Microphones accidently left on after G20 meeting pick up private conversation between US, French presidents. Sarkozy admits he ‘can’t stand’ Israeli premier. Obama: You’re fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day!
French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly told US President Barack Obama that he could not "stand" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that he thinks the Israeli premier "is a liar."According to a Monday report in the French website "Arret sur Images," after facing reporters for a G20 press conference on Thursday, the two presidents retired to a private room, to further discuss the matters of the day.The conversation apparently began with President Obama criticizing Sarkozy for not having warned him that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid in UNESCO despite Washington's strong objection to the move.The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: "I cannot stand him. He is a liar." According to the report, Obama replied: "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!"The remark was naturally meant to be said in confidence, but the two leaders' microphones were accidently left on, making the would-be private comment embarrassingly public.The communication faux pas went unnoticed for several minutes, during which the conversation between the two heads of state – which quickly reverted to other matters – was all but open to members the press, who were still in possession of headsets provided by the Elysée for the sake of simultaneous translation during the G20 press conference.
"By the time the (media) services at the Elysée realize it, it was on for at least three minutes," one journalist told the website. Still, he said that reporters "did not have a chance to take advantage of this fluke."The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that journalists present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the embarrassing comments. A Reuters reporter was among the journalists present and can confirm the veracity of the comments.A member of the media confirmed Monday that "there were discussions between journalists and they agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue."He added that while it was annoying to have to refrain from publishing the information, the journalists are subject to precise rules of conduct.www.ynetnews.com, 07.11.2011
French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Turkey on Thursday to “revisit” its history regarding the 1915 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which France views as a genocide but Turkey does not.
“Turkey, which is a great country, would be honorable to revisit its history like the other great countries in the world have done: Germany, France,” Sarkozy told journalists at a joint press conference with Armenian counterpart Serge Sarkisyan.
“The genocide of Armenians is a historic reality that was recognised by France. Collective denial is even worse than individual denial,” he said.
“We are always stronger when we look our history in the face, and denial is not acceptable.”
Sarkozy was speaking after visiting Armenia’s Genocide National Museum to pay respects to Armenians killed in the massacre, an extremely sensitive issue that has kept Armenia and Turkey from establishing formal diplomatic relations.
Asked whether France should adopt a law prosecuting anyone who denies that the massacres were “genocide”, Sarkozy replied that “if Turkey revisited its history, looked it in the face, with its shadows and highlights, this recognition of the genocide would be sufficient.”
“But if Turkey will not do this, then without a doubt it would be necessary to go further,” he said.
Sarkozy angered Turkey ahead of his election in 2007 by backing a law aimed at prosecuting those who refuse to recognise the event as a genocide.
The French lower house of parliament later rejected the measure, infuriating an Armenian diaspora of some 500,000 people.
Sarkozy was to dine with Sarkisyan later Thursday and continue his tour of Caucasus states Azerbaijan and Georgia on Friday.
Turkey calls for an alliance-led campaign to limit operations while France seeks a broader ‘coalition of the willing’
A French pilot aboard a Mirage jet fighter in Corsica prior to taking off for a mission to Libya. Photograph: Anthony Jeuland/AP
A flotilla of warships has begun patrolling the Mediterranean under Nato command to block attempts by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to replenish his combat forces with arms and mercenaries.
But the attempt at a Nato show of unity in policing a UN arms embargo was undermined by a third day of squabbling at alliance headquarters in Brussels over who should be in charge of the air campaign.
Amid arguments over the scope and command of the air campaign against Tripoli, Turkey both blocked Nato planning on the no-fly zone and insisted that Nato be put in control of it, in order to be granted a veto over its operations, senior Nato officials said.
“Turkey blocked further planning while the coalition [of the willing] continues,” said a senior official. Ankara wants the broad coalition involved in the air campaign to cede control to Nato in order to limit its operations, the official added.
The Turks specifically called for a halt to air attacks on ground targets in Libya and signalled that agreement on this would be the price of their assent.
Germany, meanwhile, Europe’s biggest opponent of the Libya campaign, promptly pulled its Mediterranean naval forces out of Nato’s command.
