Turkey Archives

Turkey with two faces Committing crime face Peace Face, now want relation with Syria

July 13, 2016 By administrator

Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said his country will aim to develop relations with Syria, the BBC reports.

Mr Yildirim said Turkey needed to boost diplomatic relations in the region.

His televised speech appears to suggest a sharp U-turn by the government. Diplomatic ties between Turkey and Syria were severed after the Syrian conflict began in 2011.

Turkey has long said the only solution for regional peace would be for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to go.

Mr Yildirim said the stability of Syria and Iraq were crucial for the success of counter-terrorism efforts.

The news comes at a time of great political instability in the country, says the BBC’s Katy Watson in Istanbul.

In the past year, Turkey has been hit by a wave of bombings from both Kurdish militants and the so-called Islamic State.

Turkey Makes Overtures to Minorities, but Old Enmities Linger

July 13, 2016 By administrator

The unfinished Statue of Humanity, a monument to Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, in Kars, Turkey, in 2009. It was demolished in 2011. Credit Mustafa Ozer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By CELESTINE BOHLENJULY 12, 2016

(nytimes) KARS, Turkey — The history of this city, about 30 miles from the border with Armenia, may best be told through its former Armenian cathedral, the Church of the Holy Apostles, poised at the base of an imposing fortress.

Built in the 10th century by an Armenian king, it was turned into a mosque three times and once into a Russian Orthodox church. It was briefly resurrected as an Armenian church in 1919 before the modern secular Turkish state expropriated it in 1921, eventually turning it into a petroleum depot, then into a museum, then again into a mosque.

Now, it is mostly closed: Many Muslims go instead to a holier shrine next door. According to Armenian news reports, it might be converted into either a cultural center or even a church, but it is unclear who would come, given that virtually no Armenian Christians are left in Kars.

The city has experienced even more violent turnover than its cathedral. The Ottomans and the Russians were here — but also the Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, the Georgians, the Persians and the Mongols. Populations were imported, expelled and massacred.

The Armenian genocide of 1915 was the region’s most chilling atrocity, but there were others as Muslims fled Russian-occupied territories in the late 19th century, and Christians later escaped the returning Turks.

These old enmities are never far below the surface. In the nearby city of Igdir, Turkey built a monument in 1999 to commemorate Turkish victims of 20th-century massacres. A gargantuan monument to Armenian-Turkish reconciliation was torn down in Kars in 2011.

Still, there are suggestions that history is finally getting its due. Signs at the ancient ruins of Ani, right on the border, acknowledge that the vast site was the capital of an Armenian kingdom in the 10th and 11th centuries with a population of 100,000.

Although Turkey continues to deny the Armenian genocide and threatens to punish countries — most recently Germany — that recognize it, attitudes toward its multiethnic population and its multilayered history loosened up in the early years of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 13-year rule, which he began as prime minister.

The Armenian question, once taboo, became a topic of academic seminars and open discussion.

“After a period of huge ignorance, people now know more, and once they know, you can’t turn back,” said Hugh Pope, an expert on Turkey at the International Crisis Group in Brussels.

Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist party, Justice and Development, operating in a majority-Muslim country, took a more lenient approach to minority rights in the early 2000s, when Turkey was actively pursuing membership in the European Union. “They are comfortable making concessions because they are the overwhelmingly dominant culture,” said Henri Barkey, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

An Armenian church was reopened in 2010 on the shores of Lake Van, but services are held only once a year. The restoration of a synagogue in Erdine was completed last year, though the local Jewish community left long ago. Several minority languages — including Kurdish — have been taught in schools since 2013.

And yet, even these meager initiatives have been met with protests from parts of Turkish society. In 2010, a Turkish nationalist leader ostentatiously went to Ani to hold prayers at a ruined mosque to protest the reopening of the Armenian church on Lake Van.

