Turkey, France Find Common Ground on Syria

 
Dorian JONES    Voice of America

Despite strained diplomacy between France and Turkey, the two nations have found mostly common ground in supporting Syrian opposition.

A French objection to Ankara's bid to join the European Union has severely strained ties between the powers, which have been exacerbated by recent policy differences over Libya.

After meeting with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara on Friday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said both countries agree Syrian President Bashar al Assad's government crackdown is unsustainable and that the time has come for France and Turkey to align Syrian policies.

Juppe said Paris is preparing to submit a resolution to the United Nations Security Council that would condemn Syria and possibly pave the way for increased sanctions. He also said France opposes unilateral intervention in Syria and that any such decision would have to be made by the United Nations.

EU says looks to Turkey to help stabilize Mideast

Today's Zaman

President of the European Parliament has said the European Union is looking to Turkey to help stabilize the region shaken by instability and uprising since the start of this year.

Jerzy Buzek, who is visiting Turkey this week, told Turkish deputies in Parliament on Thursday that he knows from his own experiences that a falling dictatorship is both dangerous and unpredictable, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime is threatened by eight-month uprising that claimed nearly 4,000 lives. He said across the Eastern Mediterranean, not just in Syria, there are multiple flashpoints and that the 27-nation bloc is looking to Turkey to help stabilize the region. He said in recent months, Turkey’s leadership has stressed Turkey's support for the struggle for freedom across the North Africa and the Middle East and many in the Middle East regard Turkey as a source of inspiration of a successfully modernising society. He said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the first Muslim leader to tell Egypt's Hosni Mubarak to step down. "Your leaders have travelled to Egypt, Libya and Tunisia to promote the adoption of a constitution that secures secularism. And, more recently, you opened your doors, and hearts, to the Syrian opposition," he said.

Israel: Adrift at Sea Alone

Thomas L FRIEDMAN          The NEW york Times

I’VE never been more worried about Israel’s future. The crumbling of key pillars of Israel’s security — the peace with Egypt, the stability of Syria and the friendship of Turkey and Jordan — coupled with the most diplomatically inept and strategically incompetent government in Israel’s history have put Israel in a very dangerous situation.

This has also left the U.S. government fed up with Israel’s leadership but a hostage to its ineptitude, because the powerful pro-Israel lobby in an election season can force the administration to defend Israel at the U.N., even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s.

Israel is not responsible for the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt or for the uprising in Syria or for Turkey’s decision to seek regional leadership by cynically trashing Israel or for the fracturing of the Palestinian national movement between the West Bank and Gaza. What Israel’s prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, is responsible for is failing to put forth a strategy to respond to all of these in a way that protects Israel’s long-term interests.

Turkey plays balancing act in projecting power in east Med

Abdullah Bozkurt    Today's Zaman

While Turkey is actively pursuing a carrot-and-stick approach in a balancing act to protect its own interests in the eastern Mediterranean, Turkish analysts are warning that Ankara should proceed diligently and cautiously in dealing with a simmering conflict in the region over drilling rights for potentially rich hydrocarbon resources in order to avoid perception problems ranging from bullying power to strong-arming its neighbors.

For some time Turkey has been at odds with the Greek Cypriots over natural gas exploration plans and threatened to respond if the Greek Cypriot administration goes ahead with drilling as announced. Israel, which signed an agreement last November demarcating its maritime borders with the Greek Cypriots, infuriated Ankara, which called the deal “null and void.” The deal invited the wrath of the Turkish government, whose outspoken prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, during a visit to Tunisia on Thursday vowed to send Turkish frigates and assault boats to the eastern Mediterranean.

Iraq eyes EU gas exports through Turkey

Kwok W. WAN      Petroleum Economist

LONDON: Iraq wants to export gas found in the blocks on offer in its fourth licensing round

to Europe by pipeline through Turkey and as liquefied natural gas (LNG).


“We are awaiting various development plans for the fields to decide whether we should start work on a gas-export project to the EU through Turkey,” Iraqi deputy oil minister Ahmed al-Shamma told reporters on the sidelines of the Iraq Mining conference on Wednesday. “That’s what we hope to achieve from the fourth round, to discover some good gas reserves to give us assurance for that project.”


Iraq has pre-qualified 46 companies to bid for the 12 blocks, with the deadline for bids in January 2012. The 46 firms include supermajors – BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell – national oil companies from China, Malaysia and India, as well as a handful of independents. US independent Hess was excluded because the firm has signed upstream deals with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, which the oil ministry regards as illegal.

The Land of Gas and Honey

Robin M MILLS*     Foreign Policy

Israel's giant new natural gas find will transform the Middle East -- and add more fuel to an already combustible region.

Mother Nature's distribution of oil and gas resources around the world suggests she has a mischievous sense of humor. In the Persian Gulf, South China Sea, and Caspian Sea, large fields lie in disputed zones between unfriendly neighbors.

