In a lengthy article titled, “10 members of Congress took trip secretly funded by foreign government,” The Washington Post disclosed last week the scandalous details of an all-expenses paid trip to a conference in Azerbaijan by 10 lawmakers and 32 staff members in 2013. Former top aides to Pres. Obama — Robert Gibbs, Jim Messina and David Plough – also attended the conference as guest speakers.
The organizer of the international oil gathering in Baku, SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, funneled $750,000 through two U.S. nonprofit organizations “to conceal the source of the funding” for the trip, according to a confidential Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) report obtained by The Washington Post. Another $750,000 was contributed by British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips and KBR for airfare, hotel and gifts.
The newspaper also reported that “shortly before the May 28-29, 2013 conference, SOCAR and several large energy companies [including the National Iranian Oil Company] sought exemptions for a $28 billion natural gas pipeline in the Caspian Sea from U.S. economic sanctions being imposed on Iran.” In fact, a month before the conference, SOCAR established the nonprofit Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ) in Houston by transferring $750,000. The second nonprofit involved in the scheme, also based in Houston, was the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians (TCAE). Both nonprofits, headed by Kemal Oksuz, shared the same Houston address. Congress approved several bills sanctioning Iran, while exempting the SOCAR project. Pres. Obama then signed these bills into law.
The ten members of Congress who went on the Baku junket were: Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Danny Davis (D-IL), Michelle Grisham (D- NM), Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Ted Poe (R-TX), and Steve Stockman (R-TX).
Ethics investigators disclosed that these lawmakers, accompanied by spouses and fiancés, received several gifts, including “crystal tea sets, briefcases, silk scarves, turquoise earrings, gold-painted plates and Azerbaijani rugs…. All lawmakers received at least one rug and some got two, one prayer-size and one area rug. Many staff members also received rugs.”
To justify their illegal or improper actions, some of these lawmakers made ridiculous statements to congressional investigators:
— Cong. Davis stated that during the Baku conference he “received one rug which was delivered to his hotel room.” He said he was thinking about donating the rug to a museum or charity!
— Cong. Hinojosa claimed: “I received souvenirs of what I believed to be of minimal value and in compliance with the House Gift rule.”
— Ladan Ahmadi, spokeswoman for Rep. Meeks, stated that the Congressman “understood the rug to be a permissible courtesy gift.”
— A senior staff member of Rep. Lance told The Washington Post that the Congressman “returned the one rug he received after he got back to Washington. The staff member also said Lance received a pair of earrings and reimbursed the nonprofit group that helped organize the conference $100 immediately upon returning to New Jersey.”
— Cong. Grisham told ethics investigators that she did not disclose the rugs because she did not think they were particularly valuable. She also thought they were unattractive: “It’s not a carpet I would have purchased.”
— Cong. Bridenstine was the only lawmaker who disclosed the rugs on his financial report. “He had them appraised: the smaller rug at $2,500 and the larger at $3,500.”
Quoting from the ethics report, The Washington Post revealed that Reps. Clarke, Grisham, Hinojosa, Lance, and their staff members also “took side trips to Turkey, traveling to Istanbul, Ankara or both…. The Bosphorus Atlantic Cultural Association of Friendship and Cooperation, a Turkish nonprofit organization, covered the expenses, the report said. The lawmakers did not disclose the role of that nonprofit.”
The Office of Congressional Ethics concluded that “SOCAR and AFAZ provided gifts in the form of impermissible travel expenses to congressional travelers in violation of House rules, regulations and federal law,” while “members of Congress who traveled to Turkey accepted payment of travel expenses from impermissible sources, resulting in an impermissible gift, in violation of House rules and regulations.” Furthermore, the investigators reported that five nonprofits affiliated with the Azerbaijani government asserted that they sponsored the conference, filing sworn statements with the Ethics Committee in April and May 2013. “The five sponsoring organizations contributed no funding for the congressional travel in spite of false affirmations on the forms they submitted to the Committee on Ethics.” The Washington Post reported that these findings have been referred to the House Ethics Committee for investigation of possible violation of congressional rules and federal laws that bar foreign governments from trying to influence U.S. policy.
