New York Times | Reading Erdogan's Ambitions in Turkey's New Mosques New York Times But much of typical Turkish life has been transformed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, especially when it comes to Islam and profit. Many of Turkey's 75,000 mosques were historically built and maintained by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, or ... |
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Reading Erdogan's Ambitions in Turkey's New Mosques - New York Times
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday denounced the isolation of Qatar by neighbouring states as a violation of Islamic values and akin to a "death penalty" imposed in a crisis that has reverberated across the Middle East and beyond.
Erdogan's comments marked the strongest intervention yet by a powerful regional ally of Doha eight days after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar and applied stringent economic sanctions on it.
Later on Tuesday, the UAE ambassador to the United States, which has an air base in Qatar, said there was no military component to the steps taken against Doha.
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Qatar denies accusations that it supports Islamist militants and Shi'ite Iran, arch regional foe of the Sunni Gulf Arab monarchies.
"A very grave mistake is being made in Qatar; isolating a nation in all areas is inhumane and against Islamic values. It's as if a death penalty decision has been taken for Qatar," Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party in Ankara.
"Qatar has shown the most decisive stance against the terrorist organisation Islamic State alongside Turkey. Victimising Qatar through smear campaigns serves no purpose."
The measures against Qatar, a small oil and gas exporter with a population of 2.7 million people, have disrupted imports of food and other materials and caused some foreign banks to scale back business.
The UAE envoy, Yousef Al Otaiba, told reporters in Washington: "There is absolutely no military component to anything that we are doing."
"I have spoken and seen (U.S. Defense Secretary) General (Jim) Mattis four times in the last week; weve given them our complete assurance that the steps we have taken will not affect in anyway Al Udeid base or any operations supporting or regarding the base," Otaiba said.
Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is home to more than 11,000 U.S. and coalition forces and an important base for the fight against Islamic State militants in the region.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, told a Senate hearing that the rift between Qatar and its neighbours was not affecting U.S. military operations.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, June 13, 2017. Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace/Handout viaREUTERS
Qatar, which imported 80 percent of its food from bigger Gulf Arab neighbours before the diplomatic shutdown, has been talking to Iran and Turkey to secure food and water.
The world's second largest helium producer, Qatar has also shut its two helium production plants because of the economic boycott, industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
Turkey has maintained good relations with Qatar as well as several of its Gulf Arab neighbours. Turkey and Qatar have both provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and backed rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also criticised the measures imposed on Qatar, saying in Baghdad on Tuesday they were hurting the emirate's people, not its rulers.
Gulf Arab states have issued no public demands to Qatar, but a list that has been circulating includes severing diplomatic ties with Iran, expulsion of all members of the Palestinian Hamas group and the Muslim Brotherhood, the freezing of all bank accounts of Hamas members, ending support for "terrorist organizations" and ending interference in Egyptian affairs.
Some analysts say demands could also include closing down satellite channel Al Jazeera, or changing its editorial policy.
When asked what, if any, further steps would be taken against Qatar, the UAE's Otaiba said: "Weve designated 59 people and 12 entities; its likely that you could see designations of their bank accounts, and perhaps of the banks themselves."
"The specific list is being drawn up and the reason it has not been completed and passed on yet is because theres four countries involved," he added. "Each country has their own set of lists, their own specifications and so were trying to compile and curate that into one master list and it should be handed over to the United States fairly soon."
Otaiba reiterated the accusations that Qatar was supporting terrorism.
"Doha has become a financial, media and ideological hub for extremism. Then it must take decisive action to deal once and for all with its extremist problem," he wrote in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal published on Monday night.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, talking to reporters during a news conference in Washington on Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said Riyadh was ready to send food and medical supplies to Qatar.
The minister, Adel al-Jubeir, defended the Arab powers' move against Qatar as a boycott, not a blockade, adding: "We have allowed the movement of families between the two countries...so that we dont divide families."
There has been no breakthrough in Kuwaiti efforts to mediate in the crisis, but a U.S. official in the region said Kuwait was continuing with what is seen as a "slow, painstaking, deliberate" process focussed inside the Gulf Cooperation Council.
