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  • ANTI-MUSLIM HATE CRIMES AND INCIDENTS

    ANTI-MUSLIM HATE CRIMES AND INCIDENTS

    Background

    Specific OSCE commitments to combat intolerance and discrimination against Muslims date to the 2002 Porto Ministerial Council Meeting, which explicitly condemned acts of discrimination and violence against Muslims and firmly rejected the identification of terrorism and extremism with a particular religion or culture.1 Moreover, at the 2007 High Level Conference on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims, the OSCE Chairmanship issued a declaration encouraging the participating States to follow anti-Muslim hate crimes closely, by collecting, maintaining and improving methods to gather reliable information and statistics on such crimes.2 The 2010 Astana Declaration of the OSCE Chairmanship also underlines that international developments and political issues cannot justify any forms of intolerance and discrimination against Muslims and encourages the participating States to challenge anti-Muslim prejudice and stereotypes.3

    On 28 February-3 March, upon the request of the Grand Mufti of Bulgaria and the Director of the Commission for Protection against Muslims, who were concerned about the rise in anti-Muslim hate incidents in Bulgaria, ODIHR advisers conducted an assessment visit to Sofia in order to design a training activity on hate crimes for non-governmental organizations and law enforcement officers. Based on the findings of this assessment, ODIHR concluded a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Interior, which aims at the implementation of law enforcement hate crime training (TAHCLE).

    On 25-28 April, following to the visit of a delegation of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to Warsaw, on 4 March, ODIHR’s Director visited the headquarters of OIC in Jeddah. The visit to Jeddah provided the opportunity to continue discussions on possible areas of cooperation, some of which were already identified in Warsaw. These included also a hate crime monitoring training which will be delivered, in 2011, by ODIHR for the staff of the OIC Islamophobia Observatory.

    On 27-29 May, ODIHR’s Adviser on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination accompanied the Secretary General of OSCE at the Rio Forum of Alliance of Civilizations. In addition to attending several sessions of the Forum as a speaker, the Secretary General delivered a speech on ODIHR’s activities concerning hate crimes against Muslims at the Roundtable Meeting on Islamophobia, co-hosted by OIC and the Council of Europe.

    On 23 October, ODIHR co-hosted with the Swiss Federal Commission against Racism a conference on Muslim umbrella organizations in Bern. The aim of the Conference was to support the efforts of Swiss Muslim NGOs to create an umbrella organization, which would empower them to counter stereotypes against Muslims among Swiss society. It was envisaged that such an umbrella organization would increase their capacity, among other issues, to monitor hate crimes against Muslims.

    On 8-10 December, ODIHR Adviser attended a Seminar on “Islamophobia” in Central and Easter Europe, which was hosted by OIC. As ODIHR receives little information on hate crimes against Muslims in this region, the event was a good opportunity to establish more contacts with Islamic community organizations in Central and Eastern Europe and explain to them ODIHR’s hate crime related activities.

    The personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims, Senator Akhmetov, visited Jeddah, Brussels, Geneva, London, Berlin and Astana. During these activities, he drew attention to the fact that anti-Muslim hate crimes were significantly under-reported and under-recorded, and urged participating States to enhance trust between Muslim communities and law enforcement officers, to create data collection mechanisms and to train the police and judiciary on this specific form of intolerance. He also encouraged participating States to support the efforts of NGOs dealing with hate crimes against Muslims.

    Information and data on Anti-Muslim hate crimes and incidents

    Currently, 16 participating States4 collect data on anti-Muslim hate crimes. However, no participating States provided data figures. Austria and France each reported only one notable case in their respective countries.

    14 NGOs and civil society reported incidents targeting Muslims in ten participating States.5

    The country listing below summarizes the information received by ODIHR about each participating State with regard to anti-Muslim crimes. If a participating State is not listed, this indicates that ODIHR did not receive any information concerning such crimes from the government, IGOs or NGOs.

    Austria: The NPC reported one case of harassment against a Turkish citizen. The incident was categorizes as an Islamophobic offence and the perpetrator was sentenced.6 No information was provided by NGOs.

    Bosnia and Herzegovina: No data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR by officials or NGOs. The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina reported four cases of damage to mosques and one cemetery desecration.7

    Bulgaria: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. Human Rights First reported one arson attack on a mosque.8 The Office of the Grand Mufti reported one arson attack, three cases of damage to property and three cases of graffiti targeting mosques and Muslim cemeteries.9

    Canada: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference Observatory (OIC Observatory) reported one arson attack on a mosque.10

    France: The NPC reported one case of vandalism and graffiti on a mosque. Two perpetrators received prison sentences.11 The OIC Observatory reported two cases of graffiti on property in reaction to building a new mosque and eight cases of graffiti on mosques.12 Human Rights First reported one physical assault and one Muslim cemetery desecration, where 30 graves were damaged.13 COJEP reported a series of hate incidents against property; one arson attack on a mosque, three cases of damage to property (including one cemetery desecration), three cases of graffiti on property and two cases of graffiti on places of worship.14 The NGO Collective Against Islamophobia in France reported 152 hate incidents including 12 physical assaults, four arson attacks on mosques, 11 cases of graffiti on mosques and three cases where pigs heads were left outside mosques.15

    Germany: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. Human Rights First reported three arson attacks on mosques in Berlin carried out by the same perpetrator.16

    Greece: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. The Federation of Western Thrace, the Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association and the Culture and Solidarity Association of the Turks of Rhodes, Kos and Dodecanese reported one case of damage and graffiti to property where more than 20 gravestones were destroyed.17 In addition, the Federation of Western Thrace and the Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association reported one arson attack on a mosque and one case of damage to property where gravestones were desecrated.18 The Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association and the Culture and Solidarity Association of the Turks of Rhodes, Kos and Dodecanese also reported one arson attack on the Muslims Brotherhood and Cultural Association.19 Human Rights First reported one Muslim cemetery desecration20 and the Western Thrace University Graduates Association reported one additional cemetery desecration21.

