Category: Middle East & Africa

Origins of Israel Palestinian Conflict – YouTube

The Israeli Arab conflict is the result of interactions of superpowers in the early 20th century. British and French strategic interests in the Middle East were related to the Mediterranean trading route, which went from the Suez channel to Indian markets. But the presence of the Ottoman navy based in the Levant was a direct threat to British interests. So the British and the French decided to divide the Middle East into smaller entities and countries to make it impossible for the Ottoman Empire to control them all. A century later, the legacy of European colonization of the Arab world is reflected by its many ongoing conflicts.

via Origins of Israel Palestinian Conflict – YouTube.

December 6, 2012
Israel rejects UN call for nuclear transparency

The United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters. (Reuters / Lucas Jackson)

Israel has rebuffed a UN call to adhere to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open itself to international inspectors, calling the suggestion a “meaningless mechanical vote” of a body that “lost all its credibility regarding Israel.”

In a 174-6 vote, the United Nations General Assembly demanded in a non-binding call that Tel Aviv join the NPT“without further delay,” in an effort to create a legally binding nuclear-free Middle East.

Washington, Israel’s strongest ally, surprised no one by voting against the resolution – but did approve two paragraphs that were voted on separately, which called for universal adherence to the NPT and for all non-signatory governments to join.

The UN body “has lost all its credibility regarding Israel with these types of routine votes that are ensured passage by an automatic majority and which single out Israel,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor was quoted by Jerusalem Post as saying.

The Assembly’s call on Israel comes days after a large majority of its members voted to grant Palestine statehood state status and just weeks after the an escalation of violence between Gazans and Israel’s occupation forces. Palmor stressed, however, that since the NPT vote takes place annually, the Palestinian victory is not connected.

Israel is not a signatory to the 1970 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the main objective of which is to is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. Despite near-universal acknowledgement that Tel Aviv maintains a powerful nuclear arsenal, Israeli officials promote a position claiming their government will “not be the first country to introduce weapons into the Middle East.”

The Middle East’s only democracy possesses as many as 400 nuclear warheads, along with various ways to deliver them. It is also one of four countries known to have nuclear weapons that are not recognized as Nuclear Weapons States by the NPT. The others are India, North Korea and Pakistan.

Israel follows a policy known as “nuclear opacity,” which it sees as a deterrent against its neighbors.

The timing of the Israeli dismissal of the call for transparency comes less than two weeks after Washington’s withdrawal from December’s nuclear-free Middle East conference, to be held in Finland and sponsored by Russia, the UK and the US.

State Department officials said the international effort is being postponed because of “a deep conceptual gap [that] persists in the region on approaches towards regional security and arms control arrangements,” and because “states in the region have not reached agreement on acceptable conditions” for the meeting, quotes the IPS.

But many blamed Israel’s refusal to accept the terms as the real reason for postponing the regional nuclear drive.

“The truth is that the Israeli regime is the only party which rejected to conditions for a conference,” Iranian diplomat Khodadad Seifi told the General Assembly on Monday, as he called for “strong pressure on that regime to participate in the conference without any preconditions.”

The meeting is now expected to be held early next year.

There are currently five nuclear-weapon-free zones in the world, according to the UN: Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, South-East Asia, Central Asia, and Africa.

RT’s Paula Slier is exploring the controversies surrounding Israel’s nuclear activities.

December 6, 2012
Iran’s Custom Office to Facilitate Border Trade

Iran’s Custom Office to Facilitate Border Trade

TEHRAN (FNA)- Head of Iran’s Customs Office Abbas Memarnejad promised to ease the trend of declaration and release of goods in custom offices, particularly at Iran-Turkey border.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Board of Directors of Association of Iranian Businessmen and Investors in Istanbul.

Memarnejad underlined that facilitating private sector activities is among the objectives of the government.

During the meeting, the Iranian businessmen and economic activists talked about their problems and called for stability in regulations, decrease in trade obstacles and facilitating foreign exchange transfer as necessary moves to improve mutual ties.

In August in line with expansion of private sector’s presence in the country’s economy, Memarnejad announced that the country’s private sector can start exporting Iranian crude supplies.

“The private sector can run activity in crude oil export by setting up a consortium,” Memarnejad told FNA.

In relevant move, in last October, Iranian and Turkish officials in a meeting in Ankara explored avenues to further develop mutual cooperation between the two countries in the transit and transportation sector.

The latest statistical report released earlier this month showed that the trade exchanges between Iran and Turkey had reached $17.52bln since the beginning of the current Iranian year (started on March 20, 2012).

