Cuando volvió el Mavi Marmara

Turkey and Israel: Slow moves to reconstruct broken ties

Photo: Atlantic Council. ACUS.ORG. Turkish Foreign Minister

Lucas Farioli / Istanbul

"A new era has started in Turkey-Israel relations after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent two aircrafts to Israel to join efforts to extinguish a major forest fire in Haifa," Turkey new agency Anadolu reported Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying this during a press conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mualem in Ankara.
Turkey-Israel relations between once close allies have deteriorated in recent years and have reached the lowest point last 31st May when nine Turkish citizens were killed when Israeli naval commandos attacked in international waters a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
Following Turkey's decision to send the aircraft, Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu in an effort to end the diplomatic crisis with Ankara sent the Israeli representative on the United Nations committee investigating the Gaza flotilla incident, Yosef Ciechanover, to Geneva in order to meet with Feridun Sinirlioglu, an undersecretary at the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
Israeli diplomats have said that the initial proposal made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's envoy included an expression of "regret" over the killings of the activists and agreement to compensate the families of the nine Turkish citizen shot during the attack offering around 100.000 dollars for each of them, Reuters informed.
In return, Israel wants Turkey to assure indemnify for Israeli military personal involved in the killings against lawsuits in international forums, and to normalize ties with steps like a new exchange of ambassadors.
In this respect Davotoglu also clarified that “The reports regarding the developments are speculative. Talks are continuing,” at a joint press conference in Ankara Turkish paper Hürriyet reported.

Women's organizations fear a wave of 'femicide' in Turkey

Photo: unknown photomontage

Lucas Farioli / Estambul

The Women and Ethic Commission of the Turkish Physicians’ Chamber said in a press conference last Saturday in order to prevent the killing of women in Turkey,
-Where it is estimated that three women are killed every day- the state needs to provide more instruments to de dominant mechanism, which aim at assisting and protecting the women, such as the judiciary or medical services.
At this respect several women’s organization have demanded from the government an “urgent plan of action” to stop the “increasing cases of femicide in Turkey.”
Müge Yetener, women’s organization activist and a member of the chamber alleged that between January and August, last year 953 women and this year 226 women were murdered, conservative Turkish paper Zaman said.
According to Turkish information wire Bianet News in October of this year 23 women were killed and 16 wounded. Also in October 15 women were raped and 7 of them were under eighteen.
According to several women’s organization the reasons behind the killings are diverse: wearing “provocative” clothes, sending a text message, or simply for jealously.
Pinar Illkaracak, member the Turkish women’s right organization of Women for Women Human Rights has said that “honour crime” is on the rise.
“There are two main types of murder against women, one is domestic violence against wife or girlfriend which happens in everywhere, and the other is honour killing which unfortunately is on the rise”, Illkaracak said.
“Our organization and several 14 other women’s right movements have initiated a tremendously vigorous campaign in order to rise the attention of the public and authorities about this issue”
“We have persuaded the authorities to modify 14 articles over the current legislation, making imprisonment sentences much tougher for those guilty of honour crimes family plotting, however there is still a lot of things to improve in terms of women’s right and equality in Turkey”
For a long time, women’s organizations have demanded more shelters, claiming that for every 7500 people there must be at least one women’s shelter house
Meanwhile, in an interview with Turkish paper Zaman, Meltem Agduk from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), argued that Turkey has been making some progress in this topic but there is more work to do:
“We believe that Turkey has been working on the honour crimes, early-age marriages and human trafficking that there is still a long way to go”
According to Illkaracak the passiveness of the cabinet is due to political reasons.
“The fact that current AKP Islamism rulers prefer not to deal with this problematic is not because of their religious background, as Quran disapprove this practice; it is due to the value of conservative Kurdish vote, in whose regions most of honour killing are being committed. This is simply unacceptable”
Meanwhile the construction of seven new shelters the UNFPA coordinated the EU and the Turkish Ministry of Interior have already been completed and hanged over this weekend in cities such as Ankara, Antalya, Bursa, Eskisehir, Gaziantep, Izmir and Samsun.

Istanbul bomb afterwards

Lucas Farioli / Istanbul

This video shows the afterwards of the explosion in Istanbul's Taksim Square last Sunday October 31st. The sequence has been recorded and edited by us and published by Latin American and Spanish media in El Pais and Pagina/12.

A suicide bomber identified as Vedat Acar and a member of the outlawed group Hawks for Kurdistan Freedom (TAK), believed to be a PKK faction; blew himself up in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, wounding 32 people, including 15 policemen, on the final day of a cease-fire by an outlawed terrorist group.
Istanbul Police Chief Hüseyin Çapkın told to CNN TÜRK that the bomber “tried but failed to get into a parked police van and detonated the bomb just outside the vehicle” Anti-riot police units are generally stationed at Taksim Square, at the heart of Istanbul’s social and economic centre, in case of illegal demonstrations.
Seventeen passersby were also injured in the attack in addition to the 15 policemen, Istanbul Mayor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu said. There has been no casualties and of the injured, 23 people were treated in hospitals and sent home the same day.
“None of the injured people face a life-threatening risk. The investigation is ongoing,” said the country’s head police chief, Oğuz Kaan Köksal, who came to Istanbul from Ankara following the bombing.

