Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

American Chronicle, CA
Dec 8 2007


Deterioration of the Turkish - Israeli relationship

Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
December 7, 2007


A few days after the terrible Isparta airplane crash in SW Turkey
that bears witness to undeclared war against Turkey from the part of
the US - UK - French political establishments that is controlled by
the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge (The Isparta Crime: Undeclared War
against Turkey -
http://www.americanchronicle.com/art...rticleID=44840),
we get a clearer picture of the escalation that advances rapidly and
is meant to trigger a dramatic change throughout Eastern
Mediterranean and the Middle East in the years ahead.

Last Wednesday, after a five-hour-long meeting of the Under
Secretariat for the Defense Industry's (SSM) Executive Committee, the
top decision-making organ for arms purchases, it was announced, among
other critical decisions, that Turkey eliminated Israel from the
Göktürk satellite project. Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar
Büyükanıt, Premier Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Defense Minister Vecdi
Gönül attended the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry
Executive Committee's meeting.

According details given by Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül, Turkey
decided to eliminate Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) from the
Göktürk electro-optical satellite project, while announcing that it
will conduct negotiations with both Sikorsky of the US and Italy's
Agusta Westland for the procurement of approximately 80 multi-purpose
helicopters worth around $1.5 billion.

The rest of the decisions testify to the fever of military
preparations that reflect the newly concealed alliance between the
Turkish secular military establishment and the Islamist government
and president of Turkey.


As it was announced, Turkey will also locally develop modern infantry
rifles and automatic rifles, and this will happen for the first time.
Among other ambitious projects that the SSM Executive Committee
decided to either launch or start contract negotiations on are the
following:


* Negotiations will continue with the Italian Tele Spazio, Germany's
Ohb-Systems, and Britain's EADS Astrium, as regards the acquisition
of an electro-optical satellite project. This is the $250 million
project from which Israel's IAI has been eliminated. The plausible
reasons and explanations given are not very convincing; it was stated
that the company was dropped due to some Israeli conditions,
involving the non-usage of military satellites over its airspace;
however, this is nothing new, and the Israeli conditions had been
known beforehand.


* Instead of a multipurpose helicopter project that was finally
cancelled, Turkey will conduct talks with the US's Sikorsky and
Italian Agusta Westland for the procurement of over 80 helicopters
both for the Turkish Armed Forces. It was made clear that the
companies will increase their chances, if they agree on building
helicopter platforms in Turkey in order to boost the Turkish defense
industry.


* In the acquisition of reconnaissance systems to be installed at the
Aksaz Naval Base near Marmaris, Aselsan will be the main contractor
and Norwegian Kongsberg will be the subcontractor. The project is
worth ca. 50 million euros.


* Turkey will purchase a total of 16 Norwegian Kongsberg-made Penguin
missiles worth approximately US $40 million.



* Modern infantry rifles and automatic rifles will be developed
locally in two years' time, as we already stated.


* Four frigates code named TF-2000 will be produced locally with a
project cost of $1.6 billion.


* Even more indicative for the Turkish arsenal's complete
re-orientation and great diversification is the decision to cooperate
with Russia in the key defense sector of helicopters. More precisely,
eighteen Mi-17 Russian-made helicopters will be overhauled in Turkey,
and the company that will do the depot-level maintenance work on the
helicopters will also be tasked to secure the return of four Mi-17
helicopters that had been previously sent to Russia.
(http://www.todayszaman.com/tzweb/det...ay&link=128765).



The decisions bring Turkey one step closer to the great continental
alliance under formation, namely Russia, China, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan and Iran. With the remarkable preparatory work made
towards the formation of a Union of Turkic states, one understands
that the Turkish - Chinese - Russian rapprochement will be completed
with the Turkish influence expanding throughout Central Asia. This
seems to have become indispensable in order to prevent any undesired
in Moscow and Beijing rise of Islamic Extremism in the area.

In other words, while allying with Iran, the three vast Asiatic
countries, Russia, China and Kazakhstan, need Turkey's cooperation in
reducing extremism either within the Muslim states (Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan) of Caucasus and
Central Asia or among the Muslim inhabitants of Russia, China and
Kazakhstan. Agreeing on Turkish expansion is the Russian - Chinese
method of gradually pulling Turkey out of NATO.

In the light of the aforementioned, one can easily conclude that the
tripartite theater between the presidents of Turkey, Israel and
Palestine reflected only another role that Turkey will play in the
Middle East in the years ahead; that of a main contributor to the
demise of Israel and Saudi Arabia, the main US allies in the Middle
East.

At this moment, and due to multifaceted biases from the part of the
European, American and Israeli establishment, there is practically
speaking no pro-Western force left in Turkey. It would look odd, if
the situation does not become clearer soon. A pro-Armenian vote in
the Congress, another EU obstacle, and further evidence for US -
Israeli support to PKK will trigger an immediate and virulent Turkish
reaction that will cause severe security problems to all, NATO,
Europe and Israel.

Even worse for the West, the Turkish military establishment may soon
conclude that no attack against Iran can be possibly accommodated
with regional security as perceived in Ankara. On that day will be
issued a Death Warranty for the State of Israel, and for the dramatic
events that will follow the only responsible will be the Apostate
Freemasonic Lodge that seems to have entered in an orbit of ultimate
self-destruction.


Note

Picture: An Old Route for the Future

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=45213

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

SIGNS OF RIFT BETWEEN TURKEY AND ISRAEL?

The New Anatolian, Turkey
Dec 10 2007

Turkey has irked Israel by disqualifying its state company IAI from
a major spy satellite tender while the xxxish state has turned down
Ankara's request to open a Turkish Cypriot representative office in
Tel Aviv creating speculation that relations between the two countries
may not be so warm after all.

According to Israeli daily Haaretz Israel told a visiting Greek
Cypriot minister that it has decided to reject Turkey's request to
open a Turkish Cypriot trade representation office in Tel Aviv.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul had asked President Shimon Peres for
approval for such an office during Peres' visit to Ankara last month.

Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also asked Peres to examine
the possibility of operating air and sea traffic between Israel and
Famagusta in North Cyprus.

Syria has facilitated a similar Turkish request allowing ferry services
between Famagusta and Latakia. The Greek Cypriots have opposed the
move and have made numerous attempts to halt the services. However,
the Syrians refused the Greek Cypriot requests.

Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, who visited
Israel last week, told Haaretz that Peres and Foreign Minister Tzipi
Livni told her Israel would reject Turkey's requests.

Haaretz said Israeli officials confirmed this. "We are aware of the
sensitivities and have no intention of deviating from the accepted
UN position," the paper quoted an Israeli official as saying.

Kozakou-Marcoullis officially visited Israel to be briefed on
developments in the peace process and to explore bilateral relations.

Unofficially, according to sources involved in her visit, she also
wanted to ensure Greek Cyprus was not harmed by the expanding relations
between Israel and Turkey.

Meanwhile, Turkey said it will to continue negotiations for Gokturk
spy satellite project with German, Italian and British companies
while Israeli IAI was disqualified.

Sources close to the Defense Industry Executive Committee said the
reluctance of the Israeli side to provide images through the Israeli
system played a role in this decision.

There were reports that Israeli officials including President Peres
had lobbied on behalf of the IAI.

Turkish-Israeli relations have had its ups and downs recently.

Turks were angered when the powerful xxxish organization
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) supported claims of an Armenian
genocide. Then came the news that Israeli jets had raided Syrian
targets while dropping fuel tanks in Turkish territory.

Israel apologized for the incident while the ADL said it did not
support a resolution at the U.S. House of Representatives supporting
claims that Ottoman Turks had committed genocide against Armenians.

Things seemed to return to normal when President Peres visited
Ankara. However, the latest incidents seem to suggest the ups and
downs in Turkish-Israeli relations continue.

http://www.thenewanatolian.com/tna-29999.html

......

ISRAEL OUSTED FROM TURKISH SATELLITE BID

Ynetnews, Israel
Dec 10 2007

Turkish military overturns Israel Aerospace Industries win of spy
satellites' bid, citing a demand to deactivate it when flying over
country's borders. 'Decision may damage Israel-Turkey relations,'
says military source

Aryeh Egozi Published: 12.10.07, 09:47 / Israel Money

The Turkish government has rescinded Israel Aerospace Industries'
(IAI) participation in a new bid to provide the Turkish military with
spy satellites, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.

According to reports in the Turkish media, the decision was made
after Israel demanded Turkey refrains from activating the satellite
over its borders.

"Should that prove to be the real reason Israel was written out of
the bid, the incident may damage Israel-Turkey relations," a military
source told Yedioth Ahronoth.

Israel Aerospace Industries won a Turkish spy satellite bid in 2000,
but France based Alcatel Space Industries - which came in second the
bid - appealed the results.

