Category: Iraq

  • Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria to create common visa system?

    Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria to create common visa system?

    By DINA AL-SHIBEEB

    Al Arabiya

    Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R) shakes hands with Iraq's prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki during an official meeting in Tehran. (File Photo)
    Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R) shakes hands with Iraq's prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki during an official meeting in Tehran. (File Photo)

    Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R) shakes hands with Iraq’s prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki during an official meeting in Tehran. (File Photo)

    Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria are to establish a common visa system, the Russian agency Regnum quoted the Iranian vice-minister of tourism as saying on Tuesday.

    The four states are preparing to install a “Schengen-like” regime, Shahbaz Yezdi said, in reference to Europe’s Schengen Zone. Under the system, one visa is issued and travelers can move between 25 of the European Union’s 27 countries without needing a visa for each country. The United Kingdom and Ireland do not subscribe to the Schengen system

    Mr. Yezdi also said that the initiative was based on an idea of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

    “Putting into place uniform visas for the four countries will actively boost the development of tourism,” Mr. Yezdi said.

    In 2010, the currently embattled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad proposed a visa-free travel region for Syria, Iran, Turkey and other neighboring countries, and he said that he was the first to advent the issue starting with a visa-free travel between Turkey and Syria.

    The fact that former foes Iraq and Iran would share a common system would be quite remarkable, especially in view of their bitter history. Iraq has fought Iran for eight years from 1980 to 1988.

    But Iraq has since mended relations with Iran as both now have Shiite-dominated governments.

    Just like Iran, Iraq raised its concern over troops from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia going to Bahrain as unrest by the Shiite-led opposition escalated. Iraq has joined Iran in describing the move as interference and against Bahrain’s sovereignty. But the Gulf countries see the threat against one Gulf country as a threat on all six.

    Meanwhile, the six countries belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council are also inching to cement their bloc. Recently the Gulf States’ economy and finance ministers initially agreed to lift hurdles for GCC nationals to own real estate in other Gulf States and to facilitate flow of capital money with the Gulf region.

    GCC nationals now can enter other Gulf States only with an identity card. But unifying the region’s currencies still seems like a distant proposition.

    Prior to the current unrest in Yemen, Turkey boosted its trade ties with the Qaeda-beleaguered country and lifted the visa requirement for the Yemeni nationals entering Turkey.

    With the AKP conservative party winning election in 2002, it re-shifted Turkey’s foreign policy to look eastward toward the Middle East, but held its promise to help the country join the European Union (EU).

    AKP, unlike its secular predecessor, carried more economically-friendly policies and sought to expand the country’s trade including tapping into the Middle East markets.

    AKP also promised to democratize Turkey’s current constitution, which was originally drafted by the former military junta in 1980.

    (Dina Al-Shibeeb of Al Arabiya can be reached at: [email protected])

    via Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria to create common visa system?.

  • Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq

    Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq

    Greg Muttitt: ‘Big oil firms are still in the driving seat when it comes to the resource war’

    Secret MemosThis week, The Independent revealed how big oil firms influenced the invasion of Iraq. Greg Muttitt, who uncovered the story, exposes the lengths to which the occupying powers went to prise the country’s oil production out of the control of the Iraqi government and into the hands of international oil companies.

    Interview by Phil England

    I would say the most surprising thing about my book is that someone else hasn’t written it in the past eight years. It’s an obvious question to ask, ‘what happened to the oil?’

    Published yesterday, Greg Muttitt’s explosive new history of post-occupation Iraq has been pulled together from hundreds of documents released under the Freedom of Information act – both here and in the US – as well as from numerous first-hand interviews. Muttitt was the source of The Independent’s front-page revelations on Tuesday that both BP and Shell had meetings with government officials in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

    With more revelations inside, his book is set to turn our understanding of the war on its head. As well as documenting just how highly oil figured in the thinking of those who led what is widely thought to have been an illegal invasion, Fuel on the Fire exposes the lengths to which the occupying powers went to prise the country’s oil production out of the control of the Iraqi government, and into the hands of international oil companies, against the wishes of the Iraqi people.

    It’s an absorbing account of what is a much more complex story than many pundits might prefer. “I didn’t feel it would be helpful to just chuck ammunition to one side in a polarised debate,” he explains. “I wanted to explore how this really works. I think it’s important to understand the nature of a resource war in the 21st century.”

