Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide
This morning on the show The Great visit Europe 1, led by Jean-Pierre Elkabach and Michaël Darmon, Senate President Gerard Larcher, said he is “not in favor of accession” Turkey in the European Union in the current state.
Note that Gérard Larcher is the former president of the friendship group France-Turkey.
Francois Hollande said Saturday that he intends to make “no concessions” to Turkey on human rights or visas in exchange for guarantees on the control of migratory flows, after a meeting with a dozen social-leaders European Democrats at the Elysee. “There should be no concessions on human rights or the visa liberalization criteria,” said the president during a brief
Iraq would not allow any state to send troops to liberate Mosul from the Daesh militants, according to spokesman of Iraq’s joint military alignment Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasul.
DUBAI (Sputnik) — Baghdad does not need the support of Turkish troops in the liberation of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, captured by the Islamic State (ISIL, or Daesh in Arabic) militant group, spokesman of Iraq’s joint military alignment Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasul said Sunday.
On December 4, Turkey deployed about 150 troops and 25 tanks to northern Iraq reportedly to help national forces to reclaim Mosul, which was captured by Daesh in June 2014.
“The government has announced that it does not want participation of any troops, except the Iraqi ones, in the liberation of Mosul. Participation of the Turkish or any other troops is not the issue, especially taking into consideration the multitude of the Iraqi troops, including the military, tribes and popular militia,” Rasul told Al-Hayat newspaper.
He added that Iraq would not allow any other state to send troops to liberate Mosul.
Earlier in December, Baghdad demanded to withdraw Turkish troops from its territory, while Ankara justified the deployment with the necessity to provide security to Turkish soldiers deployed earlier to train local militias, fighting IS jihadists.
Daesh terrorist organization is prohibited in many countries, including Russia.
No Armenian citizens were among the Islamic State members, detained in Egypt, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a tweet.
“In response to a request by the Armenian Embassy to Cairo, the Egyptian authorities confirmed the absence of Armenian citizens among Daesh militants,” Tigran Balayan wrote.
RIA Novosti reported earlier that the Egyptian armed forces had arrested 6 Islamic State militants in Cairo, who had arrived in the country from Libya to orchestrate terrorist attacks on tourist sites. According to the report, a former Tajik army colonel, citizens of Armenia, Belarus, Serbia, Syria, Iran and Egypt were allegedly among those arrested.
By Sevil Erkuş – ANKARA
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Syria, while Iran warned Turkey over military intervention into its neighbor.
“I am addressing the whole world: We will never allow a state to be formed in northern Syria, south of our border,” Erdoğan said at a Ramadan event organized by Turkish Red Crescent in Istanbul late June 26.
“We will keep up with our struggle whatever the cost is. They are trying to complete an operation to change the demographics of the region. We will not condone,” he said.
Turkey’s pro-government media outlets have recently been claiming that Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought ISIL engaged in “ethnic cleansing” targeting Syrian Turkmens.
Erdoğan criticized those who supported the “#TerroristTurkey” hashtag on Twitter after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched on June 25 its second offensive to capture Kobane, a Kurdish town near Syria’s border with Turkey.
“If you have honor and pride, how can you label a country as terrorist although it hosts people who fled Kobane?” Erdoğan asked, before slamming accusations that Ankara supported ISIL as “slander.”
The president also accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian affiliate PYD of preventing Turkey to help more to the people of Kobane.
“I strongly condemn the efforts to corner Turkey,” he said, claiming that ISIL, the PKK and the Syrian regime were “aligned” to undermine Ankara.
The PYD’s armed wing, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), expelled ISIL fighters from Kobane on June 27 and took back full control of the town on the Turkish border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Turkey’s government wants more active military action to support the Free Syrian Army (FSA) against the regime, Kurdish and jihadist forces in Syrian territory, but the military is reluctant to do so, playing for time as the country heads for a new coalition government, official sources told the Hürriyet Daily News.
WASHINGTON,— The White House said Tuesday that it still backs a “unified” Iraq even with the president of the Kurdish Regional Government set to ask for U.S. support for his government during his current visit to Washington.
“It continues to be the view of the United States that a unified Iraq that’s governed in an inclusive way is clearly in the best interest of Iraq’s diverse population,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Iraqi news agencies said self-determination of Iraqi Kurds in Kurdistan Region will be one of the main topics to be discussed during Massoud Barzani’s visit, citing his Chief of Staff Fuad Hussein.
