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Turkey could be America’s most important regional ally, above Iraq, even above Israel, if both sides manage the relationship correctly.

SI slain mother registered ‘single’ for Turkey abode

By CANDICE M. GIOVE

Last Updated: 4:03 AM, February 10, 2013

Posted: 12:38 AM, February 10, 2013

The married Staten Island mother of two slain on a solo trip to Turkey told her overseas landlord that she was single, it was reported yesterday.

Sarai Sierra, 33, said she was a “bekar,” meaning “bachelorette,” when Yigit Yetmez asked about her relationship status a few days before her death, according to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.

Yetmez rented her a place online in Yetmez’s apartment building in Tarlabasi.

The development comes amidst allegations that Sierra cheated on her husband in a bar bathroom with “Taylan K.”

The man, whom she met online four months before her departure, denied the romp, telling police that the two went out to eat several times, his attorney told Turkish media outlets.

SARAI SIERRA Lied about marital status.

SARAI SIERRA Lied about marital status.

Sierra’s body was discovered bludgeoned, bloody, bruised and wrapped in a blanket. It was discovered beneath the Galata Bridge on Feb. 3. Her funeral wil be held Friday at Christian Pentecostal Church on Staten Island.

via SI slain mother registered ‘single’ for Turkey abode – NYPOST.com.

February 10, 2013
The Murder of Sarai Sierra

Canary in the Turkish Coal Mine

The Murder of Sarai Sierra

by VANESSA H. LARSON

On February 2, the body of 33-year-old American Sarai Sierra was found in Istanbul – near a section of crumbling ninth-century, Byzantine-era city walls along the Sea of Marmara, not far from the city’s major tourist attractions – 12 days after she disappeared near the end of a solo trip to Turkey. Although the circumstances of her murder are still being investigated, Turkish authorities have established that the tourist and amateur photographer was killed by a blow to the head.

As an American woman living in Istanbul, I have followed Sierra’s enigmatic disappearance and horrific death with a mix of dread, empathy and a certain feeling of responsibility. Not only has her tragic story touched a nerve among women on both sides of the Atlantic, it has drawn attention to the serious problem of violence against women in Turkey, as well as underlining both the price and privilege of American exceptionalism.

In Turkey and the United States, the news has made headlines in almost every major media outlet, with much of the coverage sensationalistic and highly speculative. In the U.S., related commentary has ranged from discussion over whether or not it is a good idea for women to travel alone to the relative safety of Turkey as a tourist destination. Even when the coverage itself is not sensationalistic, user comments on these news websites often show an appalling degree of ignorance and prejudice towards Turkey and Muslims. (Variations on “What was she thinking, traveling to a Middle Eastern country by herself?” are plentiful.)

The incident is particularly unsettling because Istanbul is quite a safe city, burglaries (including, not long ago, of my own apartment) and petty theft notwithstanding. For a metropolis of more than 13 million, there are very low rates of violent crime: Istanbul’s murder rate is lower than New York’s. In six years living in Istanbul, I have felt less fear for my personal safety, or fear of being mugged – or shot – than when I lived in Washington, D.C. or New York City. In the wake of Sierra’s murder, Turks and foreigners in Istanbul alike thus have expressed dismay at seeing this city and country portrayed, unfairly, by some foreign media as dangerous.

And yet whatever the statistics say, expats in Istanbul – particularly women – have been deeply shaken by the incident, because it has hit too close to home: a young American mother of two, vacationing on her own in Istanbul, who apparently vanished during the middle of the day in a busy, central district of the city. How did she disappear, and what if something like this were to happen to one of us? On the night her body was discovered, the Turkish Twitterverse practically exploded with the news, and I called a close American friend and nearly cried. Even my parents – who have visited me in Turkey several times and who know not to get too alarmed anymore when I get tear-gassed at political demonstrations or when a bomb goes off at a U.S. diplomatic mission – expressed their distress, cautioning me, in stronger terms than they had used in years, to be careful.

At the same time, no one in Turkey can fail to notice that, by virtue of her nationality, Sierra’s case has benefitted from an immense level of publicity and a vast expenditure of investigative resources. Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the region and a popular destination for American tourists, so local authorities cannot afford to leave a stone unturned. In addition to working closely with the FBI, the Istanbul police have set up a special unit to deal with her case, assigning the astonishingly high number of 260 officers to analyze thousands of hours of video footage from some street 500 security cameras. In the meantime, Turkish Airlines, the country’s national airline, agreed to transport Sierra’s body back to the U.S. at no charge.

