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Turkey: Seized land returned to Armenian community

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turkey-sezed-landA Turkish court ruled against the suit of Zeytinburnu Municipality (Istanbul), leaving in force the decision to return a 42,000 square-meter area to the Holy Savior (Surp Prgich) Armenian hospital.

In early 2014, Turkey’s Directorate General of Foundations made a decision to return to the Holy Savior Armenian hospital, in the Zeytinburnu district, a 42,000 square-meter land. The area includes a sports complex, a football stadium and a parking lot. The Zeytinburnu Municipality appealed against the decision.

According to Turkish newspaper Milliyet, President of the Board of Trustees of Surp Prgich Hospital Foundation Bedros Sirinoglu said that the returned land is worth about 338 million liras (about USD 180 million).

In his words, in all likelihood, a business center, a trade center or a hospital will be built in this area, with the proceeds to go to the hospital and the Armenian community.

The land was confiscated from the Armenian community in 1964.

Turkey prevents Kurdish refugees from fighting ISIL

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Kurds-stopedTurkey has kept its border closed to prevent Syrian Kurdish refugees from returning to the city of Kobani to fight the ISIL terrorists there, Press TV reports.

The Syrian Kurdish refugees remain resolute to help the Kurds in Syria and other Kurdish regions along Turkey’s border fighting against the Takfiri group. They, however, say that Turkish authorities prevent them from joining the Kurdish fighters.

“We want to help the people there but the border is closed. The humanitarian situation of the Kurds is not good there,” Huseyin Gugor, from Kurdish Freedom and Democracy Party, told Press TV.

Turkish Kurds accuse Ankara of being sympathetic toward the militants belonging to the ISIL Takfiri group.

“Most of the ISIL members are passing through Turkey,” Gugor said, adding that the militants enter Kurdistan region via Turkey.

“If it wants, Turkey can provide peace in this region. But it does not,” he further noted.

The Syrian Kurds fleeing clashes between ISIL and Kurdish fighters in the Kurdish city of Kobani and the surrounding areas have been massing along the Turkish border since September 18.

Following the incident, Turkish authorities decided to temporarily shut down the border, forcing the Kurdish refugees to be stranded on the Syrian side of the volatile frontier. More recently, however, as the refugees were allowed in, Turkey has faced a rise in the number of the Kurdish refugees entering its soil. According to the United Nations on Monday, over 130,000 Kurdish refugee entered Turkey within three days.

Quoting Turkish government officials and media reports, The New York Times reported on Monday that Turkey is one of the biggest sources of foreign fighters for the Takfiri group, which has captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria.

The ISIL has captured nearly 60 Kurdish villages around the city of Kobani in Aleppo’s countryside, located in northwestern Syria.

 

Kurdish PKK commander threatens to resume war on Turkey

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By Amberin Zaman for Al monitor

Amberin Zaman is an Istanbul-based writer who has covered Turkey for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Voice of America. A frequent commentator on Turkish television, she is currently Turkey correspondent

On Sept. 24, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) issued a highly critical statement. In a nutshell, it said that Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had “eliminated” the conditions of a mutually observed 18-month cease-fire between the PKK and the Turkish army. It said that, in response to “the AKP’s war against our people, our leadership PKK-commandercouncil has decided to step up its struggle in every area and by all possible means.” I had heard similar words on Sept. 21 from Cemil Bayik, the top PKK commander in the field, during a three-hour meeting I had with him in a tent in the Kandil mountains.

“We may resume our war at the end of September. We have the authority to resume the war,” Bayik said.

“What of the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan?” I asked.

“We have a division of labor. Our leader has the authority to make peace,” he replied.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you sure?” I asked repeatedly, because his words could have profound consequences for Turkey and its government.

Bayik responded positively: “We will be making a statement to this effect,” he said.

I thus decided to wait for the PKK to make its statement before publishing this interview. I did not want to be the first to impart the gloomy news. Because in the repressive climate that is gripping Turkey, I might have been accused of warmongering. So, is there a real risk that the insurgency will resume? Won’t Ocalan have the final say? Is the PKK’s statement no more than a tactical move aimed at putting pressure on the government? I would say yes to both questions. That said, with every passing day that the AKP government fails to take concrete steps to solve the Kurdish problem, the risk of the cease-fire’s ending grows. I raised all of these issues with Bayik, who hasn’t set foot in Turkey since 2000. The following are the highlights of the interview he gave to Al-Monitor:

Al-Monitor: How is the Islamic State (IS) onslaught against Kobani (the Syrian Kurdish-majority town of Ayn al-Arab on the Turkish border) affecting the peace process in Turkey?

Bayik: The attacks by Daesh [the initials of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham] against Kobani helped elucidate two things. One was whether Turkey’s collaboration with Daesh is continuing or not. The other is whether the peace process is continuing in the north [i.e., Turkey] or not. What emerged is that Turkey is continuing its relations with Daesh and that Turkey will not solve the Kurdish problem in the north. Because a Turkey that supports Daesh’s attacks against Kobani, that seeks to depopulate Kobani and lobbies for the establishment of a buffer zone cannot sever its ties with Daesh. Because if it did so Daesh would expose all of Turkey’s dirty laundry, and document the links between them.

