ErdoFascism turks In Their Natural Behavior

[Yervant1]

Oct 26 2021

Erdogan Flaunts Genocide Accusations Through Artsakh Visit

By International Christian Concern on October 26, 2021

Turkey Threatens Individuals, Countries, Who Recognize Genocide

10/26/2021 Washington, D.C. (International Christian Concern) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on October 26, 2021, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenian: Artsakh). Turkey supported Azerbaijan’s invasion of Artsakh in Fall 2020, where the two conducted genocide against Artsakh’s Armenian-Christian majority.

President Erdoğan’s visit to Artsakh came just days after he threatened to expel 10 Western ambassadors whose countries had called for the release of Osman Kavala, a jailed Turkish philanthropist who dedicated his life to the recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Turkey actively suppresses all information pertaining to the 1915 Genocide, allowing the authorities to build upon those genocidal policies that removed Christianity from the country.

Victims of the 2020 invasion into Artsakh have often commented that Turkey sought to finish what was started in 1915. A report submitted by the Armenian Bar Association to the United Nations stated, “(Turkey) —Azerbaijan’s ethnic and linguistic “brother nation” and close military ally, which directly assisted Azerbaijan in its Nagorno-Karabakh war. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used the Turkish term “kılıç artığı,” which means “leftovers of the sword,” in reference to the survivors of the Christian massacres that mainly targeted Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, Turkey.”

The brutality of the Turkish-Azeri invasion into Artsakh was well-documented by several independent organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. This brutality was supported by Turkish paid Syrian mercenaries, many of whom once belonged to ISIS and had previously committed genocide against the region’s Christians. The invasion was celebrated by a victory parade in Baku, which was attended by President Erdoğan, and the opening of a trophy park which included the helmets of killed Armenians as well as mannequins showing them in degrading circumstances (months later, after much international outcry, both the helmets and mannequins were reportedly removed from the park).

The invasion of Artsakh is reminiscent of a 2013-2015 statement made by Anadolu Kulture, a non-profit of which Osman Kavala sits as Chairman of the Board. The statement read, “Confronting the past is not a predicament that befell Turkey; it is an issue on the world’s agenda, a universal cause. This is why looking at comparative international case studies from around the world will contribute to transforming the culture of forgetting in Turkey and acknowledging that a remembering culture that would restore a sense of justice is a part of the civilization process. In this respect confronting the past and apology is also about what kind of a society we want to live in and the kind of shared future we want to build.”

Turkey, who is a NATO ally of the United States, was recommended this year by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom for inclusion on the State Department’s Special Watch List regarding religious freedom. Human rights conditions have worsened in Turkey over the past several years, but an escalation of religious freedom violations have particularly occurred since the 2016 coup attempt. Turkey has exported these violations throughout the region, often in ways that facilitate the elimination of local religious minority groups.

Claire Evans, ICC’s Regional Manager, said, “One only needs look at the Kavala case and Turkey’s actions in Artsakh to see that Turkey’s ruling government wishes to suppress all historical recognition of the 1915 genocide so that they can continue this genocide in the modern era. President Erdoğan demonstrated Turkey’s strength by successfully invading Artsakh; now he is flexing Turkey’s strength by making threats of western diplomatic expulsion just days before visiting the territory he helped conquer. His messaging is a clear promotion of genocide and an attempt to bully the world’s protestations into silence.”

https://christiannews.net/2021/10/26/erdogan-flaunts-genocide-accusations-through-artsakh-visit/

[Yervant1]

Arrogant SOB!

News.am, Armenia

Nov 26 2021

Erdogan: Armenia needs to appreciate the hand that is extended for peace

19:35, 26.11.2021

During its session chaired by President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish National Security Council touched upon Armenia.

According to Milliyet, in its statement issued after the session, the National Security Council called on Armenia to appreciate the hand that is extended for peace, maintain the ceasefire and cooperate.

https://news.am/eng/news/674524.html

 

 

[Yervant1]

News.am, Armenia

Nov 29 2021

Jean-Christophe Buisson: Syunik is Armenia, and Erdogan is a warmonger

16:39, 29.11.2021

On his Twitter blog, deputy director of France’s reputable Le Figaro magazine, journalist Jean-Christophe Buisson touched upon the statements that President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan made during the Summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

“In his new alarming imperialistic speech in Ashgabat, Erdogan called on Turkic-speaking countries to fully support Azerbaijan’s demand for the “Zangezur corridor”. Syunik is Armenia, and Erdogan is a warmonger,” he tweeted.

https://news.am/eng/news/674834.html

[Yervant1]

Nov 29 2021

Who Are the Extremist 'Grey Wolves'?

by Uzay Bulut

November 29, 2021 at 4:00 am

 

• In reality, the Grey Wolves movement very much does exist. It has a long history of bloodbaths across Turkey and is now a growing movement across Europe as well as the South Caucasus.

• This ideology [Turanism, or the Greater Turkish homeland] believes in the superiority of a supposed Turkish race and wants to unite all Turks under one country, "Turan", from Europe to the Pacific. These ideas have greatly influenced the Grey Wolves organization and its actions.

• The "Turan" ideal is still alive and well in Turkish politics. Prior to a meeting at the presidential palace on November 17, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, posed with a map of the so-called "Turkish world", or the Turan, before cameras.

• "The Grey Wolves have a long history of terrorism towards ethnic religious minorities, but their skillset has evolved. They are stronger than in the early 2000's. The MHP's political alliance with Turkey's ruling AKP three years ago legitimized them, giving the Grey Wolves a new sense of unity. They are militarized, they are efficient, and they are on the move globally. Their mission is Pan-Turkic Islamism, and any ethnic Christian who exists within their targeted sphere is at risk." — International Christian Concern.

• It is time for civilized nations to look more closely at the violent attacks and threats by the Grey Wolves against minorities and dissident intellectuals in and outside of Turkey.

 

The Grey Wolves movement very much does exist. It has a long history of bloodbaths across Turkey and is now a growing movement across Europe as well as the South Caucasus. The ideology of Turanism, or the Greater Turkish homeland, believes in the superiority of a supposed Turkish race and wants to unite all Turks under one country, "Turan", from Europe to the Pacific. These ideas have greatly influenced the Grey Wolves organization and its actions. Pictured: A Turkish soldier flashes the sign of the Grey Wolves as he patrols in the town of Atareb, in Turkish-occupied northern Syria, on February 19, 2020. (Photo by Aref Tammawi/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Last month, the US Congress passed an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that could affect the status of the far-right, extremist group that operates both inside and outside Turkey: the Grey Wolves.

The amendment, introduced by Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-NV), requires that the State Department send a report to Congress on the activities of the Grey Wolves against the United States and its allies -- including an assessment of whether the Grey Wolves meets the criteria to be designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

The Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar) is the informal name of a Turkish nationalist organization called Idealist Hearths (Ülkü Ocakları). As a political movement, it is referred to as the Idealist Movement (Ülkücü Hareket) and is responsible for many acts of violence, including the 1981 attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

In 1968, the Idealist Hearths were founded as the militant wing of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), currently an ally of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The US is not the only country that has started paying more attention to the criminal activities of the Grey Wolves. In November of last year, French Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin announced on Twitter that the group was banned in France. "It incites discrimination and hatred and is implicated in violent actions," he wrote. The announcement came after an Armenian genocide memorial outside the city of Lyon was defaced with yellow graffiti and pro-Turkish slogans.

The same month, members of the European Parliament affiliated with the "Identity and Democracy" group proposed to include the Grey Wolves on the European Union terrorist list, saying the European parliament "condemns the violent acts and ideology of the Grey Wolves, whose growing influence represents a threat to world peace and to Europe."

On November 18, the German parliament adopted a motion that urged the government to outlaw the group's affiliates, prevent its online agitation, and monitor its activities.

Germany's Green Party lawmaker Cem Özdemir said he believed the group was the largest right-wing extremist organization in Germany, with up to 20,000 members. The largest Grey Wolves umbrella organization, according to Germany's domestic intelligence service, is the ADÜTF (Federation of Democratic Idealist Turkish Associations of Germany), with some 170 associations and 7,000 members. Özdemir added that the Grey Wolves were responsible for hundreds of murders in Turkey but did not limit their activities to that country.

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the decision by France, saying:

"There is no such a movement called 'Grey Wolves'," the press release said. "Attempts to resort to imaginary decisions presuming the existence of such a movement or formation based on some individuals and their actions, reflects the latest contradictory psychology that this country lives in."

In reality, the Grey Wolves movement very much does exist. It has a long history of bloodbaths across Turkey and is now a growing movement across Europe as well as the South Caucasus.

International Christian Concern reported in September:

"Grey Wolf ideology has continued to spread throughout the world, along with the threats of violence against Christians and any other group that stands in the way of Turkic expansionism."

"Grey Wolves" in Turkic Mythology

Turkish nationalists, including pan-Turkists, believe that their ancient ancestors lived in the area between the Tian Shan and Altai Mountains in Central Asia. This region borders China. Turks in Central Asia were nomadic people who often engaged in migrations and conquests. In the 11^th century they arrived in Anatolia, which was then ruled by the Greek Byzantine Empire, and invaded the area through massacre.

The grey wolf is an animal considered sacred in Turkish, Altai and Mongolian mythology. It is also a national symbol. An article on the Turkish website Karar explains:

"The belief of being descended from grey wolves has long been a great source of pride for the Turks, as well as a sense of security and confidence in their future... Many heroes in Turkish history have been represented by the grey wolf symbol.

"The function of the grey wolf in Turkish epics is purely symbolic. It expresses the growth, expansion and empowerment of the nation. As the Turks believe and obey this idea, they preserve their dominance and superiority and when they leave this idea, they are subject to disaster. It is the grey wolf who saves Turks from disasters.

"In these epics, the following qualities of the grey wolf are revealed: To ensure the continuation of the lineage [of the Turks], to guide the Turks, and to save the Turks from disasters."

According to a so-called grey wolf myth, Turks descend from humans and wolves.

"In the 'Grey Wolf Epic', a boy whose legs and arms were cut off and left to die was healed by a she-wolf who fed the child. When enemy soldiers tried to kill the boy, the she-wolf abducted him to the Altai Mountains and saved him. The she-wolf then became pregnant from this boy and gave birth to 10 sons. The growth and reproduction of these boys saved the Turkish lineage from extinction."

Turkism and Turanism

The nationalist ideology known as Turkism or Pan-Turkism, and also called Pan-Turanism or Turanism, began to emerge in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. This ideology believes in the superiority of a supposed Turkish race and wants to unite all Turks under one country, "Turan", from Europe to the Pacific. These ideas have greatly influenced the Grey Wolves organization and its actions.

The "Turan" ideal is still alive and well in Turkish politics. Prior to a meeting at the presidential palace on November 17, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, posed with a map of the so-called "Turkish world", or the Turan, before cameras.

Dr. Fatih Yasli wrote a book entitled Our Hate is our Religion: A Study on Turkist Fascism, analyzing its history and ideological arguments. Turanism, Dr. Yasli notes, should be called "Turkist fascism" because Turanists "based their understanding of nationalism on blood and lineage and advocated biological racism."

"They designed a state structure, one of whose fundamental duties would be to prevent the purity of the blood of the race from becoming corrupted. They also envisaged an 'order and command' society intertwined with militarism. In such a society, superior-subordinate relationships would be strictly defined and acts that would violate that hierarchy would be punished in the harshest way. They redesigned politics as biopolitics that would directly intervene in, regulate and control population, birth and marriage. They also had a very powerful desire for irredentism (expansionism), had a certain belief in Social Darwinism and considered life to be a war of survival. They worshipped death and war and felt a very deep hatred for the ideas of peace, internationalism, cosmopolitanism, intellectualism, everything that is feminine, and communism, which they thought represented all those things on their own.

"The ideological arguments of the movement called racist-Turanism clearly accorded with the universal diagram of the fascist ideology...

Turkist fascism bases itself on the thesis that it is an enemy of the whole world, the same way that National Socialism was an enemy of Jews. As Turkist fascists define life as a war, a natural result of this understanding is that they believe 'internal' and 'external' enemies of Turks are everywhere: Minorities, Jews, Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, Russians, communists are sneaky and dangerous enemies of this world of war. To Turkist fascists, whoever is foreign is an enemy. Atsiz wrote in a 1934 article that 'the external enemies of the Turkish nation are the whole world.'"

