Cyprus-Forum.com

[boomerang]

The conservative VVD, senior partner in the Dutch coalition government, has launched a fierce attack on Turkey in the European Parliament.
The conservative VVD, senior partner in the Dutch coalition government, has launched a fierce attack on Turkey in the European Parliament.

The leader of the VVD delegation, Hans van Baalen, said Turkey had disqualified itself as a potential EU member state with remarks made on Sunday by its deputy prime minister, Besir Atalay. He warned that Turkey would freeze its ties with the European Union if Cyprus occupied the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2012 as planned.

MEP Van Baalen pointed out that Turkey has been illegally occupying northern Cyprus since 1974 and has blocked every attempt at reconciliation between the Greek and Turkish communities. Turkey also refuses to normalise relations with the Greek part of the island.

The VVD wants the European Commission to ask the Turkish government to explain this behaviour.

Turkey has for many years been a candidate for EU membership but negotiations have been difficult, partly because of Ankara’s stance on Cyprus.

http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/dutch-euro-parliamentarians-blast-turkey

[boomerang]

Op-Ed: It’s time to stand up to Turkey’s Erdogan

By Jason Epstein · September 19, 2011

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the United Nations this week, he likely will repeat his demand that the world body “raise the Palestinian flag” without acknowledging that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to negotiate with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders still call for the destruction of Israel.

For the first time since becoming a republic in 1923, Turkey has decided to become an active regional player. The decision to stretch its legs is made possible in no small part by a shrunken American footprint in the eastern Mediterranean.

Some assert that this exercise is merely an enhanced version of a trade expansion policy initiated during the 1980s. Others claim with alarm that it is an aggressive effort to restore imperial Ottoman glory with a decidedly Islamist flavor.

Whatever the reason, this so-called “Zero Problems” policy, drawn up by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and championed by Erdogan, has been executed at the expense of Turkey’s former strategic ally, Israel, and threatens hundreds of years of friendship and peaceful coexistence between two dynamic peoples. (To be fair, Erdogan also is currently engaged in heated rhetoric with EU members Greece and Cyprus.)

It is worth noting that Turkish-Israeli ties, which flourished in the 1990s, remained strong after the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) electoral triumph in Turkey in November 2002. Additional commercial and defense agreements were signed. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists flocked to Istanbul, Antalya and Bodrum. In a May 2005 visit to Israel, Erdogan met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and paid his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. President Shimon Peres delivered an address to the Turkish Parliament in 2007 and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Ankara the following year.

Cracks appeared, however, after the Erdogan government recognized Hamas’ victory in the Gaza election in 2006 and AKP officials invited the terrorist organization’s leader in exile, Khaled Meshal, to visit Ankara. The relationship suffered further in late December 2008 after hundreds of Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli towns prompted a military response. Erdogan had met with Olmert mere days before Operation Cast Lead commenced, in part to continue mediation efforts between Israel and Syria, and reportedly was furious that his counterpart kept him in the dark about the planned campaign.

Erdogan’s theatrics at the Davos World Economic Forum weeks later brought the schism into the open. Sitting on a panel with Peres, the prime minister was clearly agitated by Peres’ defense of Israel’s actions and responded, “When it comes to killing, you know this job very well.” After storming off the stage, Erdogan accused the Jewish state of committing acts of genocide. (His petulant behavior was all the more remarkable considering that Turkey has lost tens of thousands of its own citizens in a decades-old battle against PKK terrorists based in Iraq.)

Last year’s Israeli interception of the Gaza blockade-running Mavi Marmara that killed nine Turkish radicals and injured several Israeli commandos effectively doomed the political relationship. The subsequent U.N. panel of inquiry on the Gaza flotilla incident, known as the Palmer Report, found that the interception was legal under international law but that the Israeli military had used excessive force on board the vessel.

Having spent more than a year hammering through Turkey’s increasingly obedient media outlets that the Israeli action in international waters was one of “piracy” and demanding that Israel end all of its security measures around Gaza, the Palmer Report’s findings caught Erdogan off guard. He responded by trashing its conclusions, terminating all bilateral military trade, downgrading diplomatic ties and ratcheting up the anti-Israel rhetoric even further, to the point where even a clash between the two navies in the Mediterranean no longer seems out of the question.

As former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz and Professor Henri Barkey wrote recently in the Washington Post, "Had Erdogan pushed only for an apology over the deaths of Turkish citizens in the May 2010 flotilla incident, Turkey’s actions would be understandable in the face of Israel’s unwise decision not to immediately resolve the problem. The recently leaked U.N. report on the flotilla affair sought to find a way for the sides to reconcile. Erdogan, however, is not interested in repairing the situation with Israel."

Israel supports a Palestinian state, but lasting peace must come through negotiations that settle all outstanding issues to the satisfaction of the parties with mutual respect and security. Peace cannot be imposed; it can only be negotiated.

Whatever one thinks of President Obama’s handling of U.S.-Israel relations up through this spring, his administration deserves credit for rallying opposition to Abbas’ U.N. scheme.

Obama also needs to be firm with Erdogan. While the United States recognizes Turkey’s enhanced standing in a volatile region, he should be reminded that “with great power there must also come great responsibility.” And if Erdogan carries out the once unthinkable idea of forcing America to choose between its two strategic allies in the region, the White House must send a clear signal that the Turkish leader will be the big loser.

(Jason Epstein, president of Southfive Strategies, LLC, was a member of the Turkish Embassy’s public relations team from 2002 to 2007.)

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/09/19/3089463/op-ed-its-time-to-stand-up-to-erdogan

[Hermes]

The leader of the VVD delegation, Hans van Baalen, said Turkey had disqualified itself as a potential EU member state with remarks made on Sunday by its deputy prime minister, Besir Atalay. He warned that Turkey would freeze its ties with the European Union if Cyprus occupied the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2012 as planned.

