Turkish Forum

Category: News

  • George Bush, Osama Bin Laden in MISSION ISTANBUL

    George Bush, Osama Bin Laden in MISSION ISTANBUL

    Joginder Tuteja, Bollywood Trade News Network  

    Apoorva Lakhia and Suneil Shetty are really thinking BIG for their upcoming project MISSION ISTANBUL.

    The film is being promoted extensively with each of the actors getting a fair dose of limelight for himself. While Zayed Khan is being the common factor amongst all the film’s promos (since he plays the central protagonist), even Nikiten Dheer (who did loose his share of pie in JODHAA AKBAR in spite of being pitted against Hrithik Roshan) has been making quite an impression with his physique standing tall over anyone else in the frame.

    Vivek Oberoi too doesn’t have a reason to complain since he has not just become much more prominent in the promotional plans of the film but now also has an item song all for himself. No wonder, he is giving tough competition to Abhishek Bachchan who has been roped in as an item boy for MISSION ISTANBUL.

    But are you aware that apart from Zayed Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Suneil Shetty and Nikiten Dheer, there are two more characters which form an integral part of this action packed thriller? And these two men are not fictional but belong to real life!

    We are talking about the characters of George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden, who would feature in this most ambitious venture of Apoorva Lakhia.

    Of course, one can’t expect the two men to be facing the camera for a feature film and hence the makers of MISSION ISTANBUL have roped in look alikes of Bush and Osama for their film. While Brent Mendenhall, an exact look-alike of U.S President George W. Bush, appears in the film as Bush, the part of Osama Bin Laden would be enacted by Khalil Ahmed.

    In a film that has been shot in Turkey and exposes behind the scenes games of media and terrorism coming together, MISSION ISTANBUL is indeed generating quite some heat for itself. Also starring Shabbir Ahluwalia, Shriya Saran and Shweta Bhardwaj, MISSION ISTANBUL is a co-production of Popcorn Motion Pictures and Balaji Telefilms Ltd. and is all set for a 25th July.

  • The Not-So-Historic Talabani-Barak Handshake

    The Not-So-Historic Talabani-Barak Handshake

    Sunday, 13 July 2008, 2:54 pm

    Column: Ramzy Baroud

    A Kodak Moment:

    The Not-So-Historic Talabani-Barak Handshake (Photo: AFP)

    By Ramzy Baroud

    Most people would not have even realised that the 23rd congress of the Socialist International was being held near Athens were it not for the moment when Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak shook the hand of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

    An Associated Press report, published in the Israeli daily Haaretz, dubbed the handshake “historic”. History was supposedly made in Athens on 1 July 2008. Centred in a photo, featuring a widely grinning Barak and Talabani, is Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was credited for introducing the two.

    The three individuals involved are members of political establishments that are largely funded and sustained by the US government. Both Abbas and Talabani are at the helm of puppet political structures that lack sovereignty or political will of their own, and are entirely reliant on scripts drafted in full or in part by the Bush administration.

    As for Israel, which enjoys a more equitable relationship with the United States, normalisation with the Arabs is something it covets and tirelessly promotes, granted that such normalisation doesn’t involve ending its occupation of the Palestinian territories, or any other concessions.

    One might suggest the happenstance handshake and very brief meeting was not accidental at all. This is what Haaretz wrote, rewording Barak’s comments on the handshake. He “said that Israel wished to extend its indirect peace talks with Syria to cover Iraq as well.” That was a major political declaration by Israel — one surely aimed at further isolating Iran, as Israel’s newest moves regarding Syria, Lebanon and Gaza clearly suggest. But the fact is Israel’s ever-careful leaders could make no such major political announcement without intense deliberation and consensus in the Israeli government prior to the “accidental” handshake.

    Talabani owes Barak more than a reciprocal handshake; a heartfelt thank you is in order for his newly found fortunes as Iraq’s sixth president starting in 2005. Indeed, over time, pointing the finger at Israel’s leading role in the Iraq war — as it’s now being replayed in efforts to strike Iran — has morphed from being a recurring discussion of writers and analysts outside the mainstream media, to US government and army officials.

    In a recent commentary, US writer Paul J Balles brings to the fore some of these major declarations, including those of Senator Ernest Hollings (May 2004) who “acknowledged that the US invaded Iraq ‘to secure Israel’, and ‘everybody knows it.’” Retired four-star US army general and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark is another: “Those who favour this attack (against Iraq) now will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true that Saddam Hussein is no threat to the United States. But they are afraid at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear weapon to use it against Israel,” he was quoted in The Independent as saying.

