Turkish Forum

Category: World

  • Turkish Airlines and Asiana Airlines form code share agreement

    Turkish Airlines and Asiana Airlines form code share agreement

    Published by Ozgur Tore   
    Tuesday, 06 October 2009
    Turkish Airlines has signed a new code share agreement with Asiana Airlines from South Korea as part of an expansion program. The new code share agreement which will go into effect on October 25th, 2009 will enhance the flow of trade and tourism between Turkey and Korea.

     As an outcome of the new code share agreement signed between Turkish Airlines and Asiana Airlines, passengers from Seoul will be able to connect on Turkish Airlines’ network to any of its 119 international destinations including routes to Turkey, Europe, North America, South America, Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East.

    Passengers from Istanbul will also be able to enjoy the convenience of Asiana Airlines’ wide network of connections to South Korea, and other popular destinations in Japan, China and South-East Asia. Asiana Airlines’ network covers 82 international destinations.

    A1

     

    FTNNEWS

  • Global economy expanding says IMF

    Global economy expanding says IMF

    The global economy is expanding again and financial conditionsJ have improved significantly, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.

    But in its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF said the “pace of recovery is expected to be slow”.

    It added that the recovery is likely to be “insufficient to decrease unemployment for quite some time”.

    On Wednesday, the IMF cut its forecast for the amount that banks are likely to lose in bad loans and investments.

    The total it expects banks to lose between 2007 and 2010 is now $3.4tn (£2.1tn), down from its previous estimate of $4tn.

    This reduction is a direct result of the improved outlook for the global economy.

    Separately, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) said that the 16 countries in the eurozone should withdraw stimulus packages in the next two years.

    “From an ECB point of view, it is important to do what is necessary to exit as soon as possible,” Jean-Claude Trichet said at a meeting of EU finance ministers and central bank governors in Gothenburg.

    “It is important in our view that it starts as soon as the recovery starts. It is something which is essential for the recovery itself.

    “I would say, in our own view, at the latest in 2011.”

    Recovery risks

    The global recovery is being led by Asia, where economies have “withstood the financial turmoil much better than expected,” the IMF said.

    But gains are now being seen in developed economies, where “financial market sentiment and risk appetite have rebounded”, it added.

    Despite the improved outlook, however, the fund said there were a number of risks to the recovery.

    It cited major government stimulus packages, central bank support and restocking by companies that have run down inventories as three temporary factors that “will diminish during the course of 2010”.

    It also highlighted the fact that banks are being forced to hold more cash in reserve, which will limit the amount of credit available “for the remainder of 2009 and into 2010”.

    With less money available to companies and individuals to borrow, and therefore invest, demand may be stifled.

    Most serious, it concluded, was the fact that “private demand in advanced economies remains very weak”.

    Increased growth

    The IMF predicts that the US economy will contract by 2.7% in 2009, before growing by 1.5% next year.

    The eurozone, it thinks, will shrink by 4.2% this year and grow by 0.3% in 2010.

    It has upgraded its forecast for UK economic growth to 0.9% next year, up from a previous estimate of 0.2%. This puts the UK top of Europe’s leading economies for growth in 2010, alongside France.

    The German economy, the IMF thinks, will grow 0.3% next year, while the Spanish economy will shrink by 0.7%.

    The world’s fastest-growing economy in 2010 will be Singapore, which will expand by 4.1%, closely followed by Taiwan, Slovakia, South Korea and Hong Kong, according to the fund.

    BBC

  • Don’t Israel’s nuclear weapons count?

    Don’t Israel’s nuclear weapons count?

    yasmin_alibhai_brownYasmin Alibhai-Brown: Don’t Israel’s nuclear weapons count?

    Netanyahu has what he wants to keep up the idea of his plucky, vulnerable little state

    Influential Europeans – including many Muslims – recently debated freedom of expression with the Danish editor who commissioned the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed which led to riots. Held in Berlin, it was a good, at times blazing, debate.

