Turkey: BDP rallies to force Ankara to take steps, gov’t balks at threats

August 30, 2013 By administrator

Two Kurdish women make “V” signs in front of a line of riot police in Dağlıca on Thursday during a protest organized by the BDP against mobile security outposts. The BDP is expected to hold many rallies in September. (Photo: İHA)

AYDIN ALBAYRAK, ANKARA

The rallies the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) is preparing to hold at the beginning of September are seemingly meant to force the government’s hand into taking steps to the BDP’s liking as part of the settlement process launched to settle the country’s decades-old Kurdish issue.

The government is taking it slow, however, after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the military wing of the BDP, did not withdraw all of its armed militants from Turkey as agreed and the first stage of the settlement process has not been completed yet.

The PKK military commanders have issued threatening statements in recent weeks, setting the deadline for the beginning of September for the government to launch steps they claim are required for the process to move forward. The government balked at the threats, with Interior Minister Muammer Güler saying that “these are empty threats.”

“They [the PKK and the BDP] may encourage a popular uprising to reach their goals declared in the announcement of the Kurdish Communities Union [KCK],” Atilla Sandıklı, head of the İstanbul-based Wise Men Center for Strategic Studies (Bilgesam), has said.

The BDP has long criticized the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government for dragging its feet on the introduction of the democratization package, and signaled that it may encourage popular protests in the fall, should the government fail to come up with a package as expected. An autonomous Kurdistan and education in mother tongue are two of the major demands of the KCK’s announcement this summer.

Why Turkish Opposition Leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu go to Iraq?

August 29, 2013 By administrator

Iraq’s fugitive Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi (3rd R) gestures as he leaves a meeting with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara, Sept. 9, 2012. Hashemi, a senior Sunni Muslim politician who fled Iraq after authorities accused him of running a death squad, was sentenced to death for murder. (photo by REUTERS/Umit Bektas)

By: Koray Caliskan Translated from Radikal (Turkey).

Journalists were not invited to the meeting that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Turkish main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu held on the morning of Aug. 21 in Baghdad. There was only a photo opportunity for colleagues from news agencies. We asked several times to meet with Maliki, but our requests were turned down on the grounds that he was to travel abroad. Yet, CHP Deputy Chairman Faruk Logoglu briefed us in detail about the meeting. Here are the main points highlighted in the meeting:

Almost all groups in Iraq are irked that Turkey is intervening extensively in Iraq’s internal affairs.

There are documents showing that Turkey is trying to orchestrate certain moves that would unequivocally amount to intervention in Iraqi affairs.

The visit of the CHP leader is seen as a turning point in Turkey-Iraq relations.

Kilicdaroglu is the highest-level Turkish official to have visited Baghdad since 2009.

The problems of Turkish investors in Iraq are mounting as their businesses are grinding to a halt.

Whoever we talked to in Iraq told us the same things, as if they had agreed on that beforehand. It is apparent that Iraqis are very much offended by the biased policies of the Turkish Foreign Ministry and the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). [Bilateral ties have deteriorated to such an extent that] the recall of ambassadors is the only step that remains untaken. The Turkish Embassy is doing nothing but daily bureaucratic routines. Former Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi is a loathed figure here. Evidence is said to exist that he has organized mafia-style networks via his bodyguards and laundered money. Iraqis are perplexed why Turkey chose to shelter a criminal wanted on a “red bulletin” for no obvious political gain.

How would you have felt?

According to Iraqis, the last straw came when Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Kirkuk for political talks without any prior notice to Baghdad, overrunning diplomatic customs. “How would you have felt if our foreign minister had paid a political visit to Arabs in Hatay without ever notifying Ankara?” an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official asked. This single sentence, in fact, summarizes the whole problem. Thereafter, Iraq begins to retaliate. They deny landing permission to a charter plane carrying Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz to a conference in Baghdad. Denying access to the Turkish minister when even managers of small energy companies are able to easily enter Baghdad is a very serious measure.

