Category: Regions

Turkey deports 600 Syrian refugees following protest over living conditions, official says

Turkish FM denies reports of forced evacuations, says 50-60 Syrians returned voluntarily; UNHCR reports riots in Jordan refugee camp.

By Reuters and The Associated Press

Syrian refugees make their way in flooded water at a temporary refugee camp, in the eastern Lebanese town of Al-Faour near the border with Syria, January 8, 2013. Photo by AP

Turkey deported at least 600 Syrians staying at a refugee camp near the border after they clashed with Turkish military police in a protest over living conditions, a Turkish official said on Thursday in remarks disputed by the country’s foreign ministry.

“These people were involved in Wednesday’s violence, they were seen by the security cameras in the camp,” an official in the camp told Reuters by telephone. “Between 600 and 700 have been deported. The security forces are still looking at the footage, and if they see more they will deport them.”

Turkey’s foreign ministry, however, denies forcibly deporting the Syrians and said about 50-60 had returned to Syria voluntarily.

“Some people have returned since last night, the numbers are closer to 50 or 60, and yes some of these may have been involved in the provocations from Wednesday but they returned of their own free will,” foreign ministry spokesman Levent Gumrukcu said on Thursday.

The United Nations refugee agency voiced deep concern on at the reports of mass deportations of Syrians from Turkey and said it had taken up the issue with Turkish authorities.[1]

“UNHCR is very concerned with reports of a serious incident and allegations of possible deportations from Akcakale Tent City in the past 24 hours,” Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency is reporting that a riot broke out at a refugee camp for Syrians in Jordan after some of the refugees were told they could not return home.

Ali Bibi, a UNHCR liaison officer in Jordan, says it’s unclear how many refugees were involved in Thursday’s melee at the Zaatari camp. The riot broke out after some Syrians in the camp tried to board buses to go back to their country.

He says Jordanian authorities refused to let the buses head to the border because of ongoing clashes between the rebels and President Bashar Assad’s forces in southern Syria, just across the border from Jordan.

Bibi says there were no immediate reports of injuries. He says Jordanian authorities promised to organize the refugees’ return home at another time.

In Damascus, activists say Syrian rebels are attacking army checkpoints in and around a key southern town that is a gateway to the capital. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says rebel attacks are under way in Dael and surrounding areas.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activists group, says regime bombardment of Dael killed at least three people on Thursday. Dael lies in the strategic Daraa province, which borders Jordan.The fighting comes as Mideast powers opposed to President Bashar Assad have stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels in coordination with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the Syrian capital.

That’s according to officials and military experts who spoke to the Associated Press in Jordan. The UN says Syria’s two-year civil war has killed more than 70,000 people.

via Turkey deports 600 Syrian refugees following protest over living conditions, official says – Middle East – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

March 29, 2013
Turkey could help kick-start Cyprus

EUROZONE CRISIS

Turkey could help kick-start Cyprus

Turkey supports northern Cyprus while Greece backs the southern Republic of Cyprus. While Greece is bankrupt, Turkey could help the island bounce back. But only a round of extreme diplomacy could make it happen.

The financial crisis has hit the southern part of divided Cyprus with full force. While a bailout package was finally agreed on at the last minute, the Republic of Cyprus now has to begin the painful process of adapting to the economic situation – just like Greece has had to do. Yet in Cyprus’ Turkish-controlled north, the financial crisis is barely noticeable.

It’s not surprising as Turkey is booming economically, with money regularly flowing across the Mediterranean to the northern part of the island. Without these subsidies, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is not recognized by the international community, could not survive. Yet many Turkish Cypriots would like to liberate themselves from dependence on Turkey, and even voted for reunification with their island neighbors in 2004. Had Greek Cypriots not rejected the plan by a large margin, northern Cyprus would now be a part of the European Union – and thus also a part of the eurozone crisis.

