Turkey part deaux :)

[Seeker]

Seville grants culture award to Erdoğan

Seville, the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain, has awarded Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the Seville Node between Cultures Award for his “important role” in the implementation of the Alliance of Civilizations initiative.

Alfredo Sánchez Monteseirín, Seville’s mayor and honorary president of the Sevilla Nodo Foundation, told the Anatolia news agency that the foundation decided to grant the award to Erdoğan because of “his contributions to maintaining international security and peace and cooperation in resolution of international disputes and [his efforts] for improving friendship relations among peoples,” in addition to his role concerning the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) initiative.

The initiative, co-sponsored by Erdoğan and his Spanish counterpart, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was launched in 2005 under the aegis of then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Sevilla Nodo Foundation expresses its commitment, based on the heritage of Al-Andalus, to provide an open space for dialogue, mutual respect and enriching encounters.".....

TodaysZaman

[Seeker]

ERDOGAN REJECTS OPPOSITION CLAIMS OF TURNING TURKEY INTO DICTATORSHIP

By NAM NEWS NETWORK Jan 23rd, 2010

ANKARA, Jan 23 (NNN-KUNA) — Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected Friday accusations by the opposition that his administration of the ruling party for seven years has turned the country into a regime of civilian dictatorship.

In a meeting with members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK), Erdogan said he has not sought through his leadership of AK to control Turkey but to strengthen will of people.

Opposition parties have been accusing Erdogan of seeking to maintain his grip over power through a call to hold early legislative elections."......

http://news.brunei.fm/2010/01/23/erdoga ... tatorship/

[Exit40]

Istanbul: culture club Why no city deserves the title Capital of Culture more

Jan Morris The Guardian, Saturday 23 January 2010
Ancient and modern ... Istanbul's Blue Mosque (behind) and New Mosque. Photograph: Bruno Ehrs/Bruno Ehrs/Corbis

'Culture' is a flexible conception, but if one interprets it to mean the whole range of human experience and achievement, then nowhere is better qualified to be the Cultural Capital of Europe than Istanbul, née Constantinople.

It even looks the part. In all European travel there is no spectacle more tremendous than the sight of Istanbul massed beside the sea – a solidification of history, jumbled houses and docks and palaces along the shore, mighty domes and soaring minarets, ships and ferries swarming everywhere, rumbling traffic over terrific bridges – a timeless metropolis, familiar to travellers for a thousand years, and of such consequence that for centuries it was known to half the world simply as The City......

Continued

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Bloodiest coup plan: ‘Sledgehammer’

In the midst of increased accusations of civilian fascism leveled against the political authority, the Taraf daily’s disclosure of another plot yesterday -- said to be the bloodiest coup plan in Turkish history -- has revealed how old coup scenarios are being put into service.

The reasons behind accusations that the government has been moving toward civilian dictatorship have become more obvious now -- they have been part of a cover-up campaign to discredit the ruling party rather than reflecting reality.

The latest coup plan, codenamed Sledgehammer, includes details of operations such as bombing large mosques, including the Fatih and Beyazıt mosques in İstanbul, while deliberately causing a Turkish jet to crash during a dogfight with Greece by provoking Greek pilots or if necessary Turkish pilots themselves. These are just some of the horrifying plans included in the alleged coup plan.

Previous coup plans codenamed Sarıkız, Ayışığı, Eldiven and Yakamoz disclosed earlier by the media have fallen short of being implemented, mainly due to some commanders’ opposition to a military coup. Sledgehammer, on the other hand, which Taraf said is more than 5,000 pages long, has details of an action plan to be implemented in the event of a coup. Taraf said it would also disclose the names of 137 journalists who are listed in Operation Sledgehammer as members of the media who would collaborate if a coup were stage as well as the names of 116 journalists who are to be arrested in such a situation......

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

High court ruling demonstrates need for new constitution
In a move harshly criticized by Turkey’s democrats, the Constitutional Court on Thursday overturned a law allowing the military to be tried in civilian courts, but there might be a way to reverse the damage, observers and politicians say.


Speeding up the government’s efforts to enact a new constitution could be the answer that might curb the excessive power wielded by the military.

This suggestion came from a number of individuals, including Turkey’s chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış, who said the ruling clearly showed the urgency of Turkey’s need for constitutional change. He said constitutional change was imperative. “If we want Turkey to become a modern country, the Constitution has to change. As long as the opposition continues to oppose everything, we’ll try to do this on our own. We will draft our proposed constitution and take it to a public vote if necessary,” Bağış told the NTV news channel......

cont.

God Bless

David

[ampersand]

http://news.am/en/news/12778.html

Obama finds Turkey important strategic partner

“U.S. President Barack Obama considers relationship with Turkey an important strategic partnership,” U.S. National Security Council Spokesman Mike Hammer told Turkish Weekly.

“The bilateral relationship with Turkey is the president's recognition that it's an important strategic partnership. Not only is Turkey a NATO ally, but it's an important country with great linkages into the Muslim world. We have been working with the Turkish government to advance that relationship and to work on a number of issues of common interest. We will talk about some issues where perhaps there are some differences of opinion, but I think overall the relationship is absolutely excellent,” the source quotes Hammer.

“In fact, there are more issues that we agree on than we disagree on. One that I would highlight where we're working together obviously is on Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and the efforts that are being put forward there. And we want to be supportive of that,” he outlined.

&

[ampersand]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60L4QG20100122


Turkey kicks off international meetings on Afghanistan

Fri, Jan 22 2010
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey hosts a meeting of Afghanistan's neighbors next week to seek a common approach to the conflict that could center on gathering international support for negotiating some kind of peace with the Taliban.

The regional meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday will pave the way for an international conference in London on January 28 that may set a timetable for transferring responsibility for some areas to Afghan control.

Muslim Turkey is also hosting a meeting of the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday, and will bring together intelligence and military officials from the two countries with a history of deep mutual mistrust.

A senior Pakistani official with knowledge of the diplomacy involving multiple governments told Reuters initiatives were underway to begin negotiations with some Taliban and this was likely to surface during the meetings in Istanbul and London.

"The Turks are playing a behind-the-scenes roll patching up relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan," the official said. "There's a lot happening behind the scenes that people don't know about."

Turkey, a NATO member, has a special relationship with both Afghanistan and Pakistan that can be traced back to the Ottoman Empire's ties to South and Central Asia, and was using its influence to bring an end to the conflict with the Taliban.

"The Turks are among those working on negotiations with the Taliban -- not all the Taliban, it's being selectively done."

Not only are they neck-deep in Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives, they are playing a big role in other peace initiatives. Working on a covenant with many, quite "behind the scenes". I only wonder what Turkey is getting in return for being such a good peer mediator.

&

[Seeker]

Hi ampersand,

Like the signature by the way just got it...thought it was a typo at first...lol.

Not only are they neck-deep in Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives, they are playing a big role in other peace initiatives. Working on a covenant with many, quite "behind the scenes". I only wonder what Turkey is getting in return for being such a good peer mediator.

If we presume the research and scriptures do show Turkey as the AC nation then the answer might be very simply. To take spoil and prey is usually included in descriptions of the AC. Do what his fathers fathers weren't able to do. Pride, ego, and greed basically I would say.

Peace,
Seeker

[Seeker]

The Enemies of Israel

The bible lists, very specifically, who the enemies of Israel are in the endtimes. The bible also shows, very specifically, who the enemies of Israel have been in the past. The past and the future agree listing the same enemies of Israel. These have always been the enemies of Israel and always will be the enemies of Israel for God spoke it.

Psa 83:1 <A Song or Psalm of Asaph.> Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
Psa 83:2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
Psa 83:3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
Psa 83:4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
Psa 83:5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:
Psa 83:6 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
Psa 83:7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;
Psa 83:8 Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.
Psa 83:9 Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison:
Psa 83:10 Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.
Psa 83:11 Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna:
Psa 83:12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
Psa 83:13 O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.
Psa 83:14 As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire;
Psa 83:15 So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.
Psa 83:16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O LORD.
Psa 83:17 Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish:
Psa 83:18 That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.

Edom/Moab/Gebal/Ammon (Jordan), Amalek (nomads south of Palestine), Philistines (Gaza area), Assur (Assyria). They are still enemies today as they were when these words were written. Psalms 83 is a picture of the endtimes because Psa 83:18 shows God ruling over the earth.

Psa 83:4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.

They are still saying the same thing just scan the headlines over the past 60 years or so and see how many times the current enemies of Israel have repeated this call of 83:4. God told Israel what would happen if they disobeyed Him from the very beginning.

Lev 26:33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.
Lev 26:34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.
Lev 26:35 As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.
Lev 26:36 And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.
Lev 26:37 And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
Lev 26:38 And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
Lev 26:39 And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

Again history bears the truth of this scripture. Israel disobeyed Gods commandments and have been exiled to their enemies lands every since. Gods word fulfilled precisely just as we should expect. Ok so we know God sends Israel to dwell in her enemies lands. All that we need to know now is where does God exile them to? Fortunately for us scripture tells us exactly where they were gathered from after the exile.

Isa 11:10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.
Isa 11:11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

In that day the Gentiles will seek Jesus and God will recover the remnant of people which will be left from...and here is a list of the nations where God gathers them back from their enemies lands or a list of their enemies.

Assyria, Pathos/Egypt, Cush (Ethiopia/Sudan), Elam (Iran), Shinar (Babylon), Hamath (Syria).

Now add to the list above and here are the enemies of Israel that we have found so far:

Assyria, Egypt, Ethiopia/Sudan, Iran, Babylon, Syria, Jordan, Palestinians. I would say the bible is batting 1000 here on the enemies of Israel. Each nation the bible says is and will be the enemies of Israel have been and are the enmies of Israel. Isaiah 12-19 also lists these very same nations and their punishments by the Lord when He returns. Isaiah verifies that the enemies of Israel that God defeats in Israel are all muslim today. These are just a few places that list the enemies of Israel. In each place a specifc nation is mentioned as an enemy of Israel, that nation is muslim today and a sworn enemy of Israel. Ezekiel 38 lists the nations that lead the attack against Israel in the endtime. Gog is chief prince of Mesheck/Tubal (Turkey), and Persia (Iran), Libya, and Ethiopia/Sudan are mentioned by name as leading the last invasion of Israel. They will lead a hoard of muslim nations that surround Israel in one final attempt to fulfill Psalms 83:4. Of course we know the outcome from Eze 39 and many other places in the bible. The enemies that are specifically named as enemies are defeated without effort by the Lord. The is not one single European nation named as an enemy of Israel in the bible people. The bible tells us exactly who the enemies of Israel are (muslim) and their fates during the wrath of God. The words of man (via RRE) say that the AC will be European without a shread of scripture to back that assertion. The words of God say muslim with tons of scriptures backing it. Watch the middle east that is where God says the enemies of Israel are.

Peace,
Seeker

[Seeker]

Israel: Turkish leader fuels anti-Semitism

By JOSEF FEDERMAN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 26, 2010

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused Turkey's prime minister of fueling anti-Semitism with his criticism of Israel, officials said Tuesday, threatening to spark a new diplomatic row with one of Jewish state's few Muslim allies.

The ministry's report comes weeks after Israel's deputy foreign minister enraged Turkey by summoning Ankara's ambassador for a humiliating public reprimand. It says the reprimand made it clear to Turkey that there must be a limit to its criticism.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to protest a Turkish TV show depicting Israeli agents as cruel and refused to shake his hand while forcing him to sit on a low sofa.

Israel was forced to apologize after Turkey threatened to summon its ambassador home.

The new report concluded that Turkey viewed the incident as a "severe blow" to its pride - but added that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had gone overboard in his repeated criticism of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians.

"The way the crisis was handled by top Turkish officials, including Erdogan, could indicate that Turkey understands that they have crossed a red line and the outer limits of the Israeli government's patience," added the report.

Excerpts of the report were published in the Haaretz daily and confirmed by an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a confidential document.

Erdogan, who leads an Islamic-oriented government, has repeatedly condemned last year's Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The report accused Erdogan of using anti-Semitic language in his rhetoric and creating "negative public opinion" toward Israel.

"He does this by repeating motifs in his speeches of describing the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza and blaming Israel of committing war crimes, going as far as using anti-Semitic expressions and incitement," the report said.

There was no immediate reaction from Turkey. But the Israeli criticism could renew tensions once more between the two nations.

