Category: Authors

Dialogue Bridge Between Malatya and Yerevan

After the new political steps of Turkish government to Armenia, some Anatolian cities started to act on government’s way. At Akhdamar Ceremony, we witnessed possibility of tolerance and friendship situation among us. Thousands of people visited Van for joining to religious ceremony. Turkish Armenians and Armenians from Armenia lived in a different atmosphere in Van. Turkish people shared Turkish hospitality for visitors. Armenian visitors stayed a few days in Van and they understood that states should have done normalisation process two years ago. Political approaches are not efficient. Mainly, people can be successful to create a dialogue bridge between Turkey and Armenia.

Akhdamar Ceremony ended and it has been first step to new age for neighbors. People of Van created good conditions and a newspaper which is called Van Times published Armenian pages for this important day. There was no any provocation against to joiners. But some groups declared their ideas against to this ceremony with saying that it was a political game of Turkish government to be member of European Union. Armenian authorities could give directions people to support this peace process. Leader of Turkish Armenian Patriarchate, Tatul Anushyan criticized Echmiadzin and other opponent Armenian authorities. Anushyan says that “This ambiance is very important. I would have wanted to see other people who are against to this ceremony. We’ll realize peace with these initiatives” Responsible reverend Drtad Uzunyan says that “I can’t express my feelings, this is an enormous happening to be here after 95 years. Thanks to Turkish state and government” We can not be pioneers under this political atmosphere. Two sides should have responsibilities without same political feelings. Turkish government has a big vision about this issue. Armenia should trust in Turkey and come together with this country. President of the Chamber of Industry and Trade in Van, Zahir Kandashoglu defended importance of free trade with Armenia. He promised to employ 50.000 people if borders will be opened.

Today we witness a new peaceful approach of Malatya. Carmuzu Tepebasi Mosque Foundation decided to restore historical Tashoron Armenian Church which is situated in Hrant Dink’s street in Malatya. It is a very important circumstance. It shares a great tolerance of Islamic idea. A foundation of mosque restores an Armenian church. Also we expect same sensitivity from Yerevan to save Turkish and Islamic historical buildings in Armenia. Also another happening is important. Yerevan complained about symbol of Malatya’s International Film Festival. Because Malatya uses Golden Apricot emblem for this festival. Armenia has used Golden Apricot symbol for many years at its film festival. Authorities in Yerevan declared to not use it by Malatya. Governor of Malatya, Ulvi Saran says thay “ I couldn’t understand approaches of Yerevan. Apricot is a natural symbol of Malatya. Also %75 production of apricot is provided by Malatya. Yerevan can be our partner about this subject. We can create new works under the name of Golden Apricot with Yerevan, it is possible”

Demand of Ulvi Saran is very important to realize a peace bridge. I think Malatya and Yerevan can be pioneers for normalisation process between Turkey and Armenia. Yerevan should create committes to share cultural values in Malatya like a festival. Also Malatya can do it in Nor-Malatia, Yerevan. We are ready for cooperation. In some sources I learned that Atom Egoyan who is chief of Armenian Golden Apricot Film Festival, is from Arapkir. His grandfather went to another region from Arapkir. Today this region is within Malatya. Also it can be a common value between states. We have too many tools for establishing this bridge. Are we ready?

Mehmet Fatih ÖZTARSU – Aravot Newspaper

Armenian version was published for Aravot Newspaper / Armenia

October 4, 2010
DARKNESS MADE VISIBLE BY THE TURKISH ZOLA

DARKNESS MADE VISIBLE BY THE TURKISH ZOLA

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all, but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
John Milton
Paradise Lost

When Emile Zola published his historic letter, J’Accuse, addressed to the President of France, in L’Aurore newspaper on 13 January 1898, he was rich and famous. But that did not stop his mighty anger. Outraged by the travesty of justice that resulted in the false arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus, a loyal Jewish army officer, he appealed to the president and the nation for reason and justice to prevail.