It is deeply troubling that members of Congress are willing to sell their souls to corrupt Azerbaijani and Turkish entities for a free rug!
As you are probably aware, two Azerbaijani hostages – Dilham Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev – were taken hostage by the occupying Armenian forces in Kelbajar in June 2014 when they were tending the graves of their loved ones in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region. A third Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov, was killed in the struggle.
In December, an unrecognised Armenian kangaroo court jailed Dilham and Shahbaz for life and 22 years, respectively.
We, The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS), wanted show our solidarity with Dilham and Shahbaz by protesting outside the Armenian Embassy from 11am–1pm on 23 May.
The purpose is to raise awareness of the unjust and unlawful imprisonment of Dilham and Shahbaz, and the brutal murder of Hasan by the Armenian authorities. Tending the graves of your beloved ones in a region that you used to call your home is, and should never be, considered a crime!
We think that the international community has to finally wake up and realise that Armenia is not always the victim state. On the contrary, it seems that the Armenian authorities are predominantly the perpetrators in the contemporary world!
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The protest took place in front of the Armenian Embassy in London, 25a Cheniston Gardens, London, W8 6TG.
If you want to show your support, just RSVP by reply of email with the word ‘attending’ to the following email address: [email protected]
(Photo: Reuters) Supporters of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party wave flags during an election rally in I
24 May 2015
Istanbul
When Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, party leader of the Peoples Republican Party (CHP), had a delicious dinner with the American ambassador in Ankara on 22 October 2013, he forgot to complain about the gas. Instead, he just booked a happy-talk trip to Washington, DC. No need for uncomfortable discussions.
And everyone, particularly the American ambassador, was thrilled. Members of Congress and the Executive branch would be interested in seeing Kılıçdaroğlu, said the ambassador. Even the Brookings Institute! Oh good, thought Kılıçdaroğlu, not wanting to dampen the warming glow of the American ambassador’s vacuous ambassadorial smile. So he swallowed the idea (if he even had one) of mentioning the gas. Such a polite, discrete leader of the party of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. So discrete that the words “we are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers” stuck in his throat, the definitive word “soldiers” becoming bland, impotent “citizens.”
No, the gas was not of the discomforting, gastric kind. It was the poisonous kind, the kind that kills, destroys eye sockets, maims and infects, crushes skulls. Pepper gas. The pepper that is sprayed not shaken, shot in canisters at youthful heads not passed politely from diner to diner. The American ambassador failed to note his treacherous contribution to Erdoğan’s Gezi Park Menu of Death. And party leader Kılıçdaroğlu failed to remind him.
Forty-three tons of pepper gas (labeled “firearms”) rushed from America to Ankara on 23 June 2013 for $365 thousand dollars. Why did he fail to confront? Well the answer is obvious, pathetically obvious. And all you Atatürk-lovers and Atatürk-experts and even Atatürk-haters, know the answer. Still wondering? Would you like a hint? It’s about leadership, responsibility and courage, their absence. And treachery, its overwhelming presence. And so marks Kılıçdaroğlu’s political party.
We come to today. The good old days are back. Just like in 1980, the good old military coup times. The American “boys,” within and without, are again “doing it” to the Turkish nation, which means the Turkish people. Turkish youth die in the mean streets of Gezi and the CHP, once the party of the eternally young Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, can’t even raise a whimper of protest to the American ambassador. Instead, off Kılıçdaroğlu dutifully trotted to America. Met with some members of America’s warmongering Congess. Met with the neocon, imperialisim-mongers at Brookings Institute. And chatted with a sprinkling of the Gülen Movement gangsters, those traffickers in moderately violent Islam and other hallucinatory narcotics. Then, full of American “wisdom,” he returned to Turkey with a “new” CHP.
No Atatürk followers needed. Kılıçdaroğlu purged them. His traveling companion, Faruk Loğoğlu, former ambassador to the USA, became the party’s designated criticizer of all things youthful and courageous. Metin Fezioğlu, the dashing, youthful head of the Turkish Bar Association, spoke at the Council of State in Ankara. As the saying goes, he made a monkey out of Erdoğan. Embarrassingly irate, Erdoğan heckled him in a fine imitation of Third Reich manners. So what does the CHP’s mouthpiece say? Fezioğlu spoke too long showing poor manners.
