The JFK Assassination Marked the End of the American Republic

August 20, 2013 By administrator

Interview with Martin Broeckers, author of JFK: Coup d’Etat in America“

On occasion of the publication of his latest book, German author Mathias Broeckers talks about the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, which he sees as a coup d’etat that was never rolled back.

Mathias Broeckers, born 1954, is a German investigative journalist and the author of more than ten books, most of them related to the topics of drugs, terrorism and deep politics. He works for the daily German newspaper TAZ and the webzine Telepolis. His latest book, “JFK: Staatsstreich in Amerika” (“JFK: Coup d’Etat in America“), was published this August at Westend Verlag in Frankfurt, Germany.

Lars Schall: Mr. Broeckers, a writer who authors a book about the assassination of John F. Kennedy that does not follow the verdict of official history faces the problem of being condemned on an instant basis as a “conspiracy theorist” who engages in “conspiracy theories.” May I ask you at the beginning of this interview to explain to our readers that those critics – consciously or unconsciously – are acting exactly according to the “playbook” of the CIA?

Mathias Broeckers: In January 1967, shortly after Jim Garrison in New Orleans had started his prosecution of the CIA backgrounds of the murder, the CIA published a memo to all its stations, suggesting the use of the term “conspiracy theorists” for everyone criticizing the Warren Report findings. Until then the press and the public mostly used the term “assassination theories” when it came to alternative views of the “lone nut” Lee Harvey Oswald. But with this memo this changed and very soon “conspiracy theories” became what it is until today: a term to smear, denounce and defame anyone who dares to speak about any crime committed by the state, military or intelligence services. Before Edward Snowden anyone claiming a kind of total surveillance of internet and phone traffic would have been named a conspiracy nut; today everyone knows better.

LS: What do you see as the prime motive(s) to get Kennedy killed?

MB: To make a long story, which I elaborate in the book, short: JFK had made definitive steps to end the cold war. He had denied the involvement of the army in the Bay of Pigs invasion, which he had inherited from his predecessor, he had solved the missile crisis in Cuba through direct and secret contact with the Soviet-leader Khrushchev, he had ensured a nuclear test-stop with the Soviets, and he had ordered the withdrawal from Vietnam. All this against the will of the military, the CIA, and even against many members of his own administration.

LS: If one looks at the crime from the perspective of “motive, means, opportunity,” which groups are the most likely culprits? Some of the usual suspects may have had a motive, but neither the means nor the opportunity, right?

MB: Yes. This is a crucial point with many JFK theories. A lot of people had motives, be it the hardcore commies in Russia, China, Cuba, be it the Israelis because of JFKs dismissal of nukes in Israel, be it the Federal Reserve because of his idea for a new US dollar backed by silver, the mob because of his dismissal to invade Cuba to get their casinos and brothels back, the racist Southerners because of his engagement for civil rights… but no one of them had the means and opportunity for the murder and above all the means to cover it up over the years.

LS: Which party had the necessary components of “means and opportunity” available?

MB: Only the CIA and the military – and the FBI and the Johnson administration for the cover-up. A moment after the shootings, a policeman ran up to the grassy knoll, his gun pulled out, and stopped a man there, asking for his ID. The man showed a Secret Service card and the cop let him go. Several other men on Dealey Plaza also showed genuine looking Secret Service IDs when asked by cops – but there were no real Secret Service men placed on the knoll and the plaza this day.

These IDs were fakes but the FBI and the Warren Commission didn’t investigate this at all. Only in the 80s it came out who was responsible for the printing of Secret Service IDs and passes at that time: it was the CIAs Technical Division, headed by Sydney Gottlieb of “MK Ultra” fame. This fact alone rules out that the mob or the Russians, Cubans, Chinese or some other autonomous killers did this on their own bill. And even if these groups would have been able to fake genuine looking Secret Service IDs – the fact that this deception was not investigated, immediately brings Hoover’s FBI into a top-position of suspects.

LS: One crucial point regarding the cover up of the crime is the false autopsy report – also in connection to “means and opportunity”. Please elaborate.