The Turkish position put Ankara at odds with France, which has successfully thwarted strong US and British pressure to put Nato at the political helm of the air campaign overseeing the UN-decreed no-fly zone over Libya. Paris insisted that the governments of the “coalition of the willing” taking part in the strikes against Gaddafi’s military infrastructure would lead and make the decisions.
“It is important to make clear that the leadership is not Nato,” said Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister. “We see this as a UN operation under a UN mandate. It is implemented by a coalition of European, North American and Arab countries.”
Nato’s policy-making North Atlantic Council, grouping ambassadors of the 28 member states, met in Brussels for a third day to try to hammer out a facesaving deal amid frantic transatlantic diplomacy.
“We’ve not yet decided to go for a no-fly zone,” said a Nato official. “We’ve moved on from planning. That’s complete. But now the allies have to decide what decisions to take in terms of next steps.”
“Nato is ready to act if and when required,” said Oana Lungescu, the alliance spokeswoman. “These are difficult discussions on very difficult issues.”
Diplomats were optimistic that a deal would eventually be struck giving Nato military planners power to mastermind the operational side of the air campaign, while the strategic and political decision-taking on the aims and direction of the military effort would rest with what Paris called a “contact group” of participating governments. Officials from the countries involved are to meet in London next week.
“A wide and inclusive range of countries will be invited, particularly from the region. It is critical that the international community continues to take united and co-ordinated action in response to the unfolding crisis. The meeting will form a contact group of nations to take forward this work,” William Hague, the foreign secretary, said.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, repeatedly accused of seeking to hijack the Libya operations for personal political reasons, maintains that handing political leadership of the campaign to the Nato alliance would alienate the Arab world.
Despite a green light from the Arab League for the UN decision on the no-fly zone, David Cameron admitted to MPs that Arab engagement in the anti-Gaddafi effort had been less than had been hoped.
“I can confirm that yesterday the Qataris deployed the first of their contribution – Mirage aircraft and other support aircraft – and we will get logistic contributions from countries such as Kuwait and Jordan,” he said. “I hope that further support will be forthcoming but I would like to be clear that because we had to act so quickly on Saturday it was not possible to bring forward as much Arab support as might have been welcomed.”
Since France carried out the first air strikes against Libya at the weekend, the US has been commanding the operations, in consultation mainly with the French and the British. President Barack Obama has made it repeatedly clear, however, that his interest in taking the lead is very short-term and that the best option would be for Nato to take over – a position strongly supported by Cameron but opposed by Sarkozy and also, for different reasons, by Germany and Turkey.
The US and British governments, following telephone diplomacy between Obama, Cameron, and Sarkozy late on Tuesday, are stressing that Nato is to be given “a key role” in the air campaign, signalling a partial climbdown away from granting the alliance the lead role.
Senior European diplomats argue that there is “no crisis of leadership” yet over the prosecution of the Libyan war effort. But the US impatience to surrender its lead role is exposing big divisions among the Europeans.
While Cameron and Sarkozy are the west’s leading hawks in the war effort against Gaddafi, they are seriously split over who should run things.
A European summit dinner on Thursday tonight in Brussels is to focus on Libya, with the British and French leaders expected to face a grilling from European sceptics, led by Germany, over the strategy, aims, and future course of the military effort.
via Libya no-fly zone leadership squabbles continue within Nato | World news | The Guardian.
Turkey’s prime minister has criticized the severity of the ongoing military operation in Libya, as proposals are being made to transfer control of the operation to NATO. There are questions about whether Turkey, as a NATO member, would accept such a move. Analysts say Ankara’s stance could well be influenced by tensions with France.
Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (file photo)
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his weekly address to his parliamentary deputies to slam the Western-led air strikes in Libya, and he questioned their stated humanitarian motive.
He said the operation is being perceived by Libya and others as oil- and profit-oriented and as an intervention by the West. He said Turkey will not be on the side that points a gun towards Libya.
Mr. Erdogan has been deeply skeptical of any intervention since the beginning of the popular uprising against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Until the last few days, he refused to join his Western allies in calling on Mr. Gadhafi to stand down. Such a stance plays well in Turkey, which remains deeply suspicious of Western military intervention in Muslim countries, according to diplomatic correspondent Semih Idiz of the Turkish daily Milliyet.
