Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Monday, March 3, 2014
War watch March 3 -4 , 2013 -- IRAN -- Report: Obama Will Ask Israel to Stop Assassinating Iranian Scientists ( wasn't aware Israel had admitted to doing so , but I guess we just formally outed them on that one .. ) ...... AFGHANISTAN -- Karzai prevails -- Zero-option in Afghanistan called off ? WaPo: “President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy” ........ TURKEY -- Corruption scandals and the ire of PM Erdogan roll on ......
A key Israel Lobby convention, the AIPAC Conference was severely inconvenienced today by the media coverage of Crimean secession, which many complained was “stealing their thunder.”
Still it wouldn’t be an AIPAC conference if they didn’t treat US foreign policy as something they could unilaterally dictate, and today that meant specific demands for what the details of a US-Iran deal would be allowed to include.
Immediately endorsed by a series of Congressional hawks in attendance, the demands are the same Israel has been pushing, aimed at making a deal impossible to reach and effectively killing the talks.
This includes demanding Iran would fully dismantle its civilian enrichment program, and insisting that the US keep its sanctions more or less intact no matter how much Iran gives up, with any “limited” relief coming only with a specific AIPAC and Congressional imprimatur. They also pushed for more sanctions right now, seemingly just to sabotage the process further.
AIPAC continues to present itself as the “pro-Israel” position, and by extension the Congressional default position, but there is growing dissatisfaction with their policy demands, with many US Jewish groups feeling they are getting far too hawkish.
Iran is likely to be a major topic of discussion during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to the US, and reports are that President Obama will ask Netanyahu to stop assassinating Iranian scientists.
Israel has been quietly assassinating Iranian scientists for years, and while Iran has complained about it, Israel has never officially admitted to it and has bragged of never having gotten caught.
Indications out of Israel are that Mossad has been transitioning away from assassinations at any rate in recent months, with Netanyahu ordering them instead to focus on digging up dirt that might sabotage US-Iran negotiations.
Officially that’s come in the form of talks of finding evidence Iran is violating the P5+1 deal, though officials have repeatedly affirmed Iran is meeting those obligations, and the Mossad effort seems to be a wild goose chase, hoping for anything they can spin as a pretext to kill the talks.
Afghanistan.......
Karzai voices ‘extreme anger’ at US
March 3, 20147:22AM ET
‘Afghans died in a war that’s not ours,’ Afghan president says in interview with Washington Post
Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a news conference in Kabul in January 2014.Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
Expressing “extreme anger” toward the U.S. government, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview with The Washington Post that the war in Afghanistan was not fought with his country’s interests in mind.
“Afghans died in a war that’s not ours,” Karzai said in the interview, published Sunday, a month before an election to pick his successor.
He was quoted as saying he was certain the 12-year-old war – which is the United States’ longest and was launched after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — was “for the U.S. security and for the Western interest.”
Karzai’s refusal to sign a security deal with Washington that would permit foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond this year has frustrated the White House, and U.S. President Barack Obama has told the Pentagon to prepare for the possibility that no U.S. troops will be left in Afghanistan after 2014.
Obama told Karzai in a phone call Tuesday he had given the order to the Pentagon. The call was the first substantive discussion between the two leaders since June.
But staking out a new position, the White House issued a statement saying it would leave open the possibility of concluding the bilateral security agreement later this year.
“It’s good for them to sign it with my successor,” Karzai told the Post. He has insisted the U.S. must jump-start peace talks with Taliban fighters and end raids and strikes on Afghan homes before he signs the deal.
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan has a current strength of more than 52,000 soldiers, including 33,600 U.S. troops. More than 3,400 coalition forces have been killed in the fight against the Taliban, including more than 2,300 U.S. troops.
While Afghanistan’s police and army are seen as having made big strides in their ability to fight armed groups, doubts remain about whether they can keep a still potent Taliban at bay, especially in remote areas.
In the interview, the Afghan leader said he was deeply troubled by the war’s casualties, including those in U.S. military operations, and felt betrayed by what he described as an insufficient U.S. focus on going after Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan rather than in Afghan villages.
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan dissipated his country’s “common cause” with the United States, Karzai told the newspaper.
Criticizing his U.S. allies was the only way to secure a response by Washington to his concerns, he said.
