
election monitors, in advocating an ``issue-based'' political campaign,
and in pressing for nonbiased media coverage of the campaign. President
Basescu is scheduled to meet with President Bush on March 9. The
leaders of the former goverment, including the former President and
Prime Minister, now serve in Romania's Parliament.
Romania believes its location on the Black Sea, its membership in
NATO (since May 2004), and its prospective membership in the European
Union (projected for January 2007), leave it well-placed to provide a
bridge to Europe for the countries of the Caucasus. In particular, the
Romanians believe they can serve as a model for these democratizing
countries. To this end, Romania has been active in the Community of
Democracies initiative, and recently organized an international mission
to Georgia of NGO and other experts to discuss media freedom, judicial
reform, and other democracy issues.
Romania also sees opportunities to reach out to its Black Sea
neighbors on economic and security issues. Romania is the host country
for the Southeast Europe Cooperative Initiative (SECI), and is involved
in outreach efforts to Black Sea littoral and regional states on
cooperative law enforcement initiatives, including customs and border
security initiatives, antinarcotics and trafficking-in-persons
initiatives. The United States has provided assistance for these
regional, cooperative efforts. We continue to press the Government of
Romania to promote media freedom and combat corruption.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria's sixth national elections since 1990 are scheduled for
June 2005 with a wide, but moderate, political spectrum expected to
participate. Elections since 1990 have met acceptable standards and
reflect the will of the Bulgarian people. Over the last 15 years
Bulgaria has established a fully functioning, free-market democracy,
marked by strong public support for full Euro-Atlantic integration.
Bulgaria entered NATO in March 2004, and is scheduled to sign an EU
accession agreement in April 2005 leading to full membership in 2007.
Aside from supporting Euro-Atlantic integration, U.S. Government
efforts to ensure stable democratic focus on strengthening local
governments, civil society, and a free press.
Bulgaria is a natural route for trafficking in narcotics,
contraband, and persons. Like many countries in the region, Bulgaria
suffers from substantial organized crime and corruption that threatens
democratic development and successful Euro-Atlantic integration. Reform
of the weak judicial system is a pressing need, as is greater
transparency in public procurement and privatizations.
Bilateral law enforcement cooperation with the United States has
expanded significantly over the past 2 years; the Embassy now hosts the
U.S. Secret Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation plans to
open an office in early FY 2005. The U.S. Government has assisted in
legal reforms, including legislation to combat trafficking in persons,
witness protection, antimoney laundering and regulation of public
procurement. An important USAID legacy mechanism is the National
Institute of Justice (NIJ), which opened last year and is already one
of the leading institutions in Eastern Europe for training magistrates.
Ambassador Pardew is vocal about the need for the Bulgarian Government
to face these challenges; just this week the Ambassador publicly
expressed support for a declaration by 14 NGOs calling for all
political forces to commit themselves to judicial reform.
On the border between NATO/EU countries and Eurasia, Bulgaria sees
itself playing a significant role in the region. Bulgaria considers
democratic reform and development of market economies and free trade in
the region, and good neighborly relations with countries to its east,
as important to its own national interest, placing a priority on the
development of NATO's role in the regional security system.
Turkey
Turkey, a staunch NATO ally, is a functioning secular democracy
with a constitutional government. In an effort to meet the requirements
for EU membership, the Government carried out extensive democratic
legal reforms during this past year. For example, in September 2003
Parliament adopted a new Penal Code, and in May 2004 adopted a new
package of constitutional amendments. These reforms were designed to
crack down on torture and ``honor killings,'' and expand freedom of
religion and association.
Turkey has made rapid progress in meeting the EU political criteria
laid out during the Copenhagen Summit in 2002, and on December 17,
2004, the European Union decided that accession talks with Turkey would
start in October this year. The European Union's historic decision to
start accession talks for Turkey is a major success not only for the
Turkish people, but for Europe as well.
Nonetheless, some problems remain. We continue to press Turkey to
resolve Greek Orthodox Church property issues and open the Greek
Orthodox Halki Seminary. Alevis, a heterodox offshoot of Shi'a Islam,
is concerned with discrimination by the majority Sunni population and
Sunni-run Religious Affairs Directorate, and Kurdish rights within
general civil rights remain a sensitive issue.
The United States supports Turkey's efforts to implement the
reforms instituted in order to gain accession to the European Union. We
continue to urge full respect for human rights, including freedom of
speech and the press, freedom of religion, as well as rule of law.
Ukraine
In one of the most significant events of 2004, an event marking a
victory for democracy, the Ukrainian people succeeded in overturning a
fraudulent Presidential election and achieving a final outcome that
reflected the will of the voters. Ukraine's democratic institutions
demonstrated surprising strength in the face of persistent attempts by
elements within the previous government and among oligarchic clans to
subvert democratic processes. When confronted with allegations of
widespread fraud, the judicial system ultimately acted in an
independent manner, and the legislative branch behaved responsibly in
helping to broker a political solution to the crisis. Many journalists
at state- and oligarch-owned media enterprises stopped taking
instructions from the Presidential administration and started to report
news accurately and objectively. NGOs and civil society organizations
took the lead in organizing peaceful demonstrations in support of a
democratic outcome.
It is not true, as some have said, that the United States funded or
otherwise supported any candidate or party in the election. However,
over a decade of U.S. assistance for a democratic process was a
contributing factor to the positive outcome. Over a period of many
months, the United States and our European allies repeatedly advised
Ukrainian authorities, publicly and privately, that we were watching
the election closely and considered it a test of Ukraine's commitment
to democracy. The United States funded local civil society groups to
conduct voter education and get-out-the-vote campaigns. We supported
the work of independent media to improve coverage of campaign issues.
We provided nonpartisan training to political parties and leaders,
trained election officials and observers, and more. Our election-
related assistance to Ukraine was approximately $18 million. Of
particular note, the United States funded what we believe was an
unprecedented election-observer effort, domestic and international,
which turned out to be critical in spotlighting electoral fraud,
particularly in the November 21 second round.
As Yushchenko and his team turn to the task of governing, they face
a great many challenges. The ``Orange Revolution'' spurred a reaction
in eastern and southern Ukraine, where some officials began speaking of
federation, autonomy, and even secession and independence. This would
be disastrous for Ukraine and for the region. Fortunately, then-
President Kuchma summoned these governors and ordered them to cease and
desist. Nevertheless, there is disaffection in Russian-speaking parts
of Ukraine which Yushchenko needs to address. He also has his work cut
out for him in combating endemic corruption, reforming the economy,
consolidating democratic reforms and promoting human rights. Managing
relations with Russia will also be critical. We look forward to
President Yushchenko's visit to the United States early next month.
Moldova
Moldova's campaign period in advance of the March 6 parliamentary
elections has been blemished with irregularities, such as media access
issues, harassment of opposition, and misuse of administrative
resources. However, international criticism, including the Department's
engagement and a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, prior to election day
positively encouraged the Moldovan Government to take corrective
measures. The United States has provided some $1.7 million for
election-related assistance in the past year to support development of
the Moldovan electoral administration and legal framework, independent
media, civic involvement, nonpartisan political party training, and
election monitoring. Again, our focus is on a free and fair electoral
process, not on any particular party or candidate. The results of
Sunday's election show to what extent the Moldovan leadership's late
corrective measures to make the campaign more fair allowed OSCE/ODIHR
to assess the elections as generally meeting international standards.
(Note: Oral testimony will update the subcommittee on the results of
the March 6 elections.)
Moldova's foreign policy priority is to integrate with the European
Union, as manifested by its recent conclusion of an EU Action Plan. We
support Moldova's efforts toward this goal, and we would hope that its
participation in the GUUAM regional group could be deepened even
further after Moldova assumes the rotating Presidency later this
spring.
The repressive Transnistrian separatists are an impediment to
regional stability and democracy. We are therefore actively looking for
ways to resolve the Transnistria conflict in a manner that would
strengthen Moldova's territorial integrity and also be supported by its
people and have international credibility. We believe enhanced
international participation could give new impetus to the stalled
negotiation process, and are consulting with our European Union, OSCE,
Ukrainian, and Russian partners as to the most effective way forward.
Equally important, Moldova, the United States, and our NATO allies
continue to press Russia to fulfill its commitments made at the 1999
OSCE Summit in Istanbul to complete the withdrawal of its military
forces from Moldova.
Georgia
The Rose Revolution of 2003 demonstrated that Georgians desire fair
elections and good governance, and are capable of holding their
government accountable. Since the Rose Revolution, Georgia has made
significant internal reforms to fight official corruption, consolidate
bureaucracy and increase revenue collection in order to provide better
services to its own citizens.
Progress in Georgia is hampered by ongoing separatist conflicts in
South Ossetia and Abkhazia; the international community should stand
firm to encourage Georgia to resolve these conflicts peacefully.
Internal reform will strengthen the economy and create incentives for
the separatist regions to integrate into Georgia.
Georgia clearly aspires to join the Euro-Atlantic institutions; the
United States welcomes the EU's Wider Europe program in the South
Caucasus and encourages Europe to work closely with Georgia and its
neighbors in support of civil society, human rights, and democratic
development. We also continue to support talks between Georgia and
Russia on the 1999 Istanbul commitments to reach agreement on the
status and duration of remaining Russian bases in Georgia.
Armenia
Armenia has made significant economic and social progress since its
independence; however, the flawed Presidential and parliamentary
elections of 2003 demonstrate that it has some way to go to strengthen
its democratic institutions and ensure an equitable balance of powers
between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Armenia
needs to take steps to improve its poor human rights record. The United
States is providing extensive assistance to strengthen the National
Assembly, the judiciary and local government institutions in Armenia.
Further reform is hampered by Armenia's relatively isolated
position and the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which has been an
enormous drain on the government's resources for over 10 years.
We welcome Armenia's attempt to work within the BSEC to expand its
economic and other ties to the region, including with Turkey.
Azerbaijan
The flawed Presidential elections of 2003 demonstrate that
Azerbaijan has far to go to strengthen its democratic institutions and
ensure an equitable balance of powers between the executive,
legislative, and judicial branches. We are focusing on assistance
programs and diplomacy on improving election procedures and
strengthening Azerbaijan's democratic institutions as parliamentary
elections approach this fall. These elections will be an important test
of Azerbaijan's progress toward democratization. Azerbaijan also needs
to take steps to improve its poor human rights record. Azerbaijan's
economic progress in the next year will depend on its ability to direct
oil funds toward nonoil sector development.
Political and economic reform is hampered by the ongoing Nagorno-
Karabakh conflict, as in Armenia, an enormous drain on the government's
resources for over 10 years.
Azerbaijan continues to offer extensive and invaluable support to
the United States for the Global War on Terror, including, but not
limited to, blanket overflight rights, the use of Azerbaijan military
bases, information sharing, and law enforcement cooperation.
We welcome Azerbaijanis' attempt to work within the BSEC to expand
its economic and other ties to the region.
Russia
Russia is experiencing an erosion of its democratic institutions
and processes. Especially over the past 2 years, checks and balances
among the branches of government have weakened. The Duma offers no
meaningful counterweight to the executive, national television networks
are under state control, and democratic values have yet to be
inculcated in Russia's political culture. At the same time, there has
been little resistance to this situation within Russia. While the
electoral process was flawed, President Putin was re-elected last year
with a solid majority. Independent polling indicates that as living
standards improve and the threat of terrorism increases, a majority of
the population continues to favor order and stability above all else.
The Russian Government's efforts to centralize control have taken
advantage of this popular sentiment, further postponing the development
of democratic, accountable governance.
Despite some indications that the situation in Chechnya has
improved, basic security is lacking as terrorists and insurgents
continue to battle pro-Moscow Chechens and federal forces, and human
rights violations continue with impunity. A flawed Presidential
election in August 2004 did not advance a political solution to the
conflict. Terrorist attacks at Beslan and elsewhere pose a threat to
the region. Conflict appears to be spreading across the North Caucasus,
due to a combination of terrorist activities, religious extremism,
criminality, and the weakness of state structures in the region. As the
situation on the ground allows, we will look for opportunities to
provide development assistance to people in the North Caucasus.
Russia and the United States have shared interests in stability and
economic development in the Black Sea region but differ over how these
goals should be interpreted and pursued.
We both want to fight weapons trafficking, narcotics trafficking,
organized crime, money laundering, and terrorist organizations in the
Black Sea region. To achieve this goal, the United States wants to
encourage regional stability. Russia shares the United States desire
for stability, but appears to interpret stability in a fundamentally
different way. Russia has been critical of the programs the European
Union is pursuing under its Neighborhood Policy to create a string of
well-governed states on the EU's border and that in the Black Sea
region, which explicitly includes Georgia and Ukraine.
Russia defines stability as preservation of the status quo, with
regimes it knows well. Russian support for separatists in other
countries appears to be means, in part, of maintaining levers of
influence in Moldova and Georgia. For the same reason, Russia has been
slow to close its remaining bases in Georgia and remove its troops from
Transnistria.
United States and Russian goals overlap more closely on the
practical matter of shutting down transshipment and smuggling routes on
the Black Sea. The United States supports and encourages Russia's
participation in the Black Sea Force, its cooperation with coast guards
of littoral states, and its participation in Operation Active Endeavor.
Russian and United States views also overlap on the issue of
Russia's Black Sea Fleet as an important element in regional security.
The United States encourages continued Russian-Ukrainian cooperation
that will allow Russia to lease port facilities at Sevastopol at least
through the current agreement's end in 2017.
The United States and Russia have a shared interest in economic
development and trade, in particular as concerns projects to bring
Russian and Caspian Basin oil and gas to European and world markets. We
hope President Putin's December 2004 visit to Turkey and President
Erdogan's visit to Russia the following month will help advance such
cooperation. At the same time, conflicts over the direction of the
Odesa-Brody pipeline and other projects demonstrate that tensions exist
over questions of whose oil and gas will get to market over whose
territory.
Moscow continues to react strongly over a possible United States
military role in the region. This can be seen particularly in the
pressure that Russia has placed on Georgia to agree to a ``no foreign
bases'' clause in a Georgia Russia Framework Treaty, and it can be seen
also in Russia's displeasure over the United States Georgia Train and
Equip Program (GTEP) and Sustainment and Stability Operations Program
(SSOP) to train Georgian forces. We have made clear to Moscow at very
senior levels that we have no plans for establishing United States
bases in Georgia. Russia's concerns are likely to increase as Ukraine
moves closer to NATO.
We are also urging Russia to stop obstructing an Organization of
Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) border monitoring operation along
the Chechnya portion of the Russian-Georgian border. We believe this
monitoring operation has played an important role in deterring the
possible movement of international terrorists and Chechen fighters
between Russia and Georgia.
Assistance
Finally a word on U.S. assistance programs to the region. U.S.
Goverment assistance targets enhancing regional cooperation and
development as well as to support reform bilaterally. Our support for
the GUUAM organization is enabling these countries to cooperate in law
enforcement and harmonize their trade and transportation regimes. The
Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI), which includes
Bulgaria, Romania, and Moldova (in addition to other countries that are
not ``Black Sea States''), serves as a regional assistance model for
GUUAM projects. Since 2000, SECI has promoted cross-border cooperation
in Southeast Europe in the fight against organized crime, as well as
reform and harmonization of customs services to promote economic
development and facilitate trade.
Democracy assistance is key to our broader bilateral assistance
programs in this region that, with the exception of Turkey, are funded
through the Support for East European Democracy (SEED) and FREEDOM
Support Acts. Under these accounts we will be providing approximately
$126 million in FY 2005 to support civil society, access to
information, pluralistic political processes, local governance and rule
of law in these countries.
Political changes in Georgia and Ukraine in the past year reflect a
desire by these countries--and their people--to establish themselves as
democratic market economies. Our assistance continues to support their
efforts to combat corruption and integrate them into the world economy,
including the Black Sea region.
I welcome your comments and questions.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. And that was a
good survey of the region; an overview. The purpose of having
such hearings is, hopefully, to educate the American public as
to this region. And one thing that one understands by listening
to all of this, and we'll get it from our second panel, but a
study of history, all these countries are not the same. They're
individual, they have their own sovereignty, their own
heritage, languages, and customs. And each one has its own
unique needs. Some are models for others to emulate, but the
ones who will emulate it will do it in their own way, hopefully
in their own way, creating more just and free societies.
One thing that ends up--and just trying to find some
crosscurrents or threads and commonality--and you finished with
Russia. But Russia--beyond Russia's own problems in their own
country is the question of their troops in places such as
Moldova and in Georgia. And you were mentioning the recent
elections in Moldova. One issue which remains there, which is
an issue for Romanians, for Moldovans, for Ukrainians as well,
is the Russian presence there, but also the Transnistrian
region.
So, if you could share with us, the audience and this
committee, as part of the record: A, what has President Bush
said, and hopefully in a very strong way, to President Putin
when they were meeting in Bratislava, about the concepts, not
just of democracy and human rights, which is very important,
but getting their troops out of Georgia and Moldova, as well as
what are we doing on this Transnistrian issue, which is an area
from what I can understand, I have not been there, but what I
can understand is, it seems to be a lawless area, with
everything from trafficking in drugs to humans to arms as well.
And so long as that haven for such activity, criminal behavior
as well as potentially terrorists acquiring weapons, this does
need to be a concern to us.
So if you could--those are two large areas, issues, but I
think they're related to the Russians' involvement in some of
these places.
Ambassador Tefft. Thank you. I was in Moldova in November
myself and had an opportunity to talk to not only all of the
political parties there, but with a number of others in the
society. We have directed our efforts in Moldova both at trying
to encourage a democratic election--I've talked about that in
my remarks--but also in trying to be supportive of a process
leading to a solution to the Transnistrian problem.
We are hopeful that this election that's just taken place,
will act as an incentive to try to bring everyone together in a
new effort to try to solve that problem. We have made this an
issue with the Russians in a number of meetings. I believe it
was raised in Bratislava. Certainly Secretary Rice has raised
this in her first meetings with Foreign Minister Lavrov.