According to the figures released by the Turkish Statistical Institute, Iran became Turkey’s third biggest business partner with a trade exchange of $17.52bln since the beginning of the current Iranian year (started on March 20, 2012).

Turkey imported $8.94 billion in goods from Iran, and exported $8.58 billion in goods to the Islamic Republic during this period.

Trade between Turkey and Iran has risen sharply over the past decade.

Turkey was Iran’s fifth-largest oil customer in 2011, buying around 200,000 barrels per day, 30 percent of its total imports and more than 7 percent of Iran’s oil exports.

The two countries’ officials plan to mutual trade to $30bln by 2015.

via Fars News Agency :: Iran’s Custom Office to Facilitate Border Trade.

December 5, 2012
Turkey Continues Trading Gold for Iranian Natural Gas

Dorian Jones

November 29, 2012

A worker walks past the pumping station on the border between Iran and Turkey during the inauguration ceremony for the Iran – Turkey gas pipeline, January 22, 2002.

ISTANBUL — Turkey late least week acknowledged that a surge in its gold exports this year is related to payments for imports of Iranian natural gas, shedding light on Ankara’s role in breaching U.S.-led sanctions against Tehran.

In response, U.S. senators said they will seek to close this loophole. But a Turkish trade minister has warned Turkey will not respect any new U.S. measures.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan admitted Turkey was paying for its gas imports with gold. While Washington has warned it is considering new measures to prevent such payments, Turkey’s economy minister Zafer Çaglayan this week dismissed the threat.

“The U.S. sanctions stand for the U.S.,” Çaglayan said. “We have multilateral international agreements. These deals we are a party to and are binding for us. But measures taken by the EU are also not binding since we are not a member,” he said.

Iran is Turkey’s second largest supplier of gas after Russia, with more than 90 percent of Iran’s gas exports going to Turkey.

Iran provides 18 percent of Turkey’s natural gas and 51 percent of its oil. But since U.S. and European Union sanctions ban Tehran from receiving payments in dollars or euros, Ankara pays Iran for the gas in Turkish liras. The lira is of limited value for buying goods on international markets but ideal for purchasing Turkish gold. The government has not specified how it pays for Iranian oil.

Iranian analyst Jamshid Assadi, of France’s Burgundy Business School, says the arrangement works for both countries.

“Iran has difficulties to get paid, because the financial and banking transactions are so big they cannot do that. Oil and gas and sometimes the electricity they sell to Turkey, in return they get gold. This is a big source of income for Turkey and this is a solution for the trouble in Iran,” he said.

Since the start of the year, Turkish exports of gold to Iran have rocketed. According to official Turkish trade data, nearly $2 billion in gold was sent to Dubai in August on behalf of Iranian buyers.

But chief economist for Finansbank Inan Demir says that amount is not surprising.

“I think everyone knows that if you are allowed to purchase some oil from Iran, then you are going to have to pay as well, and that payment method seems to be gold. But I am sure Turkey is not the only country where these operations are being carried out. If I am not mistaken, India is carrying out transactions,” he said.

Analysts say despite growing international sanctions against Tehran, Ankara is reluctant to cut off its Iranian energy imports completely, as that would make it totally dependent on Moscow for its gas supplies.

Ties between Tehran and Ankara have become increasingly complicated in the past two years, as the Arab uprisings have polarized foreign policy goals. The countries split most recently over the Syrian conflict, where Iran supports President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey backs rebels seeking to oust the regime in Damascus.

Suat Kiniklioglu, a former member of parliament’s foreign affairs committee for the ruling AK party, says trade relations could start to drop off.

“There are already differences over Syria with Iran and that is ongoing. I think you will see less trade, less political dialogue and less deepened dialogue with Iran,” he said.

Analysts say Ankara is believed to be looking for alternative energy suppliers to Iran, which would be favored by both Brussels and Washington as they seek to increase the pressure on the Iranian regime. But changing energy suppliers does take time, so it seems likely that gold will, for some time, continue to head to Tehran.

via Turkey Continues Trading Gold for Iranian Natural Gas.

November 30, 2012
Turkey-Iran: gold for gas US scrutiny

Turkey-Iran: gold for gas US scrutiny

November 28, 2012 4:24 pm by Daniel Dombey

More pressure is coming Turkey’s way over gas purchases from Iran.

After the Turkish government’s admission last week that Tehran was using revenue from gas sales to Ankara to buy gold and then shipping the metal back home, the gas-gold trade has attracted (almost certainly unwelcome) attention from the US Senate.