No gloating over Cyprus’ failed economy

The crisis in the Turkish-controlled northern part of the island can mainly be felt in the gaming sector. Since gambling if off limits to citizens of the north, they rely on income from tourists from the southern part of the island. Mesut Sahin, who owns Saray Casino, said revenues have dropped 50 percent since the start of the financial crisis. He added, with sincerity, that he hopes the south will recover quickly.

Ilke Gürdel, a Turkish Cypriot, said there is no reason for Turks in the north to gloat. He said the situation in the north may be better than the south, but it’s still not brilliant, adding that he feels sorry for Greek Cypriots struck by the crisis.

Capital controls limited withdrawals to 300 euros

Turkish Cypriots are now happy not to be a part of the eurozone, placing their confidence in the Turkish lira. But that has not always been the case, said Turkish publicist and Cyprus expert Ayla Gürel.

“The southern part of the island always used to be financially better off than the Turkish north; that’s why the north would always look longingly at the southern standard,” she pointed out. “But since Cyprus’ bankruptcy, this attitude has changed drastically. Now we are quite happy that the island was not reunited in 2004. Otherwise, we would have plunged into the crisis as well.”

Turkey’s role

Despite strained relations between the north and the south, there have also been times when the two parts of the island have cooperated – such as after the explosions at an ammunition depot in 2011. At the time, the Greek Cypriots had to deal with regular power outages. In response, northern Cyprus agreed to temporarily provide electricity. This kind of cooperation is essential during times of crisis, said Harry Tzimitras, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, which mediated between the two parts of the island as the peace plan was being drafted for Cyprus in 2004.

Tzimitras said strained diplomatic relations between northern and southern Cyprus are no answer for the indebted south. He observed that the south is under pressure to reconsider its “friendships” after some countries left it in the financial lurch. This could possibly lead to closer relations with Turkey, he said, but Ankara would also have to show its willingness by opening up harbors and airports to the island’s south. Both sides would have to put in a lot of diplomatic effort, but such cooperation would not be easy and is still a long way off, Tzimitras said.

Trucks loaded with money ensured banks had cash for customers

Common interests

Potential for conflict clearly exists, as one recent episode demonstrated. One suggestion for saving Cyprus’ teetering economy is exploiting the Aphrodite gas field in Cypriot waters. But Turkey has said Cyprus may not go it alone and is demanding a say in the matter. Officials in the south do not agree. “It’s one of the most difficult matters to solve, yet cooperation between southern Cyprus and Turkey could bear the most fruit,” Tzimitras stressed.

Another possibility, which Irsen Kücük, Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, has repeatedly proposed, is the construction of a water pipeline slated for 2014. In the future, water is to be pumped from Turkey to the northern part of the island. The dry south could also use more water, but the southern Cypriot government does not want it to come from Turkey.

Even if such proposals are not welcomed wholeheartedly, at least Cypriots are considering them. That was unheard of in the past, said Tzimitras, who is Greek. “Even with solutions that would work and be acceptable for both sides, things would have to be taken one step at a time,” he noted. “A nearly 40-year-old history cannot be changed overnight.”

Cyprus – like other EU nations – has felt the eurozone crunch

The crisis bringing people closer?

Something positive could come out of the financial crisis for southern Cypriot-Turkish relations, said Turkish Cypriot Gürdal – such as the realization among Greek Cypriots that reunification would have been the smarter solution for the island. For him, it’s clear that “if we had reunited back then, the South would not be in the hole it’s in. Perhaps it will motivate southern Cypriots to negotiate with Turkey.”

But the central condition for Turkey agreeing to improve relations with the southern part of the island is the recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus by the South. Both sides are a long way off from that, with national pride on the part of the Greeks being a hurdle, said Gürel. After all, she pointed out, the Greeks still see the Turks as occupiers of their island.

