Turkish Forum

Category: Turkey

  • Recep Tayyip Erdogan: “Brutality against Uighurs must be prevented”

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan: “Brutality against Uighurs must be prevented”

    b2Baku – APA. Turkish Prime Minister Racab Tayyib Erdogan took stance on bloody events taking place in Xinjiang-Uighur autonomous region of China, APA reports quoting Haberturk.

    Turkey is closely following the developments there: “Our Uighur brothers living in Turkey and Turkish people feeling this pain in their hearts hold protest actions condemning these events. We have always seen our Uighur brothers as a bridge between Turkey and China, the country we have always had normal relations with throughout the history. Necessary measures must be taken to prevent this brutality. We are temporary member of the UN Security Council for 2009-2010. We will also take these events into consideration there”.

     08 Jul 2009

    APA

  • France lays down the law on Turkey’s EU progress

    France lays down the law on Turkey’s EU progress

    HONOR MAHONY

    EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – France has warned Sweden to respect its views on Turkey’s EU membership negotiations during its EU presidency, saying it will tolerate the two sides moving closer only in certain areas.

    “Everybody knows that as regards enlargement we don’t have exactly the same position as regards Turkey,” said French president Nicolas Sarkozy following a meeting with his Swedish counterpart Fredrik Reinfeldt on Friday (3 July).

     France drew red lines for the Swedish EU presidency (Photo: European Commission)

    “I am very sensitive to the fact that the chairman of Europe has to take into account all the points of view.”

    Mr Sarkozy, a vocal opponent of Turkey’s full membership of the EU, said he would not hinder further progress in accession negotiations but only if it concerns non-sensitive areas.

    “France will not be against the opening of new chapters under the Swedish chairmanship but, of course, these chapters should allow that Turkey should be an associate member of Europe and not a fully-fledged member,” the president said.

    “I would not like to create any problems for the prime minister and he doesn’t want to create problems for me.”

    Paris in the past blocked negotiations on economic and monetary union with Turkey, seeing it as a step too far.

    Meanwhile, Sweden’s Mr Reinfeldt, in charge of the EU until the end of the year, outlined Stockholm’s position as diplomatically as possible.

    “We also talked about the continued enlargement of the EU. I think the Swedish position is well known,” he said.

    Sweden is one of the strongest proponents of Turkey eventually becoming an EU member

    The issue already caused tension between the two countries in June when Mr Sarkozy abruptly called off a planned visit to Stockholm due to pro-Turkey comments by Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt to leading French daily Le Figaro.

    Slow progress

    Progress on Turkey’s EU membership negotiations has been painfully slow – in part due to foot-dragging by Ankara itself on reforms in human rights and democracy areas. But also due to a reluctance within part of the bloc itself, particularly France and Germany.

    Turkey has opened 11 of the 35 policy areas up for negotiation but has only managed to close one – with member states approval needed to both start and end each policy chapter – since it started membership talks with the EU nearly four years ago.

    Ankara has repeatedly warned that the EU’s lack of enthusiasm will turn ordinary Turks against the project. It has also suggested that the bloc would be shooting an own goal in terms of energy independence if it lost Turkey’s support.

    It has openly linked its co-operation on the Nabucco project, a cross-Turkey pipeline aimed at reducing Europe’s gas reliance on Russia, to EU membership progress.

    https://euobserver.com/eu-political/28412

  • Patriach Kirill calls Russian church inauguration historic

    Patriach Kirill calls Russian church inauguration historic

    16:35 06/07/2009

    ISTANBUL, July 6 (RIA Novosti) – The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, currently on a visit to Istanbul, said on Monday the inauguration of a Russian church on the grounds of the Russian Consulate General was a historic event.

    Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople consecrated the restored St. Constantine and Helen Church and held the first liturgy in the building on Monday.

    The two church leaders held prayers at St. George Cathedral in both Russian and Greek on Sunday.

    “This is a historic event. And it was pleasing to God that the opening of this church coincided with our brotherly meeting – so that the two patriarchs could hold a divine service together,” the Russian patriarch said.

    Kirill, who arrived in the country on Saturday, thanked the Greek patriarch for his “blessing to resume services in this church.”

    The St. Constantine and Helen church was built in 1832, on the territory of the summer residence of the Russian embassy located on the shore of the Bosporus. After the 1917 revolution, it was closed. Three years ago it housed boiler plants, but following large-scale restoration work the church was reopened.

    Patriarch Bartholomew thanked Patriarch Kirill for his first visit as head of the Russian Church to the senior patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church.

    “During this visit we renewed our relations, discussed issues of common interest and made a pledge to each other that our churches will contribute to the further development of inter-Orthodox relations just as God himself wishes,” he said.

