Category: Afghanistan

Can Turkey Save Afghanistan?

A trilateral conference this month highlighted the possibilities – and limits – to Turkey’s new Central Asia diplomacy drive.

The recent Istanbul Security and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia conference has prompted a great deal of discussion, hardly surprising with media outlets running headlines like: “As NATO withdraws, Afghanistan’s neighbors make security pact.”

The only problem with this is that participants didn’t agree a pact with binding commitments, but rather a “vision” document with no means of ensuring that any of the principles and projects will actually come to pass.

Still, the issue is of significant interest, especially with the Obama administration having increased the number of diplomatic initiatives aimed at creating a favorable environment for an Afghan-led peace process. In her first appearance before Congress since returning from a week-long trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the Obama administration’s Afghan-Pakistan war strategy is pursuing three mutually reinforcing tracks: “fight, talk, and build.”

But the United States is far from the only country boosting its diplomacy in the region. Turkey has also been complementing its longstanding military and economic contributions to Afghanistan with some regional maneuvering. Many of Turkey’s diplomatic initiatives have concentrated on improving relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan—or at least keeping their lines of communication open during their frequent bilateral disputes. Like the Obama administration (and other NATO governments), Turkish officials argue that any enduring solution to the conflict will require better relations between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In particular, Pakistani support is needed for inducing the Afghan Taliban to end its insurgency, since the insurgents use Pakistani territory as a base of operations.

Turkish officials say that their country has distinct advantages in this mediation role, including historically good relations with both countries, a shared Islamic faith, and a lack of local proxies or other incentives to interfere in their internal affairs.

Certainly, Turkey has provided extensive assistance to Afghanistan’s security – it has twice led the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and currently heads ISAF’s command for the Kabul region. On November 1, Turkey extended its command of the ISAF’s Kabul region for another year. And, while the Turkish government has refused to deploy its troops on explicit counterinsurgency or counterterrorist operations in Afghanistan, its military forces within ISAF have helped train members of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police in these tactics. The Turkish government and Turkish non-governmental organizations have, for their part, supported many humanitarian and economic reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, including education, health, housing, and infrastructure improvement projects.

Turkey is helped in its regional efforts by its long-established good ties with Pakistan, dating from their alignment with the Western camp during the Cold War and their common moderate Muslim governments. Their military-to-military exchanges, which include a diverse range of bilateral and multilateral exercises, have continued to this day. In turn, Pakistan may have helped Turkey improve its relations with China and discouraged its Afghan Taliban allies from attacking Turkish troops in ISAF.

Since April 2007, Turkey has hosted six Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Forum meetings involving senior Turkish, Afghan, and Pakistani government officials. But it is determined to move beyond mere declarations. As part of the trilateral process, Turkey earlier this year organized a joint military exercise (on urban warfare) involving all three armies. A trilateral direct video-telephone conference line among the three presidents has also been established, and Turkish officials are now even considering initiating contact with the Afghan Taliban in support of peace mediation efforts.

The latest tripartite summit occurred on November 1, when Turkish President Abdullah Gul hosted Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Zardari in Istanbul. This was a useful step forward after the Taliban’s September 20 assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, which prompted an outraged Karzai to announce he was abandoning attempts to open talks with the Taliban and would instead deal with their Pakistani sponsors.

Through their engagement with the parties, Turkish officials concluded that the two governments were looking for a mechanism to resume their direct dialogue rather than “talking to each other via the media” and other indirect means. “We sense that they have a genuine wish to talk to each other because they realize this trend isn’t helping either of them,” one Turkish official told the press before the trilateral presidential summit in Istanbul.

But was there any substantive progress? The three governments signed agreements to cooperate in education, banking, and other areas, and also agreed to conduct more joint military exercises. Most notably, the three governments agreed to conduct a joint investigation into the Rabbani assassination to complement their individual efforts. Police, intelligence, military, and other representatives from the three governments will participate in this joint mechanism, and will be able to present and review evidence collectively.

