Turkish Forum

Category: Regions

  • New Istanbul Airport Offers Opportunities for U.S. Firms

    New Istanbul Airport Offers Opportunities for U.S. Firms

    The construction of a new Istanbul airport, which will be one of the world’s largest, presents more than $1 billion in U.S. equipment and service export opportunities, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

    Key areas for potential cooperation include: full-field architecture, design, engineering, procurement and construction; terminal and ground control radar; fire safety and security systems; energy efficient technologies; and ICT equipment, including arrival/departure notifications and reservation hardware/software.

    The U.S. government, led by the Department of Commerce, is prepared to assist all U.S. companies interested in these business opportunities. Contact Michael.Lally@trade.gov, the department’s senior commercial officer in Ankara, Turkey, for more information.

    via AviationNews.net.

  • Turkey’s Syria policies are criticized as Erdogan prepares to meet with Obama – The Washington Post

    Turkey’s Syria policies are criticized as Erdogan prepares to meet with Obama – The Washington Post

    By Associated Press, Published: May 13

    REYHANLI, Turkey — Anti-government protests flared for a third day on Monday in Turkish town devastated by two powerful car bombs near the Syrian border, and some Turks accused their leader of putting the nation’s security at risk by backing the rebels fighting Syria’s government.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey will “not refrain” from responding to twin car bombings it has blamed on Syria, but that his government will be cautious and avoid being drawn into its neighbor’s civil war.

    via Turkey’s Syria policies are criticized as Erdogan prepares to meet with Obama – The Washington Post.

  • Azerbaijan and Turkey to cooperate in defense industry

    Azerbaijan and Turkey to cooperate in defense industry

    Azerbaijan and Turkey are going to cooperate in the sphere of defense industry. The corresponding document has been signed by the 2 countries during the IDEF-2013 exhibition.

    The exhibition held in the Turkish city of Istanbul has just ended. Azerbaijan has presented 130 products during the event.

    The exhibition is held once in 2 years. Azerbaijan takes part in the event for the third time.

    Source – vestnikkavkaza

  • ‘Turkey won’t act on Syria without US blessing’

    ‘Turkey won’t act on Syria without US blessing’

    Despite harsh rhetoric, Turkey won’t take any action against the Syrian government of Bashar Assad without getting a go-ahead from Washington, Middle East expert, Jeremy Salt, told RT.

    -

    Turkish authorities have detained nine people in connection with Saturday’s deadly car bombings in a town near the Syrian border.

    Two blasts killed 46 and injured over 100 as Turkey was quick to blame Syrian intelligence for the attack, but the government in Damascus denies all the accusations.

    Middle Eastern history and politics professor at Bilkent University in Turkey, Jeremy Salt, says it’s the Islamists among the Syrian rebels, who look the only party to benefit from the attacks.

    RT: Why did the Turkish government label the Syrian government as the “usual suspects” in the bombings – before the investigation even started?

    Jeremy Salt: The Turkish government claims it arrested nine people and it claims to have evidence that they’re connected with the Syrian intelligence service. We haven’t seen that evidence yet. We’ll have to wait and see what it says. At this stage, it seems to me quite inconceivable that Syria would do that because if we look at what’s happening on the ground right now. The Syrian army is rolling back the insurgency. The insurgents have taken huge losses in the last few months, in particular, around Damascus, near the Lebanese border, and even around Halab – Aleppo – and in the North Syria. And along with this is the fact that the Americans are changing pace and are going into negotiations with Russia to come out with a solution. So it doesn’t make any sense that Syria would do that right now.

    RT: Just in the last few hours, Syria’s information minister said that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s responsible for this by playing a “dangerous game with al-Qaeda”. What did he mean by that?

    JS: We know for a fact that – because the main Islamist fighting group in Syria has admitted this – al-Qaeda in Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria are one in the same. And all the fighting groups in Syria are Islamist and they’re working tactically with Jabhat al-Nusra. So, al-Qaeda is in Syria. We know that. It’s now confirmed, but this was more or less suspected from the start. What we’re seeing now is kind of charge and counter-charge as people try to put the blame for this on to someone else. My feeling about this – and obvious kind of guess is that the party responsible for this is one of the armed groups because if anyone has a reason to try to heat up the situation and drag outside countries it would be them. They’re in very serious problems right now.

    Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (AFP Photo / Adem Altan)

    RT: Turkey’s Interior Minister urged the international community to get involved against Syrian President Assad. Doesn’t this undermine the peace efforts proposed by Russia, US and the UK?

    JS: The whole point is that they (the international community) have been deeply involved for more than two years and they haven’t succeeded in their objective, which is ultimately to overthrow the Syrian government – to bring it down. And so they’re still kind of chanting the same refrain, but there’s actually no possibility that the Syrian government can be brought down without direct intervention from outside governments. And the emphasis on Bashar al-Assad takes the emphasis where it should be, which is the Syrian army. Because the Syrian army is fighting – this is a national project. The foot soldiers in the Syrian army are mainly Sunni Muslims and, so, they have a national spirit. And that kind of refrain that the outside government should do more, should send in arms, should declare a no-fly zone are only going to worsen the situation.

    What we clearly need now is progress towards negotiating a solution, which is the path Obama has taken. And I think, in spite everything we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks – the chemical weapons propaganda, the Israeli attack – that I don’t think Obama is going allow himself to be drawn into this.

    RT: Turkey says it will take “every kind of measure” in response. What could that be?

    One has to take it seriously, but the fact is that [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is going to Washington this week and Syria will be on top of the agenda and my feeling is that Turkey won’t do anything by itself – that if Obama won’t bite, if he won’t commit America to take a more involved position over Syria, I don’t think that Turkey will do anything.

    Now, the key issue here is what kind of evidence are they going to come up with. Will they come up with any evidence that’s going to convince us that this, in fact, was an action carried out by the Syrian intelligence services. So there are many many unknowns right now and, of course, everything is going to depend on the outcome of the talks in Wahington between Obama and Erdogan.

    via ‘Turkey won’t act on Syria without US blessing’ — RT Op-Edge.

  • AFP: Turkey FM: German neo-Nazi murders must not go unpunished

    AFP: Turkey FM: German neo-Nazi murders must not go unpunished

    (AFP) – 12 hours ago

    ALeqM5gGnO0Ff4T4-annfLg9QJA-JIRunABERLIN — Turkey’s foreign minister said Saturday that a killing spree of mainly Turkish immigrants in Germany between 2000 and 2007 was “a racist attack that should not go unpunished,” as he visited victims’ families in Berlin.

    At a closed-door meeting with families, Ahmet Davutoglu vowed that Turkey would keep a close eye on the high-profile case that has shocked and shamed Germany, according to a foreign ministry official.

    On Monday, the hotly anticipated trial opened of 38-year-old Beate Zschaepe, accused of being at the heart of the murderous neo-Nazi cell that called itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU).

    Zschaepe denies the charge of complicity in the murders of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek immigrant and a German policewoman.

    via AFP: Turkey FM: German neo-Nazi murders must not go unpunished.

  • PKK Kurdish deal with Turkey may worry Iran and Syria

    PKK Kurdish deal with Turkey may worry Iran and Syria

    By Guney YildizBBC Turkish

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    This image shows a PKK fighter in the Turkish mountains

    Rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have begun leaving south-eastern Turkey for their main bases in northern Iraq, but there is no talk of disarmament yet.

    Instead, several top commanders of the PKK have said they will keep and even consolidate their forces.

    So what will the thousands of well-trained militants in Qandil, Zap and other PKK-controlled areas of northern Iraq do, as the truce with Turkey holds?

    This is probably the question the Iranian and Syrian governments have been asking since the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, who is negotiating a peace deal with Turkey, urged militants to withdraw from inside Turkey.

    The group has two sister parties in Iran and Syria with their own armed wings: the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), which is fighting against Iran, and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which holds the reins of power in Kurdish areas of Syria. Both have many fighters from Turkey’s Kurdish areas.

    “Iran’s main concern is whether the PKK fighters will be joining forces with PJAK or not,” says Mehdi Talati, a Swiss-based Iranian security analyst.

    “PJAK, with its current strength, does not represent a strong challenge to the Iranian army, but it could pose a significant threat with reinforcements from the PKK.”

