Category: Iran

Obama Delegate to Discuss Iran With Turkey, Azerbaijan

A senior U.S. official is set today to begin talks aimed at encouraging Turkey and Azerbaijan to curb their economic ties with Iran over the Middle Eastern nation’s disputed atomic work, the Wall Street Journalreported today (see GSN, Oct. 19).

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey is expected to launch his meetings with officials and private-sector leaders in Baku, Azerbaijan. He would later hold additional meetings in Istanbul and Ankara.

“We’re looking to follow up on the steps needed to implement the latest United Nations sanctions against Iran and to share information, especially with the private sector, about threats posed by Iranian illicit conduct,” Levey told the Journal last week. The U.N. Security Council has imposed four sanctions resolutions aimed at pressuring Iran to halt atomic activities that could support bomb development, and the European Union and various countries have followed up with independent penalties.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, though, last month vowed within five years to achieve a threefold boost in business with Iran, which has insisted its nuclear program is strictly nonmilitary in nature.

Azerbaijan might emerge as a critical gasoline exporter to Iran as other nations seek to prevent Tehran from buying refined oil products from abroad, according to the Journal (Solomon/Champion, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 19).

A number of Iranian foreign policy achievements in recent weeks highlighted the limitations of U.S. efforts to isolate the country, Agence France-Presse reported. Iran was named president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, its president paid a high-profile visit to Lebanon and the Obama administration acknowledged the country’s importance in the pacification of Afghanistan.

“The United States cannot restrict Iran’s role in the region,” said Mohammad Saleh Sedghian, who heads the Tehran-based Arab Center for Iranian Studies. “The policy of economic sanctions may have succeeded to some extent, but it cannot succeed in isolating Iran in the Middle East.”

“Given the timing, these achievements can be considered as a success for Iran … and nobody disputes Iran’s influence in the region,” one Western diplomat added.

“But the key issue for Tehran is the damage the sanctions are doing to its economy,” the diplomat said. “That is what will make its nuclear policy increasingly expensive” (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Oct. 19).

China today reaffirmed its determination to implement Security Council penalties against Iran, Reuters reported. The Obama administration last month presented to Beijing a “significant list” of financial institutions and other firms in the country believed to be breaching sanctions against Tehran.

“The Chinese side has always advocated that every country should implement the relevant U.N. resolutions about the Iran nuclear issue comprehensively, accurately and seriously,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.

“We think it is not only good to maintain the integrity of the nonproliferation regime, but also peace and stability in the Middle East,” Ma said. “China has fully fulfilled its international responsibilities and actively participated in diplomatic efforts in this regard. We have expressed our stance to the U.S. side” (Blanchard/Yan, Reuters I, Oct. 19).

The United States and Israel yesterday cited the Iranian nuclear standoff as a significant priority, AFP reported.

“While today’s strategic dialogue covered many subjects, it is clear that Iran is among the greatest challenges we face today in the Middle East,” the nations said in released remarks at their semiannual strategic talks.

“Iran’s continued noncompliance with its international obligations related to its nuclear program, as well as its continued support for terrorist entities, are of grave concern to our two countries and the entire international community,” they said.

“Continued efforts by the international community to address Iran’s actions through both pressure and engagement are critical to changing Iran’s strategic calculus and preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability,” the statement said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Oct 18).

Iran could face more severe economic penalties over its nuclear program or even an Israeli air attack on its atomic facilities, Reuters yesterday quoted former U.S. State Department nonproliferation analyst Mark Fitzpatrick as saying. He offered the thoughts ahead of possible nuclear talks next month between Iran and world powers China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“We could be in an out and out crisis in a year’s time,” said Fitzpatrick, now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the United Kingdom.

“My worry is that Iran won’t overtly cross the line, but that it will miscalculate how close it can get before it crosses an Israeli tripwire,” said Fitzpatrick, who suggested Tehran might not have to begin converting its uranium stocks to nuclear-weapon material in order to prompt military action by Jerusalem.

“I’m not sure Iran knows where Israel’s tripwires are. I’m not sure Israel knows where its tripwires are,” the expert said.

Iran’s longer-range Sajjil missile suggests the country could seek nuclear weapons, Fitzpatrick added (seeGSN, Sept. 22).

“Iran’s the only country that has developed these kind of missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers or more that hasn’t developed nuclear weapons at the same time. So that’s another reason why there’s concern about Iran’s intention,” he said (Simon Cameron-Moore, Reuters II, Oct. 18).

Pakistan’s top diplomat, though, yesterday contended Tehran lacks a rationale for acquiring a nuclear deterrent, AFP reported.

“I don’t think they have a justification to go nuclear,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said. “Who’s threatening Iran? I don’t see any immediate threat to Iran.”

