European and American museums are confronted by requests of the return of artifacts bought or seized by colonial powers: Greece Presses for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles to where they belong: Athens Acropolis.

Researchers still looking for the Amber Room, Tsarist treasure allegedly stolen by the Nazi occupation forces and presumably destroyed or still hidden somewhere in Germany.

In 2008 a scandal hit the world of archaeology in Spain as it was reported that supposedly ancient artifacts were faked. In time the scandal became connected to the attempts to strengthen a real or imaginary Basque nationalist past. This episode in Spanish archaeology history is a modern example of how archaeology has played a role in shaping modern national identities and the creation of national myths.[1] In the Spanish case, Basque nationalism rooted in a very ancient language was one of the sources of conflict in 20th century Spain. It contributed to fueling the Spanish civil war in the 1930s and terrorism in Spain after the transition from Franco’s dictatorship to a modern democracy. Only in 2017 ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna – Basque Country and Freedom)[2] finally stopped fighting the Spanish state. Paradoxically, the end of this violent Basque separatism was followed in Spain by a Catalan separatism and the attempt of some Catalan parties to declare independence by arguing for a separate identity that set apart the Catalonian region linguistically and culturally from mainstream Spanish history.

The archaeological background to modern nationalism and conflicts is not new. In fact, in the earlier part of the 19^th century the Greeks, with great European support and sympathy, fought against the Ottoman Empire for a political and cultural independence that was stimulated by a connection to Classical Greece and of course the Byzantine Empire. By 1870, the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann had begun discovering Homer’s Troy. His findings and the discovery of artifacts connected to ancient Greece stimulated enthusiastic interest in the near-Eastern archaeological and historical heritage.[3][4] Streams of archaeological discoveries reshaped a new Hellenic identity that shaped Greek politics and the conflicts with the Ottoman Empire, conflicts that saw the catastrophic Greek-Turkish war of 1922 and decades later the conflict in Cyprus between the Greek majority and the Turkish minority.

In Cyprus, the destruction of Greek archaeological sites was one of the subjects of the Greek-Cypriot political stance against the occupation of northern Cyprus by thousands of Turkish soldiers following the 1974 invasion of the island, when Turkey claimed it was protecting the rights of the Turkish-speaking minority.[5] The invasion followed years of conflict in Cyprus, ruled for decades by the British from 1878 until 1960[6]. The ethnic conflict was resolved through a compromise where the Greek-Cypriot desire to be reunited with Greece was set aside by giving independence to the island along with a constitutional compromise between the two ethno-linguistic groups.

Modern archaeology and the new scientific disciplines associated with it have now come to create greater knowledge and insight into the past of many regions across the globe.  They have also fueled value systems and political ideologies that have now come to spread increasingly across regions and nations, serving to bolster the perennial search for power and meaning in an international system tied by new economic realities and social mobility that challenges older historical and religious traditions. Some intellectuals and critics have used the encounter of the West with the non-traditional world, especially Islamic in the Middle East, as an example of cultural colonialism above and beyond political and economic imperialism. A classic case of the debate on the subject was the systematic work of Edward Said who wrote extensively criticizing western scholarship as being unable to truly understand the East – especially the Middle East – in his work Orientalism. His approach was very influential in the academic world, and continues being so, though his understanding of the Western-European insights into the Middle East especially are methodologically unsound and ideologically biased.[7]

Thus, archaeology comes to have even greater relevance in the reformulation of many aspects of international relations and ideological and civilizational clashes.  It then becomes even more incumbent on academics at large, especially historians, archaeologists, and ethno-linguists to dispel whenever possible the constant mythologizing and distortion of historical and archaeological scholarship.[8] The Americas were not exempt from these trends.

Across the Atlantic the mystification of new archaeological and linguistic discoveries became a systematic component of local nationalism, particularly when studying pre-Columbian civilizations in Central and South American states and Native American tribes in the United States and Canada. In Mexico, the Aztec heritage boosted Indianismo, which came to be one of the pillars of the new regime in Mexico after the epic of revolution that shaped a new Mexico after 1912.  From the 1920s onwards, the official historiography of Mexico emphasized Aztec civilization which had been systematically studied since the 19^th century by Western archaeologists and denounced the Spanish conquest as an assault on some past noble human experiment.  The reformulation of a new Mexican identity saw even a revival of attempts to remove the bones of Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador who had been entombed in Mexico City. By 2020, the Mexican government, run by a progressive leftist president was seeking official apologies from Spain for the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire, and for the violence involved in the establishment of Spanish cultural hegemony in Mexico.[9]

The reinterpretation of the past by now had come to see in both North and South America the denunciation of Columbus and the arrival of the Europeans. In some respects, it was a reassertion of the Rousseauian paradigm of the Noble Savage being overwhelmed by civilization. In fact, the reaffirmation of aboriginal rights in North, South, and Central America from the Arctic Circle to Patagonia, in claims to land and resources came to be often articulated through archaeological discoveries and the assertion of the parity of native languages with Spanish as in Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, or Guatemala.