“He [Erodgan] is trying to balance his own public opinion in an election year, and he is trying to balance the commitment Turkey has to the various organizations it is a member of or wants to be a member of. So this is a subtle balancing act that he is maintaining, but the bottom line will be if Turkey can come out and say clearly no in NATO,” Idiz said.
Mr. Erdogan, in his Tuesday address, seemed to hint that Turkey could use its veto as a NATO member to stop the alliance from taking control of the Libyan military operation. He said only the United Nations should lead such an operation.
Turkish Foreign Ministry official Selim Yenel, the deputy undersecretary for bilateral affairs and public diplomacy, says NATO leadership of military actions in Libya would give Ankara a say in how the operation proceeds. Yenel says this is the reason French President Nicolas Sarkozy did not invite Turkey to last week’s Paris summit, which preceded the air strikes on Libya.
“Well, we were rather surprised and taken aback by the decision. I guess the French thought that we would prevent them from proceeding. The French had opposed the planning at NATO so we don’t know what the coalition is doing. We are not in the loop, we have been left out. So that’s why we believe that NATO should take charge of it,” Yenel said.
Diplomatic correspondent Idiz says France’s leadership in the strikes has particularly irked Ankara, adding a chill to relations already strained over President Sarkozy’s vocal opposition to Turkey’s EU membership bid.
“Given the personnel animosity that Erdogan and Sarkozy feel for each other, I don’t think there is much love lost between the two capitals at the moment. I do also think there is a brinkmanship, one-upmanship going on between the two capitals. France seems to have passed Turkey in the race over Libya, and Ankara is clearly smarting from this,” Idiz said.
But professor of international relations Cengiz Aktar, at Bahcesehir University, warns such rivalry risks losing sight of what is really important.
“Erdogan gives [the] impression he is against the international intervention because he is angry with Sarkozy. This can’t be serious. In international relations, this sort of anger does not count. What counts is the interest of [the] country or the safety and security of human beings,” Aktar said.
It is not the first time Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Sarkozy have opposed each other. But with the crisis in Libya deepening, some analysts say the consequences of this rivalry could have far reaching consequences.
via Turkey Wary at Fellow NATO Member France’s ‘Prominent Role’ in Libya | Europe | English.
You can gauge the importance of Turkey to the western world by the fact that both Barack Obama and David Cameron gave speeches to the Turkish parliament in Ankara within months of taking office.
The west cares about Turkey because it is a hinge state between east and west and a rare example of a majority Muslim state that is also a secular democracy. Turkey is a neighbour of both Russia and Iran, and is also a member of Nato. It has a rapidly growing and dynamic economy. And yet these days Turkey is also increasingly a source of anxiety to the west.
The country voted against new UN sanctions on Iran and has a dangerously antagonistic relationship with Israel. But it is Turkey’s faltering effort to join the European Union that has come to symbolise the country’s uncertain relationship with the west.
“Talking Turkey” is meant to mean speaking frankly and getting to the heart of the matter. But, in the European Union, “talking Turkey” has become a synonym for double-talk and evasiveness.
Since 2005, the EU and Turkey have been negotiating a treaty that is meant to get Turkey into the EU – a prospect that was first dangled in front of the Turks in 1963. But Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, have made it clear that they oppose Turkish membership. The Turkish government says it still wants to “join Europe”, yet its foreign policy betrays understandable impatience.
So perhaps it is time really to “talk Turkey” – and to be frank. It would indeed be a wonderful thing if Turkey were to join the EU. But if that is to happen, Turkish membership has to be agreed on a new basis. It cannot involve total free movement of people between Turkey and the rest of the EU.
At present, citizens of all the current 27 members of the EU enjoy visa-free travel around the union – and can move to any other country to work. There are transition arrangements for recent members such as Bulgaria and Romania, which mean that complete free movement of people will not kick in until they have been in the club for seven years. But the rules are clear. Eventually, all citizens of the EU have to enjoy equal rights.