    Netherlands: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. The OIC Observatory reported one mosque desecration.22 Human Rights First reported one arson attack and graffiti on a mosque and one case of damage to property.23 The Turks Forum reported one physical assault, four arson attacks on mosques, two cases of damage to property, four cases of graffiti on property and three cases where pig’s heads were left outside mosques.24

    Russian Federation: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. Human Rights First reported the desecration of a Muslim cemetery.25 The SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis reported nine hate incidents targeting Muslim sites including two cases of arson attack.26

    Switzerland: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. Counseling Network for the Victims of Racism reported 10 incidents, including 5 physical assaults, 2 threats and 3 acts of verbal harassment. One of the physical attacks was reportedly carried out by a police officer.27

    Ukraine: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. IOM Ukraine and Human Rights first reported an attempted arson attack and graffiti on a mosque in the Crimea.28 Human Rights First also reported an additional arson attack on the same mosque later in the year.29

    United Kingdom: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. The OIC Observatory reported a series of attacks against a mosque in Essex resulting in damage to property.30 Human Rights First reported one serious physical assault of a 13 year girl, the perpetrators have been arrested and face trial in 2011. In addition, two physical assaults and two arson attacks were reported.31 The National Association of Muslim Police reported 15 cases of arson and damage to property targeting mosques and five cases of graffiti on Muslim cemeteries.32 The Institute of Race Relations reported 12 physical assaults and 20 hate incidents involving graffiti and damage to property, eight of which targeted mosques.33 The Muslim Council of Britain reported two physical assaults, two arson attacks on mosques, eight cases of damage to property (four targeting mosques, three targeting Muslim cemeteries and one as part of a series of regular attacks on a Muslim family home).34 Engage reported one serious physical assault, four physical assaults, two arson attacks on mosques, five cases of damage to mosques, one cemetery desecration, one case of graffiti and fours cases where pig”s heads were left outside mosques.35

    United States: No official data on anti-Muslim crimes were reported to ODIHR. Human Rights First reported one serious physical assault and one case of damage to property.36

    The Human Rights Committee recommended that Belgium should intensify its efforts to prosecute and punish Islamophobic crimes.37

    ECRI noted reports of crimes targeting Muslim places of worship in Poland,38 and that officials in France have taken a firm stance against Islamaphobia.39

    The European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) issued a report in 2010 examining the discrimination and violence experienced by Muslim and non-Muslim youths in France, Spain and the U.K., finding a connection between feelings of social marginalization when victim of violence and discrimination.40

    Government and NGO responses to crimes and incidents motivated by intolerance and discrimination against Muslims

    In the United Kingdom, the National Association of Muslim Police organised the first conference on “Islamophobia” for law enforcement officers and the community. An overview of titled “Key Islamophobia Research” was later compiled.41

    An “All Party Group on Islamophobia” was established in the United Kingdom, on 24 November 2010.42

    Box 4: Anti Muslim attack

     

     

    1 “Tenth Meeting of the Ministerial Council”, Porto, 6 and 7 December 2002, <http://osce.org/item/4162.html>.

    2 Press release, “Countering intolerance and discrimination against Muslims purpose of OSCE meeting in Cordoba”, OSCE, Cordoba, 9 October 2007, <http://www.osce.org/item/27234.html>.

    3 “Astana Declaration on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination,” Astana, 30 June 2010, <http://www.osce.org/cio/68972>.

    4 Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, United Kingdom and the United States.

    5 Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Russian Federation, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the United States.

    6 Questionnaire from the Austrian NPC, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    7 Communication from the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    8 “Violence against Muslims”, Human Rights First, March 2011, <http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/3-2010-muslim-factsheet-update.pdf>.

    9 Communication from the Office of the Grand Mufti of Bulgaria, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    10 “Third OIC Observatory Report on Islamophobia (Intolerance & Discrimination against Muslims)” The Organisation of the Islamic Conference Observatory (OIC Observatory), May 2010, <http://www.oic-oci.org/uploads/file/Islamphobia/2010/en/Islamophobia_rep_May_22_5_2010.pdf.pdf>.

    11 Questionnaire from the French NPC, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    12 “Third OIC Observatory Report on Islamophobia (Intolerance & Discrimination against Muslims)” The Organisation of the Islamic Conference Observatory (OIC Observatory), op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    13 “Violence against Muslims”, Human Rights First, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    14 Information from COJEP, 8 April 2011.

    15 “Rapport sur l’Islamophobie en France 2010”, Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie en France, 15 March 2010, <http://www.islamophobie.net/user-res/fichiers/rapport_ccif_2010_PDF>.

    16 “Violence against Muslims”, Human Rights First, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    17 Information from the Federation of Western Thrace, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı; Information from the Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı; Information from the Culture and Solidarity Association of the Turks of Rhodes, Kos and Dodecanese, 27 January 2011.

    18 Information from the Federation of Western Thrace, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı, Information from the Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    19 Information from the Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı; Information from the Culture and Solidarity Association of the Turks of Rhodes, Kos and Dodecanese, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    20 “Violence against Muslims”, Human Rights First, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    21 Information from the Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadıHata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    22 “Third OIC Observatory Report on Islamophobia (Intolerance & Discrimination against Muslims)”, OIC Observatory, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    23 “Violence against Muslims”, Human Rights First, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    24 Information from Turks Forum Netherlands, 29 March 2011.

    25 Ibid.

    26 “The Phantom of Manezhnaya Square: Radical Nationalism and Efforts to Counteract It in 2010”, SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadıHata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    27 Information from Counseling Network for the Victims of Hate Crimes, Bern, 15 April 2011.