MB: The ARRB (Assassination Records Review Board) established beyond any doubt that the autopsy and x-rays, which are in the National Archives, were doctored. No mobster, bankster or Cuban would have been able to do this. These fakes were done at the Bethseda military hospital, where JFKs autopsy was supervised by Curtis LeMay, the Joint Air Force Chíef and one of JFKs keenest enemies. He was at a fishing vacation when the Dallas shooting happened and flew to Washington immediately – not for any military emergency but to sit in the autopsy room – and smoking a cigar! The faked pictures and x-rays, which were presented to every investigator since then, are a main reason why the crazy magic bullet theory could hold for so long. Only the military, where these pics and x-rays were taken, was able to arrange these fakes and place them in the archives.

LS: Another important point is the tempering with the so called “Zapruder film”. Why so?

MB: Also thanks to the ARRB there is a lot of evidence that the film was tempered with on the day after the assassination. However, even the existing “original” seems to show clearly a shot from the front, the grassy knoll – so the fake wasn’t perfect. That the Warren Commission was shown only a bad black/white copy indicates that the perpetrators were aware of that. That the Zapruder film was bought by the Time/Life publishers – and kept secret to the public for years; as the Nix-film bought by UPI and disappeared – indicates the guiltiness of the media in the cover-up.

LS: Coming back to the CIA, do you think that the CIA had separated itself from governmental oversight during the 1950s and 1960s, or would it be more correct to suggest that the Agency actually was a ploy of financial interests from the outset? Or more bluntly spoken: was democratic oversight ever intended?

MB: In general, democracy and intelligence services are antagonists; democracy depends on transparency and intelligence services on the opposite. So the democratic / congressional / governmental oversight is always a quite rotten compromise. The CIA’s camouflage from the beginning was that it is a service to gather intelligence – and centralize the intelligence gathering of the different other services – to keep the president informed. The main job of the CIA were and are covert operations, and because such operations depend on “plausible deniability,” it was usual from the beginning to inform the president – if at all – only minimally. Since the CIA’s “father” Allen Dulles was a Wall Street lawyer and his brother John Foster ran the foreign policy, covert operations were a family business done by the Dulles-Brothers and their clients on Wall Street. This is what JFK tried to finish and what marked him to death.

LS: You´re citing investigative journalist Joseph Trento, saying about former CIA director Allen Dulles: “Dulles had decided not to leave the future of the Agency to Congress or the President.” What made Dulles powerful enough to risk such a decision?

MB: Dulles’ clients were bankers and big corporations, who were in big business with Nazi-Germany in the 30s and even during the war. Some of them, like Prescott Bush – George W.’s grandfather – were indicted for “dealing with the enemy”, and Allen Dulles, head of the OSS in Switzerland during the war, arranged a lot of these dealings. He arranged the secret integration of Nazi spy chief Reinhard Gehlen and some hundreds of his SS officers into the US army and the building-up of the CIA apparatus. Between 1945 when the OSS was dismantled and 1947 when the CIA was founded he did this privately – without any official position – from his office at the “Council on Foreign Relations.”

LS: Would it have been more appropriate if Dulles would have been interrogated with regard to Kennedy’s death, instead of having been the mastermind behind the Warren Commission?

MB: It’s a perfect irony, or better: huge cynism, by the puppet of Texas-oilmen, Lyndon B. Johnson, to have Dulles masterminding the Commission. But since it worked out so well they tried it again, this time unsuccessful, to have “Bloody Henry” Kissinger masterminding the 9/11 Commission. In my opinion Dulles is one of the main suspects in the Kennedy murder and should have been persecuted immediately.

LS: How did both the CIA and the FBI mislead the Warren Commission in various ways?

MB: The result of the Commission was clear from the beginning, the Commission didn’t do any investigations at all, and it depended on the data given by the FBI. Hoover knew about the many fingerprints of the CIA in the case, he knew that they had brought up fake evidence of Oswald’s visits in Mexico to blame him as a communist – and concluded only two days after the shooting that there was only the lone shooter LHO.

Hoover hated the Kennedys, especially his boss Robert F Kennedy, and was the main evildoer in the framing of Oswald and the cover-up of the case. The CIA arranged the false evidence for what Peter Dale Scott (“Deep Politics and the Death of JFK”) called Phase 1 of the cover-up – the “communist”-connection, which enabled Johnson – screaming of the dangers of a nuclear war – to press the commission members to take part, and to make sure Phase 2 of the cover-up and the result of their pseudo-investigation: the deranged lone nut Oswald.

