Armenian President’s Republican Party Signs Coalition Deal With ARF

May 12, 2017 By administrator

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party won 58 of the 105 seats in parliamentary elections on April 2.

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian’s ruling Republican Party (HHK) has signed a coalition agreement with the smaller Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), a party official told reporters on May 11.

Sarkisian’s Republican Party won 58 of the 105 seats in parliamentary elections on April 2, surpassing the 50 percent level, but the coalition agreement was nevertheless important to the HHK’s ability to form a government.

Legislative rules require a three-fifths majority to win approval for appointments such as Constitutional Court judges, the general prosecutor, chairman of the appeals court, central bank chairman, and election officials.

In addition, the passing of important laws, such as the electoral and judicial codes, laws on holding referendums, and legislation related to the Constitutional Court also require the approval of three-fifths of the parliament.

With the addition of seven seats from the ARF, it will surpass the three-fifths level of 63 seats by two.

“We have a number of similarities in our value systems…that will determine the cooperation between two national parties during the coming five years,” said Armen Ashotyan, vice chairman of the Republican Party.

The Republican Party won 49.15 percent of the April 2 vote, with the center-right Tsarukian Alliance, led by Russia-friendly tycoon Gagik Tsarukian, winning 27.37 percent.

The nationalist ARF, which was part of the previous ruling coalition with the Republicans, won about 6.57 percent of the April 2 vote.

Some international observers said the voting process was “tainted” by reports of vote-buying and pressure on voters.

In the previous coalition agreement, the ARF had three ministerial posts — economy, education, and local administration.

The terms of the new coalition deal were not immediately announced.

In the past, the ARF, also known as Dashnaktsutiun, has antagonized neighboring Turkey by making territorial claims.

Armenia and Turkey have clashed over Armenian demands that Turkey take responsibility for the mass killing and deportation of some 1.5 million Armenians during World War I by the Ottoman Empire.

The atrocities suffered by the Armenians have been classed as genocide by Yerevan and more than a dozen states.

Although Turkey admits many Christian Armenians were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces, it denies the killings were orchestrated and constituted a genocide.

Israelis push back against Turkey normalization deal

June 27, 2016 By administrator

Bereaved family members and friends of late Israeli soldier Oron Shaul hand out flyers and bumper stickers to people driving by as they demonstrate at the protest tent outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on June 27, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF

As families of slain soldiers whose bodies are held in Gaza rail against government, survey finds public mostly against landmark rapprochement agreement

More than half of the Israelis are against a deal to restore ties with Turkey, a poll released Monday found, as politicians and families of slain soldiers criticized the agreement announced earlier in the day

Out of 600 respondents in the survey conducted Monday morning, 33 percent voiced support for the Turkey deal, 56% were opposed and 11% were undecided, according to Channel 10, which commissioned the poll.

There was significantly greater support for the deal among the 100 Arab Israelis surveyed — 72% supported it, compared to just 24% of the 500 Jews polled. Jewish Israelis were overwhelmingly opposed, with 65% saying they did not support the deal.

The survey results came as a number of politicians and public figures came out against the terms of the long-sought deal, which will see ties between Jerusalem and Ankara normalized after six years of bitter recriminations.

As part of the agreement, Israel will pay $20 million as compensation for a 2010 military raid on the Mavi Marmara Gaza blockade-busting ship, which led to the deaths of 10 Turkish activists.

Not included, though, was the return of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza as well as two citizens being held captive there, leading to anger among family members that the government had abandoned their sons.

The TV channel reported that two unnamed security cabinet ministers have instructed the families of two Israeli soldiers whose remains are held in the Gaza Strip to appeal to the High Court of Justice against the deal.

The families of Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin were opposed to the rapprochement, arguing that Israel should have urged Turkey to pressure Hamas to release the bodies, as well as two other Israeli captives said held by the terror group, as part of the negotiations.

On Sunday, the families set up a protest tent outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, with dozens rallying against the agreement.