    28 Communication from IOM Ukraine, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı; “Violence against Muslims”, Human Rights First, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    29 “Violence against Muslims”, Human Rights First, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    30 “Third OIC Observatory Report on Islamophobia (Intolerance & Discrimination against Muslims)”, OIC Observatory, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    31 “Violence against Muslims”, Human Rights First, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    32 Information from the National Association of Muslim Police, London, 31 March 2011.

    33 Information from the Institute of Race Relations, 25 March 2011.

    34 Information from the Muslim Council of Britain, 1 April 2011.

    35 Information from Engage, 31 March 2011.

    36 Information from Human Rights First, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    37 “Draft concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee: Belgium” CCPR/C/BEL/CO/5, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    38 “ECRI Report on Poland (fourth monitoring cycle)”, European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    39 “ECRI Report on France (fourth monitoring cycle)”, European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı.

    40 “Experience of discrimination, social marginalization and violence:A comparative study of Muslim and non-Muslim youth in three EU Member States” European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, (Vienna:2010),<>.

    41 Information from the National Association of Muslim Police, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadıHata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı; “An Overview of Key Islamophobia Research”, Dr Chris Allen, National Association of Muslim Police, April 2010, <http://www.namp-uk.com/images/stories/an_overview_of_key_is.pdf>.

    42 Information from Engage, op. cit., note Hata: Başvuru kaynağı bulunamadı; “Launch of All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia”, Engage, 24 November, <http://www.iengage.org.uk/images/stories/appgpr241110.pdf>.

  • Turkey Plans New Major Waterway To Bypass Bosporus

    Turkey Plans New Major Waterway To Bypass Bosporus

    by The Associated Press

    Enlarge Associated PressMap shows where Turkey plans to build a major waterway

    Associated PressMap shows where Turkey plans to build a major waterway

    Associated PressTurkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 27, 2011. Erdogan announced Wednesday plans to build a major new waterway to reduce traffic on the heavily congested Bosporus. Erdogan said “Canal Istanbul” would be between 28 and 31 miles (40 and 45 kilometers) long and would link the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara in the west of Istanbul, which leads to the Aegean Sea. The banner reads: ” Canal Istanbul is coming.”

    Enlarge Associated PressTurkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 27, 2011. Erdogan announced Wednesday plans to build a major new waterway to reduce traffic on the heavily congested Bosporus. Erdogan said “Canal Istanbul” would be between 28 and 31 miles (40 and 45 kilometers) long and would link the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara in the west of Istanbul, which leads to the Aegean Sea.

    Associated PressTurkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, April 27, 2011. Erdogan announced Wednesday plans to build a major new waterway to reduce traffic on the heavily congested Bosporus. Erdogan said “Canal Istanbul” would be between 28 and 31 miles (40 and 45 kilometers) long and would link the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara in the west of Istanbul, which leads to the Aegean Sea.

    text size A A A

    ANKARA, Turkey April 27, 2011, 11:03 am ET

    Turkey’s prime minister on Wednesday announced what he called a “crazy and magnificent” plan to build a new waterway to the Black Sea, promising that the tanker-clogged Bosporus through Istanbul would soon be used for sports and boat trips.

    The waterway, to be named “Canal Istanbul,” would link the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, which leads to the Aegean Sea. It would be between 28 and 31 miles (40 and 45 kilometers) long, some 82 feet (25 meters) deep and around 500 feet (150 meters) wide, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during campaigning ahead of elections on June 12.

    “We have today embarked on the greatest project of the century,” Erdogan said, adding that it would be a bigger undertaking than the Panama or Suez canals.

    The new waterway would be located on the European side of the Bosporus, he said, but would not disclose its exact location or the cost of the gargantuan project. It would be completed by 2023, when Turkey will be celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Turkish republic after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

    “Turkey more than deserves to enter 2023 with such a crazy and magnificent project,” he said to a cheering audience in the city. “Istanbul will become a city with two seas passing through it.”

    Erdogan, who is hoping to win a third term in office in June, has promised to announce what he called a “crazy project” for Istanbul since campaigning began earlier this month, keeping Turks guessing for weeks.

    Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the Republican People’s Party, brushed off the project, saying construction contracts would only enrich people close to Erdogan’s ruling party.

    “They have projects that say ‘How can I make my supporters richer?’,” the Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying. “This nation does not need crazy people, but people who think.”

    Town planners speculated the canal would be built west of the town of Silivri in Turkey’s Thrace region, since areas closer to Istanbul are heavily populated. The government has already announced plans to build a new airport near Silivri.

    Erdogan said hazardous materials from tankers pose a threat to Istanbul, a city of more than 13 million, but the project is likely to draw outrage from environmentalists and spur debate about the ecosytem.

    “It is difficult to assess the outcome when one intervenes in a natural system in such an artificial way,” said Cemal Saydam, a professor of environmental engineering.

    The 19-mile (30-kilometer) long Bosporus strait that bisects Istanbul is, in conjunction with the Dardanelles, the sole passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and is heavily congested with tanker traffic to and from Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Ukraine and southern Russia. It has been the scene of ship accidents in the past and environmentalists warn a major disaster is waiting to happen.

    “Bosporus’ traffic will be reduced to zero,” Erdogan said. “Water sports will take place on the Bosporus, transport within the city will be established, (Istanbul) will return to its former days.”

    Past accidents have closed the Bosporus for days, including a 1994 collision of an oil tanker and a cargo ship that killed 29 sailors.

    In December 1999, a Russian-made tanker split in two at the mouth of the strait, spilling 235,000 gallons of fuel and blackening 6 miles of coastline.

    Erdogan said ships carry 139 million tons of oil, 4 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas and 3 million tons of chemicals through the Bosporus annually, threatening nearly 2 million people living and working on the banks of the waterway.

