Category: Iran

Hillary Clinton’s Turkey visit: Iran, Syria top agenda

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaves next week on an eight-day trip to Scandinavia, the Caucasus and Turkey that will cover security issues such as Iran and Syria as well as the environment and health.

Clinton will begin her trip May 31 and ends it in Istanbul on June 7, speaking at a counterterrorism forum and holding talks with Turkish officials on Syria, where President Bashar Assad is seeking to crush an uprising against his rule, and Iran, whose nuclear program the United States suspects is designed to develop atomic weapons.

Iran, which says its program is for civilian purposes, held a second round of talks with major powers in Baghdad this week and the two sides are due to meet again in Moscow on June 18-19.

AP

At least 50 people, including 13 children, were killed when Syrian forces attacked the town of Houla in Homs province on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and activists said.

Activists said clashes erupted in the town when Syrian forces opened fire on a protest against the rule of President Bashar Assad and killed one protester.

“The soldiers are shelling Houla right now, the casualties are huge,” said activist Ahmad Kassem. He said opposition fighters fired back, inflicting casualties on the soldiers and destroying five tanks. Houla is a cluster of four villages and towns north of Homs.

Also Friday, international peace mediator Kofi Annan announced he will visit Syria “soon” in what would be the former UN Secretary-General’s first visit since he presented his peace plan to Syria’s government in early March.

Ahmad Fawzi, Annan’s spokesman, declined to give details or specify the date, citing security reasons. Fawzi has repeatedly said that Annan, whose six-week-old ceasefire plan has failed to stop the violence in Syria, would travel to the country when the time was right.

UN envoys said on Thursday that Annan may travel to Syria before the end of the month.

Annan’s six-point peace plan called for a truce, withdrawal of troops and heavy weapons from cities, deployment of the monitoring force, and dialogue between the government and opposition aimed at a Syrian-led “political transition.”

“Clearly it’s an important part of this undertaking to have direct talks with the Syrian authorities and the Syrian opposition,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York on Friday.

“This is done in different ways at different times and it is coming to the time when it’s appropriate for the joint special envoy to engage directly and personally with the Syrian authorities and with the opposition in situ,” he said.

The United Nations is nearing full deployment of a 300-member unarmed UN observer force in Syria that is charged with monitoring any cease-fire resulting from the plan. The force has had close calls with recent bomb attacks but has not lost any observers.

The United Nations and Annan will report to the UN Security Council on Wednesday about the situation in Syria. The 90-day mandate for the UN observer force, known as UNSMIS, expires in July.

Nesirky said there was a fear that a third force or element was “at play in Syria and that this undoubtedly complicates the task for the monitors and the international community in seeking to ensure that the six-point plan is fully implemented.”

“There’s no hard evidence on specific groups,” he said. “It’s obvious that some of the attacks that have been seen are of the kind and nature that suggests that there is behind them a force or element with the organizational capacity and political intent to carry out violence on that scale.”

Ban has said he believes al-Qaida was responsible for two suicide car bombs that killed at least 55 people in Syria this month and that the death toll in the country’s 14-month conflict was now at least 10,000.

Syria has maintained all along that it is facing a “terrorist” conspiracy funded and directed from abroad, not least by resource-rich Gulf monarchies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which have called for arming the fighters aiming to oust President Bashar Assad.

Syria this month sent the United Nations the names of 26 foreign nationals it said had been arrested after coming to fight in Syria. It described 20 of those as members of al-Qaida who had entered the country from Turkey.

Reuters

via Hillary Clinton’s Turkey visit: Iran, Syria top agenda | Firstpost.

May 28, 2012
Turkey to raise trade exchange with Iran to 35 dlrs billion

Turkey to raise trade exchange with Iran to 35 dlrs billion

Ankara, May 23, IRNA – Turkish Minister of Development Cevdet Yilmaz called his visit to Tehran ‘constructive’ and urged the raise of trade exchanges between the two countries to the amount of 35 dlrs billion per year.

1391/03/03 – 00:33

He made the remarks in an interview with Anadolu News Agency.

“The volume of trade exchange between Iran and Turkey exceeded 16 dlrs billion in 2011 and the two countries have the capacity to increase the volume of their trade exchange to 35 dlrs billion per year by 2015,” Yilmaz added.

