Saturday, November 30, 2013

Dissenting deputy sent to disciplinary board resigns from ruling AKP

Saturday, November 30, 2013 No comments

İdris Bal

The ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Kütahya Deputy İdris Bal, who drew attention for his dissenting statements on several issues, announced his resignation from his party on Nov. 30.

Bal was sent last week to the AKP’s Joint Disciplinary Board with the request of definite expulsion from both the party and the parliamentary group after he expressed views contrary to those of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the latest test prep schools row.

“I am someone with backbone who stands upright. I won’t stay where I am not wanted,” Bal told reporters in the inner Aegean province of Kütahya where he is expected to make a speech during a rally. “They have cast all the smears possible, called me a ‘mole’. They raised all kind of obstacles to prevent me from making statements on television. I have been treated with all sorts of injustice. I resign from my party. I don’t want any party organization which does not want me,” Bal said.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Disillusionment Grows Among Syrian Opposition as Fighting Drags On

Friday, November 29, 2013 No comments

DAMASCUS, Syria — In a terrace cafe within earshot of army artillery, a 28-year-old graduate student wept as she confessed that she had stopped planning antigovernment protests and delivering medical supplies to rebel-held towns.

Khaled, 33, a former protester who fled Damascus after being tortured and fired from his bank post, quit his job in Turkey with the exile opposition, disillusioned and saying that he wished the uprising “had never happened.”

In the Syrian city of Homs, a rebel fighter, Abu Firas, 30, recently put down the gun his wife had sold her jewelry to buy, disgusted with his commanders, who, he said, focus on enriching themselves. Now he finds himself trapped under government shelling, broke and hopeless.

“The ones who fight now are from the side of the regime or the side of the thieves,” he said in a recent interview via Skype. “I was stupid and naïve,” he added. “We were all stupid.”

Even as President Bashar al-Assad of Syria racks up modest battlefield victories, this may well be his greatest success to date: wearing down the resolve of some who were committed to his downfall. People have turned their backs on the opposition for many different reasons after two and a half years of fighting, some disillusioned with the growing power of Islamists among rebels, some complaining of corruption, others just exhausted with a conflict that shows no signs of abating.

But the net effect is the same, as some of the Syrians who risked their lives for the fight are effectively giving up, finding themselves in a kind of checkmate born of Mr. Assad’s shrewdness and their own failures — though none interviewed say they are willing to return to his fold.

Their numbers are impossible to measure, and there remain many who vow to keep struggling. Yet a range of Mr. Assad’s opponents, armed and unarmed, inside and outside Syria, tell of a common experience: When protests began, they thought they were witnessing the chance for a new life. They took risks they had never dreamed of taking. They lost jobs, houses, friends and relatives, suffered torture and hunger, saw their neighborhoods destroyed. It was all they could do, yet it was not enough.

What finally forced them to the sidelines, they say, were the disarray and division on their side, the government’s deft exploitation of their mistakes, and a growing sense that there is no happy ending in sight. Some said they came to believe that the war could be won only by those as violent and oppressive as Mr. Assad, or worse.

Such conclusions have been expressed by more and more people in recent months, in interviews in Damascus, the Syrian capital; Lebanon; and Turkey and via Skype across rebel-held areas in Syria. Many more fighters say they continue mainly because quitting would leave them feeling guilty toward other fighters.

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Thursday, November 28, 2013

Row between Turkish government and Gülen heats up with new document

Thursday, November 28, 2013 No comments

The row between followers of the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen’s movement of and the Turkish government took another dimension after a daily revealed Nov. 28 that a decision from the National Security Council (MGK) recommending an action plan against the Gülen movement be signed by the government in 2004.

Government officials, however, wasted no time in making statements about the MGK decision and said it has never been enforced.

The decision made during the August 2004 National Security Council meeting includes a two-page section titled, “Measures that should be taken against Fetullah Gülen’s operations,” the daily Taraf reported Nov. 28.