    Erdogan said feasibility studies would take two years to complete. He said he would keep the location of the project a secret, apparently to avoid possible land speculation in the area. Excavated soil would be used in the construction of the port and the airport as well as burying some defunct mines in the region.

    Kadir Topbas, the mayor of Istanbul and a member of Erdogan’s party, welcomed the project, saying the new canal would eliminate the risk posed by heavy tanker traffic to Istanbul and the environment.

    ———

    Associated Press writers Selcan Hacaoglu contributed to this report.

  • Ukraine And Turkey Begin Talks On Visa-Free Travel

    Ukraine And Turkey Begin Talks On Visa-Free Travel

    Ukraine and Turkey have begun talks on visa-free travel.

    The press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced this in a statement.

    The first round of talks took place on April 21 at the level of heads of consular services.

    passvisaAccording to the statement, the negotiations are the result of agreements reached between the two countries at the highest level, which resulted in President Viktor Yanukovych instructing the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and other law enforcement agencies to ensure their implementation.

    Moreover, the agencies were instructed to prepare a draft agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers and the government of Turkey on the conditions for travel between the two countries by citizens, which provide for introduction of reciprocal visa-free entry for citizens of both countries.

    The Turkish side has taken note of the draft of the agreement proposed by Ukraine and expressed its readiness to further refine it with the responsible authorities of Turkey in the shortest possible time.

    As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Ukraine and Turkey expressed readiness to start negotiations on creation of a free trade area and the introduction of visa-free travel in March.

    Turkey has repeatedly stated that it favors introduction of visa-free travel between it and Ukraine.

    via Ukranian News – Ukraine And Turkey Begin Talks On Visa-Free Travel.

  • Egypt’s Revolution: Creative Destruction for a ‘Greater Middle East’?

    Egypt’s Revolution: Creative Destruction for a ‘Greater Middle East’?

    F. William Engdahl, February 5, 2011
    Fast on the heels of the regime change in Tunisia came a popular-based protest movement launched on January 25 against the entrenched order of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Contrary to the carefully-cultivated impression that the Obama Administration is trying to retain the present regime of Mubarak, Washington in fact is orchestrating the Egyptian as well as other regional regime changes from Syria to Yemen to Jordan and well beyond in a process some refer to as “creative destruction.”

    The template for such covert regime change has been developed by the Pentagon, US intelligence agencies and various think-tanks such as RAND Corporation over decades, beginning with the May 1968 destabilization of the de Gaulle presidency in France. This is the first time since the US backed regime changes in Eastern Europe some two decades back that Washington has initiated simultaneous operations in many countries in a region. It is a strategy born of a certain desperation and one not without significant risk for the Pentagon and for the long-term Wall Street agenda. What the outcome will be for the peoples of the region and for the world is as yet unclear.
    Yet while the ultimate outcome of defiant street protests in Cairo and across Egypt and the Islamic world remains unclear, the broad outlines of a US covert strategy are already clear.
    No one can dispute the genuine grievances motivating millions to take to the streets at risk of life. No one can defend atrocities of the Mubarak regime and its torture and repression of dissent. Noone can dispute the explosive rise in food prices as Chicago and Wall Street commodity speculators, and the conversion of American farmland to the insane cultivation of corn for ethanol fuel drive grain prices through the roof. Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, much of it from the USA. Chicago wheat futures rose by a staggering 74% between June and November 2010 leading to an Egyptian food price inflation of some 30% despite government subsidies.
    What is widely ignored in the CNN and BBC and other Western media coverage of the Egypt events is the fact that whatever his excesses at home, Egypt’s Mubarak represented a major obstacle within the region to the larger US agenda.

    To say relations between Obama and Mubarak were ice cold from the outset would be no exaggeration. Mubarak was staunchly opposed to Obama policies on Iran and how to deal with its nuclear program, on Obama policies towards the Persian Gulf states, to Syria and to Lebanon as well as to the Palestinians.1 He was a formidable thorn in the larger Washington agenda for the entire region, Washington’s Greater Middle East Project, more recently redubbed the milder sounding “New Middle East.”

    As real as the factors are that are driving millions into the streets across North Africa and the Middle East, what cannot be ignored is the fact that Washington is deciding the timing and as they see it, trying to shape the ultimate outcome of comprehensive regime change destabilizations across the Islamic world. The day of the remarkably well-coordinated popular demonstrations demanding Mubarak step down, key members of the Egyptian military command including Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Sami Hafez Enan were all in Washington as guests of the Pentagon. That conveniently neutralized the decisive force of the Army to stop the anti-Mubarak protests from growing in the critical early days.2

    The strategy had been in various State Department and Pentagon files since at least a decade or longer. After George W. Bush declared a War on Terror in 2001 it was called the Greater Middle East Project. Today it is known as the less threatening-sounding “New Middle East” project. It is a strategy to break open the states of the region from Morocco to Afghanistan, the region defined by David Rockefeller’s friend Samuel Huntington in his infamous Clash of Civilizations essay in Foreign Affairs.
    Egypt rising?

    The current Pentagon scenario for Egypt reads like a Cecil B. DeMille Hollywood spectacular, only this one with a cast of millions of Twitter-savvy well-trained youth, networks of Muslim Brotherhood operatives, working with a US-trained military. In the starring role of the new production at the moment is none other than a Nobel Peace Prize winner who conveniently appears to pull all the threads of opposition to the ancien regime into what appears as a seamless transition into a New Egypt under a self-proclaimed liberal democratic revolution.

    Some background on the actors on the ground is useful before looking at what Washington’s long term strategic plan might be for the Islamic world from North Africa to the Persian Gulf and ultimately into the Islamic populations of Central Asia, to the borders of China and Russia.
    Washington ‘soft’ revolutions

    The protests that led to the abrupt firing of the entire Egyptian government by President Mubarak on the heels of the panicked flight of Tunisia’s Ben Ali into a Saudi exile are not at all as “spontaneous” as the Obama White House, Clinton State Department or CNN, BBC and other major media in the West make them to be.