Even in Europe, the creation of a pan-European identity seemed to have enhanced the reaffirmation of ethno-linguistic ideologies rooted in mythical pasts given some superficial credibility by archaeology and linguistics. Examples range from the Dardanian movement in the Balkans following the independence of Kosovo as Albanians and Kosovars reiterated their European roots by linking to classical Greek history and mythology, including the destruction of Serbian Orthodox religious sites to the revival of Celtic religions and outright paganism professing a return to animism and Norse religions in Scandinavia. In the United States within the last generation there has been a revitalization of Neo-Pagan religion and witchcraft, ranging from the Church of Satan as an established institution to Wicca as a legitimate religious experience.[10] New political movements, ranging from neo-Scandinavian nationalism to neo-Nazism have connected their political ideology to Old Norse religious mythologies.[11]

These new phenomena tended to have a more strictly sociological significance and had yet to develop a political relevance. The age of instant electronic communication lent itself to the mystification of archaeology, ethnography, and linguistics from Europe and North America to the rest of the globe.  Fueled by misperceived scientific and academic research, science fiction, UFO sightings, political propaganda, mysticism, religion, eschatology, and catastrophism gave rise to a vast body of literature, movies, and internet-propagated debate and speculations grounded in the outright mystification of science and racialism intensifying and legitimizing national conflicts and political violence.

Their interpretation of the past through archaeological discoveries and political influence in terms of modern ideological postures characterizes every area of the world, ranging from Latin America to Australia and Africa. [12] European and American museums came to be confronted by requests of the return of artifacts bought or seized by colonial powers. The British museum, for example, was going to return the Benin bronzes to Nigeria.[13] The bronzes had been seized by British troops in 1897 during the British conquest of Benin. Benin today is in modern Nigeria, and part of the federal state.

The Greek Cause for the Parthenon Marbles Return to Athens

In modern Europe one of the more chronic problems in archaeological politics is the pressing demand of the Greek state for the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, from the British Museum to Athens. The Marbles were part of the façade of the Acropolis of Athens and were allegedly purchased by Lord Elgin, the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1807. The issue came up again following Brexit, as the Greek government pressed once again for the return of the Elgin Marbles.[14] The subject became part of the diplomatic bargaining between the United Kingdom and Brussels over the future of the political relationship between the European Union and London. The controversy has been going on for decades. In the same vein, stolen art from Italy is a subject of Italian international requests for return of what it considers to be Italian cultural patrimony.[15]

Last but not least, the Nazi German state’s looting of European art all over the occupied areas during World War II still stands out as an example of the role of war in the displacement of national art and culture. Researchers are still looking for the Amber Room, a Tsarist treasure allegedly stolen by the Nazi occupation forces and presumably destroyed or still hidden somewhere in Germany.[16]

Thus, one may conclude here by saying that symbolically archaeology goes beyond the mere study of the past through what remains of the past materially, but it also shapes how individuals and nations may see themselves in the modern age. As archaeological explorations expand, inevitably the reinterpretation of the past also takes place. This is especially relevant in the Middle East, which by many standards, is the birthplace of civilization. Arguably, the most important dimension of this past is a religious experience that has characterized the Middle East ever since the birth and evolution of Judaism, the rise of Christianity and the shaping of monotheistic belief systems.

Modern Re-Elaboration of Jewish Identity Through Rise of Zionism

Perhaps the most outstanding example is the modern re-elaboration of a Jewish identity through the rise of modern Zionism in 19^th century Europe and the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1947. In the 2^nd century AD, the Romans wiped out what had been a Jewish ethno-religious state in Judea along with the destruction of what had originally been the Temple of Solomon in 70 AD. Judea became a Roman province and hundreds of thousands of Jews were enslaved and deported throughout the Roman Empire, though the territory still held a considerable population of Jews.

Some decades later, in 132 AD the Jews rebelled again. This revolt saw Emperor Hadrian raze Jerusalem and rename it Aelia Capitolina. To add insult to injury, Judea came to be renamed Palestina with a reference to one of the peoples in the area, the Philistines mentioned in the Bible. From then to modern times, Palestine was a common name for a territory that eventually became the state of Israel and came to be seen by Jews scattered across the world as a land to return to with the coming of the Messiah. Herein lies an added Christian dimension to the religious and cultural relevance of the Jewish historical linkage to a lost state, to be restored with, by a coming Messiah for Jews and the second coming of Christ for all Christian denominations.

