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Turkey’s efforts to resolve conflicts with its neighbors and offer more rights to its Kurdish citizens have failed to make the country a more peaceful place, according to a recent international report.

Despite its much-vaunted “zero problems with neighbors” policy, Turkey’s relations with neighboring countries showed a decrease in 2010 compared to the previous three years, according to the 2010 Global Peace Index released Tuesday by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

The failure of the initiative came as no surprise to Haldun Solmaztürk, the chair of the U.S. desk at the Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic Analysis, or TÜRKSAM. “It is a good policy in principle, but it is not applied properly,” Solmaztürk said. “This is mainly due to a weak background and lack of vision of the leaders who try to drive such a policy, which creates an open-ended process where everyone is constantly waiting for something to happen.”

The world has become less peaceful in 2010, according to the latest Global Peace Index, which attempts to measure the relative position of nations’ and regions’ peacefulness. The report, released Tuesday, reflects a less peaceful world in 2010, where violence impacts the global economy by $7 trillion annually.

He added that “zero problems with neighbors” would be difficult to successfully attain in any event, as it sometimes – as with closer ties to Syria and Iran – represents interests that conflict with Turkey’s “long history of good relations with Western countries.” Reversing such a long-lasting trend, he said, would confuse the country’s foreign policy even more.

The Australia-based peace institute ranked Turkey 126th out of 149 countries on its 2010 Global Peace Index, which looked at internal and external factors such as conflicts, military capacity, respect for human rights and relations with neighboring countries. It is the fourth year the report has been compiled. Read more…

Israel Attacks aid convoy..

Israeli naval commandos brutally attacked an international aid convoy intending to bring humanitarian supplies to the long-besieged Gaza city and killed more than a dozen civilians while the convoy was sailing on international waters.

Early Monday morning, as it has threatened several times as the aid flotilla set sail for Gaza, Israel intercepted the convoy of vessels carrying hundreds of activists from around the world and some 10,000 tones of humanitarian aid, possibly causing an irreversible damage to Turkish-Israeli relations, foreign ministry said in a statement released a few hours after the attack.

International community has earlier warned Israel not to engage in an offensive on civilian vessels full of peaceful activists whose aim is to break the three-year-old economic blockade on Gaza which has severely plagued its people.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in front of the Israeli consulate in İstanbul to show reaction against the violent intervention. Thousands of Gazans who were expecting a helping hand from committed civilians but later learned of the attack also gathered at the port of Gaza, carrying Palestinian flags and banners read “End to Israeli persecution.”

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Hrant Dink

The defendants in the Hrant Dink murder trial had connections to six suspects in the ongoing Ergenekon coup plot case, news agencies reported Monday.

In a statement sent by Istanbul police for Monday’s hearing of the Dink trial, authorities said infamous Ergenekon suspects Veli Küçük, Kemal Kerinçsiz, Mustafa Levent Göktaş, Muzaffer Tekin and Erbay Çolakoğlu spoke on the phone to the suspects in Dink’s murder. Dink was a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin.

Küçük and Kerinçsiz were closely linked to a case in which Dink was tried for insulting Turkishness in one of his articles; before his death, the journalist said he had felt threatened by the pair’s presence at the hearings.

Alleged members of the suspected Ergenekon gang are accused of plotting to overthrow Turkey’s government by sowing chaos in society.

Dink’s friends ask for justice

Prior to the start of Monday’s 13th hearing at the Beşiktaş courthouse, friends of the murdered journalist gathered to issue another demand for justice in the long-running case.

Dink was gunned down in broad daylight on Jan. 19, 2007, in front of the offices of his bilingual daily, Agos.

Roughly 200 people gathered Monday in Beşiktaş and held posters saying “For Hrant for Justice,” in Turkish and Armenian. Dink’s wife, Rakel Dink, and his brother, Hosrof Dink, were also present on Monday.

“This case has been taking place for three-and-a-half years now, and we will be here as long as it takes,” said Tülin Özen, reading a press statement on behalf of Dink’s friends. Read more…

Deniz Baykal

After four decades of involvement in Turkish politics, Deniz Baykal’s career comes to an apparent end as he resigns amid an uproar of criticism for his alleged appearance with a female staffer on a clandestinely recorded video. The CHP leader says it’s a conspiracy and he is not done fighting the claims.

Breaking a three-day silence in the wake of a sex tape that has riveted the nation, Turkey’s main opposition leader Deniz Baykal exited the political stage Monday, announcing his resignation at an Ankara press conference.