Iraq’s essential reprisal comes in relation to Turkish entrepreneurs. Their businesses have ground to a halt, their payments are blocked and they are unable to get even the specification documents of new tenders. The reconstruction of Iraq is a huge market. Turkey is totally sidelined from this market because of the row that the AKP started for nothing. The situation creates trouble for the Iraqis, too. They are buying water from waterless Kuwait and apples from across the ocean from the United States. Baghdad’s problem with the Kurds is on the course of settlement. Kurdistan is called “Kurdistan” even by Iraqis, with only Turks calling it “Northern Iraq.” Very ironic.

Now, let’s see the real reason for Kilicdaroglu’s visit. Turkish business people are helpless about how to proceed in Iraq. One of them, for instance, said that the losses of only one of his companies had reached $15 million. As in many other areas, the government has clogged relations with Iraq. The CHP is essentially building a new style of diplomacy. It is opening a new channel of diplomatic ties with Iraq to make sure that the AKP’s isolation — the ruling party is now going as far as to take pride with it! — does not affect Turkey as a whole. If the CHP pulls it off, they will set up a commission with Maliki’s investment minister to readjust ties.

Turkish Armenians are beginning to celebrate—and commemorate—their past

August 24, 2013 By administrator

A DAINTY silver slipper, a hand-engraved copper bowl. Silva Ozyerli, an ethnic Armenian, runs a loving finger over these and other family treasures strewn across her dinner table in Istanbul. They are due to go on display at a new museum of Armenian culture in Ms Ozyerli’s native city of Diyarbakir at the end of 2013.

The Armenian museum, the first of its kind in Anatolia, will be part of the newly restored Surp Giragos church complex (pictured). Its aim is to chronicle Armenian life in Diyarbakir, in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish south-east, before 1915. That was the year when Ottoman troops and their Kurdish accomplices began slaughtering over 1m Armenians and other Christians across the country during what many historians say was the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey denies that mass killings took place, insisting that the Armenians had perished from hunger and disease during their forced march to the deserts of Syria. (The Ottoman government deported the Armenians, notionally for their safety, as the empire collapsed. Yet thousands were massacred as they marched, and countless others were killed before they set off.) Local school textbooks perpetuate this myth.

Granting permission to restore Surp Giragos is seen as part of a larger government campaign to placate diaspora Armenians, who have been lobbying governments around the world to recognise the genocide. When Surp Giragos reopened in 2011, after lying in ruins for more than 20 years, it became Turkey’s first church to be revived as a permanent place of worship.

“The museum is a way of showing that thousands of Armenians contributed to the city’s wealth and culture,” explains Ergun Ayik of the Surp Giragos Foundation, which runs the church. “People will look at the photographs, the objects, and wonder where did all these people go?”

Around 2m Armenians are believed to have lived in Turkey before the genocide. Now there are about 70,000. Survivors are scattered across the Middle East, Europe, America and Australia. Many more converted to Islam to carry on, but their numbers remain unknown. Osman Koker, a Turkish historian, reckons that more than half of Diyarbakir’s population used to be non-Muslim, mainly Armenian Orthodox, but also Catholic, Syrian Orthodox and Jewish. “Now”, says Mr Koker, “there is practically none.”

Yet a growing number of Turkish Armenians are reclaiming their heritage. In 2010 hundreds flocked to the island of Akdamar in the eastern province of Van to attend an inaugural mass at the newly restored Church of the Holy Cross. (The church is now a museum, but holds mass on religious holidays.) Turkey’s culture ministry has obliged with a list of other ancient churches that it plans to restore, says Osman Kavala, a Turkish philanthropist who is helping to promote Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. And Armenian-language lessons, available since last year in Diyarbakir’s historic Sur district, are increasingly popular among Turkey’s so-called “invisible Armenians” who had abandoned their culture in order to survive. Abdullah Demirbas, the district’s mayor, argues that the Kurds must also make amends for their complicity in the genocide.

Armenians applaud these efforts, even as they note a persistent strain of Turkish nationalism that perceives non-Muslim minorities as suspect. The government’s conversion of several Greek Orthodox churches into mosques, together with its recent espousal of unabashedly Islamist rhetoric, heightens some concerns that efforts to appease Armenians are cynical and short-sighted.