The rise of Islam in the 7^th century and the conquest of Jerusalem by the Muslims in southern Arabia added a third monotheistic appeal to the city of Jerusalem which came to have historical and cultural consequences for centuries for the people of the region, Europe, and in time for international relations from the 19^th century onwards. By the 18^th century, there was already a historical and archaeological interest in the Middle East and the biblical connection was the most relevant aspect of it. In the development of modern states in the Middle East, whether Turkey, Iran, Egypt, or as a matter of fact anywhere else in the world, reconstructing the past through archaeology and other disciplines such as linguistics was not a new phenomenon, and continues to be ever more relevant. Paradoxically, in an ever more globalized world, national identity becomes ever more relevant for domestic political purposes. The reconstruction of the past through archaeology to enhance modern national identity becomes ever more interesting in terms of ideological, economic, and international premises. Thus, tourism, education, propaganda, articulated through mass and social media come to stand out and add to an even greater dimension to the models developed in the theories of international relations and conflict.

[1] Ashley Cowie, “Archaeologist Busted for Faking Artifacts Showing Jesus Crucifixion,” in Ancient Origins, 8 February 2020. https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/iru-veleia-artifacts-0013266

[2] Claude Canellas, Sonya Dowsett, and Isla Binnie, “Basque militants ETA surrender arms in end to decades of conflict” Reuters, April 2017. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-eta-idUSKBN1790YK

[3] Caroline Moorehead, Priam’s Gold: Schliemann and the Lost Treasure of Troy (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2016).

[4] Robert Payne, The Gold of Troy: The Story of Heinrich Schliemann and the Buried Cities of Ancient Greece (Dorset: Dorset Press, 1990).

[5] Lefkios Zaphiriou, Costas Nicolaides, Miltos Miltiadou, Marianna Mammidou, Van Coufoudakis, “The Loss of a Civilization; Destruction of cultural heritage in occupied Cyprus” Government of Cyprus, 2012.

[6] For a Turkish perspective, see Ozmatyatli, I. O. & Ozkul, A. E. “20th Century British Colonialism in Cyprus

through Education.” (Egitim Arastirmalari-Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 50, 1-20. 2013).

[7] Morris Mottale, “Book Review: Orientalism and Islam: European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India.” (Canadian Political Science Association, 2010).

[8] See Also: The MESA Debate, 22 November 1986. Cf: Robert D. Kaplan, “Remembering Elie Kedourie: How One Analyst Spoke Truth to Power in the Middle East.” (The National Interest, 25 April 2020)

[9] “Mexico demands apology from Spain and the Vatican over conquest.” (BBC, 26 March 2019). See Also, Renzo Pipoli “Spain denies Mexico apology over 1521 Spanish conquest.” (UPI, 26 March 2019)

[10] See for example Jessica Bennet “When Did Everybody Become a Witch?” (New York Times, 24 October 2019). See also; David Brooks “Commentary: Witchcraft enjoying a surge in popularity” (New York Times, 13 June 2019).

[11] Samuel Sigal “What To Do When Racists Try To Hijack Your Religion” (The Atlantic, November 2, 2017).

[12] Paul Daley “There’s a new push for the return of looted Aboriginal artefacts – in the name of ‘truth telling’.” (The Guardian, 1 December 2019). See Also; Geoff Gray “A Cautious Silence: The politics of Australian anthropology”. (Aboriginal Studies Press: August 1, 2007)

[13] Kieron Monks “British Museum to return Benin bronzes to Nigeria.” (CNN, 14 December 2018). See also: “The British Conquest of Benin and the Oba’s Return”, Art Institute of Chicago (2013).

[14] Ian Wishart “EU Brings Greek Demand for Elgin Marbles Into Brexit Talks.” (MSN, 19 February 2020).

[15] See for Example “Italian Court Orders Getty Museum To Return Statue To Italy”. (NPR, 5 December 2018).

[16] “Amber Room: Priceless Russian treasure stolen by Nazis ‘discovered by German researchers’” (The Independent, 19 October 2017).

However, according to many experts and analysts, it is unlikely that the current dialogue can cardinally change the situation on the Korean peninsula. The United States are an important participant in this process. Their position will largely influence on how far South Korea’s President Mun Zhe Ying will go with his peace-making intentions. During the election campaign, he announced his plans to normalize relations with North Korea. However under pressure from White House, he could do little.

Moreover, certain analysts believe Trump′s administration intentionally refuses to search for compromise. Instead, Washington accuses North Korea and flexes its muscles escalating tension in the Asian-Pacific region.

Evidently, “nuclear bludgeon” in the hands of odious North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatens international stability. At the same time, as paradoxical as it may sound, Washington’s policy provoked Pyongyang to develop its own nuclear weapon program. The historical record speaks for itself: the American leadership uses military force to topple objectionable regimes in total neglect of international law. In reality, the tragic examples of Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya motivated the North Korean ruling elite to resort to the development of nuclear weapons as a unique way of deterrence.

Pasqual Bonifas, Director of the French Institute for International and Strategic Studies is of the above opinion. To the French analyst’s mind, Kim Jong Un is apprehensive of the destiny of Saddam Hussein as well as of that of Muammar Qaddafi.

Certain sober Western politicians point to sensible pragmatism. The call for the necessity of dialogue with Pyongyang comes not just from countries not so friendly to the US but importantly from the camp of very devoted allies of Washington. In particular, Zigmund Gabriel, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs warned President Donald Trump against warlike declarations aimed at North Korea.

