Turkish Forum

Category: Regions

  • PM urges financial responsibility

    PM urges financial responsibility

    Gordon Brown has called for an end to the “age of irresponsibility”, ahead of White House talks with President Bush on the global financial crisis.

    The prime minister told the UN General Assembly that “co-ordinated” solutions to the economic downturn were needed.

    Mr Brown advocated a “new global order, founded on transparency, not opacity”.

    US talks on a $700bn (£380bn) bail-out plan to revive the finance sector have ended in stalemate. Mr Brown is due to meet President Bush at 2120 BST.

    ‘Not just national’

    The prime minister has voiced his support for the proposals put forward by the US government.

    He told the UN: “This cannot just be national anymore. We must have global supervision…

    “The age of irresponsibility must be ended. We must now become that new global order founded on transparency, not opacity.”

    On Thursday, the prime minister urged world leaders not to use the financial crisis as an excuse to abandon efforts against global poverty.

    Desire for stability

    Mr Bush has proposed the US government take on the debts of struggling financial firms in an attempt to keep them afloat and also prevent a recession.

    The prime minister said quick action was needed to stabilise the economic situation and that longer-term reforms to the world’s financial system were also needed.

    “While the problem comes out of America, it has consequences for all of us and every family will want to know that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that there is stability,” he said.

    Other issues on the agenda for the White House meeting are thought to include Iraq, Afghanistan and the situation in Georgia.

    Meanwhile, a survey of 1,012 people for BBC Two’s Daily Politics show suggests 36% trust Mr Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling most to steer the UK’s economy through the downturn.

    Some 30% opted for Conservative leader David Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne, while 5% chose Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg and Treasury spokesman Vince Cable.

    The poll, conducted ComRes on 24th and 25 September, suggests that 24% of people do not know which party offers the best option on the economy. 

    To watch Video: 7636165.stm

     

    BBC 26 September 2008

  • Rice Praises ‘Healing Reforms’ In Armenia

    Rice Praises ‘Healing Reforms’ In Armenia

     

     

     

     

     

    By Emil Danielyan

    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised President Serzh Sarkisian for his efforts to end Armenia’s post-election political crisis and improve its relations with Turkey as they met in New York late Wednesday.

    In her opening remarks at the meeting released by the U.S. State Department, Rice spoke of “healing reforms” which she believes have been initiated by Sarkisian since the dramatic aftermath of the Armenian presidential election. “We believe that you have made some good steps to address this, and so I’m here to build on that and to move forward,” she said.

    Sarkisian, for his part, thanked the United States for its “financial assistance and non-financial help” to Armenia. “They are both important,” he said at the start of the talks held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

    Ever since he took office on April 9, Sarkisian has been under pressure from the U.S. and other Western powers to end his predecessor Robert Kocharian’s harsh crackdown on the Armenian opposition. The crackdown has involved mass arrests and the use of lethal force against opposition demonstrators demanding a re-run of the February 19 presidential election which Washington has described as “significantly flawed.”

    U.S. officials have repeatedly urged the new Armenian administrations to release all political prisoners, abolish severe restrictions on freedom of assembly and engage in dialogue with the opposition led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian. They have said that is essential for the provision of $235.6 million in additional U.S. assistance to Armenia, that was effectively frozen following the bloody suppression of the opposition protests in Yerevan.

    Earlier this month, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) again declined to disburse the first major installment of the five-year aid package earmarked for the reconstruction of Armenia’s rural roads. The $7.5 million tranche was due to be released in May. In a June statement, the MCC board said the Armenian government should do more to address U.S. concerns about the political situation in the country.

    In a statement, Sarkisian’s office quoted Rice as saying that the steps taken by the new Armenian president create a “good basis” for the continuation of U.S. aid. The statement said the two also spoke about U.S.-led international efforts to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, with Sarkisian reaffirming his declared commitment to a “compromise solution.”

    Visiting Baku and Yerevan earlier this month, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza indicated that the OSCE’s Minsk Group, which he co-heads together with senior Russian and French diplomats, will step up its efforts to broker a framework peace agreement on Karabakh before the end of this year. Bryza and the two other co-chairs met Sarkisian in New York earlier on Wednesday. Sarkisian’s office said they discussed the possibility of arranging another meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents.