But such worries were pleasantly absent during a recent afternoon in Surp Giragos, as tourists gazed at the church’s repaired altars and onion-domed belfry (which had been destroyed by the Ottomans in 1916 because it dwarfed surrounding minarets). The church is drawing hundreds of people every day. “Many of them are Islamised Armenians like me,” laughs Gafur Turkay of the Surp Giragos Foundation. “The truth about 1915 cannot be concealed,” says Mr Ayik’s daughter Pelin. “But as a young Armenian I don’t want to be pitied as a victim. I am the proud torchbearer of a rich civilisation that not only has survived but continues to thrive.”

Source: The Economist

Turkish journalist Yavuz Baydar fired from Sabah daily (For criticized the government’s handling of the Gezi protests)

July 24, 2013 By administrator

23 July 2013 /TODAYSZAMAN İSTANBUL

Veteran Turkish journalist Yavuz Baydar was fired from his long-time post at the Sabah daily on Tuesday, after its editorial board censored two of his columns related to the Gezi Park protests and media-government relations.

Baydar, who is also a columnist for Today’s Zaman, first faced censorship when he vehemently criticized the government’s handling of the Gezi protests.

On June 24, a critical column he wrote was not published. Baydar, the readers’ editor at Sabah, published readers’ letters which criticized the government stance on the Gezi Park protests, which took place against redevelopment plans of the park on İstanbul’s Taksim Square.

When he submitted a piece harshly criticizing the government, Sabah editors declined to publish it. Moreover, Erdal Şafak, editor-in-chief of Sabah, slammed Baydar for his stance regarding the Gezi protests in a published column.

Facing censorship and mounting pressure, Baydar took leave from the paper. He wrote a critical piece in the New York Times revealing the deepening ties between media owners and the government at the expense of freedom of expression, including editorial freedom.

Baydar argued in his New York Times op-ed that Turkish media owners are apparently undermining the basic principles of democracy in the country. The major motive Baydar cites is the fact that media bosses have fears of losing lucrative business deals with the government.

Illuminating business ties with media owners and the Turkish government from a critical perspective, Baydar asserted that this kind of relationship has negative impacts on democracy and the media.

When he returned to Turkey from a vacation, Baydar sent another piece to Sabah to be published. This time he reportedly wrote on how the relationship between editor-in-chief and the readers’ editor should be formulated and on the significance of editorial freedom against possible external interventions.

He suggested that there should be no hierarchical relations between an editor-in-chief and a readers’ editor, in an apparent reference to Şafak’s open criticism and intervention in his column when the daily refused to publish his earlier piece.

Turkish media reported that the Sabah daily also declined to publish Baydar’s latest piece.

The newspaper finally dismissed Baydar on Tuesday.

This constitutes the latest incident in a series of firings of journalists in the Turkish media, which have brought press and government relations into the spotlight and cast further doubts on the democratic credentials of the EU candidate.

According to a report in Today’s Zaman on Monday citing the Turkish Journalists Union (TGS), at least 22 journalists have been fired during the Gezi protests.

Erdogan brutality continue on Saturday: Turkish police fire tear gas to disperse Istanbul protests

July 7, 2013 By administrator

Four people were killed and about 7,500 wounded in the June crackdown, according to the Turkish Medical Association. It largely ended when police cleared a protest camp on the square on June 15.

By Humeyra Pamuk and Ece Toksabay, Reuters

Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protesters in an Istanbul square on Saturday as they gathered to enter a park that was the center of protests against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last month.

The Taksim Solidarity Platform, combining an array of political groups, had called a march to enter the sealed off Gezi park, but the governor of Istanbul warned that any such gathering would be confronted by the police.

Riot police chased protesters into side streets in what appeared to be the biggest police intervention since the mid-June protests and riots that saw Taksim Square sealed off by makeshift barriers.

“We are here today to claim our park back. It was supposed to be open tonight. They (authorities) called us occupiers, but the park has been occupied by the state for weeks now,” said 41-year-old web designer Asim Elci.

Protesters chanted “Together against fascism” and “Everywhere is resistance.”

Witnesses said that police detained a few protesters, but many remained in side streets in the Taksim area at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, including youths and women, some in gas masks.

A police crackdown on a group protesting against the planned redevelopment of Gezi Park, a leafy corner of Taksim, triggered nationwide protests last month against Erdogan, accused by critics of increasingly authoritarian rule after a decade in power.

