Tag: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  • Turkish president arrives in Tehran

    Turkish president arrives in Tehran

    Turkish President Abdullah Gul has arrived in Tehran on a four-day official visit to discuss a whole range of topics with ranking Iranian authorities.

    Abdullah Gul

    The Turkish president was received by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi upon arrival at Mehrabad International Airport Sunday afternoon, reported IRNA.

    Gul’s trip comes at the invitation of his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

    An official welcoming ceremony is scheduled to be held for the Turkish head of state on Monday morning.

    President Gul is to hold official meetings with senior Iranian authorities and discuss the promotion of Tehran-Ankara cooperation plus pressing regional and international issues.

    The Turkish president is also slated to visit the Iranian cities of Isfahan and Tabriz during his trip.

    On the eve of his Tehran visit on Saturday, the Turkish president told IRNA that he would be accompanied by a host of Turkish investors and businessmen during the trip.

    The Iran-Turkey Joint Economic Cooperation Commission is also planned to be formed during the trip, he added.

    He described Iran and Turkey as two regional heavyweights, which “treat each other with mutual respect.”

    “Common borderlines between the two countries have not changed since 1639 and this is a unique example in the world,” he went on to say.

    “Various issues including political, economic, and cultural issues will be brought up between the two sides in this trip,” he further explained.

    Press Tv

  • US Designates Anti-Iranian Group as Terrorists

    US Designates Anti-Iranian Group as Terrorists

    joseph schuman
    Joseph Schuman Senior Correspondent

    (Nov. 3) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today designated an anti-Iranian militant band once linked to the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization, a move that may have little concrete effect on the group but suggests the Obama administration is laying ground for a new round of talks with Tehran.

    The State Department’s formal terrorist classification of Jundallah, a group claiming to fight for the rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran, means the group and its members are subject to economic sanctions and could have any U.S. assets frozen, and that Americans are banned from helping it in any way. But it’s unclear how Jundallah’s members, believed to number no more than 1,000, would be affected.

    Based in Balochistan, which straddles the Iranian-Pakistani border, Jundallah is accused of killing or injuring hundreds of Iranian civilians and government officials through suicide bombings, ambushes, kidnappings and targeted assassinations, the State Department noted.

    anti Iranian group
    An image grab taken from Al-Arabiya footage broadcast June 20, 2008, allegedly shows an Iranian Jundallah fighter with a rifle standing over kidnapped Iranian security workers.

    Violently active since 2003, Jundallah may have been responsible for an assassination attempt on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. It destroyed a Shiite mosque in Zahedan — the capital of Sistan va Balochistan province — in 2009, and in July of this year attacked the Grand Mosque there, killing 30 people and injuring hundreds.

    The Obama administration roundly condemned the Grand Mosque attack at the time. And though the administration of George W. Bush — and specifically Vice President Dick Cheney — reportedly considered supporting Jundallah, the U.S. government has never publicly done so.

    In past periods of warming diplomacy with Iran, the U.S. has placed other domestic Iranian anti-government militant groups on the terrorist list, including Mujahideen-e Khalq and two Kurdish groups.

    The formal terrorist designation of Jundallah, probably welcome in Tehran, comes as the Obama administration and European allies look set to return to the nuclear negotiating table with Iran.

    Last week the White House said the U.S. is preparing a deal for Iran to give up parts of its nuclear program that could help the country produce atomic weapons, a little over a year after a similar deal fell through.

    Iran has been feeling the economic pain of tough new United Nations sanctions imposed in June and a skein of unilateral sanctions from the U.S., Europeans and other countries put in place since then. The Obama administration hopes any new negotiations will reveal whether the Iranian leadership’s long resistance to compromise has softened.

    On Friday, Catherine Ashton, the top European Union foreign affairs official, said Iran had finally responded to an invitation to new talks that she made in July and that a new round of negotiations could resume as early as next week.

    Iran sent a letter to Ashton saying the talks could start “from Nov. 10 on,” and the two sides are believed to be working on agreeing on an exact time and place.

    But Iran has also insisted that Israel’s nuclear program be part of any negotiations — a nonstarter for the U.S. and its partners.

    And Tehran’s long history of starting and stalling nuclear negotiations — as well as the progress its nuclear efforts have made since last year’s deal fell apart — have fostered little optimism for this latest round of diplomacy.

    , 04 Nov 2010

  • Erdogan’s Troubling Friends

    Erdogan’s Troubling Friends

    This article first appeared at FrontPage Magazine.

    In 1974, when Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was president of the Istanbul youth group of the MSP (the Islamist National Salvation Party), he wrote, directed, and starred in a play called Mas-Kom-Ya, which addressed subversive elements in Turkish society: masons, communists and yahudi (Jews). This very same performer has managed to convince gullible Western politicians that Turkey is committed to EU membership. Equally convincingly, he has played to the Arab gallery since his AKP (Justice and Development Party) came to power in 2002.