    For many years Muttitt worked as a researcher and campaigner on the social and environmental impacts of the oil industry as a co-director of campaign group Platform, and in recent weeks he has been appointed campaigns and policy director for War on Want. After eight years of piecing this all together, including three visits to Iraq and several visits to Jordan, Muttitt is confident about some of his core findings. “Oil was the most important strategic interest behind the war and it shaped the decisions of the occupying powers,” he tells me. “The primary strategic interest for the US and Britain is to have a low and stable oil price. A secondary interest is for their own corporations to do well.”

    Bringing international oil companies back into Iraq, after 30 years of nationalised production, would put the country at odds with neighbouring producers such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran, whose oil production has also been in the public sector since the 1970s. Part of the strategy seems to have been about changing that political culture.

    “In some of the documents I got hold of for the book it becomes quite clear,” says Muttitt. “The British government talks about using Iraq as a strong exemplar for the region and the International Tax and Investment Centre – the oil companies’ lobbying organisation – even described it as a beach-head for broader expansion of the oil companies into the Middle East.”

    One of the great achievements of Muttitt’s book is to have restored an Iraqi voice to a narrative from which it had largely been erased. The fact that the Iraqi people held a strong view that oil production should stay in their hands did not deter the occupying powers and international oil companies from pursuing their privatisation agenda relentlessly. But at some point it all had to come unstuck. At the heart of Fuel on the Fire is the story of the Iraqi peoples’ fight against the Oil Law – a law which would have removed the need for parliamentary approval of contracts with oil companies.

    It was a fight in which Muttitt himself played a role. At a meeting with Iraqi unions in Amman in Jordan in 2006, following his work on a report called Crude Designs, he helped make the law’s implications accessible. Although initiated by the unions, the two-year campaign which followed was joined by oil experts, religious and civil society groups, intellectuals and professionals.

    Iraq’s own oil experts, who had worked in the industry for decades, made the case against foreign investment. As Muttitt notes: “The industry was at its most effective in the 1970s immediately after nationalisation and before Saddam took the country into a series of wars.”

    Despite all the pressure brought to bear on the Iraqi government from outside the country – including aid and debt relief being made conditional on passing an oil law, direct briefings by oil companies, linking the surge strategy to passage of the oil law, and a threat to remove Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from office – the campaign proved too popular for parliament to pass the law.

    You might think that was enough to force a rethink, but the Iraqi government went ahead and auctioned off 60 per cent of the country’s proven reserves anyway, under contracts of dubious legality, to companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon. In what was the biggest sell-off in the history of oil, some analysts believe the financial returns for the oil companies will be 20 per cent or more.

    Iraqi MP Shatha al-Musawi attempted to bring a legal case against the first contract: BP’s joint deal with the China National Petroleum Corporation for the Rumaila field. But the Supreme Court said this would cost her $250,000. Her fellow parliamentarians were supportive and promised to help raise the money, but that commitment fell apart as parties jostled for position after the March 2010 elections. After she decided not to re-stand for election, al-Musawi told Muttitt: “Most of the governing institutions are working without law and violating the constitution every day because they decided not to have an effective parliament. We really have a dictatorship.”

    Muttitt worries about the lack of effective political oversight at a time of massive outside investment in Iraq’s oil resources. Studies of the “resource curse”, including the World Bank’s Extractive Industries Review show that effective governance is needed before you bring in tens of millions of dollars. “Unless you manage it effectively you get a distortion of the economy, you get corruption and you get investors that don’t serve national interests.”

    The Iraqi street worries about it, too. On 25 February people across the country protested against corruption and for better services in a “day of rage” where a number of people were killed by security forces. The slogans included: “The people’s oil is for the people not the thieves.” Sami Ramadani, a London-based Iraqi exile who writes regularly about the occupation, told me: “The general feeling is that Iraq’s oil is being given away and whatever is being retained in terms of income is being squandered by the regime. In terms of services, wherever you turn there is a very sharp deterioration – health, education, employment, clean water and so on.”

    The legitimacy of the post-Saddam regime is coming increasingly into question. After a “million person march” against the occupation led by the Sadrists on 9 April in Baghdad (Ramadani estimates the turnout was in the hundreds of thousands), a new military order was issued that decrees that demonstrations can only take place within designated football fields. One demonstrator who defied the ban one week later quipped: “Are we going to play a football match with the police?”

    Last week oil minister Abdul-Karim al-Luaibi announced another auction, this time for 12 “exploration and production” contracts, which are expected to go under the hammer in November. “Iraq has the greatest unexplored potential of any country in the world,” says Muttitt. “Most geologists reckon there’s about as much still to be found as currently exists in proven reserves. So this would tie up another chunk of Iraq’s future economic potential for 20-30 years.”

