Category: Business

William Hague welcomes “new strategic partnership” with Turkey

Dr. Hanan Chehata

This afternoon a press conference was held in the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office between Foreign Secretary William Hague and Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu.

The two men seemed to get along quite well and voiced their mutual respect for one another. In their opening statements the focus was on a new era of bilateral cooperation between Turkey and the United Kingdom, whereas in the question and answer session that followed the focus was primarily on the issue of Israel, its recent attack on the Freedom Flotilla, Turkey’s reaction to the assault, and the ongoing siege on Gaza.

William Hague began by saying that the fact that the UK coalition government has been in office for less than two months and has already had meetings with the Turkish Foreign Minister lasting several hours and were on their way to have several more hours of meetings this afternoon shows just how serious they are about their commitment to work closely with the Turkish government.

Hague said, “Turkey is one of the countries with whom we believe elevated ties are highly desirable.” He stated that their long discussion this morning was “extremely positive, detailed and wide ranging, covering our economic relations as well as global issues. We have established an excellent basis, I think, for working closely together as Foreign Ministers. I have great respect for the Minister as someone who has made a huge personal contribution to thinking about Turkey’s foreign policy.”

He further added “there is huge scope for intensified dialogue and cooperation between the United Kingdom and Turkey and I’m delighted to say that we have agreed that our countries will conclude a new strategic partnership in the near future. It will reflect the importance we attach to our relationship and set the stage for closer cooperation in foreign affairs, security, defence and trade. Turkey is a vital NATO ally, a strategic partner for the UK, and Europe’s largest emerging economy and we value Turkey’s unique character as a place where East and West meet together.

On related matters, Mr Hague said, “We value Turkey’s advice and opinions on issues such as Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East Peace Process and the Western Balkans…Our talks this afternoon will focus on Turkey’s path to EU membership which the United Kingdom strongly supports. This government is clear that for the European Union to turn its back on Turkey would be an immense strategic error and we will encourage Turkey’s EU aspirations….”

He mentioned that Prime Minster, David Cameron hopes to make an “early visit to Turkey which will be another milestone in building closer ties between our countries.”

On his part, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Davutoglu began his talk by commenting on the historic relations between Turkey and Britain and mentioned that the first ever Turkish ambassador outside Turkey was sent to London in 1793.

He said that there had been approximately 13 billion dollars in foreign trade between Turkey and Britain in 2008, which dropped somewhat in 2009, but that they now hoped to increase it again, “not just to 13 billion dollars but to 20 billion dollars in the coming years!” He also announced their joint plans to work together to establish a Turkish – British University in Turkey.

Davutoglu said they had also discussed the “recent attacks by Israel against the civilian flotilla in the Eastern Mediterranean. I explained to my colleague our perspective that that attack occurred in international waters, and there were civilian casualties and there should be accountability for this from the perspective of law. It is not only a political case; it is a legal case for us.“

In the question and answer session Davutoglu was asked if reports that Turkey would sever ties with Israel unless they apologised over the Gaza flotilla was accurate. He responded by saying the following: “As I have said this is a legal case. The fact is eight Turks and one American citizen was killed in international waters. So there is a crime. Now there are some simple questions. Who killed these nine civilians in international waters? It was not in the territory of Israel. It was not [in] Israeli waters. They did not violate Israeli territory. They did not harm any Israeli citizens. Now the question is who killed them? Everybody knows who. Then the second question: on what basis were they killed? Who has the right to kill civilians in international waters? All of us, all civilised societies, we are accountable and we are responsible. We are accountable to our societies because we are democracies and we are accountable to the international community because we are members of the UN system and we are all obliged to respect international law. Now if somebody, Israel or any other country, did not respect these [conventions] then the next [issue] is that there should be accountability. Accountability means if somebody says, ‘OK it was a mistake’, then they should apologise and we can talk about our future relations, compensation and other things. If they think that they did not make any mistake, then we have another alternative, accept an international investigation. An international investigation by the UN will decide who killed these civilians, on what basis and what are the consequences. These are the two options. An [internal] investigation is not acceptable to Turkey because the accused party cannot be prosecutor and judge at the same time. Now we expect Israel to either apologise and accept its crime or to accept an international investigation. I think that this is a just and fair request from Turkey. If they do not follow these two alternatives then of course Turkey, as a respected nation and state, has full rights to take any measure to protect the rights of its civilians, of citizens. There is one American citizen, so of course it is an America decision what to do for him, but for us it is the dignity of the state to protect the rights of our citizens. Whatever is needed for this we will take action…. If Israel wants to improve relations with us then they should accept accountability and do all the necessary actions to prevent the deterioration of our relations. Two years ago in 2008 we were running the negotiations between Israel and Syria and we had a very good co-operation… so this was not the decision of Turkey. The deterioration of Turkish Israeli relations was because of the decisions and violations of the Israeli government against International law.”

