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Category: Middle East

  • Ahmadinejad’s visit to Turkey “unfortunate” – Israel

    Ahmadinejad’s visit to Turkey “unfortunate” – Israel

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

    By Zerin Elci

     

    ANKARA (Reuters) – Israel has expressed its “discomfort” to Turkey over its decision to invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Istanbul next week, an Israeli diplomatic official said on Friday.

     

    Ahmadinejad will discuss Iran’s disputed nuclear programme and growing bilateral ties with Turkey during a one-day working visit on Aug 14, which comes after months of lobbying by Tehran.

     

    Predominantly Sunni Muslim Turkey, which has good ties with Israel, has offered to help resolve a dispute between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear programme, which the West fears is aimed at producing atomic weapons.

     

    “We see this visit as unfortunate, especially in the sensitive and crucial time in which Iran is not giving a direct reply to the West about its nuclear programme,” the Israeli diplomatic official based in Ankara told Reuters.

     

    “The Iranian president keeps calling for the destruction of the Israeli state and denies the Holocaust, so this visit is unfortunate because it gives legitimacy to Iran,” the official said, adding Israel had relayed its position to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

     

    Turkey and Iran have growing trade ties and are negotiating expanding energy cooperation. President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have also sought to boost Turkey’s role as a regional problem solver in the Middle East.

     

    Turkey is also acting as mediator in indirect talks between Israel and Syria, but the Israeli diplomatic official said Ahmadinejad’s visit will not affect those negotiations.

     

    Major powers fear Tehran wants to build an atomic bomb. Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, insists it is only seeking to master nuclear technology to generate power.

  • Israel irked over Iranian leader’s planned visit to Turkey

    Israel irked over Iranian leader’s planned visit to Turkey

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

    ANKARA (AFP) — Israel has conveyed its misgivings to Turkey over a planned visit to the country by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an Israeli diplomat said Friday.

    “We are concerned about this visit because we think it is not the appropriate time to host the Iranian president,” the diplomat, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

    Israel voiced its concerns Thursday when the Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv was summoned to the Israeli foreign ministry and the Israeli ambassador in Ankara visited the Turkish foreign ministry, the official said.

    “It is not a good idea to give legitimacy” to a leader who has called for the destruction of Israel and denies the Holocaust, moreover at a time when Western powers are mulling fresh sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, he said.

    Non-Arab and secular Turkey has been Israel’s main regional ally since 1996, when the two signed a military cooperation accord, much to the anger of Arab countries and Iran.

    It is currently acting as mediator in indirect talks between Israel and its arch-foe Syria.

    But mainly Muslim Turkey has recently improved ties with Iran, its eastern neighbour, and argues that its close dialogue both with the West and Tehran could be an asset for a peaceful resolution of the international standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme.

    Turkish officials have said Ahmadinejad will soon visit the country, without giving a date.

    The visit is reportedly expected to take place on August 14.

    The media have said Ahmadinejad is expected to meet with Turkish leaders in Istanbul rather than the capital Ankara, where the protocol would have required him to visit the tomb of Turkey’s secularist father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which the head of the Islamic state was reportedly reluctant to do.

  • Israel likely to skip next UN racism conference

    Israel likely to skip next UN racism conference

    By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER

    GENEVA (AP) — Israel will almost surely boycott the next U.N. racism conference in Geneva, its ambassador said Wednesday, warning that the meeting is likely to sink into the same anti-Semitism that prompted the U.S. and Israel to walk out of the last one seven years ago.

    Itzhak Levanon, the Jewish state’s departing U.N. envoy in Geneva, said the event April 20-25 would need to be completely reworked for Israel to participate.

    But with Libya chairing preparations, and Iran and Cuba also involved, Levanon said the Geneva follow-up to the contentious 2001 conference in the South African city of Durban had the making of another international “bashing of Israel.”

    “We want them to discuss human rights, and not only focus on Israel and turning this into an anti-Semitic event,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We will attend the meeting only if there is a radical, substantive change.”

    Canada is the only country that has explicitly said it will not take part in “Durban II,” arguing the meeting will promote racism and not combat it.

