For several decades the international system has seen a concern about the so-called North-South divide. This divide encompassed a gap between the advanced industrial world and the so-called third-world that encompassed Latin America, Africa, and much of Asia. In more specific terms it was an economic gap, best indicated by a much lower standard of living outside of Europe and North America.

Even before the end of the Cold War, the Mediterranean saw increasing numbers of illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from war zones coming from the Middle East, North Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and of course Sub-Saharan Africa. Hundreds of thousands of refugees began crossing the Mediterranean fleeing from war zones, civil wars, and of course last but not least economic conditions that were not acceptable anymore given the opportunities that people in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America saw in the advanced industrial democratic world. This gap was compounded by the fact that the demographic growth in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia was not economically sustainable. Rising expectations saw then millions of people trying to move into Europe. In 2019 alone, 2.7 million immigrants from non-EU countries entered the EU.

As refugee and immigration crises in the European Union have shown neither national governments nor the European Union institutions have been able to develop a systematic or coherent approach in dealing with constant conflicts in the Middle East or Africa. The end of the cold war had welcomed the idea of peace in our time, but as Samuel P. Huntington prophetically outlined in his essay and eventual book The Clash if Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, the international system was going to see a constant conflict between the secular democratic Euro-American world and as it turned out, the Islamic and Chinese world. The wars in the Persian Gulf, the Near East and the rise of Islamic terrorism in Africa, Europe and Asia followed the traumatic attack by a handful of radical Islamic terrorists on New York. By 2021 the consequences could be seen through the American retreat from Afghanistan. That country had been the breeding ground for the attacks on New York. The United States, Britain and other Western countries came to be humiliated by the Taliban’s victory. 

The Taliban victory in Afghanistan saw hundreds of thousands more refugees trying to enter Europe principally through Turkey and Belarus. Radical Islam wrote a new chapter in the history of the Islamic world. 

The constant international crisis that precipitated a flow of immigrants and refugees to Europe demonstrated increasingly the inability of the European Union and the United Kingdom to resolve an issue that challenged in the final analysis European culture, European economic wellbeing and societal sustainability. The rise of political parties that articulated the apprehension, fears and anxiety of widespread strata of the European population accepting non-European and Islamic newcomers, legal and illegal in France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Germany for example, were symptomatic of future political instability. The inability of European countries to agree on common policies of protecting European borders and even developing a defensive mechanism outside the framework of NATO speaks of structural deficiencies in European strategic decision making.

Immigration was in the final analyses fueled by demographic growth in   Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Governments in Europe were unable to respond to the increasing expectations of the populations of those regimes. The population of Egypt had reached by 2020 102.3 million, Pakistan 220.9 million, Bangladesh 164 million, Ethiopia 115 million, and Nigeria 206.1 million; these are examples of what Europe was going to face. Increasing mass communications and transportation allowed millions of people to enter Europe. 

European governments seem unable to coordinate a policy that could cope with the increasing movement of people from the developing world towards Western Europe and North America. The issue of illegal immigration was of concern to many societies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to the extent that economic concern lead many people to move from one nation to another. For example, the case of Bangladesh stands out, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis were moving into India generating social, economic and social conflicts. And in the case of Africa, millions of people were moving across the continent with spill over into North Africa and Libya. In turn, hundreds of thousands of Africans were trying to cross the Mediterranean into Italy, Spain and Greece to reach the promised land: the European Union.

The sustainability of such movements did not and does not seem to concern international organizations and NGOs that were and are interested in bringing refugees to Europe. Inevitably, the issue of settling refugees, providing employment and preventing cultural clashes was the subject of much debate but with no solution in sight.

Critical debates on sustainability and climate change did not necessarily address themselves to the catastrophic problem of population growth and food supplies. In fact, the reluctance of some countries such as India, Indonesia and China to comprehend the anxieties of industrial states and European and North American activists was to be expected. Beijing, Delhi and Jakarta were by far more concerned with their populations and their standard of living. Rising expectations could not be postponed because they could be a cause of political instability. The demand for fossil fuels was not decreasing as energy was crucial to the creation of a higher standard of living for hundreds of people in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Immigration is bound to be the biggest challenge for the European Union and Britain. Illegal immigrants from the Middle East were coming to France to cross the channel as others were trying to come through the Italian peninsula to enter Switzerland and Germany. The soft underbellies of the European Union, Italy, Spain and Greece continue to be so. Countries such as Belarus and Turkey use the movement of immigrants into the European Union as a tool for gaining concessions from Brussels and individual European countries. The president of Turkey Erdogan had been successful earlier (in 2015) in gaining financial support from the European Union and Germany to stop the flow of Islamic immigrants into the continent. Hundreds and thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan could become a great tool for gaining concessions from the European Union and single European states whose power is becoming ever more marginal. 