Al-Monitor: Are you able to prove that these links exist?

Bayik: Before Daesh attacked Kobani, Turkish officials contacted the YPG [the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units] official responsible for Kobani. They warned him that should the YPG attack the Shah tomb [the Ottoman Tomb of Suleiman Shah inside Syria, which is guarded by Turkish troops and considered Turkish territory] that Turkey would retaliate in kind. I repeat, they said this before we were aware that Daesh would attack. Isn’t this strange?

Second, two days after the campaign against Kobani started, a Turkish train stopped at an Arab village near [the IS-controlled] Tal Abyad border gate and unloaded weapons and ammunition that were taken by Daesh. There are eyewitnesses to this transfer. And during this period the [Turkish] hostages [held by IS in Mosul] affair is supposedly resolved. These events are all interlinked. Turkey then opens the Mursitpinar border gate with Kobani just as Daesh fires Katyusha rockets at Kobani and surrounding villages to sow panic among the people. Turkey opens the border gate on the third day of the attack so that the people can flee to Turkey. This is what Daesh wants as well. This proves the collusion between them. Because Turkey has long wanted the establishment of a buffer zone. Its aim is to prevent the Kurds in Rojava [Syrian Kurdish areas in western Kurdistan] from winning a formal status. By emptying Kobani and provoking a mass exodus of people, Turkey can then claim before the international community that its own security is at stake and set about establishing a buffer zone.

Al-Monitor: Very senior Iraqi Kurdish officials told me that Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s national spy agency (MIT), had as recently as last week offered to mediate between the Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). Doesn’t this contradict your claims?

Bayik: Not at all. Turkey always supported the KDP against the PYD. Now they [the Turks] are supposedly trying to drive a wedge between the PKK and the PYD and to draw the PYD into an alliance with groups that are close to [the Turks] and to bring them in line with their own [Turks’] Syria policy. There are thousands of Syrian Kurds within the PKK. During the war [against Turkey] 1,500 Syrian Kurds were martyred. Many Syrian Kurd commanders from the PKK went over to Rojava to train YPG forces and to help them in the fight against Daesh. Such matters do not always work the way Turkey intends them to through money and weapons. And there is no friction between the YPG and the PKK as claimed. They are acting together in the south [Iraqi Kurdistan] in Kirkuk, in Shengal, in Rabiya. The only force to defend Rojava is the PKK.

Al-Monitor: IS has some very modern weapons. Aren’t you having trouble combating them?

Bayik: Yes, they have modern American weapons they seized in Mosul. Our own weapons aren’t effective against the American tanks that they use. Besides, we are used to fighting in mountainous terrain and now we are forced to do so in open plains. But we are a movement that adapts quickly to new circumstances.

Al-Monitor: Getting back to the peace process, you say that you have realized that the AKP will not solve the Kurdish problem

Bayik: We realized this a while back. There is tremendous pressure on our leader [Ocalan] and a very ugly psychological war that is being waged against him. Propaganda is being spread to demean him in the eyes of the people.

Al-Monitor: To the contrary, what we see is that Ocalan has been legitimized before the public as never before.

Bayik: You may not see this, but there are those who know and it’s reached all the way to us. I am telling you openly: Turkey must immediately stop these psychological ops tactics and end its pressure on our leader.

Al-Monitor: Can you be more explicit. What kind of pressure?

Bayik: I do not want to share all the details. It may not be appropriate at this time. But there is no improvement in the internment conditions of our leader. Recently, his sister and nephew visited him and they were put in a room where nobody could breathe. The nephew protested to the prison guards, saying they were aware of our leader’s breathing difficulties. Their response was that they would have to meet there and that was all. Moreover, they forced the meeting to end before the allotted time. The new government is trying to force our leader to roll back his demands by applying pressure on him. This applies especially to the negotiating points. But as they know he won’t back down, they are going to use this as an excuse to set the stage for war.

Al-Monitor: Are you saying that Turkey wants to resume the war?

Bayik: Absolutely. If this were not so, they would have worked harder at solving the problem. They would have improved the internment conditions of our leader. They would have accepted the presence of third-party observers in the peace talks. And they would have allowed the negotiating sides to carry equal weight. All they have done is to pass a bill to “end terrorism” in the parliament [legislation that effectively formalized the talks without actually referring to their substance]. And they did so kicking and screaming. We are concerned with actions, not words. The negotiations have still not started. They want to keep the talks on a dialogue level. They want to deceive our people. We have been in dialogue for years. We went back and forth to Oslo for years [the secret Oslo talks that ended in 2009].

Al-Monitor: Did you go to Oslo?

Bayik: No.

Al-Monitor: Have you had contact with any Turkish officials over the phone?

Bayik: No. I haven’t touched a phone since 2003 for personal security reasons.