The Turkish Youth League (TGB), the most valiantly patriotic of all organizations, symbolically rub and wave hoods to a few American sailors to highlight the continuing affront of American imperialism. And recall to the collective Turkish memory the hooding of Turkish soldiers by the Americans in Iraq. Tut-tut, for shame, said Loğoğlu, bad manners. Such paternalistic slop is typical fare for the CHP. And a big reason why genuine Turkish youth avoid it.
Last year’s presidential election campaign was even more pathetic. The “secular” candidate to face the meatgrinder Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was selected by a collaboration of CHP and MHP. After much stressing, straining and pre-natal interviewing, they labored to bring forth a 72 year-old political mouse, a scholarly Islamic obscurity named Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. America had also whispered his name into a willing CHP ear.
His first name contained the first four letters of the Turkish word for bread, “ekmek.” For reasons as obscure as those for his candidacy, the collective brains of the two parties thought the phrase “Ekmek için Ekmeleddin”( “For bread, Ekmeleddin”) would be an exciting slogan. It is surely possible that in world political history there has been a worse slogan, but not likely. Enhancing the bread image, he also toted a baby in his campaign photograph. Ah, the empowering powers of bread.
Still, Kılıçdaroğlu was optimistic. Why not? It was his idea. Party members were outraged. They had this weak fait-accompli crammed down their throats. This counter reaction inspired Kılıçdaroğlu to rise to Erdoğanian levels of authoritarianism. He demanded, in language a parent would use to a toddler, that everyone just be quiet and vote. “Tıpış tıpış,” he said, just do it! But they just did NOT! Fed up with a ridiculous candidate to represent Atatürk’s party, millions of usual CHP voters boycotted the polls. Predictably, Erdoğan made toast crumbs of “Ekmek için Ekmeleddin.” And that’s how America made sure that Erdoğan would be president. And how the CHP lost millions of loyal voters.
Yet despite Kılıçdaroğlu’s catastrophic decision-making, incompetent leadership and total failure at the polls, he remains the party leader singing the same tired tune. That is, that his party is the only choice to stand against the fascist government. The truth? CHP is fascist, too. But incompetently fascist. The truth? CHP is the worst choice to stand for anything.
AND SO WE COME TO TODAY
Turkey is being dismembered.
It has lost its East to Joe Biden’s favorite cause, Kurdistan.
Its democratic governmental system, especially the judiciary, has collapsed.
The Turkish president’s insistence on acting without constitutional permission is causing severe and dangerous diplomatic upheavals. These outlandish, illegal, bully-boy tactics in a supposedly mature country casts great embarrassment and defamation of character on the Turkish people. It vividly demonstrates the lack of a constitutional justice system, indeed of any justice system whatsoever.
The Turkish army was destroyed by America and its agents inside and outside Turkey. Thus serious security threats prevail for the Turkish people given the outrageously risky policies of its government and its president. The command and staff structure of the Turkish Army remains problematic since the rupture of its chain of command and its drift away from NATO mobilization standards. It all seems reminiscent of the fate of politicized armies whose forgotten ashes litter the battlefields of history.
The presidential paranoiac fantasy of a parallel state is delusional. If there is a parallel state it is Erdoğan himself illegally intruding into affairs that are the constitutional responsibility of the elected government. Only low-grade morons believe that Fethullah Gülen acted alone for 8 years destroying the Turkish Army while the AKP spent all its time being completely deceived. That is, until 17 December 2013 when the police found their shoe boxes stashed with billions of dollars.
What passes for justice is completely in the hands of the government and the presidency. In other words, there is none.
