Plastic treaty would be historic for planet: UNEP chief



Curse of plastic: The beach at Hann Bay, a densely-populated district of the Senegalese capital Dakar (AFP/Seyllou)

Nick Perry
Thu, February 24, 2022, 11:40 PM·4 min read

The world has a rare opportunity to clean up the planet for future generations by uniting behind an ambitious treaty to tackle plastic trash, the UN environment chief told AFP.

Inger Andersen said a global plastics treaty being negotiated in Nairobi "holds the potential and the promise of being the biggest multilateral environmental breakthrough" since the Paris climate accords signed in 2015.

"This is a big moment. This is one for the history books," the executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) told AFP in an interview.

The framework for a legally binding plastics agreement is still being hammered out ahead of a UN environment summit starting on Monday in Nairobi, where UNEP is headquartered.

There are competing proposals being considered but more than 50 countries have backed calls for a treaty that includes tough new controls on plastics, which are largely derived from oil and gas.

This could include limits on the manufacture of new plastic, or the phasing-out of single-use products that choke oceans and marine life and take centuries to break down.

Delegates meeting in Nairobi are expected to agree on the broad template for a treaty and establish a negotiating committee to finalise the terms, a process that would take at least two years.

- 'Stop the plastic tap' -

Andersen said it was too early to speculate about specific details of the treaty but stressed it was "hopeless" to try to curb plastic litter without addressing the source.

Some 400 million tonnes of new plastic are manufactured every year -- a figure set to double by 2040.

Less than 10 percent of plastic is recycled, the rest burned or dumped on land where it often ends up in rivers and flows out to sea and drifts around the globe.

Large pieces of plastic are perilous for sea mammals and birds -- but even when the substance is broken down by the action of the sea into micro-particles, this too is absorbed by small organisms and passes up the food chain to fish or shellfish, which in turn are eaten by humans.

"Stopping the plastic tap is critical... If you continue polluting over here, and cleaning up there, that is a forever job," said Andersen, who was appointed UNEP head in 2019.

Many countries, including major plastic producers like the United States and China, have expressed general support for a treaty but not publicly endorsed any specific measures.

Dozens of major corporations including Coca Cola and Unilever have called for a global treaty, as have some of the world's largest plastics manufacturers.

But environment groups have warned that plastic giants were resisting efforts to cap production, and would try and steer talks in Nairobi toward reusing and recycling waste.

Andersen said she was buoyed by the commitments of industry -- but voluntary efforts had fallen short of tackling the crisis.

"We can't recycle our way out of this mess. That's clear," Andersen said.

It is already so pervasive that plastic has been found inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean, flecked through Arctic sea ice, and floating in the air we breathe.

"We must understand that plastic is part of our lives -– we use it in construction, in medicine, in places where we need it. But we also use it in places where we do not," she said.

- Time running out -

Binding targets and a common framework would ensure a level playing field so countries and corporations felt confident they were playing by the same rules, she said.

Past global protocols had phased-out mercury and ozone-depleting substances once common in household goods, demonstrating it was possible to achieve consensus across borders and spur economy-wide change.

Some of those conventions took a decade to enshrine, by which stage tens of millions of tonnes of plastic trash could have entered the sea.

Already the amount of plastic entering the world's waterways is expected to triple by 2040 unless drastic action is taken.

"We don't have ten years to do this, and we need to get it done, and fast," Andersen said.

A treaty proposal from Rwanda and Peru has attracted the most support ahead of the UN summit, with the 27-member European Union among dozens of co-sponsors.

The text is still being negotiated, as are two other draft treaty resolutions.

But it bodes well: Andersen said it was "very unusual" for a UN resolution to have such broad backing ahead of a plenary.

"I have to be sure that this thing will land, and land with a degree of ambition. We are going to push very hard."

np/amu/ri

Lessons on climate grief from the people of the sea ice

Issued on: 25/02/2022 - 

Climate change means ice often forms later and melts earlier 

JOE RAEDLE Getty Images North America/AFP/File

Paris (AFP) – Marilyn Baikie's remote Inuit community has more wisdom than they could ever want about ecological grief.

These "people of the sea ice" have endured years of dramatic warming that is ravaging their beloved landscape at the edge of the Arctic, forcing them to reimagine a way of life that goes back centuries.

"It affects how you live your life, it affects the things you do with your children, it really is affecting people's mental health," said Baikie, a community health worker in Rigolet, a coastal village of 300 people in Canada's Labrador region.