Qureshi noted he has encouraged Manouchehr Mottaki, his Iranian counterpart, to take advantage of President Obama’s attempts at diplomatic outreach on the nuclear standoff.

Iran is barred from developing nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Qureshi added. “They have an international obligation. They have signed [the] NPT and they should respect that,” the Pakistani official said (Agence France-Presse III/Spacewar.com, Oct. 18).

October 21, 2010
Turkey Analysis: Is Ankara Now in a “Radical Axis of Evil”? (No.)

Ali Yenidunya in EA Middle East and Turkey

Our question for today: is Turkey still a pro-Western country looking forward to entering the European Union. Or has Ankara, “unfortunately, joined the radical axis formed led by Iran and supported by Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah”.

Let’s start with a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on 11 October:

We also had wonderful, friendly relations with another country, with military cooperation, with full diplomatic relations, with visits by heads of state, with 400,000 Israeli visitors to that country. That country is called Turkey.

What prompts Netanyahu to use the past tense? Is it because Turkey ejected Israel from a planned international air force exercise or because Turkey and Syria held joint military exercises in late April? Is it because Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told off Israeli Prseident Shimon Peres over Israel’s bloody war in Gaza in World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2009 or because Turkey did not stop the Freedom Flotilla which tried to break the Gaza siege?

Is it because Turkey conditionally accepted NATO’s planned anti-missile system, saying that it should not be presented as a defence against Iran? (On Friday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: “We do not perceive any threat from any neighbour countries and we do not think ouur neighbors form a threat to NATO.”) Or is it because of a joint Turkish-Chinese air-force exercise held two weeks ago?

If I may offer an alternative to the “radical axis” thesis at this point….

Ankara’s new foreign policy under the Justice and Development Party is not a revisionist manoeuvre but a reflection of its rising autonomy due amidst Washington’s decreasing power — from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Iraq to the rest of the Middle East — coupled with regional powers taking more initiative, economically and politically. Ankara, like its regional neighbours, wants to get benefit from this international conjuncture.

And in order to become a stronger regional power, Ankara had to give up its discourse based on antagonism towards its neighbours (no need even to mention the need to solve its Armenian, Kurdish and ecumenical Greek Orthodox problems). The next step was to increase trade, boost bilateral relationships, build trust with old enemies, and raise your credibility with statements showing you are standing with the “weak”. Erdogan did this for Gazans and for Uighur Turks in northwest China. (How fast do we forget that Erdogan blamed a Chinese official of committing a “a near genocide” after the killing of 184 people last year in the conflict?)

Some other facts: Turkey signed eight new trade agreements with China in early October, bypassing the US dollar for direct business between the Turkish Lira and Yuan. The goal is to achieve a trade volume of $100 billion in ten years from the current amount of $17 billion. As for the “existential threat” of Iran, the trade volume between Iran and Turkey was $1.4 billion in 2000 but it was $8 billion in 2008. (And of this, only $236 million in 2000 were Turkish exports; by 2007, the figure was $1.3 billion.) Turkey is now carrying out around 14 to 15% of its trade with its neighbours as opposed to 3 to 4% in the previous decade.

As a champion of privatisation, Turkey is still a relatively “liberal” — perhaps neo-liberal — country, both economically and politically. This is still the same Ankara trying to be a part of European Union, following the adjustment of domestic law to the harmonization code of the EU in 2001 and in 2004. That is not to say Ankara is doing a great job fulfilling all of the democratic criteria to become a member state of the EU, but it has a pro-Western identity.

I call my closing witness. Who would like to see a stronger Turkey (with reduced tension with Israel, of course) that has close relationships and is diplomatically and economically capable of holding negotiations with Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan?

Talking to BBC’s “Record Europe”, US Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton said: “Turkey is becoming a greater global and regional power. Its economy is growing dramatically. They are extending to countries and try to be effective on their own as well as with us.”

Increasingly autonomous? Yes. Radically evil? No.

Article originally appeared on EA WorldView (http://www.enduringamerica.com/).

October 21, 2010
U.S. Envoy to Meet With Iran’s Neighbors

By JAY SOLOMON And MARC CHAMPION

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration dispatched its point man on Iran sanctions to Turkey and Azerbaijan, as the U.S. attempts to further constrict trade flows between Tehran and its closest neighbors.

Getty ImagesTreasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey

Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, will meet with Turkish and Azeri businessmen and government officials beginning Tuesday in Baku, Azerbaijan, said U.S. officials. Mr. Levey will then travel to Istanbul and Ankara.

“We’re looking to follow up on the steps needed to implement the latest United Nations sanctions against Iran and to share information, especially with the private sector, about threats posed by Iranian illicit conduct,” Mr. Levey said in an interview last week.