Syria is being destroyed by Sunni forces under the leadership and sponsorship of America, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan. All are committing crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity. Formal criminal complaints have been filed with the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Borderlands in southern Turkey, particularly in Hatay, are porous and unstable. They are used as staging areas (as is Jordanian land) for a massive assault on Syria, in particular its secular, Alevite government. This can easily be perceived as a genocidal attack. This conclusion is reinforced by the angry, disdainful remarks of the Turkish president towards Alevites in his own country and generally. It is difficult to believe that the people of Turkey would continue to tolerate a government of accused war criminals.
The big plan calls for a dismemberment of Turkey in the east and in the south. This is not news. The main idea is to give the coming Kurdistan a corridor to the sea. This means a passage for Kurdish oil through Syria. It will be a Sunni passage. So too bad for the Alevites. This also means an added bonus named Hatay, in particular Iskenderun harbor. It will become a Kurdish Sunni harbor. Too bad for the Alevites. And this genocide will be a real one for Turkey to swallow.
Blood must flow. So must oil. “Not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it,” wrote Herman Melville about whale oil over 160 years ago. Now we spill gallons of blood for a drop of oil. We destroy nations and races and cultures. We grow beards to celebrate beheadings and crucifixions. Starving children in our streets annoy us. Welcome to the pursuit of the happiness of advanced democracy.
Welcome to hell.
THE COMING ELECTION
The major political parties are the same. They smell of America.
CHP
Kılıçdaroğlu and his CHP are solidly in the American camp. Kermal Derviş, the darling of America’s imperial banking and finance system is back over the ocean with the CHP. And Kılıçdaroğlu is happy. Expect nothing good for Turkey from either. Ever today’s man, the party is loaded with Gülen sympathizers in hopes of capturing religious votes from AKP, the cheapest of short-term tactics. While all Atatürk influences have been cleansed, that doesn’t stop Kılıçdaroğlu and CHP from making money from his name. The CHP TV channel hawks all varieties of Atatürk books, videos, inspirational music, clothing and jewelry. More need not be said why this political party is an inappropriate steward for our sacred homeland.
MHP
The other opposition party, the MHP, the right-wing nationalist party, was born in the bloody run-up to America’s 1980 military coup in Turkey. It helped the USA butcher-boy general, Kenan Evren, do his dirty work thereafter. Evren, Turkey’s Pinochet, both courtesy of the CIA. No party has been more treacherous in helping Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remain in power than the MHP. It has even stooped to resurrect the political baking fiasco called Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. He will run for a parliamentary seat in Istanbul as a MHP candidate, presumably without his bread loaves.
GDP
The other “so-called” opposition party is the Kurdish Party, the HDP. The HDP supports everything that benefits Kurdish autonomy and separation from Turkey including the PKK, an international terrorist group. . The HDP also supports a new constitution which will help solidify Erdoğan’s death-grip on power. This is a quid-pro-quo for separation. Thus HDP is exactly like AKP.
The ISIS/ISID fiasco is a planned clearance operation of eastern and southern Turkish territories for eventual sovereign habitation by the Kurds. Now the Kurds are cleansing ISIS/ISID along the Turkish-Syrian border. A Criminal Cabal comprised of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, America and other international terrorist organizations are preparing to mop-up the remainder of ISIS/ISID resistance in northern Syria. ISIS/ISID has done its job very well and will slowly disappear from the scene. The Criminal Cabal (and the Kurds) will then emerge victorious in northern Syria. Then on to Damascus to clean out Assad. Thus the Kurds will get their oil-rich homeland down to the former Syrian seacoast including the former Turkish region of Hatay. America is incredibly generous with other peoples’ property.
There is also pressure applied on the Kurds by the Turkish Islamist government to make the coming nation of Kurdistan an Islamic republic. This is alienating the Alevite Kurds who want no part of the Sunnis and historic Sunni oppression. Assassinations of Alevite Kurdish women in Paris a few years ago were a precursor to this sectarian inner conflict within the PKK. That’s what Turkey and its Middle East backers want. Sunni. Sunni. Sunni. It also increases the genocidal pressure on the Alevites. And no secularism in sight, anywhere.
CONCLUSION
Not really knowing what it wants, that’s what America will get. Chaos, genocide, fascism and religious-inspired terror, a lovely victory for Erdoğan’s advanced democracy and a clueless America.
