Trouble In Turkey

[Annie]

So you're equating Russian desire for empire with Turkey's new government? Trying it regain the old Ottoman empire?

I admire any person who takes his nation and puts it on course towards much larger goals. From economic expansion to restoring national pride. Putin is one of the greatest leader of our times. He has put Russia back into its natural relevance. As such he is to be admired, and the Russians off course admire him and he has a cult-status wide over the Russian borders.

This world needs a strong Russia, Medvedev was just a gap-filler as Putin couldn't directly rule his next term due to constitution.

Ya know there's a lot of people who felt the same way about Hitler and Stalin. Uuummmmm............

Indeed. There's every reason to think Ekrem would be there waving the flag. Seen this coming for years. I got to admit, I thought he was one of the few voices, times teach us well. He was the majority in Turkey, now will the EU and NATO look at the reality?

 

[Ringel05]

Ya know there's a lot of people who felt the same way about Hitler and Stalin. Uuummmmm............

Or like Bush. Uuummmmm...........

What a nonsensical comparison. Rationalize much?

 

[CitizenPained]

Well, Turkey's democracy isn't very nice to the couple hundred military generals they've tossed in jail.

 

[Ringel05]

Well, Turkey's democracy isn't very nice to the couple hundred military generals they've tossed in jail.

The Turkish government claims it's because of suspicion of planning a coup. It sounds like a power play to finally remove the military's political power in the country which, if that is the only reason, can be a good thing. The latest arrest of 22 officers including two senior ones is what prompted the mass resignations. The Turkish military have been the traditional defenders of secularism in Turkish rule, with them out of the way....... who knows.......
The new appointee is the head of the Turkish police, that sounds ominous.

 

[Andaluz]

I don't think this can be great news for anyone.

The AK Parti is this region's biggest People's movement with 50% election share.
We don't need paternalism from outside in defining what's good and what's not good for us.
We do exactly as we see fit.
Be it restructuring our Army or other internal decisions.


Men of the People's

I won't deny that AKP was democratically elected, and I wasn't speaking for the EU, the Western World or anyone other than myself and all my Turkish friends (I spend 3 months every year in Istanbul and Ankara) none of whom voted AKP. Politics in Turkey is very complicated and riven with corruption - witness the replacing of the paving along the full length of Istiklal Caddesi twice in 3 years because the Governor of Istanbul Belediyesi's son runs a company importing Chinese marble paving stones. Guess who got the contract? - but the military has always provided one of the checks and balances of Turkish secular republicanism. While paying lip service to that secularism, the AKP is chipping away at it by changing things piecemeal to make Turkey creep closer and closer to a politcally Islam-oriented state.

The powewrhouse of the Turkish economic strength is in the western third of the country, but Turkey is being driven politically by the less progressive, less economically, more religiously-minded two-thirds. THAT is what is not good for anyone, and I mean anyone in Turkey.

 

[ekrem]

The Turkish government claims it's because of suspicion of planning a coup. It sounds like a power play to finally remove the military's political power in the country which, if that is the only reason, can be a good thing. The latest arrest of 22 officers including two senior ones is what prompted the mass resignations. The Turkish military have been the traditional defenders of secularism in Turkish rule, with them out of the way....... who knows.......
The new appointee is the head of the Turkish police, that sounds ominous.

We don't need the Army to defend anything, there are the opposition parties to do their job and keep ruling party in check.
1 of them controls a 28.09% stake in Turkey's biggest Bank.
Türkiye Is Bankasi

 

[ekrem]

now will the EU and NATO look at the reality?

What can "they" do, that will not harm their interests?

 

[ekrem]

Ya know there's a lot of people who felt the same way about Hitler and Stalin. Uuummmmm............

Or like Bush. Uuummmmm...........

Not germane.

Mr. Putin has less blood on his hand then Mr. Bush.
So, I wanted to remind Ringel when he indicated Mr. Putin is some Hitler or Stalin type of a guy.

 

[CitizenPained]

Well, Turkey's democracy isn't very nice to the couple hundred military generals they've tossed in jail.

The Turkish government claims it's because of suspicion of planning a coup. It sounds like a power play to finally remove the military's political power in the country which, if that is the only reason, can be a good thing. The latest arrest of 22 officers including two senior ones is what prompted the mass resignations. The Turkish military have been the traditional defenders of secularism in Turkish rule, with them out of the way....... who knows.......
The new appointee is the head of the Turkish police, that sounds ominous.

I know. And these fucks think this is democracy?

 

[ekrem]

I know. And these fucks think this is democracy?

The independent election-obsververs from the international institutions monitoring each election think it is.

 

[ekrem]

I won't deny that AKP was democratically elected, and I wasn't speaking for the EU, the Western World or anyone other than myself and all my Turkish friends (I spend 3 months every year in Istanbul and Ankara) none of whom voted AKP. Politics in Turkey is very complicated and riven with corruption - witness the replacing of the paving along the full length of Istiklal Caddesi twice in 3 years because the Governor of Istanbul Belediyesi's son runs a company importing Chinese marble paving stones. Guess who got the contract? - but the military has always provided one of the checks and balances of Turkish secular republicanism. While paying lip service to that secularism, the AKP is chipping away at it by changing things piecemeal to make Turkey creep closer and closer to a politcally Islam-oriented state.