    They are being organized in a Ukrainian-style high-tech electronic fashion with large internet-linked networks of youth tied to Mohammed ElBaradei and the banned and murky secret Muslim Brotherhood, whose links to British and American intelligence and freemasonry are widely reported.3

    At this point the anti-Mubarak movement looks like anything but a threat to US influence in the region, quite the opposite. It has all the footprints of another US-backed regime change along the model of the 2003-2004 Color Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and the failed Green Revolution against Iran’s Ahmedinejad in 2009.

    The call for an Egyptian general strike and a January 25 Day of Anger that sparked the mass protests demanding Mubarak resign was issued by a Facebook-based organization calling itself the April 6 Movement. The protests were so substantial and well-organized that it forced Mubarak to ask his cabinet to resign and appoint a new vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman, former Minister of Intelligence.
    April 6 is headed by one Ahmed Maher Ibrahim, a 29-year-old civil engineer, who set up the Facebook site to support a workers’ call for a strike on April 6, 2008.
    According to a New York Times account from 2009, some 800,000 Egyptians, most youth, were already then Facebook or Twitter members. In an interview with the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment, April 6 Movement head Maher stated, “Being the first youth movement in Egypt to use internet-based modes of communication like Facebook and Twitter, we aim to promote democracy by encouraging public involvement in the political process.”4

    Maher also announced that his April 6 Movement backs former UN International Atomic Energy Aagency (IAEA) head and declared Egyptian Presidential candidate, ElBaradei along with ElBaradei’s National Association for Change (NAC) coalition. The NAC includes among others George Ishak, a leader in Kefaya Movement, and Mohamed Saad El-Katatni, president of the parliamentary bloc of the controversial Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood.5

    Today Kefaya is at the center of the unfolding Egyptian events. Not far in the background is the more discreet Muslim Brotherhood.

    ElBaradei at this point is being projected as the central figure in a future Egyptian parliamentary democratic change. Curiously, though he has not lived in Egypt for the past thirty years, he has won the backing of every imaginable part of the Eyptian political spectrum from communists to Muslim Brotherhood to Kefaya and April 6 young activists.6 Judging from the calm demeanour ElBaradei presents these days to CNN interviewers, he also likely has the backing of leading Egyptian generals opposed to the Mubarak rule for whatever reasons as well as some very influential persons in Washington.

    Kefaya—Pentagon ‘non-violent warfare’

    Kefaya is at the heart of mobilizing the Egyptian protest demonstrations that back ElBaradei’s candidacy. The word Kefaya translates to “enough!”
    Curiously, the planners at the Washington National Endowment for Democracy (NED)7 and related color revolution NGOs apparently were bereft of creative new catchy names for their Egyptian Color Revolution. In their November 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the US-financed NGOs chose the catch word, Kmara! In order to identify the youth-based regime change movement. Kmara in Georgian also means “enough!”

    Like Kefaya, Kmara in Georgia was also built by the Washington-financed trainers from the NED and other groups such as Gene Sharp’s misleadingly-named Albert Einstein Institution which uses what Sharp once identified as “non-violence as a method of warfare.”8

    The various youth networks in Georgia as in Kefaya were carefully trained as a loose, decentralized network of cells, deliberately avoiding a central organization that could be broken and could have brought the movement to a halt. Training of activists in techniques of non-violent resistance was done at sports facilities, making it appear innocuous. Activists were also given training in political marketing, media relations, mobilization and recruiting skills.
    The formal name of Kefaya is Egyptian Movement for Change. It was founded in 2004 by select Egyptian intellectuals at the home of Abu ‘l-Ala Madi, leader of the al-Wasat party, a party reportedly created by the Muslim Brotherhood.9 Kefaya was created as a coalition movement united only by the call for an end Mubarak’s rule.

    Kefaya as part of the amorphous April 6 Movement capitalized early on new social media and digital technology as its main means of mobilization. In particular, political blogging, posting uncensored youtube shorts and photographic images were skillfully and extremely professionally used. At a rally already back in December 2009 Kefaya had announced support for the candidacy of Mohammed ElBaradei for the 2011 Egyptian elections.10

    RAND and Kefaya

    No less a US defense establishment think-tank than the RAND Corporation has conducted a detailed study of Kefaya. The Kefaya study as RAND themselves note, was “sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.”11

    A nicer bunch of democratically-oriented gentlemen and women could hardly be found.
    In their 2008 report to the Pentagon, the RAND researchers noted the following in relation to Egypt’s Kefaya:
    “The United States has professed an interest in greater democratization in the Arab world, particularly since the September 2001 attacks by terrorists from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon. This interest has been part of an effort to reduce destabilizing political violence and terrorism. As President George W. Bush noted in a 2003 address to the National Endowment for Democracy, “As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export” (The White House, 2003). The United States has used varying means to pursue democratization, including a military intervention that, though launched for other reasons, had the installation of a democratic government as one of its end goals.
    However, indigenous reform movements are best positioned to advance democratization in their own country.”12

    RAND researchers have spent years perfecting techniques of unconventional regime change under the name “swarming,” the method of deploying mass mobs of digitally-linked youth in hit-and-run protest formations moving like swarms of bees.13

    Washington and the stable of “human rights” and “democracy” and “non-violence” NGOs it oversees, over the past decade or more has increasingly relied on sophisticated “spontaneous” nurturing of local indigenous protest movements to create pro-Washington regime change and to advance the Pentagon agenda of global Full Spectrum Dominance. As the RAND study of Kefaya states in its concluding recommendations to the Pentagon:
    “The US government already supports reform efforts through organizations such as the US Agency for International Development and the United Nations Development Programme. Given the current negative popular standing of the United States in the region, US support for reform initiatives is best carried out through nongovernmental and nonprofit institutions.“14

    The RAND 2008 study was even more concrete about future US Government support for Egyptian and other “reform” movements:
    “The US government should encourage nongovernmental organizations to offer training to reformers, including guidance on coalition building and how to deal with internal differences in pursuit of democratic reform. Academic institutions (or even nongovernmental organizations associated with US political parties, such as the International Republican Institute or the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs) could carry out such training, which would equip reform leaders to reconcile their differences peacefully and democratically.