The trend in international conferences shaped by Western powers and NGOs on climate change, sustainability, energy and food security, and human rights should be understood in the context of an overwhelming demographic shift that does not seem to enter into the political calculus of Western decision makers and their constituents. 

Indicatively, total final energy consumption is forecast to double in Turkey by year 2050. This is the EnerOutlook forecast based on sustained economic development of emerging economies which takes into account the effect of global warming (such a scenario is compatible with a global temperature rise of between three to four degrees Celsius).

To address the problem of increasing domestic energy demand, Ankara has been actively pursuing nuclear energy to lessen its high dependency on energy imports. Consequently, in May 2010, Russia and Turkey signed a Cooperation Agreement, under which Rosatom State Cooperation has since been constructing the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant. This NPP will eventually contain four reactors with a combined capacity of 4800 MW. Other nuclear power projects in Sinop, Black Sea region and the Eastern Thrace region remain in the planning stages.

Construction of the Akkuyu NPP begun in December 2017. Its final cost is expected to rise over 20 billion USD – roughly equivalent to the size of Cyprus’ economic output in 2020. The first reactor is expected to become operational in 2023, the year that marks the centenary anniversary of the Republic of Turkey. No doubt, Erdogan’s government is planning festivities for this significant event, to boost its plunging popularity.

Despite serious concerns about the safety of the Akkuyu NPP, located as it is, in the high seismic activity region of Mersin, construction continuous. Every consecutive year in the following three years (2024-26) will see a new reactor coming into operation.

The first controversy over the impact of this huge nuclear power project on the environment appeared already six years ago: on 12 January 2015, it was reported that the signatures of specialists on a Turkish government-sanctioned environmental impact report had been forged. The appointed specialists had resigned six months prior to its submission, and the contracting company had then made unilateral changes to the report. Naturally so, this revelation sparked protest within the Turkish Cypriot community. The proximity of the prospective Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant to our island could not be lightheartedly ignored. This powerful NPP will operate at about 110 kms from Lefkosia. In the context of an unexpected nuclear accident caused by an earthquake or otherwise, North or South Cyprus becomes immaterial. A fatal nuclear accident carries the danger of overwhelming both parts of the island.

In this respect, it is vital that the leaderships of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots stand in unison: the Eastern Mediterranean environment and its protection is a common cause. More so as Ankara exhibits a mixed approach, to say the least, towards international legal instruments on nuclear safety: Whereas Turkey signed up to the Convention on Nuclear Safety which entered into force 24 October 1996, it has not done the same with the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management which entered into force 18 June 2001.

Two years back, in September 2019, Ankara first raised the issue of Kashmir at the United Nations General Assembly. What prompted Ankara to do so?

Since the British colonialists’ withdrawal and the partition of the Indian subcontinent in two states in 1947, part of Kashmir has stayed under Indian sovereignty. New Delhi had granted autonomy and a special status to the predominantly Muslim populated Kashmir. (In 2003, the percentage of Muslims in the Kashmir Valley was 95 percent and those of Hindus four percent). However, in August 2019, India passed a constitutional amendment revoking the special status and autonomy for Indian-administered Kashmir and absorbed it into the country’s governance mainstream. Since then, tensions with Pakistan remained high. (Note the parallel with Makarios’ failed attempt in 1963 to strip the Turkish Cypriot Muslim minority from its prerogatives through a raft of sweeping amendments of thirteen articles of the Republic of Cyprus constitution). Within a month after the Indians devested the Kashmiris of their autonomy, Ankara raises the issue at the foremost international forum.

Nine months later, on the 17^th of June 2020, the United Nations General Assembly elects Volkan Bozkir of Turkey, as President of its seventy-fifth session (Sep 2020 – Sep 2021). The seventy-year-old Volkan Bozkır is a veteran diplomat and politician. He served as Minister for European Union Affairs from November 2015 to May 2016 and previously held the same office from August 2014 to August 2015.

At the heels of his UNGA top job election – the first ever Turkish national to strike such a success – Volkan Bozkir visited Pakistan (August 2020). The following year, he paid a second three day long visit to Islamabad (26-28 May 2021) as president of the UNGA.

Erdoğan himself visited Pakistan in February 2020. Addressing the parliament in Islamabad, the Turkish president said the Kashmir issue was as important to Turkey as it was to Pakistan, recalling the help of the Pakistani people during Turkey’s War of Independence and stating that Kashmir would now be the same for Turks.

According to recent Indian intelligence reports the Turkish government has been trying to radicalize Indian Muslims and recruit fundamentalists. “Fronts for the Turkish government or the outfits it supports – some of them directly linked to Erdogan and his family – appeared to have made deeper inroads in India than assessed earlier,” the Hindustan Times reported. Much of the effort is directed via Turkish state media, educational institutes, the nonprofit sector, the NGOs.