Israel and Turkey have forged close military and economic ties in recent decades. The Turks have given Israel a rare ally in the Muslim world, while for Ankara the alliance has boosted its standing with the West."......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00999.html

[jgilberAZ]

Assyria, Egypt, Ethiopia/Sudan, Iran, Babylon, Syria, Jordan, Palestinians. I would say the bible is batting 1000 here on the enemies of Israel. Each nation the bible says is and will be the enemies of Israel have been and are the enmies of Israel. Isaiah 12-19 also lists these very same nations and their punishments by the Lord when He returns. Isaiah verifies that the enemies of Israel that God defeats in Israel are all muslim today. These are just a few places that list the enemies of Israel. In each place a specifc nation is mentioned as an enemy of Israel, that nation is muslim today and a sworn enemy of Israel. Ezekiel 38 lists the nations that lead the attack against Israel in the endtime. Gog is chief prince of Mesheck/Tubal (Turkey), and Persia (Iran), Libya, and Ethiopia/Sudan are mentioned by name as leading the last invasion of Israel. They will lead a hoard of muslim nations that surround Israel in one final attempt to fulfill Psalms 83:4. Of course we know the outcome from Eze 39 and many other places in the bible. The enemies that are specifically named as enemies are defeated without effort by the Lord. The is not one single European nation named as an enemy of Israel in the bible people. The bible tells us exactly who the enemies of Israel are (muslim) and their fates during the wrath of God. The words of man (via RRE) say that the AC will be European without a shread of scripture to back that assertion. The words of God say muslim with tons of scriptures backing it. Watch the middle east that is where God says the enemies of Israel are.

Seems very clear to me. But, not only do others not see it, they disparage those who don't agree with the RRE/SOLANA myopia:

http://fulfilledprophecy.com/bb/viewtop ... =7&t=53766

Argh.

- Jeff

[Seeker]

Hi Jeff,

I have been trying with them over there for years, they hate it every time I point the scriptures out to them...lol...they start quoting men and theorizing this and that but ultimately when pushed they cannot produce scripture that directly supports their claims. They must always interpret the scriptures that God has already interpreted for us. The nice thing about the book of Daniel is that God gives us the exact meaning for the visions and dreams. I am sure you realize that but for others who may also be reading this let me explain in some detail so that they are not confused by the RRE claims and yes folks that is all they are, claims. I will show you what God says the dreams and visions mean. Once you see what God says they mean and compare that to what RRE say they mean then I am sure you will see what Jeff and others as well as I have been trying to show for a very long time. This isn't rocket science either it is very simple. Just read the words and believe that God has given us the interpretation just as He says He does. Each word was carefully chosen by the Lord and the dream means exactly, nothing more and nothing less than what the words say.

Dan 7:16 I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things.

Daniel asked for the truth of the matter. He didn't understand the vision he had just had. So an angel begins to explain the vision to Daniel.

Dan 7:17 These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.

The very first thing that Daniel is told is that the great beasts in the dream are four kings that will arise from the earth. He didn't write many or several or a few or even a couple. He wrote there would be precisely 4, no more and no less. Very simple plain english here. If Daniel had meant 5 he would have said 5 but he didn't he said 4.

Dan 7:18 But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.
Dan 7:19 Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet;

Daniel just skips the first three kings because he has spoken of them in Daniel 2 and we know the first three were Babylon, Media-Persia, and Greece. Everyone agrees there. Now Daniel said that there would only be 4 kings total. So if we already know the first three that leaves only one king out of 4 left. If there is just one king left that king would have to be the AC. Then Daniel is told the truth concerning the 4th beast. If the 4th beast is indeed the AC, as I theorize, then the text describing the 4th beast would somehow have to link to the time the AC rules the earth. We know that the AC rules over the earth during the second half of the 70th week.

Dan 7:20 And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.
Dan 7:21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;
Dan 7:22 Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.

The 4th beast's head has 10 horns in it or as part of it. The horns are physically attached to the head of the 4th beast. So the 4th beast will have 10 horns as part of it. Does the AC have ten horns as part of his kingdom?

Rev 17:11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
Rev 17:12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
Rev 17:13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

Yes there they are representing ten kings just as they do in Daniel 7.

Dan 7:24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.

The 4th kingdom has ten kings included with it just as the AC does in Rev 17. So far so good. The same horn (AC) made war with the saints and prevailed against them (Dan 7:21) until the Ancient of days arrived and the time came that the saints possessed the everlasting kingdom of God (Dan 7:22). That seals it as the AC. The AC rules earth until Jesus sets up the kingdom at the end of the last 7 years. The 4th kingdom that Daniel 7 describes must be in the same time frame that the AC rules in. Scripture is quite clear that the 4th kingdom rules until the saints possess the kingdom.

Rome absolutely fails the test here. First Rome never had the ten horns that Daniel 7 says the 4th kingdom had. The AC never ruled over Rome so they fail that as well. Rome ceased to exist around 1450 AD so certainly can't be the kingdom that is around when Jesus returns. Rome simply did not fulfill anything written about the 4th kingdom here in Dan 7. Sorry but the words are very clear here. The 4th kingdom rules until the saints inherit the kingdom which disqualifies Rome to start with. If Rome cannot be the 4th kingdom then the EU means nothing concerning the 4th kingdom. Without the Rome connection RRE is nothing and there definitely is no connection here in Dan 7 to Rome.

Dan 9:21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
Dan 9:22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.
Dan 9:23 At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.
Dan 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

RRE totally has the 70 week prophecy messed up. Let's start at the beginning Dan 9:21. Gabriel has been sent to Daniel because Daniel is greatly beloved. The mission that Gabriel is on is to explain the matter. What matter? He tells Daniel to consider the vision. What vision? Scanning back up Dan 9 there is no vision. We have to go back to Dan 8 to find the vision Gabriel is referring to. We can be sure it is the correct vision because Gabriel is only in two visions with Daniel.

Dan 8:15 And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man.
Dan 8:16 And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.
Dan 8:17 So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.

Gabriel was sent to Daniel back in Dan 8 to explain the vision which is where we get the names of the first three kingdoms from. At the end of Dan 8 Daniel still didn't understand.

Dan 8:27 And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king's business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.

Then we start chapter 9 which begins with Daniel in prayer and supplications and that continues until we see Gabriel mentioned in Dan 9:21 who Daniel had seen in the vision at the beginning (Dan 8). What we really have in Dan 9 is just another explanation for the vision of Dan 8.

Dan 8:11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

Daniel 8 is also about the AOD here showing the daily sacrifice being removed by the AC. The same thing shown in Dan 9:27 which is what we should expect because Daniel 9 is just another interpretation that Gabriel gives to Daniel. Daniel 8 certainly wasn't fulfilled by the Romans in 70 AD and neither was Dan 9:26. If we read the words that are actually written in Dan 9:26-27 we will see again that Rome is never mentioned or even hinted at.

Dan 9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
Dan 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

The word "he" in Daniel 9:27 has to refer to a male introduced prior to the use of the word "he". The last male mentioned before the word "he" is the "prince that shall come". The "he" refers directly to the "prince that shall come". The prince that shall come (in the future) will destroy the city/santuary, remove the daily sacrifice, and place the abomination that causes the desolation. The prince that shall come (in the future) and his people do this. To be his people they will have to be living when he is. He cannot rule over them if they exist in two different timeframes. The AC does all the things in 9:26-27 in other prophetic scripture. There is no need to add another person here. Scripture gives zero indication that there are two different people in Dan 9:26-27. Quite on the contrary scripture shows the "he" as being the "prince that shall come". RRE must add a person to scripture where there is no indication of a personality change. They must do this because the scriptures as written again do not support the RRE version of events.

Rev 17:10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
Rev 17:11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
Rev 17:12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

Rome was when the beast/AC wasn't. The beast is not when Rome is. The beast is the 8th Rome was the 6th. The beast has 10 horns/kings Rome didn't. The 10 kings only have power with the AC during the reign of the AC for one hour. Rome isn't even in existence today so definitely fails here also. Rome simply did not fulfill any scriptures concerning the 4th/beast/AC kingdom so therefore has nothing to do with the AC kingdom. Thanks for bringing this up Jeff I have been meaning to post these proof scriptures again for some time. All we can do is keep showing them what the scriptures say concerning Israel and her enemies and the times we live in.

The 4th beast is forming before our very eyes and most watching are looking 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Soon Mr. Solana will be cleared of all the wrong they have been accusing him of. He can't be the AC because Rome had nothing to do with therefore the EU is just another group of nations. I wonder if they will all send him apologies afterward...I bet not...

Peace,
Seeker

[Exit40]

Muslim's election to lead PACE important signal for Europe, FM says

Sunday, January 31, 2010
FULYA ÖZERKAN
STRASBOURG – Hürriyet Daily News
Turkey's FM Davutoğlu stops over in Strasbourg to visit new PACE chairman Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu at the Council of Europe and extends the Turkish government’s support and congratulations. 'The election of a Muslim is an important development for European culture,' Davutoğlu says

For the first time in the history of the Council of Europe, a Muslim has been elected president of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe, or PACE. The vote is a positive development and meaningful signal for Europe amid rising racism and Islamophobia, according to Turkey’s foreign minister.

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who is the chairman of the PACE Turkey delegation and a deputy of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, from the southern province of Antalya, has replaced Spanish parliamentarian Luis Maria de Puig as the president of the PACE for two years.

“Mr. Çavuşoğlu is the first parliamentarian elected not only from Turkey but from east of Vienna. All PACE chairmen have thus far been elected from west of Vienna. This is a source of pride for us but also for Eastern Europe and the Balkans,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu told a joint press conference with Çavuşoğlu.

Davutoğlu made a stopover in Strasbourg late Friday, after attending an international conference in London, and visited Çavuşoğlu at the Council of Europe, extending the Turkish government’s support and congratulations for his new mission.

“The election of a Muslim is an important development for European culture,” said Davutoğlu in response to a question.

“This is nothing new for us. We, in fact, do not see any contradiction between our own identity and that of Europe, but today when we take a look at the latest developments in Europe, from the minaret ban to rising racism and Islamophobia, the vote should actually be interpreted as a significant development for Europe,” Davutoğlu said.

He said Islam was Europe’s second-largest religion. “Çavuşoğlu’s election as a Muslim is an important and meaningful signal for Europe. We carry our two identities as Muslim and European very easily without feeling any complex,” said Davutoğlu......

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

This is an OP/ED article. It does not address every Gulen issue, nor does it fully cover the ones it does. But generally it's a good starting place for further research for anyone new to this movement.

David

The Gulen Movement is a danger spreading from Turkey to the world
By Burhan Gurdogan

Fethullah Gulen: A cultish menace?
Radical Islamic groups have tried various ways to assert their authority over people, and that generally involved the use of force until today. These groups view the modern world as a threat to Islam; in order to remove this threat, they usually apply terrorism, considering innocent people as nothing more than collateral damage. But the policies of these organizations, which are based on terrorism, averted them from having a voice and led Islam to look antipathetic to the world.

In Turkey, cults developed further in their effectiveness beginning in the 1970s, and have made a significant breakthrough which has led to radical Islam taking over Turkey, and although it seems farfetched, these cult methods could eventually spread radical Islam through the world. First of all, a main difference between the Gulen Movement and other radical Islamic organizations is the importance they give to education and technology. By using the latter, this cult ensures that those members who join them end up pledging their allegiance while they are at young ages, paving the way for them to get a proper education and prepare them so they can get any position at government agencies. With this method, they avoid a direct conflict and argument between the state and themselves, and simultaneously place cult members into the various government agencies, also known as Trojan horses, and have them act completely in the interest of the cult in order to help “capture” the agencies they are working inside of. When we look at Fethullah Gulen’s (the leader of the Gulen movement) speech, on June 18, 1999, his advice to his followers included suggestions to not act until gaining all the power of every constitutional organization in Turkey; that shows there is a methodical plan going on.

Gulen movement has become the owner of nearly a thousand schools in the world and the controller of a serious amount of capital. According to Jane’s Defense Weekly, a publication from the leading U.S. security and intelligence organization, the Gulen movement controls $25bn in various companies and assets. They are organized in poor African countries especially, and they succeed by obtaining a grip on the resources of those countries. The movement does not balk at any expense in order to give its followers the best education they can; it sends them to developed foreign countries like the United Kingdom or the United States to get the best education available and to learn English. After their education, the cult brings those followers back to Turkey and gives them important tasks.