We think it's high time that a solution be found. We think
it's high time that the Russian troops be withdrawn, and we
have made that very, very clear to them.
Senator Allen. What's their reaction?
Ambassador Tefft. I think at this point the--we're still
waiting.
Senator Allen. Do they--in other words, do they sit there
impassively listening politely----
Ambassador Tefft. They----
Senator Allen [continuing]. Or is there a reaction?
Ambassador Tefft. Their claim is that they still support a
solution to the problem, that they still are honoring the
commitments. You know that at NATO, at the NATO Russia summit
last December, the communique had the Russians agreeing to
withdraw their troops under the Istanbul Commitments. Our view
is it's high time. Let's get on with the process.
Ambassador Steve Mann, who is our negotiator for what we
call the frozen conflicts, was in Moscow last Friday at the
invitation of the Russians to begin to talk about these issues.
We hope this week, Senator, that Foreign Minister Tarasyuk of
the Ukraine, who will be here at the invitation of Secretary
Rice, that we will be able to talk to him about not only
enforcing the borders on the Transnistrian side with Ukraine,
to make sure that some of the corruption and the smuggling
that's been going on for years has stopped, but also talk to
the Ukrainians, who are also part of the mediation effort
there, to see how much they will be able to do to push this
process forward.
Finally, I would note that the United States, and I think
the European Union, are prepared to join in the negotiations as
observers if that's what the parties decide. But we're going to
try to make a major effort to see if we can get this process
going again, and we'll put as much pressure as we can on the
Russians to try to get some results.
Senator Allen. Thank you. And we'll be watching this. It's
not going to get resolved quickly, but it's something that
needs to stay on--right at the top of the list, because of the
destabilizing impact of this narrow, small area. But
nevertheless it is in a fairly crucial position to affect all
those borders in that region and beyond there as well.
Now, the Russians have agreed to this convention of forces
in Europe to pull their troops out of Moldova. Now what about--
and also agreed to pull them out of Georgia--what has been
stated to the Russians as far as their troops and bases in
Georgia?
Ambassador Tefft. We feel the same, that they should be
withdrawn as quickly as we can--as they can. I know that
Foreign Minister Lavrov was in Tbilisi just a few weeks ago.
One of the issues they talked about was just this, the question
of Russian Forces there. My understanding is that these
discussions continue. There is some hope that they could get
some kind of an agreement on this perhaps before President
Saakashvili goes to Moscow on May 9 for the victory day
celebrations that the Russians are going to hold.
I think no one has any illusions about how hard this is,
but it is a matter of discussion, and we urge both sides to try
to get an agreement on this.
Senator Allen. Do you find the Russians willing to do this
or are they--it strikes me they made an agreement and, at best,
you could say they're dragging their feet.
Ambassador Tefft. I personally would agree with you,
Senator. I think----
Senator Allen. What do you think their motivation is? Just
drag their feet, just----
Ambassador Tefft. I think there are people----
Senator Allen [continuing]. Troops in there----
Ambassador Tefft [continuing]. Within the Russian system
who are not only--who not only support the continued stationing
of the troops, but who are clearly profiting from the
situations that exist where these troops are, there where the
frozen--profiting from the frozen conflicts in a sense.
This is going to take leadership on the part of President
Putin to cut through this, to make the decisions, and to
enforce the decisions about getting these troops withdrawn. I
think only that level is going to be able to get the results
that we want.
Senator Allen. Well, reading his actions, do you actually
think he does so desire to keep those commitments?
Ambassador Tefft. I hope so.
Senator Allen. You hope so? OK. You have to be an
Ambassador and diplomatic. I understand. We all can translate
what that means.
Finally, have you done any assessment on--and I, as I said
at the outset on the bases, moving any of our assets or bases
or capabilities to the Black Sea area, say moving some of them
from Germany to Bulgaria or Romania? Have you--from Department
of State--granted this is mostly a military logistics platform,
power projection issue, although these issues do have
diplomatic impacts or implications. Could you share with us
your insight on that?
Ambassador Tefft. Yes, sir. My colleagues in the Department
are involved in interagency discussions about this issue. I
think Bob Bradke, my colleague in the European Bureau, appeared
before the group last week and addressed this.
I think, fundamentally, we're not thinking of establishing
new bases per se. There's not--we're not looking at new
Rammsteins in that sense.
Senator Allen. Right.
Ambassador Tefft. What we are interested in is looking at
enhanced training, joint exercises with our allies in
Southeastern Europe. We're in the midst of some consultations,
not only within the U.S. Government but with these allies. Any
future announcement, I'm told, will really depend on the
outcome of those discussions. DOD really is the one to talk to
about the financing of this, obviously, because it's going to
be expensive.
There's been discussion. I think you've seen some of the
interviews that General Jones has given. I think those reflect
some of the thinking in the U.S. military. State is playing the
role in the interagency process on this and trying to manage
the diplomatic side of this, but it's an ongoing process,
Senator.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I also do want to
commend General Jones. I think he's doing an outstanding job as
a military leader, but also understanding the diplomatic and
cultural aspects of these various countries and their people.
And I want to thank you also, Mr. Ambassador, for appearing
before this subcommittee today. There may be questions that are
posed by members because we have several meetings going on and
votes this afternoon. I hope you'll be able to respond to those
questions. And with that, thank you for your testimony and your
leadership for our country.
Ambassador Tefft. Thank you, sir. We'll be happy to answer
any questions that come up.
Senator Allen. Thank you. I'd like to have the second panel
please come forward. The room will please come to order. I
understand for our friends from Turkey there's translation
going on in the back, and so some people wonder what the
murmuring is. It's not rudeness. It's simply translation, and
we're very happy to have our friends from Turkey with us.
Now, our second panel of witnesses includes Ms. Zeyno
Baran, Mr. Bruce Jackson, and Mr. Vladimir Socor. Each has
extensive knowledge of the Black Sea region and the challenges
that it'll face in the coming years. I'm going to give everyone
a background on each of you. It could be very long and I could
go on for hours on each of you.
Let me do it in this order. Ms. Zeyno Baran first is the
director of the International Security and Energy Programs at
the Nixon Center. Her current projects include devising
strategies to thwart the spread of radical Islamist ideology in
Eurasia; assessing the impact of the Georgian and the Ukrainian
revolutions on Central Eurasian countries; and engaging the
leaderships, civil societies, representatives, and opposition
forces of these countries to encourage democratic reform; and
also contributing to the shaping of a new trans-Atlantic energy
dialog on the Caspian and Black Sea regions.
Previously--this is not the first that Ms. Baran has been
involved in this region--she was the director of the Caucasus
Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
at CIS. In 1998, Ms. Baran established the Georgia Forum, at
which time--at that time was a creation--was the only program
in the United States with a focus on this strategic country of
Georgia and its relations with the United States and Russian.
Ms. Baran also worked on a Caspian and Black Sea oil and
gas pipeline project since 1996, and frequently travels to the
region. Ms. Baran, welcome.
Bruce Jackson is the founder and president of the Project
on Transitional Democracies. I've known Mr. Jackson since the
days I was Governor when he was advocating the expansion of
NATO countries to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, and
I became good friends with him back then. And over the years we
have worked together on the expansion of NATO, which also gets
European Union admission as well. And we've seen that spread of
freedom and how those countries--our previous witness, Mr.
Tefft, was Ambassador to Lithuania and those countries are good
friends, true allies, not just philosophically, but also with
armaments and assistance in our war on terror, particularly in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Jackson did serve in the U.S. Army as a military
intelligence officer back in 1979 to 1990. The present project
that he's working on is to accelerate the pace of reform in the
post-1989 democracies and integrating them into the Euro-
Atlantic institutions, which is perfect. He's been doing that
for decades.
He also served as the president of the U.S. Committee on
NATO back in the 1990s until 2003 promoting the expansion of
NATO and, obviously, strengthening the ties between our country
and the people of Europe.
Vladimir Socor is a senior fellow and longtime senior
analyst with the Jamestown Foundation, great name of an
organization, need to really use 2007, the 400th anniversary of
the founding of Jamestown somehow for enhancing your visibility
and those wonderful principles. Mr. Socor formerly served as a
senior research analyst with Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty
in Munich, and as a specialist in the non-Russian former
Republics of the U.S.S.R., CIS affairs, and ethnic conflicts.
Welcome to all of our witnesses. Ms. Baran being the
courteous one is pointing. Did you--have you all huddled over
there and determined you wanted to have an order of testimony?
If so--I'm going to let--there's a clock here for your huddle
here. I don't mind doing it in the order that you all are
presented on this, which is Bruce Jackson, Vladimir Socor, and
Ms. Baran, if you want to do it that way. You probably--were
you all prepared to do it that way?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Senator Allen. We'll run the play that way. Mr. Jackson,
please proceed.
STATEMENT OF BRUCE JACKSON, PRESIDENT, PROJECT ON TRANSITIONAL
DEMOCRACIES, WASHINGTON DC
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and keeping with your
injunction to summarize our prepared testimony, I'll try to run
through the big picture here.
First, what is the Black Sea and why does it matter to this
committee? Second, how are the states doing? And third, what
should be the policy of the United States as we look forward?
I think the first major point is, this is a region in a
region of Europe. Classically, it's been defined by the
competitions between empires, largely Turkey, the Ottoman
Empire, and Russia. The three middle states that we are so
proud of today, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine, have
traditionally sought alliances within that region and usually
tended toward Europe to offset the difficulties of the region.
And the four smaller states, Moldova and the three states of
the South Caucasus, lie essentially right down the seam of the
region where the frozen conflicts lie, and they tend to look at
Europe enviously. They tend to fear the actions of the great
powers to their north and to their south, and actually Persia
to their southeast. And they tend to be bloodied by every
change that happens along this tectonic place.
But it seems to me that there are six reasons that make
this region incredibly important to the United States today.
For centuries, this region has been the entry point to the
broader Middle East, and every European power has understood
that the nation that controlled the Black Sea can control the
most important real estate in the Middle East. If we are to be
successful in our effort to support democracy in the broader
Middle East, we have to build a secure and prosperous Black Sea
system first.
Second, the Black Sea was traditionally the beginning of
the Silk Road. While we're not interested in spices and silks
these days, we are interested in the energy resources for
Europe. Today they import 50 percent of their oil. Tomorrow it
will be 70 percent. That comes from the Caspian basins and the
Black Sea is their access to that oil.
The Black Sea region is already a part of Europe. As
Ambassador Tefft laid out, they are coming into the NATO and
the European Union. This is already part of our community and
was recognized as such at the Istanbul summit.
Fourth, it's not only about interests, it's also about
values. Obviously, the events, as you have said, in Ukraine and
in Georgia inspired the President's second inaugural address
and his recent speech in Bratislava. Without a doubt the most
democratic changes are occurring in this part of the Euro-
Atlantic.
But it is not just our hopes, it is also our fears that
draw us to this region. This belt of frozen conflicts that run
from Transnistria to Nagorno Karabakh are the most dangerous
elements of what's left of the destruction or the collapse of
the Soviet Empire. This is where transnational crime has found
a home. This is where criminal enterprises flourish. This is
where people who would export weapons and technology to our
enemies continue to prosper.
And finally, this is--I had an opportunity to testify
before this committee before about Russia--but this is where
Russia, the most negative expressions of its foreign policy
exist. And suffice it to say whether we are just intent on
protecting democracies from foreign influence or we care about
Russia is doing to its own people, we must look at this region
to answer those questions.
So the broad view is the Black Sea is where--is a knife
edge of history where the forces of reactionary politics,
separatism, ethnic historical Russian imperial aspirations and
criminal interests are doing battle with the people that see a
liberal and European future based on shared security and the
vision of a European Union.
How this turns out is of great consequence to the United
States, and not only will it affect how we conduct democratic
change or support democratic change in the greater Middle East
and protect the energy security of Europe, but if we fail in
this regard to build a European system here, the lives of a
quarter of a billion Europeans will be nastier, more brutish,
and inevitably shorter. It matters to people. Almost one-third
of the Euro-Atlantic community lives in this region.
Now, in looking--Ambassador Tefft has gone through these
nations, so I'll just skip over and highlight the factors where
we're being successful and where we're being retard in our
progress.
Romania and Bulgaria are clearly the two great success
stories. What continues to retard them is deeply entrenched
corruption and a compromised judiciary. The great news is the
election of President Basescu in Romania. He is committed to a
program of comprehensive reform. Incidentally, he is also the
most eloquent advocate of a Black Sea strategy for the West
that would make the Black Sea a second Mediterranean, with
everything that means.
Turkey, obviously, has achieved a historic milestone at the
end of December, but frankly the trends there have been
negative since then. Turkey was complicit in blocking NATO
coming into the Black Sea last June with their surveillance
mission. It has broken off its relations with Israel and the
strategic alliance. It has not been helpful in the solution in
Nagorno Karabakh. And it is entering a period clearly--it is
dangerous for Turkey, and I think the Ambassador was correct to
draw attention to the really brutal attack on women that
occurred the other day on Sunday.
I think we can hope that the negative trend in Turkey is
really related to the turmoil in the Middle East and the
difficulty a secular Islamic state has in integrating into
Europe, and it is not a reaction to the appearance of
democracy. But still, Turkey is entering a dangerous period
that we're going to have to pay careful attention to.
Obviously the story of Ukraine is well known. I think the
point for this committee is Ukraine is going to have to build a
nation at the same time they're trying to build a democracy,
and that's going to be awfully difficult.
I think that two things we have to do is, basically, the
United States and our European allies must bring their entire
diplomatic and economic power to ensure that Russia or criminal
groups emboldened by Russia do not attempt to undermine the
Yushchenko government in its first critical year.
Georgia. I think in your remarks you referred to many of
the negative forces that exert themselves on Georgia, the
persistence of Russian bases, and the attempt by Russia to
close the border monitoring operations that protects Georgia
and peacekeeping operations of the OSCE. I think the good news
is that the Rose Revolution has been strong enough to withstand
this, and this is one of the extraordinary success stories. It
seems to me that if democracies could be compared to sports
teams, this would be the 1980 Olympic hockey team. They
shouldn't be winning, but they keep winning, and they have the
scrappiness that we associated with the revolutionaries of
1989, and they are completely committed, and I think it's a
great story.
The smaller states, Moldova, Azerbaijan, and Armenia,
frankly retain more of the characteristics of post-Soviet
autocracies than they do of emerging European democracies. They
are lagging behind. The factors that retard them are the
persistence of frozen conflicts on their territories and the
negative effect these conflicts have on their economic
development and domestic politics.
It seems to me, in sum, what we are talking about here is a
special class of democracies which are torn between the desire
of their peoples for a European future and the lingering grip
of a brutal past. This region of Europe is a place where
democracy is still at risk.
It seems to me that there are six things that we can do to
support the new democracies, to dissuade or deter foreign
powers from intervening in their development, and to ensure
that the Euro-Atlantic institutions they seek remain open to
them.
First, we must accelerate the leading democracies of the
region. The integration of Romania and Bulgaria into the
European Union on January 1, 2007, would convey the possibility
of Europe to all the other states of the region. I think the
United States can insist in that by pushing hard for judicial
reform and strict standards of conduct and also making the
long-delayed decision about repositioning U.S. bases. I think
the offer of the basing at Constanza in Romania is an offer
that should be accepted, and nothing could make more clear that
the United States shares the view of the European Union that
security and stability in the Black Sea is essential for Euro-
Atlantic security than this decision.
Second, we have to reform and adapt our institutions for
the Black Sea. Both NATO and OSCE are not functioning well, one
because it's been blocked, the other because it's been
eviscerated by Russian veto.
The institutions of the region, the GUUAM initiative that
was referred to is confused, and the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation Council is largely moribund. As a consequence, we
should engage the new leaders of the region, President
Saakashvili, President Basescu, and President Yushchenko, on
the formation of new structures for this region, as we did in
the Baltic Charter and in previous times where democracy has
reached a new area.
Third, we must confront both Russia and Turkey when they're
acting in a negative manner. What we hope to accomplish cannot
be accomplished unless we make clear where conduct goes beyond
the acceptable. This is a question of frankness. Just because
Russian officials become peevish when we point out that poison
used on Yushchenko came from Russia and the plastique for the
car bomb in Gori came from Russia doesn't mean we should ignore
this conduct. And just because a discussion of the Ottoman
treatment of the Armenian population in the early parts of the
last century is a painful issue, it does not mean that coming
to terms with history should not be discussed between
democratic allies. If we are to succeed where democracy is at
risk, we must be clear in what we say and what we do.
Fourth, we must prioritize the frozen conflicts as you said
in your opening remarks, beginning with the conflict in
Transnistria. With the help of Ukraine, we can end the criminal
enterprise in Transnistria and the successionist conflict with
the constitutional government in Chisinau.
In Nagorno Karabakh, we must press Azerbaijan and Armenia
back to serious negotiations and force them to begin where they
left off at the Key West Accords in 2001. And most importantly,
where leaders of the region offer a peace plan, we must
basically embrace it. President Misha Saakashvili offered an
enlightened peace plan for South Ossetia, which was greeted by
resounding silence both in Brussels and here. That shouldn't
happen.
Fifth, this is an area where we're going to need to enhance
and continue the same cooperation we developed, with the
European Union in the 10 years in the Balkans, of a close
partnership with the European Union. Both the European Union
and the United States have democracy support programs for the
Black Sea region, but there is no formal coordination as yet,
and that needs to improve.
And also our--we have to challenge our NGOs that are funded
by bills coming through this committee to do more than just do
elections. Civic society, parliamentary opposition, the growth
of civic society is essential for the early years of these new
democracies.
Finally, we have to focus on Ukraine. For better or for
worse, the extent and character of democracy in the Black Sea
region will be defined by whether democracy in Ukraine succeeds
or fails. Without a democratic Ukraine, peace in Moldova will
remain elusive and the democracies in the South Caucasus will
be isolated. If the Orange Revolution succeeds and European
institutions remain open, then all the states of the Black Sea
will someday have a place in Europe, including at some point,
Russia.