    In his recent review of Michael Scheuer‘s Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq, Jim Miles wrote, “It is not so much the Israeli lobby itself that he [Scheuer] criticises, but the ‘Israeli-firsters’, those of the elite who whole-heartedly adopt the cause of Israel as the cause of America. He describes them as ‘dangerous men… seeking to place de facto limitations on the First Amendment to protect the nation of their primary attachment [Israel].”

    Scheuer, an ex-CIA agent who primarily worked on gathering information on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, wrote in his book, “to believe that relationship is not only a burden but a cancer on America’s ability to protect its genuine national interests… equates to either anti- Semitism or a lack of American patriotism.”

    Not only is Israel directly and indirectly responsible for a large share of the war efforts (needless to say media propaganda and hyped “intelligence” on Iraq’s non-existing nuclear programme), but it also had much to say and do following the fall of the Iraqi government in March 2003.

    In a comprehensive study entitled “The US War on Iraq: Yet Another Battle To Protect Israeli Interests?” published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in October 2003, Delinda C Hanley discussed Israel’s involvement following the invasion of Iraq. The article poses an important question, among others: did Bush’s Israel-first advisers invade Iraq in order to assure that Israel would have easy access to oil? — a question that is not predicated on a hunch, but rather statements made by top Israeli officials, including the country’s national infrastructure minister at the time Joseph Paritzky, who “suggested that after Saddam Hussein’s departure, Iraqi oil could flow to the Jewish state, to be consumed or marketed from there.” A 31 March 2003 article in Haaretz reported on plans to “reopen a long-unused pipeline from Iraq’s Kirkuk oil fields to the Israeli port of Haifa.”

    Israel’s interest in Kirkuk’s oil, and thus Iraqi Kurds, didn’t merely manifest itself in economic profits, but extended far beyond. Seymour M Hersh wrote in The New Yorker, 21 June 2004: “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government decided… to minimise the damage that the war was causing to Israel’s strategic position by expanding its long-standing relationship with Iraq’s Kurds and establishing a significant presence on the ground in the semi- autonomous region of Kurdistan…
    Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units
    and, most important in Israel’s view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria.”

    Perhaps Talabani is the president of Iraq, but he is also the founder and secretary-general of the major Kurdish political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). His advocacy for Kurdish political sovereignty spans a period of five decades. Thus, it is also difficult to believe that the influential leader didn’t know of Israel’s presence and involvement in northern Iraq. Ought one to understand the Athens handshake as a public acknowledgment and approval of that role?

    To suggest that the Barak-Talabani handshake was “historic” is completely unfounded, if not ignorant. What deserves scrutiny is why the governments of Tel Aviv and the Green Zone decided to upgrade their gestures of “good will” starting in 2003 to a public handshake. Is it a test balloon or is there a more “historic” and public agreement to follow?

    *************

    -Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

    Source: PalestineChronicle.com, 13 July 2008

  • The Plot Against Turkey

    The Plot Against Turkey

    The Ergenekon case is the latest salvo in the battle between the ruling AKP and the nationalist old guard.

    By Mustafa Akyol | NEWSWEEK
    Jul 21, 2008 Issue

    Things are getting very hot this summer in Turkey—and it’s not just the weather. A long-simmering constitutional crisis is boiling over, and the country is experiencing one of its most turbulent periods in decades. Over the past several weeks, Turkish authorities have arrested two dozen members of a covert ultranationalist group named Ergenekon for allegedly plotting to provoke a military coup by staging political assassinations and whipping up social turmoil. Among the plotters: two retired top generals, the leader of a paramilitary group, and Kemal Kerincsiz, a lawyer who has sued dozens of liberal intellectuals in the past for violating Turkey’s law against “insulting Turkishness.”

    The Ergenekon case is only the latest salvo in a political war between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Turkey’s nationalist and staunchly secularist old guard. The charges, if proved, point to a brazen conspiracy to undo the liberal reforms implemented by the AKP in recent years as part of its effort to move Turkey toward entry into the European Union. The plot seems to have grown out of fears that have been growing among Turkey’s nationalists since 2004, when the nation’s accession process began, and nationalists realized that as well as offering some economic advantages, the process could require Turkey to grant concessions on Cyprus, give greater freedoms to minorities and develop a more democratic political system.

