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[MosJan]

wan you have  pumpkin as a preZident, erDog can bark freely 

[Yervant1]

Ali Babacan, a former Turkish economy minister, speaks at the launch of his new Democracy and Progress Party, in Ankara, March 11, 2020 (AP photo by Burhan Ozbilici).

Turkey’s Former Economy Czar Looks to Unseat Erdogan and the AKP

David O’Byrne Friday, March 20, 2020

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ISTANBUL—In a major political shake-up in Turkey, Ali Babacan, a former economy minister and once-close confidante of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently ended months of speculation and formally launched a new political party to challenge his old boss. Babacan, who resigned last July from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, formally launched his new Democracy and Progress Party on March 11, at a rally in the capital, Ankara.

The DEVA party, as it is known—Turkish for “cure”—unites a slate of former Erdogan allies, including three other former AKP ministers, six former AKP members of parliament and one sitting lawmaker who resigned from the AKP earlier this month.
Many of the new party’s 90 founding members are new to politics, though, a deliberate move apparently designed to broaden its appeal.

One notable absence from the list is Abdullah Gul, a former AKP heavyweight who served as president and prime minister and is close to Babacan. He had been expected to join him in the DEVA party. Rumored to be unhappy with the new party’s strategy, Gul could simply be biding his time to see if it can build a credible support base.

Speaking at the party launch in Ankara, Babacan laid out DEVA’s credo. He and his colleagues, he declared, had spent the past year talking to people all over Turkey and listening to what they want. “People are exhausted by the politics of fear, of the use of discriminatory and marginalizing language,” he said, which is “undermining our society.” With their heavy-handed rule, he added, Erdogan and the AKP were deterring investors to the detriment of Turkey’s economy.

In recent years, the Turkish government has jailed political opponents, suppressed freedom of speech and purged dissenting voices from within the AKP itself. In contrast, Babacan pledged to end the politics of division, reverse Turkey’s democratic slide and promote freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

He also outlined the party’s aim “for a future without discrimination; for citizenship that reflects ethnic, religious, denominational and cultural diversity.” To that end, Babacan explained that DEVA would reserve 35 percent of its party posts for women, 20 percent for young people and 1 percent for the disabled, with an open selection process for political candidates. And all of the party’s financial accounts would be open to scrutiny.

Ambitious promises by Turkish leaders launching a new political program are not unusual. When the AKP was founded in 2001, its founders, which included Babacan, made similar promises, vowing that their roots in political Islam would not compromise their commitments to Turkey’s secular democratic constitution. The AKP went on to win two-thirds of the seats in parliament with 34 percent of the national vote in the 2002 general election, and Erdogan, who had been the mayor of Istanbul, became prime minister for the first time the following year.

During its first decade in power, the AKP largely kept its promises. Babacan served in successive Cabinets, first as economy minister, then as foreign minister, and finally as deputy prime minister with responsibility for the economy. He is widely credited with masterminding the restructuring of the economy that enabled Turkey’s rapid economic growth during this period, and with the opening in 2005 of membership talks with the European Union.

“It’s hard to forge a new party from the shadow of the AKP. Erdogan regards every move as a direct threat.”

“Babacan was effectively the architect of the incredibly successful first decade of AKP rule, becoming the darling of the international investor community,” says Tim Ash, a strategist at investment firm BlueBay Asset Management. In addition to his reforms, Babacan also acted as an important brake on Erdogan’s less market-friendly initiatives, according to Ash.

These included frequent criticism of Turkey’s Central Bank for failing to cut interest rates, and railing against a mythical “interest rate lobby,” which Erdogan blamed for everything from Turkey’s perennially high inflation to the 2013 Gezi Park protests. Initially sparked by a controversial plan to replace a popular park in the center of Istanbul with a shopping center, those demonstrations brought hundreds of thousands of Turks onto the streets to protest Erdogan’s creeping authoritarianism.

Increasingly sidelined, Babacan remained deputy prime minister until the 2015 election, taking no part in the 2017 referendum that narrowly gave Erdogan the right to change the constitution, which resulted in Turkey shifting from a longstanding parliamentary system to a more centralized presidential one. Babacan left parliament in the 2018 elections that saw Erdogan installed as Turkey’s first elected executive president.

Given his central role in the AKP, Babacan remains firmly associated with Turkey’s Islamist political establishment, but his background is complex. The scion of an old Ankara business family, he graduated from one of Turkey’s top universities, the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, before completing an MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University on a Fulbright scholarship.

“Babacan may come from a traditional conservative family, but he is open-minded and liberal and more in-tune with Europe,” says Oral Calislar, a Turkish author, journalist and former newspaper editor who was jailed twice following Turkey’s military coups in 1971 and 1980.

At 52, Babacan cuts a youthful figure despite two decades on the frontlines of politics, in stark contrast to his former AKP colleagues. And few of them can match his fluency in English. However, he still faces an uphill struggle both in taking on his former party and establishing his new party as a credible opposition movement ahead of other challengers, among them Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and a rising star in the Republican People’s Party, or CHP.

In December, Ahmet Davutoglu, who served as foreign minister and as prime minister before falling out with Erdogan in 2016, launched his own Future Party, also with a clutch of disaffected former AKP lawmakers. Davutoglu has since faced a succession of bureaucratic problems, including the government’s seizure of control over an educational foundation he established. Babacan could soon find himself facing similar problems.

“It’s hard to forge a new party from the shadow of the AKP. Erdogan regards every move as a direct threat,” says Calislar. Still, he points out, the presidential system could actually work in the new parties’ favor in the next elections in 2023. If no party’s candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held, which could give small opposition parties the chance to form alliances and rally behind one candidate.

“The AKP have been in power now for nearly 20 years, and people are fed up of them,” says Calislar. “They are ready for a new type of politics.”

David O’Byrne is an Istanbul-based journalist and analyst who has covered Turkish politics and regional energy issues for over 20 years. He has written extensively for Platts, the Financial Times and the Economist Intelligence Unit and has reported for France 24, BBC World Service and RTE.

[Yervant1]

Is it possible that turkey's end is coming in NATO?

U.S. signals relocation of Turkey’s Incirlik base

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 16:18, 3 November, 2020

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The United States is looking at opportunities for either rotational or permanent U.S. presence across the whole European continent, said Department of State Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Assistant Secretary, R. Clarke Cooper, on a conference call on Monday with reporters in response to question whether the United States had identified any alternative to Turkey’s southern Incirlik base, Ahval news reports.

The US is considering the possibility of leaving Turkey’s Incirlik base. It’s likely the American troops will be relocated in one of the Greek islands.

 

Editing by Aneta Harutyunyan

 

[Yervant1]

Greek City News

Nov 3 2020

 

 

 

Erdoğan admits Turkey is territorially expanding by PAUL ANTONOPOULOS

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has given up trying to convince the international community that he supports the “territorial integrity” of Syria and Iraq in an admission made yesterday.

The Turkish military and their jihadist allies occupy Idlib and Afrin in northern Syria and refuse to return the sovereignty of these areas to the Syrian government.

In 2018 and 2019, the Turkish military launched Operation Olive Branch in Syria and Operation Claw in Iraq respectively under the guise of fighting and expelling the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), that Ankara deems a terrorist organization, and ISIS.

Turkish military in Syria.

However, since these operations, Erdoğan has maintained that he supports the “territorial integrity” of these countries, yet refuses to withdraw his troops from occupying these areas of Syria and Iraq where the operations were concentrated against.

In an admission made yesterday, Erdoğan said:

“We had martyrs in Idlib, Afrin, Operation Olive Branch and Operation Claw. But do not forget that each martyr means these lands are our own country.”

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[Yervant1]

 

Turkey’s President Erdoğan underwent surgery for cancer, suffers from epilepsy   

 May 24, 2020 Abdullah Bozkurt

Turkish Presdient Erdogan visited a newly built hospital in Istanbul with Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on May 5, 2020.

Abdullah Bozkurt

 

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor and suffers from epilepsy, among other possible health complications, which may explain his sometimes erratic behavior, angry outbursts and conflicting remarks that puzzle many outside observers, a Nordic Monitor investigation has found.

Just like the cloud obscuring how his government spends taxpayers’ money and enacts laws that deal blows to transparency in governance in Turkey, President Erdoğan is also not forthcoming in revealing details about the status of his health, fueling all sorts of speculation. The president’s aides often portray him as perfectly healthy and downplay any health issue that have caught public attention. Nevertheless, there is enough evidence to confirm that the Turkish president has suffered or still experiences multiple health problems.

What is known for a fact is that he survived colon cancer and underwent surgery on November 26, 2011 in Istanbul when he was 57 years old. According to sources who have inside knowledge of Erdoğan’s health, the cancer was discovered during an examination of Erdoğan, who was complaining of digestive problems and blood in his stool. The sources were interviewed on condition of anonymity for fear of threats to their lives by the Erdoğan government, which has dismissed and/or imprisoned over 20,000 health care professionals including doctors and nurses since 2016.

His doctors performed both a colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy by sampling areas of the colon suspected of possible tumor development. The microscopical examination of a tissue sample indicated that he had tumor known as a villous adenoma, which means he had an advanced form of adenoma and a precursor to cancer.

