Category: Regions

CYPRUS: Greek Cypriot side remains firm

By Jean Christou

President Nicos Anastasiades on Tuesday met political party leaders ahead of his meeting later with UN Special Adviser Espen Barth Eide where he is due to give an official response for the Greek Cypriot side’s rejection of a proposal for a twin-track process to resolve the hydrocarbons dispute.

After the meeting at the presidential palace, Government Spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said there had been a good exchange of views with the party leaders on the argument the Greek Cypriot side would be putting to Eide.

The content of this position would remain a private matter between the President, his aides and the UN Special Adviser during their meeting later, the spokesman said. Anastasiades is due to meet Eide at 6.30pm.

“Mr Eide will be briefed through this meeting and not in public,” Christodoulides said.

What he could say, was that the position of the Greek Cypriot side had not changed and was unanimous. “The issue of hydrocarbons can in no way be discussed either at the [negotiating table] table nor during any other parallel process,” said the spokesman.

“It is very important that the party leaders firmly agree on this position.”

The spokesman said the issue of energy was an important incentive both to the Turkish Cypriots and to Turkey to solve the Cyprus problem as soon as possible. “Any other discussion or idea for discussion serves as a vehicle for failure to resolve the Cyprus problem,” Christodoulides said.

“It was Turkey by its actions, which have escalated the situation, that led us to the decision to suspend our participation in the negotiations, so any action or efforts [to defuse the situation] should be directed there.”

In early October, Turkey announced plans to carry out surveys within Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and sent in the seismic vessel Barbaros on October 20 with plans to carry out exploration until December 30. This prompted Anastasiades to withdraw from the talks. The Greek Cypriots will not contemplate returning to the talks until the Barbaros has left the EEZ, it has said.

Eide has been trying to defuse the situation recently suggesting a twin-track process where hydrocarbons would be discussed in parallel to the settlement talks. This has been rejected by both sides. The Special Adviser arrived back on the island on Monday for a week of meetings with leaders, the chief negotiators, other political figures, ambassadors and academics.

The UN said earlier in the week, Eide was expecting an official response to the rejection of his proposal.

CYPRUS MAIL
26.11.2014

Turkish Cyprus says equal rights to resources ‘our red line’

Küfi Seydali

Comment by Fevzi Ogelman (1) and John Mavro (2)

(1) – Fevzi Ogelman

The history of Cyprus is littered with Greek Cypriot mistakes that gave them grief every time. After losing a third of the island and making a huge proportion of their people refugees in ’74, they’re at it again. This time, encouraged by the ‘recognition’ afforded to them by the international community, they think they can exploit the riches under the sea exclusively when the UN, US, EU and others are saying that both communities must benefit. When will they realise that it won’t work?

(2) – John Mavro

The headline of this article above, ” Greek Cypriot side remains firm” is incorrect.

It should read: ”As anticipated, the Greek Cypriot side remains firm in its perennial, infinite stupidity”.

How else can any sensible individual, interpret the following gems from the genius who doubles up as ” government spokesman”:

– “The issue of hydrocarbons can in no way be discussed either at the [negotiating table] table nor during any other parallel process,” said the spokesman.

So when does this extension of the useless, gutless president propose that the issue of the hydrocarbons be discussed? If not at the negotiating table?

Since these hydrocarbons were first found, have we not heard from ALL these corrupt ”politicians”, without exception and including the super patriots such as Omirou, Papdopoulos Junior, Lillikas etc, that these could be the catalyst required to reach a settlement on the long suffering Cyprus ”problem”? Is this not the right opportunity to use our (very small) trump card?

Or is the ”government spokesman” avoiding this issue for the sole purpose of delaying and driving these latest talks to a dead end? So that his boss may enjoy more F1 grand prixs until 2018, and maybe beyond? What other reason can there be to the out of hand rejection of Mr Eide’s very sensible proposals?

– “It is very important that the party leaders firmly agree on this position.”

Really?

Since when is it important for these career super patriots, the rejectionists and the partitionists making up less than 30% of the popular vote to AGREE on any position of the Cyprus ”problem”? Since we all know that that their entire, miserable ”careers” have been built on maintaining the Cyprus ”problem” very much a problem without the prospect of any solution?