The Post said Karzai told his interviewers as he escorted them out of his office Saturday night, “To the American people, give them my best wishes and my gratitude. To the U.S. government, give them my anger, my extreme anger.”
Reuters
Zero-option in Afghanistan called off?
POSTED AT 2:01 PM ON MARCH 3, 2014 BY ED MORRISSEY
Hamid Karzai wants Americans to know that he’s not opposed to American assistance, as long as it’s assistance. The outgoing president of Afghanistan refused to sign off on the bilateral security agreement that would keep residual American forces in Afghanistan indefinitely, which forced the Obama administration to start considering a “zero-option” planfor a full withdrawal. Karzai tells the Washington Post that he doesn’t want the US and NATO to abandon Afghanistan, but he wants the military support to go after Taliban strongholds in Pakistan — and pitching a tantrum was the only way to get the attention of Americans:
In an unusually emotional interview, the departing Afghan president sought to explain why he has been such a harsh critic of the 12-year-old U.S. war effort here. He said he’s deeply troubled by all the casualties he has seen, including those in U.S. military operations. He feels betrayed by what he calls an insufficient U.S. focus on targeting Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan. And he insists that public criticism was the only way to guarantee an American response to his concerns.
To Karzai, the war was not waged with his country’s interests in mind.
“Afghans died in a war that’s not ours,’ he said in the interview, his first in two years with a U.S. newspaper.
In Karzai’s mind, al-Qaeda is “more a myth than a reality” and the majority of the United States’ prisoners here were innocent. He’s certain that the war was “for the U.S. security and for the Western interest.”
Such statements elicit scorn and shock from U.S. officials, who point out that Americans have sacrificed mightily for Afghanistan — losing more than 2,000 lives and spending more than $600 billion in the effort to defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban and rebuild the country.
The problem in Pakistan is the government, which wants to eventually make peace with its frontier provinces. American bombardment of Taliban leadership by drone warfare created a huge political problem for the elected government, which forced the US to scale back its efforts across the border (at least publicly). Instead of going after the sources of Taliban strength, NATO forces had to focus more on attacking them in Afghanistan, which transferred the “collateral damage” from Pakistan to Afghanistan — and created a political nightmare there.
Karzai doesn’t oppose the BSA per se, but he wants nothing to do with it. In a little-noticed development, the US finally backed down and agreed to wait for his successor after elections this spring:
But in a phone call with Karzai last week, President Obama said he will accept having the winner of Afghanistan’s April presidential elections sign the pact. Karzai indicated that he views that as a best-case scenario. He won’t have to submit to U.S. demands — such as the continuation of counterterrorism operations — but the popular security agreement will probably still be finalized.
“It’s good for them to sign it with my successor,” the Afghan leader said.
On the security agreement, as with several other issues, Karzai’s antagonistic approach seems to have succeeded, in the sense that he has forced U.S. officials to move deadlines — and even to reshape policy.
With regard to the Bilateral Security Agreement, in advance of the NATO Defense Ministerial, President Obama told President Karzai that because he has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the BSA, the United States is moving forward with additional contingency planning. Specifically, President Obama has asked the Pentagon to ensure that it has adequate plans in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year should the United States not keep any troops in Afghanistan after 2014. At the same time, should we have a BSA and a willing and committed partner in the Afghan government, a limited post-2014 mission focused on training, advising, and assisting Afghan forces and going after the remnants of core Al Qaeda could be in the interests of the United States and Afghanistan. Therefore, we will leave open the possibility of concluding a BSA with Afghanistan later this year. However, the longer we go without a BSA, the more challenging it will be to plan and execute any U.S. mission. Furthermore, the longer we go without a BSA, the more likely it will be that any post-2014 U.S. mission will be smaller in scale and ambition.
I’m not entirely sure I read this as a complete retreat on the zero option itself, but it’s the end of using it as an active threat against Karzai. The White House appears to have conceded that Karzai can’t be moved, and the warnings to conclude something soon are aimed at whoever follows Karzai into leadership. It looks like Karzai’s tantrums worked at least to that extent.
Of course, the entire debate over the BSA may end up being mooted by Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the escalating sanctions the West places on Moscow. Expect Putin to retaliate by threatening our supply lines into the Af-Pak theater, which may mean a full withdrawal anyway regardless of what the Afghanistan people want.