So, in conclusion, sir, what I believe is occurring around
the Black Sea is the beginning of the final phase of a Europe
whole and free. Over the 5 years remaining in this decade, I
think the rapid democratic transformation of Central, then
Eastern, now Southeastern Europe, will come to a conclusion and
a new, larger community of Euro-Atlantic democracies will
result.
While the democratic change is ultimately their
responsibility, the United States has a significant role to
play in supporting and protecting these young democracies in
their early years. How well we play this role will affect the
lives of tens of millions of people and will quite literally
shape the future of the West.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jackson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Bruce Pitcairn Jackson, President, Project on
Transitional Democracies, Washington, DC
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you on the state of democracy in the
Black Sea region and the possibilities which the vast democratic
transformation of this region presents for U.S. policy. I would like to
discuss three major questions:
(1) What is the Black Sea region and why should developments there
command the attention of this committee and of U.S. policymakers?
(2) Where are the states of the Black Sea region in the development
of democratic governance and what factors retard development of a free
and prosperous civil society in these states?
(3) Given the strategic importance of the region and the threats to
the freedom of peoples who profess to share our values, what should be
the policy of the United States toward the new democracies around the
Black Sea?
I
Historically, the Black Sea has stood at the confluence of the
Russian, Ottoman and Persian Empires and has been a central theater in
the ``Great Game'' which was played out along its shores throughout the
19th century.\1\ The contours of the Black Sea region which were
established in the competitions between the great European powers in
the Crimean War and World War I are still evident today. The
geopolitics of the region remain heavily influenced by the internal
character and foreign policy aspirations of the larger regional powers,
Russia and Turkey. The middle powers, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria,
continue to seek security and stability in regional cooperation and,
particularly, in closer relations with European institutions. The
smaller littoral states, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia,
watch the great regional powers fearfully, envy the more cosmopolitan
and Europeanized middle powers, and are bloodied by every tremor along
the tectonic plate of the former imperial powers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ For a fuller discussion see Ronald D. Asmus and Bruce P.
Jackson, ``The Black Sea and the Frontiers of Freedom'' in Policy
Review, June and July 2004
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, the same factors, which rendered the Black Sea region a
``black hole'' in European history, now argue that this region is of
central strategic interest to Europe and the United States. There are
six major points:
1. The Black Sea region has for centuries been the entry point to
the broader Middle East. The borders of the democracies of the region
touch Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the shores of the Caspian Sea. As the
United States discovered to its dismay on March 1, 2003, without the
cooperation of Black Sea States, in this instance Turkey, we cannot
easily reach the northern approaches to the broader Middle East. Every
19th century European power understood that the nation which controlled
the Black Sea could control the most important real estate in the
Middle East. If we are to be successful in our efforts to support the
democratization of the Middle East, we will have to build a secure,
prosperous, and democratic Black Sea region in the process.
2. The Black Sea region was the beginning of the Silk Road of trade
with Asia. While silk and spices have lost much of their allure since
the times of Marco Polo, the energy reserves of central Asia are
becoming increasingly important to our European allies and to the
stability of world oil prices. Today, the member states of the European
Union import approximately 50 percent of their energy needs; by 2020
imports will rise to 70 percent of consumption. This increase will be
delivered to Europe across and around the Black Sea region, on routes
such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
3. The Black Sea region is rapidly becoming part of Europe. With
the exception of Croatia, all current candidates for EU membership are
from the Black Sea region. Romania and Bulgaria are expected to gain EU
membership in 2007 and Turkey sometime around 2014. The western and
southern shores of the Black Sea are also the borders of NATO and soon
the European Union. These facts so impressed the heads of state of
member states of NATO that at the Istanbul Summit in July 2004 the NATO
Joint Communique recognized that the Black Sea region was an essential
part of Euro-Atlantic security.
4. It is not, however, only U.S. interests which tie us to the
Black Sea region, but also our political values. Both the Rose
Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine occurred in
countries along the northern and eastern shores of the sea. The
possibilities created by these democratic revolutions not only inspired
President Bush's Second Inaugural Address and his recent speech in
Bratislava, but they changed the structure of politics in Minsk,
Chisinau, and as far away as Almaty, Bishkek, and Beirut. Without
doubt, the largest and most dramatic democratic changes are occurring
in this part of the Euro-Atlantic.
5. Sadly, it is not only our hopes that draw our attention to this
region, but also our fears. The most sharp and dangerous fragments of
the former Soviet Union lie scattered in an arc across the northern
shore of the Black Sea. A belt of ``frozen conflicts'' begins in
Transdnistria in eastern Moldova and runs through Abkhazia and South
Ossetia in Georgia to the mountain heights of Nagorno-Karabakh on the
border of Armenia and Azerbaijan. In each of these ``frozen conflicts''
created in the civil wars of the dying Soviet Empire, brutal warfare
and ethnic cleansing have occurred and could reoccur. In Transdnistria,
Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, transnational crime has found a home and
developed a base for trafficking in weapons, drugs, women, and
children. These criminal enterprises destabilize the governments of the
region, threaten Europe with illicit traffic, and ultimately pose a
danger to the United States with their capability and intent to sell
weapons and technology to our enemies.
6. Finally, the most negative expression of Russian foreign policy
aspirations now occurs along the northern rim of the Black Sea region.
Since I have already been given an opportunity by the committee to
testify on the subject of Russian neoimperialism in what the Kremlin
regards as Russia's ``near abroad,'' I will not repeat the argument
here.\2\ Suffice it to say, whether we are intent on protecting new
democracies from outside inference and coercion or are simply concerned
about the damage Russian policy is doing to its own people, we are
forced to focus on the region.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Bruce Pitcairn Jackson, Testimony before the Senate Foreign
Affairs Committee on ``Democracy in Russia,'' February 17, 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In short, the democracies of the Black Sea lie on the knife edge of
history which separates the politics of 19th century imperialism from
European modernity. Reactionary forces in the region (separatism,
historical Russian aspirations, and criminal interest) would prefer a
return to a balance of power system where the powerful rule over
spheres of interest and the powerless would serve either autocrat or
kleptocrat. On the other hand, those democratic reformers who view
themselves as the direct descendants of the leaders of Solidarity and
Charter 77 who freed Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, aspire to see
their new democracies following the path of Poland and the Czech
Republic into a European system based on liberal values and shared
security.
Which of these forces ends up defining a modern Black Sea system is
a matter of great consequence for the United States and Europe. Not
only would a return to the politics of the past constrain our ability
to work for democratic change in the greater Middle East and damage the
energy security of Europe, but if the new democracies fail to make the
Black Sea a part of the Euro-Atlantic system, the lives of a quarter of
a billion Europeans will be nastier, more brutish, and (inevitably)
shorter.
II
Let me turn from the region as a whole to a summary discussion of
the state of democracy in its constituent states, where it is somewhat
easier to see the great possibilities and the factors which retard
reform and political integration.
Romania and Bulgaria are undoubtedly the success stories of
Southeast Europe and the Black Sea. Both were invited to join NATO in
2002 where they have performed well and contributed to missions in
Afghanistan and Iraq. As I mentioned earlier, both are expected to join
the European Union on January 1, 2007, leading their region into the
institutional core of Europe. The two factors that retard the political
and economic development of both Romania and Bulgaria are deeply
entrenched governmental corruption and a weak and often compromised
judiciary. But, even in this, there is a good news story to be told. In
the recent Romanian Presidential election for the first time, the issue
of corruption dominated the campaign and swept reformer Traian Basescu
into the Presidency. His government has launched a large-scale
offensive against corruption in government and business. Forthcoming
elections in Bulgaria may offer a similar, albeit long overdue,
opportunity to accelerate reform. Clearly, Romania and Bulgaria are two
democracies whose long-term prospects look extremely bright.
Incidentally, Mr. Chairman, President Basescu arrives in Washington
later today for a meeting tomorrow with President Bush and Members of
the Senate. President Basescu is one of the most eloquent advocates of
a comprehensive strategy for the Black Sea, aimed at advancing
prosperity and democracy throughout the region. His goal is nothing
less than to make the Black Sea ``a second Mediterranean'' in terms of
shared security, commerce, and political cooperation.
Turkey achieved an historic milestone on December 17, 2004, when
the European Union finally agreed to open membership negotiations.
Despite this confirmation of Turkey's European destiny, there are
strong indications that Turkey's national and geopolitical identity
crisis is far from over and that Turkey may be entering a difficult and
problematic stage. In June 2004, in order to maintain some manner of
regional hegemony, Turkey played a key role in blocking the extension
of the NATO surveillance operation ACTIVE ENDEAVOR to the Black Sea.
Internally, the ruling AK Party seems have taken a turn for the worse,
characterized by strident anti-Americanism, cultural anti-Europeanism,
and a resurgent xenophobia. (The television footage of Turkish riot
police savagely beating young women at a peaceful protest for political
rights that appeared on BBC yesterday is but the most recent negative
development.)
In foreign policy, during the term of Prime Minister Erdogan,
Turkey has quietly broken off its strategic relationship with Israel,
refused to negotiate with Armenia on the opening of their common border
(thereby obstructing negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh), and demanded of
the United States a draconian treatment of the Kurdish population of
Iraq. In diplomatic parlance, Turkey has become ``unhelpful.''
Perhaps, most worrying are reports of Turkish-Russian discussions
of a coordinated policy in the Black Sea region, which would inevitably
be conducted at the expense of smaller, pro-European democracies. The
motivation for Turkey's negative regional behavior appears to be a
classic case of Great Power insecurity and a fear that Turkey will lose
its distinct identity in the economic and demographic uncertainty of
modern Europe. We can hope that the negative trend in Turkish politics
is related to the turmoil in the Middle East and the problems and
contradictions which a secular Islamic government encounters in the
course of European integration rather than a response to the flowering
of democracy around the Black Sea. Nevertheless, Turkey has entered a
dangerous period both for itself and for United States-Turkish
relations which deserves serious attention.
Ukraine is possibly the best-known and most inspiring of the Black
Sea democracies. The triumph of Viktor Yushchenko and the Ukrainian
people is without question the most significant event in the advance of
democracy in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall. That said,
President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko have a
Herculean task in front of them. First and foremost, they must unite a
nation even as they undertake the reforms which are necessary for
Ukraine to become a European democracy.
The most dangerous year for a new democracy is its first year, and
for Ukraine the critical period is from today through the parliamentary
elections in March 2006. In this defining 12-month period, Viktor
Yushchenko will have to address the criminal conduct of the Kuchma
period, define and negotiate the rules of the game for the business
community, and make significant progress both within the Action Plan of
the European Union's Neighborhood Policy and in an intensified dialog
with NATO. Any one of these tasks would be formidable, but the new
government must accomplish this and more, and do so in such a way that
convinces the people of Kiev, Lviv, and Donetsk that they share a
common future in a united pro-Western Ukraine. The critical task will
be to establish transparent business practices and to eliminate the
``grey economy'' without resorting to large-scale renationalization
which would destroy the confidence of foreign investors and dangerously
inflame sectional resentments.
The further danger for Ukrainian democracy lies in the hostility of
Moscow toward pro-European democracies in the former Soviet space and
the fear that democratic reform inspires in the criminal clans, which
have dominated the ``grey economy'' of Ukraine up until now. Sadly, but
necessarily, the stability and security of EU and NATO membership is
some years off and over the immediate political horizon. The United
States and our European allies must bring their entire diplomatic and
economic power to bear to ensure that Russia, or criminal groups
emboldened by Russia, do not undermine the Yushchenko Government. We
must support the Ukrainian people in their truly historic endeavor.
Georgia's democratic revolution is only slightly less well-known
than Ukraine's and is succeeding against even longer odds. Georgia,
under the leadership of President Misha Saakashvili, has finished an
extraordinary first year of reform, which saw the breakaway province of
Adjaria reunited with the constitutional government in Tbilisi. By all
indicators, such as its qualification for participation within the
Millennium Challenge Account, Georgia is delivering on its commitments
to economic reform and the democratic transformation of its society and
government. Like Ukraine, however, Georgia has encountered serious and
continuous obstruction from Russia. The Russian Government has refused
to comply with its international treaty obligation to withdraw its
troops from the Soviet-era bases on Georgian soil and has consistently
supported separatists in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.
Late last year, Russia blocked the OSCE from reinforcing a peacekeeping
mission in South Ossetia in order to protect its ability to ship
prohibited weapons and explosives through the Roki Tunnel to
paramilitary gangs in South Ossetia. And, at the December OSCE Summit
in Sofia, Bulgaria, Russia forced the OSCE to close the Border
Monitoring Operation which patrolled the northern border of Georgia
with Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya. Russia's actions could very
well prove to be the death knell for the OSCE; we must ensure that they
are not for democratic Georgia.
Despite Russian attempts to destabilize the Saakashvili Government,
Georgian democracy continues to mature and was strong enough to
withstand the recent tragic death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who
was a mainstay of the Rose Revolution. If democracies could be compared
to sports teams, Georgia would be the 1980's U.S. Olympic Hockey team.
Like the Lake Placid Olympic team, Georgia should not be winning,
except it does. It seems to me that Georgia has the essential quality
of scrappiness that animated successful democratic movements in Poland,
the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the Baltic States against the
monolith of Soviet power; they care more and are willing to work harder
for democracy than the reactionary forces are willing to work to
restore autocratic rule and criminal enterprise.
In contrast, the other smaller states of the Black Sea regime,
Moldova, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, retain more characteristics of post-
Soviet autocracies than of emerging European democracies. To varying
degrees, recent elections have not met European standards. Opposition
parties are harassed and opposition candidates are occasionally
threatened with criminal charges or simply imprisoned. Both civil
society and the free press are under duress in these countries, as we
can see from the recent assassination of the editor of an opposition
newspaper in Baku.
For the most part, the major factors retarding the democratic
development of Moldova, Azerbaijan, and Armenia are the persistence of
frozen conflicts on their territories and the negative effect these
conflicts have on their economic development and domestic politics. The
standoff between Moldovan Government and the Smirnov clan in
Transdnistria has proliferated corruption and crime throughout Moldova
and served as an excuse for President Voronin to limit the political
and press freedoms of Moldovan citizens. Similarly, the impasse on
Nagorno-Karabakh has served to maintain extremists in both Azeri and
Armenian politics, and succeeded in isolating both countries from
constructive interaction with their Black Sea neighbors and with Euro-
Atlantic institutions.
This brief survey of the mature, nascent, and inchoate democracies
of the Black Sea region reveals a special class of democracies which
are torn between the desire of their peoples for a European future (and
all the economic and political freedoms these peoples associate with
Europe) and the lingering grip of a brutal past. In short, this is a
region of Europe where the future of democracy is still at risk.
III
If I am correct in arguing that the Black Sea region is a area of
enormous democratic potential, but where democracy remains at risk,
then the policy of the United States has to be to support new
democracies, to dissuade or deter foreign powers from intervening in
their development, and to ensure that the Euro-Atlantic institutions
they seek remain open to them. I have six recommendations for this
committee to consider and for U.S. policy generally:
1. Accelerate the leading democracies of the region. The prospects
for democracy in the Black Sea region will be substantially enhanced by
the formal integration of Romania and Bulgaria in the European Union.
Their accession must remain on track for January 1, 2007, in order to
convey to the other states of the region that the possibility of near-
term European integration exists and that painful reforms have their
reward in security and prosperity. The United States can assist Romania
and Bulgaria in achieving their goal by pushing hard for judicial
reform and strict standards of official conduct. The Department of
Defense should make its long-delayed decision on the repositioning of
United States European bases to the sites offered by the Romanian
Government in the vicinity of Constanza on the Black Sea. Nothing could
make more clear that the United States shares the view of the European
Union that security and stability in the Black Sea region is essential
to Euro-Atlantic security.
2. Reform and adapt our institutions to perform in the Black Sea
region. Existing institutions, such as NATO and the OSCE, must be made
to perform in service of democracy in the Black Sea littorals. We must
revisit the decision to block Active Endeavor from being extended to
the Black Sea and overturn the archaic Montreux Convention, which is
sometimes invoked as the justification for barring NATO surveillance
from transiting the Bosphorus. Similarly, we must demand that the OSCE
fulfill its peacekeeping and monitoring responsibilities throughout the
region. Even if we are successful with both NATO and the OSCE, the
Black Sea region remains ``institution-poor.'' Regional initiatives,
such as the confused GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan,
and Moldova) or the moribund Black Sea Economic Cooperation forum have
not filled the gap. As a consequence, we should engage with regional
leaders, such as Romanian President Basescu, Georgian President
Saakashvili, and Ukrainian President Yushchenko, on the formation of
new structures for a Black Sea strategy.
3. Confront both Russia and Turkey. Whatever we hope to accomplish
in the Black Sea region will be impossible without the willingness to
confront Russia where its conduct goes beyond the acceptable. But we
must also communicate frankly to Turkey that we expect our friends and
allies to support other democratic states and to work for the peaceful
resolution of conflicts in their region. Just because Russian officials
become peevish when we point out that the poison used on Yushchenko and
the explosives used in the car bombing in Gori, Georgia, came from
Russia, does not mean we should ignore this conduct. Just because
Turkish officials become indignant at the mention of a genocidal
campaign conducted by Ottoman authorities against Armenian civilians in
the early years of the last century does not mean that coming to terms
with history should not be discussed between democratic allies. If we
are to succeed where democracy is at risk, we must be clear in what we
say and do.
4. Prioritize the frozen conflicts. Beginning with the conflict in
Transdnistria, our negotiators need to redouble their efforts to find
creative solutions. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine has opened up the
possibility of ending the criminal enterprise in Transdnistria and its
secessionist conflict with the constitutional government in Chisinau.
For negotiations to succeed, however, we should expand the so-called
Pentagonal-format to include both the European Union and Romania, as
essential and constructive partners. In Nagorno-Karabakh, we must press
Azerbaijan and Armenia back to serious negotiations and insist that
negotiations begin from the point reached at 2001 meeting in Key West.