“Legal regulations that introduce harsh sanctions should be adopted and an action plan [against the Gülen Movement] should be prepared,” says the decision, signed by the former President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, former Chief of General Staff Hilmi Özkök and current President Abdullah Gül, who was then foreign minister.

Tension between the government and the Gülen Movement, known in Turkish as “Cemaat” (community) or “Hizmet” (service), escalated recently after Erdoğan announced plans to abolish private examination prep schools (dershane), many of which are financed and run by Gülen’s followers. Erdoğan describes the group’s loud objections to his government’s plans as “a smear campaign.”

Although the Gülen Movement is thought to have had close relations with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) until recently, the daily Taraf claimed the MGK document proved that a decision to “finish” the movement had already been made in 2004.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Turkish protesters: “Erdoğan, withdraw your al-Qaeda from Rojava”

Monday, November 25, 2013 No comments

The Peace and Democracy Party’s (BDP) meeting in Istanbul’s Asian side district of Kadıköy in support of Syria’s Kurdish region Rojava turned violent on Nov. 24 because of the police’s move against a banner on a building.

Police and protesters became involved in reciprocal attacks when police officers removed a banner reading “[Turkish Prime Minister] Erdoğan withdraw your Al-Qaeda from Rojava” from a building on the way of rally.

Protesters, opposing the removal of the banner, tried to enter the building but met with police intervention, after which some protesters threw stones at the building and policemen, Doğan News Agency footage showed. The protesters hung the banner again after police left the building’s entrance.

Almost 80 percent of protesters detained as part of the Gezi Park protests were Alevis, according to daily Milliyet citing a report by Turkish security and intelligence authorities

Monday, November 25, 2013 No comments

The daily reported that the authorities have prepared a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the anti-governmental protests spread across the country over summer, using detainees as samples.

More than 5,500 demonstrations or activities were staged within the framework of the country-wide movement dubbed “Gezi protests” that were prolonged for 112 days after being kindled in Taksim Gezi Park at the end of May, according to the analysis reported by daily Milliyet columnist Tolga Şardan Nov. 25.

The security forces’ study also sheds light on the characteristics of the protestors, by using more than 5,000 detainees’ personal data as samples to determine the profile of whole movement.
Seventy-eight percent of people detained were Alevis, the report said.

Also according to the analysis, only 12 percent of the suspects are “linked with political parties,” 6 percent of which are involved in “extremist leftist groups,” dubbed as marginal left groups by the Security Directorate. Some 4 percent of them also alleged to be working for “terrorist organizations and their legal organizations affiliated with them.”

Around 3.6 million people attended demonstrations while 5,513 of them have been detained by the police in the 80 provinces the protests erupted in. The Black Sea province Bayburt was reported to be the only province in which no protests were staged, the analysis revealed.
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Sunday, November 24, 2013

P5+1 & Iran agree landmark nuclear deal at Geneva talks

Sunday, November 24, 2013 No comments

Iran and six major powers agreed early Sunday on a historic deal that freezes key parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for temporary relief on some economic sanctions.

The agreement, sealed at a 3 a.m. signing ceremony in Geneva’s Palace of Nations, requires Iran to halt or scale back parts of its nuclear infrastructure, the first such pause in more than a decade.

President Obama Makes a Statement on Iran

Friday, November 22, 2013

Turkey's Ruling AKP moves to expel dissenting deputy

Friday, November 22, 2013 No comments

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has launched the required procedural process for expelling a deputy who openly expressed views contrary to those of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan about plans for closing down test prep schools.

AKP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Ahmet Aydın, speaking to Anadolu Agency on Nov. 21, said deputy İdris Bal had been sent to the Joint Disciplinary Board of the party, with request of definite expulsion from both the party and the parliamentary group. The request came as a result of Bal's "remarks that have been published in the press and which have been against party policies.”