Nihal Atsız (1905-1975), a leading Turkist figure, defined the Turkism ideal as follows:

"The Turks who dominate the Turan geography (Greater Turkish homeland) are ahead of and superior to all other nations".

Turkism was one of the ideologies of the Ottoman government led by the nationalist ruling party of Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), a.k.a. the Young Turks. They committed the first phase of the 1913-23 Christian genocide targeting Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. The most important political power of the period, the CUP, turned Turkism into the official ideology of the Ottoman government. Historian Suren Manukyan notes that Turkism and pan-Turkism during the Young Turk era "aimed to create a homogenous Turkey and a Great Turanian superpower that would unite all Turkic-speaking peoples as far as Central Asia."

The Turkist-Turanist ideology -- alongside the jihad declared in November 1914 -- was among the motivating ideologies of the genocide. Today, Turkish nationalists either aggressively deny the genocide or proudly proclaim that they "would do it again."

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1930s and '40s: Turkism blends with Nazism

Antisemitism, Dr. Yasli writes, became prominent in the Turkish fascist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. During that period, many Turkist thinkers blended Turkism with German Nazism. This greatly impacted the ideological arguments of the Grey Wolves movement. From then on, ideologues such as Nihal Atsız, Reha Oğuz Türkkan, Rıza Nur, Fethi Tevetoğlu and Orhon Seyfi Orhon increasingly helped spread Turkic supremacist ideas. Nihal Atsız, a prominent Nazi sympathizer, is largely considered as the founder and ideologue of the fascist movement in Turkey. "The first country to solve the Jewish issue was Germany," Atsız wrote. "Other nations are to learn lessons from them."

Last year, a park in Istanbul was named after Atsız, known for "measuring skulls" to determine people's "amount of Turkishness."

In her book Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust, scholar Corry Guttstadt describes Atsız as a "Turkish apologist for German Nazism":

"Nihal Atsiz was an avid Nazi sympathizer. He called himself a 'racist, pan-Turkist and Turanist', and was an open anti-Semite. From 1934 onward, Atsiz published the Turanist journal

Orhun

, in which he advocated a Greater Turkish Empire extending from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. His Turkism was based on ties of blood and race; he advocated a return to pre-Islamic Turkish beliefs."

When the Jewish communities of eastern Thrace were attacked during the 1934 anti-Jewish pogrom, Atsız's writings led to violence. Historian Rifat Bali noted that before the riots, Atsız had been given free rein to make crude anti-Semitic propaganda with no interference from the state.

Another Turkist ideologue, Reha Oğuz Türkkan, penned "the testament of Grey Wolves" in 1942:

"What is our ideology?

"Grey Wolf Turkism.

"What do we believe?

"That the Turkish race and the Turkish nation are superior to every race and every nation!

"What is the source of this superiority?

"Turkish blood.

"Are Turks born superior?

"Turkish people are naturally superior and talented. The Turk gets his intelligence, valor, military genius and great talent and aptitude from his blood.

"Could this advantage be lost?

"Even if it decreases with the effect of bad administration and bad environment, this is temporary. As soon as the Turk creates a good administration and a good environment, that will enable his own development, and this superiority will shine again.

"When might this superiority disappear altogether?

"If Turkish blood is smeared with foreign blood. In this case, the generations that will be born hybrid and mixed-blooded do not have the material and moral characteristics of the Turk and cannot be of superior lineage like a true Turk.

"Why are the Grey Wolves racist?

"Another reason why the Grey Wolves are racist is social; they know that only Turks can benefit Turks. Non-Turks and all kinds of converts, no matter how much Turkish culture with which they are raised, will never look like a real Turk, nor will they be able to serve this nation like a real Turk.

"When you say Turkish, do you mean those who have been [pure blood] Turkish throughout the generations?

"That is what my heart would like. But the Grey Wolves who see the realities also consider Turkish those whose ancestors are three-quarters Turkish or who have been Turkified by blood for four generations.

"Are Grey Wolves Pan-Turkists?

"Yes."

Racist ideas also found support from the then-Turkish government. The Turkish government at the time, Dr. Yasli noted, tolerated the activities of the Turkish fascist movement: the government had commercial and political relations with Nazi Germany during the Second World War, and some members of the Turkish government felt close to the Turkish fascist ideology and had great sympathy for Nazi Germany. The German-Turkish Treaty of Friendship, for instance, was signed between Nazi Germany and Turkey in Ankara on June 18, 1941. According to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration:

"In October 1941 Germany

concluded

an important trade agreement with Turkey that provided for an exchange of Turkish raw materials, especially chromite ore, for German war material, together with iron and steel products and other manufactured goods, in order to draw Turkey further into the Axis orbit. In 1943 Turkey provided essentially 100 percent of German requirements. According to Albert Speer, Hitler's Armaments Minister, the German war machine would have ground to a halt without chromite ore."

During that period, many Turkish newspapers such as Cumhuriyet were creating propaganda for Nazi Germany. Authorities such as the prime minister at the time, Şükrü Saracoğlu, a member of the Republican People's Party (CHP), and Chief of General Staff, Fevzi Çakmak, also proudly voiced racist ideas. Saracoğlu, for instance, said at Turkey's parliament: "I am a Turkist prime minister... Turkism is a matter of blood for us as much as it is a matter of culture."

In line with this ideology, Turkist government policies systematically discriminated against minority citizens. For instance, conditions such as "being of Turkish race" were sought for people to be admitted to military high schools. In addition, under Saracoğlu's government, on November 11, 1942, Turkey enacted the Wealth Tax Law targeting Armenians, Jews and Greeks, to eliminate non-Muslims from the economy. Those who could not pay the taxes were sent to labor camps, deported or their properties were seized by the government.

With the support of the then-Turkish government, the ideologies of the 1940s, that spread racist ideas, formed the ideological infrastructure of the Turkist-Turanist movement by blending these ideas with Nazism.

1969: Turkist Supremacist ideas turn into a political party

In the 1960s, Turkic supremacist ideas were officially organized within a political party. Alparslan Türkeş, an ultra-nationalist military figure, joined the Republican Villagers' Nation Party (CKMP) with his team in February 1963 and became its leader in 1965.

Türkeş released a political pamphlet titled "Nine Lights Doctrine " (Turkish: Dokuz Işık Doktrini), which became the ideological backbone of the party at its 1967 congress. Türkeş was then declared the "chieftain" of the movement. In the congress that took place two years later, the name of the party was changed to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the process of the movement turning into a political party was complete.

1970s: Islam becomes major part of Turkism through "Turkish-Islam synthesis"

The MHP, whose founding ideology was shaped in the congress in 1969, also adopted a change in the ideology of the movement. The racist ideology represented by the "historical" leader of the movement, Nihal Atsız, was then combined with Islamic motifs, a change necessary for the movement to become massive; it might not have been easy for a Turkish identity based solely on race to be popular. Hence, the MHP, led by Türkeş, aimed to appeal to the conservative and religious feelings of the masses. To this end, the MHP added Sunni Islam to its Turkish identity. Seyyid Ahmet Arvasi, (1932-1988), an ideologue of the Grey Wolves, elaborated the concept as "Turkishness is our body, Islam is our soul." The Turkish nation, Arvasi argued, should dominate the global order. According to scholar Evangelos Areteos:

"Türkeş and his followers... fully espoused the new concept of 'Turkish-Islam synthesis'. This synthesis puts Islam, in its cultural and not its political dimension, on the same level with ethnicity (being a Turk) as the two components of Turkish nationalism."

Grey Wolf Hand Sign

The MHP and the Grey Wolves have a "hand sign" that has become the symbol of the movement. Türkeş attributed a certain meaning to the sign, which he explained to Osman Bölükbaşı, the founder of the Nation Party, as follows:

"This little finger is Turkish, and this index finger is Islam. The space between them with which we make that Grey Wolf sign is the world. And the point where the remaining 3 fingers meet is the seal. In other words, if we make the sign, the following [meaning] will emerge: We will strike the Turkish-Islamic Seal on the World."

Some Turkish nationalists date the Grey Wolf sign to the artifacts allegedly found in China. According to the Turkish media:

"It is evident from the 6th century 'Turkish Khan [king] statue' found in the caves that the Grey Wolf sign was the victory sign of the Turkish Khans in the pre-Islamic Gokturk [First Turkic Empire] period and other Turkish states [nomadic confederations of Turkic peoples in medieval Inner Asia]."

This sign has been made in public not just by Grey Wolves but by other Turkish political leaders as well including Erdogan, and the head of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

In March 2019, Austria banned the Grey Wolf salute. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs "strongly condemned" the decision and called on Austria to "correct this mistake," saying it "deeply offends bilateral relations between Turkey and Austria."

Massacres by Grey Wolves across Turkey

By 1970, Grey Wolves formed their organizational structure within "idealist hearths" across Turkey and escalated their aggression against minority citizens including Alevis, a persecuted religious minority, and leftists in the country.

On March 16, 1978, for instance, Grey Wolves -- with the help of police -- carried out a massacre against leftist students at the Beyazit campus of the Istanbul University. Seven students were killed and more than 40 wounded.

Throughout the same year, the Grey Wolves attacked Alevis and leftists in many central and eastern Anatolian cities. Especially where the Alevi and Sunni populations lived together, the Sunni population was called to "carry out jihad against the Alevis and communists ". On April 17, in the city of Malatya, houses and workplaces belonging to Alevis were destroyed and set on fire. During the massacre that lasted for three days, seven Alevis were murdered and around 100 were wounded, according to official figures. From September 3-7, in the city of Sivas, attacks were carried out in which 10 Alevis were murdered and 93 wounded. Homes and other properties belonging to Alevis and leftists were burned.

On October 9, 1978, seven young members of Turkey's Workers' Party (TİP) were brutally murdered by Grey Wolves in the neighborhood of Bahçelievler in Ankara. They were either strangled with wire or shot in the head in their homes.

In the city of Maras in southeastern Turkey in December 1978, Grey Wolves targeted Alevis once again. Prior to the massacre, during a Friday sermon, an imam provoked Sunni Muslims to "cleanse Alevis and the nonreligious". Other violent calls were made repeatedly through loudspeakers. They burned some of their victims alive, slaughtered them with axes, and raped women. Hospitals were besieged and the wounded killed. People who gathered were set on fire and shot at with automatic weapons. Although the governor of the city declared a curfew, the mob did not stop. The police and the army stood idly by and did nothing to protect the Alevis. During the massacre, which lasted for five days, more than 100 people were killed, including babies, children and pregnant women, and hundreds were wounded. In some instances, the assailants, many of whom were Grey Wolves, poured gasoline on those who could not answer questions about Islam.

On May 16, 1979, during a massacre in the Piyangotepe district in Ankara, the Grey Wolves killed 7 people and wounded 10 by raiding and shooting at a cafe where leftists often gathered.

In 1980, the violence escalated. The Grey Wolves assassinated parliamentarians, public prosecutors, professors, and journalists, as well as one of the leaders of the Turkish workers' movement, Kemal Türkler, on July 20, 1980.

Other ethnic minorities such as the Kurds have also been targeted. The MHP has adopted a policy of rejection of solving the Kurdish issue in Turkey through democratic means. In March, the MHP officials announced that they prepared a case file that would demand from the Supreme Court the closure of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish opposition party in Turkey's parliament. In October, MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli once again targeted the HDP, which is currently facing a closure case at Turkey's Constitutional Court, and said that the HDP must be closed. Bahçeli, in line with its party's ideology, also denies the existence of a Kurdish political issue in Turkey. In September, for example, he said:

"There is no such thing as the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Whoever says, insists or claims there is are cowards whose hearts do not beat with the Turkish nation."

The Turkish nationalistic refusal of granting Kurds equal rights leads to attempts at solving the issue through militaristic or authoritarian means, which is what the Turkish government has for decades been doing. In recent years, for instance, the democratically-elected Kurdish mayors across eastern Turkey have been dismissed and replaced by the officials of the government. A total of 49 HDP mayors have been dismissed on various charges and trustees have been appointed in their place. In addition, at least 31 HDP mayors have been arrested, joining thousands of party members as well as Kurdish journalists and lawyers imprisoned in Turkey. An ally of the Erdogan's government, the MHP, has been supporting and encouraging the anti-democratic government policies against the HDP.

The MHP's rejection of solving the Kurdish issue democratically has been accompanied by attacks including threats, beatings, attempted lynching and murders against members of the Kurdish community across Turkey.