Would the disappearance and death in Istanbul of a female tourist visiting from, say, Indonesia, or a Moldavan woman working as a housekeeper have received such attention? Alas, the answer to that question must surely be negative. Turkey is a both a destination and transit point for sex trafficking as well as a country where organ smugglers are active; their victims, however, are overwhelmingly from poor countries. Zafer Ozbilici, head of Turkey’s Foundation for Relatives of Missing Persons (YAKAD), recently told the Dogan News Agency that in the last two decades, 90 foreign citizens have gone missing in Turkey – 26 from Somalia alone.

Sadly, Sierra is also not the first foreign woman known to have been killed in Turkey in the last few years: In 2008, Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo (aka Pippa Bacca), an Italian artist who was hitchhiking from Italy to the Palestinian territories in a wedding dress to promote peace, was raped and murdered near the small town of Gebze.

And what of the far too many Turkish women whose lives are taken each year? While Sierra’s and Bacca’s high-profile murders have received disproportionate attention, they cannot be divorced from a disturbing pattern of increased violence against women in Turkey in recent years. Homicides of women in Turkey shot up by a shocking 1400% between 2002 and 2009, when 1126 women were slain. Unlike Sierra and Bacca, however, the vast majority are killed by current or former male partners – often as part of a pattern of domestic violence against which police have not provided sufficient protection – or in family-sanctioned “honor” killings. Though murder rates have come down substantially since 2010 (across the country, 165 women were killed in 2012), the larger picture of gender-based violence remains bleak: in a 2009 survey, 42% of Turkish women said they had been physically or sexually abused by a male partner.

Just as the disappearance and murder of an American has led to far more concerted police efforts than in the majority of missing-person and domestic violence cases in Turkey, it has also given rise to a telling paranoia. After Sierra disappeared, Turkish media organizations entertained numerous speculations about her reasons for being in Turkey, including the idea that she was a spy or was involved with criminal networks. It was briefly even suggested on the website of at least one major newspaper that there might be a connection between her disappearance and the bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on February 1 – an act of terrorism that has since been ascribed, without a shred of doubt, to an outlawed Marxist group (DHKP/C).

While it might seem utterly ludicrous for anyone to suggest that a young woman who worked as a part-time assistant in a chiropractor’s office and who had never before left the U.S. would be an American intelligence agent, such is the perceived power and reach of the United States (and particularly of agencies like the CIA) in Turkey that ideas like this were seriously entertained. After Sierra’s body was found and autopsied, Istanbul’s police chief was obliged to tell local reporters that there was no evidence of her being a spy.

There are still many unresolved questions about Sierra’s death but, whatever really happened, this is at the end the sad story of a young, female American who died overseas in unfortunate circumstances in a country where too many women have suffered from violence. Observers in both the United States and Turkey ought to honor her memory by seeing the larger issues and not making her a cause celebre.

Vanessa H. Larson is a writer living in Istanbul.

February 10, 2013
Turkey-US Tension Develops Over Al-Qaeda Member

By: Deniz Zeyrek Translated from Radikal.

The media coverage of U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone’s meeting with journalists this week focused mostly on the DHKP-C suicide attack [at the U.S. embassy in Ankara], his criticism of the judiciary and Kurdish problems. But the picture the ambassador painted shows that the current state of bilateral ties is not very promising, let alone human rights violations in Turkey. The two countries are deeply divided on Iraq, Syria, Israel and Iran. Now they have also a crisis over al-Qaeda.

About This Article

Summary :Recent remarks by the U.S. ambassador to Turkey suggest that bilateral ties between the two states are waning, with Turkey’s stance toward al-Qaeda member Suleiman Abu Ghaith being a point of contention, writes Deniz Zeyrek.Publisher: Radikal (Turkey)
Original Title:
Turkey-US Tension Over Ghaith
Author: Deniz Zeyrek
First Published: February 7, 2013
Posted on: February 8 2013
Translated by: Sibel Utku Bila

Washington has already complained of Turkey’s failure to take a clear stance against al-Qaeda militants fighting Assad in Syria and its reluctance to fully join the global alliance against the financing of terrorism, especially of al-Qaeda. Nowadays Washington is irked that Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a prominent al-Qaeda figure, is treated as an ordinary asylum seeker in Ankara.

