Turkey Main opposition CHP to share evidence of trucks carrying arms to Syria

June 24, 2014 By administrator

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has claimed that the government sent trucks full of arms to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants fighting the Syrian regime, stating that the CHP will soon share the details of the government’s transfer of these arms through certain documents.

Speaking at his party’s parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday, Kılıçdaroğlu harshly criticized the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government for its alleged support for ISIL militants and several other opposition groups fighting the Syrian regime. Blaming the government for ISIL’s kidnapping of Turkish people in Mosul two weeks ago, Kılıçdaroğlu said: “We have been telling them, even up until now, to stop transferring arms to the region [the Middle East]. Hundreds of trucks went there. All of them were full of arms. In the coming days, our friends will share a file on this issue. You will see how they are transferring the arms. We will share all the details regarding this transfer with the public.”

Pointing to the ongoing turmoil that erupted in Iraq after ISIL militants started to take over northern Iraqi cities one by one in early June, Kılıçdaroğlu said: “Any unrest that erupts in the region will also affect Turkey negatively. The source of this unease is [Prime Minister] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” adding that Erdoğan had destroyed Turkey’s prestige in the world with the failed foreign policy that his government has been deploying in the Middle East. Stating that Erdoğan will not even call ISIL a terrorist organization, Kılıçdaroğlu asked how a person can sympathize with a group that kills and tortures people. Recalling that nearly 100 Turkish people have been held hostage by ISIL for over two weeks, Kılıçdaroğlu said that about 300,000 Turkmen have had to leave their residential areas to escape the ISIL militants in Iraq, but Turkey and Erdoğan have not done anything to rescue the captives or support the Turkmen.

VIDEO: Turkey Footage shows raid on Syria-bound MİT trucks

June 24, 2014 By administrator

New footage has emerged showing a raid, which took place last January in the southern province of Adana, on trucks belonging to the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) bound for Syria.

Since the raid, a court has accepted an indictment on spying charges against the 13 soldiers who stopped and searched the trucks.

Prosecutors have accused the soldiers of conducting spying activities against Turkey and the soldiers were also accused of wiretapping seven MİT members, as well as the family members of an eighth MİT officer.

The trucks were stopped on Jan. 19, causing an uproar with claims that the trucks were secretly carrying weapons to Syria. The government slammed the prosecutors and soldiers involved in the operation, arguing that both the truck and the personnel were protected by MİT’s legal immunity.

Interior Minister Efkan Ala said the truck was carrying aid to Turkmens in Syria, but did not provide any further details about its cargo.

Source: Hurriyet daily news

France: Kurds murdered in Paris: we must continue the hunt for sponsors (family)

June 24, 2014 By administrator

The investigation into the murder of three Kurdish activists in January 2013 in Paris must dig the track of potential liability Turkish services in the crime, told AFP Monday the brother of a victim at the end of a meeting with the judge.

The Anti-terrorism magistrate Jeanne Duye received for several hours at the courthouse in Paris families Sakine Cansiz, Dogan Fidan and Leyla Saylemez to a point on its investigation into a crime that shocked the Kurdish community.

Alleged running of this triple murder, Turkish Ömer Güney is indicted and imprisoned forever. Questions about its possible relationship with the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) have been revived in recent months, including the distribution of a recording on the internet likely to cause.

Denis Dogan Dogan Fidan’s brother, told AFP that the plaintiffs had presented to the judge the text of a pre-election speech in March in Urfa in southeastern Turkey, the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“He says that the Gülen movement, organization infiltrated the Turkish state apparatus, is responsible for the triple murder,” he has explained with reference to the brotherhood of the imam Fethullah Gülen. “We now expect the judge to investigate in this direction.”

Mr. Gulen, 72, lives since 1999 in Pennsylvania, where he directs a powerful socio-religious movement that count millions of members, very influential in the police and the Turkish judiciary.

The head of government accuses “güleniste” movement, long an ally, to be the origin of the vast corruption scandal that threatens his regime since mid-December. Erdogan suspected of having been a “parallel state” to cause his downfall.

“We also expect that the judge questioned the French intelligence services to see if they have information about Ömer Güney,” continued Mr. Dogan. The judge denied this request in September.

