Category: North Africa

Tulin Daloglu: Turkey’s Influence in a Changing Middle East Is Limited

For the last few years Turkey has been trying to sell itself as the re-shaper of the Middle East. But now that the region is reshaping itself in dramatic and unexpected ways, the late, lame and confusing responses of Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan’s government show that Turkey’s renewed activism in its Muslim neighbourhood has not gone very far.

No one knows how the Arab Spring will end — but it’s clear that with this awakening, the Arab people have nullified all of the narratives that others have used to describe them. Their endless tolerance and surrender to victimhood at the hands of their authoritarian rulers finally ran out. Many feel so desperate that they no longer care whether they lose their lives by taking to the streets. Since February, thousands have indeed paid the ultimate price, but with a purpose: they want change.

Turkey was surprised by this Arab uprising. For years now, Erdogan has tried to play to the Arab street like an Ottoman sultan. He has accused Israel of being a terrorist state murdering Palestinians, scoring points off an easy and unpopular target, especially when he stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos after a heated debate with the Israeli president over Gaza.

He has provoked controversy in other ways too, for instance he has said that a Muslim cannot commit genocide, and the situation in Darfur can’t be considered one. Erdogan has even received a human rights award from Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

But he has always defended the status quo in the Arab region and never questioned the Muslim leadership in any of these countries. And although Erdogan was quick to call for Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down, he could not display such a muscular and forceful attitude toward the Libyan leader. Erdogan had a bad personal relationship with Mubarak, but Turkish firms have business deals in Libya worth more than 15 billion US dollars.

via Tulin Daloglu: Turkey’s Influence in a Changing Middle East Is Limited.

April 7, 2011
Ataturk’s legacy gets second look

By: Tom Ford

ISTANBUL, Turkey — They’re hanging strings of tiny, pastel flags across some of the main streets of this ancient city of 16 million. Turkey’s 25 political parties are getting ready for a June election that may make history.

Istanbul is already storied: the only city on two continents (Europe and Asia), a major force in three empires (Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman) and one of the world’s few — some Turks say the only — Islamic democracies.

The coming election will answer two critical questions:

Can Turkey strengthen its democracy even more?

And will it play a helpful role in advising the nations in the Middle East and Northern Africa that are embroiled in fights for democracy?

The first lesson the reformers can learn from Turkey: From the outset, they need strong, unflinching leadership. That is a problem for some of them. They don’t have powerful leaders and try to get by with collectives.

Contemporary Turkey was born and the nation’s founder, Mustafa Kemal, an army colonel, became a legend in the First World War Gallipoli campaign, the allies’ unsuccessful attempt to chase the Turks from the Dardanelles and open up an all-weather route to Germany.

Kemal realized that if he could hold two important hills, the Turks would win the war. They did so in bloody, hand-to-hand combat that cost 50,000 lives. Kemal was everywhere during the fight — in no man’s land on his belly urging his men on; riding his horse from hot spot to hot spot for four days and nights. “I don’t order you to attack. I order you to die,” he told his men. His entire senior staff was wiped out.

Kemal, later known as Atatürk, the father of Turkey, learned about modern democracy in an army library. When he came to power in 1923, he issued a blizzard of orders to westernize his nation, including changes to language, dress, social mores, government and law.

But the Turkish model, the nation’s liberals argue, can be improved in a constitutional review that is part of the elections in June. The existing constitution is clear about the roles of the military, judges and politicians. It is less clear about what citizens can do to promote their own interests. The constitution needs to be “civilianized,” says a young female writer. That’s not a great slogan. But “power to the people” is.

The Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association is more explicit. Among other things, it wants unrestricted use of headscarves for university students and teachers and public employees other than those, such as judges, prosecutors, police officers and soldiers, who perform duties where impartiality carries importance.

The association’s other demands include the right to conscientious objection, no compulsory religion courses in schools, the army’s general staff to be placed under the authority of the Ministry of Defence and a full parliamentary governmental system with no powers for the president that conflict with that system.

It’s a long list. And that raises the second lesson Turkey can teach the reformers in the Middle East and Northern Africa: Change comes about slowly in this region. Turkey has been working hard at improving its government system since the 1920s, but there is still much to be done.

A report last month by the respected Washington-based PEW Research Centre says 52 per cent of the Turks questioned saw a struggle in their country between “modernizers” and religious fundamentalists. But 74 per cent of them sided with the modernizers.

