Posted on 09/07/2005 9:44:51 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
ANKARA, September 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has proposed stepping up military-technical cooperation with Turkey, the Russian defense minister said, according to a Turkish daily Monday.
The Milliyet reported that Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov believes joint projects would strengthen the Turkish armed forces and contribute to the establishment of a strategic partnership between the two countries.
The minister advocated bilateral cooperation on the fight against terrorism and joint space projects, the paper said, adding that Ivanov highlighted a 1994 agreement between Russia and Turkey as the first agreement between Russia and a NATO member-state.
"In my opinion, even this example proves the two countries' willingness to develop advanced cooperation in the sphere of military applied technologies," the minister said.
The paper said Russia had proposed five joint projects, including assembling Russia's armored vehicles, particularly the Tiger armored off-road vehicle, in Turkey; production in Russia of armor-piercing weapons systems for the Turkish army; joint production of search-and-rescue vessels; integration of the Russian Archer antiaircraft artillery system with a similar system manufactured by Aselsan, a Turkish company; and joint military applied space programs.
According to Ivanov, Russia intends to bid on a renewed Turkish tender to build attack helicopters, with its Kamov Ka-52 Erdogan prototype that meets Turkish army standards and is far less expensive than its Western counterpart.
If Turkey awards the tender to Russia, it would be able to create its own helicopter building industry, with the possibility of joint helicopter production for export to third countries, Ivanov said, adding that this would depend on political decisions.
"It is hard to imagine that political factors are not dominant in the implementation of such major projects," he said. "The most important thing is to identify the degree to which these factors play a role."
ANKARA, September 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russia wants to up step up joint efforts with Turkey on the fight against terrorism, a Turkish daily reported the Russian defense minister as saying Tuesday.
Sergei Ivanov says bilateral cooperation on the fight against terrorism could include exchanging intelligence information, coordinating bilateral visits and conducting joint exercises, the paper reported.
According to the paper, Ivanov has also proposed setting up bilateral discussions aimed at adjusting the two countries' legislation on anti-terror.
Ivanov praised bilateral cooperation within the Black Sea Cooperation Task Group (Blackseafor), adding that the group might be assigned to target organized crime, drug, arms and human trafficking and directed to deal with the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the paper said.
I am shocked! Russia hasn't liked Turkey since about 1454!
But Ezekiel, in Chapter 38, was given words from Almighty God which Bible scholars can easily trace, by ancestry passages in Genesis, to show a connection between Turkey and Russia in the last days, prior to a great, failed invasion of Israel. Included in the invasion, no surprise, are Iran, Ethiopia and Libya. I find this all very fascinating.
Nah, everyone knows that in the last days the Earth will collide with the celestial axis, on the feast day of St. Stephen the Protomartyr.
Well, now I have to say that makes a lot of sense. However, my money is on Ezekiel :)
Ah, but that begs the question of why our liberation of Iraq complicates Putin's calculus. No single nation gained more by keeping Saddam in power over the enslaved Iraqis than Russia.
Actually, "the Earth will collide with the celestial axis on the feast day of St. Stephen the Protomartyr" is a quote from M. A. Bulgakov's novel "The dog's heart" (1925) - it was the title of lectures some con men started delivering in Moscow. In the book its main character, a surgery professor, did a transplant of dog's brain into a dead human criminal - and got a monster. His work gave rise to all kinds of wild rumors, and some con men started giving apocalyptic lectures. I liked the quote and use it on all last days threads.
Dugin’s Eurasianism and Turkey
The classical Eurasianism while proposing an alternative to the Western civilisation project had also some suggestions in order to make the Turkish-Slav cooperation possible. Offering an alternative historical mentality instead of Europe-centred historical interpretations that dominated Russia for centuries and considering the oriental influence - especially the Turkish one - in Russia with a positive eye, it proposes a solution for the oriental communities living in Russia at least. According to the Eurasianist thinkers, Russia should reconsider the East, which it used to consider as the "Other" and its philosophy of life in general, in order to get rid of the Western material and spiritual exploitation that it endured for years.
It is supposed that Dugin’s ideas are also based upon this classical Eurasianism. He put emphasise on the fact that in the Eurasian geography, Russia and the East would cooperate strategically against the American influence. As a matter of fact, Dugin, rather than to formulate an alternative civilisation project to that of the West, offers some keys to Russia to become the ruling power in Eurasia. The very foundation of that movement is the will to break the Atlantic influence on Eurasia. It is also known that at the very beginning, Dugin had considered Turkey as a foe, and only in the last period he changed his mind and thought that actually Turkey would be charged with a key role in the alliance, which will be set up against the United States. Nevertheless Dugin’s Eurasianism claims that after the collapse of American influence in Eurasia, a multi-polar structure would emerge and that there would be some interest struggles, which will be determined by geopolitics itself. In the middle of the 1990s, Dugin turned to be right noting that the result of the Turkish-Russian fight was determined by geopolitics. From that angle, the Eurasia-centred geopolitical view of Dugin could only envisage a tactical cooperation between Turkey and Russia against the common enemy. According to that view, any other strategic cooperation between these two countries is not possible at all.
It should be kept in mind that whether classical or neo, the Russian Eurasianism is not a movement projected for Eurasian geography, but Russia herself and by Russian thinkers. And Dugin’s Eurasianism is not other than the continuation of the classical Eurasia philosophy in order to legitimate the new imperialist policy of Russia. For instance, there is no difference at all between Dugin, who used the Eurasianism to justify that the Northern Kazakhstan is a part of the Eastern Russia and Russian nationalists, who simply claim this region. Ditto there is no difference between the Eurasianist Dugin and Jirinowsky, who both are talking about warm seas. - LINK
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