Al-Monitor: During the presidential campaign of [the left-wing People’s Democracy Party (HDP) Kurdish candidate] Selahattin Demirtas the Kurdish political movement gained a lot of ground. Demirtas won support from most unexpected quarters. By talking in this manner, aren’t you undermining peaceful politics?

Bayik: As we are at the center of this process, if we say there is no progress in the peace progress, that means there is no progress because there is no one better placed to assess this. We have paid a very heavy price during 40 years of conflict. Thousands of our fighters and cadres were martyred. Thousand of Kurdish villages were burned and destroyed. Thousands of our people fell victim to extrajudicial killings. And now we see that the numbers of village guards (a state-paid anti-PKK Kurdish militia) are growing. Army garrisons are being built, together with supply roads. We are sticking to the cease-fire but they are not. And they took advantage of the cease-fire to launch a war against Rojava. We gave them time. We said they had until the end of September to take certain steps. We said that unless they do so by the end of September the war would resume.

Al-Monitor: Did you say “we will resume” or “may resume”?

Bayik: “May resume.”

Al-Monitor: But don’t you need Ocalan’s authorization for this?

Bayik: We decide on war. The authority to end the cease-fire lies with us. But our leader Apo [“Uncle,” Ocalan’s nickname] decides on peace, on the continuation of the peace process. His role is different from ours. We are complementary.

Giant pictures of Ocalan are scattered across the Kandil mountains in northeastern Iraq. (photo by Amberin Zaman)

Al-Monitor: But if Apo says peace must prevail, you won’t be able to decide on war. Thus the final decision rests with Apo.

Bayik: Ocalan is our leader. We are a movement that obeys its leader. We are loyal to our leader. But unless Turkey takes some steps, how can our leader say, “No, do not fight?” We are having trouble restraining our fighters as it is.

Al-Monitor: What are your demands from Turkey?

Bayik: The internment conditions of our leader need to be improved. We cannot negotiate in his present conditions. Third-party observers must be allowed to take part in the negotiations. They can be from civil society, from the parliament or from an international organization. It can also be a foreign power. And the support being given to Daesh against Rojava must end. Rojava is part of the peace process. This is clear.

Al-Monitor: Just as you have won plaudits for your role in helping the Yazidis in Sinjar and for your prowess in combating IS, and just as the international community is debating delisting the PKK and American cooperation with the YPG, would you not be throwing this all away by attacking Turkey, a NATO member?

Bayik: No. We are a legal movement. And nobody can blame the PKK. Until now we have declared nine unilateral cease-fires since 1993. In 2013, on the occasion of Nowruz (the Kurdish New Year), we freed all our prisoners. We ended the war and began to withdraw our fighters from Turkey. We are not eyeing anyone’s territory. We are not seeking independence. All we want is to live freely with our own identity, culture and values in democratic conditions.

Al-Monitor: But is it not risky to open a second front against Turkey when you are fighting IS in Rojava?

Bayik: We have been fighting for 40 years. If need be, we shall fight for many more years. We are fighting because we are being forced to do so. We are not going to surrender after 40 years. No power can implement its strategies in the Middle East without taking the PKK into account.

Al-Monitor: You speak of democracy but in recent days a group that calls itself the PKK’s youth wing has been burning down schools in the southeast of Turkey. Do such actions have any place in a democracy?

Bayik: Burning schools is wrong. But our people built schools there with their own means. They want to study in the Kurdish language, so why is the state forbidding this? There is a great deal of anger among our youth. Even we are having trouble restraining them. When we ask them why they burn schools, they respond, “Why are our schools being shut down?” There is a lot of alienation. The number of people joining our ranks last month has exceeded that in 1993. In 1993, around 1,000 people would join every month. Last month, 1,200 people joined.

Al-Monitor: The Turkish government spokesman Huseyin Celik said that we can now talk with Kandil (the PKK leadership). No sooner did Ahmet Davutoglu become prime minister, he made very positive statements about the peace process. For the first time, a government is talking directly to Ocalan and announcing this to the public. It has done more than any of its predecessors to solve the Kurdish problem. Does none of this mean anything? Besides, why would the government want to go to war before the elections?

Bayik: Yes, the government continues to speak positively about the peace process. And the pro-government media is helping to propagate this upbeat mood. This is a delaying tactic, a deception. They are trying to portray Apo as being optimistic when in fact he continually criticizes the AKP during the talks. They want to drain the process of all its substance and they want to manage it at their whim. What was their aim? To win the [March 2014] local elections and then the [August 2014] presidential elections. And now they want to win the 2015 [parliamentary] elections.

It’s true that they would not want to resume the war before the elections. They want the cease-fire to continue, but they want it to continue without making any concessions, save for a few unimportant gestures. After the 2015 elections, their position may change.

Turkey’s TİKA funding radical Islamists?

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e-uslu-b-1

By EMRE USLU

e.uslu@todayszaman.com

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) likes to take special pride in the Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA). This agency is implementing various projects in different places around the world. It restores historic monuments and lends support to civil society organizations (CSOs). TİKA projects even make Turkey the third-largest assistance-providing country after the US and UK. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently spoke of this fact as a source of pride during his visit to the US.