Grey Wolves are also active in the Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus. In 2015, while two Turkish Cypriots -- Çinel Senem and Koray Başdoğrultmacı --- were tried at a "court" in the Turkish-occupied city of Famagusta for waving at their workplace the flag of their country, the Republic of Cyprus, Grey Wolves attacked the couple in front of the courthouse, and shouted slogans about death and destruction, reported the newspaper Afrika.

Armenians have also been subject to Grey Wolf violence and hate speech. In 2015, the head of the Idealist Hearths (Grey Wolves) in the city of Kars, Tolga Adıgüzel, falsely claimed that it was Armenians who committed genocide against Turks in 1915. He then went on to threaten Armenians:

"Are treacherous minds sold out inside and outside of Turkey trying to strain our patience? Or should we go hunting for Armenians in the streets of Kars?"

In October 2020, Turkish nationalists did exactly that -- this time, in France. During the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus, hundreds of Turks looking for Armenians took to the streets in the French city of Lyon. The Grey Wolves, marching with Turkish flags, were chanting Allahu akbar (Allah is the greatest), and "Where are you Armenians? Where are you? We are here... sons of bitches."

Jonathan Lacôte, France's ambassador to Armenia, announced that French police were protecting Armenian community centers in France from Turkish attacks and vandalism.

As International Christian Concern notes,

"The Grey Wolves have a long history of terrorism towards ethnic religious minorities, but their skillset has evolved. They are stronger than in the early 2000's. The MHP's political alliance with Turkey's ruling AKP three years ago legitimized them, giving the Grey Wolves a new sense of unity. They are militarized, they are efficient, and they are on the move globally. Their mission is Pan-Turkic Islamism, and any ethnic Christian who exists within their targeted sphere is at risk."

It is time for civilized nations to look more closely at the violent attacks and threats by the Grey Wolves against minorities and dissident intellectuals in and outside of Turkey.

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

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17983/turkish-grey-wolves

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PanArmenian, Armenia

Dec 4 2021

"New forms of intimidation towards Armenians in Turkey" – State Dept.

December 4, 2021 - 14:01 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The U.S. Department of State has unveiled a fresh report on "poor" religious freedom conditions in Turkey, noting that "new forms of intimidation towards Turkey’s Armenian community" have emerged.

Prepared by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, the report said that Armenian religious heritage sites in Turkey remain under threat.

In early 2021 the Surp Toros Armenian church in Kütahya was demolished after coming into the possession of an unknown individual—despite holding protected status. In August bulldozers destroyed an Armenian cemetery in Van Province.

According to the report, the Turkish government frequently fails to halt construction projects that threaten cemeteries; for example, in March 2021 the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Member of Parliament (MP) Garo Paylan, who has Armenian roots, submitted a parliamentary inquiry to ask why the government had not halted the construction of a state-owned bank over an Armenian and Catholic cemetery in historic downtown Ankara. In April 2021, in response to Paylan’s statements on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, nationalist MP Ümit Özdağ threatened: “you’ll also have a Talat ***** experience and you should have it.”

Talat ***** was the principal architect of the Armenian Genocide.
https://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/297168/New_forms_of_intimidation_towards_Armenians_in_Turkey_%E2%80%93_State_Dept

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The Diplomat

Amid Tensions With Turkey, China Is Putting the Kurdish Issue in Play
By Nurettin Akcay
December 04, 2021

[Responding to Turkey’s stepped up rhetoric on Uyghurs, Beijing is
taking aim at an ethnic issue sensitive to Ankara.]

China-Turkey relations have been full of ups and downs since 1971. In
addition to some structural problems related to trade, the Uyghur
issue seems to be the most insurmountable issue driving a wedge
between China and Turkey.

The Uyghur issue has triggered political tensions between the two
countries many times. There is a large Uyghur diaspora population
residing in Turkey, and Turkic nationalist sentiments extend to the
Uyghur ethnic group. China, meanwhile, is extremely sensitive to any
hint of separatist sentiment stemming from the Uyghurs, including
appeals to transnational ethnic identity.

China-Turkey relations came to a halt between 1990 and 2000 following
the anti-Chinese activities of the Uyghurs in the 1980s. Bilateral
relations gained momentum when the AK Party came to power, but ties
were seriously weakened again with the Urumqi riots that broke out in
2009. Turkey reacted very harshly to the ensuing crackdown, with Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan describing the events as genocide. As
Chinese authorities were displeased with Erdogan’s rhetoric, they cut
off relations with Turkey.

However, China-Turkey relations began to blossom again soon after
that. Despite some setbacks, the years 2010-2018 can be called the
golden years of the relationship. The 2016 coup attempt and U.S.
support of Kurdish militias in Syria, the YPG, pushed Turkey into
Russia and China’s orbit. While Turkey drew closer to the China-Russia
front during this period, Ankara’s relations with China saw perhaps
the best period in history. The countries exchanged high-level
diplomatic visits and signed economic, cultural, and educational
agreements. By 2018, the number of Chinese companies operating in
Turkey exceeded 1,000.

Furthermore, Turkey is a strategic partner of China in the
implementation of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Ankara has
expressed its support for the project on every platform. In May 2017,
President Erdogan attended the Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing
with senior government officials. The president assured China that
Turkey was ready to lend all kinds of support to the BRI.

However, the camaraderie between the two nations did not last. The
relations between China and Turkey became tense again in 2019. Reports
emerged that a famous Uyghur poet, Abdurrehim Heyit, had died in a
Chinese detention camp on February 9, 2019. The Turkish Foreign
Ministry condemned China by making a harsh statement, assuaging the
anger of the Turkish public. But the Turkish Foreign Ministry found
itself in a difficult situation when China released a video that
showed that the Muslim poet was still alive the next day.

Like previous issues, this incident was forgotten, and relations
between the two countries quickly recovered. Despite all these
disagreements between the two countries, the Chinese authorities
refrained from making caustic statements and tried not to meddle in
Turkey’s sensitive issues. However, what happened in the last months
of 2021 caused China to take a different attitude. For first time,
China is now touching on issues that Turkey might be uncomfortable
with – particularly the Kurd issue.

Beijing’s new approach comes as Turkey has been taking steps to
criticize China lately. On October 22, 43 countries, including Turkey,
urged China to “ensure full respect for the rule of law” concerning
the Muslim Uyghur community in Xinjiang. It was the first time Turkey
had supported such a call. This move provoked China.

Then, on November 12, the Turkic Council convened in Istanbul and
changed its name to the Organization of Turkic States. This convention
stirred political tensions in China, where approximately 10 million
Uyghurs live. The date of the establishment of the Organization of
Turkish States was critical – perhaps this was the main issue that
bothered China. The first East Turkistan Republic, including part of
today’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, was established on November
12, 1933; the second was created on November 12, 1944. As a result,
the announcement of the Organization of Turkic States on the same date
drew many questions about the motives of the Turkish authorities. Was
it a coincidence, or was this date intentionally chosen?

Later actions of senior politicians in Ankara suggested that the date
was, in fact, politically motivated. Erdogan and Nationalist Movement
Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahceli posed for the cameras with a “Map
of the Turkish World” during their meeting on November 17. The map
included the Xinjiang region, homeland of the Uyghurs.

These incidents forced China to move against Turkey. China’s Deputy
Permanent Representative to the United Nations Geng Shuang accused
Turkey of violating human rights in Syria. Geng described Turkey’s
actions in northeast Syria as illegal. “Since Turkey illegally invaded
north-eastern Syria, it has regularly cut off the water supply service
from the Alouk Water Station,” he said. A fierce argument ensued
between Geng and Turkey’s representative, Feridun Sinirlioglu.

Responding to the allegations, Sinirlioglu said Turkey would not learn
from those who violate international human rights law and humanitarian
law. “Both the PKK/YPG and the Syrian regime abuse this Alouk Water
Station issue repeatedly for their ill-minded agendas,” he added.

The tit-for-tat continued. On November 24, Turkey’s Erdogan made a
bold statement in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He said:
“We keep track of the situation of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities
in China with great sensitivity. Our expectation is that the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation will show sensitivity to Uyghurs
in line with its founding purposes.”

Authorities in Beijing fought back. A day later, Geng Shuang
criticized Turkey’s air operations in Iraq at the United Nations and
claimed that civilians were killed due to the airstrikes. Geng also
called for respect for Iraq’s sovereignty.

After Turkey’s remarks on the Uyghur situation, China retaliated by
focusing on the regions where Kurds live and accusing Turkey of human
rights abuses in these regions. The Chinese actions sent a clear
message to Turkey that China will retaliate if Ankara continues to
meddle in the Uyghur issue. China’s playbook is simple: If Ankara
continues to criticize China over the Uyghur issue, then Beijing will
bring Turkey’s actions in Iraq and Syria to the international agenda.

These ongoing political events show that China-Turkey relations will
likely enter a troubled period in the future. Most likely, with the
increasing presence of China in the Middle East, Beijing may become an
important player in the Kurdish issue.

**
Dr. Nurettin Akcay obtained his Ph.D. in Global Studies from Shanghai
University. In addition to his academic career, he writes columns for
the media outlet Independent Turkish
[https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.indyturk.com/tags/nurettin-ak**Aay__;w6c!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!7EBvPd3dNzCY9QnZKV6YnY5mnaVW-9IqWFvTVev4MFkxMuwlsOxQPkrdpnkVLQ$
].


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[Yervant1]

Middle East Forum

Biden's Two-Faced Agenda on Turkey

By Burak Bekdil
The Gatestone Institute
December 3, 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden's increasingly hypocritical policy on NATO's
increasingly difficult ally, Turkey, is badly zig-zagging between the
U.S. leader's self-declared advocacy for universal democratic values
and criticism of Turkey's democratic deficit in public on the one hand
and his appeasement of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan behind
closed doors on the other.

In a December 2019 interview, then-presidential candidate Biden said
that Erdoğan should be ousted from power through a democratic process
and that support for the opposition was crucial. Turkey's human rights
record has gone downhill from there. The Council of Europe has said
that if Turkish courts keep ignoring rulings from the European Court
of Human Rights, it would start infringement proceedings against
Turkey at the end of November.

All the same, on October 31, Biden and Erdoğan apparently had a
70-minute meeting in a "very positive atmosphere" on the sidelines of
the G20 summit in Rome. They reportedly agreed to form a joint
mechanism to improve ties. "During the meeting," an Erdoğan aide told
this author, "Biden's lecture on human rights did not exceed two
minutes." It seems that a U.S. delegation will soon arrive in Ankara
to work on that joint mechanism.

Since the summer, everything on the Washington-Ankara axis seems to
have gone wrong. During a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
hearing in July, Republican and Democrat Senators criticized Turkish
government policies and demanded more action from the Biden
administration. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and
other Senators expressed concern over the Turkish government's efforts
to ban the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). "That's like
if President Biden banned the Republican party from participating,"
Menendez said.

The Turkish Democracy Project (TDP) in September called on three U.S.
companies and one German one to cut ties with Baykar Makina, whose TB2
armed drones have become a weapon of choice for repressive regimes
worldwide. According to Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, CEO of TDP:

"In refusing to cut ties with Turkey in the face of direct evidence of
the crimes the Erdoğan regime is committing using their products,
these companies are demonstrating that they do not take seriously the
moral or legal implications of their actions. Lawmakers must take this
into account in determining how these companies ought to be dealt
with."

Before that, a coalition of 27 U.S. Congress members had signed a
letter saying that technology transfers such as the ones these
companies show that Turkey continues to clearly violate the terms of
the CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act)
sanctions.

In October, U.S. lawmakers proposed legislation that would require the
State Department to investigate whether a Turkish ultra-nationalist
group with links to the Turkish government, the Gray Wolves, should be
designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The Grey Wolves are
closely affiliated with the Nationalist Movement Party, Erdoğan's
staunchest political ally.

In late October, Erdoğan ordered 10 ambassadors in Ankara, including
those from the U.S., Germany and France, be declared personae non
gratae. The order followed a statement from the envoys calling for the
urgent release of activist Osman Kavala, who has been in prison for
more than four years while supposedly under investigation for
participating in protests and a coup attempt, although he has never
been convicted.

Erdoğan stepped back only after the U.S. Embassy in Ankara stated, "In
response to questions regarding the Statement of October 18, the
United States notes that it maintains compliance with Article 41 of
the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic relations." Article 41 stipulates
that the internal affairs of other states should not be interfered
with.

