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ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday businessmen who attempted to move assets abroad were traitors, and called on his cabinet to block any such moves.

I am seeing signals, news that some businessmen are trying to move their assets abroad, and I call on firstly my cabinet from here to never allow this exit for any of them because these people are traitors, Erdogan said.

Speaking to members of his ruling AK Party in the eastern province of Mus, Erdogan did not say to whom he was referring, nor did he single out a single business, person or country of destination.

His comments come after the state-run Anadolu news agency said on Friday that Turkish prosecutors were set to seize the assets of Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors in the trial of a Turkish bank executive charged with evading U.S. sanctions on Iran, and his acquaintances.

The trial has caused already strained ties between NATO allies Ankara and Washington to deteriorate further as Zarrab detailed in court a scheme to evade the U.S. sanctions, saying that Erdogan personally authorized two Turkish banks to join the scheme when prime minister.

Ankara has cast the testimony as an attempt to undermine Turkey and its economy, and has previously said it was a clear plot by the network of U.S.-based Fethullah Gulen, who it alleges engineered last years coup attempt.

We cannot take kindly to those who earn in this country and then try to take those earnings abroad, Erdogan said.

Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Mark Potter

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Turkey's Erdogan says businessmen moving assets abroad are ...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Courts in the United States cannot put Turkey on trial, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, in reference to the case of a Turkish bank executive who has been charged with evading U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Already strained ties between NATO allies Ankara and Washington have deteriorated in recent weeks as Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, detailed in court a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions.

Over three days of testimony, Zarrab has implicated top Turkish politicians, including Erdogan. Zarrab said on Thursday that Erdogan personally authorized two Turkish banks to join the scheme when he was prime minister.

Ankara has cast the testimony as an attempt to undermine Turkey and its economy, and has previously said it was a clear plot by the network of U.S.-based Fethullah Gulen, who it alleges engineered last years coup attempt.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach representatives for the ministers implicated by Zarrab in the trial.

Turkey has repeatedly requested Gulens extradition, but U.S. officials have said the courts require sufficient evidence before they can extradite the elderly cleric, who has denied any involvement in the coup.

Erdogan, who has governed Turkey for almost 15 years, told members of his ruling AK Party in the northeastern province of Kars on Saturday that U.S. courts can never try my country.

Although he has not yet responded to the courtroom claims, he has dismissed the case as a politically motivated attempt to bring down the Turkish government and on Friday the state-run Anadolu news agency said Turkish prosecutors are set to seize the assets of Zarrab and his acquaintances.

Turkey has stepped up its pressure on the U.S. and on Saturday Anadolu quoted Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying that Gulens followers had infiltrated the U.S. judiciary, Congress, and other state institutions.

The United States says its judiciary is independent of any political or other interference.

Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs over alleged links to Gulen since the attempted coup, while close to 50,000 people from the military, public and private sector have been jailed.

And in a further blow to Turkish-U.S. ties, Turkish authorities on Friday issued an arrest warrant for former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Graham Fuller over suspected links to the abortive putsch.

Rights groups and Turkeys Western allies have voiced concerns that Erdogan is using the crackdown to muzzle dissent, but the government says the purges are necessary due to the gravity of the threat it faces.

Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Alexander Smith

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Turkey's Erdogan says U.S. courts cannot put Turkey on ...

Whatever the verdict is, we did the right thing, he said at a closed meeting with his deputies, Turkish state media reported. We have never made commitments to the U.S. on our energy ties with Iran.

The world is not only about the U.S., he said. We also have trade and energy relations with Iran.

Mr. Zarrabs testimony about Mr. Erdogan was relatively brief, coming in the first week of the trial of a Turkish banker, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, 47, who was also charged in the scheme.

Mr. Zarrab testified that it was Zafer Caglayan, Turkeys economy minister at the time, who said Mr. Erdogan had directed the two banks, Ziraat Bank and VakifBank, to participate in the scheme. Mr. Caglayan told me that Mr. Prime Minister had given approval for this work, Mr. Zarrab said through an interpreter, referring to the Iranian trade.

