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WASHINGTON A recently published book on U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign policy reveals new details on how he allegedly pressured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release a Turkish citizen held in Israel on charges of smuggling for Hamas.

Trump had asked for the Turkish citizen's release as part of a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to release an American evangelical pastor jailed in Turkey.

Hijacking the Holocaust for Putin, politics and powerHaaretz Weekly Ep. 57

The July 2018 release of 27-year-old Turkish citizen Ebru zkan reportedly came a day after a phone call between Trump and Netanyahu, during which the subject was discussed. In their new book A Very Stable Genius, Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker describe exactly how the deal for her release unfolded, shedding light on the relationships between Trump, Netanyahu and Erdogan.

The deal, according to the book, started shaping up when Trump met Erdogan at a NATO summit in Brussels in early July 2018. During their meeting, Erdogan asked Trump to press Israel to release zkan, who had been arrested several weeks earlier upon landing in Israel and indicted forsmuggling money and a cellphone to Hamas operatives. In return, Erdogan promised Trump he would release Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who was arrested in Turkey.

The book claims Trump and Erdogan concluded the deal with a fist bump. A few days later, Trump took the Turkish presidents request to Netanyahu. On July 14, while Trump spent the weekend at his golf resort in Scotland, he decided in the middle of playing a round to call Netanyahu, the authors write. His aides brought a secure phone out to the front nine. Trump leaned into the Israeli prime minister and asked him to release zkan. Netanyahu confessed that he knew nothing about the woman. Her name did not register with him.

zkan was accused of smuggling a relatively small amount of money several hundred dollars and her trial in a military court received little media coverage in Israel. That may be why Netanyahu was surprised by the American presidents request. Nevertheless, write Leonnig and Rucker, He agreed to look into it and to help speed her release, barring some other issue.

The next day, July 15, zkan was released, according to the book. She flew from Israel to Istanbul, where she was met by reporters and professed gratitude for Erdogan.

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Her release caught Israeli officials by surprise, and it was not immediately clear why Trump had asked Netanyahu to handle it. But on July 18, a Turkish court rejected appeals to release Brunson and set another court date for October. At the White House, where the president had just returned from his European trip, officials were taken aback. Trump tweeted that the Turkish courts decision was a total disgrace.

Trump felt he was cheated by the Turkish president: He had secured the Turkish citizens release from Israel, only to see the U.S. pastor remain in Turkey. On July 26, Trump called Erdogan and was livid. The call was short, with Trump doing most of the talking and not getting the answers he wanted. Trump then took to Twitter to announce his displeasure. The United States will impose large sanctions on Turkey, he wrote.

A few weeks later, in mid-August, the book reports that Trump publicly acknowledged for the first time his role in the Israeli prisoner trade. We got somebody out for him, he said, referring to Erdogan. He needed help getting somebody out of someplace; they came out.

It took another two months but eventually, in October 2018, Brunson was finally released and allowed to leave Turkey. His first stop after arriving in the United States was the White House, where he was photographed together with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. American pundits and analysts suggested at the time that his release would help Trump secure high turnout among evangelicals in the 2018 midterm elections, held less than a month later.

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Then, on the 9th hole, Trump called Netanyahu: Erdogan wants something - Haaretz

WASHINGTON It was late 2018, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was on the phone with an unusual request for President Trump: Could he intervene with top members of his cabinet to curb or even shut down a criminal investigation into Halkbank, one of Turkeys largest state-owned banks?

It was not Mr. Erdogans only effort to persuade the Trump administration to back off the investigation into the bank, which had been accused of violating United States sanctions against Iran.

His government had hired a lobbying firm run by a friend of and fund-raiser for Mr. Trump to press his case with the White House and State Department. And there would be more phone calls between the two leaders in which the topic came up, according to participants in the lobbying.

Mr. Erdogans influence campaign is now under scrutiny again in Washington, following the disclosure that Mr. Trumps former national security adviser, John R. Bolton, reported in his forthcoming book his concern that the president was effectively granting personal favors to Mr. Erdogan and President Xi Jinping of China.

People familiar with the unpublished manuscript said Mr. Bolton wrote that he had shared his concern with Attorney General William P. Barr and that Mr. Barr responded by pointing to Mr. Trumps intervention in two cases linked to Turkey and China: the investigation of Halkbank and Mr. Trumps decision in 2018 to lift sanctions on ZTE, a major Chinese telecommunications company.