Before this region became one of the fastest-warming places on the planet, people could travel across frozen waters until spring, to fish or go deep into countryside that is a profound part of their identity.

Now they often worry the ice won't hold.

So when in winter the thermometer goes to up to zero -- or higher -- Baikie knows people will need extra support.

She and colleagues organise activities to ease stress and fill the "empty time" for people stranded by the warmth, like craft workshops and knowledge sharing between elders and young people.

Other local projects include mapping safe routes over the ice and taking an active part in climate monitoring.

Still, people feel isolated, Baikie told AFP in a recent video call.

"When you talk about it, it really tugs at your heart."
Solastalgia

But it was talking about it that made the Inuit elders -- including Baikie's mother -- among the first to sound the alarm about the wrenching grief wrought by climate change.

Opening up to researchers more than a decade ago, they described the land like a family member.

"People would say it's just as much a part of your life as breathing," said Ashlee Cunsolo, who was studying climate impacts on water quality before pivoting to wellbeing as a result of the strong testimonies.

A decade later, these experiences and coping strategies are part of a growing understanding of the mental health toll of environmental destruction.

An increasing number of people are affected by the impacts of climate change Andrej Ivanov AFP/File

"It's not just something anymore that people say: 'that's in the future, or that'll be in 20 years, or that's only in the north'," she said.

"It's really everywhere."

Cunsolo is one of the authors of a major UN report on climate impacts due to be released on Monday.

It is expected to underscore the severe global health implications -- physical and mental -- of warming and the need to adapt to the challenges ahead.

But unlike the spread of disease by growing numbers of ticks or mosquitoes, Cunsolo said the effects on people's minds are myriad and overlapping.

In Labrador, "it's slow, it's cumulative. It's about identity", she said.

Cunsolo calls this ecological grief, one of a range of new terms for environmental emotions that also includes solastalgia -- "the homesickness that you have when you're still at home".

Overall impacts range from strong feelings -- sadness, fear, anger -- to anxiety, distress and depression, while people caught in an extreme event might suffer post-traumatic stress disorder.

Canada alone has seen a catalogue of disasters in recent years, including floods, wildfires and what used to be a once-in-a-thousand-year heatwave.

"How do we support more and more people who are coping with this type of trauma? They're not isolated events anymore," said Cunsolo.
Climate anxiety

There is growing concern about climate anxiety in children and young people worldwide.

One survey of 10,000 16 to 25-year-olds in 10 countries, published in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health in December, found almost 60 percent were very worried about climate change.

In the Philippines that rose to 84 percent.

Manila-based researcher and psychologist John Jamir Benzon Aruta, who was not involved in the survey, said concerns are highest among young people with access to the internet and social media.

"They worry about how much stronger the typhoons will become, whether it's a safe place for them and their future children," said Aruta.

His research includes support for environmental defenders, in a country with one of the world's highest rates of murders of these campaigners.

Climate anxiety can be seen as a "normal response to the actual threat", he said, calling for therapies and responses that counteract feelings of helplessness.

People around the world are faced with a barrage of negative news and a popular culture saturated with dystopian visions of the future.

What they need, experts say, is hope.

Earth emotions

"There is a need to maintain a sense of meaningfulness in life and that's really the core of my interpretation and emphasis of hope," said Finnish researcher Panu Pihkala, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Pihkala, who stopped presiding over weddings and funerals in 2010, says his religious background has helped him contemplate these "deep existential issues" and host ecological grief workshops in Finland.

Even the creator of the term solastalgia, Glenn Albrecht, is looking to shift the focus away from the grief-laden term he created in 2003 as a response to the environmental destruction of coal mining in Australia.

His ever-expanding lexicon of "earth emotions" and concepts includes the hope that humanity will soon commence the "symbiocene" -- living in harmony with the planet rather than destroying it.

"We needed to reinvent the way we talk about our present and our future," he said in a recent online lecture.

In Labrador, Baikie said recognition of the emotional impact of climate change had not just given people an outlet for their feelings, but enabled research they hope will help others around the world.

She wants people and governments to shake off the idea that climate catastrophe is "inevitable".

"Every little bit counts and (if people) really devote money and attention to it, I think we could start seeing some changes," she said.

"The time has come to stop talking about it and to actually do something."

© 2022 AFP

Opinion: Ukraine will survive — but the West should be ashamed

The war has arrived. Russia has invaded Ukraine. If the West had not looked away in 2014, this catastrophe might have been averted, writes DW's Roman Goncharenko.

