Category: America

U.S. Envoy to Meet With Iran’s Neighbors

By JAY SOLOMON And MARC CHAMPION

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

Getty ImagesTreasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Write to Jay Solomon at [email protected] and Marc Champion at [email protected]

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

October 19, 2010
Reverend Jackson Sr called for an end to abuse of police powers

By Tolga Cakir

Reverend Jackson Sr visited King’s College London. Reverend Jackson made a historical speech to audience of students, academics and representatives of non-governmental organisations to promote good policing, peace, justice and equal treatment for all.

Reverend Jackson is founder and president of the Rainbow Push coalition, is one of America’s foremost religious and political figures. Over the past forty years, he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement in the US. President Bill Clinton awarded Reverend Jackson the nation’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2000.

Reverend Jackson called for an end to ‘racial profiling’ and the abuse of police powers to stop and search, which have undermined trust in the police on both sides of the Atlantic. He lunched StopWatch a new coalition of researchers and NGO’ s which has been formed to highlight the abuse of police stop and search powers, to promote good policing and to stimulate research on alternative ways to create safe and peaceful communities.

Some abstracts from Reverend Jackson’s historical lecture

Stop and search public policy is one of the most contentious public issues. Last year alone, 8 million in US and 1 million in UK car stop search took place. Every person has got a right to walk freely without interference of the state furthermore these powers should be used when necessary, proportionate and fair. These fairness should also used in the recently curtailed controversial “section 44” terrorism powers.

Rate of stop and search for Blacks 27 times higher and for Asians 7 times higher than other racial backgrounds.

Being against racial profiling is for police accountability and to increase public trust in the force.

Many lives have been lost by violent crimes; Nazism against Jews is one of them..

Segregation in Africa was one of them.

Nelson Mandela was victim of them.

Many institutions do racial profiling. The leadership in the institutions must be corrected and I believe this must stop, the abuse of “stop and torment us”. For this we need each other. We should all be free and have a right to move freely without any harassment. Democracy promises equality for gender, race and religion.

Christianity is also against racial profiling. We need to change the institutions behaviours, attitudes, laws and justice.

In Britain and in US police racism does exist. UK terrorism act is violated for protesters and religious profiling. This is totally unjust. This builds walls of separation.

We should detect, react and stop this happening.

We should not fear and fight back.

We should learn to live together.

We should fight back for our dream of a new world and new justice.

Keep faith and keep the hope alive.

——————————————————————————————————-

Comments:

Stop Watch: Powers without reasonable suspicion

The focus of community concern has usually been those stop and searches conducted under section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (pace), which requires officers to have reasonable suspicion before conducting a stop and search. However, the police are increasingly using other stop and search powers that carry no requirement of reasonable suspicion. These include the recently curtailed controversial “section 44” terrorism powers which allowed police to stop and search people and vehicles in a designated area without individualised suspicion.

Other frequently used powers are those granted under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which allow police to stop and search individuals without reasonable suspicion “in anticipation of violence” and schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows stops in ports and airports for counterterrorism purposes without reasonable suspicion. Police use of these powers has given rise to similar problems as seen on with section 44: arbitrariness, abuse, lack of monitoring and safeguards, and a disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities.

Ben Bowling : The abuse of stop and search has driven a wedge between police and communities

Ben Bowling, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at King’s College London – also a member of StopWatch – said, “The abuse of stop and search has driven a wedge between police and communities. It is often unfair and ineffective and can be counter-productive. StopWatch aims to monitor the use of stop and search powers and focus research and public policy on developing good policing. Together we can find fairer and more inclusive ways of creating a safer society”.

Rob Berkeley: Any reforms announced should be fair and inclusive

Commenting, Rob Berkeley, Director of the Runnymede Trust, a member organisation of StopWatch, said: “Given the government’s current review into policing in the UK, it is crucial that any reforms announced are fair and inclusive – particularly in relation to stop and search. StopWatch intends to act as a check on government as it carries out these reforms, as well as address the stark ethnic disproportionalities in stop and search”

For more information;

Stop Watch

c/o Runnymede Trust

7 Plough Yard

London

EC2A 3LP

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 0207 377 92 22

Further information can be found at: www.stop-watch.org

October 19, 2010
Why Does Turkey Have The Leverage?