The Justice Department has disputed Mr. Boltons account. But on Tuesday, top Democrats seized on the suggestions of meddling in the Halkbank and ZTE cases as fresh evidence that Mr. Trump, whose family enterprise has extensive business ties to Turkey and also has considered building new towers in China and expanding in other areas, was using the presidency to enrich himself and his family.

Several members of the administration had concerns about the presidents dealings with autocrats, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, said at a news conference. Did the president have financial interests at stake when he was talking to Erdogan or Xi and others?

He added: Maybe his kids had some economic interest at stake. And did it impact our nations foreign policy with those countries?

Former foreign policy officials including some who served in Republican administrations said in interviews that Mr. Trump plays an unusual and at times disturbing role in high-profile criminal and sanction cases involving foreign governments.

What I know about his intervention in the Halkbank case is highly abnormal and quite worrying, actually, said Philip Zelikow, a history professor at the University of Virginia who served on the National Security Council staff for President George Bush.

Suggesting that Mr. Trump was putting private, commercial interests above those of the United States, Mr. Zelikow added: There have been interventions on behalf of a foreign government that are hard to explain in traditional public interest terms.

Mr. Trumps involvement in the Halkbank investigation started early in his administration. In 2017, he was asked by Rudolph W. Giuliani during an Oval Office meeting with Rex W. Tillerson, then the secretary of state, to help secure the release of a Turkish gold trader at the center of Halkbanks sanctions-evasion efforts.

The gold trader, Reza Zarrab, who had hired Mr. Giuliani to help secure his release, had been accused by federal prosecutors of playing a central role in an effort by Halkbank to funnel more than $10 billion in gold and cash to Iran, in defiance of United States sanctions designed to curb Irans nuclear program.

Turkey also wanted the trader released, former Turkish government officials said, so that he would not testify against top bank officials or implicate members of Mr. Erdogans family or Mr. Erdogan himself.

The push failed to secure Mr. Zarrabs release and was abandoned after he agreed to testify on behalf of the Justice Department to help obtain the conviction of a Halkbank executive in early 2018.

But that was just the start of the lobbying.

Mr. Erdogan, in a series of phone calls and in-person conversations in 2018 and 2019, repeatedly tried to persuade Mr. Trump to use his power to limit additional enforcement action against Halkbank itself, something the Justice Department had made clear it was considering.

After one phone conversation in late 2018, Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Turkey that Mr. Trump had told him that he would instruct the relevant ministers immediately to follow through on the matter.

Talks are underway about this issue, Mr. Erdogan said at the time. It is very important that this process has begun.

Mr. Erdogans son-in-law, who serves as Turkeys finance minister, also took up the case, pressing Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the matter. Other appeals were made by the former project manager of Trump Towers Istanbul, a twin-tower complex and mall that was the Trump familys first high-rise project in Europe.

Asked about Turkeys lobbying efforts in an interview in October, Mr. Mnuchin cited the ongoing legal process and would not comment.

The bank had separately hired a lobbying firm run by Brian D. Ballard, a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trumps campaign and the Republican National Committee. The lobbyists from Mr. Ballards team argued to the State Department and White House that any criminal charges against the state-owed bank could destabilize the Turkish economy.

For months, it looked like Turkey was going to succeed in this unusual lobbying campaign asking a United States president to put pressure on his own Justice Department to protect a state-owned bank. Mr. Barr, who was confirmed in February 2019, played a key role in overseeing the negotiations over a possible settlement with the bank that would have seen it avoid criminal charges, representatives for Halkbank said in interviews last year.

Only after Turkey invaded Syria in early October did the Justice Department move to indict the bank.

President Trump has been carrying water for President Erdogan and Turkeys state-owned Halkbank, said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the finance committee. Every member of Congress should be profoundly alarmed that Donald Trump is trying to get the bank accused of the largest Iranian sanctions violation scheme in U.S. history off the hook because his authoritarian pal asked for a favor.

Mr. Trumps 2018 intervention in the case of ZTE was equally perplexing to some observers. Two years before, the United States found the Chinese company guilty of violating American sanctions on Iran and North Korea. In April 2018, the Trump administration moved to punish ZTE by banning it from buying American technology.

But Mr. Trump suddenly had a change of heart, essentially pardoning the company in exchange for a $1 billion fine and promises to replace its senior leadership and allow American compliance monitors.

The decision came after a direct plea to Mr. Trump from Mr. Xi in the midst of intense maneuvering over trade talks between the two countries and as the United States was preparing for a summit with North Korea.

It drew bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill. Top lawmakers, including Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, had urged the administration not to bend on ZTE, which they considered a law enforcement and national security issue.

