Iran and Turkey resume their trade of gold for natural gas and make USD 120 million deal in February, circumventing tough US sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear energy program, Press TV reported.
Turkey exported almost USD 120 million worth of gold to Iran in February after it announced a moratorium in January, Reuters reported.
Data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TUIK) showed that Ankara sold no gold to Tehran in January as banks and dealers implemented the February 6 US sanctions targeting Iranian oil revenues.
The US and its European allies have imposed illegal unilateral sanctions against Iran based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
On February 6, 2013, the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions targeting Iranian oil revenues. The sanctions prevent Iran from gaining access to earnings garnered from its crude exports.
One Istanbul gold trader asking not to be named, said, “Due to the sanctions, nobody wants to attract attention. That may be the reason why exports stopped to Iran in January.”
“However, trade with Iran continues; there will always be transfers. Looking at this year’s figures, the February exports to Iran are quite low, so it shouldn’t cause issues,” he added.
On January 4, 2013, Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan slammed European Union pressures on Ankara to stop gold-for-gas trade with Iran, saying the EU demand would fall on “deaf ears.”
On December 26, 2012, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Ankara would keep buying natural gas from Iran regardless of Western sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
via Iran, Turkey resume gold trade despite US sanctions – Trend.Az.
During his recent visit to Israel, President Barack Obama pulled off a major breakthrough in relations between Israel and Turkey. After forging very close ties during the 1990s, Jerusalem and Ankara have of late gone their separate ways. The estrangement peaked as a result of Israel’s 2010 interdiction of the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship that was attempting to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli operation resulted in the death of nine activists on board the vessel. The Turkish government was incensed, and an Istanbul court went on to indict four Israeli commanders allegedly responsible for the mission.
On March 22, Obama succeeded in orchestrating a phone call from Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Netanyahu apologized for the loss of life on the Mavi Marmara, a gesture that sets the stage for the repair of relations between the two countries.
This breakthrough, however, is only a tentative beginning; the rupture between Israel and Turkey runs deep. Unless Netanyahu’s apology is followed by a robust action plan for rekindling cooperation between the two countries, the current opening will prove nothing more than a fleeting flirtation.
For the better part of a decade, Turkey and Israel have been growing apart politically. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party has Islamist leanings; confrontation with Israel is part of its popular appeal. The A.K.P. caters to a more conservative and religious cross-section of the Turkish electorate than the secular governments that preceded it. Indeed, Erdogan has undermined the political strength of Turkey’s traditional power base: the business elite and the military. The Turkish military has long had strong ties to Israel’s security establishment, meaning that its diminished domestic influence has weakened one of the main institutional linkages between Turkey and Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli politics has been undergoing its own transformation. Netanyahu has presided over a rightward shift in the Israeli electorate, producing governments committed to expanding Israeli settlements on the West Bank. By diminishing the prospects for a two-state solution, this stance has alienated the Turkish government as well as its electoral base. Iran’s nuclear program and the turmoil arising from the Arab Awakening have contributed to a siege mentality among many Israelis, weakening moderates who lament Israel’s growing international isolation.
With Turkish and Israeli politics heading in opposite directions, a meaningful and lasting repair of relations will be an uphill battle. Especially when it comes to the peace process and the fate of the Palestinians, Ankara and Jerusalem are miles apart. Turning back the clock is impossible; the traditional Turkish and Israeli constituencies in favor of strong ties are today too weak. Instead, a new partnership must be built from the ground up.
The new partnership should rest on three pillars, all of which entail concrete acts of cooperation.
First, Turkey and Israel should closely coordinate their efforts to contain the conflict in Syria and facilitate the prompt downfall of the Assad regime. Ankara and Jerusalem should share intelligence, team up to prevent arms flows to Hezbollah and other extremist groups, and work together to aid the Syrian opposition.
Over the horizon, Israel has a strong interest in securing a post-Assad Syria in which Turkey enjoys broad sway. The likely alternatives are chaos or a regime under the influence of radical forces. In the meantime, Israeli willingness to host Syrian refugees would improve its standing throughout the region.
