Tag: Gul

  • President Gül wins 2010 Chatham House prize

    President Gül wins 2010 Chatham House prize

    LONDON – Anatolia News Agency

    AbdullahGul
    Turkish President Abdullah Gül. DHA photo

    The U.K.’s leading think tank, Chatham House, has awarded Turkish President Abdullah Gül with the 2010 Chatham House prize due to “his national, regional and international qualifications,” the organization’s president said Friday.

    “President Gül is recognized for being a significant figure for reconciliation and moderation within Turkey and internationally, and a driving force behind many of the positive steps that Turkey has taken in recent years,” Chatham House said in statement on its Web site.

    The think tank drew attention to Gül’s efforts to deepen Turkey’s traditional ties with the Middle East, mediate between rival groups in Iraq and bring together the Afghan and Pakistani leaderships to try to resolve disputes during 2009.

    “He has also made significant efforts to reunify the divided island of Cyprus and has played a leading role, along with his Armenian counterpart, in initiating a process of reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia,” the statement said.

    www.hurriyetdailynews.com, March 19, 2010

  • Chatham House Prize 2010

    Chatham House Prize 2010

    All members are now invited to take part in choosing this year’s winner of the Chatham House Prize. The details of the three short-listed nominees can be found below. The award ceremony will take place in the autumn.

    PROCEED TO VOTING FORM >>

    Voting closes at 17.00 on Monday 15 March 2010. Members must be logged in to the website in order to vote.

    All those voting will be automatically entered into a draw for two pairs of free tickets for the award ceremony and dinner.

    Chatham House Prize 2010 Nominees

    HE Abdullah Gül, President of Turkey

    Abdullah Gül has been a significant figure for reconciliation and moderation within Turkey and internationally, and a driving force behind many of the positive steps that Turkey has taken in recent years.

    Mr Gül has worked to deepen Turkey’s traditional ties with the Middle East, mediate between the fractious groups in Iraq and bring together the Afghan and Pakistani leaderships to try to resolve disputes during 2009. He has also made significant efforts to reunify the divided island of Cyprus and has played a leading role, along with his Armenian counterpart, in accelerating the unprecedented search for reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, including through the so-called ‘football diplomacy’.

    President Gül is an unwavering proponent of anchoring Turkey in the European Union. Under his leadership, Turkey has consolidated civilian democratic rule and pursued extensive political and legal reforms to bring the country closer to European standards of democracy and human rights.

    HE Christine Lagarde, Finance Minister, France

    Christine Lagarde has adeptly steered the French economy through stormy economic times while being a leading protagonist in efforts during 2009 to forge international consensus on reforming the international financial and monetary architecture.

    Ms Lagarde was a key spokesperson for the euro area on the international stage throughout the year. She consistently and eloquently promoted the need for debate on stronger and more effective regulation of the international financial and monetary system. In particular she pushed for the end of guaranteed bonus payouts, which some regarded as having encouraged excessive risk-­taking in the banking sector, and keeping a close watch on the openness of the international economy in the face of the rising risk of protectionism.

    Ms Lagarde’s credibility in financial matters has already been recognized by the Financial Times, which voted her European Finance Minister of the Year in 2009 for her handling of the financial crisis – as demonstrated by the greater resilience of the French economy relative to its European partners.

    Stjepan Mesić, President of Croatia (2000­-10)

    Stjepan Mesić has shown consistently strong and effective leadership in Croatia at a time when the country has been transformed into a modern democratic European state following the regional wars of the 1990s.

    During his two terms in office as President of Croatia the country evolved from a post­-war state on the fringes of Europe to one integrated into NATO and well advanced in negotiations to join the European Union.

    From early on in his presidency Mr Mesić showed courage in his efforts to foster better relations with Croatia’s neighbours. In the face of domestic criticism he sent alleged Croatian war criminals to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and dismissed a number of generals when they publicly protested against that decision, thereby setting the tone for the rest of his tenure and opening Croatia’s accession route to EU membership.

  • Turkish Foreign Minister to Meet with Azeri Counterpart, President

    Turkish Foreign Minister to Meet with Azeri Counterpart, President

    A6ANKARA (Combined Sources)—Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will travel to Baku on Thursday for a ministerial meeting of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) where he will also address what Turkish media is describing as growing concerns by Azerbaijan over Turkey’s push to normalize ties with Armenia, the Turkish Hurriyet Daily reported.