    Freedom of expression, we were given to understand, is one of the valves in Europe’s heart that must remain open to keep our continent alive and healthy. In good faith I exercise that freedom in this column. Let us see if readers and interest groups will support my right to write what follows even if they violently disagree with my observations.

    From past experience I bet many will find that impossibly hard. They will denounce me as an enemy within, a rule-breaker of unspoken rules, bringing up stuff that must be left buried in the name of peace and justice. I see no reason to comply. This week shows us how such doublethink and doublespeak pulls the world towards Armageddon.

    Leaders of the rich nations have turned their fire on Iran, quite rightly. On Friday came news that the Islamic Republic had been building a secret uranium enrichment plant near Qom. Then the junta fired test missiles, to prove that the bearded ones have really big willies. Unlike Iraq under Saddam, there are, in Iran, nuclear developments that could lead to weapons of mass destruction. It is not an immediate but a future danger, say credible intelligence experts and indeed Barack Obama himself.

    Suddenly the president has got uncharacteristically belligerent, instructing Iran to open up all its nuclear facilities for inspection if it wants to avoid “a path that is going to lead us to confrontation”. In May, Obama stood in Washington with the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu, who we were told was there to seek assurances that there would be no shift from the conventional US position of total and unconditional support for Israel’s policies right or wrong, known and clandestine.

    On Thursday the US, China, Britain, France, Russia and Germany meet in Geneva and, by that time, Iran will be expected to submit to international scrutiny. As a supporter of the now crushed and broken reformers in Iran, I back the ultimatum to the fanatic and bellicose Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But what about that camel in the room? The one we all see but can’t point out? What about the only power in the Middle East, also fanatic and aggressive, which has a vast stockpile of weapons enough to obliterate the region? Listen people, we need to talk about Israel. And soon. Like now.

    I have been in contact with a young Iranian woman who wore a green scarf and lipstick on the streets of Tehran, whose uncle is currently being tortured in prison there for demonstrating against the results of the election. Somehow she escaped from the country and is in Britain briefly before going on to the US to make a new life. Let us call her M.

    Nobody could hate Ahmadinejad more than M; she hates the whole regime, the treacherous leaders who betrayed the people. When she speaks she often gets asthmatic. But yet, but yet, she finds her passions rising for her country this week because of fears of military strikes by Israel and the manifestly unfair way that Israel is indulged. “I will go back if they attack my country, even if they put me to jail,” M says. “That is my duty. Israel is the enemy of peace and America gives them money to get more arms. I don’t want Iran to have these terrible weapons, but Israel must also be stopped.”

    The big powers are moving tentatively towards global de-nuclearisation, taking small but significant steps to show they do want everyone to pitch in. Obama’s decision to shelve the European defence missile programme shows serious intent, so too Gordon Brown’s announcement that Britain would cut down from four to three its Trident missile-carrying submarines. There was a moment this spring, albeit fleeting, when Rose Gottemoeller, an assistant secretary of state and Washington’s chief nuclear arms negotiator, asked Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, thus breaking the 40-year-old silence and US complicity in its accumulated, un-inspected arsenal. Her reasonable appeal provoked apoplexy in a nation that assumes special, indeed exceptional, treatment.

    In the 1960s, Israel successfully hid its weapons from US inspectors. In 1986, Israeli nuclear technical assistant Mordechai Vanunu revealed information about the concealed stockpiles and has been punished ever since. Hubristic Israel no longer cares to deny that it has hundreds of atom and hydrogen bombs and devastating biological “tools”. Netanyahu has been warning he will destroy the Iranian sites if his country feels the danger is real. Now he has just what he wanted – another crisis in the Middle East, to keep up the idea of plucky, vulnerable, endangered little Israel.

    Alarmingly, even the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz is on side. History has made too many Israelis fear all humanity in perpetuity and that fear brings out the worst in that nation. It has predictably rejected the long, sober, unbiased UN report on the last assault on Gaza chaired by Richard Goldstone. He accused Hamas of crimes against Jewish civilians and charged Israel with grave crimes, the breaking of the Geneva convention, punishing and terrorising unarmed civilians.