In an unprecedented move, the Turkish military decided to overturn
the bid, awarding the contract to Alcatel; but the Turkish government
decided to overturn the bid a second time, after the French government
denounced what it called "the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey."

Once the bid was reopened, the IAI began renegotiating the $250 million
satellite deal with the Turkish Defense Ministry; but Turkey's Defense
Ministry's higher acquisitions division informed the IAI that only
three European companies have made it to the final stages of the bid.

The IAI was not available for comment.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3480854,00.html

TURKEY AND ISRAEL TOGETHER AGAINST THE THREAT OF THE BREAKDOWN OF BOTH STATES

PanARMENIAN.Net
Analytical Department
17.11.2007 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The fact that the state of Israel keeps on denying
this fact is not new. Moreover, this is done for the sake of Turkey,
since Turkey is the only Islamic country Israel is partners with it
is the only Muslim country which has very tight relationship with
Israel. It should be mentioned that the government of Ariel Sharon
and Ekhud Olmert fully supported Turkey's candidacy for integration
into the European Union, and Erdoghan in answer to this, supported the
election of the "Magen David Adom" as a member of the International
Committee of the Red Cross. Turkey lays hopes on xxxish lobby in
Europe as well, which has its role not in the USA only. However,
Peres became the first head of the state of Israel, who made a speech
in the Turkish parliament.

During the negotiations with President Abdullah Gul and Prime-Minister
Recep Erdoghan Shimon Peres emphasized that he sees Turkey as an
important country in the region, which is able to have a positive
and a rather essential role in the process of stabilization of the
situation in the Near-East. During the visit a framework agreement
about establishing three Turkish industrial zones on the West bank
of the River Jordan was signed. The realization of this Turkish
initiative, which is considered a historical even here, will provide
more than 6000 people with job opportunities, which will in its turn
allow resolving many social economic problems of this region. Besides,
Israel promised to consider the matter about opening its Embassy
in the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and
promised its support in the issue of the Armenian Genocide. "The
past is something the historians should deal with, and no bill may
change this. Only historians may study the past. To realize the
real values of the future, it is necessary to study the past very
carefully," quotes Peres the Anatolian information agency. Shimon
Peres particularly emphasized that Israel has always supported
and will continue supporting the Turkish proposal to Armenia about
establishing a common committee of historians. He said that it would
be more logical to estimate the events on the bases of historical
studies rather than plant hatred between the two nations. It should
be mentioned that Peres always repeats himself... He couldn't think
of anything new than the issue of "historians".

But one of the most important facts of the alliance is that Turkey
and the xxxish state have been tied by an agreement about military
cooperation since 1996.

Turkey occupies the fourth place among the ten countries of the region
of the Near-East and the fifth - among the European countries with
its armament expenses. At present the Secretariat of the Defense
Industry of Turkey develops 176 projects, connected with provision
of the armament of the country. The Turkish army in NATO is on the
second standing with its number and strength. Annual amount of the
armament sale in the Turkish market is from $3 to $5 milliard.

Experts believe that the Israeli companies become more dominant in
the market. The military-political leadership of Israel, taking into
account the strength and prospective of the Turkish market, qualifies
the cooperation with Turkey as one of the most important aspects in
the relations of the two countries.

The statement made in August 2004 by the director of the armament
exporting agency proves the above mentioned fact. According to this
statement "Turkey is a very important market for us, and that is
not only from economical point of view but first of all from the
point of view of the exceptional role that this country has in
the region. Turkey has more extended borders with Syria than with
Israel. Besides, Turkey unlike Israel, borders on Iraq and Iran. When
the matter concerns defense, I would say that the character of our
relationship with Turkey in this sphere is based on the concept of
mutuality. I cannot say that we have had a total success on the
Turkish market, but we have had certain achievements in several
fields. We are interested in proposing Turkey tempting variants and
thus continue our cooperation."

Over the last three years Turkey due to its active multi-vector
foreign policy has noticeably fortified its positions in Muslim
international organizations, and first of all in the Organization
of Islamic Conference. In its relations with Syria Turkey has the
break-through which was not even expected by the biggest optimists and
the supporters of the Turkish-Israeli relations. These achievements
of Ankara increase the significance of the role of Turkey in two-sided
Turkish-Israeli partnership. If in mid 90's the establishment of this
partnership was being carried out under the motto "joint efforts
against common enemies", today Turkey is more confident in taking
up the role of a mediator between Israel and the opposing Islamic
countries, and Syria among them.

http://www.panarmenian.net/details/eng/?nid=824

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

A JOURNEY INTO TURKEY'S WILD EAST
Tim Hannigan, Contributor, London

Features News
Sunday, December 09, 2007

Jakarta Post

The man behind the counter in Istanbul train station raised a quizzical
eyebrow: "It's dangerous in the East -- Islamists, the Kurdish rebels,
and it's close to Iraq. Are you sure you want to go there?"

I smiled nervously and nodded. He shrugged and handed over a ticket
for a 30-hour train ride into Turkey's wild eastern borderlands.

I did wonder if this was a sensible time to be making the trip:
it was late autumn, and for weeks tension had been mounting along
the Iraq-Turkey border, with the Turkish parliament threatening
cross-border raids against rebel bases in northern Iraq. But I put
such worries from my mind, clambered aboard the train and settled
down for the long journey across Anatolia.

The splendors of Istanbul have been attracting tourists for more
than a millennia and the package resorts of Turkey's Mediterranean
coastline seethe with sunbathers every summer, but I was heading for
somewhere altogether different.

Eastern Turkey fades into a tangle of sensitive borders: Georgia,
Armenia, Iran and Iraq. A geopolitical hotspot for centuries, invaded
by Mongols and Russians in the past and riven by insurgency in recent
decades, it's not surprising that it has never been much of a tourist
destination.

But it wasn't stories of violence that I had in mind as the train
rolled on past Ankara into the night: it was images of clear skies,
jagged mountains and cobalt-blue lakes.

A long way from Istanbul

I was a long way from Istanbul now. There wasn't a trendy wine bar or
upmarket boutique in sight, and there certainly weren't any girls in
short skirts. Instead there were bulky women swathed in coal-black
chadors, donkey carts in the alleys of the bazaar and a faint smell
of spice in the gritty wind. Welcome to eastern Turkey.

Erzurum, where I clambered down from the train, seemed adrift in a
huge landscape. From the minaret of the fifth-century citadel that
loomed over the town I could see the sweep of empty yellow steppe to
the north, and the ribbed brown hills, glowing in the October sunlight
to the south.

Erzurum is an ancient city. A staging post on the Silk Route, it was
repeatedly seized by invaders. The conquering armies left their marks
on the town, and the arrow-straight main street is a thoroughfare
through Turkish architectural history with ancient mosques and
seminaries between the modern shops and cafes.

The cosmopolitan secularists of western Turkey will tell you that
Erzurum is a hotbed of aggressive Islamic radicalism. There are
certainly more veiled women than on the streets of Istanbul, but it's
a remarkably friendly place, and everywhere I went the people offered
warm greetings and cups of sweet black tea.

***

East of Erzurum the countryside was colder, and wilder. Great expanses
of flat red-brown earth ran out from the road as the bus sped along
the highway to Kars. Mud-walled villages stood in groves of poplar
trees and small boys herded flocks of shaggy brown sheep over the
broken soil. In the distance a long ridge of hills rose to a pale sky.

Kars is just about the most remote city in Turkey. Made famous by
author Orhan Pamuk in his novel Snow, for many Turks Kars is a synonym
for cold provincial backwardness.

It was certainly cold when I arrived just before nightfall. A bitter
wind was howling along the grid of streets laid out during a period
of Russian occupation, but there was real warmth in the people here.

I ate a delicious dinner of stewed lamb and aubergine with tomato and
fresh bread in a lokanta -- a simple cafe. The waiter had worked in
Germany as a young man and had picked up a little English there. He
was eager to welcome me to his part of the country.

"People in Istanbul say it is dangerous here," he said. "We are poor,
yes, but we are good people."

Toward the Frontier

The next morning the hills beyond Kars were covered with snow. The
sense of winter rapidly closing in added a feeling of excitement as
I boarded a battered minibus heading towards the Iranian frontier.

The road passed villages hidden among willows and poplar trees. Ahead
the great conical peak of Mount Ararat -- where according to legend
Noah's Ark ran aground after the Flood -- rose from a yellow horizon.

Kurdish folk music played on the minibus stereo and a blue and white
charm to ward off the evil eye dangled from the rear view mirror.

In the early afternoon I arrived in Dogubayazit, a wild little border
town, 20 miles from Iran, clinging to a hillside above an empty plain
with Ararat looming in the distance.

Dogubayazit's most famous attraction stands on a high promontory
above the town. The Ishak Pasa Palace is one of the most stunning
buildings in Turkey. Built by a local chieftain two centuries ago, it
looks out over the vast landscape of eastern Anatolia. The courtyard
was deserted when I visited and the honey-colored limestone of the
columns and archways glowed in the afternoon sunlight.