Dreyfus was convicted by falsified evidence and forged documents, and was a scapegoat for the thoroughly corrupt French Army general staff. He had been imprisoned at a hell hole called Devil’s Island for three years when Zola wrote his letter. (1)

Zola did so for two reasons. First, to draw the public’s attention to the shameful miscarriage of justice. Second, to provoke his own arrest for libel so that new evidence could be introduced that would prove Dreyfus innocent. He succeeded on both counts. Dreyfus was cleared in 1899 and fully exonerated and reinstated in the French Army in 1906. Zola died under suspicious circumstances on 29 September 1902, “a moment in the history of human conscience,” as eulogized by Anatole France. (2)

On 29 September 2010, 108 years to the day after Zola’s death, the ongoing disaster called Turkey received yet another Pinochet-style shock in its struggle to retain its secularity. Hanefi Avcı, the head of the police department in the city of Eskişehir, was arrested for writing a best seller. His book laid bare the widely suspected fact that Turkey’s highest government institution’s—police, army, and judicial system—had been infiltrated and indeed subverted by a religious cemaat, the Fethullah Gülen movement. (3) Since Avcı himself was once an eager activist for Gülen’s cemaat, the book has a certain whiff of authenticity.

And yesterday, Avcı was arrested. The reason? The usual nonsense of the Ergenekon prosecutor. It seems that suddenly the previously highly esteemed police chief has connections with a terrorist organization. Was the terror organization the Gülen movement? Ha, ha, ha, no not quite. The Gülenista government of Turkey, also known as the AKP, paid no attention to the compelling information in Avcı’s book about their sugar daddy, Gülen. It decided on some other “terror group,” some socialist or maybe, horror of horrors, some communist operation. Another Alice-in-Wonderland group, cobbled together with false documents and bogus telephone conversations, using the latest listening and stealth technology provided by…guess who?

Avcı refused to file a petition suggested by his lawyer to demand release from prison pending presentation of formal charges. Like Zola, he wants to experience the whole disgusting mess called Turkish justice. He also refuses to speak to any judicial or prosecutorial officials that he suspects of being members of the Gülen cemaat. But Avcı says that he will talk, at his trial. Like Emile Zola, may he sing long and loud.

Hanefi Avcı, KORKMA!

Cem Ryan
Istanbul

NOTES:
1. An excellent summary of the Zola/Dreyfus affair by University of Georgia law professor Donald Wilkes can be found at:
For those interested in a dramatic representation of this incident see the stunning classic film (1937) The Life of Emile Zola:

2. “Il fut un moment de la conscience humaine.” Anatole France, 5 October 1902.

3. Gülen lives in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. It is well and widely known that his activities are aided, abetted, and otherwise supported by the United States government, in particular by the CIA. The latter’s officials were signatories to Gülen’s permanent residency application (“green card”), which he was granted in 2008. For more detailed information see ISLAM, SECULARISM, AND THE BATTLE FOR TURKEY’S FUTURE at:

October 1, 2010
Kurdish Question Dominates Turkish Politics

By: Saban Kardas

Kurdish unrest in Turkey.

Having received unequivocal backing from voters in the constitutional referendum, the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) has moved to address Turkey’s structural problems, most notably the Kurdish question, through a combination of domestic measures, as well as regional and international diplomacy.

The resolution of the Kurdish issue has been one of the main targets of the AKP government. The AKP first sought to address this issue through domestic political reforms in the early 2000’s, also benefiting from the relative calm prevailing in southeastern Anatolia, thanks to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) suspending its operations. However, granting greater cultural rights to the Kurds as part of Turkey’s EU accession process or devising socio-economic policies proved to be ineffective. The threat posed by the PKK’s separatist terrorism lingered, as the organization managed to maintain its manpower in safe havens in Northern Iraq.

The PKK’s resumption of its campaign of violence in the second half the decade caught Ankara by surprise, triggering a heated debate. Faced with the PKK’s deadly attacks against Turkish military outposts from its bases in Northern Iraq, the AKP bowed to pressure and considered seriously pursuing stronger military measures to tackle this problem. Coordinating its policies with the US and the Northern Iraqi Kurdish authorities, the Turkish army undertook incursions into Northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK militants in the winter of 2007-2008. Greater security cooperation and intelligence sharing between Turkey, the US and Iraq, or the enhanced military operations inside Turkey could put an end to the PKK’s terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, the AKP government launched an ambitious “Kurdish opening” in 2009, yet failed to garner popular and political support for the measure. The government’s mishandling of the opening, coupled with the PKK’s and pro-Kurdish parties’ uncooperative attitude turned the entire Kurdish initiative into a near fiasco (Terrorism Monitor, February 19). The government could change the terms of the debate only through its smart moves to table the constitutional amendment package in the first part of 2010, arguing that the Kurdish issue could also be addressed as part of a broader “democratization agenda” (EDM, May 5).

