Turkish Forum

Category: News

  • Stop The Afghan Drug Trade, Stop Terrorism

    Stop The Afghan Drug Trade, Stop Terrorism

    Rachel Ehrenfeld

    A crop eradication scheme that will really work.

    “The fight against drugs is actually the fight for Afghanistan,” said Afghan President Hamid Karzai when he took office in 2002. Judging by the current situation, Afghanistan is losing.

    To win, the link between narcotics and terrorism must be severed. That is the necessary condition for a successful strategy to undermine the growing influence of al-Qaida, the Taliban and radical Muslim groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    It is all about money–more precisely, drug money. The huge revenues from the heroin trade fill the coffers of the terrorists and thwart any attempt to stabilize the region.

    Though not traded on any stock exchange, heroin is one of the most valuable commodities in the world today. While a ton of crude oil costs less than $290, a ton of heroin costs $67 million in Europe and between $360 million and $900 million in New York, according to estimates based on recent Drug Enforcement Administration figures.

    Since its liberation from Taliban rule, Afghanistan’s opium production has gone from 640 tons in 2001 to 8,200 tons in 2007. Afghanistan now supplies over 93% of the global opiate market.

    “This is a source of income for the warlords and regional factions to pay their soldiers,” warned former Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalili in a May 2005 interview with Reuters. “The terrorists are funding their operations through illicit drug trade, so they are all interlinked.”

    In 2004, the G-8 designated Britain to lead counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan. Its three-year eradication policy was designed specifically not to alienate the local population. It dictated the crop eradication be done “by hand.” Moreover, the British entrusted the provincial governors with the eradication process, even though Afghan provincial governors, many of whom are powerful warlords, have been engaged in the drug trade for decades. Not surprisingly, the eradication effort failed miserably.

    Forbes

     

    02.26.09

  • Obama to visit Turkey in key policy move

    Obama to visit Turkey in key policy move

    By Bridget Johnson
    Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed that President Obama will visit Turkey soon in a trip that could be about more than bridging the gap between East and West.

    In its physical position as the gateway from Europeinto the Middle East, Turkey has been a crucial U.S. and NATO ally, as well as a route to supply troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its ideological position, Turkey is seen as a key example of a secular, democratic Islamic state.

    “The last time I was here, my husband was president,” Clinton told reporters. “This time, I come as secretary of state, on behalf of our new president, President Obama, to emphasize the work the U.S. and Turkey must do together on behalf of peace, prosperity and progress.” Clinton, who held meetings with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan in Ankara on Saturday, also visited the masoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic.

    Babacan said Saturday that Turkey was “ready to cooperate” in being a exit route when the U.S. withdraws from Iraq. A joint statement issued after the meetings said that the leaders “reaffirmed their determination to diversify the broad based bilateral relations particularly between the Turkish and American people,” and said the U.S. “is reviewing ways to be more supportive” in Turkey’s fight against Kurdish PKK rebels along the Iraqi border.

    The work that the U.S. and Turkey undertake together, though, may involve a third party. Erdogan told the Guardian last month that, during President George W. Bush’s term, Iran approached him to act as a go-between in resolving its conflict with the United States.

    “Iran does want Turkey to play such a role,” Erdogan said of Turkey being a mediator. “And if the United States also wants and asks us to play this role, we are ready to do this. [The Iranians] said to us that if something like this would happen, they want Turkey to play a role. These were words that were said openly. But I have told this to President Bush myself.”

    Erdogan indicated that he passed along Iran’s request to the White House at the time, but may bring up the offer anew with the new administration.

    Obama has stressed that dialogue with Iran and Syria would be a key area in which his foreign policy would differ from the Bush administration’s. Jeffrey Feltman, the acting U.S. secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and Daniel Shapiro of the National Security Council met with Syrian officials including Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Damascus on Saturday.

    Afterward, Feltman called the talks “very constructive.”

    Not pinning down a date for Obama’s visit, Clinton said he should be traveling to Turkey “in about a month or so.” Before that, Obama is scheduled to travel to Europe to attend the G-20 economic summit in London, plus visit France and Germany for NATO summit events. He will also visit the Czech Republic to meet with European Union leaders.
  • Obama takes sharp turn on foreign policy

    Obama takes sharp turn on foreign policy

    By Bridget Johnson
    Lost in the cacophony of the economic crisis is the issue on which the candidate Barack Obama promised to effect some of the most change: foreign policy.