The TİKA projects were generally advertised as efforts to revive historic monuments that were legacies of the Ottoman Empire. For instance, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Mosque, Kosovo’s largest mosque, in Pristina, was renovated thanks to a TİKA project. In Kosovo, there are dozens of mosques that have been repaired by TİKA. They are financing these projects with our taxes, but this expenditure is sufficiently justified.

Whom does TİKA really help? The answer to this question can be found in the recent crackdown on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the al-Nusra Front in Kosovo. A few days ago, the Kosovo police launched an operation against radical Islamic groups in the country. Thirty imams were taken into custody on charges of sending jihadists to Syria and Iraq. Many of them were arrested. Sixteen foundations and associations were shut down on charges of aiding and abetting members of ISIL, the al-Nusra Front and other al-Qaeda-linked organizations.

The key figure arrested on charges of aiding these organizations is Şefçet Kraniçi, the imam of Pristina’s Fatih Sultan Mehmet Mosque, which was renovated by TİKA. This amounts to repairing the mosque with funds from Turkish taxpayers and then delivering the mosque to radical Islamic groups.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Others taken into custody included other people working at TİKA-funded mosques.

Some might suggest that TİKA’s duty is to renovate mosques, and it cannot meddle in the process of assigning imams or officials to those mosques. But it is not so simple. We are talking about Kosovo, and one of the most dominant rivalries is between Hanafism/Maturidism and Salafism. In Kosovo, Hanafi clerics are being purged and replaced with Salafi clerics. Moreover, this plan is supported by Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) as well as TİKA and the Yunus Emre Foundation.

There is more to the crackdown by the Kosovo police on ISIL and the al-Nusra Front. Many of the CSOs backed by TİKA and the Yunus Emre Foundation in Kosovo were closed down during this operation.

The largest of them is the Association for Culture, Education and School (AKEA), which was frequently visited by Ahmet Davutoğlu in the past.

AKEA was established in 2004 by Husamedin Abazi, who was trained in Riyadh. The leading figures linked with this association are Behar Avdiu, Nhari Toska, Bashkim Mehani, Ilir Xhoxhaj and Ilir Gashi. All of them are connected in some way or other to Turkey’s AKP or affiliated organizations. Many observers have defined AKEA as the Kosovo branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). But the significant majority of imams who were arrested on charges of aiding and abetting ISIL are “volunteer members” of AKEA.

AKEA’s founder, Abazi, was frequently hosted by organizations that are close to the AKP in İstanbul, such as the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH) and Fatih Sultan Mehmet University (not to be confused with Fatih University).

There may be a link between CSOs close to the AKP and radical Islamic groups. That is a matter of choice. But when it comes to how our taxes are spent, we, as citizens, are entitled to question it.

AKEA is an organization that is financed by TİKA, and with the support of Kürşat Mamat as TİKA’s Kosovo representative, it has recently become Kosovo’s most effective CSO.

Gashi, the head of AKEA’s Prizren branch, openly acknowledges TİKA’s support for AKEA. “We conduct our joint activities generally with TİKA and the İHH. We cooperated with TİKA in cultural matters and with the İHH in humanitarian aid operations, and our cooperation continues. Moreover, we have hosted many intellectuals, columnists and writers from Turkey. We were honored to host Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who paid a visit to our association during his official talks in Kosovo, as well as other dignitaries such as Mustafa Özel, Mustafa İslamoğlu and Abdullah Yıldız, and other academics, journalists and municipal managers” (Aug. 16, 2012).

The state-owned Yunus Emre Foundation admits its relations with AKEA on its official website. For instance, the “Islamic Arts Exhibition” was a joint project between the Yunus Emre Foundation and AKEA. At the opening of the Sixth Islamic Art Photography Exhibition, which included 14 photographers, the values of Islam were presented to Prizren. Fifty-one works by 14 photographers were put on display at the Prizren Yunus Emre Turkish Culture Center through cooperation between AKEA and the Yunus Emre Turkish Culture Center. Many other activities were jointly organized between Turkey’s public institutions and radical Islamic organizations such as AKEA. And these activities were funded by our taxes.

The ruling AKP is doing everything to ensure the closure of Turkish schools — which are run by Turkish entrepreneurs inspired by the ideas of well-respected Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen — but if AKEA, frequented by Davutoğlu, has been closed down on charges of ties with ISIL and al-Qaeda, then we, as citizens, have the right to ask: Are you financing radical Islamists with our taxes?

High-ranking Iraqi official says ISIL exports oil via Turkey

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193145_newsdetailIraq’s Deputy National Security Advisor Safa Al-Sheikh Hussein has stated that Turkey is the country that greases the wheels of the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by allowing the extremist group to export oil via Turkey.

“They have a stream of assistance that comes from Turkey. They export oil through Turkey. So we conclude that organized crime groups are working in Turkey from where the oil can be exported to Europe,” Hussein said in an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman on Wednesday.