And since 2013, as Mr. Erdogan tightened his authoritarian rule, initiating a campaign against Kurdish militants and a frontal attack against Turkey’s independent news media, his overtures to other minorities have diminished, according to Hamit Bozarslan, a Turkey specialist at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. He cited the cancellation last year of a colloquium on the Armenian genocide at a Turkish university.

In an apparent attempt to break out of Turkey’s recent diplomatic isolation, Mr. Erdogan took a sudden initiative last month to improve relations with Israel and Russia.

But an opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, closed since 1993 over the conflict in nearby Nagorno-Karabakh, is not considered likely anytime soon.

“Erdogan has to be careful with what he does,” Mr. Barkey said. “There is still a lot of hostility between these groups.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/world/europe/turkey-armenia-kurds-kars.html?_r=0

Germany may pull out troops from Turkish airbase in Incirlik

July 12, 2016 By administrator

incirlik gemany Germany may withdraw its troops from the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey after its delegation was barred from visiting the facility, parliamentary speaker Norbert Lammert told local media, Sputnik News reports.

“It should probably be underscored again that Bundestag only allows sending German soldiers on international missions abroad when they are needed and welcome there,” Lammert told the German newspaper Sueddeutschen Zeitung on Monday.

The lawmaker, who presides over Bundestag, the lower house of the national parliament, added that German troops “will not stay for long where they are not welcome”.

The German parliament’s decision in June to label the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide soured relations between NATO allies, prompting Ankara to bar German lawmakers from visiting the Incirlik airbase last month.

Turkey: Youth killed Three Turkish police officers in southeast Turkey

July 11, 2016 By administrator

A file photo of Turkish police officers (by AFP)

A youth has killed three Turkish police officers before being killed himself by other officers in the city of Sanliurfa in southeast Turkey, Turkish media say.

Anadolu Agency reported on Monday that the 17-year-old youth opened fire on three police officers at a bus station in Sanliurfa as they asked people for identification papers. He then fled before opening fire on another group of police.

Three officers shot and injured in the incident later died in hospital.

The report did not specify when the shooting took place.

Anadolu cited Sanliurfa’s governor as saying that the shooting was not terrorism-related.

Governor Gungor Azim Tuna also said the attacker had psychological problems and was traveling with his family.

Turkey blocking probes in southeast, says Human Rights Watch

July 11, 2016 By administrator

The Turkish government is blocking access for independent investigations into alleged abuses against civilians across southeast Turkey, the Hurriyet Daily News reports quoting Human Rights Watch (HRW) as stating on July 11.

“The government should promptly grant the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights permission to enter the area and investigate according to its standards,” a statement on HRW’s website read, adding that rigid curfews have been imposed in many towns since the restart of security operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in summer 2015.

“The curfews also prevent non-governmental organizations, journalists, and lawyers from scrutinizing those operations or any resulting abuses by security forces or armed groups. Authorities have blocked rights groups – including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights – from trying to document abuses even after curfews and operations ended,” the statement said.

According to the HRW, the Turkish government has not responded to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein’s public statement in May, nor to his letter requesting permission for a U.N. team to conduct an investigation in the region. However, it added that the government has indicated that Zeid himself would be welcome to visit Turkey.

“The Turkish government’s effective blockade of areas of the southeast fuels concerns of a major cover-up,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Turkish government should give the U.N. and nongovernmental groups immediate access to the area to document what’s going on there.”

Photoshopped poster of prime ministers goes viral in Turkey

July 9, 2016 By administrator

photoshoped PM Unsuccessfully photoshopped picture of former PM Ahmet Dvutoglu and the current PM Binali Yildirim went viral in Turkey.

The poster was installed on the wall of the Justice and Development party’s branch in Yozkat district.

The poster was mocked by media and social network users, and finally the party decided to remove it.

Turkey: Car bomb attack on military outpost kills 3, wounds nearly 40 in SE Turkey

July 9, 2016 By administrator

People search for injured as smokes rise from the Midyat Police station after an explosion on June 8, 2016 in Midyat, southeast Turkey. © AFP

At least three people have lost their lives and more than three dozen sustained injuries in a bomb attack on a military outpost followed by shooting in Turkey’s southeastern province of Mardin.

