Category: Turkey

  • Report for Obama: How to Disarm the PKK

    Report for Obama: How to Disarm the PKK

    Academic Barkey from Lehigh University has prepared a report on conflict prevention in Kurdistan for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

    Bıa news centre – Washington

    12-02-2009


    Erhan ÜSTÜNDAĞ

    Professor Henri J. Barkey, chair of the International Relations department at Lehigh University, USA, has prepared a report entitled “Preventing Conflict over Kurdistan” for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

    The report tells the new Obama administration that the Kirkuk issue is pressing. However, the priority must be the solution of Turkey’s domestic Kurdish issue.

    Kurdish issue needs to be handled with care

    The website of the Carnegie Endowment introduces the report, saying:

    “The invasion of Iraq has surfaced long-suppressed nationalist aspirations among the Kurds, most notably the emergence of the federal Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). If ignored or mishandled, Kurdish aspirations have the potential to ignite violence and instability in Iraq, as well as the region, at a particularly delicate time.”

    In the report, Barkey warns that US influence in the region will decrease if US forces withdraw from Iraq, one of the main promises of Obama’s election campaign. The academic suggests the following policies:

    • Break the deadlock between the Iraqi government and the KRG over oil and gas revenue sharing and refugee resettlement. This will go a long way toward rebuilding trust and preventing Kirkuk from becoming a flashpoint—the first priority for the United States.
    • Continue to support the federal system outlined in Iraq’s constitution and avoid any suggestion that Iraq be partitioned.
    • Solidify the dialogue between Turkey and the KRG through U.S. involvement. Warming relations between Turkey and the KRG would stabilize the region and aid in a smooth U.S. troop withdrawal.
    • Demobilize the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and encourage its fighters to disarm or defect under a joint political and military effort coordinated by the KRG, Turkey, and the United States.
    • Work with European allies to resolve Turkey’s internal Kurdish disputes. Supporting Turkey’s counterterrorism program and its bid for EU accession, and providing development assistance in Turkey’s Kurdish regions would allow the U.S. and Europe to address problems from both sides.

    Barkey warns that the leftist and rightist nationalist movements in Turkey, as well as the army, need to be convinced to accept Iraq’s federal structure.

    Amnesty and disarmament in Turkey

    As far as PKK disarmament is concerned, Turkey must issue an amnesty. PKK militants should hand their arms over to the US, with Turkey monitoring the process. He believes that a transparent disarmament process would help to get public opinion to support it. As for the leadership of the PKK, they must be allowed to leave the region safely.

    Following these steps, so Barkey, Iraqi Kurds would have to announce that they would not tolerate any remaining PKK presence, and the KRG must control the area. US military support might be available at this point.

    Barkey argues that Europe must also take part in this process, and that the PKK must dissolve PJAK, the Iranian branch of the PKK.

    He also believes that US and European leaders should have direct contact with nonviolent Kurdish leaders in Turkey.

    The report was introduced at a panel moderated by Marina Ottaway. Barkey discussed the report with Qubad Talabani, a representative of the KRG, and Ian Lesser of the German Marshall Fund.(EÜ/AG)

    Source: bianet.org, 12.02.2009

    Full text is HERE

  • DISCOVER THE RAT IN ARARAT

    DISCOVER THE RAT IN ARARAT

    World renown historian Guenter Lewy in his article titled “Revisiting the Armenian Genocide” published in Fall 2005 edition of Middle East Quarterly ( https://www.meforum.org/895/correspondence ) states:

    “…Most of those who maintain that Armenian deaths were premeditated and so constitute genocide base their argument on three pillars: the actions of Turkish military courts of 1919-20,…, the role of the so-called “Special Organization” accused of carrying out the massacres, and the Memoirs of Naim Beywhich contain alleged telegrams of Interior Minister Talât Pasha…. Yet when these events and the sources describing them are subjected to careful examination, they provide at most a shaky foundation from which to claim, let alone conclude, that the deaths of Armenians were premeditated….”

    How can you argue with the truth? Lewy called it as it is.

