FIFTY YEARS OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE: BUILDING EUROPE WITHOUT DIVIDING LINES by Daniel Tarcschys

When in September 1989 the late Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Özal addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, he referred to the “common European home” mentioned by President Mikhail Gorbachov two and a half months previously in his speech to the same Assembly. Mr Özal stressed that it could only be a democratic house based on pluralism....

CONFLICT PREVENTION IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE EURO-EDITERRANEAN PARTNERSHIP: A EUROPEAN POINT OF VIEW by Antonio Marquina

In any approach to conflict prevention in the Mediterranean area, three elements deserve attention: the definition of the area, the stage of the conflicts, and the importance of structural factors in Mediterranean conflicts. The definition of the Mediterranean area represents a conditioning element.... 

NATO'S GLOBAL MISSION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY by Solomon Passy & Lyubomir Ivanov

Dozens of military, political and defence alliances have emerged throughout mankind's history, and especially in the twentieth century. Some of them have operated on a regional scale; others have set themselves strategic objectives and global missions. Undoubtedly, though, the Atlantic Alliance, established exactly half a century ago, has been the most successful, the firmest and the most promising of all these alliances in the history of man....

PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE by Yüksel Inan & Islam Yusuf

NATO emerged victorious from the Cold War situation of opposing blocs. But, NATO was unable to survive in the same old way. New conditions require a fundamentally new architecture, not only for European but also for global security.
NATO's Brussels Summit in January 1994 opened a new stage in the Alliance's history when the participants reconsidered its military-political role and the place of the organisation in the changing world....

IS A FEDERAL STRUCTURE REALLY AN APPROPRIATE POLITICAL SOLUTION FOR MULTIETHNIC SOCIETIES? THE CASE OF CYPRUS by Zeliha Khashman

Federal questions have become increasingly important in contemporary politics and policy-making around the world. Many new and old states are struggling to find appropriate structures to give expression to the ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity of various societies. The Cyprus problem is one of those problems where different ethnic and national communities live in one territory and struggle for a political association that protects their cultural identity...

GEOPOLITICS AND STRATEGIC ALIGNMENTS IN THE CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA by Svante E. Cornell

Recently the Caucasus and Central Asia–or the Caspian region, as it has come to be called–has witnessed increasing interest from the political and business communities of the world. One main reason for this is, naturally, the development of Caspian oil and gas, which has attracted a horde of interested private and state-owned companies from Norway to Japan.1 The private Western interests in oil exploitation have been one important factor in raising the importance of the Caucasus and Central Asia in the eyes of policy makers in the West....

THE UNITY OF THE NORTH CAUCASIAN PEOPLES: THE CASE OF THE CONFEDERATION OF THE PEOPLES OF THE CAUCASUS By Cem Oguz

Towards the late 1980s, coinciding with radical changes in Soviet politics, a group of intellectuals forwarded the idea of revitalising the North Caucasian Republic (the Mountain Republic) that was established on 11 May 1918. At the First Congress of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, which met on 25-26 August 1989 in Sukhumi, the fundamental aim of the movement was to set up a Caucasian federal republic. The congress initiated the “Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus”, to be headed by a Kabardin, Musa (Yuriy) Shanibov....

DISINFORMATION:THE NEGATIVE FACTOR IN TURCO-ARMENIAN RELATIONS by Salahi R. Sonyel

When the Seljuk Turks began their influx into eastern Anatolia in the eleventh century CE1, they came across a Gregorian Christian people, the Armenians, who called themselves Hay (plural Hayk), and the region they inhabited as Hayastan. Probably they belonged to a Thracian-Phrygian group of people that migrated to eastern Asia Minor in the sixth century BC under the pressure of the Illyrians.2 From the Balkans they spread haphazardly into Anatolia, the Ararat region and the Caucasus, in which areas they intermingled with Jews, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Kurds and Turks,... 

A DIALOGUE OF PAST AND PRESENT: THE CONSTRUCTION AND  (RE) PRESENTATION OF GREEK NATIONAL IDENTITY by Prof. Dr. Leonard A. Stone

This article briefly explores the parameters of the process of Greek national identification and the practice of self-identification in specific social, political and global conditions. The construction of a history of Greek national identity is the construction of a meaningful universe of events and narratives, for a collectively defined subject. What has supposedly occurred in the past produces a relation between ‘what came before' and ‘what is'. Such a process can be interpreted as a dialogue between past and present....

INFORMATION WARFARE AND LOW INTENSITY OPERATIONS
by Nicholas K. LAOS

The primary functions of intelligence consist of giving warning of the hostile plans, military or political, of other nations or organisations (espionage), and research and analysis of information. In fact, the task of research and analysis of information is of the very greatest significance since it provides the means by which a decision-making authority can obtain an accurate picture of the actual state of affairs. For instance, the Congressional investigation of the attack on Pearl Harbour shows that, even though the United States had no specific information revealing the Japanese plans in a straightforward manner,....

THE FALLACY OF MULTILATERALISM: THE UNITED NATIONS' INVOLVEMENT IN THE GULF WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH by Aylin Seker

The military confrontations between the United States and Iraq have now become commonplace. Clearly, the challenge that Iraq poses for the international community has not changed. The threats and actual use of force against Iraq demonstrate both the fragility of the post-Gulf War stability and the shortcomings of the Desert Storm victory. In fact, eight years after the Gulf War, its repercussions continue both in regional tension, discussions about the role of the UN, and justifications for the use of force....

BOOK REVIEW

"SOVEREIGNTY DIVIDED-Essays on the International Dimensions of the Cyprus Problem" by MICHAEL MORAN, Nicosia, (Cyprus Research and Publications (CYREP): P.O. Box 327, Lefkosa, Mersin-10, Turkey), 1998, 215 pp.

Zaim M.Necatigil
The author was a university lecturer in philosophy for many years and held teaching and research posts in England and Europe. He has written various books and articles in the field of modern intellectual history, as well as on the Cyprus question....