Turkish Forum

Author: Aylin D. Miller

  • Union of Enlighteners of Turkic World Established

    Union of Enlighteners of Turkic World Established

    Kazakhstan, Almaty, 11 July /corr. Trend News R.Mashadihasanli / Constituent conference of Union of Enlighteners of Turkic World took place in Almaty.
    The conference was attended by the representatives of Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. Academician Haji Kheyrulla was elected as the Chairman of the Union, and the professor of Gazi University of Turkey, Ismet Chetin, candidate of philological sciences, editor-in-chief of the newspapers TURKEL and Veten, Ramiz Mashadihasanli and professor Murat Tuzunkhan ( Turkish Republic of North Cyprus) were elected deputy chairman.

    The goal of establishing the Union of the Enlighteners of Turkic World is to combine world-known people, being engaged in history, literature, science and skill, to strengthen relations between the Turkic-speaking states.

    The correspondent can be contacted at: trend@trend.az

    Source: trendaz.com, 11.07.08

     

     

  • Turkey’s dangerous message to the Muslim world

    Turkey’s dangerous message to the Muslim world

    A court ban on the most pro-Western party would be a big mistake.

    By Alex Taurel and Shadi Hamid

    from the July 24, 2008 edition

    Washington – President Bush’s vision of a democratic Middle East was premised in part on the region’s popular Islamist groups reconciling themselves to the give-and-take nature of democracy.

    It might make sense then, that the Bush administration would do what it could to support a party that has made such a transformation in Turkey. But it’s not.

    Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which fashioned itself as the Muslim equivalent of Europe’s Christian Democrats, has stood out by passing a series of unprecedented political reforms as the country’s ruling party.

    Yet the Turkish Constitutional Court – bastion of the hard-line secularist old guard – is now threatening to close down the AKP and ban its leading figures, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, from party politics for five years. And the Bush administration, in the face of this impending judicial coup, has chosen to remain indifferent. The consequences could reach beyond a setback to democracy in Turkey and affect the Middle East.

    The Constitutional Court will rule as soon as next week on an indictment accusing the AKP of being a “focal point of antisecular activities.”

    Turkey’s Constitution establishes secularism as an unalterable principle and allows the court to ban parties it deems antisecular. But disbanding a democratically-elected party on such dubious grounds as attempting to lift a controversial ban on wearing head scarves in universities – the crux of the case against the AKP – is not how mature democracies handle divisive issues. Judges should not decide parties’ fates; voters should.

    Indeed, voters have flocked to the AKP since its founding by break away reformists within the Islamic movement. The party was elected in 2002 on pledges to preserve secularism and vigorously pursue Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union. It also explicitly disavowed the Islamist label.

    The AKP-led government then passed a series of democratic reforms that led Brussels to begin formal accession negotiations with Turkey. Those reforms, together with a booming economy, spurred 47 percent of Turks to vote for the AKP in its landslide 2007 reelection.

    To be sure, the AKP’s democratic credentials are hardly perfect. It has been overly cautious in repealing certain restrictions on freedom of speech, and it abruptly lifted the head scarf ban without first initiating a national dialogue.

    Yet despite its flaws, the AKP is the most democratically inclined – and somewhat ironically, the most pro-Western – political party on the Turkish scene today. Closing it down would be a mistake.

    A ban on a party that nearly half of the country supports could spark violence – which Turkey’s secularist generals might then use as a pretext for a direct military intervention. Regardless, senior EU figures have criticized the closure case and warned that banning the AKP could gravely damage Turkey’s candidacy.

    Even more troubling is the message it would send to the rest of the Muslim world – no matter how much Islamists moderate, they won’t be accepted as legitimate participants in the democratic process.

    In recent years, mainstream Islamist groups throughout the region – including in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco – have embraced many of the foundational components of democratic life. Yet their moderation has been met with harsh government repression, or more subtle designs to restrict their political participation.

    More is at stake than may initially appear. If the AKP – the most moderate, pro-democratic “Islamist” party in the region today – is disbanded, it will strengthen those Islamists who see violence and confrontation as a surer means to influence political power.

    During the past year, a number of Islamist leaders we’ve spoken to in Egypt and Jordan have warned that rank-and-file activists are losing faith in the democratic process, and may soon become attracted to more radical approaches. A ban on the AKP would only make it that much harder for moderates to continue making the case that participating in elections is worthwhile.

    Though US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praises the AKP’s democratization agenda, last month she said, “Obviously, we are not going to get involved in … the current controversy in Turkey about the court case.” Yet moments later she opined, “Sometimes when I’m asked what might democracy look like in the Middle East, I think it might look like Turkey.” It’s difficult to tell if she’s referring to the new, democratizing Turkey of the past five years – or the reactionary Turkey where judges and generals flagrantly overrule the people’s will.