    Then, Lewy penned the following review of a book by Richard Hovannisian (ed)., The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies, , another hole-in-one:

    “ BOOK REVIEW BY GUENTER LEWY

    Readers familiar with Russian and Turkish history will experience the same sense of unreality in reading Hovannisian’s insistence that the Armenian disaster in 1915 was entirely unprovoked and the result of a xenophobic nationalistic mindset and a total war ethic on the part of the Young Turk regime. In this narrative there is no place for the decades-long armed struggle of the Armenian revolutionary movement for independence or for the thousands of Turkish Armenians who fought a guerrilla war behind the Ottoman army in 1915, cut roads and lines of communications, and generally aided the Russian invader. Henry Morgenthau, the American ambassador in (Istanbul), reported to Washington on 25 May 1915 that nobody put the Armenian guerrillas at less than 10,000, and that 25,000 was probably . . closer to the truth.

    All this took place in a situation of extreme danger for the Ottoman regime caused by serious military setbacks. Bragging about the Armenian contribution to the Allied war effort, Boghos Nubar, the head of the Armenian delegation, told those at the Paris Peace Conference on 18 March 1919 that the Turks had devastated the Armenians in retaliation for their unflagging devotion to the Allied cause. None of this can justify the brutality and extreme callousness with which the Young Turks carried out the deportation of the Armenian community from their ancient homeland in Anatolia at a huge cost in innocent lives, but it provides the indispensable historical context for the human catastrophe that ensued.

    According to Hovannisian and other contributors to this volume, the scholarly world has accepted the Armenian genocide, and all those who question the Armenian version of these tragic events are “genocide deniers.” Yet while many historians indeed speak of the first genocide of the twentieth century, other historians, including well-known scholars of Ottoman history such as Roderic Davison, Bernard Lewis, and Andrew Mango, while not questioning the horror that transpired, have raised doubts about the appropriateness of the genocide label for the occurrences of 1915.

    Ignoring this formidable array of learned opinion, Armenians continue to assert with superb arrogance that the Armenian genocide is incontrovertible fact and established history that can be denied only by lackeys of the Turkish government or morally obtuse individuals. Unless there is a change in this attitude and Armenians accept the existence of a genuine historical controversy, I see little hope for ending this almost century-old conflict.

    Guenter Lewy
    University of Massachusetts, Amherst “

    DR. GWYNNE DYER

    Dr. Gwynne Dyer simplified the expression of the above scholarly findings so succinctly and eloquently that I think all honest writers should quote it in their fight against Armenian falsifiers:

    “… The deafening drumbeat of the propaganda, and the sheer lack of sophistication in argument which comes from preaching decade after decade to a convinced and emotionally committed audience, are the major handicaps of Armenian historiography of the diaspora today…”

    The Armenians have defined the Turkish-Armenian conflict one way, their way, for 93 years. Even this could be understood within the context of ethnic and/or religious fanaticism. After all, it is a free country, you can believe whatever you want, even that the world is flat. Problem arises when the Armenians demand their claims be declared as settled history with zero tolerance for the other side of the story, coming from Turks and non-Turks alike. The problem turns into a criminal conduct when these Armenian demands turn to Armenian violence, as in Armenian terrorism that claimed 70+ innocent lives (three right here in Southern California) since 1973, aimed at imposing the Armenian will on others.

    Whether the Armenian claims of genocide are recognized by this country or that, does not change the fact that Armenians engineered, provoked, and waged a civil war within a world war; took up arms against their own government; killed their Muslim/Turkish neighbors; joined the invading enemy armies; demanded territories where they were a minority to create Greater Armenia; and did all that with the help of active allies (Russia, Britain, France), passive allies (U.S. diplomats, Protestant missionaries, the New York Times) and others.

    Furthermore, the ubiquitous Armenian propaganda cannot change the

    “6 T’S OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT : ”

    1- Tumult (Armenians taking up arms against their own government,)

    2- Terrorism (by Dashnaks, Hunchaks, and other Armenian terrorist organizations,)

    3- Treason (Armenians joining the invading enemy armies)

    4- Territorial demands (where Armenians were a minority)

    5- Turkish suffering (at the hands of Armenian revolutionaries and terrorists; number exceeds half a million Muslims, mostly Turks)

    6-Tereset (temporary resettlement triggered by the above 5 T’s and misrepresented by Armenians as genocide.)