The car bombing targeted the Cevizlik village outpost in Mardin province, which borders Syria, on Saturday around 12:40 p.m. (0940 GMT), killing two soldiers and a civilian, security sources said.

They added that those wounded in the attack included 23 soldiers, three of whom seriously hurt, 14 civilians as well as one member of the village guard.

The attack came a day after Turkish troops killed 19 PKK militants during clashes elsewhere in the mainly Kurdish region.

Turkish troops killed 17 PKK militants in the Semdinli district of Hakkari province on Friday.

Separately, further north in the Baskale district of Van province, security forces, who were destroying explosives planted beside a road, were engaged in a firefight and killed two PKK militants, according to a military statement.

Ankara has been conducting a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months. The Turkish military has also been pounding the group’s positions in northern Iraq.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.

A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void by the militants following the Turkish strikes against the group.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1984. The conflict has left more than 40,000 people dead.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned the French amendment on Holocaust denial

July 9, 2016 By administrator

turkey FM The Turkish Foreign Ministry has warned that the amendment criminalizing the denial of “genocide” adopted unanimously by the lower house of French parliament on July 1, had the potential to unlawfully limit freedom ‘expression.

The spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mr. Tanju Bilgiç said July 6, 2016 in response to a question regarding the adoption by the French National Assembly an amendment on freedom of the press: “We followed closely the process of drafting and adoption of the draft amendment of the law on press freedom adopted by the French parliament on criminalizing the denial of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide under certain conditions.

In case the project would be enacted in its current form, it could expose the risk of limiting freedom of expression illegally, especially in infringing the case law of the ECHR and the Constitutional Council of France.

We will follow closely the process ahead, in the near future with the French Senate regarding the project that has not yet been promulgated.

We expect the French Senate withdraw the project elements that could expose the risk of limiting the freedom of expression. “

For his part the Azerbaijani APA news agency did an interview with Osman Koruturk former Turkish ambassador to Paris and former member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Istanbul which reads:

APA -After 3 and a half years, the French parliament passed an amendment criminalizing protest of the “Armenian genocide”. What is the purpose of this insistence?

Osman Koruturk -It’s absolutely a question related to the personal interests of French politicians, not of their love for the Armenians. There are many rich Armenians in different regions of France, they have a significant influence in politics. One of the main advisers to Hollande in the election were Armenian. During the election campaign, Hollande promised to adopt this law.

After the discussion of the bill in parliament, the Sarkozy initiative politician who does not seriously follows the rule of law, (to get the support of Armenians), the French Constitutional Council rejected the bill, because it violates “human rights, freedom of speech and expression”. At that time, we were happy that the French Constitutional Council has highlighted human rights, France is the cradle of liberties. But now, the Parliament passed a similar law on the initiative of Holland, with a small addition: the current law does not provide for the approval of “genocide” by an independent tribunal to punish those who deny the “Armenian genocide “. Therefore, despite the fact that no independent court has made a decision “genocide” about the events of 1915, they decided to include it in a common framework with other genocides officially recognized. But this time, the French Constitutional Council can not reject the bill. So far, before the emergence of such problems, the Turkish government had mobilized and sent its representatives who are familiar with this issue in the respective countries to lcombattre through legal, diplomatic and political.

APA -Here what I wanted to ask. Do you think the Government has today little attention to this issue?

Osman Koruturk -The previous members of the AKP, CHP and MHP were sent to the West to explain the just position of Turkey on this issue. Our work in this area has been very helpful. The last time we went to Italy in 2015 and we held very productive meetings in Parliament and the Senate. Now the government does not pay attention to these issues, and therefore does not organize visits of parliamentary parties abroad. Although the European Court of Human Rights delivered a judgment objective and essential for Turkey’s complaint Dogu Perinçek. The government and the Turkish National Assembly should pay more attention to these issues. We have not seen the activity of the government and the Grand National Assembly, even on the eve of the decision adopted by the German Bundestag in early June. This also applies to the opposition parties represented in Parliament.

