Category: Iran

Turkey ready to host Iran nuclear talks

Turkey is ready to host talks between Iran and six world powers over its disputed nuclear programme after receiving a request from Tehran, the Anatolia news agency reported on Sunday.

“Turkey has made lots of efforts since the start of the process for a diplomatic solution to be found,” the news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying.

“We are ready to do whatever is in our power,” the source said.

The date and location of the talks is still to be determined, the report added.

An Iranian conservative newspaper, Vatan Emrouz, on Sunday reported that the negotiations would be held by the end of November, without quoting a source.

At the same time, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, representing the world powers in the Iran negotiations, said Sunday that she was still waiting for official word from Tehran.

“We have taken note of these reports. But we have not yet received an official proposal from Iran in this regard,” a spokesman for her office said.

The spokesman said the EU would respond once it had received an official proposal including a specific time and place to meet.

The nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers — Britain, China, France, Russia, Germany and the United States — have been deadlocked since October 2009 when the two sides met in Geneva.

November 9, 2010
Iran says nuclear talks could be held in Turkey

Iran is ready to hold talks with the major powers concerned about its nuclear program “as soon as possible” and Turkey may be the best venue for negotiations, its foreign minister said on Sunday.

It was the strongest signal yet of Iranian interest in reviving talks that stalled a year ago, leading to tighter international sanctions against Iran over its refusal to curb its nuclear work and make it more accessible to U.N. inspections.

“We have told our Turkish friends that we are in agreement with regard to holding these talks in Turkey,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference.

Many countries are concerned that Iran is developing a nuclear industry in order to be able to produce nuclear weapons, something the Islamic Republic denies, saying it only seeks nuclear energy and other peaceful applications.

The eight-year-old stand-off has the potential to ignite a regional arms race and degenerate into a wider Middle East conflict. Israel and its main ally, the United States, do not rule out a pre-emptive strike to stop Iran, which rejects the Jewish state’s existence, from getting the bomb.

The “P5+1” powers — the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain, all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany– have offered talks on November 15-17 in Vienna, an approach welcomed by Iran but not formally agreed to.

Iran has sent mixed signals over a resumption of talks.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed the sanctions as no more effective than a “used handkerchief.”

He has demanded the six powers state whether they come to the table as Iran’s friend or foe, and that they express their opinion of Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal — topics Western diplomats have said are irrelevant to the main issue in talks.

A senior Ahmadinejad aide said that even if Iran does agree to the talks it will not negotiate about its nuclear program — which would be a non-starter for the powers [ID:nLDE69U035].

But Mottaki was upbeat. “Consultations are under way, they are on the right track,” he said.

“We are hopeful that the time and the agenda and content of the talks will soon be agreed upon by both parties and that both parties will start the talks as soon as possible.”

TURKEY READY

The Turkish foreign ministry said Mottaki had been in touch to suggest holding talks there. “We said to Iranian officials that as Turkey we are ready to do our best in that regard. But there is no decision yet regarding the exact timing and place of the talks,” an official said.

A spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said she was aware of Mottaki’s comments, “but we have not yet received an official proposal from Iran in this regard.

Reuters

November 7, 2010
Anthony Doesburg: Stuxnet mystery Israel, bluff, or double bluff?

By Anthony Doesburg

Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, one of the sites the Stuxnet computer worm may have been aimed at. Photo / AP

Did they or didn’t they? Was the Stuxnet computer worm the work of an Israeli cyberwarfare team or of some other government wanting to implicate Israel?

The answer, says United States security specialist Bruce Schneier, writing on Forbes.com, is unlikely ever to be known.

Certainly, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported last week that Israel wasn’t admitting to having created the worm. But the paper pointed out that the country has the capability – within Unit 8200 of the Israeli Defence Force – to do so.

And it quotes the head of the IDF’s intelligence branch, Major General Amos Yadlin, saying last year that “cyber will be the new battlefield” of war. Israeli Defence had over the past year “formalised its cyber efforts”, the paper said.