    Erdogan’s tirade against Shimon Peres during a panel discussion at last year’s World Economic Forum in Davos – “you know very well how to kill” – earned plaudits all around the Arab world. The Lebanese daily Dar A-Hayatsuggested that Erdogan should restore the Ottoman Empire and be the Caliph of all Muslims. By some accounts, this has been identified as the driving force behind Turkey’s expansionist foreign policy, which has been dubbed “neo-Ottoman.”

    This new course obviously played out in Turkey’s role in the Gaza flotilla incident. According to Debka (an open source intelligence website) the flotilla was personally sponsored by Erdogan, and according to the same source, he is even prepared to sail aboard the next flotilla himself. Some awareness of the consequences must have been know, as a week before the flotilla sailed, Ankara threatened Israel with reprisals if it was impeded.

    The connection between the flotilla’s organizer, the Turkish-based IHH (Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief), and Hamas is well documented, and it created a stir when Hamas leader Khaled Mashal was officially invited to Ankara in 2006.

    Ankara’s support for Iran’s nuclear program, ostensibly for peaceful purposes, is likewise a cause for concern in the Western world, and President Abdullah Gül has admitted in an interview with Forbes magazine that “it is their final aspiration to have a nuclear weapon in the end.”

    Turkey and Syria have agreed on a long-term strategic partnership and Erdogan continues to defend Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir (who is on the International Criminal Court’s wanted list) with the claim that “a Muslim can never commit genocide.”

    Also alarming is the secret meeting between Prime Minister Erdogan and a Sudanese financier, Dr. Fatih al-Hassanein, during an Arab League summit in Khartoum in 2006. Dr. al-Hassanein is believed to have ties with al-Qaeda and other Islamist movements (e.g. in Bosnia).

    What has caused another stir is the friendship between Prime Minister Erdogan and a Saudi businessman, Yassin al-Qadi, who, according to the U.S. Treasury and the United Nations Security Council, is a major financier of Islamic terrorism. Erdogan’s advisor and co-founder of the AKP, Cüneyd Zapsu, was also al-Qadi’s partner.

    Erdogan defended al-Qadi publicly on Turkish television, declaring: “I trust him the same way I trust my father.” And a case against al-Qadi was dropped when in 2006 the Chief Public Prosecutor decided: “Al-Qadi is a philanthropic businessman and no connection has been found between him and terrorist organizations.”

    The truth is beginning to catch up with Erdogan. Last week, in an interview given to the Wall Street Journal, Fethullah Gülen, who, although a resident in the USA, is reckoned to be Turkey’s most influential religious leader, criticized the Gaza flotilla. He also commented: “.. some people in the United States consider Turkey as sitting at the epicenter of radicalism.”

    It is now up to the hot-tempered Mr. Erdogan and his government to dispel this image — or to continue confirming it.

    Robert Ellis is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish and international press.

  • ‘Iran is our friend,’ says Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan

    ‘Iran is our friend,’ says Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan

    • We have no difficulty with Ahmadinejad – Erdogan
    • Warning to Europe not to ignore Turkey’s strengths

    A13With its stunning vistas and former Ottoman palaces, the banks of the Bosphorus – the strategic waterway that cuts Istanbul in half and divides Europe from Asia – may be the perfect place to distinguish friend from foe and establish where your country’s interests lie.

    And sitting in his grandiose headquarters beside the strait, long the symbol of Turkey‘s supposed role as bridge between east and west, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had little doubt about who was a friend and who wasn’t.

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran‘s radical president whose fiery rhetoric has made him a bête noire of the west? “There is no doubt he is our friend,” said Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister for the last six years. “As a friend so far we have very good relations and have had no difficulty at all.”

    What about Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, who has led European opposition to Turkey’s bid to join the EU and, coincidentally, adopted a belligerent tone towards Iran’s nuclear programme? Not a friend?

    “Among leaders in Europe there are those who have prejudices against Turkey, like France and Germany. Previously under Mr Chirac, we had excellent relations [with France] and he was very positive towards Turkey. But during the time of Mr Sarkozy, this is not the case. It is an unfair attitude. The European Union is violating its own rules.

    “Being in the European Union we would be building bridges between the 1.5bn people of Muslim world to the non-Muslim world. They have to see this. If they ignore it, it brings weakness to the EU.”

    Friendly towards a religious theocratic Iran, covetous and increasingly resentful of a secular but maddeningly dismissive Europe: it seems the perfect summary of Turkey’s east-west dichotomy.

    Erdogan’s partiality towards Ahmadinejad may surprise some in the west who see Turkey as a western-oriented democracy firmly grounded inside Nato. It has been a member of the alliance since 1952. It will be less surprising to Erdogan’s secular domestic critics, who believe the prime minister’s heart lies in the east and have long suspected his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP) government of plotting to transform Turkey into a religious state resembling Iran.