On Wednesday, Mr. Zarrab testified that he had paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to Mr. Caglayan; he said Mr. Caglayan asked for 50 percent of the profits generated by the scheme, which prosecutors say was being run through a Turkish state bank, Halkbank. On Thursday, Mr. Zarrab said he had also paid bribes to the general manager of Halkbank, Suleyman Aslan, whom he described as being critical to the arrangement.

Mr. Caglayan and Mr. Aslan, who have also been charged in the case, remain at large, prosecutors have said.

Mr. Zarrab testified that he had never paid a bribe to Mr. Atilla the defendant being tried, who was the deputy general manger of Halkbank.

In Turkey, reaction to Mr. Zarrabs allegations was muted. Mainstream television and news outlets have largely kept to the government line that the trial is a plot against Turkey, and have not reported the potentially most explosive allegation: that Mr. Erdogan was involved.

Many Turks have turned instead to social media, which has been buzzing about the trial. But some fell quiet after Mr. Zarrab seemed to implicate the president. One Turkish user said on Twitter that he did not dare write what he was hearing and then deleted even that tweet.

Mr. Zarrab maintained his respectful tone in a second day of testimony on Thursday, but one aspect of his appearance did change: his clothing.

On Wednesday, Mr. Zarrab testified while wearing tan-colored jail clothes. But after the jury was sent home for the day, Judge Richard M. Berman asked whether there was any reason the witness could not appear in civilian clothes.

Its hard enough to appear in court, Judge Berman said. There is certainly no reason to make things more difficult by not providing, for example, a shirt and a tie or jacket or whatever. He said he would sign an order to that effect.

Even Mr. Atilla, the defendant, who is being held in jail, was granted permission to wear a suit during the trial a common courtroom practice.

On Thursday, Mr. Zarrab testified in a sport coat and white dress shirt, though no tie.

When the prosecutor, Sidhardha Kamaraju, asked why he had changed his clothing, Mr. Zarrab said it had been done with the permission of the honorable judge.

Judge Berman then interjected. I may be overly sensitive to the clothing issue, he said wryly. And the reason is that Im always hearing in the back of my head my wife saying, What are you wearing? So, anyway.

Mr. Zarrabs testimony continued.

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Erdogan Helped Turks Evade Iran Sanctions, Reza Zarrab ...

The prosecution's star witness implicated Turkish President Recep Erdogan in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran during a trial that has strained relations between the two countries.

Gold trader Reza Zarrab, the linchpin of a plan to secretly move Iranian money through U.S. banks in violation of American sanctions, has been on the stand since Wednesday at the trial of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive of Turkey's state-owned Halkbank.

Zarrab was shown the transcript of a 2012 phone call between himself and an employee that was caught on a wiretap in which they discussed two other Turkish banks that he told the court "wanted to do Iranian business" using the same system he devised for Halkbank.

"The prime minister gave orders to Zirrat and Vakif as well," Zarrab said on the phone call, referring to the other banks.

In this courtroom sketch, Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, center, testifies before Judge Richard Berman, right, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017 in New York. At left is an interpreter. Elizabeth Williams / via AP

The prosecutor asked Zarrab what he meant by that, and he said the country's economic minister, Zafer Caglayan, told him the two banks were to move Iranian money, too.

"Mr. Zafer had told me Mr. Prime Minister has given approval," Zarrab told the jury.

Related: Does cooperating witness have info on Flynn tie to Turkey?

Asked who was referring to, Zarrab named Erdogan, who was then prime minister and is now president of Turkey.

There was a stir in the courtroom, which was packed with Turkish media covering the Atilla trial.

The jury was shown a transcript of a second call in which Zarrab said that by the following week the Zirrat and Vakif banks "will also be engaged."

"I spoke with Ankara," he explained to the other person on the call. "Mr. Prime Minister and Ali Babacan [the Turkish treasury minister] gave approval. It's finished already."