When bilateral ties seemed to be moving from one low point to another,
Erdoğan shocked the world by saying that the U.S. administration
proposed to sell Turkey a batch of 40 F-16 Block 70 fighter jets -- a
claim that quickly turned into a puzzle. On October 23, the day after
Erdoğan's claim, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price stated that
the U.S. had not made any financing offers on Turkey's request to
purchase F-16 warplanes. On November 15, however, a senior U.S.
diplomat told this author that all of the State Department, the
Pentagon and White House were "in agreement to encourage the F-16 sale
to Turkey, but could not guarantee Congress's approval."

Two days after that, on November 17, Turkey's Ministry of Defense said
in a statement that a high-level meeting between military delegations,
held in Washington, was "positive and constructive." Apparently, the
F-16 talks will continue on, with Biden ignoring the Congress.

Both Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers urged Biden's
administration not to sell F-16 fighter jets to Turkey and said they
were confident Congress would block any such exports. In an October 25
letter to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, 11 members of
the House of Representatives cited "a profound sense of concern" about
recent reports that Turkey might purchase 40 new Lockheed Martin F-16s
and 80 F-16 modernization kits.

Turkey's Ambassador to the U.S., Murat Mercan, an extremely skillful
diplomat, said in an October 27 speech: "Turkey's increased
contributions to the transatlantic community's efforts opens a window
of opportunity for a newly defined alliance relationship between
Turkey and the United States that can still operate under extreme
duress, no matter what the diverging opinions are."

There is something wrong about this Biden riddle. Is Biden the
champion of human rights and universal democratic values that he
claims he is? Or is he an unpleasant cheat with a disappointing fake
democratic agenda?

**

Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based political analyst and a fellow at the
Middle East Forum.

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[Yervant1]

Armenpress.com

U.S. federal government commission slams Turkey for poor religious freedom

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15:50, 6 December, 2021

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom strongly criticized the Turkish government for the “religious freedom conditions” and “actions, deliberate inactions, and rhetoric to fuel a political environment that is hostile to religious minorities.”

“The Turkish government has made little effort to address the religious freedom issues consistently raised for years, including granting minority religious communities legal personality and permission to hold board member elections; recognizing Alevi houses of worship (cemevleri); and reopening the Theological School of Halki, a seminary of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Government tolerance of hate speech and acts of violence persisted as the COVID-19 pandemic hatched antisemitic conspiracy theories and new forms of intimidation towards Turkey’s Armenian community and others,” the U.S. federal government commission said in the annual report on Turkey.

It noted that the Armenian religious heritage sites remain under threat, citing the demolition of the Surp Toros Armenian church in Kütahya in 2021. “In August bulldozers destroyed an Armenian cemetery in Van Province, the same month an Armenian church and cultural center in Malatya hosted its first mass following a restoration.”

“In April 2021, in response to Turkish-Armenian MP Garo Paylan’s statements on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, nationalist MP Ümit Özdağ threatened: “you’ll also have a Talat ***** experience and you should have it.” Talat ***** was the principal architect of the Armenian Genocide. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic and the November 2020 conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh has fueled anti-Armenian conspiracies and intimidating, anti-Armenian protests,” the report noted.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1069983.html?fbclid=IwAR2_mXCJyDiOEA8zVVRMpqw-qb_DhyVUNzB95fpyQ4eQ8xi8cZv_Zk3mAUA

[Yervant1]

European Leadership Network

Dec 14 2021

The West should re-engage in the South Caucasus: Here's where and how

Daniel Shapiro |Fulbright Armenia Student Research Fellow, U.S. Department of State

In mid-November, fighting broke out along the Armenia/Azerbaijan border, leaving dozens dead. Turkey immediately declared its full support for Azerbaijan; however, the rest of the world only mustered half-hearted declarations of sympathy with one side or another. In the end, Russia arbitrated a ceasefire, and open fighting has ceased for now. These events closely mirror the international response to last year’s 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh: Turkey immediately declared its support for Azerbaijan, and Russia ultimately became the conflict’s final arbiter. Meanwhile, the main international grouping charged with oversight of the conflict, the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia and two Western powers – France and the United States – was noticeably inactive.

Additionally, on December 13, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that Turkey and Armenia would appoint special envoys to begin discussions on normalization of relations; a spokesman for the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed this statement on December 14. Russia voiced its readiness to mediate Turkish-Armenian normalization talks, but while the United States has expressed support for Turkish-Armenian normalization, it and other interested Western parties have not moved toward taking on roles in the process itself, which will likely be long and arduous.

The West’s inactivity in the South Caucasus has not gone unnoticed by local South Caucasus states and interested non-Western powers. The most notable response has been Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent call for a “3+3” regulation format to South Caucasian conflicts, which would include the three South Caucasus states – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – and the three neighbouring powers – Iran, Russia and Turkey, which are also the three powers involved in the “Astana process” for Syria. Should Mr Erdogan’s endeavour succeed, Western countries would be completely excluded from the region – an unacceptable outcome for Western states.

Currently, there are two relevant areas where Western countries can re-involve themselves to preserve and advance their interests, and contribute to better prospects for conflict resolution and peace building across the region. First, they should push for and help facilitate the ultimate normalisation of Armenian/Turkish relations and the more immediate opening of the Armenian/Turkish border, and, secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they should reject the 3+3 format in favour of a model that continues to include interested Western states.

Open borders and eventual normalisation

Most if not all Armenian leaders have discussed the normalisation of ties with Turkey, but discussions have historically failed to produce results. The most important reason for these failed attempts is the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region located de jure in Azerbaijan but populated heavily by ethnic Armenians. After Armenian forces took over Nagorno-Karabakh and several surrounding regions in 1993, Turkey closed the border in solidarity with Azerbaijan. Today’s situation, however, is significantly different. Following Armenia’s defeat in the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh in October 2020, Armenian troops vacated Nagorno-Karabakh, leaving the remaining ethnic Armenian population in the hands of Russian peacekeepers. Turkey’s main reason for the initial border closure should thus no longer be a factor. Following last month’s skirmishes along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, a full normalisation process may prove difficult; however, there are a number of reasons why Western countries should encourage Turkey to re-open its border with Armenia and facilitate Turkish/Armenian work for full normalisation in the future.

• Open borders would increase Armenia’s leverage over Russia. Armenia is heavily dependent on Russia. In addition to its security dependence (Armenia hosts Russia’s 102nd military base in Gyumri, and Russian troops have participated in the securing of Armenia’s borders), Russia remains by far Armenia’s largest export and import partner, and thousands of Armenian labour migrants flock to Russia every year. Better relations with Turkey would give Armenia room to leverage its unique geographical position. This would directly benefit Western interests. While Western countries cannot hope to fully pry Armenia away from Russia in the near future, an Armenia that can pursue more flexible relationships would undoubtedly be looked on positively in the West.
• Open borders would make Armenia more amicable with a key NATO country, leading to greater regional stability. Although Turkey has been somewhat of a problematic member of NATO of late, Ankara is nonetheless a crucial NATO ally, and open borders and more consistent dialogue between Armenia and a key NATO member would benefit the West – a fact which the US has historically recognised. Additionally, open borders could help ease tensions in the South Caucasus. While Russian competition with Turkey is yet to turn into open military confrontation in the Caucasian theatre, such a scenario may occur in the future should current regional politics not change. However, if Turkey becomes more involved in Armenia’s economy through more free-flowing trade, Ankara may hesitate to take actions that directly threaten Turkish economic ties with Yerevan. Even a slightly more balanced approach by Turkey could help ensure that the ever-simmering Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute does not explode into direct great power conflict.

Full normalisation will be difficult; Yerevan insists on normalisation without pre-conditions, while Ankara has added conditionality based on sensitive questions such as the delineation of borders and the proposed creation of a controversial “corridor” connecting Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhichevan. Even for a step as simple as opening the border, Western countries will have to put in work diplomatically. However, given the aforementioned potential benefits, it would be a worthy endeavour.

Even a slightly more balanced approach by Turkey could help ensure that the ever-simmering Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute does not explode into direct great power conflict. Daniel Shapiro

3+3 format

Another way in which Western countries can protect their interests is by openly rejecting the 3+3 format. The 3+3 format might be advantageous for Turkey, Russia, Iran and potentially Azerbaijan, but for Armenia and Georgia, it would be a distinct downgrade. For Armenia, two powerful, generally pro-Armenian states (France and the US) with UN Security Council seats would be replaced by a significantly weaker and only slightly pro-Armenian country, Iran, and Turkey, which is certainly not pro-Armenian. Yerevan has already announced that it does not wish to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh as part of any potential 3+3 format. For Georgia, too, moving to this 3+3 format would be detrimental, as Georgia relies on the very countries that would be left out – France and the US. Tbilisi has categorically rejected the proposed 3+3 format, and should the Western countries concerned not respond to Georgia’s concerns, their image will certainly be tarnished, both in Tbilisi and internationally.

President Erdogan may be right that international institutions responsible for conflict regulation in the region deserve a second look; however, this does not imply that Western countries should vacate the area. The OSCE Minsk Group, for example, in addition to being entirely ineffective in the recent iteration of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has received complaints from Azerbaijan for years that the Minsk Group is heavily biased towards Armenia, as the three Minsk Group co-chairs are the three countries with the largest Armenian diaspora communities in the world. However, a re-evaluation of Minsk does not mean that Western countries should be excluded – quite the opposite. Western should actively work to ensure that they maintain a seat at the table and keeps and/or strengthens their relationships with its partners in the region. Failure to do so would needlessly hurt Western relationships with countries in the region and show a lack of commitment to assisting in multilateral conflict resolution efforts.

Potential impacts

Should Western countries take the initiative and re-involve themselves in the region, they stand to gain in many ways.

• Armenia: Should Western countries manage to help Armenia convince Turkey to open the Turkey-Armenia border unconditionally and reject 3+3, Armenia could easily pursue a more amicable relationship with Western countries, especially given current prime minister Nikol Pashinyan’s penchant for “aggressive centrism:” in a June commentary for the ELN, Andreas Persbo wrote, “Armenia has tried to act as an in-between state, increasing economic and societal ties with the West while remaining in a security relationship with Moscow.” There is interest in closer ties with Western countries in Yerevan; by taking steps such as these, Western countries could make that interest reality.
• Georgia: Georgia is a key Western partner and must be treated as such, not taken for granted. After America’s pull-out from Afghanistan, uncertainty rippled through much of Eastern Europe – including Georgia. For Georgia, alliance with Western countries is mainly for security purposes; aspects of Western culture have not gained traction in Georgia, and indeed face some pushback. One key example is LGBT rights; massive riots – accompanied by the burning of EU flags – broke out in July 2021 around the planning of a gay pride parade by local activists in Tbilisi. If Western countries are to “keep” Georgia, it will have to be through security. Making a strong statement against the 3+3 format and getting actively reinvolved in the region, perhaps through visits by high-level officials, would help.
• Internationally: American president Joe Biden has said repeatedly that “America is back.” Much of the world, however, is still waiting for concrete evidence, especially after the US’s catastrophic exit from Afghanistan in August. Proving that America is “back” starts in regions such as the South Caucasus, which, while perhaps viewed as unimportant by many American diplomats, is certainly on the radar of other states – states such as, for example, Ukraine and the Baltic States, which are already worried about the broader West’s real commitment to their security. Should the US allow Russia, Turkey and Iran to become the dominant influences in the region through the 3+3 format at the expense of American partners such as Georgia, worries will ratchet up even more in other vulnerable parts of the globe – such as Ukraine – thereby sharpening existing tensions. Finally, Western countries cannot simply react: they must be proactive. Working with Turkey and Armenia to reopen the border is a key example of an initiative where the US can play a prominent role in getting negotiations off the ground. If America and other Western countries want to truly prove that they are “back”, initiatives such as these will go a long way.

The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the United States Government or the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELN’s aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time.

https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/the-west-should-re-engage-in-the-south-caucasus-heres-where-and-how/

 

[Yervant1]

Jesus, Obama and Muhammad Were Turks,

According to Turkish False Claims

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
There is nothing wrong with being proud of one’s nationality, ethnic
origin or religion. However, when that pride becomes so fanatical,
reaching the level of absurdity, then we are dealing with someone who
has lost all sense of reality.

Turkish political analyst Burak Bekdil acknowledged in his article
published by BESA Center Perspectives: “The Turkish-Islamist psyche is
susceptible to…the pitfalls of honor, fatalism, conspiracism, bombast,
publicity, and confusion.”

Over the years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made many
bizarre statements that raise suspicions about his mental sanity.

Here are some examples of Erdogan’s nutty statements.

