Category: Authors

Aliyev Family Plunders Azerbaijan’s Oil Revenue

The government of Azerbaijan allocates its multi-billion dollar oil and gas revenue in four ways: 1) Bribery; 2) Theft by Pres. Aliyev’s family and his cronies; 3) Military purchases; and 4) Other budgetary matters. No wonder the majority of the people in Azerbaijan live in abject poverty, despite the billions of petrodollars earned by Aliyev’s autocracy.

Last week, we covered Azerbaijan’s bribery at the Council of Europe and throughout the world. This week, we present examples of how large amounts of Azerbaijan’s wealth are stolen by the Aliyev family and members of the ruling clan. A U.S. State Department report on human rights referred to the “pervasive corruption” of Azerbaijan’s increasingly authoritarian regime. Transparency International, in its 2016 global survey of corruption, ranked Azerbaijan among the most corrupt nations — 123rd out of 176 countries.

Last month, reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia revealed in her website that the three largest clients of Pilatus Bank in Malta are from Azerbaijan: Kamaladdin Heydarov, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Emergency Situations, followed by the young son and daughter of Pres. Aliyev, whose names are Heydar Aliyev and Leyla Aliyeva.

Galizia reported: “Heydar Aliyev [President’s son] had first tried to open an account at the Bank of Valetta [in Malta], but was refused on the grounds that he is a major politically exposed person from one of the most corrupt countries, and a serious money-laundering risk.” She further revealed: “60% of Pilatus Bank’s deposits belong to Azerbaijani politically exposed persons.” We can therefore safely assume that the amount of money deposited by these three Azeris is in the millions of dollars!

Interestingly, the owner of Pilatus Bank is an Iranian by the name of Seyed Ali Sadr Hashemenijad who “was caught on camera removing bags of documents from his bank’s premises last Thursday night [April 20, 2017], accompanied by the bank’s risk manager, Antoniella Gauci.”

Unfortunately, the Maltese bank is not the only one where the Aliyevs and their clan have stashed tons of money. There are scores of off-shore companies set up by the Aliyevs and their intermediaries to launder large amounts of cash difficult to trace back to the leaders of Azerbaijan.

There are so many financial scandals involving the Aliyevs that it is hard to pinpoint a specific one; but one of their biggest scandals involves the purchase of luxury real estate in Dubai for $75 million by the three Aliyev children, according to the Washington Post. Heydar Aliyev, the then 11-year-old son of Pres. Aliyev, bought nine waterfront mansions for $44 million in 2009! His two sisters, Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva, bought several more mansions for an additional $31 million. These properties were paid for “upfront.” Where do children of their young age get $75 million given that they have no income and their father Pres. Aliyev’s annual salary is only $228,000!

The Washington Post article exposing these scandalous details explained that the “rush to move assets overseas, often with scant regard for returns, is a common feature of many oil-producing nations, where corrupt elites seek to ensure that their wealth is safe just in case political winds at home change.”

OCCRP’s website (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) includes dozens of articles about examples of major corruption in Azerbaijan. In 2012, OCCRP named Pres. Ilham Aliyev its “Person of the Year” for his “links to crimes and corruption.” OCCRP reported that Mehriban Aliyeva, Pres. Aliyev’s wife, is “owner, director or shareholder of a web of offshore companies that were reportedly used by the family to conduct lucrative business dealings worth many millions of dollars.”

Indeed, Pres. Aliyev and his family own a multitude of expensive properties around the world. OCCRP reported that a building in Bucharest, Romania, purchased for $7.3 million, became the headquarters of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, named after Pres. Ilham Aliyev’s father who ruled Azerbaijan from 1993 to 2003. The Foundation is run by the family of Pres. Aliyev. According to OCCRP, the purchase of this building involved “offshore transactions, links to corrupt officials and organized crime, insider deals and a peculiar cult of personality for a dead leader.” The Aliyevs also own expensive buildings and houses in London (worth at least $25 million), Moscow (worth tens of millions of dollars), Dubai, and the Czech Republic.