This statement from the Iraqi security official comes after US Secretary of State John Kerry said last week that ISIL financially sustains itself by exporting oil via either Turkey or Lebanon, urging Turkey to join the multinational coalition to fight against ISIL.

After the release of 46 Turkish and three Iraqi hostages by ISIL, the US expected Turkey to step up in the fight against ISIL. Turkey as a US ally is part of the NATO military alliance and has made commitments at various regional conferences to help in the effort against ISIL militants, but the help has been limited due to fears over the safety of the 49 hostages.

Hussein added that the issue of oil exports cannot be solved by one government and said it can only be eliminated by international cooperation.

According to Hussein there are 20,000 foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria and that the political instability and political crisis in Iraq, which lasted for some years, fed ISIL.

Asked to comment on recent claims about Turkey’s support for the radical jihadists, Hussein said both the general opinion among the Iraqi population and within the political community think “Turkey is extending support to ISIL.” He thinks this is not healthy for the ties between the two neighboring countries, Iraq and Turkey.

Hussein thinks the war in Syria was an opportunity for ISIL and that Turkey’s position on Syria had an influence on current developments.

“Turkey did not take the right position on Syria. Its policy and assumptions proved incorrect. We remember in 2011, the Turkish government thought that within a month there would be a regime change. But it hasn’t changed,” he said.

“We knew that it would not be an easy regime change. We thought the most probable scenario would be the division of Syria, which would threaten Iraq because the real force on the ground was beneficial for the extreme Islamists not for the people of Syria with their democratic needs,” he added.

Congratulating the Turkish government on the release of the hostages, Hussein called it “a good achievement” but questioned how it was achieved. “Some people use conspiracy theories to explain it. In Iraq, some people thought that something had been arranged from the beginning. That is not the official opinion. But some people did say these things, and they appeared in some newspapers claiming that “from the first day of the approaching threat, Turkey’s consul general in Mosul [Yılmaz Öztürk] knew about the attack on the consulate building.” But because of a lack of information, a lot of possible explanations have appeared,” he said.

 KCK accuses Turkey of backing ISIL militants

 

A Kurdish organization has accused the Turkish government of backing the ISIL militants fighting with Kurds in Syria and suggested that it could jeopardize a truce that Kurdish militants in Turkey began in March 2013.

The statement was issued Wednesday by the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) an umbrella group of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The umbrella group accused Turkey of “waging a war against the Kurdish people” and vowed to step up its “struggle.”

Armenia supports Catholicosate’s lawsuit against Turkey

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By Harut Sassounian
TheCaliforniaCourier.com

armenian-supportMore than 1,000 attendees of the Armenia-Diaspora Conference in Yerevan, organized by the Diaspora Ministry, cheered loudly when Catholicos Aram I of the Great House of Cilicia made the surprising announcement that the Catholicosate would file a lawsuit in a Turkish court demanding the return of its properties confiscated during the 1915-1923 Genocide. His Holiness explained that before taking this important decision, he had consulted with international legal experts during the past two years.

Stating that remaining indifferent towards the violation of Armenian rights is tantamount to treason, the Catholicos urged Armenians to take the genocide issue out of the narrow confines of genocide recognition and condemnation, and transcend the mindset that genocide recognition is the ultimate goal of the Armenian Cause. Considering that it is high time to transfer Armenian demands from Turkey to the legal field. His Holiness announced that the See of Cilicia would file shortly a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court of Turkey, seeking the return of its erstwhile headquarters, the Catholicosate of Sis. Should the Turkish Court reject the lawsuit, which is likely, the Catholicosate will then appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, said the Catholicos. He also expressed the hope that this lawsuit would pave the way for other legal demands from Turkey for the return of public, private, and religious properties belonging to Armenians.

While this is great news to all those who have been advocating for years taking legal action against Turkey, such lawsuits require painstaking preparation by top notch international lawyers. Moreover, regardless of how just one’s cause may be, no one can guarantee a positive outcome in court, given various external influences on the judiciary, and technicalities used as an excuse for rejecting a lawsuit emanating from a century-old grievance.

The Catholicos hinted at some of these obstacles in his remarks, acknowledging that “the framework of international law is not that favorable to our Cause.” More alarmingly, he seemed to dismiss the devastating effect the loss of such a court case would have on the Armenian Cause by claiming that “if we lose the lawsuit, we would still be winners, because we would have reminded the genocidaire and the international community that the Armenian people continues to demand its rights, no matter how much time has elapsed since the Genocide.”
The Turkish government would certainly exploit such a negative judgment by misrepresenting its victory around the world as a rejection of all Armenian genocide claims.

Going beyond the Catholicosate’s initiative, His Holiness urged the Armenian government to file its own lawsuit against Turkey in the International Court of Justice (World Court), where only states have the right to sue. At the international Armenian lawyers’ conference sponsored by the Diaspora Ministry last year, a task force was formed under the auspices of the Gagik Haroutunyan, Chief Justice of Armenia’s Constitutional Court, to study the legal ramifications of filing a lawsuit against Turkey in the World Court. The task force is reportedly assessing the various legal options available to the Republic of Armenia.