In 2014, Erdogan told a group of Latin American Muslims visiting
Istanbul that Muslim Pilgrims discovered America several centuries
before Christopher Columbus: “It is alleged that the American
continent was discovered by Columbus in 1492. In fact, Muslim sailors
reached the American continent 314 years before Columbus in 1178. …In
his memoirs, Christopher Columbus mentions the existence of a mosque
atop a hill on the coast of Cuba. A mosque would look perfect on that
hill today.” Of course, Columbus never said such a thing in his
memoirs.

In another outlandish claim, Pres. Erdogan announced that Turkey will
send a spaceship with a Turkish astronaut to the moon in 2023 on the
centennial of the Republic of Turkey. He speculated that a female
astronaut may be a part of the Turkish space team. It would be
interesting to see how Turkey, a bankrupt country, could spend
billions of dollars on such a far-fetched adventure, not to mention
its lack of space technology. Maybe this whole topic is a hoax to
divert the people’s attention from their woes and empty pockets to
gazing at the moon and stars! A skeptical Turk sarcastically said: “We
cannot go to the supermarket, so how will we go to space?” Another
Turk remarked, “We were not able to distribute masks [for COVID] to
citizens, so how do we go to space?”

Before Erdogan can fantasize about going to space, he should worry
about the collapsing Lira, millions of unemployed Turks, and a huge
percentage of his people suffering from abject poverty. According to
Turkish sources, 34 million Turks are on the verge of starvation. In
the first six months of this year, 1.6 million Turkish families had
their electricity and gas cut off because they could not pay their
bills.

Turkish analyst Burak Bekdil wrote that he “grew up in classrooms
filled up with mottoes like ‘A Turk is worth the world,’ ‘Turks have
had to fight the seven biggest world powers,’ and ‘A Turk’s only
friend is another Turk.’ Our textbooks taught us that the supreme
Turkish race dominated the entire world for centuries; that the
Ottoman Empire collapsed only after a coalition of world powers
attacked it; that we lost WWI because we had allied with the Germans,
who were defeated (not us); and that one day, we will make the entire
planet Turkish. We were taught that an Ottoman warrior could keep on
fighting even after having been beheaded by the [byzantine] enemy.”

As a result, Bekdil explained, “Turks are hungry for fairy tales about
the good life they did not get to enjoy over the past century, but
believe they deserve. Any feel-good news propaganda, even Erdogan’s
famous ‘The West, including the Germans, are jealous of us!’ tirade,
finds millions of receptive listeners in Turkey’s post-modern
marketplace of absurdity.”

In an article titled, “‘Jesus Was Turkish’: the Bizarre Resurgence of
Pseudo-Turkology,” Luka Ivan Jukic wrote in NEW/LINES Magazine: “You
would be forgiven for not knowing that former U.S. President Barack
Obama was a Turk. Or that Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad were,
likewise, of Turkic origin. You would be forgiven for not knowing that
Russia is really a great Turkic nation, that Kazakhs and the Japanese
are genetically identical or that the legendary English King Arthur
was, you guessed it, a Turk. You would be forgiven because none of
this is true. Yet in countries from central Europe to Central Asia and
everywhere in between, supposed historical facts like these and the
theories they support have made their way from the minds of
overzealous and pseudo-academics into national school textbooks,
popular culture and, indeed, official government ideology.”

In 1932, the Turkish language Institute invented the fake “Sun
Language Theory” which claimed that “the Turkish language was the
source of all human language and therefore all human civilization,”
Jukic wrote. “Linguists from the Institute claimed that language had
been invented by sun-worshipping proto-Turks in Central Asia as they
babbled at the sun.” Furthermore, the Turkish History Thesis claimed
that “Turks had brought civilization to China, Europe, India and
elsewhere when they migrated from the Eurasian Steppe.” These
pseudo-theories found their way into Turkish textbooks and popular
books, brainwashing several generations of Turks. Most adherents of
these pseudo-scientific claims are the followers of Pres. Erdogan.

There is no super race. All people are equal. They are all God’s
children. While claims of superiority may satisfy a vain human
inclination, no one should treat other races as inferior.

[Yervant1]

Egypt - Jan 6 2022

Towards Turkish-Armenian normalisation?

Sayed Abdel-Meguid , Thursday 6 Jan 2022

Talks are taking place between Turkey and Armenia that could lead to the normalisation of relations between the two countries

Ankara has suddenly begun to court Yerevan, and the latter appears to be interested.

Within three days of each other in mid-December, the two capitals appointed special envoys for talks aiming to revive bilateral relations frozen since 1993. If the negotiations, to be sponsored by Moscow, are successful, they could lead to a meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the former told Sputnik news on 24 December.

However, despite such steps, prospects of success seem far from certain, according to Fehim Tasktekin in the website Al-Monitor. “Nagorno-Karabakh may no longer be an obstacle to Armenian-Turkish normalisation, yet political and psychological stumbling blocks remain intact,” he said.

Ankara sees Armenia as a permanent thorn in its side, with the “Armenian lobby” in Washington and other Western capitals constantly raking up the humanitarian tragedy that befell Armenians under the former Ottoman Empire and exhorting them to pressure Turkey to own up to what it was: genocide.

Ankara sticks to its own reading of that history, saying that the Turks had founded a new republic in the 1920s and therefore should not be associated with the crimes of the Ottoman Empire. Besides, atrocities were committed by both sides, it says.

The Armenians refute that claim and counter with reams of testimonies and historical accounts thoroughly documenting the forced marches, massacres and other cruelties that led to hundreds of thousands of Armenians dead and attesting to a deliberate policy of annihilation.

Although no political party in Turkey is prepared to recognise the Armenian Genocide, apart from the progressive pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), there has been a degree of softening and introspection in some political quarters, especially the more Western-oriented ones that share the views of many NGOs and rights groups.

At a more pragmatic level, some believe that their country’s attitude towards the Armenian question is an obstacle to international and regional acceptance. They realise that keeping the matter unresolved does not serve Turkish interests in the US and Europe. The only solution, therefore, is to break the taboo on the subject and discuss it rationally in the hope of arriving at some sort of “compromise”.

This could entail activating the stalled 2009 agreement that called for the establishment of an international commission to investigate the mass killing of Armenians during World War I.

Although discussions of the matter in Turkey have received little attention in the predominately government-dominated press, they appear to have support among academic circles in universities and research centres, as well as in some quarters of the public at large, especially those affiliated with the People’s Republican Party (CHP), Turkey’s largest political party.

Despite the government’s iron grip on the press, the CHP and other opposition forces, which can reach the public through the Internet and social media, have been drawing voters away from the dwindling ranks of Erdogan’s ruling AKP.

Indeed, a main reason behind his initiative to kickstart normalisation talks with Yerevan was precisely to pull the rug out from under the opposition’s feet.

It is no coincidence that the initiative was launched at the height of the Turkish lira’s unprecedented nosedive, with its implications in terms of runaway inflation and the worsening economic straits of the vast majority of Turkish citizens.

Against this backdrop, the pro-government media has billed the rapprochement with Yerevan as a prelude to Turkey’s political and economic expansion towards the Caspian Sea and Central Asia via linkups through a proposed corridor between Turkey and Azerbaijan passing through the autonomous Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan along the Turkish border.

Erdogan also calculates that the initiative could reduce tensions with both Brussels and the US, which would have payoffs for Turkey’s beleaguered economy. Pashinyan might be operating on a similar calculus which, as Tastekin observes, seems to rest on opening Armenia’s borders as a means to strengthen its economy and eventually reduce its dependence on Russia.

However, even if it takes off, the normalisation drive will run up against walls of resistance among nationalists on both sides. Pashinyan is in a stronger position, having survived a bid to vote him out of power in early elections in June 2021. But in Turkey, the situation is a little more complicated.

The ultranationalists, as represented by the extremist National Movement Party (MHP), are not that numerous, but they are vocal and, more importantly, they are the AKP’s junior partner in the People’s Alliance and the key to the parliamentary majority that Erdogan relies on.

If the MHP fell out with Erdogan over the normalisation question to the point of rupturing their electoral alliance – though this is unlikely as it would be tantamount to political suicide – it would set the country on the path to early elections.

The AKP would be unlikely to perform well in those, and judging by recent opinion polls, the opposition would prevail and then follow the path towards normalisation.

A version of this article appears in print in the 6 January, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/454659.aspx

[Yervant1]

NEWS.am

Armenia - Jan 10 2022

Turkey demands banning Netflix because of Armenia map in its historical borders

18:01, JANUARY 10

In a multi-part film about the events of World War II, Armenia was shown in its historical borders, including the territory of modern Turkey, ermenihaber.am reported.

The first to draw attention to this fact was the Turkish Maritime and Global Strategy Center (Türk DEGS), which considered this fact an assault on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Turkey.

 

 

The issue was also touched by the pro-government newspaper "Yeni Akit", which refers to the opinion of many unhappy Turkish citizens, demanding that the Supreme Council of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (RTÜK) to take action and impose the most severe sanctions on Netflix.

https://style.news.am/eng/news/86049/turkey-demands-banning-netflix-because-of-armenia-map-in-its-historical-borders.html

[Yervant1]

NEWS.am

Armenia - Jan 13 2022

Turkey professor posts map including Greater, Lesser Armenia

14:02, 13.01.2022

 

Ankara University Professor Bulent Iplikcioglu has posted a map on Facebook—and under the headline "Hellenism and Anatolia in the Roman Era."

It is noteworthy that both Greater Armenia and Lesser Armenia, which were not covered up by this Turkish professor, make up a considerable part of this map for the 1st and 2nd centuries.

https://news.am/eng/news/681790.html

[Yervant1]

NEWS.am

Armenia - Jan 13 2022

Erdogan advises Armenia assess properly long-term peace chance

18:56, 13.01.2022

Turkish President Recep Erdogan advised Armenia to properly assess the chance for long-term peace in the region.

Speaking at a meeting with EU ambassadors in Ankara, Erdogan focused on the situation in the South Caucasus in light of the outcome of the 44-day war in 2020, Anadolu reported.

He spoke about the start of the process of normalizing relations with Yerevan.

He said that in order for the steps taken to yield the expected results, it is important that Armenia correctly assesses the chance for long-term peace in the region.

https://news.am/eng/news/681882.html

[Yervant1]

Jan 17 2022

Distortion of history by Erdoğan’s MP: “Greeks and Armenians burned Smyrna”by PANAGIOTIS SAVVIDIS

Erdoğan’s officials continue attacking Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou due to what she recently stated at the presentation of the plan for the construction of the World Palace of Pontian Hellenism to commemorate the Greek Genocide in Pontus.

During a press conference, MP for the ruling Development and Justice Party, Halil Özşavlı attacked the Greek President, saying that “Greece can not teach history lessons” to Turkey, while referring to historical events, according to the usual Turkish tactics.

READ MORE: Erdoğan’s favourite newspaper blames Armenians for Great Fire of Smyrna.

“The President of the Republic of Greece at some inaugurations made some statements aimed at our country and especially regarding history,” Özşavlı said.

“Greece cannot teach us history lessons with anything. The history of Greece is full of massacres, rapes, kidnappings and thefts of historical monuments,” the AKP MP continued.

He then presented a photo from the 1922 burning Smyrna, accusing Greeks and Armenians of being responsible for the destruction of the city.

“See a photo of Smyrna from the sea, Smyrna is burning for good. Smyrna was burned by the Greeks together with the Armenians,” he claimed.

“For days, for about a week, Smyrna, the whole coastline was burned in this way and these are works of the Greeks,” he said, shamelessly reversing the historical events that culminated in the Asia Minor Catastrophe 100 years ago.

Turkish author and journalist Falih Rıfkı Atay, who was in Smyrna at the time, and the Turkish professor Biray Kolluoğlu Kırlı agreed that Turkish nationalist forces were responsible for the destruction of Smyrna in 1922.

A number of studies have been published on the Smyrna fire.

Professor of literature Marjorie Housepian Dobkin’s detailed 1970 study, Smyrna 1922, concluded that the Turkish army systematically burned the city and killed Christian Greek and Armenian inhabitants.

Her work is based on extensive eyewitness testimony from survivors, Allied troops sent to Smyrna during the evacuation, foreign diplomats, relief workers, and Turkish eyewitnesses.

A study by historian Niall Ferguson comes to the same conclusion. Historian Richard Clogg categorically states that the fire was started by the Turks following their capture of the city.