After a meeting with his senior party members at the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, headquarters in Ankara, CHP leader Baykal announced his resignation in a dramatic speech, saying he is the victim of a conspiracy and blamed the government for the plot but did not give any names.

“Such private images cannot be taped and such a plot can’t be realized without the knowledge of the government,” Baykal said. “So-called well-intentioned statements from the government can’t conceal this crime. Those who criticize the plot are the real initiators,” Baykal said.

“This violates human rights that are respected by all political regimes and all religions. It was not organized for economic benefit, but for political reasons. The plot targets not an individual, but the CHP’s struggle for democracy,” Baykal said. “If necessary, I am ready to bear responsibility.”

Emphasis on Fethullah Gülen  Read more…

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu (L) met with top Iranian officials in Tehran, including his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki.

Turkey and Iran, two major powerhouses in the region with significant clout over Iraqi domestic politics, have been trying to reconcile their differences to bolster post-election Iraqi unity, diplomatic sources have told Today’s Zaman. It may very well have been overshadowed by Iran’s nuclear program, which has topped the international agenda in recent weeks, but the question of what will happen in Iraq after the general elections was the second most important issue on the Turkish foreign minister’s to-do list when he visited Tehran on Tuesday to have a series of talks with the Iranian leadership, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Iraq was the second most important item in our conversations with the Iranian leadership,” Ahmet Davutoğlu told Today’s Zaman after wrapping up his talks with Iranian officials.

In the joint press conference with his counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, on Tuesday, Davutoglu said, “The most important development in the region has to do with the elections in Iraq, the post-election status and efforts to form a government in Iraq.”

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The GYV Award for Exemplary Behavior or Initiatives in the Societal Sphere went to Rakel Dink, the wife of Hrant Dink, the murdered editor-in-chief of the Agos newspaper. Two audiovisual and stage arts awards went to Kalan Music and Mahsun Kırmızıgül for his movie “Güneşi Gördüm” (I Saw the Sun).

Messages of brotherhood and tolerance were delivered at the Journalists and Writers Foundation’s (GYV) Coexistence Awards ceremony on Saturday in İstanbul, stressing the importance of mutual understanding.

The ceremony opened with speeches from poet Hilmi Yavuz, who is also the head of the 11-member selection committee, and GYV Chairman Mustafa Yeşil. Parliament Speaker Mehmet Ali Şahin, İstanbul Governor Muammer Güler, State Minister for Family and Women’s Affairs Selma Aliye Kavaf and several deputies also participated in the ceremony. In his opening speech Yeşil said since its inception in 1994, the GYV had advocated plurality, peace and the art of living together through organizing countless conferences and panels.

Noting that prejudice and discrimination are not the teachings of the Islamic faith or Turkish culture, Yeşil said that once the people act with the voice of their conscience, they will always accept others the way they are.

The ceremony was then followed by musicians playing individually and then as an orchestra as a sign of coexistence. The awards are delivered to outstanding individuals and institutions contributing to coexistence and social peace in six categories.

The Literature Award went to Elif Şafak, whose book “Aşk” (The Forty Rules of Love) became a bestseller in Turkey last year. Expressing her gratitude for being selected as a recipient, Şafak said special thanks go to the “invisibles”: her readers. The Scientific Research Award went to the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) for their extraordinary activities to promote coexistence through scientific research. Accepting the award on behalf of the organization, TESEV Chairman Can Paker said everyone at the institution worked round the clock to contribute to Turkey. Read more…

European airlines conduct test flights through the volcanic ash that has paralyzed air travel as they press for airspace to reopen and criticize governments for grounding jets. While a KLM pilot says there is nothing but ‘clear blue skies and obviously no dense ash cloud to be seen,’ meteorologists say the situation above Europe is unstable and constantly changing with the varying winds.

Air travel across much of Europe was disrupted for a fourth day on Sunday by a huge cloud of volcanic ash, and airlines companies pressed for an end to the total ban on commercial air traffic. About 30 countries had closed or restricted their airspace by Sunday afternoon, as the cloud of fine mineral dust particles gradually expanded over large swathes of Europe. The aviation industry, already reeling from a punishing economic period, is facing at least $200 million in losses every day, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Aviation officials warned that, although almost invisible to the naked eye, the tiny particles of rock and glass spewed out by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland could clog airplane engines if pilots attempt to fly through the dust. But some major European airlines have said they have carried out successful test flights through the cloud of ash with one, the Dutch airliner KLM, urging traffic controllers to allow commercial flights to permanently return to the skies.

KLM said test planes of various types flew at normal altitudes above 3,000 meters but did not encounter the thick cloud that has hovered over the continent since Wednesday, Read more…

Derin Ural

After bad experiences of sexism at higher-level education institutions in the United States, Derin Ural now holds the title of vice president for Istanbul Technical University. Her experience suggests that sexist discrimination is not as bad in Turkey as it appears in recent studies

Despite lagging behind the U.N.’s millennium development goals for gender equality, the vice president of Istanbul Technical University, or ITU, has said Turkey provided for her an escape from sexual discrimination in the United States.

Professor Derin Ural said she was subjected to sexual discrimination from the start of her higher education career in the U.S. when a professor refused to share with the class that Ural had received the highest grade of the year. This, she said, merely because he was not expecting a woman to succeed so highly. Read more…

A cloud of volcanic ash smothering Europe tightened its powerful control of the skies on Sunday, enforcing a fourth day of travel misery for millions of travelers.

About 30 countries have now closed or restricted their airspace, with the cloud of fine mineral dust particles from Iceland now extending from the Arctic Circle in the north to the French Mediterranean coast in the south and from Spain into Russia.

Some countries, such as the Netherlands, started carrying out test flights to see if jets could safely fly however.  Dutch carrier KLM said initial inspections afterward showed no damage or irregularities from the ash in the air that has led to a ban on air travel over much of Europe since Friday. Read more…

Torrents of rain stampeding across northwestern Turkey strike up flash floods and leave chaos in their wake. At least nine people are left dead and many more are still missing. Collapsed bridges, road closures and overflowing waterways bring Istanbul to a crawl.

Heavy rains in the northwestern region of Marmara that started late Monday intensified yesterday, directly causing the deaths of nine people and wreaking havoc on the traffic.

Four people from the same family were found dead, and one other member was still missing, in the Saray region of the Tekirdağ province, the Anatolia news agency reported late Tuesday. In Istanbul’s Silivri region, an elderly disabled man drowned after floods inundated his house. Also, a woman who tried to cross rail tracks after the underpass was flooded on the Pendik-Kartal line on Istanbul’s Asian side was hit by a train and died, the Doğan news agency reported Tuesday. Read more…

A family of five died in a downpour yesterday in northwestern province of Tekirdağ. Fatih and Hande Çakır and their three children — Büşra, Berna and Asra — who were reportedly living in a watchman’s hut on a farm, had moved from the eastern province of Erzurum to Tekirdağ for the children’s education.

Tekirdağ resident Ahmet Önal, who helped the family settle down on the farm, was called by Fatih Çakır when the downpour started at 3 a.m. yesterday and was asked to help fight the rising floodwaters. Önal was first to arrive the scene, where the hut the family was living in had been dragged 500 meters away. Önal said he arrived at the farm 10 minutes after Fatih Çakır called him, but he could not approach to the hut due to the floodwater. When search-and-rescue teams arrived at the scene, they found the body of 6-year-old Asra. Later the bodies of Büşra, Berna and their mother Hande were also found. Read more…

Gazprom Eyes Turkish..

Russian natural-gas giant Gazprom is in talks with businessman and former State Minister Cavit Çağlar. The company seeks to acquire Çağlar’s shares in BİS Enerji, a joint-stock company founded in 1992 and headquartered in Bursa.

If these talks do not bear fruit, then the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, or TMSF, is likely to enter the fray. Cavit Çağlar had turned over his 50-percent stake in Bis Enerji to TMSF back in March. BİS meets the needs of the Bursa Industrial Zone. With its 410 megawatts of power, BİS is the largest plant in the area. The plant’s other partner is Muammer Ağım, the owner of the Metrocity shopping mall in Levent.

According to the agreement signed between Çağlar and TMSF, the businessman will maintain the right to sell his shares in the plant until the end of the year. The money Çağlar obtains from the sale of his shares in BİS Enerji will be used to pay off his debt to TMSF. If Çağlar cannot complete the sale by the end of this year, then TMSF will jump in. Therefore, Çağlar is keeping TMSF abreast of the developments. Read more…

Many of the stops along Istanbul’s Metrobus routes are not disabled-friendly, according to a social rights association that has filed a complaint against the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

According to a law passed in 2005, all public structures built after that date had to be disabled-friendly, said Süleyman Akbulut, head of the Social Rights and Studies Association, or TOHAD. “We warned the municipality many times and they just ignored us,” he said.

Disabled to file complaint against Metrobus

The 41 kilometer Metrobus line has 32 stops and runs between Avcılar on the European side and Söğütlüçeşme on the Asian side of the city. While it has provided some relief to public transportation with its special Metrobus-only roads, there have been serious criticisms over the buses used. Phileas buses used on the route have been criticized for being too expensive and not strong enough for Istanbul’s population and roads.