    The Bush administration has taken a symbolic position opposing the conference. In December, Washington cast the only “no” vote when the U.N. General Assembly passed a two-year budget because of objections to funding for the conference.

    The State Department has said, however, that a decision whether to attend will be made closer to the time of the conference.

    In 2001, the World Conference Against Racism ended three days before the Sept. 11 attacks, with a declaration and program of action that divided countries even as they agreed to it.

    Dominated by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery, the U.S. and Israel walked out midway through the eight-day meeting over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism — the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state — to racism.

    Those references were removed from the final declaration, though it did cite “the plight of the Palestinians” as an issue.

    A parallel forum of non-governmental organizations, however, branded “Israel as a racist apartheid state” and called for an end to the “ongoing, Israeli systematic perpetration of racist crimes, including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

    Levanon said the anti-Israel speeches at Durban were a “shame” and that Israel would not have any part in a repetition. But he said the nations that led the attacks on Israel have offered no encouraging signs that the next meeting will be different.

    “Yes, the Europeans say it should not be anti-Semitic and the Israelis are demanding a focus on human rights around the world,” he said. “But what about those that did the bashing? They’ve said nothing.”

    Source: AP, 06 Agust 2008

  • The Israeli-Saudi common interest

    The Israeli-Saudi common interest

    By Moshe Maoz

    The interfaith conference King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia convened in Madrid on July 17 is the first such conference held by this religiously strict kingdom. Jews were among the participants, including a rabbi from Israel. In 2002, when Abdullah was still crown prince, he made a significant move toward Israel that was adopted by the Arab League’s 22 members: recognizing Israel, including diplomatic relations, if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders and a Palestinian state is established with East Jerusalem as its capital.

    Make no mistake, Saudi Arabia, a Wahhabi Islamic kingdom that controls Islam’s holiest places – Mecca and Medina – has not fundamentally changed its ideologically negative attitude toward Jews and the Jewish state. But like other Islamic and Arab regimes, the Saudi regime has changed and improved its attitude out of strategic, political and security considerations and out of a long-term realistic approach.

    Indeed, the Saudis’ realistic attitude toward Israel’s existence is not new. Back in May 1975, King Khaled told The Washington Post that his country was prepared to recognize Israel’s right to exist within the 1967 borders on condition that a Palestinian state was established between Israel and Jordan (Haaretz, May 26, 1975).

    This move was apparently influenced by Israel’s victory in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, after which Egypt and Syria accepted UN Security Council Resolution 338 (which also included Security Council Resolution 242 from November 1967 that was accepted at the time by Egypt and Jordan). Resolution 338 meant indirect recognition of Israel

    In 1981, at the Arab summit that convened in Fez, Morocco, Saudi Prince Fahd (who became king in 1982) proposed recognition of Israel in exchange for a return to the 1967 (1949) lines, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and compensation payments to the Palestinian refugees or repatriating them. The Arab summit rejected the proposal, but accepted it in 1982 after amending it to include the recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s leadership.

    Twenty years later, in 2002, Saudi Arabia once again proposed peace and recognition of Israel in exchange for a return to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and an agreed-on solution to the refugee problem (based on UN Resolution 194 from December 1948). This proposal, approved again in 2007 by the Arab League, was apparently influenced by the Saudi need to please the United States after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and particularly out of the fear the Saudis and other Sunni Arab countries had of Shi’ite Iran, which threatened them more than Israel did. However, successive Israeli governments rejected or ignored these initiatives. They may have missed chances to advance comprehensive peace with Arab countries.

    Moreover, it may be assumed that the solution to the Palestinian problem and the issue of Jerusalem could have also motivated quite a few Muslim countries to recognize Israel and improve their relationship to Jews. Evidence of such trends has been voiced by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid and other Muslim leaders. The invitation of Jewish delegates to the Madrid interfaith meeting also attests to an important Muslim trend to advance peaceful coexistence and religious dialogue with Judiasm. This trend has also been evident recently in Jordan and Qatar at the government levels, and in the United States and Europe in public and academic bodies.