Now we must add another hot spot to that list. New, giant, natural gas finds promise to transform the energy security and economy of Israel and, perhaps, its neighbors. But these treasures could hardly have been better placed to stir up trouble, complicating three of the world's most intractable conflicts: between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and Lebanon, and Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The recent sharp deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations makes disputes over gas even more fraught with danger.

Golda Meir, the feisty, cantankerous, and quotable fourth Israeli prime minister, used to complain that Moses led the Israelites through the desert for 40 years to bring them to the only place in the Middle East without oil. In 2000, after Britain's BG had discovered significant volumes of gas at Gaza Marine, she was proved at least half-wrong when U.S. exploration company Noble Energy found a similar-sized field, Mari-B, in Israeli waters.

Israel’s new problem with the Arab Street

David IGNATIUS    The Washington Post

The expanding confrontation between Israel and its neighbors has been described variously as a “train wreck,” a “lose-lose situation” and a “political tsunami.” It’s all those things and likely to get worse, for there’s no quick fix by Israel’s ally, the United States.

The Obama administration has been seeking diplomatic solutions to the two most incendiary issues — the demand by Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for an Israeli apology for the Gaza flotilla incident of May 2010, and the Palestinian plan to ask the United Nations to declare statehood. Despite feverish American efforts to defuse these bombs, they’re still ticking away.


Welcome to the Arab Spring, ­Arab-Israeli chapter. Commentators sometimes talked as if the Facebook revolutionaries had forgotten about the Palestinian issue. Not so: The “dignity revolution” is connecting, as in last week’s frightening riot at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, with the ever-flowing font of Arab shame and rage toward the Jewish state. Bidding for regional leadership is Erdogan, who thundered Monday, “Israel cannot play with our dignity.”

The first instinct for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, feeling beleaguered and friendless, has been to hunker down and say no. Nobody ever wants to give ground under pressure, but Netanyahu’s approach, while understandable, is a mistake. These are problems that Israel is going to have to answer more creatively.

Brief Analysis of the Upcoming Presidential Elections in Russia March 2012

Jose Chalhoub*            Caracas Venezuela

InMarch next year, two clear candidates are to be foreseenfacing each other in the nextPresidency of Russia, which without doubts are the current President Dmitri Medvedev and the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who bothbelong to the same party Edinayya Rossiya (United Russia). 

At the moment, this party is the main political one within the russian political system and needless to say, the results will be very important for the future of Russiain specific and the world in general, energy wise. To this respect, it must be pointed out that Russia has been going through a considerable period of sustained economic growth in the last decade, mainly as a result of high oil and gas incomes and the reinforcement of the role of the government in this subject, becoming in recent years the first oil producer in the world (10 million barrels per day aprox) and gas, as well as its heavyweight position as the king of natural gas reserves in the globe. Thanks mainly to the reorganization of the energy sector since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.

Then, came Medvedev to Presidency being Putin's most trusted ally, and who has showed a little more flexible position towards different areaswhether in the russian internal front or his position with international politics, which has earned him a slighter support from the West (namely USA and the European Union) than what has been Putin's position in all these matters, who beyond all this, appears to be the strongest and most powerful man in Russia according to many opinion polls.  Especially by his tight control of the most strategic areas of the russian economy (oil, gas, coal, etc) through his many "siloviki" friends from old KGB.  So given this background, and taking into account that neither the Communist Party nor any other political organizationsuch as the Nationalist Party of Vladimir Zhirinovksywhich has an important weight in the Duma comparing to Medvedev and Putin's party United Russia, look to face the next term in Russia from 2012.

Turkish PM sets out on mission to become leader of Arab world

Patrick Cockburn     The Independent

Erdogan tours revolutionary countries as he looks to build power.

The Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, arrived in Egypt yesterday at the start of a three-nation tour as Turkey toughens its stance towards Israel and seeks to become the predominant power among Muslim states in the Middle East and North Africa.

After Egypt, Mr Erdogan will visit Tunisia and Libya to show Turkey's support for both countries after the overthrow of long-standing police states in the Arab Spring. Turkey's strong, democratic and mildly Islamic regime makes it a model for new governments in all three countries.

Mr Erdogan's assertive and critical attitude towards Israel, until recently a close ally of Turkey, makes him attractive to the Arab world. In Cairo, the burning down of the Israeli embassy last weekend was the latest incident marking the hostility at street level between post-Mubarak Egyptians and Israel. 

Turkey's stance on Israel will reverberate in Washington

Mohammed AYOOB    Guardian

The Middle East will never be the same. America must recognise Turkey's emergence as the region's pre-eminent power.

Turkey's expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, the downgrading of its diplomatic relations with Israel, and the Erdogan government's increasingly firm position on the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara signify more than a temporary hiccup in Turkish-Israeli relations. It is a clear signal that Ankara is fed up with Israel's foot-dragging on the apology and compensation that Turkey has demanded as a precondition for the normalisation of Turkish-Israeli relations. The UN's Palmer Commission report, which justified the Israeli blockade of Gaza but accused Israel of using "excessive force" against the flotilla, has been rejected by Turkey. Ankara now plans to take the case against the blockade to the international court of justice (ICJ).