Finally, Pres. Aliyev’s daughters Leyla and Arzu own some of the most luxurious hotels in Baku, according to OCCRP, including the Four Seasons, Sheraton, and the Marriott, among others. An Azerbaijani real estate expert told OCCRP that “the high-end Baku hotels owned or closely connected to the family are valued at $10 billion.”

OCCRP concluded that the Aliyev dynasty has been involved in “numerous secretive business operations across several continents in recent years! Using offshore companies and middlemen, the First Family took over considerable chunks of the Azerbaijani economy — including gold mines, tourism, telecom companies and banks — while buying up luxury properties in various European and Gulf states.”

May 10, 2017
Azerbaijan Accused of Giving Millions in Bribes to Council of Europe

For years, the government of Azerbaijan has been showering politicians and dignitaries from around the world with expensive gifts, such as silk carpets, gold, silver, caviar, cash, and all-expense paid trips in exchange for their votes in favor of Azerbaijan and against Armenia and Artsakh (Karabagh). This illicit practice is so prevalent that Europeans describe it as “caviar diplomacy.”

Even though this bribery goes on behind closed doors and it is disclosed neither by Azeri officials nor by crooked foreign politicians, once in a while it comes to light. We should all remember that what is disclosed is a tiny portion of the large amount of bribery doled out to Baku visitors, officials in various countries, and those serving in international organizations like the United Nations.

Recently, a great scandal was exposed in the Council of Europe involving millions of dollars of cash given to some of its members in return for defeating decisions critical of Azerbaijan or supporting unfavorable reports on Artsakh.

As a result, Transparency International, the world’s largest anti-corruption group, has called on the Council of Europe to investigate serious allegations of corruption. The European Stability Initiative (ESI) also accused Azerbaijan of unduly influencing Council of Europe decisions by transferring huge sums of money and other favors to key parliamentarians. ESI urged that an independent investigation be conducted to look into the PACE vote in 2013, rejecting a highly critical report of political prisoners in Azerbaijan and the role of members of that country’s delegation.

The Guardian published a lengthy expose on April 20, 2017, titled: “Fresh Claims of Azerbaijan vote-rigging at European human rights body.” Two high ranking officials of PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) have informed The Guardian about PACE members receiving bribes from Azerbaijan in exchange for votes in favor of that country. PACE is composed of 324 Parliamentarians from 47 European countries, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey.

Arif Mammadov, a former Azerbaijani diplomat informed The Guardian that a PACE member was given over $30 million by the government of Azerbaijan to hand out as bribes to other PACE members. “Tobias Billström, a Swedish delegate to the assembly and former justice minister, said ‘very credible members’ had told him they had been offered bribes to vote in a certain way. He is one of 64 parliamentarians to have signed a resolution calling for an independent investigation into ‘serious and credible allegations of grave misconduct’ centered on an Azerbaijani vote,” The Guardian reported.

“The claims were first laid out in a 2012 report by the European Stability Initiative think tank, but have gathered momentum since Italian prosecutors began investigating a former chair of the center-right group, Italian deputy Luca Volontè. He is accused of accepting €2.39m [$2.6 million] in bribes from Azerbaijan in exchange for supporting its government in the Council of Europe. He faces a trial for money laundering, and Milan’s public prosecutor is appealing a decision to drop a corruption charge against him. He has always denied any wrongdoing,” according to The Guardian.

Even the President of PACE, Pedro Agramunt, is in trouble because he has refused to open an investigation into Azerbaijan’s bribery scandal. His recent trip to Syria has increased the number of PACE members who have called for his resignation. Since Agramunt cannot be fired under the Rules of Procedure, the PACE Bureau censored him last week by resolving that he is not authorized to make any official visits, attend meetings or make any public statements on behalf of the Assembly in his capacity as President. He is expected to resign shortly.

Furthermore, the Council of Europe launched an investigation in 2015 into Azerbaijan’s compliance with the European Convention on human rights, the first such inquiry into a member state in the last 25 years!

