Erdogan’s Ottoman dream causes storm in Red Sea

January 4, 2018 By administrator

The word tow the most dictators Erdogan and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan

The Gulf-Egypt axis now has another reason to question Turkey’s ambitions in the region: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the first leg of his late-December Africa tour, went to Sudan to ask if Ankara could lease Suakin Island. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir agreed to Erdogan’s request.

Erdogan adamantly rejects claims that Turkey is scheming to build a military base at Suakin. But the island, which once served as an Ottoman forward outpost in the Red Sea, could easily assume military features that would provide Turkey with a third military base abroad, in addition to those in Qatar and Somalia.

During his visit to Sudan, Erdogan signed 13 agreements covering a new airport for the capital Khartoum, a free-trade zone in Port Sudan, a port and shipyards for military and civilian ships in the Red Sea, grain silos at various locations, a university, a hospital and power stations. The countries are targeting an annual trade volume between them of $10 billion, up from the current $500 million.

The two countries induced panic in the Arab world when, in addition to Turkey gaining temporary control of Suakin Island, the two countries’ chiefs of staff agreed to develop military cooperation. While explaining why he is paying so much attention to this island that the Sudanese call “the gate to Africa,” Erdogan used the metaphor of “reincarnation,” which reinvigorated the fear of Turks in the region.

Suakin lost its stature and fell into ruin when Port Sudan was built 30 miles to the north between 1905 and 1909. But Erdogan accused Western countries of turning Suakin into a “ghost island.”

“They razed it to the ground. … This is in their nature,” Erdogan said Dec. 25 during a speech at Khartoum University. “Your razing of this place is like us shaving our beards. We will rebuild and reconstruct it in such a way that, like a shaved beard, it will regrow much more abundant.”

Erdogan has this plan in mind: If the island is handed over to Turkey, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism will restore the Ottoman relics there, including a 300-room caravanserai, or inn. TIKA has been operating on the island since 2011 and already has restored the Hanafi and Shafi mosques. When the entire restoration project is completed, Turkish citizens traveling to Mecca for the Islamic pilgrimage of umrah will be able to fly to Sudan to visit historical sites and then go to Jeddah by boat, thus reanimating an Ottoman base and the ancient umrah route.

Whether the island will become a military base is open to speculation, but the port project for military and civilian ships and the accord of military cooperation are enough to raise eyebrows, especially in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Egypt fears that Sudan, empowered by Turkish support, might become even more strident in its claim to the disputed Halayeb triangle on the Red Sea coast. Egypt had posted soldiers at Halayeb in the 1990s to block Sudanese aspirations. Moreover, Egypt has been upset with Sudan’s support of Ethiopia in an argument over the Renaissance Dam on the Nile. Egyptians fear that a Turkish military alliance with Sudan could actually upset the power balance in the region.

Egypt is also worried about a powerful country like Turkey, which supports the Muslim Brotherhood, having direct access to a neighboring country. Egypt exiled leaders of the Sunni Islamist organization, which supported the previous administration.

Egyptian journalist Imadeddin Adib wrote about Egypt’s concerns in his Al Watan column Dec. 27: “Bashir [al-Assad] is playing with fire in return for dollars. Sudan — with its Turkey madness, with Iranian plots and the Ethiopian scheme to deny water to Egypt, and Qatar’s financial gimmicks — is violating geographic and historic realities against Egypt. Sudan is offering its ports and borders for dispatching of guns and terrorists to Egypt and serving the goals of the Qatar-Turkey alliance to restore the Muslim Brotherhood to power.”

Saudis fear that a base in Sudan controlled by Turkey — which is cooperating with Iran — could become a springboard of support for the Qatar- and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Sudan, despite its promise to remain neutral, gives the impression that it is supporting Qatar in its conflict with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. A partnership with Turkey is considered a concrete indicator of the change in Sudan’s axis.

Arab media gave wide coverage to statements that the 13 agreements between Sudan and Turkey — worth $650 million — were actually financed by Qatar. In November, Qatar had announced plans to develop a port with Sudan on the Red Sea.

Simultaneously with Erdogan’s Africa tour, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim went to Saudi Arabia to try to balance the developments in the Red Sea and dispel concerns. But it didn’t work. Although the Saudi leadership kept silent, comments in the media they control revealed their concerns.