    And yet, as Obama’s presidential term has buzzed with bailouts, stimulus, the budget and now healthcare reform, his administration has been steadily pressing forward with its plans to “reboot” relationships and distance itself from goals and tactics of the Bush years.
    “Look at general things that have been done,” Robert Hunter, NATO ambassador under President Clinton and now a senior adviser at RAND Corp., told The Hill. “A lot of things have been cleaned up from the past in terms of America’s reputation,” including the decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for terror suspects and choosing to send the vice president to last month’s Munich Security Conference, he said.

    Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton sees these initial actions differently.

    “It represents a triumph of process over substance,” Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill. Bolton questioned whether the administration’s game plan of “simply talking to governments [to] change disagreements about fundamental issues” will prove useful.

    Many of Obama’s initial foreign policy endeavors ring familiar to those who remember his stumps on the campaign trail. His pledge to turn the military’s focus back to Afghanistan was jump-started with last month’s announcement that the U.S. will send 17,000 more troops to the Central Asian country, although he still faces challenges in getting cooperation from other NATO coalition partners to dial up the 40-nation effort there. “A sensible question is whether Europe will step up to the plate,” Bolton said.

    Obama’s pledge to engage Iran and Syria diplomatically without preconditions culminated in the four-hour Saturday meeting between Jeffrey Feltman, the acting U.S. secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Daniel Shapiro of the National Security Council, and Syrian officials including Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Damascus.

    Feltman emerged to label the talks “very constructive.”

    Moves such as this, said Hunter, “get rid of the underbrush we’ve had for so many years — ‘if you want to talk to us, you have to be a friend.’”

    And Iran is being invited to a regional conference at the end of this month to discuss Afghanistan. But talks with Iran — which, Israel’s military intelligence chief claimed Sunday, can now build a nuclear weapon — may get a boost from Obama’s upcoming trip to Turkey, a country that had previously been asked by Iran to serve as a mediator between the Islamic Republic and the United States.

    “I don’t think the Iranian government is ever going to be talked out of nuclear weapons,” Bolton said. But the former ambassador said Iran “would love to talk to the United States,” feeling that the extended diplomacy would buy them time and lend them legitimacy.

    Ironically, Obama’s out-of-the-gate foreign policy is being powered by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the same Democratic presidential hopeful who lambasted Obama’s platform of talks with Iran and Syria as illustrating foreign-policy amateurishness.

    Even though Clinton and Obama have found common cause, though, the agenda is still not without controversy.

    News broke last week that Obama had sent a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, allegedly offering to drop plans for the Eastern Europe missile defense system if Russia would help bring Iran in line. Obama said the New York Times story mischaracterized this cog in his wider goal to “reboot” the Russian-American relationship.

    “What I said in the letter was that, obviously, to the extent that we are lessening Iran’s commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for — or the need for a missile defense system,” Obama said at the White House last Tuesday. “In no way does that in any — does that diminish my commitment to making sure that Poland, the Czech Republic, and other NATO members are fully enjoying the partnership, the alliance, and U.S. support with respect to their security.”

    Hunter said Obama would want to make sure that the missile defense system is cost-effective and capable of stopping an attack before pressing forward on the plan. “Pressing the reset button doesn’t mean Russia is going to do everything we want,” and vice-versa, he said.

    “The letter shows [the Obama administration is] prepared to trade [the missile defense system] away,” Bolton said, adding Russia would see it as a sign of weakness.

    Another point of controversy last week was Thursday’s meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft — former national security advisers for Presidents Carter and George H.W. Bush, respectively — were the sole witnesses for the “U.S. Strategy Regarding Iran” hearing. “When Brzezinski used his short opening statement to say Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be cautious about listening to Israel’s ideas, the red flag really went up,” one Jewish leader told the Jerusalem Post afterward.
  • SERBIA SEES TURKEY A KEY COUNTRY FOR PEACE AND STABILITY

    SERBIA SEES TURKEY A KEY COUNTRY FOR PEACE AND STABILITY

    ANKARA (A.A) – 20.03.2009 – The Serbian foreign minister said on Friday that his country saw Turkey a key country for peace and stability.

    Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said that Serbia thought Turkey had key importance in the Balkans.

    “Despite difference of opinion about Kosovo, it is important for us to boost our bilateral relations,” Jeremic told a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.

    Jeremic is actually paying a formal visit to Turkey, and is the first Serbian foreign minister visiting Turkey.

    The Serbian minister said that his country’s policy regarding Kosovo would not change, and talks continued with the international community to find a solution acceptable by all sides.

    Jeremic said that Serbia was willing to solve the issue through peaceful and political means, and handled the issue within the scope of international law.

    The minister said that the legal process began in the International Court of Justice, and the issue would become clear after the court made a decision.