Still, comments Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin’s made to the media after the event make it clear that while the meeting may have ended their public feuding for now, only genuine progress on concrete issues will generate enduring forward momentum in their relations: “So we are at a stage where we need to move beyond words, beyond expressions of commitments. We need to get to a stage where we actually do concrete things that will address our concerns with regard to our security.”

The multinational summit that met in Istanbul the following day was aimed to do just that. Formally entitled the Security and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia conference, the meeting was held at the Ottoman-era Ciragan Palace in Istanbul. Representatives from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates attended the event as full participants and wrote the collective conference communique. These self-designated “Heart of Asia” countries were joined by senior officials from other supporting countries and international institutions, including the United States, many EU countries, and the United Nations.

But the most important development, missed by much of the press, was that the Istanbul conference saw a major behind-the-scenes dispute between Turkey and Pakistan. The result was to limit the conference’s role to that of offering a vision of harmonious regional security architecture. And, although the conference communiqué is an improvement over the even vaguer 2002 Kabul Declaration on Good Neighborly Relations, it’s still primarily a statement of principles and projects without a means to finance them.

The problems Turkey faces in trying to secure a breakthrough are similar to those encountered by the U.S. and other third-party facilitators, including the region’s porous borders, which facilitates the flow of fighters and drugs; poor governance; transnational organized criminal groups that have an interest in sustaining the conflict; week national governments and security forces have facing major Islamist insurgents; and limited and declining commitments by external powers to support regionally driven peace programs.

In addition, the Afghan-Pakistan conflict has elements of a civil war in which the Taliban enjoys some support among the large Pashtun community that straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. For this reason, regionally based peace efforts will invariably struggle unless accompanied by complementary developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan such as more effective governance, better counterinsurgency operations, and a greater desire on the part of the insurgents to lay down their arms and reenter their civilian societies.

And regional rivalries have also impeded Turkey’s peace efforts. While Russia, China, and the West now generally support the same goals, Turkey has found it just as difficult as other countries to manage the India-Pakistan rivalry. The Indians complained when they weren’t invited to the trilateral summits between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey, as well as other Turkey-hosted gatherings on Afghanistan. Indians interpreted their exclusion as a sign that Turkey doesn’t respect India’s legitimate national security interest in Afghanistan.

This past year, Turkish diplomats addressed these concerns by including India in more of Turkey’s diplomatic initiatives regarding Afghanistan, but the shift has irritated Pakistan. Indeed, some Pakistani analysts accuse Turkish officials of distancing themselves from Islamabad’s interests in Afghanistan in order to please Washington “at Pakistan’s expense.” Meanwhile, the main Turkish opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, has attacked the Turkish government for seeking to cooperate with the Taliban (which they denounce as a terrorist group) by considering establishing a Taliban representation bureau on Turkish territory.

Still, the first Istanbul meeting appears to have at least stabilized relations between the Afghan and Pakistani governments. Their leaders have ceased denouncing one another in public. But the impact of the second larger meeting will only become evident during the next few months, when a number of major international conferences regarding Afghanistan will occur in Bonn, Chicago, and then in Kabul in June 2012.

The problem is that although there have been dozens of major international conferences during the past decade, their impact on Afghanistan has remained less than that of the actions of certain individual key actors, especially the governments of Pakistan and the United States as well as the Taliban. Perhaps the impending NATO military withdrawal will galvanize greater efforts to avert a transnational civil war in Afghanistan as the neighboring states wage proxy conflicts—using local Afghan actors as well as their preferred international institutions—among themselves at Afghanistan’s expense.

Another question is whether Turkey’s diplomatic ambitions extend beyond the Afghan issue? There’s growing talk that Turkey may try to formalize ties with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in order to expand its diplomatic toolkit regarding Afghanistan. In June, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told a Beijing news conference that the Turkish government had indicated through diplomatic channels that it wanted to become a “dialogue partner” of the SCO. In itself, that status would give Ankara a very circumscribed role within the SCO, but it could provide a springboard from which Turkey could then transition to become a formal observer or a full member of the SCO.