“The European experience should not be underestimated. We are like somnambulists entered First World War because the governments of the countries of conflict had refused dialogue. The war began as people neglected diplomacy. At present, war rhetoric is becoming more critical. This is alarming. I am much worried about Trump′s words that the US military is ready to solve the North Korean problem with fire and fury”, Gabriel emphasized.

However that may be, to organize the Olympiad in Pyeong Chang in these conditions can be really dangerous. The Austrian Head of the Olympic Committee and the French Minister of Sport warned that their teams would refuse to take part in the Olympic Games if the host country could not guarantee safety for their delegations. Everyone can understand the West European sport officials: competing in conditions of furious fight of nuclear powers is not such a bright perspective. The International Olympic Committee with its head Thomas Bach looks like a stillborn organization unable to say anything reasonable.

As top leaders fail make decisions consolidating peace in the region, ordinary citizens have been in panic. According to the South Korean Ministry of Sport, no more than half of Olympiad Games’ tickets have been sold so far: the lowest index in the history of the modern Olympic movement. Diplomatic representations of most European nations “recommended insistently” their citizens to refrain from going to Pyeong Chang. South Korean officials are alarmed as the Olympiad budget will not be compensated.

If high rank officials from the International Olympic Committee have no courage to correct their own mistakes, the Olympiad in Pyeong Chang would hit hard the Olympic movement’s reputation. Competing with no spectators is the worst that young sportsmen and sportswomen can expect. Reason calls for the relocation of the forthcoming Winter Olympic Games to another country.

Few years ago, Germany as well as France launched their candidacy to organize the 2018 Winter Olympiad. These two countries could became “reserve field” for the Olympic movement. These European countries’ developed social, sport and transport infrastructure allows for the XXIII Winter Olympic Games to be held on high standards.

Small EU member states have neither enough power nor influence to impact radically the policy of this quasi-state entity. Their statements against the anti-Russian sanctions, or, conversely, their demands for cessation of all communication with Moscow do not have much impact on policy makers in Brussels.

But on the other hand, we know that second tier politicians in many countries of the world express ideas that power cannot or do not want to voice. In the same way smaller states can come forward with policy proposals, which subsequently will be considered as official Brussels policy.

Estonia and Slovakia almost simultaneously made consequential political statements about Russia. Estonian President Kirsti Kaliulayd said in an interview with the BBC that the sooner the relations between Russia and the Western countries become normal, the better. At the same time, the Estonian President declared that she would be pleased if good relations prevail with Moscow. She added, however, that Russia is too ‘unpredictable’. On the direct question whether she considers Russia a “hostile state”, Kaliulayd unequivocally replied “no.”

Andrey Danko, the Speaker of the Slovak Parliament, accuses other countries that officially they come forward for Russia’s containment, but in fact they do not stop cooperation with Moscow. “I see that, contrary to sanctions, the trade between Russia and EU member states is thriving. There are a lot of representatives of US companies in Russia,” he said during the recent 137th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in St. Petersburg. According to Danko, in relations with Moscow “we missed many things, because we wanted to differ from the Russians. But we need a Slavic reciprocity, as well as cooperation in the economic sphere”.

It is equally interesting to note that in neighboring Austria, the conservative Austrian People’s Party won the recent elections. The country’s last Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurtz heads the winner party. Kurtz stands for the abolition of sanctions on Russia. In another neighboring country the Czech Republic, Andrei Babish has won the parliamentary elections. He is suspected of wanting “to orient the Czech Republic (and at the same time Central Europe) towards Moscow, forcing it to “turn away from Brussels and Washington.” Thus Prague’s rapprochement with Moscow becomes very likely. In addition, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is frequently accused of being “pro-Russian,” and he is also against sanctions on Russia.

Of course, all the statements about the need for the resumption of dialogue and the abolition of sanctions against Russia are due not to a disinterested love of Russia and not to “Slavic reciprocity”. Sanctions harm all European countries, but Central and Eastern Europe, due to geographical proximity and tuned Soviet-era ties, suffers more. Among the EU member states due to sanctions on Russia, Cyprus suffered especially badly: exports to Russia for the period 2014-16 dropped by 34, 5%. Very significant losses were suffered by such countries as Greece (-23, 2%) and Croatia (-21%). Only Ukrainian politicians are able to harm their own economy and citizens, as they hope that the current war or a new revolution will absolve them from responsibility. In other European countries, the situation is different. Warsaw officially welcomes the new sanctions on Russia imposed by the United States, but it is not in a hurry to toe the line.

If the EU intends to continue to be the unifying force, its leading countries Germany and France should make a univocal statement. It is high time for it. The fact remains that smaller European countries are increasingly proposing to abolish sanctions and are ready to resume full-fledged cooperation with Russia. They are waiting from Berlin and Paris for very concrete statements as well as actions toward this direction.

