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Journalist Paralyzed, Gravely Ill in Turkish Prison

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Metin Duran, a paralyzed and gravely ill journalist, remains in Turkish prison. (Image via Platform for Independent Journalism)

by Uzay Bulut,

  • Medeni Duran wrote that his imprisoned brother Metin “cannot walk, speak, or eat and does not recognize anyone anymore. He can only breathe.”
  • Mistreatment and even torture of journalists and media employees, along with arbitrary arrests, are getting alarmingly commonplace in Turkey.
  • At least 183 journalists and media workers in Turkey in are being held, either in pretrial detention or serving a prison sentence, according to the Platform for Independent Journalism.

Dissident journalists and writers in Turkey increasingly face government threats and arbitrary arrests for their work and opinions, but for Metin Duran, the punishments have been even more grotesque.

Duran, 37, has been jailed on terrorism-related charges in Sincan Prison, near Ankara, since March 30, 2018. But he is not aware of where he is or what the court decided about him.

A former journalist for Radyo Rengin, a radio station in the city of Mardin in southeastern Turkey, Duran lost part of his memory, along with his ability to walk and speak, after a stroke that followed a heart attack on October 10, 2015. Yet despite these crippling disabilities, he was sent to prison on March 30 and remains there, the Mezopotamya news agency (MA) reported.

Ahmet Kanbal, the journalist who covered Duran’s imprisonment for Mezopotamya, told Gatestone:

“Duran’s trial got started in 2015 and lasted for more than a year. He was eventually sentenced to a prison term of three years, one month, and fifteen days. His lawyer then appealed to the Supreme Court; this proceeding also lasted for more than two years. When Duran’s punishment was finally approved, he was arrested on his sickbed on March 30.”

Duran’s radio station was shut down by emergency decree following an attempted coup in 2016 against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Two days after his arrival at Sincan, he was placed in the prison hospital due to his severe illness. His brother Zeydan Duran is also present in the prison, to care for him. (Zeydan has not been convicted of any crime.)

Duran’s family has appealed all the way to Turkey’s Constitutional Court to get him out of prison, but authorities demand the family get a medical report from the country’s Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) to prove that Duran is “medically unfit for prison.” The family is still waiting for the Council report.

Duran’s case is bizarre, but he is far from the only journalist imprisoned in Turkey. At least 183 journalists and media workers in are being held, either in pretrial detention or serving a prison sentence, the Platform for Independent Journalism, P24, reported on August 17.

“Turkey is the world leader in prosecuting and jailing journalists and media workers,” according to a 2018 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report issued last February.

“Turkey has a long tradition of misusing the criminal justice system and overbroad terrorism laws to prosecute journalists, activists, and other government critics,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) added in a March 2018 blog post about Erdogan’s post-coup crackdown. “Prosecutors have repeatedly applied articles of the law such as, ‘inciting hatred and enmity among the population,’ and ‘spreading terrorist propaganda’ to intimidate and silence peaceful dissent both on- and offline.”

Another Turkish Penal Code article — “committing crimes on behalf of an organization without being a member of that organization” — is also commonly used to target journalists and writers; Duran was convicted of a charge under that article too. Under this law, defendants are prosecuted as if they were actually fighting the state as armed “members” of terrorist organizations.

“Terror doesn’t form by itself. Terror and terrorists have gardeners,” Erdogan has said in justification of his actions. “These gardeners are those people viewed as thinkers. They water … from their columns on newspapers. And one day, you find these people show up as a terrorist in front of you.”

When jailing journalists is not enough, the government closes their workplaces down. In all, 131 media outlets were shut down by emergency degree following the July 2016, attempted coup. Those included news agencies, TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, printing houses and distribution companies.

On July 30, more media outlets – 12 TV channels and 11 radio stations – were shuttered.

Along with arbitrary arrests, mistreatment and even torture of journalists and media employees are getting alarmingly commonplace in Turkey.

For example, four Turkish journalists faced “torture and threatening and abusive behavior in detention” after a bomb attack on August 10, 2016 in the province of Diyarbakır, according to the International Federation of Journalists.