 

Turkish President Erdogan is seen visiting a hospital.

 

With further tests and examinations, it was later determined that Erdoğan had late stage 2 or early stage 3 cancer and that the tumor was located 10-15 centimeters from the anal verge, which may also be classified as rectal cancer because of its close proximity to the anus.

Having made a determination that surgery was required, Erdoğan’s doctors started asking who the best surgeon to perform such an operation was. The name of Professor Dursun Buğra, a well-known surgeon, came up during the consultations, which were discreetly led by Dr. Fahrettin Koca, who later became the health minister in the Turkish cabinet. Koca was at the time in charge of running the Erdoğan family’s secret investments in the health and medical industries including the Medipol hospital.

Secrecy was paramount as any revelation of Erdoğan’s declining health could encourage his opponents, who would start raising questions as to whether he was fit to occupy the country’s highest executive office. Some suggested that Buğra was known as a man who kept things to himself and would be less likely to divulge any information about the health of his patient. In the end the surgery was performed at Marmara University Hospital by a team of surgeons and specialists led by Buğra and his assistant, Dr. Emre Balık. Some 20 to 25 centimeter of Erdoğan’s colon were removed during the procedure.

The only official public statement about the surgery came two days later, with the prime minister’s office stating that Erdoğan underwent a successful surgery for a digestive problem and would soon resume work after a rest. It did not mention any cancer or tumor. Then-Health Minister Recep Akdağ, who is now lawmaker in Erdoğan’s party, said there was nothing wrong with Erdoğan’s health but that doctors had simply recommended that he rest.

 

In the first photo released after the surgery, President (then Prime Minister) Erdoğan met with Joe Biden, the then-US vice president, at his home in the Üsküdar district of Istanbul on December 3, 2011.

 

The only public comment made by the medical team that performed the procedure came from Professor Mehmet Füzün, also a specialist in colorectal cancer and then president of 9 Eylül University. He was only present during the surgery as an expert and did not participate in the operation. “The intestinal polyps we removed during the 3-hour-long operation were big but not malignant,” he said.

It is not clear to what extent Füzün’s remarks reflect reality, given the fact that he had been tried on charges that he wrote a false health report for 81-year-old Meliha Öktem, a close relative and psychiatric patient, in order to change her will and inherit all her wealth and assets. The will emerged after Öktem’s death on April 25, 2007, surprising 16 other relatives who were the legal heirs. At the end of the trial, the will was voided, and the inheritance was shared according to the ratio prescribed by law. He also faced criminal charges of document forgery and abuse of authority by the prosecutor in the town of Urla.

Füzün was appointed by the government as president of the university despite the fact that his rival, Professor Sedef Gidener, received the most votes from academic staff and that Füzün came in third. According to him, Erdoğan was “among the top three or five leaders in the world.” Therefore, his remarks on Erdoğan’s health should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

ERDOĞAN UNDERWENT SECOND SURGERY

 

Erdoğan was discharged from the hospital on November 30. The first photographs released by Erdoğan’s office after the surgery showed him smiling and meeting with Joe Biden, the then-US vice president, at his home in the Üsküdar district of Istanbul on December 3, 2011. Biden was in Turkey to attend the Entrepreneurship Summit. The second picture was with then-Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Al-Thani and Erdoğan met at Erdoğan’s home in İstanbul for one-and-a-half hours on December 7, 2011.

During the surgery, doctors also performed an ileostomy onto Erdoğan’s skin to collect the stool that was diverted into a bag to keep stool away from the recently operated-on area while healing occurred. Erdoğan had to live with a temporary pouch for two-and-a-half months until he had the second operation on February 11, 2012. The reverse ileostomy took some 30 minutes and was conducted by the same surgeon, Dr. Buğra, at the Medipol hospital.

 

Then-Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani paid a visit to Erdoğan in İstanbul on December 7, 2011.

 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Cancer Country Profile 2020 data, Turkey had 210,537 cancer cases in 2018, the last year reported. Of this, 9.5 percent consisted of colorectal cases, with a mortality rate of 3.6 percent. The occurrence of colorectal cancer in Turkey is more than double the global average of 4.4 percent, the WHO data revealed. The most common type of cancer in Turkey is lung cancer, which accounted for 16.5 percent of cases in 2018, with a mortality rate of 28.9 percent.

A specialist and surgeon who was involved in the consultations before the surgery told Nordic Monitor that Erdoğan went through chemotherapy afterwards but not radiology treatment, which allowed the president to function as normally as possible. “The people who are operated on for this type of cancer can survive as a healthy person for up to 20 years,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to concerns for his safety.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) Cancer Country Profile 2020 data on Turkey:

 

[Yervant1]

Al Monitor

Nov 5 2020

 

 

Paris hints at new sanctions against Ankara after banning Turkish 'Grey Wolves'

France is considering new sanctions against Turkey over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's “declarations of violence” as tensions wind further between the NATO allies.

France hinted Thursday at new sanctions against Turkey over what it called “declarations of violence” by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an escalating row between the two NATO allies over Islam, the Eastern Mediterranean, Syria, Libya and more recently the South Caucasus. 

“There are now declarations of violence, even hatred, which are regularly posted by President Erdogan which are unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Yves le Drian told Europe 1 radio in an interview. “It is not only France that is targeted, there is total Europe-wide solidarity on the subject — we want Turkey to renounce this logic,” he said. 

“An agenda of possible sanctions” will be on the table when the EU Council holds its next summit in December unless Turkey modifies its behavior, he warned.

EU sanctions would be crippling for Turkey’s economy, which is already beset by a melting currency, rising inflation and joblessness and a growing COVID-19 problem.

Le Drian’s comments follow Turkey’s vows a day earlier to “respond in the firmest possible way” to France’s ban of the ultranationalist Grey Wolves group earlier this week.

The group is closely affiliated with the far-right Nationalist Action Party, which is backing Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party.

In the 1970s, the Gray Wolves fought pitched street battles against leftist students resulting in thousands of deaths. It’s also targeted Kurdish businessmen in turf battles over organized crime under the guise of combating “Kurdish terrorism.”

When the conflict between Turkey’s close ally Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted in 1991 over the mainly Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh enclave within Azerbaijani territory, hundreds of Gray Wolves joined the fight on the side of Azerbaijan.

Renewed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has brought the Gray Wolves out on the streets again. The group was filmed recently chanting racist and pro-Erdogan slogans as they chased Armenians in the French cities of Grenoble and Lyon. A 23-year-old ethnic Armenian suffered a skull fracture after being hit by a hammer-wielding assailant. The footage was widely shared on social media, prompting a barrage of protests from Armenians worldwide.

The tipping point came over the weekend after a memorial to the 1915 Armenian genocide was vandalized in Decines-Charpieu, near Lyon. Graffiti scrawled on the monument included “Grey Wolves” and Erdogan’s initials “RTE.”

French President Emmaneul Macron’s far-right rival, Marine le Pen, accused his government via Twitter of failing to address “the real problem” — that of the “pro-Caliphate” Turkish Islamic association, the Milli Gorus or National View. She said the organization, which has branches across Europe, “runs 71 mosques and 10 Turkish schools” in France.

Relations between the two countries have become increasingly strained as Erdogan and Macron continue to spar, more recently over Islam. Erdogan recommended that the French leader have a mental checkup over the latter’s depiction of Islam as “a religion in crisis” and has called for a nationwide boycott of all Turkish goods.

Tensions deepened following the murder of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty by a suspected Islamist extremist and the murders last week by a Tunisian man of three French citizens in the city of Nice. Paty was beheaded by his assailant after showing his students cartoons from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo mocking the Prophet Muhammad and incensed Muslims worldwide.

Turkish prosecutors filed a criminal probe into Charlie Hebdo last week following the publication of an irreverent, many would say tasteless illustration of Erdogan in his underpants on its cover. Erdogan filed a separate criminal complaint and told a gathering of this ruling Justice and Development Party, "We are in a period when hostility to Islam, Muslims, disrespect for the prophet is spreading like cancer in Europe, especially among leaders." Macron is leading the hate campaign, Erdogan said, and sowing the seeds of “Islamofacism.”

Macron has defended the magazine, saying freedom of _expression_ is an inalienable French value while refuting accusations that he is anti-Islam. He told the Financial Times in a letter yesterday that his government is fighting what he called “Islamist separatism” and not the faith itself. “I will not allow anybody to claim that France, or its government, is fostering racism against its Muslims,” he said.

 

 

 

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[Yervant1]

Gatestone Institute

Nov 3  2020

 

 

Turkey Glorifies Historic Crimes

by Uzay Bulut
November 3, 2020 at 4:00 am

 

 

• "In our civilization, conquest is not occupation or looting. It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the [conquered] region.... This is why our civilization is one of conquest." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, MEMRI.org, August 26, 2020.

• "Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea.... This is why we are determined to do whatever is necessary politically, economically, or militarily. We invite our interlocutors to put themselves in order and stay away from mistakes that will open the way for them to be destroyed." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, MEMRI.org, August 26, 2020.