Earlier this year, Kazakh officials and the Russian press discussed Turkey’s acquiring some kind of formal affiliation with the SCO, but the Turkish diplomats I met last month in Ankara disclaimed any interest in obtaining some kind of official affiliation with the SCO. I remarked at several meetings in Turkey that some in Washington might see Turkey’s entry as a means to help keep the SCO from moving in an anti-Western direction by diluting Moscow’s and Beijing’s domination of the organization. But they seemed unenthusiastic about Turkey’s playing that role within the organization.

Yet Turkey’s ambitions to influence developments regarding Afghanistan may be leading Ankara to change its position. The SCO has been seeking to expand its role in the Afghan conflict and, for example, plans to hold a large Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan next year. Washington should therefore use its newfound influence in Ankara to encourage such a development.

Not only does Turkey share more Western values than the other SCO members, but Turkey could specifically help keep the SCO aligned with NATO, the EU and other international institutions establish a benign regional security, economic, and diplomatic framework in which the Afghans might just be able to resolve their own differences enough to avert the impending catastrophe.

Photo Credit: NATO

November 12, 2011
Is Islam Good for Government?

By Matt Cochran | Christian Post Guest Contributor

After the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, war critics argued that neither country had the proper cultural foundations necessary for democracy to flourish. Conditions in Afghanistan, where American casualties topped 1,650 over the summer of 2011 and the prospect of a functioning, stable democracy is still remote even after a decades-long war, lends credibility to this argument. The State Department also recently left open the possibility of U.S. troops staying on in the country indefinitely. Iraq, although better off than Afghanistan, is hardly the beacon of freedom and democracy that President Bush and his fellow neoconservatives hoped it could be for the Middle East.

Although critics stopped short of singling out Islam as the reason democracy has failed to take root in both of these countries, the religion has had such a profound influence on both that its culpability for the seemingly intractable standoff between the forces of democracy and extremism should at least be open for debate. Islam could be the single most important reason that Iraq and Afghanistan provide such infertile soil for democracy. Furthermore, if Islam can be proven to undermine democratic institutions, shouldn’t the West be more critical of its encroaching influence in places such as Great Britain and the United States?Patrick Basham, senior fellow at the CATO institute, a libertarian think tank, made a compelling argument in 2003 for why democracy would prove elusive in Iraq. Despite progress since then, his argument remains instructive. Basham built his case on four critical cultural factors that he argued must be present for democracy to succeed. Among them were social tolerance, which he defined as “the acceptance of traditionally unpopular minority groups,” and secondly, acceptance of the belief that the public should be a participant in political decision-making.

Both of these factors are influenced by religion, whether Islam or Christianity.

Take Christianity and America as an example. Both of Mr. Basham’s factors are sacrosanct American values left over from the Judeo-Christian ethos that influenced the founders, even those who also looked to the Enlightenment for inspiration.

Tolerance may not be a word that a worldly 21st century person would use to describe 18th century American culture. In today’s vernacular, tolerance means accepting or embracing something. However, a truer definition would be: allowing an activity to go on despite one’s objection to it; call it coexistence. Christian teachings laid the foundation for a tolerant democratic experiment that – for its time – was very permissive.

The Pilgrims fled England because they were that “traditionally unpopular minority group” and were persecuted because of it. One could argue that the whole purpose of the American experiment was establishing a more tolerant government. Although many Pilgrims originally dreamed of establishing a Christian utopia in the New World, the American Revolution – in which Puritans fought alongside Baptists and Methodists – forced a compromise that is embodied in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” Utopian dreams were superseded by practical considerations and Christians from every sect wanted a guarantee they would be able to live out their convictions without intervention or oversight from the national government. Of course today the U.S. tolerates far more than it did back then, but that is only because the freedom to live out one’s own convictions – within certain bounds – was embedded in the national psyche when America was formed.

