I. UPI - Turkish-Greek relations improving
Turkey and Greece might end their decades-long dispute soon with beefed-up diplomatic contacts planned for this month. Diplomats from both nations, entangled in a decades-long dispute over sea boundaries, will meet in Turkey's capital Ankara later this month, Turkish English-language newspaper Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review reports. "Diplomats from the Turkish and Greek foreign ministries will discuss everything, including upcoming high-level visits as well as the correspondence between the prime ministers," a spokesman of the Greek Embassy told the newspaper. The foreign minister of Greece, Dimitri Droutsas, will travel to Ankara this month before Turkish Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to visit Athens in late spring. Ankara rejects the sea borders the United Nations has drawn in the Aegean Sea, waters that are dotted with several Greek islands, some of them very close to the Turkish coastline. Turkey contests that some of the waters officials have deemed international belong to Turkey. The conflict has affected relations between Greece and Turkey, two NATO allies, for many decades.
II. ANA - Greek FM meets U.S. Secretary Clinton
Greek Alternate Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas met in Washington on Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying afterwards that he had expounded on Greece's positions on major national issues as well as Greece's will to help, through initiatives in its broader region and primarily in the Balkans but the Middle East as well. In statements to the press after his meetings with Clinton and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, Droutsas said: "I met with the U.S. State Department's leadership, with Secretary Clinton and Deputy Secretary of State Steinberg. It was a good opportunity for us to deepen our relations with the US again, to exchange views on all the issues of mutual interest, international developments, for us to also highlight the fact that Greece can play a role in these international developments, particularly in our direct neighbourhood. We have a role to play in the Balkns, we have a role to play and to offer in the region of the Middle East and the Arab world. This is the image that we want to present to the international community again. An image of Greece with a presence, a voice, a real role in international developments. "It was also an excellent opportunity for me to reiterate Greece's positions on the issues of particular Greek interest. On the issue of Cyprus we are again experiencing an important phase, in our relations with Turkey our effort for a new approach and cooperation with Turkey is known, on the issue of the name of FYROM Greece's will and desire for a solution is known, as well as the Greek national red line on this issue is. It is important that the US also knows our positions on all these issues as well, for us to repeat them so that they will also know our approach, always in the framework of cooperatiopn between our two countries, cooperation on an equal basis between two allies and partners."
The United States has named Victoria Nuland, a former ambassador to NATO, as special envoy dealing with conventional armed forces in Europe, the State Department said Wednesday. Nuland will "develop new approaches to addressing security challenges in the Euro-Atlantic area and to develop ideas to modernize our current conventional arms control structures," the department said in a statement. "She also will work with our NATO allies and our European partners in conventional arms control, including Russia, on diplomatic solutions," it said. Russia withdrew in 2007 from the Paris Treaty on conventional forces in Europe after the conflict in Georgia. The Paris Treaty, a cornerstone of Cold War arms control regimes, was signed in 1990 and updated in 1999.
IV. NEWS300 - Cyprus as a trump card against EU ambitions
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon used his visit to Cyprus last weekend to promote the reunification of the island. But this symbolist politics can’t conceal the island’s deep rifts, the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: “Cyprus is divided by fear, mistrust and prejudices, by a bloody past and the strong political interests of the present. There’s the dispute over property rights that is reminiscent of the once-divided Germany. Then there are economic concerns should the poor North and the rich South reunite. But more importantly: Cyprus is still a bargaining chip for Turkey. And in particular the Turkish military has no intention of parting with this trump card. Not for the sake of Cyprus. The strategic advantage of the island is nowhere near as great as it was once supposed to be. The generals are intent on using Cyprus as a level with which to keep the government in Ankara in check. After all, the latter’s EU ambitions could sink into the Mediterranean if the army stubbornly refuses to withdraw its 40,000 troops from the island.”