‘Outside actors’ in Syria

The U.S. ambassador may argue that Turkey and the United States have similar approaches on Syria, but the situation on the ground is quite different. In Ankara’s view, the clout of al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Syria and the risk of a sectarian conflict are being exaggerated, but those groups will grow stronger if Assad’s departure is further delayed.

Ankara denies that jihadists are being allowed to use Turkish territory. The United States agrees that foreign groups will become stronger if the transition process is protracted, but is already alarmed over their presence in Syria. Commenting on the issue, Ricciardone said: “It is a complicated question with no easy answers. We are concerned about outside actors. We are worried that they are obstructing and high-jacking the struggle of the Syrian people. That is a very serious worry! The reason why we are so cautious [on Syria] is that we want to make sure of whom we are supporting.”

Terrorist or ordinary asylum seeker?

Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan often accuses Westerners, especially Europeans, of tolerating terrorists active in Turkey. However, the picture that Ricciardone paints indicates that Turkey itself differentiates between “my terrorists and the terrorists of others” when it comes to issues of “terrorism” that Westerners focus on. The ambassador argues that the problem stems from Turkey’s failure to straighten its legislation on terrorism and points to the controversy in Turkey over the draft law on money laundering and terror financing.

A fresh problem that erupted ten days ago has fuelled the debate on double standards. It emerged that Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a senior aide of Bin Laden, had entered Turkey from Iran and settled in a hotel in Ankara. He was detained at the bequest of the United States, but was soon released on grounds he had committed no crime in Turkey. The authorities continue to hold him as “a guest” because he does not have a passport.

Washington has asked to interrogate Ghaith and take him to the United States under an agreement on the extradition of criminals. However, it has not been allowed to do so, with Ankara digging in its heels and asking for some papers. What irks the Americans most is the prospect of Ghaith being deported to Iran or another country of his choice instead of being handed over to them. Tough bargaining over Ghaith is currently under way between Washington and Ankara.

Concerns over a Kurdish state

The United States and Israel both believe that the emergence of a Kurdish state in the north of Iraq will be at odds with their regional strategies. They believe that such a development would divert energy supply routes to the Strait of Hormuz, which is controlled by Iran. The issue has led to disagreements between Ankara and Washington.

Ricciardone’s comments on the topic are extremely delicate but amount to a virtual lesson of foreign policy. Iraq’s territorial integrity, which used to be a “red line” for Turkey back in 2003, is today an indispensable condition for Israel and the United States, who worry that Iraq’s break-up would produce a second large Shiite state alongside Iran and result in full Iranian control over the Persian Gulf.

When Ricciardone says that Turkey should “have access to and become a route for not only 20% of the oil and gas in Iraq but 100%, and that high-quality Turkish goods should be sold not only in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, but also in Basra and Baghdad,” he is in fact criticizing Turkey’s regional vision. He implies that Ankara is failing to see the forest for the trees.

Turkey-Israel tensions

The United States sees good relations between Turkey and Israel as a “must” for its regional strategies and wants Turkey to end the heavy sanctions it is imposing on Israel. Turkey, however, is not only refusing to move an inch back but is adding new sanctions. Most recently, Turkey on Jan. 23 vetoed Israel’s membership in the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), ignoring insistent U.S. advice to the contrary.

The Turkish media had reported that the first foreign trip of new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would be to Turkey, and that Prime Minister Erdogan would visit Washington in February. It turns out, however, that foreign ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu’s recent visit to Washington has resulted in a conclusion that it is too early for Kerry to come to Ankara, and for Erdogan to go to Washington. In response to a question on the issue, Ricciardone said the new U.S. secretary of state had a very busy schedule, that no date had been fixed, and that he would visit when mutual schedules permit. With respect to Erdogan’s prospective visit to Washington, Ricciardone said that “it seems possible this year,” which is a noteworthy expression.