"The parties are still defining what it is they want out of this confrontation...It's difficult to conduct negotiations if you don't really know what everybody wants."
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Thani said on Monday that Doha "still had no clue" why Arab states had cut ties. He denied Doha supported groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that its neighbours oppose, or had warm ties with their enemy Iran.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Erdogan would discuss the Gulf rift in a telephone call with U.S. President Donald Trump in coming days.
Turkey approved plans last week to deploy more troops to a military base it has established in Qatar under a 2014 agreement with the Gulf Arab state. The move was seen as support by regional power and NATO member Turkey to Doha.
In Moscow, the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's King Salman discussed the crisis in a phone call on Tuesday. The Kremlin said the dispute was not helping to unite efforts to try to find a Syria settlement or fight terrorism
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Turkey's Erdogan: Qatar Isolation Violates Islamic Values - Newsweek
Sitting in a Greek cafe, fugitive Turkish journalist Cevheri Guven explains why he severed links with his homeland "with a knife" after a post-coup crackdown by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"People must understand, there is no justice in Turkey," says Guven, formerly the editor-in-chief of the magazine Nocta.
"Erdogan is a dictator. Anyone who is against him, even if acquitted in court, will face a new trial before they are even released from prison. You can't get away," he tells AFP.
A supporter of cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed by Erdogan for an abortive coup against him last July, Guven fled to Greece in 2015 with his wife and two children after on-and-off stints in police custody.
His magazine, critical of the Ankara government, had already been hit with a flurry of state lawsuits first on economic grounds, then on charges of extremism.
Guven paid 15,000 euros ($17,000) to smugglers who led him and his family across the river Evros into northeastern Greece.
It is the same land route followed for years by Kurdish guerrillas, and now refugees from Syria and other war-torn and poverty-stricken countries into the European Union.
But because Turks are deemed to be wealthier, the price charged by smugglers is far higher, explains Guven, who faces a 22.5-year prison sentence if he goes back.
"For Syrians generally the price is 250 euros. For Erdogan opponents it's 5,000 euros per person," he says.
"But the smugglers gave us a discount, my eight-year-old daughter and my five-year-old son counted as one," the 38-year-old adds.
Over 100,000 people have been sacked or suspended from the public sector in Turkey for suspected links to the Gulen movement under a state of emergency imposed a few days after the foiled putsch, and renewed three times.
Over 50,000 judges, police officers, civil servants and journalists have been arrested.
The Turkish government claims Gulen ordered the July 15 attempt to oust Erdogan from power.
Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies the charges. Some 400 Turkish citizens have requested asylum in Greece since July. Others have sought refuge in Germany, Britain, Spain and Portugal.
Some support Gulen but there are others, more affluent members of the secular Turkish elite who are worried by what they see as a hard turn to Islamization spearheaded by Erdogan.
For the latter, an additional draw is that Greece offers a five-year visa to anyone spending over 250,000 euros on buying a house.
"There is enormous interest in the Greek property market," says Michalis Katsaros, a real estate agent active in the north of the country.
Ironically, many choose to relocate to the Athens suburb of Palio Faliro, home to thousands of ethnic Greeks kicked out of Istanbul in the 1960s during a Greek-Turkish crisis over Cyprus.
"They welcome and help us, it's like finding old acquaintances," says an exile from Turkey who declined to be named.
"Europe must prepare itself to receive Turkish refugees," says another.
Before fleeing Turkey illegally, Guven says he and his wife spent nearly two months apart, hiding in separate cities and fearful of being caught due to widespread talk of torture in police cells.
He is among very few Turks who agreed to speak publicly on the issue. Others approached by AFP declined to be named, fearing for the fate of family members back in Turkey.
And even though there are around 40 families of fellow exiles now near him, Guven is wary of keeping contact with them.
"You can never be sure. We fear Erdogan may send someone who seems to be one of us to find us. So we don't trust each other," he says.
Guven said he picked Greece as the "only democratic country on (Turkey's) borders."
In contrast, fellow EU member Bulgaria "sends back all political refugees," he says.
But among the community of exiles, there is now concern after a number of alleged illegal deportations known as refoulement of Turkish asylum seekers from Greece.