    President Bush has one last opportunity to reinvigorate the cause of Middle East democracy. By publicly denouncing the closure case, the administration would signal that the US not only supports Turkish democracy against a dangerous internal assault, but that it is also committed to defending all actors willing to abide by democratic principles in a region that desperately needs more of them.

    • Alex Taurel is a research associate at the Project on Middle East Democracy. Shadi Hamid is the director of research there and a research fellow at the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan.

    Source: The Christian Science Monitor, July 24, 2008

  • Jewish-Turkish Cultural Exchange Promoted

    Jewish-Turkish Cultural Exchange Promoted

    July 17, 2008 2:15 PM

    In a meeting with representatives of the Jewish community of S. Petersburg, Russia, Turkish consul Mahmet Chinar and vice-consul Ozgyun Talyu agreed on a cultural exchange that will see new exhibits at museums in each country.

    Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Menachem Pewzner, the city’s chief rabbi, and Jewish community chairman Mark Grubarg hosted the meeting at S. Petersburg’s Great Choral Synagogue.

    Source: chabad.org, July 17, 2008

  • Dashnaks Leader Uneasy Over Armenian Overtures To Turkey

    Dashnaks Leader Uneasy Over Armenian Overtures To Turkey

    Rustamian

    By Anna Saghabalian

    A leader of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) reiterated on Wednesday his party’s misgivings and unease about President Serzh Sarkisian’s diplomatic overtures to Turkey.

    Armen Rustamian warned that Turkish President Abdullah Gul will face street protests by Dashnaktsutyun if he accepts Sarkisian’s invitation to visit Yerevan and watch the first-ever match between the two countries’ national soccer teams to be played on September 6.

    “We must not allow Turkey to create an illusion about the existence of relations [with Armenia,]” he told journalists. “This is all it wants.”

    Rustamian said Dashnaktsutyun, which is a junior partner in Armenia’s governing coalition, would “remind” Gul of the 1915 Armenian genocide and other problems existing between the two nations. “We have the right to express our protest within the civilized norms,” he said. “We are currently thinking about what forms it could take.”

    The Armenian and Turkish governments raised new hopes for the normalization of the historically strained relations between their nations shortly after Sarkisian took over as Armenia’s new president in April. Official Yerevan responded positively to Ankara’s offer of a “dialogue.” As well as inviting Gul to pay a first-ever visit to Armenia by a Turkish head of state, Sarkisian signaled last month his government’s readiness to agree, in principle, to the creation of a Turkish-Armenian commission of historians that would study the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

    Sarkisian’s predecessor, Robert Kocharian, rejected the idea floated by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2005, saying that the highly sensitive issue must be addressed by the two governments, rather than historians. In an interview late last month, Kocharian faulted Sarkisian for extending the extraordinary invitation to Gul welcomed by the United States.

    Rustamian agreed with Kocharian’s stance, while playing down the significance of the invitation. “If I were the president I wouldn’t invite him,” he said.

    Rustamian, who also chairs the Armenian parliament’s foreign relations committee, insisted at the same time that there are no “strategic differences” within Armenia’s leadership on how to improve relations with Turkey.

    Successive Armenian governments have stood for an unconditional normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations, saying that the two countries should establish diplomatic relations and open their border before tackling their outstanding problems. Dashnaktsutyun has traditionally favored a harder line that makes Turkish recognition of the genocide a necessary condition for a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.

    (Photolur photo: Armen Rustamian.) 

    Wednesday 23, July 2008

  • East vs. West in Central Asia

    East vs. West in Central Asia

     

    By Adrian Pabst

    To Our Readers

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    In a little-noticed news story last week, U.S. lawmakers strongly condemned what they called China’s brutal pre-Olympic crackdown in the far northwest Xinjiang region, which is populated by the Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic ethnic group. This condemnation related to a closed July 9 trial of 15 Uyghurs on terrorism charges, ending in the summary execution of two of the accused, three suspended death sentences and the remaining 10 receiving life imprisonment.

    China responded by reporting that in the preceding week alone it had received three “significant” threats, leading police to arrest 82 people in five separate suspected terrorist rings for allegedly plotting attacks against the forthcoming Olympic Games. Meng Hongwei, the Chinese deputy minister for public security, declared that the threats had come from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and that the arrests had been made in Xinjiang, where separatist groups are said to operate.