APA last -The year, false accusations of “Armenian genocide” would not have managed to create the necessary effect, if there was involvement of the Turkish government? On the eve of the decision of the Bundestag, we have seen the manifestation of the members of Talat Pasha Committee, which is chaired by Perinçek in Berlin …

Osman Koruturk -We need to widely inform citizens of France and Germany of Turkish origin. Not only our diplomatic missions, but our NGOs should establish close relations with these citizens. Citizens of France of Turkish origin must be able to communicate directly with members of parliament and senators, to bring them to their conditions during election campaigns, and vote only after the acceptance of these conditions. To participate actively in the socio-political life of the country, which they are citizens, and gain the opportunity to influence the legislative and executive bodies, it is necessary to provide full support to European citizens of Turkish origin.

APA -In speaking of the common position of the political parties represented in the Grand National Assembly on the “Armenian genocide”, you have not mentioned the HDP. When Turkey is fighting against injustice, some leaders of the HDP hold meetings with leaders of the Dashnak organizations in the US, with the aim to “cooperate with them to determine the future of Turkey.” Some members of HDP organize protests in this regard within the GANT. Why the direction of Parliament did not give an appropriate response?

Osman Koruturk -The Turkey is a country in which most of the issues can be discussed by political means. In this case, regardless of party, holding negotiations abroad is not pleasant. Who has a say, it should put before the Parliament and receive appropriate responses. There is no need to hold discussions on Turkey in foreign countries.

Saturday, July 9, 2016,
Stéphane © armenews.com

Erdoğan’s Kissing Buns

July 9, 2016 By administrator

BY GAREN YEGPARIAN,

Proving once again how shrewd and shameless he is, Turkey’s Sultan-in-waiting president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has realized he’s in over his head and is rapidly swimming to shore to save himself and the nouveau-corruption he has brought to Ankara.

He has realized he opened up too many battlefronts and is quickly establishing truces on some of them so he can focus his ego, power-hunger, and tyrannical inclinations on the remaining. In this respect, the Kurds, Armenians, and other minorities inside Turkey are likely to be more strongly targeted. Outside the country, Armenians and Syria are the likely targets once Erdoğan increases his maneuverable space.

Israel and Turkey signed an agreement in which Turkey got almost nothing. Its biggest demand – termination of Israel’s blockade of Gaza is unmet. Instead, Turkey is permitted to keep sending supplies to Gaza through an Israeli port, gets to build some facilities in Gaza, and must not allow Hamas to plan attacks from Turkey’s territory. Israel will pay $20 million into a compensation fund for those killed on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, when Israeli marines stormed it as the ship tried to break the Gaza blockade. BUT, this only happens after Turkey passes legislation barring any further compensation and promising to compensate Israel if any legal actions outside of Turkey lead to Israel paying out any more money with regard to the Mavi Marmara incident. Given that the facilities mentioned are power and desalination plants as well as a hospital, it smells to me like a way for Turkish companies to make money off the misery of the people of Gaza. It is anticipated that natural gas soon to be produced by Israel from offshore sources will be sold to Turkey. This factor likely contributed to Turkey’s “cooperativeness” too, since Ankara wants to diversify its energy sources. Altogether, it looks like a pretty thorough humiliation for Erdoğan/Turkey.

With Russia, Turkey has embarked down a similar road. While the non-apology apology sent by Erdoğan to Putin is just a first step, both countries have reason to move past Turkey’s foolhardy shoot-down of a Russian aircraft operating in Syria. But Turkey’s tourism industry has taken a serious hit with the disappearance of Russian visitors after Moscow imposed sanctions on Ankara. This, too, promises to be humiliating for the wannabe-Sultan Erdoğan.