DW.DE

March 29, 2013
Mortar kills 20 at Damascus university as Turkey denies expelling refugees

Mortar kills 20 at Damascus university as Turkey denies expelling refugees

Syrian rebels bring war to capital as UNHCR investigates claims that Turkey forced refugees back across border after protest

Martin Chulov in Beirut

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 March 2013 19.34 GMT

A Syrian refugee carries her children near the Turkish border. Ankara denied expelling scores of Syrian refugees after a protest. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty

A mortar strike on Damascus university killed about 20 students on Thursday, exposing the fragility of the capital’s most sensitive zone to attack.

Syrian officials blamed rebel groups for the strike, which wounded dozens more students. The opposition denied responsibility. All the victims had been in an outdoors cafeteria near the heart of the campus. It was the second consecutive day that mortars had hit the city. An attack on Wednesday struck near a hotel, causing damage but no casualties.

The presidential palace has in recent weeks also been hit by rockets and mortars fired by rebel groups, who have consolidated inroads they made earlier this year on the city’s southern and western outskirts.

The groups are a mix of Islamist-leaning and more secular brigades. The jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra is also active, particularly in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp nearer the heart of the city, which it entered in January.

Throughout the first three months of the year, loyalist forces and rebel groups have fought a series of savage battles on the urban fringes, often involving rockets and mortars and air strikes from the regime side. Rebels have been trying to cut off access to Damascus airport and to use the area as staging ground for an assault on the capital, which is protected by two of the Syrian military’s most capable divisions and a large special forces unit.

Loyalist forces also command the high ground around Damascus and use mountains and ridges to shell rebel-held areas.

Central Damascus, despite resounding to the sound of regular incoming and outgoing fire, has not been a main battlezone. Despite prolific military checkpoints, life in the city has appeared more normal than in many other Syrian towns and cities, allowing officials to project an air of “business as usual”.

However, a succession of apparent suicide bombings, including an attack last week inside a mosque that killed a leading Muslim imam, are eroding trust in officials to keep the war far from the most important state institutions.

Large numbers of Damascus residents, including much of the middle class and refugees, have fled the city for Lebanon or Jordan, both of which are now groaning under the influx. Lebanon alone is believed to be hosting 350,000 children of school age. Many thousands more have not been registered by authorities.

Aid dollars have started to reach the sprawling tent cities that are housing the refugees, who number more than one million with those who have fled to Turkey included. The onset of spring, after a sharp but mercilessly short winter, has eased housing fears, but the camps remain in desperate need and often squalid.

Brawls broke out at a camp near the Jordanian border on Thursday and Turkish riot police used water cannons in a camp in Akçakale after refugees protested over the death of a child from a tent fire, in which three other people were also wounded.

The UNHCR, the UN refugee body, said it was investigating claims, denied by Turkey, that up to 60 Syrians from the camp’s 25,000 residents, had been forced to return to Syria after the disturbance.

via Mortar kills 20 at Damascus university as Turkey denies expelling refugees | World news | guardian.co.uk.

March 29, 2013
Turkey’s Big Week Means New Clout In An Emerging Middle East

By Karl VickMarch 28

HAWRE MUHAMED / METROGRAPHY

Kurds celebrate Newroz in the PKK controlled area of Qandil in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan.

A sandstorm was kicking up at Ben Gurion International midday last Friday, winds bad enough to cancel the departure ceremony for President Obama’s winning trip to Israel. But in a sheet metal trailer on the tarmac, Obama was calming another storm, three years along and finally running out of bluster. In the box with him was his host, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Nentayahu. In Netanyahu’s hand was a cell phone. And on the other end of the line was the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As arranged in advance by Obama and diplomats from all three countries, Bibi read out an official apology for the nine lives lost on the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara in May 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the aid ship en route to breaking Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu’s words, along with a promise to compensate survivors and continue to ease strictures on the Palestinian enclave, ended a diplomatic cleavage seated in sheer cussedness, and restored what one Israeli diplomat calls “the triangle” – made up of the two most stable and prosperous democracies in the Middle East, and the superpower that needs them on the same side.