“As soon as we said that we were journalists, the scale of the profanity changed and we were subjected to verbal and physical abuse,” said Serpil Berk, Evrensel and Hayatın Sesi TV Diyarbakır correspondent, one of the detainees.

Hasan Akbaş, who also works for Evrensel and Hayatın Sesi TV, said the prisoners’ hands were cuffed behind their back as a policeman “endlessly shouted, ‘Shoot anyone who raises their head.'”

Hayatın Sesi TV was shut down. The four journalists were lucky: after a campaign for their release they were freed.

Duran’s friends have launched a social media campaign seeking his immediate release from prison. Another of his brothers, Medeni Duran, has started an online petition calling for Duran’s release. Medeni wrote that his imprisoned brother Metin “cannot walk, speak, or eat and does not recognize anyone anymore. He can only breathe.

“My brother is paralyzed and confined to bed. His continued imprisonment is an assault against his right to life and means he is being left to death intentionally. We as his family members are worried and ask for his immediate release.”

Metin Duran is mute; the international community — especially human rights groups — need to be his voice and urgently start campaigning for his freedom.

Uzay Bulut, a journalist from Turkey,

Sole Armenian village in Turkey holds Grape Blessing ceremony

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1,000 pilgrims and tourists arrived in Turkey’s sole remaining Armenian village, Vakifli, in August to mark the Christian holiday of Asdvadzadzin, or the Assumption of Mary, and the blessing of the grapes, an ancient rite that celebrates the first fruit of the harvest, Eurasianet.org says in an article.

The village endured the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century and was reborn in a staunchly nationalist republic. Today, the inhabitants battle far different pressures that threaten the community’s survival.

The event also pays homage to the six other Armenian villages that once occupied the slopes of Mount Moses, or Musa Dagh in Turkish, which stands north of Vakifli. The night before the mass, villagers light fires beneath seven cauldrons to prepare harissa, a stew of beef, wheat and salt that evokes the provisions their forebears survived on during exile to the mountaintop to escape the Armenian Genocide in 1915.

The extraordinary story of the Musa Dagh resistance, and Vakifli’s perseverance a century later, are rare examples of survival among Turkey’s Armenians. Subject to massacres during World War I in which up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed, Armenians have mostly disappeared from the lands in Turkey they occupied for millennia. Scholarly consensus holds that the killings amounted to a genocide, a judgment the Turkish government continues to reject.

Vakifli’s 130 residents farm 50 acres of land, raising citrus fruits, walnuts, and honey. Women jar fruit and sell homemade jams and pomegranate syrup to tourists who flock here for the cool breeze in summer – and a window into Turkey’s multicultural past.

Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city with an estimated 15 million people, is home to about 1,000 Vakifli natives, among a total population of 60,000 Armenians. Others have moved to Europe, Canada and the United States.

Source: 

Eurasianet.org. Turkey’s last Armenian village honors long-ago stand

 

Qatar and Turkey: Toxic Allies in the Gulf

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Qatar and Turkey: Toxic Allies

by Richard Miniter,

Questions began with the arrest of Andrew Brunson, an American-born Christian pastor who has lived in Turkey for 23 years without incident. Then, on October 7, 2016 Brunson and his wife Norine were seized as alleged coup plotters. Norine was released after being held for 13 days, without any charges being filed. Andrew Brunson has remained in detention since 2016 and the charges, when they finally appeared, were numerous and impossible to believe. Example: Brunson is a part of Mormon-inspired CIA plot to topple Turkey’s elected government. (Brunson is not Mormon and has no known CIA connections.) If convicted, he faces up to 35 years in prison.

  • Why not consider expanding the US deployment at Al-Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates as a replacement for the airbases used by the US in Qatar and Turkey, if the UAE accept the idea?
  • If one nation is able to defy or undermine U.S. policy while still pocketing the benefits of America’s friendship, many others may follow Qatar’s example. Why should other Arab nations endure domestic criticism, for supporting America’s war on terror if they can subvert America but still enjoy America’s military protection and their access to the world’s largest market?