In contrast, many Muslim countries utterly fail the tolerance test. The basic freedom to practice a religion of one’s own choosing is a good litmus test. More than 80 percent of Muslims in Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan believe in executing apostates who leave Islam, according to the Pew Research Centre. Iran persecutes followers of the Baha’i faith because they are considered apostates from Shi’a Islam.

More consideration should be given to the question of how deeply rooted intolerance is in Islam itself. The Koran is used by Muslim-controlled governments to justify the oppression of minority groups. Whether or not an objective reading of the Koran would justify oppression is another matter for a different discussion; the fact remains that the text is the guiding force behind many of the world’s most oppressive regimes.

Mr. Basham’s second factor, public participation in political decision-making, is also a foundational value of American society and one that can be traced back to Christian teachings and principles.

While many Muslims – though not all – believe that the only truly legitimate government would derive its authority from Allah and enforce his commands, the Judeo-Christian view is that government itself is an institution ordained by God, whether or not it is controlled by believers or accomplishes God’s purposes. This is illustrated by Christ’s command to “render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” The dominant Christian view is that government is legitimate in its own right. Even Presbyterians and Catholics who subscribe to the view that civil government should move towards enacting the letter of God’s moral law recognize a distinction between civil government and the church. Democracy is still viewed as entirely legitimate. Christians worldwide have almost universally embraced the American model: a form of government that protects their right to practice their religion freely. In practice that means having a voice in public policy.

In contrast, some sects of Islam, such as the Party of Liberation (Hizb ut-Tahrir), preach that participating in secular elections is wrong. In an Aug. 6, 2011, article, The Economist magazine acknowledged that many Muslims – among them the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, and Party of Liberation – dream of a global Islamic caliphate. In this view of government, authority is only legitimate in so far as it follows the Koran.

Historian David Fromkin addresses this issue in his book A Peace to End All Peace. He chronicles the miscalculations the British made while plotting to restore the caliphate to Arabia during World War I. The British thought they were planning the installation of a religious leader only. They didn’t realize that in Islam, according to Mr. Fromkin, “all of life, including government and politics, falls within the governance of the Holy Law; so that in the eyes of Sunni Muslims, such as the Ottoman Sultan and the Emir of Mecca, the dominion of the Caliph as upholder of the Holy Law is pervasive. What British Cairo did not see is that the Caliph is also a prince: a governor and a leader in battle as well as a leader in prayer.”

Even Turkey, which is often held up as a model Muslim democracy, is under assault from elements more committed to growing Islam’s influence on government than the secularism championed by its founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who once called himself the “imam of Istanbul” when he served as Istanbul’s mayor, is moving the country closer to other Muslim dictatorships and away from its traditional allies in the West. Tellingly, Erdogan and his Islamist-leaning party, the AKP, are attacking that most democratic of institutions: the media. Reporters Without Borders, an organization dedicated to defending press freedoms and reporters, ranks Turkey 138 out of 178 in their 2010 Press Freedom Index. It has moved down from a ranking of 100 in 2002, the year the AKP took power.

Too many Muslims embrace Islamism, the belief that Islam is not just a religion, but a political system as well. Government leaders in this system of thought are also religious leaders and vice versa. Participation by the people in the decision-making process is, at best, of secondary importance to having a government that carries out rules dictated by the Koran. Islam undermines Mr. Basham’s second prerequisite for democracy in spectacular fashion.

Many troubling questions arise from even a casual consideration of the preceding arguments. If Muslims question the legitimacy of Western democratic government and harbor unspoken desires for a future global Islamic caliphate, should that be cause for concern? To put it another way, if Muslims use the liberty handed down by America’s Judeo-Christian-influenced forefathers to advance a religion that does not respect the distinction between civil and religious law, is it hypocrisy for Americans to object to their exercising freedom in that way?