Mr. Dogan said he was “generally satisfied” with the inquiry: “Many elements show that Güney committed the murder and that he was a pawn of MIT,” said he accused.

Earlier this year, MIT had again denied any involvement.

Sakine Cansiz was a figure of the Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK), considered close to its historic leader Abdullah Öcalan. Dogan Fidan was a Kurdish activist well known in the European political class.

They were executed several times in the head January 9, 2013 in Kurdish Information Centre (CIK) in Paris.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014,
Stéphane © armenews.com

#ReturnChurches: ANCA Rallies Support for Churches Accountability Act

June 24, 2014 By administrator

Tuesday, June 24: Congressional Call-In Day and Social Media Campaign

WASHINGTON—With just days to Thursday’s vote by the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act (H.R. 4347), the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has set Tuesday, June 24th as a day for Congressional calls and social media activism in support of this bipartisan religious freedom measure.

Call to Action in support of H.R. 4347

“This Tuesday, please call, post, tweet, and share your support for Turkey’s return of stolen Armenian, Greek, Syriac and other Christian churches,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “Let your legislators know you expect them to work for the passage of H.R.4347, and then take two minutes to tell your friends and family that you’re taking a stand for the bipartisan Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act.”

The ANCA is asking all supporters of religious freedom to contact their legislators to support H.R.4347, and then to find creative ways to use the hashtag #ReturnChurches in their Facebook, Twitter and other social media posts. A sample phone script and relevant contact information for legislators is available at http://www.anca.org/returnchurches.

The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, under the leadership of Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA), is set to consider H.R. 4347, the Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act, on Thursday, June 26th at 9:00 am EST. The freedom of faith initiative is stridently opposed by the Turkish Government.

Introduced this March of this year by Chairman Royce along with the panel’s Ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (D-NY), H.R. 4347 would require that the U.S. Department of State formally report to Congress on an annual basis about the status of Turkey’s return of stolen Christian churches and properties in Turkey and occupied Cyprus. H.R. 4347 builds on a measure (H.Res.306), spearheaded by Chairman Royce and then House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-CA), which was overwhelmingly adopted by the House of Representatives on December 13, 2011. That resolution set the groundwork for H.R.4347 by calling upon the government of Turkey to honor its international obligations to return confiscated Christian church properties and to fully respect the rights of Christians to practice their faiths.

Threats in Turkey worse than Taliban: Der Spiegel reporter

June 23, 2014 By administrator

CANSU ÇAMLIBEL ISTANBUL

Der Spiegel reporter Kazim (L) speaks to Hürriyet’s Cansu Çamlıbel. Kazim says he received hundreds of threatening messages after his Soma mine disaster report. Hürriyet Photo / Levent KULU

Der Spiegel reporter Hasnain Kazim has said the death threats he has received in Turkey were even “worse than Taliban.”

Kazim, who used the headline “Go to hell, [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan,” quoting a mourner in his report on the Soma mine disaster last month, faced a huge backlash from supporters of the prime minister after the piece was published in Der Spiegel. He said he had received more than 10,000 messages, including death threats against him and his family and profane insults, before Der Speigel withdrew him from Turkey out of concerns for his safety.

“I was concerned but I wasn’t scared. The main issue for me was to understand how big or real the threat was,” Kazim told daily Hürriyet.

“I received many death threats while working in Pakistan. But over four years I had come to know many people from the Taliban and learned how to deal with the threats. Even the threats there were not as intense and heavy as the ones here,” he added.

In the interview with Hürriyet, Kazim recalled how he wrote the report soon after arriving in the grieving town of Soma in the province of Manisa, which saw the deadliest mining disaster in Turkish history, claiming the lives of 301 workers after an explosion on May 13.

He said the scene was horrifying and the mood was a mixture of sadness and anger, with Prime Minister Erdoğan’s controversial visit to Soma “not meeting people’s expectations.” Kazim said Erdoğan “failed to show any empathy or sympathy,” especially in his speech in the town, which downplayed the disaster and appeared to claim that such incidents were just a natural part of mining.

“All the people I spoke with were talking about those sentiments. What they said was all negative, and what one of them said turned out to be the headline of my article. What the man said exactly was: ‘I am someone who loves Erdoğan and have had positive thoughts about him to this day, but today he can go to hell,” Kazim said.