LS: One usual suspect in the “JFK conspiracy literature” is the mob. In your book you’re writing that it doesn’t always make sense to distinguish between organized crime and the CIA. How did you come to this conclusion?

MB: From the “Luciano Project” in 1943 – the help of the imprisoned mob-boss Lucky Luciano with the invasion of Sicily – the mob became the tool of choice for covert CIA-operations and generating black money from the drug business. Where ever the US-military set their boots in or the CIA is doing “regime changes,” drug money is essential for financing these operations, from South East Asia in the 60s till today in Afghanistan. And since Langley can’t sell the stuff directly over their counter, they need the mobsters to do this – and get its share to finance warlords / freedom fighters / terrorists…

LS: May I ask you to talk a bit in that regard about Permindex (Permanent Industrial Exposition), please?

MB: Permindex was a front-company for CIA, MI-6 and Mossad and a straw for their money-laundering and weapons-business. They worked together with Meyer Lansky’s bank in Switzerland, which was run by Tibor Rosenbaum, who did most of the weapons-business of the Mossad.

LS: Was Jim Garrison in general heading into the right direction?

MB: He was, because Clay Shaw, the owner of the New Orleans International Trade Mart and one of the directors of Permindex, was clearly working with the CIA. That’s why Garrison’s case was sabotaged by the Washington Establishment right from the beginning.

LS: Why is it remarkable that CIA had a 201 file on Lee Harvey Oswald?

MB: John Newman (“Oswald and the CIA”) has done remarkable research on how the CIA manipulated its files on Oswald and faked a 201 personal file to present it to the Warren Commission, showing that they had virtually nothing on him before 1962. This is clearly impossible after Oswald’s defection to the USSR in 1959. The most likely cause for this manipulation is that Oswald was part of the false defector program headed by JJ Angelton, the counterintelligence chief.

LS: You are arguing if Lee Harvey Oswald would have been indeed solely responsible for Kennedy’s death that the case would have been solved beyond a reasonable doubt. Why so?

MB: From all crimes, murder is the one with the most cases solved by courts. There would have been no need for all the cover-ups since 50 years, if LHO indeed was a lone nut.

LS: Moreover, you’re arguing that Oswald would have been acquitted of the charge of having killed Kennedy, if he would have survived. Why so?

MB: Even Gerald Posener, the author of “Case Closed” – the apology of the Warren Commission’s findings -, meanwhile is saying that. There is no hard evidence that Oswald was on the 5th floor when the shooting took place; there is no evidence that the “Mannlicher”-gun, that he had mail-ordered, was fired that day; there is no hard evidence that he killed Officer Tippit, because witnesses saw two men shooting at him… and so on. Oswald would have left the court room as a free man.

LS: Why was it necessary that Jack Ruby killed Oswald? And furthermore, did they know each other?

MB: They knew each other well, and since Oswald was an asset of FBI and CIA, he had to be silenced before he could talk.

LS: There was not just one plot to kill Kennedy in Dallas, but there was at least one more planned for a visit of Kennedy to Chicago, right?

MB: Yes, there was a plot planned in Chicago with clear parallels to what happened in Dallas – with an ex-Marine as the prepared patsy, who got a job on a high rise building on the route that the motorcade was planned to take some weeks before, and who had trained with exile-Cubans like Oswald. By chance the sharp-shooters were detected by an hotelier and the Chicago visit was cancelled.

LS: Why did JFK die on November 22, 1963?

MB: JFK had made a radical change while president, from a classic cold warrior to a policy of reconciliation and peace. He had made angry enemies in the military and the CIA and when he announced to end the cold war in his speech on June 10th 1963 he finally was marked to death.

LS: Can you tell us something about the role of the Secret Service and the U.S. military in the assassination?

MB: The Secret Service men were mostly Southerners, who deeply dismissed JFKs civil rights politics. They did a very lax security in Dallas and there is a probability that some of these men were sweetened to do so. The memories of Abraham Bolden, the first Afro-American brought to the Secret Service by JFK in 1961, tells that when he tried to contact the Warren Commission to talk about the supremacist, racist attitude of his colleagues, he was indicted by corrupted false witnesses and brought to prison.

