World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (January 31, 2012)

The Washington Post reported that India has joined China in saying it will not cut back on oil imports from Iran, despite stiff new U.S. and European sanctions designed to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program. “It is not possible for India to take any decision to reduce the import from Iran drastically because, after all, the countries which can provide the requirement of the emerging economy, Iran is an important country among them,” India’s finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters Sunday in Chicago. The move is likely to be seen as a political victory in Iran, but it’s unclear how Chinese and Indian companies will actually be able to pay for Iranian oil without running afoul of the sanctions, analysts said.

The same agency reported that Iran’s broadcasting company has inaugurated a Spanish-language satellite TV channel in an effort to reach out to friendly governments in Latin America. Tuesday ‘s report says Hispan TV will broadcast news, documentaries, movies and Iranian films 24 hours a day. It says the TV is targeting millions of Spanish-speaking people throughout the world. The channel has been working on a trial basis since October, with a 16-hour daily program. The launch follows President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s four-nation Latin American tour earlier in January and comes as Washington and Europe have imposed tougher sanctions on Tehran over its controversial nuclear program.

The Turkish information agency published the article headlined “Ankara retains hope for nixing French bill.” It says that There are positive developments on collecting the 60 signatures required to challenge France’s “genocide” denial law, a Turkish politician said, although the sufficient number had not yet been reached.“There are positive developments on the issue of signatures, but all is not clear yet,” said Ömer Çelik, deputy chairman of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), speaking in a TV broadcast yesterday. Turkey is currently waiting for the conclusion of the legal process in France. If the law is adopted Ankara will implement ready-prepared sanctions against France, Çelik said. On the other hand, the European Union has expressed hope on reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia despite the current Franco-Turkish spat.

The same agency reported that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, seeking to renew his hold on power after unprecedented street protests, set out an economic agenda yesterday that puts state capitalism at the heart of a bid to boost Russia’s global competitiveness. In a 5,000-word newspaper article, the third in a series he has written ahead of a March 4 presidential election, Putin defended his record while acknowledging Russia needed to adapt in a period of “cardinal change” in the global economy. Putin said his government had been right to reassert control over the energy sector, an indirect reference to the breakup of Russia’s largest oil firm, Yukos, whose assets were largely bought up by state-controlled Rosneft and whose owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was jailed for tax evasion and fraud. The article, Putin’s broadest discourse on how he would run the economy should he be elected for a six-year term, also identifies continuing dependency on natural resources and de-industrialization as Russia’s greatest economic weaknesses.