Category: Europe

Lithuania, Turkey are strengthening political, economic relations

President Dalia Grybauskaite met with the President of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, who has arrived in Lithuania for an official visit. The Presidents discussed possibilities to strengthen political and economic cooperation between the two countries and to develop business relations. In the run-up to Lithuanian presidency of the EU Council, the heads of state also touched upon the progress in Turkey’s EU accession negotiations, the presidential press service said.

During the visit a memorandum of understanding will be signed regarding Turkey’s participation in the railway project Viking which connects the Baltic and Black Sea regions. After Turkey joining the project, Lithuania would become a bridge linking the southern and northern parts of Europe and would attract more attention and investments from Turkish entrepreneurs.

The President of Turkey in Lithuania is accompanied by almost 100 business representatives. Tomorrow the Presidents will open the Lithuania-Turkey business forum with a business contacts fair as its part.

Turkey’s trade representation for the three Baltic States was opened in Vilnius last year. A new direct Istanbul-Vilnius route will be launched by the Turkish Airlines this summer.

The Presidents also addressed the EU-Turkey relations. During its presidency of the EU Council Lithuania will seek a constructive and mutually beneficial dialogue between the EU and Turkey. Lithuania fully supports Turkey’s membership in the EU.

According to President Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuania’s goal during its presidency of the Council of the EU will be to give a new impetus to the frozen negotiations between Turkey and the EU. The President stressed that effectiveness in the EU-Turkey negotiations depends on Turkey’s progress in implementing key reforms. Lithuania will also seek progress in negotiating visa facilitation regime between Turkey and the EU.

Among the other issues discussed at the meeting was cooperation within NATO. The President thanked the Turkish leader for the support in establishing the Lithuania-based NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence and participation in the Baltic airspace protection.

April 8, 2013
Turkey denies French-Japanese JV win nuke bid

Turkey declined reports on Thursday that a French-Japanese consortium has won a tender to build the country’s second nuclear power plant, asserting it was “too early to comment.”

Japan’s Nikkei business daily reported on Thursday that the Japanese Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and France’s Areva SA have won an order to build Turkey’s second nuclear power plant, a project expected to cost around $22 billion. Representatives from Areva and Mitsubishi Heavy were unavailable immediately to comment, but Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz rushed in on Thursday to deny that such a deal existed.

“It is too early to make such comments. … We cannot yet say the race for [who will build] our second nuclear power plant is over,” Yildiz told a private news channel on Thursday.

Turkey has been in negotiations with South Korea, China, Japan and Canada for the construction of a second nuclear power plant in the Black Sea province of Sinop. An agreement was reached with Russia in 2010 to build the first plant in Mersin’s Akkuyu district.

Reiterating the Turkish government’s reluctance to offer a state guarantee for the nuclear project’s financing, Yildiz said South Korea was eliminated due to this condition, while more focused talks continued with Japan and China. “I think we are now closer to finalizing the talks with these two countries than ever,” said the energy minister.

This is not the first time Turkey has insisted on “risk sharing” in the months-long Sinop nuclear bid. Observers argued Yildiz’s statements were meant to further heat up competition between the bidders so that they would agree to relatively more favorable terms.

Ongoing rapprochement between Ankara and Paris as the latter decided to lift its block on Turkey’s EU accession negotiations along with improving ties with Japan remains a key factor in the alleged nuclear deal.

Nikkei on Thursday said Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources had informed Japanese government and corporate officials of the decision to award them a deal to build four pressurized water nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of about 4.5 gigawatts in Sinop, a province on the Black Sea coast.

The paper added that the Turkish government had approached Japan about a summit meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in early May, after which it is likely to officially grant preferred negotiating rights to the Mitsubishi-Areva consortium. It added construction is set to start in 2017, with the first reactor slated to come online by 2023, and France’s GDF Suez SA will operate the plant.

Energy-poor Turkey aims to have three nuclear power plants, all of them operational by 2023, its centennial. It is anticipated to overtake Britain as Europe’s third-biggest electricity consumer within a decade.

Meanwhile, Yildiz on Thursday asserted the government will stick with plans to increase oil trade with Iraq’s north while a possible natural gas pipeline from Israel to flow through Turkey into world markets was “on the table.” “All countries in this region are aware Turkey is the key, most feasible corridor for similar energy transfer projects.”

via Turkey denies French-Japanese JV win nuke bid.

April 7, 2013
Turkey to have representative at German neo-Nazi trial, envoy says

Turkey will have an official representative in the court room for the upcoming trial of neo-Nazis accused of killing 10 people – eight of them Turks, the Turkish ambassador to Germany said.

