Turkish Forum

Tag: Wikileaks

  • Levon Hovsepyan: WikiLeaks’s confirming U.S. deployment of nuclear weapons in Turkey

    Levon Hovsepyan: WikiLeaks’s confirming U.S. deployment of nuclear weapons in Turkey

    PanARMENIAN.Net – WikiLeaks’s confirming U.S. deployment of nuclear weapons in Turkey is no special news, according to Armenian expert Levon Hovsepyan.

    As he noted in a conversation with PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, the issue, including withdrawal of nuclear weapon from Turkey, has been discussed several months ago.

    “Possibly, the nuclear weapon has been there since cold war period, with Turkey playing a certain role in protection of NATO’s Southern outpost,” he noted.

    “Declassification of the cable will probably expedite withdrawal of nuclear weapon, with Washington no longer willing to deploy weapon in Turkey under current atmosphere of mistrust on both sides,” he concluded.

    Cables published in WikiLeaks confirmed that the USA has tactical nuclear weapons in Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.

    A document of the Berlin Embassy dated 12 November 2009 comprises a record of a meeting of US Ambassador to Germany, Philip D. Murphy, and the Undersecretary of the US Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Philip Gordon, with Christoph Heusgen, National Security Advisor of Germany.

    via Levon Hovsepyan: WikiLeaks’s confirming U.S. deployment of nuclear weapons in Turkey – no special news – PanARMENIAN.Net.

  • Russia, Turkey express anger

    Russia, Turkey express anger

    WASHINGTON — The leaders of Russia and Turkey blasted the Obama administration Wednesday over leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, the most concrete signs yet that the disclosures are rattling America’s strategic relationships.

    Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned comments attributed in cables to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, saying the defense secretary was “deeply misled,” while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said an U.S. apology for cables alleging financial improprieties was insufficient.

    “The United States is responsible for those diplomats’ false claims and their smears,” Erdogan said.

    The comments showed how the controversy is increasingly touching sensitive domestic politics in foreign countries and entangling individual U.S. officials. While top U.S. officials continue to play down the cables’ effect on foreign policy, other voices suggest that the damage may be widespread, as the more than 250,000 other communiques are gradually released.

    “I’ll be very surprised if some people don’t lose their lives,” former President Bill Clinton said in an appearance in North Carolina. “And goodness knows how many will lose their careers.”

    The angry reactions came from key governments that previously had sought to play down the significance of the cables released on Sunday by the WikiLeaks website.

    WikiLeaks itself was on the defensive on several fronts Wednesday, scrambling to remain on the Internet and post more documents while its fugitive founder, Julian Assange, was targeted by a European arrest warrant on Swedish rape charges.

    Amazon.com prevented WikiLeaks from using the U.S. company’s servers, WikiLeaks said Wednesday.

    Covering the politics of the Lowcountry, South Carolina and the nation.

    The WikiLeaks site was unavailable for several hours before it moved back to servers owned by its previous Swedish host, Bahnhof.

    At the same time, Swedish officials intensified legal pressure on Assange by asking European police to arrest him on rape allegations that have shadowed him for weeks.

    Swedish Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny said that the European arrest warrant had been issued for Assange in connection with the allegations filed against him in that country.

    The White House said Wednesday it was taking new steps to protect government secrets after WikiLeaks released thousands of sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    via Russia, Turkey express anger | The Post and Courier, Charleston SC – News, Sports, Entertainment.

  • Turkey seen as role model for Pakistan in US cable

    Turkey seen as role model for Pakistan in US cable

    ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

    Rauf Engin Soysal, UN special envoy for assistance to Pakistan. AFP photo
    Rauf Engin Soysal, UN special envoy for assistance to Pakistan. AFP photo

    Moderate, progressive Turkey, a relatively stable Muslim democracy, is well-positioned to be a positive role model for Pakistan, a United States diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks has suggested.

    A cable dated May 2009 recounts a meeting between U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson and then-Turkish Ambassador to Pakistan Rauf Engin Soysal.

    During the meeting Soysal explained Turkey’s efforts in the region and suggested greater cooperation with the U.S. regarding issues pertaining to Pakistan. Soysal detailed Turkey’s own trilateral meetings with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    According to the cable, Soysal spoke about Turkey’s relief efforts in Pakistan and said that during July and August, Turkish aid could be used in a more post-emergency way. “Soysal hinted that Turkish aid may be geared to the post-emergency phase in August-September, which would also coincide this year with the holy month of Ramadan. Soysal noted that Turkey would be the first [and so far only] Muslim country to assist Pakistan with this humanitarian crisis; he was perplexed that Saudi Arabia had not pointed up yet,” the cable said.

    “The Turkish ambassador complimented the U.S. on its May 19 announcement to provide $110 million in direct assistance to Pakistan’s internally displaced people,” the cable said.

    “Soysal was also frustrated the Pakistani government had no timeline for the offensive in Swat and thought the army was moving too slowly to initiate operations in Waziristan before next year. The ambassador added that 2,500 Waziri families had already reportedly fled their homes in anticipation of Army action, but yet, the Pakistani government refused to give international aid organizations access to the nearest settled districts,” the U.S. diplomat reportedly said in the cable.