    Erdogan vigorously denies the latter charge, but to his critics he and Ahmadinejad are birds of a feather: devout religious conservatives from humble backgrounds who court popular support by talking the language of the street. After Ahmadinejad’s disputed presidential election in June, Erdogan and his ally, the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, were among the first foreign leaders to make congratulatory phone calls, ignoring the mass demonstrations and concerns of western leaders over the result’s legitimacy.

    Talking to the Guardian, Erdogan called the move a “necessity of bilateral relations”. “Mr Ahmadinejad was declared to be the winner, not officially, but with a large vote difference, and since he is someone we have met before, we called to congratulate him,” he said.

    “Later it was officially declared that he was elected, he got a vote of confidence and we pay special attention to something like this. It is a basic principle of our foreign policy.”

    The gesture will be remembered when Erdogan arrives in Tehran this week for talks with Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, that will focus on commercial ties, including Turkey’s need for Iranian natural gas. Ahmadinejad has voiced his admiration for Erdogan, praising Turkey’s recent decision to ban Israel from a planned Nato manoeuvre in protest at last winter’s bombardment of Gaza.

    Since the election, Iran has witnessed a fierce crackdown on opposition figures that has resulted in activists, students and journalists being imprisoned and publicly tried. Detainees have died in prison, and there have been allegations of torture and rape. Some of those alleging mistreatment have sought refuge in Turkey.

    But Erdogan said he would not raise the post-election crackdown with his hosts, saying it would represent “interference” in Iranian domestic affairs.

    He poured cold water on western accusations that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, saying: “Iran does not accept it is building a weapon. They are working on nuclear power for the purposes of energy only.”

    Erdogan has overseen a dramatic improvement in the previously frigid relations between Turkey and Iran, which was viewed with suspicion by the pro-secularist high command of the powerful Turkish military. Trade between the two countries last year was worth an estimated £5.5bn as Iran has developed into a major market for Turkish exports.

    Erdogan’s views will interest US foreign policy makers, who have long seen his AKP government as a model of a pro-western “moderate Islam” that could be adopted in other Muslim countries. They will also find an audience with President Barack Obama, who signalled Turkey’s strategic importance in a visit last April and has invited the prime minister to visit Washington. They are unlikely to impress Israel, which has warned that Erdogan’s criticisms risk harming Turkey’s relations with the US.

    Erdogan dismissed the notion, saying: “I don’t think there is any possibility of that. America’s policy in this region is not dictated by Israel.”

    He insisted that the Turkey-Israel strategic alliance – which some AKP insiders have said privately is over – remains alive but chided the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who he said had threatened to use nuclear weapons against Gaza.

    The Guardian

  • British Embassy staff arrested in Iran

    British Embassy staff arrested in Iran

    Iran has detained eight local staff at the British embassy in Tehran on accusations of having a role in post-election riots, local reports said.

    ukUK Foreign Secretary David Miliband demanded their release, saying the arrests were “quite unacceptable”.

    Relations between the countries are strained after Tehran accused the UK of stoking unrest, which London denies.

    Some 17 people are thought to have died in street protests after the disputed 12 June presidential poll.

    Tehran has expelled two British diplomats in the past week, and the UK has responded with a similar measure.

    The arrests were first reported by the semi-official Fars news agency.

    “Eight local employees at the British embassy who had a considerable role in recent unrest were taken into custody,” Fars said, without giving a source.

    UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband expressed “deep concern” over the arrest of local staff on Saturday.

    “This is harassment and intimidation of a kind that is quite unacceptable,” he told reporters at an international conference in Corfu. “We want to see (them) released unharmed.”

    He said the British government had made a strong protest and denied accusations that the UK was behind unrest in Iran.

    Poll verdict

    Meanwhile, Iran’s powerful Guardian Council was due to give its verdict on the result of the disputed presidential election, which handed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a decisive victory.

    But the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen in Tehran says there is much politicking taking place behind the scenes, and that the five-day deadline for the Guardian Council to return its verdict may be extended.

    Our correspondent says there is an attempt to form a committee – including the disappointed presidential candidates – to oversee the recount of 10% of the votes, a move which they are resisting.

    Another parliamentary committee is holding discussions with the grand ayatollahs in an attempt from pro-Ahmadinejad forces to put on a show of unity, he adds.

    But opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has not backed away from his claim that the election result was fraudulent, and has refused to support the Guardian Council’s plan for a partial recount.

    Mr Mousavi has been calling for a full re-run of the vote, but said on Saturday that he would accept a review by an independent body.

    However the Guardian Council has already defended President Ahmadinejad’s re-election, saying on Friday that the presidential poll was the “healthiest” since the Iranian revolution in 1979.

    BBC