In his book Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922, Giles Milton addresses the issue of the Smyrna Fire through original material (interviews, unpublished letters, and diaries) from the Levantine families of Smyrna, who were mainly of British origin.

The conclusion of the author is that it was Turkish soldiers and officers who set the fire, most probably acting under direct orders.

British scholar Michael Llewellyn-Smith, writing on the Greek administration in Asia Minor, also concluded that the fire was “probably lit” by the Turks as indicated by what he called “what evidence there is.”

READ MORE: Turkish media provocatively likens an extension to 12 nautical miles to the Greek landing in Smyrna.

[Yervant1]

NEWS.am

Jan 19 2022

US official, Barzani are photographed against backdrop of Greater Armenia and Kurdistan map

15:02, 19.01.2022

Nadine Maenza, Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, was photographed with former President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Masoud Barzani, in the latter's office, and against the backdrop of a map of Greater Armenia and Kurdistan—instead of present-day Turkey.

This photo has caused a stir in the Turkish press, and Turkish figures see a provocation against Turkey's territorial integrity in this photo.

The map in this photo was printed in 1794 in London.

 

https://news.am/eng/news/682776.html

[Yervant1]

News.am

Armenia - Jan 27 2022

Stockholm Center for Freedom: Armenian cultural heritage faces destruction in Turkey

12:33, 27.01.2022

Minorities and refugees in Turkey continued to suffer from rights violations, hate speech, and attacks throughout last year, according to the 2021 report of the Stockholm Center for Freedom—which is an advocacy organization.

As per this report, Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey faced destruction in the year past.

Accordingly, an “Armenian church dating to 1603 in the western province of Kütahya that was on the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s preservation list was demolished in January after it was acquired by a private party.”

As per this report, in March “an old Armenian cemetery was destroyed during construction in Ankara’s Ulus district as part of gentrification project, and human remains were found at the site.”

Also, an “old Armenian cemetery in Turkey’s eastern province of Van was destroyed by bulldozers in August and bones were scattered across the field, sparking outrage among the Armenian community and opposition politicians.”

In addition, an “Armenian Protestant church in Diyarbakır province was leased to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for a period of 10 years to serve as a public library.”

Furthermore, the “Surp Yerrortutyun (Holy Trinity) Armenian church in central Turkey’s Akşehir district will serve as the ‘World’s Masters of Humor Art House’ as part of a project to found a ‘humor village’ in the hometown of famous 13th century Turkish satirist Nasreddin Hoca.”

And, separately, a “far-right independent member of the Turkish Parliament threatened Turkish-Armenian lawmaker Garo Paylan with facing the same fate as his ancestors amid debates over the recognition of the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire as genocide by the US administration.”

https://news.am/eng/news/684050.html

[Yervant1]

Jan 26 2022

Minority and Refugee Rights in Turkey: 2021 in Review

By

SCF

-

January 26, 2022

Minorities and refugees in Turkey continued to suffer from rights violations, hate speech and attacks throughout the year. President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his key ally, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli, continued to use a divisive ultranationalist rhetoric throughout the year especially against the Kurds, contributing to the rise of hate crimes.

The government has made little effort to address the religious freedom issues including granting minority religious communities’ legal personality and permission to hold board member elections; recognizing Alevi houses of worship (cemevleri); and reopening the Theological School of Halki, a Patriarchate of the Eastern Orthodox Church seminary.

Turkey is home to a total of 4,038,857 refugees from around the world, according to the latest figures provided by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu. Attitudes about refugees fleeing the long conflict in Syria have gradually hardened in the country, where they used to be welcomed with open arms, sympathy and compassion, as the number of newcomers has swelled over the past decade.

Anti-immigrant sentiment reached a boiling point, fueled by Turkey’s economic woes. With unemployment high and the price of food and housing skyrocketing, many Turks turned their frustration toward the refugees in the country, particularly the 3.7 million who fled the civil war in Syria.

The prospect of a new influx of refugees following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan served to reinforce the unreceptive public mood. Videos purporting to show young Afghan men being smuggled into Turkey from Iran caused public outrage and led to calls for the government to safeguard the country’s borders.

Here is some of the most important news from 2021 in the field of minority and refugee rights:

Kurds continued to face discrimination and hate speech

Seven members of a Kurdish family were killed in July in central Turkey by armed assailants who tried to burn their house down in what rights activists said was a racist attack. More..

In August armed groups set up checkpoints in different parts of Antalya province amid rumors that wildfires ravaging the region were started by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). A group of people reportedly stopped a car and beat a man apparently because he was Kurdish. More..

A Kurdish family from northern Iraq’s Erbil province was attacked in an apparent hate crime while they were visiting Turkey’s southern Mersin province in May. More..

In July a group of seasonal workers were attacked in Afyon province and a Kurdish family was attacked in Konya. More..

Restrictions on use of the Kurdish language

Kurdish was not included among the six languages that are supported by KADES, a smartphone app designed by the Turkish National Police for use by women to ask for help in cases of domestic violence. More..

Disapproval of the use of Kurdish was high on the agenda in August, with a popular TV host criticizing her guest for speaking Kurdish on live television and a prison administration investigating several prisoners for singing in Kurdish. More..

Kurdish singer Mem Ararat said in a statement in December that a concert of his that was scheduled to take place at Ankara’s Neşet Ertaş Culture Center was cancelled by the authorities because it included Kurdish songs. More..

The pressure on Kurds in Turkey to not speak their own language is a reflection of a general intolerance towards the Kurdish population, said Birca Belek Language and Culture Association Co-chair Mirza Roni. More..

Government vehicles hit 57 pedestrians in 4 years, killing 16 and injuring 41

A total of 16 pedestrians, including nine children and a disabled person, have died after being hit by government vehicles since 2018. The killing of civilians by armored vehicles is common in Turkey’s Southeast, where there is a heavy military presence due to ongoing clashes between the Turkish military and the outlawed PKK. More..

In November a police officer was given a reduced sentence of four years, five months and 10 days for the death of Şahin Öner, 18, after he hit him with an armored vehicle, due to “good conduct” displayed during the hearings, despite the fact that the defendant never appeared in court. More..

Kurdish inmate who claimed prison guards beat and sexually harassed her found dead in her cell

Garibe Gezer, an inmate who alleged that she was beaten and sexually harassed by prison guards in Kocaeli’s Kandıra Prison, was found dead in her cell in December. More..

Gendarmerie commander responsible for burning down Kurdish village, killing 9, Turkish court said

Bülent Karaoğlu, a former gendarmerie officer, was responsible for the burning down of the southeastern Turkish village of Altınova (Vartinis) in 1993, which caused the death of nine people, including seven children, the first chamber of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals said in May. More..

Former Turkish minister was planning attack on Alevi house of worship, mob boss claimed

A Turkish crime boss who had been making scandalous allegations about the relationship between state actors and the mafia claimed in June that former Turkish interior minister and police chief Mehmet Ağar was planning an attack on a cemevi, an Alevi house of worship. More..

US religious freedom commission said situation of Turkey’s Alevi community getting worse under Erdoğan leadership

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) pointed out that discrimination against the Alevi community in Turkey was rampant and pervasive and that the situation under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was only getting worse, in a message issued in July on the occasion of the 28th anniversary of the Sivas Massacre. More..

Alevi houses marked with red paint sparked fear among residents

A number of Alevi residences were marked with red paint in Turkey’s northwestern Yalova province, bringing back memories of violence against the community in the past after their houses were similarly marked. More..

In possible sign of official discrimination, villages were identified as Alevi on Turkish Health Ministry map

The Turkish Ministry of Health was allegedly using a map of northern Tokat province on which Alevi villages appeared to be clearly marked, a patient’s relative revealed, leading to the fear of official discrimination against Alevi patients. More..

Armenian cultural heritage faced destruction

An Armenian church dating to 1603 in the western province of Kütahya that was on the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s preservation list was demolished in January after it was acquired by a private party. More..

In March an old Armenian cemetery was destroyed during construction in Ankara’s Ulus district as part of gentrification project, and human remains were found at the site. More..

An old Armenian cemetery in Turkey’s eastern province of Van was destroyed by bulldozers in August and bones were scattered across the field, sparking outrage among the Armenian community and opposition politicians. More..

An Armenian Protestant church in Diyarbakır province was leased to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for a period of 10 years to serve as a public library. More..

The Surp Yerrortutyun (Holy Trinity) Armenian church in central Turkey’s Akşehir district will serve as the “World’s Masters of Humor Art House” as part of a project to found a “humor village” in the hometown of famous 13th century Turkish satirist Nasreddin Hoca. More..

Far-right MP attacked Armenian lawmaker, threatening genocide

A far-right independent member of the Turkish Parliament threatened Turkish-Armenian lawmaker Garo Paylan with facing the same fate as his ancestors amid debates over the recognition of the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire as genocide by the US administration. More..

US religious freedom commission recommended placing Turkey on special watch list for severe violations

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that the State Department place Turkey on its special watch list based on the Turkish government’s perpetration or toleration of severe violations of religious freedom, in its annual report released in April. More..

Pro-gov’t daily targeted Turkish journalist in antisemitic attack

The pro-government Takvim daily in March launched an antisemitic attack against Karel Valansi, a Turkish journalist and foreign policy analyst, in a report critical of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. The report, headlined “[İmamoğlu] shows animosity to a Turk but great politeness to a Jew,” said İmamoğlu “showed too much respect to a Jewish journalist working in Turkey.” More..

Last traces of Ankara’s Jews in peril

The Jewish heritage of Turkey’s capital city of Ankara, which dates back to the 2nd century BC, was faced with destruction as the abandoned homes of the city’s Jews, who at one point numbered around 5,000, were identified as a site for urban renewal. More..

Assyrian, Chaldean associations called on Turkish authorities to investigate disappearance of villagers

Chaldean and Assyrian associations in Europe, the United States, Australia and Iraq sent a joint letter to Turkey’s justice and interior ministers in February demanding a thorough investigation into the disappearance of Chaldean villager Hurmüz Diril and the murder of his wife Şimoni Diril. More..

Assyrian priest given jail sentence on terror charges

A Turkish court in April handed down a 25-month prison sentence to an Assyrian priest in southeastern Turkey on charges of aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). More..

Roma conscript died under suspicious circumstances following hate speech by his commander

Caner Sarmaşık, 20, a conscript who was being targeted for being Roma, allegedly died by suicide while on guard duty on April 29. According to his family Sarmaşık told them during a phone call a week before his death that he was being targeted with hate speech by his commander for being Roma. More..

Turkish university cancelled World Greek Language Day events due to xenophobic pushback

The faculty of languages, history and geography of Turkey’s Ankara University in February announced that it had canceled plans to mark World Greek Language Day on February 9 after being targeted by pro-government newspapers and receiving condemnation and pushback on social media. More..

Syrian refugees continued to suffer from hate speech, discrimination and attacks

In August a group of locals attacked houses, workplaces and cars owned by Syrians in Ankara’s Altındağ district, chanting anti-Syrian slogans. More..

Three Syrian men were killed in an alleged hate crime in Turkey’s İzmir province in November. A Turk poured gasoline over the Syrians while they were asleep and set them on fire. The man later admitted to having committed the hate crime. More..

A Syrian refugee family living in Turkey’s Gaziantep province was attacked in their home on March 28 in an apparent hate crime. More..

A Somali restaurant in Ankara’s central Kızılay district was attacked in April following anti-migrant reporting by the Sözcü daily. More..

A large number of Syrian residents of İzmir’s Cumhuriyet neighborhood left their homes after tensions increased following the alleged murder of 17-year-old Batuhan Barlak by a 20-year-old Syrian refugee in September. More..

Refugees in Turkey’s northwestern city of Bolu said they have been confronted with more hate crimes since the city council approved a discriminatory proposal imposing exorbitant fees on foreigners to access public services in the city. More..

A group of streetcleaners assaulted a Syrian man who was collecting trash in Antalya province, crushing his motorcycle and setting it on fire. More..

A refugee who had been living in İstanbul with her children for four months was beaten up and threatened by neighbors and insulted at the police station. More..

Eleven Syrian refugees who were detained in October after sharing videos on social media showing them eating bananas in an effort to condemn racism and discrimination in Turkey faced deportation. More..

In a landmark decision in December, a Turkish court handed down a prison sentence of 25 years to a police officer who shot a young Syrian refugee to death in 2020. More..

Prosecutor declined to pursue case against gendarmes who allegedly threw refugees into Evros River

The Edirne Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in December declined to pursue a case against gendarmes who allegedly threw refugees into a river after they were pushed back by Greece, without taking the testimony of all the witnesses and the accused. More..