Stuxnet is such a sophisticated piece of software that there’s little dispute it’s the work of a national government, says Sydney-based Steve Martin of antivirus software company Symantec.

“The theory is, it looks like it’s government-based rather than from a private entity or criminals, and that probably narrows down the field somewhat,” he says.

But like Schneier, he believes the many law enforcement and intelligence agencies that will be trying to trace Stuxnet’s source have little chance of success.

“They want to find its origins, but more, they want to understand the strategy, because this really is the type of malicious code that is ideal for cyberwarfare. If I was a country intent on invading another, before I did that it would be pretty powerful to disrupt their electricity grid or water supplies or other services.”

The finger keeps pointing at Israel because the main victim of Stuxnet, which first surfaced in June, was Iran. The worm, which targets a particular type of industrial control system from German company Siemens, appears to have disrupted Iran’s fledgling nuclear industry, a flashpoint for tension particularly with Israel and the US.

Fuelling the speculation that Israel is responsible are clues in the Stuxnet code itself. The worm records a value of”19790509″ in the Windows registry, or settings database, of infected computers. The digits can be read as the date in 1979 when Iran executed Persian Jew Habib Elghanain for spying for Israel.

Elsewhere in the code can be found the word “myrtus”, which could mean the myrtle plant. The Hebrew word for myrtle is hadassah; Queen Esther, who in the fourth century BC saved Persian Jews from genocide, was named Hadassah.

Equally, myrtus might mean “my RTUs”, where RTU stands for remote terminal unit, an industrial control system component.

But obvious markers of Israeli authorship of the worm could be intended to throw investigators off the scent, Martin says.

“That could well be in there to confuse those trying to track down the source, which is a highly likely tactic for whoever has written the code.”

Or Israel might have wanted it to look as though it was being framed.

If it was the work of Israel, Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick wrote last weekend, it showed the country was maintaining a technological edge over its enemies, which was “a great relief”.

Symantec estimates up to 10 programmers would have taken six months to write Stuxnet, clearly making it a government-sponsored – albeit illegal – effort.

The worm relies on five “zero-day exploits” – hitherto unknown security vulnerabilities – to infect Windows computers, en route to the industrial controllers that are its target. Martin says zero-day exploits are a rare commodity.

“To put that into perspective, in 2009 a total of 12 zero-day threats were identified.”

Symantec is less interested in Stuxnet’s origins than in preventing its spread. As far as Martin is aware, no New Zealand or Australian organisation has suffered damage from it. “The clear advice to organisations with industrial control systems is, first, make sure your security software is up to date on your PC network, and that you’ve scanned for this particular worm.”

Typically industrial control systems only come in contact with an organisation’s PC network through the intermediary of a USB memory stick, which might be used to transfer a software update.

“This is the single biggest threat we have seen and it has the potential for causing catastrophic consequences,” Martin says. “One would imagine that if I could turn off a cooling system in a nuclear plant, and also turn off the alarm that it was overheating, that I could get some sort of meltdown. This code absolutely has the potential to do that.”

Anthony Doesburg is an Auckland technology journalist.

, Oct 18, 2010

November 7, 2010
Arabs Look to Istanbul

Turkey and the Arab World

Turkey is not wavering in the slightest from its pro-European course. Nevertheless, as a trading nation with a dynamic economy that is the living proof of the fact that Islam, a secular political landscape and a parliamentary democracy are indeed compatible, it has in recent times rediscovered its Arab neighbours. Rainer Hermann reports

One of the success stories of Turkey's new foreign policy is Syria. In 1998, the two neighbours stood on the brink of war. Today, their economic and political ties are close

There was one good thing about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Lebanon: although it increased tension prior to the publication of the indictment by the special international tribunal into the murder of Rafiq Hariri, it also demonstrated that in the Arab world, Iran can now really only be sure of the support of Shiites. In Beirut and during his trip to South Lebanon, Ahmadinejad was almost exclusively cheered on by Shiites; Sunni Muslims in the Arab world, on the other hand, viewed his visit to Lebanon with considerable disquiet.