This is not a scholarly exercise based on hypothetical situations. Great Britain is already wrestling with real Muslim influence, and that may be a harbinger of things to come for the U.S. The law itself is under attack by some British Muslims who want family law matters to be handled within the Muslim community. Melanie Philips, in her book Londonistan, outlines examples of this type of subversion of Western courts and law. She describes one book published by the Islamic Council of Europe called Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States that calls for Muslims to organize themselves and build mosques and community centers with the ultimate goal of becoming the majority – and eventually govern the nation according to Islam.

The issue at hand is not whether religion should influence public policy. Christianity, as discussed previously, has had a dramatic and positive impact on the development of governmental systems that protect individual freedoms. The issue is whether Islam’s influence is good or bad for Western-style government.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. No freedom-loving person should ever undermine that principle, no matter the reason. Muslim Americans have as much a right to participate in the political process as any other religious – or non-religious – persons. Moreover, some Muslim Americans, having fled oppressive religious governments in their home country, are adamantly opposed to the idea of an Islamic caliphate or any movement in that direction, including Sharia courts for local Muslim populations. Political correctness, however, should not stop the West from asking difficult, even uncomfortable, questions of Muslims seeking elected positions or advocating for the isolation of Muslims from the majority culture, which in Britain has resulted in real movement towards a kind of community self-rule that undermines Western values.

Matt Cochran is a writer and communications consultant residing in Atlanta, Georgia. He has broad political experience as a consultant to a congressional and senate campaign, and as a former intern in the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. He received an economics degree from Georgia State University and a graduate degree from The George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration.

November 7, 2011
NATO plans in Afghanistan imprudent, destructive: Iran

TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has called NATO plans in Afghanistan harmful and ill-advised and warned of their global repercussions.

Salehi made the remarks during a speech at a conference on Afghanistan, which was held in Istanbul on Wednesday.

“The spread and the institutionalization of terrorism, the increase in the production and the smuggling of illicit drugs, the rise in organized crimes, the massive killing of civilians, and the destruction of cities and villages are the results of the unwise and destructive plans of NATO and the United States in the country (Afghanistan), all of which are regarded as serious security threats to the region and the world,” Salehi stated.

He also said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran is opposed to the conclusion of a strategic agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan.”

“Based on an agreement made between NATO and Afghanistan at the NATO summit in Lisbon, it was agreed that foreign forces would disengage from Afghanistan and hand over security responsibility to Afghan forces,” the Iranian foreign minister remarked.

He added, “Unfortunately, evidence shows that the U.S. intends to extend its military presence in Afghanistan to achieve its extra-regional purposes, and the issue of rooting out terrorism was nothing but a pretext for (establishing) a military presence in Afghanistan and the region.”

The top diplomat went on to say that the presence of military bases of foreign forces in Afghanistan promotes extremism and terrorism in the region.

Elsewhere, in his speech to the conference, Salehi said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes any measure meant to promote peace in Afghanistan and believe that regional countries, particularly (Afghanistan’s) neighboring countries can play key and important roles in adopting security measures and contributing to peace and stability in Afghanistan.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far hosted the trilateral meeting of the leaders and other officials of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and has participated in regional and international meetings on Afghanistan,” Salehi said.

He also stated that Iran has also played its full part in the reconstruction process in Afghanistan.

He added, “Insecurity and instability in Afghanistan has inflicted great pain on the Islamic Republic of Iran, and (Iran) regards any positive development in this regard as a step forward toward promoting regional security and its national security.”

Iran has suffered heavy losses in the war on drugs and terrorism, Salehi said, adding, “The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that extremism, terrorism, and violence has nothing to do with a specific culture, religion, and nationality, and terrorism cannot be defeated only by military means, and it is necessary that its roots be identified and eliminated.”