The White House released a readout saying President Barack Obama on Tuesday met Barzani at the White House, along with Vice President Joe Biden.
Though Kurdish leaders were expected to raise the possibility of a “self-determined” Kurdish government during the meeting, the White House readout said fighting against Islamic State IS was the main topic of discussion.
The leaders “discussed a range of issues, including the campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy IS and the status of ongoing political initiatives to address the needs of the Iraqi people and foster cooperation across all communities,” the readout said.
Iraqi troops and Kurdish peshmerga forces are fighting against IS, supported by a U.S.-led coalition that has been conducting airstrikes against the extremist group.
Obama reaffirmed Washington’s support for the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and the Kurdish people and also “reaffirmed the United States’ enduring commitment under the Strategic Framework Agreement to a united, federal, and democratic Iraq, as defined in the Iraqi constitution,” according to the readout.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that as long as he is the leader, a Palestinian state would not be established, reversing his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr. Netanyahu made the assertion on the eve of an election in which he is trailing in the polls. He has been campaigning aggressively, appealing to conservatives for support.
“I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands, is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel,” he said in a video interview published on the NRG website. “Anyone who ignores this is sticking his head in the sand. The left does this time and time again. We are realistic and understand.”
The comments reversed a 2009 speech in which Mr. Netanyahu endorsed the concept of two states for two peoples between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-campaign-settlement.html?emc=edit_na_20150316
A Dutch right-wing political party has demanded Netherlands be cleared of mosques, amid an ongoing row over the integration of Muslim and Turkish minorities in the country, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.
Machiel de Graaf, a member of Dutch anti-immigration and anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV), asked all mosques in the country to be shut down while speaking during a debate on integration in the House of Representatives.
Emphasizing that a Netherlands without mosques would be better, the parliamentarian said “We want to clean Netherlands of Islam.”
In addition to not being integrated into Dutch society and refuse to be assimilated, Muslims living in the country threaten Dutch identity and culture by giving more birth, according to de Graaf.
De Graaf’s remarks drew harsh criticism from members of social democratic parties attending the debate.
While Labor Party (PvdA) deputy Roos Vermeij urged the right-winger to retract his words, Democrats 66 (D66) deputy Sten van Weijenberg stressed his statements were dangerous.
De Graaf’s party, which is led by right-wing politician Geert Wilders, has been a vocal critic of Muslims and immigrants living in the country, but his words mark the first time that the request for the complete closure of mosques has been expressed.
The debate also came as Turkey warned Dutch authorities about aggressive and racist policies toward the Turkish community living there.
Two weeks ago, two lawmakers of Turkish descent from the PvdA were expelled after refusing to support their party’s critical remarks about a number of Turkish organizations that were accused of being “too focused on promoting Turkish and Islamic identity.”
By Jovan Matic
Belgrade (AFP) – Some 10,000 supporters of the Serb ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj, released by a UN war crimes court for cancer therapy, joined him Saturday at a rally in protest at his country’s shift towards Europe.
The gathering was seen as a test of Seselj’s influence at home, where he returned this week after almost 12 years in detention at the court in The Hague, yet to issue a verdict in his trial for crimes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
“Serbia has to decide should it go towards the East (Russia) or towards the West, where all its enemies are,” the 60-year-old firebrand told a euphoric crowd in downtown Belgrade.
“We will not wait for the end of this government’s mandate. Already next year we will have elections that the Serb Radical Party (SRS) will win,” Seselj vowed from the stage.
Waving the flags of Serbia and Russia, the Balkan country’s traditional ally, his supporters carried portraits of President Vladimir Putin and the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and banners reading “No to EU and NATO”.
Serbia opened membership talks with the European Union this year.
Seselj has vowed to unseat from power his former closest collaborators — President Tomislav Nikolic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic — who both left his party in 2008 and founded their own pro-European SNS movement.
Immediately upon his arrival in Belgrade, Seselj labelled the two “traitors” who “sold our honour and gave up Serb nationalism to become servants of the West”.
“He will liberate us from those pro-European bootlickers,” Petar Radojkovic, a 47-year-old construction worker who joined the rally told AFP, in a reference to the government.
Milanka Stupljanin, a 29-year-old saleswoman, said the ultranationalist was the “only one who can revive Serbia.”
To achieve his aims, Seselj said he planned to “revitalise and reorganise” his Serb Radical Party (SRS) and attract new members among “all those who are dissatisfied”.