As I walked back downhill toward the town three boys huddling behind
a low wall out of the chilly wind called me over to ask my name and
my country. When I returned the question about nationality they
glanced nervously at one another and mumbled, "Turkey". But as I
walked away they called me back and hissed, "We are not Turkish,
mister; we are Kurdish."

The Kurdish homeland sprawls across the borders of Turkey, Iran, Syria
and Iraq. For many years Eastern Turkey -- the Kurdish heartland --
has seen vicious fighting between the Kurdistan Workers Party, known
as the PKK, which wants to establish an independent Kurdish homeland,
and the Turkish army.

In the last couple of years there have been moves towards peace, but
the increasing Kurdish autonomy over the border in Northern Iraq has
made the Turkish government nervous, and reignited the aspirations
of Turkey's Kurds.

Abandoned churches, troubled past

The waters of Lake Van, a vast inland sea in hemmed in by rugged
mountains, were as blue as lapis lazuli. The hillsides beyond the
shore were dusted with snow, but it was warm in the bright sunlight.

I was standing beneath the golden sandstone walls of the Armenian
Church of the Holy Cross on the tiny island of Akdamar, a mile out
in the lake.

I had caught a lift in a truck along the lakeside road, then convinced
a ferryman to take me across despite the lack of other passengers.

The Kurds were not always the only troubled minority in eastern
Turkey. A century ago the area was home to several million Armenians.

As the Turks fought Russia in the First World War the Armenians
were accused of having pro-Russian sympathies and deported en-masse
to Syria.

During the deportations hundreds of thousands, possibly millions,
died. Many regard the fate of the Armenians as the 20th Century's
first case of genocide; for the modern Turkish government it is an
issue still too sensitive for open discussion.

What is certain is that all that remains of centuries of Armenian
culture in Eastern Turkey are enigmatic ruins like the church at
Akdamar.

The church was beautiful. Inside its echoing chambers the delicate
iconography could still be made out, a thousand years after it was
painted. I wandered the island for an hour, then caught the ferry
back to the mainland and hitchhiked into Van.

The city of Van was the last stop on my tour through Turkey's wild
east. It was a bustling place and the sprawling bazaar hummed with
sights and sounds. Great bolts of colored cloth hung outside tailors
stores; pavements were lined with boxes of dates, nuts and apricots.

The smell of fresh bread wafted from hole-in-the-wall bakeries,
and the sizzle of grilling meat drifted out from kebab stalls. Old
Kurdish men in black-and-white headscarfs hobbled along the alleyways,
and shopkeepers called me inside to give me sweet tea and creamy
feta cheese.

Eastern Turkey might be the most troubled part of the country, but
it is probably the friendliest. And despite the checkposts and army
bases I saw in the region there was no hint of trouble, hostility or
impending violence.

I spent 24 hours in Van then took an afternoon flight back to
Istanbul. As the Turkish Airways jet roared up into the evening sky
I strained my head to catch a last glimpse of the wild landscape
through the cabin window. To the south ranks of hills ran on and on.

Somewhere among them were the PKK camps and the troubled Iraqi
frontier, but you'd never have known it.

***

Three hours later I was plodding uphill from the Golden Horn into the
heart of Istanbul. The bars and upmarket restaurants were crowded;
sleek modern trams hummed along the streets, and there were girls in
short skirts.

I found a cozy little guesthouse amid the carpet shops in the shadow of
the Blue Mosque. The young man on reception asked where I had arrived
from and raised an eyebrow when I told him. "The East?" he said,
"But it's dangerous out there."

I smiled, finished checking in, and set about putting him right.

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg213891.html

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

INVESTIGATING THE CONSEQUENCES OF A SUCCESS STORY

Today's Zaman, Turkey
Dec 17 2007

The policies of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government
on issues like EU-Turkey relations, Turkey's Iraq policy and the
visibility of Islam in the public sphere have been closely followed
and documented by local and international media.

However, the impact of AK Party policies on Turkish political
economy has received less public attention, despite its enormous
significance. The AK Party has silently undermined the economic
underpinnings of Kemalist statism by facilitating the exponential
rise of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Turkey. By doing so the AK
Party has changed beyond recognition the country's informal economic
constitution, premised on a historically state-created and subsequently
state-dependent business class of exclusively Turkish origin.

Under AK Party rule, Turkey has attracted approximately $50 billion in
FDI, far more than since the republic's foundation by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk in 1923 up to 2002. Significantly, this has been welcomed
by the country's corporate elite, who fill the ranks of Turkey's top
employers association, the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's
Association (TUSİAD). The 2001 crisis separated the wheat from the
chaff in the Turkish corporate scene. The less reputable conglomerates,
whose success was solely based on incestuous relationships with the
state, were driven to the wall. Turkish economic nationalism, of
Kemalist vintage, lost its most vociferous corporate representatives.

The conglomerates left standing benefited from the post-2001
consolidation and were in position to expand partnerships with foreign
multinationals due to their best-of-breed characteristics.

They also recognized that FDI inflows were indispensable for
the country's overall stability and, consequently, for their own
future survival domestically and internationally. Moreover, they
realized significant capital gains by the rise of valuations in the
İstanbul Stock Exchange (İMKB) or by selling non-core operations to
foreigners. Cumulatively these factors have led Turkey's corporate
elite to effect a remarkably coherent shift in favor of an open,
well-regulated Turkish market place; a market place capable both of
welcoming FDI, even if that means increased competition in their home
turf, and also of generating ever-increasing amounts of capital flows
from international investors abroad to which they could have access to.

Rising FDI has also been instrumental in the AK Party's political
dominance. By contributing to macroeconomic stability, FDI helped
remove one of the key threats to its rule, a recurrence of the
2001 economic crisis which would give an opening to the Kemalist
establishment. Equally important was the reinforcement of the AK
Party's Western credentials. The vote of confidence, expressed
in billions of dollars by such names as Vodafone, Fortis and BNP,
speaks of an AK Party-led Turkey becoming increasingly integrated
into the world economy and with Europe in particular, rather than
one unmoored and drifting to an Islamic hinterland. And despite
the setbacks in the country's EU accession process, FDI flows have
maintained the confidence of international portfolio investors that
Turkey is indeed a strong convergence story, just as much as other
EU pre-accession countries, featuring an accessible market place,
improved governance and rising incomes.

The alliance between the AK Party and Turkey's corporate elite in
welcoming FDI has challenged the Kemalists' economic modernization
monopoly. This classic expression of Ataturk that Turkey should always
strive to "reach contemporary levels of civilization" has now become
fully appropriated by the AK Party. Turkey has -- by dint of its
economic growth and stability, its welcoming of foreign investors,
as well as its own increasingly confident business class -- become
stereotypical under the AK Party's rule as opposed to unorthodox,
of what it is to be a modern and contemporary country. By the same
token, the secularist establishment no longer has a positive economic
agenda. Historically it was the determination of the Kemalist
elite to replace the Ottoman minority bourgeoisie -- the Greeks,
the Armenians and the xxxs -- with a Turkish business class that
underlay its success and wider societal acceptance. It has been a
long time since this project has been exhausted. And the corporate
names that this project has given birth to have themselves spelled
out its demise by essentially saying that we are strong enough to
accept foreigners in prominent positions in Turkey's economic life.

Where does that leave the Kemalist establishment? Devoid of a
comprehensive agenda for the country's future, it has been reduced
from the nation's vanguard to a guardian of its privileged position.

Admittedly the establishment still attracts the support of a large
part of the country's professional, secular middle class. Although
they have been among the primary beneficiaries of the AK Party-led
economic growth, they fear that the consolidation of AK Party rule
could lead to irretrievable regression in Turkey's social life.

Important as these pillars of support are, they cannot camouflage the
absence of a realistic alternative. Barring a major international
economic crisis, the AK Party will continue to monopolize with the
vital support of the country's corporate elite and of foreign direct
investors, the country's only viable option for the future.

* Ioannis N. Grigoriadis is a lecturer at the Department of Turkish
and Modern Asian Studies at the University of Athens and a research
fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy
(ELIAMEP). Antonis Kamaras has worked as investment banker in İstanbul
for the past three years and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the
London School of Economics and Political Science. This article is
based on a study which will appear in the upcoming issue of the
academic journal Middle Eastern Studies.

17.12.2007

Ioannis N. Grigoriadis & Antonis Kamaras* TODAY'S ZAMAN

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg214615.html

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

A MIDDLE EAST STUDY TOUR: PERSPECTIVES FROM TURKEY

Washington Institute for Near East Policy, DC
Dec 19 2007

PolicyWatch #1322: Special Forum Report
Featuring Soner Cagaptay

Upon returning from the latest Washington Institute Study Tour to the
Middle East, senior fellow Soner Cagaptay discussed his findings and
impressions at a special Institute Policy Forum. The following is his
own summary of his remarks at the forum. Senior fellow David Makovsky
addressed the forum as well, discussing his impressions from Amman,
Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Tel Aviv; a summary of his remarks will be
published separately.