There is some major egg on the faces of Kandahar Province security officials today, after the Taliban managed to trick them into releasing 12 detained fighters from prison.
The trick was a fairly simple one. The Taliban penned an official looking letter calling for the releases of 30 prisoners, including 18 that were all scheduled for release at the time, and 12 of their fighters.
They sent the letter to the prison in question on Tuesday, who didn’t question it and released everyone immediately. Officials say they later realized the mistake and recaptured two of them.
Afghan officials say an investigation is being launched into how the releases happened, but it seems fairly straightforward. No word on if this was the first time the Taliban had tried this, but it likely won’t be the last.
WaPo: “President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy”
POSTED AT 10:01 AM ON MARCH 3, 2014 BY ED MORRISSEY
That’s not me being reductivist or twisting the meaning of yesterday’s lead editorial at the Washington Post. It’s a quote of their own headline, which is itself a good recapitulation of their overall message. Barack Obama and John Kerry talked about “19th century act[s]” and Vladimir Putin’s lack of game on “soft power,” but all that did was highlight the fantasy world both inhabit when it comes to the threats in this 21st-century reality:
FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past. Secretary of State John F. Kerry displayed this mindset on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday when he said, of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, “It’s a 19th century act in the 21st century.” …
Unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not received the memo on 21st-century behavior. Neither has China’s president, Xi Jinping, who is engaging in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and the weaker nations of Southeast Asia. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is waging a very 20th-century war against his own people, sending helicopters to drop exploding barrels full of screws, nails and other shrapnel onto apartment buildings where families cower in basements. These men will not be deterred by the disapproval of their peers, the weight of world opinion or even disinvestment by Silicon Valley companies. They are concerned primarily with maintaining their holds on power.
The Post’s editors have a ready response from the rebuttal that will surely follow from the White House, which is that no one wants American troops on another military front on the other side of the globe. That’s not the point, though — the point is that we have to stop sending signals of retreat and weakness, or else other nations will pay the price:
But it’s also true that, as long as some leaders play by what Mr. Kerry dismisses as 19th-century rules, the United States can’t pretend that the only game is in another arena altogether. Military strength, trustworthiness as an ally, staying power in difficult corners of the world such as Afghanistan — these still matter, much as we might wish they did not. While the United States has been retrenching, the tide of democracy in the world, which once seemed inexorable, has been receding. In the long run, that’s harmful to U.S. national security, too.
As Mr. Putin ponders whether to advance further — into eastern Ukraine, say — he will measure the seriousness of U.S. and allied actions, not their statements. China, pondering its next steps in the East China Sea, will do the same. Sadly, that’s the nature of the century we’re living in.
Well, that’s the nature of the world most of us inhabit, anyway. But the Post is a little late to this party. While they note that Russia paid no price at all for their incursion into Georgia in 2008 when George W. Bush was President, they fail to note that Republicans such as John McCain, Sarah Palin, and later Mitt Romney all argued that we had to start sending tougher signals to Putin. The media ridiculed them for their positions; Obama glibly told Romney during a presidential debate that the ’80s wanted their foreign policy back. For all of this, Obama got rewarded while his critics got marginalized.
It’s good now to see the Post shocked, shocked at the fantasy world of utopians who thought a “reset button” would solve all the problems between Russia and the US while Russia continued to occupy Georgian territory, no less. That doesn’t keep them from receiving a Captain Louis Renault Award, on behalf of the broader American media market that kept insisting that putting a 21 in front of the century meant that the nature of power, nationalism, and empire-building had changed.
Their winnings … our losings.
Marco Rubio offers eight steps that the Obama administration must take to get back to a realistic position of power in the real world, vis-a-vis Putin:
Sixth, we should renew a push for eventual membership in NATO by the Republic of Georgia and aim to provide the country with some of the defensive capabilities the Georgians have requested ever since they were invaded by Russia in 2008.
Seventh, the Obama administration should immediately add more Russian officials to the Magnitsky list, which places travel bans and other sanctions on them – something President Obama failed to do in December. Living in Miami, I have seen in recent years the wave of Russian tourists coming to our city and state to spend money and buy property. Many are government officials or allies whose wealth stems from allegiance to Putin, and we should limit their ability to travel here.