    It is still unclear whether Monday’s two bomb blasts in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, in which two people were killed, were in any way related to Islamic terrorism or separatist movements, but the attacks will undoubtedly fuel fear and suspicion with the Olympics just three weeks away.

    Faced with the protest from U.S. congressmen, the authorities in Beijing swiftly denied any injustice and accused Washington of meddling in its internal affairs. A similar pattern of mutual accusation and recrimination — reminiscent of the worst of the Cold War — is already well-established throughout Central Asia. It has become a key battleground in the struggle for global influence and power, with its Muslim populations caught in the middle.

    With the tacit support of neighboring Russia, the government of Kyrgyzstan has arrested numerous Uyghurs, whom it views as criminal, separatist and terrorist. Likewise, Uzbek leaders accuse ethnic Uyghurs from China and Central Asian countries of participating in the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU. Alongside the radical Islamic group Akromiya, the IMU was charged with fomenting unrest, leading to the Andijan massacre of May 2005, when several hundred civilians are believed to have been killed by Uzbek security forces.

    In a region increasingly interconnected by migration and trade, the stateless Uyghurs, who represent over half a million people, provide an easy target for authoritarian rulers. The Uyghur cause has been defended by international human rights bodies, but it has also been hijacked by some foreign agencies and political movements.

    In the name of universal human rights, the United States and its allies blame China and Central Asian countries for persecuting Muslim minorities. According to the influential Republican Congressman Frank Wolf, “the Chinese government should not be permitted to use the ‘war on terror’ or Olympic security as a front to persecute the Uyghurs.”

    China, Russia and their Central Asian partners accuse the West of double standards and illegitimate interference. They say they are simply defending their territorial integrity against secessionist threats. They suspect the United States and others of orchestrating the Muslim minorities and supporting secessionism to strengthen the Western presence in Central Asia.

    Both are right about each other, but wrong about Asian Islam. In fact, both the East and West pursue questionable goals and policies. Under the cloak of the “global war on terror,” both sides intervene against Islamic extremists in order to advance their rival interests. In a region rich in minerals, oil and gas, the United States established military bases in Manas, just north of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek and in Karshi-Khanabad, in southern Uzbekistan, not far from the Tajik border. These are both key locations in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida-related networks in nearby Afghanistan. China has undoubtedly exaggerated the terrorist threat in order to suppress political opposition and extend its sphere of influence in Central Asia.

    But the East-West clash is not limited to the small but growing numbers of Islamic extremists. Increasingly, both sides also wage a battle for the soul of indigenous Muslims. Islam has been present in China and parts of Central Asia since the late 7th century. Muslims were integrated into the Chinese Empire during the golden age of cosmopolitan culture under the Tang Dynasty. Islam became part of Central Asian cultures and developed a civic identity through trade and political participation.

    This important legacy is increasingly under threat. Citing the danger of international terrorism, Western governments sponsor programs promoting a modern Islam that is liberal and moderate. But it is unclear whether this strategy is really to the benefit of native Muslims or whether it is aimed at producing a more pro-Western Islam. Fearing separatism, the East denies indigenous Muslims any form of self-determination and reinforces a brutal regime of persecution and assimilation. Like Tibet, Xinjiang province is nominally autonomous but in reality ruled by Beijing’s iron fist. The crackdown on religious freedom in China and Central Asia also affects many other religious minorities, including numerous Christians.

    All this matters because increasing interference from East and West is undermining traditional Islam in Central Asia and weakening its ability to combat from within the growing threat of radicalization. If Central Asian Muslims succeed in preserving and extending their brand of indigenous traditional Islam, then they will be better equipped to withstand political manipulation by the West and cultural assimilation by the East.

    Adrian Pabst teaches religion and politics at the University of Nottingham and is a research fellow at the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies. This comment appeared in The National.

  • Top war crimes suspect Karadzic arrested in Serbia

    Top war crimes suspect Karadzic arrested in Serbia

    By DUSAN STOJANOVIC

    BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused architect of massacres making him one of the world’s top war crimes fugitives, was arrested on Monday evening in a sweep by Serbian security forces, the country’s president and the U.N. tribunal said.

    Karadzic is suspected of masterminding mass killings that the U.N. war crimes tribunal described as “scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history.” They include the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Europe’s worst slaughter since World War II.

    “This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade. It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice,” said Serge Brammertz, the tribunal’s head prosecutor.

    President Boris Tadic’s office said Karadzic has been taken before the investigative judge of Serbia’s war crimes court — a legal procedure that indicates he would soon be extradited to the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands.

    If Karadzic is extradited to the tribunal in The Hague, he would be the 44th Serb suspect extradited to the tribunal. The others include former President Slobodan Milosevic, who was ousted in 2000 and died in 2006 while on trial on war crimes charges.