Collective efforts are needed to combat terrorism and drugs, he pointed out.

Peace talks should continue

Commenting on the assassinations of prominent Afghan figures, the Iranian foreign minister said that those assassinations only serve the interests of those who are seeking to hamper peace talks in Afghanistan and have plans to divide up the country.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan could be achieved through the continuation of talks among Afghan groups,” Salehi said.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Salehi held separate talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, in which the sides discussed ties and the latest developments in the region.

via NATO plans in Afghanistan imprudent, destructive: Iran – Tehran Times.

November 3, 2011
European Poll: Israel Biggest Threat To World Peace

Results of a new poll commissioned by the European Commission show that Israel is believed by Europeans in 15 countries to be the greatest threat to world peace, greater than North Korea, Iran or Afghanistan.

While the European Commission will release the full results of the poll on Monday, the International Herald Tribune reported that the 7,500 people polled living in the European Union (500 in each of the 15 E.U. member states) were presented with a list of 15 countries and asked if these countries present a threat to world peace. Shockingly, Israel was rated first.

[…]

www.jewishfederations.org

November 3, 2011
Obama to Cannes, Clinton to Istanbul

Posted By Josh Rogin Monday, October 31, 2011 – 7:20 PM Share

In what seems like a deliberate ploy to escape the cold autumn weather gripping Washington, President Barack Obama will leave for Cannes on Wednesday for the G-20 summit and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is off to Istanbul for an international meeting on Afghanistan.

Upon arriving in Cannes on Thursday morning, Obama will hold bilateral meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He will then meet with the “L-20,” an elected group of labor leaders from the G-20 countries. On Thursday afternoon, the formal G-20 schedule commences.

Obama will meet on Friday with the newly reelected Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, followed by a press conference, and then perhaps some more one-on-one time with Sarkozy. Other bilateral meetings could pop up, according to Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes.

“The G-20 agenda is critical to growing our economy here back at home, to strengthening the recovery, to increase exports and to create jobs,” NSC Senior Director for International Economics Mike Froman told reporters on Monday morning. “In Cannes, we expect the eurozone to be the primary focus of discussion, but in addition, the leaders will focus on mechanisms that have been put in place to ensure strong, balanced and sustainable growth.”

Froman said other topics at the G-20 summit will include financial regulatory reform and how to keep momentum going on G-20 priorities, such as security and infrastructure development, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, fighting corruption, and strengthening the multilateral trading system.

“[T]here is growing agreement around the world that the focus at Cannes needs to be on growth,” said Treasury Undersecretary Lael Brainard. “President Obama remains intensely focused on putting Americans back to work. Recovery in the U.S. remains fragile and still too vulnerable to disruption beyond our shores.”

Brainard called the new European plan to stave off financial collapse “significant” but declined to comment on whether or not the administration has confidence that Europe’s the $1.4 trillion firewall the Obama administration is recommending will actually be implemented. The officials didn’t comment directly on the idea of China bailing out Europe, but they didn’t seem thrilled about the prospect, either.

So the concept that China and other emerging economies are part of this discussion, that they will be there, along with ourselves and other industrialized countries, speaking with the Europeans, talking about the elaboration and the implementation of their plan, and expressing unity and support of what the Europeans are doing, we think is very much appropriate,” Froman said.

Brainard also implied — but did not say outright — that the United States was not supportive of the European idea of imposing a tax on all trades of stocks and bonds. She talked about the Obama administration’s financial responsibility fee as the preferred approach.

“We think that the financial responsibility fee, which is on the liabilities of the largest financial institutions, is well-targeted to make those institutions that are bearing greater risk pay more. It is better targeted to prevent evasion. And the IMF went through a similar assessment exercise and came, frankly, to a pretty similar conclusion,” she said.

Meanwhile, Clinton leaves Monday night for London to attend a conference on cyber security policy. On Wednesday, Clinton will participate in an international conference in Istanbul on the way forward in Afghanistan. The conference is part of the lead up to the Bonn conference on Afghanistan scheduled for Dec. 5.

