Austrian chancellor suggests EU-ban on campaigning by Turkish politicians

March 5, 2017 By administrator

An EU-wide ban on Turkish politicians’ campaigning in the bloc has been suggested by Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern. Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci still plans to visit Turkish voters in Germany.

Kern told the German newspaper “Welt am Sonntag” that Europe should protect its individual member nations from President Erdogan’s outspoken drive to win over expatriate Turks ahead of April’s Turkish referendum on boosting his constitutional powers.

The latest strains in EU-Turkish relations center on Ankara’s arrest of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel and rejections on security grounds by the German towns of Guggenau, and Frechen near Cologne, of gatherings at which visiting Turkish ministers were to have made campaign appearances.

Austria’s chancellor said an EU-wide ban on Turkish politicians’ campaigning inside Europe would ease Turkish pressure on individual EU nations such as Germany.

“A joint approach by the EU to prevent such campaign appearances would be sensible,” Kern said.

Press freedom, ‘foreign word’

Kern also slammed Erdogan’s plan, saying “the introduction of a presidential system would further weaken the constitutional state, constrain the separation of powers and contradict the values of the European Union.”

Press freedom had become a foreign word in Turkey and human rights are being trampled on, Kern added.

He demanded Ankara immediately free the German-Turkish correspondent of the conservative German newspaper “Die Welt,” as well as numerous other journalists and scientists detained since last year’s coup attempt in Turkey.

Yucel had reported on Turkey in an independent and critical manner, Kern said.

Erdogan: ‘German agent’

On Friday, Erdogan accused Yucel of being a “German agent” and supporting the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) through his reporting.

Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Mnister Binali Yildirim said he had had a long phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her office has yet to comment on the contents of the call.

Merkel did, however, defend the decision of local officials obligated to uphold social freedom.

Those decisions were “taken by municipalities, and as a matter of principle, we apply freedom of expression in Germany,” she said.

Stephan Meyer, interior affairs spokesman for Merkel’s Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), said the “export” of Turkey’s internal conflict to Germany should “not be tolerated.”

Germany’s new Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the center-left Social Democrats, which governs with Merkel, warned against a further escalation of recriminations.

“We should not wreck the foundations of the friendship between our countries,” Gabriel wrote in a guest article published by another German Sunday newspaper “Bild am Sonntag.”

Opposition Greens party politician Claudia Roth warned that appearance bans would turn out to be counter-productive.

“Then we best demonstrate most clearly the difference between us and an autocracy on its way to dictatorship when we show that freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly and, of course, press freedom applies to all,” Roth said.

More than one million Turks living in Germany are eligible to vote in Turkey’s referendum in April. They are among three million persons of Turkish origin living in Germany. Half of them have German citizenship.

Netherlands chastised

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking in Antalya, western Turkey, also chastised the Netherlands after authorities in Rotterdam banned a Turkish rally planned for next week.

On Dutch radio, Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher rejected accusations that the Netherlands was restricting free speech.

“We believe that the Dutch public space is not the place to conduct another country’s political campaign,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a statement on Facebook on Friday.

“We will go where we want to go, we will meet with our citizens and we will have our meetings,” said Cavusoglu in response to Rutte’s post.

ipj/jlw (Reuters, AFP, dpa)

Austrian FM: We need to continue dialogue on Karabakh

July 14, 2016 By administrator

austian FM During its chairmanship in the OSCE, Austria will work to defuse current conflicts, including the Karabakh conflict, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said.

“It was possible to curb escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh in April through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group and with the practical support of the German chair and Russia,” Kurz said addressing the OSCE Permanent Council on Thursday.

“Yet here too we need to continue dialogue to take one step closer to the solution,” he added.

The OSCE has a vital role to play in contributing to conflict resolution and restoring trust and holds an impressive range of tools to that end, Kurz said.

International negotiations on Syrian crisis open in Austrian capital

October 30, 2015 By administrator

A fresh round of international talks aimed at resolving the ongoing crisis in Syria has started in the Austrian capital city of Vienna, with representatives from the Islamic Republic of Iran attending the conference.

Apart from the Islamic Republic, the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, representatives from at least 12 other countries are also attending the talks. Those states are France, Germany, Egypt, Russia, Jordan, the UK, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq, Lebanon, China and Oman.

Envoys from the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) are also present at the talks.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif heads Iran’s delegation during the one-day talks.

Past failure without Iran

Previous talks on Syria, mediated by the UN and dubbed Geneva I and II, failed to find a solution to end the conflict in the Arab country. Iran had not been invited to any of the talks.

The two conferences ended in failure after the foreign-sponsored opposition figures in the talks refused to discuss widespread terrorism in the country and persisted in demanding the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a precondition.

The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which flared in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people and left over one million injured, according to UN.

The world body says 12.2 million people, including more than 5.6 million children, remain in need of humanitarian assistance.

The foreign-sponsored militancy has displaced 7.6 million people.

Not too hopeful about the Syria talks

In an exclusive interview with Press TV’s Website on Friday, journalist and blogger Richard Silverstein described the Vienna talks on the Syrian crisis a “hopeful sign,” especially in the wake of the ongoing foreign-sponsored militancy in Syria and the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe.

He, however, cast doubt on the possible outcome of the negotiations due to the miscellany of the interests of the parties involved, and their conflicting nature in some cases.

Silverstein pointed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program as well as regional issues, noting that the agreement has paved the way for possible cooperation between Tehran and Washington on a number of issues to do with Middle East, and Iran’s stronger role as a regional player.

US shifting stance on Assad?

Separately, Kentucky-based political commentator John Miranda told Press TV’s Website that he expects that, at the end of the Vienna talks, US officials would drop their demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave power.

He also said that the Damascus government would seek broader assistance from Iran in the fight against militant groups wreaking havoc on Syrian soil.

Zarif and his US and Russian counterparts, John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, met in Vienna on Thursday evening ahead of the negotiations.

The Iranian foreign minister also met EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. Their talks focused both on the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program as well as regional issues.

‘Criminal’ EU Does Not Deserve the Right to Exist – Austrian Magazine

October 17, 2015 By administrator

The EU has betrayed its own democratic values when it called on Russia to stop supporting the legitimate president of Syria and backed revolutionaries willing to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government, Austrian Contra Magazin wrote.

“Who decides whether an elected head of a state can keep his office, or has to resign? The EU? The USA?” Assad was and will be the only stabilizing factor in the Middle East, although the US and its ally Saudi Arabia make every effort to overthrow him and his government, the magazine wrote.

According to the magazine, the United States used to demonstrate its power and behavior of being an exceptional state which sought to rule the world. The EU has also started to follow the path of this type and has turned into a totally dependent vassal of the US.
The author argued that no one allowed the EU to involve the population of its member countries in armed conflicts and intervene into regions, which the Union has nothing to do with.
When the EU called on Russia to stay away from supporting the legitimate head of state who had asked for help and at the same time backed the opposition seeking a governmental coup, it did not act as a union which promotes rule of law and democracy, but rather as a criminal association that furthers anarchy in the name of all its member countries.
The peoples of the European Union would not want such an EU if they were asked their opinion. The Union has become so disgusting that there is only one solution: to abolish it completely and immediately, the article said.

“The excuse that this is about Russia and therefore any form of the war idiocy is allowed is not only ridiculous, but also old, naive, stupid, inflammatory, apolitical and criminal; because Russia has done nothing wrong and is doing nothing wrong. Assad has asked Russia for help against the ISIL and that’s what Russia is currently dealing with,” the magazine reported.

Source: sputniknews.com