    Armenia’s unprecedented rapprochement with Turkey, long championed by the U.S., was also on the agenda of Rice talks Sarkisian. According to the latter’s press service, Rice welcomed Yerevan’s overtures to Ankara and expressed hope that Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s historic visit to Armenia will lead to the normalization of relations between the two neighboring states.

    Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan were scheduled to meet in New York on Thursday in an effort to keep up momentum in the Turkish-Armenian dialogue. They were expected to discuss and possibly finalize a joint declaration that would call for the creation of Turkish-Armenian commissions dealing with economic and other issues of mutual interest. According to Turkish press reports, one of those commissions would be made up of historians tasked with studying the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

    The idea of conducting such a study is unpopular in Armenia and especially its worldwide Diaspora. Many Armenian politicians and Diaspora leaders fear that the Turks would exploit it to keep more foreign nations from recognizing the massacres as genocide.

    Sarkisian sought to allay these fears as he spoke before hundreds of Americans of Armenian descent in New York on Wednesday. He described Turkey’s current leadership as “courageous” and said many Turks are now ready to face up to their troubled Ottoman past.

    “We must now think about how we can help Turkish society be more objective towards its own history,” said Sarkisian. “A society of which hundreds of thousands representatives took to the streets [of Istanbul] with banners saying ‘We are all Hrant Dink’ and ‘We are all Armenians.’

    “One thing is clear to me: we must talk about all topics. Only those people who have nothing to say and suffer from complexes avoid contacts, conversations. We have no complexes and our message is clear.”

    Sarkisian also assured Armenian-American activists that Gul is genuinely committed to Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. “I am convinced that now is really the time to solve the problems in Turkish-Armenian relations, and I saw a readiness to do in my Turkish counterpart,” he said. “I felt that he has sufficient courage to make difficult decisions.”

  • MORE SPEED, LESS HASTE RESULTS IN TURKISH NUCLEAR TENDER FIASCO

    MORE SPEED, LESS HASTE RESULTS IN TURKISH NUCLEAR TENDER FIASCO

    By Gareth Jenkins

    Thursday, September 25, 2008

     

    Turkey’s latest attempt to acquire nuclear power resulted in humiliating failure on September 24, when only one consortium submitted a bid to build the country’s first nuclear power plant at Akkuyu, near the eastern Mediterranean port of Mersin.

    In the six months following the announcement of the contract in March, 13 consortia bought tender documents. However, almost all had subsequently expressed reservations about the project; not least about the terms of the state guarantee to buy electricity for the first 15 years of the proposed plant’s operating life. Their concerns were exacerbated by the recent turbulence on the international markets and increased uncertainty about the prospect of securing financing for the project. In the run-up to the September 24 deadline for bids, there were repeated calls for an extension of the deadline pending a resolution of ambiguities in the tender terms and a decline in the turbulence on international financial markets (see EDM, September 23). The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), however, remained adamant that the process would continue as scheduled.

    “Turkey has already waited until very late for nuclear energy. It doesn’t have the luxury of being able to afford a postponement,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared on September 22 (Anadolu Ajansi, September 22).

    As a result of the AKP’s intransigence, all but one of the potential bidders declined to make an offer. Humiliatingly for the government, the opening of the bids at 14.30 on September 24 was carried live on national television. Although officials from the tender commission reported that they had received six responses, it soon became clear from the five slim envelopes and single large parcel sitting on the desk in front of them that they had received only one bid. The five slim envelopes contained letters thanking the commission for its time and politely declining to submit an offer. The sole bidder was a joint venture between the state-owned Atomstroyexport of Russia and the Turkish Ciner Group (NTV, CNNTurk, CNBC, September 24).

    What happens now remains unclear. In theory, the tender process consists of three stages. In the first, the consortium presents the commission with a sealed envelope indicating an intention to bid. In the second stage, the technical details of the bid are forwarded in a sealed envelope to the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEK) to be examined for compliance with the project’s safety standards. If TAEK approves the project, a sealed envelope containing the proposed price of the electricity is opened (Referans, Dunya, Anadolu Ajansi, September 25).