    Davutoglu is expected to meet with his counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov and President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the meeting, Hurriyet said.

    The meeting will come a week after Aliyev threatened to derail the Western Backed Nabucco pipeline project to bring gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe via Turkey.

    Media reports in recent weeks have said the historically strong Turkish-Azeri alliance is in danger of breaking down due to Baku’s uncompromising demands for the Karabakh conflict to be linked to Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.

    Although Aliyev presented his threat as a purely commercial move, analysts believe the underlying motive was to send a signal on the Turkish-Armenian deal.

    Baku’s outbursts have been seen as a tactic to force the Karabakh linkage on Armenia, which is already under heavy international pressure to quickly normalize its relations with Turkey and resolve the Karabakh conflict.

    “The timing of Aliyev’s announcement, less than a week after the accord between Yerevan and Ankara was signed, left little doubt.” Said Brian Whitmore, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL. “Baku had argued strenuously that a deal to reestablish relations between Ankara and Yerevan should not be signed while Armenia continued to occupy Nagorno-Karabakh, and it threatened to take unspecified countermeasures if one was.”

    Turkish President Abdullah Gul, meanwhile, phoned his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday to brief him on discussions with US President Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev on the Karabakh conflict, the Anatolian News Agency reported.

    The two leaders also discussed the recent removal of Turkish flags from a diplomatic mission in Azerbaijan a monument for Turkish soldiers who fought for Azerbaijan in the early 20th century. The move, a breach of international agreements between Azerbaijan and Turkey, was officially protested by Turkey’s ambassador to Azerbaijan.

    Diplomatic sources have said Turkey and Azerbaijan are confident that the two countries will overcome “this period of strain” and will continue their cooperation for providing regional stability.

    According to the Anatolian, Gul and Aliyev agreed that “misunderstandings and misperceptions brought about by some emotional reactions” while the two countries “were passing through hard times have been cleared.” It added that the two leaders “confirmed that impressions that ties between Turkey and Azerbaijan had weakened were not good for both countries.”

    The Turkish flag was removed after Azeri flags were banned by FIFA at the Turkey-Armenia World Cup qualifying match soccer match in Bursa on October 14. The Turkish flags were replaced Tuesday, Azeri media reported, speculating that the decision to remove the flags came in response to a “Turkish ban” on Azeri flags in Bursa.

    Asbarez

  • Erdogan Tells WSJ Ready to Sign Protocols, Regardless of Moldova Outcome

    Erdogan Tells WSJ Ready to Sign Protocols, Regardless of Moldova Outcome

    ERDOGAN3

    ANKARA (WSJ)–The Wall Street Journal Tuesday afternoon reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview that the signing of the Armenia-Turkey protocols was not dependent on progress of talks to be held Thursday in Moldova between the Armenian and Azeri presidents.

    “The agreement will be signed on Oct. 10. It doesn’t have anything to do with what happens in Moldova,” Erdogan told the Wall Street Journal Sunday.

    Erdogan also said the two processes — a resolution of the Karabakh conflict and rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia — remain linked, and that a positive outcome in Moldova would help overall. Turkish officials have continued to indicate the border could take longer to open than the three months set out in the three-page protocol.

    The Turkish leader said the only obstacle to signing the deal on Saturday would come if Armenia seeks to alter the text. “This is perhaps the most important point — that Armenia should not allow its policies to be taken hostage by the Armenian diaspora,” Mr. Erdogan said. Much of Armenia’s large diaspora opposes the protocol.

    A spokesman for Armenia President Serzh Sarkisian declined to comment on whether Armenia would seek changes to the protocol. He said the government would make a statement on “steps” concerning the protocol soon.

    Visit www.wsj.com for the complete article.

  • Abandoning Ataturk

    Abandoning Ataturk


    Soner Cagaptay
    Newsweek
    September 19, 2009

    In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Ottoman Empire, having suffered military defeats at the hands of Europe, realized it could match its rivals only by becoming a European society itself. So it embarked on a program of intense reforms. In 1863, Sultan Abdulaziz established Darussafaka, the empire’s first high school with a secular Western curriculum in Turkish. In the early 20th century, Kemal Ataturk followed through on the sultan’s dreams, making Turkey a staunchly secular state. Institutions such as Darussafaka, my alma mater, thrived.

