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IPI concerned over case against Diyarbakır-based Dutch journalist

February 4, 2015 By administrator

n_77877_1A lawsuit has been opened against Geerdink on charges of making propaganda on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). DHA Photo

The International Press Institute (IPI) has expressed concern over reports that Diyarbakır-based Dutch journalist Fréderike Geerdink could face up to five years in prison in Turkey on accusations that she spread terrorist propaganda on social media.

In a written statement on Feb. 3, the Vienna-based IPI and its affiliate, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), called on the Turkish authorities to drop the charges against Geerdink absent clear and compelling evidence showing that her statements specifically incited, and were likely to lead to, the commission of criminal acts.

A lawsuit has been opened against Geerdink on charges of making propaganda on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with the prosecutor demanding between one and five years in prison. She was briefly detained on Jan. 6 as a part of an operation launched by the Diyarbakır Prosecutor’s Office. In her testimony, she pled not guilty and denied that she shared posts either praising the PKK or expressing opposition against the state, the indictment stated.

“Journalists should not face pressure – much less up to five years in prison – for sharing news or an opinion, whether it be in person, through traditional media, or via new media platforms,” IPI Director of Advocacy and Communications Steven M. Ellis said.

“We find this case troubling, not only because of the charge reportedly at issue, but because it shows a new willingness on the part of authorities in Turkey to target foreign journalists,” Ellis added.

Distracted, but not scared

Geerdink, who has reported from Turkey for almost 10 years with a special focus on the PKK and its bloody, three-decade long insurgency, told IPI that she rejected the allegations that she supported terrorism. Instead, she maintained, her “intention is always to spread the news and to comment on it.”

She also refused to be intimidated by the case against her.

“If they’re doing it to get on my nerves and distract me from my work, they’re successful. If they’re doing it to scare me, they aren’t successful. I feel strong,” she said.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: A visit to a hardcore City of KARS (Western Armenia) currently occupied by Turkey, Diyarbakır-based, Dutch-journalist, ipi, lawsuit, Turkey

Daesh (ISIS) smuggling oil via Turkey, Iraq says

December 13, 2014 By administrator

0929_GGR3Baghdad: Iraqi finance minister Hoshyar Zebari has said that the Daesh (ISIS) is smuggling Iraqi and Syrian oil via Turkey, and called it the richest terrorist group in the world.

“Daesh controls a number of oilfields in Syria and Iraq and they smuggle this oil overland through trucks, through middlemen to Turkey or towards other countries,” Zebari told Al Jazeera news channel Friday.

After an accounting of banks under Daesh control, Zebari said that Daesh is now believed to have looted about $500 million from Mosul, Tikrit and other cities, saying it was “the richest armed group in the world”.

He said Iraq was trying to crack down on Daesh financing, including oil smuggling.

“The air campaign targets these facilities in Syria and in northern Iraq in order to deprive them of this revenue but they have enormous financial resources; they are paying recruits good salaries, better than what we can afford to pay ours,” he added.

“And this is one element of the strength of this organisation. It’s not purely an underground terrorist organisation. It has an agenda it wants to control. It wants to rule.”

He also rejected comments by US officials that the fight against the Daesh could take years.

“Contrary to what many people think, I don’t think this will be a long drawn out battle,” the minister said.

The comments came after the Iraqi army managed to liberate two key districts in the city of Samarra on Friday.

He added that coordination between Iraqi forces and the US-led coalition is the key to the success of the offensive against the radical group.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: A visit to a hardcore City of KARS (Western Armenia) currently occupied by Turkey, ISIS, oil, smuggling, Turkey, via

Turkey’s Hegemonial Ventures in Syria and Iraq

October 10, 2014 By administrator

BY SETO BOYADJIAN, ESQ.

Mortar shells from Kurdish-Islamic State conflict land in TurkeyAs the U.S.-led air strikes targeted the Islamic State (IS) fighters across the Syrian frontier with Turkey, the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani became more forsaken than ever. The township is now at the mercy of IS militants, who are poised to capture it after three weeks of siege.