The Hellenic League for Human Rights said another Nocta journalist, managing editor Murat Capan, had been immediately imprisoned by Turkey after being sent back on May 24.
The league said Capan and other Turkish asylum seekers had been handed over by Greek police to "masked gunmen" who bound their hands, put them on an inflatable boat and abandoned them on the Turkish side of Evros river, near a Turkish army outpost.
Guven, who spoke to his colleague's family, confirms the story.
"Essentially they sent him back. We are not sure if it was done by police because those who did it wore masks," he says.
The Greek government, who recently angered Ankara by refusing to return eight Turkish officers sought in relation to the coup, officially denied involvement.
"The Greek government does not carry out refoulements," government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said last week, a day after Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muinieks expressed concern.
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Fleeing Erdogan's crackdown, Turks find new home in Greece ... - PRI
Ankara (AFP) - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday urged the United States to reverse a decision on arming Syrian Kurdish fighters whom Turkey considers terrorists, saying he would raise the issue in talks with Donald Trump next week.
The Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) militia applauded a "historic" move that would speed up the defeat of Islamic State (IS) extremists but the issue risks stoking tensions between the two NATO allies ahead of Erdogan's critical visit to Washington.
The YPG is seen by Washington as the best ally against Islamic State group jihadists in Syria and the prime attacking force in any upcoming assault on their stronghold of Raqa.
But Ankara regards the YPG as a terror group and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which since 1984 has waged an insurgency inside Turkey leaving tens of thousands dead.
"I hope very much that this mistake will be reversed immediately," Erdogan said in Ankara alongside Sierra Leone counterpart Ernest Bai Koroma.
"I will personally express our worries in a detailed way when we talk with President Trump on May 16," he added, saying the issue would also be discussed at the NATO summit in Brussels on May 25.
"We want to believe that our allies would prefer be side by side with ourselves rather than with the terror groups," he added.
Erdogan's statement capped a day of alarmed comments by Turkish officials, with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu saying that "every weapon that turns up in their hands is a threat directed toward Turkey".
- 'Informed in advance' -
Pentagon chief Jim Mattis sought to allay Turkish concerns, saying at a news conference in Lithuania the US would work very closely with Turkey over security on its border with Syria.
"We have very open discussions about options and we will work together, we will work out any of the concerns," he said.
In a surprise announcement, the Pentagon had said Trump had authorised the arming of Kurdish fighters within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) "to ensure a clear victory over ISIS in Raqa".
The YPG hailed the move as "historic" and said it would now play "a more influential, powerful, and decisive role" in fighting IS.
YPG spokesman Redur Xelil described the move as "somewhat late", but would still "provide a strong impetus" to all forces fighting IS.
The SDF, a US-backed group dominated by YPG but which also contains Arab elements, said that receiving US arms and military equipment would "hasten the defeat" of the jihadists.
It remains to be seen what shadow the issue will cast over the talks between Trump and Erdogan, which have been touted as chance to forge a new partnership between the two NATO allies.
While the government expressed predictable anger, the deputy head of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Ozturk Yilmaz said it should go even further by postponing Erdogan's visit to the US
The timing of the announcement was especially delicate as a high-level Turkish delegation including Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar, presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin and Turkey's spy chief Hakan Fidan had been in the US laying the groundwork for the meeting.
According to the New York Times, the delegation was informed of the decision to arm the YPG by Trump's national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
Turkish media said the three met McMaster at the White House on Monday but gave no details over the content of the talks.
Both Washington and Brussels classify the PKK as a terror group but do not regard the YPG as such.
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Erdogan urges US to 'immediately' reverse decision on ...
BBC News | Turkey's Erdogan decries Qatar's 'inhumane' isolation BBC News Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the isolation of Qatar by several Arab states, describing it as "inhumane and against Islamic values". Last week's decision by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to sever all ... Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Turkish President says isolation of Qatar 'inhumane' and like the 'death penalty' Turkey's Erdogan condemns Qatar blockade 'death sentence' Turkey's Erdogan to discuss Qatar dispute with Trump, minister says |
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Turkey's Erdogan decries Qatar's 'inhumane' isolation - BBC News