Once the row with Russia is tamped down, next may well be the U.S. Erdoğan has managed to irritate even the famously pro-Turkish establishment in the U.S. Department of State. How?
His bravado, not-so-secret support for ISIS/Daesh, re-initiation of civil war against the Kurds led by the PKK, undercutting Syria’s Kurds in their battle against ISIS/Daesh, and generally being a problem. Even Barack Obama criticized his former “chum” Erdoğan. And, with Donald Trump making anti-Turkish noises, Erdoğan may be thinking “it’s better to get things fixed up with America before a new president steps in.”

Recently, there was chatter that after Russia, Egypt might be the next country with which fences got mended by Turkey. This was the latest bout of such speculation since February when reports attributed such intentions to Ankara. But, Erdoğan came out with a statement that the “context” of the issues with Egypt was different than with Russia or Israel, so rapprochement with Egypt may not be coming very soon.

The E.U., though currently being played like a fine-tuned violin by Erdoğan, ergo not presenting much of a diplomatic challenge – just think of the refugee deal struck a few months ago – may be on the path to becoming more assertive vis-a-vis Turkey. This would not be limited to the seemingly interminable process of Turkey joining the E.U. Consider some of the sentiments in Great Britain that lead to a majority voting in favor of Brexiting. Think of Germany’s Genocide resolution. France’s parliament is now considering a Genocide denial prohibition law. Something may be brewing, all of which would force Erdoğan to become far more conciliatory. Conversely, it might lead him to conclude that even riskier adventurism is the way for him to consolidate support at home by invading Syria or Armenia (that which Turgut Özal did not do) or even engaging in genocide against the Kurds living in Turkey. It seems that he would stop at nothing in his ambitions to recreate an Ottoman Empire-like construct.

It’s even possible that part of the reason, or the real reason, for Erdoğan pushing Ahmet Davutoğlu out of the Prime Ministership was to change the face of Turkish diplomacy (Davutoğlu is credited with having been its inspiration and source since the AKP came to power) and have someone to blame as he tried to mend fences with all the countries mentioned above.

Messy, isn’t it? But clearly, Erdoğan is eating some crow and working hard to get himself out of the hole’s he’s dug for Turkey. Armenians, Kurds, and Syria should be watching Ankara’s maneuvers VERY closely over the next several weeks.

Do you have any insights? A discussion of these arcane diplomatic moves is important.

***

What’s the Excuse Now?

Alton Sterling – July 5, 2016, Baton Rouge, Louisiana… dead.

Philando Castile – July 6, 2016 in Falcon Heights, Minnesota (near Minneapolis)… dead.

Police murders both.

It would be too easy to rattle off names of unjustly killed people, overwhelmingly black, all under highly questionable circumstances. In almost all cases, what would seem like justice is somehow circumvented, and this goes at least as far back as Rodney King.

In these two most recent cases, one victim was a peddler of CDs (see him dying here). The other was following an officer’s instructions at a traffic stop, told the officer he had a gun he was licensed to carry, proceeded to reach for his ID… and ended up dying for having a busted taillight…

I can’t wait to hear the rationalizations for these two crimes. There a contingent of “explainers” who always seem to justify anything police officers do. In fairness, when you see and hear the videos, you’ll notice that the responsible police officers are extremely distraught and unnerved by what they have just done.

I had to write this brief item because our community is too oblivious about, or even on the wrong side of things, when these all too frequent tragedies occur. Each time I hear of these incidents, it seems as though a time machine transports me to the days of the Bloody Sultan’s Hamidiyeh militias sweeping down on an Armenian village and doing whatever they wanted. Remember, those groups were official representatives of the state at the time, as are the police of today.

We, as Armenians, unfortunately well experienced in being at the receiving end of injustice, must be at the forefront of the efforts to prevent future killings of innocent people. These needless deaths are happening only because most non-blacks in the U.S. have been inculcated with a fear of black-skinned humans. This causes even well trained police officers to over-react as you can see in the first video.

Get out there and use your credibility as a scion of Genocide survivors to save lives.