The Gaza flotilla crisis and Ankara’s refusal to accede to American leadership on the Iranian nuclear issue have led Washington policymakers to ask what exactly is going on in Turkey these days and why it seems that our NATO ally is pursuing policies that run counter to American preferences. While Turkey is increasingly confident and prosperous, it is nowhere near the military, political, or economic power that the United States is. How is it, then, that Washington can’t seem to get Turkey to do what it wants?

Most of the responses to this question have focused on Turkey’s emerging foreign policy of “zero problems with neighbors,” its religiously oriented conservative government, and its floundering European Union membership bid. But while these factors are relevant, Turkey’s selective cooperation has more to do with the United States’ foreign policy than with Turkey’s.

Washington’s ambitious foreign policy in the Middle East since September 11, 2001 has increased its dependence on Turkey. Turkey’s geography, its cultural and historical ties to its neighbors, and its status as a member of NATO combine to make it a crucial American partner for ongoing military operations there. Turkey has helped stabilize Iraq’s Kurdish northern region, led the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and brokered negotiations between Israel and Syria.

This dependence means that Turkey can take a harder line against the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) terrorist group based in northern Iraq at the risk of instability there, drive a hard bargain in negotiations over NATO’s missile defense plan, or weaken diplomatic ties with Israel. And because the United States is so heavily invested in the region, Washington can do little but acquiesce to Turkey’s demands and try to get Ankara to support its policies.

Take the Iraq example. In 2007, President Bush was compelled to bow to Turkish demands that the United States’ military share “real-time” intelligence on the PKK in Northern Iraq and to permit Turkish military incursions into Iraqi territory. American officials were hesitant to use scarce resources to counter the PKK in the relatively stable northern part of Iraq amidst widespread violence throughout the rest of the country, but could not afford to lose Turkey’s support for its operations there. Washington capitulated despite its lingering disappointment with Ankara for refusing to allow American forces to use Turkish soil to open a northern front in Iraq in 2003.

Turkey’s outreach to Hamas following its election in 2006, its anti-Israel rhetoric leading up to and following the flotilla incident, and this year’s separate nuclear agreement with Tehran have been met with similar reactions in Washington: helpless frustration.

There are other examples as well including Turkey’s opposition to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s nomination for that position last year and its efforts to lay the pipelines for Russian energy exports to Europe. In each of these cases it is understandable that Turkey is pursuing its national interests, but it is a matter of concern that the United States cannot seem to shape those interests to align more closely with its own.

But doesn’t Turkey need the United States? Yes, but just as American banks were too big to fail, American support for Turkey is too big to be taken away. The problem is not that Turkey no longer benefits from its alliance with the United States, but that the kinds of support that Washington provides to Ankara are not easily leveraged.

First and foremost, as a NATO member Turkey enjoys American security guarantees. While a full-scale invasion by a hostile state is an unlikely scenario, NATO’s invocation of its common defense clause following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks shows that it still pays to be a NATO member.

Turkey also falls under the American nuclear security umbrella and hosts approximately 100 American nuclear weapons on its soil (the exact number is a secret). Turkey’s opposition to recent proposals to remove those weapons demonstrates their enduring value to Ankara.

And while Turkey may be feeling good about its economic performance at the moment, economies fluctuate, and the United States has on several occasions provided both bilateral economic support and loans through the International Monetary Fund to bail Turkey out, most recently in 2002. While Turkey values its NATO membership, its protection under the United States’ nuclear umbrella, and Washington’s economic support, the United States is too reliant on Turkey to credibly threaten to take any of these sources of support away.

This dynamic was on display again in August when reports surfaced that President Obama told Turkish Prime Minister Erodgan that the American-made Predator drones Turkey wants to procure to fight Kurdish insurgents might not be forthcoming if Turkey does not change its policies toward Israel and Iran. It is not surprising that both the White House and Ankara immediately refuted the report in the strongest possible terms.