February 9, 2013
Re-Betting on Turkey
By: Kemal Kirişci
During his second term, President Obama has the opportunity to re-invested in the U.S.-Turkish relationship, focusing on a long-time U.S. ally. Kemal Kirişci wrote this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.
- Why is Turkey an important cornerstone in establishing the liberal global order?
- Can Turkey set an example and help spread democratic values to neighboring countries?
- How can the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) boost the U.S.-Turkish relationship?
Download Memorandum (pdf) | Download the Presidential Briefing Book (pdf)

TO: President Obama

FROM: Kemal Kirişci

Turkey is a country that has been a long time ally of the United States with a major stake in the liberal world order. During your first term, you rightly recognized the nation as a Big Bet—paying your first official visit in Europe to Turkey and becoming only the second U.S. president, after Bill Clinton, to address the Turkish Parliament. Turkey was offered a model partnership with the U.S., and great hopes were invested in the relationship. However, reality evolved somewhat differently and a number of Black Swans intervened. The 2010 Turkish vote at the United Nations Security Council against sanctions on Iran accompanied with deteriorating relations with Israel as well as the EU and persistent anti-Americanism among the Turkish public have all led to fears that Turkey is “shifting axis” and being “lost”. Yet, this is only part of the picture.

Your Big Bet on Turkey fostered the development of a close rapport with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, and you made the most of this connection by frequently consulting with one another on world and regional affairs. Turkey cooperated closely with the U.S. on Afghanistan as well as in Iraq. Both countries adopted similar approaches towards the Arab Spring even if Erdogan expressed some virulent frustration with the U.S. for not supporting the opposition against the Assad regime in Syria more forcefully and decisively. There were also modest but important gains made in bi-lateral trade that had constantly been falling in relative terms since the end of the Cold War. This was coupled with field oriented pragmatic cooperation to assist reform in the Arab and Muslim world.

Recommendation:

Clearly, much more could have been achieved and highlighting a more ambitious agenda for U.S.-Turkish relations for your administration is critical. Turkey itself is still a Big Bet if the global liberal order in Turkey’s neighborhood and Turkey’s own membership to that order is going to be ensured. That would also help keep the multitude of Black Swansfrom getting in the way of realizing the grander Big Betsor for that matter Turkey itself becoming a Black Swan.

The time to double-down on Turkey is especially ripe, and a delay could be costly. As Turkish President Abdullah Gul reaffirmed in the January-February issue of Foreign Affairs, “from a values point of view we are with the West”. This opportunity coincides with a time when there are increasing signals from Turkey to reinvest into its relations with the West.

Background:

It is often forgotten that Turkey was a participant in the making of the global liberal order at the end of the Second World War, albeit of course a very junior one. Yet, it was this experience that set Turkey on the unusually long path of becoming a multi-party democracy with a liberal market economy. Indeed Turkey’s transformation was a slow and painfully one with lots of ups and downs. All U.S. administrations from Harry Truman onwards played a role in this process but the most critical one was probably the Clinton administrations. They played a particularly central role in nudging Turkish democracy and economy a little closer to European standards and helped Turkey first to sign a customs union with the EU in 1995 and then eventually become a candidate country for EU membership in 1999 followed by the beginning of accession negotiations. These policies were Big Betsthat handsomely paid off. Both President George W. Bush in 2004 like his successor in 2009 recognized Turkey’s economic and democratic success and hoped that Turkey could set an example for its neighborhood, particularly for the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Actually, some of their hopes can be said to be materializing. Turkey has both economically and politically become deeply integrated with its neighborhood. Turkey’s Gross Domestic Product in 2011 was greater than all of its surrounding eleven neighbors economies put together excluding Iran and Russia. This economy is increasingly becoming an engine of growth for these neighboring countries even if modestly. Turkey’s trade with these countries increased from 10 percent of Turkey’s overall foreign trade in 1991 to 22 percent in 2011 while its trade with the EU and the U.S. has dropped from 50 and 9 percent to 41 and 5 percent respectively. An ever growing number of Turkish companies are investing in most of these countries while Turkey is fast becoming an immigration country and a source of remittances for labor migrants of the region. This kind of economic engagement is having a transformative impact and helping to integrate this neighborhood into the global markets. Turkish government and civil society are also modestly involved in projects and programs assisting political transition and reform. However, Turkey’s both economic and democracy gains remain fragile. Turkey runs an important current accounts deficit and needs to raise its savings levels as well as research and development budgets. The Arab Spring has adversely affected its trade and economic relations with the Middle East. There are also growing concerns about an erosion of the democratic gains achieved in the recent past particularly with respect to freedom of expression and rule of law. The Kurdish question still constitutes a major challenge to long term domestic stability. The constitutional reform process appears to be stuck too.

