Turkey
Turkey and NATO
From the NYT’s report on the potential appointment of Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO Secretary General: NATO works by consensus, and the European-favored candidacy of Mr. Rasmussen was publicly opposed by Turkey, NATO’s only Muslim country. Turkish officials said that Mr. Rasmussen was too insensitive to Muslim concerns during the scandal over the Danish newspapers publication in 2005
A new blog
My dear friend Yigal Schleifer has launched the blog Istanbul Calling, presenting news and views from Turkey and the region. This part of the world will be crucial to any understanding of geopolitics in the Obama era. And no one is more qualified than Yigal to provide the straight dope. Bookmark him.
Video links
Finally got around to posting short YouTube vids from Istanbul, Suleimaniya and Dakar. Enjoy.
The Israel-Syria talks
My good friend Yigal Schleifer of the Christian Science Monitor on the lead-up to the current Israel-Syria negotiations in Turkey.
Head scarf drama
Turkey’s parliament has lifted the ban on womens’ head scarves in universities, a politically fraught move that nonetheless should be welcomed. “Secular” protesters are taking to the streets with their flags and fervor, which is why I put “secular” in quotes — these folks are under the sway of a competing religion, Kemalism, the near-deification of Kemal Ataturk and the
Turkey-Kurdistan-PKK
In light of continuing Turkish attacks against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan, one could do worse than read Marko Attila Hoare’s clear-eyed policy prescriptions. In short: yes, the PKK is a terrorist gang. But Turkey has created its Kurdish problem and can end it. It should grant the Kurds full, unconditional political freedom and recognize Kurdish as an official language,
The brink
When you see the Turkish flag being marched through the streets you know that reason may have a hard time prevailing. Outrage over recent PKK attacks among the nationalist populace explains much about the Turkish government’s heated rhetoric. Now the gov’t is trying to tamp down that sentiment, in some weirdly Orwellian ways: The Turkish broadcast authority today halted all
The PKK’s Hezbollah moment
The photo at left shows a Turkish military convoy heading toward Silopi in southeast Turkey, which is precisely where I crossed the border to Iraqi Kurdistan last year. I may well have been on this very road. The PKK seems to have borrowed straight from the Hezbollah playbook in staging its Sunday attack and taking Turkish soldiers as hostages, a