Chinese officials had made it clear that they considered lifting ZTEs penalty a condition for reaching a trade deal. There was also the implicit threat that, if the penalty was not lifted, American companies operating in China would face further retaliation. The United States has also relied on China to exert pressure on North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program.

The Trump family had for years worked on plans to build a series of new hotel or apartment building projects in China, goals put on hold after Mr. Trump was elected president.

His administration scrambled to quiet the growing dissent, and Mr. Trump lashed out at Democrats for having allowed ZTE to flourish under President Barack Obamas watch.

In May 2018, Wilbur L. Ross Jr., the commerce secretary, and Mr. Mnuchin traveled to Capitol Hill to brief a group of Senate Republicans, including Mr. Rubio, John Cornyn of Texas and Bob Corker of Tennessee, on their plans for ZTE. Mr. Ross and Mr. Mnuchin sought to assure the lawmakers that they were planning on harsh penalties for ZTE and appealed to Republicans to dampen their public criticism so a deal could be reached, a person briefed on the discussions said.

Chinese officials widely speculated that the penalties on ZTE were an effort by the Trump administration to gain the upper hand in the trade talks. But people briefed on the discussions say Trump administration officials had not fully realized what a complication the measure would become in the trade talks.

Since then, ZTE has made a gradual recovery, and its profits have rebounded. And although its run-in with the Trump administration tarnished its smartphone brand with consumers, cellphone carriers around the world have still been willing to work with the company to build 5G mobile networks.

The handling of ZTE has raised questions about whether Mr. Trump will follow through with imposing restrictions on Huawei, another Chinese telecommunications company that the White House views as a national security threat.

Elizabeth Rosenberg, who served as a senior Treasury adviser working on sanctions issues during the Obama administration and who now studies sanctions policy at the Center for a New American Security, said Mr. Trumps interventions were unusual and disruptive.

This is not the norm in Washington, she said. He is making up sanctions policy on his own, and influencing the course of policy in a way that undermines United States priorities and has shocked United States allies.

Ana Swanson contributed reporting from Washington, Raymond Zhong from Shanghai and Michael Forsythe from New York.

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Bolton Book Puts New Focus on Trumps Actions in Turkey and China Cases - The New York Times

ISTANBULThe debate over the Istanbul Canal infrastructure project has the potential to turn into an existential one between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. In politics, emotional arguments hold sway just as much as rational ones. For now, Imamoglu has all the emotional ones. His motto against the project reads: Either the canal or Istanbul. If Erdogan loses this debate, it could be very costly for him.

In 2011, Erdogan announced his seemingly crazy project to dig a canal to connect the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara in a second location. The Bosphorus strait, which divides the European and Asian sides of Istanbul, already connects the two seas, and the passage of ships through the strait is regulated by the Montreux Convention.

A new canal to the west of the city is expected to reduce traffic through the Bosphorus and mitigate the risks that arise from such traffic. Turkish Transport Minister Mehmet Cahit Turhan claimed that initial revenue from ships passing through the canal would be $1 billion per year. This number is hard to justify particularly because the reason why vessels would prefer the canal over the Bosphorus remains unknown. The government claims that the canal will reduce waiting times and thus freight companies will prefer paying the premium.

Erdogan has a fascination with megaprojects. He built a third bridge over the Bosphorus, the third and largest airport in Istanbul, and many other large-scale infrastructure projects. These helped him win elections in the past, but now he is advocating what could become a white elephant at the worst of times. In a shaky economy with a 14 percent unemployment rate, increasing taxes, and no fiscal room for maneuver, Erdogan will have to convince an increasingly environmentally aware Turkish public that resources should indeed be allocated to this project now.

The environmental impact assessment for the canal, on the other hand, suggests that 200,878 trees alone will be affected by the project. In the expected seven-year process of realizing the project, an average of 360 explosions a year will take place, and approximately 4,000 tons of ammonium nitrate fuel oil will be used, according to geological experts. This is a hard sell. And this time, he has a formidable opponent; Imamoglu is putting up a tough fight against the project.

The debate over the canal project reignited when Turhan declared on Nov. 28 that awarding contracts for the construction of the canal would begin soon. The project, which is envisaged to be completed in less than a decade, includes settlements along the canal banks, which would create a new city of around 500,000 people. (The opposition claims 2 million people would move in.) Replaced soil is planned to be used in creating artificial islands. The budget is estimated at $15 billion, according to Turhan.