The deal must still gain the approval of the top-level security cabinet, which will meet Wednesday to discuss the agreement.

Already Monday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman reportedly said he would oppose the deal, though he said he would not wage a public campaign to derail the deal.

Another minister, who was not named in press accounts, reportedly also criticized the deal.

“It’s a contemptible move that the prime minister is bringing before the cabinet as a fait accompli,” the minister was quoted by Israeli news site Ynet as saying. “He’s turned us into a rubber stamp.”

Israeli opposition politicians have criticized the deal, while ministers have largely been silent.

The Goldin and Shaul families will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday, Channel 10 reported.

“Netanyahu cares for Gaza and not for our soldiers,” said Zahava Shaul, the mother of slain IDF soldier Oron Shaul earlier Monday. “Netanyahu has not kept his promises. It’s important that Netanyahu know that all of Israel is on our side, and every Jewish mother should know: tomorrow this could be you.

“This is not how you negotiate,” she added.

The family of Hadar Goldin, who was also killed in the 2014 Gaza war, condemned the “bad and problematic” deal, which they said “ignores the pain of the families and the fate of Israel’s heroes,” according to the Walla news website.

“The prime minister’s statements are hollow,” the Goldin family charged. They urged Israeli ministers to vote against the “bad” deal and ensure that the agreement hinges on Hamas’s return of the slain soldiers’ bodies.

A senior Israeli official on Sunday said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had written a letter committing Turkey to work toward their release as part of the deal.

According to the Channel 10 poll, 72% of Israelis thought the return of the bodies should have been included in the deal.

Jerusalem and Ankara announced Monday the terms of the deal, ending years of diplomatic stalemate between the eastern Mediterranean countries and heralding the normalization of ties.

Criticizing Netanyahu for agreeing to compensate the families of Turks killed in the Mavi Marmara incident and not bringing home Israelis held captive in Gaza, opposition leader Isaac Herzog said Monday the deal was “important,” but hedged his praise by saying Ankara “is the ally of Hamas.

“As in the [Gilad] Shalit incident and in Operation Protective Edge, Netanyahu is weak against Hamas because over the years he’s given in to the political threats of [Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor] Liberman and has been dragged along unnecessarily at the expense of Israeli citizens’ security interests,” he added.

Other politicians also criticized the deal, though some said they would reluctantly accept it to reestablish ties with Turkey, once Israel’s closest regional ally.

Already frayed relations between Israel and Turkey were significantly downgraded in 2010 after Israeli commandos staged a raid on a six-ship Turkish flotilla that was trying to breach Israel’s naval blockade of the Strip.

The commandos were violently attacked by those on board the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, and nine Turkish citizens, including one with American citizenship, were killed in the ensuing melee. A 10th citizen died of his wounds years later. A number of Israeli soldiers were injured in the raid.

Under the deal, Israel will pay $20 million in compensation for the deaths caused in the commando raid, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim confirmed. In return for the compensation, Turkey agreed not to take legal action against Israel Defense Forces soldiers involved in the incident.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, dismissed criticism by political opponents who decried the paying of compensation to attackers of IDF soldiers as a national humiliation.

“Our vital interests are advanced by this deal,” he said. “This isn’t the start of a honeymoon. And I’m not presenting this agreement through rose-colored glasses. But this agreement strengthens Israel.”

The EU sells its soul to strike a deal with Turkey – The Financial Times

March 21, 2016 By administrator

_{By Wolfgang Münchau}

The EU had two assets I have always considered un¬assailable, however much I may have questioned various decisions. The first is a lack of alternatives. How else can Europeans confront climate change, a refugee crisis or an over-assertive Russian president if not through the EU?

The second is the moral high ground. Compared with the majority of its member states, the EU is less corrupt, more principled and rules-driven. Whereas the world of national politics is full of tacticians out to seek short-term gain, the bloc manages a better mix of politics and policies. It builds broad coalitions and formulates strategic policy objectives. Its horizon extends beyond the life of a parliament.