It is shameful that PACE, a body created to champion human rights, is falling victim to the Azeri dictator’s bribery schemes. These allegations undermine the core values of the Council of Europe. It should be unacceptable that during previous Azeri elections when PACE members went there as observers, they surprisingly issued highly positive reports, whereas the rest of the international observers had very negative assessments. Such a contrast brought up concerns that Azerbaijan had managed to bribe the PACE observers to cover up the corrupt elections.

The Guardian concluded that “Azerbaijan uses the [PACE] assembly to add a veneer of legitimacy to the authoritarian rule of its president, Ilham Aliyev, who has ruled the country since 2003.”

Ignoring Azerbaijan’s abuses of bribery would mean that the Council of Europe could no longer be viewed as the guardian of human rights!

May 2, 2017
Pres. Trump Succumbs to Turkish Pressures By not Recognizing the Armenian Genocide

Armenians and Turks around the world wait with bated breath each year to see if the President of the United States would use in his annual April 24 statement the word Genocide to describe the mass killings of Armenians.

Armenians and Turks seem to forget that the United States has not only recognized the Armenian Genocide, but has done so repeatedly at the highest levels: The House of Representatives recognized the Armenian Genocide twice in 1975 and 1984. So did President Reagan in his Presidential Proclamation 4838, issued on April 22, 1981. Most importantly, the United States Government officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in a report filed with the International Court of Justice (World Court) in 1951.

Therefore, after all this recognition, as I have repeatedly stated in my columns, Armenians no longer need additional acknowledgments by the President of the United States or the U.S. Congress.

This year, many were curious if Pres. Trump would issue a statement at all on April 24 and whether he will use the term Armenian Genocide. After 84 members of Congress wrote a joint letter to Pres. Trump and private individuals like Mike Sarian of California contacted high level Trump administration officials urging the President to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, the White House issued a statement on April 24, declining to call it genocide.

The good news is that, given Pres. Trump’s lack of familiarity with Armenian issues, and not having made any campaign promises to the Armenian community, the Trump administration did not completely ignore the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and marked this special day with a statement, as was done by several previous presidents. Pres. Trump’s statement mentions the basic facts of the Genocide, describing the Armenian mass killings as “one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century. Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.”

While Armenians are disappointed that Pres. Trump shied away from using the term Armenian Genocide, the Turks have no reason to celebrate. On the contrary, they should be ashamed that the President of the United States is accusing their ancestors of committing “one of the worst atrocities of the 20^th century” and refers to the killings of 1.5 million Armenians, which the Turkish government denies to this day!

The bad news, however, is that Pres. Trump issued a statement that does not acknowledge the Armenian Genocide as a genocide. Pres. Trump’s aides have simply copied the texts issued for eight years by Pres. Obama and before him by Presidents Bush and Clinton, including the reference to the Armenian term “Meds Yeghern,” which is not understood by anyone except Armenians, and does not have the legal meaning under international law of the term genocide or ‘tseghasbanoutyoun’ in Armenian. The use of “Meds Yeghern” is simply a clever ploy to avoid the word Genocide. In the past, I have taken the position that if a President cannot acknowledge the Genocide, he should not insult the memory of the Armenian victims and the intelligence of Armenian-Americans by referring to it as ‘tragedy’ and ‘atrocities.’ When Sean Spicer, Trump’s spokesman was asked about the White House’s omission of the term genocide from its April 24 statement, he cynically replied: “it is perfectly in keeping with the language that’s been used over and over again [by previous Presidents].” It is shocking that a Pres. Trump, who takes such pride in speaking out his mind and strongly criticizes the shortcomings of previous presidents, is all of a sudden proud to follow their unacceptable censorship of the Armenian Genocide! Pres. Trump angered a lot of people around the world when he called Pres. Erdogan after the referendum earlier this month and congratulating him on a tainted election that gave Erdogan dictatorial powers! Pres. Trump is scheduled to welcome Pres. Erdogan to the White House in May!