Given the Armenian government’s cautious approach to suing Turkey, it was quite surprising that Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, during the Sept. 20, 2014 Armenia-Diaspora conference, when asked by a reporter about his reaction to the news that the Catholicosate of Cilicia would file a lawsuit against Turkey, enthusiastically and without hesitation responded: “there could be no two opinions about it. Such an important initiative must only be supported.”

Coincidentally, the conference attendees were handed the executive summary and introduction of a lengthy report entitled, “Resolution with Justice: Reparations for the Armenian Genocide.” Funded initially by a grant from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the report was prepared by the Armenian Genocide Reparations Study Group, composed of Alfred de Zayas, Jermaine O. McCalpin, Ara Papian, and Henry C. Theriault. George Aghjayan served as a consultant. The extensive report examines the case for reparations from legal, historical, and ethical perspectives.

It is clear that on the eve of the genocide centennial, several serious efforts are underway to seek justice through various courts for the massive human and economic losses suffered by the Armenian people during the 1915-1923 Genocide.

Kurd’s, Turkey’s IS predicament with US,

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kurdish-womanMuch more striking was PKK military commander Murat Karayilan’s accusation that to secure the release of its hostages, Turkey let IS capture Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish stronghold on its border, which is just across from Turkey’s Suruc, the hometown of Karayilan himself.

Karayilan’s statement to Sterk TV had some striking points about the IS attacks, Turkish government policies and the peace process. Karayilan said the IS assault on Kobani “is a joint plan by Turkey and IS. We have documents of it. Turkey has once again stabbed the Kurds in the back. Turkey wanted to sell Kobani but it can’t. Kobani is Kurdistan.”

About the peace process, Karayilan said, “Turkey cannot deceive us again. This is a declaration of war. It will be assessed by our leader and command but for HPG [the PKK’s armed wing] this process has no more meaning.”

Karayilan said, ”Kobani will not fall as planned by Daesh [IS in Arabic] and the AKP [Justice and Development Party]. To the contrary. Tell Abyad will fall. It is time to expel this dirty and savage gang from Kurdistan.”

Regarding the hostage release, Karayilan said, “They released the hostages on Sept. 20. Their plan was for Daesh to enter Kobani on Sept. 20. They say they didn’t make an exchange, but they sold Kobani. Kobani is not theirs. This is not a diplomatic victory but a diplomatic scandal.”

Imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, in a message he sent from his Imrali prison cell, guardedly criticized Turkey and called on Kurds to mobilize for Rojava and Kobani. Ocalan’s lawyer quoted him saying about the negotiations between the government and IS about the hostages: “The state openly said that it negotiated for the release of the Mosul hostages. But it has yet to start the negotiation process to resolve such a deep issue as the Kurdish problem.”

The lawyer said Ocalan called for negotiations to start as soon as possible.

About IS attacks, the lawyer quoted Ocalan saying, “Our people have to adjust their lives to cope with the high-intensity war they are facing. Not only the people of Rojava, but Kurds all over have to [adapt] to it. I am calling on all the Kurdish people to resist this high-intensity war.”

It is clear that IS is becoming a predicament for Turkey’s government in its relations with the West and simultaneously with the Kurds in the region.

KRG’s disappointment with Turkey for allegedly failing to come to its aid when Erbil was threatened by IS is getting much more menacing dimensions with Turkey’s and Syria’s Kurds because of the Turkish reluctance to take action against IS in its aggression toward the Syrian Kurdish bastion of Kobani.

Cengiz Candar is a columnist for Al-Monitor‘s Turkey Pulse. A journalist since 1976, he is the author of seven books in the Turkish language, mainly on Middle East issues, including the best-seller Mesopotamia Express: A Journey in History.

Turkey allows ‘death squads’ into Syria to fight its former ally

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Massive influx of Syrian-Kurd refugees to Turkey is “fallout” of Ankara’s policies as it facilitates “death squads” going into Syria to overthrow the sovereign government in death-squadsDamascus, journalist and activist Sukant Chandan told RT.

RT: Is Ankara still backing the anti-Assad insurgency as strongly as ever?

Sukant Chandan: I think all the indicators point to it being the case. If we see the obvious deal that was done with the so-called Islamic State with the fifty-odd consulate staff in Mosul by the Turks, it was very clear that the Turkish state has done a deal with the death squads holding the consulate staff. If we understand that 12,000 so-called jihadists – these are not jihadists but death squad members – some of which have gone from London, France and Belgium, have gone through the Turkish-Syrian border and nothing can be clearer. While Turkey facilitates the death squads going into Syria to overthrow a sovereign government, at the same time they are stopping Kurds going to defend their compatriots across the border on the Syrian side. So really the whole situation is very clear and this is a strategy that is part and parcel in harmony, synchronization and coordination with the leading NATO powers, especially France, Britain and the US, to develop the circumstances for bombing Syria, not to confront the so-called IS, because they have been facilitating their rise there, but actually to have strategy in place to bomb the Syrian Arab Army and the Syrian government because they really want to finish the job, but it remains to be seen whether it could be possible.