“Istanbul is seen as an opportunity for Afghanistan’s neighbors to reiterate their commitment to a stable, secure, economically viable Afghanistan and to supporting Afghan-led reconciliation, the transition to Afghan security leadership, and then a shared regional economic vision,” a senior administration official told reporters on Monday. “It’s a gathering of regional foreign ministers. The U.S. is actually there just as a supporter, which is critical.”

The Bonn conference is expected to include 85 countries and 15 international organizations, and is being held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Bonn Agreement in December 2001, which was convened to establish an interim government for ruling Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion.

As for Wednesday’s conference in Istanbul, the opening session will feature remarks from Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul. Clinton will make remarks on Wednesday afternoon after lunch.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will also be at the conference, and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will be in town for a U.S.-Afghan-Pakistani trilateral meeting as well. The United States has been pressing the Pakistani government to cut ties with the Haqqani network, but there’s no progress to report just yet.

“The secretary, I think, was quite clear that we all need to see visible signs of progress as a matter of some urgency in days and weeks, as she noted, as opposed to months and years,” the senior administration official said.

via Obama to Cannes, Clinton to Istanbul | The Cable.

November 1, 2011
Afghan refugees homeless after Turkey quake

AFP

Sat Oct 29 2011 12:25:52 GMT+0400 (Arabian Standard Time) Oman Time

Afghan: Afghan refugee Nergis Shovar washes dishes in muddy water in front of the tent that’s been home since a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey last week.

“My house collapsed during the quake… I fled the house. Now I am living here with my family,” she said, speaking through a translator, adding that 13 people were living in the tent.

The 18-year-old is just one of around 2,000 refugees in the quake-hit Van province, mostly Afghans, many of whom have seen their homes damaged or destroyed in the October 23 quake.

Afghan Foziye Muhammedi, 17, said she too was sheltering in a tent along with her sisters and mother in the canvas village set up for victims in Van city.

“No father, no brother… only three sisters and mother,” she said, struggling to articulate her misery.

“Turkey is a beautiful country,” she said. “It is more beautiful than Afghanistan. But now after the quake, it is so hard to live here.”

Avogul Kurbaneli, an Afghan woman, who appeared to be in her sixties, pointed to a makeshift shelter she had constructed from nylon.

“We are four people… I have nothing to eat. I don’t have a tent,” she said.

“We want a tent,” said added. “We want bread.”

Van province, bordering Iran, is one of 52 locations nationwide where refugees are temporarily accommodated before being resettled in third countries.

Sunday’s quake killed 570 people and injured 2,500, according to official figures.

The nightly sub-zero temperatures have ensured even more misery for survivors who have been forced to camp out amid fears that even those buildings still standing could collapse in aftershocks.

“We have received no reports of deaths or injuries among the refugee population in Van province,” said Metin Corabatir, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Turkey office.

“But most of their houses were damaged during the quake and they cannot go back out of fear,” he added.

“I came to Turkey two years ago,” said Metini Emini, 24, speaking in Turkish.

“I don’t want to go back to Afghanistan where the Taliban looted our house in Kabul,” he added. “The war is still continuing there.”

Emini said he was working at a tailor’s shop in Van city earning a daily wage of 15 liras (seven euros).

“Only me and my brother work in our family of seven people. I was paying 180 liras (90 euros) a month for my house which collapsed during the quake. It is very hard to survive now.”

Emini is now living in a tent he put up in the garden of the collapsed house.

The UNHCR is working with the Turkish government to relocate refugees who wish to move to another city.

“We are thinking about relocating volunteer refugees to other satellite cities in Turkey. Those who don’t want to leave are free to stay in Van,” said Corabatir.

(Follow timesofoman.com on Facebook and on Twitter for updates that you can share with your friends.)

via Times of Oman.

October 30, 2011