I fully agree with the reactions of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) and the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) to Pres. Trump’s statement. The ANCA stated: “President Trump has chosen to enforce Ankara’s gag-rule against American condemnation and commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. In failing to properly mark April 24th, President Trump is effectively outsourcing U.S. genocide-prevention policy to Recep Erdogan, an arrogant and authoritarian dictator who clearly enjoys the public spectacle of arm-twisting American presidents into silence on Turkey’s mass murder of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other Christians.” The AAA stated: “the President’s statement fails to stand up for human rights and is inconsistent with American values, and represents the same kind of capitulation to Turkish authoritarianism which will cost more lives.”

Cong. Adam Schiff (Dem.-CA), a long-time supporter of the Armenian community, also issued a statement condemning Pres. Trump’s lack of use of the term Armenian Genocide: “Today, we received another disappointing statement from yet another President, refusing to acknowledge the murder of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915-1923 for what it was — a genocide. President Trump now joins a long line of both Republican and Democratic Presidents unwilling to confront Turkey, and by refusing to do so, he has made the United States once again a party to its campaign of denial. How can we speak with the moral clarity we must about the genocidal campaign by ISIS against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq, if we are unwilling to condemn the first genocide of the last century? If the President will not speak out, the Congress must, and I join my colleagues — Democrats and Republicans — in calling on the House to take up the Armenian Genocide resolution.”

With all due respect to Cong. Schiff, the Armenian-American community does not need one more House resolution on the Armenian Genocide, on the top of the two resolutions already adopted in 1975 and 1984. What Armenians around the world demand is justice — compensation for their enormous losses, return of their confiscated private and communal properties, and liberation of the occupied Armenian territories. This is what a future House resolution must demand, not more genocide recognition.

Finally, I am very pleased that WikiLeaks tweeted on April 24 to its 4.6 million followers one of my previous columns on Hillary Clinton rejecting the suggestion of her top campaign aides to issue a statement on the Armenian Genocide before last year’s presidential elections.

April 25, 2017
Trump’s Attack on Syria: Wrong for so Many Reasons

Many Americans and people around the world followed with great concern the off-the-cuff and zany ideas Donald Trump voiced during the presidential campaign and more ominously after becoming President.

It is one thing to disagree with him on a domestic policy issue like banning Muslim tourists or healthcare or building a wall, it is quite another when he issues threats to foreign countries such as Iran and North Korea, and even worse when he orders a missile attack on Syria!

What is wrong with such a disastrous decision? Pres. Trump does not have the requisite background knowledge about the Syrian conflict, except for what he has read in some fringe publications and seen on his favorite TV Channel, FOX News.

Pres. Trump stated that he was deeply touched by the images of babies he had seen on TV who had been hurt by a chemical attack. Who would not be? Certainly, he had an emotional and impulsive reaction to heart-wrenching pictures, which cannot be a substitute for a well-thought out foreign policy without a thorough examination of the facts of this tragic incident and careful consideration of the consequences of an extreme action like launching 59 tomahawk missiles on a Syrian air base.

Fortunately, Pres. Trump’s aides alerted Russia shortly before the attack, to avoid any Russian casualties which could have had catastrophic consequences for the entire world!

Furthermore, Pres. Trump’s actions violated the U.S. Constitution, as he neither sought nor received the legally required authorization from the U.S. Congress to launch a war on another sovereign state.

Pres. Trump had neither the wisdom nor the patience to wait for the outcome of the investigation of the circumstances of the chemical attack — to verify who is truly responsible for this terrible attack.

The Trump Administration accused the Syrian Air Force of carrying out a chemical attack near Idlib. The Syrian and Russian governments have a different version of these events. They affirm that Syria does not possess any chemical weapons after its 2003 agreement to dispose of all such hazardous materials. Furthermore, Syria claims that the chemical explosion was caused by its Air Force bombing a warehouse belonging to Syrian terrorists who had stored these dangerous materials. It makes no sense for Pres. Assad to use chemical weapons while he is winning, risk antagonizing the West, and precipitating a military backlash.