PKK violence, however, continued throughout the spring and summer, which exposed the failure of the Turkish security apparatus in fighting against the PKK formations inside and outside Turkey (Terrorism Monitor, July 8). The escalation of the conflict could be avoided only through the PKK’s declaration of a unilateral ceasefire prior to the referendum, which was partly facilitated by some civil society organizations. Following the referendum, the PKK sent signals that it would resume its campaign, unless Turkish security forces halted their operations by a self-declared deadline of September 20. A deadly mine explosion killing nine civilians on September 16 reignited the debate on terrorism (www.haber7.com, September 16). Though the PKK denied its involvement in the attack, it was a stark reminder that the PKK remained a potent force that could deal a serious blow to Turkey’s security. The PKK decided to extend the “non-action” period until this week as a goodwill gesture (Radikal, September 20).

Moreover, the success of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in boycotting the referendum in the Kurdish-speaking provinces reiterated once again that the ethnic Kurdish movement still enjoys substantial support in the region and continues to harbor ambitious demands for greater political rights. Indeed, the BDP representatives even went as far as demanding democratic autonomy (EDM, September 20).

Faced with this double-edged challenge, the AKP now seeks to address this issue through complex diplomatic traffic. There have been numerous visits undertaken by cabinet members and security bureaucrats. Turkish Interior Minister, Besir Atalay, was in Arbil over the weekend, where Kurdistan Regional Government sources expressed their support for Turkey’s fight against terrorism and the peaceful resolution to the problem (www.trt.net.tr, September 27). He is expected to soon meet his Syrian and Iraqi counterparts. The Head of the Turkish Intelligence Agency, Hakan Fidan, visited Washington last week, and might visit northern Iraq soon. On September 28, a US delegation led by Lloyd James Austin, commanding general of the American forces in Iraq, visited Turkey to discuss the joint efforts (Yeni Safak, September 29).

These contacts are undertaken within the framework of a joint “action plan” agreed in April to combat the PKK, as a result of the trilateral security mechanism between Turkey, the US and Iraq (IHA, April 11). Through closer cooperation with the US and the Iraqi Kurds, the action plan would have helped Turkey to take stronger military measures to eliminate the threat posed by the PKK, which to date has proved ineffective.

Although the recent initiatives also seek to address the security aspects of PKK terrorism, security cooperation through the trilateral mechanism might be secondary to the AKP government’s policy of exploring a non-military solution to the problem in a new political setting. The goal of the contacts is to somehow convince the PKK to extend its unilateral ceasefire, halt its operations inside Turkey, and turn its non-action into a permanent truce (Hurriyet Daily News, September 27). Once the guns fall silent, the government hopes to find a suitable environment within which it can address the Kurdish problem through domestic political reforms.

The crux of the issue is what will happen to the thousands of PKK militants. In this process, the PKK will possibly withdraw its forces from Turkey into Northern Iraq. In the most optimistic scenario, PKK militants might voluntarily turn themselves in and reintegrate themselves into civilian life, if the AKP’s democratic solution succeeds. Since this is highly unlikely, Turkey expects the Iraqi Kurds and the US to take steps towards the disarmament of these PKK militants and eventually end the PKK’s military presence.

However, given the uncertainty over the future of Iraq and the US military presence in the region, it might be unrealistic to expect either the US or the Iraqi Kurds to demilitarize the PKK. Turkey will still need to maintain its operational capability to carry out operations inside Iraq, as reflected by the government’s decision to table a motion for the extension of the Turkish army’s mandate to do so. It seems that there is no easy choice between the use of force and diplomacy.

https://jamestown.org/program/kurdish-question-dominates-turkish-politics/

September 30, 2010
Jihad is not a crime

Before I lived in Turkey, I thought the word “jihad” was a word of hate and violence. I associated it with suicide bombers and crazed fanatics who flew airplanes into buildings.

But then I went to Turkey. And I started meeting people named Jihad!

I remember this one day in particular, when I met my first Jihad (actually, his name was “Cihat”, the Turkish spelling of “Jihad”).

My wife and I went to this beautiful tea garden. It was up on this high bluff with an incredible view of the Bosphorus Straits and the blue Marmara Sea stretching all the way to the horizon.

We met up with my wife’s cousin, his wife, and their kids. And this guy, this cousin, his name was Cihat!

But this guy with the radical, violent name, he was just a big teddy bear. I mean, you could see it in his eyes, in his face, in the way he looked at his wife and kids. You could even hear it in the way he talked to me. He was one the gentlest souls I had ever met.

