Turkey’s flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) will begin direct flights between İstanbul and Washington, D.C. on Nov. 6.
Eight congressmen, including William Delahunt and Jean Schmidt, will be on the first THY flight to take off from Washington, D.C. The congressmen will be received by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and are scheduled to have several meetings.
THY has daily flights to New York and flies to Chicago six days a week. It will have three flights a week to the US capital.
by Meg Nesterov (RSS feed) on Nov 3rd 2010 at 3:30PM
Travelers visiting Istanbul this winter will pay extra to get around on public transportation. The transit authority has just put a fare hike in effect on the trams, metro, bus, and ferry lines, the first in a year and a half.
A single-leg token (jeton) will now cost 1.75 TL (about ($1.25), up from 1.50, but Akbil (smart ticket) carriers will pay 1.65 TL and .85 TL for transfers. Ferries between the Asian and European sides or along the Golden Horn will cost 1.75 TL, using a token or Akbil.
Read on for more info on the Akbil and how to use mass transit to get to Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.
An Akbil (smart ticket) is a small electronic button-like device that can be loaded with money at any major transit station or tram stop, and provides discounted transfers within an hour and a half of your first ride. The Akbil can be shared amongst multiple people, though only the discount will only apply to one passenger.Travelers can purchase a new Akbil with a 6 TL refundable deposit at major transit centers, though Taksim Square is the most reliable place to purchase one. Look for the booth that says “Akbil Satış Noktası” (Akbil sales point) rather than newsstands which may only allow recharges). There’s been talk of phasing out the Akbil in favor of the new RFID Istanbulkart but instituting the card into the system has caused delays and the card can’t currently be purchased.
While Istanbul’s transit system is not nearly as extensive or convenient as any many other European cities, most tourists will at least use the handy tram line during their travels, which connects many popular areas from Taksim Square (via an additional transfer from Kabatas on the funicular train) to the Old City sights including the Blue Mosque and Grand Bazaar. It is also possible to take public transit to the Ataturk airport if you have time to spare: a tram ride to the end of the line at Zeytinburnu connects with a metro line to the airport and takes a little over an hour (note: you can also transfer at Aksaray but it involves walking a few blocks, difficult with luggage).
A few additional kurus (cents) for a ride may not mean a lot to travelers, but with the dollar down 11 percent in the last 5 months, you’ll want to save your lira where you can.
Turkey and the Arab World
Turkey is not wavering in the slightest from its pro-European course. Nevertheless, as a trading nation with a dynamic economy that is the living proof of the fact that Islam, a secular political landscape and a parliamentary democracy are indeed compatible, it has in recent times rediscovered its Arab neighbours. Rainer Hermann reports
There was one good thing about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Lebanon: although it increased tension prior to the publication of the indictment by the special international tribunal into the murder of Rafiq Hariri, it also demonstrated that in the Arab world, Iran can now really only be sure of the support of Shiites. In Beirut and during his trip to South Lebanon, Ahmadinejad was almost exclusively cheered on by Shiites; Sunni Muslims in the Arab world, on the other hand, viewed his visit to Lebanon with considerable disquiet.
There are many reasons why Iran’s influence in the Arab world has passed its zenith. One of them is the circumstances that surrounded Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June 2009 and the bloody crackdown on protests. Another is the growing influence of Turkey.
Last July, Khalil Shikaki’s Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research discovered that 43 percent of all Palestinians consider Turkey to be their most important foreign policy ally, ahead of Egypt at 13 percent and Iran at only 6 percent. Support for Turkey in the West Bank and in Gaza is virtually the same.
In Lebanon, Ahmadinejad did not succeed in reversing this trend. Shortly before his arrival in Beirut, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was back in Damascus for another meeting with President Bashar al-Assad. In the race for the post of prime minister in Iraq, both these men support the secular Shiite Iyad Allawi, while the powers that be in Iran prefer Nouri Maliki.
In addition to the matter of Iran, Erdogan and Assad spoke about opportunities for reviving the peace process. Assad made it clear that indirect talks with Israel could only be restarted if Turkey were to act as mediator.
Turkey is a “success story” in the Middle East
Up until ten years ago, Turkey was not a player in the Middle East, despite the fact that it shares borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran. It was a quiet neighbour. Today, the state that succeeded the Ottoman Empire is a popular go-between and trading partner. For the states and societies of the Middle East, Turkey – with its dynamic economy and practical evidence that Islam, a secular political landscape and parliamentary democracy are indeed compatible – is a “success story”; it has become a “soft power”.