    I have some images of these victims sent to me by a Jewish pro-Palestinian activist. Children turned to ash, blistered mothers weeping, and on and on. There still is no respite for the hungry and dying in Gaza. If Israel can mete out such treatment and not be called to account, just think what the state feels entitled to do to Iran.

    The Israeli human rights activist Gideon Spiro bravely asks that his country be subject to the same rules as Iran and all others in the Middle East: “Rein in Israel, compel it to accept a regime of nuclear disarmament and oblige it to open all nuclear, biological and chemical facilities and missile sites to international inspection.” The US has leverage because it maintains and funds Israel. If Obama shies away from this, there can be no moral justification to go for Iran or North Korea or any other rogue state. And the leader whose election and dreams gave hope to millions thereby hastens the end of the world.

    y.alibhaibrown@independent.co.uk

    Source:  www.independent.co.uk, 28 September 2009

  • Turkey’s ‘Henry Kissinger’

    Turkey’s ‘Henry Kissinger’

    By Sami Moubayed, Special to Gulf News

    The historian inside me sometimes muscles down the analyst, and I tend to view political players as how history will judge them 10, 20 and 50 years from today.

    Many politicians in today’s world might get front page coverage in daily newspapers, but will receive no more than passing mention in history books either because of no legacy, lack of charisma or minimal achievements when judged by a historian’s yardstick.

    Nobody in the Palestinian Territories, for example, measures up to Yasser Arafat or George Habash. There are no Jamal Abdul Nassers in today’s world, no Anwar Sadats, no King Hussains, no Khomeinis, and even no Ariel Sharons.

    Barack Obama is an exception to the rule and so is Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah – who, whether we love or hate them – have already marched into their nations’ history books, earning the status of living legends. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is another exception, and probably so is newly appointed Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

    For years the professor turned politician served as the political mind behind Erdogan’s foreign policy, which he describes as ‘soft power,’ towards the Middle East, Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus.

    For years Turkey’s foreign policy has been reactive – reacting to regional developments rather than shaping them. Erdogan and Davutoglu changed that when the Justice and Development Party came to power seven years ago, transforming Turkey into an aggressive player – in a positive sense – making its presence felt practically everywhere.

    Over the past few years Turkey has played the mediator between Russia and Georgia, between Israel and the Palestinians during the 2008 war on Gaza, between Israel and Syria, and more recently between Iraq and Syria. It has tried to turn pages in its troubled history with both the Kurds and the Armenians, under the urging of Davutoglu who used his influence to get President Abdullah Gul to make his groundbreaking visit to Armenia in 2008.

    Many believe that the man was the ‘shadow foreign minister’ long before he took the job from his predecessor, Ali Babacan. Pragmatic and Islamic, the man is accredited with the re-birth of neo-Ottomanism, a term used by political scientists to label Erdogan’s strategy to re-establish his country’s influence in former districts of the Ottoman Empire.

    Speaking to the Lebanese weekly Al Kifah Al Arabi this month, Davutoglu challenged the claim, although he is always proud of his Ottoman heritage, preferring, however, to characterise his strategy as a ‘zero-problem policy’ or ‘more friends, fewer enemies’ for Turkey.

    Davutoglu best sums up the change sweeping through his country saying: “Turkey as an international player was previously seen as having strong muscles, a weak stomach, heart problems and fair-to-middling brain power. In other words it had a powerful army but a weak economy, lacked self-confidence and was not good at strategic thinking”. That today, thanks to Erdogan and Davutoglu, is a thing of the past.

    And because of that, seculars and Kemalists are furious with Davutoglu, accusing him of steering Turkey into an Islamic orbit, minimising chances of membership in the EU. Davutoglu strongly rejects that, saying: “Turkey can be European in Europe and eastern in the East, because we are both.”