The Indian daily reports that “Turkey has been providing lucrative scholarships and running exchange programmes for Indian Kashmiri and Muslim students to study in Turkey through state-sponsored NGOs. Once the students land in Turkey, they are approached and taken over by the Pakistan proxies operating there.” Moreover, Indians “who serve Ankara’s agenda are being sent to Turkey by the embassy on exposure trips and encouraged to speak against India.”

It is highly likely that the Turkish leadership in lending a helping hand to Pakistani claims on Kashmir is expecting the return of the favour by Islamabad on the Cyprus front. Indeed, in international diplomatic corridors, it is rumoured that Pakistan may well be the first country – save for Turkey itself – to establish formal diplomatic relations with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state.

We need to guard against such a negative development as well as draw the necessary lessons learnt from our failed campaign to get our own top diplomat Andreas Mavroyiannis elected president of the UNGA five years ago in 2016. Though the vote was close – Mavroyiannis lost for only four votes – the fact that he lost to the candidate of Fiji, a light weight in international affairs (who would doubt that?) is telling.

Fast forward four years, we witness the Turks winning the top seat we failed to secure in the biggest global multilateral organization. Incidentally, second largest after the UN, inter-governmental organization, is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), (formerly Organization of the Islamic Conference) where we do not even have a say whereas Turkey in tandem with Pakistan may exercise much more leverage …

The normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel came in with the United States agreeing to legitimize Morocco’s annexation of Spanish Sahara, a territory which had been vacated by Spain in 1976, something that Rabat had been seeking for a long time regardless of the opposition of the Organization of African Unity and ostensibly against international law and precedent. Trump was able to convince Arab parties to recognize Israel by promising arms and foreign aid, more importantly, opposition to Iran and its nuclear policies gave Washington even more psychological leverage amongst conservative Arab states.

There were a series of factors which allowed President Trump to seize the moment and achieve these diplomatic breakthroughs which contributed to the changing balance of power in the Middle East. These developments had not been expected and did not receive the deserved attention in terms of power shifts in the region and in the international system. Such an evolution will be seen in the context of an increasing shift away from the use of fossil fuels, specifically oil and coal, and an increasing trend towards renewable energy, ranging from solar power to hydrogen power, and as many expected, advanced nuclear power, with a possible move towards nuclear fusion. An indicator of these trends was the realization on the part of some Middle Eastern powers that their possession of oil reserves was not guarantee for future economic wellbeing and security. Thus, confrontation and war with the Jewish state and support for the Palestinian cause had become an ever greater liability for the future of political and economic wellbeing of many states, ranging from Africa to the Persian Gulf.

The trend away from fossil fuel was and is being further highlighted by the concerns over climate change and the policies that states will follow to mitigate the effect of climate change and global warming. Indeed, one crucial concern in the financial world, for example, was the role of the insurance and reinsurance companies in planning new insurance policies and possibly high premiums for catastrophes, fires and severe weather storms such as hurricanes. These trends inevitably influencing the corporations whose profits derive from investments in economic enterprises connected to the energy sector, ranging from oil refining to coal powered power plants, the plastic industry, the automotive industry, air transportation, shipping, and tourism. Areas of interest for alternative and renewable energy sources range from solar power, hydrogen power, nuclear power through both fusion and fission, and eolic power.

The consequences of such a shift for the financial institutions and investment banks, and most importantly for pension funds, are difficult to fathom. In analogous terms, the consequences for international power relations become ever more problematic for forecasting international security trends and future balances of regional and global power. The breakthrough of the Trump Administration in brokering peace agreements in the Middle East is an indicator of how decision makers in Washington crafted US security policies in the Middle East and the Mediterranean to further American interests. Traditionally, as John Kerry and the Obama Administration had kept harping on, there was a constant focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict and how failure to resolve the Palestinian – Israel conflict would block peace from being reached in the region. Indeed, the success and appeal of Iran in the area owed much to its fanatic opposition to the Jewish state and its support for the Palestinian cause. As it was, it turned out that given the trends in the Arab world, the Palestinians could not now veto peaceful relations between Arab states and Jerusalem. The Saudi state did not object to these developments and its role as the guardian of Islamic holy sites, its control over huge petroleum resources, and foreign exchange allowed Saudi rulers to indirectly promote Israeli-Gulf cooperation.