, 08 July 2010

July 11, 2010
LONDON Turkish Festival Jul 17-18 2010

Turkish Festival
Sat 17 Jul 00:00 – Sun 18 Jul 00:00

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The 5th Turkish Festival aims to fundamentally develop the profile of regional culture in Turkey; to participate in the processes of integration between world cultures; to attract a wider audience to the new generation of artists, activating the processes for Turkish Art forms, and contributing to the uprising of Turkish Art and Cultural recognition on an international platform; to allow a new generation of Turkish Artists to appear, encourage the appearance and development of Artists and the Art industry, and integrate Turkish Culture in an international Platform.
This event shall consist of cultural, performing arts such as ethnic music, folk and traditional dancing, cultural arts, ethnic food and handcrafts. We also propose to transform the venue into a Turkish Bazaar with stalls serving the best of Turkish food, drink, spices, textile, leather goods music and crafts.

TURK FESTIVALI 17 VE 18 TEMMUZ TARIHLERINDE YAPILIYOR

Her yıl yapılan Turkish Forum UK tarafindan duzenlenen . Turk Festivalinin 5’İnci 17 temmuz cumartesi gunu saat 12’de
asagidaki adreste basliyor. 18 Temmuz pazar gunu de tum gun surecek festivale hepinizi bekliyoruz. IKi gun boyunca festivale 100 binden fazla ziyaretci bekleniyor. Lutfen aileniz, arkadaslarinizla karnaval senliginde gecen festivale katilmanizi onemle bekliyoruz..

ADRES;””Festival’in yapılacağı Potters Fields Park’ın adresi ‘Tooley Street/The Queens Walk, Southwark, London SE1 2AA’dır. Londra Büyükşehir Belediyesi binası yakınında ve Tower Bridge’in Güney Londra kesimindeki ayağına yakındır”

Mihrisah Safa

July 7, 2010
Foreign Business in Turkmenistan: to be or not to be

By Merdan Shakhnazarov

Open Door policy announced by Ashkhabad strongly increased the flow of foreign investors, hoping either to enter new market with their product or to profit from work contracts in formerly closed Turkmenistan. Evidently the power sector attracts the most foreign interest. But experts of oil and gas market often underestimate the risks of their business in Turkmenistan, and after first taste of the local reality give up their plans of conquering the market. Among the factors that influence the decision not to come to Ashkhabad are the following: imperfection of laws, corruption and lawlessness of public servants, financial difficulties, non-disclosure of information about failure of foreign investors on the local market. We shall consider some of these.

Corruption

International nongovernmental organization Transparency International regularly includes Turkmenistan in the list of most corrupted countries. This estimation should be some kind of indicator for foreign investors, wishing to start their business in that central Asian republic.

Evidences of corruption are to be traced not only in the state structure but in all the spheres of life. On one hand it seems to ease the process of getting contracts, while bribery makes communication with paper pushers easier. But it often turns out that businessmen spend a lot of money to establish contact with Turkmenian authorities but finally back at the bottom of the ladder.

In some cases foreign investors who came across with local reality are no more capable of doing business in such conditions. According to a businessmen from UAE, who planned to invest in development of Avaza resort, before he even started his activity he faced severe retaliatory measures of local law-enforcement authorities, who confiscated his immovable property.

At meanwhile the nephew of the President under cover of the name of G. Berdimukhamedov started to squeeze money from the Arabian businessman. These circumstances forced the businessmen to refuse from his plans in that country.

It is difficult for a western businessmen, used to transparent and open business to negotiate with Turkmenian partners, who are vivid representatives of eastern civilization with its contrivances and half-words. There have occurred some cases, when Turkmen representatives of authority agreed to sign a contract with foreign company, but the procedure of signing extended for an indefinite period.