Finally, we must show far greater resolve and enthusiasm when parties
take a meaningful step toward peace. President Misha Saakashvili's
enlightened peace plan for South Ossetia has been greeted by a
resounding silence in Brussels and Washington, which is dumbfounding.
It is also callous and derelict.
5. Harmonize the democracy support programs of the United States
and the European Union. Both the Millennium Challenge Account and
European Union's Neighborhood Policy were designed to assist emerging
democracies in their efforts to accelerate economic development and
strengthen the capacity of democratic institutions. Both the United
States and the European Union are active in the Black Sea region, but
formal coordination does not yet exist. The four freedoms of market
access, labor mobility, investment, and travel offered in Europe's
Neighborhood Policy are the obvious complement to what the United
States can offer in terms of security support and developmental aid.
Closer coordination is essential. We must also challenge our
congressional-funded NGOs, such as the National Endowment of Democracy,
IRI and NDI, to address a wider spectrum of democracy-support
activities. Elections are not the only things that matter in the Black
Sea region. Strengthening civil society, the press and parliamentary
oppositions are also key.
6. Focus on Ukraine. For better or for worse, the extent and
character of democracy in the Black Sea region will be defined to a
great extent by the successes and failures of democratic change in
Ukraine. Without a democratic Ukraine, peace in Moldova will remain
elusive and the democracies of the South Caucasus will be isolated from
Europe. The ultimate disposition of Ukraine may well finally answer the
question that has nagged at us since 1989: ``What is the size of
Europe?'' If the Orange Revolution succeeds and European institutions
maintain an ``Open Door'' policy toward Ukraine's candidacy for
membership in NATO and the European Union, then we can assume that all
the democracies on the Black Sea have a place in Europe, including,
some day, Russia.
Mr. Chairman, I believe that what is occurring around the Black Sea
may be the beginning of the final phase of the completion of a Europe
whole and free. Over the 5 years remaining in this decade, I think that
the rapid democratic transformation of Central, Eastern, and now
Southeastern Europe will come to a conclusion, and a new (and far
larger) community of Euro-Atlantic democracies will result. While
democratic change is ultimately the responsibility of the Black Sea
States themselves, the United States has a significant role to play
both in supporting and protecting these young democracies. How well we
play this role will affect the lives of tens of millions of people and,
quite literally, shape the future of the West.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Jackson, for your, as always,
articulate insight and leadership. At the conclusion I was glad
to get a sense of optimism about the future.
We'll hear from all our witnesses and then we'll pose some
questions. Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Now we'd like to hear from
you, Mr. Socor.
STATEMENT OF VLADIMIR SOCOR, SENIOR FELLOW, JAMESTOWN
FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Socor. Mr. Chairman, I'm grateful for the opportunity
to appear and testify in this hearing on a region that has
surged to salience in debates on U.S. foreign and security
policy and strategy. With your permission, I will skip those
parts of my prepared presentation that overlap with Ambassador
Tefft's and Bruce Jackson's presentations, and I will read
those parts of my presentation that deal with threats to U.S.
interests and to the interests of U.S. allies and partners in
the region.
Senator Allen. You have my permission and I think that's a
good strategy.
Mr. Socor. Thank you--and with the frozen conflicts.
American and overall Western interests in this region require
stable reform-capable states in control of their own borders,
safe from external military or economic pressures or externally
inspired secessions, secure in their function as energy transit
routes and capable of supporting U.S.-led or NATO coalition
operations.
Those interests can only be sustained if the region's
countries develop good governance with functioning democratic
institutions and political processes resistant to corruption or
hostile manipulation, and if they are protected by
international law and Western-led security arrangements.
Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan have acted as de facto
allies in providing political backing, guaranteeing air and
land passage rights, and fielding peace support troops for NATO
and United States-led operations. Georgia and Azerbaijan are
active members of the antiterrorist coalition. Their
participation in the coalition is also a means to maintain
close relations with the United States, advance the
modernization of their security sectors, and earn their
credentials as NATO aspirant countries.
For its part, Azerbaijan gave radical Islamist
organizations no chance to make inroads into the country.
Successful development of Azerbaijan as a Muslim secular state
is also a shared interest of that country and the West. This
goal has good prospects of fulfillment in Azerbaijan's society
characterized by religious tolerance and receptiveness to
Western cultural influences.
The region's Western-oriented countries are facing a wide
spectrum of threats to their security, mainly from Russia and
its local proteges. The overarching goal is to thwart these
countries' Euro-Atlantic integration and force them back into a
Russian sphere of dominance. The scope, intensity, and
systematic application of threats has markedly increased over
the last year as part of President Putin's contribution to the
shaping of Russia's conduct.
These may be described as old, new, and newest type threats
to security. The old-type threats stem from troops and bases
stationed unlawfully in other countries, seizures of
territories, border changes de facto, ethnic cleansing, and
creation of heavily armed proxy statelets. Georgia, Moldova,
and Azerbaijan are the targets of such blackmail.
New-type threats are those associated with illegal arms and
drugs trafficking, rampant contraband, and organized
transnational criminality, all of which use the Russian-
protected secessionist enclaves as safe havens in staging
areas. Such activities are generally associated with nonstate
actors of an often terrorist nature. In the Black Sea region,
however, state actors within Russia are often behind these
activities, severely undermining the target countries'
economies and state institutions.
The newest type threats to security can be seen in Russia's
assault on electoral processes, some months ago in Ukraine's
Presidential elections and in recent weeks in Moldova's
parliamentary elections and meanwhile even in loyalist
Abkhazia. Using massive financial, mass media, and covert
action means, Russia has sought to influence the outcome of
elections or hijack them outright in order to install its
favorites in power.
Closely related to this is the export of the Russian model
of governance, characterized by a symbiosis of neo-KGB
structures, organized crime, state bureaucracy, and government-
appointed big business. In all of the situations described
above, security and democracy are equally at risk.
The Black Sea region is the most conflict-plagued region
along the new Euro-Atlantic perimeter. This situation limits
the ability of the United States to capitalize on the region's
high strategic value. Thirteen years after the U.S.S.R.'s
dissolution, Moscow continues heavily to dominate conflict
management in this region. Russia, largely responsible for
sparking or fanning these conflicts, has a vested interest in
keeping them smoldering, so as to pressure Georgia, Azerbaijan,
Armenia, and Moldova and thwart their Euro-Atlantic
integration.
Russia's policy consists of freezing, not the conflicts as
such, but rather the negotiating processes which Russia itself
dominates. The United Nations and OSCE, left largely to their
own devices, have merely conserved these conflicts.
There are those who suggest that the United States should
defer to Moscow on these issues, lest Russia's cooperation with
the United States in antiterrorism and anti-WMD proliferation
efforts be jeopardized. This thesis seems to underestimate
Russia's own declared interests in cooperating with such
efforts, to overestimate the practical value of Moscow's
contributions, and to ignore Russia's outright obstruction of
United States efforts in a number of cases. Moreover, that
thesis would seem to confirm the Kremlin in its dangerous
expectation that strategic partnership with the United States
should entail acceptance of Russian paramountcy on peacekeeping
and conflict resolution in the post-Soviet space.
Such a quasi-monopoly would be an ingredient to sphere-of-
influence rebuilding. It is crucial to avoid the perception,
let alone the fact, of a Russia-United States or Russia-West
division of peacekeeping and conflict management spheres, or an
informal partition of countries' territories. Strategic
partnerships cannot long be sustained with rump countries
vulnerable to armed secessions pressures across arm-controlled
external borders.
It is high time to move this issue to the front burner of
U.S. security policy, preferably in synergy with NATO and the
EU countries. The United States is the best place for promoting
conflict settlement solutions that would consolidate the
region's states in strategic partnerships with the United
States.
Turning the broader Black Sea region into a policy priority
need not compete with the priorities assigned to other areas.
On the contrary, stabilization of this region would entail
incomparably lower risks and incomparably smaller resources
compared to the risks and resource commitments in Iraq,
Afghanistan, or emergent initiatives in the broader Middle
East. The fact is that a secure and stable Black Sea region is
necessary for sustaining those U.S.-led operations and
initiatives.
And may I conclude my prepared testimony, Mr. Chairman,
with some remarks on the CFE Treaty and Istanbul Commitments,
leading off from the first panel's presentation. Russia has
openly repudiated its obligations under the 1999 adapted treaty
on conventional forces in Europe and Istanbul Commitments, twin
parts of a single package, regarding withdrawal of Russian
Forces from Georgia and Moldova. The OSCE, custodian of those
documents, has cooperated with Russia in eviscerating them.
Troops withdrawal deadlines were postponed and then removed
altogether. Preconditions to withdrawal were attached where the
troop withdrawal was to have been unconditional. Excuses were
found for retaining some Russian troops in place where the
withdrawal was to have been complete. Wide verification
loopholes were tacitly accepted. Heavy weaponry, coyly
designated as unaccounted-for treaty-limited equipment by a
complacent OSCE, was transferred from Russia's arsenals into
those of the separatist enclaves. The creation of Russian-
staffed separatist forces was tolerated. And the requirement of
host country consent to the stationing of foreign troops is
being flouted.
Since 2002, Moscow has rejected the very notion that it had
made commitments in Istanbul to withdraw its troops from
Georgia and Moldova. The OSCE itself all along turned those
Russian commitments only politically binding as distinct from
legally binding, that is, not binding in practice. All these
concessions notwithstanding, the OSCE is no longer able, since
2003, even to cite its own 1999 decisions, because Russia has
easily vetoed such references in the organization's routine
year-end resolutions. Realistically speaking, the Istanbul
Commitments are dead.
Since 2004, moreover, Moscow threatens to destroy the OSCE
by blocking the adoption of the organization's budget and
terminating certain OSCE activities. Russia does not want to
kill the OSCE, but rather to harness and use the weakened
organization. Under these circumstances, no one can possibly
expect the OSCE to resurrect the Istanbul Commitments, let
alone ensure compliance with them.
Meanwhile, the United States and NATO governments
collectively take the position that they would not ratify the
adapted CFE Treaty, which Moscow wants ratified, until Russia
has complied with the Istanbul Commitments. This form of
leverage has manifestly proven too weak to induce Russia to
withdraw its troops from Georgia and Moldova. Russian officials
scoff at calls for troop withdrawal based on the Istanbul
documents.
It is high time for Georgia and Moldova to go beyond the
OSCE to international organizations and argue the case for
Russian troop withdrawal on the basis of national sovereignty
and international law. The United States, along with the Euro-
Atlantic community, should place these issues prominently on
the agenda of United States-Russia, NATO-Russia, and EU-Russia
agendas, and not just at summit time, as has been done
occasionally and feebly this far, but on a regular basis until
this legitimate goal is achieved.
And this, Mr. Chairman, completes my testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Socor follows:]
Prepared Statement of Vladimir Socor, Senior Fellow, Jamestown
Foundation, Washington, DC
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am grateful for the
opportunity to appear and testify in this important hearing on a region
that has surged to salience in debates on United States foreign and
security policy and strategy: The broader Black Sea region, new
frontier in the advance of Euro-Atlantic security and democracy. My
presentation will succinctly identify the interests of the United
States and its friends in the region, threats to those interests, and
steps the United States can take to promote its security and democratic
goals together with its friends in the region.
INTERESTS
The Black Sea region forms the hub of an evolving geostrategic and
geo-economic system that extends from NATO Europe to central Asia and
Afghanistan, and as such is crucial to United States-led antiterrorism
efforts. It provides direct strategic access for American and allied
forces to bases and theaters of operation in central Asia and the
Middle East. It also provides westbound transit routes for Caspian
energy supplies which are key to our European allies' energy balance in
the years ahead.
Countries in the Black Sea region rarely if ever experienced
security, democracy, or prosperity. Their chance came with the end of
Soviet dominance and the enlargement of the Euro-Atlantic community of
interests and values.
At present, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin leads a
campaign to halt and turn back that process at the former Soviet
borders, so as to restore a sphere of Russian political, economic, and
military dominance in a large part of the Black Sea region. Threats of
force against Georgia, refusal to withdraw Russian troops from that
country and from Moldova, overt support for secessionist enclaves in
those two countries, fanning of civil confrontation during the
Presidential campaign in Ukraine, the poison attack on Viktor
Yushchenko, are among the recent brutal hallmarks of Mr. Putin's policy
in this region. The answer must be a redoubling of democratic
institution building within these countries, and anchoring them to
Euro-Atlantic institutions. The United States is uniquely equipped to
lead this effort within the Euro-Atlantic community and in the region
itself.
With Romania and Bulgaria now in NATO and set to join the European
Union, and with old NATO ally Turkey aiming for EU entry, now is the
time to start planning for the Euro-Atlantic integration of countries
that have declared that aspiration in the broader Black Sea region:
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan.
FRIENDS AND PARTNERS
American and overall Western interests in this region require
stable, reform-capable states, in control of their own borders, safe
from external military or economic pressures or externally inspired
secessions, secure in their function as energy transit routes, and
capable of supporting U.S.-led or NATO coalition operations. Those
interests can only be sustained if the region's countries develop good
governance, with functioning democratic institutions and political
processes resistant to corruption or hostile manipulation, and if they
are protected by international law and Western-led security
arrangements.
Thus, effective state- and democracy-building and strategic
interests are twin sides of a common set of United States and Euro-
Atlantic interests in the Black Sea region. By the same token, security
threats to countries in this region and actions that undermine their
sovereignty run counter to those interests.
Within this region, Romania and Bulgaria became providers of
security and contributors to coalition operations even before accession
to NATO. Their role is set to grow further as the two countries become
hosts to U.S. military installations on the Black Sea littoral. NATO
aspirants Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan have acted as de facto
allies in providing political backing, guaranteeing air and land
passage rights, and fielding peace-support troops for NATO and United
States-led operations. Georgia and Azerbaijan, active members of the
antiterrorist coalition, have thus graduated from the role of pure
consumers of security to that of net consumers and incipient providers
of security to the region and beyond.
Tbilisi and Baku regard their participation in the antiterrorism
coalition as synonymous with their national interests. Already before
9/11 they had experienced terrorist threats and attacks in the form of
externally inspired coup and assassination attempts against their
leaders and ethnic cleansing. Thus they are vitally interested in
combating terrorism in all its forms. For both Georgia and Azerbaijan,
participation in the antiterrorism coalition is also a means to
maintain close relations with the United States, advance the
modernization of their security sectors, and earn their credentials as
NATO aspirant countries.
Moreover, Georgia and Azerbaijan are on the alert to prevent a
spillover of the Russian-Chechen war into their territories and to
interdict the passage of any foreign gunmen, their suspected
accomplices, or radical Islamist missionaries. With United States
assistance, Georgia cleaned up the Pankisi Valley in 2002-2003 and
holds it under control since then. For its part, Azerbaijan gave
radical Islamist organizations no chance to make inroads into the
country. Successful development of Azerbaijan as a Muslim secular state
is also a shared interest of that country and the West. This goal has
good prospects of fulfillment in Azerbaijan's society characterized by
religious tolerance and receptiveness to Western models.
The success of prodemocracy movements, known as Rose and Orange
Revolutions, in Georgia and Ukraine recently, is seen by many as
potentially repeatable in Armenia, but unlikely to be duplicated in
Azerbaijan or Moldova. In these two countries, democratization will
likely follow an evolutionary path. Last week Presidents Mikheil
Saakashvili of Georgia and Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine, meeting with
Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin, announced their readiness to work
with him toward completing Eastern Europe's third wave of
democratization--that in the broader Black Sea region. Mr. Voronin and
his team, communists in name only, have reoriented Moldova westward and
are resisting what they describe as ``Russia's attempts at
recolonization.'' These Presidents along with Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan
are scheduled to meet again next month in Moldova with a view to
revitalizing the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) group of
countries.
SECURITY THREATS: OLD, NEW, NEWEST
The region's Western-oriented countries are facing a wide spectrum
of threats to their security, mainly from Russia and its local
proteges. The overarching goal is to thwart these countries' Euro-
Atlantic integration and force them back into a Russian sphere of
dominance. The scope, intensity, and systematic application of threats
has markedly increased over the last year, as part of President Putin's
contribution to the shaping of Russia's conduct. These may be described
as old-, new-, and newest-type threats to security.
The ``old-type'' threats stem from troops and bases stationed
unlawfully in other countries, seizures of territories, border changes
de facto, ethnic cleansing, and creation of heavily armed proxy
statelets. Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan are the targets of such
blackmail.
``New-type'' threats are those associated with illegal arms and
drugs trafficking, rampant contraband, and organized transnational
criminality, all of which use the Russian-protected secessionist
enclaves as safe havens and staging areas. Such activities are usually
associated with nonstate actors, often of a terrorist nature. In the
Black Sea region, however, state actors within Russia are often behind
these activities, severely undermining the target countries' economies
and state institutions.
The ``newest type'' threat to security can be seen in Russia's
assault on electoral processes, some months ago in Ukraine's
Presidential election and in recent weeks in Moldoya's parliamentary
elections (and meanwhile even in loyalist Abkhazia). Using massive
financial, mass-media, and covert action means, Russia has sought to
influence the outcome of elections or hijack them outright in order to
install its favorites in power.
Closely related to this is the export of the Russian model of
governance, characterized by a symbiosis of neo-KGB structures,
organized crime, state bureaucracy, and government-connected big
business. In all of the situations described above, security and
democracy are equally at risk.
``FROZEN'' CONFLICTS
The Black Sea region is the most conflict-plagued region along the
new Euro-Atlantic perimeter. This situation limits the ability of the
United States to capitalize on the region's high strategic value.
Thirteen years after the U.S.S.R.'s dissolution, Moscow continues
heavily to dominate conflict-management in this region. Russia, largely
responsible for sparking or fanning these conficts, has a vested
interest in keeping them smoldering, so as to pressure Georgia,
Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Moldova and thwart their Euro-Atlantic
integration. Russia's policy consists of freezing not the conflicts as
such, but the rather the negotiating processes, which Russia itself
dominates. The United Nations and OSCE, left largely to their own
devices, have merely conserved these conflicts.
