Setback for Afghanistan. Karzai takes control over election watchdog. The NY Times:
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has taken control of a formerly independent body that monitors election fraud, raising concerns that he is reneging on promises to clean up corruption and cronyism — a pillar of the Obama administration’s plan to erode support for the Taliban. Karzai signed a decree giving him the power to appoint all members of the Electoral Complaints Commission, a group previously dominated by U.N. appointees that said it uncovered massive fraud on behalf of Karzai in last year’s presidential election. The decree, which Karzai signed last week and made public on Monday, suggests that the president wants to tighten control of the electoral process ahead of parliamentary balloting in September. (…)
“This is bad news for democracy,” said Gerard Russell, a former U.N. political adviser who resigned over disputes in the last presidential election. “Basically, if President Karzai wishes it, this could prevent free elections ever being held in Afghanistan.” Western diplomats in Kabul, speaking on the condition of anonymity, expressed similar concerns.
In an editorial, the NY Times comments:
After his brazen bid to steal his re-election, Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, swore that he would do better — and the Obama administration swore it would ensure that he did. He hasn’t. It didn’t. (…) At a time when American, NATO and Afghan troops are putting their lives on the line to battle the Taliban, Mr. Karzai seems interested only in his own political power. That is hugely destructive. Mr. Karzai’s failure to build a credible, honest and even minimally effective government is the Taliban’s No. 1 recruiting tool.
Robert Gates: “Demilitarization” of Europe becomes impediment for security and peace. The NY Times:
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has long called European contributions to NATO inadequate, said Tuesday that public and political opposition to the military had grown so great in Europe that it was directly affecting operations in Afghanistan and impeding the alliance’s broader security goals.
“The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,” he told NATO officers and officials in a speech at the National Defense University (…) A perception of European weakness, he warned, could provide a “temptation to miscalculation and aggression” by hostile powers. (…)
Mr. Gates’s blunt comments came just three days after the coalition government of the Netherlands collapsed in a dispute over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan.
For a transcript of Gates’ speech go here.
European vocation. Yanukovich to visit Brussels before Moscow. The New York Times:
President-elect Viktor F. Yanukovich of Ukraine, who tried during the campaign to shed his reputation as an obedient Kremlin ally, intends to make his first foreign trip after taking office to Brussels, not Moscow, officials said on Tuesday. Mr. Yanukovich, whose inauguration is on Thursday, is scheduled to visit the headquarters of the European Union next Monday for meetings with senior officials. He is to hold talks with the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy; the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso; and others.
Later in the week, he is likely to go to Moscow to see President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.
Mr. Yanukovich’s decision to travel to Brussels seems intended to send a message to the country that he is serious about bolstering relations with Europe and that he will not be beholden to Russia.
But no EU carrot for Yanukovich. The EU Observer:
Ukraine’s new leader, Viktor Yanukovich, is planning to visit the EU capital next week. However, the bloc is unlikely to reward him with an early deal on visa-free travel. The president elect is in talks with the office of EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton to come to Brussels on Monday (1 March), three days following his inauguration in Kiev and more than a week before a planned trip to Moscow. The EU visit is intended to signal Mr Yanukovych’s foreign policy priorities and to help dispel his image as a Kremlin stooge.
Poland at an EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday (22 February) stuck its neck out with a proposal for the union to reciprocate by offering Ukraine a roadmap for visa-free travel when the president drops by. (…) Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski also suggested the EU could temporarily lift visas during the Euro 2012 football championship, to be held in Poland and Ukraine, as a “test.” (…)
A Polish diplomat said Ms Ashton accepted the Polish argument that the EU should not rush into giving visa-free travel to Russians while leaving Ukrainians behind – Russia is also awaiting an EU decision to open talks on dropping travel barriers. But there was not enough support round the table for the EU to make an announcement next week: “We have clearly stated in our previous agreements with Ukraine that visa-free is a ‘long-term perspective.’ Nothing has changed,” a French diplomat told EUobserver.
An EU official said: “Perhaps we can find a middle ground between the roadmap and the status quo,” suggesting that the Yanukovych meeting could see a friendly EU declaration on visas, but without the roadmap being put in place.
The news is unlikely to be greeted warmly in Kiev. Ukraine’s EU affairs minister, Konstantin Yeliseyev, has battled against the EU’s arm’s length visa policy for the past three years, while accusing EU powers of a “lack of strategic vision” in the east.
EU-Israeli relations set to stay warm in spite of Dubai killing, says the FT’s Tony Barber:
Nothing illustrates the sensitivity of the European Union’s relationship with Israel better than the statement which EU foreign ministers issued on Monday complaining about the use of forged European passports in last month’s killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas commander, in Dubai. (…) The statement was remarkable chiefly for its reluctance to spell out that the EU holds Israel responsible for the flagrant misuse of identity documents belonging to European citizens. It could hardly be otherwise, of course. There is insufficient evidence at this stage to state with certainty that Israel’s agents used the false passports and killed Mabhouh. Instead, it was left to a couple of EU foreign ministers to conduct some finger-wagging in one-on-one meetings with Avigdor Lieberman, their combative Israeli counterpart, who just happened to be in Brussels on Monday. (…) The EU statement nevertheless reveals a distinct unwillingness to criticise Israel (or whoever it was) for ridding the world of Mabhouh.
The fundamental point is that several of the EU’s biggest countries have invested much effort in developing close relations with Israel. Among the new member-states, the Czech Republic and Poland are well to the fore. Of the older members, Italy under Silvio Berlusconi has made a point of distancing itself from its traditionally more pro-Arab stance. But few EU countries have warmer ties with Israel than Germany, where only last month Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, arrived with half a dozen ministers for a joint cabinet session with Chancellor Angela Merkel and company.
Public opinion in Europe is without question more critical of Israel. But for EU governments, maintaining a strong relationship with Israel is essential if they want to have some influence over Middle Eastern affairs and over the problem of how to contain Iran’s nuclear programme.
A new roadmap for Middle East peace? In an IHT op-ed, Jerome M. Segal backs an idea recently floated by Paris: Declaration of a Palestinian state without prior negotiations with Israel, plus immediate international recognition.
New attacks on Ashton. The EU foreign policy chief will not attend the EU defense ministers meeting in Mallorca, taking place today and tomorrow. She will instead be in Moscow to attend the EU-Russia foreign ministers meeting and have talks with Lavrov and Medvedev today; tomorrow she will be in Kiev for Yanukovich’s inauguration.
This decision has provoked sharp reactions: Nicolas Gros-Verheyde on his Bruxelles2 blog and Libération’s Jean Quatremer on his Coulisses de Bruxelles blog (both in French) point out that her predecessor Javier Solana never missed a defense ministers meeting. Jean Quatremer says Ashton’s absence shows that she “boycotts” European defense. Many defense ministers were expecting Ashton to present her views on European defense, he says, at a moment when London, Paris and Berlin are looking forward toward closer cooperation. Gros-Verheyde argues that her decision is “a professional mistake”, the more as this would have been Ashton’s first defense ministers meeting. Her absence puts into question her “competence” for the job, he says, and suggests a discussion in the European Parliament and at the next European summit.
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