Ashkhabad financial difficulties

Despite of launching Turkmenistan-China pipeline, expending gas pipeline in Iran, cutting down the volume of gas sales in Russia caused decrease of revenue side of the state budget. In that regard Ashkhabad tries to decrease the budgetary gap, cutting down the expenses for second-term projects, and in some cases putting them on hold at all.

For instance according to one of the employees of “Sekhil”, Turkish company, many of his nationals experience problems with financing in Turkmenistan now. For that reason the project of recreational resort in the resort area Avaza, developed by Sekhil by the order of Turkmenbashy complex of oil refinery plants is at risk.

Some other companies, including Ozaylar and Ichkale experience same problems. Of course the management of Turkish companies is strongly unsatisfied with arrears in payments by Turkmen authorities, for it forces them to carry on the works at their own cost or take credits.

Another indicator of financial difficulties, experienced by Ashkhabad, is borrowing funds from strategic partners. For instance in may of the previous year during his visit to PRC President Berdimukhamedov negotiated a grand from Beijing in the amount of $ 10 Mln.

This amount even though granted on non-repayable basis and without any interest, still has its aim to secure economical preferences and to strengthen PCR’s position on the national market.

Financial difficulties also force Turkmenistan to pay back foreign companies, carrying out important projects in Turkmenistan, by gas supply contracts. For example investments of the Iran Railways into construction of the a section of the railway Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan –Iran is to be repaid by Ashkhabad by supplying liquefied gas for 4 years.

Non-disclosure of information about failures of foreign investors

For foreign business considers the power sector to be the most attractive, it is important to notice, that investment into hydrocarbon field development is not always self-liquidate.

For example in 2002 American ExxonMobil decided to stop works in Turkmenistan and close representative offices in Balkanabad and Ashkhabad. This was due to failed drilling in Garashsyzlyk, one of Turkmenistan’s biggest minefields. American company was operating the «Garashsyzlyk-2» project, the respective production-sharing contract for 25 years was signed in 1998. Low commercial impact of the block forced Americans to cancel the contract halfway in spite of the discontent and pressure of the Turkmenistan party.

It’s also known, that in the beginning of 2000s TPAO, Turkish corporation experienced failure on one of the blocks, it had to scale down its activity and live the country.

Therefore only those foreign companies shall obtain a place in the hot Turkmen sun near gas jets, who are ready to make immense material and moral investments, fight the pressure of the «guardians of law» and to fall on hard times. At the same time they have to be ready to patiently wait for repayments and possibility of inefficient Turkmen field development.

July 7, 2010

Fetullahs Businessman flex their newfound political power

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Rep. Bill Pascrell, center, and Levant Koc, right, of the Interfaith Dialog Center, with Mehmet Sahin of the Turkish Parliament.

BY HERB JACKSON

The Record

WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

Turkic businessmen and community leaders packed a posh Washington hotel to announce their new national group, and invited members of Congress to learn about their growing population and economic power.

“I want to see all the Jersey guys,” says Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, who is quickly surrounded in the Willard Hotel ballroom. “Are these the guys that own all the restaurants?”

Census data show Pascrell’s district is home to the biggest concentration of Turks in New Jersey, and as he works the room, he waves to members of the band he recognizes from events in Passaic County. He also meets Mehmet Sahin, a member of the Turkish Parliament who, among other things, is seeking contacts for an associate who wants to open a hotel in New Jersey.

Near the buffet table, Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, takes a break from his tabbouleh to debate with a Westfield businessman about whether Governor Christie really will cut property taxes.

Congressmen wooing new business to their districts or debating local politics is hardly new terrain, and in that sense, the opening gala of the Assembly of Turkic American Federations (A fetullah Gulen Organization)last month is like thousands of other receptions every year in Washington.

But the formation of the ATAF, which highlights an Islamic identity that makes some secular Turks uneasy, comes as Turks are playing catch-up in the Washington influence game.

They especially want to counter the influence of Armenian-Americans, whose No. 1 issue in Washington for decades has been a United States declaration that the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey from 1915 to 1923 were genocide.

Turkey denies the charge, and disputes what Rutgers University genocide expert Alex Hinton says is a consensus of historians.

