(1) Baltimore Sun article on S-300 Cyprus missile crisis;

(2) Response by the American Hellenic Media Project;

(3) Version of response, published September 12, 1998

(for "fair use" and educational purposes only)

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(1)

The Baltimore Sun

August 31, 1998

Monica Lewinsky and the Russian missiles in Cyprus

By Robert O. Freedman

WHILE THE Monica Lewinsky affair has slowed the wheels of government in Washington, it has had much more dangerous effect on American policy in the Middle East. Not only has President Clinton not been able to prevent the deployment of surface-to-air missiles which Russia sold to the Greek Cypriot side of the divided island of Cyprus, a development that threatens to lead to war between two NATO allies of the United States, Greece and Turkey.

The Greek-Turkish conflict on Cyprus has been simmering since the 1970s, when Turkish troops landed in northern Cyprus to protect the Turkish community of the island, which felt threatened by a right-wing Greek Cypriot plan to unite Cyprus with Greece.

The island, which lies in the Mediterranean off the southern coast of Turkey, has been divided ever since, with the Greek Cypriots growing increasingly frustrated that neither they nor their allies in Greece have been able to do anything about it.

In 1995, in an apparent attempt to break the stalemate, a Greek Cypriot delegation traveled to Moscow to purchase S-300 surface-to-air missiles, which have the range to penetrate the air space of Southern Turkey. The Greek Cypriots, who had coordinated the missile purchase with the Greek government with whom they have an air defense treaty, evidently hoped to to pressure the U.S. to intervene and the stalemate over Cyprus would be broken. For its part, the Russian arms sales agency, Rosvoorouzhenie, was desperately seeking customers for its arms and, unrestrained by the Russian government, had no compunction about selling such a weapons system.

When the transaction became public knowledge in 1997, the Turkish reaction was to threaten to destroy the missiles if they were deployed. The U.S. publicly expressed its displeasure to Moscow over the sale, while urging the Greek Cypriots not to install the missiles. Neither diplomatic effort worked (although the planned deployment was later postponed from August 1998 to November 1998) and in January 1998 Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov publicly stated that the missiles would be deployed unless Turkey agreed to the demilitarization of Cyprus -- something the Turkish government, in which the Turkish military exercises dominant influence, is not willing to agree to, lest the Turkish community on Cyprus be threatened.

The Russian insistence on going ahead with the missile sale in the face of U.S. opposition is, on the surface, surprising. Given the importance to the United States of preventing war between its NATO allies, one might have expected the United States -- whose political and economic support is helping to prevent the collapse of Russia's economy -- to urge Moscow more energetically to halt the sale. While some in the Clinton administration oppose linking American aid to the sale of the missiles to Cyprus for fear the pressure might cause the regime of Boris Yeltsin to collapse, it is difficult to see how the reversal of a Russian arms sale could cause such a development.

Instead, it appears that the Clinton administration has been so focused on the Monica Lewinsky situation that it has been unable to take decisive action with the Russians, or with the Greeks and Turks, on the Cypriot missile crisis. The irony of the situation is that influential people in both Greece and Turkey feel a crisis over the missiles could be averted if President Clinton were willing to act, and the one thing Greeks and Turks agree on is that the Monica Lewinsky affair is so preoccupying the President that he is unable to act.

Whether or not this is truly the case is besides the point. Perception, rather than reality, often dominates international affairs. In any case, when the Lewinsky affair is finally over -- the sooner the better -- perhaps the Clinton administration can begin to act on the Middle Eastern crises that beg for its attention, from Iraq to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the missile crisis in Cyprus, and so end the Middle East perception that Washington is so preoccupied by the Lewinsky affair it cannot conduct a serious foreign policy even to protect its own interests.

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Robert O. Freedman is president of Baltimore Hebrew University, and the author of "Moscow and the Middle East" and "The Middle East and the Peace Process."

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(2)

American Hellenic Media Project
P.O. Box 1150
New York, N.Y. 10028-0008
ahmp@hri.org
http://www.ahmp.org

September 7, 1998

To the Editor of The Baltimore Sun:

Robert Freedman's article, "Monica Lewinsky and the Russian missiles in Cyprus" (8/31/98), was highly misleading, both in its account of Turkey's 1974 invasion of Cyprus as well as in its review of the S-300 missile crisis.

He states that "Turkish troops landed in northern Cyprus to protect the Turkish community of the island", adopting the Turkish government's pretext for its nightmarish 1974 invasion. Freedman conceals the grim reality that Turkish troops killed thousands of Cypriots during the invasion, code-named "Operation Attila", and ethnically cleansed 200,000 of Cyprus' indigenous Greek inhabitants from 40% of the island. To this day, no other nation recognizes the puppet regime established by Turkey in northern Cyprus.