• "The most savage treatment was always reserved for those visibly proclaiming their Christianity: clergy and monks 'were burned to death, while others were flayed alive from head to toe.'" — Raymond Ibrahim, historian, Frontpage Magazine, August 7, 2019.

• In 2018, the Speaker of Turkey's parliament, İsmail Kahraman, described Turkey's military offensive against northern Syria as "jihad." "Without jihad," he added, "there will be no progress." During the same offensive, Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) also called for "jihad" and declared in a weekly sermon that "armed struggle is the highest level of jihad."

 

The Turkish government has, in recent years, escalated its rhetoric of neo-Ottomanism and conquest. On August 26, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave a speech in which he said: "Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea." Pictured: Erdoğan in Ankara on October 5, 2020. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

 

The Turkish government has, in recent years, escalated its rhetoric of neo-Ottomanism and conquest.

On August 26, for instance, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave a speech at an event celebrating the 949th anniversary of the Battle of Manzikert. This battle resulted in Turks from Central Asia invading and capturing the then majority-Armenian city of Manzikert, within the borders of the Byzantine Empire.

Parts of his speech were translated by MEMRI:

"In our civilization, conquest is not occupation or looting. It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the [conquered] region.

"First of all, our nation removed the oppression from the areas that it conquered. It established justice. This is why our civilization is one of conquest.

"Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea. Just as we are not eyeing the soil, sovereignty, or interests of anyone else, we will never give any concession from ours. This is why we are determined to do whatever is necessary politically, economically, or militarily. We invite our interlocutors to put themselves in order and stay away from mistakes that will open the way for them to be destroyed.

"We want everyone to see that Turkey is no longer a country whose patience is to be tried or whose determination, capabilities, and courage are to be tested. If we say we'll do it, then we will. And we will pay the price.

"If there is anyone who wants to stand against us and pay the price, let them come. If not, let them get out of our way, and we will see to our own business.

"And what did [Turkish poet] Yahya Kemal say? In the spirit of the armies here: 'This storm breaking out is the Turkish army, oh Lord! The army that dies for your sake is this one, oh Lord! May your renowned and strengthened name be raised up with the calls to prayer! Make us the victor, because this is the last army of Islam! '"

In another speech in May, Erdogan again commented on conquests, referring to the 1453 invasion of Constantinople by Ottoman Turks:

"Our ancestors saw the conquest not only as the seizure of lands, but as the winning over of hearts. Recently, some presumptuous people have tried to define the conquest as occupation. Believe me they are completely ignorant. Ask them what conquest means and they will not know. Conquest is to open [things]. Conquest is especially to win hearts, but they do not know this. Our ancestors, starting a thousand years ago, first embroidered every part of Anatolia, Thrace, and the Balkans through alperens [combatants], dervishes, veterans.... As the Conqueror [Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II] entered through the walls of Istanbul, the Greek ladies said, 'We wish to see an Ottoman turban rather than see the cardinal cone on our heads.'"

One of Turkey's major problems is systematic historical revisionism promoted by the government and all other institutions in the country, including the media. There are significant falsehoods in this revisionism, particularly about the invasion of Manzikert (Malazgirt) and of Constantinople (Istanbul).

When Turks, led by Sultan Alp Arslan (real name: Muhammad bin Dawud), arrived in Manzikert in the eleventh century to invade the region, they did not "win hearts." Instead, they committed massacres. Manzikert was then a predominantly Armenian city. The massacre "began in 1019—exactly one-thousand years ago," writes historian Raymond Ibrahim, "when Turks first began to pour into and transform a then much larger Armenia into what it is today, the eastern portion of modern day Turkey."

As Ibrahim describes, the conquests were not achieved by "the winning of hearts." They were accompanied by brutal slaughters of Christian natives, captivity of women, girls and boys and destruction of churches.

"The most savage treatment was always reserved for those visibly proclaiming their Christianity: clergy and monks 'were burned to death, while others were flayed alive from head to toe.' Every monastery and church—before this, Ani was known as 'the City of 1001 Churches'—was pillaged, desecrated, and set aflame. A zealous jihadi climbed atop the city's main cathedral 'and pulled down the very heavy cross which was on the dome, throwing it to the ground,' before entering and defiling the church...

"Not only do several Christian sources document the sack of Armenia's capital—one contemporary notes that Muhammad 'rendered Ani a desert by massacres and fire'—but so do Muslim sources, often in apocalyptic terms: 'I wanted to enter the city and see it with my own eyes,' one Arab explained. 'I tried to find a street without having to walk over the corpses. But that was impossible.'"

Another historical fact involves the atrocities committed during the invasion of Byzantine Greek city of Constantinople by Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The claim that Greek women said "they preferred Ottomans" cannot be further from the truth. The city actually fell after several weeks of Greek resistance. Historian Mark Cartwright writes that "the Byzantines were hopelessly outnumbered in men, ships, and weapons."

When Constantinople was invaded on May 29, 1453, adds Cartwright, "the rape, pillage, and destruction began."

"Many of the city's inhabitants committed suicide rather than be subject to the horrors of capture and slavery. Perhaps 4,000 were killed outright, and over 50,000 were shipped off as slaves. Many sought refuges in churches and barricaded themselves in, including inside the Hagia Sophia, but these were obvious targets for their treasures, and after they were looted for their gems and precious metals, the buildings and their priceless icons were smashed, the cowering captives butchered. Uncountable art treasures were lost, books were burned, and anything with a Christian message was hacked to pieces, including frescoes and mosaics."

The fall of Constantinople brought an end to the Byzantine Empire and led to the takeover of the region by the Ottoman empire. The history of Ottoman Turks was also largely marked by persecution against Christians and other non-Muslims.

The Ottoman Empire lasted for some 600 years (from 1299 to 1923) and included parts of Asia, Europe and Africa. Christians and Jews under the Ottoman rule became dhimmis, second-class "tolerated" subjects, who had to pay a heavy jizya protection tax to stay alive. During this period, as historian Vasileios Meichanetsidis notes, the Turks engaged in oppressive practices, including:

• "the ghulam system, in which non-Muslims were enslaved, converted and trained to become warriors and statesmen;
• the devshirme system, the forced recruitment of Christian boys taken from their families, converted to Islam and enslaved for service to the sultan in his palace and to join his janissaries (new corps);
• compulsory and voluntary Islamization -- the latter resulting from social, religious and economic pressure; and the sexual slavery of women and young boys, deportation and massacre."

Many Turkish beliefs about history are actually the complete opposite of historical truth. According to the Turkish study of history, for instance, what happened in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 was not genocide against Armenians. Turkey's Institute of History has produced a documentary in five languages about what it calls, "The Armenian rebellion against the Ottoman state, terrorism and propaganda." The documentary – in line with how the Turks study history – falsely claims that it was Armenians who attempted to massacre Turks and commit other crimes against them and that Turks only acted in self-defense. Most objective historians, however, conclude that the events of 1915 constitute genocide against Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks.

This revisionism in which Turkey engages is not only an insult to the victims of these crimes and to the descendants of the victims, but also a barrier that prevents many Turks from developing critical thinking and an understanding of empirical facts. A belief in jihad [holy war in the name of Islam], conquest in the name of Islamic doctrine and the dehumanization of kafirs (infidels) seem to play a large role in Turkish supremacist mentality and its leaders' current aspirations. In 2016, for example, Numan Kurtulmus, the then-deputy prime minister of Turkey, announced at a public meeting, "Independence means being able to stand up to kafirs (infidels) by calling them kafirs." In 2018, the Speaker of Turkey's parliament, İsmail Kahraman, described Turkey's military offensive against northern Syria as "jihad." "Without jihad," he added, "there will be no progress." During the same offensive, Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) also called for "jihad" and declared in a weekly sermon that "armed struggle is the highest level of jihad."

Many Turks, therefore, still glorify Seljuk, Ottoman and Turkey's invasions and trivialize or deny altogether the crimes committed. Turkey's 1974 invasion of Cyprus, for example, was accompanied by many crimes such as murders, rapes, torture, seizure and looting of properties and forced disappearances of Greek Cypriots. The Turkish government nevertheless officially calls the invasion a "Cyprus Peace Operation" and every year proudly commemorates it.

Hate speech is also widespread in Turkish media. According to a report by the Hrant Dink Foundation, Armenians were the group most targeted by hate speech in Turkish media in 2019, followed by Syrian refugees, Greeks and Jews.

When massacres and other atrocities are systematically referred to as "glorious events," and ongoing human rights abuses – such as the incarceration by Erdogan of political prisoners become socially normalized incidents, it should not come as a great surprise that most Turks do not raise their voices against grave human rights violations in the country or Turkey's continuing occupation of northern Cyprus or Syria.

Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.gateston...historic-crimes

[Yervant1]

Church Militant

Nov 9 2020

 

 

TURKEY DEMANDS SLAUGHTER OF ARMENIANSNEWS: WORLD NEWS

(

by Trey Blanton

YEREVAN, Armenia (ChurchMilitant.com) — The international community is allowing Muslim mercenaries to be used by the former Ottoman Empire to renew its genocide of the Armenian people.