    The AKP appears to have assumed that despite all the expressions of concern, several consortia would present bids and the government would be able to choose the cheapest. When asked by a Turkish journalist whether the single bid meant that the tender would now be cancelled, Haci Duran Gokkaya, the general manager of the state-owned Turkish Electricity Trading and Contracting Inc. (TETAS), huffily replied: “The fact that there was a bid means that the competition process is continuing” (NTV, Anadolu Ajansi, September 24). Gokkaya did not specify the identity of the rival with whom the Atomstroyexport-led consortium is now competing.

    The Turkish media is in doubt about why, alone of all the consortia that bought tender documents, it was the one led by a Russian state-owned monopoly that submitted a bid. Turkey currently obtains almost two thirds of its natural gas and approximately one third of its oil from Russia (see EDM, September 9).

    “The reason Russia was interested in the project was because it is the largest supplier of natural gas to Turkey, which gives it extraordinary bargaining power,” noted columnist Metin Munir in the daily Milliyet. “One of the main reasons the other companies kept their distance was concern about payment for the electricity that they would produce. Russia has no such worries. It is confident that all it would have to do would be to give the government a kick in the backside by cutting off the gas for a couple of days in the middle of winter” (Milliyet, September 25).

    Although it has received less coverage in the Turkish media, a decision by the AKP to award the contract to Atomstroyexport would undoubtedly also have political repercussions. Even before the tension sparked by the war between Russia and Georgia in August, the United States would have been unlikely to welcome Turkey’s choosing the same company that has been so heavily involved in Iran’s nuclear program. In the current political climate, awarding the contract to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant to a Russian company would doubtless be regarded in Washington as not just an economic but also a strategic decision.

    Despite Gokkaya’s comments, the general consensus in Turkey is that the AKP will eventually have to cancel the nuclear power tender. It is currently unclear whether it would simply invite private companies to submit bids in a new tender or whether it would look for some kind of public-private partnership. Although the Nuclear Power Plant Law, which was promulgated in November 2007 (Law No. 5710, published in the Official Gazette, November 21, 2007), provides for the state to build the plant on its own if necessary, the Turkish public sector lacks the expertise to do so.

    Whichever option the AKP decides to take, the result is likely to be a further loss of time and credibility, both of which are already in increasingly short supply. Turkey currently has a total installed electricity production capacity of 40,834 megawatts (MW) (www.tetas.gov.tr); but 13,393 MW is from hydroelectric plants, which can operate only at a limited capacity as the result of declining rainfall. A recent study by the state-owned Turkish Electricity Transmission Company (TEIAS) forecast that, even if the nuclear plant at Akkuyu is completed, Turkey will still face severe electricity shortages over the next decade. The TEIAS study was based on worst case and best case scenarios, taking into account the expected growth in electricity demand over the period from 2008 to 2017. According to the best case scenario, Turkey will add 12,917 MW in installed capacity by 2017. Under the worst case scenario, just 8,599 MW will be added; but the study also found that in order to keep pace with expected demand, the country will need a minimum of 22,000 MW in extra capacity by 2017; and if the economy continues to grow at a reasonable rate, it is more likely to need an additional 34,155 MW.

    “Whatever we do, we face a crisis,” noted Songul Selvi in a commentary on the report in the daily Dunya. “The only question is how bad.” (Dunya, September 25).

  • book in german on turkish-european jews and the holocaust

    book in german on turkish-european jews and the holocaust

    From: erdalkaynar@gmx.net
    List Editor: Mark Stein <stein@MUHLENBERG.EDU>
    Editor’s Subject: H-TURK: book in german on turkish-european jews and the holocaust [E Kaynar]
    Author’s Subject: H-TURK: book in german on turkish-european jews and the holocaust [E Kaynar]
    Date Written: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:47:01 -0400
    Date Posted: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:47:01 -0400

     

    Guttstadt, Corry Cover: Die Türkei, die Juden und der Holocaust

ISBN 978-3-935936-49-1 | 520 Seiten | erschienen September 2008 | 26.00
€ / 46.00 sF | lieferbar

Zum Buch:
Ab 27. September 2008 im Buchhandel - Vorbestellungen sind möglich.