There are many reasons why Iran’s influence in the Arab world has passed its zenith. One of them is the circumstances that surrounded Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June 2009 and the bloody crackdown on protests. Another is the growing influence of Turkey.

Last July, Khalil Shikaki’s Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research discovered that 43 percent of all Palestinians consider Turkey to be their most important foreign policy ally, ahead of Egypt at 13 percent and Iran at only 6 percent. Support for Turkey in the West Bank and in Gaza is virtually the same.

In Lebanon, Ahmadinejad did not succeed in reversing this trend. Shortly before his arrival in Beirut, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was back in Damascus for another meeting with President Bashar al-Assad. In the race for the post of prime minister in Iraq, both these men support the secular Shiite Iyad Allawi, while the powers that be in Iran prefer Nouri Maliki.

In addition to the matter of Iran, Erdogan and Assad spoke about opportunities for reviving the peace process. Assad made it clear that indirect talks with Israel could only be restarted if Turkey were to act as mediator.

Turkey is a “success story” in the Middle East

Up until ten years ago, Turkey was not a player in the Middle East, despite the fact that it shares borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran. It was a quiet neighbour. Today, the state that succeeded the Ottoman Empire is a popular go-between and trading partner. For the states and societies of the Middle East, Turkey – with its dynamic economy and practical evidence that Islam, a secular political landscape and parliamentary democracy are indeed compatible – is a “success story”; it has become a “soft power”.

Up until ten years ago, Turkey was not a player in the Middle East, despite the fact that it shares borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran. Today, the state that succeeded the Ottoman Empire is a popular go-between and trading partner, writes Rainer Hermann

There are heated debates in the West as to whether Turkey is currently just rediscovering the Middle East or whether it is actually returning to it and – if this is indeed the case – whether it is abandoning its foreign policy orientation towards the West. These questions were recently addressed at a conference in Istanbul organised by the Sabanci University, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the Robert Bosch Foundation.

One of the conclusions reached at the event was that although Turkey has adopted a new, active foreign policy, it has not abandoned its pro-European, pro-Western course. Nor has it shifted the main lines of its foreign policy. The policy of opening up towards its neighbours in the Middle East is much more a matter of diversifying its diplomacy and increasing prosperity in Turkey by tapping into new sales markets.

Foreign policy in the service of trading interests

Turkey’s former foreign policy was based on security considerations and the priority of territorial integrity. Its new foreign policy, on the other hand, is in the service of Turkey the trading nation and seeks to guarantee security and safeguard borders by increasing prosperity. Sükrü Elekdag, one of the best-known ambassadors in the country’s old diplomatic guard, often liked to say that Turkey always had to be ready for “two-and-a-half wars”, i.e. wars against Greece, Syria and the PKK.

New diplomacy: Turkey's current foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has formulated a "policy of no problems" towards all neighbours, the aim of which is to maximize cross-border trade

In sharp contrast to this, Turkey’s current foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has formulated a “policy of no problems” towards all neighbours, the aim of which is to maximize cross-border trade. With the exception of Armenia, this policy has worked so far.

Turkish foreign policy is more than just classic diplomacy, it is trade policy. It is above all Turkey’s new, up-and-coming middle class – the backbone of the ruling AKP – that is benefitting from the new, economy-based foreign policy of Turkey the trading nation.

The industrial cities of Anatolia, which have been dubbed the “Anatolian tigers”, are eyeing as yet unexploited market opportunities in neighbouring countries. While their entrepreneurs are also trading with Europe, they are increasingly focussing their efforts on the Middle East because of Europe’s restrictive Schengen visa policy, which also hits entrepreneurs and investors. This is why they support the visa-free zone which Turkey has established with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

One of the success stories of Turkey’s new foreign policy is Syria. In 1998, the two neighbours stood on the brink of war. Today, their economic and political ties are close. The Turkish-Syrian rapprochement went hand in hand with a cooling of relations with Israel. This process had already begun under Erdogan’s predecessor, the left-wing nationalist Bülent Ecevit, who accused Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians. That being said, Erdogan visited Israel as recently as 2005; two years later, Israeli President Shimon Peres addressed the Turkish parliament.