Mohammed Abu Talib, a writer for Saudi newspaper Okaz, reminded readers that Sudan was saved from sanctions thanks to the Saudis. He accused Sudan of serving Turkey’s expansion aspirations.

“Turkey is blatantly seeking expansion in the region and using its influence, especially against Egypt and Gulf countries. The most dangerous aspect of this visit was handing over to Erdogan Suakin Island, which faces Jeddah and which he sees as the symbol of the Ottoman Empire,” Abu Talib wrote.

The Gulf News commented, “Iran can use the new Turkish base in Sudan to ship more weapons to Houthis. Turkey, by using the new military facility, could send more soldiers to Qatar or intervene more in Egypt by manipulating the Muslim Brotherhood. This no doubt will worry Jordan as much as Egypt. With Turkish and Sudanese provocations, Sudanese aspirations for Halayeb [the disputed area] can be reignited.”

Egyptian daily Al Akhbar also wrote that Sudanese deals with Turkey signal changes in Sudan’s axis in a way that will worry regional countries.

The website of Al Arabia TV carried an incendiary comment that said, “The Ottoman presence in Suakin is associated with massacres of Sudanese.”

The last thing Arabs want is to witness a resurrection of Ottoman heritage on Red Sea shores. Arabs already take Erdogan’s inflammatory speeches very seriously.

How justified are their concerns? Is there really a resurrection of Ottomans? Erdogan has established a pattern of loudly recalling Ottoman forefathers, claiming Ottoman relics and referring to the Ottoman heritage when speaking about the Middle East and Africa. He sees Africa as a region of opportunities and believes that he has more right than anybody else to be there. “More dangerous than a shark smelling blood are the imperialists who smell oil,” Erdogan said during his Sudan visit, while repeating that the Ottomans had no imperialist past.

Erdogan also believes he can compensate in Africa for isolation elsewhere. It is true that this is the region where Turkey’s image has eroded the least. His most recent tour to Sudan, Chad and Tunisia was his fifth visit to Africa since he became president in 2014. He also signed a military accord with Tunisia to train Tunisian soldiers in Turkey and also to invest in the defense field.

Since Turkey declared 2005 “The Year of Africa,” it increased its number of embassies in the continent from 12 to 38. It has a sizable military presence in Somalia, where it just opened a base in September. The base, which cost about $50 million to build, now houses 200 Turkish troops and has a military academy that will train Somali officers.

Turkey also sent its first military detachment to a base near Qatar’s capital of Doha in June. So far, there are no more than 100 soldiers at a base that can accommodate 5,000. Troop strength is expected to reach 3,000.

In sum, Erdogan’s approach to building African relations by bringing up history and religion is the core concern for Arabs. Turkey could benefit more by basing its relations on joint interests instead of reviving unpleasant past experiences. Erdogan is making the mistake of becoming a party to regional conflicts as he tries to build new bridges in the region. Also, he prefers to forge personal relations instead of solid, institutional relations, making one wonder about the sustainability of Turkey’s ambitious Africa plans.

Russian Intervention Shatters Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Dreams For Syria.

December 26, 2015 By administrator

Russian Intervention Shatters Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Dreams For Syria.

Since the Arab Spring of 2011, Turkey’s foreign policy has been focused on Syria and on the ousting of its ‘Alawite President Bashar Assad, who Turkey hoped would be replaced by a like-minded Sunni ruler from the Muslim Brotherhood.

During the 13 years of its rule, Turkey’s government, led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), steered the country away from its traditional alliance with the West and towards the Middle East and the Islamic world, claiming historic hegemony over, and responsibility for, the countries of the region – a role that Turkey sees as its Ottoman legacy.

President [formerly PM] Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Prime Minister [formerly FM] Ahmet Davutoglu designed a neo-Ottomanist, expansionist and foreign policy that involved grand aspirations to become the region’s main superpower.

They supported Islamist jihadist factions in many countries, incurring sharp criticism from the governments of Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq and especially Syria, where they played a major role in sparking and escalating the civil war.

The AKP government allowed free passage to thousands of jihadi fighters into Syria, and provided material and logistic support to radical organizations that are fighting the Assad regime, including ISIS, Jabhat Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham –with the exception of the Kurdish forces, whom Turkey terms “terrorists” despite their important role in fighting ISIS.