    SWEDISH EYEWITNESS BELIES ARMENIAN CLAIMS OF “RED RIVER”

    Here, for instance, is the eyewitness report refuting and devastating the Armenian claims and deception once and for all:

    “…For fourteen days, I followed the Euphrates; it is completely out of the question that I during this time would not have seen at least some of the Armenian corpses, that according to Mrs. Stjernstedt’s statements, should have drifted along the river en masse at that time. A travel companion of mine, Dr. Schacht, was also travelling along the river. He also had nothing to tell when we later met in Baghdad… …In summary, I think that Mrs. Stjernstedt, somewhat uncritically, has accepted the hair-raising stories from more or less biased sources, which formed the basis for her lecture…”

    Source: H.J. Pravitz, A Swedish officer, Nya Dagligt Allehanda, 23 April, 1917 issue (A Swedish Newspaper published from 1859 to 1944)… This is the right side of history… This is where Armenian deception is exposed…

    BOGUS ARMENIAN PRESS REPORTS

    Here are the bogus Armenian press reports from WWI that were refuted by a rare missionary whose heart was in the right place:

    “…In some towns containing ten Armenian houses and thirty Turkish houses, it was reported that 40,000 people were killed, about 10,000 women were taken to the harem, and thousands of children left destitute; and the city university destroyed, and the bishop killed. It is a well- known fact that even in the last war the native Christians, despite the Turkish cautions, armed themselves and fought on the side of the Allies. In these conflicts, they were not idle, but they were well supplied with artillery, machine guns and inflicted heavy losses on their enemies….”

    Source: Lamsa, George M., a missionary well known for his research on Christianity, The Secret of the Near East, The Ideal Press, Philadelphia 1923, p 133… This is the right side of history… This is where Armenian deception is exposed…

    “…Few Americans who mourn, and justly, the miseries of the Armenians, are aware that till the rise of nationalistic ambitions, beginning with the ‘seventies, the Armenians were the favored portion of the population of Turkey, or that in the Great War, they traitorously turned Turkish cities over to the Russian invader; that they boasted of having raised an Army of one hundred and fifty thousand men to fight a civil war, and that they burned at least a hundred Turkish villages and exterminated their population…” Source: John Dewey, The New Republic, 12 November 1928. This is the right side of history. This is where Armenian deception is exposed…

    “…In all the countries, under all the regimes, the staff of the armies in the field evacuate towards the back, the populations which live in the zone of fights and can bother the movement of the troops, especially if these populations are hostile. Public opinion does not find anything to criticize to these measures, obviously painful, but necessary. During the winter of 1939-1940, the radical – socialist French government evacuated and transported in the Southwest of France, notably in the Dordogne, the entire population of the Alsatian villages situated in the valley of the Rhine, to the east of the Maginot line. This German-speaking population, and even sometimes germanophil, bothered the French army. It stayed in the South, far from the evacuated homes and sometimes destroyed until 1945….And nobody, in France, cried out for inhumanity…”

    Source: Georges de Maleville, lawyer and a specialist on the Armenian question, La Tragédie Arménienne de 1915, (The Armenian tragedy of 1915), Editions F. Sorlot-F. Lanore, Paris, 1988, p 61-63. This is the right side of history… This is where Armenian deception is exposed…

    Armed with the rock solid truth, fortified with honesty and fairness, let’s expose the Armenian propaganda for what it is: ethocide, mass-deception for political/personal gain…

  • Exclusives in Week

    Exclusives in Week

    Summary of DEBKAfile Exclusives in the Week Ending Feb. 12, 2009
    Hamas claims 181 Fatah operatives were war spies for Israel, US intelligence
    DEBKAfile Exclusive
    6 Feb.: Hamas’ internal publications report that an alleged spy ring of 181 Fatah members passed intelligence to the Israeli enemy during last month’s hostilities.