There are those who suggest that the United States should defer to
Moscow on this issue, lest Russia's cooperation with the United States
in antiterrorism and anti-WMD-proliferation efforts be jeopardized.
This thesis seems to underestimate Russia's own declared interest in
cooperating in such efforts; to overestimate the practical value of
Moscow's contributions; and to ignore Russia's outright obstruction of
United States efforts in a number of cases.
Moreover, that thesis would seem to confirm the Kremlin in its
dangerous expectation that strategic partnership with the United States
should entail acceptance of Russian paramountcy on ``peacekeeping'' and
conflict-resolution in the ``post-Soviet space.'' This is an ingredient
to sphere-of-influence rebuilding. It is crucial to avoid the
perception (let alone the fact) of a Russia-United States or Russia-
West division of peacekeeping and conflict-management spheres, or an
informal partition of countries' territories. Strategic partnerships
can not long be sustained with rump countries vulnerable to armed
secessionist pressures across uncontrolled external borders.
It is high time to move this issue to the front burner of U.S.
security policy. Preferably in synergy with NATO and EU countries, the
United States is best placed for promoting conflict-settlement
solutions that would consolidate the region's states in strategic
partnership with the United States. Turning the broader Black Sea
region into a policy priority need not compete with the priorities
assigned to other areas. On the contrary, stabilization of this region
would entail incomparably lower risks and incomparably smaller
resources compared to the risks and resource commitments in Iraq,
Afghanistan, or emergent initiatives in the broader Middle East. The
fact is that a secure and stable Black Sea region is necessary for
sustaining those U.S.-led operations and initiatives.
CFE TREATY, ISTANBUL COMMITMENTS
Russia has openly repudiated its obligations under the 1999-adapted
Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe and Istanbul Commitments (twin
parts of a single package) regarding withdrawal of Russian forces from
Georgia and Moldova.
The OSCE, custodian of those documents, has cooperated with Russia
in eviscerating them. Troop withdrawal deadlines were postponed and
then removed altogether; preconditions to withdrawal were attached
where the troop withdrawal was to have been unconditional; excuses were
found for retaining some Russian troops in place where the withdrawal
was to have been complete; wide verification loopholes were tacitly
accepted; heavy weaponry--coyly designated as ``unaccounted-for treaty-
limited equipment'' by a complacent OSCE--was transferred from Russia's
arsenals into those of the separatist enclaves; the creation of
Russian-staffed separatist forces was tolerated; and the requirement of
host-country consent to the stationing of foreign troops) is being
flouted. Since 2002 Moscow has rejected the very notion that it had
made ``commitments'' in Istanbul to withdraw its troops from Georgia
and Moldova. The OSCE itself all along termed those Russian commitments
only ``politically binding,'' as distinct from legally binding; i.e.,
not binding in practice. All these concessions notwithstanding, the
OSCE is no longer able since 2003 even to cite its own 1999 decisions,
because Russia has easily vetoed such references in the organization's
routine year-end resolutions. Realistically speaking, the Istanbul
Commitments are dead.
Since 2004, moreover, Moscow threatens to destroy the OSCE by
blocking the adoption of the organization's budget and terminating
certain OSCE activities. Russia does not want to kill the OSCE, but
rather to harness and use the weakened organization. Under these
circumstances, no one can possibly expect the OSCE to resurrect the
Istanbul Commitments, let alone ensure compliance with them.
Meanwhile, the United States and NATO governments collectively take
the position that they would not ratify the adapted CFE Treaty (which
Moscow wants ratified) until Russia has complied with the Istanbul
Commitments. This form of leverage has, manifestly, proven too weak to
induce Russia to withdraw its troops from Georgia and Moldova. Russian
officials scoff at calls for troop withdrawal based on the Istanbul
documents. It is high time for Georgia and Moldova to go beyond the
OSCE to international organizations, and argue the case for Russian
troop withdrawal on the basis of national sovereignty and international
law. The United States, along with the Euro-Atlantic community, should
place these issues prominent on the agenda of United States-Russia,
NATO-Russia, and EU-Russia agendas, and not just at summit time (as has
been done occasionally and feebly thus far) but also on a regular basis
until this legitimate goal is achieved.
Senator Allen. Thank you so much, Mr. Socor, for your
testimony. You've made some very probing and interesting
assertions that I want to follow up with you on in question
time, but thank you.
Ms. Baran.
STATEMENT OF ZEYNO BARAN, DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
AND ENERGY PROGRAMS, THE NIXON CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Baran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
appear before you today. I will not discuss developments in all
the countries and skip over some of the issues that were
mentioned before. And I'd like to only mention, as far as the
recent revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, that sustainability
of these reformist revolutions is essential, and the United
States needs to continue to support these two countries as they
proceed with their difficult transition process.
I'd like to focus on three key issues. First is the Russian
energy monopoly over the European and Eurasian countries, which
is one of the main impediments to the future success and
prosperity of Georgia and Ukraine, as well as to the democratic
future of the Black Sea region as a whole.
Second, I'd like to mention the dangerous trend in Armenia
and especially Azerbaijan. I believe if Azerbaijan does not
hold democratic parliamentary elections in the fall of 2005,
Islamist forces may gain ground. Moreover, if there is no
solution to the Karabakh issue over the next several years, I
strongly believe Armenia and Azerbaijan may once again go to
war.
Third, I was asked to focus my remarks especially on Turkey
and the deterioration in the United States-Turkish
relationship. Turkish mistrust of United States long-term
objectives in the Black Sea region dramatically hinders
American initiatives in this area, and Bruce Jackson briefly
mentioned some.
Now, Mr. Chairman, on the Russian energy monopoly, which I
believe is a very important yet often ignored hindrance to
further reform in Georgia, Ukraine, and the Black Sea region,
President Putin's policies indicate a desire to strengthen
Russia's already strong position in the Eurasian and European
energy markets. If Russian monopoly power increases across the
Eurasian region, then countries will have difficulty resisting
Russian political and economic pressure. Similarly, if Russian
market power within the European gas sector increases, then the
Europeans will be even less willing than they are now to lean
on Russia when Moscow's policies toward the Eurasian countries
undermine the sovereignty and independence of these states.
Armenia is already facing this problem of Russian energy
leverage. Post-revolution Ukraine and Georgia, as well as
others in Central Asia, and even the Baltic countries are
beginning to grasp the need to quickly come up with
comprehensive energy security plans.
While many of these countries want to ensure their energy
security, without strong political support from the United
States and the European Union, they will not be able to resist
the Russian pressure. Moreover, those individuals and
corporations who currently benefit from nontransparent energy
deals with the Russian firms currently have no incentive to
give up their power, which would make Western support for
democratic governance even more important.
The United States needs to be aware that Russian gas
monopoly, Gazprom, wants to control the gas markets of Georgia,
Turkey, and Ukraine to form a strategic ring around the Black
Sea which would then be under permanent Russian energy control.
I would then strongly recommend the United States to include
Eurasian energy strategy in its trans-Atlantic dialog. The
United States has already helped Georgia and Azerbaijan with
their energy diversification by supporting the East-West energy
corridor, by which Azerbaijani oil and gas will soon be
transported via Georgia and Turkey to world markets, thus
breaking up the Russian monopoly. Now the United States ought
to further extend the East-West corridor from central Asia to
Europe, a corridor with the Black Sea region at its heart.
Second, Mr. Chairman, I have followed the developments in
Armenia and Azerbaijan closely since 1996, and I believe that
until the Karabakh issue is resolved, it will be very difficult
to see real progress in democratic and economic reform. Both
countries' politics are totally consumed by this issue, and
both sides believe time is on their side. As a result, neither
one wants to make a concession, which is a dirty word in that
part of the world. The main losers are the youth of these
countries, who are spending their most productive years in
waiting.
To change political and economic conditions on the ground,
and the calculations of the two sides, the United States needs
to get engaged at the highest levels. In addition, the solution
to Karabakh requires democratic process in both Armenia and
Azerbaijan so that the governments have legitimacy in the eyes
of their people, which is essential for support for the final
agreement. The United States, therefore, needs to encourage the
leaders of these two countries to embrace the democratization
process as essential to regional security and stability.
I will not spend much time on Armenia, as issues relevant
to Armenia are well known here thanks to the work of the strong
Armenian diaspora. I will simply mention that the strength of
the diaspora cuts both ways, as it also limits U.S. ability to
encourage democratic change in that country. The United States
simply cannot put the same kind of pressure on President Robert
Kocharyan as it was able to do with President Leonid Kuchma of
Ukraine.
Azerbaijan, however, has fewer friends here, as it does not
have a major diaspora. Potentially it can be a great strategic
partner to the United States. It is the only Muslim country
with troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo. It is a secular
democracy with a Shiite majority neighboring Iran. As many
Azerbaijanis proudly state, theirs was the first secular
democratic Republic in the Muslim world. Though short-lived,
the 1918 Republic included opposition parties in the Parliament
and allowed women to vote. It is an oil- and gas-rich country,
and if it manages to spend its energy wealth wisely, Azerbaijan
can become a great example for the rest of the oil-rich Muslim
world.
The November parliamentary elections could be a turning
point in the United States-Azerbaijan relations. The Bush
administration has made a strong commitment to prodemocracy
forces throughout the region to support their cause for free
and fair elections. Many in the opposition and civil society in
Azerbaijan have been inspired and energized by recent events in
Georgia and Ukraine, and expect the United States to deliver on
its promises of democracy and freedom.
Over the next 8 months, the United States needs to both
assure Aliyev, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, that
Washington does not want to oust him, and at the same time be
firm in supporting free and fair elections. As a start, the
United States, together with the European Union, can ask
Azerbaijan to allow the operation of at least one independent
television station and to let the opposition hold meetings.
In Georgia, the so-called Baker Plan, which was delivered
by James Baker to his friend Eduard Shevardnadze and the
leaders of the opposition, provided the framework for the
critical November 2003 elections. Such an approach can also
work in Azerbaijan.
The United States should also be concerned about the
November elections in Azerbaijan because if the secular parties
in and outside the government lose more ground, the Islamists
are elected to fill their place. As a leader of the opposition
Popular Front Party, Ali Karimli, recently stated in
Washington, with the secular political opposition activities
restricted, Islamists are getting stronger. As he put it,
quote, on Friday more than 3 or 4,000 people turn up at
services in every mosque, in a country where I cannot gather 50
people together for a meeting. This is worrisome in a country
neighboring Iran, which experienced a similar development that
brought in the Islamic Republic.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me spend a couple of minutes on
Turkey and the growing mistrust toward the United States, and I
think as Bruce and others have mentioned, this I believe is
going to be an increasingly important issue. As you know, after
decades of NATO alliance and strategic partnership, Turkish-
American relations began deteriorating with the Turkish
Parliament's refusal to allow United States troops to transit
Turkey and into Iraq in March 2003, and deteriorated as the war
in Iraq unfolded.
There had been ups and downs in the relationship before,
but the level of anti-Americanism in Turkey today is
unprecedented. A recent BBC survey found that about 82 percent
of Turks have a negative view of the Bush administration's
policies and considered today's America to be one of the
biggest threats in the world.
The Turkish anger is primarily a result of the Iraq war,
which many in Turkey opposed. Turkish concerns have focused on
the presence of the several thousand PKK terrorists in northern
Iraq. The United States has promised to eliminate the PKK
terrorists, but so far has not made a move.
Turks now associate Iraq with chaos and damage to their
national interests, while the United States hails Iraq as a
test case for spreading democracy and freedom in the world.
This has led many Turks to associate American democracy and
freedom initiative in the Middle East with an expansionist
policy that will weaken Turkey. And this is part of the context
for the Turkish reluctance to support United States or European
initiatives for democracy in the Black Sea region.
Many in Turkey were skeptical of the Georgian and Ukrainian
revolutions, which they believed were managed by the United
States. They fear that under the rubric of democratic alliance
the United States is creating an anti-Russian alliance in the
Black Sea region which will lead in instability and undermine
Turkey's security in the region. Also, when the United States
talks about democracy in the Black Sea region, Turks hear
American naval presence, which they strongly oppose to be based
in the Black Sea region.
There has also been lack of bilateral dialog, and the first
such meeting took place only recently in Washington with a
visiting senior Foreign Ministry representative, and both sides
agreed that more such discussions are necessary. At the same
time, the United States needs to understand a much deeper
psychological issue is at play, and this is why Turkey has been
moving closer to Russia.
The United States should not ignore the psychological
hangups of former empires like Turkey and Russia. We still
suffer from the 19th- or 20th-century views of strategic
factors and do not share President Bush's vision of advancing
democratic change in pursuit of freedom. Turkey and Russia fear
being surrounded by a West hostile to their interests. Both
oscillate between feelings of insecurity about their waning
influence in global politics and a sense of strategic
indispensability in Eurasia.
Both have, in varying degrees, resented growing American
presence in the Caucasus and central Asia, where they have
historic, ethnic and religious ties, and a sense of
entitlement. The last thing they want is to see the United
States also enter the Black Sea region, which Turkey and Russia
feel is their special zone of influence where they are the two
major powers. Ultimately, both are status quo powers in terms
of foreign policy who oppose change in the Black Sea region,
mainly because in their recent past any change meant losing
territory or influence.
What Turkey needs more than anything is a carefully
balanced message from the United States that Washington
appreciates Ankara's importance and seeks partnership, but that
Turkey's strategic importance will not shield it against the
consequences of nasty behavior. In the Black Sea region, this
means that Turkey needs to hear that Turkish and American
interests overlap in terms of shared NATO values. But Turks
also need to understand that the unchecked growth of anti-
Americanism is not acceptable.
Anti-Americanism has grown in many countries since the Iraq
war, but the tone and the depth of the anger in Turkey is the
result of a number of other factors that have created a perfect
storm. In fact, today Turkey's secular military, Islamists,
leftists, and nationalists, forces that often oppose each
other, have united in their common opposition to the United
States.
Maybe, the best example for understanding what is happening
inside Turkey is a very quick look at the best-selling fiction
in Turkey today, ``The Metal Storm.'' While it is fiction,
Turkish and American Government leaders' names are used and the
context is based on actual events. ``The Metal Storm'' is about
a war the United States launches against Turkey in 2007 under
the name ``Operation Sevres,'' which is the much-feared
agreement signed at the end of the World War I, whereby the
Western powers hoped to dismantle the Ottoman Empire. In the
book, Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds are once again portrayed as
fifth columns of Turkey who the West can use to destabilize
Turkey.
I won't go into more details about the book, which I have
actually described at length, but I think it's important to
understand this book because it's important in understanding
the Turkish mindset today. With the EU reform process forcing
fundamental changes in Turkey that exacerbate many people's
sense of insecurity about their future and sense of certainty,
this book has brilliantly captured the mood in Turkey.
It also clouds effect in fiction by hinting at current
issues of contention in United States-Turkish relations,
including whether the tragic events of 1915 constitute the
Armenian genocide, the unresolved Cyprus issue, and the
developments in Iraq. Getting United States-Turkish relations
back on track in the Black Sea region and beyond requires a
Turkish leadership to put an end to the wild and destructive
speculation portrayed in ``The Metal Storm.''
There are also certain steps the United States can take. In
the short term, the United States can take three steps to try
to reverse the negative trends and restore a sense of
partnership in relations with the United States. First,
together with the Iraqi Government, the United States needs to
find a formula to assuage the Turkish irritation with the
continued PKK presence in northern Iraq. Until and unless the
PKK issue is resolved, Turkish-United States relations cannot
move to a better phase, and Turkey would continue to resist any
United States initiatives in the Black Sea region.
Second, given the prevalent Turkish view that the United
States is running a campaign against Turkey, it would be very
damaging if the Armenian genocide resolution passed the
Congress this year. This year is the 90th anniversary of the
tragic 1915 massacre, and certainly the Armenian diaspora
groups would like to get recognition.
However, such a resolution would play right into the hands
of the growing set of anti-Americans and ultranationalists in
Turkey. For the Black Sea region, it will mostly hurt the
Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.
Third, the United States needs to continue raising Turkish
EU membership as part of the trans-Atlantic dialog and insist
that Turkey should be accepted into the European Union on the
merits. Turkey needs to be also assured it will not be swapped
with Ukraine. This certainty is necessary for Turks to support
Ukraine's and Georgia's ongoing democracy reforms and make the
fundamental and institutional changes at home.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Baran follows:]
Prepared Statement of Zeyno Baran, Director, International Security and
Energy Programs, the Nixon Center, Washington, DC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, for the
opportunity to appear before you today and share my views on the
progress the countries of the Black Sea have made in their democratic
reform process and on the impediments to further reform these countries
face. I will also present some suggestions on how the United States can
continue to advance its own security interests in this strategic
region.
I will not discuss developments in all the countries of this
region, which includes the three South Caucasus countries (Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Georgia), Moldova, Ukraine, new NATO allies Bulgaria
and Romania, and the two big powers, Turkey and Russia. I will
concentrate on four principal issues:
I. The recent revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Georgia's
November 2003 Rose Revolution and Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution have
inspired people and countries from throughout the region (especially
Moldova) and around the globe.
II. Russian energy monopoly over the European and Eurasian
countries. This is one of the main impediments to the future success
and prosperity of Georgia and Ukraine, as well as to the democratic
future of the Black Sea region as a whole.
III. The dangerous trend in Armenia and especially Azerbaijan. If
Azerbaijan does not hold democratic parliamentary elections in the fall
of 2005, Islamist forces may gain ground. Moreover, if there is no
solution to the Karabakh issue over the next several years, Armenia and
Azerbaijan may once again go to war.
IV. The deterioration in the United States-Turkey bilateral
relationship. Turkish mistrust of United States long-term objectives in
the Black Sea region dramatically hinders American initiatives in this
area.