The deplorable condition of Turkey was brought to us by the interaction of all the above political entities. The violence, dishonesty and antidemocratic political process is killing the Turkish people. But from
America’s perspective the process has done admirably well.
But we, the people, are neither in America nor are Americans. We are members of a fatherland, Turkey. As logical, patriotic people, we should vote for the interests of that fatherland. None of the above political parties serve those interests. Treacherous connivers, they speak with twisted tongues and sold-out souls. We all know this. It is time to fix it.
If you take the easy route and vote for CHP because they will likely be seated as a majority opposition party you are missing the big picture. Surely you now see the quality of the “new” CHP. Turkey needs a new party but not this regurgitated one. It needs a clean, intelligent, patriotic party to serve the interests of similar-minded people. A political entity is needed to describe a buffer and a balance between the fascists and the neo-fascists, that is, between the AKP and the others. We desperately need a parliamentary position that is reliable and America-free. Our children’s needs are not the needs of the Erdoğan family or the Saud family. We need brains, honesty and enlightenment in parliament not bullying, hatred and darkness.
If we are left to be the only true heirs of the enlightened principles of Mustaf Kemal Atatürk and the western Enlightenment…then what? Should we go “tıpış tıpış” like toddlers because there is some false security in CHP or because we are so clever that we can scheme our one vote? What did Mustafa Kemal Atatürk say in situations exactly like today’s? You all know what he said! And you all know what he did! And you all know what he did NOT do!
He did not go to the Sultan’s palace and play cute until the time was right. That remains the CHP strategy, a guaranteed loser against bullying fascists. Atatürk went to Samsun. And we also have a Samsun. Don’t betray your birthright. And don’t think that by collaborating with the sold-out-to-America parties you are doing a good thing. Remember the loaf of bread candidate! It will recur to you like a bad dream in a wet bed.
Don’t vote for the “American mandate” parties. Vote for intelligence, morality and independence. Vote for the interests of your fatherland. Vote for yourself, for your real country, your real fatherland, your home.
Russia is warning Google, Twitter and Facebook that they could be banned in the country if they don’t agree to hand over data on Russian bloggers and allow the Kremlin to block certain websites, Reuters reported.
Moscow claims failure to do so would violate Russian Internet laws that President Vladimir Putin promotes as security measures, but critics say amount to censorship.
A spokesman for Russia’s media watchdog said the three firms use encryption technology that prohibits the government from blocking sites that promote “unsanctioned protests and unrest,” which is allowed under Moscow’s Internet laws.
The laws also mandate that companies turn over data on any Russian bloggers with more than 3,000 readers per day.
The media oversight agency wrote each company, pressing them to comply with these dicta.
“In our letters we regularly remind [companies] of the consequences of violating the legislation,” the spokesman, Vadim Ampelonsky, told Reuters.
Russia has passed a series of Internet control laws in recent years.
The Kremlin granted itself the power to remove, without court order, sites promoting unauthorized protests. Another law requires popular bloggers to register with the government.
It’s not clear how Google, Twitter and Facebook will respond to the request.
According to transparency reports from the three tech firms, they have previously rejected most, if not all, of Moscow’s requests for specific user data.
“We realize they are registered under U.S. jurisdiction,” Ampelonsky said. “But I think in this case they should demonstrate equal respect to national legislation.”
Far from admitting defeat, Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to sabotage the agreement between Washington and Teheran which is to be signed the 30th June 2015. In order to do so, he could restart the war in Syria. His idea is to continue the work already accomplished by the Islamic Emirate in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, by applying the Wright plan and creating an independent pseudo-Kurdistan straddling Iraq and Syria.
The Wright plan, published in September 2013, modifies the projects for the remodelling of an enlarged Middle East. As concerns Syria and Iraq, it plans for the creation of a ’Sunnistan’ and a ’Kurdistan’. The former sate was created in 2014 by the Islamic Emirate (Daesh), while the latter still has to be realised. However, the Kurds are in the minority in Northern Syria. The Wright plan also mentions Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It seems to be in progress in the two former states, also thanks to the Islamic Emirate.
