Press review on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (January 14-17, 2012)

The Washington Post reported that the leader of Qatar has said that Arab troops should be sent to Syria to stop a deadly crackdown that has claimed the lives of thousands of people over the past 10 months. Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s comments to CBS “60 Minutes,” which will be aired Sunday, are the first statements by an Arab leader calling for the deployment of troops inside Syria. They come amid growing claims that a team of Arab observers dispatched to the country to curb the bloodshed has failed in its mission. Asked whether he is in favor of Arab nations intervening in Syria, Sheik Hamad said that “for such a situation to stop the killing some troops should go to stop the killing.” Excerpts of the interview were sent to The Associated Press by CBS a day before it was to be aired.

The same agency reported Monday that the Turkish Air Force says one of its small jets is missing in the Aegean Sea. The air force says in a statement on its website that the T-37C light-attack aircraft, with two pilots aboard, went missing over the Bay of Aliaga on Monday during a training flight. It says helicopters, planes and navy ships are searching for the plane. Last year, two pilots were killed when a T-37C went down near the Aegean town of Urla.

The Washington Post also published the article headlined “Vladimir Putin says he’s Russia’s indispensable man.” It says that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he intends to return to the presidency because only he can guide Russia between the twin dangers of stagnation on the one hand and instability on the other. In an essay that was posted on his Web site Monday and published simultaneously in the newspaper Izvestia, Putin emphasizes the threat of instability — offering a response to the protests that have drawn thousands out onto the streets. Putin warns against the periodic Russian penchant embracing rapid change and notes that the revolutionaries of the past, once in power, have tended to be just as bad or worse than those they replaced. Putin says nothing about electoral fraud, the issue that has spurred the street protests on the heels of the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections. Russians will elect a president on March 4, and the conduct of that vote is sure to be under intense scrutiny, in part because of popular anger at Putin’s decision to seek a third term as president, after stepping aside for four years as required under the constitution.

“Preventing a Nuclear Iran, Peacefully” is an article published by The New York Times Saturday. It says that attacking Iran might set its nuclear program back a few years, but it will most likely encourage Iran to aggressively seek — and probably develop — nuclear weapons. Slowing Iran down has some value, but the costs are high and the risks even greater. Given that Israelis overwhelmingly believe that Iran is on its way to acquiring nuclear weapons and several security experts have begun to question current policy, there is now an opportunity for a genuine debate on the real choices: relying on cold-war-style “mutual assured destruction” once Iran develops nuclear weapons or pursuing a path toward a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East, with a chance that Iran — and Arabs — will never develop the bomb at all. There should be no illusions that successfully negotiating a path toward regional nuclear disarmament will be easy. But the mere conversation could transform a debate that at present is stuck between two undesirable options: an Iranian bomb or war.

The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that the deepening economic and diplomatic pressure against Iran is sharpening tensions between Tehran and oil-producing Arab states that have long relied on the West to counter Iran's nuclear program and its regional ambitions. Iran's growing isolation has agitated sectarian mistrust in the Persian Gulf between Tehran's Shiite Muslim-run government and Sunni-controlled states including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. In a provocative move over the weekend, Iran warned Arab regimes not to join a possible Western-backed oil embargo to further weaken its economy. Iran is also facing pressure from the European Union, whose members are expected to meet this month to decide whether to embargo Iranian oil products. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said recently that the EU has made "discreet contacts" with unnamed states to increase oil production if Iranian exports were further squeezed.

The Turkish information agency Hurriyet published the article subtitled “Turkey to take Iranian gas price to arbitration.” It says that International arbitration over the price of Iranian natural gas is “inevitable” due to Tehran’s reluctance to provide a discount, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said yesterday, just a day before Iran’s foreign minister comes to Turkey for economic cooperation talks. “We have close cooperation with Iran in natural gas and we shared with them our unease about the high gas price. They did not share the same view,” Yıldız told reporters. “Our demand for a discount continues. An international arbitration tribunal is inevitable,” he said, adding that there was only a week left for negotiations. “If they want to talk, we are ready.” The issue was not initially supposed to be on the agenda of the Turkey-Iran Joint Economic Commission meeting, which is scheduled for Jan. 18 and will feature Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, an energy ministry official said.