Taking Outsize Role in Syria, Qatar Funnels Arms to Rebels

Taking Outsize Role in Syria, Qatar Funnels Arms to Rebels

    Sunday, June 30, 2013   No comments

WASHINGTON — As an intermittent supply of arms to the Syrian opposition gathered momentum last year, the Obama administration repeatedly implored its Arab allies to keep one type of powerful weapon out of the rebels’ hands: heat-seeking shoulder-fired missiles.

The missiles, American officials warned, could one day be used by terrorist groups, some of them affiliated with Al Qaeda, to shoot down civilian aircraft.



But one country ignored this admonition: Qatar, the tiny, oil- and gas-rich emirate that has made itself the indispensable nation to rebel forces battling calcified Arab governments and that has been shipping arms to the Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.

Since the beginning of the year, according to four American and Middle Eastern officials with knowledge of intelligence reports on the weapons, Qatar has used a shadowy arms network to move at least two shipments of shoulder-fired missiles, one of them a batch of Chinese-made FN-6s, to Syrian rebels who have used them against Mr. Assad’s air force. Deployment of the missiles comes at a time when American officials expect that President Obama’s decision to begin a limited effort to arm the Syrian rebels might be interpreted by Qatar, along with other Arab countries supporting the rebels, as a green light to drastically expand arms shipments.

Qatar’s aggressive effort to bolster the embattled Syrian opposition is the latest brash move by a country that has been using its wealth to elbow its way to the forefront of Middle Eastern statecraft, confounding both its allies in the region and in the West. The strategy is expected to continue even though Qatar’s longtime leader, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, stepped down last week, allowing his 33-year-old son to succeed him.

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Egypt's Mohamed Morsi remains defiant as fears of civil war grow

Egypt's Mohamed Morsi remains defiant as fears of civil war grow

    Sunday, June 30, 2013   No comments

In exclusive interview with the Guardian, Morsi defiantly rejects call for elections, setting stage for trial of strength on the streets

The Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, has vowed there will be no second revolution in Egypt, as thousands planned to gather outside his presidential palace calling for his removal after a year in power.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Morsi rejected opposition calls for early presidential elections and said he would not tolerate any deviation from constitutional order. He said his early resignation would undermine the legitimacy of his successors, creating a recipe for unending chaos.

"If we changed someone in office who [was elected] according to constitutional legitimacy – well, there will be people opposing the new president too, and a week or a month later they will ask him to step down," Morsi said.

"There is no room for any talk against this constitutional legitimacy. There can be demonstrations and people expressing their opinions. But what's critical in all this is the adoption and application of the constitution. This is the critical point."

At least seven people have been killed and over 600 injured in clashes between Morsi's Islamist allies and their secular opposition over the past few days.

With tensions set to rise on Sunday, Morsi's defiant stance sets the stage for a trial of strength that will be played out on the streets of Cairo in front of his official residence. Once gathered, the opposition have vowed not to leave it until he resigns.

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Turkish security forces fire on protesters in Diyarbakir

Turkish security forces fire on protesters in Diyarbakir

    Saturday, June 29, 2013   No comments

One person was killed in south-east Turkey as security forces fired shots to disperse hundreds of people protesting against the expansion of an army outpost, according to local officials.
Nine people were also wounded, two of them seriously, according to a statement from the governor's office in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

The army opened fire after the crowd of around 300 torched construction tents and marched on the construction site, hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at security forces, said Diyarbakir governor Cahit Kirac.

The incident shattered a lull in the volatile region, where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has waged a bloody campaign for autonomy for nearly three decades, leaving 45,000 people dead.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the West, reached a ceasefire agreement with Ankara in March. Its fighters are still withdrawing into northern Iraq in line with that deal.