The Der Speigel reporter also insisted that he did not regret using that quote as a headline, despite the threats, adding that he would have used a more positive sentence if it had summed up the mood in Soma on that day.

“It was not my view, or that of Der Spiegel. It was that particular individual’s. If he had told me, ‘He is a good prime minister. We had a bad accident but he came here and gave us hope,’ I would have written it,” Kazim added.

June/23/2014

Turkey, Ali Extract is waiting for the Supreme Court case

June 23, 2014 By administrator

Hrant Dink murder trial on charges of dereliction of duty in Trabzon Provincial Gendarmerie Commander Ali Extract of the period of the trial, which is the future waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court.

Trabzon Heavy Penal Court No. 1 of the hearing held on June 17, pending trial, Colonel Self did not participate. The hearing of the Dink family lawyer Hakan Ali’s lawyer Sliding Bakırcıoğlu and Self attended. Court concerning the accused, including Ali Oz Trabzon 2 nd Magistrate Criminal Court of the Supreme Court adjourned the hearing for the end of the review.

Self and about seven soldiers in Trabzon 2nd Criminal Court of Peace “neglect of duty and forgery of documents” charges were filed. While this case, the Ministry of Justice as a result of the investigation in Trabzon Heavy Penal Court No. 1 of the Ali Extract opened a second trial for the same offense, but the court proceedings for the same offense two cases can not be refused on the grounds. Trabzon 2nd Criminal Court of Peace of the Colonel Ali Oz and Capt. Metin Yildiz six months, while the other four soldiers had given four months’ imprisonment.

Dink family lawyers on the application Trabzon 1st High Criminal Court’s ruling opinion of the Supreme Court, the case of the Criminal Court should be merged even though the case Trabzon 1st High Criminal Court rejected the procedural violation, noting that this court’s decision overturned. This decision on the retrial of Colonel Ali Oz begun.

Source: AGOS

Greece: Coast Guard Seized Another Ton of Heroin in Koropi

June 22, 2014 By administrator

by Evdokia Fourkioti – Jun 22, 2014

The Hellenic Coast Guard in an operation that took place June 22 seized about 986,6 kg of heroin.

The heroin was found in a warehouse in the suburb of Koropi , Attica and is related to the drug cartel case, whose members were arrested during another operation last week. The total quantity of seized heroin now reaches 2 tons, with a value of approximately 60 million Euros. The heroin was located in a tanker that was earlier this week located at the sea area of Eleusina and was thereafter closely monitored by authorities.

Authorities arrested 14 members of the drug cartel, including two Greek nationals, a man who has helped transfer the heroin and a 53-year old woman, representative of the company that owns the ship. Ten of those arrested are crew members of the tanker, all foreigners, from Turkey and India.

The tanker NOOR-1 is a Togo-flagged ship belonging to a Greek shipping company whose name the police have not yet released. It was loaded early May at the port of Oman and arrived at the Greek port of Eleusina on June 7 ,where the drug shipment was divided into three parts. Two parts were transferred with trucks and the third one with other luxury vehicles to two warehouses in Koropi and to a villa in the upscale neighborhood of Filothei.

The 14 member are kept in custody at the Piraeus Port Authority and on Monday, June 23, they will face the Piraeus Prosecutor.

Source: http://greece.greekreporter.com

Iraqi-Syrian nightmare turn into Turkish goldmine, Iraq to buy gasoline from Turky

June 21, 2014 By administrator

AYDIN, Turkey – Iraq has requested to fill its gasoline gap from Turkey following the shutdown of the country’s biggest oil refinery amid clashes with armed insurgents,

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said Saturday.

He said that the closure of Baiji refinery created 4,000 tons of daily gasoline need in Iraq.

Militants led by self-claimed Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham, or ISIS, have extended its reach into Iraq since June 10, when they seized Iraq’s second-largest city Mosul and soon afterwards took near-complete control of the cities of Tikrit and Tal Afar. ISIS also controls parts of Anbar province in the country’s west.

On Wednesday, they seized the Baiji refinery, the largest oil refinery in Iraq. With oil production halted, long queues have begun to emerge in front of oil stations throughout the country.

Yıldız said Turkey’s state-owned petroleum company TÜPRAŞ has the capacity to respond to Iraq’s gasoline demands, however, the transportation will cause long queues of tankers at Habur border-gate which has limited capacity.