Azeri military

On Nov. 4, Syrian mercenary Yusuf Alaabet al-Hajji revealed to Armenian authorities he had been recruited by a friend to participate in "military exercises" in Turkey.

Alaabet recounted his travel by bus across the Syrian-Turkish border where he was counted by a Turkish guard. Once in Turkey, he was flown from a Turkish civilian airport to another airport where he and 500 other mercenaries were transferred Oct. 18 to an Azeri civilian plane and flown to a military base in Azerbaijan.

Alaabet received training, uniforms and weapons by Turkish-Azeri soldiers and was instructed by the Syrian commander in charge of the mercenaries to "[S]laughter each and every Armenian."

The mercenaries were sent into Armenia with Azeri troops where they were ordered to capture a village and exterminate the occupants, both military and civilian. During the advance, the Syrians came under attack by mortars and small arms fire. Several were killed or wounded and the group retreated into the mountains. During the escape, the group came under fire again and Alaabet was wounded.

The Syrian fighter explains he was promised an additional $100 for each beheading
 

Alaabet laments he was wounded for five days and none of the Azeri soldiers with him attempted to heal his injuries or even offer attention and comfort. After being ignored for nearly a week, Alaabet crawled for three days to the Armenian position. As Alaabet got closer, he was waved over by the Armenian soldiers who provided medical attention, along with food and water.

Denials by Turkey's President

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has denied to the international community his government is aiding the transport of mercenaries into the disputed Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) region. Erdoğan claims he is assisting his allies in Azerbaijan with supplies and Turkish military assistance alone.

Erdoğan follows in a long tradition of lying about the wholesale slaughter of Armenian Christians. In 1915, the Ottoman Empire was responsible for the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians along with additional Christians of Greek and other ethnicities.

Atrocity Largely Unrecognized

Diplomatic recognition of the atrocity is limited, due to Turkey's inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), with the Vatican as one of the few nations to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Erdogan follows in a long tradition of lying about the wholesale slaughter of Armenian Christians.Tweet

After World War II, when both Armenia and Azerbaijan came under the sphere of the Soviet Union, a political decision was made to place Artsakh, inhabited predominately by ethnic Armenians and known as Nagorno-Karabakh to the Azeris, under the control of Azerbaijan. Armenia disputes this act and claims the territory as their own due to historical control of the area, as well as the fact it is inhabited by their people.

A Blessing for Armenians

As far as Alaabet is concerned, it is wrong of his people to become engaged in fighting the Armenians:

I want to thank Armenians. They helped me, they treated me, they saved my life. We were wrong to have come here, they — the Armenians — are much better than we thought. They treated us ... well, may God bless them. I, Yusuf Alaabet al-Hajji, am stating that anyone who is planning to go to Azerbaijan should not take that step, because Armenians are very good people. They saved me from death. They helped me. I am urging you all: If they try to deceive you and attempt to lure you with money against this country and Armenians, don't go, even if you are poor. It is better to stay poor then to go to Azerbaijan and fight for money. The Azerbaijanis call the Armenians infidels, but they themselves are the infidels. We are infidels for coming here and fighting against these good people.

Russia has attempted to restore peace in the region but a previous attempt at a cease-fire has proven unsuccessful and it is unknown if President Vladimir Putin will be willing to militarily support his Armenian allies against his Turkish rivals for influence in the region.

 

 

 

https://www.churchmi...er-of-armenians

[Yervant1]

The Christian Science Monitor Daily

 

How Turkey’s use of military power furthers Erdoğan’s ambitions

President Erdoğan is asserting Turkey’s military hard power to bolster himself politically. But he also sees restoring Turkey’s regional standing as his calling.

– Amelia

Turkish Presidency/AP

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrives to address the lawmakers of his ruling party at the parliament, in Ankara, Turkey, Nov. 11, 2020, following Turkey's decisive support for Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia.

The list of conflicts into which Turkey has inserted itself, either with military hard power or strong rhetoric, seems to be ever growing: Syria, Iraq, Libya, Cyprus, even France.

It’s been able to do so because around the region, the United States and the Europeans have increasingly absented themselves. But using that power – decisively, in the case of supporting Azerbaijan against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh – also means potentially coming into conflict with a great power like Russia.

Turkey’s economy can be another limiting factor, but the temptation to act is great, not only to improve President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s political standing, but to improve the nation’s self-image.

“There is clearly a resurgent Turkey – one that has more self-confidence – [that] defines its role in the world as having a military footprint outside of its borders,” says Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, an expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Turkey wants to be a regional hegemon, and to get to that it understands it needs to be an active player in conflict zones,” Ms. Aydıntaşbaş says. “President Erdoğan himself feels that ... it’s his calling in life to make sure Turkey emerges as a great power.”

 

 

https://www.csmonito...0201116:1117294

[Yervant1]

DailySabah.com

 

Germany follows France's example banning nonexistent Turkish group

BY DAILY SABAH  ISTANBUL EU AFFAIRS

NOV 19, 2020 10:09 AM GMT+3

AfD parliament members hold placards as German Health Minister Jens Spahn addresses the parliament during a session of the German lower house of parliament Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Nov.18, 2020. (Reuters Photo)

 

The German federal parliament has approved a motion that proposes the prohibition of Turkish organizations linked to the so-called Grey Wolves movement, following the precedent set in France, reports said Thursday.

The Bundestag passed the motion titled “Opposing nationalism and racism, suppressing the effect of the Grey Wolves movement” prepared by the union parties of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), as well as the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens.

The motion includes taking action to prevent and suppress the spread of the Grey Wolves movement in Europe, the German government keeping track of its activities, prohibiting linked associations and opposing online propaganda to allegedly inform the public and institutions about the goals of the movement.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry, which has the prerogative to shut down organizations and associations, has not commented on the issue.

Earlier this month, the Turkish Foreign Ministry criticized France's controversial move to ban the group, saying that no such organization or movement exists.

 

 

France's "imaginary decision," as if such a movement exists, is the "final manifestation of the contradictory psychology of the country," the ministry said.

However, it added, it is unacceptable to ban cultural symbols used in many countries around the world, which are extremely common and have no illegal dimensions.

Germany, a country of over 82 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. Among the country's nearly 4.7 million Muslims, 3 million are of Turkish origin. Germans of Turkish origin have been part of German society for nearly three decades. In 1961, Turkey and Germany signed a recruitment agreement, which allowed Turkish citizens to work in Germany as guest workers.

This Turkish population, largely descending from the country's "guest workers" who arrived to aid the post-World War II development boom, often complain of the racist attacks and lack of follow-up in police investigations for such incidents.

Germany has witnessed growing anti-Muslim hate crimes in recent years sparked by hate propaganda by far-right parties.

The number of attacks targeting the Turkish minority in France has also increased recently. Last month, members of the Armenian community wounded four Turkish citizens who were demonstrating on the A7 motorway connecting Lyon and Marseille.

Rising Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia in Europe threaten the safety of approximately 6 million Turkish citizens living in European countries, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Yavuz Selim Kıran.

 

 

https://www.dailysab...e=undefined#big

[Yervant1]

The Strategist, Australia

Nov 26 2020

 

 

War between Armenia and Azerbaijan highlights Turkey–Israel tensions 

26 Nov 2020|Oved Lobel

 

On 10 November, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan informed Armenia that he was surrendering to end his country’s war with Azerbaijan. That prompted massive protests which put  the future of the government and the surrender itself in doubt. While the official ceasefire terms announced by Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan do not mention Turkey and make provision only for Russian peacekeepers, it seems that Turkish soldiers will take part in monitoring and implementation of the deal alongside about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers as part of a separate agreement between Ankara and Moscow.

The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the latter backed heavily by both Turkey and Israel, is not merely a continuation of the conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has called the conflict the ‘Second Karabakh war’. Yet this war was planned, organised, and is being overseen for the first time by Turkey, which has provided Azerbaijan with armed drones as well as a mercenary army of Syrians. These, alongside Israel’s provision of sophisticated drones and missiles to Azerbaijan, have accounted for its remarkable military success.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has watched and learned from Russia and Iran over the past decade how to effectively employ proxies and mercenaries to rewrite regional orders and control conflicts at little political or financial cost and, after developing a powerful drone capability, the student became the master. Combining an endless supply of Syrian mercenaries with a deadly drone armada and a small backbone of Turkish soldiers, Erdogan’s new capabilities exploded onto the regional scene in 2020 by first smashing the forces of the Assad regime and its backers in Syria and then those of warlord Khalifa Haftar and his allies in Libya.

Erdogan’s moves to co-opt Azerbaijan’s conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory universally recognised as Azerbaijani despite Armenia’s conquest of it in a war in the 1990s, are part of an apparent drive to involve Turkey in more and more conflicts, and to bypass international forums for dealing with conflicts. Erdogan’s goal appears to be to divide up the region with Russia, and to a lesser extent Iran, as has happened in Syria and Libya.

Ankara seems to be using each conflict as a bargaining chip in every other so that these strategic competitors can define spheres of influence, while undermining international and especially US influence, a goal that unites all three.