But even before getting under way on April 17, the trial has come under intense criticism, after Turkish journalists failed to get reserved seats in the Munich court.

The court has held firm to its decision that media seats will only be guaranteed to the 50 journalists, mainly Germans, who had applied by email on a first-come-first-served basis during a three-hour time slot.

In an interview with dpa, Huseyin Avni Karslioglu, Turkey’s ambassador to Germany, said his country “fully trusts the German judiciary” but disapproved of the way it allocated seats.

“The trial is also meant to restore people’s trust. They want to know what really happened … so with issues affecting the press, the court should show a bit more sensitive behaviour,” he said.

Members of the self-styled right-wing National Socialist Underground (NSU) are to go on trial for the execution-style murders of 10 men with Turkish or Greek roots and a German police woman between 2000 and 2007, as well as bomb attacks and bank robberies.

There is only one surviving member from the three alleged neo-Nazi killers. Two male gunmen, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, died in an apparent murder-suicide in 2011 after they were cornered inside a camper van by police following a bank robbery.

Their alleged female accomplice, Beate Zschaepe, 38, who lived with the two men for years, is being tried on murder and terrorism charges, along with four of their alleged supporters.

Karslioglu said he would attend the start of the trial, with other Turkish officials later taking his place.

“In Germany, a terrorist cell of neo-Nazis committed a gruesome series of murders, and the victims were almost all Turks,” said the diplomat. “As an ambassador, it is my duty to accompany the bereaved.”

Turks are the largest ethnic minority group in the country, estimated to number about 3 million.

For years police and some newspapers labelled the killings the “doner murders”, a reference to Turkish kebabs that suggested immigrant gang wars were behind the shootings.

The case has badly shaken Germany’s security establishment, which has faced severe criticism for failing to exchange key information while keeping neo-Nazis as paid informants.

Compounding the scandal, security services have admitted to shredding files on neo-Nazi groups, leading to the resignations of several senior security officials.

Now many fear that the damage will be compounded when Germany starts what has been billed as the trial of the decade in a 1970s-era court room expected to be too small, given large media interest and the many witnesses and victims’ relatives.

Source: GNA

via BusinessGhana – Ghana, Business Advice, Jobs, News, Business Directory, Real Estate, Finance, Forms, Auto.

April 7, 2013
Opinion: German-Turkish crisis of confidence

German authorities are not fighting rightwing extremists vigorously enough, says DW’s Baha Güngör.

With the NSU trial about to start, the accusation that Germany isn’t doing enough against right-wing extremism is gaining momentum in Turkey. That is a dangerous dynamic, warns Baha Güngör.

There’s a growing crisis of confidence between Germany and Turkey, and between Germans and Turks. Were neo-Nazis responsible for the fires in buildings primarily occupied by Turkish residents? Are German authorities intentionally excluding arson to protect right-wing lunatics? Did the Munich court plan to exclude Turkish media from the NSU trial? This endless chain of provocative questions has caused a variety of people – not all of them competent – to share their subjective answers with the public. And that in turn set off another wave of accusations and embitterment.

Baha Güngör heads DW’s Turkish department

The German public has to accept the reactions by Turks here in Almanya and government officials in Turkey. The pain still stings, the families of the eight Turks and one Greek who were killed by the terror group NSU are still traumatized. The investigating authorities -including the highest ranking government offices on the federal and state level – had excluded a possible neo-Nazi connection to the killings for years, ignored clues, shredded files and suspected that the victims had fallen prey to their own criminal connections. These “mishaps,” as they’ve been flippantly termed, should not occur in a country that respects the rule of law like Germany, and they have contributed significantly to the tensions in the German-Turkish relationship.

A modest response

But especially high-ranking Turkish migrant representatives should steer clear of accusing German investigators and politicians of belittling fires that kill immigrants. Germany does have a neo-Nazi problem, and polls show that it must be taken a lot more seriously than it has been so far. There are many attacks on mosques, homes and facilities for migrants that don’t make their way to the public’s eye, that don’t have any victims and that are quickly filed away. Statistics also show, however, that around 200,000 fires kill almost 500 people a year in Germany. Surely, not all of these fires are caused by arson.

It’s understandable that Turkish government officials feel compelled to take care of their fellow countrymen in Germany. When Germans get into trouble in Turkey, it goes without question that German politicians come to their aid. But such initiatives should not overshoot the aim. The attempt to influence the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary cannot be tolerated by either side.

Court could ease the tensions

The Munich court has rejected every suggestion made regarding granting seats to Turkish journalists for the neo-Nazi trial, which begins on April 17. That might be formally correct, but it shows about as much tact as a bull in a china shop. Who can blame the Turkish media for wondering whether a German court would be just as incompliant if the victims were Polish, British, Russian or even Jewish?