V. RIANOVOSTI - Russian police kill al-Qaeda's 'sword of Islam'
A militant shot dead by police in the south Russian republic of Dagestan was one of the co-founders of al-Qaeda in the North Caucasus, a security service spokesman said on Wednesday. Egyptian national Mohamad Shaaban, 49, was killed during a shootout with police in the tiny republic's mountainous Botlikhsky District on Tuesday. A Dagestani militant and a police officer also died. An FSB spokesman said Shaaban, who went by the name of Seif Islam (the sword of Islam), had seen action in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and "was also in Sudan, Somali, Libya and Georgia." "In 1992, he arrived in Chechnya to take part in operations against federal forces," the spokesman said, adding that Shaaban had organized the North Caucasus branch of al-Qaeda with Saudi-born Islamic radical Ibn Al-Khattab. The mainly Muslim regions in Russia's North Caucasus have been plagued by militant violence, with almost daily attacks on security forces and officials. Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelev said on January 16 that 235 police officers and interior troops died in the region in 2009, with 686 injured as recorded terrorist acts, including suicide bombings, rose sharply. Following a January 6 suicide bomb attack on a police compound in Dagestan that killed five and wounded up to 19 people, Russian President Medvedev ordered the Federal Security Service to tighten security across the North Caucasus. The president has also established the North Caucasus Federal District and appointed Krasnoyarsk governor and former business executive Alexander Khloponin as deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the volatile region.
VI. EARTHTIMES - Serbia and Kosovo heading for strife over patriarch ceremony
Serbia and Kosovo are heading for a row over the ceremonial enthronement of Patriarch Irinej, which the Serbian church plans to hold in a monastery in the breakaway province, the daily Press said Wednesday. The paper said that the government of Serbia did not plan to ask permission from Kosovo officials to hold the ceremony in the Decani monastery on April 25. Serbia does not recognize the independence of its former province, despite the government of Kosovo being recognized by 65 nations. Kosovo has not yet spoken out on the ceremony Belgrade plans to hold in the monastery. Sparks already flew this month when Pristina, which declared the independence two years ago, began banning Belgrade officials from entering Kosovo to visit Serb enclaves without permission. The monastery Decani in southern Kosovo has been the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church patriarch since the 13th century. It has been under the protection of NATO peacekeepers since the Kosovo war in 1999. Irinej was elected as the new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church last month, following the death of his predecessor Pavle in November.
VII. PRAVMIR - To convert or not to convert?
No priestly act is of more far-reaching consequence than a conversion to Orthodoxy. It crucially determines for all time the convert's personal status, his marital rights and restrictions as well as his religious allegiance. If a pledge of unqualified loyalty to the Orthodox Church is subsequently betrayed, the result is disastrous, not least for the priest involved, should he have been guilty of an error of judgement in authorising the conversion on insufficient evidence of sincerity. In that event, he is bound to feel some personal responsibility and liability for every violation of Canon Law the convert may commit. For only through his act in accepting a non-Orthodox into the Orthodox Church do actions like not attending the Sacraments or not keeping the fast days become grave breaches of Canon Law. Little wonder that many conscientious priests, under the weight of this crushing responsibility, contemplate conversions with extreme, sometimes perhaps excessive, hesitation. The conditions for becoming an Orthodox Christian are simple enough in definition. A properly qualified catechist, after instructing the candidate, must be satisfied that the candidate is genuinely willing and able to accept the religious discipline of the Orthodox Church without reservation, whereupon the formal act of conversion is carried out, either by baptism where the candidate has not been previously baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity, or by the Sacrament of Holy Chrismation, and the signing. of a letter by which the candidate on the one hand is renouncing his former faith and on the other confessing his Orthodox faith. Conversion under these conditions is open to any person, irrespective of race, colour or previous creed. A person so converted then has all the rights and obligations of any Orthodox Christian. Strictly speaking, the actual conversion from any faith (or none) to Orthodoxy is of course carried out by the proselyte himself. The desire to become an Orthodox Christian is brought about by radical changes inside a person's heart determining all his future loyalties, his thinking, feelings and actions, the mould of his very personality. A conversion is the most delicate heart operation to which a person could ever submit, and the onus rests on the candidate to prove that he is adequately prepared to undergo such an operation. Some may complete the requisite preparation in intensive study and environmental experience in a matter of months; others lacking in determination or opportunity, may never be ready even after years of fruitless effort. How long this process takes is determined by the candidate not the priest. The ultimate test is certainly not the candidate's love for an Orthodox party he or she seeks to marry. On the contrary, such an ulterior motive will militate against accepting the application. The criterion is the love of Orthodoxy, generated by such thorough familiarity and fascination with the Orthodox way of life