    Hamas fighters are said to have executed some of the alleged spies during the fighting and shot and injured others. Our sources report that as soon as the fighting wound down on Jan. 20, Hamas security officers did indeed round up scores of Fatah members.

    Hamas names Muhammad Habash, brother of the social affairs minister in the Salam Fayad government in Ramallah, as ringleader of the spy network. He is charged with passing secrets which ended up in Israeli hands to the Ramallah-based Palestinian General Intelligence Service, according to the evidence of documents, correspondence and signals.
    Hamas specifically names the Palestinian General Intelligence Service to imply US complicity, since US advisers have been training its members and supervising its operations.

    Hamas further charges that the Palestinian and Israeli security services have been collaborating for the past year against Hamas. They moved their center of operations to the Gaza Strip just before the flare-up as part of what Hamas calls the “Abu Mazen conspiracy” to take advantage of the fighting to reinstate his Palestinian Authority in Gaza City. The PA was overthrown there by Hamas in 2007.


    Security Briefs Feb. 6– Two Palestinians missiles explode Friday south of Ashkelon and outside a Shaar Hanegev kibbutz.
    No one was hurt,

    – Israel forces killed Palestinian terrorist who pulled a grenade on the Gaza border fence Thursday —

    – Israel expels 18 activists and crew aboard a captured Lebanese aid ship for Gaza —

    – Olmert’s decision to transfer NIS175 ($44m) to Gaza banks was approved by Israeli High Court Friday —
    Hillary Clinton thanked Israeli PM for the transfer “in support of moderates” —


    Cyprus will not release banned Iranian arms shipment destined for Hamas7 Feb.: Cypriot divers armed with sensors and infrared gear began exploring the Cypriot-flagged Iranian arms ship docked at Limassol on orders from the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.The Cypriot official said sending the shipment back is not an “available option.” This would be the first time an Iranian arms ship has been detained and its freight confiscated.

    US and British marine experts have joined the search of the vessel.

    Friday night, the UN sanctions committee concluded in a special session in New York that the consignment violated UN Security Council Resolution 1747 banning Iranian exports. It acted on a report from Cyprus that initial searches of the concealed parts of the ship had turned up different types of rockets believed destined for Hamas. Half the 60 containers have been examined.


    Security briefs Feb. 7– Likud’s Netanyahu in a last-minute switch taps ex-C-of-S Moshe Ayalon for defense, instead of Ehud Barak.

    – Cairo: The cash which a Hamas negotiator tried to smuggle into Gaza through Fatah is fraction of the funds Iran is pumping into Gaza.

    The $9m plus 2m euros the Egyptians caught Friday were not confiscated by deposited in an in El Arish bank in his name.

    – The UN Gaza spokesman demands that Hamas stop looting aid for population and give back huge quantities plundered food and blankets.


    Suicide bomb car kills 4 US soldiers and interpreter in Mosul Monday8 Feb.: A suicide bomber detonated a vehicle laden with explosives near a U.S. patrol in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday, killing four U.S. soldiers and their interpreter.

    The attack was the deadliest against U.S. forces in Iraq this year.


    Outgoing Israeli government bargains away military success in Gaza
    DEBKAfile Special Analysis
    8 Feb.: All too quickly Israel’s three war leaders – prime minister Ehud Olmert, defense minister Ehud Barak and foreign minister Tzipi Livni – forgot the goals they set for the three-week military offensive launched against Hamas on Dec. 27, 2008: That Operation Cast Lead would not halt until security prevailed in southern Israel, that the eight-year Palestinian missile offensive be brought to an end and that Hamas never be allowed to rearm for a fresh assault of terror.

    Six weeks later, the Islamists terrorists are reaping the spoils of a war they lost.

    Jerusalem is feeding Egyptian mediators with concession after concession to keep Hamas at the negotiating table in Cairo and talking about a long-term truce. Frustrated Israeli commanders warn their victory is being traded to buy undreamed-of gains for Hamas, such as the creeping recognition of the Palestinian Islamist group as the Gaza Strip’s legitimate ruling power and acceptance of the enclave’s status as a forward Iranian base on Israel’s southern border. The deal on the table in Cairo would moreover lead to perpetuating the separation between the pro-Western West Bank and the pro-Iranian Gaza Strip, generating a fixed impediment to any discussion of a potential Palestinian state.