Ukrainians will never willingly succumb to Russian occupation

Thursday, February 24, 2022. This is a day we will never forget.

The day on which an insane Russian leader decided to launch a major war against Ukraine. The day that Ukrainians and their friends all over the world had prepared themselves for, all while hoping that it would never come. The day when the Kremlin brought war to Europe.

Many seem surprised today, asking, "How it could come to this?" The answer can be found in these lines by Winston Churchill: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor.  You chose dishonor and you will have war."

There is no doubt. Russian troops have invaded Ukraine just as they did around 100 years ago when Ukraine first declared independence. The impact of this monstrous step will send shockwaves around the world.

Some believe that Russia has been preparing for a massive war for years

The fatal mistake of the West

The West bears partial responsibility for these developments. 

In 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine for the first time since the latter gained its independence in 1991, and then annexed Crimea, the West decided on the kind of dishonor that Churchill had spoken about.

The leaders of the US, Germany and other Western powers took both of the Ukrainian government's hands and begged it to not push back. In no instance, they urged, should Russian President Vladimir Putin be "provoked."

Their motivation: One hundred years after the First World War, the West feared another. This was understandable. Yet, it was also a fatal mistake.

West hesitated for too long

Russia became intoxicated with its success in Crimea and perpetuated the war in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. Still, the West hesitated to provide Ukraine with weapons (Germany refused to do so altogether) and shied away from imposing tough retaliatory measures on Moscow.

It was only after the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down that targeted sanctions were imposed on certain sectors of the Russian economy. But even these were so restricted and weak that Russia came to the conclusion that it would probably be allowed to continue its actions without facing any serious resistance.

Ukraine also underestimated the degree of madness in the Kremlin and the widespread perception among many in Russia that Ukraine is not really an independent state.

Many Ukrainians lulled themselves into a false sense of security, thinking: "We're neighbors, relatives —  Russia will never dare to wage an open war."

Even the government in Kyiv did not break off diplomatic relations with Russia, sending the wrong signals to its Western allies, something along the lines of "it's not that bad, really."

Some Western leaders chose to appease Russia rather than prepare for the worst

Time to help Kiev

In this way, the chance to avoid the war that has now started was wasted. Hoping to appease the aggressor, Western leaders decided to negotiate with Russia. But, throughout human history, this approach has rarely been successful. And it has failed once again — in Ukraine.

Russia has used the income from its oil and gas exports to develop new weapons and prepare an apocalyptic war, not only against Ukraine but against the entire West.

There were plenty of warnings. It all happened out in the open. The Kremlin and its propagandists never hid their intentions. But the West preferred to keep its eyes shut. Western politicians should be blushing with shame.

The Russian troop build-up happened openly

It is now time for the West to rectify its past mistakes and to help Ukraine by any and all possible means. There will be battles, there will be bloodshed, there might be an occupation and a long partisan war. Ukraine will lose many of its best sons and daughters.

But there is no doubt that Ukraine will survive. Ukrainians will never resign themselves to being back on Moscow's leash. Those times are over. They are not coming back.

And Russia? Moscow's chosen path of aggression against Ukraine and the whole of the Western world will end in disaster, sooner or later. Maybe then Russia will have a chance to start over. For now, all those who love freedom are Ukrainians.

This opinion piece was originally written in German.

Moderna says it expects almost $20 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales in 2022

Moderna's forecast of $19 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales in 2022 is far above what most analysts expected.

 File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Biotech company Moderna said Thursday that it expects to make almost $20 billion this year from sales of its COVID-19 vaccine -- the only product that it has on the market.

Moderna said in its earnings report that it generated $4.9 billion in the final quarter of 2021 and sold almost $18 billion worth of the vaccine for all of last year, its first full year of selling the coronavirus shot.

"In 2021, we delivered 807 million doses with approximately 25% of those doses going to low- and middle-income countries, and we will continue to scale in 2022 to help end the COVID-19 pandemic," Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.

"Moderna has experienced exponential growth and we have more than doubled the size of our team over the last year with a global team of 3,000

Bancel said that COVID-19 might move from the pandemic phase to an endemic setting sometime this year, and that people will need booster shots in the fall.

The forecast of $19 billion in sales in 2022 is far above what most analysts expected. Moderna's vaccine is available in more than 70 countries.

The company is presently conducting clinical trials for a booster shot specifically geared toward fighting the Omicron variant.

More than 200 million doses of Moderna's vaccine have been administered in the United States since it was first authorized in December 2020.