Erdogan also wants to force Azerbaijan to choose between Turkey and Israel. In 2011, Turkish ambassador to Azerbaijan Hulusi Kilic reportedly said the country should ‘reconsider’ its relations with Israel and that it needed to stand by Turkey in opposition to Israel. He also made vague threats about ‘possible problems’ with the oil pipeline used to supply Israel with Azerbaijani oil via Turkey. A retired US diplomat told Mark Perry in Foreign Policy in 2012 that a massive arms deal between Israel and Azerbaijan in 2010 had Erdogan ‘sputtering in rage’.

Turkey and Azerbaijan have extremely close historical and ethnic ties, and leaders from both sides refer to their relationship as ’two states, one nation’. Following clashes with Armenia that erupted in July, Erdogan promised Azerbaijan all possible military assistance, a pledge reiterated in August. This was not simply rhetoric: Turkey reportedly began recruiting Syrian mercenaries to invade Nagorno-Karabakh immediately after the flareup in July. It also surged its supply of drones, ammunition, and other weapons to Azerbaijan in August, with sales increasing from less than US$300,000 to more than US$77 million by September.

Finally, from 29 July to 10 August , Turkey and Azerbaijan held massive military exercises. This wasn’t just signalling. According to Russian daily Kommersant , a group of 600 Turkish advisers stayed in Azerbaijan to plan and oversee operations against Armenia, and Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and ground forces commander General Ümit Dündar arrived in Azerbaijan in late September to launch them.

Israel’s energy and military ties to Azerbaijan have long been close, and one senior source at the Israeli Defence Ministry recently told Asia Times, ’Azerbaijan would not be able to continue its operation at this intensity without our support.’ Yet Israeli concerns about Turkish aggressiveness have been growing significantly in the past few years.

Mossad chief Yossi Cohen reportedly told his counterparts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE about two years ago that ‘the real threat is from Turkey’, and Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz recently decried Turkey’s destabilising actions across the region. Indeed, Turkey under Erdogan has been slowly severing its partnership with Israel in all areas outside of trade.

Turkey now poses a range of challenges to Israel including its support for Hamas, its close relationship with Iran (despite strategic differences in Syria), its regional struggle for military and ideological supremacy with Gulf states, and its attempts to undermine Israel’s gas deals with Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and others. To this list must now be added the Azerbaijan war.

Israel has reportedly been supplying Azerbaijan with sophisticated weaponry since the 1990s war with Armenia. Israel and the Aliyev regime established comprehensive strategic relations, particularly in the energy and security spheres, including the joint manufacture of sophisticated drones and sales of advanced weaponry. Israel is Azerbaijan’s top weapons supplier, and Azerbaijan is one of Israel’s vital oil suppliers via the pipeline running through Turkey.

Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who spent more than 30 years in senior positions in the Israel Defense Forces and government, recently told an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council webinar, ‘Israel does not have any interest or idea who should control Nagorno-Karabakh, but Israel had and has and will continue to have in the future good relations with Azerbaijan’. It was also one of the first and few Muslim countries to support Israel in the 1990s.

Turkey’s involvement in the latest Nagorno-Karabakh war was an extremely negative development for Israel, politically and because Turkey could now obtain and ultimately replicate Israel’s most advanced weaponry. No matter how deeply embedded Israel is in Azerbaijan technologically, militarily and economically, Turkey’s influence there will likely always be greater.

It’s not clear that Azerbaijan can continue balancing the two now that Erdogan has apparently directly taken the reins of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

 

Oved Lobel is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. Image: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images.

 

https://www.aspistra...srael-tensions/

[Yervant1]

Greek City Times

Turkey is preparing Syrian mercenaries to fight in Kashmir: report
By Paul Antonopoulos
Dec. 5, 2020

Turkey, which has previously sent Syrian mercenaries to Libya and
Azerbaijan, is preparing to send fighters to Kashmir to fight against
India.

According to ANF News, which quoted local sources in northern Syria,
Abu Emsha, the head of the Turkish-backed Suleyman Shah Brigades
terrorist organization that is a part of the so-called Syrian National
Army, informed his members five days ago that Ankara wanted to
reinforce Kashmir.

The head of the terrorist groups, Abu Emsha, said that Turkish
officers would later ask the commanders of other terrorist groups to
list the names of those who want to go to Kashmir.

Abu Emsha stated that those who will go from his terrorist group will
be registered in a list and they will receive $2000 in funding. Abu
Emsha told the militant fighters he met that Kashmir is a mountainous
region like Artsakh.

Local sources stated that Ankara has been conducting this activity in
Azaz, Jarablus, Al-Bab, Afrin and Idlib for a short time, picking the
names of the fighters to go. The sources say they will be transported
secretly.

The Turkish state stands by Pakistan on the Kashmir issue against
India. Like Qatar, Pakistan supports the Turkish state’s invasion
attacks in Northeast Syria.

The official news agency of the Turkish state, Anadolu Agency, reports
that the problem between India and Pakistan in Kashmir is equivalent
to the Artsakh problem.

The Turkish state’s attempt to send terrorists to Kashmir, according
to ANF News, comes at a time of escalation between Pakistan and India.

On November 13, both forces fired intensively against each other in
the Kashmir region. At least 13 people died and dozens were injured in
the mutual attacks.

The clashes and bombings took place along the 740km control line
separating Azad Kashmir (Pakistan) from Jammu Kashmir (India). Five
days ago, three Indian soldiers and three terrorists died in clashes
on the same line.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan, both nuclear
powers, since their independence in 1947. The conflict over Kashmir
has been the reason for major wars between the two countries since
then.

Ankara has also became active in Pakistan and Bangladesh for them
recognize Turkish occupied northern Cyprus.

https://urldefense.c...wMWi7RSEJNDpYw$

[Yervant1]

Asia Times

Twin sanction threat puts the squeeze on Erdogan
By Jonathan Gorvett
Dec. 12, 2020

[EU and US weigh punitive measures that if imposed would send Turkey’s
collapsing economy into free fall]


Battling the European Union (EU) over Eastern Mediterranean maritime
disputes while angering the US over a recent Russian missile deal,
Turkey now faces the threat of sanctions from two power blocks which
combined represent over a third of the global economy.

That prospect knocked points off the already embattled Turkish
currency this week, the lira, with concerns that new harsh measures
might send the already declining economy into a terminal tailspin. The
currency has fallen around 25% this year, worsening the economic
fallout caused by the pandemic.

“Given Turkey’s dire external position, further and stronger action by
the EU and/or the US could push the country back to the brink of a
balance of payments crisis,” warns Jason Tuvey, from Capital Economics
in London.

For now, however, internal divisions in Europe and personal ties
between the Turkish and US leaders look likely to moderate the impact
of any immediate action, though that could quickly change with the
incoming Joe Biden administration in the US.

“There’s concern on both sides of the Atlantic that harsher sanctions
could push Ankara further away,” Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the
Turkey Program at the Washington DC-based Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, told Asia Times.

In the longer term, though, the threat of a harsher response remains,
with both Europe and the US increasingly concerned over Turkey’s
foreign and domestic policy course, including “Neo-Ottoman” foreign
adventures that at least in part seek to restore the country’s Ottoman
Empire glory.

“Geopolitical tensions still pose a risk to Turkey’s outlook,” adds
Tuvey. Yet despite this, Turkey’s leader, President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, “has shown little sign of toning down his belligerent
rhetoric.”

European blues

The EU’s current push for sanctions against Turkey originates in the
ongoing dispute between Ankara and EU members Greece and Cyprus over
Eastern Mediterranean sea and air boundaries.

Turkey does not recognize Greek claims to waters in and around the
Aegean Sea, nor Cypriot claims to a 200-kilometer Exclusive Economic
Zone (EEZ) off the de facto divided island.

In recent years, these disputes have become more active, with Turkey
sending its own oil and gas survey and drilling ships into offshore
blocks also claimed by Greece and the Greek Cypriots.

Collisions and stand-offs at sea have ensued, with warships deployed
to protect each side’s oil and gas vessels.

Repeated military exercises have also been held in the disputed
territories, by Turkey on the one hand and a coalition of Greek,
French, Egyptian, Cypriot and Emirati forces on the other.

Despite this, the Turkish survey ship, the Barbaros, with a flotilla
of naval escorts, continues to sail today within waters claimed by
Cyprus.

Earlier this summer, Turkey sent the Oruc Reis survey ship into an
area disputed with Greece. This triggered mobilization of the Greek
armed forces and a diplomatic intervention by EU term-president
Germany.

The de-escalation that followed saw the Oruc Reis return to port,
while the EU deferred any decision on action against Turkey until the
December 10-11 EU Council meeting.

Within a few days, however, the Oruc Reis had returned to the disputed
waters, staying there until just before the EU Council met this week
to discuss possible sanctions.

Missile trouble

At the same time, across the Atlantic, there is growing US
dissatisfaction with Turkey.

“It’s very hard to find support for Turkey’s positions in Washington
DC these days,” Ian Lesser, vice president of the German Marshall Fund
of the US in Brussels, told Asia Times.

This has followed a number of disputes, with one of the most recent
being NATO-member Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s highly effective S-400
anti-aircraft missiles, back in 2019.