Turkey revealed its true intentions when it offered to exchange Brunson for Fethullah Gülen, a self-exiled Turkish Islamic cleric who lives in Pennsylvania. The Turkish government believes that Gülen and his alleged “Fethullah Gülen Terror Organization” are behind the July 2016 alleged attempted “coup” against the Turkish government. Dissidents maintain that the “coup” was manufactured to give the elected Islamist government cover to purge pro-secular senior military officers, opposition politicians and critical journalists. For more than a decade, Turkish politics has been roiled by a debate about undoing many of secular traditions and laws enacted at the founding of modern Turkey in the 1920s, but now moving toward a more Islamic model that is friendlier to Iran’s Islamic dictatorship and less so toward the US and the EU. Brunson apparently became a pawn in a larger chess game.

Enter President Donald J. Trump, who has publicly called for Brunson’s release while privately rejecting the idea of turning over Gülen, a legal U.S. resident, to a foreign court system unlikely to give him a fair trial in a charged political environment. Next, Trump piled on economic sanctions to try to spring the jailed American pastor.

Those sanctions have gravely wounded Turkey’s weakening economy, but not weakened its resolve. Turkey’s currency registered a 40% drop against the U.S. dollar this year. Foreign direct investment into Turkey has also slowed significantly this year. Still, its government has stayed the course and refused to free Brunson. Indeed, it upped the ante: Turkey’s leader called on his followers to boycott iPhones and other iconic American products.

Remember, Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States and the second-largest contributor of troops to that vital alliance. It is also home to key U.S. air bases, including Incirlik, a massive complex near Adana housing some 5,000 US airmen.

As U.S. sanctions tightened, another U.S. ally, Qatar, intervened. Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani pledged to invest $15 billion in the Turkish economy during a recent visit — and plainly declared that the point of the investment was to blunt the force of U.S. sanctions. With friends like these…

It is worth taking a closer look at America’s putative ally, Qatar. It is also home to a major US air base at Al Udeid, from which American warplanes bomb the Taliban, ISIS and elements of Al Qaeda.

Yet Qatar funds some of the same groups that America bombs. The gas-rich peninsula channels money to Al Nusra, a Syria-based affiliate of al Qaeda. It had funded Taliban leaders in the run-up to the September 11 attacks and, just a few years ago, reportedly paid some $1 billion to Iran-backed terrorists to ransom captives held in Iraq and Syria.

Qatar funds still other groups that kills Americans. Qatar’s emir has publicly and proudly announced his financial support for Hamas, which has been officially designated as a “terrorist organization” by the U.S. and the E.U. and Israel. Also, let us not forget the hundreds of millions of dollars that Qatar gives to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the gateway organization for almost every Sunni jihadi terrorist band in the Middle East. Al Qaeda’s current leader, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, began his extremist journey in a Brotherhood chapter in Egypt, as did September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in its Kuwait branch. The onetime head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was indoctrinated in the Brotherhood’s Jordan offshoot.

The emir has also welcomed Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, to live in Qatar, as well as various senior Hamas officials.

Al Jazeera, Qatar’s state-run broadcaster, frequently lionizes these groups, giving them air time to legitimize their murderous views toward Israel and America as well as their Arab neighbors.

Add to that, Qatar’s alleged hacking of U.S. citizens (including former Republican National Committee finance chairman Elliott Broidy) and distributing their private emails to journalists, according to U.S. court filings.

In addition, Qatar’s funding of lobbyists (at some $100,000 per month) who are close to the current chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and that committee’s ranking Democrat.

Senator Ted Cruz’s former deputy chief of staff, Nick Muzin, pulled down $300,000 per month from Qatar, according to Reuters.

Finally, Qatar has drawn close to America’s biggest regional rival, Iran. It shares the vast offshore Pars gas field with the Islamic Republic — providing a river of money to the very nation that America suspects of building nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to carry them to U.S. bases in the Middle East and Europe.