    “Fourth, the United States should help reformers obtain and use information technology, perhaps by offering incentives for US companies to invest in the region’s communications infrastructure and information technology. US information technology companies could also help ensure that the Web sites of reformers can remain in operation and could invest in technologies such as anonymizers that could offer some shelter from government scrutiny. This could also be accomplished by employing technological safegaurds to prevent regimes from sabotaging the Web sites of reformers. “15

    As their Kefaya monograph states, it was prepared in 2008 by the “RAND National Security Research Division’s Alternative Strategy Initiative, sponsored by the Rapid Reaction Technology Office in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.
    The Alternative Strategy Initiative, just to underscore the point, includes “research on creative use of the media, radicalization of youth, civic involvement to stem sectarian violence, the provision of social services to mobilize aggrieved sectors of indigenous populations, and the topic of this volume, alternative movements.“16

    In May 2009 just before Obama’s Cairo trip to meet Mubarak, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted a number of the young Egyptian activists in Washington under the auspices of Freedom House, another “human rights” Washington-based NGO with a long history of involvement in USsponsored regime change from Serbia to Georgia to Ukraine and other Color Revolutions. Clinton and Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman met the sixteen activists at the end of a two-month “fellowship” organized by Freedom House’s New Generation program.17

    Freedom House and Washington’s government-funded regime change NGO, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) are at the heart of the uprisings now sweeping across the Islamic world. They fit the geographic context of what George W. Bush proclaimed after 2001 as his Greater Middle East Project to bring “democracy” and “liberal free market” economic reform to the Islamic countries from Afghanistan to Morocco. When Washington talks about introducing “liberal free market reform” people should watch out. It is little more than code for bringing those economies under the yoke of the dollar system and all that implies.
    Washington’s NED in a larger agenda

    If we make a list of the countries in the region which are undergoing mass-based protest movements since the Tunisian and Egyptian events and overlay them onto a map, we find an almost perfect convergence between the protest countries today and the original map of the Washington Greater Middle East Project that was first unveiled during the George W. Bush Presidency after 2001.
    Washington’s NED has been quietly engaged in preparing a wave of regime destabilizations across North Africa and the Middle East since the 2001-2003 US military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The list of where the NED is active is revealing. Its website lists Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Sudan as well, interestingly, as Israel. Coincidentally these countries are almost all today subject to “spontaneous” popular regime-change uprisings.
    The International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs mentioned by the RAND document study of Kefaya are subsidiary organizations of the Washington-based and US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy.
    The NED is the coordinating Washington agency for regime destabilization and change. It is active from Tibet to Ukraine, from Venezuela to Tunisia, from Kuwait to Morocco in reshaping the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union into what George H.W. Bush in a 1991 speech to Congress proclaimed triumphantly as the dawn of a New World Order.18

    As the architect and first head of the NED, Allen Weinstein told the Washington Post in 1991 that, “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA“19

    The NED Board of Directors includes or has included former Defense Secretary and CIA Deputy head, Frank Carlucci of the Carlyle Group; retired General Wesley Clark of NATO; neo-conservative warhawk Zalmay Khalilzad who was architect of George W. Bush’s Afghan invasion and later ambassador to Afghanistan as well as to occupied Iraq. Another NED board member, Vin Weber, co-chaired a major independent task force on US Policy toward Reform in the Arab World with former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and was a founding member of the ultra-hawkish Project for a New American Century think-tank with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, which advocated forced regime change in Iraq as early as 1998.20

    The NED is supposedly a private, non-government, non-profit foundation, but it receives a yearly appropriation for its international work from the US Congress. The National Endowment for Democracy is dependent on the US taxpayer for funding, but because NED is not a government agency, it is not subject to normal Congressional oversight.
    NED money is channelled into target countries through four “core foundations”—the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, linked to the Democratic Party; the International Republican Institute tied to the Republican Party; the American Center for International Labor Solidarity linked to the AFL-CIO US labor federation as well as the US State Department; and the Center for International Private Enterprise linked to the free-market US Chamber of Commerce.
    The late political analyst Barbara Conry noted that,
    “NED has taken advantage of its alleged private status to influence foreign elections, an activity that is beyond the scope of AID or USIA and would otherwise be possible only through a CIA covert operation. Such activities, it may also be worth noting, would be illegal for foreign groups operating in the United States.”21

    Significantly the NED details its various projects today in Islamic countries, including in addition to Egypt, in Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iran and Afghanistan. In short, most every country which is presently feeling the earthquake effects of the reform protests sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa is a target of NED.22

    In 2005 US President George W. Bush made a speech to the NED. In a long, rambling discourse which equated “Islamic radicalism” with the evils of communism as the new enemy, and using a deliberately softer term “broader Middle East” for the term Greater Middle East that had aroused much distruct in the Islamic world, Bush stated,
    “The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East. This is a difficult and long-term project, yet there’s no alternative to it. Our future and the future of that region are linked. If the broader Middle East is left to grow in bitterness, if countries remain in misery, while radicals stir the resentments of millions, then that part of the world will be a source of endless conflict and mounting danger, and for our generation and the next. If the peoples of that region are permitted to choose their own destiny, and advance by their own energy and by their participation as free men and women, then the extremists will be marginalized, and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow, and eventually end… We’re encouraging our friends in the Middle East, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to take the path of reform, to strengthen their own societies in the fight against terror by respecting the rights and choices of their own people. We’re standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes, because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow…”23