Die erste Generation türkischer Migranten in Westeuropa war
mehrheitlich jüdisch. 20 bis 30.000 Juden türkischer Herkunft lebten
während der Zwischenkriegszeit in verschiedenen europäischen Ländern,
wo sie eigene sephardische Gemeinden gründeten. Obwohl viele von ihnen
Opfer der Schoah wurden, wurden sie in der internationalen
Holocaustforschung bislang kaum berücksichtigt.

Die Autorin untersucht die wechselvolle Geschichte der Juden der
Türkei. Noch gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts hatten die etwa 400.000
Juden des Osmanischen Reiches weltweit eine der größten und blühendsten
Gemeinden gestellt. Die Kriege zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts sowie der
forcierte Nationalismus der neu entstehenden Nationalstaaten trieb viele
von ihnen in die Emigration. In zahlreichen europäischen Metropolen
entstanden türkisch-jüdische Gemeinden, die ihre eigenen kulturellen und
sozialen Strukturen hervorbrachten. Während des Nationalsozialismus
wurden viele ihrer Mitglieder Opfer der Judenverfolgung, obwohl sie als
Angehörige eines neutralen Staates speziellen Bedingungen unterlagen.

Das Buch geht dem Schicksal türkischer Juden in verschiedenen
europäischen Staaten unter der NS-Herrschaft nach. Besonderes
Augenmerk liegt dabei auf der widersprüchlichen Politik der Türkei, die
zwar einerseits verfolgten deutsch-jüdischen Wissenschaftlern und
Künstlern Exil gewährte, andererseits jedoch wenig unternahm, um ihre
im NS-Machtbereich befindlichen jüdischen Staatsbürger zu retten. Auch
innerhalb der Türkei wurden Juden durch eine Sondersteuer faktisch ihres
Besitzes beraubt, sodass die Mehrheit der verbliebenen Juden der Türkei
nach Gründung des Staates Israel dorthin emigrierte.

Das Buch schließt nicht nur eine wichtige Forschungslücke, sondern
erhält vor dem Hintergrund eines erstarkten Antisemitismus in der
Türkei sowie der Diskussion um das Holocaustgedenken in der
Migrationsgesellschaft eine besondere Aktualität.

„Nach unserer Kenntnis ist dies die wichtigste Arbeit über die
sephardischen Juden türkischen Ursprungs, die Opfer des Holocaust wurden“
(Michael Halévy).
  • Baku denies Armenia will host Nabucco

    Baku denies Armenia will host Nabucco

    BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept. 24 (UPI) — Azerbaijani officials Wednesday said there are no plans to alter the route of the proposed Nabucco pipeline through Armenian territory.

    Turkish media had reported Ankara spoke with officials in Armenia about the possibility of altering the Nabucco route to Europe.

    Construction on the 2,000-mile pipeline from Caspian gas fields to Europe is slated for 2009. Azeri officials, however, denied the plans included Armenia, Trend Capital News reported.

    “The route of Nabucco has already been determined. It will run through territory of Azerbaijan and Georgia, onwards to Turkey, Greece up to Italy,” said Ali Hasanov with the Public Policy Department in Baku.

    Hasanov said Baku “has repeatedly stated” it will not deal with Armenia until it releases territory Azerbaijan claims is under occupation.

    Europe and the United States back development of the Nabucco pipeline as a means of easing Europe’s dependency on Russian energy.

  • Turkey, Azerbaijan gas talks stall

    Turkey, Azerbaijan gas talks stall

    ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 24 (UPI) — Talks between Azerbaijan and Turkey over price mechanisms and gas supplies through the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline have stalled, officials said Wednesday.

    A contract for Turkey to receive natural gas from western routes runs out in three years, leaving Ankara scrambling to secure additional supplies. The price offered from Ankara for supplies from the BTE pipeline, also known as the South Caucasus pipeline, was not acceptable to Baku, the Turkish Daily News said Wednesday.

    Turkey argues the price mechanism is justified because of the relatively direct route of the pipeline.

    Ankara had looked at the 430-mile pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey through Georgia as a means to shore up its natural gas reserves. The pipeline has pumped gas to Turkey since 2007.

    Baku would have to hike its domestic gas price and rely on Russian gas if it were to funnel additional gas reserves through the pipeline.

    Officials with BP, a major shareholder in the BTE consortium, said the Turkish offer was too low and favored pressure from Baku to ramp up the price.