Asked to explain further, Zarrab told the court: "What I'm saying is that the prime minister of that time, Recep Erdogan, and the minister of the treasury, Ali Babacan, had given an order for them to start doing this trade. By them, I mean the banks."

Even before Wednesday's testimony the trial had infuriated Turkish authorities, with officials claiming that U.S. prosecutors are doing the bidding of Erdogan's rival, cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

"What (Gulen's movement) was not able to achieve here, it is trying to achieve there (New York)," Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told a Turkish news agency on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

Erdogan, who blames Gulen for a failed coup attempt, has pressed both the Obama and Trump administrations to drop the sanctions case.

Zarrab, 34, was supposed to be the lead defendant in the case but he began cooperating with prosecutors before the trial began.

When he first took the stand Wednesday, he was in jailhouse clothes. On Thursday, at the suggestion of the judge, he wore a suit.

Addressing the change of garb for the jury, prosecutors had Zarrab confirm that he was still in FBI custody despite his civilian clothes. Then they asked why he was no longer in jail.

"For security reason," he said, " for threats I have received in the detention center."

Zarrab previously admitted that during his time in federal lockup in Manhattan after his March 2016 arrest he bribed a prison guard for access to liquor and a cellphone.

Original post:
Witness links Turkish leader Erdogan to Iran sanctions ...

By Walid Shoebat

As shocking as it may be, Erdogan is being proclaimed as God amongst diehard leaders in Turkey. And if in doubt, read this (link here) Erdogan proclaimed himself as God.

Everyday I wake up I am not just shocked at what I find in my researches on Erdogan of Turkey, but amazed in awe how closer this man is beginning to mimic what the biblicalprophets of old declared as The Antichrist proclaiming himself to be God in 2 Thessalonians 2.

As shocking as you just read it, wait till you read this article by Mustafa Akyol (a columnist forAl-MonitorsTurkey Pulse, the TurkishHurriyet Daily News, The International New York Times and The Wall Street Journal) and be amazed that reputable writers are now documenting that Erdogan is literally viewed by many Muslims as God. You heard it correctly.

Aykol writes of Erdogans cult of personality:

In a recent book, Recep Tayyip Erdogan: The Sun of the Age, Aykol writes proudly gives him titles that only belong to deitywhich would sound bizarre, if not heretical.

Indeed, I am not sure if Aykol is aware, to the WahhabistMuslim this is true, but not the Sufi Muslim who believes in the Sufi doctrine of Fana in which man becomes God. Aykol adds:

In 2011, an AKP deputy declared, Even touching Erdogan is a form of worship, and in 2014 another AKP deputy proclaimed that Erdogan carries all the attributes of Allah in himself.

The Sun of the Age, and carries all the attributes of Allah in himself and Eventouching Erdoganis a form of worship, qualifies Erdogan to fit what none of us Christians who would everdoubt what was already proclaimed in the Bible:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 2 Thessalonians 2 1-4

AKP deputy Duzce Miletvekili Feavi Arslan proclaimed that Erdogan carries all the attributes of Allah in himself.

So where are the Naysayers now who for years ridiculed us saying that it is impossible for a Muslim to qualify since Muslims can never deify a man?Shoebat.compredicted this will be the outcome last year and and even explained it theologically from a Muslim perspective (read here).

We in fact even illustrated, before Erdogans coming out of the closet this very issue, by quoting the most infamous of Islamic Sufi writers, Rumi, when he wrote of how the goal of the Sufi is to become divine viaFana (eliminating the self to become God):