RT: Is Turkey in a position to deal with such a massive influx of refugees?

SC: Turkey has really to deal with the fallout of its own policy. If you are going to conduct war and Turkish state-sponsored terrorism against your neighbor which you had hitherto been an ally to, then you have to deal with some of the fallout.

Obviously Turkey has a long-standing intergenerational policy actually of anti-Kurdish policy, whipping out tens of thousands of the villages in the late 1990s in the Kurdish area of Turkey. So this is nothing new and Turkey will use the death squads in Syria to then come across the border into Turkey to help to fight its own internal enemy that is the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and the other Kurdish revolutionary and liberation organizations. So this is a continuation and intensification of not only Turkish policy which some Kurdish media correctly called the neo-Ottoman strategy of developing paramilitaries, i.e. death squads. But this is ongoing policy of the leading NATO powers to overthrow [as] one leading US policymaker called [it] “the Cuba of the Middle East”, i.e. the Syrian Arab Republic.

RT: Some top US officials say there’s no way to avoid a ground operation if Washington and its allies want to defeat Islamic State. Why is the US government objecting to this?

SC: It doesn’t need to put in any ground troops because, frankly, on all strategic issues, in any way you look at it, what is developing in Iraq and Syria is to the strategic benefit of the leading NATO powers and its allies: Israel and the Gulf monarchies. There is no reason. That is why they have “pivot to Asia” because for the West in general everything, especially as it set off the Arab Spring, and has been going perfectly well for Western strategic interest. So why are you going to put boots on the ground? In any way there is obviously military intelligence and boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq that have infiltrated guiding and directing the death squads as they have been doing so in Libya since February 2011.

Turkey accused of conspiring with IS against Assad after hostage release

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182681Mystery surrounds the surprise release of 49 Turkish diplomats and their families held captive for three months by ISIS. The Turkish government is denying any deal with the hostage-takers, making it unclear why ISIS, notorious for its cruelty and ruthlessness, should hand over its Turkish prisoners on Saturday, Sept 20 without a quid pro quo, foreign commentator Patrick Cockburn said in an article published at The Independent.

Hailed in Ankara as a triumph for Turkey, the freeing of the diplomats seized when Mosul fell to ISIS on 10 June raises fresh questions about the relationship between the Turkish government and ISIS. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the release is the result of a covert operation by Turkish intelligence that must remain a secret.

He added on Sunday that “there are things we cannot talk about. To run the state is not like running a grocery store. We have to protect our sensitive issues; if you don’t there would be a price to pay.” Turkey denies that a ransom was paid or promises made to ISIS.

The freeing of the hostages comes at the same moment as 70,000 Syrian Kurds have fled across the border into Turkey to escape an ISIS offensive against the enclave of Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, which has seen the capture of many villages.

The assault on Kobani is energising Kurds throughout the region with 3,000 fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) based in Iraq’s Qandil mountains reported to be crossing from Iraq into Syria and heading for Kobani.

The Turkish security forces closed the border for a period on Sunday after clashes between them and the refugees. They fired tear gas and water after stopping Kurds taking aid to Kobani according to one account, or because stones were thrown at them as they pushed back crowds of Kurdish onlookers, according to another. Most of those crossing are women, children and the elderly, with men of military age staying behind to fight.

Many Kurds are expressing bitterness towards the Turkish government, claiming that it is colluding with ISIS to destroy the independent enclaves of the Syrian Kurds, who number 2.5 million, along the Turkish border.

Nevertheless, the strange circumstances of both the capture of the 49 Turks and their release shows that Ankara has a different and more intimate relationship with ISIS than other countries. Pro-ISIS Turkish websites say that the Turks were released on the direct orders of “the caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They had been moved to Raqqa, the Syrian headquarters of ISIS from Mosul, and both men and women were well-dressed and appeared to have suffered little harm from their imprisonment. This is in sharp contrast to the treatment of Alan Henning, the British taxi driver seized when taking aid to Syria, and of the journalists who have been ritually murdered by ISIS.

A number of factors do not quite add up: at the time the diplomats and their families were seized in June it was reported that they had asked Ankara if they could leave Mosul, but their request was refused. It was later reported by a pro-government newspaper that the Consul-General in Mosul, Ozturk Yilmaz, had been told by Ankara to leave, but had not done so. Former Turkish diplomats say that disobedience to his government’s instructions by a senior envoy on such a serious matter is inconceivable.

Critics of Erdogan and his Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu say that since the first uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 they have made a series of misjudgements about developments in Syria and how Turkey should respond to them.

Having failed to persuade Bashar al-Assad to make changes, they assumed he would be overthrown by the rebels. They made little effort to distinguish jihadi rebels crossing the 560 mile long Syrian-Turkish border from the others. Some 12,000 foreign jihadis, many destined to become suicide bombers, entered Syria and Iraq from Turkey. Only at the end of 2013, under pressure from the US, did Turkey begin to increase border security making it more difficult for foreign or Turkish jihadis to pass through, though it is still possible. A Kurdish news agency reports that three ISIS members, two from Belgium and one from France, were detained by the Syrian Kurdish militia at the weekend as they crossed into Syria from Turkey.