    Heavily armed special forces of the Serbian Gendarmerie have been deployed around the war crimes court in Belgrade where Karadzic reportedly has been held. Karadzic’s brother, Luka, also arrived at the location in central Belgrade.

    The former Bosnian Serb leader has topped the tribunal’s most-wanted list since his indictment in July 1995 on genocide charges. Serbia has been under increasing pressure from the European Union to turn over war crimes suspects.

    The charges against him, last amended in May 2000, are genocide, extermination, murder, wilful killing, deportation, inhumane acts, and other crimes committed against Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 war. The specific allegations include six counts of genocide and complicity in genocide, two counts of crimes against humanity as well as violating laws of war and gravely breaching the Geneva Conventions

    The indictment alleges that Karadzic, in concert with others, committed the crimes to secure control of areas of Bosnia which had been proclaimed part of the “Serbian Republic” and significantly reducing its non-Serb population.

    “He was at large because the Yugoslav army was protecting him. But this guy in my view was worse than Milosevic,” Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador who negotiated an end to the Bosnian War, told CNN. “He was the intellectual leader.”

    Holbrooke calculated the Karadzic is responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of 300,000 people, because without him there would have been no war or genocide.

    “That’s the number of people killed. And without Radovan Karadzic this thing wouldn’t have happened, in my view,” Holbrooke said.

    The fugitive’s wife, Ljiljana, told The Associated Press by phone from her home in Karadzic’s former stronghold, Pale, near Sarajevo that her daughter Sonja had called her before midnight.

    “As the phone rang, I knew something was wrong. I’m shocked. Confused. At least now, we know he is alive,” Ljiljana Karadzic said, declining further comment.

    As leader of Bosnia’s Serbs, Karadzic hobnobbed with international negotiators and his interviews were top news items during the 3 1/2-year Bosnian war, set off when a government dominated by Slavic Muslims and Croats declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992.

    But his life changed by the time the war ended in late 1995 with an estimated 250,000 people dead and another 1.8 million driven from their homes. He was indicted twice by the U.N. tribunal on genocide charges stemming from his alleged crimes against Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats.

    Karadzic’s reported hide-outs included Serbian Orthodox monasteries and refurbished mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia. Some newspaper reports said he had at times disguised himself as a priest by shaving off his trademark silver mane and donning a brown cassock.

    The European Union said the arrest “illustrates the commitment of the new Belgrade government to contributing to peace and stability in the Balkans region.”

    A statement from the EU presidency, currently held by France, said the arrest was “an important step on the path to the rapprochement of Serbia with the European Union.”

    On Saturday, Serb authorities turned over an ex-Bosnian Serb police chief, Stojan Zupljanin, who was arrested in the town of Pancevo last week after nine years on the run. A Belgrade court on Friday rejected his appeal against extradition and Zupljanin pleaded innocent Monday to 12 charges of murder, torture and persecution of Bosnian Muslims and Croats in 1992.

    Zupljanin was charged with war crimes for allegedly overseeing Serb-run prison camps where thousands of Muslims and Croats were killed during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

    Source: Associated Press, 22.07.2008

     

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    Bosnian Serb Arrested on War Crimes Charges

    By REUTERS
    Published: July 21, 2008

    BELGRADE, July 21 (Reuters) – Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted men for his part in civilian massacres, has been arrested in Serbia, President Boris Tadic’s office said on Monday.

    The arrest of Karadzic and other indicted war criminals and their delivery to the Hague war crimes tribunal, is one of the main conditions of Serbian progress towards European Union (EU) membership.

    It came on the eve of a meeting of EU Foreign Ministers which is scheduled to discuss closer relations with serbia following the formation of a new pro-western government. A war crimes prosecutor was due to visit Belgrade on Tuesday.

    Karadzic’s place of hiding has been a constant subject of international speculation since he went underground in 1997. Sources close to the government said Karadzic, distinguished by his characteristic long, grey hair, was arrested in Belgrade.

    He was currently undergoing a formal identification rocess, inccluding DNA testing, and would be meeting with investigators overnight.

    “Karadzic was located and arrested,” the President’s statement said. It gave no details.

    Karadzic, was leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnia war. He was indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague in July 1995 for authorising the shooting of civilians during the 43-month siege of Sarajevo.

    He was indicted for genocide a second time four months later for orchestrating the slaughter of some 8,000 Muslim men after Mladic’s forces seized the U.N. “safe area” of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia.

    He went underground in 1997 after losing power.

    The West is also pressing for the arrest of Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic.