Archive for the ‘Erdogan’ Category

It’s Time for Erdogan to Admit He’s Not a Democrat – Foreign Policy (blog)


Foreign Policy (blog)
It's Time for Erdogan to Admit He's Not a Democrat
Foreign Policy (blog)
One day after Turkey's presidential referendum, with allegations of fraud mounting and the opposition still contesting the results, U.S. President Donald Trump called to congratulate Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his victory and discuss the campaign against ...
As Erdogan gains power in Turkey, a weakened opposition tries to stand in his wayWashington Post
About That Phone Call to Erdogan The Weekly Standard
Trump Congratulates Erdogan on Turkey Vote Cementing His RuleNew York Times
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It's Time for Erdogan to Admit He's Not a Democrat - Foreign Policy (blog)

Rudy Giuliani, the jailed Turkish gold trader and the secret meeting with Erdogan – Irish Times

In late February, as the United States and the rest of the world were adjusting to President Donald Trump, and Turkey was focused on a push by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to expand his power, Erdogan agreed to an unusual meeting with some American visitors.

The guests included Rudolph Giuliani, a former New York City mayor who had acted as a surrogate for Trump during his campaign, and another prominent lawyer, Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general in US president George W Bushs administration.

The purpose of the visit by Giuliani and Mukasey was rather extraordinary: They hoped to reach a diplomatic deal under which Turkey might further aid US interests in the region. In return, the United States might release the two mens client, Reza Zarrab, a Turkish gold trader being held in a Manhattan jail whose case had attracted Erdogans interest.

Mukasey, in court papers made public on Wednesday, characterised the meeting as part of an effort to seek a state-to-state resolution of this case, and he hinted at some progress: Senior officials in both the US government and the Turkish government remain receptive to pursuing the possibility of an agreement.

Plea bargaining, even for the most well-connected of defendants, is normally conducted by defence lawyers and prosecutors, often in courthouse corridors or drab government offices. But the efforts being made on behalf of Zarrab, which have also involved discussions at high levels of the Trump administration, show the way political access and diplomatic overtures can also be employed.

Zarrab (33) is a well-known figure in Turkey. He is married to a Turkish pop star and is regarded as a member of Erdogans circle of friends and associates. Photographs show Erdogans wife, Emine, attending at least one charity event alongside Zarrab and his wife.

Zarrab had also amassed a considerable fortune, according to US prosecutors, who say his holdings included ownership in a private aeroplane and about 20 properties, boats, luxury automobiles and millions of dollars worth of artwork.

In 2013, Zarrab was detained by Turkish authorities in a wide-ranging corruption investigation of businessmen with close ties to Erdogan, who was then Turkeys prime minister. But Zarrab used his wealth and influence with the Turkish government to win his release from prison, US prosecutors have said.

They raised the issue of what they called Zarrabs corrupt political connections in 2016 when they argued that he not get bail in New York, where he faces charges that include conspiring to facilitate millions of dollars of transactions on behalf of Iran and other sanctioned entities through the use of false documents and front companies. Zarrab was born in Iran, moved to Turkey as an infant and has citizenship in both countries. He has pleaded not guilty.

Erdogan, in taking a personal interest in the case, said last year that there were malicious intentions in the prosecution, and he also raised the matter with vice president Joe Biden during talks at the United Nations, according to Turkish news reports.

We have to seek justice, for he is our citizen, Erdogan said of Zarrab in September.

The subject of Zarrab came up again three weeks ago during a visit to Ankara, Turkey, by US secretary of state Rex Tillerson. During that visit, Turkeys foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, accused Preet Bharara, the US attorney in Manhattan whose office first charged Zarrab, of being a pawn of anti-Turkish forces.

Bharara, who was fired by Trump last month, had characterised Cavusoglus remarks as political propaganda. On Thursday, after the New York Times reported on the strategy by Giuliani and Mukasey to turn the case involving Zarrab into a matter of international diplomacy, Bharara said on Twitter: One just hopes that the rule of law, and its independent enforcement, still matters in the United States and at the Department of Justice.