    “With the Turks playing an increasingly high profile, constructive role in Pakistan, we will continue to develop our dialogue and find opportunities to work together in areas of mutual interest,” the cable said. Soysal is currently serving as U.N. Special Envoy for Assistance to Pakistan.

    As yet, none of the claims or allegations detailed in the documents made public by WikiLeaks have been supported by any evidence.

  • Ambassador: WikiLeaks material not to affect Azerbaijan-Turkey fraternal relations

    Ambassador: WikiLeaks material not to affect Azerbaijan-Turkey fraternal relations

    Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 2 / Trend M. Aliyev /

    Hulusi Kilic 150909The WikiLeaks materials will not affect the fraternal relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey, Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan Hulusi Kilic told media.

    “Azerbaijan and Turkey have established good relations,” he said. “We do not establish ties based on the rumors and fantasy of WikiLeaks. Turkey and Azerbaijan are inseparable. Such publications will not harm Azerbaijani-Turkish relations.”

    Roughly 250,000 secret diplomatic telegrams and letters sent from U.S. diplomatic missions in various countries to the U.S. State Department were transferred via WikiLeaks to the New York Times and several other influential media outlets this week.

    The documents marked as “secret” disclose the details of the correspondence of President Barack Obama’s administration on various crises and conflicts. However, the most harmful facts among the leaked information is likely the harsh statements of U.S. diplomats about Muslim presidents and European leaders, quotes from supposedly private conversations between foreign leaders and U.S. officials and Hilary Clinton’s demands to spy on members of the U.N. Security Council from Russia, China, France and Great Britain.

    The Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office called the information published on this website “unfounded.”

  • Turkey: Will WikiLeaks Cables Upset Status Quo in Ankara?

    Turkey: Will WikiLeaks Cables Upset Status Quo in Ankara?

    Corruption allegations in US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks have generated some hot rhetoric from Turkey’s leaders. But with no genuine bombshell contained in dispatches released so far, it may simply be business as usual in Turkish politics.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking at a municipal ceremony in Ankara on December 1, vowed to file a lawsuit connected with an allegation contained in one US cable in 2004. The cable asserted that he had opened eight Swiss bank accounts.

    “We have discussed these issues with the US administration,” Erdogan said. “They have extended their apologies, but it’s not enough. They have to take all necessary measures against these diplomats.”

    It remains to be seen whether Erdogan follows through on his threat to sue for what he claims is slander. But his harsh stance is an indication of how — with a general election only six months away — corruption claims, character snipes, policy condemnations, and plain insults contained in the leaked dispatches may feed into Turkey’s fractious domestic politics in ways that could damage relations with Washington.

    According to Henri Barkey of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, Erdogan’s harsh statement was likely intended to preempt any damage the cables might cause. “The United States is very unpopular in Turkey and it is unlikely that assertions in US cables will have much resonance,” he told Eurasianet.org. “But Erdogan has to go on the offensive, he has no choice in order to contain it just in case. The best defense is offense obviously.”

    The secret bank accounts claim is not the only potentially damaging allegation made in the 30 or so Turkey-related cables brought to light by WikiLeaks so far. Other claims — all denied by those involved — include an allegation that Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul described current Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as ‘exceptionally dangerous’ in a secret conservation with US ambassador Eric Edelman in 2004; Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek allegedly urged foreign investors to sell stock in Turkey’s Dogan Media Group, just as the government became embroiled in a tax battle with the corporation; and MKEK, Turkey’s state run arms manufacturer, may have been negotiating a weapons deal with Iran that would violate UN sanctions, as alleged in a cable signed off by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February this year.

    Analysts in Istanbul and Ankara believe it is too soon to predict what impact, if any, the allegations in the cables will have on Turkish domestic politics, which is so polarized that opinions are hard to shift even in the face of the most dramatic revelations. “The ones that have come out so far aren’t enough to turn the tables in Turkey,” Cengiz Candar, a columnist for the daily Radikal, told Eurasianet.org.

    In laying bare the hidden tensions and mistrust between Washington and Ankara, the Wikileaks cables may even benefit the AKP by revealing its independence from the United States. “If they show the AKP is not a puppet of America, they will help the AKP,” Hurriyet Daily News columnist Yusuf Kanli told Eurasianet.org. “In terms of anti-Americanism, they will try to play it down in their foreign policy approaches, but domestically they will play it up of course.”

    The cables may have more serious implications in that they reveal Turkey’s isolated stance towards Iran. In one dispatch from 2009, Davutoglu offered a spirited defense of Ankara’s foreign policy in the Middle East to senior US diplomat Philip Gordon, claiming it offered a ‘third way’ to that of Iran and Saudi Arabia, meaning that it could ‘limit Iranian influence in the region.’ But other cables revealed the private alarm of most Middle Eastern governments at the prospect of a nuclear Iran.