Turkey has emerged in recent months as a possible weak link in the growing international campaign to punish Iran financially for its nuclear work.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged in September to triple trade between Turkey and Iran over the next five years, and has committed Ankara to establishing a preferential trade agreement with Tehran.

Energy-rich Azerbaijan, which shares deep ethnic and cultural ties with Iran, could also serve as an important gasoline supplier.

The U.S. last month also provided Beijing with a list of Chinese companies Washington believes are in violation of new U.N. sanctions targeting Iran.

U.S. officials wouldn’t name any of the firms, but they are believed to include a number of major Chinese energy, defense and financial firms.

“We did provide some information to China on specific concerns about individual Chinese companies and the Chinese assured us that they will investigate,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday.

Tehran is increasingly facing shortages of refined-petroleum products due to the mounting international sanctions, Western diplomats and Middle East-based businessmen said.

Turkey, which voted against the latest round of sanctions against Iran at the U.N. Security Council in June, has been clear from the get-go that it planned to respect only U.N.-mandated sanctions and would ignore much tougher unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union.

Turkish Trade Minister Zafer Caglayan this month complained that Turkish banks had been put under pressure to stop doing business with Iran, adding: “We cannot tolerate it.”

Turkish officials say the stance has nothing to do with any nascent Turkish-Iranian alliance or breaking with the U.S., but is simply a function of their belief that sanctions don’t work and that better trade and stable relations with Iran are in Turkey’s national interest.

Iran supplies Turkey with about one-third of its energy needs, with most of the rest coming from Russia.

Meanwhile, legal and illicit trade with Iran is a mainstay for the poor, volatile and mainly ethnic Kurdish areas along Turkey’s 300-mile (500-kilometer)border with Iran.

Turkish politicians of all stripes frequently allude to heavy trade losses Turkey suffered as a result of sanctions imposed on Iraq at the end of the first Gulf War and say they are anxious not to repeat the experience.

In reality, Turkey’s trade with Iran is lopsided—Iranian exports of natural gas to Turkey made up 80% of the $10 billion 2009 total. Meanwhile, the U.S. pressure appears to be having an impact.

Turkish exports to Iran spiked to $325 million in June, the month the sanctions were announced, from $191 million the month before. By August, however, recorded Turkish exports were back down to $198 million.

Bankers said privately that Turkish banks, several of which have U.S. shareholders, have cut back sharply on dealings with Iranian counterparts. A corresponding anecdotal boom in the informal Hawala business, transferring cash between Turkey and Iran, is unlikely to fill the gap, these people say.

Meanwhile, Turkiye Petrol Raifinerileri AS, or Tupras, Turkey’s sole petroleum refiner, said in August it would stop shipping refined products to Iran. That followed a 74% drop in Turkish petroleum exports to Iran in July, according to the Istanbul Exporters’ Association of Chemical Materials.

Azerbaijan is another potential supplier for Iran, with which it has an even more intricate relationship than Ankara—around one quarter of Iran’s population is ethnic Azeri. Annual trade between Iran and Azerbaijan was around the $1 billion mark last year, according to official statistics.

Iranian officials recently called for that sum to increase tenfold. A spokesman for the Azeri trade ministry couldn’t be reached to comment on Monday.

The Obama administration has grown increasingly confident in recent weeks that a U.S.-led financial campaign against Iran is beginning to have a significant impact inside Iran.

Earlier this month, Iranian businessmen described a minirun on the Iranian currency, the rial, which dropped by as much as 20% in two trading days. The businessmen said the run was fueled by fears within Iran’s merchant class that they will be cut off from obtaining U.S. dollars as a result of growing enforcement of U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

Under new U.S. legislation passed in July, foreign companies run the risk of being barred from the American financial system if they are found doing business with 17 blacklisted Iranian banks or the companies of Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The new U.S. law also targets any firms investing more than $20 million in the Iranian oil-and-gas sector.

U.S. officials said banks across Europe, the Middle East and Asia have increasingly cut their financial ties to the sanctioned Iranian banks. And major energy suppliers such as Japan’s Inpex Corp., Italy’s Eni SpA and Royal Dutch Shell PLC of the Netherlands, have announced they are ceasing their investments in Iran.

“I’ve never seen something this dramatic as what’s played out in recent weeks” as a result of the sanctions, said a senior U.S. official working on Iran.

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com and Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303496104575560240107312672

October 19, 2010
Turkey may remove Iran from list of ‘threatening nations’

While Iran may be helping Erdogan’s aspirations within his country, it is placing Turkey on a dangerous track toward confrontation with the U.S.

By Zvi Bar’el

Those who seek further proof of the warming of relations between Iran and Turkey can find it in the meeting currently taking place at the National Security Council in Istanbul. According to Turkish reports, for the first time since the Cold War, Turkey is considering removing Iran, Iraq, Russia, and Greece from their list of “threatening countries.”