Cult influence over the Justice and Development Party (AKP):

One of the main reasons the AKP has become the first party in the elections two times in a row is the coalescence of all the cults in Turkey giving their votes to the same party.

In its first term, the AKP government did not show its real (Gulen) face and they succeeded in deceiving the Turkish public that the government is modern and democratic; yet, after gaining all the power of the constitutional organizations, the AKP began to show its true self, and it has begun to act parallel with cult movements.

First, the AKP began a cleaning process with the media, starting with Cem Uzan, then they confiscated all the companies from big media bosses. This process ended by driving the Dogan Media Company to the edge by punishing them with a $5.9bn tax fine. All of those confiscated companies have now been sold to the business men who are connected to the Gulen Movement.

Following those incidents, many scholars, men of science, and military personnel have been thrown in jail due to the laws and regulations that are passed from the National Assembly in the middle of the night, and they are forced to deal with thousands of pages of cases; the only common thing among those people arrested is that all of them are opposed to the AKP and cults.

These processes have been applied by those cult members who have gained positions in the legal system. As a result of owning all the big media companies in the country, they propagandize their thoughts and all the incidents that take place in the country are being announced to the world as “democratization movements”. They use every opportunity to underline that the AKP gives great importance to the EU accession process and reforms.

Cult influence on the AKP government showcases its results in Turkey’s changing foreign policy. Turkey began a campaign of attacks on Israel in every area; even at the ministerial level. The ousting of the Israeli National Basketball Team from the Efes World Cup, the recanted invitation of Israel to participate in a joint military practice and the famous “one minute” incident at Davos are just a couple of examples. The Gulen cult has also begun a boycott campaign against Israeli products and they strongly oppose those products in areas that they are powerful in. Israel is accused of killing innocent people by Gulen scholars and it is being held responsible for every trouble occurring in Turkey through the movements personal TV series; for example, they show the Israelis as the cause for the failure of the Kurdish opening.....

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God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Time for a brief refresher. I think I posted this back then but it is still, maybe even more so, relevant today. While interfaith dialogue is not in the news per se, we can easily see it's workings in the AKP, especially through PM Erdogan and the Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Turkey's foreign policy is like the working diagram of this concept. It's an OP/ED also.

David

The Rise of a New Ottoman Empire: The Trap of Interfaith Dialogue

October 1, 2007


Kurdishaspect.com - By Aland Mizell



Will Prime Minister Erdogan Give a Christmas Party with His Parliament?



After the collapse of the communism, Fethullah Gülen, the spiritual leader of the Nur movement in Turkey, ordered his group to immigrate to the newly independent Central Asian countries. Gülen compared his followers to being today’s “sahaba,” the term referring to the journey from Mecca to Medina called the Hegira in the year 622, a journey that also marked the foundation of the Islamic State. After that relocation, Muhammad set up an Islamic State and instated his rules, for example forbidding usury and gambling. He implemented his own legal rules and system of government after gaining economic and military power and then conquered his birth place, Mecca, the center of a new religion. Until then Muhammad ordered his follower to cooperate with the Jews, never confronting them because he knew that the Jews were more powerful than his followers at that time. During that time Muslims even faced Jerusalem for prayers; however, after Muhammad’s followers conquered Mecca, they began facing Mecca. For both Muhammad and Gülen building a new Muslim community was a precursor to the Islamic state, and both men merged their religious views with the political goal of following the law of the Qur’an and not “natural” or human law in the Islamic state.



In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union gave Gülen an opportunity to gain a base among the Turkic states that desperately needed social, economic, and religious help. Also, Gülen wanted to counter Iran’s Shia religion in Central Asia, to make an economic investment, and to build a bridge between the Turkic states and Turkey.



However, after 9/11 Gülen saw another opportunity to expand his empire beyond the ocean to convert the infidels to Islam and to set up his dream Ottoman Empire, bringing it back again. Tauted for his claim to establish ecumentical peace, he sponsors Interfaith Dialogue, non-government organizations (NGO’s), schools, cultural centers, conferences, his own newspaper, civic and cultural events, among many other strategies, using them as a platform that promotes his ultraconservative Islmaic agenda in the U.S. However, 9/11 helped Gülen in a tremendous way to teach about Islam because suddenly the words “peace” and “tolerance” were in vogue and popular. Many Americans naively do not recognize the fact that as well as being a religion, Islam is a political, social, and economic sytem that rules all aspects of life. Today Gülen believes that since the Ottoman Empire ruled the world for many centuries with peace, he wants to bring it back again. By creating big lobbies, Gülen moves toward his utimate goal of dictating American and Western social, political, and economic policies. He has recruited thousands of teachers and millions of students while raising billions of dollars in economic support.



Further, Gülen and his followers know how to manipulate the American democratic laws for their advantage. He believes that the best way to defeat the enemy is to use the enemy’s wepaon against the enemy. Today the enemy’s weapon is democratic rule of law. They are taking advantage of it using it against America and foresee a time when, like many Muslims in Europe, they can demand Islamic laws and regulations be operative in the U.S. For example, already some communities in the America. have pressured cities to change their noise ordinances to allow for prayer calls. Interestingly, in his own country he was jailed for seven months and then banned from Turkey in the 1980’s for secretly teaching Islam to students. Then again in 1998 the Supreme Court charged him with undermining the secular Turkish state and seeking to establish an Islamic one. Consequently, he left Turkey for the United States supposedly for health care, but remains there today, operating his worldwide organization.



9-11 became a world-wide wake-up call. While the media focuses on Ahmedinejad or Osama Bin Ladin, and the radical Al Qaeda movement, a more deadly movement operates behind closed doors to secretly infiltrate the highest government positions in many countries, including the United States of America. The goal is to establish a single Islamic regime. As an example of this outward gesture with a secret agenda, Gülen gave an Iftar, the meal celebrating the culmination of the Ramadan season, on Capital Hill under the platform of tolerance and peace. Even they invited Hollywood actors and actresses to attend. Will Gülen or his follower Prime Minister Erdogan give a Christmas party at the parliament in Ankara or could he give an Easter dinner at the parliament with parliamentarians supporting this Christian celebration. The answer is a resounding, “No.”



Today many Turks are more anti-American than ever. A thinking person should ask that if Gülen-- an Islamic educator, writer, and founder of the worldwide Nur movement that began in Turkey-- does not have a political agenda, then why did he open so many schools in the world. Why are interfaith dialogues held in the West? Shouldn’t they be held where the root of troubles, oppression, and injustice are? One of the most important characteristics of the American society is to be tolerant toward others and to respect one another. The most crucial pillar of the American Constitution is individual rights, an inalienable right. Any one who has been to America knows that there are mosques, synagogues, temples, churches, and chapels, so every devotee is free to worship as they wish. America is not like Turkey where the individual has limited forums to express freely his true thoughts and concerns because of oppressive regimes and where the Turkish government imprisons the individual in his own conscience, rather than allowing open worship. It is a fact that a Christian, Armenian, Kurds or Jew in Turkey has never been a first class citizen; instead, they certainly suffer discrimination. Still many Christians cannot even build their own church to freely worship, and a few months ago three Christians were tortured and killed by the Turkish nationalists. Yet, Gülen use the Dialogues as a ploy to show the American people that Turks are reconciling with Christians, Jews, Armenians, or Kurds. Shouldn’t interfaith dialogues be held in Turkey, not in the U.S.? Today there are many Christians converting to Islam. How many of them are being killed by Christians because of their conversion? How many of them are being threatened or required to hide their faith to save their life or the lives of their families? However, many Muslims who convert to Christianity still can’t freely or publicly confess their faith because if they do, their lives are in danger. Therefore, interfaith dialogues are urgently needed where the injustice is rampant, not in the U.S. Yet, the American system not only allows these evangelical meetings but also embraces them in its political correctness as an open-minded, tolerant, and even intellectual act. Sadly, the eager American obliviously works with Gülen to accomplish his goal of eradicating openness and tolerance when he has a critical mass in the U.S. and establishes Sharia law.



Furthermore, when Pope Benedict visited Turkey, millions of the Turks did not want him to visit their country, and some 25,000 took to the streets because the Pope quoted Manuel II Paleologus, a Byzantine emperor, in his 1391 passage about the Ottoman Empire before the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottomans, a statement that he later apologized profusely for quoting. “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached” (“Dialogue Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia). Giving Benedict a cold shoulder, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul—both Gulen’s students-- left to attend a NATO conference during the papal visit, but at the last minute greeted the Pope at the airport before leaving Turkey.



As another indication of it not being the West that needs tolerance and dialogues, last year when 41-year-old Abdul Rahman, a post-Taliban Afghan, converted to Christianity, he barely escaped the death penalty that traditionally Islamic law decrees for apostasy. In considering this penalty, any thinking inquirer must ask, “Is this kind of behavior or attitude an integral component of America or the West or only a historical behavior that goes back to Islam’s pre-modern era?” While it is true that much killing has been done in the name of Christianity, primarily during the Crusades, in modern America that same inquirer would find it difficult to find even one case today. Yet, Interfaith Dialogue has become an increasingly more practiced initiative within the American and Western society, especially after 9/11. Ironically, many Muslims have taken advantage of the tragedy and are being very active. Many will agree that interfaith dialogues have an important role in building peace within a society and in creating a window for everyone to exercise their right to express their faith without any threat. The interesting phenomenon, however, is that interfaith dialogues are happening in the U.S. and in the West but never in the Muslim nations. Again the intelligent inquirer must ask who needs toleration and then the real question of what is the underlying purpose of these initiatives in the U.S.



As mentioned, Gülen’s ultimate aim is to set up a theocratic new Ottoman Empire, as those researching his organization now demonstrate. He runs part of his activities in the open as legal companies, institutions and foundations but others clandestinely under cover. Gülen set up an organization or NGO as a tax free organization funded by the American tax payers to promote his ideology in America. He uses methods such as consultative committees composed of his followers, continent Imams (North America), country Imams (the U.S), state Imams (for example, Pennsylvania, the headquarters), and finally city imams (Washington, D.C.). Covering the country like a web with these companies, schools, cultural centers, interfaith institutions, public and private organizations, and universities, his organization is structured hierarchically like the armed forces. For his fundamental clandestine activity, Fethullah’s group picks the bright students from poor families, takes them into its isik eviler, meaning house of light, with 5-6 inmates and educates them as well as trains them as Nurcu militants. Each house and classroom comes under the regional imam, who supervises the work of the house imam, usually the oldest and most senior in maturity. Today Gülen sends thousands of Turkish students abroad, mostly to the U.S. and West for post graduate studies. Most of them have scholarships, and once they come to the U.S., he urges them to marry American citizens, so they can stay in the country. However, when you ask Gülen missionaries about this work, none of them will tell you the truth, or they will admit that they are spreading Islam, but Gülen has instructed them not to tell the truth as part of their training on secrecy. He teaches his followers to know the truth but not to tell the truth, having them memorize Said Nursi’s principle: “It is your obligation to know the truth, but it is not good for you to tell the truth every time, everywhere, or everything that you do.” As part of his secrecy and caution, Gülen teaches his students to lie because Islam legitimizes lying for certain reasons. If you are at war, Islam permits you to lie to defeat the enemy, so he believes that since they are at war with non-Muslims, until they defeat the enemies, they should not reveal their secrets and can even lie. If this clandestine global ideology for ruling the world became known, it would be alarming to all citizens, because infiltration becomes more dangerous than invasion since it goes undetected until it is too late........

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

The Irish Times - Thursday, January 28, 2010

Ethiopian schools put Turkey on curriculum

MARY FITZGERALD In Addis Ababa

“MERHABA! MERHABA!” – the Turkish greeting echoes through the school corridor as neatly uniformed Ethiopian children welcome a visitor.

That morning the children sang the Turkish national anthem along with their own.

On the school walls, vocabulary charts to help pupils improve their command of Turkish hang alongside framed verses of Rumi’s poetry. In the principal’s office a portrait of Ataturk dominates.

This is one of four “Ethio-Turkish” schools in the Ethiopian capital, catering for more than 400 children from kindergarten to high school.

The schools – whose motto reads, “the place where love and knowledge embrace” – are established and run by devotees of a Turkish Islamic scholar named Fethullah Gulen.

Little known outside Turkey, Gulen is hailed by his millions of followers there as a tolerant, modernising force.

Some secularist Turks, however, suspect the movement of harbouring a political agenda that owes more than a little to Ottoman nostalgia.