Remember the famous utterance of al-Hallaj, I am God. People think that to say I am God is a claim of great pretense and spiritual arrogance. It is actually a claim of extreme humility. I am God means I do not exist. He is all, everything is He, existence is Gods alone. I am without existence, pure non-existence. I am nothing. I am God is not a claim of great pretension, it is a claim of extreme humility. There is more humility in this than any supposed claim to greatness, but people do not understand the inner meaning. When a man acknowledges his servitude to God, he is aware of his being a servant. He may see himself as a devoted servant of God, but he still sees himself and his own actions as apart from the one reality of God. He is not drowned in the Ocean of Divine Unity. Drowned is he in whom there is not separate motion or mobility. Drowned is he whose movement is the movement of the water. And so it is with the enlightenment ones, those who declares, I am God. Anyone who says I am the servant of God asserts the reality of two existences, one for himself and the other for God.But he who says I am God andhas realized the deepest levels of unity within his being has seen through the illusion of his existence. He knows from the experience of unity that his own separate existence is nothing but an illusion. Knowing that, he casts its former selfhood upon the winds of oblivion. (Rumi, Hearts bear witness one to another, in The Complete Discourses of Jalal al-Din Rumi, discourse 11, p. 75, ed. Louis Rogers)

And now we understand Erdogans show of humility and tears when viewed by Muslims. Erdogan is a master ofgreat deception. This is the first time in history that this connect was made. And it is not as if Erdogan is unaware of Rumis theology. Far from it. It was no surprise to us that the president of Turkey, Erdogan even praised Rumis work, revealing that he himself is not only Sufi but that he also believes inFanathe art annihilation and becoming God himself. Why else would Erdogan praise Rumis work TheMasnavi,saying:

A work can live for more than seven centuries only if it is written with love.

TheMasnaviis amongst Rumis most popular works, and it is inthis very bookthat the idea ofman becoming divineis adulated. He praises the Sufi declaration I am the Truth! saying, Mansurs I am the Truth! was purest light (Masnavi, 2.307, trans. Mojaddedi)

When Christ said I am The Truth He was declaring Himself to be God Almighty. Likewise in Sufi Islam, this also exists, yet mimicking Christ. In Sufi Islam for one to exclaim, I am the Truth, is to say I am God!

While some of these people who deify Erdogan are Islamists others are secular figures who praise Erdogan for making Turkey a powerful country and for crushing the traitors of the nation. Notably, some of these secular pundits have become pro-Erdogan only in the past few years and have outdone most Islamists in the ranks of the AKPin their zeal to defend the founding leader of New Turkey.

All this besides Erdogans metamorphosis into an outspoken Islamist calling to serve the God Allah and advance his glory via warfare and martyrdom (see Daniel 11). The most striking example of this troubling metamorphosis was the speech he made during a ceremony held March 16 in the presidential palace to award state honor medals to army veterans and families of fallen soldiers.

These lands remain our home because every singly citizen of this 78 million-strong country men and women alike, even the children and the elderly see martyrdom as an honor when necessary. Otherwise, we wouldnt have been allowed to stay a single day here, he said.

Dont even think that the struggle that began 1,400 years ago between the truth [Islam] and fallacy [other beliefs] is over. Dont even think that those who set an eye on these lands 1,000 years ago have given up their ambitions.Dont even think that those who turned up at the Dardanelles, and then across Anatolia 100 years ago, coming with the most powerful armies, weapons and technology of the time, have repented. No, they never did so. This long-standing struggle is going on and will go on, he added.

Erdogan wants to declare war, again, against the strongest fortresses to advance his god (Daniel 11) while at the same time wants to proclaim himself to be god (2 Thessalonians 2).

Erdogan went on to say, We have to keep toiling with this awareness, always ready for one of the two beautiful [eventualities], and take measures accordingly. What he meant by two beautiful eventualities was becoming a martyr or ghazi. In the Islamic sense, a martyr is someone who sacrifices his life in the name of Allah, while ghazi is a titleof the Muslim who advances the cause of Allah in war.

Hakan Albayrak, one of the leading activists in the 2010 Gaza flotilla, wrote a critical open letter to Erdogan March 22 in his new Islamist daily, Dirilis Postasi. Albayrak was nonetheless supportive of Erdogan, but longed for the days when he shared power with other figures, among them former President Abdullah Gul.Albayrak soonlearned that even the most respectful of criticism is unwelcome. A website operated by the Sabah group, i.e., Team Erdogan headquarters, accusedhim and two other similarly supportive-but-critical journalists oftreachery against Erdogan, the leader of a struggle awaited for a century. Erdogan in other words is an awaited Messiah.