We recall that back in 2013, there was another chemical attack on a Damascus suburb that killed many more people than the one near Idlib. Back then, Pres. Obama was close to going to war with Syria wrongly believing that the Syrian government had crossed his announced “red line.” However, when he learned that the chemical attack near Damascus was a “false flag,” meaning that it was orchestrated by Turkey and its terrorist allies to force the United States to intervene militarily in Syria, Pres. Obama did not go through with his plans to launch missiles on Syria. No one should forget that U.S. officials in 2003 presented fake “intelligence” evidence to the world claiming that Pres. Saddam Hussein possessed WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Ironically, many Republican members of Congress who are now applauding Pres. Trump for his decision to attack Syria, back then were the most vocal critics of Pres. Obama for planning a similar attack. Furthermore, even though the 2013 chemical attack killed many more people and babies, Donald Trump issued 40 tweets urging Pres. Obama not to attack Syria. Trump did not seem to care about “beautiful little Syrian babies” back then, as he is claiming now!

Both the White House and many self-declared pundits in the American media, who have made up the most outrageous lies about Syria in the last six years, are now claiming that eliminating the use of chemical weapons in Syria is in the U.S. national interest. They also affirm that the chemical weapons are banned by international treaty and their use is a violation of international law.

While acknowledging the truth of these statements, one has to ask:

1) Why no investigation was carried out of the chemical attack, prior to the U.S. Missile launch?

2) Under what right Pres. Trump has appointed himself the arbiter of international law and policeman of the world? International law, by definition, is an issue touching all countries, not just the United States. The proper venue to investigate, condemn and punish such violations of international law is the United Nations Security Council, not the White House. Furthermore, attacking a sovereign nation is itself a violation of international law!

3) By attacking Syria and destroying its military planes, Pres. Trump has in fact emboldened and strengthened the ISIS terrorists to continue and expand their criminal acts in Syria and around the world, particularly when they see that each time they use chemical weapons, the West accuses Pres. Assad for it and attacks Syria. Furthermore, by weakening and replacing Pres. Assad, Pres. Trump risks causing chaos and terrorism similar to Iraq and Libya, leading to many more deaths! Who will replace Pres. Assad and what guarantees are there that his replacement will not be ISIS, resulting in not just 80 deaths as in the recent chemical attack, but additional million casualties on the top of the half a million deaths in the Syrian conflict in recent years? The last thing the Syrian people need is more attacks and more bloodshed. What they need is painstaking diplomatic effort to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

All those in the U.S. and around the world who were concerned that Pres. Trump would make reckless decisions and endanger international peace, have regrettably witnessed the first such incident within the first 100 days of his Presidency. Everyone now fears that more such saber-rattling and unwarranted destabilizing attacks will take place in the coming weeks and months in other parts of the world. One hopes that Pres. Trump did not initiate the attack on Syria simply to distract attention away from many of his domestic problems, as he has done repeatedly on other issues in recent weeks!

Finally, what happened to Pres. Trump’s repeated brash statements about “America First,” and “I am the President of the United States, not the President of the world”?

April 10, 2017
Pro-Azeri and Pro-Turkish Writers Denigrate Armenia and Diaspora

Turkish and Azeri circles were displeased with my latest column where I had analyzed Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s phone call to Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan.

Azerbaijan’s Trend news agency published a ridiculous article by Elmira Tariverdiyeva, titled: “Yerevan’s failed phone call or why Trump did not respond.” She is the head of Trend’s Russian-language news service.

The Azeri article is replete with nonsensical and false assertions. The author, who has a limited knowledge of American politics, calls the Pence-Sargsyan phone calls a “disaster.” She wrongly claims that Pence simply returned Sargsyan’s phone call. In fact, it was Vice President-elect Pence who made the call to Pres. Sargsyan.