The military played a crucial role in the false autopsy & x-ray-pictures made at the Bethseda hospital in Washington DC and the testimony of the doctors. General Curtis LeMay, Joint Chief of the Air Force and one of the harshest opponents of JFKs peace politics, was present in the autopsy room in Bethseda, smoking a cigar! I think his presence was not by chance.

The military intelligence also played a crucial role in Dallas – the first interviews of Marina Oswald was not by Dallas Police but by officers of the military intelligence, which also arranged a dubious translator for her testimonies, which helped to frame Oswald in the first place.

LS: Where did the funding for the coup come from?

MB: The Texas oilmen and billionaires H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison are the most probable financiers, even if there is no hard evidence for it. They paid for the ad in the Dallas paper the day before the visit, naming Kennedy a communist and a traitor. They hated JFK to the bones and they had LBJ in their pocket, their insurance that everything would be covered up properly.

LS: How many people lost their lives over the years related to the Kennedy assassination?

MB: A well-researched new book by Richard Belzer (“Hit List”) lists 1.400 persons with a connection to the murder and in the first three years after the assassination 33 of them came to death on unnatural causes. The probability that this happened by chance is 1: 137 billion.

LS: Was it basically the right-wing / fascist and racist mindset in the U.S. that won the coup d’etat on November 22, 1963?

MB: Yes. And in Dallas, Texas these right-wing fascists, who called themselves “patriots,” had a home game.

LS: What would the history of the “Cold War” have been if the nuclear arms race had ended in Kennedy’s second term? Would the Berlin Wall have come down sooner?

MB: After the nuclear test stop, JFK announced to his confidants that he would go to Moscow after the re-election to negotiate a peace treaty. In public he had already announced to stop the arms race in order to end the cold war. In a National Action Security Memorandum he had called for a co-operation with the Russians in space. After the exchange of secret letters with Khrushchev, which ended the missile crisis, he was on good terms with the Soviet leader, who in the Kremlin also had called for disarmament. The death of JFK encouraged the Soviet hardliners to get rid of him. With Kennedy alive, Khrushchev would have stood in power and the cold war could have been ended in the 60s.

LS: Why does the death of JFK still matter?

MB: It’s the most important crime in the second half of the 20th century, it is still unsolved and it marked in a way the end of the American Republic. Since then the financial-military-industrial complex rules and no president after JFK had the balls to challenge that. There is, in the words of Gore Vidal, “a one-party-system with two right-wings”; there are corporate media brainwashing the population 24/7 and propagating wars for global imperial dominance; there are covert operations all over the world to ensure this dominance – and this will go on and on as long the truth about the covert operation, the coup d’ état, against JFKs presidency is kept hidden.

LS: Thank you very much for taking your time, Mr. Broeckers!

Source: globalresearch.ca

‘‘The New Times’’: Moscow saved Ilham Aliyev from imminent crash in 2005 now PR move in support of Ilham Aliyev, next elections of October 9.

August 20, 2013 By administrator

Vladimir Putin’s visit to Baku was more like a PR move in support of Ilham Aliyev, who hopes to become the head of Azerbaijan for the third time after the elections of October 9. The move had a specific price: shares in Caspian gas fields and new arms contracts, writes the Russian publication of The New Times.

“Putin left with practically nothing, in the meantime, having showed an important pre-election support to Ilham Aliyev due to a mere visit. The Azerbaijani opposition is, in its turn, confused with the united candidate. But does that mean there is nothing and nobody for Aliyev to fear? Hardly so. Azerbaijani governing elite is about to split,” – writes the publication and notes that observers have recorded a growing influence of the Pashayev clan right after Ilham Aliyev came to power in 2003.

The New Times writes that many where sure then that the clash between the new elite and the army of Heydar Aliyev’s old supporters is inevitable. Right after the presidential elections in 2008, based on the anonymous data of The New Times, which stands close to the Azerbaijani government, Pashayevs wanted Ilham Aliyev to limit himself with two terms as stated in Azerbaijani Constitution. But they didn’t succeed; there was a referendum lifting the limit of terms in Azerbaijan in March of 2009. The ruling party “New Azerbaijan;” Ilham Aliyev was nominated at the convention.