The trend away from the use of fossil fuels is taking place, paradoxically, when Turkey is challenging many of its neighbors for control over oil and gas production in the Mediterranean while truculently threatening Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, France, and the European Union. In fact, Erdogan, at the United Nations was denouncing Trump and the United States, along with Israel in virtually anti-Semitic terms in his promotion of Palestinian rights and independence. Ankara was meanwhile moving arms, mercenaries and advisors into Libya while claiming rights over large swaths of the Mediterranean Sea. The Turkish moves in the Mideast and North Africa were matched by an increasing Russian military and political presence in the region, highlighted by Moscow’s military presence in Syria, and an ever larger navy in the Mediterranean. Trends in the Middle East and Persian Gulf also witnessed an ever increasing interest in Chinese investments, especially in the case of Iran, where the Ayatollahs were enticing Beijing in return for oil, gas, and financial backing of the Iranian economy with the hope of blocking American influence in the Gulf. Peace trends were being paradoxically strengthened by the ever increasing fear on the part of Arab States of Iranian Shiite imperial ambitions that saw a very successful manipulation and control of paramilitary organizations controlled by Iranian officers and the revolutionary guard in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, Yemen, and very likely in some African States as Islamic radicalism spread throughout East and West Africa.

As the Gulf saw conservative Sunni Arab States reassess their relations and past confrontations with the state of Israel, the diplomatic breakthroughs were an indicator of shifts in the balance of power in the area as Turkey and Iran were articulating nationalist neo-Islamist ideologies generated by Khomeini’s Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. In the 20th Century, the region’s preeminence from West Asia to North Africa was connected to international demand for oil and gas. From the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, to Libya and Algeria, oil and gas became one of the central themes in international conflict and cooperation with oil producing states manipulating the price of oil. Geology gave these states in the Middle East and North Africa an incredible leverage in extracting concessions both economically and politically from Europe and the United States. However, by 2020, concern about climate change and the increasing CO2 emissions, convinced all nations of the necessity for decreasing the use of fossil fuels and to seek alternatives in renewable energy or nuclear power.

The economic shifts in the evolution of energy alternatives were inevitably shaping the economic evolution of the international system. Leaders of Gulf States, as well as other oil producing nations such as Norway, realized that the demand for advanced technology and scientific research was now as important as the financial resources that had been accumulated in the last two generations. The trend toward peace treaties was structurally driven. Thus, ideology was now taking a more secondary seat in the political calculations of the leadership in the Arab and Islamic world. All the same, it had been inevitable that for some countries ideological considerations did not lose their primary role in their foreign policies, as in the case of Turkey and Iran. By September of 2020, Ankara had goaded Azerbaijan to go to war with Armenia as a conflict between the two Caucasian countries would have enhanced the neo-Ottoman ambitions of Erdogan’s Turkey. Some of Erdogan’s statements were already causing apprehensions in Tehran as he implied by the end of 2020 in Baku that Iranian Azerbaijan, with a Turkish-speaking population, was part of the greater Turkey that Erdogan was envisioning.

Iranian Shi’ite ideology was not to be underestimated in Tehran’s policies as the Ayatollahs’ aggressive moves within the Arab and Islamic world were rationalized in terms of defending Islam and Shiism. Trends in the Gulf toward more peaceful relations with Israel and more cooperation with the United States were ever more motivated by anxiety and fear about Iranian political ambitions. Turkey’s own imperial moves in North Africa, the Caucasus, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria and Turkish vocal and truculent support for Palestine as it denounced “Zionism” were again indicators of historical ideological motivations that were provoking anxieties in many Arab countries, particularly Egypt, the most important Arab country. Erdogan’s cooptation of the Muslim Brothers, an organization dedicated to Pan-Islamism, and by now based in Turkey after fleeing Egypt, was not to be underestimated. The Muslim Brothers were very influential in Tunisia, Morocco, Qatar and they were supported even by the Iranian Mullahs, regardless of their historical aversion towards Sunnis.

The trends toward new configurations of power relations in the region and in the Mediterranean had been made strategically possible by the fact that in the United States and Canada, more oil and gas was being produced than ever before, and the United States was not dependent on oil imports as the case had been in the 1970s and 1980s. If anything, the US could be an alternative to Europe and Japan for oil and gas. President Trump tried to pressure but failed to convince Germany to abandon the construction of gas pipelines from Russia, offering American gas via maritime routes.

The ever increasing surplus of oil and gas in the world was decreasing the economic power of many states, not only in the Middle East but also in states such as Mexico, Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria, a trend that was enhanced by the discovery of new fossil fuel deposits in the world. In the Mediterranean, the discovery of gas and oil deposits in the territorial waters of Israel, Cyprus, and Egypt saw increasing cooperation in building sea pipelines to carry gas through Europe. Cooperation was brought forward amongst gas producing states within an International Organization, including, Cyprus, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy and Jordan.