If that was all that went Erdogan’s way last week, he might have come in second to Obama, whose tour of Israel left the supposedly wary Jewish population something close to twitterpated. But Erdogan had already pulled off a diplomatic coup of his own — and just one day earlier: Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned head of the insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by its intials in Turkish as the PKK, had agreed to end the country’s bloody 29-year civil war and bring the Kurdish struggle into the realm of representative politics. In the space of two days, Erdogan – once jailed himself for an Islamist proclamation – had brought to life the foreign policy slogan of Turkey’s modern founder, the rigorously secular Kemal Ataturk: “Peace at home, peace abroad.”

(MORE: New Day for the Kurds: Will Ocalan’s Declaration Bring Peace With Turkey?)

The story of “Turkey’s Triumphs” appears in this week’s print edition of TIME, available to subscribers here. It lays out the implications for the American strategy in the Middle East of the tentative rapprochement between Jerusalem and Ankara — closely allied before Erdogan’s rise to power. Burying the hatchet should pay off first for Washington in Syria, the country coming apart between Israel and Turkey. Both have huge stakes in the outcome of that Arab nation’s civil war, but while Turkey has been deeply involved in sheltering and arming the rebels, Israel has taken pains to stand back, keenly aware that even the perception of support for the uprising will be unhelpful, given its standing in the region. The exception is Syria’s arsenal of advanced weapons, including chemical and biological arms; the Jewish state has already interceded once , and says it will again if they detect them falling into the hands of Hizballah or other terror groups.

But history may well show that, if it holds, the pact with the Kurds will be of greater significance. Turkey is home to perhaps half of the world’s at least 30 million Kurds, the largest population still seeking a homeland of their own, after being promised one, then denied it, as European leaders were drawing the map of the Middle East after World War I. The uprising Ocalan began in 1984 claimed 40,000 lives; it sought secession for most of the war sought. Kurds now say they will be happy with equal rights and some form of cooperation with fellow Kurds across the borders in northern Iraq, western Iran and in Syria – where a Kurdish party allied with the PKK has won a measure of autonomy by keeping out of the civil war. Its accommodation with the PKK may well give Ankara a new measure of influence in what happens with Syria’s Kurds. It already enjoys close ties with Northern Iraq’s Kurdish government, to the point of cooperating on building a pipeline from the oilfields of Kirkuk, bypassing Baghdad. Iraq’s Kurds, in turn, have a history of cooperation with Israel. So in a way, what Obama did in the trailer in the sandstorm on the runway was to close a circle. It’s far from a perfect circle, though, especially given Erdogan’s ardent support for the Palestinians, including Hamas. The day after receiving the apology, he announced he was considering a trip to the Gaza Strip. Washington said it wished he wouldn’t.

But the Turks figure they’re on a roll, as Erodgan’s top advisor, Ibrahim Kalin, told TIME’s Pelin Turgut: ”The apology in particular presents new opportunities for the moribund Middle East peace process, which the Obama administration has tried to revive without much success. We are aware of the obstacles to the realization of the two-state solution, including the occupation of Palestinian territories and the illegal settlements,” Kalin said. ”But it is not impossible to establish peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians, each having its own state and enjoying a free and dignified life.”

via Turkey’s Big Week Means New Clout In An Emerging Middle East | TIME.com.

March 29, 2013
Israel, America and Turkey: A useful first step

Warmer American relations with Israel help to end its Turkish tiff

Mar 30th 2013 | ANKARA AND JERUSALEM |From the print edition

FOR the first time in years, the whiff of a wind of change is wafting through Israel’s diplomatic air, thanks to Barack Obama’s recent visit. The message the American president imparted was that he is determined in his final term to have another go at making peace between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Though full of the usual bromides, his speech to a gathering of young Israelis percolated down to the undecided centre of Israeli politics, where distrust for Mr Obama—and for Palestinians—has been strong. The American president may have persuaded at least some such Israelis to ponder again the need for a Palestinian state.

The trip’s more tangible result, however, was Mr Obama’s apparent success in persuading Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to apologise at last to Turkey for the death of nine Turks killed by Israeli commandos in 2010 stopping a flotilla of Turkish boats from reaching Gaza.