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Brzezinski: Saudi Arabia, Qatar produced the crisis in Syria

Brzezinski: Saudi Arabia, Qatar produced the crisis in Syria

    Saturday, June 29, 2013   No comments

Brzezinski: I can’t engage either in psychoanalysis or any kind of historical revisionism. He obviously has a difficult problem on his hands, and there is a mysterious aspect to all of this. Just consider the timing. In late 2011 there are outbreaks in Syria produced by a drought and abetted by two well-known autocracies in the Middle East: Qatar and Saudi Arabia. He all of a sudden announces that Assad has to go—without, apparently, any real preparation for making that happen. Then in the spring of 2012, the election year here, the CIA under General Petraeus, according to The New York Times of March 24th of this year, a very revealing article, mounts a large-scale effort to assist the Qataris and the Saudis and link them somehow with the Turks in that effort. Was this a strategic position? Why did we all of a sudden decide that Syria had to be destabilized and its government overthrown? Had it ever been explained to the American people? Then in the latter part of 2012, especially after the elections, the tide of conflict turns somewhat against the rebels. And it becomes clear that not all of those rebels are all that “democratic.” And so the whole policy begins to be reconsidered. I think these things need to be clarified so that one can have a more insightful understanding of what exactly U.S. policy was aiming at.

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Police crush protesters, block Ankara gathering

Police crush protesters, block Ankara gathering

    Friday, June 28, 2013   No comments

The Dikmen district of Ankara was scene of yet another harsh police intervention on June 27, with the police not allowing crowds to gather and intervening as early as 10 p.m., using pressurized water and tear gas without warning.

For the past couple of days, Dikmen has played host to confrontations between police and protesters, but the police intervention usually comes around midnight after protesters build barricades in the late hours of the evening. On this particular occasion, the police intervened in advance, after street lights were turned off around 9:30 p.m.

The police used pressurized water and tear gas against people on side streets, without any warning, while a number of protesters were taken into custody. The intervention was particularly intense due to the presence of four Scorpion (Akrep in Turkish) jeeps and three Mass Incident Intervention Vehicles (TOMA). Both Scorpions and TOMAs are armored riot control vehicles, while the former are also used for taking individuals into custody.

Of the 19 people taken into custody during the protests, 13 were arrested, later on to be jailed, Anadolu Agency reported on June 28.

Those held under custody due to a public prosecutor’s demand were interrogated throughout the night from Article 10 of Anti-Terror Law (TMK). Judge Abdullah Bahçeci issued the ruling on the case.

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Azerbaijan Stirred, Not Shaken by Turkish Protests

Azerbaijan Stirred, Not Shaken by Turkish Protests

    Friday, June 28, 2013   No comments

Seen from Azerbaijan, the mass protests in Turkey have evoked particularly strong feelings, and have promptied some to wonder whether the same kind of thing might be possible in their own country.

There are obvious parallels – the two countries are bound together by old cultural and linguistic ties, and more recently a political alliance. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is seen as increasingly autocratic by his opponents, while Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev looks set to stay in power indefinitely.

For young Azerbaijanis opposed to Aliyev, events in Istanbul have inspired feelings of excitement and envy. Previously, they observed the protest movements in Iran in 2009, in Russia in 2011, and in Georgia last year, and wondered whether something similar was possible in Azerbaijan .

“Since there is no opportunity for political activity, any political event in a neighbouring country excites Azerbaijanis,” Arastan Orujlu, head of the East-West Research Centre in Baku, said.

The impact of the Turkish demonstrations has been more immediate, partly because of the cultural kinship and partly because of this autumn’s presidential election in Azerbaijan, in which opposition groups hope to put up more of a challenge than before.

Facebook users in Azerbaijan shared news stories, photos and videos of the protests, which began over plans to redevelop the Gezi Park but expanded to include concerns about freedom of expression and the trend towards Islamicisation.

There are many Azerbaijanis living in Istanbul for work or study, and some of them went to the protests to add their own messages on banners saying, “Baku is with you, Gezi”, and “Aliyev, it’s your turn now”.


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Turkish Power Struggle: Brotherly Love Begins to Fray in Ankara

Turkish Power Struggle: Brotherly Love Begins to Fray in Ankara

    Friday, June 28, 2013   No comments

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and President Gül have long been political allies. But ongoing protests in the country have caused their relationship to fray and the ensuing power struggle could spell the end of the AKP.

The two men came from different backgrounds, but shared a belief in Allah and a common goal: power. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gül, now respectively prime minister and president of Turkey, have worked together since the 1990s and their alliance has helped political Islam attain more power than ever before.