    Saturday, Feb. 7, defense minister Barak Hamas granted safe passage to Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar who flew from Gaza to Cairo and on to Damascus, thereby giving Tehran, from which Hamas-Damascus takes direct orders, the last word on all these transactions.





    The attack on Caracas synagogue led by rabbi’s police guard 9 Feb.: Seven Venezuelan police agents and four civilians have been arrested in connection with an attack on a synagogue that sparked international condemnation, investigators said on Sunday.

    President Hugo Chavez, whom Jewish groups accuse of encouraging anti-Semitism, referred to the arrests and said the attack was led by a police officer who had worked closely with the rabbi at the synagogue.

    Armed men broke into Venezuela’s Tiferet synagogue last month, daubed the walls with slogans like “Jews get out” and destroyed religious objects.


    Washington, Moscow at Cross-purposes on Nuclear Iran
    DEBKAfile Special Report
    10 Feb.: While US president Barack Obama told the media early Tuesday, Feb. 10, that the US would pursue direct talks with Iran, an official Russian spokesman said his government would complete Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr within three months.

    DEBKAfile’s sources report that Obama is planning on the dialogue with Tehran beginning in late June. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replied by welcoming talks based on mutual respect provided the changes in Washington were “fundamental and not just tactical.”

    The three statements hung over Israel’s general election Tuesday, as 5.2 million eligible voters turned out to choose a prime minister capable of military action to halt Iran race toward a nuclear bomb.

    Despite the talk in Washington and Moscow of eased strains in their relations, the Kremlin has clearly come down on the side of giving the Iranian leaders a strong hand in their coming dialogue with the Obama administration.”

    DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that Russia delivered 82 metric tons of nuclear fuel to power the plant in the second half of January. This is enough both to fuel the manufacture of electricity and plutonium.

    Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said earlier that the Bushehr plant was 94.8% complete. Foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said it was due to be operational in the first half of 2009.


    Israel elects its 18th Knesset10 Feb.: Thirty-three party lists fought up until the last minute to win 5,278,985 eligible votes on February 10, 2009, although no more than 12 will pass the 2 percent threshold. Blustery weath hit the 9,263 balloting stations up and down the country after weeks of drought.

    Four figures dominated the campaign: Binyamin Netanyahu and his opposition Likud, foreign minister Tzipi Livni at the head of Kadima; defense minister Ehud Barak and his Labor part and Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right-wing Israel Beitenu.

    The West Bank was sealed to passage until Tuesday midnight in case of Palestinian terrorist attacks. The police and security services were on high alert. As candidate for prime minister, the president will choose the leader of the party that proves best able to form a government coalition. The candidate is given 42 days to put together an administration.


    Netanyahu offers Livni 10 portfolios, may form government without Lieberman

    12 Feb.: DEBKAfile’s political sources report that in preliminary talks Wednesday, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu offered Kadima’s Tzipi Livni the pick of 10 top portfolios for joining a government led by him. He has refused to consider rotating the premiership between them.

    Although final results of the Feb. 10 general election gave the centrist Kadima a slender lead of one seat (28 in the 120-member Knesset) over Likud’s 27, Livni cannot muster a majority because both her potential left-wing allies, Labor and Meretz, took a severe beating in the elections. The country shifted to right awarding Netanyahu the support of a bloc of at least 64. President Shimon Peres must therefore assign him the task of forming a new government some time next week.

    Rather than leaning on right-wing support, Netanyahu hopes to coax both Livni and Labor leader Ehud Barak to join his administration although both may opt for crossing over to the opposition. He has the ultra-religious Shas’ 11 mandates in his pocket as well as the five seats of Torah Judaism.