The powewrhouse of the Turkish economic strength is in the western third of the country, but Turkey is being driven politically by the less progressive, less economically, more religiously-minded two-thirds. THAT is what is not good for anyone, and I mean anyone in Turkey.

The next you're in Istanbul, tell your businessfriends, that no one is above law.
And if they want to cheer extra-constitutional practices Turkey is the wrong place for them to live in.
Those 2/3rds you're referring to have the same rights and stakes in the Republic as the 1/3rd.

You want to change that you take up arms and try to implement and exclusive form of State System.

 

[Ringel05]

Or like Bush. Uuummmmm...........

Not germane.

Mr. Putin has less blood on his hand then Mr. Bush.
So, I wanted to remind Ringel when he indicated Mr. Putin is some Hitler or Stalin type of a guy.

I never said Putin was Hitler or Stalin I said people saw Hitler and Stalin as strong men and look what happened there. Putin is not above going in that direction and as for Putin not having lots of blood on his hands, much more than Bush....... you really need to do some research.

 

[Ringel05]

The Turkish government claims it's because of suspicion of planning a coup. It sounds like a power play to finally remove the military's political power in the country which, if that is the only reason, can be a good thing. The latest arrest of 22 officers including two senior ones is what prompted the mass resignations. The Turkish military have been the traditional defenders of secularism in Turkish rule, with them out of the way....... who knows.......
The new appointee is the head of the Turkish police, that sounds ominous.

We don't need the Army to defend anything, there are the opposition parties to do their job and keep ruling party in check.
1 of them controls a 28.09% stake in Turkey's biggest Bank.
Türkiye Is Bankasi

I'm simply making observations based on historical fact and some knowledge of the players involved from an outsiders point of view, only time will tell what happens. I hope Turkey is able to maintain it's secular democracy but with the movement of many Islamists worldwide for a return to a "purer" form of Islam............. We'll see.

 

[Annie]

It's not only the military, journalists too:

Turkey

...But the seeming excesses of the investigation into Sledgehammer have alarmed other U.S. analysts and officials, and raised questions about whether the alleged coup investigation is targeting a broader swathe of AKP critics.

Turkish journalists have also been arrested in connection to the alleged coup plot--including some who reported on the alleged activities of a Turkish-based Islamic group known as the Gulen movement. Its head, Fethullah Gulen, lives in exile in Pennsylvania. One arrested journalist, Ahmet Sik, was arrested this spring as he was preparing to publish a book alleging the Gulen movement had infiltrated the Turkish police forces as a kind of counter-weight to the secular military. (The group also runs schools around the world, including some 120 in the United States, where it has come under investigation by the FBI and Department of Education.)

Today, the lone Turkish military service chief who did not resign was the Turkish military police chief, Gen. Necdet Ozel, who was subsequently named acting military chief of staff.

The United States said of the resignations today that it is an internal matter.

"We have confidence in the strength of Turkey's institutions, both democratic and military, and it's an internal matter," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told journalists at the press briefing.

Turkey is a major U.S. and NATO ally. Petraeus had stopped in Turkey last week to thank Turkish leaders for sending 1,600 troops to aid stabilization efforts in Afghanistan.

It's worrisome, indeed.

 

[ekrem]

It's worrisome, indeed.

Yes, Erdolf.
Would you please answer the bold-marked part?

While the thought of a radical Islamist Turkey is frightening, and many take an odd pleasure in saying that Turkey has been “lost” to radical Islamism and should be ostracized, the reality is more complex. First, it is hard to ostracize a country that has the largest army in Europe as well as an economy that grew at 8.9 percent last year and that occupies some of the most strategic real estate in the world. If the worst case from the West’s point of view were true, ostracizing Turkey would be tough, making war on it even tougher, and coping with the consequences of an Islamist Turkey tougher still. If it is true that Turkey has been taken over by radical Islamists — something I personally do not believe — it would be a geopolitical catastrophe of the first order for the United States and its allies in the region. And since invading Turkey is not an option, the only choice would be accommodation. It is interesting to note that those who are most vociferous in writing Turkey off are also most opposed to accommodation. It is not clear what they propose, since their claim is both extreme and generated, for the most part, for rhetorical and not geopolitical reasons.

Turkey's Elections and Strained U.S. Relations | STRATFOR


You don't like it? Hell, world doesn't always turn to your liking.
That's the reason, why EU although some of it's members have deep-rooted problems with Turkey has opened membership-process with Turkey in 2005. With unitary vote of all it's members. And that's the reason Turkey receives pre-accession funding by EU and is already part of EU's Customs Union.