Kobani, which is the Kurdish name of the township, is known by its Arabic name as Ayn al Arab. Its original name was Arabounar, given by the survivors of the Armenian Genocide who established it as a haven from Turkish atrocities.

No one is lifting a finger to protect the township and its people from certain slaughter by the IS henchmen. Least of all Turkey, whose armed forces and tanks are within sight across the border, yet they are acting as spectators to the calamity befalling on Kobani.

Turkey’s inaction is very typical toward all Syrian and Iraqi areas that are similarly situated as Kobani. This inaction is deliberate, because it veils Turkey’s hegemonial objectives in Syria and Iraq that were once part of the Ottoman Empire.

What lies behind this transparent veil represents the underpinnings of Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman aspirations. As territories belonging to the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, Syria with its strategic location and Iraq with its petroleum riches are coveted prizes in the eyes of Turkey. They cannot be reincorporated into Turkey, but they must surely be brought under Turkish influence via the imposition of the kind of leadership in Bagdad and Damascus that is docile to Turkey.

To achieve this objective, the current governing leadership in Syria and Iraq must be weakened and thereafter replaced by “friendly” faces. This approach explains why since 2010 Turkey has been training, arming and assisting a garden variety of terrorist militants, including Al-Qaeda elements, to carry out their insurgency in Syria and Iraq. It also explains the current Turkish inaction in the face of IS onslaughts against townships such as Kobani. The Turkish motto of the day is: Let IS disintegrate Syria and destabilize Iraq. The more the disintegration and destabilization progress, the better are Turkey’s chances to reach its hegemonial prospects over its two neighbors who are supposed to be sovereigns.

Turkey views the insurgents in Syria and Iraq as natural allies in terms of enhancing its hegemonial objectives. Its belated and reluctant accession to the U.S. led coalition against IS will hardly bring any changes in its ties with the insurgent elements. Recent statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan evidence Turkey’s double-talk on the matter of the fight against IS and its militants.

Last Tuesday, in a televised speech in the eastern city of Gaziantep, Erdogan claimed that air-strikes were insufficient and that “ground operation” was needed to defeat the militants. He said, “The terror will not be over… unless we cooperate for a ground operation,” adding, “I am telling the West … dropping bombs from the air will not provide a solution.” These all add up to one solution in the eyes of Erdogan – “ground operation” is needed and such an operation can only be carried out by Turkey’s armed forces.

Erdogan’s solution, therefore, is to obtain a free ticket to occupy northern Syria. Yet this ticket gets even cheaper if one is to follow Erdogan’s recommendation for a final solution to the IS threat. A week earlier, he reiterated his call for a “no-fly zone” to protect against attack against Syrian air force. He maintained, “A no-fly zone must be declared and this no fly-zone must be secured,” claiming that he has already discussed this matter with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

The sum total of these recommendations yield Turkish armed forces a free pass into northern Syria – “no-fly zone”, protection from Syrian air attacks, then a smooth ground operation led by the Turkish army. As they say it in Turkish, “gel guzelim, gel” (“come baby, come”).

Of course this recipe carries with it yet another prize – the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime from power. According to a statement made earlier, Erdogan said that Turkey will fight against IS and other militants, however it will adhere to its aim of seeing Bashar al-Assad removed from power. As Erdogan put it, Turkey will fight IS, yet “We will continue to prioritize our aim to remove the Syrian regime, to help protect the territorial integrity of Syria and to encourage a constitutional, parliamentary government system which embraces all citizens.”

The real issue then becomes – who is Turkey fighting against? The answer is very obvious. Turkish fight against IS may only be a side-show. Turkey’s real fight is for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad and his regime and their replacement with a government docile to Turkey.

Hopefully, President Obama and the State Department are not overlooking Erdogan’s designs in Syria. These are designs that are incompatible with U.S. policy objectives and work counter to U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East. In this sense, Erdogan and Turkey continue to act as spoilers to U.S. objectives in that region.