    If Netanyahu can line up all his ducks, he could hypothetically end up with a comfortable majority and a fairly broad-based administration even without Avigdor Lieberman’s right-wing Israeli Beitenu and the two smaller nationalist parties. For now, the negotiations are still in their early stages. Ten years ago, Netanyahu’s first stint as prime minister was cut short by an early election which he lost to Labor’s Barak.


    US-Syrian talks may set the scene for Obama’s dialogue with Iran
    DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
    12 Feb.: US Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, visits Damascus next week. Like his predecessors, the senator will ask Assad if he is prepared to sever his strategic ties with Tehran, withdraw backing for terrorist organizations and halt the passage of terrorists, arms and cash from Syria to Iraq and Lebanon. He will also question the Syrian ruler on his intentions with regard to peace talks with Israel. Senator Kerry will also visit Jerusalem.

    Assad is keen on good relations with the Obama administration but not enough to meet those demands.

    The US is not giving Assad an easy ride. Washington has expedited steps for convening the special international tribunal appointed for bringing the assassins of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005 to trial. Monday, Feb. 9, six steel boxes packed with documents amassed by UN prosecutors investigating the case, were secretly flown to The Hague by a French military plane. This step aims at defeating Assad’s long, all-out efforts to obstruct the trial lest it implicates his regime.


  • Presidents of Russia, Turkey adopt strategic declaration

    Presidents of Russia, Turkey adopt strategic declaration

       
     
       

    MOSCOW, February 13 (RIA Novosti) – The presidents of Russia and Turkey adopted a joint declaration following talks in Moscow on Friday to promote ties and enhance bilateral friendship and partnership.

    Turkish President Abdullah Gul arrived for his first four-day visit to Russia on Thursday. Following his stay in Moscow, he travels to Kazan, the capital of Russia’s predominantly Muslim republic of Tatarstan.

    “This is a strategic document laying out the achievements of bilateral cooperation and setting tasks for enhancing it further,” a source in the Kremlin said earlier.

    In the declaration, the two presidents urged action to take effective measures to settle frozen conflicts that could destabilize the situation in the South Caucasus.

    They also vowed to move quicker in settling issues related to defense cooperation.

    “Reaching agreements on burning issues in defense cooperation between the two countries will open up more opportunities for broader cooperation in the sphere,” the two presidents said in the declaration.

    The two countries, which as the Russian and Ottoman empires established diplomatic relations over five centuries ago, also agreed on mutual aid to restore and build monuments.

    Taking into account the leading role of private businesses in bilateral trade, Russia and Turkey agreed “to facilitate and speed up business contacts… and visa procedures for businessmen.”

    The Turkish president said annual bilateral trade, which exceeded $30 billion last year, could soon grow to $50 billion.

    “We could push the [bilateral trade] index to the level of $40 billion-$50 billion in the near future in the interests of our nations,” Gul said.

    Moscow and Ankara agreed that energy was a strategic sphere in bilateral cooperation that had potential for growth.

    Turkey receives about 65% of its gas from Russia, which is pumped via Ukraine and the Blue Stream pipeline that passes directly from Russia to Turkey under the Black Sea.

    Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko told reporters on Friday that Russia could sign an energy contract worth more than $60 billion with Turkey on the construction of a nuclear power plant and power supplies to the country for the next 15 years.

    He said four reactors for a potential nuclear plant in Turkey could cost $18 billion-$20 billion.

    At the conclusion of the talks, the Turkish president invited his Russian counterpart to make a return trip to Turkey.

    “I believe my current visit will open up a new page in the history of Russian-Turkish ties,” Gul said.

  • Friends of Turkey group founded in EP

    Friends of Turkey group founded in EP

    BRUSSELS – Members of the European Parliament from the Labor Party of Britain have established a Friends of Turkey group in parliament. Speaking at the reception held to welcome the new group, the chairman of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, Deniz Baykal said everyone should preserve optimism at a time when Turkey was also experiencing difficulties.

    “The Friends of Turkey Group will contribute to this optimism,” Baykal said.