    This battle is sometimes defined in the Western media as a tension between “Islamists” and “secularists,” but both terms are misleading. While AKP leaders, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, share an Islamist past, they abandoned that years ago and redefined themselves as “conservative democrats” who champion free markets, traditional (including religious) values and pro-EU reforms. Since it came to power in November 2002, the AKP has proved highly successful, winning a solid electoral victory in July 2007. Socially, the AKP represents Turkey’s economically minded masses, religious conservatives—including the rising “Islamic bourgeoisie” —and even most Kurds. As for those labeled secularists, they are not what one might think. Turkey’s definition of secularism is based not on the separation of mosque and state, but the dominance of the latter over the former—all mosques are simply run by the government. Secularist ideologues argue that the state also needs to safeguard society from religion. The Constitutional Court, one of the enforcers of this ideology, ruled in 1989 that “society should be kept away from thoughts and judgments that are not based on science and reason.” The result is a complete banishment of religion from the public square, including a ban on religious symbols such as headscarves.

     This illiberal secularism goes back to the formative years of the Turkish republic, born from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He and his followers were deeply influenced by the French Enlightenment, and were convinced that the influence of religion must be swept away from society. Ethnic and cultural diversity were seen as threats—hence the decision to “Turkify” the Kurds. The Kemalists’ project was in fact a cultural revolution and a government they defined as “for the people, in spite of the people.”

    Though the Kemalists succeeded in building a strong state, most of the undesired social groups—such as pious Muslims and the Kurds—persisted in their demands for freedom and democracy. Yet Turkey’s establishment, represented by the military and the high courts and supported by urban elites, remains attached to Kemalism, which has turned into a rigid ideology perpetuated by an official cult of personality. The reverence shown to Ataturk, evident in his omnipresent image and oft-repeated mantras, approaches the level of leader worship you see in places like North Korea. The Ergenekon gang seems to have been an attempt by the most radical extreme secularists to preserve the old regime, which has given the old elite unchecked power and privilege. Cengiz Aktar, a liberal EU advocate, likens the plot to the coup attempted by Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero in Spain in 1981, when he stormed Parliament to halt the EU accession process and restore the Francoist regime.

    Like Tejero, the alleged Ergenekon conspiracy has failed. But the ideology behind it persists. One clear sign is the shocking case launched by Turkey’s chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, against the AKP four months ago. Defining the party “as an anti-secular threat to the regime,” he asked the Constitutional Court to close the party and ban from politics 71 of its members, including Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, a former AKP member. Their crimes, according to Yalcinkaya, include passing a constitutional amendment to allow headscarves in universities, and comments by Erdogan such as “Turkey needs a more liberal secularism like the American one.” The notoriously illiberal Constitutional Court is expected to give its verdict on AKP’s fate sometime in August. If the AKP prevails, it will likely continue on the path to the EU. But should the court rule against the party, it will also in the process strike a major blow to Turkish democracy and the country’s EU dreams. There will no longer be any need for gangs like Ergenekon; the coup will have been realized by legal means.

    Akyol is the deputy editor of the Turkish Daily News.

  • Credit crunch: Turkey overtakes Spain as most popular holiday destination

    Credit crunch: Turkey overtakes Spain as most popular holiday destination

    Phil Davies
    Last Updated: 2:55PM BST 11/07/2008
    Getty
    Turkey is our most popular holiday destination

    The worsening economic climate is prompting British holidaymakers to look beyond the traditional package holiday favourite, Spain, to the cheaper option of Turkey, new research showed this week.

    The Co-operative Travel Company reported that there had been a “seismic shift” in the way Britons were booking holidays this summer. Among its clients, Turkey had overtaken Spain, the favourite package holiday destination since the Sixties.

    A large part of the reason for the shift is the poor exchange rate of the pound against the euro. Analysis by Co-operative Travel showed that the average cost of a holiday to Spain, which uses the euro, was £465 – over £100 more than the average cost of a holiday to Turkey (£357), which does not.

    The independent travel group’s findings were based on research into more than 200,000 holidays to its 30 most popular foreign holiday destinations.

    The group found that, while bookings to Majorca were down by 13 per cent compared with the same time last year, some 30 per cent more people were booking trips to Turkey. Egypt is also benefiting from the switch away from Spain, with bookings to Sharm el Sheikh up 38 per cent over last year.

    The fall in bookings to western Mediterranean destinations such as mainland Spain and the Balearics is also due to a reduction in the number of holidays on offer in the marketplace following the mergers last year between the major tour operators Thomas Cook and MyTravel, and Thomson and First Choice.

    At the start of the summer 2008 booking season, Thomson’s parent company, TUI Travel UK, announced cuts of 12 per cent while Thomas Cook trimmed the former MyTravel holiday programme by as much as 23 per cent.

    Co-operative Travel’s retail distribution director, Trevor Davis, said: “Bookings from people looking for cheap summer sun have traditionally ensured that Spain was the leading holiday destination. However, this year they are finding the high euro and a shortage of availability means the normal late deals are not available.