Within a few years those assets have been demolished. The mismanagement of the eurozone crisis made it possible to formulate a rational economic argument for an exit.
Then, on Friday the EU lost its other key asset. The deal with Turkey is as sordid as anything I have seen in modern European politics. On the day that EU leaders signed the deal, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, gave the game away: “Democracy, freedom and the rule of law . . . For us, these words have absolutely no value any longer.” At that point, the European Council should have ended the conversation with Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister, and sent him home. But instead they made a deal with him — money and a lot more in return for help with the refugee crisis.
Turkey will relocate some 72,000 refugees to the EU — a one-for-one swap for every illegal immigrant whom the Turks pick up on smuggler boats in the Aegean Sea. In return, the EU is paying Turkey €6bn and opening up a new chapter in EU accession negotiations — this with a country whose leadership has just abrogated democracy. The EU is further set to allow visa-free travel to 75m inhabitants of Turkey. The EU not only sold its soul that day, it actually negotiated a pretty lousy deal.
I am not in a position to judge whether this deal complies with the Geneva Convention and other parts of international law. I assume that the European Council has made sure it would stand up in court. But even if it is judged to be legal, I have doubts whether it can be implemented. It will be interesting to watch whether the EU will renege on its promises to Turkey if Ankara fails to deliver.
Even if the deal is implemented in full, it will not lighten the pressure much. The expected number of refugees making their way into the EU will be a large multiple of the 72,000 agreed with Turkey. A German think-tank has done the maths on refugee flows for this year and has come up with an estimated range of 1.8m-6.4m. The latter figure is a worst-case scenario that would include large numbers from Northern Africa.
The closure of the west Balkan route for refugees — from Greece through Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and then into Austria and Germany — brought short-term relief to north Europeans but there are numerous alternative routes refugees can take. They can go through the Caucasus and the Ukraine, or through the Mediterranean into Italy and Spain. If countries close their borders, they do not reduce the stream of refugees but simply divert them. It is a classic example of a beggar-thy-neighbour policy. This shows that the case for anchoring refugee policy at EU level is overwhelming.
One of the most egregious cases of unilateral action is Austria’s border closures. The country will now reintroduce controls at its main border post to Italy — on the Brenner motorway. This is one of the busiest routes between southern and northern Europe. Once the refugees arrive in Italy, expect more action at its northern borders. France, Switzerland and Slovenia can be counted on to reintroduce controls at that point. Italy would then be cut off from the Schengen passport-free travel area, of which it is a member, and Schen¬gen would become a small club of north European countries — possibly a model for a future eurozone. This would be the first step in the fragmentation of the EU.
The agreement with Turkey will also have an impact on the UK referendum debate. Would the camp in favour of leaving the EU not have something to say about visa-free travel for 75m Turks? Anyone who cares about democracy and human rights will hate this deal. So will anyone who fears German dominance of the EU, since it was initiated by Angela Merkel. The German chancellor needed it badly to get her out of a hole of her own making. It was her unilateral decision to open Germany’s borders that turned a manageable refugee crisis into an unmanageable one.
It is not easy to make a purely rational case for Britain’s exit from the EU. But when the EU loses its moral high ground, we should not be surprised that people begin to question what it stands for, and why it is needed.

March 13 2015 Zaman Publish Article: Book: Erdoğan’s son-in-law involved in Kurdish oil deal

December 3, 2015 By administrator

Berat Albayrak is married to President Erdoğan’s daughter Esra Albayrak. (Photo: Today’s Zaman, Mehmet Demirci)

Documents from an excerpt of a recently published book have revealed that the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took most of the shares of a lucrative oil deal signed between Ankara and Arbil in 2011 and laid the framework for the transfer of Kurdish oil via Turkish territory.

This revelation is the newest in a long list of corruption allegations involving the president. Erdoğan is himself locked in a battle to ward off corruption charges that first came into the public spotlight after the commencement of a sweeping graft investigation two years ago.