A group of Institute trustees and fellows recently visited Turkey,
meeting with policymakers, scholars, journalists, and community
leaders. A key finding of the delegation was that Turkish foreign
policy seems to be settling into a new pattern -- one friendly to
the United States, Syria, and Iran.



Booming Economy and the PKK

The two main topics in Turkey today are the booming economy and
worries about the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The political
stability provided by the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP), which came to power in 2002, has resulted in a notably
strong economic growth. As a result, Turkey now benefits from an
improved European-style infrastructure, a dynamic private sector,
and a vibrant middle class. The country's major businesses, most of
which are secular, have benefited significantly from the economic
growth and are generally supportive of the AKP, although some seem
to disagree with the party's social and cultural agenda.



The PKK, on the other hand, trumps all other issues in Turkey.

Although Turkey witnessed significant political tensions earlier
this year over the issue of secularism and religion in politics,
such tensions seem suppressed now in light of the recent PKK
attacks. In fact, it can be said that the terror issue and the debate
over secularism are on opposite cycles: when the PKK issue peaks,
the debate over secularism dips, and vice versa. It should be noted,
however, that while the debate over secularism is on the back burner
now, it is very much alive.



Three-Dimensional Foreign Policy: The United States, Iran, and Syria

A two dimensional picture of Turkish foreign policy shows either
strong ties between Turkey and the United States and Israel, or
strong ties between Turkey and Syria and Iran. A three dimensional
perspective, however, shows the many layers of Turkish foreign policy
simultaneously; the ongoing transformation of Turkish foreign policy
towards the Middle East since 2002 seems to have now settled on a
new plateau.

There is a gap between reality and perception in Turkey. Turkey and
the United States have an ongoing, strong cooperation on a wide array
of issues such as Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the public is not
aware of such cooperation or why it is in Turkey's interests. This
is where the AKP government could help by using the right rhetoric to
bridge the gap between reality and perception, explaining to the Turks
why it is in Turkey's interests to collaborate with the United States.

It should be noted that during its meetings, the delegation saw
challenges to the close cooperation between the United States and
Turkey. House Resolution 106, also known as the Armenian Genocide
Resolution (AGR), seems to have added to the resentment against the
United States. In fact, the issue was raised in every delagation
meeting with Turkish counterparts. More generally, popular approval
of the United States is at its all-time low and anti-Americanism is
laying deep roots throughout Turkey.

The Turkish-Israeli strategic partnership remains strong. However,
despite its history as a country with no potent traditions of
anti-Semitism, Turkey is now witnessing emerging tensions.

While Turkey has good cooperation with the United States and good ties
with Israel, it also has good ties to Iran and a powerful cooperation
with Syria. Since 2002, Iran and Syria have been actively cooperating
with Turkey against the PKK, which is the main reason why the Turkish
public has warmed up to these two countries. Iran has taken advantage
of U.S. inactivity in northern Iraq to such a degree that when an
American official shows support for Turkey's concerns and promises
future action against the PKK, Iran actually bombs PKK camps in
northern Iraq, boosting the popularity of Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinezhad.

Attitudes toward Syria in Ankara are also quite positive. There is a
wide consensus among Turkish policymakers that Syria is a reasonable
country that should be brought into the international sphere with
Turkey's help. Regrading Iran, there seems to be an emerging consensus
in Ankara that while some aspects of Iran's policy -- specifically its
nucleaer policy -- are problematic, Turkish-Iranian relations have to
be nurtured and maintained. Two issues that cause the most divergence
among policymakers in Ankara are Hamas and Hizballah. Opposition
parties and secular Turks criticize the AKP's continuing contacts with
Hamas, and call both Hamas and Hizballah "terrorist groups period."



PKK: Challege and Opportunity for Washington

The main challenge to the U.S.-Turkish relationship is the PKK issue;
however, the PKK also provides the U.S. government with a great
opportunity. U.S. assistance to Turkey to combat the PKK in northern
Iraq will move public opinion favorably toward the United States,
while preventing Turkey's slide towards Iran and Syria. The current
military and intelligence cooperation between the two countries helps,
but it has come in the winter months when the PKK goes into hibernation
in the high mountains of northern Iraq. Unless the cooperation
continues into the spring when the PKK typically resumes a higher
level of activity, the cooperation will not have its full potential
impact in reversing anti-Americanism in Turkey. Only persistent and
consistent U.S. assistance to Turkey against the PKK, into the next
year and beyond, will help reverse the tide of anti-Americanism in
the country. In this regard, recent U.S.-Turkish cooperation against
the PKK, with the U.S. providing real-time satelite intelligence
to Turkey on the PKK presence in northern Iraq, has been a welcome
development and was noted in all meetings of the delegation.

Meanwhile, however, the United States government should exercise
caution in defining its policies towards the current measures
implemented by the AKP government. The AKP seems to be on the brink of
opening up political avenues to deal with the PKK, including a possible
amnesty for PKK members. However, there is a high chance that through
the course of the political process, the PKK may resort to violence,
as terrorist groups often do when they feel their demands are not being
met through negotiations. If the U.S. government were to be seen as
supportive of the political process, it would suffer significantly from
the failure of such process or from intermittent PKK violence. That
is why Washington should exercise caution and allow the Turks to deal
with the PKK inside Turkey, while continuing to provide military and
intelligence assistance for its struggle against the PKK in Iraq.

Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Turkish Research
Program at The Washington Institute.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2698

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

The New Anatolian, Turkey
Dec 25 2007


US did not just turn a blind eye to Turkish raids against the PKK but actively helped


NEWS ANALYSIS - ILNUR CEVIK - The New Anatolian / Ankara

25 December 2007


Some analysts feel the United States has given tacit approval to
Turkish cross border raids into northern Iraq against PKK hideouts
and is turning a blind eye to the incursions.

While the Americans have not just turned a blind eye to the raids and
are actively assisting Turkey through opening Iraqi air space for air
operations and providing actionable real time intelligence they are
also cautioning Turkey not to harm Iraqi Kurdish civilians and avoid
any actions that will destabilize the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish
region and its administration. That means Turkey should not launch a
full scale military operation by occupying large chunks of northern
Iraq with the pretext of hunting down the PKK.

The Iraqi Kurds feel while the Turkish military has set its target as
the PKK there are suspicions that the hidden target is actually the
Barzani administration.

That is why the American officials in Iraq who sympathize with the
PKK seem to be playing a different tune than Washington. The
pro-Kurdish lobby in the U.S. leaked news that the Americans were
angered that they were not informed about the Turkish raids in
advance but soon that was denied by the Pentagon whose spokesman said
Washington had been informed about the raids "well in advance."

There were also claims that American commanders were unhappy in Iraq
of being left in the dark about the Turkish military operations and
yet they were the ones who opened the Iraqi airspace to Turkish
fighters.

The question of whether Turkish authorities gave their counterparts
adequate warning percolated after some American officials in
Washington and Baghdad said the two countries needed to improve
communication, U.S. administration officials have told the press.

While the United States provided Turkey with the intelligence to go
after Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, there had been some mild
grumbling from the State Department that not everyone up the chain of
command was adequately informed beforehand. A senior Bush
administration official told the U.S. press that most of that concern
centered on Turkey's decision to `chase some bad guys they followed
over the border.'

A senior Bush administration official said that, over all, American
officials were satisfied with the coordination between the United
States and Turkey. The United States, Iraq and Turkey have an office
in Ankara, the Turkish capital, to share intelligence.

`Let me put it this way,' said a Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell,
using the initials by which the Kurdistan Workers Party is known. `We
had ample notification of the air strikes by the Turkish Air Force
over the weekend on PKK positions in northern Iraq. I can sit here
today and tell you emphatically there was indeed notification
provided to us prior to the bombing - bombings - that it was
communicated to us through an apparatus that we have set up in
Ankara, the Ankara Coordination Center.'

The very positive attitude of the Americans towards Turkey caught the
attention of the Iraqi Kurds and Massoud Barzani complained that
without such American support Turkey would not have launched the
attacks and thus snubbed a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice in Baghdad last week.

As if to further anger the Iraqi Kurds Turkey's ambassador to the
United States said last Wednesday Turkish air strikes in northern
Iraq were the result of real-time, actionable intelligence provided
by the United States.

"No doubt this was possible because of information provided by the
United States of America," Nabi Sensoy told reporters.

Sensoy said the operations were "tangible results" of enhanced
cooperation between the two countries since a visit to Washington
last month by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during
which U.S. President George W. Bush promised the United States would
do all it could to help Turkey fight the threat posed by the PKK
including providing intelligence on PKK targets.