There are heated debates in the West as to whether Turkey is currently just rediscovering the Middle East or whether it is actually returning to it and – if this is indeed the case – whether it is abandoning its foreign policy orientation towards the West. These questions were recently addressed at a conference in Istanbul organised by the Sabanci University, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the Robert Bosch Foundation.
One of the conclusions reached at the event was that although Turkey has adopted a new, active foreign policy, it has not abandoned its pro-European, pro-Western course. Nor has it shifted the main lines of its foreign policy. The policy of opening up towards its neighbours in the Middle East is much more a matter of diversifying its diplomacy and increasing prosperity in Turkey by tapping into new sales markets.
Foreign policy in the service of trading interests
Turkey’s former foreign policy was based on security considerations and the priority of territorial integrity. Its new foreign policy, on the other hand, is in the service of Turkey the trading nation and seeks to guarantee security and safeguard borders by increasing prosperity. Sükrü Elekdag, one of the best-known ambassadors in the country’s old diplomatic guard, often liked to say that Turkey always had to be ready for “two-and-a-half wars”, i.e. wars against Greece, Syria and the PKK.
In sharp contrast to this, Turkey’s current foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has formulated a “policy of no problems” towards all neighbours, the aim of which is to maximize cross-border trade. With the exception of Armenia, this policy has worked so far.
Turkish foreign policy is more than just classic diplomacy, it is trade policy. It is above all Turkey’s new, up-and-coming middle class – the backbone of the ruling AKP – that is benefitting from the new, economy-based foreign policy of Turkey the trading nation.
The industrial cities of Anatolia, which have been dubbed the “Anatolian tigers”, are eyeing as yet unexploited market opportunities in neighbouring countries. While their entrepreneurs are also trading with Europe, they are increasingly focussing their efforts on the Middle East because of Europe’s restrictive Schengen visa policy, which also hits entrepreneurs and investors. This is why they support the visa-free zone which Turkey has established with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
One of the success stories of Turkey’s new foreign policy is Syria. In 1998, the two neighbours stood on the brink of war. Today, their economic and political ties are close. The Turkish-Syrian rapprochement went hand in hand with a cooling of relations with Israel. This process had already begun under Erdogan’s predecessor, the left-wing nationalist Bülent Ecevit, who accused Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians. That being said, Erdogan visited Israel as recently as 2005; two years later, Israeli President Shimon Peres addressed the Turkish parliament.
Turkey’s policy towards Israel and the Palestinians is very different to that of the EU. While both advocate a peaceful resolution to the conflict and a two-state solution, they are talking to different players. Turkey accuses European diplomacy of ignoring reality because it is only talking to Fatah and boycotting Hamas. The Turkish reasoning is that there cannot be a peaceful solution without the involvement of Hamas. This is why Turkey is trying to pull Hamas into the political “mainstream”.
The differences of opinion between Turkey and the West are particularly blatant when it comes to Iran. While the West is toughening its sanctions against Iran, Turkey is developing its trade with the Islamic Republic.
Last June, Turkey voted against harsher sanctions in the UN Security Council. Unlike the West, Turkey believes that the only way to normalise Iran is to normalise relations, which involves trade and diplomacy. Turkey is familiar with the kind of bazaar mentality that is needed for negotiations with Iran. For fear of destabilizing the region, neither the Ottoman Empire nor the Turkish Republic has ever supported rebellions in Iran. For centuries, the safeguarding of a regional balance of power has been more important than the pursuance of a foreign policy based on ideology. This is why Turkey’s sympathy with the dissident “green” movement is only modest.
Just like the EU, Turkey only plays a secondary role in the Middle East behind the United States. At the end of the Cold War, however, it correctly identified the shifting of the tectonic plates in world politics and now, as a modern, self-confident, trading nation, wants to grasp the opportunities that are arising. Turkey still has its sights set on Europe. But the door to Europe remains locked and so this newly self-confident nation is pursuing its own interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Rainer Hermann
© Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung/Qantara.de 2010
Translated from the German by Aingeal Flanagan
Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de
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The movie about myths and stereotypes in Istanbul made by renowned Spanish artist Antoni Muntadas in cooperation with Açık Radio will be shown at a gala ceremony on 7 October in the Istanbul Modern museum. Before that, the movie can be viewed via the internet.
Istanbul – BİA News Center 05 October 2010, Tuesday
The Spanish artist Antoni Muntadas analysed myths and clichés of Istanbul in his movie “On Translation: Açik Radio”.
The film will be screened at a gala ceremony in the Istanbul Modern, the museum of modern art, on 7 October at 7.00 pm. The movie has a length of 31 minutes and can be viewed via the internet prior to the gala opening.