Greeks and Turks united by the crisis

Photo: Australian Library. Greek migrants

Lucas Farioli / Istanbul

Long time after the traumatic exchange of population between Turkey and Greece, just few decades ago, Greek workers moved to Germany and the UK when Greek economic situation couldn’t make their country to meet their essential standard of living. Turkey at that time was an unthinkable option.
But new wave of recession that is striking the country and its disastrous consequences has diverted the search beyond the confines of Western Europe and now also includes old enemy's Turkey.
According surces from Turkish Daily Hürriyet tons of requests from unemployed Greek citizens are being sent to the Greek consulate in Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Chamber of Northern Greece at Thessalonica. The tendency is increasing dramatically over the past few months.
Yiannis Karkanis, a diplomat of the Greek consulate spoke to the Sunday's Greek daily Kathimerini:
"At this time last year, we didn’t receive a single request for work. They started coming at the beginning of this year and have increased gradually".
"Most of the Greeks who approach to us are married couples and heads of families. The vast majority of them has not special skills, nor do they have any knowledge of Turkish language, but still they look for a job as a laborer in Turkey starting with salaries as low as 300€ a month. They totally desperate and willing to go to a country they are totally unfamiliar to".
In Greek-Turkish Chamber in Thessalonica the situation is totally different. The people who apply for working in Turkey there are highly educated, have university degrees and post-graduate degrees and their knowledge of the Turkish language is good. “It is shocking that so many Greeks speak Turkish as the Turkish departments of language schools are blooming” an unidentified source from the Greek diplomacy told to Turkish Daily Hürriyet.
Greek unemployed Medea Tsartsidou, 29, has been trying to find a job in Greece for the last six years. As she graduated from Balkan Studies and has worked sporadically as a translator for businesses working in Turkey, she considers the possibility of moving to Istanbul.
"The potential for finding a stable job in Greece is losing ground. But now with the crisis, all hope is simply gone,” Tsartsidou said.
Citizens of Archrivals Turkey and Greece are to bury down their differences as blooming Turkish economy is in need of qualified and cheap Greek labor. The return to beloved Constantinople is an ideal excuse to leave behind old and meaningless quarrels.

Saturday Mothers' gathering

Photo: Lucas Farioli / Pagina12. Mothers in Galatasaray Square

Lucas Farioli / Istanbul


Many residents of Istanbul have already seen this before. Since 1995 the so-called “Saturday Mothers,” (Cumartesi Anneleri as they are called in Turkey), held protests every Saturday seeking for information about their loved ones, who disappeared in the 1990s.
Those were difficult years for many Kurdish families in Turkey, when hundreds – the exact numebr is still unknown – disappeared at the pick of the conflict between Turkish security forces and armed insurgents of the Kurdish separatist guerrilla, PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).
According to human rights groups, most of the the people who disappeared hailed from the Kurdish-dominated southeastern parts of Turkey. They included PKK members, Kurdish rights sympathizers and ordinary citizens. However some human rights organizations have argued that Turkish security forces also made dissapear other activists that have not been directly related to Kurdish problem.
Four years of Saturday protests on Istiklal Avenue however only yielded police crackdowns and shed little light on a dark chapter in modern Turkish history. Gradually, the “Saturday mothers” demonstrations fizzled out in 1999.
However a series of exceptional developments in the ongoing saga of Turkey’s clash between the secular establishment and the ruling moderate islamist party have reignited long-abandoned quests for justice and human rights along the country.
In recent years, Turks have been gripped by a sensational, high-profile investigation into a shadowy ultranationalist group called Ergenekon that allegedly hatched a plot to overthrow the country’s democratically elected moderate Islamist government. The ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP Justice and Development Party) has been in power since 2002.
The complex Ergenekon case includes allegations that the group had close links to JITEM, Turkey’s infamous military police intelligence wing and an illegal branch of the Turkish Jandarme (Gendarmery). Many experts in Turkish law strongly believe this unit is also responsible for the extrajudicial killings and disappearances during Turkey’s counter-terror operations against the PKK, which began in 1984 and lasted during the whole of the 1990s.
“Ergenekon has seen the opening up of all the old files, and it’s a very healthy (development),” says Hugh Pope of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. “The mothers of the missing want answers and they want to encourage the judicial process.”
However the "Saturday Mothers" still keep seeking for answers and even if the government has not officially started the investigation there are signs that indicate that the judiciary has taken some steps in this direcction.

Iran wants Turkey to take part in its space project

Photo: Pagina/12 Argentina. Iranian president invited Turkey

Lucas Farioli / Istanbul

Iran has invited again Turkey to take part in work on the Islamic Republic's space programme, which aims to put a man in space by 2017, the Turkish newspaper Habertürk has reported.
Western countries which suspect Iran might be trying to build nuclear bombs are concerned the long-range ballistic technology used to propel Iranian satellites into orbit could also be used to launch nuclear warheads ovr sensitive targets such as Israel or the American military bases in the Gulf. Tehran denies such suggestion claiming its nuclear and space programme are for paceful means only.
Teurkish Habertürk alleged that Turkey had not formally responded to the Persian proposal. However Turkish officials were unavailable for declarations on this topic, and there was no immediate comment from Tehran.
Iran has regarded its space programme, which test-launched a satellite rocket this year, as a matter of national pride crucial to achieve technological independence.
The reported proposal to cooperate on the sensitive programme would underscore growing trust between Turkey and Iran as the states seek to strengthen diplomatic and business ties.However Turkish double rethoric on Iranian-Western relations do not make likely this event to take place.
Habertürk said the offer was made at a summit of business leaders and government officials last month as part of a series of business deals.
Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, insists its nuclear programme is for paceful means such as generating electricity. Turkey, along with Brazil, signed a uranium swap deal earlier this year as they hoped would stave off another round of UN. sanctions on Iran.
The deal was not successful, and the UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions in June over the disputed nuclear programme. Despite sanctions, Turkey has said it wants to increase trade ties with the Islamic Republic as Turkey buys cheap Iranian energy to power its textile factories across the border.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made clear that with or without Turkey Iran planned to bring forward its deadline for sending an astronaut into space from a previous date of 2019.