What stands out in terms of the historical developments shaping the international system is European Union’s inability and certainly Germany to have a role in promoting peaceful developments in the area. Even the much vaunted role of China in the international system does not see a comparable Chinese involvement in promoting peaceful trends in the area. As it is, the international system relies –as always- on Washington and Moscow with the contributions of Paris and London in promoting a more stable Middle East. That is to say historically the role of the Great Powers that had shaped the Middle East in modern time is not declining. Trump had indeed reasserted American power in the wake of Obama’s failure to resolve some of the more outstanding conflicts of the Middle East. The evolving shift away from the use of fossil fuels has been matched by a reassertion to Great Power politics echoing the developments of European 19th Century history, as Imperial Russia, Great Britain and France competed for hegemony over the territories of a declining Ottoman Empire. The paradox now is that Erdogan’s Turkey has become a revisionist power trying to reassert a historical role more consonant with Ottoman history and reflecting a virulent Turko-Islamic nationalism.

National and international rhetoric about climate change, human rights and the more progressive world has not necessarily impacted on international power politics whilst the arms race in the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific were and continue to be harbingers of new political scenarios. Realism and idealism continue to shape international diplomatic activity, national rhetoric and political ideologies regardless of the fact that the Covid-19 virus did have an impact on slowing down diplomatic interaction and that climate change rhetoric appealed to more active political parties in Western countries.

The successful diplomatic activity of the Trump administration which has begun in 2017 with Trump’s visit to the area and Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, triggered the chain of developments that brought more Arab States to recognize Israel. In turn, the expansion of alternatives to fossil fuels, the fear of climate change and new developments in mass communications and artificial intelligence portend to be the harbingers of structural changes in the international political economy.

Indeed, Ajaria has presently been turned into a geopolitical battlefield between Ankara and Tbilisi, in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan, dreamer of the revival of the Ottoman Empire, wins without exercising much effort. The Turkish leader’s ambitions on Ajaria are fed by the fact that the Georgian region is the birthplace of his ancestors who lived there early in the 20^th century.

In fact, the Southern half of the Batumi region (modern Ajaria) was ceded to Turkey under the terms of the Treaty of Kars, Soviet-Turkish Treaty of 1921. However, under the terms of the same treaty, the strategic port city of Batumi, would become part of Soviet Georgia as the Ajar ASSR (Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic).

Moreover, Batumi was designated as a free port city for the Black Sea littoral states. Indeed, till the dawn of the 21^st century Ajaria enjoyed broad powers: tax revenue was kept for local development while the region run its own military and border police. All this dramatically changed with the rise of Mikhail Saakashvili to power in Tbilisi (2004). As Ajaria sought complete independence from Tbilisi, Saakashvili retaliated with economic blockade of the autonomous region. In the short-lived confrontation with the government in Tbilisi, the rebellious Ajarians blew up bridges, dismantled railways lines and destroyed other parts of infrastructure whilst the Ajar Army took up defensive positions on the border. Aslan Abashidze, the local strongman, heir of a princely dynasty idolized by the local population, who was leading the confrontation with Tbilisi was forced to resign as his resources were not sufficient to take on Saakashvili. The latter sent off his political proteges to run Batumi while many of the region’s autonomy powers were removed.

What is interesting is the Islamic-Turkish angle to the whole Saakashvili affair: through his mother, who was closely connected with Turkish businessmen and Islamic preachers, he allowed such Islamic-oriented Turkish business interests to gain foothold on the Georgian Black Sea coast. In the pursuit of his own personal gain, Saakashvili’s plan was to turn his Batumi’s coastal area into the ‘Las Vegas of the Black Sea’. As he aspired to join NATO, the former Georgian President’s deal with Erdogan included the expectation for the latter’s aid in pushing for Georgia’s accession to the Euro-Atlantic defence structures.

Unsurprisingly, under the favourable regime afforded by Saakashvili, within a few years Erdogan’s army of Islam-rooted entrepreneurs have dominated the region. Consequently, not only local business interests but also wage workers have been pushed into the background as the Turkish businessmen unobstructed brought their compatriot workforce with them.

In fact, Turkish investments in Ajaria work exclusively for the benefit of themselves: all financial flows in the Georgian autonomous region are under the strict control of Ankara. For example, Batumi’s international airport, built by a Turkish construction company, practically functions as a Turkish airport for domestic flights, as the only operated flights originate from Ankara and Istanbul. Moreover, according to the relevant Georgian-Turkish bilateral agreement Turkish nationals are exempt from passport and customs control!

The ‘soft squeeze’ of the indigenous Georgian population has been the order of the day in Ajaria: Islam-rooted Turkish business leaders not only discriminate against the locals in hiring workers but intrude also the religious sphere: desecration of Christian churches comes with a creeping imposition of Islamic faith and traditions. In those fifteen years, these Turkish businessmen have been acting as if they are the absolute rulers of Ajaria, feeling that the iron shadow of powerful Muslim Brother Erdogan will thwart any attempt by the Georgian authorities at protesting the anti-Georgian state of affairs.