“The internet is used to publish and share this project. In terms of time and place the internet makes the project more accessible compared to television”, Antoni Muntadas says about the publication of the movie via the internet.
The project was initiated in January 2009. Muntadas explains:
“In recent years an increasing interest for Istanbul developed, evoking an interpretation of the city from different views. The complicated structure of the city offers an interesting platform for research, investigations and interpretations on urban planning, architectural, public and aesthetic aspects of the city. But it seems impossible to determine the unique image of the city. The image of a city – especially Istanbul – is specified by its description by the media as much as the urban and demographic changes it has been through. There are two dimensions of this description: Myths and Stereotypes. Myths, build by the verbal stories of the people of that city and fed by cultural, social and political phenomena. Stereotypes, on the other hand, are being rebuilt by passengers, foreign writers, artists, media and tourists”.
“By receiving an invitation for the “Lives and Works in Istanbul” project, I started to work on a project defining the way Istanbul is being represented and constructed by the media and examining the myths and stereotypes produced by the different internal and external views. I’ve been watching movies, reading, interviewing experts for days and finally decided to insert “Acik Radio” to the scope of the project. Acik Radio is both the target (object) and the filter (subject) of the project. Acik Radio’s philosophy, moral and aesthetic values as an alternative and independent initiative are getting visible by the project. Acik Radio’s operation is documented, on the other hand the programme series create an opportunity for dialogue between “Istanbulites” about the creation and consumption of myths and stereotypes.”
Acik Radio is an independent “regional” radio station which broadcasts to the metropolitan Istanbul area and its environs. Even though Acik Radio was founded as a private company, if functions as a non-profit organization.
Antoni Muntadas interviewed Atif Akin, Gulden Kalafat , Ferda Keskin , Feride Cicekoglu, Korhan Gumus, Murat Guvenc, Nezih Erdogan, Omer Madra, Sevket Sahinbas, Tuna Erdem, searched more than 150 movies about Istanbul and made recordings around Istanbul and at Acik Radio for his Istanbul movie.
Four radio programmes entitled “On Translation: Myths and Stereotypes” have been realized at Acik Radio hosted by Yahya Madra. One of the guests in the program was bianet editor Erhan Üstündağ.
The work was part of the “Living and Working in Istanbul” project in the scope of Istanbul as one of the 2010 European Capitals of Culture.
Antonio Muntadas was born in Spain in 1942 and lives in New York since 1971. His works focus on the social, political, diplomatic and communicational issues. He has a close look at the relations and communication channels of private and public areas in the social environment and how the information flow throuhg these channels are being censored, also focussing on the sort of publication of thoughts. He works with photograph, video, broadcasting and multi-media installations.
Muntadas’ works are exhibited in renowned museums all over the world. In July 2009, he was awarded with the Valesquez award, Spain’s most prestigious award in the field of contemporary arts. (TK/VK)
ISTANBUL — When Emrah Gultekin looks at the crumbling facades, dangling laundry lines and narrow streets of Istanbul’s working-class Balat district, he envisions a prosperous neighborhood with the best views and highest prices in the city.
By Benjamin Harvey
Bloomberg News
KEREM UZEL / BLOOMBERG NEWS
Old buildings stand next to renovated houses in Istanbul’s Balat neighborhood, a UNESCO-protected district on the Golden Horn waterway.
ISTANBUL — When Emrah Gultekin looks at the crumbling facades, dangling laundry lines and narrow streets of Istanbul’s working-class Balat district, he envisions a prosperous neighborhood with the best views and highest prices in the city.
Gultekin, 37, the chief executive officer of a local property developer, plans to spend $140 million to renovate more than 60 buildings, dating mostly from the early to mid-19th century, in Balat. The rundown neighborhood surrounded by Byzantine walls is within walking distance of Istanbul’s Sultanahmet tourist area.
“That cafeteria used to be used by drug dealers; now it’s part of a college,” he said, pointing to a wooden platform with tables occupied by art students. “This place has a lot of potential, but no one wants to move here at the moment.”
Gultekin said he expects the values of the mainly residential properties may jump sevenfold, to $5,500 a square meter, within about five years. That’s in line with what similar high-end apartment buildings are now selling for, according to Ipera AS, another real-estate developer in the city. He’s among investors seeking to profit from fixing up residences in the dilapidated historic districts of central Istanbul as Turkey’s affluence increases.
Since Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister in 2003, gross domestic product per capita has nearly doubled to $8,578, even after an 18 percent drop from 2008 to 2009, according to the State Statistics Institute. Some of that growth is new wealth from the less-developed eastern part of the country known as Anatolia.