“Israelis love Turkey,” declares the blurb of an Israeli package-tour operator, hoping to promote the resort of Antalya once again as Israel’s favourite tourist destination. On the strength of Mr Netanyahu’s apology, he may be onto a winner.

Just before Mr Obama flew out of Israel, he handed Mr Netanyahu his telephone to speak to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister. After nearly four years of estrangement, America’s two most powerful and closest allies in the Middle East agreed to co-operate again. Once Israel’s compensation to the Turks has been settled, diplomatic relations will be restored.

Both sides have much to gain. Israel hopes Mr Erdogan will rescue it from its isolation since the downfall of friendly regional autocrats, in particular in Egypt. The two countries may now be able to share copious amounts of natural gas recently found in the eastern Mediterranean. They should resume co-operation in military intelligence. And Israelis may soon again enjoy those tours. Even when relations were at their nadir, military sales continued, as did foreign trade worth $3 billion a year.

All the same, the Israeli-Turkish strategic relationship is unlikely to be wholly restored, not least because of Mr Erdogan’s sharp tongue. A month ago he called Zionism “a crime against humanity”, so threatening to ruin America’s bridge-building. “The 1990s are over,” says Nimrod Goren, an Israeli academic who kept open a discreet channel when even Turkish and Israeli spies refused to exchange words.

And a host of regional issues may yet prise them apart. Mr Netanyahu will turn a deaf ear to Mr Erdogan’s call for Israel to vacate East Jerusalem and the West Bank and to open up Gaza entirely. In his written apology, Mr Netanyahu said he would ease restrictions on supplies to that Palestinian coastal strip ruled by Hamas. But Israel seems bent on keeping up its blockade by air and sea, which first prompted Turkey’s flotilla to try to get there.

Meanwhile Mr Erdogan’s party people hailed the apology as a big victory. “We stood firm and brought them to their knees,” tweeted a young party activist. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, cut short a trip to Poland to bask in credit back home. Turkish newspapers announced that Mr Erdogan was planning a triumphal visit to Gaza, not least to see a new hospital being built by the Turks.

Unless Mr Erdogan softens his rhetoric, a showdown with Israel could easily recur. Moreover, Turkey’s prime minister is likely to rebuff Mr Netanyahu’s request to help persuade Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions. Israel has had to discount hopes that the Turks would let its fighter aircraft fly over its territory. And it has so far failed to convince the Turks that Iran is close to getting a bomb. “Even if it could,” says Alon Liel, an Israeli ex-ambassador to Ankara, “Turkey doesn’t believe it is the target.”

At least over Syria there may be scope for co-operation. After months of hesitation, Israel now agrees with Turkey that President Bashar Assad must go. Both Israel and Turkey agree that al-Qaeda should be prevented from reaping the fruits of Mr Assad’s fall. Israel, says Mr Liel, might even endorse Syria’s takeover by a Western-leaning Islamist government—at any rate, if it were modelled on Turkey’s.

From the print edition: Middle East and Africa

via Israel, America and Turkey: A useful first step | The Economist.

March 29, 2013
Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey Sign Cooperation Plan

The foreign ministers of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey have signed a wide-ranging plan to expand cooperation between their departments.

Georgia’s Maia Panjikidze, Azerbaijan’s Elmar Mammadyarov, and Turkey’s Ahmet Davutoglu held talks in the Georgian port city of Batumi on March 28.

At a joint press conference after the meeting, Panjikidze said the two-year cooperation plan would strengthen relations between the three countries.

Mammadyarov said their cooperation was “an example for the whole region.” Davutoglu said the trilateral meeting was a “unique cooperation platform.”

The first such trilateral foreign-ministerial meeting was held in Trabzon, Turkey, in June 2012.

The next one is expected to be held in Azerbaijan later this year.

Based on reporting by ITAR-TASS and Apsny.ge

via Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey Sign Cooperation Plan.

March 29, 2013