According to the regulations, Bal will not be able to participate in any party activities, including weekly parliamentary group meetings, until a final decision by the Board is announced. The decision will be made after Bal presents his defense.

Saudi's internal power struggle sends ripples across international borders: Post-coup Egypt is only the start of Saudi Arabia's problems abroad, and the root cause may be old-fashioned courtly manoeuvring

Friday, November 22, 2013 No comments

The year is not ending on a high note for three men in the Saudi dynasty whose fingerprints were all over the military coup in Egypt – Prince Bandar, the current intelligence chief; Prince Muqrin, the intelligence chief he replaced, and an aspiring crown prince; and Khalid al-Tuwaijri, president of the royal court and the king's gatekeeper.

Bandar has become the target of rare criticism in the Saudi press. It is obliquely expressed, but it is unmistakably there. When the well-connected Saudi writer and journalist Jamal Khashoggi wrote in Al Hayat about "local and world intelligence men" no longer being able to change history, establish states or make new leaders, many of his readers understood that he was aiming that at Bandar.

The article continued: "It would be a mistake to defy the power of history with the illusion that the powerful can forge deals and plan the future away from the peoples whose divisions and lack of experience with democracy enabled local, regional and international forces to abuse them.

"Yet, these peoples continue to be in a state of liquidity and rage. They know what they want but they are confused about how to achieve it. What is certain is that they will not wait for a knight mounted on a white horse to lead them toward a new shining dawn. The one-man era is over."

By the standards of Saudi journalism, this is bold stuff. It's a reflection of the tensions between rival princes in the House of Saud and the policies that Bandar and his group, which include the current foreign minister, have been aggressively promoting. None of them are going well, and all are interconnected.

Egypt, which should have been pacified months ago, is still in a state of ferment. HA Hellyer, an Egypt analyst for the Royal United Services Institute who is sharply critical of President Mohamed Morsi's failures in office, describes the clearing of the pro-Morsi sit-ins in August as the most violent state-led crackdown against Egyptians in Egyptian modern history.

It is also expensive. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are bankrolling the paralysed state. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the deputy prime minister of the UAE, dropped a bombshell during a visit by the Egyptian prime minister Hazem el-Beblawi by saying that Arab support for Egypt would not last long. The Emirati's latest tranche of aid of $3.9bn has been likened to giving blood transfusion to a patient who is bleeding continuously.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once famous in Washington for his cigars, parties and charm, is now Saudi Arabia’s point man, fighting Iran in Syria and denouncing the Obama administration

Wednesday, November 20, 2013 No comments

When the prince was the ambassador he was the toast of Washington, and plenty of toasts there were. Bandar bin Sultan smoked fine cigars and drank finer Cognac. For almost 30 years as Saudi Arabia’s regal messenger, lobbyist, and envoy, he told amazing stories about politicians and potentates, some of which, surprisingly, were true. Washington journalists loved him. Nobody had better access to more powerful people in higher places, or came with so much money, so quietly and massively distributed, to help out his friends.

Over the years, Bandar arranged to lower global oil prices in the service of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and both the Bushes. At the behest of the CIA’s Bill Casey, and behind the back of Congress, Bandar arranged for the Saudis to bankroll anti-Communist wars in Nicaragua, Angola and Afghanistan. He was thick with Dick Cheney, and he was so tight with the George H.W. Bush clan—the father, the mother, the sons, the daughters—that they just called him “Bandar Bush.”

Now, the prince is a spy, or, more precisely, the master spy of the Middle East. He is the point man for a vast Saudi program of covert action and conspicuous spending that helped overthrow the elected Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt and is attempting to forge a new “Army of Islam” in Syria. Without understanding the man and his mission, there’s no way, truly, to understand what’s happening in the world’s most troubled region right now.

Bandar’s goal is to undermine Iranian power: strip away Tehran’s allies like Assad and Hezbollah; stop the Shiite mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons; roll back their regional designs; and push them out of office if there’s any way to do that.

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