    “Turkey has benefited most from this trend and we’re seeing 30 per cent growth in bookings for holidays across all parts of the country.”

    Thomson and First Choice believe that economic uncertainties, coupled with the strength of the euro, will prompt more holidaymakers to take advantage of “all-inclusive” or “full-board” breaks where the total price is known in advance.

    Further afield, fuel surcharges are affecting long-haul destinations, with fares to Australia for departures in October – the start of the southern hemisphere summer – up by more than 12 per cent this year, from £997 to £1,124 for an economy return from Heathrow.

    Many families wanting to keep costs down are holidaying in Britain. Steve Short, managing director of the domestic tour operator Compass Holidays, said: “Rising oil prices mean families have to pay a fortune to go abroad this year. People don’t realise what beautiful and relaxing destinations we have right here in Britain. Many are easily reachable by train, so there’s no need even to spend money on petrol.”

    Tom Wright, the chief executive of VisitBritain, said: “In the current economic climate, we are finding that Britons are taking another look at holidaying at home and are surprised by the range of experiences on offer.”

    Top 10 Foreign Holiday Destinations

    1. Turkey – Dalaman
    2. Majorca
    3. Crete
    4. Turkey – Bodrum
    5. Algarve
    6. Cyprus
    7. Tenerife
    8. Costa Blanca
    9. Sharm el Sheikh
    10. Rhodes

    (Source: The Co-operative Travel Company)

    Source: www.telegraph.co.uk, [London], 11/07/2008

  • Bilkent University mosque to feature church, synagogue

    Bilkent University mosque to feature church, synagogue

    Ankara will soon have another version of the Garden of Religions, inaugurated in December 2004 by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Belek district of Antalya.

    A mosque complex is being constructed on the Bilkent University campus, and it will also feature a church and a synagogue. Expected to be Turkey’s new protocol mosque for official visits, the complex will see completion in September.

    To be named the Doğramacızade Mosque after the founder and honorary rector of the university, Professor İhsan Doğramacı, the complex will be a little different from its peer in Antalya, as the church and synagogue will be inside the mosque, forming two separate sections. The one in Belek has a garden with three separate places of worship.

    However, the project has one challenge to face: Before it is completed it needs to be endorsed by the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which must make an interpretation in line with Islamic jurisprudence about the permissibility of followers of three different religions worshipping in the same place.

    A number of officials from the directorate told Today’s Zaman that they knew about the construction of the complex but had no idea about the two separate rooms to be used inside the mosque as a church and a synagogue.

    In their appeal for the directorate’s approval, officials from the Professor İhsan Doğramacı Foundation requested that they themselves be permitted to appoint an imam to the mosque, but they also said that they were not averse to the idea of the directorate appointing a qualified and accomplished imam to such an important mosque.

    The mosque’s plan was drawn up upon the instructions of Doğramacı, the son of a Turkoman family from Kirkuk. Its architecture is described as “very authentic and republican style” by Doğramacı. Having bought the building plot shortly before construction began, Doğramacı is covering all the building expenses himself. Paying close attention to every detail of construction, he is reported to have spent about $1 million so far.

    What makes the project distinctive is that it has been planned as the official protocol mosque of Ankara. The two rooms inside the mosque will be set aside for Christian and Jewish students and lecturers from the Bilkent, Hacettepe and Middle East Technical universities.

    The building plot is 12,000 square meters. The mosque will sit on a 4,500-square-meter portion, and the rest of the plot will be set aside for green areas. The mosque building will also have conference and exhibition halls for conferences and panel discussions on religious and ethical issues.

    In addition to the women’s section, the mosque will have two benches at the back for those with health problems that prevent them from kneeling and prostrating in prayer. There will be a moving walkway for the elderly and a separate entrance and exit for official guests to enter and leave with ease. There will also be a large parking lot.

    Project based on Islamic tolerance

    Houses of worship of the three Abrahamic religions sharing a common space is not actually a first in the history of Muslim Turks. The first example to be cited would be İstanbul’s Dar’ul-ajaza charity home, which for centuries had separate places for the followers of all three religions to worship. With the idea of allowing all people, regardless of faith, to benefit from these charitable institutions in mind, the Ottoman state had a worship room built for all three of the religions in this charitable place, along with innumerous others.

    Similar places that combined places of worship of all three religions existed throughout the Ottoman lands, particularly in İstanbul’s Ortaköy district and Hatay, or Antioch.