    Surprise

    Only two years ago, Iran and Turkey were conducting joint military operations against the PKK’s main bases in the Qandil Mountains.

    Prof Nader Entessar of the University of South Alabama in the US argues Iran was taken by surprise by the peace process in Turkey: “The Iranian government doesn’t appear to have foreseen this and developed a plan B for this situation yet; we may say that they were caught off-guard.”

    A ceasefire has been in place between the PKK’s Iranian offshoot and Tehran since the autumn of 2011.

    Although the PKK has shown its resilience in the face of joint military operations from Turkey and Iran, the group has sought to avoid fighting on two fronts whenever it can.

    PKK executive leader Murat Karayilan has tried hard to establish a ceasefire between PJAK and Iran in order to focus on the fight against Turkey.

    He recently reiterated that he would like to see the truce between PJAK and Iran continue.

    However, Abdullah Ocalan has talked about the possibility of PKK militants joining forces with the PYD and PJAK.

    “I don’t believe that our guerrilla force will [cease being active] when we withdraw – there are Syria and Iran,” he was quoted as saying in leaked meeting notes with three MPs of the pro-Kurdish BDP, who went to meet him at Imrali Prison where he is being held.

    Backfiring

    Another potential loser in a peace deal between the PKK and Turkey could be Syria.

    The PKK

    • The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, demanding greater autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds, who are thought to comprise up to 20% of the population
    • Since then, some 40,000 people have died in the conflict
    • It is regarded by Turkey, the US and European Union as a terrorist organisation because of its attacks on Turkish security forces and civilians

    Syria’s policy towards the PKK has fluctuated over the last decades.

    Seeing the PKK as a counterbalance against Turkey, the late President Hafez al-Assad harboured the group up until 1998, when his government forced the PKK leader out of the country under pressure from Turkey and the US.

    Relations between Turkey and Syria became friendlier in the following years, and Assad’s son and incumbent president, Bashar, reiterated Syria’s full support for Turkey’s war with the PKK.

    In a bid to retaliate against the shifting position of the Syrian government, Abdullah Ocalan decided, in the last few days of his stay in Syria, to establish a separate Kurdish group to fight against the Syrian government.

    This move now gives Mr Ocalan one of his strongest cards in Imrali prison as he negotiates a peace deal with Turkey.

    The PYD, re-established in 2003 after the failure of the first attempt, now holds the reins of power in most of the Kurdish areas of Syria.

    Turkey is keen to see the PYD step up the fight against Syria, and some think they can count on Mr Ocalan to influence the Syrian Kurd position towards Turkey and the Syrian government.

    The co-chair of the PYD, Saleh Muslim Muhammed, told BBC Turkish in London: “Ocalan is not only the leader of the PKK. He is a leader of the Kurdish people as well. We cannot overlook his opinions.”

    “Start Quote

    Iran may be the only country left with a Kurdish problem”

    Mehdi TalatiIranian security analyst

    The Syrian government’s hitherto friendly relations with Turkey came to an end in 2011, when the Turkish government declared its open support for the Syrian rebels.

    In the face of the rebel uprising, Syrian government forces pulled out of Kurdish areas in the north to concentrate on the fighting elsewhere.

    This move was based on the premise that de facto Kurdish autonomy on the Turkish border would pose a challenge to the Turkish government.

    But that premise could turn out to be false if a Turkish peace deal with the PKK holds.

    Boost for Turkey

    Saleh Muslim Muhammed confirms that the Kurds in Syria have been watching the peace negotiations between the PKK and Turkey with high hopes.

    “We are ready to talk to Turkey without any conditions and we begin to see indications of a change in the Turkish policy towards us,” he said.

    The conflict with the PKK has effectively challenged Turkey’s regional ambitions, especially last year when the militants held ground in Turkey’s south-eastern corner for a couple of weeks.

    Now a halt in the conflict could mean Turkey would be able to free up its military and economic resources and this would result in an increase in Turkey’s regional profile, says Mr Talati.

    On the economic front, the conflict has cost Turkey more than $300bn (£194bn), according to official figures.

    Mr Talati adds: “It is too early to decide whether the Turkish government is honest about a political solution to the Kurdish question. But if it reaches its intended conclusion, then Iran may be the only country left with a Kurdish problem.”