As a result of Euromaidan, some oligarchs were replaced by others, and Ukraine is built out of patronage pyramids, which are based on corruption. Relatives, friends and acquaintances exchange with each other money, orders, real estate, goods, services, licenses, grants and benefits. As a result of these exchanges, ministries, parties, enterprises, media and public organizations are in the hands of a small group of people. When public discontent increases, they change the visible figures. But basically nothing changes the author of the article asserts.

In fact, the country is periodically reformatting, but it has nothing to do with the change of power. The publication claims that Poroshenko climbed up to the president’s post using the same scheme, hence the official elections were a routine performance.

Illustrious Ukrainian reforms are conducted exclusively to the extent that the authorities allow. If the transformations affect the interests of at least one of the clans, they are not implemented.

It became known that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), which is under the control of the United States, received instructions from Washington to check the activities of the Poroshenko’s closest associates. Within a few days, this department initiated more than twenty cases against the President’s business partners, his associates and relatives. Apparently, the aim is to collect discrediting material on the Ukrainian president through his closest associates …

The US security services files are bursting with discrediting information on the Kiev authorities. For example, Washington knows that the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky and President Petro Poroshenko withdrew part of IMF tranches through Privat Bank to offshore. In addition, some Ukrainian politicians provide relevant information. Thus, US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch met with Yulia Tymoshenko, who has told her about corruption in the top leadership of Ukraine. The former chairman of the Odessa regional administration, Mikhail Saakashvili, in recent months has written several articles and has given interviews to well-known Western media such as The Washington Post. He referred to Poroshenko himself and his entourage’s corruption.

Earlier this year the US became interested in Poroshenko’s corruption schemes. At the time the Congress decided to start investigating possible serious financial fraud of the current of Ukrainian government high ranking officials. The special subcommittee of the US parliament, which deals with issues of Europe and Asia, initiated an investigation. A subsequent hearing in the Congress examined a number of corruption cases of Ukrainian politicians and government officials associated with large-scale businesses.

It is clear that such major investigations are not conducted for the sake of it. Apparently, Poroshenko’s attempts to please Donald Trump and to beg forgiveness for the support of Hillary Clinton were unsuccessful.

According to Oleg Tsarev former deputy of the Ukrainian parliament, the United States has already prepared a plan to replace the current regime in Kiev. According to him, the American curators keep the situation under control and monitor every step of the Ukrainian “reformers”.

Undoubtedly, under such circumstances any president’s misdemeanor may signal his end. If the investigations establish Poroshenko’s dishonesty and wrong practices, the consequences may far reaching. Washington may decide for a plan to replace not only the president but the entire Kiev authorities. It is also possible that the discrediting material is collected with the aim to blackmail Poroshenko in case he decides to disobey Washington’s advice to step down. In any case, none of the available choices looks promising for Poroshenko.

In Germany, Die Zeit rated Johnson’s move as a sheer miscalculation. The German newspaper commented that: “When UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson proposed to impose new sanctions on Russia amid the situation in Syria, he hoped to receive an ovation from other EU countries or at least their approval. However, his calculation proved wrong.”

Does Boris Johnson and the policy makers in London have such a short memory with regard to Syria? It is rather unlikely. After all, it was them: the Brits (with the French) as the world’s then powerful colonial powers which carved out the borders of today Syria hundred years ago or so. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has a strong hand in Middle East affairs. It cannot be operating on short institutional memory. It is out of the question. Thus it is much more likely that the political head of the FCO acts on a selective memory basis designed to serve his purpose of keeping Russia out of the international loop whenever and wherever this proves possible. Alas, Boris unholy mission proved impossible for yet another time as both the host Italy and Germany refused to become his tail end and blocked London’s maneuvers aimed at isolating Russia. Rome and Berlin seem to have chosen the road of common sense, prudence, engagement and respect of the other as opposed to the unethical attitude of unilateralism, confrontation and bellicosity preached by perfidious Boris.

For the sake of our readers let us recount the events of 2013 that led to the decommissioning of the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile. The destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons began in September 2013 on the basis of several international agreements with Damascus. Those agreements stipulated an initial destruction deadline of 30 June 2014.

The UN Security Council Resolution 2118 (27 September 2013) required Syria to assume responsibility for and follow a timeline for the destruction of its chemical weapons and its chemical weapon production facilities. The resolution bound Syria to the implementation plan presented in a decision of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Accordingly, the OPCW declared Chemical Weapons (CW) were shipped out of Syria for destruction (23 June 2014). The destruction of the most dangerous CWs was performed at sea aboard the Cape Ray, a vessel of the US Maritime Administration‘s Ready Reserve Force, crewed with U.S. civilian merchant mariners. The actual destruction operations, performed by a team of U.S. Army civilians and contractors, destroyed 600 metric tons of chemical agents in forty-two days.