Second, Turkey and Israel should further deepen their economic linkages, nurturing new constituencies in favor of a lasting rapprochement. Even since the Mavi Marmara incident, trade and investment between the two countries have continued to expand, a clear sign that private sectors on both sides are hungry for more commerce. Flights between Turkey and Israel are increasing in number. Jerusalem has also broached with Ankara a proposal to build an underwater pipeline from new Israeli gas fields in the Mediterranean to Turkey, affording Israel access to Europe’s lucrative energy market. Such joint projects would provide a firmer societal foundation for political reconciliation.
Third, Turkey and Israel, with support from the United States and the European Union, should launch a regional forum to address urgent issues of common concern, such as the violence in Syria, its implications for Lebanon and Iraq, and Iran’s nuclear program. Egypt should be at the table, and drawing Cairo into this forum would help anchor the country’s new leadership in regularized regional engagement. Israeli movement on the Palestinian peace process would help immeasurably in improving the prospects for constructive dialogue.
Progress on these three fronts is urgent. Netanyahu and Erdogan are both taking political risks by reaching out to each other. Their bold stroke may come to naught unless it is followed up by demonstrable cooperation between their two countries.
Charles Kupchan is a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Soli Ozel is a lecturer at Kadir Has University and a columnist for the newspaper Haberturk.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on April 2, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune.
Patriot missile installation is pictured at a positions near the city of Kahramanmaras, Feb. 23, 2013. Germany’s defence minister inspected Patriot missile batteries close to the Syria-Turkey border. (photo by REUTERS/Axel Schmidt) Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/american-middle-east-policy-turkey-nuclear-bombs.html#ixzz2PDsVinVg
By: Kadri Gursel for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse. Posted on March 31.
In recent years when the AKP government gave priority to developing strategic ties with the Baath regime, the neo-Islamic political class that rules Turkey did not think of chemical weapons and ballistic missiles in the Syrian army inventory as a strategic threat against Turkey.
About This Article
Summary :
Turkey once sought a nuclear-free region but now covets the protection from its neighbors that is afforded by US nuclear bombs, writes Kadri Gursel.
Original Title:
Middle East Policy Under Protection of American Bomb
Author: Kadri Gursel
Translated by: Timur Goksel
They thought at the time that Turkey, by using its soft power, was actually transforming Syria and even on the verge of integrating it. Visas were abolished between the two countries and contacts reached unheard of levels.
For example on Dec. 22-23, 2009, in “The First Session of the Turkey-Syria High Level Strategic Cooperation Council” held in Damascus, 50 accords, memorandums of understanding and cooperation protocols were signed by two countries on education, culture, commerce, security, health, irrigation, agriculture, mass housing and other fields.
We are talking of the not too distant past, when many were gushing with praise for Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s patented political strategy of “Zero Problems With Neighbors.”
The joint communique of the meeting had a paragraph that revealed an interesting paradox:
“The parties, agreeing on the necessity of purging the Middle East from nuclear weapons, have reviewed latest developments on the ongoing dialogue in the context of Iran’s nuclear program. With the conviction that all countries have the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes we have emphasized the importance of finding a diplomatic solution to this question.”
The paradox that called for clarification was NATO-member Turkey, jointly with anti-West Syria, declaring its wish for “a Middle East purged of nuclear weapons.”
“Nuclear weapon-free Middle East” was one of the themes of the anti-Israel policy that peaked between the Davos confrontation of January 2009 and the Mavi Marmara events of May 2010. Basically, there was nothing strange with that expressed wish. Everyone, at least a vast majority, would want to see the Middle East cleansed of nuclear weapons. But when it is Turkey that asks for it, one has to pause and think. Turkey is one of two countries in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons on its soil. That Israel is a nuclear power is a secret known to all in the world. That Turkey has American B61 nuclear bombs on its territory is also known by all, but disregarded.