US initial jobless claims fall, total benefits tumble to 52-year low


A now hiring sign is seen in the window of a fast-food restaurant in Orange California on January 27, 2021. The Labor Department said first-time unemployment filings dropped last week and the total number of people filing for benefits reached a 52-year low. 

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


Feb. 24 (UPI) -- First-time unemployment claims fell last week, and overall filings dipped to their lowest level in 52 years, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The department had reported three straight weeks of initial unemployment claim decreases until the week ending Feb. 12, when filings increased to a seasonally adjusted 249,000. Last week, claims dropped to 232,000.

While the jobless claims marked a decrease of 17,000, the total was still higher than the 225,000 unemployment filings reported on Feb. 5. It also remained off the pandemic low of 188,000 reported on Dec. 4.

The overall number of people filing for unemployment benefits for Feb. 12 was 1.476 million, a decrease of 112,000 from the previous week. That marked the lowest overall total of people filing for unemployment insurance since March 14, 1970, when the level was 1.456 million.

The four-week moving average for total claims also fell to 1.576 million, its lowest amount since June 30, 1973, when it hovered at 1.57 million applicants.

The four-week moving average for first-time unemployment filings for the week ending Feb. 12 filings decreased 7,250 to 236,250. The filings reported last week were adjusted to 243,500, the report said.

The actual unadjusted initial claims under state programs totaled 214,873 in the week ending Feb. 19, a decrease of 24,824 or 10.4%, from the previous week. Seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 7,928, or 3.3%, from the previous week.

British union says rail workers will strike next week across London tube network

The London underground system, also known as the tube, is expecting severe disruptions on the rail line next week due to labor strikes that are scheduled for two days and involve thousands of workers. File Photo by Andy Rain/EPA-EFE

Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A British union said on Thursday that as many as 10,000 rail workers across the London underground will walk out in a labor strike next week -- protests that are expected to seriously disrupt tube service for at least two days.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union confirmed that the strikes will happen, and accused London Mayor Sadiq Khan of blocking progress in unresolved labor talks that hinge on concerns about job and pension cuts.

The union said the strikes will occur across the entire underground system for the entire day -- midnight to midnight -- on both Tuesday and next Thursday.

The strike is part of a complaint from RMT workers about multiple issues. The union cited the underground's "continuing refusal to give assurances on jobs, pensions and working conditions in the midst of an on-going financial crisis driven by central government."

"Our members will be taking strike action next week because a financial crisis at [the underground] has been deliberately engineered by the government to drive a cuts agenda which would savage jobs, services, safety and threaten their working conditions and pensions," RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said in a statement Thursday confirming the strikes.

Transport for London Chief Operating Officer Andy Lord responded that cuts to workers' pensions have not even been proposed.

"It is extremely disappointing that the RMT is planning to go ahead with this action," he said in a statement. "We haven't proposed any changes to pensions or terms and conditions, and nobody has or will lose their jobs because of the proposals we have set out."

Lord urged the RMT union to "get around the table with us, continue talks and call off this disruptive action, which will cause huge frustration for our customers and further financial damage to TfL and London's economy when we should be working together to rebuild following the [COVID-19] pandemic."

"During [prior] talks, [the underground] confirmed all the union's worst fears that nothing is off the table in terms of the threat to jobs, pensions, conditions and safety," the union, which represents 10,000 British workers, added.

FDA approves condom for use during anal intercourse for first time

By UPI Staff

One Male Condom, available in three versions and 54 different sizes, is the first condom approved by the FDA for use during anal intercourse, as well as during vaginal intercourse. Photo courtesy of One Male Condoms

Feb. 24 (UPI) -- For the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved condoms specifically indicated for anal intercourse.

Sexual health experts have long sought such an authorization because the risk of sexually transmitted diseases spread through anal intercourse is much greater than through vaginal sex, previous research has shown.

"The FDA cited low risk of breakage for One Condoms, which are now approved for both anal and vaginal sex," Planned Parenthood of Southern New England said Thursday on Twitter.

The agency's decision backing the One Male Condom, announced Wednesday, may help reduce transmissions of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, officials said.

RELATED CDC: Sexually transmitted diseases increase for fourth straight year

"The FDA's authorization of a condom that is specifically indicated, evaluated and labeled for anal intercourse may improve the likelihood of condom use during anal intercourse," Courtney Lias, director of the FDA's Office of Gastro Renal, ObGyn, General Hospital and Urology Devices in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a press release.