It should be noted that the CW agreements emerged when the US and France headed a coalition of countries on the verge of carrying out air strikes on Syria in response to the 21 August 2013 Ghouta CW attacks. To avoid a military intervention, the US, Russia and Syria agreed to the Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons (14 September 2013). The Framework called for the elimination of Syria‘s CW stockpiles by mid-2014. Syria agreed to accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and to the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpiles.

Hence London’s claim that Bashar Al Assad carried out the attack seems hollow: Assad disposed of his chemical weapons arsenal in 2013 under the afore-mentioned international agreements. To be sure which forces carried out the latest CW attack the internationally community ought to investigate also the ISIS and other terrorist organizations operating on Syrian soil!

Despite the fact that the global anti-doping regulator seems to be singularly targeting his country’s athletes, the Russian President has, in this first week of March, expressed respect for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Vladimir Putin said: We must pay heed to its work and its results, and to WADA’s demands, because we need to acknowledge that there are established and identified cases of doping here, and this is a totally unacceptable situation. Putin uttered those words in Krasnoyarsk, the city in eastern Siberia scheduled to host the 2019 University Games. The Russian president’s latest remarks show a reconciliatory mood while Krasnoyarsk’s hosting of the world’s top youth sports championship indicate Russia’s commitment to promoting world class athletics.

At the same time Putin’s remarks indicated a potential legal strategy for all those Russian athletes having to defend themselves in sports doping prosecutions. In particular, the Russian president referring to the controversial custody of his country’s athletes’ urine samples, mentioned: When we provided the test samples, there were no complains … If there was a problem with scratches of whatever kind, this should have been noted in the relevant reports, but there was nothing of this sort. In other words, these samples were stored somewhere, and we cannot be held responsible for the storage conditions. The bunch of glass bottles of Russian athletes urine samples, the Russian president was referring to, were taken from the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. These urine sample glass bottles were considered to be tamper-proof before last year’s scandal. They have been under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) custody secured in a Swiss laboratory for the past three years.

Obviously there is a controversy as to who tampered with the Russian Olympians’ urine samples. Nevertheless, the IOC launched disciplinary proceedings for doping against twenty eight Russian athletes who competed in Sochi.

In December 2016, Richard McLaren, a Canadian lawyer, led a team which concluded that 1000 Russian athletes were involved in a state-sponsored doping programme. In his last week’s remarks, Vladimir Putin cast doubt on the McLaren report’s findings submitted to IOC officials, referring to “inaccurate translations or inadequate evidence”.

Nevertheless, the Russian president largely acknowledged his country’s institutional failures admitting that our existing anti-doping monitoring system has not worked effectively, and this is our fault, and is something we need to admit and address directly.

Putin has been frank enough to admit Russia’s faults publicly and to acknowledge the need to rectify his country’s failures. In the international sports context, the question that naturally arises is the following: are the big sports powers in the rest of the world, for example the US, the UK or Germany equally scrutinized by the IOC?

Throughout the so-called Arab Spring, all reliable organizations, state as well as NGOs issued a worldwide warning for serious risks emanating from jihadist fighters. These extremists rushed out from Europe to the battlefields of the Middle East and then returned back.

However, despite the deadly attacks that happened, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor personally took the decision to welcome unconditionally and without checks over one million of migrants and refugees in the period 2015-16. If to this number at least another million is added which went to Germany between 2012 and 2016 from Italy and other routes, then the total number exceeds of fresh migrants accounts for 3% of the German population.

It is estimated that 50% of those who travelled into Germany have used fictitious names with spurious personal information. Among them entered an unknown number of radicalized extremists and even terrorists. What is worse, substantial internal dispersion within the Schengen area has already taken place: after a short stay on German territory thousands of those [radicalized migrants] moved to neighbouring European countries.

As a result, Merkel’s government disseminated the problem across Europe, causing an economic cost in billions of Euros in addition to increased extremism, terrorism and crime, without ultimately any geopolitical advantage accruing to Berlin.

Furthermore, within Germany itself, this policy helps to reduce the electoral base of the ruling CDU party and contributes to the rapid elimination of its sister CSU party in Bavaria and the rise of AFD in combination with dozens of other civic movements that fight Merkel’s government. Moreover, Merkel’s choices contributed greatly both to the rise of the current that led to the Brexit, as well as to the growth to gigantic proportions of the so-called anti-European forces in France, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic and elsewhere.

All EU security services anticipate continuous and massive attacks in the coming period. Now the situation tends to get out of control because the suspects are now so many that the authorities fail to control them: a non-stop 24 hour monitoring of a [suspect] can employ up to 30 security officers, while the Schengen area creates a very wide latitude for unhindered movements. Furthermore, it is not oterrorism which troubles the authorities but also a range of other issues. With the existing limited capacity of the [security & surveillance] authorities there is room for maneuver to forestall potential terrorist threats.