Akbulut said the stations at İETT Camp, Küçükçekmece, Şirinevler, Bayrampaşa, Edirnekapı, Ayvansaray, Halıcıoğlu, Perpa, SSK Hospital, Çağlayan, Zincirlikuyu and the four new stations in Kadıköy were not disabled-friendly.

All their warnings to the municipality were dismissed with the reply: “We are on it. Our work is continuing,” said Akbulut. Read more…

Four soldiers were killed in the eastern province of Elazığ on Aug. 17 after a lieutenant gave one of the privates a hand grenade whose pin he had pulled out to punish him for sleeping during his night watch, the Taraf daily claimed yesterday.

The testimony of members of the army obtained by the daily reveal that the four soldiers died when an activated grenade given to them by Lt. Mehmet Tümer exploded. According to the records, Tümer wanted to punish Pvt. İbrahim Öztürk for falling asleep during his night watch. It had previously been claimed that the soldiers were killed when a hand grenade carried by one of the soldiers exploded accidentally as they were patrolling the rural area against the prospect of a terrorist attack by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Four other soldiers were injured in the blast. However, soldiers’ testimonies point to a totally different cause behind the deaths. Read more…

Abdullah Gul

The government has been working on a package for war veterans or the families of members of the security forces killed in the line of duty to show that their pain will not be forgotten as there are efforts to settle the country’s long-lasting Kurdish issue.

The package involves establishing a directorship under the Prime Ministry for veterans and families of security forces killed in the country’s fight against terrorism.

Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, coordinating the government’s recent initiative to settle the Kurdish question, met last week with a number of family members of soldiers who were killed or injured during fights with terrorists. Read more…

The death of well-known Turkish movie and television series director Yücel Çakmaklı, known as Turkey’s “national director” since he led the Turkish National Cinema movement in the 1970s, is being mourned by his friends, colleagues and those who were touched by his work.

Yucel Cakmakli

Stating that his cinema career began thanks to Çakmaklı, who died on Monday at the age of 72, director Mesut Uçakan said he first met Çakmaklı at a cinema club in 1973 and that the late director had a profound impact on him. “It is impossible to forget his friendship. I imagine the pain of losing him will grow worse,” he said.
Uçakan also highlighted that in order to understand Çakmaklı, one needs to look at the situation of cinema when he began working as a director. “In a twisted effort to resemble the cinema of the West, the Turkish cinema industry grew distant from its own values, its national and religious values. There was even a sense of mocking the religion — Islam — and beliefs by creating imam characters with round trimmed beards and whirling eyes who wear black cassocks. Read more…

As Pakistani officials seek support from the international community to rehabilitate the Malakand and Swat regions — which had been used by the Taliban to fight NATO forces in Afghanistan — at the border, Turkey aims to facilitate international aid to Pakistan with the help of an international forum.

“I am hopeful that the İstanbul meetings will help carry the Friends of Democratic Pakistan [FoDP] process forward in a robust, concerted and concrete manner so that tangible results can be achieved to benefit of the people of Pakistan,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu during his opening speech yesterday at the ministerial meeting of the FoDP. Read more…

VISITORS: Avi Alkaş of Jones Lang Lasalle estimates some 4,000 visitors will visit Sapphire each weekend once the complex opens.

Sapphire Çarşı, a new shopping complex in the Sapphire skyscraper, is expected to become one of the main attractions in Istanbul, rivaling the old city’s historical monuments. The 300-meter building, which is expected to open in February 2010, will also host 180 residences and an upscale rooftop restaurant

A new shopping center focusing on Turkish design, patterns and traditions will open in Istanbul’s Sapphire skyscraper in February.

The mall will consist of some 134 shops in 30,500 square meters of rented retail space next to the metro station in the city’s 4.Levent district.

Nahit Kiler, chairman of Kiler Holding, which owns Sapphire, envisions the complex becoming one of the main attractions in Istanbul. The 300-meter-high building is the highest in Turkey and the second-highest in Europe. Its 236-meter scenic terrace, which will likely host an upscale restaurant and a nightclub, will be the first of its kind in Turkey. The total cost of the building is $250 million, excluding land, and it is being built to withstand earthquakes of at least magnitude 8. Read more…

Baghdad

A double truck bombing tore through the village of a small Shiite ethnic minority near the northern city of Mosul, while blasts in Baghdad Monday also targeted Shiites in a wave of violence that killed at least 45 people and wounded more than 200, Iraqi officials said.

