tumidamiti

EU overrides Lithuania to re-start talks on Russia deal

2008-11-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

Brussels - European Union foreign ministers sidelined Lithuanian objections Monday and decided to re-start talks on a strategic treaty with Russia which it froze after Russia's August war with Georgia.

'It was a very solid discussion, all EU member states except one are in line to take up the (EU-Russia) partnership talks again,' said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who chaired the talks as holder of the EU's rotating presidency.

At the close of the meeting, the French EU presidency published a statement stressing that the re-start of negotiations with Russia 'in no way legitimizes the status quo in Georgia or the Russian actions which went against our principles.'

The EU 'continues to support the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia,' the statement, which diplomats said was supported by all EU member states except Lithuania, said.

And Russia 'must continue to comply with its engagements and play a constructive role in international (peace) talks in Geneva,' pull its troops back to pre-war lines and allow international observers into Russia's breakaway territories, the statement said.

But Lithuania reacted with outrage to the move, which comes just days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev attends a summit with top EU officials in France on Friday.

Lithuania's Deputy Foreign Minister Zygimantas Pavilionis told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the French, who championed the move to re-open talks, had made a 'serious historic mistake.'

'We are questioning the timing and we're questioning this U-turn of our (EU) positions. ... Is it the right signal to send to Kiev, to Moldova, to Belarus, even to the Baltic states today, that by military force you can change borders?' he asked.

EU leaders on September 1 froze talks in protest at Russia's occupation of Georgia, demanding that it pull its troops back to pre- conflict lines. Russia has since made a partial but incomplete withdrawal.

But ahead of Monday's meeting, a growing number of member states said the bloc should return to the negotiating table, arguing that it was not in the EU's interest not to talk with its biggest neighbour and most important energy supplier.

'We can support resuming negotiations ... because we believe that the issues that will be covered are in the EU's interests as well as Russia's,' British Foreign Minister David Miliband and his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt - among the most vocal critics of Russia's actions - said in a joint statement on Monday morning.

Usually, EU foreign-policy decisions are taken by unanimity. However, in recent weeks officials have stressed that the EU leaders' decision on September 1 was to postpone talks, not formally halt them - leaving the EU's presidency and executive, the European Commission, the legal right to re-start talks.

And Monday's decision, confirmed by both presidency and commission top officials, was taken without Lithuanian consent.

'We are afraid this is the way to legitimize the occupation of the country and we are afraid of the powerful horizontal effects of this message to all neighbours and to Russia itself,' Pavilionis said.

His Estonian counterpart, Urmas Paet, also raised concern at the move, saying 'legally it's not a precedent, but politically I see here some question marks.'

But German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hit back at the newcomers, pointing out that the EU has long been deadlocked over starting talks with Russia on the new agreement because of rows between Moscow and some Central and Eastern European members.

'At some point you have to decide whether we look at this (agreement) as a reward for Russia's behaviour or an agreement which is also in Europe's interest,' he said.

The new deal between the EU and Russia is intended to give a legal basis to the two sides' relationship on matters ranging from culture and trade to energy and education. It is meant to replace a treaty signed with the regime of then-president Boris Yeltsin in 1997.

Also at the meeting, foreign ministers confirmed the appointment of veteran Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini to head an investigation into the outbreak of the August war.

Essay: Israelis will decide their own fate

2008-11-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

American Jews have spent much of the past year tying themselves in knots debating which of the presidential candidates is the stronger supporter of the US-Israel relationship.

To the last week of the campaign, Republicans continued to argue that Barack Obama's protestations of sympathy for the Jewish state were fake. Their last-ditch efforts centered around Obama's appearance at a 2003 dinner honoring Rashid Khalidi, an anti-Zionist academic, at which various other speakers said some nasty things about Israel without apparently sparking much protest from the Democrats' standard-bearer.

But, as with the litany of other charges against Obama, this story was unlikely to change anyone's mind. Indeed, the Democrats have been so effective in conditioning their supporters to dismiss the GOP's arguments as false or irrational that the reaction from many voters was to merely assume (wrongly) that the incident never happened.

Yet, for all the ink spilled over the question of which candidate really loves Israel and opposes Palestinian terrorists or Iranian nukes, there is one fundamental problem with the entire debate. Behind most of the points used by both sides was an assumption that Israel's security, if not its very existence, depends on US votes for a president.

While the next president of the United States will indeed have a great deal of influence over what happens in the Middle East, the truth is that the winner of a different election will have even more to say about it.