"This is not a once and for all operation, but I think it has served
its purpose because all targets have been hit," he said. "The
ultimate target is the elimination of the PKK operation."

Iraq's government condemned the Turkish raids, saying they "add
insult to injury."

Erdogan called Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Tuesday,
Sensoy said. Zebari told Erdogan that the Iraqis understand Turkish
concerns about the PKK, and that the Iraqi government doesn't want
the group on its soil.

"This shows we are all speaking the same language that the PKK must
be eliminated," Sensoy said.

But Sensoy blasted the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq,
which he said is not living up to its responsibility to crack down on
the PKK.

"The fact is that the PKK presence in northern Iraq could not have
survived in northern Iraq without some assistance of course," he
said. "The regional government must assume its responsibility.

Sensoy added that Turkey was "puzzled" by the Kurdish response to
Turkish concerns, because Turkey was "very helpful to Iraqi Kurds
during the first Gulf War."

"We didn't get the cooperation we thought we deserved from the
Kurdish regional government," he said. "Our expectations have not
been fulfilled by the northern authorities so far."

He did note that there have been "some signs" of increased
responsibility by the KRG in recent weeks, possibly a result of US
pressure.

Turkey wants the KRG to stop giving logistical support to the PKK,
stop giving the group airtime on its broadcast networks and ban it
from creating "front parties" to take part in Kurdish elections, he
said.

Sensoy said that the United States has promised to send an inspector
to northern Iraq to investigate charges that U.S. weapons were ending
up in the hands of PKK militants.

Sensoy said that Turkish "resentment" toward the United States over a
perceived lack of support on the PKK issue and a House committee vote
declaring the Ottoman-era killings of an estimated 1.5 million
Armenians a "genocide," a sensitive topic among Turks, had subsided
and the two countries remain "friends and allies" that cooperate on
many issues.

He said Turkey was "very happy" with the current level of support
from the United States.

Turkish officials are emphasizing the support they are getting from
the United States which analysts say is also designed to improve
American image in Turkey and ease the anti-U.S. sentiments that has
been growing among the Turkish public.

The Americans have shown to the Kurds that while they are not
abandoning them they also will not help the process of the PKK
feeling at home in northern Iraq.

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg215578.html

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

1 of 2

Christianity Today, IL
January 2008, Vol. 52, No. 1

Jesus in Turkey


After 550 years of decline, a bloodied church is being reborn.
Tony Carnes in Istanbul | posted 1/03/2008 08:41AM


For the first time in 550 years, Christianity inside Turkey is
growing in numbers and influence. But its recent growth comes at a
high price: since February 2006, radicalized Muslims have killed five
Christians - the kind of cold-blooded martyrdom not seen in decades.

Modern-day Turkey's 73 million citizens, 98 percent of whom are
Muslims, are experiencing social and political upheaval. The country
is attempting to improve its economic and human-rights record in
order to join the European Union. Turkey's relations with the United
States are strained as an ally in the war in Iraq, and because of
Congress's aborted effort to pass the Armenian genocide resolution.
Also, Turkey's border disputes with Greece over land around the
Aegean Sea, as well as violent skirmishes with Kurdish rebels on its
southern border, keep this nation's formidable military on highest
alert.

This is the context in which a handful of Islamic radicals targeted
Christians as "enemies of the state" because of their association
with Western groups and their alleged support of Kurdish rebels. The
five killed within the last two years were:

- Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest killed in February 2006. A
16-year-old youth shot Santoro as he was praying in the Santa Maria
Church in Trabzon, Turkey.

- Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor. In January 2007, a
teenager gunned down Dink, who had been convicted of "insulting
Turkishness" two years prior.

- The three Malatya martyrs: Necati Aydin, a Turkish pastor; Tilmann
Geske, a missions worker from Germany; and Ugur Yuksel, a new
Christian convert from Islam. In April 2007, young radicals feigning
curiosity about Christianity killed the three men by slitting their
throats at a Christian publishing house in southeastern Turkey. Their
survivors include five children, two widows, and a fiancée.

In November, a Turkish court set a trial date for the five suspects
involved in the Malatya killings for early January. Police are
calling for life imprisonment and said all five suspects have
confessed to the murders. The suspects accused the Christians of
"forcing local girls into prostitution" and of praising the violence
of rebel Kurds. (About 30,000 people have died since the 1980s in
rebel-related violence.) Meanwhile, the Alliance of Protestant
Churches in Turkey is calling Turkish congregations to pray and fast
every Thursday for the next several weeks in preparation for the
trial.

Isa Karatas of the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey told
Compass Direct News, "It is clear from these statements of the
suspects that there is some group of powerful influence behind them.
These people want to portray Turkey's Protestants as enemies of the
nation."

"At the same time," he added, "because honor is such an important
concept in our culture, they are trying to accuse us of having weak
morals, so that they can find a justification for their murders."

Few nations have as rich a Christian history as Turkey. This is where
Paul founded some of the earliest churches, including the church at
Ephesus. Seven churches in this region were addressed in the Book of
Revelation. Those in the early monastic movement found the caves of
Cappadocia a near-perfect place to live out lives of prayer.
Constantinople, now the city of Istanbul, became the capital of the
Roman Empire just as it was being Christianized, and the Ecumenical
Patriarch of Constantinople has been the leader of worldwide
Orthodoxy for centuries.

But Christianity came under Islamic rule in Turkey in 1453 and
steadily declined for centuries; the last 100 years have been the
worst. In 1900, the Christian population was 22 percent. Now most
experts estimate that there are fewer than 200,000 Christians
nationwide, comprising less than 0.3 percent of the population.

Protestant missions work began around 1820. There are now more than
30 Protestant organizations operating nationwide. In 1999, the Izmit
earthquake, which killed 17,000 and left 800,000 homeless, led
Christian agencies to start new relief work, and they eventually
began working alongside independent Christian fellowships. These
fellowships, along with new growth in traditional Orthodox
congregations, have created a 3 percent annual growth in the
country's Christian population, about three times Turkey's overall
population growth rate. Following the Malatya murders, Christianity
Today traveled to Turkey, meeting church leaders from throughout the
region.



Tasting Forbidden Fruit

In so many ways, the story of Turgay Ucal, a pastor of an independent
church in Istanbul, embodies the promise and peril of Turkish
Christianity. On a weekday afternoon, Ucal sat down with CT to
describe his journey to faith in Jesus Christ.

Ucal (pronounced u-CHAAL) grew up in Old Town, Istanbul. He told CT
that as a high school student he took a leap of faith, almost
literally, out of his comfort zone. In Turkish life, generations of
families live together with unlocked doors and few secrets. One day,
he strolled down a cobblestone street, past some decaying buildings.
He walked back and forth to make sure no one he knew was around - and
slipped into a Catholic church.

At the time, Ucal was deeply curious about what had happened to Jesus
when, as the Koran says, he left this earth still alive. "The Koran
said Jesus didn't die," Ucal recalls, "and I asked, 'Why? What is in
the Bible?' - I wondered."

Turkey's religious landscape is not simple: sharply partisan
politics, strident nationalism, and disputed history make it a
complex scene. Secular nationalists who are Muslim in private
practice fiercely oppose public religiosity. They see Christian
converts as tools of Western powers that want to undermine Turkey's
sovereignty.

In the 1960s, the era in which Ucal grew up, Turks in Istanbul were
exploring many forbidden fruits. Coca-Cola and Pepsi factories opened
up. Turkish kids tasted hot dogs for the first time, despite the
warning that hot dogs might contain donkey meat.
Others, like Ucal, drew close to Christ.

Thirty years later, the church started by new believers has achieved
new maturity and public acceptance. The independent Turkish church
now comprises almost 100 congregations and more than 100 house
fellowships.

Turkish Christians of Muslim backgrounds have anchored the leadership
of the church around their own new identity - and by portraying Jesus
Christ as a Turk. This helps resolve a crucial conflict in Turkish
minds, that only Muslims can be truly "Turkish."
Leaders have discovered that by the time a Turk of Muslim background
enters a church, he or she is often ready to convert and is looking
for reassurance. Ucal told CT that when he went to university to
study Islamic literature, he even belonged to an Islamic youth group.
But his ultimate purpose was to learn more about Jesus. "At the
university, I saw the biblical background to what I was studying," he
said. "The Bible became my fate."

He said Christianity offered a new balance of freedom in a
disciplined context, transcending the stringent legalism of his
upbringing. As a young man, Ucal had tried to be a good Muslim. "My
family was Muslim. I prostrated myself to Mecca five times a day. I
participated in 'The Light' [Nurcu], a Muslim youth group. I had a
very structured Muslim mind."



Changed Identity

New Christian believers find it very difficult to become openly
active in Turkey's traditional churches - Armenian Orthodox, Catholic,
Eastern Rite Catholic, and Greek Orthodox. The handful of
Protestant-affiliated congregations operate in the open, but they
mainly meet the needs of ethnic minority groups or Westerners living
in Turkey.