The Hürriyet daily’s Washington correspondent, Tolga Tanış, delves into the details in his book “Potus ve Beyefendi” (Potus and Beyefendi), which pinpoints the background of a deal struck between then-Prime Minister Erdoğan’s government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) shortly after the June 2011 elections that propelled Erdoğan to power for the third time.

The book also categorizes Erdoğan as a “politically exposed person [PEP],” which is a term used in financial regulation describing someone who has been entrusted with a prominent public function or a close associate of that person. Due to their position and influence, it is recognized that many PEPs are in positions that can potentially be abused for the purpose of committing money laundering (ML) offenses and related predicate offenses, including corruption and bribery, according to a definition by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The issue of transportation of Kurdish oil through Turkish territory generated a diplomatic rift with Baghdad, which accused Ankara of breaching relevant articles of Iraq’s constitution that regulate the oil trade, including redistribution of oil income through the central government and selling oil to third parties after obtaining permission from Baghdad.

Baghdad’s warnings went unheeded as Ankara inked a lucrative deal with the Kurdish administration, constructing new oil pipelines in an attempt to increase the daily oil flow from northern Iraq. For Baghdad, it was a clear violation of its sovereignty and constitution, and the move would encourage separatist feeling in Arbil. For Erdoğan’s government, however, it was just a business deal.

After he meticulously worked on details to build a coherent account in his book, Tanış reveals an underreported aspect of the story, in which Erdoğan appears as a central actor behind the oil deal. In his book, Tanış claims that it was Erdoğan’s son-in-law who was in charge of the Turkish company that controversially won the tender to distribute the Kurdish oil. Tanış painstakingly untangles the complicated web of relations and affairs that obscure the real ownership of the company, Powertrans, and argues that Berat Albayrak, who is married to Erdoğan’s daughter, Esra Albayrak, runs the operations of the firm that was granted the distribution rights for the Kurdish oil.

The company managed its operations by setting up new sub-companies abroad. Grand Fortune Ventures and Lucky Ventures are two companies that sprang into existence in Singapore. The companies own Powertrans. Albayrak at age 26 became CEO of the Çalık Business Group, owned by the Çalık family, which is close to Erdoğan. His lightning ascent to the pinnacle of power in the business world, Tanış argues, owes much to Erdoğan, who became personally involved in high-profile tenders and business deals to grant favorable shares to his family network.

Albayrak ran Powertrans’ oil operations while he was CEO of the Çalık Business Group. The company has so far earned nearly $700 million from its financial operations in Turkey. The book points to an emerging pattern suggesting that dozens of companies have recently sprung up after getting approval from the Cabinet, whose functions have been reduced to clear the way for establishing new firms in a short time. Patronage lay at the heart of this pattern, revealing politicians’ close connections to the business world, the journalist asserts in his book.

Tanış’s detailed account also reveals the network of business relations between the Erdoğan and KRG President Massoud Barzani’s family and other relatives, which helped overcome political disputes that once threatened to end in open confrontation between Turkey and the KRG in the 2000s. What opened the way for blossoming economic ties, the book claims, was the US-sponsored detente between Turkey and the KRG in 2007, leading to the establishment of the Turkish Consulate in Arbil in 2010. Erdoğan’s visit to the Kurdish region further cemented flourishing diplomatic ties, forging a new alliance between Arbil and Ankara to the envy of the central government in Baghdad.

Source:Zaman

UN Security Council unanimously endorses Iran nuclear deal

July 20, 2015 By administrator

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously endorsed the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.

The resolution, co-sponsored by all 15 council members and adopted Monday morning, also authorizes a series of measures leading to the end of U.N. sanctions that have hurt Iran’s economy, Associated Press said.

But the measure also provides a mechanism for U.N. sanctions to “snap back” in place if Iran fails to meet its obligations.
The resolution had been agreed to by the five veto-wielding council members, who along with Germany negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran.

Source: Panorama.am