WHEN ISRAELI voters go to the polls to elect their next Knesset and prime minister in February, certainly the question of which leader can get along better with Washington will factor into their decision. After all, the United States is Israel's only real ally in a largely hostile world, and the source of its military aid.

But the idea that the next American president will be dictating peace terms to the next Israeli prime minister is more an Arab fantasy than reality. No person will have as much impact on decisions relating to the fate of the Jewish state as the one chosen by Israel's electorate.

Americans, and even many Israelis, tend to have it backwards when it comes to the question of who will be driving the peace process. From the first day of Israeli independence to the present, Israeli prime ministers have always been the ones in charge. Every leader, from David Ben-Gurion all the way to Ehud Olmert, has had the ability to make his or her own decisions concerning the nation's security. Peace initiatives involving the Israel-Arab conflict have had their origins in Jerusalem, not Washington.

In 1977, Anwar Sadat's groundbreaking trip to Israel and the subsequent peace with Egypt was hatched in spite of President Jimmy Carter - who was not trusted by either Sadat or Israel's Menachem Begin - not because of him.

Similarly, the 1993 Oslo Accords were the result of back-channel negotiations with the Palestinians facilitated by Norway, not the United States.

In both instances, the Americans helped close the deal and, subsequently, took a lot of the credit. Many supporters of Israel feared US pressure for Israeli concessions was at the root of these negotiations, but that wasn't the case. Each time, the origin of the process was an Israeli decision that the potential risks were outweighed by the benefits of going ahead.

In particular, though the Oslo Accords may be rightly criticized today as being a colossal blunder on Israel's part, the fault cannot be laid at the feet of the Clinton administration that ultimately promoted the plan. No American twisted the arms of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres to bring Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization into the territories where they could set up a terrorist-state-in-the-making that was recognized and aided by the rest of the world. They did it because they genuinely believed it was in Israel's best interest.

THE SAME can be said of the most recent example of peace-process folly - the Annapolis Summit - that took place last fall. Though President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted this pointless attempt to revive talks with the Palestinian Authority, the man who pushed for it was Olmert.

By the same token, at those times when Israeli leaders have felt impelled to use force to save Israeli lives, the constant calls for "mutual restraint" coming from Washington over the decades have not prevented them from acting. That was certainly the case when Israel struck first in 1967 to forestall Arab attacks on the eve of the Six-Day War. It was equally true when Menachem Begin launched an air strike on an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. The otherwise-friendly Reagan administration angrily punished Israel but subsequently the world, including even other Arab nations, was grateful that Saddam Hussein had been prevented from developing nuclear weapons.

Washington has never been able to prevent Jerusalem from launching a peace feeler to an Arab foe. In the past year, despite the unhappiness of the Bush administration, the Olmert government opened not-so-secret talks with the Syrians, whom the Americans would prefer to isolate.

There are limitations on what Israel can do on its own. And there are formidable pressures that any American president can bring to bear on the Israelis if he chooses - a fact that even the most independent-minded Israeli must acknowledge. The Jewish state is still far too dependent on American military aid and diplomatic support.

But an American president can't stop Israel from doing something - be it an act of self-defense or a peace feeler - that Israel is convinced is in its interest. On questions relating to their nation's survival, Israelis always have the option of saying "no" to the Americans. There may be consequences for challenging the United States for Israel to consider. But there are also political costs for any American president to consider if he wants to go to the mat against the Israelis.
A Democratic president who wants to take on Israel needs to worry about alienating the Jews who are at the core of that party, though a not-influential, left-wing minority - represented by the J Street group - is supporting the idea of pressure on Israel.

A Republican who does the same would have to contend with conservative Christians who are, if anything, even more fervently pro-Israel than the Jews. This group was a major factor in 2002 when President Bush overruled Secretary of State Colin Powell and supported an Israeli counterattack against a Palestinian terror offensive.

By the spring, the reins of power in Israel will be in the hands of the winner of the election there: Kadima's Tzipi Livni, Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu or Labor's Ehud Barak. Anyone who cares about Israel should keep his or her focus on that contest. As in the past, it will be Israel's voters who will have the last word, not the Americans.

Old and young unite as Britain honours victims of war

2008-11-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

London - At the packed Remembrance Day service in the chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea for War Pensioners in London, 8-year-old Emily squeezed her grandmother's hand as rousing hymns were sung and the Last Post was rendered for the victims of war.

It may be 90 years since the guns fell silent in the 'war to end all wars,' but this year's anniversary of the end of World War I has brought Britons of all ages and generations together like never before to commemorate past and present conflicts.

