Turkish Forum

Category: Asia and Pacific

  • Afghan police: Kidnapped Turks released

    Afghan police: Kidnapped Turks released

    KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Police say two Turkish nationals kidnapped in western Afghanistan have been released along with their Afghan driver.

    Raouf Ahmadi, police spokesman for the western zone of Afghanistan, says the release happened Sunday in Herat province.

    Ahmadi confirmed a ransom was paid but said police are trying to get details about it.

    Turkish state media said the Turks were engineers and were expected to return to Turkey on Monday.

    Authorities said the two worked for a road construction company. They had disappeared for a week.

    There have been a number of kidnappings in Herat recently, mainly targeting Afghans. Most cases are of a criminal nature and not linked to the Taliban insurgency.

    Associated Press

  • Russian Military to End Their Use of Kazakh Space Site This Year

    Russian Military to End Their Use of Kazakh Space Site This Year

    Posted on: Sunday, 20 July 2008, 15:00 CDT

    Text of report by corporate-owned Russian military news agency Interfax-AVN website

    Baykonur (Kazakhstan), 16 July: The discontinuation of military units and the transfer of [Russian] Defence Ministry facilities located at the Baykonur space launch site to enterprises of the Russian space rocket sector will be completed in the autumn of this year.

    “The transfer of Defence Ministry facilities has begun this month and should be completed in late November 2008,” a source at the Baykonur space launch site has told Interfax-AVN.

    The source said the schedule of transfer of launch site facilities from the military to enterprises of the space rocket sector and the town administration had been agreed at meeting of representatives of the Defence Ministry and Roskosmos [Russian Federal Space Agency] held at Baykonur on Tuesday [15 July].

    Under the agreements reached [at the meeting], the source told the agency, the Krayniy aerodrome will be transferred to the centre for the use of ground space infrastructure, while the facilities of the missile test units of the launch site (the inhabited area and the launch silos for UR-100N (RS-18) missiles will be transferred to the NPO Mashinostroyeniya (Machine-Building Research and Production Association).

    The remaining facilities, i.e. the buildings and structures of the Russian Defence Ministry, will be accepted by Roskosmos enterprises and the town administration, the source told the agency..

    The Fifth State Space Test Launch Site of the Russian Federation Defence Ministry (the Baykonur space launch site) will be discontinued by 1 January 2009. After that date, about 250 servicemen of more than 1,000 currently serving at Baykonur will stay on at the space launch site. Some of them will be transferred to the reserve, while others will be moved to new service postings in Russia.

    Once the military structures at the launch site have been discontinued, it will operate purely as a civilian enterprise.

    Originally published by Interfax-AVN military news agency website, Moscow, in Russian 1158 20 Jul 08.

    (c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

    Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

  • Azerbaijani political scientists are sceptical about that Turkey will establish relations with Armenia

    Azerbaijani political scientists are sceptical about that Turkey will establish relations with Armenia

    [ 19 Jul 2008 12:23 ]

    Baku. Tamara Grigorieva –APA. “I don’t think that contacts between Turkey and Armenia can reach a level of negotiations because usually negotiations have concrete subject”, political scientist Rasim Musabeyov told APA.

    Commenting the secret talks between the Turkish and Armenian diplomats in Switzerland, Musabeyov said level of representation of the sides was not clear. “I think the press overstates the weight of this meeting. The countries continue such contacts for almost 15 years”. Musabeyov said there was no ground for the serious progress in the Turkish-Armenian relations today. Political scientists Rustam Mammadov said Armenia was seeking alternative gateways to Europe now. In his opinion triangle game between Armenia, Iran and Russia gives no result for a long time and significance of Armenian-Turkish factor is increasing in this plan. The expert doesn’t believe that Turkey will establish relations with Armenia without solution of the problem of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. He said probably the issue was put on agenda in such a manner at the meeting. Deputy Executive Secretary of New Azerbaijan Party, political observer and member of the parliament Mubariz Gurbanli said it would negatively impact on Azerbaijani-Turkish relations if Turkey began negotiations and signed documents with Armenia. He is doubtful of any official meeting between Armenia and Turkey. Gurbanli said he was against establishing relations between Turkey and Armenia without solution of Azerbaijani Nagorno Karabakh problem. The expert emphasized that problems between Turkey and Armenia existed before the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

    Source:

  • China Reports Breakup of More Suspected Terrorist Groups Ahead of Olympics

    China Reports Breakup of More Suspected Terrorist Groups Ahead of Olympics

    China Reports Breakup of More Suspected Terrorist Groups Ahead of Olympics

    By VOA News
    16 July 2008    		  

    Chinese anti-terrorist team during drill to show response to terrorist attack in Xian, northern China’s Shaanxi province, (File)

    Chinese state media says authorities have broken up 12 terrorist organizations in the western region of Xinjiang so far this year.