-“Any other discussion or idea for discussion serves as a vehicle for failure to resolve the Cyprus problem,” Christodoulides said.

Note the irrationality of the Christodoulides’ ”logic” here. That any other idea, suggestion or proposal which falls outside the thinking of these idiots, can only serve as ”vehicle for failure”! After all, all these corrupt, unintelligent peasants who have led us from catastrophe to catastrophe, since 1960, are also infallible. They know best. And more than the rest of the world – including the UN, the US, the EU and just about everyone else.

The above statements by this pompous propagandist merely confirms why this place has been utterly destroyed by ”leaders” such as his boss.

Unintelligent, in some cases uneducated, peasants who believe that this place is their personal fiefdom. To plunder at will for self enrichment.

Individuals with no vision, nor ability, nor statesmanship to look ahead and visualize a modern country without political problems. Without any more ”freedom fighters” ,”liberators” and super patriots who have reigned supreme here since 1955. With the well known disastrous results.

Anastasiades should actually do some self critique. And realize he has painted himself into a corner. As well as being hijacked by the super patriots, the rejectionists and the partitionists.

He should ditch these cancers and return to the negotiating table. Accept Mr Eide’s sensible suggestions and place the hydrocarbons firmly on the agenda.

It is the only chance of reaching an acceptable win-win solution. And to extract the hydrocarbons for the benefit of the whole island.

Like

November 26, 2014
THE MAN WHO SNIFFED PARADISE

Some like the perfume from Spain

I’m sure that if,

I took even one sniff,

It would bore me terrifically, too,

Yet I get a kick out of you.

Cole Porter, I Get A Kick Out Of You

As a boy, he used to kiss his mother’s feet and it made her nervous.

No, no, Mama, the book says so.

Huh? What book? You shouldn’t read such things.

Yeah, it says heaven is under your feet.

My feet? Stop…this tickles. Stop! It’s like what the dog does.

Aw come on Mama, don’t be shy. I’m seeing Paradise.

Paradise? What Paradise? You’re seeing calluses and split toenails and a hole in my stockings.

Please, please, stop wiggling your toes, Mama. I’m having a spiritual experience. They smell like heaven.

Not with the feet! Not with the feet! Wait until I tell your father! You’ll be seeing the back of his hand!

Aw pleeeeze….Mamaaaaaa…..now I’m seeing a mosque in Havana. And Fidel abluting his cigar.

Allah! Allah! Why don’t you go out and play football like the rest of the boys, my son.

No, no, please Mama, those boys are different…

Many are criticizing the Turkish president for his remarks at a meeting of a group called, with great irony, the Women and Democracy Association. The name is like something they made up in the lobby. At the meeting the president again shared his wide-ranging, penetrating insights from his lifelong study of Anti-Feminology, namely that women are in no way, no how, equal to men. It’s “against nature,’ he said. Although he did offer the fascinating concept that women, if they tried real hard, could be “equivalent” to men. He also declared that feminists reject motherhood, adding something about breast-feeding women should not work in communist factories. Predictably, feminists and communists, and particularly feminist-communists, were unified in an outrage equivalent to the firestorm bombing of Dresden. As a male feminist, uncertain about motherhood issues, I find the president’s ideas inspirational, perplexing and perfectly suitable to his adoring audience. And his charm and sunny disposition have won my heart, perhaps forever.

Some people think that the Turkish president is a strident troublemaker. Not me!

Some say he is spiteful, hateful and full of anger, particularly towards breast-feeding mothers and their communist significant others. Not me!

Some even say that he is a complete……well……I can’t even think about this one, no less say it, no less write it.

I stridently, but respectfully, disagree with all of his critics.

The president of Turkey deserves our gushing respect and undivided attention.

Here’s why.

He said that the characters, habits and physiques of women are different from those of men. This is a brilliant insight! This is true! I hope his audience rose as one to render a standing ovation of loving applause. I immediately thought of Marilyn Monroe and Woody Allen. It would indeed be “against nature” to put these two on an “equal footing.” The president is correct in his assertion about character and habit, but especially about physique. I mean, whose feet would you rather kiss?