Finally, in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid should immediately halt his effort to force a Senate vote on Rose Gottemoeller next week to be under secretary of state for arms control and international security. As I, Sens. John Cornyn and Jim Risch said yesterday, we shouldn’t even be thinking about arms-control negotiations with Russia anytime soon. And especially not negotiations led by a State Department official, such as Ms. Gottemoeller, who has tried to play down and potentially kept information from Congress and our allies about Russian violations of arms-control agreements.
This is a critical moment in world history. The credibility of the alliances and security assurances that have preserved the international order is at stake. If Putin’s illegal actions are allowed to stand unpunished, it will usher in a dark and dangerous era in world affairs.
The White House took a couple of Rubio’s steps already, sending Kerry to Kyiv and halting the G-8 conference. Step 0, the one needed to enable these to form a foreign policy for the real world, consists of waking the hell up.
President Abdullah Gül has taken a remarkable initiative for the auditing of several topics that have been dominating Turkey’s national agenda over the last few months, including wiretapping, discrimination of career professionals such as judges and prosecutors, urban rent, and the fight against corruption.
Gül, who has repeatedly underlined the importance of concepts such as good governance, transparency and accountability since his time as foreign minister, authorized the State Audit Board (DDK), a top state body working under the presidency, to launch investigations into the five topics, a written statement posted on the official website of the presidency announced.
Accordingly, the DDK will launch examinations, investigations and inspections on all of those topics. “The president has given instructions ... to assess the institutional and regulatory capacity regarding wiretapping in our nation and to determine what measures need to be taken to comply with the law ... [and to] research the capacity to fight corruption,” the statement said.
Gül’s authorizing of the DDK comes after the revelation of a huge graft probe on Dec. 17. The probe has involved many high-profile names and relatives of ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) members. The statement from the presidency underlined how wiretapping should be conducted “within a framework that would provide effective and legal operation of the public administration,” while also touching upon auditing “the application of and standards regarding the use of encrypted communication devices.”
Late last month, Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Hadi Salihoğlu announced that at least 2,280 people had been wiretapped in Turkey, both indirectly and directly, since 2011.
During the same days, audio recordings of an alleged conversation between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his son Bilal, in which the prime minister ordered his son to dispose of vast amounts of cash Dec. 17, were released.
Similar audio recordings showing the alleged interference of Erdoğan and his family in public tenders and the judiciary, as well as in the elections at the Turkish Football Federation (TFF), have also been leaked in a steady stream. All have been denied by the prime minister, who describes them as “montages” or “fabricated technically” by a movement backed by the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Senior Cabinet members have recently suggested that the Gülen movement threatened and blackmailed Erdoğan and his government before the release of these recordings.
The corruption and bribery probe has implicated the sons of three Turkish ministers, businessmen and the chief of the state bank.
Barış Güler, the son of former Interior Minister Muammer Güler; Barış Kaan Çağlayan, son of former Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan and Reza Sarrab, an Azeri origin businessmen who allegedly bribed four ministers, were released pending trial on Feb. 27. With their release, there are no suspects left behind bars in the corruption probe.
Gül, a comrade of Erdoğan since at least when the AKP was founded in 2002 and a former prime minister and foreign minister, has come under pressure to speak out over the scandals. The pressure has come from various fronts, including from within the Gülen movement.
According to the latest statement from the presidency, Gül’s order also requires auditors to look at the process by which judges and prosecutors are chosen, and to assess rules surrounding “state secrets.” Last month, Parliament approved a new law tightening executive control of the judiciary, a move Erdoğan’s critics say is a further attempt to snuff out the corruption allegations after the government dismissed or reassigned thousands of police officers and hundreds of judges and prosecutors.
A considerable portion of the corruption and bribery charges are assumed to have been related to construction tenders. The presidential statement emphasized that Gül’s order regarding urban rent aimed at a comprehensive examination of fairly sharing rent emerging from zoning and urbanization practices and matters, such as methods and tools of societal participation and the auditing of urban planning and zoning changes.
March/04/2014
Turkish PM Erdoğan continues salvo against main opposition CHP
PM Erdoğan called former president and long-time CHP leader İnönü dictator. AA Photo
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has continued his salvo against the opposition during his party’s rally in the southern province of Adıyaman on March 4.