In order to sabotage the agreement which should be signed by Washington and Teheran on the 30th June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has prepared a new episode of the war against Syria.After the tentatives by the United States, France and the United Kingdom to hand over power to the Muslim Brotherhood (from February 2011 to the first Geneva Conference in June 2012), the mercenary war (from the Paris Conference of the Friends of Syria in July 2012 to the second Geneva Conference in January 2014), and the attempt to create chaos by the Islamic Emirate (from June 2014 to today), Israël now proposes to launch a fourth installment of the war.
The aim is to pursue the application of the plan elaborated by Robin Wright for the Pentagon – published in September 2013 by the New York Times – by creating an independent Kurdistan straddling Iraq and Syria [1].
General David Petraeus (ex-head of CentCom and director of the CIA) participated in March 2015 at a seminar in Erbil. He declared that the crimes committed by the Islamic Emirate were no threat either to the United States or Israël, and called for a struggle by any means possible against Iranian influence and the proposed agreement between Washington and Teheran.
Who are the Kurds ?
The Kurdish people are present in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, but no longer have a state since the failures of the Republic of Ararat (1927-30) and the Republic of Mahabad (1946-47). The Kurds are today spread out primarily across Turkey (13 to 20 million), Iran (5 to 6 million), Iraq (4 to 5 million) and finally Syria (3 million).
After some of them participated in the genocide of the Christians and the Yezidis, the Turkish Kurds were persecuted in their turn for a century in the name of « pan-Turkism ». During the period 1984-2000, the repression of the insurrection by the PKK caused at leaast 40,000 deaths.
The Iranian Kurds enjoy a certain autonomy, but are abandoned economically by Teheran.
The Iraqi Kurds have been linked to NATO since the beginning of the Cold War, first of all by assisting Saddam Hussein and fighting the Khomeinist revolution, then by working against Saddam when NATO decided to get rid of him. Today they enjoy regional autonomy and maintain embassies abroad.
The Kurds arrived in Syria when they fled the Turkish persecutions, first of all during the reign of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and then thirty years ago during the PKK insurrection. Those among them who had not yet been naturalised were awarded Syrian nationality by President Bachar el-Assad at the beginning of the war, and concluded an agreement with Damascus which provided them with weapons for the defence of their region.
The Kurds are a diverse people with powerful internal tensions. They do not speak the same language, have different religions, even though they are principally sunnites, and ally themselves with opposing political movements. Since the Cold War, they are divided between pro-US factions (the Barzani family which today controls part of Iraq) and pro-Soviet factions (Öcallan, who was kidnapped by the Israelis in 1999 on behalf of Turkey and has been emprisoned since then).
From left to right : Meir Amit (director of Mossad), Moshe Dayan (Israeli Minister of Defence) and their agent Molla Mustafa Barzani (father of the current President Masoud Barzani).
Iraqi Kurdistan : Mafia and the Mossad
Taking into account the role of Israël in Anglo-Saxon imperialism, the Barzani family – which was originally socialist – joined Mossad in the 1960’s which set them against the Iraqi Baath party [2]. Very poorly considered by the Kurds of Turkey, Iran and Syria, the current President Massoud Barzani is probably also a member of Mossad. He has managed to establish a certain prosperity in Iraqi Kurdistan, thanks to Israeli investments, and also to install a clanish régime.
President Barzani is holding onto his power despite the fact that his mandate ended almost two years ago – a non-democratic situation which does not seem to trouble Washington any more than that of Mahmoud Abbas (Palestine) or Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi (Yemen). His government wallows in nepotism and corruption. His clan occupies the main posts of importance, beginning with that of Prime Minister, which is reserved for his nephew Nechervan Barzani, and comprises 15 billionaires (in dollars) and thousands of millionnaires, without being able to explain the origins of their fortunes. Lawyers were the first to be repressed, with the condemnation of Me Kamal Qadir to 30 years in prison for having criticised President Barzani. Freedom of the Press has been no more than theoretical since 2010, after the kidnapping and assassination of the Kurdish journalist Sardasht Osman, guilty of having caricatured the President. The regional government is bankrupt, and has not paid many of its officials for several months.