At another level, given Trump’s election in the US, Merkel’s government had the chance to initiate the process of normalization of EU-Russia relations. However, Merkel preferred to intensify the sanctions in 2017, pushing the EU on the sidelines of global developments in view of the US-Russia rapprochement. She also ‘achieved’ to completely remove the EU from playing any role in developments in the Middle East in conjunction with her complete failure to “control” Erdogan and Turkey.

Moreover, the failure of Italy and the fall of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is led by the hand of Merkel, showing in the medium term the way out of the Eurozone for Italy -and other Eurozone member states. At the same Merkel’s policy is not just that of austerity, but also of horrible bureaucracy and endless regulations. Such a policy downgrades the whole of the EU and Germany itself on the international scene.

By 2020, in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita GDP, Germany will be below Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and of course under the US, China, Japan and India, ultimately relegated to the 8th place. Around 2025 Mexico will surpass while South Korea and Turkey will be close to surpassing her. The IMF forecasts that by 2030 Iran will overtake Germany while Thailand will be at the same level.

The above scenarios – ceteris paribus – do not take into account a possible unplanned dismantling of the Eurozone or any other dramatic scenarios. In terms of industrial production, which is supposedly the strongest sector of the German economy, Germany does not account for more than 25% of total EU capacity, only 18% of China’s industrial production and 23% of the US equivalent. The agricultural production in Germany corresponds to 25% of the Russian equivalent, 13% of the US and 40% of the French. Even in the service sector, Germany stands at 1/7 of the US and one quarter of the corresponding Chinese sector.

In general, the alleged leading position of Germany under Merkel’s governance is based on two legs. The first leg is articulated via the control of EU Member States through the continuing “debt crisis” of the Eurozone – beginning with Greece in 2009. The second leg consists of controlling vital sectors of the Brussels bureaucracy through the appointment of hand-picked officials, couple with establishing and controlling of networks which exercise influence on them.

See below some of these German personalities:

Klaus Regling, Chief Executive Officer of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Prof. Dr. Martin Selmayr, Head of European Commission President’s Cabinet Office

Johannes Laitenberger, Director-General of DG Competition

Matthias Ruete, Director-General for Migration and Home Affairs

Walter Radermacher, Director-General of Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, and Chief Statistician of the European Union since 2008.

In accordance with a Bruegel Institute (Brussels based economic think tank) survey, about 20% of key positions in Brussels are settled to Germans, but in higher positions it is even higher. In addition, Germany wields an extensive network that reaches national parliaments and local authorities.

However both these aspects have an approaching expiration date. Year after year Berlin’s debt crisis management simply destroys the national economies of all European countries leading eventually to faster dissolution of the Eurozone but also of the EU while the attempt to control the European Commission after the British exit will cause conflict with France. Paris turns the page in policy making in a few months and will seek vertical upgrading of its role.

In general, the existing model is nearing its end and the start of the Trump administration in the coming months will prepare the ground for the EU’s disintegration as we know it today.

The identification of Merkel with the outgoing political class of the US Democrats (Clinton clan, Qatar, Soros, Eastern European lobbies) was a tragic mistake both for herself and for the longevity of the framework constructed in the last decade.

The only hope for the establishment of long-term stability in the European continent is the structured dismantling and recasting of the Eurozone with a hard core consisting of Northern and Central Europe and with the rest of Member States (MS) using national currencies. This recast should be accompanied with massive deregulation at all levels, less state in all aspects of public life in all MS, serious incentives for the introduction of private sector leadership but also investments on a significant scale. Otherwise the collapse will be reminiscent of the Eastern Bloc collapse in the early 90s.

To put things into perspective, the number of obliterated Kurdish communities in Turkey proper is twenty times bigger than the number of Greek communities (around 150) erased from Cyprus’ ethnic distribution map as a result of the brutal Turkish invasion of 1974. The ongoing death toll of ethnic Kurds stands, as of today, at eight times the number of Greek Cypriots killed (military and civilian) as a result of the 1974 two phased Attila operation. Moreover, the size of the Kurdish population seeking autonomy, civil and political rights in Turkey exceeds 12 million. Clearly, the magnitude of the Kurdish problem for Ankara is simply immense. The thirty years old heavy-handed approach of successive Turkish governments to this purely political problem, no doubt constitutes an ongoing war crime – possibly bordering genocide – for which Ankara should be held accountable by the international community.

Yet the approach of major European powers to Erdogan is one imbued by appeasement rather than indictment for the numerous war crimes committed diachronically by the Turkish leaderships against Armenians, Greeks and Kurds alike. This is certainly the case with Germany.

More and more analysts are convinced that hundreds of years of close relations between Germany and Turkey dictate today’s approach of Berlin to Ankara with reference to the Kurdish, possibly, the Cyprus issue as well as the unprecedented refugee crisis caused to a great extent by Ankara’s interventionist policy in Syria.