When the latest genocide affirmation resolution passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a razor-thin 23-22 margin in March, Turkey briefly recalled its ambassador, and congressional opponents warned that full passage in Congress would damage relations with an important ally.

Co-sponsors of the measure — including the entire New Jersey delegation except Pascrell — do not share that fear.

“It should not injure a relationship built on many other things,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who added that his attendance at the ATAF gala was not a sign he was changing his support for the genocide resolution.

Until recently, Turkey argued its case in Washington primarily through influential former members of Congress who registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents of its government.

Over the past decade, a few hundred congressional staffers and a handful of members of Congress also took trips funded by Turkish-American groups to Ankara, Istanbul and other cities.

Starting in 2007, however, the first of two federal political action committees registered, and the principal leader for one of the PACs also registered as a federal lobbyist in 2008.

By contrast, Armenian groups had spent $2.6 million from 1999 through 2007 on lobbying, and made $569,000 in contributions through federal PACs.

“We’re historically disorganized,” said Levent Koc, chief executive of the Interfaith Dialog Center founded in Carlstadt and now based in Newark, who invited many of the New Jersey officials to the reception. “We decided to come together for better coordination and communication.”

The ATAF is an umbrella for 150 separate local organizations around the country, including Koc’s center, the Turkish Cultural Center in Ridgefield and the Pioneer Academy of Science in Clifton.

All are affiliated with Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen, Koc said. Gulen, who now lives in Pennsylvania, advocates a conservative brand of Islam that condemns terrorism and advocates more interfaith cooperation and science education. He was acquitted in absentia of what supporters called politically motivated charges in Turkey of advocating an Islamic state.

Koc said the new group’s primary goal is to foster better understanding of Turkic people — a term that includes not only those from Turkey but also those from such countries as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — and cooperation between Muslims and other faiths.

It’s not connected to the Turkish government or Turkish politics, he said.

But one person attending the reception, South Hackensack chemical importer Tarik Ok, said one reason the ATAF was forming now was, “The government suggested we all go under one roof.”

The new group has the leader of a much older group with a similar name uneasy.

Gunay Evinch, president of the 30-year-old Assembly of Turkish American Associations, said he has asked the newly formed Assembly of Turkic American Federations to change its name and make its ties to the Gulen movement clear.

“I told them it’s unnecessarily confusing, and it would be better to define yourselves as who you are, a sect movement within Islam,” said Evinch, who has already received mail at his Washington headquarters intended for the other group.

Evinch said his group and the Turkish Coalition of America, which created a PAC in 2007 and registered to lobby in 2008, have worked hard to increase Turkish influence in Washington by getting American Turks to overcome a reluctance to make campaign contributions.

“Turks did not [traditionally] reach into their pockets to give to campaigns, they thought it was corrupt,” he said. “The PAC educated people to understand that in the U.S. you can give to campaigns.”

Evinch said a key difference between his ATAA and the new ATAF is that his group advocates only on issues important to Turks and Turkey, including the Armenian resolution and questions surrounding Cyprus.

“We don’t advance the cause of Islam or a sect of Islam, and we don’t do interfaith dialogue based on Islam or any religion,” he said. “We also don’t import Turkish politics into our community.”

Koc said that while it supports better understanding of Islam, his group is not limited to Muslims.

“I cannot say we’re faith-based. Some scholars say this is a religiously motivated social movement. That doesn’t mean we are serving only Muslims or Turks. We serve all,” Koc said.

He also disputed any religious motivation in seeking a change in Turkey’s government.

“There’s a new generation in Turkey, and it’s more open. People opposed to this change are blaming religious people, but there are change supporters who are left wing and right wing, some of them are old socialists,” Koc said.

“When they try to change the status quo, people who want the status quo blame Muslims. I don’t know why.”

E-mail: [email protected]

June 24, 2010

BP was told of oil safety fault ‘weeks before blast’

A Deepwater Horizon rig worker has told the BBC that he identified a leak in the oil rig’s safety equipment weeks before the explosion.

Tyrone Benton said the leak was not fixed at the time, but that instead the faulty device was shut down and a second one relied on.

BP said rig owners Transocean were responsible for the operation and maintenance of that piece of equipment.

Transocean said it tested the device successfully before the accident.