The reclusive Gulen (69), who met the late pope John Paul II and other religious leaders, draws on Sufi teachings to advocate a faith at ease both with modernity and other creeds.

In Turkey, Gulen’s ideas are most popular among the devout business and professional classes that form the bedrock of the ruling AK Party. But in recent years, the movement has built up a global network of affiliated organisations and institutes, including about 500 private schools in more than 115 countries.

There are “Turkish schools” in some 35 African states. A Gulen-inspired university opened recently in Nigeria.

In Ethiopia, the Gulen schools, which have grown in tandem with burgeoning Turkish investment in the country, cater for both Muslim and Christian pupils and adhere to the national curriculum, with classes, conducted in English, ranging from maths and science to English literature.

The Turkish teachers are keen to stress that their work is not about proselytising – Islam is not taught and neither are Gulen’s ideas.

“What we want to provide is an example through our own behaviour,” explains Murat Yildirim, from Istanbul.

He oversees all four schools in Ethiopia.

“We are trying to educate people to be respectful and productive in serving their own countries and people. This is about improving humanity.”

All pupils study Turkish – “If you are a French school, you teach French, so it makes sense that in a Turkish school you teach Turkish,” says Murat.

Several of the schools have represented Ethiopia in the Turkish Language Olympics, an annual event that draws hundreds of students from Gulen schools worldwide to Turkey to compete in singing and poetry recital.

Khadija Ramzi (15) won a medal at last year’s event and had her photograph taken with Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

She and her friend, Rina Negib (17), both want to attend university in Turkey.

“Our school is different to others in Ethiopia,” says Khadija. “The facilities are much better.”

The school offers a number of full scholarships for boarding and day students. Funding comes from the deep pockets of the Gulen network which counts among its members some of Turkey’s most prominent business people......

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God Bless

David

[ampersand]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146414.html

02.01.2010

Turkey PM: Israel should mull future without us as ally

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday warned Israel should to "take another look at its relations with its neighbors" if it wants to maintain ties with Turkey in the future.

"Israel should give some thought to what it would be like to lose a friend like Turkey in the future," Erodegan told Euronews, regarding his thoughts on the recent tensions between the two Mediterranean countries.

"The way they recently treated our ambassador has no place in international politics," said Erdogan, referring to a recent diplomatic incident in which Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned the envoy and treated him with deliberate disrespect.

"We have done our best for Israel-Syria relations," added Erdogan. "But now we see Benjamin Netanyahu saying: 'I do not trust Erdogan, but I trust Sarkozy'. Do you have to give a name? This is diplomatic inexperience, too."

Diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey deteriorated over a sequence of incidents since the 2008 Gaza offensive, which Erdogan and his cabinet in Ankara adamantly criticized.

"We have important ongoing agreements between us. How can these agreements be kept going in this climate of mistrust?" Erdogan told Euronews.

...

[Seeker]

Analysis: Turkish military no longer calls shots

By SELCAN HACAOGLU
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 2, 2010; 5:00 AM

AKSAZ NAVY BASE, Turkey -- With a crash of cymbals from a navy band, the Turkish military this week sent off a frigate to a counterpiracy mission off Somalia - far from the rough seas shaking the armed forces at home.

In contrast to the praise it's winning in missions overseas, the military's image in Turkey has been badly shaken over allegations of secret plots to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

It has all raised a once unthinkable question: Do the generals no longer call the shots in a nation that has been accustomed to viewing the army as the pillar of the secular state?

Certainly, the elite military class known as "Pashas" - a title of respect harking back to Ottoman times - are no longer untouchables, with several jailed over alleged coup attempts to overthrow the elected government.

In something of a revolution for Turkey, Erdogan has dramatically curtailed the power of the military to meet demands by the European Union to put the military under civilian rule and signaled further tough steps to rein in the generals."....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00461.html

[Exit40]

Ummah needs ‘saviour’



Wednesday, February 03, 2010


Islamabad

Minister for Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi said on Tuesday the Muslim Ummah was in dire need of an ‘ideal saviour’ to remove misconceptions about Islam.

He said the Muslim Ummah was currently discussing chaos in the society and elements responsible for the downfall were being pinpointed.

He said in the current situation an ideal saviour was the only hope to rid the Ummah of entire malice.

The minister was addressing a seminar on ‘Ideal Human in the Thoughts of Rumi, Iqbal and Gulen,’ jointly organised by Allama Iqbal Open University and Rumi Forum, here Tuesday.

He said though Allah Almighty created human beings in the best of all forms (Ashraf-ul-Makhlooqat). However, the quest for an ideal human being was being felt today.

Kazmi said the human being can rise to the highest esteem (Ala-e-Illiyyeen) or fall to the lowest ebb (the Asfal-e-Saafileen).

“We live in a world where we have all sorts of guided missiles and weapon systems, but rightfully guided people are scarce,” he added.

He said Allama Iqbal having command on western philosophy and a strong belief and faith with his affiliation to Rumi, highlighted the importance of self-realisation and its rehabilitation with the tenets of Islam.

Kazmi said he studied the works of Rumi, Iqbal and Muhammad Fethullah Gulen and found that they identified common features of Islam of an ideal pattern given by Hazrat Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).

The minister observed that thoughts of Jalaluddin Rumi and Allama Iqbal are being witnessed in the practice and policies of Fethullah Gulen who encouraged a civil movement in Turkey and worldwide meant for serving the humanity through education and communication.

“Rumi, Iqbal and Gulen all were inspired from the infinite source of Islam and are acclaimed as the mediators of peace, forerunners of a bright future,” Kazmi maintained. He urged every member of the society to exploit potential which would take him to perfection.

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Among candidates for Iran uranium plan, Turkey urges diplomacy

The Turkish foreign minister underlined importance of purifying the region from nuclear weapons.

Wednesday, 03 February 2010 15:50

The Turkish foreign minister underlined on Wednesday importance of purifying the region from nuclear weapons as Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki considers Iranian uranium enrichment in Turkey possible.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkey's policy regarding nuclear program was obvious.

"Turkey believes Iran has equal rights with all other countries to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," Davutoglu told a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Manuchehr Motaki in Ankara.

Davutoglu and Motaki discussed Iran's nuclear program and other issues concerning the two countries and their region, particularly upcoming elections in Iraq, and developments in Palestine and Afghanistan, in their bilateral meeting.

"Turkey attaches importance to purifying our region from nuclear weapons," Davutoglu also said.

Davutoglu said Turkey was against nuclear weapons whoever developed them and for what reason.

The Turkish foreign minister said the only way to solve all disputed matters should be diplomacy, and Turkey would continue to be in every diplomatic effort.
Davutoglu also said there was a permanent consultancy mechanism and culture between Turkey and Iran.

Turkey and Iran both thought that regional countries should back Afghanistan, Davutoglu said.

Davutoglu defined an "Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan" trio, besides "Turkey-Pakistan-Afghanistan" trio, as an important initiative for peace.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Davutoglu also said two countries were determined to maintain cooperation on Afghanistan.

"Enriched uranium"

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran was ready to send its enriched uranium abroad in exchange for nuclear fuel

Mottaki said, swapping low-enriched uranium with uranium enriched by 20 percent is a formula which could build confidence.

Tehran's research reactor would need fuel within a year, Mottak said.

Mottaki said, any threat to the security of Iran amounts to a threat to the security of Turkey.......

Lonk

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Davutoğlu calls for ‘Eurasian union’

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu
Given the European Union’s peaceful environment, which is based on a joint economic basin, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has called for the establishment of a similar union encompassing the Eurasia region.


“There is a need to embark on a new vision in order to have the Eurasia region regain its historical importance,” Davutoğlu said on Thursday at a meeting organized by the Turkish-Eurasia Business Council of the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK) in Ankara. In addition to Davutoğlu, Foreign Trade Minister Zafer Çağlayan and Energy Minister Taner Yıldız also participated in the meeting, which brought together ambassadors and commercial officers accredited at the embassies of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

“If peace and welfare do not reign in Eurasia, it is not possible to make peace and welfare reign in the world, either. This region can export peace and welfare to the rest of the world,” Davutoğlu said in a speech delivered at the meeting, which aimed at dealing with new strategies for multilateral and regional cooperation.

In the absence of stability in Eurasia, this region can become the source of war and chaos in the entire world, Davutoğlu warned, urging for the highest level of dialogue among Eurasian countries for the sake of global peace. The minister suggested revitalizing historical, economic and political relations which were maintained at the time thanks to the Silk Road via today’s railroads, highways and air links.

“The western and eastern ends of Eurasia should be reconnected,” Davutoğlu said, while underlining that the region should also serve as a link between energy-supplying countries and energy-receiving countries. “We can become the power engine of the world’s economy.”.....

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David

[Exit40]

Turkey will always support TURKSOY - Foreign Minister
05.02.2010 07:51
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and the International Organization of Turkic Culture (TURKSOY) Director General Duisen Kaseinov signed "Host Country Agreement" in Ankara on Thursday, Anadolu Agency reported.

Delivering a speech in the signing ceremony, Davutoglu said that the Turkic culture and language would be promoted in the world.

"TURKSOY brings a sound ground to relations among member states," he said.

Davutoglu said, "we will always support TURKSOY. Our ministry keeps assisting the organization."

In his part, Kaseinov said the agreement signed between Turkey and TURKSOY was an important step for strengthen the organization and they would sign similar agreements with other member countries.

TURKSOY was established in 1993 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The member states of TURKSOY are: Republic Of Azerbaijan, Republic Of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Republic Of Uzbekistan, Republic Of Turkey, Turkmenistan, Altai Republic, Republic Of Bashkortostan, Gagauzia (Moldova), Republic Of Khakassia, Turkish Republic Of Northern Cyprus, Republic Of Sakha, Republic Of Tatarstan and Tyva Republic.......

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Media advisory - 008(2010)
05.02.2010

Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland to undertake official visit to Turkey

Dates: 6 to 9 February 2010

Location: Ankara and Istanbul

Description: The Council of Europe Secretary General, Thorbjørn Jagland, will be undertaking an official visit to Turkey to meet the country’s political leaders, representatives of civil society and academics. Following the recent election of a Turkish MP as President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (see our press release), and with Turkey due to take over the Chairmanship in the Committee of Ministers, the pan-European organisation’s decision-making body (November 2010 - May 2011), this visit will be an opportunity for the Secretary General to discuss with his Turkish hosts his programme of reforms designed to enhance the Council of Europe’s role in the European political architecture.

The Secretary General will be received on 7 February by the President of the Republic, Abdullah Gül. He will then have talks with the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Minister for Justice, Sadullah Ergin, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ahmet Davutoğlu, as well as meeting the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and the members of the Turkish delegation to the Assembly.

Thorbjørn Jagland will also be meeting representatives of Turkish NGOs and academics. On this occasion he will give a lecture at Bilkent University in Ankara on “Turkey and Europe: Turkey in Europe”.......

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Turkey's FM Davutoglu sends message to Yerevan
Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoglu forecasted hot developments in the region of the Middle East in an interview with Hurriyet Daily he had on plane as leaving for the Security Conference due in Munich, Germany.

Israel’s PM Netanyahu announced Israel is ready for talks with Syria providing there is a mediator. Turkish FM recalled that France has rejected mediation and noted Turkey to be the “only mediator”......

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

We Need A New Vision For Middle East - Turkish FM
07.02.2010 18:33
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday there was a need for a new vision in the Middle East, Anadolu Agency reported.

In a speech, titled "Security and Stability in the Middle East", and delivered at the 46th Munich Security Conference, Minister Davutoglu said that peace and stability have to be established in the Middle East.

We need a new vision in the Middle East, Davutoglu underlined.

The image of the Middle East must be changed. The region does not deserve the bad image it has when one looks at the region's historical and cultural past. Mutual respect must be established in the region. The region should no longer be a burden on the group of nations. The region must be turned into one that makes all winners, Davutoglu stressed.

There is a need for a reactive policy in the Middle East. We should not permit cases of crisis to be forgotten. A Palestinian child has the same value as an Israeli one, Davutoglu emphasized.

We must first of all recognize borders in the region. And, as such, we need to know where the borders exist. We are in favor of establishing a Palestinian state in the Middle East. Furthermore, the State of Israel must exist within secure boundaries and in security, Minister Davutoglu underlined.

We did criticize the attack on Gaza (last year) within this context. We do not want to see any country in the region possessing nuclear weapons, be it Israel or Iran. We are making serious efforts so that the number of nuclear weapons in the world go down, if not drop to zero completely, Davutoglu said.