So new Christians coming from Muslim families are often isolated and
ostracized. Ucal realized there was more to Christian living than an
individualized faith. He wanted to create a Turkish church for
Islamic-background Turks like himself.

Shortly after becoming a believer, Ucal had not told anyone what had
happened to him spiritually. But he quietly opened a court case to
change his religious identity registration.

His father, a military officer responsible for defending Istanbul's
harbor, saw his son's name on the list of people changing their
religious affiliation. Even today there is a common belief that the
Greeks use Turkish converts to Christianity as spies. Ucal says,
"Buddhism is okay, but not Christianity. There was a history."

When Ucal's father saw his son's name included on the list, he went
ballistic. He stormed home, screaming to his wife, "They are turning
our son into a spy!"

At first, Ucal's father became more Muslim in reaction to his son's
faith. Later, he took a closer look. His son hadn't changed friends
and seemed more at ease. What most people saw was that the young
Christian hadn't changed his identity as a Turk. One individual told
CT, "He still seemed to be a real Turk."

Ucal kept living within the Turkish Muslim community. There was also
a growing sense among his generation that they were reshaping Turkey
into a nation that respected freedom and religious diversity. "We
have created a new world for us - for me - in my own country," Ucal says.



Engaging Islamic Society

In 1986, Ucal finally started a church. His tiny congregation was
allowed to worship for 60 minutes every 15 days inside the Swedish
Consulate in Istanbul.

But Turkish newspapers immediately made a big deal out of a
Muslim-background pastor starting a Christian church for
Muslim-background Turks. His parents hadn't become used to Ucal being
a Christian and had no idea he was going to start a church. They were
startled when they opened their morning newspaper. "Those years were
terrible," Ucal recalls. His parents were frightened for their son.
Campus Crusade staff members who were helping Ucal warned, "Turgay,
you will die." Yet they stayed with him. Within a year, Ucal had 20
Muslim-background Turks in his church, and stability was emerging.

Ucal's congregation moved toward a charismatic, Vineyard-style form
of Christianity. Meanwhile, Ucal served in the army for eight months
and received training in ministry in the Philippines and South Korea.
After that, Ucal decided to plant a different kind of church based on
systematic theological teaching. While in South Korea, he had noticed
the parallels between systematic theology and the disciplined Islamic
lifestyle and mindset. He wondered if other Muslim-background Turks
might respond to a more structured approach than the informal
evangelicalism of which he was a part. Ucal found that his Muslim
neighbors are attracted to systematic approaches to religious
instruction, and are also easily touched emotionally. So Ucal began
approaching them with an "emotional Calvinism."

Ucal started arguing that Christianity was "authentically Turkish"
and "socially natural." This became a huge breakthrough for
believers. Today, Ucal's Istanbul Presbyterian Church is one of the
largest churches nationally. And something else happened beyond
Ucal's wildest imagination: His parents began visiting his church.

Other like-minded leaders have begun new churches, but for different
reasons. The Ankara Church, in Turkey's capital, has grown with an
emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Four other churches (Izmit
Protestant, Eskisehir Protestant; and in Istanbul, Altintepe Church
and Besiktas Protestant) have grown through effective mentoring from
a culturally savvy Spaniard, Carlos Madrigal.

Anadolu Turk Protestant Church, located in the same neighborhood as
Ucal's church, has greatly benefited from inquirers from a Bible
Correspondence course that Operation Mobilization began 30 years ago.

In the strife-torn eastern part of Turkey, pastor Ahmet Guvener has
created a much-admired evangelistic strategy that has resulted in a
multiethnic church of Turks and Kurds. Guvener has launched youth
teams that stay within their Islamic social networks and form
long-term relations with neighborhood families. The strategy reflects
a theme of many of the successful evangelistic efforts: direct
engagement with the cultural milieu of Muslim-majority society.

Another common practice among these Christians is teaching morality
in the public square. Pastor Kaan Koryurek of Besiktas Protestant
makes a point of showing how the Bible inveighs against public
corruption, a problem Turks are deeply motivated to fight. Koryurek
says, "Today I preached on the fig tree that had no fruit. Jesus used
it as a warning and then went to throw out the traders and
moneychangers in the temple." After the service, several people
shared how they were standing up against corruption in their
workplaces.
.....

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/january/12.25.html

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

2 of 2

Christianity Today, IL
January 2008, Vol. 52, No. 1

Jesus in Turkey

....
Not Honor, But Jesus

According to the Istanbul-based church growth center Silas, the four
most common channels of Turks coming to faith are: a personal
relationship with a believer; taking the aforementioned Bible
Correspondence course; a church visit; and the Internet. No matter
the channel, new Turkish Christians are quick to make use of
traditional beliefs, culture, and relational networks to extend the
influence of their ministry and teaching.
Ucal and his wife, Sibel, have adapted Sufi music, which is based on
mystical Islamic traditions and popular among Muslims, to the lyrics
of Christian hymns. Many people request cds of their music over the
Internet, and some of them came to the church for the first time to
hear the music.

As many have noted, Muslims place much weight on dreams and visions.
In 1989, after Sibel became a Christian, she wondered if there were
any other young Turkish believers around. "I prayed for a Turkish
believer husband and to serve God. People teased me: 'Where can you
find a Turkish man who believes in God?'"

Eventually, she found her way to Ucal's church. After a month of
watching Sibel and a long lunch together one day, Ucal was smitten
and ready to get married. Sibel says, "I was surprised, but I was
ready to hear that. I saw it in my dream that God gave me." After
eight months, they were married.

Murat Akgul, an elder at Ucal's church, has been shaped by a vision
his wife had. Akgul and his wife come from Turkish subcultures that
celebrate warfare and fighting. He had trained for a military career
until he became disillusioned by the army's harsh conditions.


Then his wife became a Christian, which almost led to a divorce and
triggered threats of an honor killing. Akgul recalls that in 1999,
when his wife first believed, "It was very dangerous for us." He
feared his wife's family would kill her. Her father had cut off the
head of his brother in an honor murder and had spent 20 years in jail
for it.

Akgul couldn't bring himself to abandon his wife to an honor killing.
Big and tough, he stayed to protect her. They also believe God
visited their house to protect them.

"One night my wife was at the stove in the kitchen and she wanted to
die," says Akgul. The pressure, the fear, and the arguments with her
husband built an overwhelming mountain before her. She leaned across
the stove to pray, "If you are God, give me a sign."

Akgul said, "At midnight, a star came from far away to our house. A
great light exploded in front of the windows. She thought that this
was a sign from God, and it gave her strength."

For the next five years, Akgul stayed by his wife to protect her from
murder, but the tensions were palpable. In the morning, Akgul said he
could feel his skin tighten up as he prepared for the day. But he
noticed a steady transformation in his wife's perspective. Instead of
wanting to kill her enemies, she started to become more peaceful and
gentle. "She was very deeply changed," Akgul says.

Three years ago, Akgul was lying on his bed listening to a radio
appeal for funds for a hospital. Then he heard a voice in the bedroom
say, "Matthew 6. Matthew 6. Matthew 6." Startled, he got up and
looked around. He went out to his wife in the kitchen and asked,
"What is Matthew 6?" She opened her Bible and read aloud how alms
should be given to God, not man. Strangely enough, that verse broke
open Akgul's heart. "I realized that life is not about honor, but
Jesus."

During the same year, Ucal appeared on national television, debating
a Muslim leader. The pastor didn't attack Islam but kindly,
reasonably, and boldly answered the leader's charges. The Muslim
leader was brusque and bullying. The media's coverage was sensational
and favored Ucal. Other Muslims called for the leader to get off the
air. Akgul watched these programs and realized that a "real Turk"
>From a Muslim background could openly believe in Jesus. In time, he
and his wife joined Ucal's church, where Akgul now serves in
leadership.



Love Without Fear

Despite the progress, real danger persists for outspoken Christians.
It is not from the conservative Muslims who control the government.
Indeed, most Turkish pastors with whom CT talked favored the
reelection of the conservative Muslim Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan.

Rather, the danger is primarily from strident ultranationalists and
their youth movement, known as the Grey Wolves. Some experts say the
Grey Wolves are terrorists responsible for hundreds of killings.

Christian leaders told CT that the Malatya murders have left a deep
impression about the cost of discipleship. These leaders vividly
remember the moment they heard the news of the killings.

Pastor Koryurek remembers that he was on the ferry from Asian
Istanbul to European Istanbul. "Brother Ibrahim and I were talking
when the cell phone rang. I saw tears start to form." The ferry's
motor chugged in the background, and the wet wind seemed to stand
still as Koryurek began to guess what happened. Ibrahim closed his
cell phone and said, "Our brothers were killed." They couldn't move.