Meanwhile, BP has said that its costs in tackling the disaster have now risen to $2bn (£1.34bn).

‘

‘Unacceptable

On 20 April, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded killing 11 people, the blowout preventer, as the device is known, failed.

The most critical piece of safety equipment on the rig, they are designed to avert disasters just like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The blowout preventer (BOP) has giant shears which are designed to cut and seal off the well’s main pipe. The control pods are effectively the brains of the blowout preventer and contain both electronics and hydraulics. This is where Mr Benton said the problem was found.

“We saw a leak on the pod, so by seeing the leak we informed the company men,” Mr Benton said of the earlier problem he had identified. “They have a control room where they could turn off that pod and turn on the other one, so that they don’t have to stop production.”

Professor Tad Patzek, petroleum expert at the University of Texas, was blunt in his assessment: “That is unacceptable. If you see any evidence of the blowout preventer not functioning properly, you should fix it by whatever means possible.”

Mr Benton said his supervisor e-mailed both BP and Transocean about the leaks when they were discovered.

Daily costs

He said he did not know whether the leaking pod was turned back on before the disaster or not.

He said to repair the control pod would have meant temporarily stopping drilling work on the rig at at time when it was costing BP $500,000 (£337,000) a day to operate the Deepwater Horizon.

Henry Waxman, a House of Representatives Democrat who is overseeing congressional investigations into the rig disaster, has accused BP of taking safety shortcuts to save money.

“BP appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure,” Mr Waxman said.

BP chief executive Tony Hayward, giving evidence to Congress, said: “There is nothing I have seen in the evidence so far that suggests that anyone put cost ahead of safety, if there are then we will take action.”

Congress has identified numerous other problems with the blowout preventer, including design problems, unexpected modifications and a flat battery.

Cement job

The other major problems on the rig, Congress has said, centred around the cement job. Cement in an oil well blocks explosive gases from escaping, and it appears the cement may not have set properly on the Deepwater Horizon.

BP said it had indications of a successful cementing operation and the company that was in charge of the cement job, Halliburton, has said it was consistent with that used in similar applications.

Several rig workers the BBC spoke to who were on the Deepwater Horizon said there was pressure in April to work fast.

Work to prepare and then seal the well was behind schedule and had to be completed before a production rig could move in and start turning profits.

“Too many jobs were being done at one time. It should have just really slowed down and just took one job at a time, to make sure everything was done the way it should have been,” said Mr Benton, who is now suing BP and Transocean for negligence.

BP has responded to Mr Benton’s account saying Transocean was responsible for both the maintenance and operation of the blowout preventer.

BBC

June 21, 2010
EU Warns of Democracy Ending in Greece, Spain and Portugal

By: Frank McGuire

Democracy could “collapse” in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless the debt crisis is controlled, the head of the European Commission reportedly has warned.

Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso recently detailed his “apocalyptic” vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe are jolted by military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money, the London Daily Mail reported.

Greece, Spain and Portugal are facing dire problems with their public finances. All three countries have a history of military coups. Greece has been hit by a series of national strikes and riots this year following the announcement of drastic cuts to public spending.

Barroso also has warned Spain and Portugal that they will have to keep up their painful budget cuts into 2012 to curb deficits and regain investor confidence. “Without confidence coming back to the financial markets in Europe, we will not be able to achieve that higher level of growth … that is why fiscal consolidation is so important,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

John Monks, former head of the TUC, told the Daily Mail that he had been “shocked” by the severity of the warning from Barroso, who is a former prime minister of Portugal.

In an interview with the Brussels-based magazine EU Observer, Monks said: “This is extremely dangerous. This is 1931, we’re heading back to the 1930s, with the Great Depression and we ended up with militarist dictatorship. I’m not saying we’re there yet, but it’s potentially very serious, not just economically, but politically as well.”

Meanwhile, the European Commission on Tuesday reviewed budget programs for Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia and Slovakia — which all use the euro — and the Czech Republic, which still has its own currency.

It said it had called on most of them to spell out clearly the cutbacks they are planning for the coming years as they aim to bring deficits below the 3 percent limit.

Belgium and Italy have a tighter deadline than the others and are supposed to reduce their deficits by 2012. Ireland has more time — until 2014 — and all the others have until 2013.

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June 17, 2010