    He sees absolutely no contradiction in being close to the US, Israel, Syria, Hamas and Iran simultaneously. Semih Idiz, a journalist for the Turkish daily Hurriyet, claims that it is an illusion to think that Turkey can balance a relationship between all players, a-la Erdogan and Davutoglu: writing: “What we have seen over the last one or two years is not strategic depth but total confusion in the minds of all concerned.”

    Those close to the foreign minister and prime minister argue otherwise, claiming that only after reconciling with their Ottoman past – using it to strengthen themselves from within – can the Turks impose themselves on the new world order with ‘self-confidence’.

    During a visit to Istanbul in 2007, I was invited to dinner with Professor Davutoglu nearly two years before becoming his country’s Foreign Minister. We spent the evening discussing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the EU’s 2004 decision to make Cyprus a full-fledged member, while Turkey’s membership application has been pending for years. We then shifted to the history of Syrian-Ottoman relations, which Davutoglu claimed, were not as bad as history books, film and television dramas have depicted them to be.

    In recent months, I have watched Davutoglu grace the world stage with a foreign policy that is aggressive and soft, pragmatic and Islamic, earning him a reputation as the ‘Henry Kissinger of Turkey’. He comes across as a shrewd statesman, and a hardcore Turkish nationalist who will undoubtedly receive more than just a passing mention in Turkish history books 10 years from now.

    The years to come will prove if Davutoglu measures up Kissinger in legacy – and not just age.

    Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.

    Source: www.gulfnews.com, September 21, 2009
  • Erdoğan warns world about KKTC’s future status

    Erdoğan warns world about KKTC’s future status

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sits next to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council at UN headquarters.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned the international community that the status of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) as an independent state will have to be acknowledged if the ongoing talks to reunite the island fail, signaling that his government might revise its pro-reunification stance in effect since it first came to power in 2002.

    “It must be understood that negotiations cannot last forever, the present window of opportunity cannot stay open forever and there is an absolute need to make the process successful,” Erdoğan said on Thursday at the UN’s 64th General Assembly.

    By “process,” Erdoğan was referring to a revived peace process between the island’s Greek and Turkish Cypriots, who have lived divided since 1974, when Turkey militarily intervened in the north of the island in response to a Greek-inspired coup.

    Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat and Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias broke a four-year stalemate on talks in March 2008 and have been engaged in face-to-face negotiations with the goal of reunifying the island. Previous reunification efforts on Cyprus collapsed in 2004, when Greek Cypriots rejected a settlement blueprint drafted by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and accepted by Turkish Cypriots.

    ‘If a solution cannot be reached because of the Greek 
    side's rejection then normalizing the status of the Turkish 
    Republic of Northern Cyprus in the global arena will be a 
    must that can no longer be delayed’

    Erdoğan said a comprehensive settlement can be achieved if the parties are constructive. “If not, the UN secretary-general should step in as in 2004. We are aiming for a referendum in the spring of 2010 at the latest. But if a solution cannot be reached because of the Greek side’s rejection, as in 2004, then normalizing the status of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the international arena will be a must that can no longer be delayed,” Erdoğan added.

    According to sources at the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Prime Minister Erdoğan reminded the world community at the UN that Turkey has a Plan B. “Turkey will be engaged in efforts to provide recognition for the KKTC if the Greek side rejects a proposed solution,” the source said.

    The Turkish side often reiterates that there is a serious inequality in negotiations because Turkish Cypriots are isolated in every sphere and are unable to even play an international soccer match while Greek Cypriots comfortably enjoy international recognition and EU membership. In addition, Turkey’s entry into the European Union partly hinges on a peace deal in Cyprus, whose Greek Cypriot population represents the island in the EU.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the G-20 meeting in the US city of Pittsburg with his wife, Emine. The two posed for a photo with US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, ahead of the meeting.
    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the G-20 meeting in the US city of Pittsburg with his wife, Emine. The two posed for a photo with US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, ahead of the meeting.

    “Turkish Cypriots are still faced with unjust isolation. It is not right to expect the Turkish Cypriot party to pay the cost of deadlock,” Erdoğan also said. “What the prime minister has voiced at the UN is not new, but his words make the case stronger that Turkey will make an effort for the KKTC’s recognition if all other efforts fail to reunify the island,” said Özdem Sanberk, a former foreign ministry undersecretary and a foreign policy analyst.