The fitted condoms come in 54 different sizes and three different versions, with efficacy rates for anal intercourse over 99% in clinical trials, according to the FDA.

Until now, there wasn't enough data to prove that condoms are safe during anal sex.

The efficacy of One Male Condom was tested in a clinical trial including 252 men who have sex with men and 252 men who have sex with women. All participants were between the ages of 18 and 54 years old.

"While today's authorization underscores the public health importance of condoms tested and labeled specifically for anal intercourse, all other FDA-cleared condoms can continue to be used for contraception and STI prevention," the FDA said.

One Condoms on Wednesday noted, while celebrating the approval on Twitter, that it's products continue to be effective during vaginal sex, in addition to the protection they offer during anal sex.

"There have been over 300 condoms approved for use with vaginal sex data, and never before has a condom been approved based on anal sex data," lead study author Dr. Aaron Siegler said in a press release from One Condoms.

"This is despite two-thirds of HIV transmission in the United States being linked to anal sex. Having condoms tested and approved for anal sex will allow users to have confidence in using condoms to prevent HIV transmission," said Siegler, an associate professor of epidemiology at Emory University and associate director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research.

According to Planned Parenthood, the FDA is also exploring approvals for other brands that demonstrate similar reliability

Study: Suicide rate 3 times higher for people in jail than prison, general public

Feb. 24 (UPI) -- The rate of suicide is nearly three times higher among people detained in U.S. jails compared with those in prisons or in the general public, a study published Thursday indicates.

Of the 736 men and women held in a large metropolitan jail in the Midwest, 6.7% said they had threatened suicide or self-harm in jail in the previous three months and 4.5% said they attempted suicide or self-harm in jail over the past year.

Over the previous three months to one year, 8.4% said they threatened or attempted suicide or self-harm.

The attempted suicide rate in the general population, meanwhile, is 0.6%, according to the study.

In general, jails hold people who have been arrested for crimes and are either awaiting court appearances or have been sentenced to shorter imprisonments, while prisons hold convicts who have received longer prison sentences. According to the study, the average jail stay is about 23 days.

"The reality is that many more individuals attempt, contemplate or threaten suicide prior to a fatal suicide attempt in a jail setting, and self-harming behaviors may be a risk factor or precursor for more serious attempts on one's life," said Calli Cain, senior author and an assistant professor in Florida Atlantic University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Researchers said there is one death for every 80 suicide attempts at U.S. correctional facilities, and suicide is the leading cause of death within U.S. jails. Forty percent of deaths take place within seven days of the person's admission to jail.

"The high rate of suicide in our jails over the last 20 years also suggests that the conventional approach of isolating individuals such as on suicide watch who admit to or are suspected of wanting to hurt themselves is insufficient, especially since most individuals who die by suicide in jail are not on suicide watch at the time of their passing," Cain said.

The study, carried out by FAU's College of Social Work and Criminal Justice, was published in the journal Corrections.

Study authors said their findings show "very little attention" has been paid to understanding why the suicide and self-harm rate is higher among jail detainees and what factors play a role.

"Researchers have long recognized the shock and lack of control associated with circumstances and surroundings in jail such as disorientation, abrupt separation from social support and society, and the degree of degradation and interpersonal conflict that arise from being incarcerated," Cain said. "However, the extent to which these experiences culminate in a propensity for suicide and self-harm remains understudied."

Other findings from the study indicate:

-- Detainees in protective custody are seven times more likely to threaten or attempt suicide or self-harm compared with the general population.

-- First-time jail detainees are 61% more likely to threaten suicide or self-harm.

-- Men are 64% less likely than women to threaten or attempt suicide or self-harm.

-- People with substance dependence issues are two times more likely to attempt suicide or self-harm.

-- For every violent incident witnessed in jail, detainees' rate of threatening or attempting suicide or self-harm more than doubled.

-- People who were homeless prior to detention were more than twice as likely to threaten or attempt suicide or self-harm.

-- Detainees assaulted by another detainee were 2.5 times more likely to threaten suicide or self-harm.

Florida House passes bill restricting talk of sexual orientation in school

People attend the Sunday Pride Parade & Festival in Miami Beach on September 19. The Florida House on Thursday passed a bill restricting public schools discussion of gender and sexual orientation. Photo by Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/ EPA-EFE

Feb. 24 (UPI) -- The Florida House on Thursday passed a bill to regulate public school teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. Critics call it the "don't say gay" bill.

The bill now on its way to the Florida Senate bans gender and sexual orientation discussions in grades K-3 and restricts public school discussions on these topics to "age appropriate" grades.