When we parted ways that day, I was feeling a little confused, wondering, my god, how can this gentle teddy bear of a man have a crazy, violent, hateful name like Cihat? What on earth were his parents thinking? Did they even know what that word meant?

Turns out I was the one who didn’t know what that word meant.

Because in the months that followed, I met tons of Cihats in Turkey. It turns out Cihat is actually a pretty common guy’s name.

And I figured, the parents must know something I don’t. I mean, it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, parents love their children. No parents in the world are going to give their kid a hateful, violent name.

So I figured I would look into what this word meant, jihad. And here’s what I found…

The word “jihad” has multiple meanings. And yes, “violent war against an external infidel” is one of them. But an equally valid, equally accepted meaning of “jihad” is “war against the infidel within the self”. The phrase “I am conducting a jihad” means, “I am rooting out sin within MY OWN heart”!

Now, this is not some niche, alternative meaning bandied about by a few academic philosophers.

I didn’t go to some obscure, Middle East-loving, crazy peacenik source to find this definition. I just went to Wikipedia. I went to Wikipedia and typed in “jihad”. And then just to verify what I learned, I went to a couple other mainstream American websites like Yahoo, and Ask.com.

Turns out this other meaning, “purging your own heart of sin”, is a mainstream, widely-accepted meaning. In fact, it is the majority meaning of this word. Most of the people who use this word mean “purge the infidel within your own heart”.

Now, I’m not saying that suicide bombers are peace-loving, gentle souls. I am saying that for every crazed lunatic, there are a hundred gentle, loving souls who say jihad is about purifying your own heart. They are saying never mind the non-believers, our hands are full just living God’s words in our own hearts.

This theme is common to pretty much every religion around the world. For every Christian who thinks Christianity is about grabbing a sword and slaying the heathens in the name of the Lord, there are a hundred who think Christianity is about saying, “Never mind the heathens, my job is to purify my own heart.”

It means one of the primary meanings of Jihad is very similar to what Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world”. And Gandhi, he was a gentle Indian guy who walked around in a white robe talking about peace. Everybody loves Gandhi. And yet he was basically telling people, “Yeah man, let’s all do some jihad!”

So it turns out that our conventional-wisdom, popular understanding of the word “jihad” is ridiculously myopic. It means that when some crazy American woman goes off the deep end and moves to Pakistan, and we call her “Jihad Jane”, we’re just highlighting our own ignorance.

And if we’re myopic about that, what else are we myopic about?

When we meet someone else, someone from another religion, or another country, or another job or social class, it is our duty to humanity to remind ourselves that our understanding of that person is probably incorrect. And it is our duty to the world to try to overcome that incorrectness.

When we allow an incorrect understanding to drive our actions, those actions will be misguided. And even if we do reach our goal, we will probably find out, too late, that we have chosen the wrong one.

Matt Krause

Originally published at mattkrause.com on 18 june 2010

September 28, 2010
A guidebook for new Congresspersons for January 2011

(more…)

September 23, 2010
Turkey Bolsters Ties With Turkic States

Turkey Bolsters Ties With Turkic States Turkey Bolsters Ties With Turkic States

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 170

September 22, 2010

By Saban Kardas

Turkey hosted the tenth summit of Turkic-speaking countries in Istanbul on September 16. The Istanbul summit, bringing together Turkish, Kazakh, Azeri, Kyrgyz and Turkmen leaders, took steps towards furthering institutionalizing this inter-governmental platform, in line with the conclusions of the previous meeting in Nakhchivan in October 2009. Through the Nakhchivan declaration, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan had formed a Turkic-Speaking Countries Cooperation Council –or Turkish Council, as Turkey seeks to promote it. In Istanbul, the leaders agreed to implement measures to make the new bodies operational, including the Council of Heads of State, Council of Foreign Ministers, Council of Senior Foreign Ministry Officials, Wise Men’s Council and Permanent Secretariat. Moreover, they agreed to set up other institutions to protect joint cultural heritage, form a union of universities, and create a fund to support research activities (Anadolu Ajansi, September 16; for an English text of the final declaration, see: Today’s Zaman, September 17).

Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, the host of the summit, emphasized the importance of the meeting to strengthen the commonalities among the brotherly nations in terms of language, history, religion and cultural values. He called upon the leaders to diversify relations in various areas. The leaders attending the summit highlighted the role of this burgeoning cooperation in contributing to peace and pledged to deepen solidarity to boost regional stability, human rights and a market economy.