Turkish Minister of Development, heading a large delegation of Turkish businessmen and industrialists and economic activists had a visit to Iran on Monday and Tuesday and had meetings with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Iranian Vice President for International Affairs Ali Saeedlou as well as some Iranian economic activists.

President Ahmadinejad, in a meeting with visiting Turkish Minister of Development said the two countries should use opportunities to deepen their brotherly ties.

Iran and Turkey cooperate in a wide variety of fields that range from fighting terrorism, drug trafficking, and promoting stability in Iraq and Central Asia.

Iran and Turkey also have very close trade and economic relations. Both countries are part of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). Turkey receives many Iranian tourists each year and economically benefits from Iranian tourism.

Turkey is one of the advocates of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program in the international community. In May 2010, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made an trip to Tehran in coordination with Brazilian President Lula da Silva to make an agreement to outsource Iranian uranium enrichment to his country to avoid further sanctions on Iran. Turkey has been also host to two rounds of Iran and G5+1 talks.

via Turkey to raise trade exchange with Iran to 35 dlrs billion.

May 23, 2012
Turkey opposes anti-Iran sanctions: Turkish minister

Turkish Minister of Development Cevdet Yilmaz has reiterated his country’s opposition to the US-led sanctions against Tehran, saying Turkey will not comply with anti-Iran embargoes.

“We voted against Iran’s sanctions in the United Nations,” said Yilmaz, adding that Turkey, as a friendly country to Iran, “will not support sanctions against the Islamic Republic.”

Yilmaz made the remarks in a meeting with Chairman of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines (ICCIM) Mohammad Nahavandian and a number of Iranian businessmen in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Monday.

The US, Israel and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program, and have used the allegation as a pretext to push the UN Security Council to impose four rounds of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The U.S. and the EU have imposed new financial sanctions as well as oil embargoes against Iran since the beginning of 2012, claiming that the country’s nuclear energy program includes a military component.

Iran strongly rejects the allegations, maintaining that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

The Turkish minister further said Iran and Turkey should use all the existing opportunities and capacities to boost the volume of bilateral trade, which currently stands at USD 16 billion per annum.

He also called for the establishment of more joint entry ports as well as the expansion of cross-border transportation between Iran and Turkey.

During the meeting, Iran’s Deputy Commerce Minister Massoud Movahedi praised ‘the deep-rooted’ relations between Tehran and Ankara, and said the two sides have planned to double the volume of their trade in the next three years.

The Iranian official referred to the exchange of trade delegation and creation of joint exhibitions as ways to boost mutual economic relation, and called on the private and state sectors of both countries to remove trade barriers.

Iran and Turkey have sharply increased the level of their trade ties over the past years. In 2000, the level of bilateral trade stood at about only one billion dollars, but in 2010, it exceeded 10 billion dollars. The figure hit 15 billion dollars last year.

The two neighboring countries seek to raise the value of their bilateral trade to 30 billion dollars in 2015.

(Source: PressTV)

via Turkey opposes anti-Iran sanctions: Turkish minister – Tehran Times.

May 23, 2012
Turkey Aims to Contain Iraq, Iran

A bitter rift with Iraq has exposed Turkey’s role in a wider Middle East power struggle, with Ankara acting to protect its stability and prosperity from an Iranian-Iraqi “Shiite axis” it fears in the wake of the US military withdrawal from Iraq.

Turkey, a regional power bordering Iraq, Iran and Syria, long tried to play regional mediator.

But the fallout wrought by Arab Spring uprisings and the US exit from Iraq have forced Turkey to make tricky adjustments by cutting old alliances and forming new ones, jettisoning its “zero problems with the neighbors” policy.

That shift, coupled with a more aggressive diplomacy personified by an increasingly combative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan – has thrust Turkey into a regional strategic game pitting Gulf Arab states and Ankara against Iran.

“What is really critical is the American withdrawal from Iraq, because that basically made Iraq a much more open playing field for the Iranians,” said Soli Ozel, a prominent Turkish academic and commentator.

Turkish officials have been waging a war of words with Baghdad since December when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki ordered the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi, based on allegations that he ran death squads.

The row is symptomatic of Turkish anxiety that the country’s rising “soft power,” based on a booming economy and relative democratic stability ushered in by Erdogan after a long era of military coups, could be threatened by a nascent “Shiite axis” embodied by Iran and Al-Maliki’s Tehran-backed Baghdad government.