Let’s take a brief historical review of German-Turkish relations in order to establish the background to current approaches. At the high tide of Ottoman ascendance (16^th, 17^th & 18^th c.)  German states in the old continent adopted a friendly approach to the Sultan while the rest of Europe was teaming up against the Ottomans. In 1761 a peace and friendship pact was signed by Ferdinand II of Prussia and the Sultan. Consequently, the two parties exchanged ambassadors. Confirming the lasting nature of the close bilateral relations, the Prusso-Ottoman Treaty was renewed in 1790.

The following 19^th century saw an unprecedented flourishing of German-Ottoman bilateral relations:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent visits to the neo-Sultan (mocked at in the recent German state broadcaster music video that provoked Erdogan’s wrath) seem to be a continuation of the path set out by the Kaiser who decided to come to the rescue of the Sultan at a time when his Ottoman Empire all but collapsed.

Having supplied Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918) with a German military mission under Marshal von der Goltz, Bismarck followed up his Turkophile move with a much-advertised visit to the Sultan-Khalifa.

Subsequently, Abdul Hamid II turned to Germany for aid to fight the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-78 – which he badly lost: the Sultan was forced to sign up to the San Stefano armistice, just outside the walls of Constantinople, to save his skin from the advancing Russians. He drew German loans to wage this ill-fated war against the Russians while he struck a deal with Deutsche Bank for financing the Baghdad – Constantinople railway. German investments in end of 19^th century collapsing Ottoman Empire take an upward turn sideling French controlled Ottoman Bank. The closeness of German-Ottoman relations is testified once more by the three visits of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Constantinople (1889-1917).

German schools mushroomed in the Bosporus. The German Military mission helped to train the Young Turk officers who under Kemal’s leadership set out to eradicate the ‘infidel Armenians and Greeks’ thereby Turkifying Asia Minor once and for all. German military advisers no doubt inspired the young and ambitious Mustafa Kemal to go for the ‘final settlement’ of the thriving Christian minorities question in Turkey. It is interesting to observe that the elimination of the progressive Greek and Armenian communities in Anatolia took place twenty years earlier acting as a precursor of the results of the (in)famous Nazi Wannsee Conference (Berlin suburb, 20 Jan 1942) that took the decision on the ‘final solution to the Jewish question’ in the European space deemed vital by Nazi Germany.

In WWI the two countries were close allies. General Otto Liman von Sanders (1855–1929) served as the leading military adviser and commander in the Ottoman Empire. Already in 1914 the Germans ‘advised’ the Young Turks on the expulsion on Greeks from Eastern Thrace and Anatolia. In 1918, General von Sanders commanded an Ottoman Army during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.

Early in WWII, Turkey and Germany signed a Non-Aggression Pact (1941). Turkey’s pro-Nazi Germany policy is well documented in a unique and fascinating account produced by Frank G. Weber entitled The Evasive Neutral (University of Missouri Press, Columbia & London, 1979). Turkish duplicity was laid bare only when German defeat was more than obvious: on 23 February 1945 Ankara declared war on Berlin.

In our next article, we shall continue our analysis on German-Turkish ties by looking into more interesting aspects of their recent close cooperation.

It seems that the Ukrainian authorities entertain an ulterior motive in their talk about UN peacekeepers and EU police mission. In the near future, on the initiative of Kiev (in all probability following US wishes), this issue will be discussed by the UN Security Council.

Russia, for its part, has already stated that the latest Minsk agreement should just be observed and made it clear that there is not much of a point in these missions. Moscow places utmost importance to the implementation of the painstakingly negotiated 12th February Minsk Agreement. According to the provisions of the ceasefire agreement, the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are to create their own police forces. The OSCE will hold observation missions of the separatist area. Naturally, if some other schemes are immediately put forward, the question arises if the Minsk agreement is going to be implemented, Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, wondered.

What do the Americans and Kiev really seek? A repetition of the Kosovo model? A UN peacekeeping mission, even with the participation of Russia, as the first step to legitimization of foreign military presence in Ukraine? Then an EU police mission can become the follow-up measure designed to preserve the status quo and keep the national liberation movement in Novorossia within the borders of the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and the ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’. If the Europeans balk at the consequences, the Americans will accuse everyone of unwillingness to settle the conflict and will continue to bolster up Kiev’s punitive forces with military counselors, mercenaries and weapons which Washington has long been supplying directly and indirectly through its NATO allies.

Interestingly, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor is not keen in further militarizing the conflict by sending more weapons to the Kiev government. Sensing the distance Berlin keeps from Washington, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin stated that Germany should take more responsibility for the resolution of conflicts in Europe and monitor the compliance of the latest Minsk agreement. In other words Klimkin says that Europe should not allow the US to expose Europe as unable of solving problems of regional security.

Not without reason, Russia is watchful of the Western NATO-driven Kosovo model ‘peacekeeping ideas. The self-proclaimed people’s republics of eastern Ukraine do not put much trust to the current Kiev authorities, neither to the US nor to the EU. Naturally, the pro-Russian Easterners understand that their future depends on themselves including their resolve to fight for freedom with arms. And the number of such people in the East of Ukraine is growing.