Turkey sincerely believes that the international community must focus on four principles in order to realize the new vision in the Middle East. The first principle involves facilitating security for each human being in the region......

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Long read, but good summary.


Foreign policy bridge over the Bosphorus

Turkey’s soft power successes
Turkey wants to expand its influence throughout its surrounding region, creating a peaceful, stable environment in which its economy can prosper. And as the country struggles internally to demilitarise and democratise, there is broad support for the AKP government’s bold aims abroad
by Wendy Kristianasen
Ahmet Davutoglu’s vision is wide. He wants peace and security for the wider region around Turkey and believes Ankara is well-placed as a member of the G20 and Nato to make it happen. He is the architect of Turkey’s new policy, which relies on zero problems with neighbours, and soft power. He was chief foreign policy adviser to the prime minister from the start of the Justice and Development (AK) Party government, which came to power in a landslide general election on 3 November 2002. In May 2009 he became foreign minister.

He says Turkey is well-poised to play a mediating role in various conflicts, with strong ties with different religious and ethnic groups where there are Turkish speakers. That means the Balkans, the Caucasus, Russia, Cyprus, the Middle East. His vision of security for all and peace means more than mediation; it means “high-level political dialogue, economic interdependency and a multicultural character”.

Davutoglu is not a politician, but an academic, and not even a member of parliament, so free of ties to constituents. And he has not just thought out an innovative foreign policy, he has implemented it. His achievements: “Sixty one agreements signed with Syria; 48 with Iraq; visa requirements lifted with eight neighbours; resolution of Lebanon’s problem with Syria [over presidential succession]; two protocols signed with Armenia.” He has also attempted mediation between Israel and the Palestinians. He conducted the talks between Syria and Israel in 2007-8: “We came close, not to peace, but to agreement; but then Israel’s attack on Gaza [in December 2008] put an end to all that work. Gaza wasn’t an issue in our negotiations but it was a negative context... When Israel has a vision of peace we will be ready to listen: this is an issue of principle.”

This new foreign policy has won widespread popular support among a population divided internally by unresolved questions of identity: secular Turks worry about Islamisation and resent AKP patronage that excludes them (especially in the state sector).

At the same time, this is a crucial moment as Turkey sends its military back to the barracks and exposes the dark secrets of its “deep state” – in particular shadowy elements within the military (which toppled four governments between 1960 and 1998) that are accused, inter alia, of coup attempts against the AKP government. These include a plot to assassinate the deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, on 19 December 2009. The findings promise for the first time to “touch the untouchables” within the army (1). This has been happening within the framework of the ongoing Ergenekon trial. In January a flood of media revelations provided yet greater details of coup attempts (including a document exposing the so-called Balyoz or Sledgehammer operation) (2).

There’s a new dynamic.....

Continued

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Another analysis, with links to other articles........

The Major Limits of Turkey's Foreign Policy

Challenges of the "Strategic Depth" Approach

By Dr.Kerem Oktem

The University of Oxford


As was the case with the Kissinger's foreign policy, ethical values are not part of Turkey's strategic-depth doctrine. (Reuters Photo)

In the last two policy briefs, I have discussed Turkey's changing relations with the Middle East, the Muslim world, and Israel, as well as its interaction with the Caucasus republics and the Russian Federation.

In this concluding analysis, I will discuss the possible conflicts, which may emerge between the principles of Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's "strategic-depth" doctrine and realpolitik developments on the ground.

Firstly, though, a brief consideration of the "strategic-depth" doctrine, its origins, principles, and its location within the tradition of the Turkish foreign policy is appropriate.

1- Turkey's Foreign Policy in the Middle East

2- Turkey's Relations with Caucasus and Russia
Originally, and before its association with the US Foreign Minister Henry Kissinger, "strategic depth" was a military term used to signify the distance between the front line and the war-faring nations' most vulnerable economic centers, capital, and other important cities, as well as military industrial complexes.

The longer the distance, the safer these centers were. However, supplies to the front would take longer and diminish the army's ability to stock up fast and act flexibly.

Such a strategic depth could be deepened by creating clients and collaborators behind the front line. In a metaphorical sense, this is also what more contemporary protagonists of the concept have sought to do.
During the Kissinger era, through much of the Cold War, strategic depth has been described as consisting of three principles: Embracing moderate regimes outside the sphere of the Soviet influence (mostly dictatorships and semi-democracies), maintaining access to natural resources, and using indirect force through proxy regimes to maintain stability.

Emphatic observers have expressed their appreciation of Ahmet Davutoglu's unusually proactive and multi-dimensional foreign policy by likening him to Henry Kissinger.
They seem to have forgotten, however, that Kissinger was also one of the key actors in the ill-advised Vietnam War which tarnished the US reputation worldwide.

Indeed, both historically and conceptually, war remains an inherent option in "strategic depth", and in Turkey's volatile eastern neighbourhood, the threat of war and nuclear proliferation is not just a hypothetical mind experiment.

Furthermore, the challenges to the current Turkish foreign policy re-adjustment are not limited to the eastern front, but also come from Turkey's domestic conflicts and deteriorating relations with the European Union.

Challenge 1: Conflict Between Eastern Neighbours

The cautious opening toward Armenia has resulted in a significant toning down of relations with the formerly close ethnic "brother" nation of Azerbaijan.
In the conflict between Georgia and Russia, the Turkish government has been able to maintain good relations with two warring countries; in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, this has not been possible.

The cautious opening toward Armenia has resulted in a significant toning down of relations with the formerly close ethnic "brother" nation of Azerbaijan.

The warming of relations with Syria has been accompanied by a remarkable deterioration in Turkey's partnership with Israel.

Other potential conflicts loom large: The Turkish Foreign Minister may play a role as mediator between Iran and Iraq. Yet, the seizure of the Iraqi Al-Fakkah Oil Field by Iranian troops may turn into an armed conflict, which would force Turkey to make a choice between Iraq and the Western allies on the one side, and Iran on the other.

Considering that Iran's embattled President Mahmud Ahmadinajadi might consider pushing hostilities with Iraq to diffuse tensions at home and save his seat, this choice might be more imminent than many expect.

A comparably tricky decision will arise, if the UN Security Council decides on the rein-forcement of sanctions or military actions against Iran. As a temporary member of the council affirmed that Turkey will have to decide on which side it stands.

The question, therefore, is justified about whether much of the current multi-dimensional "opening" might in fact not turn out to be a new type of zero-sum game, where intensified relations with the Arab and Muslim elements weaken Turkey's Western orientation, and where renewed conflict within the Middle East will make a "zero-conflict" policy with all neighbours impossible.

Challenge 2: Domestic Insecurity Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shown signs of developing autocratic reflexes.

Turkey's foreign policy strength is vulnerable, above all, due to the volatility of the Turkish domestic political scene.

True, there is no denying the fact that Turkey has been undergoing momentous changes, from the power struggle between the government and the military, and the latter's gradual recession from power to the AKP government's efforts to bring a fresh perspective to ossified problems such as the disenfranchisement of Turkey's Kurdish and non-Muslim citizens.

The Ergenekon investigation, carried out by the judiciary, but supported by the government—sometimes a bit too openly—has been revealing shocking details of plans for coup d'états and psychological warfare.

For many citizens of Turkey, it was hard to swallow that the once-revered army has been involved in assassination plans against members of religious and ethnic minorities and politicians. However, these changes have also unsettled large segments of the Turkish society and alienated important parts of the electorate from the AKP.

Above all, the transformation from tutelage democracy—a result of the military coup of 1980 and the Kemalist nationalism to a post-Kemalist liberal democracy has not been handled well by the government......

Continued

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Political Islam in Turkey - FAQs

By Amr Taha

Staff Writer-IslamOnline.net


The evolution of political Islam in Turkey has dynamically changed to absorb ideas of democracy, human rights, rule of law, and accountability. (Photo by Reuters)

Political Islam has recently played a major role in the Muslim world and has already swept some Islamically oriented political parties to power. Turkey, in the heart of the Muslim world, has its own remarkable experience with democracy and political Islam.
The ruling AKP, with an Islamic background, has swept to parliament in the recent July 22 elections and then managed, finally, to place its co-founder, foreign minister, and deputy prime minister Abdullaha Gul in the presidential palace with his hijab-clad wife.

Muslim Affairs provides these frequently asked questions, and their answers, on political Islam in Turkey as an important part of the Muslim world.

1- How was the religious status in Turkey after the formation of Republic in 1923?

Since the very creation of the modern Republic of Turkey under Kemal Ataturk in 1923, the state official apparatus manifested in the military establishment, centralized bureaucracy, and the ruling secularist elite adamantly rejected any formal role of Islam in Turkish politics.
The Republic banned the Fez – the head wear reminiscent of the Ottoman era–, changed the Arabic scripts to Latin, and dominated the country's religious establishments. Ottoman religious scholars, Ulma, were replaced by state-affiliated reformist intellectuals, cagdas.

2-Was the state policy towards Islam always the same since the formation of the Republic?

No, the state policy towards Islam was always subject to shifts affected by cost-benefit political considerations.

After the 1980s coup d'etate, the military adopted the strategy of the Turkish Islamic Synthesis (TIS), which is a mixture of Islam and nationalism. Paradoxically, the military establishment, supposedly the guardian of the secularist system in Turkey, tried to fuse religious principles into its nationalistic goals to contain the perceived threat of communism.

Furthermore, the military depended on religious symbols and institutions so as to acquire a wide scale legitimacy amongst the significant rising Islamic elite and to create a more socially homogenous and less active Islamic community.

In 1990, alarmed by the rise of Islamic parties, President Ozal invited pro-state reformist theologians to develop a new interpretation of Islam in order to provide an alternative to the Turkish people.

Gulen movement, which is a moderate non-violent Islamic civil society movement, could best illustrate the state policy towards religious groups in 1990s. Named after its founder Fethallah Gulen, the movement promoted moderate version of Islam which advocates dialogue and rejects any resistance or violence against the established secular system of Turkey, which came close to the state's Turkish Islamic Synthesis.

However, the relationship between the state and Gulen movement was subject to unpredictable swings.

President Ozal granted Fethallah Gulen civilian protection. Moreover, Turkey's President Suleyman Demirel accepted an award from one of Gulen's organizations in 1997. However, after the military maneuvered out the Islamic Welfare party in the same year, Gulen was no longer tolerated.


The margin of democracy and market economy opened a new space for Islamic groups to present their ideas.
3- How did this alternating policy affect the rise of viable Islamic parties in 1980s?
The state's attempts to employ Islam in a Kemalist model cleared the decks for Islamic parties to expand their legitimacy along informal lines.

Welfare party, the forerunner of Islamic parties in Turkey, achieved best use out of marginal freedom resulted by TIS. The party's strong organizational structure enabled it to reach and take advantage of rural and urban areas harmed by the economic policies of the ruling elite.

In addition, the malfunction of the Republican People's Party allowed the Welfare party to advocate its program of "Just Order". The program aimed to achieve justice, secure social and economic environment, cooperation between the state and its people, and terminate nepotism and massive corruption, which the then ruling party was not able to achieve. In this sense, the party linked common interests of Tarikas, Turkish bourgeoisie, and civil society foundations.

As result, people started looking at Islamic parties as an alternative to the Kemalist elite.......

Continued

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David

[Exit40]

The Turkish army

Coups away
Despite frenzied stories of coup plots, the Turkish army is becoming less likely to intervene in politics. That is all to the good
Feb 11th 2010 | ANKARA, DIYARBAKIR AND ISTANBUL | From The Economist print edition

APBOMBS target the faithful in Istanbul’s busiest mosques; a Turkish air force jet is shot down over the Aegean, provoking a war with Greece. Chaos descends over Turkey. The army steps in, overthrows the mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) Party that has governed Turkey since 2002, and takes control.

This plan, codenamed “Sledgehammer” and hidden among 5,000 pages of army documents, was exposed in January by a small independent newspaper, Taraf. It caused a storm. The army said it was just a “simulation exercise”. How, thundered General Ilker Basbug, the chief of the general staff, could Turkish soldiers, who charge into battle crying “Allah, Allah”, bomb a mosque? It is a question which civilian and military prosecutors are now attempting to answer.

