The New Pact

[Clarenthia]

Supreme Chancellor Karimi was walking down a hall with President Nadarejshvili. Karimi thought it odd that Nadarejshvili would even participate in the talks considering his announcement. As soon as he announced it, he had become invisible to the General Assembly – which was already turning its back on him. Still, Nadarejshvili is perhaps the most valued statesmen the country has, so it was appropriate for him to end his career with this meeting, which if successful, would revolutionize the relationship between Jurzan and Carentania.

The two turned a corner and were standing in front of the meeting room. On each side of the doors stood a Carentanian and Jurzani Flag. The two men walked through the doors which were opened by guards. Inside, there was a large round table. The chairs had small engraved flags on the back and the name of the delegate under the flag. The room was large and on the opposite side of the doors was a large window that gave an excellent view of Sharjah’s business district, which had gone from being nothing to a miracle of the nation. Without a doubt, Sharjah was one of the proudest accomplishments of the Adrari Socialists.

In the room was Foreign Affairs Minister Hakim Tohki, two representatives from the General Assembly(one of them being Ayran Khalilzad), General Ashraf Arman Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Naghma Amin who is the current director of the Northern Development Committee, and Sikandar Tarzi who is the Director of the Board of Infrastructure.

Supreme Chancellor Karimi soon left the meeting and headed to Sharjah International Airport to meet the Carentanian Delegation.

 

[Socialist Commonwealth]

Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Dusan Mejic, had a busy schedule. The recent days had been rather tiresome, with unprecedented importance of the Workers' Republic on the global stage meaning an unprecedented workload for the Commissar. Inbetween the many diplomatic issues that had to be adressed and the many conferences he had to attend, he barely found any time for his family. But he was aware of the importance of the visit to the Jurzan. Not just symbolically to reinforce the deep friendship between the neighbourstates, but also rather practical, as Carentania hoped to adress numerous issues and benefit from the cooperation with the Jurzan. Still, during the flight to Sharjah, Commissar Mejic found his mind drifting away from the issues at hand repeatedly to ask himself how much longer he would put up with this position. How much longer would he still stand for election?

"Let me assure you that, no matter how close our countries are, Mr. Karimi, I always feel honored to be invited to the Jurzan. At every visit I make, I can not do else but to notice the enormous progress the Jurzan has made since my last visit and it fills me with optimism as to the future of your people. Ever since they freed themselves from the shackles of oppression, the Jurzani people have become our brothers in spirit. It is a wonderful country and a wonderful people that have chosen you to guide them, Mr. Karimi."

The warm words would later be repeated in a press release. Carentania wanted to emphasize once again the close partnership with the Jurzan - too important was the Jurzan for Carentania in terms of economy and defense.

"Mr. Karimi, we have a tight schedule and though I do appreciate the marvelous sights of your country and its capital, I hope we can let them wait until later and focus on our work first. Carentania wishes to adress matters of mutual defense and the modernization and expansion of the Jurzani military. In light of that, we will offer you the sale of weapons that Carentania had previously maintained for its own forces only. We furthermore wish to adress several political reforms that will allow our countries to grow closer and we wish to adress economic partnership, especially in the field of energy production. Your own nuclear ambitions have become a topic for large parts of Carentanias population and we will wish to adress that.

So let us start with the most important issue at hand: security. Talemantros is as much a threat as it had been during the Jurzani revolution, its own war against Altai proves as much. In light of this, the Workers' Republic places full support behind the modernization and expansion of the Jurzani armed forces and we hope to aid the Jurzan in protecting its borders. The Jurzan, in face of its much smaller population when compared to the Talemantines, will need a modern, flexible and highly mobile force with great firepower. Jurzani forces must be able to strike hard and fast against a considerably larger foe. This, I believe, is our goal and we have to ask ourselves now: how can Carentania aid this goal?