Human Rights Watch accused Turkish soldiers of beating and pushing Afghan asylum seekers back to Iran

Turkish authorities are summarily pushing Afghan asylum seekers crossing into the country from Iran back to Iran, denying them the right to seek asylum, in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in an October statement. More..

Turkish far-right group beat Afghan man and shared video on social media

A new Turkish far-right group in December shared a video on social media showing one of their members beating an Afghan refugee in an apparent hate crime. More..

2 refugees severely beaten by security officers in Turkish repatriation center

Two refugees, one Syrian and the other Palestinian, were severely beaten by security officers at a repatriation center in Turkey’s western İzmir province on May 11. More..

Hate speech against refugees increased on Turkish social media as a new wave of Afghan migrants arrived

Hate speech against refugees on Turkish social media increased in July, with a new wave of refugee arrivals in Turkey starting as the Taliban increased the territory it controlled in Afghanistan amid a US troop withdrawal. More..

Turkey was ranked 48th among 49 countries on LGBT rights in rainbow index

Turkey was ranked 48th among 49 countries as regards the human rights of LGBT people, according to the 2021 Rainbow Europe Map published by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)-Europe. More..

Targeted by Erdoğan, Turkey’s LGBT community faced ‘tsunami of hate’

Turkey’s President Erdoğan in February unleashed a torrent of attacks against what he called “the LGBT youth,” which came as sudden student protests began to rattle his 18-year rule. Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu reported the arrest of “four LGBT freaks” over the display, condemning the “degenerates” in Twitter posts that got flagged for “hateful conduct”. More..

3 transexual women attacked in one week as violence against LGBT+ community increased in Turkey

The LGBT+ community in Turkey witnessed multiple acts of violence against its members in March with at least three transexual women suffering injuries or death. More..

https://stockholmcf.org/minority-and-refugee-rights-in-turkey-2021-in-review/

[Yervant1]

AP News

Inflation in Turkey hits 20-year high of nearly 49%
Feb. 3, 2022

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s annual inflation came in at nearly 49%
on Thursday, hitting a nearly 20-year high and further eroding
people’s ability to buy even basic things like food.

The Turkish Statistical Institute said the consumer price index
increased by just over 11% in January from the previous month. The
yearly increase in food prices was more than 55%, according to the
data.

The inflation rate was the highest since April 2002 in a country that
is facing an economic upheaval and currency crisis, triggered by a
series of interest rate cuts.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared himself an “enemy” of high
interest rates, insisting that they cause inflation — a stance that
contradicts established economic thinking.

Turkey’s central bank has cut rates by 5 percentage points since
September, to 14%, before pausing them in January.

Erdogan vowed this week that his government would “reduce the spiral
of high inflation with each passing month” and completely eliminate it
“after a while.”

Opposition parties have questioned the Turkish Statistical Institute’s
independence and have challenged its data. The independent Inflation
Research Group put Turkey’s actual annual inflation at a stunning
114.87%.

Last week, Erdogan replaced the head of the statistical institute. No
reason was given for the change.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://apnews.com/article/business-middle-east-turkey-prices-recep-tayyip-erdogan-8a968577831aa31c3a6845010d576c17__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!_RCMG66saAqvASYU5k_YPREgCYJXi-LzoSePa7fHwNTY8WmAh7NCSx7-nSCtPA$

[Yervant1]

Washington Examiner

Don't let Turkey get away with another genocide
By Michael Rubin
February 11, 2022

Last April, the Biden administration formally recognized the Armenian
genocide, more than a century after it began.

In the final years of the Ottoman Empire, Turks engaged in the
slaughter of upwards of 1 million Armenians and the displacement of
even more. Evidence of government direction belies the fog of war
explanation dominant in Turkey and among its scholars, as does the
fact Ottoman Turkish authorities evacuated communities in towns and
cities beyond the time and place of most World War I-era fighting.

As a result of the genocide, Turkey today possesses much of the land
President Woodrow Wilson proposed assigning to independent Armenia
after World War I. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s birthplace Rize is
well within this traditionally Armenian region.

Perhaps it was Ottoman Turks’ success at ethnic cleansing that have
led successive Turkish governments, both secular and religious, to
keep such tactics among their policy quiver. While Erdoğan seeks
international praise for hosting millions of Syrian refugees, his
actions are not altruistic. Not only does he weaponize the threat of
refugees to extract concessions from European states, but he also
selectively settles and bestows citizenship upon Sunni Arab refugees
to dilute Turkey’s Kurdish and Alevi populations. Sectarian Sunni
Islamists such as Erdoğan despise Alevism, a sect similar to Shi'ism
that is dominant in portions of eastern and central Turkey.

However, the victims of the genocide are Yezidi. Historically, the
United States has ignored the Yezidis, adherents to a pre-Islamic
religion whose population traditionally spans the area where Turkey,
Syria, and Iraq meet. Consciousness of the Yezidi rocketed to the
headlines in 2014 when the Islamic State overran traditional Yezidi
areas, slaughtering Yezidi men and raping and enslaving Yezidi women
and children. Celebrities, politicians, and diplomats rallied to the
cause of the Yezidis and celebrated when Iraqi forces, Shi’ite
militias, and Kurdish Peshmerga backed by U.S. airpower unraveled the
would-be caliphate. Politicians worldwide posed proudly with Nadia
Murad, a former Islamic State captive who received the 2018 Nobel
Peace Prize for her activism on behalf of her fellow Yezidis and
victims of sexual violence.

Still, many Yezidis remain in captivity. Visiting Sinuni, just miles
from the Syrian border, I met Yezidis who showed me proof-of-life
videos of relatives who remained in captivity in Turkey and Syria
regions controlled by Turkish proxy groups. However, U.S. diplomats in
Erbil dismissed the notion that any Yezidis remained in captivity as
"wishful thinking" on the part of the community — they refused to
interview Yezidis or view such videos.

The cost of such apathy goes beyond condemning Yezidi girls to suffer
years more rape. In recent years, Turkey has waged a relentless
bombing campaign against Yezidi villagers and farmers in the Sinjar
region of northwestern Iraq. While Turkish diplomats say their bombing
is rooted in a counterterrorism campaign, the reality is that the
targets are more often farmers and families. Turkish bombing, often
using U.S. warplanes or drones with American components, appears
motivated less by counterterrorism and more in the desire to prevent
any meaningful Yezidi return.

When I visited Sinjar in December 2019 as a guest of a United Nations
agency, security officials warned our group our convoy could be a
victim of Turkish bombardment if we remained in the area after dusk.
They explained the Turks did not differentiate in practice between
civilians, international organization workers, and terrorists. While
the bombing represents a near-daily violation of Iraqi sovereignty,
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s acquiescence to it remains a moral
stain on his record.

Turkish bombardment of Yezidi communities has increased as the Ukraine
crisis and the fight against the Islamic State distracts the world. On
Feb. 1 and 2, for example, 60 aircraft took off from air bases across
Turkey. Accompanied by drones, these aircraft hit almost two dozen
locations across Sinjar, killing numerous civilians across the region.
Too often, journalists accept Turkish claims such bombardment targeted
terrorists and was accurate.

Local officials are probably correct when they say the Turkish purpose
is more to terrorize the local population and prevent return of Yezidi
Kurds to a region where Turkish nationalists increasingly seek to
annex.

The weak response by Washington and the international community simply
encourages Turkey to increase its attacks. Biden may talk a good game
on human rights, but Erdogan assesses White House rhetoric as empty
and believes genocide works. For Turkey, the Yezidis are quickly
becoming this century’s Armenians.

*

Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway
Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/dont-let-turkey-get-away-with-another-genocide__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!7RYKVfqoXgnVTq1l6x7vhe2L_KyLkqQ13RZdR8WaLtZmiTli7sgVMq2eBlFi6w$

[Yervant1]

AL-Monitor

US raid raises questions on Turkey’s commitment vs. Islamic State

[The Islamic State leader’s hideout a stone’s throw away from Turkey's
border and Syrian Democratic Forces involvement in the raid have
raised fresh questions over Ankara’s fight against the Islamic State.]

By Fehim Tastekin
Feb. 10, 2022

The leader of the Islamic State, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi,
was killed in a Syrian hideout close to the Turkish border, just like
his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, casting question marks over
Ankara’s assertions of its decisive struggle against the radical
group.

Like his predecessor, al-Qurayshi was hiding in a house near the
northern Syrian town of Atmeh, a stone’s throw from the border across
the Turkish province of Hatay and only a few hundred meters from
Turkey’s Bukulmez military outpost which overlooks the region.
Washington’s underscoring of the Syrian Democratic Force’s role in the
raid came atop, dealing another blow to Ankara.

Al-Qurayshi, whose real name was Abdullah Amir Mohammed Saeed al-Mawla
and who went by several other aliases, was killed near northwestern
Syrian village Barisha some 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from the
Turkish border. Similarly, his predecessor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had
also been killed in Barisha in 2019.

The three-story house where al-Qurayshi was hiding is located one
kilometer from a checkpoint of Failaq al-Sham, a Turkish-backed Syrian
opposition group, and some 500 meters from a Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
(HTS) checkpoint. HTS is the dominant group that controls Idlib and
surrounding regions including Atmeh.

Atmeh, which is home to a large refugee camp for displaced Syrians,
has become a place where jihadis from groups such as al-Qaeda and IS
can easily hide. Although the region remains out of the Turkish-backed
groups' control, Atme and nearby villages can be easily monitored from
the military watchtower at Bukulmez outpost.

Given the intelligence leaks that suggest al-Qurayshi was also relying
on a web of couriers to lead the group like his predecessor, Turkey’s
failure to identify the suspicious mobility in the region is raising
further question marks.

The US strike came after the IS raid on a prison in Hasakah.
Increasing Turkish strikes on SDF checkpoints at the time of the raid
likely smoothed the path for the attackers. Turkey has been keeping
Tell Tamr, Ain Issa, Kobani east of Euphrates and Manbij and Tel Rifat
west of Euphrates under constant fire through howitzers and combat
drones. This, in turn, provides ammunition to those who claim that
Turkey is opening a path for the IS.

In addition to the location of the al-Qurayshi's hideout, the SDF’s
involvement in the latest raid puts Ankara into an even more untenable
position. In a briefing after the strike, US President Joe Biden said
​​the raid was “aided by the essential partnership of the Syrian
Democratic Forces.”

Riding the momentum, the SDF didn’t miss the opportunity to taunt
Turkey. “Is there any doubt that Turkey [has] turned areas [of
northern] Syria into a safe haven for Daesh leaders?” Farhad Shami, a
SDF press person, wrote on Twitter, using the Arabic acronym of the
Islamic State. Shami also reminded readers that Baghdadi had been
killed in the same area. Mazlum Kobane, the commander in chief of SDF,
said al-Qurayshi was killed thanks to the “strong partnership” between
the US and SDF.

In short, instead of its NATO ally Turkey, the US joined forces with
the SDF to hunt down a prominent IS target near the Turkish border.
The location of al-Qurayshi’s hideout shows once again that IS leaders
hide in places from where they can easily make use of the Turkish
borders. Al-Qurayshi’s ethnic origins remain unknown, but some say he
was an ethnic Turkmen who had little difficulty establishing ties
within Turkey.

It's no secret that the IS considered Turkey a place where its
militants could take shelter in relative ease during its withdrawal
from Iraq and Syria. According to Kasim Guler, the alleged IS leader
for Turkey, whose confessions to the Turkish authorities were leaked
to the media last week, back then Baghdadi had made a decision to use
Turkey as a major base.

Guler, who was caught in June 2021 near the Syrian border, told the
authorities that under that plan, dubbed “the mountain project,” the
militant group was going to base in the outskirts of four different
Turkish provinces including Hatay along the border, according to an
exclusive report by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The bases would
train new militants joining the Islamic State from Europe. Guler said
that they had smuggled AK-47s, RPG launchers, and other weapons​​ from
the Syrian town of al-Bab to Turkey and buried them in six Turkish
cities, including Istanbul and Izmir, according to the DW report.

IS recruiter Mustafa Dokumaci’s attempts to realize the project were
foiled after the arrest of the ranking IS militants responsible for
the plan. The group relied on senior IS figure Mahmut Ozden for
communications between the Turkey-based IS cells, the DW reported,
citing Guler’s testimony. Guler said the group had cells in more than
a dozen Turkish cities including Istanbul and Ankara. Guler also
recounted some plots to assassinate prominent politicians including
Turkey’s main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, and Istanbul
Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.