The real disaster is that the President of filthy rich Azerbaijan, Aliyev, would have been unable to talk to Pres.-elect Trump or Vice President-elect Pence without the assistance of highly-paid lobbyists in Washington!

The Azeri journalist goes on to make bigger gaffes by claiming that Hillary Clinton’s defeat “was a big disappointment for Yerevan. It is known that Clinton maintained fairly close relationships with an extensive Armenian diaspora in the US.” Elmira does not seem to know much about either Armenia or the Diaspora. Contrary to her false assertion, most Armenians did not support Clinton!

Tariverdiyeva also claims that Yerevan is frustrated because Trump is more familiar with Azerbaijan based on his investments in that country. In my opinion, it is too premature to make such self-serving and unwarranted assumptions. On the contrary, Pres. Trump has many reasons to be tough on Azerbaijan given its dictatorial regime, serious violations of human rights, and the participation of many Azeris in ranks of ISIS terrorists in Syria. It is ridiculous to claim that Pres. Trump would be more favorably inclined toward Azerbaijan because of his $323,150 licensing fee from the Baku Trump Tower, which he does not own!

Another more sinister article was written by Alexander Murinson, who is neither Azeri nor Turk, but for some questionable reason, has written a series of anti-Armenian tirades over the years in various publications. In his LinkedIn page, Murinson describes himself as: “Currently seeking new [job] opportunities…. An expert on Azerbaijan-Turkish-Israeli cooperation…. Considered a leading expert on Azerbaijani Jewry.” Murinson serves on the faculty of an obscure school in Washington, D.C., “BAU (Bahcheshehir) International University,” recently founded by Turkish billionaire Enver Yucel.

In an attempt to seek new job opportunities and ensure that his article titled, “The Armenian Lobby’s Tenuous Relations with President-elect Trump,” is published, Murinson panders to the right-wing website The American Spectator, under the false premise that Armenians are anti-Trump, therefore, anti-conservative.

I had planned to rebut point by point Murinson’s statements, but decided to let his own words expose his faulty judgments. Here are some of his nonsensical gems:

— American “Armenian lobby’s agenda is largely contrary to U.S. national interests and, perhaps counter-intuitively, to the best interests of the Republic of Armenia….”

— “Turkey [is] a key and indispensable strategic ally of the U.S. in the Middle East….”

— “This may lay at the core of the deep concern and disappointment of the U.S. Armenian lobby with the election of Donald Trump as President. For observers of the region, the nasty anti-Trump campaign executed by Armenian-American activists is no secret. The online campaign proudly announced that Armenian pop stars Cher and Kim Kardashian are ‘pulling all stops’ against Trump, while a noted pro-Armenian celebrity Amal Clooney, whose odd list of clients once included Armenia’s government and Julian Assange, led the anti-Trump effort along with her husband George.”

— “The Armenian concern seems to stem from the fact that Donald Trump is not beholden to Washington’s typical web of special interest groups. He might pursue a more clear-eyed approach to the region, basing it on America’s national interest rather than the interests of a particular lobby. He might even take a sober look at the oversold notion of Armenian political influence in the U.S. and notice its increasingly obvious irrelevance.”

— “The next Secretary of State should be different from the once pro-Armenian Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who favored his Armenian friends….”

In view of such persistent attacks, Armenian-American political organizations should forcefully counter all deceitful and defamatory articles written by the likes of Elmira Tariverdiyeva and Alexander Murinson. It is high time to establish an Armenian Anti-Defamation Committee!

December 13, 2016
A Dictator Obsessed With Power & Wealth: Erdogan’s 12 Scandals!

With each passing day, Turkish President Erdogan is becoming increasingly dictatorial. The arrest of 11 members of the opposition pro-Kurdish party, HDP, is the latest in a long string of Erdogan’s dictatorial policies.

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote a devastating exposé on Erdogan last week, listing some of his scandalous actions!