    Not now. Last month, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) decided to start a training academy for imams in Darussafaka’s iconic, 130-year-old former campus, abandoned by Darussafaka for a new facility in 1994. Such a step would have been unfathomable even two years ago. But it’s a sign of how the era of Ataturk and Abdulaziz is coming to an end.

    Since coming to power in 2002, the Islamist AKP has transformed Turkey. Bureaucrats in Ankara now feel compelled to attend prayers lest they be bypassed for promotions. Religious observance has become a necessity for those seeking government appointments or lucrative state contracts. The AKP firmly controls the country’s executive and legislative branches and is extending its power by appointing sympathetic judges, university presidents, and the heads of major civil organizations. The party has used legal loopholes to raise the share of Turkey’s media held by pro-AKP businessmen from 20 percent to about 50 percent.

    The increasingly marginalized secular elite is largely to blame for its own downfall. After 1946, when Turkey became a multiparty democracy, the country ran on autopilot. Turkey’s secular establishment grew fatigued and stopped doing what it takes to maintain popular support. After the collapse of communism, Turkey’s working and lower-middle classes largely abandoned the left. Rather than cultivate them, secular parties waited for the masses to come to them. The AKP, by contrast, went to the people, establishing a vast, Tammany Hall-style network to distribute jobs and benefits while preaching traditional Islamist values. The result was its historic 2002 victory.

    Ataturk’s followers also neglected key institutions. Consider Darus-safaka. After the school moved to a new campus in the suburbs in 1994, the elite let the handsome, 19th-century buildings with a Bosporus view lay fallow for 15 years. Not one secular business, NGO, or university took interest in them.

    And consider the media. While nonreligious and liberal Turks continue to rely on newspapers — the old media — to get their message out, the Islamists have taken over the new. They now dominate the Internet, using a proliferating number of sites to spin news with an anti-Western and pro-AKP twist. This helps shape ordinary Turks’ attitudes. When the global economy collapsed in 2008, for example, these Web sites placed blame for the crisis on a supposed transfer by Lehman Brothers of $40 billion to Israel. Islamist Web sites have also played a major role in shaping the debate around the Ergenekon case, branding liberal and secular opposition figures as “terrorists” for allegedly supporting a coup plot against the AKP government and intimidating some into submission.

    Not only do Turkey’s secular forces seem to regard politics as a 9-to-5 job, they also lack a positive vision. The AKP, on the other hand, works around the clock. And while they may seek to undermine Ataturk’s reforms, no one can accuse the Islamists of lacking vision.

    This doesn’t mean that secular Turks should give up the game. Instead, they need to learn from their opponents. This means reengaging in retail politics, from grassroots activism to canvassing to voter drives. Secular Turks also need to assert a positive vision for their country’s future. In years past, the sultans, and then Ataturk, used Europe as their model. Secular Turks must update this vision today, defining a liberal, 21st-century Turkey. And they must make that vision more appealing than the AKP’s; otherwise, the people will choose the Islamists. And who can blame them?

    Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute.

    View this op-ed on our website.
  • ERGENEKON – Dangerous Intrigues in Istanbul

    ERGENEKON – Dangerous Intrigues in Istanbul

    Eric Margolis

    Veteran journalist and Author

    Posted: September 15, 2009 03:28 PM
    Read More: Ataturk, Ergenekon, European Union, Istanbul, Istanbul-Floods, Turkey, Turkey Floods, Turkey Trial, Turkish Muslisms, World News

    The name “Ergenekon” may not be familiar to non-Turks, but this murky political affaire has riveted Turkey’s 70 million people.

    Thirty-three members of a neo-fascist group called Ergenekon have been on trial, accused of murder, terrorism, and trying to overthrow the elected government. The trial was temporarily suspended after the courthouse was flooded out during torrential rains that inundated Istanbul last week, leaving 31 dead.

    This fascinating trial has been exposing the workings of the `deep state,’ a powerful cabal of retired and active military officers, security forces, gangsters, government officials, judges, and business oligarchs that has long been the real power in this complex nation.

    Turkey’s military vigorously denies any links to the Ergenekon.

    The `deep state’ advocates extreme Turkish nationalism and revived Pan-Turkism, or Turanism, the unification of all Turkic peoples from Turkey to the Great Wall of China.

    Its extreme right-wing members are bitterly anti-Islamic, and violently oppose any admission of guilt for the mass killing during World War I of many of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenians. Most Turks insist the killings occurred in the chaos of war and insurrection. Armenians call it the 20th century’s first genocide.