The difference between Turkey and Israel is that the nuclear bombs deployed at Incirlik base near the southern city of Adana are not Turkish but American property. These are air-launched gravity bombs and their quantity changes “according to need.” B61s are the forward deployed elements of the nuclear umbrella the US provides for its NATO allies.
B61s were deployed at Incirlik during the Cold War years to balance Soviet tactical nuclear weapons and they are still there. According to reliable sources, Turkish pilots are not trained on B61s and Turkish F-16s don’t have the capability of delivering B61s.
In addition to Turkey, these bombs are deployed in territories of four other US allies: Belgium, Holland, Germany and Italy. All, except Italy, now don’t want these weapons on their soil.
But there is no likelihood for Turkey to adopt such a position. To the contrary, actually.
The B61s that are still offsetting the Russian tactical nuclear weapons, as they were in the past, now have an increasingly important role for Turkey in the new Middle East geopolitics: To deter Syria and Iran. The Syrian situation is well known. Since the uprising and the civil war than ensued in Syria, Turkey, which until recently tried to transform that country with its soft power and strategic cooperation, is now resorting to all possible means, except to openly declaring war, to topple the regime in Damascus and replace it with a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated fraternal regime. Turkey, aware that its approach is seen as hostile, is now wary of Syria’s chemical weapons and ballistic missiles. Against this threat, Ankara asked for NATO protection and the Western alliance deployed Patriot batteries around three cities close to Syria.
On the other hand, despite all objections, Iran is making headway in becoming a new nuclear-armed power of the Middle East. No doubt a nuclear-armed Iran will constitute a strategic imbalance for Turkey in the Middle East geopolitics. For a long time, as a political choice prompted by the “zero problems” policy, Turkey ignored this threat. The engine of Ankara’s “zero problems” approach to Iran was to advocate a solution to the international crisis brewing around the Iranian nuclear program that would ensure a change of the global nuclear order, to the benefit of developing powers like Turkey.
Three years ago on May 14, 2010, the declaration that Turkey, at that time challenging the global nuclear order, pronounced to the world from Tehran (along with Brazil and Iran) was a part of this strategy. Acting with the same philosophy, on June 9, 2010, Turkey voted against a UN Security Council resolution that called for aggravated sanctions against Iran’s suspicious nuclear program.
Three years after the Tehran Declaration and the negative vote at the Security Council, Turkey, far from challenging the global order, is feeling more secure under the protective wings of precisely that order against a threat from Iran.
It was Turkey’s Syria policy that led to this situation.
On March 19, in a workshop on “Emerging Powers and the Global Nuclear Order” organized jointly by Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [CEIP] and the University of Brasilia at Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, this subject too was discussed. Turkey-based nuclear weapons were debated in the context of AKP’s ambitious Middle East policy.
Sinan Ulgen, the Director of Istanbul-based Economy and Foreign Policy Research Center [EDAM], who submitted a paper to the workshop, said:
“Ankara, (…) believes that the continued presence of NATO nuclear weapons deters chemically armed Syria and, potentially, a nuclear-armed Iran in the future.”
Turkish officials continue their quiet support for nuclear weapons. While reluctant to discuss these weapons in public, Ankara’s actions suggest that Turkey is taking steps to ensure that it retains the capability to host and deliver US tactical nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future. Despite taking on a more passive nuclear posture since the end of the Cold War, the current difficulties in the Middle East will likely affect Turkey’s thinking about nuclear weapons. As the Syrian civil war worsens, and Ankara continues to grapple with how to deter a Syrian chemical weapons attack, Turkey could opt to harden its support for the forward deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe.”
Ulgen noted that divergent views of Iran and Turkey for solutions in Bahrain and Syria had led to tension between Ankara and Tehran, and this prompted Turkey to withdraw the public support it gave to the Iranian nuclear program.
Turkey, along with treating Israel as whipping boy in 2009-2010 and pressing it with the call for a ‘’Nuclear-free Middle East,’’ is now sharing a new ‘’joint threat” with Israel at a different plane: Iran and its nuclear program.
Certainly a peculiar historic twist.