“This is about an escalating power struggle in Baghdad combined with the regional conflict between Iran, Turkey and the Gulf Arab states being played out in Syria and Iraq,” said Hasan Turunc, a fellow at Oxford University. Turkey accuses Al-Maliki of sowing sectarian discord by trying to sideline his Sunni rivals – Al-Maliki also called on Parliament to remove his Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Al-Mutlaq – and has warned of a regional Shiite-Sunni “cold war.”

Al-Maliki says it is Ankara that is stirring sectarian tension, calling Turkey a “hostile nation” meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs. Erdogan and Al-Maliki have exchanged public insults and both countries have summoned each other’s top diplomats over the past few months in tit-for-tat maneuvers.

Compounding tension, Turkish leaders have met publicly with Al-Hashemi, now sheltering in Istanbul after fleeing Iraq in December. Interpol is seeking the arrest of Al-Hashemi, who is being tried in absentia in Iraq. Al-Hashemi denies the charges.

Ankara’s aversion to Al-Maliki is not new. Turkey, anxious to protect trade interests in Iraq amid fears that any renewed Iraqi sectarian war could wash over its borders, long strived to encourage a precarious balance between Iraq’s Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions.

This was no better exemplified than by Erdogan’s trip to Iraq in March 2011 when he made sure to visit all three centers of power: Baghdad, Najaf and Arbil.

But that balancing act, analysts say, ended after the US troop withdrawal from Iraq at the end of last year.

Turkey has since publicly received the president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, Masoud Barzani, and Al-Maliki’s rival and Iraqiya leader, Iyad Allawi.

For its part, Iran has seen Turkey’s shift in orientation in toward its own backyard, a region it once deemed “backward,” as a more potent challenge to its aspirations to Middle East predominance than the old, purely pro-Europe Turkey.

As with Iraq, Turkey has traditionally tried to mediate over Iran, particularly Tehran’s controversial nuclear ambitions.

But friction between Turkey and Iran has mounted over their backing of opposing sides in Syria’s conflagration and Ankara’s assent to housing part of a NATO missile defense shield that the United States says is directed against the Islamic Republic.

Some Iranian officials also objected to Turkey playing host to a revival of talks between the six global powers and Iran to head off confrontation over its shadowy nuclear program.

The talks between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States did go ahead in Istanbul in April but not before Erdogan lashed out at Tehran, saying the Iranians “lacked honesty” and were “losing their international prestige.”

Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and now chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies think-tank, said Erdogan’s increasingly strident approach was aggravating strains in ties between Ankara and its neighbors.

“It is his posturing that has led to crises with our neighbors. If he hadn’t approached matters in a polarizing, black-and-white fashion, we wouldn’t have lost the ability to manage these relationships,” Ulgen said.

“Instead of being the last person to intervene, very often he is the first to react. What he says then becomes policy, and limits Turkey’s room for maneuver; it corners us and policy becomes ossified.” One entity that has profited from this regional power tussle is the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

www.menafn.com

via Turkey Aims to Contain Iraq, Iran.

May 21, 2012
Iran agrees to concrete proposals for resolving nuclear crisis

By David Blair, Istanbul

3:08PM BST 15 Apr 2012

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili pose for cameras before their meeting in Istanbul, Turkey. (Tolga Adanali, Pool Photo / April 14, 2012)

The first formal negotiations between Iran and a six-nation contact group, including America and Britain, for over a year ended with agreement that diplomats will prepare concrete proposals for resolving the impasse.

Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, took the unusual step of commending his adversaries at the conclusion of the session in Istanbul.

“Today, we saw a positive approach and we consider it a step forward,” he said. “For the Iranian people, the language of pressure doesn’t work, but the language of co-operation could be fruitful. Today, we witnessed such an approach.”

Mr Jalili, an often irascible hardliner, adopted a very different tone during his last encounter with the “P5 plus 1”, consisting of the five permanent members of the Security Council – America, Britain, Russia, France and China – along with Germany.

On that occasion last January, he declined to even talk about Iran’s nuclear programme unless all sanctions were lifted. “Outside the room, he’s very charming and he enjoys all the photo opportunities. Inside the room, he’s a completely different character. I wouldn’t trust him with my children,” said an ex-official who observed those talks.