The publication notes that “Ilham Alliyev probably remembers how Moscow saved him from an imminent crash.” “It was before the parliamentary elections of Azerbaijan in November 2005. The success of “colorful revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and Kirgizstan, as well as the murder of the editor in chief of “Monitor” magazine Elmar Huseynov, known for its sharp attacks against Azerbaijani authorities, made thousands of opposition-oriented citizens come out to the streets. There were clashes with the police in the center of Baku,” writes the article.

However, two weeks before the elections Moscow sent reinforcement to Azerbaijani authorities, more specifically, they sent the director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Levedev. The day after the elections on November 7 security forces easily handled the seated opposition protest.

Baku sources of The New Times insist that Kremlin was trying to replay the Abkhazian scenario in Azerbaijan and create a tandem, together with the controllability of one of the participants. Relations between Baku and Moscow started to deteriorate. However, the real crisis broke out in June 2010, when Belarus owed $187 million to “Gasprom,” Moscow refused to give deferral, writes the publication. Then, in response to Aleksander Lukashenko’s request Ilham Aliyev gave a $200 loan to Belarus.

“In summer of 2012 Baku made its own move: awaiting the end of the lease term of Gabala Radar Station, Azerbaijani authorities raised the rent price of the Radar Station from $7 million to $300 million. Russian military left the base,” reads the article.

Furthermore, according to the publication, the disputes between the Union of Azerbaijani Organizations of Russia (UAOR) and the All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress, fully under control of Baku, followed.

The additional intrigue, according to the publication, was introduced by the screenwriter residing in Russia, Rustam Ibrahimbekov, who decided to nominate himself as a presidential candidate against Ilham Aliyev.

Source: Panorama.am

Erdoğan says Israel behind coup in Egypt, has evidence

August 20, 2013 By administrator

20 August 2013 /TODAYSZAMAN.COM, İSTANBUL

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stated that Israel was behind the military coup that ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, in early July, adding that the Turkish government has evidence to prove the Israeli hand in it.

“Israel is behind the coup in Egypt. We have evidence,” Erdoğan told members of his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) at a meeting in Ankara on Tuesday.

With regards to his evidence, Erdoğan noted a French intellectual, without mentioning his name, who, according to Erdoğan, said at a 2011 meeting in France that the Muslim Brotherhood would never be in power even if elected because “democracy is not the ballot box.” Erdoğan stressed the Jewish identity of the French intellectual.

“If we stay silent in the face of the coup in Egypt, we will not have the right to say something if they set the same trap for us in the future,” said Erdoğan.

The Israeli Consulate in İstanbul released a statement on Tuesday, quoting Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor’s comments on Erdoğan’s remarks regarding Israel. Palmor reportedly said, “This is one of those statements that is well worth not commenting on.”

The Turkish prime minister also stepped up his criticisms of Muslim countries, saying: “The Islamic world is like the brothers of the Prophet Yusuf, who threw him down the well. As in the case of the brothers of the Prophet Yusuf, Allah will shame those in the Islamic world betraying their brothers and sisters in Egypt.”

Although Erdoğan did not name specific states that supported the coup in Egypt, he noted that there are rich people in the Islamic world as well as poor, and it is those rich people of the Islamic world who supports the dictators.

“The situation of the African Muslim countries is obvious. Which of them did you help or support?” asked Erdoğan, who had previously underlined that some foreign countries that did not financially support the Morsi government during his one-year presidency have now pledged to provide $16 billion to the coup regime in Egypt.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait gave a total of $12 billion to Egypt following the recent struggles in the country.

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ criticized the Gulf countries, saying that they are supporting the coup to better control Egypt as “puppet administrations” are easier to control than democratic ones.

Bozdağ stated that Egypt is surrounded by a lot of monarchic administrations, adding that “those people [living under those administrations] might say: ‘Look how it went in Egypt; a great success was achieved. Why shouldn’t this happen here to us?’” Bozdağ added that it is clear the monarchies in Gulf are disturbed by the changes in Egypt.

Meanwhile, President Abdullah Gül said on Tuesday in a joint press conference with his Slovakian counterpart, Ivan Gasparovic, that what is happening in Egypt is unacceptable, adding that the ongoing events are deeply saddening.

“There is an untenable pain in Egypt. We are sharing these pains,” said Gül.

Gül underlined that it will not be possible to keep democracy away from Egypt for a long time.

Turkey has emerged as one of the strongest international critics of the Egyptian coup that toppled Morsi, and Turkish leaders lashed out at both the new Egyptian administration and its perceived supporters in the West following a brutal crackdown on pro-Morsi demonstrators on Wednesday that left hundreds dead.

Gül, Erdoğan meet to discuss Egypt

Meanwhile, Gül and Erdoğan met on Tuesday to discuss the latest developments in Egypt after their meeting had been postponed previously.

The meeting, which had been scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. at the Tarabya presidential palace in İstanbul on Monday, was postponed due to the busy schedules of the two leaders to first Thursday and then Tuesday.

In the meantime, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç stated that at the moment it is out of question for Turkish Ambassador to Cairo Hüseyin Avni Botsalı to return to Egypt, adding that Turkey will decide whether to send Botsalı back or not depending on the developments in Egypt.

Botsalı, who arrived in Turkey on Friday, briefed the Cabinet on developments in the world’s largest Arab nation after a military crackdown in the country.

Before Erdoğan convened Monday’s Cabinet meeting, Botsalı met with Gül at the Çankaya presidential palace in the morning to discuss the situation in Egypt. After his meeting with Gül, which was closed to the press, the Turkish ambassador met with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu at the Foreign Ministry.

Botsalı is expected to attend a meeting of the National Security Council (MGK) on Wednesday.

Turkey and Egypt recalled their ambassadors for consultation following Ankara’s condemnation of the Egyptian security forces’ bloody crackdown on supporters of ousted President Morsi.

As Turkish leaders maintain pressure on Egypt’s interim government, calling the violence a “shame for Islam and the Arab world,” Botsalı, who had been summoned to Egypt’s Foreign Ministry over Turkey’s criticism, was recalled to Turkey for consultation.

On Saturday, Erdoğan accused Egyptian authorities of committing “state terrorism,” and a day later Egypt’s foreign minister called Turkey’s fierce criticism of the Egyptian military’s crackdown “hostile.”

“Turkey demonstrated a hostile attitude, not only by its statements but also by the actions it took at the international level,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said.

“Turkey’s stance on Egypt is related to the AK Party’s ideology and its miscalculations about the Arab revolution. I can understand that the situation in Egypt is different, but double standards and an external intervention cannot be accepted,” Fahmy said, underlining that Egypt will not tolerate Turkish interference in its affairs.

Known for its close relationship with Morsi, Erdoğan’s AK Party described the Egyptian military intervention that toppled him as an unacceptable coup and tried to convince other countries to step up pressure on Egypt.

In late September 2012, Morsi attended an AK Party congress in Ankara in what was considered a sign of flourishing relations between Turkey and Egypt.

Shepherd killed on Armenian border was firing at Russian border guards – Turkish daily

August 20, 2013 By administrator

August 20, 2013 | 14:15

Turkish Taraf newspaper presented interesting details about a Turkish shepherd who died as a result of actions by Russian border guards after crossing the border with Armenia. The newspaper’s source said shepherd made two attempts to attack the border guards.

According to the source, Turkish authorities completed the investigation on Mustafa Ulker’s death. The preliminary report showed Turkish shepherds are practicing tending flock in the Armenian territory. In response, Russian border guards warned them against crossing the border. They were forced to confiscate part of the cattle.

As a result of negotiations the Armenian side has returned cattle. However, it turned out that some of the animals were affected, while part of the cattle belonged to Mustafa Ulker.

In order to take revenge, he put on his uniform and crossed the border at night, firing at the Russian border guards. Ulker was killed as a result of reiterate efforts of Russian guards.

Egypt to recognize Armenian Genocide

August 19, 2013 By administrator

August 19, 2013 – 13:00 AMT

Egypt’s interim leader pledged to recognize the Armenian Genocide in response to statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemning “the coup” in Egypt and announcing Islamist Mohammed Morsi a legitimate President.

“The document will be formally submitted to the UN on Monday, August 19,” Adly Mansour said in his Twitter post, according to Nouvelles d’Arménie.

“Our representatives in the UN will sign an international document recognizing the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey which led to the deaths of millions,” the Coptic leader said.

Azerbaijani Opposition Activists Rally In Support Of Ibragimbekov

August 18, 2013 By administrator

By RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service August 18, 2013

Several thousand supporters of Azerbaijani opposition presidential candidate Rustam Ibragimbekov rallied outside the capital, Baku, on August 18.
At the sanctioned event, which took place some 10 kilometers from the city center, supporters chanted slogans such as “Do not steal our votes!” and “Do not to test our patience!”
According to organizers and activists, police detained at least 11 activists ahead of the rally.

Activists also allege that public transport to the rally site was restricted by authorities.

A presidential election is scheduled for October 9.

Ibragimbekov, a 74-year-old Oscar-winning screenwriter, was chosen last month as a presidential candidate by a coalition of Azerbaijan’s main opposition groups — the National Council of Democratic Forces — to challenge incumbent President Ilham Aliyev.

But Ibragimbekov is still awaiting confirmation from Moscow that his Russian citizenship has been stripped in order to be allowed to run in the election.

Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will change regional situation – Turkish president (New Turkic Empire)

August 18, 2013 By administrator

August 16, 2013 | 14:21

By implementing the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project, it will be possible to change the current situation in the region.

Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul stated the abovementioned Friday, during the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States summit that is held in Gabala, Azerbaijan.

“The Turkic speaking states are situated in a region that links Europe and Asia, the North and the South. The implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project is very important in establishing a link between these regions.

“By bringing the Silk Road into life, we will contribute to the economic and political strengthening of the Turkic speaking world,” Gul said, Novosti Azerbaijan reports.

To note, however, Armenia considers the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project to be a political pressure against itself, with the objective being the transport isolation of the country.

PKK accuses Turkish FM Davutoğlu of supporting Syrian rebels in fight against Kurds

August 17, 2013 By administrator

A leading member of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has accused Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu of being engaged in efforts to aid armed groups in Syria that have been clashing with Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD), an offshoot of the PKK, the Taraf daily claimed on Friday.

“I’m well informed that Mr. Davutoğlu has been giving special attention to these forces for more than a year,” said Murat Karayılan, a member of the executive council of the Kurdistan Communities’ Union (KCK), an umbrella group for the PKK, according to Taraf.

Syria’s ethnic Kurdish minority, led by the PYD, gave signals about a month ago that in the absence of a central government in war-torn Syria it was planning to establish an autonomous administration to cater to the needs of locals in the northern part of the country. Now, some of the Islamist groups fighting the Syrian regime, such as the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, have turned their weapons against the Kurds. Fighting between the PYD and the Islamist groups has continued since then.

Karayılan, who is also the head of the PKK’s armed wing, the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), said that the policy he attributed to Davutoğlu only makes sense if Kurds are seen as the enemy. He added that the attacks on Kurds in northern Syria are part of a plan to stop Kurds from getting stronger and obtaining power. The HPG, Karayılan said, has been reorganized to respond to the new situation. Reports say the HPG is now in a position to cooperate militarily with Peshmerga forces under Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, and to Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Iraq’s Kurdish president. Karayılan said the PKK is preparing to establish a professional army.

PYD head Saleh Muslim, who has been to Turkey twice recently, has said that weapons and ammunition continue to be transferred from Turkey to Syria and delivered to Arab fighters. According to Karayılan, Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have set up an undeclared embargo on Kurds in Syria. He claimed that while Muslim was in Turkey, members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) met in Gaziantep, a province in Turkey’s south bordering Syria. “There, they decided to participate in the attacks the al-Nusra Front has been carrying out against Kurds,” Karayılan said.

“Is it possible that such a meeting could take place independent of the Turkish state?” Karayılan said, questioning Turkey’s position on the Syria conflict. The rebels fighting the Assad regime have modern weapons like anti-aircraft missiles and artillery, and Karayılan is convinced that these arms come from Turkey. “What is 100 percent true for us is that these [weapons] arrived in Syria by way of Turkey,” he said.

In a written response to a parliamentary question submitted by Umut Oran, the deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Davutoğlu hinted that Turkey considers the Nusra Front a terrorist organization, describing al-Nusra as an extremist group. Davutoğlu added that al-Nusra is classified by the US and the UN as a terrorist group because of its connections with al-Qaeda.

In a press statement, Oran described Turkey’s indirect “recognition” of al-Nusra as a terrorist organization as a very important step taken rather late. Oran also argued that the foreign minister’s answers implicitly accepted that terrorists belonging to al-Nusra may have entered Syria via Turkey. Opposition parties in Turkey have harshly criticized the government for supporting opposition forces fighting the regime in Syria, which they say has involved Turkey in its southern neighbor’s problems.