US Representative Ted Budd, a member of the Financial Services Committee and its Terrorism and Illicit Finance Subcommittee, in an essential article, states:

“Iran’s continued support of the Hezbollah terrorist organization with both financial and political assistance, as well as weapons and tactical training, deserves close examination. Western diplomats and Lebanese analysts estimate that Iranian financial support for Hezbollah averages around $100 million each year, sometimes reaching amounts closer to a quarter of a billion dollars…All of these activities pose a direct threat to U.S. security interests, contribute to the prolonging of conflicts across the Middle East, and pose threats to our key allies in the region.”

Taken together, the pattern is clear. Far from faithfully supporting current U.S. policy, Qatar is using every means at its disposal to subvert or alter it. Its slap-in-face funding of Turkey, while a US citizen is held captive there, is simply the latest example of the behavior of Qatar, supposedly a US ally.

In Erdogan Turkey: Exposing ISIS Crimes is considered Terrorism

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Eren Erdem at a June 2016 press conference. (Image source: Eren Erdem video screenshot)

Eren Erdem at a June 2016 press conference. (Image source: Eren Erdem video screenshot)

by Uzay Bulut,

  • In an Orwellian nightmare, Eren Erdem, a former MP, journalist and the author of 9 books, who has courageously dedicated his career to exposing and condemning terrorist organizations, is now being accused of “aiding terrorists”. The real terrorists he has condemned, however, remain free.
  • Erdem is paying the price for telling the truth in Turkey. He has risked his life to stop ISIS and help save lives. Now is the time for human rights activists and the media to defend him.
  • “Where are the police forces? I identified 10.000 addresses [of ISIS members] in these documents of investigations conducted by prosecutors and judges…. Why are these men not in jail?” — Eren Erdem.
  • “If the commission we proposed were established, we would crush all of the ISIS cells across in Turkey in a few months. There would be no cell left. Because we know the addresses of these cells. We learn them from the police… We also learn from the investigations by police that ISIS members get organized in Istanbul through a magazine called ‘The Islamic World’. But there has been no police operation against them. This is not neglect. This is cooperation [with ISIS].” — Eren Erdem.

How does Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan fight his political opponents, including those who have been working hard to expose the atrocities of the Islamic state terror group, ISIS? By throwing them into jail for allegedly “supporting terrorism.”

Since the 2016 botched coup attempt in Turkey, Erdogan has been waging a massive crackdown on his opponents and critics, including politicians, political activists, journalists and members of the Turkish security forces and army.

The latest victim of this crackdown is Eren Erdem, a former deputy of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), who is known for his activities to expose the crimes of ISIS and other terrorist groups.

Erdem was recently detained on charges of “aiding a terrorist organization” and is also being investigated for “insulting the Turkish state.” He faces a prison sentence of 9 to 22 years on charges of “knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terrorist organization as a non-member”, “revealing the identity of an anonymous witness” and “violating the confidentiality of the investigation.”

The author of nine books, Erdem worked as a journalist before being elected as a CHP member of parliament for Istanbul in 2015. He appears to be the bravest MP who has exposed ISIS activities across Turkey during his tenure and has often urged the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to stop these activities and bring the perpetrators to account.

Erdem meticulously cited evidence from criminal cases, indictments and investigations by state authorities as well as news reports in his statements and parliamentary motions. On December 10, 2015, for example, Erdem made a speech in Turkey’s parliament about ISIS activities in Turkey. These included ISIS’s transfer of the ingredients of sarin gas through Turkey to Syria “with which thousands of children were murdered in the Middle East”. Referring to the investigation and indictment by the Adana office of a public prosecutor, he said:

“Some people in Turkey have contacted the members of the ISIS terrorist organization and transferred the raw material of sarin gas, which is a chemical weapon, to Syria. The prosecutor started an investigation on this. The suspects who carried out the transfer were arrested and jailed. Upon the order of the prosecutor, the telephones of all suspects were wiretapped, the details of which are in this indictment… But within a week, the case was closed, the suspects were released and allowed to leave Turkey to cross the border to Syria.”