Let us repeat: This is all because of Turkey’s Syria policy.
As Ozdem Sanberk, a senior, retired Turkish diplomat often says, foreign policy is the art of managing contradictions.
Turkey is hard pressed to manage the phenomenal contradictions between its new and ambitious policy in the Middle East and the NATO membership it needs to alleviate its military capacity deficit.
Kadri Gürsel is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and has written a column for the Turkish daily Milliyet since 2007.
Türk Vatandaşı Ayşe Oytun Mihalik Pakistan’da teroristlere 2.050 Dolar yardım amaçlı para gönderdiği için 5 yıl hapis cezası aldı. Ne diyelim? Darısı Avrupa’da 1 kurşun parası daha diyerek döner satan PKK’lı dönercilerin başına.
O.C. woman who gave money to fund terrorism gets five-year term
Oytun Ayse Mihalik, 40, an Orange County pharmacist, admitted wiring $2,050 to Pakistan to be used to fund terrorist activities. Prosecutors had sought a 12-year prison sentence.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
March 30, 2013
An Orange County pharmacist who admitted to wiring $2,050 to Pakistan to be used to fund terrorist activities was sentenced Friday to five years in federal prison.
Oytun Ayse Mihalik, 40, a Turkish national and a permanent U.S. resident, pleaded guilty in August to one count of providing material support to terrorists for three money orders she sent over a month’s time in late 2010 and early 2011. Mihalik used a false name, “Cindy Palmer,” to send the funds, according to authorities.
Federal prosecutors had asked for a 12-year sentence for Mihalik, alleging that she provided the money to a man she met through a website, believing it was going to be used to harm U.S. troops. She was motivated by a “desire to participate in jihad” and knew the sum was “more than enough to finance an entire operation against the United States military forces,” they wrote, citing her email communications with the man.
They also noted that she had created a “favorite” tab for “The Al Qaeda Manual” on her laptop and in “privacy” mode had searched the terms “true jihad” and “Jihad in Afghanistan” on her Web browser.
Defense attorneys argued she was not motivated by radical ideology but acted during a time of vulnerability in her marriage, after she and her husband had difficulty getting pregnant and then experienced a miscarriage. She accessed the website out of worry for her brother, who was going on a pilgrimage to Pakistan, they contended in court filings.
“A reading of the emails themselves reveals that Ms. Mihalik was being solicited, and even manipulated,” they wrote, asking that Mihalik receive a 24-month sentence.
The woman came to authorities’ attention when her husband, Errol, called Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late 2010 after she moved out of their home for a trial separation, alleging she had married him under “false pretenses” for a green card. He described a new religious fervor in his wife after she took a monthlong trip to Turkey two years into their marriage.
“I go, ‘Listen, did you marry … me for my citizenship and do you want to harm someone here.’ And she looked at me blank and she said, ‘If I have to kill people for Allah, I will,’” Errol said in his initial report, according to a transcript filed with court papers.
Authorities said Friday that despite the small sum, Mihalik’s conduct was a serious crime.
“Money is the mother’s milk of terrorism, and we will move aggressively against those who provide financial support to groups and individuals bent on harming the U.S. and its allies,” Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for ICE’s Los Angeles office, said in a news release.
Mihalik, who was arrested in August 2011 as she was about to board a flight to Turkey on a one-way ticket, is expected to be deported after she finishes her sentence.
U.S. District Court Judge Josephine Staton Tucker handed down the sentence after considering a plea from Mihalik’s husband, who in a letter to the judge called the crime “completely out of character.” He wrote that his wife is “extremely dedicated to her family, work, love for America, and is entirely peace-loving.”
“I have never met such a remarkable individual and [am] completely in love with her,” Errol wrote.
via O.C. woman who gave money to fund terrorism gets five-year term – latimes.com.
The Turkish foreign minister has appealed to his German counterpart to allow Turkish media into the trial of the last surviving member of a neo-Nazi terror cell accused of killing ten people, eight of whom were of Turkish origin.