The bill also prohibits schools from withholding information from parents bout a student's "mental, emotional or physical health."

State Rep. Joe Harding sponsored the bill. It passed with Republican support on a 69-47 vote.

RELATED Texas push to remove LGBTQ books spotlights partisanship on school boards

Harding said on the House floor that the bill is about "empowering parents."

Critics of the bill say it pits parental rights against the rights of LGBTQ students.

"This bill goes way beyond the text on its page," Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat who is gay, said on the Florida House floor. "It sends a terrible message to our youth that there is something so wrong, so inappropriate, so dangerous about this topic that we have to censor it from classroom instruction."

The Florida House on Thursday also passed HB 7 restricting education about race. Republicans called that bill "Individual Freedom."

The proposals in Florida are the latest in a string of controversial action in conservative states.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday ordered state agencies to investigate gender-affirming care for transgender children as "child abuse."

The White House said called the directive dangerous and said families should be able to seek "the appropriate healthcare for their transgender children from doctors without the threat of prosecution."

As Russia menaces Ukraine, Crimea's Tatars turn to Turkey

Complex ties stretch across centuries and continents, but Turkey's affinity for its ethnic kin is taking a backseat to global relations with Russia.

Participants gather with Ukrainian flags and flags of Crimean Tatars before riding in their cars through Kiev to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the deportation of the indigenous population of the Crimea by the Soviet Union, on May 18, 2020. 

- GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images

Amberin Zaman
TOPICS COVERED
Russia-Ukraine crisis
February 3, 2022 —

KYIV, Ukraine — Ilmi Umerov, a Crimean Tatar political leader, was lying on a hospital bed in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea in his pajamas when Russian secret service agents carted him off to the airport and put him on a plane to Ankara with fellow Crimean Tatar political detainee Ahtem Chigoz.

The dissidents were freed on Oct. 25, 2017, in exchange for a pair of Russian operatives held in a Turkish jail for their alleged role in the murders of seven Chechen dissidents between 2000 and 2015. The swap was engineered by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “He is such a sultan,” Umerov said of Turkey’s authoritarian leader, whom he met the day after his release. “I mean in a good way.”

Erdogan came together with Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelensky for three and half hours in Kyiv today offering to mediate once again between its Black Sea neighbor and the Kremlin. Speaking at a joint news conference, Erdogan stressed the importance of diplomacy in defusing the crisis between the two countries. “Rather than pouring oil on the flames, we are acting with the logic of how can we cool tensions,” he said.

The two leaders signed a long-delayed free trade agreement and another to expand production of Turkish-made drones that Ukraine used against Russian-backed forces in the Donbas for the first time last year. The plight of Crimean Tatars, who form “a historical bridge of friendship between our two countries,” had also been raised. “We continue to support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea. Common projects involving our ethnic [Crimean Tatar] kin were evaluated in detail,” Erdogan said.

As expected he received leaders of the Crimean Tatar parliament in exile, known as the Majlis, including the legendary Mustafa Jamilov.

Turkey has firmly backed Ukraine over Crimea since Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, despite fierce resistance from its indigenous Tatars. The Sunni Muslim group who speak a dialect of Turkish have been reduced to minority status following centuries of repression and mass expulsions. Turkey does not recognize the annexation and has repeatedly called for Crimea to be returned to Ukraine. It treats leaders of the Majlis, which was banned by Russia, as formal interlocutors.

“For Turkey, Crimea is Ukraine, and Crimean Tatars are citizens of our state. Thanks to Turkey, several political prisoners have been released from Russia’s illegal detention. Turkey has co-authored an array of UN General Assembly resolutions that urge Russia to get away from Ukraine’s Crimea, condemn Russia’s human rights violations in the occupied territories and call it to immediately halt and remedy them,” said the Ukrainian foreign ministry in a written response to Al-Monitor’s request for comment. The ministry added that in 2021, Turkey became one of the founding members of the Crimea Platform, devised to drum up diplomatic support for the Crimean question and that held its first summit in August last year.

The potential showdown over Ukraine is a further test of Erdogan’s trademark brinksmanship, which triggered US sanctions through his acquisition of Russian S-400 missiles and Moscow’s simmering wrath with the sales of combat drones to the Ukrainian military.

But amid the shows of solidarity, Ankara’s Crimean stance illustrates like few other the limits of Turkey’s willingness, let alone ability, to cross Russia in its own back yard.