Because of the statements he made in parliament, Erdem became the target of a smear campaign, particularly after he spoke to the international press. In December 2015, for example, he told RT: “Chemical weapon materials were brought to Turkey and put together in ISIS camps in Syria, which was known as the Iraqi Al-Qaeda at that time.”

Erdogan, condemning Erdem for the RT interview, said that Erdem “has sunk in the pit of treason” and called on the CHP to dismiss him: “Shame on his party, me and my nation for letting him stay in his party.” A investigation into treason was then launched against Erdem.

Erdem then stated that after the publication of the interview, he received death threats over social media, with his home address posted by pro-government Twitter users presumably to enable an attack on his house:

“I just shared the contents of the indictment with the people… I provided them with a document… [The government] is carrying out a lynching campaign against me. Because they are disturbed by me. I have exposed their filths and exploitation of religion in my books… I have received more than a thousand death threats. My email address is filed with death threats… If something happens to me, the pro-government media and AKP deputies are responsible.”

Undeterred by the pressure and threats, Erdem has continued exposing and speaking about the activities of jihadist terror groups in the region. During a speech at Turkey’s parliament in June 2016, for instance, Erdem once again criticized the government for turning a blind eye to ISIS activities: “ISIS has sleeper cells in Turkey. These cell houses are monitored [by state authorities]… The information gained from technical surveillance on these cells has confirmed that ISIS is organized in Turkey.”

The. primary suspect of ISIS’s terror attack in Ankara, Erdem said, who goes by acronym I.B. [Ibrahim Bali] “sent 1,800 terrorists to ISIS, all of whom were monitored through technical surveillance but not a single police or military operation was carried out on them… Where are the police forces? I identified 10.000 addresses [of ISIS members] in these documents of investigations conducted by prosecutors and judges…. Why are these men not in jail?”

Erdem also commented on the Turkish language online magazine published by ISIS, Konstantiniyye:

“ISIS sends these magazines to bookstores and its cell houses. The government knows this. But no police or military operation has been carried out on anywhere including the printing house of this magazine.”

Erdem then showed a photo of the “database” interface ISIS created of its injured and treated members and said that many ISIS terrorists received medical treatment in Turkey. He also called on the parliament to open a commission to investigate ISIS activities in Turkey, but the call was rejected by the votes of the ruling AKP party. A day later, at a press conference at Turkey’s parliament, Erdem said:

“If the commission we proposed were established, we would crush all of the ISIS cells across in Turkey in a few months. There would be no cell left. Because we know the addresses of these cells. We learn them from the police… We also learn from the investigation by police that ISIS members get organized in Istanbul through a magazine called ‘the Islamic World’. But there has been no police operation against them. This is not neglect. This is cooperation [with ISIS].”

Erdem also said that he received threats and curses on social media after he proposed establishing a commission for investigating ISIS. He added that he was provided with security guards by the governor as a precaution to death threats.

In May 2018, an Islamist association demanded prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant against Erdem. He responded that he was “being exposed to yet another lynching campaign”. He then received a ban on going abroad as he was about to leave Turkey for Germany with his family on May 21. He was stopped at the Istanbul airport by authorities and his passport was seized.

When Erdem’s party, the CHP, failed to nominate him as MP candidate for June 24 elections, he lost his parliamentary seat and his immunity. On June 26, he was arrested in Istanbul.

The terror organization to which Erdem’s indictment refers is the FETÖ (Fethullahist Terrorist Organization), named after Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen. It is an organization that Erdogan and other members of the Turkish government accuse of staging a 2016 attempted coup, and often use as an excuse to arrest its critics.

A lawsuit was filed against Erdem due to his works at newspaper Karşı, where Erdem was the editor-in-chief. The accusation that he is a “FETÖ supporter” is particularly baseless given that in 2016, he published a book entitled “Nurjuvazi” that criticized Gülen and his movement.

In the meantime, a former CHP deputy announced on July 3 that CHP MPs who wanted to visit Erdem in prison were not given permission by authorities. “This,” he wrote on Twitter, “is isolation against Erdem.”