    The US Project for a ‘Greater Middle East’

    The spreading regime change operations by Washington from Tunisia to Sudan, from Yemen to Egypt to Syria are best viewed in the context of a long-standing Pentagon and State Department strategy for the entire Islamic world from Kabul in Afghanistan to Rabat in Morocco.
    The rough outlines of the Washington strategy, based in part on their successful regime change operations in the former Warsaw Pact communist bloc of Eastern Europe, were drawn up by former Pentagon consultant and neo-conservative, Richard Perle and later Bush official Douglas Feith in a white paper they drew up for the then-new Israeli Likud regime of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996.
    That policy recommendation was titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. It was the first Washington think-tank paper to openly call for removing Saddam Hussein in Iraq, for an aggressive military stance toward the Palestinians, striking Syria and Syrian targets in Lebanon.24

    Reportedly, the Netanyahu government at that time buried the Perle-Feith report, as being far too risky. By the time of the events of September 11, 2001 and the return to Washington of the arch war hawk neoconservatives around Perle and others, the Bush Administration put highest priority on an expanded version of the Perle-Feith paper, calling it their Greater Middle East Project. Feith was named Bush’s Under Secretary of Defense.
    Greater Middle East orthographic projection

    Behind the facade of proclaiming democratic reforms of autocratic regimes in the entire region, the Greater Middle East was and is a blueprint to extend US military control and to break open the statist economies in the entire span of states from Morocco to the borders of China and Russia.

    In May 2005, before the rubble from the US bombing of Baghdad had cleared, George W. Bush, a President not remembered as a great friend of democracy, proclaimed a policy of “spreading democracy” to the entire region and explicitly noted that that meant “the establishment of a USMiddle East free trade area within a decade.” 25

    Prior to the June 2004 G8 Summit on Sea Island, Georgia, Washington issued a working paper, “G8-Greater Middle East Partnership.” Under the section titled Economic Opportunities was Washington’s dramatic call for “an economic transformation similar in magnitude to that undertaken by the formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe.”

    The US paper said that the key to this would be the strengthening of the private sector as the way to prosperity and democracy. It misleadingly claimed it would be done via the miracle of microfinance where as the paper put it, “a mere $100 million a year for five years will lift 1.2 million entrepreneurs (750,000 of them women) out of poverty, through $400 loans to each.” 26

    The US plan envisioned takeover of regional banking and financial affairs by new institutions ostensibly international but, like World Bank and IMF, de facto controlled by Washington, including WTO. The goal of Washington’s long-term project is to completely control the oil, to completely control the oil revenue flows, to completely control the entire economies of the region, from Morocco to the borders of China and all in between. It is a project as bold as it is desperate.

    Once the G8 US paper was leaked in 2004 in the Arabic Al-Hayat, opposition to it spread widely across the region, with a major protest to the US definition of the Greater Middle East. As an article in the French Le Monde Diplomatique in April 2004 noted, “besides the Arab countries, it covers Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Israel, whose only common denominator is that they lie in the zone where hostility to the US is strongest, in which Islamic fundamentalism in its anti-Western form is most rife.“27 It should be noted that the NED is also active inside Israel with a number of programs.

    Notably, in 2004 it was vehement opposition from two Middle East leaders—Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and the King of Saudi Arabia—that forced the ideological zealots of the Bush Administration to temporarily put the Project for the Greater Middle East on a back burner.

    Will it work?

    At this writing it is unclear what the ultimate upshot of the latest US-led destabilizations across the Islamic world will bring. It is not clear what will result for Washington and the advocates of a USdominated New World Order. Their agenda is clearly one of creating a Greater Middle East under firm US grip as a major control of the capital flows and energy flows of a future China, Russia and a European Union that might one day entertain thoughts of drifting away from that American order.

    It has huge potential implications for the future of Israel as well. As one US commentator put it, “The Israeli calculation today is that if ‘Mubarak goes’ (which is usually stated as ‘If America lets Mubarak go’), Egypt goes. If Tunisia goes (same elaboration), Morocco and Algeria go. Turkey has already gone (for which the Israelis have only themselves to blame). Syria is gone (in part because Israel wanted to cut it off from Sea of Galilee water access). Gaza has gone to Hamas, and the Palestine Authority might soon be gone too (to Hamas?). That leaves Israel amid the ruins of a policy of military domination of the region.” 28

    The Washington strategy of “creative destruction” is clearly causing sleepless nights not only in the Islamic world but also reportedly in Tel Aviv, and ultimately by now also in Beijing and Moscow and across Central Asia.

    1 DEBKA, Mubarak believes a US-backed Egyptian military faction plotted his ouster, February 4, 2011, accessed in www.debka.com/weekly/480/. DEBKA is open about its good ties to Israeli intelligence and security agencies. While its writings must be read with that in mind, certain reports they publish often contain interesting leads for further investigation.

    2 Ibid.

    3 The Center for Grassroots Oversight, 1954-1970: CIA and the Muslim Brotherhood ally to oppose Egyptian President Nasser, www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islamic_militancy_202700&scale=0. According to the late Miles Copeland, a CIA official stationed in Egypt during the Nasser era, the CIA allied with the Muslim Brotherhood which was opposed to Nasser’s secular regime as well as his nationalist opposition to brotherhood pan-Islamic ideology.

    4 Jijo Jacob, What is Egypt’s April 6 Movement?, February 1, 2011, accessed in http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/107387/20110201/what-is-egypt-s-april-6-movement.htm

    5 Ibid.

    6 Janine Zacharia, Opposition groups rally around Mohamed ElBaradei, Washington Post, January 31, 2011, accessed in .

    7 National Endowment for Democracy, Middle East and North Africa Program Highlights 2009, accessed in http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/middle-east-and-northern-africa/middle-east-and-north-africahighlights.