The Islamist scene, however, has become a bit more complicated as of late, with Erdoganism morphing into an ideology unto itself, disillusioningveterans of Turkeys Islamist movement writes Aykol.

ERDOGAN IS LURING ISRAEL

With Erdogan and Israel, it is as if the devil possessed the man telling him to lure the Jews in readiness to rebuild them a temple. The othershocker was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans silence during the recent Israeli election campaign, despite controversial remarks about the Palestinians, and the reopening of a synagogue in Edrine might signal a change inin his methods with Israel.Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogans devoted adviser, even published a moderate and thoughtful analysis March 24 about the Israeli election results attemptingto convince his readers that the only way for Netanyahu to achieve his goal of a secure Israel is through a just and lasting peace with the Palestinians. Erdogan wants to be the peacemaker and divider of Gods land (Joel 3).

Even after the Israeli elections,alavish ceremony was held March 27 in the city of Edirne, in northwestern Turkey, to re-consecrate the citys Great Synagogue. In its glory days in the early 20th century, it was the largest synagogue in the Balkans and the third-largest in Europe. The impressive building, designed as a replica of the Leopoldstaedter Temple in Vienna, was renovated by the Turkish government at a cost of $1.7 million. Just a few months ago, in November 2014, the governor of Edirne province, Dursun Ali Sahin, caused a controversy when he called for the synagogue to be confiscated from the Jewish community and turned into a museum because of what he called the rumblings of war from the [Israeli] criminals, who are destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque and killing Muslims there.

Erdogan aiding in building a temple for the Jews in Edrine is no accident, Erdogan himself wants to sit in a Jewish Temple and in Hagia Sophia, the Temple of The Word of God.

The ceremony was intended to be an expression of Turkeys tolerance and openness toward the Jews, who had long ago left Edirne. Representatives of the Jewish community were invited to attend, along with top-level Turkish officials, as would be expected according to protocol. A number of themactually showed up. Even Israels chief rabbis were invited, but at the suggestion of the Foreign Ministry, they chose to remain in Jerusalem. Israeli diplomats serving in Turkey, however, attended the event.

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, who had apologized to the Jewish community on behalf of the Turkish government for Sahins remarks, called on all Jews who so desire to come and live in his country. Arinc was trying to supplantany expressionsof anti-Semitism, which has been rearing its head in Turkeyand which, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League, is directly connected to public statements by senior politicians about Israel.

This makes it impossible to ignore that the message being conveyed by the ceremony at the Edirne synagogue was not simply one of inclusiveness and brotherhood toward the Jews, but also one of reconciliation, or at least of good intentions by the Turkish government toward the State of Israel.

Erdogan being declared as God, preaching on war and martyrdom, while preparing peace with Israel and the Jews is some Antichrist deadly combination.

It is now no wonder why Erdogan of Turkey introduced the latest state-of-the-art innovation to Turkish politics, resorting to a tool usually found only in science-fiction books: The hologram which reflected Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoans image as he addressed his worshippersin zmir. Erdogan through trickery, wants to be an omnipresent type of leader and is luring the entire Muslim world.

Turkey will lure Israel with a 7 years covenant of death (Isaiah 28:14-22) and a treaty will be signed in Egypt thinking it preserved the Egypt-Israel Camp David accord. By this peace Turkey will deceive many and Islam will appear as a peaceful religion, so by peace the Antichrist will deceive many.

In the meanwhile, please consider the serious issue on Christian persecution which will increase as we see these events unfold. we operate a very effective mission in rescuing fellow Christians. We are a unique organization (Rescue Christians) who rescue Christians, predominately in Pakistan that live under the Muslim yoke baking bricks in kilns under the heating sun. Christians in Pakistan are also burned in furnaces. To see an example out of the thousands we rescue, click here, and listen to the amazing testimonies first hand on how you can help and make a difference, now in this life and for eternity.Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.CONSIDER DONATING TO RESCUE CHRISTIANS

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Shocking: Muslims Are Now Declaring Erdogan As God