The current situation in Ajaria bears much resemblance to the fate of Northern Cyprus, where in the past forty-six years, the majority Greek Orthodox population has been expelled. In both cases, the long-term expansionist design of Ankara has been premised on the use of the Turkish minorities in order to alienate parts of neighbouring states. After the expulsion following the double Turkish invasion of 1974, more than a third of the island’s territory was unilaterally declared the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’, a secessionist act condemned immediately by a UN Security Council resolution in 1983. Despite the lack of international recognition ‘TRNC’’s ‘unilateral declaration of independence’ UDI was never revoked. If anything, the self-styled ‘TRNC’ as a puppet state of Ankara, lays claim in the hydrocarbon-rich sea shelf around the island.

Parliamentary elections are due in Georgia next October. Under the above described circumstances, a possible comeback to power of Saakashvili’s United National Movement Party would spell disaster for the country. Many Ajarians as well as Georgians see the possible re-rise of Saakashvili as the final act in the process of Ajaria’s annexation by Greater Turkey. The fear appears that the re-emergence of Saakashvili in the political arena as the Head of the Executive Committee of the National Reform Council of Ukraine will allow him to resume the role of Erdogan’s lackey.

Navel gazers and insular islanders as we mostly are, we tend to forget that neighbours civilians – citizens of Syria – including a baby were killed. Many cynically noticed that the Syrian authorities needed to be more careful when using their anti-aircraft missile systems. Is this is possible when we speak about the lives of innocent people? Apparently, the crew of the Syrian Air Defense systems defended their own people from the missile attacks of the Israeli Air Force. Had they not reacted, there could probably be more civilian casualties. Shouldn’t those who use lethal weapons causing inadvertently collateral damage of unnecessary human suffering, be more humane and considerate? As the Israeli authorities offered no comments, the international community apparently followed suit.

It is noteworthy that the air raid of the Israeli Air Force was carried out from the airspace of Cyprus and Lebanon. It is rather odd in this respect that the Israeli Air Force should use the Cyprus airspace to launch an attack on the soil of a third friendly country and not the national airspace of Israel. The Cypriot leadership considers Israel a friendly country, the main regional partner and protector of Cyprus interests. But let us stop for a moment and ponder: in the worst case scenario of a further Turkish advance, will Israel really come to our rescue? We are of the humble opinion that the strategic alliance with Israel, however expedient it may be at the current juncture, has to be more balanced in order to avoid unpleasant consequences which potentially damage Cyprus’ friendly relations with other immediate neighbours to the east.

Faisal Al-Mikdad, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister declared his country’s readiness to change its response to Israeli aggression. In other words, it looks like that the era of Syrian restraint in the face of Israeli Air Force raids on Syrian territory is coming to an end. In the light of the new Syrian assertiveness, no one can guarantee that in the course of repelling the next attacks of the Israeli Air Force, another load of lethal ammunition will not land on our island. Nobody, in his right mind, wants chance to become a regularity.

Like any other unilateral actions, such Israeli air attacks carry the danger of regional destabilisation. In such conditions, the national security interests of none of the Eastern Mediterranean states can be reliably ensured. We are in dire need of a truly comprehensive and multilateral approach to be adopted by all parties in order to achieve stability and security in the region.

As the statement of the special envoy was made against the background of preparation of Syrian army′s offensive to Idlib, it caused panic among leaders of the armed opposition located in the territory of the province. They accused de Mistura of “betrayal, “cooperation with the Russians” and incompetence.

Mustafa Naji, representative of the National Liberation Front (one of the most influential opposition groups operating in Idlib) very clearly formulated his dissatisfaction with the words of the diplomat. According to Naji, with his statement, the special envoy lent legitimacy to the offensive of the Syrian Army.

Unfortunately, there is practically no alternative to the military operation in Idlib. Terrorists located in the territory of the province intensified their attack on positions of the Syrian Army, using car bombs, drones, homemade projectiles and other explosive devices. Terrorists cynically hide behind the status of the de-escalation zone and deliberately provoke Damascus to violate those ceasefire agreements. In addition, internal conflicts between armed groups in the region continue, and civilians are often victimised.

The command of the US-led international coalition does not deny that Idlib is controlled by terrorists. Despite numerous statements of concern about a possible humanitarian disaster, after the first strikes by Syrian government forces on targets in the province, the Americans limited themselves to calling on Russian and Syrian Air Forces “to be more precise” on their strikes.

Armed opposition in Idlib should also not hope on Turkey’s protection. Ankara has repeatedly stated aggravating the situation in Idlib is not an option. At the same time, the units of the Free Syrian Army under Ankara′s auspices have already been evacuated from the territory of the province. Therefore the Turkish leadership considers the remaining armed groups in the troubled Syrian province as terrorist.