I have summarized Rubin’s lengthy article which was posted on Newsweek magazine’s European edition website, under the title, “Twelve Questions Turkish Journalists Dare not Ask”:

1. How did Erdogan become a billionaire?

Erdogan was raised in a poor family until he became Mayor of Istanbul when he faced 13 corruption probes. In 2004, when he was Prime Minister, the U.S. embassy in Ankara reported in a cable to Washington that “he had at least eight Swiss bank accounts.” In addition, secret phone recordings revealed his instructions “toliquidate perhaps a billion dollars in cash. Erdogan used his power over the courts to quash the case and arrest prosecutors and judges who sought to pursue it.”

2. Where is Erdogan’s university diploma?

Erdogan claims to have graduated from Istanbul’s Marmara University in 1981. His degree may have been forged. “A four-year degree is a prerequisite for the presidency. If Erdogan lied about having a degree, can he remain as president?”

3. Is there another story behind the coup attempt?

Erdogan fired and jailed thousands of his political opponents, accusing them of being the followers of Fethullah Gulen, the alleged mastermind of the July 15 coup attempt, which the Turkish President called “a gift from God.”

4. If there is a FETO, is there also an ETO?

Erdogan called Gulen’s movement “the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETO)…. If it is permissible to talk about FETO as a terror group, would it be equally acceptable to refer to the Erdoganist Terror Organization (ETO)?”

5. If Gulen is a terrorist, why did Erdogan work with him till 2013?

Gulen and Erdogan had practically identical religious philosophies until their split in 2013. Why is Gulen a ‘terrorist’ now?

6. Why is it OK to report on PKK attacks but not on ISIS?

“When the PKK or fringe Kurdish groups attack, it often dominates the headlines in Turkey for days as the investigation continues, authorities name suspects, etc…. But when ISIS has attacked, the Turkish government has put an embargo on reports about the investigation.”

7. Why did Turkish intelligence help the Nusra Front? And ISIS?

“Evidence is overwhelming that both the Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and ISIS itself, have received arms, support and equipment from authorities in Turkey. When journalists broke the story — and provided photographic evidence — Erdogan’s response was to arrest the editor of the newspaper that published the scoop. Likewise, when Turkish soldiers stopped an arms shipment into Syria, Erdogan ordered the soldiers’ arrest rather than the smugglers….”

8. Was a Turkish death squad behind the Paris assassinations?

“In 2013, assassins executed three Kurdish activists in their office in Paris. All three were PKK members…. The French captured Omer Guney, a 32-year-old Turk who had arrived in France at age 9.Telephone intercepts after the murders show him calling back to handlers in Turkey’s intelligence agency….”

9. Why did Erdogan appoint his son-in-law oil minister?

“Berat Albayrak, Erdogan’s 37-year-old son-in-law, became Turkey’s energy minister on November 24, 2015. Was he the best qualified? Or were other factors at play?”

10. Can we talk about Erdogan’s associations?

Erdogan is a close friend of Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi businessman, who, according to the U.S. Treasury Department “had alleged ties to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden until 2014.” Erdogan persistently declared: “I know Mr. Qadi. I believe in him as I believe in myself. For Mr. Qadi to associate with a terrorist organization, or support one, is impossible.” Erdogan is also close to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of Afghanistan who has “allied himself with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.” Another friend, Khalid Meshaal (the militant leader of Hamas), visited Turkey as Erdogan’s personal guest!

11. What deal have you struck with Putin?

After Erdogan and Putin buried the hatchet earlier this year, they agreed on a pipeline deal and held talks on the Turkish purchase of a Russian missile system. Were there any secret agreements?

12. What explains the court’s 2008 refusal to close the AKP?

In 2008, Turkey’s constitutional court came close to dissolving Erdogan’s ruling party. But, at the last-minute, one justice switched his vote. It is alleged that “a businessman, long hounded by Erdogan, wired money into that justice’s account just before the vote.”

During a Nov. 6 ceremony in Istanbul to receive an honorary doctorate, Erdogan proudly proclaimed: “I don’t care if they call me a dictator or whatever else. It goes in one ear, out the other!”

November 8, 2016