And as far as breastfeeding women and non-breastfeeding communists working together in some Soviet-era tractor factory, well, again the Turkish president is perfectly correct. Breastfeeding women couldn’t even hold the wrenches properly. Think about it and you will instantly grasp the president’s wisdom. Holding a baby to one’s breast is a completely different motion and habit than the complicated, manly habit of turning a wrench. And even if men could lactate, could they handle having a baby sucking at their breasts every few hours while those tractor axles kept on coming? No, of course not. And where would they stash the babies in between feeding time? It would be so unnaturally confusing, wouldn’t it? The commissar would send them all to Siberia. Besides, if I understand the Turkish president’s deeper meaning, communist men are always looking to start revolutions. It’s their nature. Just look at history! And to make revolutions they need free hands, that is, no screaming, hungry babies interfering with their secret meetings. This is what the clever Turkish president meant. And he is absolutely correct. And that’s why he buys more and more tear gas and more and more TOMA monsters. It all makes sense, doesn’t it? Thank you Mr. President! Your applauding audience is proud of you.

He also said that women being equal to men is “against nature.” Bravo! Brava! This is true too. I mean, what women would cultivate nature like the Turkish president, a man, does? He has leveled millions and millions of trees so that nature can breathe freely. No woman would dream of doing that. He has leveled mountains to free marble from its lifelong imprisonment so that villas and hotels and palaces can have shiny walls and slippery floors. And the president knows how women, by nature and habit, like to clean things. So women now have something to do. And marble also now has something to do, rather than just stay inside some dumb mountain. And women can clean and polish all of it, doing what comes naturally to them. No woman could even come close to thinking of such a perfectly complex idea. Only men can do that. The president of Turkey is very smart and deserves loud acclaim until the end of recorded time.

And I completely agree with the Turkish president that women should be equal among women and men should be equal among men. Such a great social philosophy, though it seems to border on that nasty communism thing. Nevertheless, I agree with the president. For example, when we are alone, my wife and I never argue unnaturally about whether we are equal to each other, she being a woman and I a man. I am perfectly content to be a man equal to myself and, so far, she is happy to be a woman equal to herself. It proves the president’s intelligently argued point regarding the natural law that men are men and women are women. On this issue, peace prevails. The argument as applied to gay couples has yet to be addressed. Perhaps at the next meeting of the Women and Democracy Association the brilliance of the Turkish president can enlighten us further.

The natures of men and women are different, too. Right again, Mr. President! And the following shows how true that is and how correct you are.

Who brought us religion? Men.

Who invented prostitution? Men.

Who spent millennia hunting and killing animals? Men.

Who spent millennia hunting and killing each other? Men.

Who invented armies? Men.

Who created historical catastrophes such as genocides? Men.

Who invented, and continue to invent, weapons of mass destruction? Men.

Who dropped the atomic bomb on innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Men.

Who destroyed native populations in Africa and the Americas for profit and power? Men.

Who finance and organize bestial mercenary hordes to murder, rape and plunder? Men.

Who cannot produce children? Men.

Who are condemned to extinction because of their characters, habits, physiques and natures? Men.

Indeed, there is nothing like a man.

James C. Ryan

Istanbul

November 26, 2014

November 26, 2014
Former Mossad chief: For the first time, I fear for the future of Zionism

The nation of Israel is galloping blindly toward Bar Kochba’s war on the Roman Empire. The result of that conflict was 2,000 years of exile.

By Shabtai Shavit

Menachem Begin before an image of David Ben-Gurion

From the beginning of Zionism in the late 19th century, the Jewish nation in the Land of Israel has been growing stronger in terms of demography and territory, despite the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. We have succeeded in doing so because we have acted with wisdom and stratagem rather than engaging in a foolish attempt to convince our foes that we were in the right.

Today, for the first time since I began forming my own opinions, I am truly concerned about the future of the Zionist project. I am concerned about the critical mass of the threats against us on the one hand, and the government’s blindness and political and strategic paralysis on the other. Although the State of Israel is dependent upon the United States, the relationship between the two countries has reached an unprecedented low point. Europe, our biggest market, has grown tired of us and is heading toward imposing sanctions on us. For China, Israel is an attractive high-tech project, and we are selling them our national assets for the sake of profit. Russia is gradually turning against us and supporting and assisting our enemies.

Anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel have reached dimensions unknown since before World War II. Our public diplomacy and public relations have failed dismally, while those of the Palestinians have garnered many important accomplishments in the world. University campuses in the West, particularly in the U.S., are hothouses for the future leadership of their countries. We are losing the fight for support for Israel in the academic world. An increasing number of Jewish students are turning away from Israel. The global BDS movement (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against Israel, which works for Israel’s delegitimization, has grown, and quite a few Jews are members.

In this age of asymmetrical warfare we are not using all our force, and this has a detrimental effect on our deterrent power. The debate over the price of Milky pudding snacks and its centrality in public discourse demonstrate an erosion of the solidarity that is a necessary condition for our continued existence here. Israelis’ rush to acquire a foreign passport, based as it is on the yearning for foreign citizenship, indicates that people’s feeling of security has begun to crack.

I am concerned that for the first time, I am seeing haughtiness and arrogance, together with more than a bit of the messianic thinking that rushes to turn the conflict into a holy war. If this has been, so far, a local political conflict that two small nations have been waging over a small and defined piece of territory, major forces in the religious Zionist movement are foolishly doing everything they can to turn it into the most horrific of wars, in which the entire Muslim world will stand against us.

I also see, to the same extent, detachment and lack of understanding of international processes and their significance for us. This right wing, in its blindness and stupidity, is pushing the nation of Israel into the dishonorable position of “the nation shall dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations” (Numbers 23:9).

I am concerned because I see history repeating itself. The nation of Israel is galloping blindly in a time tunnel to the age of Bar Kochba and his war on the Roman Empire. The result of that conflict was several centuries of national existence in the Land of Israel followed by 2,000 years of exile.

I am concerned because as I understand matters, exile is truly frightening only to the state’s secular sector, whose world view is located on the political center and left. That is the sane and liberal sector that knows that for it, exile symbolizes the destruction of the Jewish people. The Haredi sector lives in Israel only for reasons of convenience. In terms of territory, Israel and Brooklyn are the same to them; they will continue living as Jews in exile, and wait patiently for the arrival of the Messiah.

The religious Zionist movement, by comparison, believes the Jews are “God’s chosen.” This movement, which sanctifies territory beyond any other value, is prepared to sacrifice everything, even at the price of failure and danger to the Third Commonwealth. If destruction should take place, they will explain it in terms of faith, saying that we failed because “We sinned against God.” Therefore, they will say, it is not the end of the world. We will go into exile, preserve our Judaism and wait patiently for the next opportunity.

I recall Menachem Begin, one of the fathers of the vision of Greater Israel. He fought all his life for the fulfillment of that dream. And then, when the gate opened for peace with Egypt, the greatest of our enemies, he gave up Sinai – Egyptian territory three times larger than Israel’s territory inside the Green Line – for the sake of peace. In other words, some values are more sacred than land. Peace, which is the life and soul of true democracy, is more important than land.

I am concerned that large segments of the nation of Israel have forgotten, or put aside, the original vision of Zionism: to establish a Jewish and democratic state for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. No borders were defined in that vision, and the current defiant policy is working against it.

What can and ought to be done? We need to create an Archimedean lever that will stop the current deterioration and reverse today’s reality at once. I propose creating that lever by using the Arab League’s proposal from 2002, which was partly created by Saudi Arabia. The government must make a decision that the proposal will be the basis of talks with the moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The government should do three things as preparation for this announcement:

1) It should define a future negotiating strategy for itself, together with its position on each of the topics included in the Arab League’s proposal.

2) It should open a secret channel of dialogue with the United States to examine the idea, and agree in advance concerning our red lines and about the input that the U.S. will be willing to invest in such a process.

3) It should open a secret American-Israeli channel of dialogue with Saudi Arabia in order to reach agreements with it in advance on the boundaries of the topics that will be raised in the talks and coordinate expectations. Once the secret processes are completed, Israel will announce publicly that it is willing to begin talks on the basis of the Arab League’s document.

I have no doubt that the United States and Saudi Arabia, each for its own reasons, will respond positively to the Israeli initiative, and the initiative will be the lever that leads to a dramatic change in the situation. With all the criticism I have for the Oslo process, it cannot be denied that for the first time in the conflict’s history, immediately after the Oslo Accords were signed, almost every Arab country started talking with us, opened its gates to us and began engaging in unprecedented cooperative ventures in economic and other fields.