The hostages had no idea they were going to be freed until they got a telephone call from Davutoglu. While treated better than other hostages, they were still put under pressure, being forced to watch videos of other captives being beheaded “to break their morale” according to Yilmaz. He said that ISIS did not torture people though it threatened to do so: “The only thing they do is to kill them.”

“The Turkish government may not be collaborating with ISIS at this moment, but ISIS has benefited from Turkey’s tolerant attitude towards the jihadi movements. As with other anti-Assad governments, Ankara has claimed that there is a difference between the “moderate” rebels of the Free Syrian Army and the al-Qaeda-type movements that does not really exist on the ground inside Syria,” the article said.

The Independent. Turkey accused of colluding with Isis to oppose Syrian Kurds and Assad following surprise release of 49 hostages
Photo: Radikal
http://youtu.be/f_2MyQx98J4

Why did ISIL agree to give up the Turkish hostages?

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e-uslu-b-1EMRE USLU
e.uslu@todayszaman.com

The “hostage crisis” between Turkey and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is one of the most mysterious and bizarre “crises” that any nation could face. When the Turkish Consulate General in Mosul was seized and 49 people — including Turkish diplomats and security personal — were taken by ISIL, many people asked why the consulate hadn’t been evacuated.

Conflicting statements were released; after that, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan confidently stated that Turkey would take the hostages with ease, as if they were not in the hand of the most brutal terrorists. Many people believed that it was a political saga that both the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and ISIL had agreed upon rather than a real hostage-taking.

Although ISIL had the Turkish diplomats in its hands, they were treated as if they were not hostages. For instance, the Turkish consul was allowed to use his cellphone during his captivity of more than 100 days. ISIL is not a stupid organization which does not know that an electronic signal could be used as intelligence to reveal where the hostages are. In order for ISIL to allow the Turkish diplomat to use his cellphone, it must have had a guarantee that Turkey would not conduct an operation to rescue the hostages.

Like its beginning, the hostage-taking saga ended in a bizarre way. ISIL released the Turkish hostages, but left many unanswered questions behind it.

A retired American diplomat friend of mine raised the following questions:

“It was good news indeed that the Turkish hostages were released, but the circumstances, as reported in the Turkish press, do not ring true. No shots were fired, no military pressure was applied, and no ransom paid. Why, then, did ISIL agree to give up the hostages? There must have been a quid pro quo. The assumption among some of the bloggers here is that Turkey agreed to something that ISIL wanted, like a guarantee not to engage in offensive operations against the ‘Islamic State’.”

These are some of the questions that remain unanswered. At this stage no one, except a few people who negotiated with ISIL, can answer these questions.

More importantly, I don’t think the Turkish press — and especially the pro-government media outlets — will give us accurate background information about the negotiation process.

It is a typical tendency of Turkish media outlets that under such circumstances, they run heroic stories, most of them fabricated with barely any truth in them. Thus, I tend to read the Turkish press with caution these days. It would take years for the Turkish press to write true stories about events like this.

It is not a new phenomenon to the Turkish media. We know it from the Abdullah Öcalan case. When Öcalan was brought to Turkey, we read many heroic stories about how he had been captured. Similarly, we read stories how other Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants such as Şemdin Sakık were brought to Turkey.

In order to understand what has really happened between Turkey and ISIL, the pro-government Turkish media is the least reliable source of information. I prefer to follow the news from opposition media outlets and pro-ISIL Internet sites.

Tevhidhaber.net, a pro-ISIL website that openly and freely publicizes in Turkey — which is another bizarre fact, that the Turkish authorities are shutting down Twitter and YouTube and closing Twitter accounts which criticize the government but allow ISIL to freely propagate in and recruit from Turkey — stated that Turkey had guaranteed not to join the international coalition against ISIL.

As a security expert, I will make some guesses about the possibilities of what Turkey might have promised to ISIL to get the hostages back.

First, as the ISIL website claimed, some form of guarantee to not join the coalition against ISIL. Another possibility is to give ISIL a promise to delay possible international operations inside Syria to allow it to gain some time and more territory. If these are not possible, Turkey may even offer to play an intermediary role between the West and ISIL to end the violence.

Second, Turkey may provide strategic information to ISIL to defeat its enemies in Syria and Iraq. In fact, when ISIL was pushed back in Iraq, it launched offensives against the PKK/Democratic Union Party (PYD) stronghold Kobane and seized some strategic locations. Without information such as strategic intelligence about the locations of PYD units and powerful weaponry, it would have been difficult for ISIL to win against the trained PKK militants.

Third, instead of giving direct aid to ISIL, Turkey might have given aid in the form of economic, armament or intelligence help to the pro-ISIL tribal leaders who facilitated the negotiations.