as to render all sacrifices and obstacles. Only if this love and belief in Orthodoxy, in theory and practice, transcends any other love and loyalty, are the conditions for admission truly fulfilled. But why are these conditions so rigid and demanding? Almost every candidate (and many Greek Orthodox) question their justice with the seemingly plausible argument: why should so much more be expected of a convert than most Orthodox are prepared to do for their Orthodoxy? Why should converts be more punctilious in their religious observance than are the majority of Orthodox? To begin with, we have no special interest in swelling our number by conversions. As Orthodox Christians we have a spiritual task and duty to perform so numbers are relatively immaterial to the success of our mission on earth. True proselytes are welcome, but converts of questionable loyalty attenuate rather than consolidate our strength. Throughout the Christian era the Orthodox Church has been exposed to constant oppression and frequent massacres. Yet no Orthodox Christian ever worried about the survival of the Orthodox Church. Therefore the survival of the Orthodox Church does not depend on numbers, but solely on the intensity of our Orthodox commitment. Moreover, a conversion is a religious naturalisation. Even for a civil naturalisation - though effecting infinitely less significantly the innermost belief, the whole personality and the daily routine of the life of the applicant - certain rigid requirements are universally accepted. For the grant of citizenship, countries usually required a period of at least two years, fluency in the vernacular, and certainly ready submission to all the laws of the land. Any alien declaring his readiness to observe all the country's laws except one would be refused his naturalisation, and it would not help him to argue that there are many native citizens who also sometimes transgress one regulation or another. In these matters it is all or nothing. Yet when would-be converts are told that it may take two years or more to gain the required knowledge and religious atmosphere (which even those Orthodox who were baptised at birth must cultivate through years of religious education, plus living in an Orthodox Christian environment from birth), that they are expected to have some familiarity with the Greek language, and that they must undertake to observe the Canon Law of the Orthodox Church, they argue, often amid a chorus of popular Greek applause, why should we have to meet requirements which so many Greeks fall short of? It would be of little avail to an applicant for Australian citizenship to resort to a similar argument. The incontestable answer would be that anyone born of Australian parents - whether good, bad or indifferent, whether he knows English and abides by the law or not - is Australian. Even a criminal's citizenship cannot be disowned. But if a foreigner wants to become Australian, every effort may and must be made to ensure that he will prove a law-abiding citizen, an asset and not a liability. Likewise parents must accept their natural child, healthy or crippled, upright or delinquent. But in adopting a child, they are free to choose, entitled to take all reasonable precautions to make sure that the child will be a source of pride and joy to them. Surely the arguments in favour of similar safeguards in admitting persons to the Orthodox faith and people are no less compelling or convincing. Within these general principles, there is of course a degree of variation. Since the assessment of a candidate's sincerity and the inadequacy of his preparation is subject to a human estimation, there is bound to be a subjective factor in any such judgment. One priest may be more credulous, another more suspicious in accepting a declaration of submission to Orthodoxy. Diverse local conditions, too, may have an important bearing on the decision to admit proselytes. In Greece, for instance, where all converts will certainly live in an Orthodox environment, learn Greek, send their children to Greek schools where religion is taught, and observe the Orthodox calendar - at least in great measure - and where there is hardly any opportunity of becoming integrated into non-Orthodox society, it is obviously far easier to accept converts than in the Diaspora where these conditions do not exist. Naturally, the circumstances prompting an application will invariably be taken into account. A woman who wants to become an Orthodox Christian because she has fallen in love with a Greek, seeking to change her religion almost like one changes a passport on being married, will find far less sympathy than parents who wish to convert an adopted non-Orthodox child because they could find no Orthodox child. Extreme compassion will also be shown in cases of non-Orthodox children from mixed marriages. But these are clearly exceptions. As a rule, it will be found that anyone prepared to change his religion neither had a deep religious allegiance before the change nor will have one after the change. Those who can be, and are, admitted to the Orthodox Church indeed turn out to be rather exceptional people. True proselytes live up to the qualifications so concisely expressed by the most famous of them all, when Ruth the Moabite pledged: "Where you go, I will go; and where you lodge for the night, I will lodge" - sharing the life of the people she converted to; "your people will be my people" - joining the togetherness of the people she converted to; "and your God will be my God" - serving as a witness to religious commitments; "where you die, I will die, and there shall I be buried" (Ruth 1:16-17) - defending the beliefs and practices even to the grave. Anyone prepared to follow Ruth's example of total loyalty will be accepted into the Orthodox faith with open arms. But in the absence of such candidates, we should occupy ourselves with the challenge to convert should-be Greek Orthodox, rather than would-be Greek-Orthodox, to Orthodoxy.