    “The prime minister’s words should not be perceived as a threat. We are saying that we are ready for a solution similar to the Annan plan, but if it is rejected by the Greek side, there is no escape from a de facto KKTC state,” Sanberk told Today’s Zaman. “The Greek side should understand this message in the right way.”

    But he added that the problem is that the status quo is not bothersome for the Greek side because they are already in the EU.

    “If Turkey starts diplomatic efforts for the recognition of the KKTC, the Greek side will then start to act, and a war of attrition is likely. So the prime minister’s words reveal a hidden threat,” Sanberk said. Observers agree that the window of opportunity is small for a solution in Cyprus and that it could start to close in late 2009 as preparations begin for Turkish Cypriot parliamentary and presidential elections in February and April 2010, respectively.

    Former diplomat Temel İskit evaluated the situation as “the last chance.” “Conditions are ripe, but on both sides there are people who do not want a solution,” he told Today’s Zaman.

    “If the result of a referendum shows that the Greek side is rejecting a solution, then the Greek side will be seen as responsible for non-settlement,” he said. “And so the prime minister is warning about what could happen in such a situation.”

    Meanwhile, the KKTC’s Talat told reporters on Thursday in New York that the international community has an important role in finding a solution to the Cyprus problem. He added that the KKTC is working in close cooperation with Turkey for a solution in Cyprus and that Prime Minister Erdoğan’s words were “beneficial and meaningful.”

    Asked when he would meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Talat said a specific date was not yet set but that they would meet in the coming days. He said he had meetings with British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

    Talat also said he wanted to meet with Christofias in New York but did not want to have an official meeting with him. Talat is expected to meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu as well as officials from Turkey’s permanent representation at the UN.

    ‘Turkish-Armenian relations at new level’

    Addressing the UN General Assembly, Erdoğan said Turkey is an element of peace and stability in its region.

    “Problems in our region have global consequences. Therefore, our constructive and conciliatory policy in the region contributes to global peace as well,” he said and added that the ongoing dialogue process between Turkey and Greece was a concrete example of such an approach and that efforts aiming at the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations were yielding fruitful results.

    Erdoğan, speaking at Princeton University on Thursday, said Turkish-Armenian relations have reached a new level through Swiss mediation. “I believe agreements we have initialed could be submitted to Parliament if political biases and concerns do not get in the way,” he said, adding that the government can possibly bring the issue to Parliament by Oct. 10 or 11.

    Meanwhile, the Armenian and Turkish presidents will be meeting in Switzerland on Oct. 10 to sign the two diplomatic protocols, which are then to be submitted to the Turkish and Armenian parliaments, as sources revealed the current Turkish-Armenian diplomatic plan.

    ‘World should fulfill its promises to the Gazans’

    In his address to the UN General Assembly, Erdoğan said Turkey expects countries of the region to share the same vision for peace, security and stability.

    Stressing the importance of Iraq’s territorial integrity, political unity and domestic peace, he said that Turkey attached great importance to the establishment of a national consensus in the country as well as the continuation of a political dialogue focusing on all segments of Iraqi society.

    Commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Erdoğan said Turkey has always supported the Palestinians. He also brought up the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza last winter, in which close to 1,400 Palestinians, including 252 children, were killed in Israel’s attacks.

    He called on the international community to fulfill its promises to the Gazans.

    26 September 2009, Saturday
    YONCA POYRAZ DOĞAN İSTANBUL

    Source: www.todayszaman.com, Sep 26, 2009
  • World’s new tallest man

    World’s new tallest man

    The world’s new tallest man, measuring two meters 46.5 centimetres (eight feet one inch), Sultan Kosen, 26, is from Mardin, Turkey. He also has the world’s largest hands and largest feet, measuring 27.5 centimeters (10.8 inches) and 36.5 centimeters (14.4 inches) respectively.

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