Conclusion:

At a time when Turkey’s neighborhood is filled with vital challenges, it is of paramount importance that your second administration recognizes the importance of securing Turkey’s commitment to the global liberal order and its potential bearing on the America’s capacity to realize regional foreign policy objectives. There are many ways in which this could be achieved, but the most effective one may well arise from associating Turkey with negotiating a Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA). This is critical because the free trade agreements that the EU signs with third parties have long been a major source of resentment and grievances for Turkey. This is because the customs union requires that Turkey take on all the obligations associated with such agreements without binding third parties to extend any trade privileges to Turkey. So far the EU has not been very responsive to Turkish calls to rectify this situation.

The U.S. is uniquely positioned to help. Seating Turkey at the negotiating table for TAFTA would be unrealistic. However, the U.S. could convince the EU to at least involve Turkey in a consultation process and ensure that as Turkey opens up its markets to the U.S. Turkish businesses can also enjoy better access to U.S. markets. The logic behind why this would be an effective Big Bet is quite straight forward. The more Turkey can participate in TAFTA, the more its economy would grow. The more it grows, the more it can import U.S. as well as EU goods and services. Furthermore, the more Turkey’s liberal market grows, the greater the demands for the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law in Turkey. In turn, with an economy equaling the 6^th largest in the EU and 15^th largest in the world, Turkey’s economic force would benefit the neighborhood as well. In this way not only would Turkey be tied to the liberal global order, but it would also become an even more effective conduit for disseminating liberal economic and democratic values to a neighborhood still struggling to transition from the legacy of command economies and authoritarian political systems.
February 9, 2013
A Look at Turkey’s Past Gives Some Insight Into Its Unresolved Troubles

A Look at Turkey’s Past Gives Some Insight Into Its Unresolved Troubles

By TIM ARANGO

Published: February 8, 2013

ISTANBUL — Two galleries in this city’s old European quarter recently opened exhibitions that showcase the political violence that convulsed the country in the 1970s. The echoes for contemporary Turkey were unmistakable.

SITE Intelligence Group, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Alisan Sanli, identified as the bomber in the embassy attack last week.

On one wall are rows of old newspapers that chronicled through blaring headlines and grainy photographs the bloody street fighting and chaotic demonstrations that culminated in a military coup in 1980.

“Socialist revolution can only be achieved in Turkey through armed victory,” is how one newspaper of the time described the aims of a radical left-wing group that promised to use “revolutionary terror” and “urban chaos” to realize Marxist rule.

That bloody past burst violently into the present with last week’s suicide bombing of the American Embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara. Initially assumed by many to be the work of Islamic extremists, the attack was quickly traced by the authorities to a man who sneaked into the country by boat from a Greek island in the Aegean Sea and was linked to a homegrown left-wing extremist group whose roots lie in the tumult of the ’70s.

As such, the bombing — even though it struck an American target and was motivated in part by American policy in the Middle East — revealed more about modern Turkey, its violent past and potential for instability than it did about the United States’ campaign against terrorism.

“This was no Benghazi,” wrote Ross Wilson, a former American ambassador to Turkey, in an online column for the Atlantic Council, referring to last year’s attack by Islamic extremists on a diplomatic outpost in Libya that resulted in the death of the American ambassador and three others.

For Turkey, the attack was an unpleasant reminder that despite a decade of reforms under the current ruling party, which is rooted in political Islam and headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has yet to fully emerge from its dark past. Coming at a time when Turkey, with its prosperous economy and political stability, is trying to present itself as a model for countries convulsed by the Arab Spring revolutions, the attack served for many Turks as a reminder of the work left to put their own house in order.

“I think what people have forgotten, because of what happened here in the last 10 years, was how violent Turkish politics used to be,” said Gerald Knaus, of the European Stability Initiative, a policy research organization based in Istanbul. “In the last 10 years Turkey tried to emerge from this period of political violence and confront the skeletons in its closet. But we’ve forgotten how many skeletons there were.”