    However, there were some bilateral steps that could be taken since then, he said.

    On the same issue, Babacan said that Serbia and Turkey had different positions on Kosovo, but this should not prevent the two countries from enhancing their cooperation.

    The Serbian minister said that two countries could do more to boost their economic relations, and could simplify visa procedures in coming days.

    Jeremic said that Turkey and Serbia had similar goals about the European Union (EU), and integration to the EU was a prior issue for both countries.

    On the title deeds of the Palestinians in the Ottoman archives, Babacan said that Turkey was opening all its registers when demanded.

    Babacan also said that the court and/or any one who would examine the registers would make its/his/her own decision.

    The Turkish minister also said that Turkey’s policy was to be totally frank, and underlined importance of prevailing of justice. (BRC-CE)

    haber.turk.net

  • Experts Say Water Could Become As Valuable As Oil

    Experts Say Water Could Become As Valuable As Oil

    Environmental activists watching a global forum on water said in the near future that water could become as precious of a commodity as oil and will likely become big business as water scarcity increases, Reuters reported.

    Sunday marked the end of International World Water Day, an annual United Nations event that began in 1993 to promote sustainable management of fresh water resources.

    The event is held every year to recognize water as an absolute human need, as human beings can live as long as 30 days without food but only seven without water.

    Limited or no access to clean water effects more than a billion people worldwide and 2.5 billion are without water for sanitation. Dirty water is also responsible for some 80 percent of all borne disease.

    This year’s World Water Forum in Turkey noted that clean, fresh water supplies are waning due to a warming world.

    Jonathan Greenblatt, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who advised the Obama transition team on civic engagement and national service, said that as climate change accelerates and we see a changing hydrological cycle and diminishing access to resources, there are direct human impacts that are water-related.

    He added that if sea levels rise as scientists predict, coastal regions might see increased salination of aquifers that affect access to fresh water as sea levels rise.

    Desertification is occurring directly outside such areas as central China, with desert-like conditions coming to areas that were once fertile.

    Greenblatt said water must be part of the agenda of legislators and policymakers in the same way that climate change has.

    The World Health Organization reported there was a high return on investment in clean water projects, as every $1 spent on water and sanitation can bring economic benefits averaging between $7 and $12.

    The WHO report showed that health care agencies could save $7 billion a year, employers could gain 320 million productive days a year for workers in the 15-to-59 age range, there could be an extra 272 million school attendance days annually and an added 1.5 billion healthy days for children under the age of five.

    The Natural Resources Defense Council said in its blog that an investment of $11.3 billion a year could yield a payback of $83 billion a year in increased productivity and health.

    The council’s Melanie Nakagawa wrote: “As many have pointed out in this week’s debates, this payback makes a very strong argument in favor of promoting safe water and sanitation in these difficult financial times.”

    The conservation group WWF International said the water forum does not go far enough in making this a top agenda item.

    James Leape, the group’s director general, said in a statement that the well-managed or restored river systems that cope best with the climate change impacts we are seeing now are yet to come.

    “This is clearly an issue of water management, but the ministerial declaration flowing from the World Water Forum is more a collection of platitudes than a plan for action,” he added.

    Susan Keane, a public health expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Reuters she doesn’t believe the world needs a “water day” to be reminded of the water shortages facing our future.

    “I don’t know why anyone should need to be reminded of this, because it’s so obviously important and so obviously solvable,” Keane said.

    —

  • Another Crossroads for Turkey

    Another Crossroads for Turkey

    In all probability the Turkish ruling party, AKP (Justice and Development Party), will experience another victory at the local elections on March 29. Since November 2002, when the AKP came to power with 34 percent of the votes, the party has noted a growing success with 42 percent of the votes in the 2004 local elections and 47 percent at the general election in 2007.

    The AKP government has used its six years in power to create a new elite centred around Istanbul, Ankara and industrial cities like Konya, Kayseri and Gaziantep in Anatolia. At the same time the party has replaced the top echelons inside state administration, education, the judiciary and independent boards with supporterswho share the government’s conservative, Islamic values.

    By Robert Ellis

    For example, last October 600 leading staff from TRT (Turkish Radio and Television) were transferred to posts as “researchers” as part of a process of “restructuring”. And the March edition of the prestigious journal “Bilim ve Teknik” (Science and Technology) was subject to censorship. There was a picture of Darwin on the cover and a 16-page article celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth. But TÜBITAK (Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council) intervened and the cover picture, article and editor were removed.

