Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

Turkey is turning to Russia to legalize its crimes against a small unprotected state member of the EU which it aspires to join
Turkish daily SABAH newspaper (26.08.04) publishes the following column by Asli Aytintasbas under the title "The paradox of President Putin's visit":

“The President of our ally, the United States, was met with protest demonstrations. But, there is not a single action, a single line of writing against the leader of Russia, which took its place on the opposite side in the Cold War.

Could there be a greater paradox than this? For years, Turkey was a party in the Cold War as a "front country". Turkey has been in the NATO for 50 years and it has also been one of the closest allies of the United States for the same period of time. Despite this, the visit to Turkey of President George Bush two months ago attracted considerable reactions, from protest meetings to billboards in the streets.

As for Petr Stegniy, the Russian Federation's Ambassador to Turkey, he is rather pleased that no negative articles have been published in the newspapers related to the Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Turkey next week. He said that the Turkish media has been following the subject very well, with praise, which we are not accustomed to, and added, "I also hope that no negative news would emerge after this."

According to Amb Stegniy, President Putin's 2 September visit is really "historical". He said that from now on there are "homogeneous values", such as the free market economy and democracy between the two countries, and the historical "geopolitical rivalry" remained in the past. Also, it is for this reason that, after 32 years, this is the first high-level visitor coming from Russia to Turkey.

At the same time, the visit is also the picture of this change in Turkish foreign policy, which does not hide that it is gradually reacting against the United States and which has a desire to establish a new friendship axis with the countries with which it had tensions until recently, such as Iran, Russia and Syria. Right or wrong, it appears that the foreign policy staff of Turkey have removed these three countries "as being threats" to Turkey. Amb Stegniy says that during the summer months 82 flights per week are coming from Russia. The trade volume increased considerably with the Blue Stream project. The Russians want to make investments in the Turkish energy sector. Also, a political declaration will be signed with President Putin.

All right, are there no complaints in Ankara stemming from the diametrically opposite behavior ideologically, which was produced by the Cold War for so many years, or from the "neo-Soviet" behavior aimed at Georgia and the Chechens in the Caucasus by Russia under the leadership of President Putin? Or the interpretation that Russia always "tried to descend to the warm seas", which is written in the history books and the Ottoman-Russian diametrically opposite behavior, which lasted for centuries?

Subtitle: "We Invited Him to the Kremlin!"
From now on, these are also not influential in Turkish-Russian relations. Trade has come into the forefront. The Russian officials, who have reinterpreted the Ottoman period with the initiative of the Russian Federation's former Ankara Ambassador Albert Chernishev, are saying that actually these two empires fought for only 25 years, not for centuries.

If you say, "warm seas", in any case, Turkey's only desire is to be able to bring the Russians to the Mediterranean! Antalya is thriving thanks to the Russian tourists. So much so that Turkey proposed to host President Putin at the "Kremlin Palace" Hotel in Antalya for a few days during his visit. President Putin will miss the Kremlin Palace experience due to his intensive program. But Amb Stegniy stated that he visited here in May and had the opportunity to watch the Swan Lake performance of the Kirov Ballet and that the hotel was filled to the capacity of "114 percent" with the tourists coming from Russia.

In the meantime, it should also be hoped that Ankara would apply pressure on the subject of Cyprus during President Putin's visit. Moscow has a friendship with the Greek Cypriot section and especially with Tassos Papadhopoulos, which goes back a long time. Last April, Russia had vetoed on its own the decision of the UN Security Council, which supported the Annan Plan prior to the referendum. I remembered this and when I asked whether or not President Putin would bring a new approach on the subject of Cyprus, Amb Stegniy said, "Oh, it is obvious that you came from Washington, D.C." According to Amb Stegniy, to support the Annan Plan prior to the referendum would have been "to influence the will of the Cypriot electors." Now, he says that Russia "is looking favorably" at economic relations with the ‘TRNC’. Naturally, provided that the EU turns on the green light”.



http://www.moi.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/A ... enDocument


Russia is a regular member of UN security Council which had voted against the guarantee of implementation of the Annan Plan because of she believed there shouldn't be any pressure upon GC community before the referanda.

Now most probably Turkey will try to put the issue in UN Security Council agenda once again and ask Russia's vote in favour of the guarantee of implementation of the A Plan...


By the way I wonder what was AKEL's objections to the A Plan. They had stated that they didn't agree most of the T Pap's views concerning the plan...