– Nine counts including murder –
“We should turn towards Russia. Joining the European Union would be a real disaster for Serbian people,” he said.
“However, we do not want a conflict with the EU; if the Union accepts to cooperate with us on equal grounds, why not?”
But Seselj has returned to a country that has greatly changed since he voluntarily surrendered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2003, going on trial four years later.
The groups which once helped whip up murderous fervour as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated in the 1990s are on a steady slide into oblivion.
Today none are even represented in the Serbian parliament, including Seselj’s party.
Political analyst Dusan Janjic was expecting more people at Saturday’s rally “since the radical (Seselj’s) party is a well organised grouping.”
But the “public clearly did not show much interest for Seselj’s comeback. Serbia changed a lot during his absence,” he told AFP.
His return will not threaten the government, agreed the analyst Djordje Vukadinovic.
“To topple the government is too ambitious a goal, especially if he does not change the rhetoric he has been using in the 1990s,” he said.
Seselj is accused of leading ethnic Serb volunteers in persecuting Croats, Muslims and other non-Serbs during the brutal 1990s wars in Croatia and Bosnia.
His trial wrapped up in March 2012, with a verdict still to be handed down.
During the trial, Seselj pleaded not guilty to nine counts including murder, torture, cruel treatment and wanton destruction of villages.
Seselj’s return has sparked outrage among victims’ groups in neighbouring Croatia and Bosnia.
On Saturday, Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic said she could only “voice condolences to Serbia for having a mad war criminal on its streets, instead of him being where he was and where he should have remained”, referring to the UN tribunal.
Cyprus President Anastasiades has sent a clear message that he would not yield to advice or suggestions to return to “a dialogue of the deaf”, referring to the UN-led negotiations with the Turkish Cypriot side, InCyprus reports.
Speaking on Sunday, Oct 19, Anastasiades said “I would have been unworthy of the people’s mandate if I had remained at the negotiating table under threat and new faits accomplis” which Ankara has created.
He said that regional developments “may have prevented some circles from taking more decisive measures against Turkey, even if they fully recognize that Nicosia’s decision to suspend its participation in the ongoing dialogue is justified.”
Turkey has issued a NAVTEX (Navigational Telex), a notice to mariners advising that it was reserving areas south of Cyprus, part of which extends into the Republic’s exclusive economic zone where foreign oil companies are drilling, for seismic surveys from Oct 20 to Dec 30.
Anastasiades at that time announced decision to suspend his participation in the UN-led negotiations which aim to reunify the island under a federal roof.
“The unacceptable provocation by Turkey, five days before the beginning of the substantive dialogue on the Cyprus problem, not only violates international law in a flagrant way but also proves wrong all those who believed in Turkey’s assurances about a substantial contribution to the solution of the problem,” he said, according to InCyprus.
As regards natural resources in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Anastasiades said that “some third parties from foreign countries advise us that it is possible, through various actions, for the natural wealth to be determined now with the participation of the Turkish Cypriots. I want to point out to them that nothing of the sort will ever be accepted. Such a thing will never be accepted.”
“What we have said and we repeat and we will keep saying because it is self-evident, is that the natural wealth belongs to the state and it is therefore also an incentive for Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots. Let there be at last a solution and through the solution the Turkish Cypriots will also of course benefit and will certainly also enjoy the benefits,” he noted.
Anastasiades said that “unfortunately, Turkey’s recent actions do not serve the purpose of confidence building measures or the creation of a constructive environment which would facilitate the process of the talks. To the contrary, they create mistrust and raise serious doubts within the Greek Cypriot community with regard to Ankara’s true intentions of Turkey.”
Adopting confidence building measures would be a tangible proof of the commitment of the leadership of both communities, and in particular of Turkey, for the support of the efforts by civil society to build understanding, trust and good will, acting in this way as a catalyst for the negotiating process, he said.
“I want to make clear that if there is a side that is interested in the earliest possible solution of the Cyprus problem, this is neither Turkey nor the Turkish Cypriot leadership that have hindered the solution for 40 years through their intransigence. It is neither Turkey nor the Turkish Cypriots who were forced to abandon their ancestral homes. It is the Greek Cypriots who are paying the price,” he added.
Anastasiades assured that he will never tire of working and reiterated “our desire for a solution to be found at the earliest possible, a solution that will address our expectations and will not ignore the rights of the Turkish Cypriots either.”