Reuters has reported that a group of senators are working on a sanctions package that would, among other things, end Turkey’s “game of gold for natural gas”, according to an aide. The measures could be added to a defence bill before the current US Congress breaks up; if not, the issue is very likely to be on the agenda when its successor convenes in January.

To be clear: at present Turkey’s natural gas purchases from Iran, its second biggest supplier, are not targeted by sanctions, international or unilateral. The EU is implementing gas sanctions, but they are not extra-territorial, instead governing imports by member states. US sanctions threaten action against banks that facilitate oil purchases from Iran, but Turkey currently has a waiver.

What is the case, however, is that the general sanctions push over Iran’s nuclear programme, including blacklisting by Swift, which handles global banking transactions, has rendered traditional financial transfers with Tehran near impossible, even for a neighbouring state such as Turkey. Hence Iran’s recourse to gold.

And, as the US looks for additional leverage over Iran ahead of possible bilateral talks on the nuclear file, Turkey’s gas purchases present an ever bigger target.

It is worth bearing in mind the scale of the trade – Turkey’s purchases in 2010-11 amounted to some $6bn – and its strategic importance to Ankara, which would otherwise depend even more on gas from Russia, its primary supplier.

So the sanctions could further test US-Turkish ties, already testy in the light of Ankara’s recent denunciations of Israel and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s largely fruitless campaign for Washington to do more against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US State Department official now at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, thinks there is room for finesse.

“The [US] executive branch will be looking to implement the sanctions in a way that gives them some discretion, so they don’t punish Turkey in one fell swoop; they can request significant reductions [in Iranian gas purchases] and ‘significant’ won’t be defined,” he says, comparing such a stand to the demands Washington has always made about Chinese oil purchases from Iran. “It is going to play out in the next two years.”

Nonetheless, he suggests that, as time goes by, pressure is only going to increase on Iranian trading partners such as Turkey: “I have been predicting that the best case outcome for the Iran crisis is a long cold war, where sanctions just keep getting tighter, the Iranians keep the [uranium] enrichment programme going but it never quite reaches the crisis point where it produces nuclear weapons.”

via Turkey-Iran: gold for gas US scrutiny | beyondbrics.

November 29, 2012
NATO Visits Southeast Turkey for Patriot Missiles

By By SUZAN FRASER Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey November 28, 2012 (AP)

A NATO team assessing possible sites for Patriot missiles to protect Turkey’s border with Syria inspected military installations Wednesday in southeast Turkey, the state-run news agency reported.

NATO member Turkey asked allies to deploy the missiles as a defense against any aerial attack from Syria after mortar rounds and shells from Syria struck Turkish territory, killing five people.

Syria is believed to have several hundred ballistic surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

The NATO team visited military facilities in Malatya province, some 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the Syrian border, the Anadolu Agency reported. The province is already home to an early warning radar that is part of NATO’s missile defense system, which is capable of countering ballistic missile threats from Iran.

The visit came as the alliance said it would “favorably examine” Turkey’s request for the air defense missiles but was awaiting the team’s report on where to base them.

NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said the NATO team was expected to finish its work in the next few days and would feed its proposals to NATO’s military authorities.

AP

In this photo released by the Syrian official… View Full Caption

“This recommendation is a key element in the Council’s decision-making process,” she said, in reference to the North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s governing body that is made up of the ambassadors of all its 28 members.

Romero said “allies with available Patriots have also made clear their intention to augment Turkey’s defenses, subject to national processes.”

Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. have the advanced PAC-3 model Patriots that Turkey wants to intercept ballistic missiles.

Once NATO and the national parliaments in Germany and the Netherlands approve the deployment of the Patriots, it will probably take at least another month before they become operational. Due to the complexity and size of the Patriot batteries — including their radars, command-and-control centers, communications and support facilities — they cannot be flown quickly by air to Turkey and will probably have to travel by sea, officials said.

The deployment of the Patriots is also likely to be discussed at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Russia, meanwhile, has come out against the Patriot missile deployment, saying that basing the missiles so close to the border could worsen the bloodshed in Syria.

Syria is reported to have an array of artillery rockets, as well as short- and medium-range missiles — including Soviet-built SS-21 Scarabs and Scud-B missiles — in its arsenal. The latter are capable of carrying chemical warheads.

Syria’s conflict started 20 months ago as an uprising against President Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. It quickly morphed into a civil war, with rebels taking up arms to fight back against a bloody crackdown by the government. According to activists, at least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011.

———

Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed.

via NATO Visits Southeast Turkey for Patriot Missiles – ABC News.

November 29, 2012