So, tell me, what are you going to do, given that we don't necessarily need you, but you necessarily have to deal with us given your interests in our region and in the energy sphere?
We are here, we won't go away and have clear ambitions. And these ambitions are backed by the people of Turkey - which is what counts at the end of the day.

One thing won't happen, and that is isolation.
You can not even isolate Iran for 30 years.

 

[ekrem]

Its economy is growing three times as fast as those of other European countries. Driving from the western part of Turkey into the eastern provinces of Bulgaria and Romania, one wonders which side of the border the affluent part of Europe is actually on.

The Sultan of Istancool: Is Erdogan's Success Pulling Turks Away from Europe? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

 

[ekrem]

I'm simply making observations based on historical fact and some knowledge of the players involved from an outsiders point of view, only time will tell what happens. I hope Turkey is able to maintain it's secular democracy but with the movement of many Islamists worldwide for a return to a "purer" form of Islam............. We'll see.

History follows patterns.
The rise of USA has for a short time interrupted those patterns. Luckily, the USA is declining without any foreign influence.

In case of Turkey in the last 200 years, these patterns are rigorous cooperation with Germany as Germany always stood on the side of Turkey in times of need. Unconditionally.
Be it development assistance, opening it's borders to Millions of Turkish workers as our economy couldn't integrate them. And opening doors to "refugees" from the Army's coups(at least 100thousand from 1980 coup), and off course modernization of our economy. Germany is by far the biggest investor into Turkish manufacturing industry compared to other foreigners.

From every € Turkey receives in pre-accession funding of EU, every 20 cents comes out of Germany.
In development assistance, Germany has by far given most to Turkey.
Equivalent to half what Germany received from USA by Marshall-Plan.
Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
www.bmz.de/de/publikationen/themen/laender_regionen/Materialie198.pdf

And it was Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1996 that made Turkey participant in EU's Customs Union and in 1997 Turkey began to appear in EU's official documents as an official membership-candidate of EU.
And in 2005 Chancellor Schröder insisted on membership talks to finally begin.
So it happened.

From our point of "view" the "West" is Germany whom we fought with in World-War.
If Turkey ever departs from "West", then from USA which is not the "West" for us.
The USA, especially it's anti-Turkish Congress is not really a friend of us.

 

[ekrem]

In Germany they reformed the education-sector in 2005 by the so-called Excellence-Initiative.
It is reformation of selected Universities so they become science-clusters.

Elite für den Orient (Elites for the Orient)
Deutsch-türkische Universität: Elite für den Orient | Studium | ZEIT ONLINE

Now we construct an University in Istanbul, which will be funded by German Education Ministry and Turkey. The Faculties will be implemented as in Germany.
Berlin's Technical University for example will establish the Faculty of Engineering Science.
Agreements have already been ratified by both Parliaments.
Or to say it in other words:

The university is conceived as a visible flagship project of the German-Turkish university cooperation

BMBF › Ministerium › Türkei


For the construction of our 1st nuclear plant, the Scientists will be taught in Moscow by the Nuclear University through scholarships.
Russian President already ratified the agreement:
President of Russia

What has your Parliament ( Congress ) ever ratified in regards to Turkey else then "Armenian Genocide" this, "Islamist Turkey" that.
So, please do us a favour and fuck off from our region, we don't want you, we don't like you.

 

[ekrem]

Particle Accelerator built on Ankara University project with help of 3 German Universities.

The design plan for the TAC is to have a combination of an electron linear accelerator and a positron storage ring that could be used individually or as a unit for a wide range of experiments. This would be the second combination complex build in recent years; the Beijing Electron Positron Collider also combines a particle collider and an X-ray light source.

Turkey plans an accelerator center

German Science Minister was present at signing ceremony
Deal signed on establishment of Turkish Accelerator Center[/QUOTE]

The 1st facility will come online in 2013
Ankara University - Turkish Accelerator Center Project



Turks building German submarines.
Agreement for Germany's latest submarine U-214 - will be called Atilay-class in Turkey - has also been signed.
The Atilay class will be 1st submarine in Turkey built with modern vertical construction technology from German ThyssenKrupp in Turkey.

Pictures of construction of "older" Prezeve-class (German U-209 class) submarines with standard horizontal construction in Gölcük Naval Shipyard near Istanbul.

 

[Andaluz]

The next you're in Istanbul, tell your businessfriends, that no one is above law.
And if they want to cheer extra-constitutional practices Turkey is the wrong place for them to live in.
Those 2/3rds you're referring to have the same rights and stakes in the Republic as the 1/3rd.

You want to change that you take up arms and try to implement and exclusive form of State System.

'businessfriends'? A couple of my friends are business people, but mainly they are journalists, artists, chefs and university professors. Why would you think that?

Of course no one should be above the law, apart from AKP corrupt politicians, of course. Oh, and the wives of AKP high-ups who flouted the veil ban laws before they were changed and were not prosecuted. It's just a good job that the AKP failed to poll sufficiently in the general election to allow them to make constitutional changes unopposed.