This led to Turkey’s expulsion from the NATO F-35 fighter jet program,
after NATO chiefs said the S-400 deal compromised the aircraft’s
security.

The rift appeared to ease when Ankara agreed not to activate the
S-400s – yet, in October this year, the Turkish military test-fired a
missile from the system.

As a result, as an add-on to the latest US defense budget, Congress
has called for sanctions to be imposed on Turkey, including on its
defense industries, under the Countering American’s Adversaries
Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

While President Donald Trump, who has often boasted of his good
relationship with Erdogan, initially seemed likely to veto the
congressional move, on Friday news reports said that Trump would
likely sign off on an undisclosed range of sanctions.

“Neither Washington nor Brussels wants to be perceived as appeasing
the Erdogan government’s transgressions any further,” says Erdemir.

Competing interests

Yet, while “There is basically a consensus across the EU that what
Turkey has been doing is destabilizing,” says Lesser, “When it comes
to a policy response, it is all much less clear.”

On one end of the spectrum lies France – along with Greece and Cyprus
– which has championed tough action. On the other, “Berlin has a
stronger awareness of all the equity at stake when it comes to
Turkey.”

This “equity” includes Turkey’s major economic role in Europe, its
largest overseas market.

“Member states Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, which have
significant investments in Turkey, are also worried that any further
turmoil in Turkish markets or retaliation by the Erdogan government
could hurt their companies,” says Erdemir.

Germany is also home to some four million ethnic Turks, representing
as much as 5% of the population, while the EU also has a major deal in
place with Turkey to prevent refugees from conflicts in Syria, Iraq
and beyond heading to Europe – a lightning rod political issue in many
European countries.

So far, the German view appears to have prevailed.

On December 11, the EU Council announced that it would defer any
decision until its meeting in March, while also signaling that it
would work with the new US administration in formulating a response.

At the same time, Trump will likely have a range of possible sanctions
available to him under CAATSA, and “The US is expected to tread
lightly,” says Tuvey.

“Given the fragile state of the Turkish economy, no one wants to see
it go into a tailspin,” adds Lesser.

For now, then, President Erdogan will likely avoid any major
sanctions. Indeed, the veteran Turkish leader has remained largely
unruffled by the threat.

“Any decision to impose sanctions against Turkey won’t be of great
concern to Turkey,” he told reporters ahead of the December EU Council
meeting.

On Friday, Erdogan doubled down, saying any US sanctions imposed over
its S-400 missile purchase would “disrespect” Turkey as a NATO ally.
Also on Friday, in a speech to his AK Party, he called on US and EU
politicians to “break from the influence of anti-Turkey lobbies.”

Yet, the clock is ticking on further action in both Brussels and
Washington, with the threat of punitive action still a powerful force
on its own, say analysts.

“The sanctions threat is a reminder,” says Tuvey, “of Turkey’s
economic fragility.”

https://urldefense.c...8uFNgjcDFw5Kqg$
 

[Yervant1]

Greek City News

Dec 14 2020

 

 

 

Erdoğan’s top advisor threatens to kill American soldiers in Greece (VIDEO) by PAUL ANTONOPOULOS

Mesut Hakkı Caşın, a top advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Saturday that American troops would be dealt with in a similar way the Turks did to Greeks in Smyrna (Σμύρνα, Turkish: İzmir) in 1922.

“Our two batallions would invade there and teach all the Americans how to swim in Aegean waters,” Caşın said on live television.

During the Great Fire of Smyrna towards the end of the Greco-Turkish War, forces of genocide perpetrator Mustafa Kemal Ataturk set fire to the great city, resulting in many Greek civilians desperately trying to swim to ships in the harbour and drowning.

Great Fire of Smyrna

100,000 civilians, mostly Greek, died from fire, drowning or directly by Turkish forces.

A common insult by Turkey and proud of the fact that they continued their long tradition of killing civilians, is that they “threw the Greeks into the sea” or “taught Greeks how to swim.”

Caşın, member of the Presidential Board for Security and Foreign Policy, stated how US military bases in Turkey could be shut down.

“We can also close our [military] bases [to US troops]. Let the US take its radar [NATO radar base in Turkey’s Kürecik] away. The radar does not work for us anyway,” said the advisor.

Mesut Hakkı Caşın, Erdoğan’s advisor.

“İncirlik [air base] as well. İncirlik is not as important as in the Cold War, but I will say this,” he said.

“Why should we protect the Americans in İncirlik after the US already took the Patriot [missiles] away,” he questioned.

“They already reduced their troops there,” Caşın added. There are [US] bases in Bulgaria and Romania. [Former US Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice said they are our best friends.”

“But how will they bring ships when the Straits are closed?” the advisor continued.

“About Greece. I said this 10 times before about Crete. It is 260km by 65km. With the air defense the US deploys there, it is not possible to control the area or Alexandroupolis,” he continued to explain.

However, it was the next part of his speech that drew reference to the Smyrna Catastrophe.

“Our two battalions would invade there and teach all the Americans how to swim in Aegean waters,” he said.

It is recalled that in September, Caşın said he would personally execute Greek soldiers, as reported by Greek City Times.

 

 

https://greekcitytim...r-threatens-us/

[Yervant1]

CIVILNET.AM

 

15 December, 2020 03:31

 

The U.S. imposed sanctions on its NATO ally Turkey on Monday over its purchase of a Russian air defense system, in a striking move against a longtime partner that sets the stage for further confrontation between the two nations.

 

 

 

The US says Russia's S-400 surface-to-air missile system is incompatible with Nato technology and a threat to the Euro-Atlantic alliance.

The move is the first time that law, known as CAATSA, has been used to penalize a U.S. ally.

Washington and Ankara have been at odds for years now over Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400 missile defense system from Russia, along with Turkish actions in Syria, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in the eastern Mediterranean.

In the Karabakh War, Turkey provided Azerbaijan with weapons including its Bayraktar drones, as well as with hired mercenaries sent from war-torn Syria.

"The United States made clear to Turkey at the highest levels and on numerous occasions that its purchase of the S-400 system would endanger the security of US military technology and personnel and provide substantial funds to Russia's defense sector, as well as Russian access to the Turkish armed forces and defense industry," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

"Turkey nevertheless decided to move ahead with the procurement and testing of the S-400, despite the availability of alternative, Nato-interoperable systems to meet its defense requirements," he continued.

"I urge Turkey to resolve the S-400 problem immediately in co-ordination with the United States," he said.

Turkey's foreign ministry urged the US "to reconsider this unfair decision as announced today", adding that Turkey "stands ready to address this issue through dialogue and diplomacy in conformity with the spirit of alliance".

The ministry warned that US sanctions "will inevitably negatively impact our relations, and (Turkey) will retaliate in a manner and time it sees appropriate".

Coming just weeks before Joe Biden assumes office, the sanctions pose a potential dilemma for the incoming administration, although the president-elect’s team has signaled it is opposed to Turkey’s use of the S-400 and the disunity within NATO it may cause.

 

https://www.civilnet...-weapons/413134

[Yervant1]

Modern Diplomacy

Dec 16 2020

 

 

Azerbaijan and Turkey's genocidal assault against Armenians

 

By Uzay Bulut

 

From September 27 to November 10, the Armenian Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in the South Caucasus was exposed to a genocidal assault at the hands of Azerbaijan and Turkey. The entire world watched while the aggressors committed many crimes and indiscriminately shelled the indigenous lands of Armenians.

 

Turkey also sent Azerbaijan mercenaries from Syria with known affiliations to Islamic radical groups. This was confirmed by a recent United Nations report, as well as by the testimonies of many Syrian mercenaries and reports by international media outlets.

 

Together with Azerbaijani military forces, they perpetrated war crimes against Armenians. They murdered civilians, injured journalists and targeted homes, forests, hospitals, churches and cultural centers, among other non-military targets. They used white phosphorus and cluster munitions in violation of international law. At least 90,000 Armenians were forced to abandon their ancestral lands in Artsakh as a result.

 

The war finally halted after 45 days as a result of the Russia-brokered agreement imposed on Armenia.

 

According to the agreement, there would be “an exchange of prisoners of war and other detained persons and bodies of the dead.” However, even after the signing of the agreement, multiple videos emerged showing Azeri military members and their partners beheading, mutilating and dismembering captured Armenian civilians and prisoners of war. These gruesome crimes were filmed and proudly posted on social media by Azerbaijani soldiers themselves.

 

On December 7, for example, Azerbaijanis uploaded yet another video of a beheading on one of their many Telegram channels. In the video, a soldier of the Azerbaijani special forces is seen beheading an elderly Armenian civilian while his fellow soldiers videotaped the war crime. The elderly Armenian man was begging for his life.

 

As these ISIS-like crimes were being committed against Armenians, Turkish and Azerbaijani soldiers participated in a military “victory parade” in Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku on December 10. The parade, organized to celebrate the countries’ joint “military victory” over Artsakh, was attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.