Some 75 per cent of Muslims in Turkey said they favoured democratic government more than any other kind, according to the research centre.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is expected to win the June election, is said to be “mildly” Islamic. But several businessmen told me he is “two-faced”, a fundamentalist who pretends to be interested in reform.

He can be ruthless. More than 400 journalists, politicians, academics and retired military officers are on trial, accused of being part of a network designed to overthrow the Erdogan government. “Erdogan is just getting his own back,” said a teacher.

Erdogan has refused to deal with Israel in the aftermath of Tel Aviv’s deadly attack on the Mavi Marmara flotilla bringing aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in May. Turkey wants Israel to apologize for killing nine Turks and pay compensation. Israel says its troops were defending themselves.

Erdogan refuses to endorse a constitutional change giving Kurds special powers to protect their language and culture — and some of them have taken to the streets.

The election issue that surprised me the most was the argument over headscarves. A group of young women is angry that none of the female candidates in the election wears a headscarf. Westerners often see headscarves as an example of male domination. These women don’t see it that way. They simply want the right to choose what they wear.

“We’re feminists,” said one. “Freedom of choice is important to us.”

Tom Ford is managing editor of The Issues Network.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 4, 2011 A10

www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists, 4 April 2011

April 5, 2011
Turkey Plays Mediator in Libya Crisis

By MARC CHAMPION

ISTANBUL—The Libyan regime and leaders of the rebel opposition are each offering proposals on how to reach a cease-fire in the Arab nation’s conflict, a Turkish official said Monday, as an envoy from Col. Moammar Gadhafi arrived in Ankara for talks.

Libya’s rebel government in Benghazi has indicated it also will visit Ankara to discuss a possible cease-fire, in the wake of Monday’s visit by Deputy Foreign Minister Abdelati al-Obeidi, the Turkish official said. No date for the visit had been set, he said.

Mr. Obeidi, deputy to recently defected Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, wasn’t carrying any personal message from Col. Gadhafi, according to the official, countering speculation in Turkish media that terms for Col. Gadhafi’s exit from Libya might be under negotiation. Others have cautioned the visit by Libya’s official could be another delay tactic by Col. Gadhafi as he presses with an offensive against the rebels on the ground.

In a news conference following the decision by Italy to recognize the governing body of rebel forces as Libya’s sole “legitimate interlocutor,” the country’s foreign minister said the offer by Col. Gadhafi’s envoy was “not credible.”

Italy became the third country to recognize the rebel group, after France and Qatar, as Rome seeks a way to re-establish its access to Libyan oil and natural gas. Speaking at a news conference after meeting with Ali al-Essawi, the foreign envoy of the rebel-backed Libyan National Transitional Council, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Italy planned to send an envoy to Libya in the coming days. He also said Italy is also seeking to send medical supplies and other aid to the embattled Libyan city of Misrata.

Rome’s support is a boost to rebel forces, because Italy is Libya’s biggest trading partner and the biggest buyer of the North African country’s oil and natural-gas supplies.

Mr. Frattini said Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italian oil giant Eni Spa, recently traveled to Benghazi to meet with council members and discuss plans to revive the oil company’s operations in Libya. But a foreign ministry spokesman said Mr. Scaroni spoke to council members over the phone without traveling to Benghazi, adding that Mr. Frattini had misspoken. An Eni spokesman declined to comment.

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday that the first meeting of the political ‘Contact Group’ on Libya that was agreed at the London Conference last week will take place next week in Doha, Qatar.

Mr. Hague told the U.K. Parliament that while Britain is not arming opposition forces it is prepared to supply “non-lethal equipment” and will be supplying the Interim Transitional National Council with telecommunications equipment.

Mr. Hague also said that since Thursday a total of 701 sorties and 276 strike sorties have been conducted over Libya.

Rebel forces on Monday took back much of Brega, a strategic oil town that has repeatedly changed hands over weeks of fighting with Col. Gadhafi’s forces, the Associated Press reported. Women and children were seen fleeing the coastal town as the battle raged.

In Turkey, Mr. Obeidi arrived by coincidence as North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was in the capital. Mr. Rasmussen spent an hour each in talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Turkey has been a reluctant supporter of Western military intervention in Libya, and its leaders were furious at being initially sidelined by the Western allies from decision-making. Turkish officials were tight-lipped about the content of Monday’s discussions. A spokesman for Mr. Erdogan said the talks with Mr. Rasmussen concerned “how to bring peace to Libya in line with United Nations Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973.”

The resolutions, adopted in February and March, imposed sanctions on the Libyan regime and called for a cease-fire, while also imposing an arms embargo, a no-fly zone and a mandate to use “all necessary means” to protect civilians.