The point here is not to criticize Turkey’s foreign policy choices, but to show why the United States lacks the leverage to shape those choices. In the short-term, Washington must placate Ankara given its reliance on Turkey in so many areas and the risks associated with alienating its ally. But over the long-term, the United States must craft a more restrained foreign policy that leaves it less reliant on and in a stronger position vis-à-vis its regional allies. Otherwise, Washington will find that Turkey is not the only country that can cooperate just enough to keep American support forthcoming.

— Ben Katcher

thewashingtonnote

October 19, 2010
Turkey’s Prime Minister Points at the US, as a major cause of Mid East terrorism

Reported by: Soha Middle East Correspondent

The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyep Erdogan is currently visiting Pakistan. As part of his tour he has visited many of the flood ravaged areas of the country. He met personally with the victims of the flood and announced there will be more aid for them and he inspected the relief work going on in the areas.

His visit was given due importance in the Pakistani media but it was his bold and loud statements on the political situation of the region that made headlines.

Some media reports published here in Islamabad have claimed that the Turkish Prime Minister had held the ‘International Powers’ responsible for all the terrorism going on in Pakistan, Iran and Turkey.

The Prime Minister while addressing the people of these countries said that they should make it very clear in their minds that all terrorists are not and can never be Muslims.

Erdogan said that the need of the hour was unity and it was the only solution to the turmoil in the region. He said by building better economic relations the countries of the region can appear stronger than any other powerful states of the world.

The next day Prime Minister Erdogan accused the US of supporting the insurgents in Pakistan and Turkey. He obviously pointed towards the Kurds in Turkey and the so-called Taliban in Pakistan.

After the US invasion of Afghanistan the whole region has been in a mess. Most of the countries are battling insurgencies and have tolerated a heavy loss of lives.

Since the US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq many people in the Muslim world have been clearly saying that all was actually a plot to create instability in the Muslim countries.

Opinion polls have also suggested that a large majority of Muslims consider the US the actual cause of the current turmoil in the region.

But this has been the first time that the leader of a Muslim country, besides Ahmedinejad has said something like that loud and clear.

Turkey is a secular country that has always enjoyed cordial relations with the West. It is the only Muslim majority country that has a permanent membership in NATO. Now such a statement from its leader obviously reflects a change in the minds and policies in Turkey.

The Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla and the western prejudice has persuaded Turkey to look towards the East specifically the Muslim world. The cold attitude of Europe on Turkey’s membership into the EU, primarily due to its Muslim identity, had already created gaps.

The statement of Erdogan does not only reflect a change in Turkish thinking but they actually point towards the changing trends in the region at large.

October 19, 2010
Please remove the Turkish flag in your media kit

Martin J. Mawyer – President of CAN
PO Box 606, Forest, VA 24551
Toll Free Phone: 888-499-4226
[email protected]

Dear President of Christian Action Network Martin Mawyer,

As a Turkish American I was simply insulted and outraged when your organization has displayed a Turkish Flag on the SACRIFICED SURVIVORS: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mosque.” documentary movie.

The Republic of Turkey is a unique country that embrace all religions and cultures in the most chaotic region of the middle east. Turkey has been a key strategic ally of the West and the United states since the Korean War and Cold War for decades and serves as a model for other Muslim countries.

Displaying the Turkish republic’s flag on your web site plus on announcements and on the cover of your documentary movie is a insult of a great nation and a quintessential example of fraud perpetrated by uneducated groups to associate the Turkish Republic and her people with terrorists.

As a organization, you have a special responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the information you circulate, especially on an issue as important as to the Republic of Turkey.

We remember those who lost their lives at the WTC , Pentagon and on Flight 93. On that day of September eleven. Thousands of innocent women and men were taken from their families, and their loss leaves a profound sadness in our hearts. On that day we all meet the worst of humanity with the best of humanity. Each of us did our part, and each of us made it a point of personal pride and determination to recreate what had been destroyed and indeed the human spirit is, invincible, because what we stand for can never be destroyed.