    This is on top of the massive planned increase in production from 2.5 million barrels per day to 12 million bpd, already implied by the existing contracts. Even the small number of Iraqi oil experts who supported privatisation are now arguing that such a rapid increase is not in Iraq’s interest as it will likely lead to a crash of the oil price.

    Muttitt says the government has been very effective in breaking organised opposition to the oil law. “The oil workers trade union still exists [although, like all trade unions in Iraq, is illegal] but has come under enormous pressure. The large group of oil experts that opposed the oil law, meanwhile, have been co-opted and broken apart. A lot of them have been offered very lucrative roles with multinationals and so on.”

    Nevertheless, he still has faith in ordinary Iraqis to deal with their problems. After all, it was civil society that won the fight against the oil law and it was a coalition of civil society groups that forced Iraq’s politicians to finally form a government after five months of post-election wrangling last December. “This struggle is not over and there is hope for the future. If Iraqi civil society is given the chance and the right kind of international support, these issues are still up for being contested. In spite of the politicians, there is cause for hope in Iraq.”

    “Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq” by Greg Muttitt is published by The Bodley Head

    www.independent.co.uk, 22 April 2011
     

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    • John Hawkins 4 days ago
      Oil is the primary resource in the world today, those who complain about oil company actions would soon change their tune if they could not fill their car tanks every week.
    • tomfrom66 3 days ago in reply to John Hawkins
      They would also complain if there was no artificial fertilizer – Haber Bosch process – to put food on their tables, and no plastics. 

      They might also – if the facts were put in front of them – be very afraid of what life is going to be like when oil becomes to so prohibitively expensive it cannot ‘fund’ all three aspects of the economy.

      Oil is not some self-replicating substance, John.

    • John Hawkins 3 days ago in reply to tomfrom66
      “Oil is not some self-replicating substance” 

      I agree Tom and did not intend to suggest oil could be used profligately, just that it is the ultimate essential to our present lifestyle.

      For good or bad, bad in my view, we have put ourselves in the hands of oil producers and bankers.

     

  • Turkish Airlines’ first airplane to land in Erbil on April 14

    Turkish Airlines’ first airplane to land in Erbil on April 14

    The Kurdish Globe

    By Aiyob Mawloodi–Erbil

    With three flights per week, Turkey’s national carrier launches Istanbul-Erbil flights

    thyTurkey’s national carrier Turkish Airlines (Türk Hava Yolları) is finalizing preparations to begin flights to Erbil in mid April. The decision for the Turkish state airline to launch a route to the Kurdish Region of Iraq in mid April was disclosed in late March when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Teyyip Erdogan and President of the Region Massoud Barzani jointly opened the new Erbil International Airport.

    Erbil airport was opened mid 2005, but it was upgraded in 2010 to accommodate new technology. Its runway is said to be the longest in the Middle East and the fifth longest in the world, after airports in China, Russia, South Africa and the U.S.

    So far, only private airlines have operated the flights between Kurdistan and Turkey, “But we have decided to also include Turkish Airlines,” said Erdogan.

    “THY has finished all preparations to operate the first flight on April 14,” an airline official told Aknews. “The company has started selling tickets, and three flights per week will be operated to Erbil, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.”

    By April 14, the total flights between the Kurdish capital and Istanbul will be seven flights per week, as Atlas Jet, one of Turkey’s private airline companies, currently operates four flights per week.

    Turkish Airlines, established May 20, 1933 under Law 2186 in Ankara, under the name State Airlines Administration, part of the Ministry of Defense, operates scheduled flights to 134 international destinations, serving 175 airports in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.

    Earlier, Abdul Hussein Abtan, a member of the Najaf Provincial Council, told a Kurdish news agency that the civil aviation authorities in Iraq and Turkey have given Turkish Airlines the go ahead for 36 flights a week between Istanbul and six Iraqi airports: Baghdad, Erbil, Najaf, Suleimaniya, Basra and Mosul.

    Currently, Atlas Jet’s four flights are between Atatürk Airport in Istanbul and Erbil International Airport. The increased number of flights between Turkey and Iraq is hoped to lower the cost of air travel.

    The 27,000-square-meter Erbil Airport was designed by a British company and construction was by a Turkish company. It can operate 150 flights per day.