“Sledgehammer” is only the latest in a string of alleged coup plots to have been exposed in recent years. That helps explain why, on February 4th, Turkey’s government scrapped the controversial security and public order (“Emasya”) protocol, which lets the army choose to take charge in the provinces when law and order breaks down. Critics argued that Emasya’s real purpose was to provide the legal framework for a future coup.

The army’s image has been badly tarnished and its role is now being questioned. Is its influence fading irreversibly as Turkey becomes a fully fledged Western democracy? Or is this just the latest twist in the long battle between the elite, made up of generals and an old guard used to monopolising wealth and power, against a rising class of overtly pious Anatolians, symbolised by the AK government?

The answers matter, and not just to the Turks. Turkey is a strategic pivot between Europe and the Middle East. It has a large and growing population of 72m people. It is poised to become a main transit route for oil and gas from the east. It has NATO’s second-largest army, after America’s. And it is a rare example of a secular democracy in a mainly Muslim country, closely watched by other democracies, such as Pakistan and Indonesia, where the army is strong.

Herein lies the conundrum. The Turkish army has long been seen as the guarantor of the secular republic founded 86 years ago by Kemal Ataturk. For all its recent troubles, it remains the country’s most trusted and popular institution (although its ratings are slipping to unprecedented lows). Yet the generals’ persistent meddling in politics and the red lines they seem to draw around some of the thorniest subjects—such as Cyprus or the Kurds—are among the biggest obstacles to Turkey becoming a full democracy. Turkey’s constitution was drafted by the army 30 years ago; it urgently needs a rewrite. And the issues on which the army is most recalcitrant are precisely those that most bedevil Turkey’s chances of joining the European Union......

Continued

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David

[Exit40]

Turkey alters its compass
By Linda S. Heard


Turkey’s affiliations under the leadership of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- a devout Muslim -- are swinging from West to East. This is good news for the Arab world as Ankara is a major political and military player on the international stage with substantial clout. In recent times, Turkey has thawed the freeze with Syria by signing a slew of economic, cultural, social and strategic cooperation agreements and is mulling over lifting visa restrictions for Syrian and Lebanese nationals.


At the same time, Turkey is reaching out to Armenia by setting up a commission to study the World War I conflict that robbed the lives of over a million Ottoman-Armenians. Last October, Ankara and Yerevan signed protocols designed to establish ties that would result in the reopening of their border but the main sticking point is Armenia’s insistence that Turkey and the international community officially recognize the Armenian genocide. Turkey has always resisted that damning label and always insisted that those who died were casualties of conflict.

Simultaneously, the Erdogan government is cementing relations with Russia with trade and energy agreements; Russia currently supplies around 65 percent of Turkey’s natural gas requirements and may assist Turkey with the construction of a nuclear energy plant. This new closeness has resulted in plans to extend cooperation to the South Caucasus -- traditionally within Russia’s sphere of influence -- as well as visa-free travel for the citizens of both nations.

Likewise, Ankara currently enjoys good relations with Tehran. Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held talks in Ankara with Prime Minister Erdogan involving the transportation of Iranian natural gas to Europe via Turkey, establishing a joint refinery, jointly constructing industrial centers and increasing bilateral trade from $10 billion annually to $30 billion. The Turkish minister of state said Turkey is keen to begin a “golden age” in Turkish-Iranian ties. While Turkey is against nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, it backs Iran’s right to nuclear energy and does not support anti-Iranian sanctions.

But there the love fest ends. Ankara’s relations with some of its traditional allies are strained to say the least......

Continued

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David

[Exit40]

Larijani, Davutoglu meet in Tehran Service: Islamic Parliament
1388/11/28
02-17-2010
10:55:19
News Code :8811-14920



ISNA - Tehran
Service: Islamic Parliament


TEHRAN (ISNA)-Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Iran's Parliament Speaker, Ali Larijani met in Tehran to emphasize promotion of bilateral cooperation.

Referring to many religious, cultural, geographical and historical issues that the two countries have in common, Larijani described the two neighboring countries' relations “good and developing.”

"The common interests and concerns of Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey make it necessary to develop their interrelations in different fields of policy, parliamentary relations, economy and culture," he said.

Calling the Middle East region as “sensitive” and emphasizing the need for continuing the international and regional cooperation, he underscored, "the Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey as the two important and powerful countries of the region and the world of Islam must play a crucial role in settling the region's problems and crisis."

Meanwhile, Davutoglu, for his part, described Iran as a powerful and effective neighbor in the region and said, "the continuous exchange of relations and interaction of the two countries in various parts indicates the developing process of their interrelations." ......

Link

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David

[Exit40]

Top Iraqi Shiite leader Hamoudi asks for Turkey’s help

Senior Iraqi Shiite leader and politician Humam Baqir Hamoudi says Turkey is uniquely positioned to talk to all parties in Iraq, requesting the country use its regional political clout to aid Iraq’s national reconciliation efforts.
A senior Iraqi Shiite leader has asked Turkey to use its political clout in the region to convince skeptics of the national reconciliation efforts currently going on in Iraq.

In an exclusive interview with Today's Zaman during a visit to the Turkish capital on Monday, Humam Baqir Hamoudi, chairman of the Iraqi Parliament's Foreign Relations Committee, said Turkey has uniquely positioned itself to talk to all parties in Iraq and enjoys cordial relations with all actors in the region.

“Many countries in the region, from Iran to Saudi Arabia, do not have firsthand knowledge of the current reconciliation efforts under way in my country. Turkey, using its political clout with many countries, can be a bridge in explaining what we are trying to accomplish in Iraq, which is to build a broad-based, across-sectarian support base to reconciliation,” he said. Describing Turkey as a “friendly and brotherly country,” Hamoudi noted that Turkey has an enormous influence on Iraq and that ties are strong at the government and public level.

“Turkey should be impartial and constructive, however,” Hamoudi cautioned. Asked whether Turkey fits that profile with its current foreign policy, he said, “We certainly hope so.”

The Shiite leader, who is also the second-in-command of powerful political party the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, whose support mainly comes from the country’s Shi’a Muslim community, also stressed that Iraq can learn a lot from the experience of Turkey in supplying democratic values and is eager to share the experiences of its neighbor in politics, the economy and security. He said Iraq is very much appreciative of Ankara’s efforts in reconstructing and rebuilding Iraq, noting that the Iraqi government wishes to see Turkey’s involvement in all areas of Iraq........

Link

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David

[Exit40]

Turkey can help world understand Iran: Mottaki
(AFP) – Feb 16, 2010

TEHRAN — Turkey can help world powers understand Iran as it is familiar with Tehran's nuclear programme, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Tuesday.

After holding talks with his visiting Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, Mottaki said Ankara was an "important" consultant on Tehran's nuclear programme.

"Turkey is familiar with Iran's positions which can help others to understand Iran better," Mottaki said at a joint news conference with Davutoglu.

"This can be of good help to clear ambiguities of others. We do not give special names such as mediator to consultations, but our Turkish friends are important consultants" on the nuclear issue.

Davutoglu is scheduled to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili later on Tuesday.

Turkey, which has good relations with its neighbour Iran, has offered to host the exchange of Iran's low-enriched uranium (LEU) with 20 percent enriched uranium to be supplied by world powers to Tehran as part of a UN-drafted deal....

Link

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David

[Exit40]

The man behind Turkey's strategic depth
By Caleb Lauer

ISTANBUL - As current Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu describes it, Turkey was a "wing state" of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the Cold War, at the edge, protecting the core. The only NATO country, besides Norway, to border the Soviet Union, Turkey was the first place the Truman Doctrine of containing communism was put into practice. This Western allegiance and its military character suited Turkish state elites and so, for 44 years, in exchange for money and arms, Turkey guarded itself and the southeast corner of Europe from the red threat.

Then as the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, and Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama and

Robert Kaplan were writing their post-Cold War versions of the thoughts of "the father of containment", American advisor, diplomat and political scientist George Kennan, another scholar of international relations, Davutoglu, began to make his own map of the new geopolitical landscape.

From his post as a professor of international relations, Davutoglu argued that Turkey, now freed from the East-West political geography of the Cold War and embedded in the new geography of globalization, should no longer be thought of as an appendage of the West, but rather as a country at the center. He elaborated this idea in his 2001 book Strategic Depth and the title has since become a shorthand description of Davutoglu's "doctrine". The basic idea is that Turkey, a central, pivotal country, must use its unique geography and history to its foreign policy advantage.

Born in 1959 in the central Anatolian city of Konya, Davutoglu was educated in Istanbul and received his doctorate in political science from Bogazici University. In the early 1990s he taught in Malaysia then returned to Beykent and Marmara universities in Istanbul.

Davutoglu's ideas convinced the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and when it came to power in 2002 Davutoglu was appointed chief foreign policy adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In May 2009 he was appointed foreign minister.

Davutoglu did not stand for election and is not a member of parliament, and for eight years he has had the enviable position of being a politically unaccountable politician with the job of turning his personal theory into his country's policy.

If Turkey's strategic advantage is, as Davutoglu says, in its geography and history, then this advantage is certainly deep. Located in both Asia and Europe, Turkey borders the Balkans, the Caucuses and the Middle East. Across the water from its Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, Turkey has 25 coastal neighbors. All traffic into and out of the Black Sea goes through the Turkish Straits. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers begin in Anatolia, and thus Turkey controls the freshwater of Syria and Iraq. At least 12 million Kurds live in Turkey and more than 5 million Kurds live over its border in northern Iraq. Turkic languages and cultures cover the ground between southeastern Europe and northwestern China. And Istanbul, once seat of the caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, ruled Jerusalem, Sarajevo, Mecca, Cairo, Belgrade, Damascus and Baghdad for generations.

Davutoglu has pushed Turkey to use this "strategic depth" to become a key global player and take stakes in the world's, especially the West's, most high-profile issue areas....

Continue for good analysis

God Bless

DAvid

[good4u]

The 4th beast is forming before our very eyes and most watching are looking 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Soon Mr. Solana will be cleared of all the wrong they have been accusing him of. He can't be the AC because Rome had nothing to do with therefore the EU is just another group of nations. I wonder if they will all send him apologies afterward...I bet not...

Peace,
Seeker

Your hermanuetics is excellent in your complete post! Indeed, those that don't properly study, take others' answers for granted are therefore bound to outright dismiss a very real movement of God's hand! Others truly have spiritual insight; while others do not. It always is and always will be the Middle East for biblical prophecy. Not the USA, not Europe, not Russia, not China but the Middle East. Islam is the religion. Shariah Law is the political system. Sharia Finance is the economic system. All these are foretold in the Bible. It now is a matter of when the LORD allows them to be put together.

Are there other possibilities? Possible. But unlikely.

[Exit40]

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - In the Beyoglu Anadolu religious school in Istanbul, gilded Korans line the shelves and on a table lies a Turkish translation of "Eclipse," a vampire-based fantasy romance by U.S. novelist Stephanie Meyer.

World

No-one inside the school would have you believe this combination of Islamic and western influences demonstrates potential to serve as a 'moderate' educational antidote to radical Islam.

But there is fresh outside interest in schools like this, which belong to the network known as imam-hatip.

Some people, particularly officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan, have suggested the Turkish system can light the way to a less extremist religious education for their young Muslims.

The interest is understandable. The imam-hatip network is a far cry from the western stereotype of the madrassa as an institution that teaches the Koran by rote and little else.

Originally founded to educate Muslim religious functionaries in the 1920s, the imam-hatip syllabus devotes only around 40 percent of study to religious subjects like Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence and rhetoric. The rest is given over to secular topics.

The network has incubated the elite of the Islamist-rooted AK party which came to power in Turkey in 2002. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- who went on to study economics -- and around one third of his party's MPs attended imam-hatip schools....

****************** Skip *******************

Named after the preachers and prayer-leaders it was set up to train, the imam-hatip system has earned less media attention in the west than the moderate international network set up by exiled Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen. There are many Gulen schools in Central Asia, and other outposts in the Balkans and Western Europe.....

Continue here for a good read

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

What's Really Behind Turkey's Coup Arrests?
All signs point to Fethullah Gülen, whose shadowy Islamist movement is rapidly extending its tentacles into all aspects of Turkish political life.
BY SONER CAGAPTAY | FEBRUARY 25, 2010

For the last several decades, the Turkish military was untouchable; no one dared to criticize the military or its top generals, lest they risk getting burned. The Turkish Armed Forces were the ultimate protectors of founding father Kemal Ataturk's secular legacy, and no other force in the country could seriously threaten its supremacy. Not anymore.