No one really expects that Washington or Ankara will support or approve the military operation in Idlib. It is most likely that the actions of the Syrian Army will be used to obtain political dividends, discredit Damascus, Moscow and Tehran and accuse President Assad of unleashing a “massacre”. In order to achieve these goals, both Turkey and the US seem ready to sacrifice the remnants of the so-called armed opposition.

The mission of the Council of Europe is to promote the shared values of peace, tolerance, fight against racism, prevention of torture, protection of minorities; in other words democracy, social and cultural development across the board of its membership.

The day could not be more symbolic: 19^th of May is the day of remembrance of the Ottoman and Young Turks’ Genocide of Pontian Greeks. The Council of Europe Foreign Ministers’ concluding meeting in Lefkosia (Nicosia) passes the message that the Republic of Cyprus has never become extinct as those in power in Ankara have propagated time and again in their self-important effort to impose their suzerainty on the Greek Cypriot majority islanders. The Greek Cypriots, constituting 80 per cent of the island’s population with the longest historical presence – 3,000 years – of all ethnic groups on island will never compromise with the Turkish military occupation of the northern third of their country. They will not accept a cover up presence of Turkish troops under the shameful guise of protection of the Turkish Cypriot minority.

If there is an entity on the brink of extinction on the island this is not the Republic of Cyprus whose leaders fully recognize the need to restructure it – this should be the aim of the Cyprus talks – but it is the Turkish minority whose demographic character is grossly adulterated by the implant of tens of thousands of settlers from Anatolia and utterly diluted by the overwhelming presence of 40,000 Turkish troops. Taking into account the flee of thousands of indigenous TCs to democratic states, including the Republic of Cyprus since virtually all of them enjoy the benefits of Cypriot citizenship, then we can easily deduce that in the Turkish military occupation zone the autochthonous Turkish Cypriots constitute a sad minority!

To be sure, the Turkish government has a lot to answer on a long list a number of counts central to the ideal and mission of the Council of Europe. Ankara is answerable for the near extinction of the TC minority in Cyprus which is forced to live under military rule for the past 43 years. Those who propagate the myth that the Turkish Forces occupying Northern Cyprus protect the TCs should answer a set of questions: i) Who has the last word in that part of the island ii) Are the TCs happy with the Turkish military having the upper hand on all vital policy issues? iii) Why is the number of autochthonous TCs dwindling over the long years of occupation while the number of troops remain constant and the number of settlers and grandiose mosques built to serve the latter mushroom?

Not to speak about the treatment of minorities – Christian (Armenian & Greek Orthodox) and Muslim (Alevi & Kurdish) in Turkey itself. Not to speak of the incarceration of thousands of journalists and the persecution of voices of dissent and the widespread use of torture by the Turkish police.

Asked if Turkey could be expelled from the CoE, Kasoulides, the Cypriot FM, noted that the CoE Parliamentary Assembly has looked into this issue and has brought back the monitoring status. He added that an independent domestic means of legal redress has been determined, under CoE monitoring, to which each Turkish citizen can apply before lodging a complain to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In the true interests of every Turkish citizen, irrespective of creed or ethnic origin, let us ask Mr. Kasoulides: has the domestic means of legal remedy, the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) established by Ankara in its puppet administration, the ‘TRNC’ delivered any justice to the thousands of his countrymen deprived of their property rights by the illegal Turkish occupation? If anything the IPC stopped accepting filing of applications by Greek Cypriot plaintiffs while those few that did apply had to endure a travesty of justice adding salt to the insult.

Kasoulides should have posed those questions directly to the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the CoE. The latter did arrive at Larnaca airport to attend the Lefkosia meeting despite his government’s noisy rhetoric that the RoC is extinct. In the 43 years of Turkish occupation, Ankara has been employing persistent efforts to present the RoC as extinct; much to its chagrin the RoC is alive and kicking on the international scene as the CoE Lefkosia Meeting proves beyond any doubt.

In Russia, if we are to take a good example of a P5 member, there is no doubt about the sovereignty of Cyprus: Moscow send its Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, not only to attend the multilateral CoE Ministerial Meeting but importantly to engage in a two day frank discussion of bilateral relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Cyprus.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the two countries share common or close positions on many issues. Both countries support a swift return to constructive Russia-EU negotiations, strengthening the UN’s central role in international relations as the universal organisation for supporting peace and security, and collective responses by the entire international community to modern threats such as international terrorism, trans-border crime, and drug trafficking. Moscow added that the EU’s sanctions against Russia and the measures which Russia took in response had led to a drop in trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, but that Russia continued to search for ways to mitigate the problem.