I. GEORGIA: INSPIRATION FOR CHANGE
Mr. Chairman, I was an election observer during the November 2003
parliamentary elections in Georgia and saw firsthand how tens of
thousands of people refused to accept the theft of their votes and the
silencing of their voices. More than anything, the Georgian people no
longer wanted to live in a ``failing state''; they feared that if the
post-Communist regime stayed in office any longer, the damage would be
such that they would forever lose the prospect of reuniting with
Europe, where they believed they belonged.
The Rose Revolution was not a movement led or even inspired by the
United States; it was a domestic uprising against a corrupt and weak
regime that was rotting internally and could not deliver on any
promises to restore stability and economic growth and bring Georgia
closer to the transatlantic community. Its internal weakness was
exploited by Russian companies as they took over strategic assets,
tying the country's economy and future directly to Moscow--just as they
had previously done in Belarus and Armenia.
Yet, over the course of a decade, American assistance was
essential, especially to preparing a cadre of reformers, both inside
and outside government. Current President Mikheil Saakashvili received
training and strong support for his overarching reforms in the judicial
sector when he was Minister of Justice. Former Prime Minister and
parliamentary speaker Zurab Zhvania, who recently died in a tragic
accident, similarly benefited from his close work with the American
assistance community. These are just some of the many Georgians who,
over this period, developed personal relations with American leaders,
while discovering that both sides shared the same values and
principles. Based on these experiences, these Georgians took the
initiative to move their country in a positive direction, both while in
government and in the opposition. Following this example, then, I
strongly urge that the United States assist reformers within
governments, not just those in NGOs or in opposition parties.
The Georgian revolutionaries were indeed committed to the ideal of
a democratic revolution, and wanted to share it with their country's
strategic partner, Ukraine. Soon after the ``Rose Revolution'' of
November 2003, even before he was inaugurated as President, Saakashvili
made Kyiv his first foreign destination in January 2004. In fluent
Ukrainian, Saakashvili confidently predicted that Ukraine would become
democratic over the next year, while pledging his support for his
friend, Viktor Yushchenko. While few in the West (or in Russia)
noticed, over the next year Georgians and Ukrainians, in government as
well as in civil society, worked together to ensure Ukraine's
democratic triumph. While many in the West (and in Russia) looked down
on the state of Ukrainian civil society, Georgians knew that they had
helped inspire this European nation and reawaken its quest to reclaim
its place in the West on the basis of the same shared values and
principles. When the Georgian President, Prime Minister, and other
officials met with their American counterparts over that period, they
urged United States support for Ukraine's democratic voices. They knew
that if Georgia remained the sole island of democratic change in the
Black Sea region, it would be very tough to succeed, especially given
the Russian pressure.
Now Saakashvili and Yushchenko want to support others who want to
move in a prodemocratic direction by aggregating their voices to obtain
more attention from the European Union and the United States. This is
precisely what happened with the Moldovan parliamentary elections on
Sunday, March 6. Both Saakashvili and Yushchenko met with President
Voronin just ahead of the elections in order to provide support for a
leader who seeks to reintegrate Moldova into Europe. It is no
coincidence that Saakashvili and Voronin were the only Presidents of
the former Soviet countries who did not accept the falsified second-
round election results that declared former Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych as the winner of the Ukrainian elections in November. Nor is
it surprising that they in turn were also the first to congratulate
Yushchenko for his eventual victory.
But the situation in Moldova is complicated. While Voronin is head
of the Communist Party of Moldova, he has distanced Moldova from Moscow
in recent years in pursuit of Moldova's European vocation. His
underlying goal may have been to preempt any democratic revolution by
playing Moldova's European card. In contrast to Georgia and Ukraine,
Moldova is thus pursuing an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary
reform process. But the country's progress toward democracy is no less
real.
As Saakashvili stated, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova now together
believe that ``we can complete democratization's third wave in Eastern
Europe.'' \1\ Completing this wave means that each country has
committed to fighting crime, corruption, and the influence of clans
that has led these countries to internal weakness and external
vulnerability; it means that each country must consolidate democratic
gains and move closer to the Euro-Atlantic institutions; and it means
that each country needs the continued support of the European Union and
the United States to succeed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Vladimir Socor, Wall Street Journal Europe, ``The Moldovan
Front: Next Test for Post-Soviet Democratization.'' March 4-6, 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sustainability of the Georgian and Ukrainian revolutions is
essential for others in the Black Sea region to follow a reformist
trend, whether revolutionary or evolutionary. For this sustainability,
Georgia and Ukraine have submitted their EU action plans--plans that
need to be seriously considered, as the prospect of eventual EU
membership will provide the necessary incentive for both countries to
undertake tough but necessary reforms. The United States needs to
support, and to urge its European allies to support, both Georgia and
Ukraine in their EU process as well as in their implementation of the
NATO Individual Partnership Action Plans (IPAP), which pave the way for
their eventual alliance membership.
Second, the United States needs to work closely with its European
allies to urge the resolution of the separatist conflicts in the
Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as the Moldovan
region of Transnistria. It is encouraging to see Ukraine and Romania
cooperating on the issue of Transnistria, and to see the recently
founded New Group of Friends of Georgia (consisting of Poland, Romania,
Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) taking the lead in urging
Brussels and Washington to pay attention to these issues. In fact,
these former Soviet-bloc states that have now joined the European Union
(Bulgaria and Romania are expected to join in 2007) and NATO have
become the most visionary and constructive of America's European
allies. They are also helping the Europeans to better understand Russia
and are urging the resolution of these frozen conflicts, without which
further democratic reforms are difficult, to say the least. As long as
these conflicts remain, they will be sources of potential instability
and of potential Russian pressure.
Senator Richard Lugar's resolution on Russian troop withdrawal from
Georgia and Moldova, urging it to implement the 1999 OSCE agreement to
withdraw its troops from these two countries, is extremely timely and
very important as the existence of the Russian military forces have
become a hindrance to peace. One of the four Russian bases in Georgia
has been vacated, the status of the second is in dispute, and talks are
ongoing regarding the remaining two. Yet after 6 years, Russian troops
still remain in both countries, and discussions on troop withdrawal are
often held in parallel with other political concessions.
The United States also needs to at the high levels engage the
European Union and NATO to ensure a new Border Monitoring Mission (BMO)
in Georgia to replace the OSCE mission, which, following the Russian
veto, will terminate in May. The BMO has been critical to the effort to
obtain credible information on Georgia's borders with the Russian
Republics of Chechnya, Daghestan, and Ingushetia. Moreover, in the
past, it was thanks to these monitors that the West found out that
Russian planes had bombed Georgian territory. The United States needs
to help find a mechanism to replace the BMO; there are several European
countries that are willing to step up to the task, but none wants to
take the lead for fear of drawing Russia's wrath.
Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova are also eager to revive the GUUAM
organization, consisting of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan,
and Moldova, an effort for which they need United States political
support. As GUUAM is perceived in Moscow to be an alliance against
Russian interests, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan at this point are not
interested in reviving it in a political form; they instead want to
increase cooperation in the economic sphere, especially regarding east-
west transportation corridors. While Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova may
prefer to include security and democratization issues in GUUAM, in
order to avoid a breakup of the organization and to instead utilize it
as much as possible, an initial focus can be energy--an area in which
the United States can be particularly helpful.
II. RUSSIAN ENERGY MONOPOLY
Mr. Chairman, a very important yet often ignored hindrance to
further reform in Georgia, Ukraine, and the Black Sea region is the
effects of the Russian energy monopoly in Europe and Eurasia. The West
ignored the clear intentions of Anatoly Chubais, head of Russia's RAO
UES, who declared in September 2003 that ``Russian business ought to be
allowed to expand . . . with the aim of creating a liberal empire'' in
the former Soviet sphere. In addition to such an expansion of Russian
energy monopolies, over the last year Russia's largest oil company
Yukos has been dismantled and through Rosneft its assets consolidated
under Kremlin control. When Rosneft merges with Gazprom, Putin will be
in direct control of the world's largest integrated oil and gas
company.
Putin's policies indicate a desire to strengthen Russia's already
strong position in the Eurasian and European energy markets. If Russian
monopoly power increases across the Eurasian region, then countries
will have difficulty resisting Russian political and economic pressure.
Similarly, if Russian market power within the European gas sector
increases, then the Europeans will be even less willing than they are
now to lean on Russia when Moscow's policies toward the Eurasian
countries undermine the sovereignty and independence of these states.
Armenia and Belarus are already facing this problem of Russian
energy leverage. Post-revolution Ukraine and Georgia, as well as the
central Asian and even the Baltic countries, are beginning to grasp the
need to quickly come up with comprehensive energy security plans.
While many of these countries want to ensure their energy security
by diversifying their sources away from Russia, without strong
political support from both the United States and the European Union,
they will not be able to resist the Russian pressure. Moreover, those
individuals and corporations who currently benefit from nontransparent
energy deals with the Russian firms currently have no incentive to give
up their power, which would make Western support for democratic
governance even more important.
The United States needs to be aware that Gazprom wants to control
the gas markets of Georgia, Turkey, and Ukraine to form a strategic
ring around the Black Sea, which would then be under permanent Russian
energy control. Georgia is the gateway through which Caspian gas will
be able to enter to Turkey and then be transported onward to the
European markets. However, it is also the weakest link in this Black
Sea chain. The difficult economic conditions prevailing in Georgia have
given Gazprom a great opening to try and acquire the title to the
Georgian gas pipelines, thus bolstering its monopoly power. If Tbilisi
unintentionally helps Gazprom in this effort, then Georgia will only be
enhancing the company's long-term leverage over European gas consumers,
and thus discouraging Europeans from taking a firmer line with Russia
on political issues, such as the frozen conflicts mentioned earlier.
The United States should therefore include Eurasian energy strategy
in its transatlantic dialog. The United States helped Georgia and
Azerbaijan with their energy diversification by supporting the East-
West energy corridor, by which Azerbaijani oil and gas will soon be
transported via Georgia and Turkey to world markets, thus breaking up
the Russian monopoly. Now, the United States ought to further extend
the East-West corridor from central Asia to Europe, a corridor with the
Black Sea region at its heart.
While gas is more directly relevant to strategic considerations in
the South Caucasus and European countries, the situation is similar in
the oil sector. Ukraine needs the most help in this area; it had
constructed the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline to transport Caspian oil to
European markets; yet, under Russian pressure, the Kuchma government
last year agreed to its reversal so that Russian oil could be
transported to the Black Sea. While commercial reasons were presented
as justification for the reversal, it is more likely that it was done
in consideration for Russian political support to the Yanukovych
Presidential campaign. This is apparent by the fact that, over the past
several months, the Russians have not put enough oil into the line to
make it profitable; expectations were that it would supply half the
amount it originally pledged for 2005.
The Yushchenko government recently announced--at a joint press
briefing of the Ukrainian and Georgian Prime Ministers--that Odesa-
Brody would be reversed back to its original direction. On March 4, the
Ukrainian and Polish Prime Ministers also agreed to the extension of
the pipeline to the Polish city of Plock. In this way, Poland will also
be able to diversify away from Russian oil. Despite its intentions,
Ukraine will be unable to make the reversal happen on its own; it needs
American political support, which can help facilitate an
intergovernmental agreement between Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Poland
that will ensure supplies on one end of the pipeline, and markets on
the other end, thus making it commercially viable.
III. ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN: TIME IS ON NEITHER SIDE
Mr. Chairman, I have followed developments in Armenia and
Azerbaijan closely since 1996 and believe that until the Karabakh issue
is resolved it will be very difficult to see real progress in
democratic and economic reform. Both countries' politics are totally
consumed by this issue and both sides believe time is on their side; as
a result, neither one wants to make a concession--which is a dirty word
in that part of the world. The main losers are the youth of these
countries, who are spending their most productive years waiting.
Azerbaijan is told by the West that it lost Karabakh in the war and
needs to give up this piece of land for the sake of peace and
prosperity and move on with its EU and NATO integration process. This
kind of talk only hardens the nationalists, who believe that with
massive oil and gas revenues starting to flow into the budget over the
next several years, they can strengthen their military, and take back
their land. Given that there are already four U.N. resolutions
supporting Azerbaijani territorial integrity, if they play the oil card
well, they may have a chance in getting diplomatic support. Hence, they
believe the best strategy for them is to bide their time.
Armenia too believes time is on its side to turn Karabakh's de-
facto separation from Azerbaijan to de jure acceptance. They do not
think Azerbaijan would risk a war when its oil and gas pipelines may be
attacked and its economy devastated. Armenia also can wait, as its
economy has grown despite having no trade with two of its neighbors--
Azerbaijan and Turkey. While Armenia wants to resume economic relations
with Azerbaijan as a best confidence-building mechanism, Azerbaijan
claims that the refusal to have economic relations is the only peaceful
mechanism they have to keep Armenia at the negotiating table.
Azerbaijan's strategic partner Turkey has also closed its borders with
Armenia, and will also not open them until the Karabakh issue is
resolved.
To change the political and economic conditions on the ground and
the calculations of the two sides, the United States needs to get
engaged at the highest levels. In 2002 Presidents Bush and Putin issued
a joint statement on the need to resolve the frozen conflicts of
Abkhazia and Karabakh, but no further steps were taken. The Karabakh
process has been left to the OSCE Minsk group, which cannot deliver a
solution, as the issue requires top level discussions. While it is good
to keep the dialog going between Armenia and Azerbaijan, failure to
deliver a solution is leading to massive frustration among the people
and hurting the image of the OSCE.
In addition to a committed Bush-Putin discussion, the solution to
Karabakh requires democratic progress in both Armenia and Azerbaijan so
that the governments have legitimacy in the eyes of their people, which
is essential for support for the final agreement. The United States,
therefore, needs to encourage the leaders of these two countries to
embrace the democratization process as essential to regional security
and stability.
I will not spend much time on Armenia, as issues relevant to
Armenia are well known here thanks to the work of the strong Armenian
diaspora. I will simply mention that the strength of the diaspora cuts
both ways, as it also limits U.S. ability to encourage democratic
change in this country. The United States simply cannot put the same
kind of pressure on President Robert Kocharyan as it was able to do
with President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine; it is inconceivable to think
that Washington would threaten to keep senior Armenian Government
officials out of the United States in case of falsified elections.
Azerbaijan, unlike Armenia, has fewer friends in the United States
as it does not have a major diaspora; however, potentially it can be a
great strategic partner. Azerbaijan is the only Muslim country with
troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo. It is a secular democracy with
a Shiite majority neighboring Iran. As many Azerbaijanis proudly state,
theirs was the first secular democratic republic in the Muslim world.
Though short-lived, the 1918 republic included opposition parties in
the Parliament and allowed women to vote. It is an oil and gas rich
country and if it manages to spend its energy wealth wisely, Azerbaijan
can become a great example for the rest of the oil-rich Muslim world.
The November parliamentary elections could be a turning point in
the United States-Azerbaijan relationship. The Bush administration has
made a commitment to prodemocracy forces throughout the region to
support their calls for free and fair elections. Many in the opposition
and civil society have been inspired and energized by recent events in
Georgia and Ukraine and expect the United States to deliver on its
promises of democracy and freedom. The government, however, is nervous
that opposition will receive support from the United States and
possibly try to have a revolution as well. Given that there is no
fundamental difference between President Ilham Aliyev and the leaders
of the pro-Western opposition groups, with a correct engagement
strategy, the United States can help move the country in a positive
direction.
At the same time, many people are benefiting from the current
corrupt, clan-based system in Azerbaijan and these forces will try
their best to avoid free and fair elections in November, which will be
a turning point for Azerbaijan. In fact, since Aliyev succeeded his
father in the October 2003 Presidential elections there has been a
crackdown on media and opposition activists; this has led many to
wonder whether Aliyev is not fully in charge of his government or
whether he himself sanctions these policies. The most brutal incident
so far occurred last week, when Elmar Huseinov, the editor in chief of
the Azerbaijani opposition magazine Monitor was shot dead in front of
his home in Baku. Aliyev blamed ``internal and external forces'' that
want ``to deliver damage to Azerbaijan's international image, to
discredit it before the parliamentary elections and present the country
as an unstable and nondemocratic state, where freedom of speech is
violated and acts of terrorism are committed.'' \2\ It is highly
unlikely that Aliyev himself was involved in this murder, and it is
critical for him to make sure the killers of Huseinov are found and
properly punished so that neither his nor his government's image is
further damaged.
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\2\ Baku Today, ``President Calls for Speedy Investigation into
Journalists Murder.'' March 3, 2005.
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Over the next 8 months the United States needs to both assure
Aliyev that Washington does not want his ouster, and at the same time
be firm in supporting free and fair elections. As a start, the United
States, together with the European Union, can ask Azerbaijan to allow
the operation of at least one independent television station, and to
let the opposition hold meetings. In Georgia the so-called Baker Plan,
which was delivered by James Baker to his friend Shevardnadze and the
leaders of the opposition, provided the framework for the critical
November 2003 elections. Such an approach can also work in Azerbaijan.
The United States should also be concerned about the November
elections in Azerbaijan because if the secular parties in and outside
the government lose more ground, the Islamists are likely to fill their
place. As the leader of the opposition Popular Front Party, Ali Karimli
stated in his talk at the Nixon Center on February 15, 2005, with the
secular political opposition's activities restricted, Islamists are
getting stronger. As Karimli put it, ``on Fridays more than 3 or 4,000
people turn up at services in every mosque, in a country where I cannot
gather 50 people together for a meeting!'' He also mentioned, and as I
have observed in my recent visits, the Islamists are gaining ground
because they exploit the Karabakh issue, arguing that even though
Azerbaijani territory is invaded and there are four U.N. resolutions
about it, ``because we are Muslim, our rights are not respected'';
second, the Islamists highlight the ``extreme poverty and the huge
inequality between the average person and the top 1 or 2 percent who
own everything''; and third, they take advantage of the fact that ``no
one seems to care'' about democracy in the country.\3\ These are all
worrisome signs in a country neighboring Iran, which experienced a
similar development that brought in the Islamic Republic.