Khalil Shikaki's Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research discovered that 43 percent of all Palestinians consider Turkey to be their most important foreign policy ally, ahead of Egypt at 13 percent and Iran at only 6 percent. Pictured: a Turkish national flag at a Hamas rally

Turkey’s policy towards Israel and the Palestinians is very different to that of the EU. While both advocate a peaceful resolution to the conflict and a two-state solution, they are talking to different players. Turkey accuses European diplomacy of ignoring reality because it is only talking to Fatah and boycotting Hamas. The Turkish reasoning is that there cannot be a peaceful solution without the involvement of Hamas. This is why Turkey is trying to pull Hamas into the political “mainstream”.

The differences of opinion between Turkey and the West are particularly blatant when it comes to Iran. While the West is toughening its sanctions against Iran, Turkey is developing its trade with the Islamic Republic.

Although Turkey has adopted a new, active foreign policy, it has not abandoned its pro-European, pro-Western course – that is the conclusion reached at at a conference in Istanbul organised by the Sabanci University, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the Robert Bosch Foundation. Pictured: the Foreign Ministers of Germany and Turkey, Guido Westerwelle and ahmet Davutoglu

Last June, Turkey voted against harsher sanctions in the UN Security Council. Unlike the West, Turkey believes that the only way to normalise Iran is to normalise relations, which involves trade and diplomacy. Turkey is familiar with the kind of bazaar mentality that is needed for negotiations with Iran. For fear of destabilizing the region, neither the Ottoman Empire nor the Turkish Republic has ever supported rebellions in Iran. For centuries, the safeguarding of a regional balance of power has been more important than the pursuance of a foreign policy based on ideology. This is why Turkey’s sympathy with the dissident “green” movement is only modest.

Just like the EU, Turkey only plays a secondary role in the Middle East behind the United States. At the end of the Cold War, however, it correctly identified the shifting of the tectonic plates in world politics and now, as a modern, self-confident, trading nation, wants to grasp the opportunities that are arising. Turkey still has its sights set on Europe. But the door to Europe remains locked and so this newly self-confident nation is pursuing its own interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Rainer Hermann

© Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/Qantara.de 2010

Translated from the German by Aingeal Flanagan

Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de

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November 7, 2010
Changing Dynamics in the Turkey-Iran Relationship
By Mehmet Efe Biresselioglu*

The relationship between Turkey and Iran has undergone considerable change during the rule of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). Starting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Tehran on 28 and 29 July of 2004, there has been a thawing of relations between the two neighbors. This visit was a key sign of the winds of change affecting Turkey’s world view. From that time, both Turkey and Iran began to adopt the view that they should put aside deep-rooted and enduring ideological differences, and instead to increase trade, while also addressing the continuing problem of terrorism.

Changes in Turkey’s World View

The pace of change in Turkish foreign policy rhetoric has progressively escalated during the rule of the AKP government. The architect of this change is Ahmet Davutoğlu, who was appointed chief advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2002, and thereafter nominated as Turkish Foreign Minister in 2009.

Turkey has been able to formulate a systematic and unified methodological approach to its foreign policy in the 21^st century. According to Davutoğlu, Turkey now adheres to three main principles in its foreign policy making. These three main principles are:
- a ‘visionary’ rather than ‘crisis-oriented’ approach;
- a universal applied foreign policy based on a consistent and systematic framework;
- the adoption of a new discourse and diplomatic style, which has resulted in the spread of Turkish soft power in the region.
Moreover, Davutoğlu has proposed five operational principles that help to enforce these main principles of Turkish foreign policy. These are:
- striking a balance between security and democracy;
- zero problems with neighboring states;
- a proactive and pre-emptive approach to ‘peace diplomacy;’
- a multi-dimensional foreign policy;
- a ‘rhythmic’ diplomacy.
These principles are clearly visible in recent international events involving Turkey. Turkey’s policy towards Lebanon, Turkey’s role as a mediator between Syria and Israel, and the new Turkish position on the Israel/Palestine conflict have all demonstrated Turkey’s renewed Middle East foreign policy. Moreover, Turkey’s constructive approach to Iran’s nuclear issue with Brazil in the UN, and its wider role as go-between for Iran and the Western world, has enhanced and extended the new approach of Turkish foreign policy.