    Source:  www.hurriyet.com.tr, February 13, 2009

  • Why Turkey, Israel Must Stay Friends

    Why Turkey, Israel Must Stay Friends

    Osman “Oz” Bengur
    Special to the Jewish Times

    The present rupture in relations between Turkey and Israel is unfortunate and cause for great concern. Relations between Israel and Turkey have been strong and for the sake of both countries and U.S. interests, it is critically important they remain so.

    With that in mind, I would like to respond to Dr. Alexander Murinson’s February 6 article, “Turkey’s Islamic PM Rocks Israel’ Ties” CLICK HERE

    As Dr. Murinson points out in his article, there have been deplorable anti-Semitic rhetoric and activities in Turkey following the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza. Turkish leaders were too slow to condemn these acts and the Prime Minister and his government have now made clear that anti-Semitic outbreaks in Turkey will not be tolerated.

    There are clearly serious differences between the two governments’ views over Gaza that should be addressed in a more temperate way. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Erdogan’s ill-chosen words at Davos were not constructive. It is especially important in these times of heightened emotions that great care is given to the choice of words.

    In his article, Dr. Murinson characterizes Prime Minister Erdogan and his AK party (AKP) and the government of Turkey as “Islamist” which I am concerned creates a misleading impression. The term “Islamist” is usually associated with countries like Iran that are governed according to Sharia law, or mistakenly, with terrorists. Even though Turkey’s population of 75 million is predominantly Muslim, and its ruling party expresses its Muslim faith openly (both the Prime Minister and President’s wives wear headscarves) the secular foundations established by modern Turkey’s founder, Kemal Ataturk, remain strong. In fact, a recent survey showed that only 9 percent of the population would support Islamic law.

    The AKP has twice been elected by increased pluralities and has largely governed pragmatically. Under its leadership, Turkey has made strides to bring its laws into compliance with European Union norms (by abolishing the death penalty and strengthening equal rights for women). There also is broad public support for instituting anti-corruption, judicial and electoral reforms that are a pre-requisite for the EU membership that Turkey seeks.

    The Turkish secular democratic “model” serves as an example to the Islamic world. Turkey’s willingness to send peacekeeping troops to Lebanon and to mediate talks between Israel and Syria are important to obtaining the goal of peace in the Middle East.

    At the same time, AKP’s attempts to remove prohibitions against religious expression such as the wearing of headscarves in universities (a measure that was ruled unconstitutional by Turkey’s highest court) has generated heated opposition from Turks who defend the country’s secular heritage.

    The modern Turkish republic was founded almost 86 years ago and is still a young nation. Turkey has made enormous strides in the past 20 years to broaden its democracy and is now struggling to balance democracy with faith, but it is not “Islamist”.

    Dr. Murinson attempts to “de-legitimize” (to borrow his word) Turkey’s objections over Gaza by implying that Turkey has no moral standing since it has attacked PKK terrorist strongholds in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. Like Israel, Turkey has a right to defend itself against terrorists and has come under criticism for its actions. Recent reports indicate that the Turkish military has taken greater care not to attack villages and that civilian casualties are rare.

    It is deeply disturbing to many Turks and Americans of Turkish heritage like me to see anti-Semitism in Turkey. While diplomatic, military and commercial cooperation between Turkey and Israel is relatively recent, the emotional ties between Jews and Turks span more than 500 years since the time the Ottoman Sultan provided haven for Jews fleeing the Inquisition. Over the centuries, Turkey has provided refuge for Jews seeking asylum. Yad Vashem named a Turkish Consul General “Righteous Among Nations” for saving Jews from the Nazis. Turkey was the first predominantly Muslim country to recognize the State of Israel in 1949 and with Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

    This history cannot be taken for granted, however. Turkey must reassure its Jewish citizens by taking decisive action against anti-Semitism. The recent disagreements over Gaza shouldn’t be allowed to escalate to the point where the relationship between the two countries is irreparably damaged.

    A strong relationship between Turkey and Israel is vital to both countries and vital to the strategic interests of the United States.

    We all have a stake in its success.

    Osman “Oz” Bengur, who lives in Towson, is a former candidate for the U.S. Congress. More of his work can be found at: citybizlist.com

    Source: www.jewishtimes.com, February 13, 2009