After Turkey, a NATO ally, finally opened its strategically important Incirlik airbase for the use of coalition forces in July 2015, the U.S. and the West turned a blind eye to Turkey’s aggression against the Kurds, and agreed to most of Turkey’s demands,[1] including by supporting its program for training and equipping an opposition force in Syria to fight both ISIS and the Assad regime– a project that turned out to be a failure.

When the U.S. and Europe rejected Turkey’s initiative for a safe zone in Syria where Turkey would build cities to settle refugees, Turkey pressured them by allowing hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees from camps in Turkey to migrate to European countries, thus presenting Europe with a massive refugee problem.

Russia’s current involvement in Syria has definitely put an end to Turkey’s safe-zone plans. Turkey’s opposition parties, as well as its independent media, have for years criticized Erdogan and Davutoglu’s Syrian policies as “disastrous,” yet the AKP government was confident that its plans for Syria would produce the outcome it desired.

AKP leaders treated Syria as a domestic issue, and claimed that “not a bird could fly over that country without Turkey’s approval.”[2] In August 2012 Davutoglu predicted that Assad would fall within a few weeks,[3] and in September of that year Erdogan announced that “very soon, we [Turks]will meet and hug our [Sunni] brethren in liberated Damascus, say the Fatiha [prayer] at the tomb of Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyoubi and pray together in freedom at the Emevi mosque.”[4]

Palestinians Dream Of Return

July 1, 2014 By administrator

Photo Essay By Muhammed Muheisen

A lifetime has passed since hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out their homes in the Mideast war over Israel’s 1948 creation. Today, those who were uprooted and their descendants number more than 5 million people, scattered across the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

The Palestinian refugee problem is one of the most entrenched in the world, with a solution linked to an elusive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. About one-third of the refugees still live in camps, or tent cities that have been transformed into crowded urban slums. Some families live in the camps for the fourth generation.

The plight of millions of refugees everywhere is marked Friday on World Refugee Day. The United Nations refugee agency says that at the end of last year, more than 50 million people have been forced from their homes worldwide, the highest figure of displaced since World War II.

More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out in the 1948 Mideast war, according to U.N. figures. The war began after Israel declared its independence and surrounding Arab nations invaded. Tens of thousands more Palestinians were displaced in the 1967 war in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands the Palestinians seek for a state.

The fate of the Palestinian refugees is one of the most explosive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Israel saying it cannot accept a mass return because that would dilute the state’s Jewish majority. Palestinian negotiators say each refugee has the right to choose between return and resettling, whether in a future state of Palestine or a third country.

In the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank, murals express the hardships of life in exile and the yearning to return to what is now Israel. Some old-timers there cling to hopes of return of going back.

Fatimah Jalamneh, 85, spends her day sitting by the doorway of her house in an alley in the camp. She was in her late teens when her family fled from the village of Noures near what is now the Israeli town of Afula.

“Until death takes me away, my only dream is to go back to my village and sit under a tree in my home which was taken away from me and my children,” said Jalamneh, a great-grandmother.

She had tears in her eyes when she spoke and held what she said was a key to her old family home.

Abduljalil Al-Noursi, 70, sat in front of a large mural showing a ship and the words “We will return” written on the sail. In Palestinian refugee art, a ship is a common symbol of the hopes of return

Al-Nursi was 4 years old when he and 19 relatives fled with just the clothes on their backs. “I won’t let go of my right of return,” he said.

This series of images is by Associated Press photographer Muhammed Muheisen and are of some of the oldest Palestinian refugees in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on World Refugee Day.

Source: Ap

Turkish-Armenian intellectuals: We get a common dream (joint text)

May 30, 2014 By administrator

radikal.com

Turkish and Armenian numerous names, penned a joint text. Signatories, ‘the start of a period of peace’ just want. publish the text.