In a statement to reporters after the meeting, Mr. Davutoglu called he Libya talks with Mr. Rasmussen “extensive,” but focused his remarks on Turkey’s efforts to evacuate the wounded from Misrata and fromBenghazi.

According to Mr. Davutoglu, Turkey had been trying for a week to dock a ship in Misrata, but succeeded in getting security pledges from both sides only on Friday. The ship docked in Misrata on Saturday, and collected 250 wounded there before receiving more in Benghazi. It was expected to arrive in Turkey on Tuesday with a total of about 475 passengers, Mr. Davutoglu said.

Turkey is taking a leading role in the humanitarian side of the NATO operation and is active in enforcing a UN-imposed arms embargo, but not the no-fly zone. Turkey is a NATO member and has the alliance’s second largest military.

From makeshift beds inside the cruise-ship-turned-hospital, dozens of men, many nursing gunshot wounds and missing limbs, lay on thin mats in the ship’s hull, speaking of brutal government attacks and young rebels struggling to fend them off, according to the AP.

Mohammed Abu Libous, 37, said he and seven relatives were working in a bakery on the outskirts of Misrata, rebel forces’ last major stronghold in western Libya, when about 20 of Col. Gadhafi troops entered in three tanks and started harassing local residents, the AP reported.

They entered his shop and told him and his brother to surrender their weapons. When they said they had none, the troops took them out in the street. They shot his brother through the stomach and him once in each thigh, he said.

“While I was on the ground bleeding, they bound the others and took them away,” he said, adding that the troops stole all their money, cell phones and rings.

Misrata, 125 miles southeast of the capital Tripoli, was one of two western cities that rose up early in the revolt against Col. Gadhafi. His elite forces besieged Misrata for weeks, cutting off food and water supplies and power lines, but the rebels have stood their ground.

After initially dismissing the prospect of NATO military intervention as “nonsense,” Mr. Erdogan has since pushed for the alliance to take over control of the U.S.- and French-led no-fly zone, suggesting that some countries involved were more concerned about securing oil supplies than in the plight of Libyan civilians.

Mr. Obeidi visited Greece on Sunday, and will travel from Ankara to Malta, delivering the same ideas in each place, according to the Turkish official. He said Turkey would listen to what the Libyan had to say rather than entering into any immediate negotiation. All three countries have been traditionally friendly to the Libyan regime.

In Greece, Mr. Obeidi met with Prime Minister George Papandreou. The Turkish official said Mr. Obeidi wouldn’t meet with Mr. Erdogan but with the foreign ministry.

—Stacy Meichtry in Rome and Alistair MacDonald in London contributed to this article.

Write to Marc Champion at [email protected]

April 5, 2011
Libya: Turkish ship rescues injured from Misrata
Misrata evacuees share their stories with the BBC’s Christian Fraser

4 April 2011 Last updated at 04:25 GMT

Libya: Turkish ship rescues injured from Misrata

Misrata evacuees share their stories with the BBC’s Christian Fraser
Continue reading the main story
Libya Crisis

As it happened: Friday

Frontline hospital

How war is being funded

Challenges facing coalition
A Turkish humanitarian ship carrying more than 250 injured people from the Libyan city of Misrata has arrived in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

Misrata, the only city in the west still controlled by the rebels, has been under siege by forces loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi for several weeks.

Doctors on board the ship said many people had extremely serious injuries.

Meanwhile, the eastern oil town of Brega has seen continued fighting between rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces.

A BBC correspondent says an uneasy stalemate is developing.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We have no water, no electricity. We don’t have medicine. There are snipers everywhere”

End Quote Ibrahim al-Aradi Injured Misrata resident

Government troops are reported to be holding ground near its university, but are reluctant to engage rebels because of the risk of Nato air strikes.

The poorly armed and disorganised rebel forces are unable or unwilling to push on towards Brega and are calling for more help from the West.

Libya’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, has told the Greek prime minister that Col Gaddafi wants the fighting to end.

“From the Libyan envoy’s comments it appears that the regime is seeking a solution,” Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas told reporters.

Mr Droutsas said Athens had stressed the international community’s call for Libya to comply with UN Security Council resolution 1973, which authorised military intervention to protect civilians.

The Libyan envoy would be going on to Turkey on Monday and then Malta to continue his diplomatic contacts, he added.

Amputations

Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, ordered the Ankara, a car ferry that had been turned into a makeshift hospital, into Misrata on Sunday after it had spend four days waiting for permission to dock.