The efforts on Zarrabs behalf come at a time when Erdogan has become even more powerful in Turkey after a hotly disputed referendum that expanded his authoritarian rule and drew a congratulatory phone call from Trump on Monday.

Erdogan and Trump have made overtures to each another that suggest Turkey and the United States could become closer allies. The new court filing, by Zarrabs lead lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, includes affidavits from Giuliani and Mukasey that make it clear they hoped to get Erdogan to accept the notion that a diplomatic deal could be of mutual interest to Turkey and the United States.

They write in the affidavits that a resolution that would be favourable for Zarrab could be part of some agreement between the United States and Turkey that will promote the national security interests of the United States.

Giuliani and Mukasey suggest that it was hardly surprising that senior Turkish and US officials were receptive to a possible deal, considering that none of the transactions in which Zarrab is accused of participating involved weapons or nuclear technology, or any other contraband, and that Turkey is situated in a part of the world strategically critical to the United States.

Some analysts in Turkey suggested that if Zarrab were to be freed or returned to Turkey, Erdogan might be more inclined to fall in line with US interests in the Middle East. Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and the chairman of the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, a liberal-leaning Turkish think tank, said the strategy implied that allowing a free pass to Zarrab and company would create good will in Ankara that Washington could use to advance its own regional agenda, with clearer support or at least less interference from the Turkish government.

Erdogan, for example, might be less resistant to US plans to retake Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State terror group, also known as Isis, in collaboration with a Syrian Kurdish faction. Turkey regards that faction, known as the PYD, as the Syrian offshoot of a proscribed militant group that operates on Turkish soil.

A swift end to the case against Zarrab, Ulgen said, might mean Turkey would be much less resistant to the USs missions in Syria, and primarily its support to the PYD. The United States also needs Turkey to continue to allow anti-Islamic State bombing missions to fly out of an air base in the southern part of the country.

Analysts supportive of Erdogans government contend that Zarrabs fate is of limited interest to the Turkish state. In the view of these analysts, the charges against him are spurious and were concocted to smear the Turkish president.

This Zarrab issue is not a state issue in Turkey, said Hasan Yalcin, strategic research director at Seta, a government-friendly think tank in Ankara. Its not an issue that the Turkish state is focusing on; its just speculation that the Turkish state is related to Zarrab.

State news media in Turkey reported last week that Istanbuls chief prosecutor had opened an investigation into Bharara and 16 other US-linked individuals in what western diplomats regarded as retaliation for the Zarrab case.

The affidavits by Giuliani and Mukasey were filed by Brafman, the defence lawyer, at the request of the judge, Richard Berman of US district court. Berman initially said the affidavits could be filed under seal and ex parte, meaning the government would also not be able to see them. He subsequently directed that they be filed publicly, Brafman said.

The affidavits speak for themselves, Brafman said, declining further comment. Giuliani and Mukasey write that both attorney general Jeff Sessions and Bharara had been apprised in general terms before the two lawyers meetings with Erdogan and other Turkish officials. They say they also discussed their roles with, and were briefed by, a State Department representative in Turkey before seeing Erdogan.

Copies of Zarrabs retainer agreements with Giulianis and Mukaseys law firms were also filed with the court but were not unsealed.

New York Times

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Rudy Giuliani, the jailed Turkish gold trader and the secret meeting with Erdogan - Irish Times

North Korea Tensions, Erdogan’s Win in Turkey: The Week in … – Newsweek

From tensions rising between North Korea and the U.S., to historic power shifts in Turkey, this is the Week in Pictures.

Fears of an all-out war between North Korea and the U.S. increased this week, as Washington responded to Pyongyang's sabre-rattling with some of its own.After Vice President Mike Pence visited the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas on April 17, he headed to Japan to reassure the nationand offer some strong words for the isolated regime.

"The era of strategic patience is over and while all options are on the table, President (Donald) Trump is determined to work closely with Japan, with South Korea, with all our allies in the region and with China to achieve a peaceable resolution and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," Pence said in Tokyo before lunch with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

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Pence's comments came after a warning by a senior North Korean official that his government plans weekly tests and an "all-out war" if the U.S. takes any action against it, and hasno intention of going slow on its missile program.