That’s why concessions by the Munich court would be a starting point in easing the tensions in the current crisis of confidence. The next step would have to be taken by politicians and media from both countries: they need to stop their aggressive arguments that just hurt the people on the Turkish as well as on the German side. But only German security and judiciary officials can ease the tensions for good. They have promised to investigate all possible leads, and to be open for any outcomes. In the end, they have to present convincing results on how the fires originated that killed many immigrants. Any attempt to belittle or mollify would be a fatal encouragement for the arsonists to plan more attacks.

via Opinion: German-Turkish crisis of confidence | Germany | DW.DE | 04.04.2013.

April 6, 2013
Turkish media to challenge exclusion from neo-Nazi trial

Turkish media to challenge exclusion from neo-Nazi trial

Limitied accreditation for Munich trial draws sustained criticism

The press gallery in the courtroom where the trial against suspected NSU member Beate Zschäpe will take place. Turkey’s Sabah newspaper said it was going to the German constitutional court in Karlsruhe to demand a seat reservation. Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters

Derek Scally

Turkey’s Sabah newspaper is to appeal to Germany’s highest court over its exclusion from the trial of a woman accused of involvement in a neo-Nazi murder series.

Eight of the 10 victims of the neo-Nazi NSU underground organisation killed between 2000 and 2007 were Turkish citizens but no Turkish media organisation has been granted guaranteed seats for this month’s trial of suspected NSU member Beate Zschäpe.

Yesterday Sabah said it was going to the German constitutional court in Karlsruhe to demand a seat reservation. The mass-market Hürriyet is considering joining the complaint.

“We believe the freedom of the press and freedom of information also applies to Turkish-speaking journalists here in Germany and we too want to follow this case live,” said Sabah editor Ismael Erel. “Trials must be public, even for people of Turkish descent in Germany.”

The Munich courtroom assigned for the NSU trial has only 50 seats reserved for the media. Some 82 media organisations, including The Irish Times , have been accredited but put on a reserve list with no guarantee of access to proceedings.

The Munich court has declined to look again at its first- come, first-served accreditation process. It has refused to move proceedings to a larger courtroom or allow a closed-circuit transmission to another courtroom. German legal opinion is divided over whether such a transmission could leave the proceedings open to later challenge.

German media outlets granted access have been refused permission to transfer their accreditation for Turkish colleagues.

The Turkish ambassador to Germany said he planned to attend the trial to support relatives of NSU victims, though no seat has been reserved for him either.

“It is only natural that I will be with the victims’ families there and accompany them on this difficult path,” he said. “It is my job and of course my duty to be there.”

via Turkish media to challenge exclusion from neo-Nazi trial – European News | Latest News from Across Europe | The Irish Times – Fri, Apr 05, 2013.

April 6, 2013
Turkey eyes end of Cyprus dispute amid push for EU entry

VILNIUS: Turkey insisted Thursday the political climate was ripe to end the dispute over the decades-old division of Cyprus, as part of Ankara’s renewed push to join the European Union.

“The (February) election of Mr.(Nicos) Anastasiades as the new president of the new Greek Cypriot administration itself is a great opportunity because he was the leading supporter of the Annan plan back in 2004 which would resolve the Cyprus problem, which would reunite the island,” Turkey’s European Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis told AFP in Vilnius.

In 2004, Greek Cypriots voted down a United Nations blueprint named after then secretary-general Kofi Annan which required gradual withdrawal of foreign troops from the island. About 35,000 Turkish troops are stationed in the northern 37 per cent of the island, officially recognised only by Ankara.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia aimed at union with Greece. Turkey does not recognise the internationally-recognised government of the Republic of Cyprus, which became an EU member in 2004.

It is now a eurozone member fighting bankruptcy, a crisis which Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Wednesday termed an opportunity to work towards a solution, arguing that lifting sanctions on the Turkish-held north and reunification could bring huge economic gains.

“Any solution that is accepted by both the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots will have 100 per cent support and blessing of Turkey as long as it is based on the political equality,” Bagis said during a visit to the Lithuanian capital as the Baltic state gears up to assume the EU’s rotating six-month presidency in July. He said Ankara is bent on relaunching in June EU entry talks started in 2005 but which stalled in 2010 over a slew of issues, notably Cyprus.

Bagis also touted Turkey’s moderate brand of Islam within the framework of a market economy and multi-party democracy as an asset to a Europe with an expanding Muslim population. “Islam is also a European reality,” he said.

via Turkey eyes end of Cyprus dispute amid push for EU entry – The Economic Times.

April 5, 2013