Turkish officials argue that neutrality is what enables Ankara to pull off deals like the 2017 prisoner trade and may allow for Turkish mediation to avert conflict. The Kremlin announced that Russian president Vladimir Putin was expected to travel to Ankara on an official visit some time after the Beijing Olympics.

On Tuesday, Turkey’s defense minister, Hulusi Akar, stressed Ankara’s commitment to the 1936 Montreux Convention, which limits the passage of US and other non-Black Sea nations’ warships through the Turkish straits in and out of the Black Sea. His comments were seen as a bid to reassure Moscow that Turkey had no plans to change the rules to suit any Western military plans to counter Russia, ahead of Erdogan’s visit.
Image

Ilmi Umerov at the Majlis headquarters in Kyiv, Jan. 19, 2022 

(Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor)

Tensions over the Black Sea hark back to when the Crimean Khanate was the vassal of the Ottoman Empire, along with much of southern Ukraine. Its holdings included Odessa, the port city known as Hacibey until Russian imperial forces seized it in the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-1791, a defeat that heralded the decline and gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire, said Dymtro Bily, an Ottoman historian. Crimea had already fallen to the Russians in 1783.

“From the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca in 1774 through the end of the Cold War, the Black Sea was an important theater for Russian-Turkish rivalry. Crimea repeatedly served as a flashpoint, most famously in the Crimean War, but also with the 1914 naval raid that precipitated the Ottoman entry into World War I,” noted Nicholas Danforth, a Yale-trained historian and author of “The Remaking of Republican Turkey: Memory and Modernity since the Fall of the Ottoman Empire.”

Caution has prevailed on both sides, for the most part, ever since.

Turkey’s multi-layered ties with Russia, spanning billions of dollars in trade and a mix of adversity and collaboration in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, take precedence over Crimea’s beleaguered Tatars. That reality was driven home when Erdogan refused to join US and EU sanctions on Russia over Crimea.

“I asked Turkish leaders for three things,” recalled Jamilov, the veteran leader who was received by Erdogan today. “I asked Turkey to participate in the sanctions, to seal the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits to Russian ships and to blockade them in the Black Sea. I was told ‘No,’ that this would damage Turkey very badly.”
Image

Legendary Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Jamilov at the Majlis headquarters in Kyiv, Jan. 19, 2022 (Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor)

Refet Chubarov, the Majlis president and former lawmaker in the Ukrainian parliament who was present in those meetings, said that a high-ranking official "had a notebook and threw it on the table. He said, ‘Listen for almost 60 years we have been trying to join the EU club. We were doing everything they wanted. If we were an [EU] member you would not be here asking us to join in the sanctions.’”

He added, “If Crimea remains occupied for another five to ten years, we will be completely destroyed.”

It was Sergei Aksyonov, Crimea’s pro-Kremlin leader, who halted sea and air traffic between Turkey and the peninsula when Turkish forces shut down a Russian Sukhoi SU-24M fighter jet over Syria in November 2015. Moscow meanwhile cancelled tourist flights, banned Turkish fruit and vegetable imports and threatened to expose Turkey’s alleged ties to the Islamic State.

In October 2017, the Turkish Chamber of Shipping issued a vaguely worded circular advising local ports to refuse vessels arriving from or departing for Crimea. Yet as Istanbul-based geopolitical analyst Yoruk Isik observed, Syrian ships connected to President Bashar al Assad continue to carry construction materials from Turkish ports to Crimea and Abkhazia, and to bring back scrap metal to Turkey and wheat to Syria. Turkish authorities are turning a blind eye to the illicit trade, Isik told Al-Monitor.

Erdogan was meant to be among the star guests at the Crimean Platform’s inaugural summit last August. He dispatched his foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, instead.

Jamilov said he had sent emissaries to Ankara to persuade Erdogan to change his mind. “He didn’t,” Jamilov said during an interview at the Majlis’ headquarters at a luxury Kyiv apartment complex, all paid for by Ankara.

While pundits frenziedly second-guess Putin’s moves, Jamilov has no doubt over his intentions. “He plans to come all the way to Kyiv, and Turkey won’t get involved in this war,” he predicted between cigarette puffs. Had the famously tobacco averse Erdogan not told him to quit? “Yes, numerous times,” Jamilov acknowledged with a laugh.

The conversation conducted in Turkish is interrupted by a staccato of dog barks. It’s the ringer tone on Jamilov’s mobile. He says it reminds him of Dulber or “beautiful”, his pet alabai, a giant Central Asian shepherd breed known as the “wolf crusher” that he was forced to leave behind in Crimea when Russia muscled in. (Putin owns an alabai gifted by Turkmenistan strongman Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, called Verni which means "loyal" in Russian.)