This will directly affect Turkey’s foreign policy, as laid out by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmet Davutoğlu, whose goal is to rid Turkey of any problems with its neighbors.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, right, and Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki in Istanbul, July 25, 2010. Photo by: AP

By taking countries off this list, Turkey is signaling nothing less than a new foreign policy design, one that has already been hinted at with their attempts to solve issues with the Kurdish population.

Turkey’s prime minister is working to scale back the nation’s army, which currently includes some 600,000 troops. The goal is to lessen security expenses, which have reached about $19 million a year, and create a professional army by doing away with the current policy of mandatory enlistment.

Leaders are examining the possibility of a program that would allow exemption from army service in exchange for a fee, which is expected to be about $7,000 dollars. In the Turkish army today, in-demand professionals like doctors and engineers are exempted from mandatory service, as are other university degree holders. Alternately, those without an academic degree must complete mandatory service, which lasts about five months. Career soldiers serve 15 years before they can retire.

In addition to its effect on the economy, doing away with mandatory enlistment will change one of the symbols of identity for Turkish citizens, who view enlistment in relation to the ideology that created modern Turkey, as laid out by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The army is an inseparable part of Turkey’s informal education system, which spreads Ataturk’s ideology.

Current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the other hand, aims to minimize the army’s influence on the country.

The laws for the army as it currently stands are partially to blame for the undermining of the status of the police in the country. The army’s standing has been lowered in civil institutions, like the education council, and by a series of reforms that were passed in a national vote last month. By removing traditional external threats, Erdogan is changing his foreign policy to stimulate internal changes, all the while avoiding a confrontation with internal opposition.

While Iran may be helping Erdogan’s aspirations within his country, it is also placing Turkey on a dangerous track towards confrontation with the United States. In addition to refusing to support the United Nations decision to place sanctions on Iran, Turkey also refused to allow the U.S. to put a missile defense system against Iran on its soil.

Davutoğlu clarified that Turkey is not opposed to the deployment of the missile defense system in its territory, but rather opposes the conditions of NATO countries and refuse to appear to take a stand against Iran, Syria, or Russia. Turkey fears the stationing of a defense system, whose sole purpose is defense from Iran, would seriously damage relations between Turkey and Iran, and its ally Syria.

It appears that in the end, Washington and Ankara will agree on conditions for the missile defense system. However, Turkey succeeded again in proving that it can’t be counted on as a sure thing.

October 19, 2010
Iran halts gas flow to Turkey to do repairs

TEHRAN Oct 17 (Reuters) – Iran temporarily halted flows of natural gas to Turkey on Sunday for technical reasons, a gas official was quoted as saying by the ILNA news agency.

“Iran stopped exporting gas to Turkey this morning to carry out some repairs,” Hassan Montazer Torbati, an official of National Iranian Gas Company said. The gas flows would restart soon, he said, without specifying.

The repairs were happening at a plant on the border with Turkey, he said.

Gas flows were halted two months ago due to an explosion on Aug. 24 and restarted on Sept. 25. A similar explosion occurred on July 21 and halted gas exports for 10 days. No explanation was given for either blast.

Guerrillas from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have in the past claimed responsibility for attacks on oil pipelines from Iraq and Azerbaijan.

Iran is Turkey’s second-biggest supplier of natural gas after Russia, sending 10 billion cubic metres of gas each year. Turkey uses gas to fire half of its power plants. (Writing by Robin Pomeroy)

October 19, 2010
Turkey tells NATO Iran and Syria aren’t enemies

Turkey has given conditional approval to the deployment of a NATO missile shield on its soil, provided that the deployment’s official papers don’t name Iran and Syria as enemies.

Turkey indicated Thursday during a meeting of NATO ministers that it could approve the deployment of a proposed U.S.-led anti-missile system on Turkish soil, though it expressed reservations about the project.

“We demanded that Iran and Syria not be cited as ‘threats’ in NATO’s official documents on the planned defensive shield,” Turkish Foreign Ministry officials told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Friday. “Also, the deployment of the shield should cover the territory of all NATO allies, as well as the entire territory of Turkey.”

…

Ankara told the U.S. officials that if defense is the purpose of the system, no nations should be named in NATO documents as targets, since that would provoke those countries, according to the same diplomatic sources.

“In that case, Turkey could face problems with its neighbors due to the missile shield,” diplomatic sources told the Daily News.

The technical discussions on the issue will continue until the NATO summit Nov. 19-20 in Brussels, where a decision is expected to be made.

I suppose that Iran and Syria aren’t threats to Turkey, although they are threats to just about every other country in NATO.

Maybe the missile shield should be deployed someplace else.

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2010/10/turkey-tells-nato-iran-and-syria-arent.html

October 19, 2010