The attack also underscored how Turkey’s rulers sometimes use those skeletons to justify a growing crackdown on dissent, particularly with a campaign against the news media that has Turkey as the world’s leading jailer of journalists — more even than China or Iran.

“If the activist who blew himself up today had possessed a press card, they would have called him a journalist,” Mr. Erdogan said in comments broadcast on Turkish television shortly after the bombing last week that were immediately condemned by the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders.

Before the attack, Turkish security forces rounded up nearly 100 people accused of ties to the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front, the organization the perpetrator belonged to, among them journalists, lawyers, even members of a rock band. The arrests were condemned by human rights groups as another example of Turkey’s broad use of antiterrorism laws to crack down on domestic opponents, particularly journalists and human rights lawyers, with no links to violent activities.

“Turkey’s overbroad antiterrorism laws have been used against an ever-widening circle of people charged for nonviolent political activities and the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression, association and assembly,” Human Rights Watch wrote in a report condemning many of the arrests.

Efkan Bolac, a member of the Contemporary Lawyers Association, was detained in that roundup but was released for lack of evidence.

“A lawyer doesn’t become a rapist if he represents one, or a drug dealer if he represents one,” Mr. Bolac said. “They claim we are members of a terror group, but how is that possible when we spend our entire time at courthouses?”

This week the American ambassador to Turkey, Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., said the F.B.I. was investigating the attack and suggested that the Justice Department might prosecute the group that carried out the bombing.

Yet the attack seemed out of another time and carried a whiff of cold-war-era intrigue, when links between the C.I.A. and Turkey were central to efforts by the United States to counter Soviet influence in the region. It also upended the conventional narrative about modern terrorism. “You’d think 10 years after the war on terror things would be clearer rather than more obfuscated,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University.

In his column in The Hurriyet Daily News, Nihat Ali Ozcan, a security specialist at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara, likened the attack to a “cold-war-style proxy war” that he speculated was the work of Syria, given the historical links between the group and Syrian intelligence. His observation was reminiscent of the paranoia of a bygone era. At one of the art galleries here, newspapers chronicled the 1977 May Day celebration in Istanbul, when leftist groups gathered for a demonstration that turned bloody.

“This attack is a provocation that links all the way to the C.I.A.,” one headline shrieked.

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on February 9, 2013, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: A Look at Turkey’s Past Gives Some Insight Into Its Unresolved Troubles.

February 9, 2013
US-Turkey tensions escalate over Washington’s criticism of Ankara

US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone

Tensions between the United States and Turkey have flared up as Washington says its ambassador to Ankara declared nothing new in his recent critical comments leveled against the Turkish judiciary system.

“This is nothing new from our point of view. We have always been very clear on these issues before the public and during private meetings,” said US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland during her daily press briefing on Thursday.

The report was published by the Turkish daily Hurriyet on Friday.

“Ambassador Ricciardone only repeated what [former] Secretary of State Clinton has already said, and I am sure that Secretary of State John Kerry will say the same things when he has the opportunity to speak in public on these issues,” Nuland added.

On February 5, Ricciardone criticized Turkey’s judiciary for “lengthy pre-trial detentions, lack of clarity in presenting charges,” and “lack of transparency.”

The US ambassador had also denounced Ankara over jailing the country’s military leaders and parliament members “sometimes on unclear charges.”

On Thursday, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told Ricciardone to stop interfering with the country’s judiciary system, saying ambassadors “should stay away from assessments that mean interference in Turkey’s judiciary and domestic affairs.”

According to diplomatic sources, Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu has also expressed Ankara’s discontent with Ricciardone’s remarks during a recent meeting with the US envoy.

A diplomatic official said after the meeting, “We have conveyed our unease with his statements. This is unacceptable, we told him. And we also expressed that this should not happen again.”

Meanwhile, it was also reported that Ricciardone has sent a letter to Huseyin Celik, number two of the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP), to offer an apology for his remarks. However, the US embassy has denied the report.

MKA/HSN

via PressTV – US-Turkey tensions escalate over Washington’s criticism of Ankara.

February 9, 2013