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\3\ Nixon Center Program Brief, ``Getting Azerbaijan Right.''
February 15, 2005.
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IV. TURKEY: GROWING MISTRUST OF THE UNITED STATES
After decades of NATO alliance and strategic partnership, Turkish-
American relations began deteriorating with the Turkish Parliament's
refusal to allow United States troops to transit Turkey and into Iraq
in March 2003, and deteriorated as the war in Iraq unfolded. There had
been ups and downs in the relationship before, but the level of anti-
Americanism in Turkey today is unprecedented. A recent BBC survey found
that about 82 percent of Turks have a negative view of the Bush
administration's policies and consider today's America to be one of the
biggest threats in the world.
This Turkish anger is primarily a result of the Iraq war, which
many in Turkey opposed. They initially feared their neighbor turning
into an ethnic and religious war zone. Turkish concerns have focused on
the presence of the several thousand PKK terrorists in northern Iraq.
The United States has promised to eliminate the PKK terrorist threat in
Iraq, but so far has not made a move. After a brutal civil war with its
Kurdish population that lasted a decade and cost over 30,000 lives,
Turks are angered with the United States for not taking action against
a group that already began terrorist operations inside Turkey. They are
therefore wondering whether the ``global war on terror'' is waged only
on groups that threaten the United States and excludes groups that
threaten only U.S. allies.
In addition, Turks fear the Kurds in Iraq may eventually establish
an independent state that would also appeal to Turkey's own Kurds
living in the border areas; such a development could once again lead to
separatism and instability inside Turkey, potentially rekindling civil
war and even undermining Turkey's territorial integrity. The fact that
the oil-rich city of Kirkuk is gradually coming under Kurdish control
and the Turkmen--their ethnic brethren--living in Kirkuk are being
discriminated against, further causes suspicion and mistrust toward the
United States.
Turks now associate Iraq with chaos and damage to their national
interests, while the United States hails Iraq as a test case for
spreading democracy and freedom in the world. This has led many Turks
to associate American democracy and reform initiatives in the Middle
East with an expansionist policy that will weaken Turkey, but cloaked
in the rhetoric of ``freedom'' and ``justice.'' Fearing further chaos
and change in its southern neighborhood, Turkey has even pulled closer
to Syria and Iran.
This is part of the context for the Turkish reluctance to support
United States or European initiatives for democracy in the Black Sea
region. Many in Turkey were skeptical of the Georgian and Ukrainian
revolutions, which they believe were managed by the United States. They
fear that under the rubric of ``democratic alliance,'' the United
States is creating an anti-Russian alliance in the Black Sea region,
which will lead to instability and undermine Turkey's security in this
region. Second, when the United States talks about democracy in the
Black Sea region, Turkey hears American naval presence. Turkey is
strongly opposed to any foreign military presence in the Black Sea,
which it fears will undermine the Treaty of Montreaux of 1936, which
designated the Turkish Straits as an international waterway but
afforded Turkey rights to impose safety regulations. Retaining some
jurisdiction over the Bosporus and Dardanelles remains one of the
highest priorities of Turkish national security policy, as it has since
1453.
United States-Turkish tension is aggravated by a lack of dialog.
There have been few discussions on the Black Sea region at governmental
levels; the first one in several years took place only in the last week
of February when Ambassador Halil Akinci, the Turkish Foreign
Ministry's Director for Russia, Caucasus and central Asia visited
Washington. In his meetings Akinci stated that Turkish policy in the
Black Sea region is based on four pillars: ``Contributing to the
consolidation of state building; supporting political and economic
reforms; promoting the Black Sea States' integration with the
international community; developing and enhancing bilateral relations
on the basis of equality, mutual interest and respect for
sovereignty.'' \4\ Given that this Turkish vision and the American
vision are at the core complementary, more bilateral discussions need
to be held between diplomats, military and the civil society so that
the Turks can understand these interests are shared.
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\4\ Nixon Center Program Brief, ``Turkish View of Russia and
Eurasia.'' February 25, 2005.
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At the same time, the United States needs to understand a much
deeper psychological issue is at play, and this is why Turkey has been
moving closer to Russia. The United States should not ignore the
psychological hangups of former empires like Turkey and Russia, which
still suffer from the 19th/20th century views of strategic factors and
do not share Bush's vision of advancing democratic change in pursuit of
freedom. Turkey and Russia still pine over lost lands and fear being
surrounded by a West hostile to their interests. Both oscillate between
feelings of insecurity about their waning influence in global politics,
and a sense of strategic indispensability in Eurasia. Both have in
varying degrees resented growing American presence in the Caucasus and
central Asia, where they had historic, ethnic, and religious ties and a
sense of entitlement. The last thing they want is to see the United
States also enter the Black Sea region, which Turkey and Russia feel is
their ``special zone of influence'' where they are the major powers.
Ultimately, both are status quo powers in terms of foreign policy who
oppose change in the Black Sea region, mainly because in their recent
past any change meant losing territory or influence.
What Turkey now needs, more than anything, is a carefully balanced
message from the United States that Washington appreciates Ankara's
importance and seeks partnership, but that Turkey's strategic
importance will not shield it against the consequences of nasty
behavior. In the Black Sea region, this means that Turkey needs to hear
that Turkish and American interests overlap in terms of shared NATO
values. But Turks also need to understand that the unchecked growth of
anti-Americanism is not acceptable. Anti-Americanism has grown in many
countries since the Iraq war, but the tone and the depth of the anger
in Turkey is a result of a number of other factors that have created a
perfect storm. In fact, today Turkey's secular military, Islamists,
leftists, and nationalists--forces that often oppose each other--have
united in their common opposition to the United States. Why?
Maybe the best example for understanding what is happening inside
Turkey is a brief look at the best selling fiction in Turkey today,
``The Metal Storm.'' While it is fiction, Turkish and American
government leaders' real names are used and the context is based on
actual events. ``The Metal Storm'' is about a war the United States
launches against Turkey in 2007 under the name ``Operation Sevres,''
which is the much-feared agreement signed at the end of the World War I
whereby the Western powers hoped to dismantle the Ottoman Empire. In
the book Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds are once again portrayed as fifth
columns of Turkey who the West can use to destabilize Turkey.
The American operation against Turkey begins when the Turkish
military enters northern Iraq after the attacks in Kirkuk on non-Kurds,
i.e., Turkmen, have increased significantly. The United States does not
diplomatically oppose the Turkish move as it is about to attack Syria.
Moreover, the United States has been running a psychological campaign
against Turkey for some time and uses this opportunity to portray the
Turks as the aggressors, even though it is the United States that
launches a brutal attack on them. It is interesting to note that the
book makes clear that by that point in 2007, Nicholas Sarkozy has
become France's President, and afterward the European Union ended talks
with Turkey, which in turn has moved away from the West. The Turkish
Government has withdrawn its Ambassador to the United States as a
result of the Armenian genocide resolution that passes the United
States Congress. As part of the campaign against Turkey, the United
States was also portraying Turks are wrong in Cyprus.
Now, while for many in the United States such scenarios may be far-
fetched, to say the least, in the Turkish context they are quite
believable. Since this book was published a few months ago, there have
been several TV shows in the United States where the Turks were
portrayed as terrorists, which was taken as a sign of a psychological
operation against Turkey. Only a few days ago Sarkozy, who is the most
likely candidate to be France's next President, received a huge
applause when he objected to Turkey's EU membership. The list goes on.
In the book there are two more reasons for the United States to
launch a war on Turkey. The first is to ``liberate Istanbul from 500
years of occupation by the Turks'' and let the Evangelical Church
construct the biggest ever church in this city. At secret meeting in
Vatican called ``The New Byzantium,'' the church decides to re-
Christianize Anatolia, which has many holy Christian sites. Again,
while this theory sounds almost insane, many in Turkey do not
understand the role of the Evangelical church in American politics and
fear that President Bush was serious when he announced the beginning of
a new crusade after the attacks of September 11, 2001. On top of this
comes the EU's religious freedom reform pressure, which again, is
perceived in Turkey as a way to ``Christianize'' Turkey. Consequently,
those in Turkey promoting interfaith dialog have been accused of
serving American and Western interests, not Turkish ones. (This is, of
course, very unfortunate since Turkish moderate traditions and long
history of interfaith acceptance can be the best antidote against the
radicalism prevalent in many Muslim societies.)
A second reason for the U.S. attack in the book is the American
desire to move away from dependence on Middle Eastern oil and the need
to develop new energy sources. Turkey has rich borax, uranium, and
thorium mines; it has monopoly in borax, which is mainly used for space
and weapons technology and, therefore, is a strategic mineral. While
few in the United States ever think of these mines, many in Turkey,
starting several years before this novel was published, have feared an
eventual United States attack to take over these mines. It is probably
not surprising that in the end of the book, Russia and Germany help
Turkey by taking on a common diplomatic position against the United
States--simply because they do not want the United States to control
these mines and become even more powerful.
Throughout the book honorable Turkish military and political
leaders wondering how and why the United States would attack Turkey
after decades of partnership. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and others are often portrayed as having difficulty grasping
that the United States is indeed attacking Turkey. In several parts,
the book states, ``For a long time there was speculative news about the
United States plans on Turkey. Many people ignored these as fiction
because it was considered so insane''; clearly this language is
intended to make the story even more believable.
I have spent a significant part of my testimony on ``Metal Storm,''
because it is essential in understanding the Turkish mindset today.
What can the United States do when many Turks read this book and daily
articles in the press that play on the softest spots in the Turkish
psyche to create a sense of insecurity and fear of United States
intentions?
The average reader in Turkey has difficulty in separating fact from
fiction and reports indicate many read the book as a prophetic one.
With the EU reform process forcing fundamental changes in Turkey that
exacerbate many people's sense of insecurity about their future and
sense of certainty, this book has brilliantly captured the mood in
Turkey. It further clouds fact and fiction by hinting at current issues
of contention in United States-Turkish relations, including whether the
tragic events of 1915 constitute the ``Armenian Genocide,'' the
unresolved Cyprus issue, and developments in Iraq.
Getting United States-Turkish relations back on track in the Black
Sea and beyond requires the Turkish leadership to put an end to the
breed of wild and destructive speculation portrayed in ``Metal Storm.''
Turkish political leaders need to step back and contemplate whether
they truly believe the United States would contemplate the outlandish
actions concocted by the authors of ``Metal Storm,'' who use references
to actual American leaders and a deep familiarity with United States
military technology to convey a sense of authority in their writing.
Turkish leaders must then decide whether they must clarify to the
Turkish people that wild speculation about a United States plan to
dominate Turkey are divorced from reality. Perhaps this will lead to a
genuine debate about the future of United States-Turkish relations,
including in the Black Sea. Instead, Turkey's civilian and military
leaders are silent, allowing thousands of Turkish readers to
misperceive the book's ruminations as plausible, if not fact, and
causing potentially serious damage to United States-Turkish relations.
There is a danger that, as Turkey proceeds with democratic reforms
required to advance its quest for EU accession, and as the hallowed
role of the military decreases in Turkish politics, Turkish society may
compensate these developments with growing anti-Americanism and anti-
Westernism.
Hopefully, Turkey can come out of the process much stronger and as
a valuable member.
In the short term, there are three specific steps the United States
can take to try to reverse these negative trends and restore a sense of
partnership in relations with Turkey. First, together with the Iraqi
Government, the United States needs to find a formula to assuage the
Turkish irritation with the continued PKK presence in northern Iraq.
Until and unless the P.K. issue is resolved, Turkish-United States
relations cannot move to a better phase, and Turkey would continue to
resist any United States initiatives in the Black Sea region.
Second, given the prevalent Turkish view that the United States is
running a campaign against Turkey, it would be very damaging if the
Armenian Genocide resolution passed Congress this year. This year is
the 90th anniversary of the tragic 1915 massacre and certainly the
Armenian diaspora groups would like to get recognition. However, such a
resolution would play right into the hands of the growing set of anti-
Americans and ultra-nationalists in Turkey. For the Black Sea region,
it will mostly hurt the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.
Third, the United States needs to continue raising Turkish EU
membership as part of the transatlantic dialog and insist that Turkey
should be accepted into the European Union on the merits. Turkey needs
to be assured that it will not be swapped with Ukraine; this certainty
is necessary for Turks to support Ukraine's (and Georgia's) ongoing
democracy reforms, and make the fundamental mental and institutional
changes at home.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Ms. Baran, for your provocative
testimony as well. I'm going to ask each of you--and if one of
you all, for whatever question that I may ask one of the other
witnesses on this panel, if you would want to make a comment so
that we--if you may have a slightly different point of view on
it, you're certainly welcome to do so.
Both Mr. Jackson and Mr. Socor--got to put another quarter
in there to keep the lights on, this happens at 4 o'clock, I
think, around here, a slide show or Cinderella turns into a
pumpkin or something. Got it--talked about Russia as being a
problem in--actually all three of you did in different ways.
Mr. Socor was the most direct. Mr. Jackson brought it up. Your
was, Ms. Baran, is what I was talking about, how they use their
energy dominance as a way to jerk people around or keep them
under their thumb.
The one thing on the countries, Moldova, Georgia, the
Transnistrian area, is a lot of this is the Russian--Russia
simply completely ignoring any commitments they made. When we
had Ambassador Tefft here, I was saying, oh, what's their
reaction and so forth, and he's an ambassador and he's got to
be diplomatic. The answer to the question is they--I see no
action that indicates that they're going to do anything but
drag their feet and keep their troops there because they want
to keep that influence in these areas.
We have been working in these areas, maybe not with the
same intensity as the last few years or since 9/11, 2001, that
changed everything. These areas--Armenia was always a concern
because there are many Armenian-Americans in this country, so
we're more aware of that. Turkey is clearly a key country, you
pay attention to Turkey. It's an important country for a
variety of reasons, economically as well as its size and its
aspirations to join the European Union and, obviously, is a
NATO country.
Regardless, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Socor, on the issue of
these countries, the Georgia issue, the Moldova issue,
Transnistria issue, with all the efforts we've made, why in the
heck have we been--and I don't want to just blame the United
States for everything, you know, the United States can only
have so much influence everywhere. It's not as if we all get--
we get two out of three of you all to agree and, therefore, it
will be so. It's just not going to happen that way.
But why have all these efforts been so fruitless in having
the Russians abide by their commitments? And moreover, it's not
just us. Why are not other NATO countries, other European
countries also insisting on Russia? In other words, the
international community that should care about the concept of
sovereignty of countries and self-determination--now granted
some of them won't, but there's more and more. Freedom's on the
march. There's more free countries than there were back in
1980.
Why has Russia been able to get away with this? Why have
they been able to abrogate, ignore these agreements to remove
their troops? And if you two could answer whatever order you
all want to, I'd like to get your perspectives.
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It seems to me that
we made a fundamental mistake as we came into this period by
not putting clear red lines in for Russia where the limits were
and what was acceptable and unacceptable boundaries. As a
result, they have tended to probe and take advantage of us when
we were preoccupied in the Middle East or where--and the
European Union turns inward with the pressure of expansion and
the West becomes preoccupied, there's a tendency to probe and
take advantage.
So we haven't made clear that there are consequences and
held them to consequences. We note that the Syrians are
withdrawing from Lebanon in a matter of weeks with 15,000
troops. Russia has said it will take them 15 years to get 3,000
troops out of Georgia and want $\1/2\ billion from the United
States to pay for it. So clearly this is not a serious
discussion.
The point we have not made clear is you cannot harbor 19th
century imperial neurosis and enjoy 21st century legitimacy.
And the consequences that this body has considered is to bar
Russia from access to international fora that require a certain
level of democratic activity, such as the G-8, WTO, and other
recognitions of legitimacy that they covet.
Second, I think we have to take actions to devalue what
they gain from these things. They profit from criminal
enterprises. They profit from the instability of the states on
their borders. This serves their purposes and they destroy
institutions that compete, like the European Union or OSCE.
I would strongly advise the NATO powers to put NATO
surveillance into the Black Sea as we have in all the other
seas of Europe. If those--if this trafficking cannot occur,
there's no reason to have the bases and the traffickers there.
When Georgia found that out, the peace started--the conflict
started to be resolved where they just simply interdicted the
trafficking lines, and then the criminal elements got bored and
went home. So you have to disincentivize and devalue what
Russia seeks in having these bases and having this control over
these gray economies on their border.
That's why I also think we should do what we can with our
European allies to put the border monitors back into the
Georgian borders so reactionary interests cannot exploit the
vulnerability of these young democracies.
Senator Allen. All right, if we did that--I do want to hear
from you, Mr. Socor--that would be predicated on the European
countries actually wanting to work in concert on that, whether
NATO or--on a less than NATO basis. Do you see a willingness on
the part of the European nations to actually assist--I'm
talking about NATO. We've heard about Turkey. Would Turkey
agree to that? And for that matter, would France, would the
Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and others? Would we find some--
we're finding a commonality in interests in getting the Syrians
out of Lebanon. France and the United States are absolutely
together on that. But do you see that as a likelihood, or would
this just be another thing that we're bickering with the
Europeans on, who by the way ought to care more about this than
we do, because it's right--heck, it's part of Europe.
Mr. Jackson. Sir, I'm going to get in trouble on this, but
my view is that Europeans would be interested in following if
the United States started leading. And if we made clear that we
are part--we agree to defend the Euro-Atlantic space together
and this is part of the Euro-Atlantic space and these threats
that emanate from this region are threats to the United States
and Europe and we were serious about this, I am certain that
European allies would come on.
I think what they think today, is that we have a back-
channel partnership with Russia and a back-channel interest in
Turkey and that we've cut deals on the side to allow this kind
of special exemption, and if it's all right for us to cut
deals, they're going to cut their deals, and probably with
Putin on oil or economic interests. I think that to be good
allies across the Atlantic we have to be forthright, we have to
stand together when freedom is threatened and democracy is at
risk. And I think this discussion, I hope the President began
in his meetings in Brussels exactly on developing a new agenda
of greater transparency and greater common causes, our European
allies, there's no better region to begin than here.