Son of the current President Barzani, Masrour « Jomaa » Barzani continued his studies in Iran, the United Kingdom and the United States. He returned to Iraq in 1998, under Anglo-Saxon protection, settled in the « no-fly area », and took up responsibilities in the family party, the PDK. He quickly became the connection between his family and the CIA. In October 2010, he acquired the Château Noble, a few kilometres distant from the Agency’s headquarters in Langley, for 10 million dollars. He created and directed « Bas News », the main Iraqi Kurdish newspaper, and supervised all activities of the Iraqi Kurdish secret services. It is as such that he participated in the secret meetings in Amman (May 2014) and co-organised the joint offensive of the Islamic Emirate and the Peshmergas against Baghdad.
Iraqi Kurdistan and the project for the annexation of Northern Syria
In 2014, the Regional Government of Kurdistan participated in the conspiracy aiming to reconfigure Iraq and Syria, as described in the Wright plan. It participated in several meetings in Amman with the Jordanian secret services, the leaders of the Islamic Emirate, the leaders of armed groups in Syria and the Iraqi Naqchbandis [3]. It was agreed that, under the authority of Washington and Tel-Aviv, the Islamic Emirat and the Regional Government of Kurdistan would launch a coordinated attack to take control of a large part of Iraq. While the international Presse denounced the exactions of the Islamic Emirate in Iraq, Barzami’s Kurds would grab the oil fields of Kirkuk and expand their territory by 40 %.
Following that, while many states, who were secretly supporting the operation, publicly denounced the crimes against humanity and the pillages committed by the Islamic Emirate, the Regional Government of Kurdistan offered the service of the pipe-line they had just stolen to the jihadists so that they could sell the petrol they had just pillaged to the Europeans.
All condemnations of the alliance between the Regional Government of Kurdistan and the Islamic Emirate is severely repressed. So Hayder Shesho, the Yezidi leader who had spoken against it was arrested on the 7th April, although he has a double nationality with Germany.
In the years after 2000, the Israeli Chief of Staff was planning to neutralise the missile capacities of Egypt and Syria by placing Israel’s own missiles in South Sudan and the Iraqi Kurdistan. While the former region has achieved independence, the latter still has not. The Wright plan offers both the occasion to realise this strategic objective and to spread bloody confusion. In order to sabotage the agreement that Washington and Teheran are scheduled to sign on the 30th June, Benjamin Netanyahu has plans to force the Peshmergas (in other words, Barzani’s soldiers) into an assault on Northern Syria. And yet the Syrian Kurds are hostile to the Barzani mafia and have always been in the minority in this region.
For several months now, a campaign of Press lies has been blaming the Pershmergas for the actions of the Turkish Kurds of the PKK against the Islamic Emirate, for example during the battle of Kobane. The Western states, with France in the lead, have been sending arms directly to Erbil without going through Baghdad, in violation of Iraqi sovereignty. These weapons are not being used, but stored for the planned attack on Northern Syria.
In the United States Congress, Edward Royce and Eliot Engel, two representatives who traditionally channel the interests of the Israeli Likud, presented a proposition for law in November 2014 [4] which would authorise the delivery of arms directly to the Regional Government of Iraqi Kurdistan. Since the text was not adopted, these dispositions were included in the law concerning the Defence budget by the President of the Armed Forces Commission, Mac Thornberry, along with others who aim to simultaneously reinforce military aid to groups fighting against the Syrian Arab Republic. If this text were to be adopted by both houses, the proposition would deprive Baghdad of any power outside the the shiite area of Iraq, and would open the way for both the dismatling of the country and a fourth war in Syria. Most Iraqi politicians who speak publicly have warned of the dangers of such a policy. As for the chiite leader Moqtada el-Sadr (ex-commander of the Mahdi Army) he has declared that if the law was to be adopted, he would once again consider the United States as enemies of the Nation, and would make war on the 3,000 military advisors in Iraq as well as US iuterests abroad.