Turkish Halk TV showed protesters standing in front of riot police on Saturday, displaying a court decision cancelling plans for a replica Ottoman-era barracks on Taksim Square. The plan is one of a string of ambitious projects fostered by Erdogan, including a canal parallel to the Bosphorus waterway, a huge international airport and a giant mosque.

Court ruling
Authorities can appeal against the court ruling, which was considered a victory for the protesters and a blow for Erdogan, who stood fast against protests and riots he said were stoked by terrorists and looters.

Erdogan has carried out sweeping changes since he was elected in 2002 at the head of a party combining nationalists and reformers as well as Islamist elements. He had curbed the power of an army that had toppled four governments in 40 years and carried out some liberal social and economic reforms.

But critics, outside the party and some within, had grown increasingly uneasy at what they felt to be an authoritarian style. At the height of the protests he appeared to appeal increasingly to the Islamist and nationalist core of his party, further alienating secularists and other groups.

Four people were killed and about 7,500 wounded in the June crackdown, according to the Turkish Medical Association. It largely ended when police cleared a protest camp on the square on June 15.

Istanbul governor Huseyn Avni Mutlu said the authorities had not given permission for Saturday’s rally.

“Our constitution allows staging demonstrations without giving notification, but the legislation says that applying to the authorities for permission is mandatory,” Mutlu said, announcing on his twitter account that Gezi Park would be open to the public on Sunday.

“I cannot act against the law. So we won’t allow these gatherings.”

Mainstream Turkish media largely ignored the protests but Turks against the government used social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to share news of developments in Istanbul.

In Turkey it is more dangerous to be journalist than if you are member of al-Qaeda terrorist

March 7, 2013 By administrator

US captured Bin Laden son-in-law on the way to Kuwait.

(“However, a Turkish court decided to release Abu Ghaith after 33 days in detention on the grounds that he had not committed any crime in Turkey.” Does this subsequently imply that entering Turkey with a fake passport is not a crime? Yet Sevil Sevimly gets a five year conviction for having attended a “leftist” concert and for allegedly having spread anti-Turkish propaganda? What kind of justice is this? Good riddance Mr. Ghaith, hope your CIA experience is a memorable one.)

The CIA recently captured Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith while passing from Jordan to Kuwait, soon after leaving Turkey, daily Hürriyet reported today.

The U.S. asked Turkey to extradite Abu Ghaith after his detention in Ankara early February.

Abu Ghaith, the former spokesman of the al-Qaeda terror network, was seized in a luxury hotel in Ankara after a tip-off from CIA. He was held there by police for 33 days, the Hürriyet report said.

However, a Turkish court decided to release Abu Ghaith after 33 days in detention on the grounds that he had not committed any crime in Turkey.

Ankara considered Ghaith a “stateless” person, as he was stripped of his Kuwaiti nationality after appearing in videos defending the 9/11 attacks and threatening further violence.

Turkish police also found no criminal record for Abu Ghaith, who entered the country illegally from Iran; he could therefore be deported to Iran or to another country of his choice. After Iran did not accept him, Turkey decided to send him to Kuwait via Jordan. Abu Ghaith was sent to Jordan on March 1, the same day U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Turkey.

The CIA started the operation while Abu Ghaith was passing from Jordan to Kuwait. He was captured and taken to the U.S.

The United States wanted Abu Ghaith extradited over his alleged connection to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York.

His detention in Turkey after he allegedly entered the country illegally from Iran came in the same week that the U.S. embassy in Ankara was targeted in a suicide bombing claimed by a radical anti-U.S. leftwing group.

He appeared in a propaganda video in the aftermath of 9/11, standing beside bin Laden, who was killed in May 2011 in Pakistan in a covert U.S. operation.

Argument breaks out at Turkish Parliament when CHP deputy slams idea of Syrian massacre as lies

March 7, 2013 By administrator

ANKARA – Anatolia News Agency/Hürriyet

A fiery scuffle broke out in Parliament today when a Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy stated that claims the Syrian regime was massacring its own people was a lie, just as claims there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a lie.

During a relatively unheated session on the new Electricity Market law, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Ümit Özgümüş took the floor to argue that Foreign Minister Davutoğlu had made a misjudgment on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fate, adding that the Damascus regime will stay in power for at least two more years. “The claim that the Syrian regime was massacring its own people is a lie just as the [claim] there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq [is a lie],” Özgömüş said, adding that the Syrian people were ganging up against imperialism.

Following Özgömüş’s remarks, ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Mehmet Metiner rushed from the AKP’s seats shouting that Özgümüş “had no right to support those who were massacring their people.”

Özgümüş responded to Metiner’s interruption by telling the AKP deputy to “stop yapping.”

Özgümüş then invited Metiner to come to the pulpit where both men nearly came to fists despite repeated calls for restraint by Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Meral Akşener, who was chairing the session.

Metiner called Özgümüş “a slaughterer” and “a buffoon,” leading Özgümüş to yell “I will kill you, you moron.”

After much difficulty the two deputies were separated by colleagues from both parties and the session was delayed for an hour.

Iranian website: Turkey, Azerbaijan provoke separatism among Iranian Azeris

February 11, 2013 By administrator

Turkey and Azerbaijan provoke separatism among Iranian Azeris, says an article in Tabnak.ir.

According to the website, satellite GunAz TV, which propagates separatism among Iran’s Turkish-speaking Azeris, will soon start to broadcast in Turkish.

One of the co-founders of the above mentioned TV channel, Ahmed Obal, told Today Zaman in an exclusive interview that GunAz TV’s broadcast in Turkey in 2006 was probably stopped due to pressure from Iran but the TV channel is working to return to Turksat.

According to Iranian media, Turkey’s state-run TV channel TRT recently called “Southern Azerbaijan” those provinces of Iran which have Turkish-speaking population and added that the 30 million Azeris undergo pressure in Iran.

More, Valley of the Wolves, a Turkish television serial aired by a television channel controlled by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been turned from anti-Israeli and anti-American into anti-Iranian.

Turkish snake oil salesman ERDOĞAN OFFERS Greek Prime Minister TO BUILD MOSQUE IN ATHENS

January 31, 2013 By administrator

Instate of Greece PM ask Turkish PM return of Greece territory the Turkish PM want to build more Mosque in Greece???

During the meeting between Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, which was an unexpected development that transpired while the prime minister was in Doha, the two discussed the long-standing plans to build a mosque in Athens. Erdoğan offered a proposal that Turkey assist in building the mosque in Athens as long as the Greek government is willing to issue the necessary licensing.

Agos: Turkey Silent as Attacks Continue

January 27, 2013 By administrator

Heavy Police Presence in Samatya after Attacks on Armenians

ISTANBUL (Armenian Weekly)—The Armenian neighborhood of Samatya in Istanbul is now under heavy police patrol after a series of attacks against elderly Armenian women in recent weeks, the Armenian Weekly has learned from activists and sources in Samatya.

The Istanbul Aksaray Police department has announced that there are 20 police patrols in the neighborhood, and around 100 plainclothes policemen have also been dispatched to Samatya.

Police has also announced that one person might be behind all recent attacks, while activists the Weekly has communicated with question that scenario.

The Samatya area is home to many Armenians. The community is weary of these attacks, and calls for caution have been made.

The front page headline in this week’s issue of Agos, the Turkish Armenian newspaper founded by Hrant Dink, reads “Turkey Silent, Attacks Continue” (see photo).

On Sunday, Jan. 27, The Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association, Nor Zartonk (young Armenians’ socialist initiative) and AKADER (Antolian Peoples’ Culture association) will hold a rally in Samatya in solidarity with the Armenian community there.

In recent days, a few media outlets and politicians have broken the silence on the issue, while overall, Turkey remains silent.

One murder, at least three other attacks in recent weeks

In recent weeks, there have been several attacks against Armenians in Istanbul, mostly in Samatya. In early December an Armenian woman was attacked and robbed; while months earlier an Armenian woman was attacked by a taxi driver and called an infidel.

On Jan. 6, three assailants tried to kidnap an elderly Armenian woman, according to Turkish sources. The attempt failed.

According to human rights activists, the common thread that runs through all of these crimes is not just their being motivated by hate or being committed in an environment that breeds intolerance against Armenians, but also the efforts of the authorities to play them down.