    8 Amitabh Pal, Gene Sharp: The Progressive Interview, The Progressive, March 1, 2007.

    9 Emmanuel Sivan, Why Radical Muslims Aren’t Taking over Governments, Middle East Quarterly, December 1997, pp. 3-9

    10 Carnegie Endowment, The Egyptian Movement for Change (Kifaya), accessed in http://egyptelections.carnegieendowment.org/2010/09/22/the-egyptian-movement-for-change-kifaya

    11 Nadia Oweidat, et al, The Kefaya Movement: A Case Study of a Grassroots Reform Initiative, Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Santa Monica, Ca., RAND_778.pdf, 2008, p. iv.

    12 Ibid.

    13 For a more detailed discussion of the RAND “swarming” techniques see F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, edition.engdahl, 2009, pp. 34-41.

    14 Nadia Oweidat et al, op. cit., p. 48.

    15 Ibid., p. 50.

    16 Ibid., p. iii.

    17 Michel Chossudovsky, The Protest Movement in Egypt: “Dictators” do not Dictate, They Obey Orders, January 29, 2011, accessed in https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-protest-movement-in-egypt-dictators-do-not-dictate-they-obey-orders/22993

    18 George Herbert Walker Bush, State of the Union Address to Congress, 29 January 1991. In the speech Bush at one point declared in a triumphant air of celebration of the collapse of the Sovoiet Union, “What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea—a new world order…”

    19 Allen Weinstein, quoted in David Ignatius, Openness is the Secret to Democracy, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30 September 1991, pp. 24-25.

    20 National Endowment for Democracy, Board of Directors, accessed in

    21 Barbara Conry, Loose Cannon: The National Endowment for Democracy, Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 27, November 8, 1993, accessed in .

    22 National Endowment for Democracy, 2009 Annual Report, Middle East and North Africa, accessed in http://www.ned.org/publications/annual-reports/2009-annual-report.

    23 George W. Bush, Speech at the National Endowment for Democracy, Washington, DC, October 6, 2005,accessed in http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/10.06.05.html.

    24 Richard Perle, Douglas Feith et al, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, 1996, Washington and Tel Aviv, The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, accessed in www.iasps.org/strat1.htm

    25 George W. Bush, Remarks by the President in Commencement Address at the University of South Carolina, White House, 9 May 2003.

    26 Gilbert Achcar, Fantasy of a Region that Doesn’t Exist: Greater Middle East, the US plan, Le Monde Diplomatique, April 4, 2004, accessed in https://mondediplo.com/2004/04/04world

    27 Ibid.

    28 William Pfaff, American-Israel Policy Tested by Arab Uprisings, accessed in http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/american-israeli_policy_tested_by_arab_uprisings_20110201/

    http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Creative%20Destruction%20Washington%20Style.pdf

  • Ukraine, Turkey to set up high-level strategic council soon, says ambassador

    Ukraine, Turkey to set up high-level strategic council soon, says ambassador

    Ukraine and Turkey are planning to set up a high-level strategic council next year, Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Serhiy Korsunsky has said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

    “The declaration on the establishment of a high-level strategic council has already been initialed,” the ambassador said, adding that Turkey uses this form of cooperation with its strategic partners.

    He noted that this council would consist of all ministers, the heads of state and the heads of the governments. On the Turkish side the council will be headed by the prime minister, and from the Ukrainian by the president.

    “We are planning to set up this council during the visit of the Turkish prime minister to Ukraine in 2011. Its constituent meeting will be held afterwards,” the diplomat said.

    He also said that Ukraine and Turkey were planning to sign agreements in the transport, energy, culture and education sectors.

    via Ukraine, Turkey to set up high-level strategic council soon, says ambassador – Ukrainian news. Interfax-Ukraine.

  • Inner City Press: Wikileaks Buzz from Turkey to UN, But Ban Quiet with Clinton, Assange as Terrorist?

    Inner City Press: Wikileaks Buzz from Turkey to UN, But Ban Quiet with Clinton, Assange as Terrorist?

    By Matthew Russell Lee

    UNITED NATIONS, December 1 — As the new Wikileaks of US State Department cables were the buzz at the UN on Wednesday, from Sri Lanka war crimes to Russia’s “Mafia state,” the UN Secretariat did all it could to dodge questions about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s directive that the UN and its officials be spied on.

    But at a Turkish Mission reception on Wednesday evening, a European Ambassador told Inner City Press that the leaks were going to cause trouble within countries all over the world. “Why did the US distribute these cables so widely?” he asked. “When I have information, I write only to my minister and his chief of staff, no one else.”

    Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to sue the American diplomats who cabled home that Erdogan has secret bank accounts in Switzerland. But well placed sources tell Inner City Press that the origin of the Swiss bank detail is the “Turkish minister who covers the European Union process.”

    So maybe the lawsuit, if there is one, should be filed in Turkey itself.

    After Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with Clinton in Astana, the UN said only that “they discussed… the complications caused by the recent massive leak of US diplomatic cables.”

    Inner City Press asked the UN’s Counter-Terrorism Executive Director Mike Smith about calls to designate Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange as part of a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Video here, from Minute 17:40.

    Smith said he would “leave it up to the countries that are talking about that to work it out through these systems, I’m not going to comment on that.” Of course, it is within Smith’s and the UN’s stated job to speak on the misuse of terrorism laws and designations.

    Footnote: beyond Ban Ki-moon’s meeting with Hillary Clinton, the UN on Wednesday afternoon confirmed to Inner City Press what it had asked about Ban’s meeting with South Korea’s foreign minister. Yes they met, including about two conferences in Seoul. But there was apparently no meeting with Ukraine’s president, despite Ukrainian press reports that there would be.

    via Inner City Press: Wikileaks Buzz from Turkey to UN, But Ban Quiet with Clinton, Assange as Terrorist?.