    Turkey’s hard right also opposes improving relations with neighbors Armenia and Greece, or making any more concessions to Turkey’s sizable Kurdish minority.

    Ergenekon’s plotters stand accused of plans to assassinate officials of PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Part(AKP), a democratic, modernizing movement advocating Islamic principles of fairer wealth distribution and social welfare.

    While AKP is a moderate, centrist party, Turkey’s secularists, without any serious evidence, claim it is the spearhead of a radical Islamic movement. The real issue is as much about the secularist’s right to protect their long-enjoyed economic and social privileges as it is about religion.

    The plotters reportedly hired hit men to kill leading liberal intellectuals, including acclaimed writer, Orhan Pamuk, and may have murdered a prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist and three Christians. They also oppose Turkey’s entry into the EU as a threat to `Turkishness.’

    What makes this case particularly interesting is that Ergenekon may well be linked to Gladio, a secret, far right underground group created in the 1950s by the US and NATO during the Cold War as a `stay behind’ guerrillas to resist Soviet invasion or Communist takeovers. Gladio had a network of agents and caches of arms across Europe with secret links to NATO intelligence services.

    Gladio staged numerous bombing attacks and assassinations during the 1970s and ’80s in a effort to promote far right coups in Italy, Belgium, and Turkey, where it remains active.
    A cell was even recently uncovered in Switzerland.

    In Italy, Gladio members played a key role in the P2 Masonic Lodge’s plot to overthrow the government. The Vatican’s Banco Ambrosiano, its head, Roberto Calvi, and Italian military intelligence, were also involved this intrigue.

    The Ergenekon plot is one facet of the intense struggle between Erdogan’s Islamist-lite reformists and Turkey’s 510,000-man armed forces which sees itself as defender of the anti-religious, westernized secular state created in the 1930’s by Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey.

    Turkey’s generals are closely allied to the deeply entrenched secularist oligarchy of business barons, judges, university rectors, media groups, and the security services that has made Ataturk’s memory and anti-religious values into a state philosophy.

    Turkey’s right-wing generals have overthrown three governments and ousted a fourth. The Turkish military establishment is traditionally close to the US and Israel, with whom it’s had extensive military, arms and intelligence dealings.

    Until PM Erdogan’s election, the military was Turkey’s real government behind a thin façade of squabbling elected politicians, a fact lost on western observers who used to urge Turkey’s “democratic” political model on the Muslim world.

    An intensifying struggle is under way between the two camps. On the surface, it’s “secularism versus Islamic government.” But that’s just shorthand for the fierce rivalry between the military-industrial-security complex and Erdogan’s supporters, many of whom are recent immigrants to the big cities from rural areas, where Islam remains vital in spite of eight decades of government efforts to stamp it out or tightly control it.

    Right-wing forces recently got allies in the Appeals Court to lay spurious corruption charges against Turkey’s respected President, Abdullah Gul. The Erdogan government struck back by levying a US $2.5 billion tax fine on the powerful Dogan media conglomerate that has been a fierce critic and enemy of the prime minister. Both foolish acts injure Turkey’s image as a modern democracy.

    Erdogan has been Turkey’s best, most popular prime minister. He has enacted important political, social, legal and economic reforms, and has drawn Turks closer to Europe’s laws and values. He stabilized Turkey’s formerly wild finances and brought a spirit of real democracy to Turkey. The EU keeps warning Turkey’s growling generals to keep out of politics.

    After 50 years of trying, Turkey still can’t get into the European Union. Europe clearly wants an obedient Turkey to protect its eastern flank and fend off more troublesome Muslims, but not an equal partner and certainly not a new member, even though Turkey is as qualified for the EU as Bulgaria or Romania.

    Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s Nicholas Sarkozy, both leaders of Europe’s anti-Muslim right, keep saying no to the Turks. The EU wants no more farmers – and productive, lower cost ones at that – and no more Muslims.

    • Turkey
    • European Union
    The name “Ergenekon” may not be familiar to non-Turks, but this murky political affaire has riveted Turkey’s 70 million people. Thirty-three members of a neo-fascist group called Ergenekon have be…
    The name “Ergenekon” may not be familiar to non-Turks, but this murky political affaire has riveted Turkey’s 70 million people. Thirty-three members of a neo-fascist group called Ergenekon have be…

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