The PYD presence in northern Syria is a source of concern in Turkey because of the group’s links with the terrorist PKK. Any steps toward autonomy by the PYD, Turkey fears, could fan the PKK’s hopes for an independent Kurdish state in Turkey. The government has been conducting peace talks with the PKK since the end of last year in a bid to resolve the country’s decades-old Kurdish problem.

17 dead as al-Qaeda loyalists attack Syrian Kurds in Turkish border town of Ras al-Ain

August 17, 2013 By administrator

BEIRUT – Agence France-Presse

The Syrian jihadist group al-Nusra Front attacked a mainly Kurdish town in northeastern Syria sparking fighting in which 17 people were killed, two of them ambulance crew, a watchdog said on Aug. 17.

The assault on the strategic border town of Ras al-Ain, from which the jihadists were expelled by Kurdish militia affiliated to the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) last month, sparked an exodus of civilians into neighbouring Turkey, an activist said.

The attack on the town was part of a wider offensive by the al-Qaeda loyalists against several Kurdish majority areas of northern and northeastern Syria that began on Friday and was continuing on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Four Kurdish militiamen and 11 jihadists made up the rest of the dead, the watchdog said.

Syrian Kurd activist Havidar said civilians had fled “in waves into villages in Turkey.” “Intermittent clashes are continuing to take place till now, in the Asfar Najjar area and the outskirts of Tal Halaf,” Havidar told AFP via the Internet.

Government troops pulled out of majority Kurdish areas of Syria last year, leaving Kurdish militia to fend for themselves.

Elsewhere in Syria, rebels attacked a pro-regime militia checkpoint in a majority Christian area of Homs province, killing six civilians and five militiamen, the Observatory said. State news agency SANA said all those killed were civilians, and described the attackers as “terrorists.”

Homs has seen some of Syria’s worst violence since the outbreak of the conflict in March 2011.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said prominent Syrian artist Youssef Abdelke and another opponent of the Damascus regime had been “subjected to enforced disappearance.” Abdelke and Adnan al-Dibs were arrested on July 18 in the Mediterranean coastal city of Tartus and have not been seen since.

Azerbaijani authorities renew repression on eve of opposition rally: 6 opposition representatives arrested

August 17, 2013 By administrator

On August 18 the eve of the rally of oppositionist National Council of Azerbaijan the authorities of the republic continue the crackdown of the oppositionists, reports Azerbaijani portal “Haqqin.az.”

It is noted that this morning in Gadabay region of Azerbaijan members of the Classic Popular Front Party Jeykhun Safarov, Sayaf Musayev and Telman Alekperov were arrested. Police arrested them directly on the local bus station, from where they were going to go to Baku to attend the rally.

As the portal notes, on the eve of Azerbaijan three other oppositionists were arrested: a member of the youth organization of the Azerbaijani opposition Popular Front Party (PFP) Mahammad Imanly, an activist of the same party Tehran Musayev and Advisor to the Chairman of the Popular Front Party Ali Kerimli Mamed Ibrahimli. According to the site, Mamed Imanly was arrested for anti-governmental appeals in social networks, and the distribution of leaflets. He was arrested for 5 days.

“In PFP believe that on the eve of the meeting of National Council the authorities have launched a new wave of repression against the opposition,” wrote “Haqqn.az.”

It should be noted that the meeting of the Azerbaijani National Council of opposition is scheduled for Sunday, on the 18th of August.

“It is possible that in the next two days the number of arrested opposition will grow. The authorities will do anything to disrupt the planned rally, but they will fail”, said the press service of the Popular Front.

Presidential elections in Azerbaijan are planned to be held on October 9. The National Council of opposition has put forward its own candidate – screenwriter Rustam Ibrahimbekov. Earlier, Azerbaijani media reported that on his return to Azerbaijan Ibrahimbekov will be arrested. Recall also that Rustam Ibrahimbekov refused Russian citizenship in order to be a candidate in the presidential elections in Azerbaijan. Another potential candidate for president, the leader of the civil movement “Republican Alternative” (REAL) Ilgar Mamedov is in prison.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has also presented his candidacy: he is going for a third presidential term.

Source: Panorama.am