MEP Van Baalen pointed out that Turkey has been illegally occupying northern Cyprus since 1974 and has blocked every attempt at reconciliation between the Greek and Turkish communities. Turkey also refuses to normalise relations with the Greek part of the island.

Slowly, slowly, we are witnessing the implosion of Turkey's foreign policy. Whatever happened to the idea that Turkey has a crafted diplomatic strategy? These days every time a Turkish official speaks he undermines Turkey's agenda. So much so that Turkey is now perceived as a renegade state with an erratic and delusional leadership. Nice work, Davutoglu and Erdogan. The two clowns in charge of Turkey.

[boomerang]

Egyptian politician calls Arrogant a "crook"

Egyptian politician Talaat Sadat gave a fiery speech at the opening of his new Egypt National Party and in which he slammed Turkish and Egyptian prime ministers and downplayed the role of Islamists in the country.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a crook, Sadat said at the inauguration of his party at the Fayyoum governorate.

Sadat accused Erdogan of having a hidden agenda for visiting Egypt as part of a tour that included Libya and Tunisia, the Egyptian daily al-Youm al-Sabea reported Saturday.

He wanted to prove to Europe and the U.S. that the keys to Egypt and its people are in Turkeys possession until his country is able to join the European Union.

Sadat, who is the nephew of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, added that Erdogan is hoping to restore the power of the Ottoman Empire and to achieve more hegemony in the region.

Commenting on the Turkish prime ministers rising influence on Muslim states and his latest stance against Israel, Sadat said he saw the opposite when he went to Turkey.

In Turkey, women were half naked and restaurants were keen to satisfy Israeli tourists.

Sadat similarly slammed Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, who he said is acting like a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He is leaving Egypt in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood who are determined to control syndicates and municipal councils.

However, Sadat downplayed the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis on Egypts political future.

Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood do not number more than two million and it is next to impossible that they rule 85 million.

Sadat added that both groups use religion to gain popularity and access as many seats as possible in the parliament.

As for the storming of the Israeli embassy by angry Egyptian protestors, Sadat explained that this was a pre-planned charade.

Instead of them apologizing to us for killing our soldiers, it is us now that need to apologize.

Sadat, a former member of the Peoples Assembly, Egypts lower house of parliament, talked about the upcoming parliamentary elections and said that the qualifications of MPs should change in the coming stage.

The new MPs should be outspoken. In the past, the majority of MPs did not say a word during sessions.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/09/18/167466.html

[boomerang]

Egypt's Islamists warn Turkish PM over regional role

By Tulay Karadeniz and Yasmine Saleh

CAIRO | Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:05am EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's most powerful Islamist group warned Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday that his country should not seek to dominate the Middle East despite his enthusiastic welcome at the start of a regional tour.

After his widely praised call for democracy in the Arab world, Erdogan was given a more reserved reception by officials of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose old guard do not share the admiration of the group's younger generation for the Turkish leader.

"We welcome Turkey and we welcome Erdogan as a prominent leader but we do not think that he or his country alone should be leading the region or drawing up its future," said Essam el-Erian, deputy leader of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party.

The Brotherhood's cautious comments contrast with the rapturous reception Erdogan has had so far, including cheering and flag-waving crowds, on the first stop of a tour of three Arab states that is aimed at bolstering Turkey's regional role.

"Democracy and freedom is as basic a right as bread and water for you, my brothers," Erdogan told an enthusiastic audience in Cairo on Tuesday.

Erdogan's party, with its Islamist roots and election success, has become a model for much of the Brotherhood and other political groups as they prepare for the first free vote since Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule was ended in February.

But the Brotherhood and other groups are wary of outside involvement in a home-grown uprising. A senior Turkish official said Turkey did not want to dictate but offer help.

"Arab states do not need outside projects ... This has to come from the new internal systems of the Arab countries which after the revolutions ... will be democratic ones," said Erian, who was jailed under Mubarak.

ARAB CAUSES

Erian, however, praised Erdogan's political success at home in free elections and his achievement in building a strong economy and supporting Arab causes.

"He has successfully invested in the Arab and Muslim world's central case which is the Palestinian case," he said.

Erian said Erdogan had met members of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party.

A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Erdogan had offered help if requested. "We are not saying we will come and teach you what to do, we are saying we can help if you want," he said.

Erdogan has won plaudits from many Arabs for his tough line in a feud with Israel. He is also respected for overseeing rapid economic expansion and for his democratic credentials in a region where democracy has been almost completely lacking.

On Tuesday, Erdogan urged the United States not to block a plan by Palestinians to seek recognition for a statehood at the United Nations.

"The freedom message spreading from Tahrir Square (in Cairo) has become a light of hope for all the oppressed through Tripoli, Damascus and Sanaa," Erdogan said, receiving several standing ovations.

Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said they sought to boost annual trade between the two states to $5 billion from $3 billion, as well as to increase Turkish investment in Egypt to $5 billion from $1.5 billion in future.

Erdogan's stance toward Israel has earned him the most Arab accolades. He demanded an apology after nine Turks were killed in an Israeli raid on a ship bound for Gaza. When he did not receive one, he expelled Israel's ambassador.

"We can learn from him how to deal with the enemy ... So many things were done by Israel, but we stayed silent," said Rabab Abdel-Khalek, a university student.

Egyptians are angry that their ruling generals did not act with the same decisiveness when five Egyptian border guards were killed last month by Israelis when they were chasing cross-border raiders.

Furious Egyptian protesters stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo, prompting Israel to fly its envoy home.