    It is important to encourage these pragmatic Muslim trends, which represent a centrist stream in Islam. This is a way to combat new extremist Islamic streams represented by the Shi’ite Iranian regime and Hezbollah on the one hand, and Al-Qaida and other radical Sunni groups on the other. These seek to destroy Israel and strike at Jews; in their actions and writings they embody anti-Semitic Muslim tendencies drawn from old Christian anti-Semitism and from tendentious interpretations of the Koran and the Hadith.

    These fanatic Islamic elements endanger not only Israel and Jews, but also pragmatic Arab and Muslim regimes like Saudi Arabia. Accordingly, Israel and Saudi Arabia (and other Arab and Muslim countries) have a common interest in neutralizing and limiting the extremist Islamic influence and its deadly attacks.

    One of the main ways of doing so is Israeli-Saudi cooperation toward a fair and agreed-on solution to the Palestinian problem and the question of Jerusalem.

    The writer is professor emeritus in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

    Source: Haaretz, 03/08/2008

  • Ahmadinejad’s upcoming visit to Turkey important: report

    Ahmadinejad’s upcoming visit to Turkey important: report

    Tehran Times Political Desk

    TEHRAN, August 05 (ISNA) – Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan has described President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s upcoming visit to Turkey as “vitally important,” according to ISNA news agency.

    “The visit is vitally important and side issues can not overshadow it,” Babacan has said in a meeting with his Portuguese counterpart Luis Amado.

    According to Turkish media, Ahmadinejad will start visit to Istanbul on August 14 for a 3-day visit.

    Turkish President Abdullah Gul will be staying in Istanbul at that time of the visit to meet Ahmadinejad.

    The Turkish media has said it is expected that Iran’s nuclear case to feature as the main topic of the talks. Other issues like bilateral relations and energy cooperation will be discussed.

    AA END ISN

  • A Major Political Test for Iraq

    A Major Political Test for Iraq

    Published: August 4, 2008

    Since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk has been a political tinderbox-in-waiting that was largely ignored as war-fighting took precedence. Now that violence is way down, Iraqi leaders have no excuse not to peacefully decide the city’s future. Their failure to do so has already raised tensions and could further shred Iraq’s fragile social fabric — and unleash more bloodshed.

    Kurds who run the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan should not be allowed to unilaterally annex Kirkuk, which they regard as their ancient capital but is also home to Turkmen and Arabs. They were promised a referendum in the Iraqi Constitution, but no durable solution can result without the participation of all groups. Overconfident Kurds and their American supporters have not been looking seriously for compromise.

    The problem came to a head two weeks ago when Iraq’s Parliament passed a law again postponing a referendum on Kirkuk (it was supposed to be held by the end of 2007). The law contained a measure diluting Kurdish power in the area’s provincial council.

    The Kurds believe the referendum will endorse making Kirkuk and surrounding areas part of Kurdistan — giving them more oil revenue and furthering their goal of independence — while Turkmen and Arab leaders want the city to stay under the central government.

    Kurdish parliamentarians boycotted the session, resulting in the election law being declared unconstitutional. Another session on Sunday dissolved without reaching a quorum; lawmakers were to try again on Monday.

    The problem is not just with the Kirkuk referendum. If the Kurds continue to hold the election law hostage, provincial elections now expected in early 2009 will also be stymied. These elections are crucial to Iraq’s political stability and reconciliation efforts because they will give minority Sunni Arabs a chance to be in government for the first time since they boycotted the 2005 elections. Sunnis who played a key role fighting with American forces against Iraqi insurgents are already embittered by the failure of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government to hire enough of them for promised security jobs.

    Compromises on Kirkuk are theoretically possible, but only the U.N. seems to be seriously trying to find one. That’s baffling, since no one, other than the Iraqis, has more vested in keeping the lid on violence and on tension with Turkey and Iran than the United States.

    Iraqis proved their post-Saddam political wheeling-and-dealing skills when they adopted budget, amnesty and provincial powers laws earlier this year. It’s worth testing whether horse-trading on the crucial but deadlocked oil law and other contentious issues like minority rights and redistribution of powers could produce a Kirkuk deal all ethnic communities could live with.

    If Iraqi leaders cannot settle the matter, they might consider putting Kirkuk and its environs under United Nations administration as was done with Brcko after the Balkan wars. The imperative is to ensure that Kirkuk’s future is not drawn in blood.