The White House also issued some strong words inTurkey this week;Trump called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratuate himfollowing hisslim victory in a referendum that grants him sweeping powers in the biggest overhaul of modern Turkish politics.The vote will replace Turkey's parliamentary system with an all-powerful presidency and abolish the office of prime minister, a move Erdogan said was necessary to secure the nation against terror and outside influence from Europe and the West. Opponents and international monitors have questioned the legitimacy of the vote and some have said the vote was marred by irregularities, but Trump's call sends a message the White House is behind the results.

Erdogan said on Thursday he would meet Trump in Washington on May 16, in their first meeting since Trump took office in January. Ties between the United States and Turkey have deteriorated sharply since a failed military coup in July and disagreements over U.S. support for a Kurdish militia group fighting the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Syria. Turkey sees the group as an extension of the outlawed PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey.

Ankara is also pressing for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric living in the United States who is accused by Erdogan of engineering the failed coup.

At theweek's conclusion, news broke of an attack in Paris with the ISIStaking credit for themurder of one police officerin a shooting incident on April 20.Masked police immediately took to the streets, blocking access to the Champs-Elysees through the night.The attack comes days before presidential elections. President Francois Hollande said he was convinced the "cowardly killing,"in which the assailant was himself shot dead by police, was an act of terrorism.

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North Korea Tensions, Erdogan's Win in Turkey: The Week in ... - Newsweek

Guns, Votes and Clans: How One Corner of Turkey Elevated … – Bloomberg

Just after 10 a.m. on the morning of Turkeys constitutional referendum, Suat Oztekin arrived with three colleagues to monitor the vote in a remote Kurdish village.

He left, he says, after being refused entry by the village headman, threatened at gunpoint with arrest and punched in the face by a soldier.

Oztekins account, disputed by a group of locals, may come as little surprise to opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his effort to change Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential republic, with few checks or balances on his power. Yet it also shows that the story of the referendum particularly in war-raked eastern Turkey where Erdogan benefited from a notable swing in his favor from mostly Kurdish voters isnt straightforward.

The narrowness of the 51 percent victory and irregularities surrounding it led to a damning preliminary report from international monitors and a rare challenge to the result.

In the Kurdish east, though, theres another set of concerns: physical and economic security and even the nature of democracy in patriarchal villages. That makes it hard to discern how much of the winning margin was secured by what opponents are calling manipulation and what was down to calculated self-interest.

Under Pressure

Oztekin and other Kurdish leaders from the Peoples Democratic Party, or HDP, in the eastern district of Kozluk said their observers were blocked from monitoring 17 of the regions approximately 120 polling stations. In the village of Oyuktas and elsewhere, he said, officials from the governing Justice and Development Party and security forces brought intense pressure on voters to vote yes.

Some stations reported a remarkable 100 percent vote for the pro-Erdogan yes side, or as few as one or two no ballots to 200 or 300 in favor. Others showed more votes cast than the polling stations had voters registered.

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In his victory speech on Sunday, Erdogan thanked voters in the southeast for what he said was a 10 to 20 percent boost in his support there, compared with levels in the last general election in 2015. Since that time the area has been torn by renewed warfare between state security forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party, better known as the PKK, a listed terrorist organization. It isnt immediately clear why that history should endear the government to ordinary Kurds.

They put so much pressure on people and used all of the power of the state, but I still dont think this 51 percent is correct, said Cuneyt Yildiz, 53, a film maker.

A bulldozed area of Sur, sits on the outskirts of Diyarnbakir in Eastern Turkey, on April 18, 2017.

Photographer: Marc Champion/Bloomberg

Destruction

Yildizs two houses and livelihood were destroyed during the governments battle to drive PKK forces out of Sur, a district of about 10,000 inhabitants on the outskirts of the regional capital, Diyarbakir. Residents are now dependent on handouts and the promise of compensation for their lost homes, with officials strongly hinting a yes vote would produce better treatment, said Yildiz.