 

During the “victory parade,” Erdogan delivered a speech in which he praised Enver Pasha, one of the planners of Ottoman Turkey’s 1914-1923 Christian genocide, which cost the lives of around 1.5 million Armenians and at least one million Greeks and Assyrians. The Ottoman military march was also played during the event.

 

Erdogan referred to the 1918 Islamic Army of the Caucasus created by Enver Pasha and led by the Ottoman commander, Nuri Pasha. The Islamic Army of the Caucasus was responsible for the massacres to eliminate the non-Muslim population of Baku, mainly Armenians. Erdogan said:

 

“Today is the day when the souls of Nuri Pasha, Enver Pasha and the brave soldiers of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus are blessed.”

 

Erdogan also confirmed Turkey’s support for the recent Azeri assault against Armenians. According to the official website of Turkey’s Presidency, “Turkey, with all its institutions and organizations, supported Azerbaijan’s fight from the very beginning, underlined President Erdoğan, further stressing that it will continue to stand by the brotherly Azerbaijan with all its capabilities.”

 

During his speech Aliyev claimed that the Armenian capital of Yerevan, Armenia’s Lake Sevan and the Syunik (Zangezur) region in southern Armenia are “historic lands of Azerbaijan.”

 

This was not the first time Aliyev referred not only to Artsakh but also to the Republic of Armenia as “Azerbaijani lands.” In 2018, for instance, Aliyev referred to the same Armenian regions as “historic lands of Azerbaijan.” “Azerbaijanis’ return to those territories,” he added, “is our political and strategic goal, and we need to work step-by-step to get closer to it.”

 

Meanwhile, the Russia-brokered agreement appears not to provide security for Artsakh. On December 11, Azerbaijan violated the agreement by launching an attack against Artsakh’s Hadrut district. Aliyev, however, blamed Armenia for the attacks, threatening to “break its head with an iron fist” and added, “This time, we will destroy them completely.”

 

Dr. Anahit Khosroeva, a genocide scholar and historian based in Yerevan, said:

 

“The recent Azeri attack against the villages in Hadrut breaks my trust in the agreement. Russian troops did not immediately stop the attack. People in Artsakh’s capital, Stepanakert, think that the safety of their city is at risk, as well. There is massive diplomatic uncertainty concerning the agreement. How effective it will be and how committed Russian troops will be to protecting the security of Artsakh remains to be seen.”

 

Khosroeva also criticized the dominant media narrative concerning the war against Artsakh:

 

“The international media adopted this incredibly misleading narrative which tries to put equal blame on ‘both sides’. Can they not see the difference between the perpetrator and the victim? Who started the war and who committed an ethnic cleansing campaign is obvious: Azerbaijan and Turkey. Yet, much of the international media stuck to this unethical and false narrative and whitewashed Azerbaijani crimes, which misinformed the world community and has cost so many innocent lives.

 

“For 45 days during the war, our cities were bombed incessantly. But the international community did not care. They just watched as Azerbaijan, Turkey and jihadists massacred our people. At the very least they should now try the perpetrators in international courts for their crimes.”

 

Khosroeva noted that the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect is clear about the definition and punishment of war crimes:

 

“The UN says that lists of war crimes can be found in both international humanitarian law and international criminal law treaties, as well as in international customary law.

 

“According to the 8th article of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, several acts constitute war crimes such as ‘willful killing; torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments; willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health; extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly; compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power; willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial; unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement; and taking of hostages.’ Azerbaijan and Turkey committed all these and more against Armenians during and after the war.

 

“Given Erdogan’s statements about Enver Pasha, it seems that Erdogan pursues an annihilationist policy that aims at completing the Armenian Genocide which his Ottoman ancestors started.”

 

Journalist Lika Zakaryan was in Stepanakert during the war and reported on it daily. “During the 45-day war,” she said, “people in Artsakh expected the world to do something to stop Azerbaijan and Turkey – to take concrete actions but not to stay silent, and stop calling on ‘both sides to de-escalate.’ They waited for the world to make the perpetrator and aggressor, Azerbaijan, stop its attacks. But it never happened.”

 

Zakaryan is also concerned about the agreement:

 

“I do not think it can provide full security for Artsakh,” she said. “No peacekeepers can provide it when in some places there are only 30 meters between Artsakh and Azerbaijan. I think the biggest risk concerning the agreement is the giving of Karvachar and Lachin districts to Azerbaijan, which turns Artsakh into an enclave.

 

“Azerbaijan remains a major threat to us. People here are scared of a second Armenian genocide, an even more suffocating blockade, and a new war. And until Azerbaijan is brought to account for its war crimes, these possibilities will remain.”

 

Turkey and Azerbaijan’s genocidal assault against Armenians are mainly propelled by two reasons:

 

1) The traditional Turkish/Azeri genocidal hatred against Armenians and Christianity, and

 

2) Turkey’s goal of pan-Turkist expansionism, which Turkey also calls the “Red Apple” doctrine.

 

One month before Azerbaijan and Turkey attacked Artsakh, the Director of Communications of the Turkish presidency, FahrettinAltun, shared a video of what he called the “Red Apple” anthem on his Twitter account on August 24. He wrote:

 

“For us, the Red Apple means great and strong Turkey. It is the sacred march of our nation that made history from Manzikert to July 15. The Red Apple is a great plane tree that provides shade for the downtrodden to refresh. The Red Apple is what the entire humanity has longed for from Gibraltar to Hedjaz and from the Balkans to Asia.”

 

The video presents the Turkish military and Erdogan as heirs to the medieval Turkic Seljuk dynasty, as well as to the Ottoman Empire.

 

According to the pro-government newspaper Hürriyet:

 

“The Red Apple image, one of the most important symbols of Turkish nationalism, symbolizes a goal and purpose for Turkish states. It refers to a place to be reached, or a town to be conquered. It sometimes expresses the ideal of establishing a state, sometimes the ideal of world domination, and sometimes the ideal of Turkish unity…. Red apple is a symbol of jihad carried out especially towards Western countries during the Ottoman period.”

 

The “Red Apple” image is believed to have first emerged among the Central Asian Turks. According to the anti-government newspaper Sözcü:

 

“As a trait of the Turkish state tradition, Red Apple represents the idea that the Turkish state should rule over other states and nations across the world. After oral literature, it [i.e., the Red Apple doctrine] was first passed to written sources through the Oğuzname [the name of several documents about the myths of the Turks]. According to a Turkish tradition, which is also mentioned in the Oghuz and Göktürk [Turkic tribes in the Central Asia] inscriptions, it is believed that the Turkish khan [ruler] is the khan of not only the Turks but of the whole world and that conquests were made in accordance with this principle.

 

“They [Turks] believed that God entrusted the world sovereignty to the Turks. It is seen as a very effective motif in the state tradition of the Huns, Göktürks and Seljuks [Turkic tribes from Central Asia]. According to Oğuzhan [the king of the Turkic people in Central Asia], the sky is the tent of the state and the sun is the flag. This idea included not only Turks’ thoughts of state administration, but also the very old principles of the Turkish religion.”

 

Turkic peoples are not natives of Asia Minor or the South Caucasus. They are originally from Central Asia and invaded the region starting in the eleventh century. Armenians, however, are an indigenous people of the land and have resided there for millennia. Throughout the centuries, however, Armenians have been assaulted by Turkic peoples several times. Among the greatest of these assaults were the 1071 Seljuk Turkic invasion of the Armenian town of Manzikert in the Greek Byzantine Empire and the 1914-23 Christian genocide by Ottoman Turkey.

 

According to “Red Apple” ideology, the presence of Armenians in Artsakh and Armenia is viewed as a barrier preventing a Turkic Islamic corridor among Azerbaijan, Turkey and other Turkic Muslim countries.  Hence, Turkey and Azerbaijan appear to aim at erasing Armenia from the map. To this end, they commemorate the perpetrators of the Christian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey and claim the historically Armenian lands, including Yerevan. The Turkish government remains proud of its history, filled with many crimes against Armenians and other Christians, and thus continues committing further crimes against the descendants of the genocide survivors.  

 

However, Erdogan’s regime will not stop at Artsakh, as Turkey’s imperialist agenda does not only target Armenians. Erdogan has publicly announced his regime’s neo-Ottomanist goals for years. If Turkey and Azerbaijan achieve their expansionist goals in the South Caucasus, they will continue targeting and trying to expand their influence and even territories through parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, which the Ottoman Empire occupied for centuries. Turkey already occupies northern Cyprus and northeast Syria, which the international community ignores. And reports have recently surfaced that Turkey is allegedly preparing to send jihadist fighters from eastern Syria to Jammu and Kashmir to help Pakistan.

 

The unprovoked aggression by the Turkish-Azeri armies against Armenians once again demonstrates that the Turkish state sees the Armenian Genocide as “unfinished business.” Enver Pasha, whom Erdogan praised in Baku, was one of the leaders of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress, also known as the “Unionists,” who planned and perpetrated the Armenian Genocide.