Twelve-year-old Muhammad was peppered with shrapnel when a rocket exploded near him

The ship, which was also carrying medical supplies for doctors in Misrata, arrived under cover from 10 Turkish F-16 fighter jets and two navy frigates, Turkish consular official Ali Akin told the Reuters news agency.

With heavily armed Turkish police special forces standing by, the injured people were taken aboard and laid on mattresses on one of the car decks, above which saline drips were hung. Some were accompanied by their relatives.

Mr Akin said the ship had to leave early after a large crowd – including hundreds of Egyptians – pressed forward on the quayside hoping to escape.

The BBC’s Jon Leyne, who went on board the Ankara, says many of the patients have extremely serious injuries, including some amputations.

One man lost part of his leg in an explosion as he was taking his wife into hospital for treatment. A 13-year-old boy described how he was shot by a sniper. A 12 year old was peppered with shrapnel when a rocket exploded near him when he and his brother were on their way to the market.

Mohammed Muftah, who had shrapnel wounds on his legs, back and neck, said Col Gaddafi’s troops had “killed entire families”.

“I have a neighbour who lost his wife and his three children,” he told the AFP news agency. “They did it just to terrorise people.”

Our correspondent says everyone had stories of the ever worsening conditions in Misrata. They told him that much of the city had no water or electricity and no-one was safe from shelling or sniper-fire.

As the ship arrived in Benghazi several hundred rebel supporters waved and cheered on the quayside

“It is very, very bad. In my street, Gaddafi bombed us,” Ibrahim al-Aradi, who had wounds in his groin, told Reuters. “We have no water, no electricity. We don’t have medicine. There are snipers everywhere.”

Doctors on board say medical care conditions Misrata were inadequate, and that more than 200 people had been killed and hundreds more wounded. One unconfirmed report said 160 may have died this week.

At least one person was killed and several wounded early on Sunday when government forces shelled a building in Misrata, a resident told Reuters.

As the ship arrived in Benghazi several hundred rebel supporters waiting on the quayside chanted: “The blood of martyrs is spilled for freedom.”

The Ankara would pick up about 100 more wounded before setting sail for the Turkish port of Cesme, where the casualties would be treated in a well-equipped, well-supplied, modern hospital, officials said.

Stalemate

To the east of Benghazi, government troops continued to hold ground near the university in Brega, trading rocket and artillery fire with the rebels.

The BBC’s Orla Guerin reports on the stalemate developing near Brega

The rebel Transitional National Council has appealed for new Nato air strikes, as well as weapons and military training to be provided by foreign governments.

They have acknowledged that rebel fighters firing in the air through lack of discipline could have provoked the Nato air strike on a rebel convoy on Friday, which left at least 13 people dead.

The rebel military commanders say they are trying to bring a new professionalism to its military campaign. Road blocks have been set up close to the frontline and only soldiers with at least some training are allowed through.

Iman Bugaighis, a spokeswoman for the rebel council, told the BBC: “We have reorganised our troops. Now the army is in the front and then followed by our volunteers who are fighting with the army.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa meanwhile called for a swift end to the conflict, even if it meant offering Col Gaddafi safe haven in another country.
April 4, 2011
168 people brought from Libya to Turkey

168 people, who left Libya due to upheaval in the country and proceeded to Tunisia, were brought to Turkey on Friday.

168 people, who left Libya due to upheaval in the country and proceeded to Tunisia, were brought to Turkey on Friday.

168 people most of whom are Turks arrived at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul by a plane of Turkish Airlines (THY) within the scope of evacuation conducted by Turkish Embassy in Tunisia.

Turkey has so far evacuated at least 21,000 people including foreign nationals from Libya, since the beginning of the protests against Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year reign.

AA

April 2, 2011
Revealed: Gaddafi envoy in Britain for secret talks

Exclusive: Contact with senior aide believed to be one of a number between Libyan officials and west amid signs regime may be looking for exit strategy

Peter Beaumont , Nicholas Watt and Severin Carrell

Supporters of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi stage a rally in Tripoli. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Colonel Gaddafi’s regime has sent one of its most trusted envoys to London for confidential talks with British officials, the Guardian can reveal.

Mohammed Ismail, a senior aide to Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, visited London in recent days, British government sources familiar with the meeting have confirmed. The contacts with Ismail are believed to have been one of a number between Libyan officials and the west in the last fortnight, amid signs that the regime may be looking for an exit strategy.