“Lots of people with accumulated wealth from Anatolia are coming to Istanbul and looking for a place in the center,” said Murat Ignebekcili, a real-estate analyst at EFG Istanbul Securities. “We’ll be seeing some massive urban-transformation projects in that area.”
A hot spot in the 1800s
Balat, a UNESCO-protected district on Istanbul’s Golden Horn waterway, was once one of the city’s most prestigious areas. A century and a half ago, it was home to a merchant community of Turks, Jews, Greeks and Armenians. By the 1990s, its crowded streets had been largely left to poor migrants.
Gultekin’s company, Balat AS, plans to convert the crumbling wooden structures into classrooms, offices, shops and residences around the arts school.
Baran bought the first building, the five-story Ipera10 on Serdar-i Ekrem street, in 2005 for the equivalent of $800 a square meter. He invested the same amount in improvements to the 1903 structure and then sold three refurbished duplex luxury apartments for an average of $4,000 a square meter about three years later. A commercial space in the same building sold last April for $10,000 a square meter, he said. Fashion designers have set up shop on Serdar-i Ekrem, helping to lift prices, Baran said.
High-end apartments in the centrally located Beyoglu area now cost as much as $8,000 a square meter if they have views of the Bosphorus Strait, Golden Horn and landmarks, including the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace, he said.
“It went from being an inner-city slum area to one of Istanbul’s trendiest areas,” Baran said of Galata in Beyoglu.
Gentrification hasn’t always been welcomed by established residents.
But Gultekin said his company hasn’t experienced neighborhood tensions, partly because he’s negotiating deals with each property owner individually. He declined to provide details.
via Nation & World | Developer aims to transform run-down area of Istanbul | Seattle Times Newspaper.
LYNDA MCDONNEL and STEVE BRANDT Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
ISTANBUL — Our first morning in Istanbul, the waiter in our small hotel served us the traditional Turkish breakfast of olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, crusty bread and steaming tea. As we finished, he beckoned us up the stairs to the rooftop.
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IF YOU GO
GRAND BAZAAR: Think of it like the Mall of America without the amusement park. Even if you don’t like to shop, you should visit. With thousands of shops in a roofed labyrinth of lanes and fountains, the market’s size and hyped-up pitches from carpet and gold merchants can exhaust you. But bargaining over genial cups of tea for felted figures from Belarus or patchwork rugs made of carpet remnants can charm you.
Go early in the day with fresh energy and a destination in mind. A good guidebook will highlight the most interesting shops. Searching for a particular shop helps get you past the carpet salesmen who gather near entrances to steer newcomers to their stores.
BOSPHORUS CRUISE: From public ferries to posh dinner cruises, there are many options to see the Bosphorus Strait, the 32-kilometer channel that links the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea. Sites include European-style palaces that sultans built, beautifully restored Ottoman houses and seaside restaurants featuring local fish. Depending on your schedule and budget, you can devote anywhere from three hours to a full day to exploring the waterway that gave Istanbul its strategic importance and carries much of its commercial traffic.
GETTING AROUND: Flights to Istanbul from the Twin Cities through New York’s JFK run about $1,200 currently. Within the country, distances to Cappadocia and the Aegean coast are greater than they appear on a map. While train routes are limited, inter-city buses are frequent, punctual, clean and affordable. But it will take all night on a bus to get from Istanbul to Cappadocia. Consider flying instead. Domestic fares are reasonable. Search for Pegasus Air or Onur Air on Google and click the “translate this page” button to see their websites in English. Or stop at one of the many small travel agencies in Istanbul to have them book flights for you.
WHERE TO STAY: Of three places we stayed in the Sultanamet district, the Cosmopolitan Park Hotel was our favorite, despite small rooms. The walk-up hotel has beautiful views of the Marmara Sea, a rooftop that looks out at the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, and a desk clerk whose love of his city is infectious. In the summer, double rooms with sea views and private baths go for 72 euros, about $95 at $1.25 per euro (www.cosmopolitanparkhotel.com).
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We gasped at the view. To the south, the Sea of Marmara stretched to the horizon. To the north, the vast domes of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia looked close enough to touch. And beside us, the Muslim waiter recited his favorite passage from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians: “The first commandment is love.”
Our trip to Turkey last spring was full of moments like this, with Turks reaching across divisions of culture, religion and language with questions and assistance. A country that straddles Europe and Asia, Turkey reflects the influence and history of both.
In the West, we hear about the growing influence of Islam in Turkish politics after decades of secularism and military dominance. In the lively city of 16 million people, we saw more blending than displacement. In Istanbul cafes, Muslim women wearing chic headscarves sip tea in front of TV monitors blaring sexy rock videos. Young Muslim men sip Ephes beer and raki, a powerful anise-flavored liquor, at outdoor cafes. One beer-drinking tour guide explained that he’ll repent when he makes the hajj to Mecca as an old man.