Although I am not so naïve as to think that such a process will bring the longed-for peace, I am certain that this kind of process, long and fatiguing as it will be, could yield confidence-building measures at first and, later on, security agreements that both sides in the conflict will be willing to live with. The progress of the talks will, of course, be conditional upon calm in the security sphere, which both sides will be committed to maintaining. It may happen that as things progress, both sides will agree to look into mutual compromises that will promote the idea of coexisting alongside one another. If mutual trust should develop – and the chances of that happening under American and Saudi Arabian auspices are fairly high – it will be possible to begin talks for the conflict’s full resolution as well.

An initiative of this kind requires true and courageous leadership, which is hard to identify at the moment. But if the prime minister should internalize the severity of the mass of threats against us at this time, the folly of the current policy, the fact that this policy’s creators are significant elements in the religious Zionist movement and on the far right, and its devastating results – up to the destruction of the Zionist vision – then perhaps he will find the courage and determination to carry out the proposed action.

I wrote the above statements because I feel that I owe them to my parents, who devoted their lives to the fulfillment of Zionism; to my children, my grandchildren and to the nation of Israel, which I served for decades.

Haaretz, 24.11.14

November 25, 2014
Letter to Harut Sassounian, “Countries selling weapons..”

Dear Mr. Sassounian!

Having read your most recent article “Countries selling weapons to Azerbaijan are just as guilty for attacks on Artsakh = Karabag”, I must say that your leading article is simply an unworthy attack on Azerbaijan. Your article, Sir, not written with a journalistic style but with the genetic lines of a propaganda Minister of a country at war, is, slowly but surely killing off your credibility.

You are forgetting, of course, who is the aggressor and occupier of land belonging to Azerbaijan! Just to refresh your memory:

“ … By the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in full control of most of the enclave and also held and currently control approximately 9% of Azerbaijan’s territory outside the enclave. As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azeris from Armenia and Karabakh have been displaced as a result of the conflict. A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994 and peace talks, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group, have been held ever since by Armenia and Azerbaijan.”

Current Situation:

“In the years since the end of the war, a number of organizations have passed resolutions regarding the conflict. On 25 January 2005, for example, PACE adopted a controversial non-binding resolution, Resolution 1416, which criticized the “large-scale ethnic expulsion and the creation of mono-ethnic areas” and declared that Armenian forces were occupying Azerbaijan lands.[187][188] On 14 May 2008 thirty-nine countries from the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 62/243 which called for “the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan.” Almost one hundred countries, however, abstained from voting while seven countries, including the three co-chairs of the Minsk Group, Russia, the United States, and France, voted against it.” ).

These are the facts Mr. Sassounian. Furthermore, don’t forget that; you are the master of your evil thoughts, the moulder of your character, and the shaper of your condition, environment and destiny. An ignoble and bestial character is the result of the continued harboring of gravelling thoughts.

Your call for retaliation, revenge and disproportionate use of force shows what a sick character you are! You , Mr. Sassounian, sitting in the comfort of California have no idea of life in poor Armenia, and what it means to make war and suffer the destruction as such! There are no winners in a war, only loosers. The only winners are the ones (Israel, Russia) supplying the expensive weapons. Wake up Mr. Sassounian and rid yourself from your evil thoughts. As soon as you have done that, and your thoughts become healthy and beneficial to all man kind, joy will soon follow you as surely as your shadow follows you on a sunny day.

Regards

Küfi Seydali

November 24, 2014
SOMETHING’S COMING

Could be!

Who knows?

There’s something due any day;

I will know right away

Soon as it shows.

It’s only just out of reach,

Down the block, on a beach,

Under a tree.

Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story

More deadly gas is coming. They’re buying those gas bombs again. 1.5 million more. They must have exhausted the 43 tons they bought from America last year at the height of their Gezi violence. Ten million dollars gone with the fascist wind. And the latest news says that the public-space-destroying Gezi Park shopping-center project is alive and quietly ticking. Those treacherous, revolutionary Gezi Park trees, like Carthage, must be totally destroyed!