Disclosure of Ismail’s visit comes in the immediate aftermath of the defection to Britain of Moussa Koussa, Libya‘s foreign minister and its former external intelligence head, who has been Britain’s main conduit to the Gaddafi regime since the early 1990s.

A team led by the British ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, and MI6 officers embarked on a lengthy debriefing of Koussa at a safe house after he flew into Farnborough airport on Wednesday night from Tunisia. Government sources said the questioning would take time because Koussa’s state of mind was “delicate” after he left his family in Libya.

The Foreign Office has declined “to provide a running commentary” on contacts with Ismail or other regime officials. But news of the meeting comes amid mounting speculation that Gaddafi’s sons, foremost among them Saif al-Islam, Saadi and Mutassim, are anxious to talk. “There has been increasing evidence recently that the sons want a way out,” said a western diplomatic source.

Although he has little public profile in Libya or internationally, Ismail is recognised by diplomats as being a key fixer and representative for Saif al-Islam. According to cables published by WikiLeaks, Ismail represented Libya’s government in arms purchase negotiations and as an interlocutor on military and political issues.

“The message that was delivered to him is that Gaddafi has to go, and that there will be accountability for crimes committed at the international criminal court,” a Foreign Office spokesman told the Guardian , declining to elaborate on what else may have been discussed.

Some aides working for Gaddafi’s sons, however, have made it clear that it may be necessary to sideline their father and explore exit strategies to prevent the country descending into anarchy.

One idea the sons have reportedly suggested – which the Guardian has been unable to corroborate – is that Gaddafi give up real power. Mutassim, presently the country’s national security adviser, would become president of an interim national unity government which would include the opposition. It is an idea, however, unlikely to find support among the rebels or the international community who are demanding Gaddafi’s removal.

The revelation that contacts between Britain and a key Gaddafi loyalist had taken place came as David Cameron hailed the defection of Koussa as a sign the regime was crumbling. “It tells a compelling story of the desperation and the fear right at the very top of the crumbling and rotten Gaddafi regime,” he said.

Ministers regard Koussa’s move to abandon his family as a sign of the magnitude of his decision. “Moussa Koussa is very worried about his family,” one source said. “But he did this because he felt it was the best way of bringing down Gaddafi.”

Britain learned that Koussa wanted to defect when he made contact from Tunisia. He had made his way out of Libya in a convoy of cars after announcing he was going on a diplomatic mission to visit the new government in Tunis.

It was also reported that Ali Abdussalam Treki, a senior Libyan diplomat, declined to take up his appointment by Gaddafi as UN ambassador, condemning the “spilling of blood”. Officials were checking reports that Tarek Khalid Ibrahim, the deputy head of mission in London, is also defecting.

The prime minister insisted that no deal had been struck with Koussa and that he would not be offered immunity from prosecution. “Let me be clear, Moussa Koussa is not being granted immunity. There is no deal of that kind,” Cameron said. Within hours of his arrival in Britain, Scottish prosecutors asked to interview Koussa about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The Crown Office in Edinburgh has said that it is formally asking for its prosecutors and police detectives to question him.

But government sources indicated that Britain does not believe Koussa was involved. He was at the heart of Britain’s rapprochement with Libya, which started when Tripoli abandoned its support for the IRA in the early 1990s.

He was instrumental in persuading Gaddafi to abandon his weapons of mass destruction programme in 2003. One source said: “Nobody is saying this guy was a saint, because he was a key Gaddafi lieutenant who was kicked out of Britain in 1980 for making threats to kill Libyan dissidents. But this is the guy who persuaded Gaddafi to abandon his WMD programme. He no doubt has useful and interesting things to say about Lockerbie, but it doesn’t seem he said ‘go and do it’.”

However there is unease among Tories about Britain’s involvement in Libya. Underlining those concerns, Boris Johnson, the London mayor, told BBC Question Time that a continued stalemate in Libya could “have terrible consequences”. Johnson said; “I do worry that if we get into a stalemate; and if, frankly, the rebels don’t seem to be making the progress that we would like, we have to be brave, to say to ourselves that our policy is not working, and encourage the Arabs themselves to take leadership in all of this.”

William Hague, the foreign secretary, said he had a sense that Koussa was deeply unhappy with Gaddafi when they spoke last Friday. “One of the things I gathered between the lines in my telephone calls with him, although he of course had to read out the scripts of the regime, was that he was very distressed and dissatisfied by the situation there,” Hague said.

www.guardian.co.uk, 1 April 2011

April 1, 2011