Some 95 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George faced the same kind of Turkish bravado. This was back in June 1919, when Damat Farid Pasha, the Prime Minister (or the Grand Vizier) of the disintegrating Ottoman empire, presented himself with a memorandum to the Allied Powers at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris. Farid Pasha presented the Allies with many claims and proposals to save his Empire from further disintegration. Among his claims, the Pasha also presented that “In Asia, the Turkish lands are bounded on the south by the provinces of Mosul and Diyarbakir, as well as a part of Aleppo as far as the Mediterranean.”

After the Pasha left, the allies rejected the Ottoman claims. As for the Pasha’s claims, President Wilson said he had never seen anything more “stupid,” while Prime Minister Lloyd George considered the Pasha’s presentation a “good joke.”

Now, another Turkish leader with Ottoman penchants, namely Turkey’s President and former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is making a similar claim.

Will President Obama display President Wilson’s courage and call Erdogan’s designs “stupid”? Will Vice President Biden manifest Prime Minister Lloyd George’s wit and treat Erdogan’s plans as a “good joke?”

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: A visit to a hardcore City of KARS (Western Armenia) currently occupied by Turkey, ISIS, kobani, Syria, Turkey

Reporters without borders slams Turkey for tightening Internet censorship with amended law

September 11, 2014 By administrator

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released a written statement on its official website in which it harshly criticizes Turkey for granting the Reporters-without-bordersTelecommunications Directorate (TİB) extensive powers over Internet use — such as the power to block access to websites without a court order — with new amendments recently made to the country’s Internet law.

The RSF stated that Turkey’s Parliament “passed two last-minute amendments expanding the grounds under which [TİB] can temporarily block websites without a court order, and allowing it to gather Internet user connection data independently of any ongoing investigation.”

“Coming just after the end of the Internet Governance Forum [IGF] in İstanbul [last week], the amendments showed that the Turkish authorities are ready to go even further down the road of Internet censorship,” the RSF statement continued.

TİB has already been able to order the “preventive blocking” of websites since February in cases of “attacks on privacy” or “discriminatory or insulting” content. Under the most recent amendments, it can now also block sites in case of a perceived attack on “national security,” to “protect public order” or to “prevent a crime from being committed.”

“Blocking a website, even for 48 hours, without referring to a court violates the principle of the separation of powers as well as freedom of information,” the RSF statement reported Johann Bihr, the head of the RSF Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, as saying.

“By increasing the possibility of blocking sites in this way, the authorities are yet again reaffirming their determination to control the Internet. Online resources play a key role in informing the Turkish public, one that is all the more important because harassment of the traditional media is being stepped up. We urge President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not to sign these amendments into law,” Bihr said.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: A visit to a hardcore City of KARS (Western Armenia) currently occupied by Turkey, Internet, RSF, Turkey

Armenian Organization Backs Turkey’s Presidential Challenger Demirtas

July 17, 2014 By administrator

ANKARA—A Turkish-Armenian organization, Nor Zartonk (New Renaissance), has declared its support for Selahattin Demirtas in the presidential elections to be held on Aug. 10.

demirtasIssuing a written statement, Nor Zartonk said: “The people, workers, and all the excluded have an alternative in these elections against the conservative, nationalist, and statist tradition,” pointing to Demirtas.

Nor Zartonk emphasized that the candidate of the ruling party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been a person continuing to pursue a century-old state policy of denial, adding that the joint candidate of CHP-MHP Ekmeleddin İhsanoglu is “a candidate to be the new face of the moderate Islam project”.

Nor Zartonk added:

“The people of Turkey are not condemned to these two right wing candidates, one being an exact copy of the other despite their being promoted in that way. The candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Selahattin Demirtas, as ‘the candidate of the people and of change’ is the hope of all the working people in the August elections.

“Against the two self-same candidates who are in favor of the continuation of the statist policies and the policies of denial, our presidential candidate is Selahattin Demirtas, who marches hand in hand with the people from Sivas to Lice, who exclaims the reality of the Armenian genocide in parliament, has struggled against all kinds of discrimination throughout his life and who defends the rights of the workers, LGBTI individuals and all the oppressed.”