“He goes off on long-winded, the West is evil, anti-Western rhetoric. He could do a whole intervention in 10 minutes of monotone.”

This time, however, diplomats noted Mr Jalili’s wholly different, “calm and constructive” approach. One said: “We had a whole day talking about the nuclear issue and only the nuclear issue.”

Baroness Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign policy, who chairs the “P5 plus 1”, had a three-hour dinner with Mr Jalili on Friday night. After the talks, Lady Ashton described them as “constructive and useful”, adding: “We want now to move to a sustained process of serious dialogue, where we can take urgent practical steps to build confidence and lead on to compliance by Iran with all its international obligations.”

The two sides will meet again in Baghdad on May 23. Before then, two senior negotiators will try to hammer out concrete proposals. Helga Schmid, who serves as Lady Ashton’s deputy, will represent the “P5 plus 1”, while Ali Baqeri, a senior Iranian diplomat, will speak for Tehran.

But Mr Jalili brought no specific proposals to Istanbul and the gap between the two sides remains as wide as ever. “Our delight is well within bounds: it’s beer not champagne,” said one diplomat.

Iran insists on its right to continue enriching uranium, a sensitive process that could be used to make the material for a nuclear weapon. America, Britain and the other “P5 plus 1” countries, meanwhile, want Iran to obey six United Nations resolutions and stop enrichment.

Moreover, neither side trusts the other. Mr Jalili’s tone was conciliatory, but diplomats noted that he did not bring any concrete proposals to Istanbul. Nor did he accept the offer of a one-on-one meeting with his American counterpart, Wendy Sherman.

Instead, Mr Jalili repeated Iran’s insistence on enriching uranium, saying this was a “right” under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, adding: “Any right which is included in the NPT should be respected. Enrichment of uranium is one of those rights that every member state should benefit from for peaceful purposes.”

Mr Jalili spoke in front of a banner, hastily raised by his officials, reading: “Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapons for None.” This showed a gallery of photographs of five Iranian scientists, all of them killed by bomb attacks in Tehran allegedly masterminded by Israeli intelligence.

Diplomats are alert to the danger that Iran might try to use this new diplomatic effort to buy time for its nuclear programme to progress. They are deeply worried that Israel could lose patience and launch a unilateral strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

These dangers must impose a time limit on the new effort to settle the issue. “We can’t be messing around like this at the end of the year,” said one diplomat.

via Iran agrees to concrete proposals for resolving nuclear crisis – Telegraph.

April 16, 2012
Envoy: Turkey Not to Lose Friendly Ties with Iran

Envoy: Turkey Not to Lose Friendly Ties with Iran

TEHRAN (FNA)- Turkey’s Ambassador to Iran Umit Yardim stressed the two countries’ resolve to maintain and boost their good relations, and stressed that Turkey attaches great importance to its ties with Iran and will keep these relations strong at any cost.

Speaking to FNA, Yardim pointed to the recent visit to Iran by Turkish Prime Minister Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and stated, “Erdogan’s visit to Iran after the meeting in Seoul had this special message that Iran is very important to Turkey.”

“Turkey may not lose its friendship with Iran at any price,” Yardim reiterated.

“Turkey and Iran are two great neighbors of each other and we have had and do have good cooperation,” the ambassador said, and added, “Leaders of the two countries are striving to continue these good relations, and we try to keep this cooperation continued.”

Also earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in a telephone conversation with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary Saeed Jalili lauded the two neighboring countries’ ties as “strategic and friendly”.

During the conversation on Friday, Davutoglu praised Iran’s proposal for Iraq to hold the upcoming talks between Tehran and the six major world powers as “wise”.

He also reiterated Ankara’s Preparedness to host the negotiations.

Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Tuesday that Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari has welcomed the proposal by Tehran calling on Baghdad to host the new round of the talks between Iran and Group 5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia and the US plus Germany.)

Iran’s proposal was made during a meeting between Zebari and a high-ranking Iranian delegation, headed by Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Undersecretary Ali Baqeri and the SNSC Director-General for Arab Affairs Reza Amiri in Baghdad on Tuesday.

The last meeting between the two sides took place in Istanbul in January 2011. Iran and the G5+1 had also held two rounds of multifaceted talks in Geneva in December 2010.

via Fars News Agency :: Envoy: Turkey Not to Lose Friendly Ties with Iran.

April 14, 2012