The request was made during a telephone call and comes after the Munich Higher Regional court rejected a petition by the German government to reserve two seats in the courtroom for the Turkish ambassador, as well as the Human Rights ombudsman of the Turkish parliament.
The court has awarded just fifty permanent courtroom seats to journalists. But Turkish media failed to secure a single one. The court claims it processed applications for accreditation as and when they came in, but politicians and the media have called the process bureaucratic and insensitive.
German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle was keen to stress his commitment to transparency: “Given the unhappy back story to this case, assuring complete clarity and openness in the criminal process involving the awful crimes carried out by the NSU should be a matter of utmost concern.”
Kemal Yurtnac, president of the Overseas Turks and Relative Societies (YTB) said he hoped those responsible would “soon acknowledge their mistakes.”
The NSU terror cell is accused of ten murders. As well as the eight victims of Turkish origin, a Greek man and a German policewoman were also killed. The trial of the last surviving leader of the terrorist cell, Beate Zschäpe, begins on 17 April.
DPA/The Local/kkf
via Turkey appeals for media seats at terror trial – The Local.
Lee Smith says that it wasn’t President Obama who got what he wanted. It was Bibi.
According to Obama’s senior advisers quoted in the New York Times, the president “prodded” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with Obama “raising the importance of a makeup phone call every day he was in Jerusalem.” Netanyahu’s apology, according to the Washington Post, was “bowing to a long-standing Turkish demand.”
The reality is somewhat different than the official administration account. Jerusalem has long been looking to mend relations with its onetime strategic ally in Ankara. Contrary to popular narrative, it was Erdogan who was intransigent—not Netanyahu. Nor was Obama the prime mover here, “prodding” the Israeli prime minister to do his bidding. If anything, it was Netanyahu who used the commander in chief as something like a blunt instrument to force Erdogan to accept the same deal that his government had first put on the table at least 18 months prior: Israel would apologize; it would pay compensation; but it would not, as Erdogan had demanded, end the maritime blockade of the strip.
From Netanyahu’s perspective, it’s all to the good that Obama is getting the credit for the reconciliation. Bibi got what he wanted from Erdogan and gave Obama a big trophy to put on his shelf. The Turkish premier, despite his bluster, has little choice but to swallow it, and the American president now owes Bibi a favor. Netanyahu—often denigrated as a clumsy politician and preachy ideologue—is in fact a much more adroit statesman than he is typically believed to be.
There is a lot of anger against Netanyahu for “apologizing” to Turkey. They cite stories like this, where the families of the terrorists killed on the Marvelous Marbles insist that they will not drop their lawsuit against the Israelis. Or the billboards in Turkey that thank Erdogan for “defeating” Israel. But Israel was not defeated, and her enemies are not emboldened. Saying it doesn’t make it so.
Erdogan wanted a full apology in which Israel took blame for killing Turkish citizens. He didn’t get it. Erdogan wanted Israel to completely lift the Gaza blockade. He didn’t get it. Erdogan wanted Israel to pay millions of dollars in compensation directly to the victims’ families. He didn’t get it.
This was not a win for Erdogan. It is a win for Netanyahu, and a win for Israel. Normalizing relations with Turkey gets one more thing out of the way during a very dangerous time for Israel. The Syrian war is threatening to run over all of its borders, not just the ones with Arab nations. Israel has set up a field hospital on its border with Syria.
Here’s Lee Smith’s conclusion:
What Obama truly deserves credit for—and it’s no small thing—is realizing that an ally in whom he’d invested so much confidence was essentially a blowhard. Moreover, he saw that Israel, with whom he’d had contentious relations, was an ally he could count on. And that’s a very big win in Netanyahu’s column.
I’m sticking with him and Barry Rubin on this issue. It’s a thorn out of Israel’s side, using the time-tested “I’m sorry if what I said offended you” non-apology apology. I can live with it.
via More on the “apology” to Turkey | Yourish.com.
Turkey exported almost USD 120 million worth of gold to Iran in February after it announced a moratorium in January, Reuters reported.