And then there are the personal antics of you-know-who. Heisting more of the public’s money, he’s adding thousands more rooms to his royal roost. Painfully aware of his public, he has privatized his own Waffen-SS. It’s an especially loyal bunch, a comforting pious blend of Turkish police, the Gendarmes (easily appropriated from his ever-generous Turkish Army) and his ever-popular scimitar-waving street thugs. They will all emerge on call like mushrooms on a rainy day. Surely the blessings of safety and security will loom over the land forever.

And at last Turkish schoolchildren will be freed from all error and will finally learn the truth about just who discovered America. Oh, happy Turkish day! Perhaps they will learn that God is also a Muslim along with Fidel Castro.

Oh, the pope is coming. He is scheduled to meet and greet the new president at his new, illegal palace. How nice. Thus the pope will also be an accomplice-after-the-fact to a crime. This from a man considered by zillions of Catholics to be infallible in matters of faith and morals. But St Peter’s has such a suitable dome… for a mosque…or better, a shopping center. Let’s make a deal. Let’s have a conversion. So many things are coming…

One more thing is coming—the truth. Can you feel it? It’s just out of reach.

The truth is this. The Turkish people are fed up with the Turkish people. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.

These AKP people came to power—with a lot of help from their American friends in high places—following years of coalitional incompetence and corruption. The people were fed up then, too. And so came Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his friends, the self-proclaimed “pious” people. Surely they would clean up things. They sold everything leveraging it into a self-proclaimed “economic miracle.” Then came their true colors—repression, fascism and more corruption, all in the name of piety.

But as Cassius said to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.” And that’s why the Turkish people are fed up, particularly Turkish young people.

Turkey is the youngest country in Europe. 17% of its population is in the 18-24 age group. With a median age of 29.6 years, Turkey is far younger than the U.K. (40.4), France (40.9) and Germany (46.1). More importantly, half of Turkey’s eligible voters are in the 19-35 age group. And that means 26 million “young” voters! And this is why Turkish young people SHOULD be fed up.

They have virtually no political representation, particularly in the fossilized opposition parties. CHP, Turkey’s oldest political party dating from 1923, has only six members of parliament under the age of 40. While the average age of party members is 46.9 years, the average age of its parliamentarians is almost a decade more, 55.5 years. How political parties can ignore half of the voter base is a great mystery and a great shame. And a great tragedy for Turkish young people.

In the twisting and turnings and whims and whines of the opposition parties they have today maneuvered themselves into near irrelevance. The bizarre joint presidential candidacy of a 71-year-old Islamist no one knew named Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu may have been their final curtain. Predictably trounced by Erdoğan at the polls, almost as many voters stayed away (15.4 million) as voted for Ekmeleddin (15.6 million). And for those that did vote for him, how many held their noses and voted out of fast-fading party loyalty? The entire affair was unseemly and CHP continues to struggle with the implications.

Herein resides, in part, the disenfranchised voter base. There are others, women, for example. Workers, for another. Something’s coming. Not surprisingly, recent surveys suggest a large “undecided” category, as high as 25%. Something’s coming.

Turkish youth have seen what the political process has delivered for them. While they filled the streets in protest at Gezi Park, the opposition parties mostly dawdled. When America sold the AKP more tear gas bombs to bomb the kids, the opposition parties mostly watched. And when the opposition parties chose a 71-year-old unknown as a presidential candidate to face the ferocious Erdoğan, well, you know the rest.

This is why the young people are on the move and coming. Not only are they the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal, they are his youth, Atatürk-youth. Like him, unbounded by age, open-minded and open-hearted, holding real opinions and ideals worth fighting for. Falling in love with truth, with science and the modern way, living honorably with care and sensitivity. Upholding the law and defending the human right to live freely. In short, living as a true Turk, a modern Atatürk Turk.

There is also new political party coming, the Anatolia Party (Anadolu Partisi). A party of enlightenment, like the sun rising in its logo. A party for an anti-imperialist, sovereign nation, secular and tolerant, honest and hopeful. A party for Turkish youth of all ages.

Half the voters in Turkey are young people, 26 million of them. Let it begin with them.