We the American Turkish community and Turks in Turkey know too well the pains that terrorist have brought into our peaceful lives. So we stand committed to raising awareness of the hate that terrorist have and we stand committed to eradicating and ending terrorism once and for all.

The American Turkish community expects fair treatment on issue’s that matters to our community.

Our hope is that as we discussed the matter with Mr. Jason Campbell that your group would remove the Turkish flag and that Christian Action Network be objective and share the correct information with the public.

I truly hope that Christian Action Network takes into consideration to remove the Turkish Flag ASAP from the web site and all documentary related materials.

Sincerely Yours,

Dr. Muzaffer Karasulu

Retired Nuclear Physicist and Nuclear Engineer, served 35 years for the US Nuclear Industry.

Thank you

[[petition-3]]

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October 18, 2010
Spy fears as Chinese firm eyes NBN deal

Maris Beck

SECURITY experts are alarmed that a company with links to the Chinese military is bidding to supply equipment to the national broadband network, warning that the equipment could be used to spy or launch cyber attacks on Australian governments and businesses.

The United States’ National Security Agency intervened to block Huawei Technologies’ bids to supply equipment to AT&T last year, threatening to withdraw government business if Huawei was chosen, The Washington Post reported.

The company also has faced opposition from Indian and British intelligence agencies and Australian security experts are voicing similar concerns as Huawei seeks a slice of the $43 billion broadband roll-out.

As the rate of cyber attacks on Australian interests intensifies, an intelligence expert at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Desmond Ball, said he didn’t want to sound alarmist ”but this is the highest order risk that I would see with regard to network vulnerability”.

Bids by Huawei ”would have to be subject to the closest scrutiny but in the end it would be the government’s responsibility to reject such an involvement”.

He said the cyber security debate focused on malicious software but more attention should be paid to hardware, which could carry digital trapdoors. Professor Ball said even the most secure cable systems were vulnerable.

Over the next decade, he said, the US-China relationship would become the most likely source of major international conflict and Australia was a key ally of the US.

Retired air commodore Gary Waters, a former senior official in the Defence Department who now works for consultancy firm Jacobs Australia, said the government appeared not to be taking cyber security seriously enough. ”The threat is increasing and I think this is one of those threats,” he said, adding that an independent private-sector audit would be required of any foreign company ”where alarm bells could sound on cyber security”.

Alan Dupont, director of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney, called for a robust discussion of the NBN’s security risks, saying: ”This is the critical piece of infrastructure that is going to go down over the next 30 or 40 years … there needs to be a broader discussion of the national security implications.”

The executive director of national security policy at Verizon in Washington, DC, Marcus Sachs, said malicious software was easy to hide in hardware and any risk assessment should focus on how much a company could be trusted.

Huawei lost a bid to supply the NBN’s ethernet aggregation equipment and the gigabit passive optical network in June. The contract went to Alcatel-Lucent, a French company.

Huawei, the world’s second-largest telecommunications network provider, is believed to be preparing bids to supply almost all the equipment the NBN needs. Former Victorian minister Theo Theophanous is lobbying Canberra on Huawei’s behalf.

Huawei emphasises that it is privately owned and has released details that show its employees own its shares. But links with the military are persistently reported. According to The New York Times, Huawei’s founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, was an officer in the People’s Liberation Army. China analysts say loan credits from China Construction Bank, which were granted to small companies that wanted to buy Huawei equipment, were not necessarily repaid.

Jeremy Mitchell, public affairs director for Huawei Australia, denied the company was linked to the Chinese government.

He said Huawei guaranteed that its equipment was safe. Despite intelligence resistance, Huawei has supplied equipment to British Telecom. He said Optus and Telstra already used Huawei’s equipment and about 50 per cent of Australians relied on it. A spokeswoman for Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy said the government would ensure that ”national security and resilience issues are addressed in the design and operation of the NBN”.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/spy-fears-as-chinese-firm-eyes-nbn-deal-20101016-16odq.html, October 17, 2010

October 18, 2010