Tours to the World War I frontline of the Western Front in Belgium and France have been sold out through 2009, and more young people than ever were seen in Britain this year wearing the red 'poppy' flower symbolizing the blood-drenched battlefields of Flanders.

Two factors have combined to highlight the special significance of this year's commemorations, experts believe.

The fact that only a handful of British veterans of the Great War are still alive - and unlikely to live to the 100th anniversary - and the fact that Britain is again today involved in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The loss each year of veterans to a point where just three remained had persuaded people that soon the horror of the trenches would be lost to living memory, according to a commentary by Britain's Press Association.

'No conflict quite inspires the younger generation like the First World War with its emotional mix of horror, hubris and honour,' it said.

Anthony Roberts, who runs Holts Tours, a company specializing in trips to the battlefields, said his tours are sold out through 2009.

By far the favourite is a four to five-day trip called All Quiet on the Western Front, which takes participants to the battlefields of the Somme in northern France.

'We are finding that these trips are popular with a wide range of people. We get a lot of youngsters coming with their grandparents to see the battlefields,' said Roberts.

'After both world wars, people who fought in them wanted to remember and then they just wanted to get on with the rest of their lives,' said David Parker, a spokesman for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

However, this had now changed, he said. 'The various more recent conflicts in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan have prompted people to honour the fallen,' said Parker.

As Emily joined in the tributes, prayers and hymns, services were held in Basra in southern Iraq and in Kandahar, Britain's largest military base in Afghanistan.

'It is the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, supposedly the war to end all wars, and yet, here we are today and conflicts are still ongoing,' said Stuart Gendall, of the Royal British Legion, at Britain's central Remembrance Day Service, led by Queen Elizabeth II, at the Cenotaph in London Sunday.

British involvement in the conflicts during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, and the British army's 38-year military involvement in Northern Ireland, were also remembered this year.

'Another year, and 39 more join roll-call of the fallen,' said the Daily Telegraph Monday in a reference to the 39 British servicemen and women who have died in Afghanistan over the past year, taking the total of British victims in the conflict to 122.

Figures released earlier this month by the Ministry of Defence showed that almost 4,000 cases of mental illness were diagnosed among Britain's armed forces last year.

Of them, nearly 700 were diagnosed in the last three months of 2007 alone, with women affected at a rate of eight per 1,000, and men at a rate of four per 1,000, the figures showed.

'I have met a lot of very sad people here today,' said Kitty, a war widow, as she left Sunday's Remembrance Service at the Royal Hospital.

Russia investigates sub disaster

2008-11-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

An inquiry is under way into Saturday's gas poisoning on a Russian nuclear submarine in the Pacific that left 20 people dead, including 17 civilians.

Another 21 people were left ill in what officials believe was an "unsanctioned" activation of an automatic firefighting system that released freon gas.

Experts speculated that the presence of many civilians aboard during sea trials may have elevated the death toll.

But this has not been confirmed by officials investigating the accident.

The accident on the Nerpa, or Akula-class, attack vessel occurred during trials in the Sea of Japan.

Three seamen were among those killed in the accident, which happened in the nose of the submarine, officials said.

But the nuclear reactor, which is in the stern, was not affected and there was no radiation leak, Russian Pacific Fleet spokesman Igor Dygalo said.

The submarine is due to be leased to India, and Indian naval personnel were due to travel to Vladivostok earlier this month to train on board the submarine ahead of its transfer, according to the website Indian Defence.

'Overcrowded' vessel

Preliminary results suggested that the "unsanctioned activation" of the firefighting system caused the tragedy, Russian investigators said on Monday.

However, they said that it was still unclear what triggered the system. The submarine had 208 people aboard, 81 of whom were servicemen.

However, a vessel of this type usually carries only 73 people, Russian expert Ruslan Pukhov was quoted as saying by the Ekho Moskvy radio.

Several former Russian mariners have suggested that overcrowding and inexperience of the civilian personnel - engineers and shipyard workers - in dealing with the breathing apparatus may have elevated the death toll.

"I cannot exclude that among those civilians who found themselves on board, not everyone had the equipment and that those who did may not have known how to use it," former navy captain Gennady Illarionov was quoted as saying by Russia's Ria Novosti news agency.

Some reports in the Russian media also say that a siren warning may have failed when the firefighting system activated.

Freon gas displaces oxygen from the air to put out the fire. But in this case it appears such large quantities were released that anyone still trapped inside the area faced suffocation.

Russia's worst submarine disaster happened in August 2000, when the nuclear-powered Kursk sank in the Barents Sea. All 118 people on board died.

The then president, Vladimir Putin, was criticised for being slow to react to the incident and reluctant to call in foreign assistance.