The conclusions of the meeting reflect the Turkish government’s desire to play a greater leadership role in the Turkish speaking world. Although Ankara sought to forge closer ties among these states in the early post-Cold War period, it failed to realize this ambitious objective. However, in recent years, the Turkish government has demonstrated its willingness to revitalize cooperation among Turkic countries. The recent decisions are, thus, products of Ankara’s determined moves in that direction (EDM, November 23, 2008). After the Nakhchivan declaration was passed last year, Gul presented it as a major success on Turkey’s part (www.euractiv.com.tr, October 6, 2009). Turkey expects the Turkish Council to develop based on the model of other similar organizations, such as the Commonwealth, Arab League or Francophonie (www.tcbb.gov.tr, September 16). Nonetheless, in an example of the limitations before this objective the Kazakh, Turkmen and Kyrgyz leaders spoke at times in Russian during the summit (Dogan Haber Ajansi, September 16).

In a move that underscored Turkey’s leadership role, the first rotating presidency was assumed by Turkey and a senior Turkish diplomat, Halil Akinci, former ambassador to Moscow, was appointed as the Secretary-General of the council (Zaman, September 16). So far, there have been irregular summits as well as bilateral meetings between different states. Ankara believes the establishment of a permanent secretariat in Istanbul would increase the visibility of the council in regional and international affairs and contribute to the institutionalization of governmental ties.

Speaking at the summit, Gul went as far as maintaining that “from now on, we are one nation, but six states.” The phrase “one nation, two states,” has been used to define the warm ties between Turkey and Azerbaijan. It remains to be seen if other Turkic states will embrace it to the same extent to identify themselves so closely with Turkey. Ankara has been unable to convince all Turkic states to participate. Uzbekistan has deliberately avoided attending the summits since the early 2000’s. Turkmenistan has also been aloof to this platform for some time. In that sense, Turkmenistan’s representation at the Istanbul summit can be considered as a positive step. Nonetheless, referring to its foreign policy principle of “positive neutrality,” Turkmenistan did not sign the Nakhchivan declaration. Uzbekistan again was absent from the Istanbul summit, underscoring continuing divisions.

Besides its importance for intra-Turkic cooperation, the Istanbul summit also provided a venue for the participating leaders to hold various bilateral meetings with their counterparts to discuss issues of specific relevance. Turkey, for its part, used that opportunity to deepen ties with Azerbaijan. On the margins of the summit, Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Azeri President, Ilham Aliyev, signed a framework agreement to form the High Level Strategic Cooperation Council (Hurriyet, September 15). Ankara has signed similar agreements with several countries, mainly its Middle Eastern neighbors. The agreement with Baku was in preparation for some time, and its conclusion further highlights Ankara repairing its ties with Azerbaijan following the row caused by the Turkish-Armenian normalization process.

Moreover, the energy ministers from Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan discussed energy cooperation. Ankara already has an agreement to purchase Turkmen gas, provided that transit problems are resolved. Thus, Turkey wants to contribute to the resolution of the disputes between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, for it would also deepen cooperation as part of the East-West energy corridor and enable the export of Turkmen gas to Europe through Turkey. Turkish Energy Minister, Taner Yildiz, noted that they avoided discussing the status of the Caspian Sea, especially border issues. He stressed that it could still be possible to develop trilateral cooperation in some undisputed sectors of the Caspian even before other major issues were resolved. Azeri Energy Minister, Natiq Aliyev, also expressed hope that the remaining disagreements could be resolved so that Turkmen gas could be exported through the Caspian and Azerbaijan. The Turkish side welcomed this meeting as a positive step, which might boost prospects for the Nabucco pipeline (Anadolu Ajansi, September 15).

For some time, the Turkish government has been criticized for its neglect of Central Asia in its foreign policy priorities (EDM, June 25). In contrast, the government has presented its recent steps in the South Caucasus and Central Asia as proof that it has been pursuing a multidimensional foreign policy. Therefore, Ankara widely publicized the Istanbul summit as a great success. Nonetheless, those skeptical of the government urge caution and argue that one should wait to see if the declaration will be matched with deeds before judging the success of the government’s recent initiatives within the Turkic world (www.211yyte.org, September 17).

https://jamestown.org/program/turkey-bolsters-ties-with-turkic-states/

September 22, 2010