On Feb. 22, 49 officers -- including active-duty generals, admirals, and former commanders of the Turkish navy and air force -- were arrested on allegations of plotting a coup against the government. Specifically, the officers were charged with authoring a 5,000-page memo that was later published in Taraf, a paper whose editorial policy is singularly dedicated to bashing the military. Among other things, the memo stated that the Turkish military was planning to bomb Istanbul's historic mosques and shoot down its own planes to justify a coup. When I asked a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey for his views on the news, he thought the scenario was ridiculous. "If the Turkish military was going to do a coup, they would not be writing a 5,000-page memo about it," he stated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interview: Fethullah Gulen
Foreign Policy's 2008 interview with Gulen ( link found at article site )

Three days later, the former commanders of the navy and air force were released -- further proof that the government's intention was to intimidate Turkey's military, rather than proceed with an indictment against these high-ranking officials. The arrests followed a Feb. 19 incident in which an audio recording of Turkey's chief of staff was leaked to Vakit, a small jihadi Islamist newspaper that has celebrated the killing of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. In Turkey, it is illegal to wiretap individuals without a court order, and it is also illegal to publish such wiretaps. However, no one has been prosecuted for this wiretap against the chief of staff -- a sign that the balance of power in Turkey has shifted decisively.

A mountain has moved in Turkish politics. All shots against the military are now fair game, including those below the belt. The force behind this dramatic change is the Fethullah Gülen Movement (FGH), an ultraconservative political faction that backs the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The FGH was founded in the 1970s by Fethullah Gülen, a charismatic preacher who now lives in the United States but remains popular in Turkey. It is a conservative movement aiming to reshape secular Turkey in its own image, by securing the supremacy of Gülen's version of religion over politics, government, education, media, business, and public and personal life......

Continues...

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David

[Exit40]

[Soner Çağaptay finally gets it!]
Fethullah Gülen is indeed behind Turkey's democratization process
by
MEHMET KALYONCU*
In a recent commentary (“What's Really Behind Turkey's Coup Arrests,” Feb. 25, 2010) published in Foreign Policy magazine, and another one (“Turkey's Turning Point,” Feb.26, 2010) in Newsweek, Soner Çağaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) accuses Fethullah Gülen, 72, a retired preacher, prolific writer, and an advocate of interfaith-intercultural dialogue who lives in a self-imposed exile in a small town of Pennsylvania, of being the one responsible for the recent arrests of the former Turkish army generals who apparently plotted several times to overthrow Turkey's democratically elected Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government.

Although he intentionally interprets and portrays it falsely and misleadingly, Çağaptay finally got at least one thing right. Gülen can indeed be plausibly argued to be a force, albeit indirect, behind the Turkish authorities' recent crackdown on the unlawful, dictatorial and anti-democratic formations nested within the Turkish army, police, bureaucracy, academia, business and wherever they hinder democratization of the Turkish society.

Gülen has so far been denied the credit he much deserves for his efforts to make Turkey a more open, more democratic and more liberal country, integrated into the rest of the international community. It is mostly because of Gülen's humble nature, which instructs him not to claim any credit for the accomplishments of the faith-based civil society movement which he inspired worldwide and which academics and researchers have practically called the Gülen movement. It is also because of the above-mentioned antidemocratic establishment's constant persecution of Gülen and of whoever sympathizes with his ideas. As he alarmingly charges Gülen with leading a shadowy Islamist movement and extending its influence into the Turkish political life, Çağaptay simply illustrates the antidemocratic establishment's infamous attitude toward Turkey's citizens whenever they challenged, through democratic means, the establishment's grip on the state and its resources. That is, Çağaptay and similar voices of the antidemocratic and secularist establishment have always suppressed its challengers by discrediting them in the eyes of the public with false allegations.

Such allegations by Çağaptay should be a wake-up call to any concerned person inside and outside Turkey to really investigate what is really behind the antidemocratic secularist establishment's witch-hunt not only against Gülen, but also against whoever sympathizes with him......

Continues

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Endangered Democracy

Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Soner Çağaptay


All bets are off in Turkey. Its Islamist ruling coalition faces the secular courts and the military in a final showdown for Turkey's soul. In the balance hangs Turkey's immediate future. Will it move closer to the liberal democracies or away from them?

Turkish politics have been riven by tension since the nation was founded as a secular state by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. But the last two weeks have been unusually strained even by Turkish standards. The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and its allies in the Fethullah Gülen Movement, known as Gülenists, have been deploying friendly police agents to wiretap and arrest top military officials on coup charges. Gülenist prosecutors, furthermore, have been arresting their secular counterparts who were investigating Gülen’s fundraising networks and its connections to terrorists in Chechnya and Hamas. The question is whether the military and judiciary – the pillars of Atatürk's secular system – will fight back by force or find a peaceful way out.

From the moment the AKP rose to power in 2002, Turkey has witnessed a low-intensity conflict between this moderate Islamist party and its secular institutions, topped by the courts and the military. But the conflict has become more intense recently as the AKP has grown closer to the power-hungry Gülenists, who have been working to infiltrate and subvert secular institutions.

Last week, police, who are almost certainly linked to Gülen, arrested 49 military officers, including active-duty admirals and former commanders of the Turkish Navy and Air Force and charged them with authoring a 5,000-page memorandum containing Turkish military plans to bomb Istanbul's historic mosques and shoot down its own planes to justify a coup. The absurdity of the charge was lost on no one.

Why would coup plotters create a massive paper trail to expose their own plot? "If the Turkish military was going to do a coup, they would not be writing a 5,000-page memo about it," a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey told me. Still, Turkey is convulsed by the coup rumors and denials.

The coup frenzy erupted just three days after an Islamist newspaper published a leaked wiretap of the military chief of staff, saying the military had been infiltrated. Though under Turkish law it is illegal both to wiretap without a court order and to publish such a wiretap, prosecutors made no move to investigate, suggesting a tacit official approval of any attack on the military.

The force behind this campaign is the Gülen Movement, which wields influence over the police and its domestic intelligence branch. The Gülenists did not take credit for this wiretap, but in recent years many wiretaps of the military have been leaked, always appearing first in pro-Gülen media....

Continued

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

The operation and its actors

Tuesday, 02 March 2010 08:21

Turkey is passing through a critical phase. It will either become a full legal state, with its political structures and institutions, or accept living under a conventional tutelage regime.

For the first time ever, large groups of people are coming out and extending full support to democratization. People in other countries are also supporting this process to a certain extent. Those who twist the facts about developments that have transpired as part of the reform of the Constitution, the elimination of military influence over civilian politics and the discovery of coup plans are continuing their manipulation efforts abroad because they have lost hope in the dynamics inside the country. Their goals are to preserve their traditional positions of privilege by reversing the developments and to deter Turkey from taking up the role it would like to play in the region.
Without a doubt external dynamics were as effective as internal dynamics in the termination of the coup period. The leading external dynamics are America, NATO and some European Union countries. These actors see a transformation in Turkey as crucial for the regional and global order to function. The extent to which their projections match our interests and are in Turkey’s and the Muslim world’s benefit is a subject that needs to be questioned. Personally, I have some concerns, but we’re so occupied with domestic problems that we can’t find the time to debate these issues. However, those who want Turkey to stay in its old shell and within the framework created by certain lobbies believing that this is the only way they can preserve their privileged position within the system are churning out propaganda as if they don’t know along which new parameters America, NATO and the EU want to shape the region and the world. The propaganda is so simple that it can only fool ignorant people.

Soner Çağaptay is one of the people who have been disseminating this kind of amateur propaganda among American circles for a very long time. In his most recent article published in Foreign Policy magazine, Çağaptay wrote, “All signs point to Fethullah Gülen, whose shadowy Islamist movement is rapidly extending its tentacles into all aspects of Turkish political life.” This propaganda can be summed up as: “During the Fethullah Gülen and Justice and Development Party (AK Party) period, Turkey is shifting toward Islam. Some may see this as necessary in order for Turkey to play a role in the region now. However down the road, once it’s too late, they will realize that it’s causing Turkey to completely break off from the West, lose everything it achieved through secularism and consequently impair the West’s plans in the region. Religious and conservative people, communities and parties with ties to Islam can never be trusted. They need to be kept in their condign status. If Turkey is going to play a role in the West’s plan in the region, then it should do so under the direction of the secular-Kemalist staff.”....

Contiued

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

[NEWS ANALYSIS] Following the money trail amid traps

Soner Çağaptay
The continuing attacks by analyst Soner Çağaptay, who has rehashed the same old arguments and baseless claims against the ongoing Ergenekon trial, in which dozens of military officers have been charged with plotting to topple the democratically elected civilian government in Turkey, were repeated again last week in an opinion piece posted on the Foreign Policy magazine’s Web site.

Though his arguments are far from convincing, as usual -- and the piece is full of weak points and unsubstantiated claims, as Today’s Zaman detailed in a report published in Sunday’s edition -- it revealed something else, a more subtle yet more dangerous, though not completely unexpected, tactic employed by the pro-Israeli establishment in the United States in light of the recent flare-up in tensions between Turkey and Israel.

Simply follow the money trail, and you find the rabbit hole easily. The unscholarly and utterly misleading article penned by Çağaptay shows how his view on developments in Turkey is very much shaped by who pays him. In this case it is the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which was established by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

In a piece last year titled “Talking Turkey about Israel,” Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, a contributing editor for The American Conservative and a member of the American Conservative Defense Alliance, argued that “a review of Cağaptay’s writings reveals that he is AIPAC’s go-to guy for any argument that Turkey is becoming more anti-Western and religious.”

Giraldi was responding to arguments raised by Çağaptay in an op-ed piece titled “Turkey’s Turn From the West,” published in the Washington Post just four days after the Davos spat during which Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan harshly criticized Israeli President Shimon Peres for Israel’s Gaza onslaught. Ironically the forum was moderated by David Ignatius, from the same newspaper. Giraldi said, “AIPAC’s Turkey expert might be surprised to learn that most of the world, which saw the images of dying Palestinian children on nightly television, would probably agree with Erdoğan.”

Giraldi ended his piece by saying, “Israel’s attempt to portray itself as always the victim of a global anti-Semitic, anti-Western conspiracy just will not stand any more, no matter how many Soner Cağaptays are paid by AIPAC to write for the Washington Post.” The Gaza onslaught alone left thousands dead, including many women and children, and many more wounded as the UN-backed Goldstone report unequivocally found.

Giraldi also warned that “attempts to label [Erdoğan] anti-Semitic and to denigrate the Turks in general will certainly have some impact, most certainly on the US Congress, which will rapidly fall into line and comply with AIPAC’s instructions on an appropriate punishment.”

The million-dollar question is what the appropriate punishment would be.

We might have an answer to that. In an excellent piece published today in Today’s Zaman, Desmond Butler hinted at what that might be. Talking about the Armenian genocide bill now on the agenda of the House Foreign Relations Committee, he said the following: “The committee is strongly pro-Israel, and prospects for passage could be affected by rising tensions between Turkey and Israel, as well as Turkey’s relatively warm relationship with Iran. In the past, Turkey and Israel had friendlier relations and Israel had quietly lobbied against the resolution.”

Though the bill may eventually find its way to the floor, it is highly unlikely that it will get the endorsement of the full Congress after pressure from the White House. The Obama administration would not want to risk US national interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Turkey plays a crucial role in supporting US missions, and will certainly rally against the bill eventually.

Nevertheless, it would give credence to claims that the Israeli state and the pro-Israeli lobby want to exact revenge on Turkey’s increasingly vocal opposition to Israeli policies in the region. The Armenian genocide bill is just one theater they would like to exploit, and there are many other theaters where the Israeli government is advancing its agenda against Turkish national interests in order to punish Erdoğan’s government. We all remember the report about the involvement of Israeli intelligence and military operatives, disguised as businessmen, training peshmerga troops in northern Iraq and providing them with equipment, which irked officials in Ankara......

Continues

*****Note*****

Peshmerga are former PKK troops who are in the Kurdish autonomous area. They are currently in the employ of the Kurdish Regional goverment, performing the duties of a militia. There are still active PKK forces.

*****End******

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

US authorities aware of Turkey's position on Armenian resolution, Davutoğlu
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Thursday the United States authorities, including the US administration and members of the US Congress, were aware of Turkey's position on Armenian resolution.

Davutoğlu's comments came hours before the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States House of Representatives will vote on a resolution on Thursday regarding the incidents of 1915.