It is those rules that will have to change if Turkish accession to the EU is ever to become a reality. Creating special rules for the Turks would be denounced as unfair, and even racist. But, as long as Turkish membership raises the prospect of mass emigration to the rest of the EU, it will be impossible to sell it to western European voters.
This stark fact has been pretty clear since the enlargement of the EU to central Europe triggered large-scale migration westwards. The British government infamously suggested that about 13,000 Poles would move to Britain to work after Poland joined the union. The real number was well over half a million. The French government is currently controversially deporting gypsies who have moved to France, following Romanian accession to the EU. The surge in the vote for the radical, anti-immigration right in the recent Dutch elections demonstrated that mass migration, particularly from Muslim countries such as Turkey, is unpopular enough to transform domestic politics in some western European countries.
In the face of all this evidence, European politicians would simply be irresponsible to press ahead with negotiations to bring Turkey into the European Union without addressing the issue of immigration. In the long run, they will not do it. In the short run, they take refuge in double-talk and hypocrisy.
On his recent trip to Ankara, Mr Cameron carefully positioned himself as a champion of Turkish membership of the EU, claiming that he was “angry” that Turkey was being so badly treated. The very next day, Mr Cameron re-iterated his determination that the number of immigrants coming into Britain should be sharply reduced. Logically, he cannot have it both ways.
Western European leaders would doubtless argue that now is not the time to deal with these contradictions and hypocrisies. Even on the best-case scenario, Turkish membership is still many years off. The difficult issues can be dealt with later.
But that is far too complacent. The fact is that Turkey is an important country whose relations with the west are deteriorating fast.
It would be a gamble to try to revive the Turkish-EU conversation by finally facing up to the question of immigration. The Turks might walk away in a huff. But even without complete free movement of people, Turkey would still have a great deal to gain from joining the EU.
As the second most populous nation in the union – and perhaps soon the largest – it would have a huge weight in the framing of European law, and a big delegation at the European Parliament. Turkey would also get the financial and structural aid that the EU lavishes on poorer, new members. It would have unfettered access to the European single market, a big say in the framing of EU foreign policy and the legal and diplomatic protections that come with EU membership. Under the new deal Turkish citizens would not get the automatic right to work anywhere in the EU; but they could expect travel to become significantly easier.
Membership of the EU, without complete free movement of people, is a deal Turkey might choose to reject or accept. But, at least it is an offer that could be made in good faith.
Wealth manager targeted in donations investigation
* Patrice de Maistre’s lawyer says searches not surprising
* French weekly unveils cash withdrawals before election
By Gerard Bon
PARIS, July 9 (Reuters) – French authorities on Friday searched the home and offices of the wealth manager of France’s richest woman, a police source said, the latest twist in a saga which has rocked President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government.
Police are investigating whether L’Oreal (OREP.PA) heiress Liliane Bettencourt and her late husband made illegal campaign donations to conservative politicians.
The lawyer of Patrice de Maistre, Bettencourt’s wealth manager, said such searches were to be expected given the scale of the investigation.
The inquiry was ordered after the former bookkeeper of Liliane Bettencourt alleged she had routinely withdrawn cash destined for illegal donations.
“When you have an investigation of this size, several investigations, this type of search is not surprising,” Pascal Wilhelm told Reuters.
The bookkeeper, Claire Thibout, said during police questioning on Wednesday evening and Thursday that de Maistre asked her to withdraw 50,000 euros in cash as part of an indirect illegal donation for Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign.
She alleged that this amount was added to cash from Switzerland and given to Labour Minister Eric Woerth, treasurer of the ruling centre-right UMP party.
De Maistre has denied the allegations.
French weekly magazine Marianne on Friday said more than 390,000 euros in cash had been withdrawn from Bettencourt’s account in the four months before the 2007 election, citing the former bookkeeper’s ledgers.
Thibout on Thursday denied naming Sarkozy as a direct recipient, saying a website which published an interview with her misquoted her.
Government officials quickly said on Thursday her retraction exonerated the head of state.
The scandal, which started as a family feud, has led for calls for Sarkozy to address the nation and reshuffle the government, along with demands for Woerth to step down. (Writing by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Charles Dick)