    As the volume of trade and business relations between the Kurdish Region and Turkey are increasing at a rapid pace, and the diplomatic relations between the two areas is improving, especially with the official visit by Erdogan to Erbil in late March, the need for fast and reliable transportation between Kurdistan and Turkey is increasing every day. One of the most crowded flights to and from Erbil has been the Istanbul flight operated by Atlas Jet.

    Turkish Airlines’ introduction of new routes between the two cities will further facilitate business relations between Turkey and Kurdistan Region, as well as Iraq. It may also reduce crowding and lower prices.

    Starting with the passenger flights, Turkish Cargo, a brand of Turkish Airlines launched a cargo service to Erbil. The cargo service is operated through passenger flights, three times weekly. From May 11, Turkish Cargo will offer a cargo service to Basra, through passenger flights, four times weekly.

    By expanding its network with two more destinations in the Middle East and North Africa region, and introducing freight service to Iraq, Turkish Cargo is on the path to becoming a stronger actor in the region. Turkish Cargo intends to increase its cooperation with Turkish Airlines and the frequency of flights to increase its market share in Iraq as well as to connect the Iraqi market to the world market.

    The volume of trade between Turkey and Iraq has passed $7 billion a year and, according to Erdogan, the aim is to increase the number to $25 billion annually. This is why Turkey is keen to strengthen ties with Iraq and Kurdistan Region. The decision by the Turkish government to launch direct flights to six airports in the country, two of them in Kurdistan, as well as the opening of branches of three Turkish banks in Kurdistan, is a clear indication of that intention.

    Recently, the branches of three Turkish banks – T.C. Ziraat Bankasi (Agricultural Bank of the Turkish Republic), a state-owned bank; Türkiye Iş Bankasi; and Vakif Bank — opened in Erbil, mainly to facilitate the activities of the hundreds of Turkish companies doing business in the Region and the Kurdish traders who have business with Turkish firms and business people.

    via KurdishGlobe- Turkish Airlines’ first airplane to land in Erbil on April 14.

  • ‘Operation Donkey Drop’ delayed

    ‘Operation Donkey Drop’ delayed

    By Matthew Hansen
    WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

    Smoke the Donkey is stuck.

    donkeyThe Iraqi donkey, the one-time mascot of an Omahan-led Marine unit stationed in the Sunni Triangle, was supposed to hop a flight this weekend to bring him from Turkey to Paris to New York and, finally, to an Omaha horse farm.

    But Smoke’s going to miss his plane: The donkey has been turned back at the Turkish border, barred entry for a health problem he doesn’t have and tangled in a bureaucratic nightmare despite his growing number of friends in high places.

    Retired Col. John Folsom of Omaha, the leader of the effort to bring Smoke to Nebraska, vowed Friday that the donkey would make it here no matter the time, cost or effort.

    Folsom will have help. Smoke already has become a cause célèbre, attracting the attention and the assistance of Marine leaders, foreign journalists, American contractors and the U.S. government as an animal-loving volunteer named Terri Crisp attempts to get him from Iraq to Omaha.

    Plans called for flying Smoke out of Istanbul because it’s cheaper and typically easier to fly an animal out of there than it is out of Iraq.

    Crisp, an Iraqi-based program manager for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International, now plans to fly to Istanbul, where she’ll lobby animal advocacy groups and the U.S. Embassy to help Smoke out of his jam.

    “We may just need to box him up, build a crate for him and fly him straight out of Iraq,” Folsom said Friday. “It can be done. I guess it makes for a better story.”

    Smoke the Donkey’s story already seemed a Disney movie in the making.

    In 2008, the malnourished and wounded donkey stumbled onto a U.S. military base in Iraq. Folsom, the camp’s commandant, found him tied to a tree outside his sleeping quarters, braying his lungs out.

    Soon Smoke had his name, a corral, a stable and a regular supply of hay.

    Folsom’s deployment ended in 2009, but he hasn’t stopped trying to finish “Operation Donkey Drop,” his self-directed mission to bring Smoke to the United States.

    He found a suitable home, Take Flight Farms, an Omaha nonprofit that uses horses to provide equine therapy to military veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Folsom, Lisa Roskens, the charity’s founder, and Gale Faltin, the farm’s director, are slated to travel to New York City in a pickup truck with a horse trailer, pick up Smoke and bring him home later this month.

    He enlisted the help of Crisp, who has ample experience transporting Iraqi dogs adopted by American troops back to the United States.

    He got the go-ahead from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And he thought he’d cleared a final hurdle when Crisp got the donkey to the Turkish border with the proper paperwork in hand. A Marine lieutenant colonel, employees of the American contractor KBR and Turkish employees of the USDA office there have helped along the way.