Senator Allen. Thank you.
Mr. Socor.
Mr. Socor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Bruce has zeroed in on
some major reasons why we find ourselves in the present
situation with regard to Russian troops and bases in Georgia
and Moldova. I would like to add a couple of considerations.
The existing conflict settlement negotiating frameworks and
peacekeeping mechanisms were created by Russia, on a one-on-one
basis with the target countries, these helpless target
countries, during the 1990s. These structures are relics of a
bygone era. Nobody in the 1990s would have imagined that NATO
and the European Union would enlarge the way they have and that
their interests in these countries would increase in an
exponential manner. The increase in Euro-Atlantic interest in
these countries has overtaken, greatly overtaken, those
obsolete conflict settlement and----
Senator Allen. Say that again. Start that sentence again so
I can understand you. Say it again.
Mr. Socor. Those peacekeeping and conflict settlement
mechanisms are relics of a bygone era of the 1990s----
Senator Allen. Right.
Mr. Socor [continuing]. When the enlargement of NATO and
the European Union was not on the agenda, was not foreseeable,
now Euro-Atlantic interest in these two countries have
increased exponentially and have overtaken those peacekeeping
and conflict settlement mechanisms. Those need to be simply
jettisoned. We cannot afford tinkering with them, getting
bogged down in procedural issues, adding a couple of observers
to the existing settlements, continuing to treat, for example,
Moldova and Transnistria or Georgia's Abkhazia as coequal
parties, getting them together, imploring Russia, maybe, to get
them together.
Senator Allen. OK.
Mr. Socor. That's a thing of the past.
Senator Allen. OK, all right. Let me--then from this, let
me ask you all this question then. For countries like Georgia,
Moldova, which elected a Communist government, they had free
elections, they elect Communists. I'm not sure how good that
will be for investment in their country, but it's their
country. Different states do different things in this country,
too, nothing like that, but regardless, that's representative
democracy.
The others have to make a better claim. So long as you have
free elections and people vote that way, that's what you get.
Now, the question is, is the motivation for people--and this
is--Baran mentioned this as well in a roundabout way with
Turkey--but can you motivate--will the people in Georgia, the
people in Moldova, the people in Ukraine and Azerbaijan,
Armenia, all on different levels, would accession to being in
the European Union, not so much maybe NATO--some might want to
get into NATO, which would be actually wonderful.
But we've seen in Central Europe, what we call--used to be
called Eastern inaccurately, it's Central Europe. I'm talking
about from Bulgaria, Romania on up to the Baltics, those
countries with the benchmarks and the criteria they needed to
make the reforms they need to make to get into NATO, to get
into the European Union, was it seen by their leaders and by a
majority of the people in their countries as something they
would want to aspire to? We called them aspirant countries.
Mr. Socor. Yes, it's----
Senator Allen. It wasn't as if we were taking them in. They
wanted to get in, and they had to meet certain benchmarks. Is
that motivation still there----
Mr. Socor. Yes, very much so.
Senator Allen [continuing]. On the part of these countries?
If so, that is one way to not just have it just externally come
in--obviously you have to deal with the Russians--but to
actually effectuate the will of the people, which makes it a
lot easier than if we're just talking here or talking at
different confabs as to what people ought to want to do. If
they generally want to do it themselves, it makes it much
easier to effectuate that shared goal.
Mr. Socor. Yes. The prospect of European integration is of
course--of course exerts a magnetic force of attraction.
Senator Allen. Well, is it enough of a magnetic attraction
to offset the leverage that Russia can impose upon them----
Mr. Socor. Not really.
Senator Allen [continuing]. Whether it's for energy or
militarily?
Mr. Socor. It's not enough for a number of reasons. The
more these countries advance on the road of reforms, the
greater the gulf separating these reforming countries from the
secessionist enclaves, which are not reforming. So the gulf
between them will deepen. That's one thing.
Second, the generation is growing up there which no longer
has a sense of belonging to the same country as the generations
on the other side.
Third, the Russian troop presence becomes, by default, the
new status quo. The mere duration of this presence has the
unintended effect of legitimizing it by----
Senator Allen. Legitimizing it?
Mr. Socor. Conferring it a spurious appearance of
legitimacy.
Senator Allen. However, don't--I'll ask all three of you--
wouldn't the people of these countries, Moldova maybe not, but
at least Georgia want--the people of Lebanon rose up. It was
remarkable their bravery and courage. And I'm not saying
Hezbollah doesn't have a great deal of power still in Lebanon.
They had counterdemonstrations today. But regardless, would
they not have that same sort of feeling that the Lebanese have
about the Syrians? Would they not have that same feeling in
these countries about Russian troops?
Mr. Socor. They definitely should.
Senator Allen. Well, do they? Bruce? Zeyno--excuse me, Ms.
Baran?
Ms. Baran. Well, they do, but it's very difficult because
the Russian troops there have been involved in corruption and
also sort of the way that they have operated is really
dominating the local thinking, and there's a lot of fear on the
ground. So it's very, very difficult for the people to just
feel comfortable. For example, in Ossetia and Abkhazia, most
people there just have a very distorted view about what the
rest of Georgia looks like, and they're constantly getting
disinformation. So it's a very, very difficult process.
For example, the President of Georgia, as Bruce mentioned,
issued a very interesting comprehensive peace initiative to the
South Ossetians, and they're not going to really get excited
unless they hear and see that Brussels and Washington is going
to really support them, because any kind of move away from the
current status quo is going to anger Russia. And they know that
an angry Russia can do a lot of harm, ranging from electricity
and gas cutoffs to local provocations.
And on the previous issue mentioned, you have, Mr.
Chairman, focused on some traditional European allies, France
and Spain. What we are seeing now is some of the newer NATO
allies and EU members really pushing those two organizations to
look at Russia and what Russia is doing in the neighborhood in
a different way.
For example, there's a new Friends of Georgia group formed,
which consists of Poland, Romania, and the three Baltic
countries. And what they hope to do is to force the rest of the
European and NATO countries to understand the difficulties that
other, you know, former Soviet countries are facing. So, I
think we need to look at different types of alliances with the
Europeans.
Senator Allen. That's good to hear, Mr. Jackson, that the
new countries of Europe are leading Europe and helping NATO
understand the trials and tribulations of that transition. They
won't have--you called a deafening silence in Brussels. Ms.
Baran mentioned----
Mr. Jackson. Well, I always encourage these countries not
to shut up.
Senator Allen. No.
Mr. Jackson. They make very important contributions.
Senator Allen. No, and I think it's one of the reasons why
they are so helpful. They understand what it's like to live
under repression. You wanted to say something, I can tell, Mr.
Jackson.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. On your major point, every single
successful democratic revolution, beginning with Otpor in
Serbia and the Rose Revolution and the Orange Revolution, the
democratic opposition has been running on a pro-European
platform. There are no exceptions. And the only reason Mr.
Voronin and the Communist one in Moldova yesterday, or over the
weekend, is they ran on a pro-European platform because they
couldn't win any other way.
Once the institutions of Europe close to this quarter of a
billion people, that's the end of the democratic
transformation. That is the engine, that is the magnet, that is
what people are changing for. I don't think that there is a
lack--to your second point--that there is a lack of resolve or
a lack of gumption about this. I think because we--when we were
working together under your leadership, Poland never had a
counterrevolution going on. Nobody was poisoning Havel or
shooting at them or running people off the road. These people
are confronting very dangerous entrenched autocrats and
kleptocrats that kill people. Every single person that's run
for President in Russia is in jail and in Belarus is in jail or
in Ukraine they were poisoned or multiple assassinations.
Russian paramilitary hand out AK-47s in South Ossetia to
paramilitaries.
There are forces in this third phase that did not exist in
the first. These democratic revolutions in Poland and down to
Romania occurred basically in a vacuum after the fall of the
wall. This third phase is not occurring in a vacuum. It's
occurring despite active opposition of entrenched interests in
the politics of the past. That's where the $300 million came
from, at least, to stop Yushchenko being elected, and the same
people are coming back to run against--from outside--to run
against the Orange Revolution and the parliamentary election in
12 months.
So, I think it is considerable admiration that these people
have done so much under this kind of adversity against far more
powerful services and militaries.
Senator Allen. Thank you for that realism. The purpose of
hearings is to get this perspective, and I thank all of you for
it. Let me ask a few more questions as we--so many things were
brought up.
On energy, Ms. Baran, you didn't have it in your testimony,
but I wanted to ask you about this. Azerbaijan, talking about
getting their energy, and of course if they have this, this is
going to really help their countries if properly utilized, the
revenues from these natural resources. I understood that
Azerbaijan was considering doing something similar to the
Alaska permanent fund where the oil revenues would actually be
shared by the people of that country.
The reason I bring this up is I met with Ibrahim al-Jafari
a few weeks ago in Baghdad. And in addition to presenting him
the Virginia Declaration of Rights and all these great ideas
for a free and just society, I also brought up that concept for
Iraq to do something like Alaska, where Alaska residents get a
dividend, so to speak, from the oil revenues, which is
ownership, national unity, plus the idea that people will care
about terrorists blowing up oil pipelines because that's money
out of their own pocket and they want those pipelines and oil
industries operating at--upgraded from the atrophied state that
they're in after many decades of Saddam Hussein.
At any rate, I understand Azerbaijan was considering this.
If Azerbaijan, which is not a--it's a Shiite country, but not
necessary Arab, right?
Ms. Baran. Right.
Senator Allen. If they do that, that might be also a model
that ultimately the Iraqis would look to to have some unifying
economic and ownership benefits from it. What do you know of
Azerbaijan considering any such idea?
Ms. Baran. Sure. They actually have already an oil fund and
the head of the oil fund and the teams that were setting it up
spent considerable time studying the Alaskan oil fund, and went
to Norway and developed an ongoing project which is considered
to be fairly successful by the IMF, World Bank, even the Soros
organization that has looked into the oil fund.
And the concept for it is really to, precisely, Mr.
Chairman, the issues that you mentioned, and also this is one
of the areas where Azerbaijan internally is talking about being
an example or a model for Iraq and Iran. Although it is a
majority Shiite country, it also has significant Sunni
presence, and would like to be the model country, together with
Kazakhstan on the other side of the Caspian, which also has a
strong, not as transparent maybe, oil fund. The two of them
would like to be the first countries that use their oil wealth
in a way that's going to help the rest of the society. And
now----
Senator Allen. Does every resident get a check or a
payment?
Ms. Baran. Well, here is the trick. Now money is
accumulating in the oil fund, and people are not going to start
seeing any kind of immediate checks or benefits, I believe,
until 2007 when initial money starts coming to the government,
because now there's a lot of investment and----
Senator Allen. Understood.
Ms. Baran. And at that point----
Senator Allen. But then they would.
Ms. Baran. At that point, provided Azerbaijan moves into
more of a democratic, transparent country and moves away from
the clan-based corrupt system, yes. And this is why it's also
very, very important that over the next couple years until the
big oil money comes into the government, the country goes into
further democracy. Otherwise, we're going to see a small group
of people benefiting from this oil, and that leads to my
concern that I mentioned in my testimony, Azerbaijan looking
more like Iran used to under a shah as opposed to becoming an
example for the new Iran and the new Iraq.
Senator Allen. Well, thank--I know that wasn't going to be
your testimony here, but economics--the concept of human
freedom, obviously, is very important, but also economic
freedom, and that the fact that the resources and wealth of a
country, if it is actually shared, and it's no thanks to any
government that there's oil or gas under a certain country, but
the extent it's shared with all the citizens, that is a
democratizing factor.
I'm not going to get much into the Armenian genocide with
you. Suffice it to say, if that upsets the Turks--and I'm
speaking only for myself--the Armenian genocide happened. You
may want to call it a massacre. I have found, as a leader in
studying things throughout history, that leaders need to stand
up and deplore activities when they're wrong. And that goes on
now when maybe there will be people--a few years ago when I was
Governor they were bombing black churches. We saw the genocide
in Europe by the Nazis.
I'm always touched and remember what Hitler was told and
what Hitler said when he was told that, gosh, if you start this
genocide of Jewish people by the Germans, the world is going to
get very upset, they're going to be mad, you'll have to pay a
tough price. And he said, well, who remembers the Armenians? If
people remember what happened in the past, it's not as if I'm
talking--I'm not asking for reparations and so forth, it
happened 90 years ago--but one needs to remember the past and
recognize it so that sort of activity doesn't happen in the
future. And while we all feel that we're very enlightened, this
sort of genocide, maybe not exactly the same, but wiping out
masses of people because of their ethnicity or because of their
religion, still is occurring in this world.
And speaking only for myself, we want to have good
relations with Turkey, but we're not going to sweep things that
happened in history under the rug. We are not blaming anybody
presently in Turkey for doing it. Anybody who was involved in
it is undoubtedly long gone and dead. But it is part of, I
think, our responsibility on human rights. So I just--that's
from my point of view.
Finally, Mr. Jackson, I want you to elaborate, and any
others, your second point of your testimony, we need a
formation of new structures for a Black Sea strategy. And you
went through the list of the new leaders, new Presidents of
Georgia, Romania, Ukranian Presidents. Could you elaborate on
what you mean by a new structure? That was a very intriguing
statement, but can you put some meat on those bones?
Mr. Jackson. I could chicken out of this question, sir, by
referring to President Basescu, who has actually started
talking about this and developing the ideas organically. I
think that one thing we realize, it is the states of the given
region of the Euro-Atlantic that begin to take responsibility
for their regional security and their economic integration.
This occurred in the Visegrad Group that linked Poland and the
Czech Republic and Hungary and Slovakia.
Senator Allen. I see.
Mr. Jackson. It occurred in the Nordic-Baltic cooperation
that built a zone of security, and Mr. Haltzel sitting behind
you is one of the key authors of this. So we have seen,
basically, organic creations of regional structures where
President Saakashvili has reached out to the West and asked for
support and peacekeepers. It has been denied.
Where President Basescu has asked for coalitions of the
willing to come in to improve surveillance and traffic and
bases, it has been--we cannot get it approved. I think we have
to realize----
Senator Allen. Approved by who?
Mr. Jackson. Well, it depends on which organization you go
to. I mean, NATO can go into the Black Sea to conduct----
Senator Allen. Right.
Mr. Jackson [continuing]. Active endeavor. Any coalition
can, basically, police the shores of NATO and EU states for
interdiction of drugs. That would basically be pressure on
Transnistria not to--to use the Black Sea as a free zone of
export. That has to--we're seeing Romania supporting Georgia in
improving interregional cooperation. That has to be encouraged
and enhanced.
Regional peace dialogs, for instance, the approach in
Transnistria, is limited to a very narrow number of powers, all
of whom were responsive to Moscow's desires. Why isn't Romania
in that table? Why isn't the EU part of that dialog? Why aren't
European structures allowed to lend aid and act as training
wheels as the region gets up on its own feet?
Projects that exist within Europe's new neighborhood policy
and our Millennium Challenge Account, one, they have to be
funded, but also we should look for regional projects where the
states are internetting themselves together as the Western
European States have done.
It seems to me that one could draw the wrong conclusion
from the events of the Rose Revolution and the Orange
Revolution, which are, of course, inspiring. But the real job
of democracy support comes in the next 3 to 5 years as to
helping them succeed. You know, the first inspirational event,
that's not where the risks are. It's in this period where they
try to build new structures and institutionalize, as a U.S.
legislator must know instinctively. It's the
institutionalization of the democratic imagination that makes
all the difference.
Can they translate this vision into a real institutional
character that can be conveyed among nations and among peoples
in perpetuity? That's essentially what they're trying to do.
And we know a lot about this and I've talked about the
coordination we could do with the European Union, who actually
were in front of us in recognizing that this was fundamentally
part of Europe's neighborhood and might actually--they have set
up programs where Ukraine may pass from a neighborhood country
to a membership country, which is certainly what my
organization hopes to be a part of supporting.
So, I think that this is what we should--the second Bush
administration and this Congress should pay attention to and
see if we can support them.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Jackson. We've gone on for
over 2 hours here, and I want to thank all of the panelists
here, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Socor, and Ms. Baran, for coming and
spending time. I could actually go on longer. I do have to get
somewhere else and I know you do as well.
The testimony you all brought forward here is very
important. I will, as chairman of this committee--I've learned
a great deal from you. I will express this to my colleagues.
These issues will come up. This is a vitally important area for
our country, our future, but for theirs as well.
I'm also encouraged, to some extent, that in various ways
the European countries are also involved. This is not something
that the United States can do unilaterally. It's good to know
the will of the people. There are differences I recognize in
each one of these countries, but to the extent that they can--I
like to, maybe, not use the word institutionalize, but the
point is to set up constitutions, laws that protect God-given
rights, have private ownership of property, religious freedom,
freedom of expression, the rule of law, the rule of law that
protects those rights and adjudicates disputes in a fair
manner, and putting in those structures where people say not
only are we free, not only are we controlling our own destiny,
we are seeing that prosperity.
And that--you're exactly right, Mr. Jackson--it's hard not
to call you Bruce as a friend, but Mr. Jackson is exactly right
that it's key that people see tangible impacts, that this is
meaning something for them and for their children's future. And
so we have a great opportunity. I realize there's a lot of
problems here. Russia's the main culprit in a variety of ways.
However, we do need to seize this opportunity and not look
back 5 years from now or 4 years from now and saying, gosh, if
we'd only done this, if we'd only done that. And it's within
our grasp, it is within our security interest militarily, and
also, I think it's in our economic interest to also have these
countries developing energy. It's good for them and it's also
good for these high prices we're paying for natural gas and
gasoline as well and getting that online and not having just to
rely on the existing sources.
So, for our security as well as our economic interests, and
of course, Americans love to spread freedom, this is a great
opportunity. I thank all three of you all for your care, for
your wisdom, your insight, and I look forward to fighting
alongside of you to advance our shared goals.
Thank you all. The subcommittee hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:36 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]