The Historical Relationship between Turkey and Iran

Bilateral relations between Turkey and Iran have been subject to the influence of various political factors, especially on the Turkish side. These tendencies derive from the realities of having a common border, and common cultural and other factors that are many centuries old. In addition, there is a 500-year history of peaceful relations, extending back to the time of the Ottoman and Persian Empires.

Following the military coup d’état in 1980 in Turkey and the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, anti-Iranian propaganda increased in Turkey because of the threat to Turkey’s secular ideology, and of the export of the revolution to Turkey. However, the threat was completely unreal; as Turkey’s secular tradition would not allow this outcome.

Until recently, bilateral relations had been negatively affected over several decades by various issues. These included the suspicion from both sides that the other country was supporting Kurdish terrorist groups in its country, i.e. PKK in Turkey and the MKO in Iran, interaction between Turkey and the United States and Israel, rivalries in the Caucasus regarding energy transit. These and other forms of negative propaganda against Iran have had adverse effects on bilateral relations until recent years.

Economic Issues

Today, the volume of trade between Iran and Turkey stands at about $13 billion. Economic officials from both countries expect this figure to rise to $20 billion per year over the following five years.

Moreover, the Turkish government has agreed that Turkish businessmen should be allowed to export up to $100 million worth of goods to Iran on a zero tariff basis. In addition to that, Iran’s Mellat Bank announced its readiness to financially support necessary measures to encourage cross-border import/export. Ankara and Tehran have already initiated talks about cooperation in different sectors, and to solve the customs tariff problems.

Oil and natural gas are the major goods in the trade relations between Turkey and Iran. Turkey hopes to enhance its energy security by reducing its dependency on Russian oil and natural gas, by including Iranian oil and natural gas in its energy composition. The already completed Tabriz-Erzurum pipeline has a capacity of 14 bcm of gas per year, though currently only one quarter of its capacity is being used; however, in general this development allows for considerably increasing of natural gas imports from Iran to Turkey. The two countries have signed an agreement for Turkish and Iranian companies to cooperate on exporting gas to Turkey, with the option for subsequent resale. Also, Turkey has been granted the right to explore and extract natural gas from Iran’s significant South Pars field.

Current Dynamics in Turkish-Iranian Relations and Israel’s Role

Turkey has strengthened its ties with Iran since the AKP took power in 2002. As a result of Turkey’s policy goals of becoming a regional power and achieving a ‘zero problems with neighbors’ foreign policy, Turkey has offered to become a mediator in disputes between Iran and the Western world, and also between Iran and Israel. The main concern in this respect has been Iran’s nuclear program.

However, the recent ‘Mavi Marmara’ incident has jeopardized not only Turkish-Israel relations, but relations between Turkey and the West. Eight Turks and one US citizen of Turkish decent were killed by Israeli forces as the ship, in spite of discouragement from Ankara, tried to reach Gaza. This incident has had serious repercussions in the Middle East, and Turkey has started to be seen as the leading voice of the Muslims, including Arabs.

On the other hand, Turkey has been criticized by the West and domestic opposition as ‘turning east,’ ‘joining an Islamist bloc’ or ‘turning its back on the West.’ However, Turkey’s aim is to be an active regional power actor not only through hard power, but to use its soft-power capacity by increasing economic engagements, supporting this with trade and investment, but also increasing its social and popular connections in the region.