A project of this magnitude will have long-lasting and irreversible consequences on the environment and the economynot to mention repercussions from a military standpoint. After all, once the canal is dug, the old city of Istanbul will effectively become an island, which, Imamoglu recently claimed, would render the city defenseless. In the case of a military threat, troops will have to be deployed to the island either through the bridges over the canal or the Bosphorus.

Yet the debate in Turkey is far from a technical one. The most salient argument of the pro-canal camp is the revenue that could be generated as ships pay for passage. It is not clear yet why ships would pay to use the canal when there is free passage available 25 miles to the east, through the Bosphorus. The assumptions are feeble, and calculations are vague. In a nationwide survey conducted in December 2019 by Istanbul Economy Research, a polling firm, 49 percent of the public did not agree with the statement that the project will generate new sources of revenue.

The government is aiming to gather support strictly along political lines; amid partisan bickering over the project, Imamoglu has chosen to rely mostly on technical and environmental counterarguments instead. The mayors concerns include the loss of agricultural fields, possible negative outcomes in the case of the long-expected Istanbul earthquake, and destruction of the citys flora. He will need to provide more detailed evidence in the future, but for now his arguments seem to be sticking. Thousands of Istanbulites rushed to the Istanbul Provincial Environment and Urbanization Directorate to file appeals against the projects environmental impact assessment.

In addition, the public in general is not informed. The same poll from Istanbul Economy Research shows that public knowledge regarding the project is staggeringly low. About 49 percent of the participants indicated that they had no information on the project, whereas 40 percent said they were somewhat informed about the project. Only 11 percent claimed that they were well informed. With 12.5 percent of locals claiming to be well informed, Istanbul residents are only slightly more aware of the key issues.

Erdogan has described the project as his dream and has once again based his strategy on ideological polarization. His coalition partner, Devlet Bahceli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party, followed suit and described the irrational opponents of the project as unpatriotic. Paradoxically, both leaders were against the project at different points in history. Former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit had introduced the idea in 1994, when he was a member of Parliament, and Erdogan was a staunch opponent at the time, when he was a mayoral candidate in Istanbul. Likewise, Bahceli had described the canal as a crazy project that will enable theft back in 2011 when it was first introduced by Erdogan and Bahceli was still in the opposition ranks.

It is part of a wider trend. The Turkish public is becoming increasingly sensitive to environmental issues. In the past decade, countless protests have taken place across Anatolia, particularly in opposition to hydroelectric power plant construction. Most recently, thousands of people gathered in the province of Canakkale to protest gold mining projects that would harm the environment. The common thread of these protests is that they include people from all political denominations.

Imamoglu has seized the opportunity to position himself against Erdogan in a debate of national significance in order to strengthen his bid in the next presidential elections. He is pressuring the president on both the economic and environmental repercussions of the project. Both resonate with the public. On the economic front, it is not clear how the project will be financed. If it is indeed through public funds, voters will ask if this is the right allocation of resources when the budget deficit increased by 70 percent in 2019 to reach $21 billion and the recent raise to the minimum wage was a measly 15 percent, leaving those who earn it well below the poverty line.

So far, the government is standing firm. Erdogan announced that the canal will be built whether they like it or not. But it is far from certain that his usual rhetoric will suffice to win over the crowd this time, particularly when the debate concerns issues of genuine importance to voters.

After the repeat Istanbul municipal elections, which Erdogans party lost twice, Imamoglu is gearing up for a second win against Erdoganthis time on the national scene. If Imamoglu can manage to win the crowd in the debate over the canal project, it could deal a deadly blow to Erdogan in the run-up to 2023 presidential elections.

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In Turkey, a Battle Over Infrastructure Could Shape the Next Presidential Race - Foreign Policy

National hero, public enemy, Uber driver.

Thats the headline accompanying an interview with former Turkish international footballer Hakan kr in German newspaper Die Welt.

kr is considered one of Turkeys greatest ever players, and he still holds the record as Turkeys top scorer on the international stage.

But he now lives in exile in the United States, working as an Uber driver.

He is a wanted man in Turkey and is under police protection. Accused of taking part in the attempted coup in 2016, he says Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan took everything away from me - my right to freedom, the right to explain myself, the right to work.

He served in Erdogans AKP party for two years before stepping down over a corruption scandal. kr, 48, tells the newspaper he is an enemy of the government, not the state or the Turkish nation.

He is not the only sports star to find himself on the wrong side of his countrys strongman president, who has been accused of using the coup attempt to bolster his own power and shut down his enemies.

In similar situations are Kurdish footballer Deniz Naki, NBA baskeball player Enes Kanter, and Turkish-German boxer nsal Arik.