If anything, the Council of Europe Ministerial Meeting in Lefkosia given prominence by the attendance of Sergei Lavrov dedicating time and effort in further promoting bilateral relations while seeking to mend relations with the EU, the bloc to which Cyprus belongs, has shown that both Cyprus and Russia, far from being isolated, place themselves at the forefront of efforts to normalize relations for peace, security and prosperity in the Old Continent.

In the years between 2009 and 2011 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) regularly conducted quarterly polls measuring the wishes of the people of Crimea. Those UNDP polls showed a steady pro-Russia trend: between 65 to 70 per cent of the 1200 voters polled favoured union with the Russian Federation. The ‘undecided’ block of voters ranged between 16 to 20 per cent.
The last such poll taken by the UNDP, in the last quarter of 2011, resulted in 67 per cent in favour of joining Russia, 20 per cent undecided and only 14 per cent opposed to joining the Russian Federation (RF). Therefore, it becomes abundantly clear, that despite Western claims challenging the validity of the 2014 Crimean referendum, the region expressed freely its will to form part of the Russian Federation. There is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of the Crimean people felt that their interests are better served under the flag of the RF.

In the years that followed European delegates have been visiting Crimea despite the Western ban. For example, eleven conservative parliamentarians from France, including National Assembly delegates and senators, travel to Crimea for three days in July 2016. Thierry Mariani, MP of the party “The Republicans” and a former transport minister serving in the government of then-president Nicolas Sarkozy, headed the mission. Mariani had visited Crimea with a similar delegation for the first time in 2015. The return of the French delegation to Crimea the following year has shown a genuine desire to talk to the local residents and ascertain on the spot how they nationally-politically determine themselves. Mariani expressed understanding for the enosis of the Crimean peninsula with the Russian Federation.

To be sure, the recurrence of the French delegation Crimea fact finding mission has also gone a long way to demolish the argument floating in the mainstream Western media that Crimea, and by extension Russia, are isolated from the ‘international community that stands united against the annexation by Russia’. Such claims, clearly, do not carry any credibility.

More recently, the Third World Economic Forum (WEF) took place in Yalta, Crimea, RF (20-22 April 2017). The annual WEF was institutionalized in the spring of 2015. The Yalta WEF success is amply reflected in its wide international attendance: four weeks ago about 200 foreign delegates, including MPs, MEPs, politicians and businessmen, from no less than forty-six countries flocked in Yalta turning a deaf ear to the unfair calls to block the Russian Federation and its efforts for international peace and prosperity through dialogue, engagement and cooperation. Interestingly, the 200 foreign delegates in Yalta equally defied Poroshenko’s decision to declare them persona non grata and his regime’s subsequent launch of penal code court proceedings against them in the Ukraine.

It is worth noting the two Cypriot delegations participation in the Third Yalta WEF. For the first time, an AKEL party and Citizens’ Alliance delegation accepted invitations and attended. The two Cypriot party delegations were headed by their respective leaders Andros Kyprianou and Yiorghos Lillikas.

The International Security Forum, reflecting the genuine will of the Cypriot people, expresses the wish that the two Cypriot leaders who wisely accepted the Yalta invitation be admonished by the braveness of the Crimean people to determine their own future by their own free will. Self-determination is at the heart of both the Cyprus question and Crimea’s enosis with Russia. The Cyprus problem, has been an issue rooted in the denial of the inalienable right self-determination to the Cypriots. This fundamental right was enshrined time and again in international law; remarkably in the Atlantic Charter (1941) as well as the UN Charter (1945). The Cyprus problem started at the end of WWII, when the UK, the colonial ruler, refused to cede the predominantly Greek island to Greece at the Paris Peace Conference (1945) despite implicit and explicit undertakings by Winston Churchill during the war that he would do so. The Greek Cypriots, who like the Russian Crimean have always formed 80 per cent of the territory’s in question population, signed a plebiscite (1950) declaring their will that the island be united with Greece. The 1950 Cypriot referendum produced an identical result to the Crimean referendum:
Ninety-seven per cent of the Crimean people voted in favour of union with Russia. Their will was duly accepted. Moscow justifiably re-admitted the Crimean peninsula to the bosom of the Russian national family. Ninety-six per cent of Cypriots signed in favour of union (Enosis) of Cyprus with Greece (1950) (http://www.hellas.org/cyprus/dimopsif.htm). Was the Cypriot will ever accepted by the powers that be? Has Cyprus, a predominantly Greek island of 3000 years of Hellenic history and culture ever been re-admitted to the body of the Hellenic Republic? If anything the wrong-footed, ill-conceived and ill-conducted endless and futile Cyprus talks seek to drive the island into the bosom of the Islamo-fascist regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan which muzzles descent and incarcerates its own Turkish dissidents let alone people of other ethnic, religious and linguistic background …