An undated image of an Alabai (Twitter)

Jamilov is no stranger to adversity. He was six months old when Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars en masse from the peninsula in 1944. Like many Crimean Tartar activists, he spent long years in Soviet labor camps. He was among the estimated 250,000 Crimean Tatars who began returning to their native land following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

That was Turkey’s cue to rekindle kinship ties. Turkey’s then-president, the late Suleyman Demirel, pledged to build 1,000 houses for the returnees and to restore Crimea’s ruined mosques. He sent planes packed with Qurans and imams to Crimea, Azerbaijan and the former Soviet states in Central Asia in the hopes of creating a "Turkic belt" stretching all the way from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China. An estimated three million ethnic Tatars who live in Turkey cheered him on.

Historian Mehmet Kirimli, an ethnic Crimean Tatar whose ancestors fled to Turkey, said that prior to 1783, Crimea was 98 percent Tatar, and there were 1,500 mosques. By 1914, there only 750 mosques left. The Soviets, using dynamite and bulldozers, demolished much of what remained, Kirimli told Al-Monitor.

Demirel’s ambitions proved elusive, however, and successive Ukrainian governments viewed Turkey’s efforts with suspicion. Kyiv’s attitude changed after losing Crimea, but it’s too late for Turkey to do anything inside Crimea.

Russia expelled staff of Turkey’s state-run Religious Affairs Directorate, the Diyanet, and retained a loyalist as the peninsula’s mufti. The Majlis appointed its own man, Ayder Rustamov, in a countermove.

In the Donbas, home to the majority of Ukraine’s estimated 400,000 Muslims, pro-Russian separatists have followed the Kremlin’s lead. “In 2018, they closed down our mosque and put our imam under house arrest,” said Said Ismagilov, former imam of the Donetsk mosque in the Donbas, who now leads the Muslim Brotherhood leaning Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine, also known as the “Ummah.”
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Mufti of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine Said Ismagilov, Kyiv, Jan. 18, 2022 (Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor)

In the rest of Ukraine, Turkey is quietly expanding its religious footprint, and Ukrainian authorities don’t seem to mind. Ukraine’s richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, recently donated land for the Turkish government to build a mosque behind the glitzy Ocean City shopping mall in Kyiv with the full blessing of the city’s mayor, former boxing champion, Vitaly Klitschko.

Turkey is also financing the construction of 500 houses for some 20,000 Crimean Tatars who fled the peninsula in 2014, scoring political points with its own Tatars and creating further business opportunities for Turkish contractors. The bulk will be built in the Gherson region adjacent to Crimea “because Zelensky wants the Crimean Tatars to see them,” Jamilov explained. He would prefer they be built in Kyiv, where his compatriots can make a better living, but Zelenksy, citing the lack of cheap land in Kyiv, has granted permission for only 100 to be built in the capital.

“Erdogan is popular among the Muslims here. The Diyanet sends imams and translations of the Quran but most of the help goes through the [Crimean Tatar] Majlis,” Ismagilov said.

Rustamov confirmed this. “Allah be praised the biggest help came to us from the Turkish state,” he told Al-Monitor.

Ozturk Aydin, a Turkish entrepreneur who moved to Kyiv in 2013, sells halal meat to restaurants serving the city’s 50,000 Muslims, including some 10,000 fellow Turks and Muslim students from across the Arab world. Aydin is better known for his yogurt and watery yogurt drink, ayran, which now lines shelves in the country’s top supermarkets.

Aydin insisted that Turkey’s image “is better here than America’s” in an interview in Kyiv’s historic Podil district, where he runs a small shop stocked with Turkish goods.

Aydin's shop in Kyiv, Jan. 20, 2022. (Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor)

But Crimean Tatar leaders are aware that the support of the United States remains critical in any confrontation with Russia. “If it were not for the United States we would still be under Soviet occupation,” Jamilov said. “America is our biggest guarantor.”

Turkey’s battered ties with Washington, primarily because of Erdogan’s refusal to give up the S-400s, is therefore an abiding source of concern. “From our point of view, Turkey is a NATO member and the United States is at the core of it. So it’s not smart to have bad relations,” Chubarov said.

“The tensions between Turkey and America are having a negative impact on us,” Jamilev concurred. “We, the Crimean Tatars, feel squeezed in the middle.”