Erdoğan geared up his rhetoric against the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in response to comments from its leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu describing him as a dictator, by calling Turkey’s former president and long-time CHP leader İsmet İnönü a dictator in return. “We have asked and looked around, to end up finding the dictator. It is within you, CHP. It’s İnönü. He had been one of the first [leaders] to congratulate when Nazism or fascism came into power,” Erdoğan told his party’s supporters.
“They are the main ones responsible for the Dersim massacre. But although they are the main people responsible, the director-general of CHP, who is from Dersim as well, cannot even say a couple of words regarding the Dersim massacre. He cannot because as soon as he says it, he will be engulfed in the swamp and he knows it,” Erdoğan said.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is heading into the local elections facing unprecedented accusations of corruption. Tapes leaked onto the Internet featuring alleged phone conversations between Erdoğan and his son also involved the prime minister’s name in the vast web of allegations.
Erdoğan accused the CHP, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the movement of the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen of having joined forces to topple the AKP after orchestrating the graft probes.
“The people will ask for account from this at the ballot box, and then we will ask for account from it with legal means. No one will be able to stop Turkey’s auspicious march, may you not have any concerns,” Erdoğan said.
In two recently leaked voice recordings Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is said to be heard asking former Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin to interfere in a trial in order to arrange a conviction of media mogul Aydın Doğan, who has been at odds with the prime minister.
What seems to be blatant interference in trial proceedings by the prime minister prompted strong criticism from the main opposition party on Tuesday.
In the first phone call, which Twitter user Başçalan (head of thieves) posted Monday on YouTube, Erdoğan allegedly tells the former justice minister to closely watch the court case to make sure that Doğan, whom tax authorities fined $600 million in a separate case in 2009, does not get off scot-free.
After a lower court ruled in Doğan's favor in a trial over alleged irregularities in capital markets law, Ergin allegedly tells Erdoğan not to worry because the case would go for a final decision to the Assembly of Criminal Chambers of the Supreme Court of Appeals.
The voice recording, if authentic, shows Erdoğan telling Ergin to closely follow Doğan's case.
"I will have a talk, on Monday or Sunday, either before or after the meeting of the Cabinet ministers, with the person who is head of the Assembly of Criminal Chambers. We will make sure he acts sensitively,” Ergin allegedly says to Erdoğan.
The voice recording seems to show that Erdoğan and Ergin were closely following the progress of Doğan's case and wanted to ensure a ruling against the media mogul, as well as a fine. Doğan, whom the prime minister has criticized on a number of occasions in past years, owns a number of mainstream TV channels and newspapers that are critical of the government.
The prime minister is allegedly heard telling Ergin in the recording that the case is of crucial importance; that Ali Babacan, deputy prime minister responsible for the economy, is standing next to him; and that the Capital Markets Board (SPK), which regulates markets, sectors and companies to ensure fair competition between firms, had already determined in a report that what Doğan did was in violation of SPK rules and capital market laws.
Erdoğan is said to be heard asking Ergin to keep close tabs on the case. “If you could closely watch [the case] …” After Ergin answers in the affirmative, the voice attributed to the prime minister says: “This should not be neglected. […] Apparently, there will be a very heavy thing [penalty] against him, that's why [the issue] is important.”
Alevis profiled
In a second voice recording, the prime minister allegedly reproaches Ergin for failing to have kept adequate watch over the progress of Doğan's case. “You said a hearing [of the case] was not conducted. [But] the hearing was conducted,” Erdoğan, who noted that the court had issued a verdict on July 2, is allegedly heard saying.
In comments that, if authentic, could point to a policy of profiling against Turkey's Alevi minority, the voice attributed to Ergin says that the judge who ruled on the issue is of Alevi origin. In Turkey, Sunni Islam is widespread and Alevism is considered by some as an unorthodox sect of Islam.
“This man [the judge] has announced a verdict. He defended the previous verdict of the court. Naturally, the SPK is shocked,” the prime minister is heard saying.
Ruling party stacks judiciary with “his” men
Although the AK Party government has been, since a graft probe that rocked the government was made public on Dec. 17 of last year, accusing the Hizmet movement, inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, of infiltrating the police and judiciary and forming a “parallel state” bent on regime change, these new leaks suggest that the government has been making its own moves to fill the civil service with sympathizers.