Another investigation was recently opened against him that is looking into his criticism against the Free Syrian Army (FSA) for allegedly violating Article 301 of the penal code, which prescribes prison terms for “denigration of Turkey, the Turkish nation, or Turkish government institutions.”

In an Orwellian nightmare, a former deputy and a journalist who has so courageously dedicated his career to exposing and condemning terrorist organizations, is now being accused of “aiding terrorists”. The real terrorists he has condemned, however, remain free.

Erdem is paying the price for telling the truth in Turkey. He has risked his life to stop ISIS and help save lives. Now is the time for human rights activists and the media to defend him.

Breaking News: Turkey lodges WTO complaint against US tariffs

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Turkey has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against US tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum products.

“Turkey has requested WTO dispute consultations with the United States concerning additional import duties imposed by the United States on steel and aluminium products. The request was circulated to WTO members on 20 August,” the WTO said on Monday.

In its petition to the WTO, Turkey said the US violated free trade rules when it initially imposed tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports in June for most countries. Doubling them is an additional violation, according to Ankara.

On August 10, US President Donald Trump doubled steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, up to 50 and 20 percent, over the arrest a US citizen. American pastor Andrew Brunson is being held on terrorism charges in Turkey, facing up to 35 years in prison for his alleged role in a failed coup in 2016.

Under WTO rules, Ankara and Washington now have 60 days to settle the dispute through negotiations. If talks fail, the WTO will decide the dispute.

Turkey destroyed Mosul and Aleppo Now wants its share of reconstruction with Help from Russia

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GEORGE OURFALIAN/AFP/Getty Images
A boy walks amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in the city of Aleppo, Syria, July 22, 2017.

by Fehim Tastekin,

Although Turkey publicly appears to sustain its anti-Bashar al-Assad stance on Syria, it is actually getting ready for a new Syria that will allow Assad to stay on as the country’s president. While a termination of the de facto Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria seems to be the first precondition for a possible normalization between Ankara and Damascus, there is another unspoken condition as well: the allotment of a share in Syria’s reconstruction.

Naturally, the Assad administration does not have the intention to allot any share to Turkey, which is accused of supporting anti-regime military groups that have destroyed the country and looted Aleppo’s industrial zones. However, Turkey’s control of a sizable territory in northern Syria and its cooperation with Russia make it difficult for Damascus to exclude Turkey from these calculations.

Turkey’s influence over opposition groups that could have a bearing on the Geneva process can not be dismissed. Turkey has been able to preserve its most important trading partner position with Syria despite the seven-year-old conflict. Its geographical proximity to Syria, logistical superiority and advanced capacity of its construction sector encourages Turkey to obtain a substantial part in the reconstruction process.

Moreover, Turkey is currently organizing local entities in al-Bab, Jarablus, Azaz, Cobanbey and Afrin that are de facto under its control. It is also setting up systems for security, education, religion and even issuing ID cards to residents. In addition it has started building a road network.

Manbij, which Turkey has begun patrolling the periphery of following an agreement with Washington, is also in the works. If Turkey can impose its control over the area, a new highway will be built between Jarablus and Manbij. In fact, local sources have confirmed that the construction work has already started.

The Turkish government sees Manbij as a key trading hub both for Iraq and Syria, and Manbij and al-Bab will be preludes to the rebuilding of Aleppo. This de facto situation created by Turkey will likely be a stepping stone to lucrative reconstruction contracts.

Ankara’s entire calculations are based on getting the reconstruction contract for Aleppo. But will Russia and Iran, which also have spent billions of dollars in Syria, allow Ankara to get what it wants?

For the reconstruction of Aleppo, Ankara relies on its negotiations with Russia. An operation in Idlib and potential withdrawal of Turkish troops from there may well determine the outcome of those negotiations. Ankara hopes that an agreement with Russia on these two issues may overcome the reluctance of Damascus to deal with Turkey.