    “I’ve accomplished a few things in my life but something like this … well, you just can’t put a value on experiences like this,” wrote Lt. Col. Lloyd Freeman, seemingly after helping Smoke clear bureaucratic hurdles in Turkey.

    But moving a donkey from Iraq to Istanbul to Paris to New York to Omaha proved to be tougher than expected.

    Turkish customs and agricultural authorities are now saying they won’t let Smoke into the country, citing a blanket ban on Iraqi donkeys because of the threat of screw worm.

    Never mind that Smoke doesn’t have screw worm — he’s been checked by a veterinarian. And never mind that he’s been approved by the USDA or that he won’t come into contact with any other animals while being trucked to the Istanbul airport.

    The impasse dims the chances that Smoke will take a smooth flight from Istanbul to Paris. Folsom is exploring alternate plans, including trucking Smoke back to Erbil, Iraq, and flying him out on a commercial cargo plane, if Crisp’s lobbying efforts don’t produce a reversal from the Turkish government.

    “Man, oh man, oh man,” a frustrated Folsom said Friday as he read another e-mail from Crisp detailing the delay. “Here’s what’s good, though: It’s nice to know that the federal government, Marines, folks in Ankara (Turkey), everybody is really trying to help. We’ll get it done one way or another.”

    Contact the writer:

    402-444-1064, [email protected]

    via ‘Operation Donkey Drop’ delayed – Omaha.com.

  • Turkey: The growing power

    Turkey: The growing power

    Gavin Hewitt

    In the era of awakenings, upheavals and revolutions: watch Turkey.

    It has become a hugely ambitious country, bristling with self-belief. In a turbulent Middle East it believes it is the democratic role model. It eyes the role as spokesman for the region as a whole. When disputes need to be settled, it offers itself as the mediator. The State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek summed it up: “Everybody has to see Turkey’s power.”

    TR PM ErdoganOver Libya it is the country that the West watches more carefully than any other. For the moment, Turkey is supporting Nato’s campaign whilst refraining from joining in any attacks on Gaddafi’s ground forces. It is holding itself back, ready to step forward as the indispensable locator when the hour of negotiation approaches.

    On the Libyan conflict it has flipped and flopped however. Early on, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced any Western intervention as “absurd”. He raised fears of a “second Iraq”. Turkish officials seemed to lash out at what they portrayed as an oil grab by the West. They picked a fight with the French interior minister Claude Gueant who unwisely said the French President was leading a “crusade” to stop Gaddafi’s barbarism. He didn’t mean it of course in the historical sense but Turkish officials pounced on the tongue-slip.

    That was then. Now Turkey is committing five or six vessels to police the arms embargo and is running Benghazi airport to co-ordinate humanitarian assistance.

    Turkey wanted to disguise its hand, to see which way the battle flowed. Twenty thousand of its citizens work in Libya and it has lucrative contracts there. Commercial self-interest made it cautious.

    The u-turn was driven by the realisation that the international community, including the Arab League, was determined that the killing of civilians had to stop.

    Turkey had two positions. Firstly, it would not attack Gaddafi’s forces directly. Secondly, it was fiercely opposed to a coalition, led by France, setting the agenda.

    Its problem with France is simple. President Sarkozy is against Turkey joining the EU as a full member. Ankara feels insulted and it is easy to meet Turkish officials with a mouthful of rage against the French president.

    So Turkey wanted the operation run under Nato, where it has a role in decision-making and drafting the rules of engagement. Its position is hard-headed. “We are one of the very few countries that is speaking to both sides,” said one official. It waits for that moment when the mediator is summoned on to the field of play.

    On the turmoil in the Arab world, Turkey has sold itself as the role-model. Early on it urged Hosni Mubarak to stand down. Many of the Egyptian demonstrators wanted Egypt to be like Turkey; secular yet certain of its Muslim identity but with free elections.

    When the killings started in Syria, Prime Minister Erdogan was immediately on the phone. “I have made two calls to President Assad in the last three days and I have sent top intelligence official to Syria. I have called for a reformist approach.”

    It is all skilfully balanced; on the side of reform but keeping a hand in with the man in power.

    Sometimes it seems Turkish officials are everywhere. Such as when the prime minister shows up in Baghdad. It is Turkish goods and companies that so far have conquered Iraq’s markets. With the prime minister were 200 businessmen.