Still, Turkey is also increasing its level of relationship with Iran by supporting its nuclear program, but only for peaceful purposes. There are two views on Iran’s nuclear program, first that Iran has plans to threaten Israel and the US with nuclear weapons, and second that Iran genuinely needs nuclear energy, as it is unable to refine enough of its petroleum products, and therefore needs alternative sources to exchange in order to supply its energy needs. This is a result of US sanctions, leaving Iran’s energy sector needing more than $100 billion dollars of investment in the coming decade.

Turkey is supporting Iran’s second, peaceful aim and for that reason is trying to mediate between Iran and the West, accepting Iran’s guarantee that it will not build nuclear weapons.

Hence as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Turkey voted ‘no’ against additional sanctions on 9 June. It should not be considered that Turkey’s “no” was in support of any Iranian nuclear military ambitions. Rather, it argued that Turkey, along with Brazil, was convinced that it has US support to negotiate the exchange of a substantial amount of Iran’s low-enriched uranium stockpile, as set out in the 17 May Tehran Agreement. The Turkish aim was thus to protect its bargaining power, and moreover to adhere to the Tehran Agreement.

The Real Concern

A real concern, however, remains that even with 1.2 tons of low-enriched uranium exported to Turkey for storage, Iran will still retain enough to build a nuclear warhead. Therefore, Iran needs to demonstrate to the world its good will and also to explain why it needs nuclear power instead of confronting the West. Turkey and the West want to eliminate any possibility of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, and Iran’s nuclear program is the most urgent nuclear proliferation test facing the world at the present time.

Turkey’s aim is to promote an advanced diplomatic solution instead of a disagreement between the West and Iran, and Turkey’s changing foreign policy would allow this, with its increasingly active role in the Middle East, compared to its past approaches. Despite Turkey’s deepening relations with Iran, the AKP government still does not support Iran’s potential nuclear military aims. Rather, these efforts are perceived by Turkey as solely to promote regional stability.

……………………

Balkanalysis.com’s Turkey editor Mehmet Efe Biresselioğlu is an Assistant Professor at Izmir University of Economics’ International Relations and EU department and a board member of the Turkish Energy and Climate Change Foundation (ENIVA). His research interests include geopolitics, energy security and sustainable energy, geostrategic issues with a geographic focus on Turkey, Russia, the Greater Caspian area, the Middle East and also with Turkey’s relations with the EU and US.
November 5, 2010
Major showdown coming between Turkey and NATO over Iran

Turkey is on a collision course with NATO over Turkey’s refusal – in connection with the placement of a land-based missile defense system on its territory by NATO – to have Iran designated an enemy (Hat Tip: Joshua I).

“We do not see any threat from any of our neighbouring countries, whether it is Iran, Russia, Syria or others,” Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said during the weekend as he was visiting China.

“I state quite clearly that Turkey will not be a frontal or flanking country [of the Nato missile shield] and we do not want to see again a zone of the Cold War and its psychology in our region,” he added, noting that any Nato shield should be developed along these principles.

The line has irked the US, the main motor behind the shield, which is an upgraded version of a controversial plan by the previous George W. Bush administration.

According to unnamed US officials quoted by the Daily Telegraph, the missile defence deal is being seen as an “acid test” of Turkey’s commitment to the transatlantic security alliance.

“I would say that we are not putting pressure on the Turks [in regard to missile defence],” said US defence secretary Robert Gates at a Nato meeting in Brussels on 14 October. “But we are having continuing conversations with them as one of our allies.”

…

Adding to Ankara’s reluctance in backing the Nato shield are America’s close links to Israel. According to the daily newspaper Today’s Zaman, Ankara has sought and reportedly received assurances from the US that intelligence gathered using the missile shield’s sensors will not be shared with Israel.

Under Washington’s plans, the ballistic missile defence system would be rolled out in two phases. In the next two years, US Navy ships would be deployed in the Mediterranean. This would be followed by land-based interceptors in Romania and Poland and a high-tech radar in Bulgaria or Turkey by 2015.

It’s time for Turkey to be thrown out of NATO. The West has to decide whether they are going to be allied with Israel or whether they are going to be allied with an Islamist ally of terror states like Iran and Syria. The choice should be obvious.

November 4, 2010