The current protests in Turkey, though, are threatening to break that alliance apart. Elements of Turkish society have risen up against their government and called on Prime Minister Erdogan to resign. Yet even as protesters and police clash in the streets, another power struggle is taking place in Ankara. President Gül is increasingly seeking to distance himself from his former political ally.

Erdogan and Gül are different in both background and character. Erdogan worked hard to get where he is today. As a child, he sold sesame rings in Istanbul's port neighborhood of Kasmpasa. He was also an avid soccer player, earning himself the nickname "Imam Beckenbauer." Although he managed to attend university and later became Istanbul's mayor, Erdogan was never able to conceal his simpler origins -- nor did he want to. He is moody, temperamental and unrestrained, qualities that may well be his undoing in the current crisis.

Gül, on the other hand, comes across as being diplomatic and moderate. Unlike Erdogan, he speaks English. Gül's parents were relatively well-to-do, sending their son to study economics in Istanbul and London. Gül worked as a manager for an Islamic bank in Saudi Arabia before being elected to Turkish parliament in the 1990s as part of the Islamist Refah movement.

At the time, the country was run by the military, a legacy from the days of Mustafa Kemal, known as Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey. The country was secular, militaristic and authoritarian. At the time, Gül promised: "The secular system has failed. We want to change it definitively."

Erdogan, too, was involved in the Refah movement. He and Gül had little in common on a personal level, but were aware they would only succeed in their power struggle against the secular establishment if they worked together.

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Turkish PM Erdoğan’s Gaza trip to take place in ‘shortest and most correct time’

Turkish PM Erdoğan’s Gaza trip to take place in ‘shortest and most correct time’

    Friday, June 28, 2013   No comments

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Gaza is on the agenda, but no date has yet been set, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said today.

“No speculation should be made about the date,” Davutoğlu said at a joint press conference with visiting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, expressing his wish that the “visit to Palestine takes place in the shortest and most correct time.”

During his visit to Washington in May, Erdoğan said that he would "probably" visit Gaza in June, a visit that would include the West Bank. “Gaza is ready. We cannot ready ourselves because of other incidents, but we could make a surprise at any time,” Erdoğan said on June 25 in Ankara.


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Turkish minister warns that companies uncooperative on cyber crime will receive ‘Ottoman slap’

Turkish minister warns that companies uncooperative on cyber crime will receive ‘Ottoman slap’

    Friday, June 28, 2013   No comments

Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Binali Yıldırım has warned that authorities which do not cooperate with the government over cyber crimes will receive an “Ottoman slap” in response.

“The Turkish Republic doesn't recognize those who don’t recognize it,” Yıldırım said. “79 million [people] will hit them with an 'Ottoman slap.'”

The minister gave his message during a speech at a media conference, following the negative response of social media websites with regard to sharing data about posts made during the recent Gezi Park protests.

Yıldırım said the government was comfortable with the free use of the Internet, but added that using it as a tool for violence and crime was "unacceptable."

"They shouldn't behave swaggeringly, feeling as if millions of users stand on their side," he said, strongly hinting at micro blogging site Twitter.


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Iranian leader: West's Stubbornness Blocks Settlement of Iran's N. Issue

Iranian leader: West's Stubbornness Blocks Settlement of Iran's N. Issue

    Friday, June 28, 2013   No comments

"As I said on the first day of the New Iranian Year (March 21), a number of countries which comprise the opposition front against Iran and falsely call themselves as the international community stubbornly don’t want the (Iranian) nuclear issue to be solved. But if they leave their stubbornness, Iran's nuclear issue will be solved easily and swiftly," Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing a number of Iranian Judiciary officials in Tehran on Wednesday.

"Iran's nuclear issue has many times neared the moment of settlement, but Americans have raised new excuses then," he added.

Ayatollah Khamenei pointed to a written document signed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the settlement of the problems whcih existed in Iran's nuclear issue, and said, "Therefore, Iran's nuclear case should have been closed, but Americans raised new issues right away since they see the nuclear issue a proper point for threatening and pressuring Iran."

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