“Firstly, we will consult with our ministry of customs and trade,” said Yıldız, stressing that the transportation would not be easy and would exceed the capacity of the border gate.

New Mayor in Turkey Bans Kurdish Music at Publicly-owned Venues

June 20, 2014 By administrator

A Kurdish singer entertains fans in Turkey. Photo: DIHA

ANKARA, Turkey – The new mayor of Mersin, a multi-ethnic city in Turkey that is home to some 400,000 Kurds, has imposed a ban on Kurdish music at public venues, including at weddings or celebrations at places owned or operated by the municipality.

Burhanettin Kocamaz, from the ultra-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) who won the March 31 local elections, sent a written notice ordering the ban, which has been criticized by Kurdish activists. They say it is the first time that a local official has brought this much pressure against the Kurds.

“The fact that he uses his authority like that in Mersin, where at least 400,000 Kurds reside, is both an example of racism and fascism and a crime of abusing the authority granted to him by law,” Adil Zozani, an MP from the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), said in a parliamentary objection to the interior minister.

“The mayor is responsible for serving the entire city and is supposed to treat equally all different ethnic, religious and faith groups,” he noted. “Isn’t it a hate crime for a mayor to ban a people’s language and use his authority as a tool for threatening people? Isn’t it also a crime for him to abuse his power?”

Turkey has had a long history of keeping its huge Kurdish minority of some 15 million people under its heel, banning the Kurds even from speaking their own language until 1991. Since last year, the government has embarked on a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), but activists complain that the pressure on Kurds continues.

Ali Tanriverdi, head of the Human Rights Association (IHD) in Mersin, told Rudaw this was the first time a local politician had acted in this way against the Kurds.

“The state is still applying pressure on the Kurds throughout Turkey, but this is the first time that a local politician in the city is doing the same thing to this extent,” Tanriverdi said. “Three days ago, while Kurdish music was being played at a wedding, the owner of the venue begged the band to stop the music,” he said.

“The mayor has even justified his decision by saying that he does not want to provoke the youths,” he added.

Halis Deger, head of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Mersin, told Rudaw that the mayor was sticking to the Turkish policy of denying Kurdish identity.

“The mayor has told the managers of those venues not to play music in any language other than Turkish, so he is still trying to deny the Kurdish identity. But peace cannot be achieved through denial of identities,” he said. “Despite the ban, we will keep on singing our songs even more loudly, everywhere,” Deger said defiantly.

For decades, Turkey has denied its Kurds basic rights. Kurdish-language education, or publishing in the language, was banned until 2000.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has made limited reforms that allow learning Kurdish at private language schools.

Turkey: Reporters Without Borders slams ‘censorship’ on Mosul kidnappings over coverage ban

June 19, 2014 By administrator

Shiite volunteers, who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who have taken over Mosul and other northern provinces, sit with their weapons in Baghdad, June 18, 2014. REUTERS Photo

Reporters Without Borders has denounced the Turkish government’s management of the crisis in Iraq, slamming the “censorship” on the coverage of the kidnapping of 80 Turkish citizens near Mosul by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.

The media freedom nongovernmental organization described the Turkish heavy penal court’s June 16 ruling ordering a ban on reports related to the kidnapping of 49 staff members of Mosul consulate and 31 truck drivers “out of all proportion” and an attempt to suppress criticism.

“This blatant act of censorship violates the Turkish public’s right to be informed about a subject of general interest,” said Johann Bihr, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

“Even if the government is rightly concerned for the safety of the hostages, its policies in Syria are the subject of public debate. Trying to suppress criticism instead of facing up to its responsibilities is unacceptable. We call on the courts to immediately lift this ban, which is out of all proportion,” he added.

The ruling was delivered to media outlets by Turkey’s Supreme Board of Radio and Television on June 17. Failure to comply with the ban could lead to cash fines and the suspension of broadcasts or publication.

Ankara has resorted to similar bans in the past as well. Last February, a ban was imposed on the publication of reports related to the search of two trucks containing weapons, which belonged to Turkish intelligence and were bound for Syria. The coverage of the deadly attack in the town of Reyhanlı on May 11, 2013 that killed 53 people was also banned by a court order.

June/19/2014