    President Ahmadinejad of Iran may be isolated, but not with Turkey. Ankara has again positioned itself as the deal-maker. There is also the not-so-small matter of $10 billion in trade with Tehran.

    Turkey has also helped shine its credentials in the Middle East with a major row with Israel over the interception of a boat heading for Gaza. Turkish citizens died in the incident.

    So Turkey’s sphere of influence widens but, even so, there are the problems.

    Since 2005 it has been engaged in accession talks with the EU. For the moment they are going nowhere. President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel favour instead of membership “a privileged partnership”. Turkey wants none of it and seethes with resentment.

    Some – but not all – in the EU are wary. There are 24 million without work in Europe and the appetite for enlargement has dimmed. Not everyone is convinced that a Muslim country should be in the EU. It would be difficult to have Turkey join without its people being consulted.

    Turkey knows this and asks the searching question: “Is the EU a Christian Club or is it the address of a community of civilisations? The current picture shows the EU is a Christian Club. This must be overcome.” It touches a raw nerve. But plenty in Europe ask whether Turkey would accept becoming a community of civilisations.

    You could sense the strains and tensions when recently Prime Minister Erdogan went to Germany, where two million people of Turkish origin live. He caused huge offence when he told an audience in Dusseldorf: “Our children must learn German but they must learn Turkish first.” It was an open challenge to the German government which had been insisting that those who live in Germany must speak the language and integrate. The German chancellor opined that multiculturalism had failed because it led to separation.

    There is, too, friction over Cyprus, and the disturbing detentions of reporters and writers. It forced the European Commission to warn Turkey over its democratic credibility.

    And then there are the doubts as to how committed the ruling party is to secularism. Recently Ayse Sucu, who headed a woman’s group, was squeezed out after suggesting women themselves should decide whether to cover their hair.

    There is an ongoing struggle within Turkey which will demonstrate its commitment to tolerance. That, more than anything, will determine whether it is indeed a role model.

    But Turkey is on a roll. Sometimes – irritated at being rebuffed – it contemplates abandoning its pursuit of EU membership. It survived the economic downturn and its growth is an enviable 5%. It may prefer to go it alone and, like the Ottomans, revel in newfound influence.

    But when it comes to Libya, Turkey demands to be listened to. And the West needs Turkey on side.

    Gavin HewittI’m Gavin Hewitt, the BBC’s Europe editor and this blog is where you and I can talk about the stories I’m covering in Europe.

     

     

    bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2011/03/turkey_the_growing_power.html, 30 March 2011

  • Altunköprü the ancient name of Türkmen Township

    Altunköprü the ancient name of Türkmen Township

    By Mofak Salman Kerkuklu

    altunkopru01

    Altunköprü is a small Türkmen [1] sub district located 40km north of Kerkuk and the city lies to the north-west of Kerkuk. It is a 50km away from Erbil. [2] Altunköprü means ‘Golden Bridge’ in the Turkish language.

    The history of the city of Altunköprü dates back to 228Bc. The indigenous inhabitants of Altunköprü are Türkmens, but in the mid of fifties and also in the recent years a large number of Kurds and Arabs migrated to this town seeking work as economical migrants especially after the Kurdish rebels in 1975 were quelled by the Iraqi Ba’ath regime.


    Altunköprü
    is a Türkmen authentic and it is one of the many Türkmen ancient sub district. [3] [4] Altunköprü is approximately located between Erbil and Kerkuk. It is situated on the bank of Azab Alsfel (Little Zab) River.

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    1 The Iraqi Türkmen live in an area that they call “Türkmenia” in Latin or “Türkmeneli” which means, “Land of the Türkmen”. It was referred to as “Turcomania” by the British geographer William Guthrie in 1785. The Türkmen are Turkic groups that have a unique heritage and culture as well as linguistic, historical and cultural links with the surrounding Turkic groups such as those in Turkey and Azerbaijan. Their spoken language is closer to Azeri but their official written language is like the Turkish spoken in present-day Turkey. Their real population has always being suppressed by the authorities in Iraq for political reasons and estimated at 2%, whereas in reality their numbers are more realistically between 2.5 to 3 million, i .e. 12% of the Iraqi population.

    2 Turkmenelinden Notlar, Year 1 Issue 2 June 1999, Altunköprü Katliami Page. 2.

    3 The Turkmen and Kerkuk, by Yucel Guclu, ISBN 978-1-4257-1853-4, Page 26.

    4 The Turkmen and Kerkuk, by Yucel Guclu, ISBN 978-1-4257-1853-4, Page 58

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