A foreign technocrat who is closely involved in the reconstruction process of Syria said that Assad considers the reconstruction process an “extremely delicate” issue. He told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “Contacts are top secret at high levels. Assad insists that those who had a part in destroying Syria cannot have a role in its reconstruction and he prefers Russian, Iranian and Chinese firms. Can Russia persuade Damascus to allot Turkey a portion?”

Turkey doubles tariffs on some U.S. imports; lira rallies

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Daren Butler, Humeyra Pamuk
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey doubled tariffs on some U.S. imports including alcohol, cars and tobacco on Wednesday in retaliation for U.S. moves, but the lira rallied further after the central bank’s liquidity moves had the effect of supporting the currency.Ankara acted amid increased tension between the two NATO allies over Turkey’s detention of a Christian American pastor and other diplomatic issues, which have helped send the lira tumbling to record lows against the dollar.

The currency TRYTOM=D3 has lost nearly 40 percent against the dollar this year, driven by worries over President Tayyip Erdogan’s growing influence on the economy and his repeated calls for lower interest rates despite high inflation.

It rebounded some 6 percent on Wednesday, briefly strengthening to less than 6.0 against the dollar, after the central bank squeezed lira liquidity in the market, effectively pushing up rates and supporting the currency.

Optimism about better relations with the European Union after a Turkish court released two Greek soldiers pending trial and a banking watchdog’s step to limit foreign exchange swap transactions have also helped the lira.

“They are squeezing lira liquidity out of the system now and pushing interest rates higher,” said Cristian Maggio, head of emerging markets strategy at TD Securities.

“Rates have gone up by 10 percent … The central bank has not done this through a change in the benchmark rates, but they are squeezing liquidity, so the result is the same,” Maggio said.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) uses Turkey crisis to renew call on Trump to recognize Armenian genocide

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Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) seized on President Trump’s decision to double tariffs on Turkey to push for the president to recognize the mass killings of Armenians as a genocide.

Lieu, who is frequently critical of the president, tweeted Friday that he agreed with Trump’s increase of the tariffs and his declaration that U.S. relations with Turkey “are not good at this time!”

“Turkey has been trending towards authoritarianism & becoming more anti-American,” the Democrat wrote.

“Many of us have also pushed for recognition of the Armenian genocide. I urge @realDonaldTrump to do so,” Lieu continued. “The US should not continue to ignore historical facts.”

Whether the Armenians were the victims of a genocide has been a polarizing issue in Washington for years. Turkey’s government strongly opposes labeling events from 1915, in which more than a million Armenians were killed or exiled, as a genocide and has lobbied against the designation.

Trump declined to refer to the mass slaughter of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks as a genocide for the second time this year. Former President Obama and his predecessors also declined to refer to it as genocide as they came under heavy pressure from both sides of the debate.

Trump issued a statement in April in recognition of Armenian Remembrance Day, which marks the anniversary of Meds Yeghern, during which 1.5 million Armenians were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths by Ottoman soldiers in 1915. He did not use the term genocide in the statement.

More than 100 lawmakers, including Lieu, signed a letter ahead of Armenian Remembrance Day this year urging Trump to call the acts of Meds Yeghern a genocide.

#Trump bold move: “I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with #Turkey

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Trump says US ‘relations with Turkey are not good at this time’

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Aug. 10 he had authorized higher tariffs on imports from Turkey, imposing a 20 percent duty on aluminum and 50 percent one on steel, as tensions mount between the two NATO allies over Ankara’s imprisonment of an evangelical pastor and other diplomatic issues.

“I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar!” Trump said in an early morning post on Twitter. “Aluminum will now be 20 percent and Steel 50 percent. Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!”

Armenian Ministry of Ecology concerns over Turkey’s construction of powerful reservoirs on Araxes river

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Turkey is now building very powerful reservoirs on Araxes river, and we will have problems with the volume of water in the river in the future, Deputy Minister of Ecology of Armenia Ayser Ghazaryan stated this in a conversation with Econews.am correspondent.

According to him, other options should be considered in the issue of water consumption as an alternative. He also added that additional water consumption will have a very bad effect on the Lake Sevan.