    “We will see how these leaked documents will influence the government’s Middle East policies,” commented Semih Idiz in the daily Milliyet newspaper. “But we do now plainly see that Turkey is isolated not only in the West when it comes to the subjects of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, but also amongst Middle Eastern regimes. It does not seem very realistic to go on as before and to pretend that nothing has happened.”

    With only a fraction of the nearly 8,000 leaked cables to date originating from Turkey in the public domain, it is always possible that more damaging revelations may turn up. As it is, the Islamic-oriented press in Turkey has lots of fodder. In cables that have already surfaced, Edelman, the neo-conservative former American ambassador, has described Islam in Turkey as “stultified, riddled with hypocrisy, ignorant, and intolerant of other religions’ presence in Turkey.”

    James Jeffrey — a more incisive and sympathetic US envoy – adopted a more nuanced tone in a dispatch on Turkey’s perceived drift away from the American sphere: “Does all this mean that the country is becoming more focused on the Islamist world and its Muslim tradition in its foreign policy? Absolutely. Does it mean that it is ‘abandoning’ or wants to abandon its traditional Western orientation and willingness to cooperate with us? Absolutely not.”

    “At the end of the day we will have to live with a Turkey whose population is propelling much of what we see,” he wrote. “This calls for a more issue-by-issue approach, and recognition that Turkey will often go its own way.”

    Editor’s note:  Alexander Christie-Miller is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul, where he writes for the Times.

    via Turkey: Will WikiLeaks Cables Upset Status Quo in Ankara? | EurasiaNet.org.

  • Cables show Sarkozy does not want Turkey in EU

    Cables show Sarkozy does not want Turkey in EU

    Thomas Seibert

    Last Updated: Dec 3, 2010

    ISTANBUL // One evening last year, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, was circling over Paris in his plane, when his advisers suddenly told pilots to change course.

    They wanted to prevent the president, an outspoken opponent of Turkish membership to the European Union, from laying eyes on the Eiffel Tower. At the time, the tower was lit up in the Turkish national colours in honour of a visit of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister.

    The incident, reported by diplomats of the US Embassy in Paris in a memo in December last year and published this week by WikiLeaks, offers a glimpse of how adamant Mr Sarkozy’s opposition to Turkey’s EU bid is.

    A number of WikiLeaks cables spanning several years and written by US diplomats in Paris and Ankara suggest that it will be very hard, if not impossible, for Turkey to overcome European, and especially French, resistance to its wish to join the EU.

    “Whatever the ramifications of keeping Turkey out, he opposes bringing 70 million Muslims into Europe,” one US cable from 2007 said about Mr Sarkozy.

    In a meeting with Philip Gordon, the US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, in September last year, French government officials said they hoped that Turkey itself would give up its EU accession talks that have dragged on since 2005 without much progress.

    Jean-David Levitte, a French presidential adviser, told Mr Gordon that “Paris hopes that it will be the Turks themselves who realise that their role is best played as a bridge between the two worlds of Europe and Asia, rather than anchored in Europe itself”.

    Turkey, a Muslim-majority country bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria, has repeatedly rejected calls from France and Germany to accept a “privileged partnership” with the EU instead of full membership.

    Ankara says it is determined to stick to the negotiation process despite resistance by France and other EU countries. All 27 EU members have to accept the application of a new member state.

    Although it is the ultimate aim of Turkey’s EU talks for the country to fulfil all accession criteria by completely implementing EU law, known as the acquis communautaire, this possibility is a horror scenario for the French, according to the US cables. Mr Levitte, the French advisor, “predicted that a worse case scenario would be if Turkey finally manages to complete the acquis and end negotiations and a public referendum is held in France which is finally opposed to their membership”.

    Memos written by US embassy officials in Ankara express Turkish frustration with Mr Sarkozy and with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who also favours a “privileged partnership”.

    There was “a sense in Turkey of distance from and lack of sympathy for Europe”, US diplomats in Ankara wrote in January this year. “Both popular and elite Turkish opinion has recently grown much more pessimistic about eventual EU membership.”

    The memos also record Israeli concerns that the rejection Turkey has encountered in the EU is pushing the country towards the Muslim world, with Israel having to pay the price in seeing its ties to its long-standing partner deteriorate.

    Israeli officials told their French counterparts in October last year “that if Europe had more warmly embraced Turkey, then the Turks would not be taking steps to earn approval in the Arab and Muslim world at the expense of Israel”. The French “begged to differ”.

    But there is not only scepticism in Europe towards Turkey’s EU bid, but also within the ruling party in Ankara itself, US diplomats wrote. Some members of the more Islamist wing in Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, had their doubts about the EU project, they wrote in 2004.

    While some members of the religious AKP wing “assert that it is only through Turkish membership and spread of Turkish values that the world can avoid the clash of civilisations they allege the West is fomenting, others express concern that harmonisation and membership will water down Islam and associated traditions in Turkey”, the cable said. Next page

    via Cables show Sarkozy does not want Turkey in EU.