Samim Akgönül, Cengiz Aktar, Gore to the Apriki, Ariane Ascari, the Sibel Asna, Serge Avedikian, Ali Bayramoglu, Marie-Aude Baroni, the Rona Boyadjian, anaid Donabedian, Denis Donikian, Robert Guédigi, the Claire Guidicent, Nilüfer lake, bay Gursoy, Ahmet Insel, Ali Kazancıgil, Jacques Kebad, the Ferhat Kentel, Raymond Kevorkian, Michel Marian, Gerard Malkassi, the Umit Text, Aravane the Pamokdji, the Manoug Pamokdji, the Isabelle Ouzounian, Armand Sarian, Betul Tanbay, Gérard Torikka, the Serra Yılmaz.

This text common dream we signed between Armenian and Turkish, in respect to both the public and history, is the beginning of a period of peace …
Turkey for a long time with the political culture of the Republic, the founder of achieving an offense of obstructing the past to keep it under protection and was a permanent obstacle to the establishment of the rule of law. However, the terrible events that took place in 1915 and nobody can afford to delete the results. The last 10 years in many areas path to be taken in this regard testified. Academic research, cultural activities, restoration of monuments, to search for the roots of individuals in the public sphere, such as arranging reunions are important steps follow each other. To repair a portion of the fallen, to help those who have experienced a tremendous disadvantage, in order to entitle them to a special serious, sincere and constant work now possible to make a memory. Life of the memory traces overlap began. Our initiative is a continuation of it and of the Republic of Turkey, to prevent an aside, this presumes that will take place in the intersection.
Diaspora Armenians a century later, on a date still are uncomfortable being confined to a false debate. To visit the land where the roots, they are ignited by the desire to show to the children. Today’s Turkey is not blocking them in this regard. But the state of charge of a single word of truth, can help heal the wounds in their memory. Not being able to hear the names of concussions establishing new relationships with cities and villages can, however, not possible with such a powerful invitation. As Hrant Dink And so “water finds cracks”.
Our shared dream is as follows: Story and places in Turkey with only the memory of Armenians died, that they were victims of a genocide by accepting the honor. Would people and ideas that led to this exhibition. History books and street names, the destruction of Armenian names of those who govern and apply it, but scrupulous and fair people who saved Armenians ovary. The Government of Turkey to the Armenian Church and the foundation, they have monuments shall return. From Turkey and Armenians are proud of this common cultural heritage.
Our dream of a complete and full citizenship in the secular Republic of Turkey too. Non-Muslims are taking place in public office, complete the prosecution of those who murdered them is in progress, the rhetoric of hate crime laws is declared. Armenians and Türkiyeliler, in his own style, two Armenian identity embraces Muslims who want to live well.
Our dream water crack of Hrant pointed out, today a large part of the world that hosts Armenian young independent Armenia is also available to reach. The government of Turkey in the dream, drown him embargo, instead of listening to the demands from along the border, the border opens, helping to find the end of the isolation of Armenia. Armenia to one of the ports on the Black Sea, Trabzon or Samsun, provide an opportunity for privileged access. And formerly in Cilicia, Mersin on the Mediterranean coast or Ayas (Ovarian), an economic convenience, beyond the existing cultural heritage shines from the Middle Ages, is the center of a new multicultural life.
Mount Ararat, where the two countries share the spiritually we are dreaming, this symbolizes a new era. Mount Ararat, which are included in the UNESCO world cultural heritage list turns into a huge natural park and along the Armenians from Turkey will add value is a kind of free zone. Pain where the roots of humanity becomes a beacon of peace.
To begin to realize this dream, this text signatories to the 1915 relocation of the memorial on the road who want to organize assistance to Armenians around the world are promising. In 2015, to the land of their ancestors, their memories and they go together to find historical traces.
Samim Akgönül, Cengiz Aktar, Gore to the Apriki, Ariane Ascari, the Sibel Asna, Serge Avedikian, Ali Bayramoglu, Marie-Aude Baroni, the Rona Boyadjian, anaid Donabedian, Denis Donikian, Robert Guédigi, the Claire Guidicent, Nilüfer lake, bay Gursoy, Ahmet Insel, Ali Kazancıgil, Jacques Kebad, the Ferhat Kentel, Raymond Kevorkian, Michel Marian, Gerard Malkassi, the Umit Text, Aravane the Pamokdji, the Manoug Pamokdji, the Isabelle Ouzounian, Armand Sarian, Betul Tanbay, Gérard Torikka, the Serra Yılmaz.

Source: radikal.com