Pastor Guvener in Diyarbakir lives not too far away from Malatya, the
site of the killing. He and his church's leaders were meeting to
discuss the day's business. They had just finished discussing fixing
a clogged toilet when their cell phones went off. Hearing the news,
several leaders flashed back to an incident three years ago when a
deranged man, brandishing a knife, ran into their church.

The pastors remembered how one of the Malatya martyrs, Necati Aydin,
had recently portrayed Jesus in a passion play. Later, at the
memorial service at Ucal's church in Istanbul, everyone wore a small
picture of Aydin. The late pastor's son sang, "Jesus Loves the Little
Children."

Necati's smile keeps coming to mind. Guvener said, "You should
remember that God has wiped away the tears." Ucal says Jesus is
walking with the Turks. "We love without fear. Something protects
this country. Turkey will keep its balance."
Tony Carnes, a CT senior writer, is based in New York City.



The BBC and the New York Times have sections with recent news and
information about Turkey.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/january/12.25.html

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

Looking East Into Its Past...or Its Future??? (Part I)

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Jan 11 2008


THE REBIRTH OF PAN-TURKISM?

By John C. K. Daly

Friday, January 11, 2008


As the USSR recedes further into history, the post-Soviet Turkic
nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia are rediscovering their
linguistic and cultural affinities with Turkey, and activists are
promoting closer cultural, economic, and political ties.

Among the states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
and Turkmenistan, the pan-Turkic sentiment is most pronounced in
Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's most ardent support of closer Turkic ties is
Nizami Jafarov, director of Baku's Ataturk Center, a corresponding
member of Azerbaijan's Academy of Science, and head of the
Azerbaijani Permanent Parliamentary Commission on the Culture of the
Republic of Azerbaijan.

Jafarov's latest project is setting up a new Turkish language TV
channel in Azerbaijan to broadcast to the Turkish-speaking world and
foster further integration in the Turkic world. `It is possible to
say that this idea has become a reality,' Jafarov said during a
recent interview. `The issues of the opportunities, main topics, and
language of this TV channel have been defined after long discussions.
No one is against the creation of such a channel.' According to
Jafarov, the only thing currently lacking is money. ` The issue will
be fully elaborated after one of the Turkic countries or any
international company undertakes the financing of the TV channel,'
but he added optimistically, `I think the issue of the channel
opening will be settled this year' (Trend.az, January 10).

Jafarov is also chairman of the Turkish-Azerbaijani Parliamentary
Friendship Group, which has been promoting the idea of closer
Turkish-Azeri relations for some time. In 2006 Jafarov maintained,
the idea of a Parliamentary Assembly of Turkish States began to gain
serious traction, commenting, "Azerbaijan's suggestion of
establishing a Parliamentary Assembly of Turkish States has been
approved by all. The format of the Assembly is to be discussed.
Creation of this assembly is inevitable. The ongoing processes in the
world make it necessary to set up an organization of Turkish states
at least on parliament level' (Today.az, February 28, 2006). As
envisaged, the Turkish States' Parliamentary Assembly would consist
of delegates from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.

An important element of Jafarov's plan was Armenia's reaction to such
an assembly. The following month Jafarov said, "The Armenian media
writes that Turk nations will create a Turanian State and claims that
and this state will be against Armenians... The establishment of such
an assembly is important for the maintenance of harmony in the world
and is not in contradiction with the norms and principles of
international law. On the other hand, Armenians are far fewer in
number than Turks. There are 100 million Turks in the world and only
about 10 million Armenians. Despite this we will discuss the
`Armenian issue' after the formation of the Assembly" (Today.az,
March 27, 2006).

On the Turkish side, a non-governmental organization, the
Turkish-Speaking States' and Communities' Friendship, Fraternity, and
Cooperation Foundation (TUDEV) and the annual Friendship,
Brotherhood, and Cooperation Congress of the Turkic States and
Communities have played a major part in promoting the concept.

The First Friendship, Brotherhood, and Cooperation Congress of the
Turkic States and Communities took place on March 21, 1993, in
Antalya, and the next nine congresses were subsequently held in
Turkey, attracting more delegates each year (Busra Ersanli Behar,
`Turkism in Turkey and Azerbaijan in the 1990s,' Eurasian Studies
1996). Over 900 delegates attended the 8th annual TUDEV meeting,
March 24-26, 2000; and 500 were from Anatolia. Then-Turkish president
Suleyman Demirel was present along with Deputy Prime Minister and
Chairman of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) Devlet Bahceli, seven
other Ministers, and almost 50 deputies. For the first time
representatives of the Turks in Tunisia and Mongolia also attended
(Anadolu Ajansi, March 23, 2000).

Last November Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, along with
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus President Mehmet Ali Telet,
attended the 11th Friendship, Brotherhood, and Cooperation Congress
of the Turkic States and Communities in Baku. The previous ten
congresses were held in Turkey, with the last occurring in Antalya on
September 18-20, 2006. At the Antalya conference Turkish authorities
first suggested a political alliance of this kind, with an
international Turkic union subsequently becoming Erdogan's idee fixe,
(Nezavisimaya gazeta, November 26, 2006).

Also present at the gathering were nearly 800 delegates from over 30
countries. Both Erdogan and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev
addressed the Congress. In his most implicit endorsement of closer
cooperation between Turkic nations, Erdogan told the delegates, `It
is time for establishing planned and coordinated cooperation among
Turkic republics,' suggesting the founding of a permanent secretariat
of the heads of Turkish-speaking states. `This Permanent Secretariat
will keep an eye on what we have done, what we are doing, and what we
will do, and prepare us for the next Congress. On the other hand, we
should start working on establishing the Inter-Parliamentary Council
and Advisory Council, which honorable Nursultan Nazarbayev, the
President of Kazakhstan, discussed with the leaders at the
Turkish-speaking states summit in Antalya. (Azerbaycan Respublikasi
Istanbul Bas Konsullugu, November 17, 2007).

For Jafarov, the issue already has an irresistible momentum of its
own, and `in the next decade the process of transforming the Turkish
language into the united language of the Turkish peoples will be
completed' (Trend, January 10).

But the concept has already brushed up against political reality,
with both Turkey and Azerbaijan claiming credit for the concept and
eventual leadership of the organization. For the Azeris, the recent
Congress solidified Azerbaijan's leadership. According to Nazim
Ibrahimov, head of the State Committee on Work with Azerbaijanis
Living Abroad, `This congress, which was held on the initiative of
President Ilham Aliyev, brought new tone to the Turkish world. In the
worldwide Turkish diaspora all Turks are speaking about the congress
in Baku. They consider the Azerbaijani President as a new leader of
Turkish world' (APA, December 30).

While Azerbaijan's immense oil wealth gives it a rising presence in
the Turkic world, it remains to be seen if that will translate into
substantial political power in the Inter-Parliamentary Council and
Advisory Council, proposed by Turkey, and whether the heads of the
five former Soviet Turkic states will, in fact, be ready to surrender
any national sovereignty to such a body. If Azerbaijan and Turkey
cannot even agree regarding who provided the impetus for the idea,
further integration of the Turkish-speaking world still seems a
distant goal.

http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2372710

TURKEY: SEEKING AN OUTLET FOR EXPANSION

Stratfor
Dec 12 2007

Summary

Turkey is flexing its muscles as it seeks an avenue to expand.

Analysis

Turkish President Abdullah Gul arrived in Kazakhstan on Dec. 12
for a three-day visit primarily aimed at furthering Turkish business
interests in the region. The visit is symptomatic of a country seeking
an outlet for its rising power and ambition.

Turkey is a rising power economically, militarily and politically,
with an economy worth some $400 billion and the second-largest military
in NATO. Yet it is also a country rather conflicted about its place
in the world. Since the end of World War I the Turks have existed in
a sort of cultural limbo, shunning their Islamic and imperial past,
yet being denied full membership in the West in general, and the
European Union in specific.

Over the past decade, the Turks have come to terms with the idea
that they have made it as far into Europe as Europe will allow:
They enjoy a customs union with the European Union, an agreement
functionally equivalent to the U.S.-Mexico relationship via NAFTA. But
EU membership is out of the question. Now, they are casting about
for a new national goal.

The lands surrounding modern Turkey echo with the voices of Turkey's
imperial past. All provide certain opportunities for the expansion of
Turkish influence, yet none of the options leap out as being obvious --
and none will be easy.

In Central Asia, cultural links to the region's Turkic peoples may give
the Turks access -- but the Russians have deeper and more recent ties,
while the Chinese are splashing around more money. The Balkans provide
Turkey a chance to leverage NATO links and cultural connections and
force the Europeans to treat them with respect, but ultimately it is
Brussels and Washington who most reliably shape events in Southeastern
Europe. Working in the Caucasus helps buffer Turkey against a resurging
Russia, but there is strong competition from not only Russia, but
also Iran and Armenia. The only reason Iraqi Kurdistan has proven
so hot-button in recent months is because the Turks perceive Kurdish
autonomy across their southern border as a direct threat to the unity
of Turkey itself. Like in its other spheres of potential interest,
Turkey has no particular advantage in operating to its south either.