At a joint press conference with his New Zealander counterpart Murray McCully in Ankara, Davutoğlu said that US officials know closely Turkey's approach to the incidents of 1915.

We have made our views on the incidents of 1915 very clear while talking with US dignitaries, Davutoğlu stressed.

Turkish-US relations are probably going through a process in which there is a crucial need for cooperation more than ever before, Davutoğlu underlined.....

More

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David

[burien1]

Turkey warns of breakdown in ties with US
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100305/D9E8CQMO0.html

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey's foreign minister is warning of a breakdown in ties with the U.S. after a congressional committee approved a resolution branding the World War I-era killing of Armenians genocide.

And

Turkey angrily withdrew its ambassador to the U.S. minutes after Thursday's vote.

Davutoglu said the issue was a matter of "honor" and said the country would assess what other measures to take.

[Exit40]

Hi brenda. I have been watching this for a while and expect the US will not pass the resolution in the full House, if it even gets there. Too much at stake internationally to offend the ' honor ' of a close NATO and ME ally.


By JOHN D. MCKINNON in Washington and
MARC CHAMPION in Istanbul
The White House attempted to rein in a legislative effort to condemn the 1915 killings of Armenians, an apparent salve to Turkey that threatens to compromise one of President Barack Obama's campaign promises.

Administration officials said Friday they have reached an "understanding" with congressional leaders on the fate of a resolution condemning the mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, suggesting prospects for full House approval of the measure are dimming.

On Thursday, the resolution passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a narrow 23-22 vote. That cheered Armenians world-wide who have long lobbied for U.S. recognition, and threatened to chill U.S. relations with Turkey, a key North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally.

Asked what steps the administration would take to block a floor vote on the resolution, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Friday: "I think that the leadership of the Congress understands our position and they…have taken this into account as they evaluate…if any actions will be taken."

Spokesmen for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't respond to requests for comment.

Most Western historians say the mass deportations and executions of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in central and Eastern Anatolia were an act of genocide. Turkey denies the crumbling Ottoman regime had any such intent, citing the chaos and civil strife of World War I.

Recent administrations have lobbied against such resolutions. The Obama administration remained publicly silent on the vote until administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, began speaking out against congressional action earlier this week. Mrs. Clinton said Thursday that "we do not believe that the full Congress will or should act upon that resolution."

Influential Armenian-American leaders say they plan to lobby for a full House vote. They also criticized Mr. Obama for undermining a campaign promise to recognize the killings as genocide. "I don't know how the president could have sent a more negative message to Armenian-American voters," said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America.

The administration says the genocide question should be addressed between Turkey and Armenia, its neighbor.

The Aerospace Industries Association issued a statement Friday urging the full House not to act on the resolution. The association fears the controversy could dampen an expected $11 billion in defense and aerospace sales to Turkey this year......

Continued

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

And now, the plot is proven
Friday, March 5, 2010
Mustafa AKYOL
Something very important happened last Monday. A short statement from the Turkish General Staff noted that its investigators had gathered “evidence that might prove the existence of the document in question."

“The document in question” was quite a terrible one. It was a military plan to overthrow the AKP government and suppress the popular Islamic movement led by Fethullah Gülen, a retired preacher who lives in the U.S. One idea was to “find” weapons in the homes of people from the Gülen movement by planting them there first and thus portraying the peaceful community as a terrorist group.

At a time when the world is understandably sensitive about Islamist terrorism, this certainly would be a good sell. And even a good justification for the Turkish military to roll its tanks once again — against its own people.

Just a bad apple?

This mind-boggling four-page document was first exposed some eight months ago. It was initially found by the police in the office of a lawyer of one of the officers who had been arrested in the Ergenekon case. Soon, the whole country learned about it through the media. The daily Taraf, a newspaper founded in 2007 by a cadre of anti-militarist liberals, ran a full first-page story with a bold headline: “The plan to finish off the AKP and Gülen.”......

Continued

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

US Magazine Lists Turkish FM as 'New Kissinger'


Wednesday, 10 March 2010

U.S. magazine Foreign Policy included Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in its world's four Kissingers list.

Foreign Policy, or FP, is the foreign policy, diplomacy and strategy magazine of the Washington Post-Newsweek group.

The magazine listed four figures under "World's Kissingers" which took its name from Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State, who was an influential name in U.S. foreign policy for over 50 years and architect of many important international initiatives.

FP states, "A country's foreign policy is often defined less by its elected leader than its behind-the-scenes operators and elder statesmen. There are four figures setting the global agenda for the world's emerging powers, just as Henry Kissinger set the United States’ agenda for over 50 years."

The magazine described the Turkish Foreign Minister "a keen student of history."

“The brash and outspoken Davutoglu believes in restoring Turkey's Ottoman glories so that Turkey once again carries weight in the Middle East. Under his guidance, Turkey has strengthened its ties with Arab governments and sought to play the role of mediator in Arab-Israeli conflicts," it stated.

In accordance with Davutoglu’s support of Turkey's eventual membership in the European Union, FP quoted him as saying,” Turkey can be European in Europe and Eastern in the East because we are both." ......

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God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Armenian Genocide Resolution and the fate of NabuccoFont Size: Larger|Smaller

Monday, March 8, 2010


Two separate developments took place last Thursday at approximately the same time which, at first sight, seemed totally unrelated.

Indeed, the fact that the Turkish Parliament’s ratification of the intergovernmental agreement on the Nabucco project was followed by the adoption of the resolution based on the Armenians’ claims of genocide by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives was a pure coincidence.

Yet you can be sure that both developments that took place in two capitals, thousands of miles away from each other, were monitored with the highest interest in several capitals, like Vienna, Budapest, Rome, Baku and Moscow. Because Turkish-Armenian relations and the issue of the recognition of the 1915 killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans as genocide play an important role in the fate of the Nabucco project, at least in the short term.

While none of the involved parties would accept, there is a clear race to build the next major pipeline that will carry natural gas to Europe. In the long run, Europe’s future energy needs might require having both of the major pipelines that are now on the agenda. Yet in the short and middle run, the outcome of the race will affect the dominance of the European energy supply by Russia.

If the Nabucco project, designed to bring Caspian as well as Middle Eastern natural gas to Europe via Turkey and the Balkans is realized sooner rather than later, it will reduce European dependence on Russia, striking a blow against Russia’s dominant position in the European market.

Yet if the South Stream project, which will carry Russian gas under the Black Sea to Europe, is realized before the Nabucco project, then Moscow could take a deep breath.

Continued

***** This is further pressure on the US to ignore the Turkey/Armenia situation. This would be a good move on the US part to further attempt to contain Russia. Either this is a masterful play by Turkey, or it's just a confluence of events taking place that just happen to benefit Turkey and their influence in the ME and EU. They can hardly lose at this point, either play by the US enhances Turkeys influence and power, regionally and elsewhere. My comment *******

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

ANKARA, March 10 (Reuters) - Turkey's state power company Elektrik Uretim AS (EUAS) will sign a nuclear energy cooperation agreement with South Korea's Kepco (015760.KS), a Turkish energy ministry source said on Wednesday....

Link

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

TURKEY: IS FOREIGN MINISTER’S HOMETOWN A HARBINGER OF ECONOMIC CHANGE?
Nicholas Birch 3/12/10

An unprecedented thing happened last year in Konya, the capital of the province where Turkey’s mould-breaking foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu was born in 1959. For the first time in its recent history, this agricultural center-turned-industrial boom town exported more goods to the Middle East than to Europe.

It is a statistic that sheds light on an issue frequently overlooked in debates about whether Davutoglu’s multi-lateral foreign policy is leading Turkey away from Europe: Turkey’s western orientation has always been paralleled by its economic dependence on the West, and that dependence now seems to be waning.

Just over a half-century ago, when Davutoglu was born in the nearby district town of Taskent, Konya’s population was 50,000, and the town was known only for its wheat, its conservatism and its Seljuk mosques. Today, the population has grown to over a million and the city’s four organized industrial zones extend 20 miles north on the Ankara road. Konya annually exports goods worth about $1.3 billion, roughly the same as annual exports for the whole of Turkey during the 1970s.

Rather like Ottoman Empire reforms from the 18th century on, it is a transformation that took place in Europe’s shadow: Konya’s first industrialists were the owners of workshops set up in the 1950s and 1960s to repair western-made agricultural equipment.

The engineer Ali Akkaya was one of them. He remembers how work in the state water department which employed him was held up for weeks because three US-made excavators had broken down. "Cogs about the size of my fist, that’s all it was," Akkaya says, describing how he paid for a small shipment of Austrian steel with his first wage, fashioned new cogs out of it, and promptly resigned to set up his own engineering works.

Accelerating after Turkey and Europe signed a Customs Union in 1995, Turkey’s links with the West reached a high point after 2001, when a banking breakdown triggered the worst self-inflicted economic crisis in the country’s history.

"The domestic market dried up," remembers Esref Cifci, head of a Konya-based factory that supplies parts to car-makers like Renault. "We all made our catalogues, set up our websites, picked up our briefcases and set out to find new buyers."

Back then, new buyers meant Europe. Turkish industry didn’t have the reputation to permit people like Cifci to sell directly to buyers in the developing world. "Instead, we sold to Europe to be repackaged and sold on," Cifci says. "They may not have written ’made in Germany’ on the box, but that is what it looked like."

A decade on, the economic dependence of Konya (and Turkey as a whole) on Europe is waning. The industrial pecking order is less pronounced than it was 10 years ago, cutting out the need for the middlemen Cifci refers to. Plus the current global crisis has affected developed western economies far more than Turkey and its less economically developed eastern neighbors.

Long before European Union members began debating how to deal with Greece, Turkey’s heavily indebted western neighbor, most analysts were predicting at most 1 percent growth in the eurozone this year. On Turkey’s southern border, Iraq’s Kurdish region, meanwhile, roughly 90 percent of whose construction sector is controlled by Turkish companies, is expected to grow by 20 percent, according to the market intelligence company Euromonitor.

Trade figures reflect the changing balances. Between 2007 and 2009, Europe’s share of Turkish exports dropped from 57 percent to 49.5 percent, while the Middle East’s share more than doubled from 10 percent to 22 percent.

An official at Konya’s Chamber of Industry, Fatih Ulutas, describes talk of Turkey drifting away from the West as "dumb." "Turkey is just getting on with business," he says. "Isn’t that true of the rest of the world?"

Widely acclaimed as the chief architect of Turkey’s increasingly pro-active foreign policy, Davutoglu has always insisted there is no contradiction between Turkey’s growing regional prominence and its candidacy for European Union membership. "The more you pull the bow-string eastwards, the further you can shoot the arrow westwards," he says, using a curiously belligerent image at odds with his reputation as the most peaceable of men......

Continued

God Bless

David

[Exit40]

Sweden, Turkey jointly denounce "genocide" vote
Luke Baker
SAARISELKA, Finland
Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:06am EST

SAARISELKA, Finland (Reuters) - The foreign ministers of Turkey and Sweden condemned on Saturday a vote in the Swedish parliament that defined the early 20th-century killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.


Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who is holding informal talks with foreign ministers including Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu in northern Finland, said he was upset by the vote and concerned it could affect Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.

"It's regrettable because I think the politicization of history serves no useful purpose," he told reporters.

"We are interested in the business of reconciliation, and decisions like that tend to raise tensions rather than lower tensions," he said.

Sweden's parliament, by a vote of 131-130, backed a resolution on Thursday that branded the killing of up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a genocide, a term that Turkey resolutely rejects.

The vote followed a decision by a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives the week before approving a nonbinding measure condemning the 1915 killings.

In both cases Turkey responded angrily, withdrawing its ambassadors to Washington and Stockholm.

The vote in the Swedish parliament was particularly galling for Turkey as Sweden is one of Ankara's strongest backers on issues such as Turkey's desire to join the European Union.

Davutoglu said Turkey would not stand by quietly if other nations took similar steps to describe the 1915 killings as a genocide and said it was pointless for countries to think they could put pressure on Turkey.

"We will not be silent and we will not just show the usual attitudes. For each case we will have a different (set of) measures," he said.....

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**** Comment : We have to wonder why the push to name the Turks of the Ottoman empire as genocidal. Almost seems as though the West is trying to push Turkey away, or maybe get them under control. And Turkey is very adamant on their position, almost threatening, they will not back down easily if at all. It's definately a build up of tensions. ****

God Bless

David