"Gold of Troy" in Russia
hq.ggg
-Envoys meet to discuss growing Kurdish autonomy in Iraq
-``Gold of Troy,'' missing since 1945, turns up in Russia
Subject: Bulgaria and Kazakhstan step up relations
SOFIA, Bulgaria (UPI) -- Kazakhstan and Bulgaria agreed Wednesday to
improve their trade links in a bid to overcome the economic hardships
they both are suffering as they attempt to create market economies.
``We are both having a hard time now, but it will be easier if we are
together,'' Prime Minister Sergei Tereshcenko said during a one-day
visit, part of a lightning tour of European capitals designed to secure
new contacts for the central Asian republic.
Bulgaria regards Kazakhstan as a key trading partner, Prime Minister
Luben Berov said. Kazakhstan has vast reserves of natural resources
including oil and iron ore, cotton, wool and agricultural products, .
Berov added Kazakhstan was interested in Bulgarian foodstuffs,
industrial equipment, chemical products and its experience in the
tourism industry.
Government spokesman Raicho Raikov said that Bulgaria -- which has to
import virtually all its oil and gas from Russia -- is hoping to secure
alternative supplies of oil in Kazakhstan.
Raikov said Kazakhstan extracts 26 million tons of crude oil annually
but is able to process only 16 million tons.
The Bulgarian premier added the two countries would create joint
ventures in the light industry, machine building and medical equipment
sectors.
Although Bulgaria and Kazakhstan only established diplomatic
relations last year the two premiers also agreed to sign a friendship
and cooperation treaty in May.
=========================================================================
Subject: ``Gold of Troy,'' missing since 1945, turns up in Russia
BERLIN (UPI) -- The ``Gold of Troy'' -- a 4,000-year-old collection of
priceless art treasures from the embattled city of Homer's ``Iliad''
that vanished during World War II -- is being held in Russian vaults,
German and Russian art officials disclosed Wednesday.
But it was unclear if the gold would be returned to Germany or if
Turkey would lay claim to it. The 8,000 art objects were unearthed in
Turkey in 1873 by Heinrich Schliemann in one of the greatest
archaeological finds in history and taken to his native Germany.
The Gold of Troy had been housed at Berlin's Museum of Pre- and Early
History. As Soviet forces closed in on the Nazi capital in 1945, Germany
hid the collection in an anti-aircraft bunker near the Berlin Zoo train
station.
The trove disappeared after Berlin fell to the Red Army. There has
since been speculation that either the Soviets had stolen it or that
Germans had hidden it again.
The mystery of its whereabouts was resolved in Dresden when German
and Russian art officials emerged from the first bilateral negotiations
on the return of art works stolen during the war. Berlin Culture Senator
Ulrich Roloff-Momin announced that the Gold of Troy had been stored in
vaults outside Moscow.
Carlos A. Picon, curator of classic art at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York, described the collection as ``the most spectacular find
of its kind ever recorded.''
Picon said it would be ``sensational'' to view the objects after so
many years. ``I certainly hope for a constructive resolution to this
situation so that the Gold of Troy can go on exhibit again,'' he said.
Schliemann, a pioneer of modern archaeology, found the treasure in
1873 during his excavation of the ancient city of Ilium, or Troy, site
of the storied Trojan War in what is now northwestern Turkey.
According to the ancient Greek epic poem ``The Iliad,'' attributed to
Homer, the war was started when the Trojan prince Paris ran off with
Helen, the wife of Sparta's king, Menelaus, and took her home to Troy.
After a 10-year siege, the impregnable city fell to a ruse now known as
the Trojan Horse.
Schliemann, determined to establish a historical basis for Homer's
work, succeeded in finding Troy, but in his excavations dug far too deep
into the the site and passed the stratum from about 1,000 B.C. -- the
Homeric era -- destroying it in the process.
But the treasures he brought out, dated to the late third millenium
B.C., are priceless in terms of their esthetic and historical value, and
have been given a monetary value estimated at $1 billion.
The most spectacular part of the 8,000 objects is a diadem or
headdress made of 16,353 pieces of gold. The collection also includes
bracelets, necklaces rings, cups and jugs all made of pure gold.
German Interior Minister Rudolf Seiters, who attended the German-
Russian talks in Dresden, said Russian Culture Minister Yevgeni Sidorov
promised to publish an inventory of the collection in six to eight
weeks, and added, ``I am surprised at how quickly both sides agreed to
form a commission to surpervise the return of art treasures.''
But Sidorov has previously warned that returning any art treasures to
Germany would be difficult. ``The Germans destroyed a great deal of
things in the former Soviet Union which they cannot give us back,'' he
commented.
A similar sentiment was echoed by the Berlin tabloid BZ, which said
Germans should should not consider themselves innocent victims of the
theft or destruction of art in World War II. ``Some 4.5 million books
were reportedly looted from Russian libraries by (German troops) and
used to pave mud-filled roads,'' it said.
Under agreements linked to the Oct. 3, 1990, German unification,
Germany and the former Soviet Union agreed to exchange any displaced art
works. Before then, the official Soviet position had been that all art
removed from Germany at the end of the war had been handed over to the
former East Germany during the 1950s.
The Gold of Troy is just one of many valuable German art collections
missing from Germany since 1945. Hundreds of paintings from museums
throughout the nation disappeared in 1945 and are reportedly in Russia,
including works by Peter Paul Rubens and Lucas Cranach the Elder.
=========================================================================
Subject: Envoys meet to discuss growing Kurdish autonomy in Iraq
BEIRUT, Lebanon (UPI) -- Foreign ministers from Syria, Turkey and Iran
met Wednesday in Damascus to discuss how to halt possible attempts by
Kurds to carve out an independent state in northern Iraq, Damascus Radio
said.
The meeting, the second in three months, focused on the threat posed
by Kurdish groups in each of their countries, Damascus radio said in a
report monitored in Beirut. Some 10 million Kurds live in territory
divided among the four countries.
Although Turkey, Syria and Iran are at odds with the Iraqi government
of Saddam Hussein, all fear any attempt by the Iraqi Kurds to establish
an independent state in northern Iraq would be followed by similar moves
by Kurds in Syria, Turkey and Iran.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA said foreign ministers Farouk
Sharaa of Syria, Hikmet Citen of Turkey and Ali Akbar Velayati of Iran
were to ``discuss a plan for Iraq'' previously worked out by the three
countries, but the agency did not elaborate on the details of the
scheme.
Citen, arriving at the Damascus airport, told reporters that Turkey
did not want Iraq partitioned ``because it will add another problem to
our problems in the region.''
``Our talks will focus on all developments in the region and we will
exchange points of view regarding this particular issue,'' Citen said of
possible aid to the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq and the Shiite
Muslim minority in southern Iraq. Both minorities have come under
military pressure from the Iraqi government.
Two Iraqi Kurd leaders, in an interview with the Arabic service of
the British Broadcasting Corp., said they were not seeking an
independent state.
Kurd leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani said they appealed to
the three foreign ministers before the meeting to refrain from forming
an alliance against the Kurdish government in northern Iraq.
Although the meeting was to focus on northern Iraq, the ministers
also were scheduled to discuss bilateral differences, particularly
border security problems between Turkey and Iran and between Turkey and
Syria.
Turkish-Iranian ties deteriorated after Ankara accused Tehran of
supporting and training Islamic extremists involved in a wave of
killings, the latest being the Jan. 24 assassination of prominant
Turkish journalist Ugur Mumcu.
Syrian-Turkish ties also are strained by squabbling over water from
the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
_
|-| /-\ |_ |_| |<