    The editor of Bilim ve Teknik, Dr. Cigdem Atakuman, and the offending cover
    Darwin’s theory of evolution is at odds with creationism, which the government supports and which has been introduced into school textbooks. According to Riza Türmen, a former judge at the European Court of Human Rights, this move indicates that what the Turkish government is attempting to achieve is “social engineering, a radical transformation of society”. Incidentally, Riza Türmen’s appointment at the Human Rights Court was not renewed, as he upheld the headscarf ban at Turkish universities in the landmark legal decision in Sahin v. Turkey in 2005.

    The secret of the AKP’s success as a political party is that it is a grassroots movement built up on a local level, and therefore a convincing victory on March 29 will mean a consolidation of the AKP’s power base. The fact that now only 19 out of Turkey’s 81 provinces do not have an ban on alcohol consumption at municipal and public restaurants is a good example of how extensive the AKP’s influence is.

    Davos
    Some days before Israel’s invasion of Gaza the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confided to Israeli premier Ehud Olmert that he needed a high-profile international diplomatic success to deflect domestic criticism and gain legitimacy from Turkey’s secular opposition. For that reason Erdogan set as a precondition for his participation in the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos that there was to be a panel discussion on Gaza, preferably where Israeli president Shimon Peres would be present.

    Seen in this light, Erdogan’s outburst at Peres appears to be a well-planned PR stunt calculated at legitimizing his government on the home front and establishing Turkey as a regional power in the Middle East. The reaction was not long coming. At Istanbul airport Erdogan was greeted as “the conqueror of Davos” and the Lebanese newspaper Dar Al-Hayat suggested that Erdogan should restore the Ottoman empire and be the Caliph of all Muslims. Considering that Turkish foreign policy under the AKP has been dubbed “neo-Ottoman” and that one of Erdogan’s nicknames is “The Imam of Istanbul”, this proposal must have tied in with Erdogan’s ambitions.

    But his outburst has also backfired. According to a senior Israeli diplomatic official Erdogan has with his support of Hamas “lost all credibility as an honest broker in peace discussions”. And the official added: “As long as he is the prime minister of the country, Turkey has no place in peace negotiations or discussions. It is not a trustworthy diplomatic partner anymore.”

    At the same time Erdogan has painted himself into a corner. His defence of Hamas as a legitimate political party hardly fits in with the ongoing closure case against the Kurdish political party DTP (Democratic Society Party) because of alleged connections with the PKK. The Kurdish vote is decisive for the AKP’s control of eastern and southeastern Turkey, where the party won over half the votes in 2007.

    Financial crisis
    Erdogan’s heroic status after Davos is, of course, a vote catcher, but the AKP has also resorted to other methods. Local authorities receive most of their funding from the central government, and the Minister of Justice has threatened voters that if they vote for the opposition, it is unlikely those municipalities will receive government help in the future.

    In Tunceli province in southeastern Turkey, where the mayor of Tunceli, Ms. Songül Erol Abdi, is from the DTP, the state social aid and solidarity fund (the “Fak-Fuk Fon”) has distributed household appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines and dishwashers, and even computers to the local population. The only problem is that some of the villages are without electricity or running water. The Supreme Election Board has ruled against the distribution of aid but the provincial governor has continued with Prime Minister Erdogan’s support.

    Turkey has also been hit by the global financial crisis and there has been a marked rise in unemployment. This year Turkish public and private institutions will need $100 billion in external funding, which is why a new accord with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is imperative. However, as the IMF has demanded cuts in public spending, talks have been suspended until after the March 29 local elections.

    Another sensitive issue in connection with the local elections is the underrepresentation of women among the candidates. There are at present 18 female mayors out of 3,225 in Turkey and only 834 out of 34,477 local administrators are women. No significant change can be expected, as there are only 400 women out of 14,000 nominated for local office.

    Women constitute 26 percent of the labour force, but last July the AKP passed a social security law which cut maternity leave from six months to one . On Wednesday Economy Minister Mehmet Simsek, who himself comes from a poor Kurdish family, also blamed the rising unemployment rate on housewives looking for jobs.

    Columnist Burak Bekdil has criticized Turkey’s new elite for their conspicuous consumption and called them “display Muslims”. Nevertheless, many Turks link their hopes for a better future to the rise of the AK party. As they say in Turkish: Keci can derdinde, kasap et derdinde. The goat fears for its life and the butcher fears for his meat.

    Robert Ellis is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish press and from 2005 to 2008 he was a frequent contributor to Turkish Daily News. However, after a critical article on the AKP in the Los Angeles Times last March, he was informed by the American editor-in-chief of TDN (now Hürriyet Daily News) he was persona non grata.

    This post first appeared on PoliGazette