The attacks provided a grim example of US military warnings that insurgents are targeting Shiites in an effort to re-ignite the kind of sectarian violence that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007.

A double truck bombing tore through the village of a small Shiite ethnic minority near the northern city of Mosul, while blasts in Baghdad Monday also targeted Shiites in a wave of violence that killed at least 45 people and wounded more than 200, Iraqi officials said.

Read more…

Saudi mufti calls swine flu deaths 'martyrdom'

Saudi mufti calls swine flu deaths ‘martyrdom’

The legal adviser in the Saudi ministry of justice has reassured Muslims that whoever dies of swine flu will get the reward of a ‘martyr’.

In an interview with the Okaz daily, Sheikh Muhsin al-Ubaikan said the spread of swine flu as a pandemic is tantamount to plague.

The senior Saudi legal scholar referred to what he said was a saying by the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) that can be explained to mean that plague victims are martyrs. Read more…

Mothers Take..

Mothers take Kurdish matter into their own hands

Mothers of fallen soldiers and Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, militants met over the weekend in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır to send a message of peace, saying more bloodshed cannot resolve the Kurdish issue.

The meeting between the Ankara-based Emergency Rule Families of Martyrs and Gazis (veterns) Association and the Mesopotamia Families of Those Lost Support Association was held Saturday at the headquarters of the Southeast Journalists Association. Read more…

Deniz Baykal

Military reaction to Kurdish initiative falls short of opposition expectations

The preference of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to remain silent on the government’s most recent Kurdish initiative has become a source of disappointment for Turkey’s opposition parties, which were expecting the military to demonstrate a strong reaction against the initiative.

Leaders of the opposition parties — the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) -– believe the military’s silence on government plans to settle the long-standing Kurdish question means indirect support of the initiative. Read more…

YAS

Turkey’s Supreme Military Board, or YAS, meeting started in Ankara on Saturday when the top level officials will discuss the new promotions or expulsions from the army, the state-run Anatolian Agency reported.

Promotion and retirement of the army personnel will be assessed in the meeting which is headed by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Also the chain of command for the coming years will be shaped in the board’s meeting.
Read more…

Akparti

Despite problems, AK Party would win if vote held today

The results of a July survey suggest that had polls been held in that month, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) would still be the top party, with 42.7 percent of the national vote.
Read more…

In the wake of increasing calls from the United Nations and the European Union, Turkey has decided to lift geographical limitations to its Refugee Convention, a system which has been criticized for discriminating against asylum seekers based on their country of origin, Today's Zaman has learned.

In the wake of increasing calls from the United Nations and the European Union, Turkey has decided to lift geographical limitations to its Refugee Convention, a system which has been criticized for discriminating against asylum seekers based on their country of origin, Today’s Zaman has learned.

Turkey was among the drafters and original signatories of the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees; however, it is one of the few countries that continue to maintain a “geographical limitation” to the applicability of the convention. Hence, Turkey is not obligated to apply the convention to refugees coming from outside Europe. The EU is pressuring Turkey to lift the limitation as one of the many preconditions that Turkey must meet during the pre-accession period for EU membership. Turkey has also been bitterly criticized by refugee advocacy groups as well as human rights groups for clinging to this limitation.

Read more…

A powerful car bomb destroyed a police barracks housing officers and their families in northern Spain on Wednesday, injuring about 60 people and causing major damage in the surrounding area.

Car Bomb In Spain

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Investigators walk through debris and damaged vehicles outside a Civil Guard barracks in the northern Spanish city of Burgos on Wednesday after a car bomb explosion that wounded at least 60 people.

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The attack was blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA. ETA did not phone in a warning as it typically does before most attacks, so authorities had no time to evacuate the 14-story building in Burgos, police said. There were around 120 people in the barracks and surrounding buildings, a third of them children, when the explosion went off at 4 a.m. on Wednesday.

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Former Turkish diplomat picked to shape NATO’s future

A former Turkish ambassador will be one of the 12 wise men who will help shape NATO’s future role, Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review has learned.

Ümit Pamir, Turkey’s former representative to the military alliance, will work with the group of experts that the secretary-general has tasked with reviewing NATO’s “Strategic Concept,” which is the official document that outlines NATO’s enduring purpose and its fundamental security missions

Read more…

Somalian Pirates

The Turkish navy frigate TCG Gediz has launched an operation against Somali pirates, who were feared to be preparing to seize another ship off the coast of Somalia, capturing five of the pirates.

Read more…