Chechen Leader Demands Turkey Hand Over ‘Terrorists’

July 8, 2016 By administrator

By Liz Fuller

July 08, 2016

(rferl.org) Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is seeking to take advantage of the thaw in Russian-Turkish relations occasioned by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s formal expression of regret late last month for the death of a Russian pilot in connection with the shooting down in November by Turkish fighter aircraft of a Russian bomber that Ankara claimed had entered Turkish airspace from Syria.

In an Instagram post on July 5, Kadyrov demanded that Erdogan order the handover to the Russian authorities of 12 Chechens he identifies as “terrorists,” some of whom allegedly played key roles in the wars of 1994-96 and 1999-2000 and the subsequent low-level insurgency. Kadyrov further lent credence to suspicions that another former Chechen militant, Akhmad Chatayev, masterminded the June 28 suicide bombings at Istanbul airport in which 45 people died and hundreds more were injured.

The men whose handover Kadyrov is demanding include Movladi Udugov, the ideologue and press spokesman first of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) and then of the Caucasus Emirate proclaimed in 2007 by then-ChRI President Doku Umarov; Umarov’s brother Akhmad; and Shirvani Basayev, the brother of renegade field commander Shamil Basayev, who was killed in 2006. All three have lived openly in Turkey for many years.

Others, including field commanders Makhran Saidov (aka Yakup) and Aslambek Vadalov, are known to have remained in Chechnya until at least late 2014, when it was reported that half a dozen prominent insurgency commanders from Chechnya and Daghestan, including Saidov, had transferred their allegiance from the virtual Caucasus Emirate to the extremist group Islamic State (IS).

Chechen field commander Tarkhan Gaziyev told RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service two years ago he had left Chechnya; he is reportedly currently in Syria heading a band of fighters aligned with IS.

Khadi Alaskhanov, 25, was listed in April 2015 among seven young Chechens said to be fighting in Syria. There is little or no information available about the remaining five men.

It is significant that Kadyrov does not name Aslan Byutukayev (aka Khamzat), whom Umarov had named in 2011 to head the Chechen insurgency wing. Reports in June 2015 that Byutukayev had pledged allegiance to IS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were never confirmed, but eight Chechen fighters killed in late July 2015 in Ingushetia’s Sunzha district that borders on Chechnya were identified by the National Counterterrorism Committee as Byutukayev’s men and recent recruits to IS.

It is conceivable that Byutukayev, who is thought to have mentored the young Ingush who blew himself up at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport in January 2011, was behind the attack by two suicide bombers on a police post in Grozny in May.

As for Chatayev, who fought under the command of Shamil Basayev during the 1999-2000 war, Kadyrov claimed that he was trained by the intelligence services of Austria (where he was granted political asylum in 2003), Georgia, and Turkey with the aim of causing problems for Russia.

Specifically, Kadyrov said that with the support of Austrian intelligence, Chatayev collected a large sum of money on behalf of Chechen insurgent commander Khuseyn Gakayev, and that in 2011 he organized an attempt to infiltrate a group of Chechen volunteers recruited in Austria into Chechnya from Georgian territory.

In fact, that abortive attempt took place in August 2012. According to Georgian ombudsman Ucha Nanuashvili, who in 2013 conducted an independent investigation into the incident, Chatayev played no part in recruiting the volunteers, and was simply called on to mediate in a standoff between them and their Georgian handlers.

That altercation culminated in a shoot-out in which two Georgian Interior Ministry special-forces personnel and a military doctor were killed, along with seven Chechens. Chatayev reportedly received a gunshot wound that necessitated the amputation of part of his left leg. (He had reportedly lost his left arm during the second Chechen war.)

Chatayev was identified last summer as the head of an IS cell based in Istanbul. But representatives of the Chechen community in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge nonetheless expressed doubts that it was he who organized the Istanbul airport bombing. They reasoned that given his concern for Chechen communities abroad, he would not deliberately have done anything that could cause problems for Chechen emigres, whether from Russia or Syria, currently living in Turkey.