Trying to size up the Supreme Court of Appeals, which would have the final say in Doğan's case, Erdoğan allegedly asks Ergin, “What is the situation after the latest law we passed [on the Supreme Court of Appeals]? Did we set up our own game there?"
“Nearly 2,000 friends who were lawyers practicing in the private sector are being transferred into the system” is Ergin's alleged response.
Opposition shocked by voice recording
The leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, said he was shocked by the leaked voice recordings.
According to the CHP leader, the voice recording is proof enough that Turkey has no democracy. Kılıçdaroğlu, who is campaigning in Thrace for this month's local elections, said: “I assure you, I am shocked. How could a prime minister personally make efforts to get a businessperson convicted? This clearly shows us that there is no democracy.”
The opposition leader lamented that the prime minister sees the legislative and judicial branches as obstacles to his rule and stressed that Erdoğan is intent on establishing a dictatorial regime.
Kılıçdaroğlu also criticized Ergin's deference to Erdoğan's requests for him to interfere in the judiciary. “What is even sadder is that a justice minister, who should [in fact] oppose [the prime minister's requests] responds: Yes, sir.”
Opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli kept up his strong criticism of Erdoğan at a rally on Tuesday morning in the Kemalpaşa district of İzmir province.
“If you continue on this path, it will lead you to the Supreme State Council [Yüce Divan]. It will not be possible for you to go elsewhere," said Bahçeli, referring to the name the Constitutional Court takes when it tries prime ministers and other high-ranking bureaucrats.
CHP submits parliamentary question on issue
Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Umut Oran submitted a parliamentary question on Tuesday over the recently leaked voice recording of Erdoğan about the media mogul. Oran asked about the alleged remarks by Ergin involving Turkey's Alevi minority, in which the voice attributed to the minister says that the judge who ruled on the Doğan case is of Alevi origin.
In another voice recording leaked Tuesday on YouTube by the Haramzadeler Twitter account, Bilal Erdoğan, the prime minister's son, is allegedly heard talking with İsmet Yıldırım, head of the İstanbul Public Housing Corporation (KİPTAŞ), about how to illegally transfer ownership of the Okçular Tekkesi (Okçular Dervish Lodge) to the Foundation of Youth and Education in Turkey (TÜRGEV). Bilal is an executive board member of TÜRGEV.
“You are taking this law too seriously,” the voice attributed to Bilal says. Yıldırım is allegedly concerned that they may have legal problems in the transfer of a historical lodge to TÜRGEV.
Since a graft probe that rocked the government was made public in Dec. 17 last year, Erdoğan's TÜRGEV has been in the center of allegations of corruption. According to a previously leaked voice recording, donations to TÜRGEV were requested of those who wanted to run for mayor on the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) ticket in the upcoming elections.
Doğan criticizes meddling in judiciary, call on PM to verify leaked recording
In response to the leaked audio recording, Doğan Holding issued a statement on behalf of Doğan, saying that the leaked audio clearly illustrates interference in the judiciary, leading to deep concerns over the rule of law in the country.
Doğan Holding has called on the prime minister to verify the authenticity of the leaked recording, expressing its hope that the alleged conversation between Erdoğan and the justice minister is not real.
The statement focused on the principle of the separation of powers as a fundamental component of a state governed by the rule of law, and raised its fears about the SPK's meddling in the judicial process despite the fact that the state agency should operate as an independent body free of any prejudices against any company.
Still it wouldn’t be an AIPAC conference if they didn’t treat US foreign policy as something they could unilaterally dictate, and today that meant specific demands for what the details of a US-Iran deal would be allowed to include.
Israel has been quietly assassinating Iranian scientists for years, and while Iran has complained about it, Israel has never officially admitted to it and has bragged of never having gotten caught.
The trick was a fairly simple one. The Taliban penned an official looking letter calling for the releases of 30 prisoners, including 18 that were all scheduled for release at the time, and 12 of their fighters.
President Abdullah Gül has taken a remarkable initiative for the auditing of several topics that have been dominating Turkey’s national agenda over the last few months, including wiretapping, discrimination of career professionals such as judges and prosecutors, urban rent, and the fight against corruption.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has continued his salvo against the opposition during his party’s rally in the southern province of Adıyaman on March 4.
What seems to be blatant interference in trial proceedings by the prime minister prompted strong criticism from the main opposition party on Tuesday.
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