    When the first Garden of Religions was opened in Antalya in 2004 by Prime Minister Erdoğan, the inaugural ceremony was attended by Ali Bardakoğlu, the head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, Alphonse Sammut, a representative of the Turkish Catholic churches, Dasiteos Aragnostopoulos, a representative of the Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, İshak Haleva, chief rabbi of the Turkish Jewish congregation and the Armenian patriarch, Mesrob II Mutafyan. The Kuşadası Businessmen’s Association (KUSİAD) also launched a similar project after witnessing foreign visitors’ positive reactions to the two previous projects. The Kutadası Garden of Religions is being built on an 8,500-square-meter plot. The site will have conference and exhibition halls, too.

    ERCAN YAVUZ ANKARA

    Source: Todays Zaman, 12 July 2008

  • The Turkish Dictionary

    The Turkish Dictionary

    Ghassan Charbel, Al-Hayat – 11/07/08

    The world lives in rhythm with Iranian blasts. When President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad does not issue his threats, Revolutionary Guard generals take over. The menu of threats is all too known: closing the Strait of Hormuz; targeting American ships; setting the Great Satan’s interests on fire; unavoidably abolishing Israel; eradicating the cancerous tumor and burning down Tel Aviv. With threats, come maneuvers, and when necessary, Iran announces testing a new generation of missiles. The message is clear: Iran has the means to translate its threats to actions and set fire to the region.

    The world was preoccupied with the Iranian missile serial, while Baghdad received Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a visit both sides agreed on dubbing “historical”. Erdogan brought a message of hope to the Iraqis. He addressed them saying: “Be optimistic to cross this difficult phase and you will always find me by your side, God willing. The Turkish government and people will be standing by you.”

    It was remarkable to see, at the end of the talks,that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the formation of the Higher council for Strategic Cooperation, aimed at organizing cooperation on all economic levels, combating terrorism, and handling water issues. Erdogan also added that both nations are working to let commercial exchange figures reach $25 billion. It was all talk of cooperation, investment and numbers. The Turkish prime minister also declared that he has received support from al-Maliki’s government and the Kurdistan Regional Government against the fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has resumed its violent activities inside Turkey.

    There is no doubt that the future of the Iraqi situation is a matter of concern for Turkey, with regards to its security and stability. It is likely that Turkey will be the biggest loser, in case Iraq slips into chaos. The reason is that a united Iraq guarantees confining the Kurdish dream within the Iraqi Kurdistan borders, whereas an Iraqi outburst would inevitably lead to the independence of this region and to turning it into a center that attracts Turkish Kurds. In this sense, it is worth noting that Ankara has a lot to gain from a united Iraq, whereas the Iranian role can only grow in a troubled Iraq, since the balances within a united Iraq prevent Tehran from pulling Iraqi strings at will.

    Turkey has no interest in a troubled Iraq, in which al-Qaeda settles to breed new generations of suicide bombers in certain parts of the country. It also has no interest in an Iraq, whose government does not exercise full control over its territories, which forces Turkey to occasionally organize disciplinary campaigns inside the Iraqi borders. Similarly, Turkey has no interest in an Iraq dominated by Iran, because that would disturb regional balances right at its borders. In this context, the visit can be viewed as an expansion of the scope of regional recognition that al-Maliki’s government enjoys, and also as an encouragement for it to adopt a national reconciliation policy that will enlarge, most of all, its scope of recognition among Arabs.

    In one of its facets, Erdogan’s visit to Iraq represents another step in Turkey’s efforts to contain the rising Iranian power in the region, efforts that are both calm and wise as they are carried out away from noise and emotional outbursts. This is evident from the fact that Turkey has not panicked or lost its nerve in front of its Iranian neighbor’s exercise of muscles, including its battle with the west over uranium enrichment.

    Turkey also assumes a more important role on another front. Erdogan’s government is playing a prominent role in hosting and mediating indirect negotiations between Syria and Israel on its territories. One can say that the successful transformation of these negotiations into direct talks sponsored by the US will represent a very serious attempt to establish peace in the Middle East and to contain the Iranian influence, which is reinforced by the atmospheres of confrontation. Of course, it is too premature to speak of an overt and explicit split between Syrian and Iranian calculations. However, the role Turkey is playing in the progress of the Syrian position is extremely important, given Turkey’s nature and its international alliances.

    From military participation in Afghanistan, to participating in the international forces in South Lebanon, to encouraging Syria to negotiate with Israel and support al-Maliki’s government, the gap between the Turkish and Iranian dictionaries seems vast. Resting on its Islamic roots and wearing Ataturk’s hat, Erdogan’s Turkey speaks the language of interests, figures, international law and realism, whereas Ahmedinejad scoops up firebrands from both the revolution and the dictionary of confrontation, while addressing the world with missiles.

    Source: Al-Hayat, 11/07/08