Nor Zartonk (Renaissance) is an Armenian organization defining itself as the “self-organization” of the Armenian people. Having as their point of focus the Armenian people living in Turkey, Nor Zartonk says they struggle for the co-existence of all the peoples of Turkey and the world in equality, peace and fraternity. Nor Zartonk also declares that they have no hierarchical structure or administrative positions amongst themselves.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: A visit to a hardcore City of KARS (Western Armenia) currently occupied by Turkey, Demirtas, president, Turkey

A visit to a hardcore City of KARS (Western Armenia) currently occupied by Turkey

January 8, 2014 By administrator

By: Wilco Van Herpen

2014 has newly started and everybody (might) still remember her/his best intentions for this year. (The best wishes for 2014 for everybody…) One of the intentions that might have a slight chance of failing is to travel more around in Turkey this year. During the coming weeks, I want to show you a couple of places that are off the beaten track, but very interesting to visit.

I want to start with a hardcore destination in Turkey; Kars during wintertime. Kars is a beautiful and nice place to visit, but most people prefer to visit Kars during spring. The reason? The weather is milder and if you want to combine Kars with paying a visit to Ani then you will find a place covered with green and flowers. This time of the year has another attraction; snow. Kars can be very cold in January and February (around minus 5 degrees Celsius during the day…) so I advise you to dress warmly.

Kars + Ani in wintertime x delicious food = a perfect travel plan.

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City of 2,000 years

Kars is one of the oldest places in Turkey that still carries its old original name. The city is around 2,000-years-old but, there is not much left of that very old history in the city center. Being a city that has been the entrance to the Anatolian part of what is nowadays Turkey, Kars was a place with a lot of ethnic diversity. What remains of this diversity are a couple of Armenian churches and Russian influenced houses. An interesting point is Dutch architects and craftsmen have planned and built the houses. Just walk around a little bit. In front of most of the restored houses, you can find signs that give some information about the history of that building. I personally liked the houses that are not (yet) restored. They are wonderful subjects for taking pictures.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOld houses, honey shops

At a certain moment, an old man approached my cameraman Serdar and me. He asked us why we took pictures of those old, ugly, demolished houses. Serdar’s answer impressed me. “Looking at an old amca (uncle) or teyze (auntie), you can see life in their faces. Looking at them, I wonder about their life and want to hear their story.

Looking at those old houses, you can see time has passed by. Who lived in these houses and what did they do? The house speaks to me and I want to pass this story to people who are watching our programs. That’s why those houses are important for me.”

While enjoying the beauty of the old Russian houses, you can also visit some shops to see what cheese or honey you like. There are more than 60 cheese and honey shops in Kars, so doing a complete tour in the city might fill your stomach to such an extent that you do not have to bother about lunch. While slowly leaving the city center, you pass the old Armenian Church and a mosque. A little bit further away, on your left, there is a very old bridge. Built in 1579, it was rebuilt 2 centuries later. On the right and the left side of the bridge, you can see two old Hamams.

It is possible to enter the bathhouse at your left; although it is in a terrible situation, it is beautiful to walk around in what once used to be a very popular hamam. From here, standing in the hamam, you have a beautiful view on the river, the bridge and the bathhouse on the other side. The inside of the hamam still has its original colors; beautiful green, yellow and red plastered walls together with bare bricks make walking around an exciting adventure.

I left the hamam and started the climb upwards to the castle; walking up gives you the joy of slowly rising up above the city. The view becomes spectacular by the minute. Finally, you are there; the castle. There is a mosque, croplands and several buildings of which the purpose did not became clear to me. Because the army has used this castle for many years, the castle is still in reasonable condition.
In wintertime, I would recommend you to eat goose. It is the specialty of Kars. December, January and February are excellent for goose, after that, goose season is over and the goose will receive a heavy oily taste and smell.

There are a number of small restaurants that make homemade food. Generally women run those places. One of those restaurants where I ate was Hanımeli. The owner, Dilek Adıgüzel is a friendly woman who likes a chat. She serves local Kars dishes and also has some interesting deserts. I would recommend you to try her erişte aşı, kaz, revan köfte, hangel or kete.

 

Ancient Armenian city of Ani under snow blanket

Filed Under: Articles, Genocide Tagged With: A visit to a hardcore City of KARS (Western Armenia) currently occupied by Turkey

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