The major reason why IS militants prefer to take shelter in Turkey is
that the Turkish government has considered Islamic State a useful tool
in its fight against the Syrian Kurdish groups. Accordingly, Ankara’s
policies against the radical group have become riddled with
inconsistencies.

IS militants can easily wire funds using exchange offices and jewelry
shops in Turkey. The Turkish judiciary’s weakness in dealing with
Islamic State suspects is another reason. Islamic State suspects
caught in Turkey cannot be tried on crimes they committed abroad. Some
IS suspects have been released on probation or on grounds of lack of
evidence.

They appear to travel to and from Syria and Iraq easily, even
smuggling their captives. Turkish police’s rescue of a 7-year-old
Yazidi girl whom the Islamic State had sought to sell in an online
auction as a captive in Turkey last year is a case in point.

Turkey’s fight against Islamic State has always been haphazard. The
fact that al-Qurayshi could shelter near the Turkish border has only
amplified the depth of these holes.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/02/us-raid-raises-questions-turkeys-commitment-vs-islamic-state__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!9c-gNQhWY3TLu6UF9F_vGxNqf1vw3v1HG-U-T4nf6FbdQywtmMf0PFIJ4ykUDQ$

[Yervant1]

The National Interest

Turkey Is Barely Keeping a Lid On the Islamic State
By Sam Mullins and Cüneyt Gürer
Feb. 11, 2022

[Given the extent of the Islamic State’s presence in Turkey, along
with the multitude of problems facing the country, it is remarkable
that Turkish authorities have kept the lid on things until now. The
question is how much longer it can last.]

It has been more than five years since an Islamic State gunman opened
fire at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, killing thirty-nine revelers
from more than a dozen countries as they celebrated the New Year. The
group has not conducted a significant attack in Turkey since, and
international attention has been drawn elsewhere, captivated by the
latest blood and gore. But while the West has been fixated on emerging
and reemerging threats in far-off places, from sub-Saharan Africa to
Afghanistan, a much more sophisticated and immediate danger has been
simmering away in Turkey. Given the extent of the Islamic State’s
presence in Turkey, along with the multitude of problems facing the
country, it is remarkable that Turkish authorities have kept the lid
on things until now. The question is how much longer it can last.

From the outset, Turkey has been of critical importance to the Islamic
State. At the height of the caliphate-building project, foreign
fighters were flocking to Syria and Iraq in droves. Most of them
arrived by way of Turkey, where they were met by facilitators who
vetted them and sometimes gave them training before smuggling them
across what was then a poorly guarded border. But Turkey was always
far more than just a transit point and staging ground for new arrivals
from outside the region. More than 6,500 Turkish citizens (including
family members) reportedly joined the Islamic State, making it an
important area for recruitment and one of the largest producers of
foreign fighters in the world. Furthermore, the country swiftly
emerged as a critical financial and logistical hub for the
organization, allowing the Islamic State to acquire and move vast
amounts of money, weapons components, precursor explosive materials,
and a variety of other services and supplies. It is hardly a surprise
then, as the caliphate began to crumble in Syria, that the fallback
position for many—including a number of high-ranking leaders—was in
Turkey.

At the time of the Reina nightclub attack, Ahmet Yayla, a former
Turkish counterterrorism officer, estimated that there were around
2,000 “hardcore” Islamic State operatives in Turkey (about the same
number that the United Nations recently posited are in Afghanistan).
Since then, that number appears to have grown substantially. As the
fall of Raqqa was looming in the summer of 2017, Islamic State
commanders instructed their followers to seek refuge and await orders
across the Turkish border. “Many hundreds” of Islamic State fighters
and their family members were reportedly allowed to leave Raqqa under
the terms of a deal struck with the Kurds, and thousands more would
flee Syria in the months that followed. Though it was not the only
destination they could go to, it was perhaps the most attractive, and
it is almost certain that many of these individuals went into hiding
in Turkey. Add to this the “thousands” of Turkish foreign fighters who
returned home—few of whom have been prosecuted—and it is clear that
Turkey has a serious problem.

As the threat has metastasized, the number of counterterrorism
operations has soared, supposedly approaching around 1,000 per year,
with dozens of suspects sometimes netted in a single raid. Among those
arrested have been the alleged military head and “right-hand man” of
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who helped the former Islamic State leader hide
in Idlib near the Turkish border; the erstwhile Islamic State deputy
minister of education; and one of Baghdadi’s wives and several of his
relatives. The fact that these individuals were living in Turkey—and
in some cases went undetected for up to four years—is indicative of
the ease with which the Islamic State has infiltrated Turkey and the
country’s significance to the organization’s leadership.

As the crackdown has intensified, Turkish authorities have thwarted a
growing number of plots, including ambitious plans for mass casualty
attacks and the kidnapping of public figures. Details are generally
scarce, and Turkish politicians sometimes muddy the waters with
outlandish claims, but there is no denying that the threat is real.
Research by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center has shown that
Islamic State attack cells in Turkey have typically been connected to
the organization in Syria and Iraq, and have frequently had access to
firearms and explosives. The same worrisome combination of operational
connections and offensive capabilities has persisted in spite of the
Islamic State’s diminished presence in Syria and Iraq. Such was the
sense of impending peril this past October that the United States
Mission to Turkey suspended consular services across the country and
issued a public alert, citing “credible reports” of potential
terrorist attacks and kidnappings against American citizens and
foreign nationals in Istanbul and other locations.

Parallel to Turkish counterterrorism efforts, the U.S. Treasury has
been diligently working behind the scenes to root out the financial
infrastructure that the Islamic State and other jihadists rely on.
This has resulted in a growing number of designations of terrorist
financiers, including an array of money exchange and transfer
businesses, the largest of which, Al-Khalidi Exchange, was moving
hundreds of thousands of dollars each day. Evidently, Turkey’s efforts
to crack down on terrorist financing have been lacking. This led the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global financial watchdog, to
place Turkey on its dreaded “grey list” of countries that are
deficient in the areas of anti-money laundering and counterterrorism
financing in October—a development that has exacerbated Turkey’s
deepening economic crisis.

The FATF listing speaks to a more troubling concern. Although Ankara
was quick to designate the Islamic State as a terrorist organization
and join the global coalition to defeat it, Turkey has long been
accused of negligence when it comes to jihadists. Eyebrows have once
again been raised by the fact that Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim
al-Quraishi—just like his predecessor—was able to live in hiding only
a few kilometers from the Turkish border. There is little question
that the Erdogan government has other counterterrorism priorities,
chief among them the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and associated
Kurdish militias, which are mutual enemies of the Islamic State.
Equally, if not more important, is the Gülen movement—officially known
as the Fethullah Terrorist Organization—which Turkey holds responsible
for the 2016 attempted coup.

In comparison to the fervor with which these and other perceived
threats are pursued, the fight against the Islamic State has been
somewhat lackluster. Thus, in spite of the frequent raids, it appears
that relatively few of the suspects who are detained are formally
arrested and charged. Many, it seems, are simply released following
their initial statements. When cases do go to court, Turkish judges
have been surprisingly lenient. A particularly striking example is the
case of the Syrian cleric Jamal Abdul Rahman Alwi. Despite being
accused of giving the order to burn two Turkish pilots alive in 2016,
Alwi was released pending trial and only later rearrested after public
outcry. Many others, including senior members of the Islamic State,
have benefited from Turkey’s remorse law, which can result in
sentences being greatly reduced or even suspended.

What becomes of such individuals is murky. Turkish authorities have
deported a total of 8,585 terrorism suspects of 102 nationalities
since 2011. However, this figure does not account for Turkish citizens
and also includes individuals seeking to join the PKK and other
organizations. Few other details are known. Some suspects who cannot
be imprisoned or deported are placed under surveillance, but it seems
highly improbable that the security services—likely still recovering
from the loss of thousands of experienced officials caught up in the
anti-Gülenist purge—would be able to adequately monitor suspects.

With the president’s popularity at an all-time low and elections fast
approaching, the Islamic State is likely to become an even lower
priority than it already is. The threat of terrorism has already cast
a shadow over the upcoming elections after an improvised explosive
device was found on a car belonging to a police officer assigned to an
Erdogan rally. And although this has since been blamed on the PKK, it
only reinforces the existing pecking order. Yet, if history is
anything to go by, the Islamic State will be just as much, if not
more, of a problem in Turkey. The group was particularly active in the
lead-up to the general election in 2015 and is unlikely to let a
similar opportunity pass it by. This does not bode well for the months
ahead.

Since 2017, Turkey has been successful in doing just enough to keep
the Islamic State off balance. Though counterterrorism raids are being
conducted at a breathless pace, they are superficially disruptive in
nature. The border with Syria, though much tighter than it once was,
remains permeable; counterterrorism financing has been woefully
deficient; firearms and explosives appear to be readily available; and
plotting is widespread. Under the mounting pressure of domestic
challenges, and with elections on the horizon, it seems unlikely that
Turkey’s success can last.

This is a problem for the international community as well. As a major
tourist destination and a hub for international travel—including a
thriving trade in high-quality fake passports—Turkey is both an
attractive target for terrorists itself and a potential launchpad for
transnational attacks. Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for
policy, caused a stir late last year when he told members of the
Senate Armed Services Committee that the Islamic State’s affiliate in
Afghanistan “could potentially” develop the capability to launch
external attacks within six to twelve months. It is entirely possible
that the Islamic State already has that capability in Turkey. Although
attention is still largely focused elsewhere, it would therefore be
wise to keep a close eye on “Wilayat Turkey.”

*

Sam Mullins is a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center
for Security Studies.
Cüneyt Gürer is a professor at the George C. Marshall European Center
for Security Studies.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nationalinterest.org/feature/turkey-barely-keeping-lid-islamic-state-200534__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!4IcDAGAItM9kQ1i2KR546j_jgPPLq7t07M1b5NwViqID8K1bSlANPV-hcNlJAg$

[Yervant1]

BoingBoing

Turkey to change official name to Türkiye in hopes of ending
association with hapless yet delicious bird

By Rob Beschizza
Feb. 14, 2022

Türkiye, as it is known in Turkish, plans to use that name
internationally henceforth instead of the English word Turkey. The
connotations with the bird of plate and plight are too much for
president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said the new name "represents and
expresses the culture, civilisation, and values of the Turkish nation
in the best way".

The Turkish government is planning to change its internationally
recognised official name in English to Türkiye by registering it to
the United Nations in coming weeks, two Turkish officials told Middle
East Eye. The government could change the name with a simple
notification to the UN registry but the letter "Ü", which isn't in the
nominal Latin alphabet, could be a problem. Türkiye means Turkey in
Turkish. One senior Turkish official said Ankara hadn't discussed the
"Ü" issue with the UN yet, but the source was hopeful that a solution
could be found. Some observers said one such remedy could be using "U"
instead of "Ü" in the new name.

Phonetically, in English, it becomes "Turkeer" or "Turkeyer"—easier
than Czechia, at least.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://boingboing.net/2022/02/14/turkey-to-change-official-name-to-turkiye-in-hopes-of-ending-association-with-hapless-yet-delicious-bird.html__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!6RXKIN2DdWjRCtur1JSKhskux6Ax7Qx-bSvSc3_uurodkDzCM7o-7cuA_2QA_A$

[Yervant1]

PanARMENIAN

Armenia - April 11 2022

Armenian school gate in Istanbul vandalized with swastika

April 11, 2022 - 15:19 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - A swastika has been drawn on the gate of the Armenian Bomonti school in Istanbul, Turkey, according to images spreading on Twitter.

The vandalism comes ahead of the 107th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire between 2015 and 2023.

This is not the first time that anti-Armenian images and phrases are spray-painted on this very same school. In 2016, the exterior walls of the Bomonti Mkhitarian School were vandalized with graffiti that read: "One night, we suddenly will be in Karabagh."

The 2016 incident came about three months after the walls of the Uskudar Surp Khach Seminary and two months after the walls of the Uskudar Kalfayan School were defaced with anti-Armenian graffiti.

In March 2022, a Turkish court acquitted three people who in July 2021 danced on the gate of an Armenian church in Istanbul. The incident, which took place at the Surp Takavor Church in Kadikoy, sparked outrage at the time among Turkey’s Armenian community and Armenian activists.
https://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/299591/Armenian_school_gate_in_Istanbul_vandalized_with_swastika