Deniz Naki, a Turkish-German of Kurdish origin, played for St Pauli and Paderborn in Germany and represented the German under-19 and under-20 teams. After moving to a Turkish club, in 2017 he was given a suspended 18-month prison sentence, charged with spreading terrorist propaganda in support of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party.

Read more: 'If Ozil wants to talk about racism, he should look at Turkey'

Euronews interviewed him in the summer of 2018 after he criticised fellow Turkish-German footballer Mesut Ozil for quitting the German national team over alleged racism.

Does racism occur in Germany? Of course it does. But it isnt only Germanys problem, but a global problem, Naki said at the time, adding Ozil should react to what happens in Turkey.

In 2018 Nakis car was shot at on Germanys A4 highway earlier in what he claimed was a politically-motivated attack. He was banned from playing football in Turkey, and he told Euronews he could be arrested if he returns there.

NBA player Enes Kanter had to flee a training camp in Indonesia in 2017 after police came looking for him. While the anti-Erdogan activist was in Romania, he found out his passport had been invalidated and declared himself stateless. Thanks to NBA lawyers and diplomatic pressure from the US, he managed to return to the US, but since then he has lived in fear for his safety.

He decided against travelling to London for a game after reports emerged Turkey had asked Interpol to have him put on the Red Notice list - a request to locate and arrest him.

This all happened after he tweeted in 2017 that his father had been arrested in Turkey, referring to Erdogan as the Hitler of our century.

Kanter risks four years in prison for insulting Erdogan on social media.

After the failed coup, nsal Arik openly criticized Erdogan and his constitutional reform the following year. He once stepped into the ring wearing a T-shirt with the words "The country belongs to Ataturk, not Tayyip,'' referring to Turkeys founding father, who implemented secular reforms in the country.

AWBU World Champion in 2016, Arik never walks alone in Kreuzberg in Berlin for safety reasons, according to German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. He is constantly insulted and threatened online by Erdogan's supporters, accused of being a traitor.

The 39-year-old from Nuremberg can no longer travel to Turkey, as he also faces the prospect of imprisonment. He could be jailed for 15 years, after releasing a rap song critical of Erdogan. His family, he says, are under constant pressure from the authorities at home. He recently applied for a visa to go on holiday to the United States, but the application, he reported, is proceeding slowly.

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Meet the Turkish sports stars on the wrong side of President Erdogan - Euronews

Despite officially maintaining diplomatic ties with the country, Israels military has addedTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans aggressive policies in the region to its list of challenges in an annual assessment for the coming year, The Times of Israel learned Tuesday.

This is the first time Military Intelligence has included the policies of the Turkish leader on this report.

Relations between Israel and Turkey have been increasingly strained under Erdogan, who routinely speaks out against the Jewish state and allegedly allows Palestinian terror groups to operate freely in his country.

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Though in its assessment, which is presented to Israeli decision-makers each year, the military does not see a direct confrontation with Turkey in the offing in 2020, the countrys increasingly bellicose actions in the region have made it one of the top dangers to watch for the coming year.

The assessment did not detail any specific threat from Turkey toward Israel, but rather indicated that policies pursued by Erdogan, whose Islamist party is allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, was behind the cause for concern. Those issues were not inherent to Turkeys outlook and would not necessarily outlive Erdogan, the assessment indicated.

In recent months, Ankara has been stepping up its expansionism, conducting military operations in next-door Syria and proposing to establish a gas pipeline to Libya, despite the fact that this would likely violate the territorial waters of Israeli ally Greece.

In an interview with Channel 13 last month, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said it was Israels official position that such a Turkish-Libyan pipeline would be illegal.

But that doesnt mean were sending battleships to confront Turkey, he said.

In October, following a Turkish invasion of Syria as part of Ankaras fight against Kurdish groups there, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon told the UN Security Councils monthly Middle East meeting that Erdogan has been destabilizing the region through violence and supporting terror organizations, adding that Turkeys shocking incursion into Syria had come as no surprise.

Erdogan has turned Turkey into a safe haven for Hamas terrorists and a financial center for funneling money to subsidize terror attacks, he said. Erdogans Turkey shows no moral or human restraint toward the Kurdish people. Erdogan has turned Turkey into a regional hub for terror.

Danon said Erdogan was dragging his country down an imperialist path. He threatens journalists, persecutes religious minorities and promotes anti-Semitism.

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In first, Turkey leader's hostility noted as 'challenge' in annual intel report - The Times of Israel