Well, let me say that the fundamentals of this could not be better. The Jurzan is reeking in considerable profits with its oil industry, Carentania and the Jurzan are part of the same alliance and Carentania is itself not endangered in any of its own borders. I propose that we utilize the synergy effects of our partnership and have Jurzan transfer the protection of its tiny coastline as well as its trade routes to the Workers' Republic of Carentania. Carentania itself will need to expand its maritime prowess in the near future for various reasons and it could easily take over the protection of Jurzans own trade fleet and coastal waters. Not needing to maintain a Navy, the Jurzan could focus on building a powerful ground force to strike the Talemantines with should they show willing to initiate conflict.

Furthermore, Carentania of course hopes to maintain its training of Jurzani officers and, as the Jurzani military now begins to produce its own military professionals able to teach new recruits and younger officers, transform it into a consistent partnership in form of an officer exchange programm. We have transferred a proposal for such a programm on a RDTO wide scale and I believe it best to integrate the Jurzani officer training programm into this exchange as it becomes obsolte in the near future. The massive increase in size of the Jurzani military of course means that the need for Carentanian trainers may persist a bit longer than initially anticipated. Should this be the case consider the programm to be extended and expanded whenever the need arises. The Workers' Republic will help the Jurzani military whenever necessary to prevent a delay in training of the new recruits.

As I mentioned, Carentania is willing to make an agreement on weapons sale of a size our Republic has not seen yet. Carentania is willing to sell you armored trucks, infantry fighting vehicles, main battle tanks, multirole fighters and helicopters, which will allow you to quickly build up a properly mechanized ground force. Furthermore, we are willing to aid you in building up production capacities at several key location throughout the Jurzan to produce both license built Jurzani versions of the AV-4 assault rifle, currently in use by the Carentanian military itself, as well as ammunition for it."

 

[Clarenthia]

Karimi smiled as he and the Carentanian Delegation returned to the location of the meeting place, once everyone was seated and situated, Karimi opened the discussion.

“It brings me great honor that our nations can meet here today on equal grounds to establish how we, together, can create a better world for our children to grow up in. We have a heavy responsibility, being the Representatives of an entire people, but it is a burden I am sure we are all glad to bear, so let us begin,” Karimi sat back down and looked to General Ashraf Arman, the General cleared his throat.

“As I am sure everyone here is aware, the recent victory in Altai for Talemantros will likely give them and their people the redemption they needed from their defeat here. Their morale is high again, I think it is only a matter of time before they make their move against us. An entire subdivision of our War Ministry has been tasked with developing response plans for every conceivable attack Talemantros can make,” the General said, sliding a vanilla folder to the Carentanians. “I won’t bore you with details on it, feel free to look at what you want. As you know, our oil for guns deal has proven to be successful. Our main goal is to fight a defensive operation. Particularly, we want to defend our oil stocks. Our oil facilities are heavily armed, secretly of course, and our stockpile is largely underground, however, a strike on our stockpile would be devastating to the economy of our country. So, the first thing we need is effective anti-air weaponry. We have radar systems coming in, we’re happy to have those, however, now we need the fire power. The offer Carentania has made is whole fully agreed upon. We’ll take whatever you offer. Especially interesting to us is the transfer of naval protection. We could save billions only putting together a coastal fleet. The War Ministry greatly approves this and we hope the Supreme Chancellor does too. As for what else Carentania can do, I feel your offer is more than we expected and we couldn’t be happier. The oil for guns program will be announced shortly, with all the new equipment coming in, the Jurzani Military will be a significantly greater fighting force.”

Karimi nodded “I agree with the General. From here on out, the Carentanian Navy is responsible for protecting Jurzani vessels.”

“We are also excited for the program of officer training. I feel greater cooperation between RDTO members will lead to a greater defense amongst us,” Arman said “which is why I propose that Carentanian and Jurzani Intelligence Agencies be combined. We both have common enemies and common goals; it’s useless to have two organizations doing practically the same thing. Our countries should continuously engage in information sharing.”

 

[Socialist Commonwealth]

"I am afraid that recent events in your country force me to abort these talks early and return home, until my governments stance on your recent coup d'etat can be determined. Please direct me and my delegation to my plane."