Yet Turkish power continues to rise, and it is only a matter of
time before it seeks an outlet. Its economy has stabilized after
a 2001 crash, and has grown strongly ever since. The government is
consolidated under a single party to a degree absent since the time
of Kemal Ataturk. The military is strong, flexible and deployable.

This broad-spectrum strength allows Turkey to have its fingers in a lot
of different pots. The only thing lacking is a strategic decision by
the Turks about which direction is most important to Turkey. Once that
decision is made, there are no internal barriers to Turkish movement.

http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=299886&selected=Analyses

[Siamanto]

Re: Temporarily So Called Turkey and the World: Perceptions, Relations...

Looking East Into Its Past...or Its Future??? (Part II)

ANKARA MAKES CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA A DIPLOMATIC PRIORITY - TURKISH PRESIDENT
Richard Weitz

EurasiaNet, NY
Jan 9 2008

Promoting peace and stability in the Caucasus and Central Asia is an
"important item" on Turkey's foreign policy agenda, Turkish President
Abdullah Gul said in an address in Washington, DC. Gul's visit to
the United States was devoted largely to heralding the return of a
solid US-Turkish strategic partnership.

Making his first trip to the United States as head of state, Gul, a
former foreign minister, portrayed Turkey as a diplomatic trailblazer
for the United States in several "hot spots." In a January 8 policy
address given at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
Gul emphasized that Turkey has maintained "good relations with most
of our neighbors."

Gul compared the South Caucasus to the Middle East in terms of its
"underlying instability." He maintained that Turkey "shares a similar
vision with the United States" for the region, with Ankara aiming to
help Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia make "their long walk towards a
sound democracy." He also said Turkey was interested in promoting the
"development of their fragile economies" and the "settlement of their
ethnic and territorial disputes." [For background see the Eurasia
Insight archive].

While acknowledging the lack of a "quick-fix solution" for regional
problems, Gul offered that "establishing sound regional cooperation
is a good point to start." He pointed to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
oil pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline, and
the Baku-Tbilisi railway as vehicles for both the prosperity and
stabilization of the Caspian Basin.

While such initiatives have helped Turkey solidify ties with Azerbaijan
and Georgia, they have not helped Ankara normalize relations with
Armenia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Gul did
not elaborate on any specific measures that could alleviate the
persisting enmity in Turkish-Armenian relations, or promote lasting
peace settlements in Nagorno-Karabkah, Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

Striving to further illustrate Turkey's regional security role,
Gul cited Afghanistan, where "we have been projecting an active,
positive contribution since the September 11 terrorist attacks." These
contributions include twice commanding the International Security
Assistance Force, providing substantial civil and humanitarian
assistance, and helping revitalize Afghanistan's economy through the
presence of large numbers of Turkish contractors.

Gul also mentioned that Turkey was using its "historically close
relations" with Islamabad to promote security cooperation between
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last April, the Turkish government invited
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Pervez
Musharraf, to attend a summit in Ankara. At that meeting, they pledged
to deny sanctuary, training and financing to Islamic militants and
exchange intelligence on terrorist threats. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive].

Gul went on to described Iran as representing "a complex picture
in our region." While affirming that Turkey "actively supports a
diplomatic settlement of the conflict about Iran's nuclear program,"
he cautioned that "we strongly oppose nuclear proliferation and
nuclear weapons in our region."

In his joint press conference at the White House earlier on January
8, US President George W. Bush hailed Turkey a strategic partner of
the United States, saying that Ankara and Washington in recent months
"have worked hard to make [relations] strong." He stated that the two
governments "deal with common problems," though the only issue Bush
specifically cited was the "continuing fight against a common enemy,
and that's terrorists."

Bush reaffirmed his administration's support for Turkey's entry into
the European Union (EU), pointing out that "Turkey sets a fantastic
example for nations around the world to see where it's possible
to have a democracy coexist with a great religion like Islam." In
addition, he argued that Turkey's accession to the EU would be "in
the interest of peace" because Turkey could serve as "a constructive
bridge" that brings Europe and the Islamic world closer together.

In describing his private discussions with the Turkish president,
Bush revealed that the two touched on "the need for all of us to help
secure more energy supplies." The US president also informed Gul about
his upcoming Middle Eastern tour. It was the type of conversation,
Bush said, that occurs "when two friends are in the room together."

During a subsequent teleconference, a "senior administration official"
explained that the Turkish-American relationship qualified as a
"strategic partnership" due to "the fact that we deal with a whole
range of issues with Turkey, not just bilateral issues, but issues,
security issues around the world." The official indicated the Bush and
Gul exchanged ideas on an array of foreign-policy topics, including
Kosovo, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Gul placed the bilateral relationship within a larger multinational
context: "We share a common vision and we work together, and the
relations between the two countries are such that they have an
impact not only on the two countries, but also on a regional and
global scale."

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav010908aa.shtml

TURKEY SHOULD HELP ESTABLISH AN ECONOMIC UNION OF TURKIC STATES, VASILLOPULOS

Turkish Press
Nov 22 2007

ANKARA - Dr. Christopher Vasillopulos, professor of political science
at Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU), said Wednesday Turkey
should help establish an economic union of Turkic states.

Speaking at a seminar in Ankara's TOBB University of Economics and
Technology, Vasillopulos indicated that an economic union of Turkic
states would be beneficial for Turkey and other Turkish communities.

"A Turkey that establishes a Turkic economic union would be attractive
for the European Union (EU). Such an economic union would make Turkey's
entry into the EU easier," Vasillopulos noted.

In fact, the EU would come to Turkey and invite Turkey into the EU
after Turkey becomes a member of a Turkic economic union, Vasillopulos
remarked.

"It would be even better if Russia is also permitted into an economic
union of Turkic republics," Vasillopulos told.

"A Turkic economic union would be a threat to U.S. interests in
the region as the U.S. wants to control energy lines," Vasillopulos
underlined.

Touching on Turkey's geography, Vasilopulos indicated that "Turkey's
geography, neighboring Iran, Iraq and Syria, provides Turkey with
an advantage in its struggle to join the EU. Turkey's proximity to
energy fields, including oil reserves, gives Turkey an advantage in
its relations with the EU."

"Turkey is certainly a bridge between the West and the East. The EU
would benefit from Turkish membership as it can have better influence
in the Middle East via Turkey," Vasillopulos remarked.

"Turkey is a critical player in the region," Vasillopulos underscored.

Touching on the issue of PKK terrorism and attacks made from north of
Iraq into Turkey, Dr. Vasillopulos stressed that Turkey has a right
to defend itself and its citizens.

"Turkey should decide when it must take a military action against
terrorists. A country must decide on its own for action when it is
under attack. A surgical, limited and careful military action is
desirable against terrorists attacking Turkey," Vasillopulos noted.

Asked about what he thinks on intelligence sharing between the general
staffs of Turkey and the United States on terrorist PKK organization,
Dr. Vasillopulos underlined that intelligence sharing is not a new
topic. As two allies, Turkey and the U.S. have been sharing information
for a long time, Vasillopulos said.

"Further intelligence sharing may be useful for Turkey," Vasillopulos
told.

In response to a question on the establishment of an independent
Kurdish state in northern Iraq, Vasillopulos told that there is
already a de facto Kurdish state operating in north of Iraq.

"An independent Kurdish state will not be a threat to Turkey and
Turkey's territorial integrity unless Kurdish extremists demand a
'great Kurdistan' and PKK receives support, including weapons, from
an independent Kurdistan," Vasillopulos stressed.

"There is a limit to what the Turks will tolerate vis-a-vis north of
Iraq," Vasillopulos noted. "I would like to add that the Democratic
Society Party (DTP) should not be closed as such a situation would
lead many to fall into the hands of PKK."

In regard to a bill supporting Armenian allegations about the incidents
of 1915 in the U.S. Congress, Vasillopulos noted that Speaker of
the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has a constituency in
California in which there are thousands of Armenian Americans.

"The Armenian lobby is extremely successful in the U.S. There must
be an international conference, preferably in Istanbul, that brings
together scholars from all around the world to study archives related
to the early 20th century. All mass murders, including the massacre
of American Indians, should be discussed at this conference,"
Vasillopulos told.

In reference to Turkey's initiative with Spain, titled "Alliance
of Civilizations", Vasillopulos stressed that it is an important
initiative for global peace. "I would personally want to be involved
in this project of the Alliance of Civilizations," Vasillopulos said.

Closing his remarks, Professor Vasillopulos underlined that Turkey
does not need U.S. support to become a well developed, modern
society. Sooner or later, Turkey will be a powerful state.

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=203375