Even our waiter’s knowledge of the New Testament is not as strange as it might seem. Paul once preached in Ephesus, an ancient Roman town of amphitheaters and baths that the Turks are excavating a few hours south of Istanbul. Istanbul itself was Christian from 330 A.D., when Constantine made it the capital of his Holy Roman Empire, to 1453, when Muslims conquered the city and made it the center of the Ottoman Empire.
After breakfast, we headed off to see Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque close up. Built as a Christian basilica in the seventh century, Hagia Sophia features soaring Byzantine domes and brilliant mosaics of saints. When the Ottomans took the city, they converted it to a mosque and installed enormous medallions in Arabic script, and a screened platform from which the sultan could watch unseen. In 1935, the secular Turkish Republic converted the building to a museum, but the worn stone floors and slanting afternoon light still evoke centuries of religious devotion.
Outside Hagia Sophia, a gentle man named Adnan introduced himself and offered to show us the Blue Mosque nearby, then take us to his cousin Joseph’s carpet shop. Carpet sellers are everywhere in Turkey, hailing tourists from shops and bazaars. Maybe we suffered from an excess of Minnesota Nice, but when a fellow leads you to the mosque entrance, describes its history, then waits for 30 minutes while you visit, it’s hard to refuse a visit to his cousin.
Once we reached the shop, cousin Joseph took over with a patter that blended charm, politics and persistence. “Why don’t more Americans visit?” he asked as one assistant unfurled carpets and another fetched us tulip-shaped glasses of tea. Is it because of the Armenians who died after World War I? The pile of carpets grew taller. Perhaps you like a kilim. What color? What size? More tea?
By the time we left — without a carpet — we were hungry. So we hopped a ferry for the Kadikoy district, a lively neighborhood of cafes and restaurants on the city’s Asian side.
At Kadikoy, a highlight is Ciya Sofrasi, a modest restaurant famous for food from many regions of Turkey. Ciya’s owner, Musa Dagdeviren, has dedicated himself to recovering old recipes and using local, seasonal ingredients.
In early spring, green almond soup and cooked nettles were on the menu. Even familiar dishes like tabouli had a distinctive flavor thanks to ingredients like pomegranate vinegar.
Our waiter brought plate after plate of mese — appetizer-sized delicacies made of eggplant, peppers, olives, lentils, tomato — until we could hold no more. An American friend living in Turkey later taught us the word “yavas,” meaning “slowly,” a helpful word to know when the plates come faster than your stomach can handle.
We left with carry-out tins and feasted on the contents for lunch the next day.
During five days in Istanbul, we bargained for jewelry at the Grand Bazaar and admired palaces on a cruise up the Bosphorus. We strolled past fine shops and restaurants in the cosmopolitan Beyoglu neighborhood and marveled at the luxury of the Topkapi palace, where sultans and their harems lived.
But on the day we most treasure, we headed off in search of more remote parts of the city. We began with a plan to explore Yedikule, a massive fortress that guarded the city’s southern approaches, then walk 6.5 kilometers to the Golden Horn along the ancient city wall that once protected the city from European invaders.
With few tourists and no guard or “Keep Off” signs in sight, we roamed the battlements that link Yedikule’s seven towers.
Too tired to walk the entire length of the city wall, we took a cab to its northern edge and spent the next few hours meandering through the twisting narrow streets that cut through the hills of working-class neighborhoods.
Here was another city entirely. Smokestacks venting acrid coal smoke competed for rooftop space with solar water heaters and satellite TV dishes. An occasional rooster crowed as if to underscore how the city has swelled with millions of immigrants from the countryside.
Our path took us past wooden Ottoman houses with overhanging second stories, many crumbling, some beautifully restored. In the conservative Fatih neighborhood, we encountered crowds of young men in turbans and women wearing the abaya, a black cloak revealing only a pale diamond of forehead and eyes. Even there, one woman blinked a wordless welcome.
Near the end of our walk, we stopped at a teahouse high on a hill overlooking the Golden Horn. As we sipped strong tea in the afternoon light, the call to prayer began. In a city with more than 2,000 mosques, the call began with one voice, then two, then a dissonant chorus amplified through loudspeakers mounted high on minarets.
Some voices were high and thin, others low and deep. For several moments, they sang out different words in different cadences united in their praise of Allah. Slowly the voices dropped off until only one was left. Then it, too, stopped. For a moment before the murmur of conversation and buzz of motorbikes and buses returned, the sound of prayer echoed.
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