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

24 November 2014

November 24, 2014
Davutoglu: you can’t do what you want with the gas

US Vice President Joe Biden and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu

TURKISH Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said yesterday that hydrocarbons could not be used as a weapon by anyone, adding that if Greek Cypriots unilaterally continued to claim Cyprus’ natural resources for themselves, Turkey would reciprocate on behalf of the Turkish Cypriots.

Addressing the Atlantic Council summit in Istanbul, the Turkish Premier said there must be a settlement immediately, arguing that if negotiations stall the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots should form a joint committee to manage Cyprus’ natural gas reserves.

“In Cyprus, if everyone agrees that natural resources around the island belong to the entire island and use these resources in a shared vision towards peace, everyone stands to gain,” he said.

“If [the Greek Cypriots] are seeking to offer these resources, to which Turkish Cypriots also have a right, to international markets unilaterally, then by the same right we will conduct research in the same area along with the Turkish Cypriots,” he added.

Davutoglu said that if the two sides sit together and negotiate with a will to reunite the island as soon as possible, Cyprus would become a country on the rise.

“In such a case, the happiest of countries will be Turkey,” he said.

He called for the immediate return to the negotiations, which were interrupted last month when President Nicos Anastasiades withdrew in protest when the Turkish seismic vessel’s Barbaros began conducting exploratory research in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

“The Greek Cypriots can’t claim that the Eastern Mediterranean is an area closed to Turks and Turkish Cypriots and conduct research wherever they want,” he asserted.

This doesn’t happen in politics, nor in matters of international energy reserves, he added.

He argued that Turkey is the easiest destination for the natural gas to be unearthed from the areas around Cyprus.

“Turkey is also the international market easiest to open,” he said.

“Therefore, no one should use energy as a weapon. If [the Greek Cypriots] were to say that they will impose the peace they want on the other side through control of the gas, then that will be the greatest blow to the Cyprus problem negotiations. Let us use energy as a tool for peace.”

Remarking on the transport of water from Turkey to Cyprus, Davutoglu said that Turkey’s plan was to share it with Greek Cypriots.

“But while we were thinking of sharing our water with the whole island, one side can’t claim the natural resources, which belong to the whole island, for itself,” he said.

He added that in the coming days he would be visiting Athens “to share these prospects with the Greek government.”

In his speech, US Vice President Joe Biden said Eastern Mediterranean countries should cooperate, and energy offers a tool for promoting regional stability, security and prosperity, citing the example of Baltic countries to illustrate the potential gains for the region.

According to Eric Gehman, Assistant Director for Publications and Communications at the Atlantic Council , Biden stressed the need for Europe to prioritise energy security with the help of their allies and friends. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin uses energy as a weapon,” he said, to undermine the security of neighbouring countries.

Only by diversifying supplies and improving transport networks across the country could Europe curb Russia’s abuses, said Biden. “Now, now, now is the time to act… What’s happening in Ukraine only serves to underscore this.”

Biden pointed to the eastern Mediterranean as a critical strategic resource for bolstering Europe’s energy security. The development of the Southern Corridor and new projects in Turkey and Cyprus could make the region into a key hub for European energy markets that Biden called a “major asset.”

Biden credited the Baltics for the work they have already done to reduce their dependence on Russian oil, praising a new Lithuanian gas interconnector aptly named “The Independence.” He called the Baltics’ efforts a model for the rest of Europe.

Biden concluded his remarks by pressing the European Commission to act quickly to identify and support key infrastructure projects that will accelerate European energy independence. “Energy can and should serve as a tool for cooperation, for stability, for security, and prosperity,” he said.

The Cyprus problem was also on the agenda of a meeting Biden had on Friday with Davutoglu.
“Vice President Joe Biden met with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to discuss the fight against ISIL in Iraq and Syria, the Cyprus settlement talks, and energy security,” the US State Department said in a statement. Biden was expected to meet Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan later yesterday within whom he would also discuss Cyprus.

Turkish Cypriot Energy Minister Hakan Dinçyürek (R) poses for photos with Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız. AA photo

Meanwhile Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said the Barbaros would like complete its surveys by the beginning of next month. Turkey had issued a NAVTEX for surveys from October 20 to December 30. Yildiz said the Barbaros had a planned survey area of 2,700 kilometres. “If the weather is good, it will finish by early December,” he was quoted as saying.

Küfi Seydali

November 23, 2014