    Officials in the city of Kashgar says the groups, including the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and Hizb ut-Tahrir, were linked to international terrorist organizations.

    In recent weeks Chinese authorities have reported disrupting or dismantling several terrorist groups that allegedly posed a threat to August’s Olympic Games in Beijing. The state-run news agency Xinhua announced last week that police broke up five groups in Xinjiang and arrested 82 suspected terrorists.

    Beijing  has repeatedly said that terrorism poses the biggest threat to the Olympics. But human rights groups say the government is using terrorism as an excuse to crush dissent in Xinjiang.

    Xinjiang has eight million ethnic Uighurs, most of whom are Muslims. The Chinese government has cracked down on separatist activity in the area, and accused Uighur activists of trying to make Xinjiang an independent state.

    Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

  • East Turkistan: Munich Uyghurs Protest Executions and Arrests

    East Turkistan: Munich Uyghurs Protest Executions and Arrests

    East Turkistan: Munich Uyghurs Protest Executions and Arrests

     Monday, 14 July 2008

    Over 200 protesters met in Munich on 12 July 2008 to bring attention to the continuing and escalating human rights violations towards the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China.

     

    Below is an article by UNPO:

     

    In Munich this Saturday, 12 July 2008, Uyghur protestors and supporters gathered together at Karlplatz Stachus, a central and highly touristic part of the city, to demonstrate against recent arbitrary arrests and executions in East Turkistan. More than 200 participants attended the demonstration, according to the World Uyghur Congress, but numerous of passer-bys stopped to show support for the Uyghur cause.

    Currently, East Turkestan and Tibet are both in a state of emergency, living in fear of oppression by the Chinese government. On 9 July 2008, police shot to death five young Uyghurs in Urumchi, under the auspice that they were involved in an alleged “holy war training” against the state. Later the same day, there was a mass sentencing in Kashgar where two Uyghurs were executed and 15 others were handed sentences ranging from 10 years in prison to the death penalty. Although charged with terrorism, the accused had no evidence presented against them to substantiate these claims.  

    In light of the upcoming Olympic Games, starting 8 August 2008, international pressure has intensified concerning the human rights situation in China. Unfortunately, the added attention is not enough to persuade the Chinese government away from its oppressive policy towards ethnic minorities, particularly in East Turkistan and Tibet. The Olympic Charter obliges the host country to a strict adherence to the international standards of human rights, yet the Chinese government has failed to live up to these standards.

    The World Uyghur Congress and UNPO continue to urge Chinese government to end persecution of ethnic minorities in China as well uphold the international standards of fundamental human rights. UNPO stands in solidarity with the oppressed peoples in China.

     

  • House Panel Blocks Sharp Cut In U.S. Aid To Armenia`

    House Panel Blocks Sharp Cut In U.S. Aid To Armenia`

     

    House Panel Blocks Sharp Cut In U.S. Aid To Armenia`

     

     

     

     

    By Emil Danielyan

    A key subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives rejected late Wednesday an almost 60 percent cut in regular U.S. economic assistance to Armenia which is sought by the administration of President George W. Bush.

    The administration’s draft foreign assistance budget for the fiscal year 2009 submitted to Congress in February would cut funding to Armenia to $24 million from this year’s level of $58 million.

    In what has been a pattern, the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee raised the proposed allocation to $52 million at the urging of leading pro-Armenian lawmakers. It also approved $8 million in separate direct aid to Nagorno-Karabakh and voted to maintain parity in U.S. military assistance to Armenia and Azerbaijan. The armed forces of the two warring nations would each continue to receive $3 million worth of aid.

    Joe Knollenberg, a Michigan Republican co-chairing the congressional Armenian Caucus, demanded that U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan be cut altogether because of its continuing threats to resolve the Karabakh conflict by force. The motion was narrowly voted down by the subcommittee.

    The two leading Armenian-American lobby groups in Washington commended Knollenberg for nearly succeeding in pushing the measure through the panel. “We are confident that Members will be looking at additional steps to address Azerbaijan’s war mongering,” Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America, said in a statement.

    The aid allocations need to be approved by the full House Appropriations Committee before they can be considered by the full chamber. A corresponding committee of the U.S. Senate was scheduled to debate the Senate version of the foreign aid bill late Thursday.

    The volume of U.S. aid to Armenia, which has totaled about $2 billion, has slowly but steadily declined since the 1990s when it averaged over $100 million per annum. U.S. officials have attributed the drop to an overall reduction of its foreign aid budgets and Armenia’s economic growth. They have also pointed to the Bush administration’s decision in 2005 to provide the country with $236 million in additional assistance under the Millennium Challenge Account program.

     

    Thursday 17, July 2008