While Freedman espouses Turkey's absurd pretext for threatening military strikes against the anti-aircraft missiles Cyprus has recently purchased-because they "have the range to penetrate the air space of Southern Turkey"-a US State Department report cited by the BBC confirmed that the S-300s were a purely defensive anti-aircraft system, rejecting Turkey's claims that the system could be used for offensive purposes and characterizing these concerns as "groundless".

Moreover, Turkey has 35,000 troops and 500 main battle tanks on Cyprus, which are in turn reinforced by Turkey's million-man army-the largest and most technologically sophisticated of any NATO country other than the US. The Cypriots, on the other hand, are defending themselves with a lilliputian force of 10,000 national guardsmen and 900 regular Greek army troops supported by 100 tanks.

Significantly, Cyprus does not have an air force and Turkish fighter planes routinely violate its airspace with impunity. Cyprus' fledgling attempts at air defense from a neighboring Goliath that is occupying 40% of its territory should be anything but controversial. That Turkey is threatening military strikes to preserve its absolute command of Cyprus' skies should not make it so.

Perhaps Freedman is most disingenuous when he claims that Turkey's rejection of Cypriot offers not to deploy the S-300s, if an agreement is reached to either demilitarize the entire island or implement a bilateral no-fly zone for military aircraft, was due to Turkey's concerns that "the Turkish community on Cyprus [might] be threatened". The fact is that after Cyprus extended this olive branch Turkey issued a new demand for any further peace talks to resume: the legal recognition of its outlaw state and the halting of the Republic of Cyprus' EU admission.

While an effective sensational headliner, the President's preoccupation with the Lewinsky affair of course had nothing to do with this impasse in the Cyprus peace-process; an exasperated Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Cyprus, declared in a rare instance of finger-pointing that Turkish intransigence was to blame. Given our government's continuing ratification of Turkish belligerence and the dissemination of misleading articles such as Mr. Freedman's, perhaps the finger should be pointed much closer to home.

P. D. Spyropoulos, Esq.
Director

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The American Hellenic Media Project is a non-profit organization created to address bias in the media and encourage independent, ethical and responsible journalism.

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(3)

The Baltimore Sun

Saturday, September 12, 1998

Cypriot missile column ignored Turkish terror

Robert Freedman's article "Monica Lewinsky and the Russian missiles in Cyprus" (Aug. 31) was highly misleading, both in its account of Turkey's 1974 invasion of Cyprus as well as in its review of the S-300 missile crisis.

Mr. Freedman states that "Turkish troops landed in northern Cyprus to protect the Turkish community of the island," adopting the Turkish government's pretext for its nightmarish 1974 invasion. He conceals the grim reality that Turkish troops killed thousands of Cypriots during the invasion, code-named "Operation Attila," and ethnically cleansed 200,000 of Cyprus' indigenous Greek inhabitants from 40 percent of the island. To this date, no other nation recognizes the puppet regime established by Turkey in northern Cyprus.

While Mr. Freedman espouses Turkey's absurd pretext for threatening military strikes against the anti-aircraft missiles Cyprus has recently purchased because they "have the range to penetrate the air space of Southern Turkey," a U.S. State Department report cited by the BBC confirmed that the S-300s were a purely defensive anti-aircraft system, rejecting Turkey's claims that the system could be used for offensive purposes.

Moreover, Turkey has 35,000 troops and 500 battle tanks on Cyprus, which are in turn reinforced by Turkey's large technologically sophisticated army.

The Cypriots, on the other hand, are defending themselves with a Lilliputian force of 10,000 national guardsmen and 900 regular Greek army troops supported by 100 tanks.

Perhaps Mr. Freedman is most disingenuous when he claims that Turkey's rejection of Cypriot offers not to deploy the S-300s was due to Turkey's concerns that "the Turkish community on Cyprus [might] be threatened." The fact is that after Cyprus extended this olive branch, Turkey issued a new demand that for peace talks to resume, there must be legal recognition of its outlaw state and halting of the Republic of Cyprus' European Union admission.

While an effective sensational headliner, the president's preoccupation with the Lewinsky affair of course had nothing to do with this impasse in the Cyprus peace process. An exasperated Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy for Cyprus, declared in a rare instance of finger-pointing that Turkish intransigence was to blame.

Given our government's continuing ratification of Turkish belligerence and the dissemination of misleading articles such as Mr. Freedman's, perhaps the finger should be pointed much closer to home.

Phillip D. Spyropoulos
New York

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The writer is director of American Hellenic Media Project