President Obama and Vice-President Biden strongly indicated to President Barzani, on the 5th May at the White House, that they would not allow Israel to pursue their plans, and demanded that the Iraqi Kurds stand down. However,in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Press is pretending on the contrary that President Obama warmly welcomed the delegation, and had promised to support an independent « Kurdistan ».
The new Israeli government, formed on the 7th May by Benjamin Netanyahu, is attempting to unify the jihadists of Northern Syria – the aim is to coordinate their withdrawal to Damascus when the Iraqi Kurds enter Syria to massacre the Kurds of the PYG (the local branch locale of the Turkish PKK, which supports the Syrian Arab Republic) and annex their territory.
President Erdoğan considers that the creation of an independent « Kurdistan » straddling Iraq and Syria would revive the Kurdish conflict in his country, and denounced the project as a step towards the destruction of Turkey. In the event of a Kurdo-Iraqi offensive in Syria, he could instantly take sides with Damascus.
There is no doubt that the Israeli project will be debated (together with the creation of an Arab NATO under Israeli control) during the next session of the Gulf Cooperation Council that President Obama – who is not a member – has called at Camp David.
Thierry Meyssan
[Translation: Pete Kimberley]
[1] “Imagining a Remapped Middle East”, Robin Wright, The New York Times Sunday Review, September 28, 2013.
[2] “”Kurdistan” Israeli Style”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Al-Watan (Syria), Voltaire Network, 14 July 2014.
[3] “PKK revelations on ISIL attack and creation of “Kurdistan””, Voltaire Network, 8 July 2014.
[4] H. R. 5747, “Bill to authorize the direct provision of defense articles, defense services, and related training to the Kurdistan Regional Government, and for other purposes”, House of Representatives, November 20, 2014.
Thierry Meyssan
French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.
Just as the peace negotiations are about to begin (15.05.2015) bad news coming out of South Cyprus. This rejection of the Federal Solution (BBF) which has been on the table for the past 35 years is an indication of further Greek Cypriot resistance to the peace process. The support of the second central party AKEL is also expected.
Hardliner new EDEK leader Marinos Sizopoulos
Social EDEK’s central committee has decided the party cannot accept bi-zonal bi-communal federation, either as the name or the content of a solution in Cyprus, saying that “federation cannot co-exist with bi-zonality or even more with bi-communality.”
The committee decision will be tabled before a party congress to be held on June 14. Members of the congress may approve, reject or amend the decision.
In its decision on Sunday, the Committee outlined the reasons for which the party did not accept this form of solution, noting that “it is racist, it promotes ethnic and communal partition, it is undemocratic because it equates the minority with the majority, it deprives citizens of their right to be elected at their place of residence.”
Moreover, “it introduces restrictions to the establishment and the purchase of property, it makes Cypriot citizens second-class EU citizens, it legalises and reinforces illegal settling and the distortion of the demographic character, it establishes a state under guarantee, it is defined by a complex decision-making process and by complicated international representation, which leads to deadlock and intractable problems and provides for the presence of foreign troops.”
EDEK maintains that the proposed bi-zonality provides for borders and that bi-communality includes guaranteed majorities of people and property. It provides for political and human rights restrictions, elements which do are not consistent with a federation but with a confederation.
At the same time, the central committee said the party would struggle for the continuation of the Republic of Cyprus, noting that the state that will come out of a solution must be really democratic, must safeguard political and human rights for all its citizens all over the island, exclude foreign troops and illegal settlers and ensure that all refugees have the right to return to their ancestral homes.
Furthermore it noted that it must make sure that third counties are not entitled to exercise guarantees over the Republic of Cyprus in any way, and called on all Greek Cypriot parties and that Turkish Cypriot leadership to express clearly their positions on these principles for a Cyprus settlement.
EDEK Central Committee said that cooperation and co-existence with Turkish Cypriots, with no racist or other limitations, must be developed.
Opposition forces have been gathering momentum since the Turkish Cypriots elected a new leader last month, and since obstacles to the resumption of talks have been removed.
UN Special Envoy bringing leaders of both sides together at dinner in Nicosia (10.05.2015)