 

Prominent sociologist OhannesKılıçdağı noted in an article he recently penned that for both the pan-Turkist ideology represented by the Unionists and the Kemalist ideology that established Turkey, wiping out Armenia remains a goal. Kılıçdağıwrote:

 

“For both the Unionists before Kemalism and the Unionists continuing their existence under the name of Kemalism, Armenia is a ‘road accident’ or a ‘historical accident’ that should have never happened. It was the result of an unexpected ‘last minute’ resistance of the exhausted Armenians after the genocide. I think that eliminating this road accident is still alive as a target for Turkey’s military and civilian government mechanisms.”

 

Given Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s hostile statements and murderous aggression against Armenians, it is not an overstatement to say that the security of the rest of Artsakh and Armenia is at risk. A full century after the Armenian Genocide, Armenians are still exposed to a genocidal assault by Turkey and its ally, Azerbaijan. And sadly, the world is still standing idly by.

 

About the author: Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara. Her writings have appeared in The Washington Times, The American Conservative, The Christian Post, The Jerusalem Post, and Al-Ahram Weekly. Her work focuses mainly on human rights, Turkish politics and history, religious minorities in the Middle East, and antisemitism.

 

 

 

https://moderndiplom...20/12/16/37624/

 

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

 

Italians believe Turkey poses major threat to entire world – survey

 

 

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 12:00, 19 December, 2020

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, ARMENPRESS. According to a survey conducted by research centers, Italians believe that Turkey is one of the most dangerous countries posing a threat to the entire world, the BBC Turkish reports.

ISPI and Ipsos research organizations asked respondents in Italy ‘Which country poses the greatest threat to the world?’

 

27% of Italians said it is China, 15% said Iran, while 14% said Turkey. This is the first time in 5 years that respondents in Italy are mentioning Turkey when asked this question.

According to ISPI Director Paolo Magri, Turkey’s highly aggressive foreign policy, escalation with Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean, military interventions in Syria, Libya and Nagorno Karabakh contributed to this perception among Italians.

Reporting by Sedrak Sargsyan; Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

 

 

https://armenpress.a...MN1-G9GIM9aNyxY

[Yervant1]

When their existence is built on hatred of other races, it becomes normal to feel the way they do!

Greek City Times

Dec 26 2020

 

 

Professor Caman: Why is it so “bad” for Turks to have Greek, Armenian, Assyrian or Kurdish ancestors?

 

by Guest Blogger

 

 

Egypt was invaded in 639 AD and converted to Islam and adopted the Arab language and culture from an Arab army of 4,000 troops.

Egyptian historiography accepts the ancient Egyptian roots of contemporary Egypt.

Anatolian indigenous people were religiously and linguistically assimilated much later.

Only a fairly marginal amount of people from Central Asia (mainly ethnic Turkic “Oghuz” jihadist warriors who became the ruling elites after the invasion) moved to Anatolia.

And Turkish historiography talks about a “mass migration” and replacement of population in Anatolia.

This manipulative and ideological historiography is the main source of Turkish racism and ethnic nationalism, as well as xenophobia towards Armenians, Greeks and Kurds (indigenous Anatolian peoples).

It is a defence mechanism in Turkey to deny Armenian, Greek and Kurdish roots.

A considerable extent of Turkey’s population has Anatolian-indigenous ancestors.

Both modern DNA studies and morphologic characteristics of Turkey’s population indicate this fact which is so disturbing for Turks that they completely deny it.

Today, for many Turks, it is is an insult to be called a Greek or Armenian.

This hostile and hateful sentiments derive from racist Turkish historiography based on denial of the fact that contemporary Turks are predominantly descendants of Anatolian indigenous peoples (Greek, Armenian and Kurd).

Why is it so “bad” for Turks to have Greek, Armenian, Assyrian or Kurdish ancestors?

Why do they ignore their pre-Islamic identity, history, religion, languages etc.?

The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of Greek City Times.

Dr. Mehmet Efe Caman teaches political science at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.

 

 

 

 

 

https://greekcitytim...-armenian-kurd/

 

 

[Yervant1]

Dec 30 2020

 

 

Turkey will Convert Armenian Church into Cultural Center

 

12/30/2020 Turkey (International Christian Concern) – Agos reports that Turkey has decided to turn Konya’s Holy Trinity Armenian Church into a cultural center. Turkey has finished restoring it to a cost of 3.5 million TL but it is not clear when the church will reopen in its new capacity.

The 1915 genocide nearly eliminated the Armenian Christian population from Turkey. Since then, Turkey has taken control over most of the abandoned churches and other Armenian cultural sites. Turkey does not acknowledge the genocide, and has not made any attempts to restore these churches back to their original Christian community. Instead, Turkey either converts these churches into mosques or restores their buildings into faith tourism sites. When pursuing the later option, Turkey uses it as an example to the international arena about how they care for religious freedom. However, it is a point which confuses religious freedom with faith tourism. The state reaps the monetary rewards of having churches restored into cultural sites and museums. Any remaining Christian community is forced to petition the state for access to these sites for worship purposes.

For more information, see ICC’s joint report: Turkey – Challenges Facing Christians 2016-2020.

 

 

https://www.persecut...ultural-center/

[Yervant1]

Arab News

Turkey’s crackdown on freedom of expression highlighted in new report
Dec. 31, 2020

ANKARA: A December 29 report from Expression Interrupted highlights
Turkey’s repeated violations of Article 10 of the European Convention
on Human Rights, to which it is a signatory party, and its failure to
comply with rulings handed down by the European Court of Human Rights
(ECtHR).

Of all 47 members of the Council of Europe, Turkey has the most
violations of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the
Convention. Of the 845 judgments ECtHR delivered between 1959 and
2019, 356 were against Turkey — almost five times as many as against
the distant runner-up, Russia.

Turkey also tops the list of rights violations pertaining to all
articles of the Constitution. “Between 1959 and 2019, 3,645 of the
22,535 judgments delivered by the Court were against Turkey, making it
the country against which the ECtHR has delivered the most judgments,”
the report reads. Out of 5,231 cases currently pending execution by
signatory parties, 689 of them are against Turkey.

The report also noted: “One of the most important reasons for these
huge numbers is non-implementation of the previous judgments of the
ECtHR, which sets the stage for repetition of similar violations in
the future,” and emphasized that broad interpretation of acts
including “insulting the president” or “denigrating the Turkish
nation/state” have been used as a basis for arrests and convictions,
in violation of ECtHR rulings.

The jailed Kurdish politician and former co-chair of Turkey’s Peoples’
Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, and philanthropist and
businessperson Osman Kavala, are two of the highest-profile prisoners
in the country, despite rulings from the ECtHR calling for their
immediate release. The report suggests that their continued
imprisonment is designed “to punish and discourage the exercise of
freedom of expression.”

“The speed with which Turkish authorities implement judgments such as
those regarding Kavala and Demirtas show what kind of commitment
Turkey has to the founding values of the Council of Europe and the
European Convention on Human Rights,” Massimo Frigo, senior
international lawyer at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ),
told Arab News.

Last week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
once again urged Ankara to comply with the ECtHR’s ruling that
Demirtas should be released immediately.

Turkey is one of the founding members of the Council of Europe and
ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1954. “Under
Article 46 of the Convention, Turkey is bound to implement the
judgments of the European Court of Human Rights at a domestic level,”
human rights lawyer Beril Morel told Arab News.

According to Morel, Turkey has a particularly poor track record when
it comes to the implementation of judgments rendered on politically
sensitive cases. “The refusal of Ankara to recognize the violations in
Demirtaş’ and Kavala’s cases are a recent example,” she said.

Morel cited “the actions of security forces; the lawfulness of
detention; domestic violence; freedom of thought, conscience and
religion; freedom of expression and information; and freedom of
assembly and association” as the topics likely to “top the ECtHR
agenda concerning Turkey.”

“Turkey amended its Constitution to recognize the supremacy of
international law over its domestic law. Article 90 of the
Constitution expressly provides that international conventions
concerning human rights, ECtHR being one of these, prevail over
domestic law in case of a conflict between those,” Morel said.
Therefore, Turkey should implement the ECtHR’s judgements. However,
she pointed out, the ECtHR can only intervene in the domestic
implementation of its rulings by member states if the matter is
brought to its attention with a second application and a violation of
Article 46 of the Convention is found.

“We are leaving 2020 behind with a heavy heart. Turkey’s human rights
and rule-of-law crisis has deepened further,” Ayse Bingol Demir, a
human rights lawyer and co-director of the Turkey Human Rights
Litigation Support Project, told Arab News.

According to Demir, the ongoing detention of Kavala and Demirtas —
despite ECtHR rulings — will be an important feature of the Council of
Europe Committee of Ministers’ agenda in 2021.

“Turkey will likely face increasing pressure and sharper decisions
from the Committee,” she said. “As it did in the case of Kavala in
2020, I expect the Committee to conclude that the ongoing detention of
Demirtas constitutes a continued violation of the European Court’s
rulings,” she said.

“The Committee will also focus on arbitrary and unlawful detentions;
the frequent use of anti-terror legislation to target the legitimate
activities of human rights defenders and opposition politicians; and
the lack of independence and impartiality of the judiciary,” she
continued. “If the ruling government decides to insist on its current
policy of denial, 2021 will certainly be a more difficult year in its
relations with the Council of Europe.”

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