  • Creeping Islamism in Turkey

    Creeping Islamism in Turkey

    July 3, 9:12 AM · Richard Shulman – NY Israel Conflict Examiner
    A.P. Photo/ Burhan Ozbilici

    The Islamist ruling party in Turkey [AKP] has “a strategy for a creeping Islamization that culminates in a Shari’a (Islamic law) state not compatible with a secular, democratic order.  The AKP does not advertise this agenda and often denies it.”  Turkish courts confirmed the secret agenda.  However, in the name of democracy, the U.S. and the EU demand that countervailing Turkish circles accept the AKP positions subverting the military, judiciary, and educational system.  This Western pressure is naïve, for it betrays the democratic elements in Turkey to the Islamists, who, as they consolidate power, crimp democracy.  Democracy is not just rule by the majority but allows civil rights, minority opinion and cultural freedom consistent with constitutional order.  In Turkey, democracy is a cover for creeping Islamism and the ending democracy.

    Can’t expect much policy revision by Europe.  Europe is losing sight of the values of its civilization [or is reverting to hedonism and apathy].  Europe doesn’t understand what is happening to it.  Europe has proved inept at ethnic problems.

    Ordinary reform in Turkey is not enough.  Needed is fundamental reform, such as Europeanizing Islam.  Turkish immigrants in Islamic enclaves in Germany are not like Europeans in matters of tolerance and democracy.  The AKP head called their possible assimilation into Europe a “crime against humanity.”  In other words, he wants them to retain their hostility in exchange for German hospitality.  [Sounds like preparation for introducing civil war to Europe.]

    If the Turkish immigrants assimilated into European culture, they could become a welcome and useful addition to Europe, whose population is declining.  Can’t expect much policy revision in Turkey.  Islamists, being undemocratic, don’t compromise.

    Thus, when the AKP legalized the head scarf, which signifies Islamization, and the Supreme Court found it contravened their secular constitution, the AKP threatened to shut the court.

    Many Europeans praised the AKP on this issue, as being moderate and democratic.  As a result of the misguided European notion of democracy, moderate, secularist Turks feel abandoned by the West and alienated towards it.  In Turkey, this issue is debated more honestly than it is in Europe.

    The only difference between moderate and jihadist Islamists is the use of ballots.  The naïve West thinks that including Islamists in politics would tame it.  It didn’t in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq.  Hamas and Hizbullah kept their militias, which contravenes democracy  (Paul Marshall, Jewish Political Chronicle, spring 2009, p.11 from M. E. Quarterly, winter 2009).

    The Western foreign policy establishment has taken a counter-productive position on this.  Secularist Europe actually is helping repress secularist Turkey!

    For another discussion of Turkish Islamism, click here:

    Author Richard Shulman is an Examiner from New York. You can see Richard’s articles at: ““

  • Turkey appoints new representative to UN

    Turkey appoints new representative to UN

    Baki Ilkin was Turkey’s former permanent representative to the UN. Saturday, 04 July 2009 10:15 Turkey has appointed a new representative to the United Nations (UN).

    ertugrul-apakan

    Turkey appointed Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ertugrul Apakan as its new permanent representative to the UN on June 29.

    The concerned decree was published on Saturday’s Official Gazette.

    Baki Ilkin was Turkey’s former permanent representative to the UN. He represented Turkey in the UN for the past four and a half years, and retired on July 1.

  • Russia Offers Turkey a Role in Nabucco Rival South Stream

    Russia Offers Turkey a Role in Nabucco Rival South Stream

    MOSCOW (Reuters)-Russia has offered Turkey a role in its South Stream gas pipeline to Europe, Russian news agencies reported on Wedneseday, marking another attempt by the Kremlin to undermine the European Union’s rival Nabucco project. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Russia’s top energy official, told Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz that Turkey is welcome to participate in the South Stream project, which aims to transport Russian gas under the Black Sea through Eastern Europe to Austria and Italy. “We hope that the Turkish side will look at our offer and that we will cooperate further so that our offer is more attractive and clear to our partners,” S echin told reporters in Moscow after the meeting with Yildiz, the news agencies reported. He did not give details of what specific role Turkey could play in the planned South Stream pipeline, which in its current form does not cross Turkish territory. Yildiz said Turkey would review all the offers on the table, but added that Nabucco and South Stream were not rivals in Turkey’s understanding. “Not one of the projects are being looked at as competitors. Each one has its own course of development,” he said, Interfax reported. Sechin did not mince words, however, about the Russian offer’s goal of damaging Nabucco’s chances of success. Turkey is a crucial partner in the Nabucco project, which Europe is counting on to ease its energy dependence on Russia. Asked about the benefits of Russia’s offer over Nabucco, Sechin said: “The clear economic accounting, the coordination of all the factors, and the efficiency should clearly show which project is the best,” Itar-Tass news agency reported. On Monday, Russia dealt a heavy blow to the Nabucco project by securing supplies of Azeri gas, which has been identified as the main potential source for the EU-backed pipeline.