The region is still under emergency rule and curfews are widespread. As many as half a million people have been displaced in total. Access to towns such as Lice and Kulp, which also recorded zero no votes in some polling stations, remains blocked due to continued fighting in the area.

In Silvan, a town of 40,000 on one of Turkeys main east-west highways, a convoy of three armored cars was on patrol Wednesday evening, their gun turrets spinning watchfully.

This region feels as though it is under occupation, said Nevzat Oezgen, an HDP board member in Diyarbakir. There was no political campaigning or democracy going on here.

Nevzat Oezgen, a Diyarbakir board member of the Kurdish Peoples Democracy Party, or HDP, poses at his office on April 18, 2017.

Photographer: Marc Champion/Bloomberg

And yet, while evidence of apparent ballot fraud during the referendum mounts, there are other factors that may have boosted the yesvote here.

In Oyuktas, local elders denied any violence was used against Oztekin, a fellow Kurd whose brother fought and died with the PKK in the nearby mountains. But he was an outsider who they said had failed to ask the headmans permission to enter the polling station and wanted to canvass for the HDP.

That could have upset their own way of deciding how their village should vote.

Mustafa Altas, the deputy headman, or muhtar, said electoral decisions are taken collectively, with elders meeting each other over glasses of tea to discuss how various parts of the villages large extended family should vote.

Jailed Leaders

In 2015, that choice was overwhelmingly for the HDP, because its charismatic new leader, Selahattin Demirtas, was promising a democratic path to peace and economic stability for Kurds, Altas said. Then war broke out between the government and the PKK. Demirtas is now in jail along with dozens of other HDP activists from Kozluk and hundreds nationwide, accused of supporting the PKK.

The elders opted to hedge their bets. We decided to vote 220 for yes and 135 for no, said Altas. He voted yes, and as no voters joined the discussion they insisted there had been no pressure from the muhtars to change their minds. The HDP can do nothing for us now, and we will give our votes to whomever can help us, said Altas. The actual result was 219 to 134.

Such collective voting in highly patriarchal Kurdish villages also appears to have worked the other way, with some polling stations around Kozluk opposed to handing Erdogan greater powers by as much as 249 to four.

Mustafa Altas, deputy headman of the village ofOyuktas, second right, stands with villagers in Oyuktas, Turkey, on April 19, 2017.

Photographer: Marc Champion/Bloomberg

Many of those displaced by fighting in Kurdish nationalist strongholds such as Sur simply couldnt return to their registered homes to vote, while a smaller Kurdish party switched allegiance to the yes campaign. Even some of the villages that were unanimous in support of Erdogan proved less mysterious on inspection. One was the hometown of an AKP lawmaker and staunchly loyal to him.

An hourlong drive into mountains on a vertiginous road that required removing rock falls to pass found voters in hamlets around Akcali only too proud to say that none had opted for no. They were Arabs, originally from Iraq, thankful to Erdogan for building their winding road and providing them with electricity and water.

With so much violence in and around Turkey, Kurds switched to vote yes because they increasingly see one man rule as the best way to retrieve stability and build the economy, said Turkan Gurler, an AKP board member for Diyarbakir and wife of a wealthy local businessman.

They love Tayyip Baba, she said.

The narrow and contested nature of Erdogans victory, which has left the geopolitically critical nation more bitterly divided than ever, makes that seem at best optimistic, however.

All politics are lies, said Altas. Now the referendum is over, things can get back to normal.

with assistance from Benjamin Harvey and Sam Dodge

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Guns, Votes and Clans: How One Corner of Turkey Elevated ... - Bloomberg

Among Arabs, Diverging Views on Turkey’s Erdogan – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Among Arabs, Diverging Views on Turkey's Erdogan
Wall Street Journal (subscription)
ISTANBULSyrian merchant Bassel Fouad was once active in the opposition to his country's president, Bashar al-Assad, and sees him as a tyrant who destroyed Syria with his iron-fisted authoritarian rule. Mr. Fouad, who now lives in southern Turkey ...

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Among Arabs, Diverging Views on Turkey's Erdogan - Wall Street Journal (subscription)