This past week, the world news cycle for the Middle East has focused almost exclusively on the red-line fiasco of a US foreign-policy response to the calamity in Syria and on the possibility that the Arab League's revival of its 2002 Peace Initiative could jump-start Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. Meanwhile, comparably little media attention went to the conclusion of a business deal with significant geostrategic implications for the Greater Middle East: On May 3, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe inked a $22 billion deal for a nuclear power project that will give Turkey its second nuclear plant.
The new nuclear plant will be built on the Sinope Peninsula of Turkey's northern Black Sea coast--the first site, contracted to a Russian consortium and scheduled to begin on operations in 2020, is located Akkuyu near the port of Mersin on the Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey--and is targeted...
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Today is Easter for the world's 350 million Orthodox Christians, who just completed their Holy Week of prayer and fasting which culminated in today's message of transcendent hope. But all last week and today, Orthodox Christians the world over have been reminded that politics trumps human rights. There’s a cruel irony in the fact that Orthodox Christians—whose belief that all persons are created equally and distinctly in the image and likeness of God is a perfect expression of the contemporary view that human rights are universal—have been reminded, yet again, that the United States is unwilling to prioritize international law and justice over the worst kind of political cowardice and geopolitical calculations.
Two examples illustrate the repugnant fact that the US is willing to write off Orthodox Christians when it comes to making ethical choices to uphold human rights principles, instead opting to overlook gross human rights violations in the interests...
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There was a disturbing sense of
déjà vu to US Secretary of State John Kerry's remarks at the April 21 press conference that concluded his third, most recent, visit to Turkey, where he met with Foreign Minister Davutoglu to discuss US-Turkish efforts to deal with the deteriorating geostrategic environment in the Middle East. Kerry lavished praise on Davutoglu and Prime Minister Erdogan, for their “enormous contributions” in solving critical issues that are combining to produce the worst security environment that the Middle East has known since the mid-late part of the previous century. Kerry emphasized three points that were central to his “prolonged and constructive discussion” with his Turkish counterpart. It’s worth deconstructing each point, since we’ll uncover a disagreeable pattern of familiarity in need of change.
Kerry’s first point made it clear that the US has chosen Turkey as partner for trying to create “some transformative economic initiatives on...
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HALC is pleased to present a guest post by Alexander Billinis, a Greek American currently living in Serbia. A writer and banker, he has worked in Serbia, Greece, and the UK. His views on the Balkans are further elaborated in his 2011 book, "The Eagle has Two Faces," available at amazon.com
BY ALEXANDER BILLINIS
Most of what comes out of the Balkans today concerns economics, most specifically the ongoing economic crisis in Greece which mirrors, perhaps less acutely, a similar economic malaise in other Balkan countries. Many of these countries, particularly Bulgaria, are highly integrated with the Greek economy, so the knock-on effects are real and immediate. This being the Balkans, moreover, there are any number of frozen ethnic conflicts always ready for a thaw. Moreover, all Balkan countries suffer from governance more like Ottoman pashaliks than European democracies.
But that is not the real news, in fact, that is old...
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Let’s create a short list of things Cypriots won’t sell to the highest bidder:
- Their dignity.
- Their heritage.
- Their country.
Let’s look at a few analysts who just don’t understand the above. First off, we have Slate’s Matt Yglesias, who put forth this proposal that he claimed was “much too sensible to be considered”:
sell diplomatic recognition of Northern Cyprus' secession to Turkey for the 5.8 billion euros that Cyprus needs.
Next, we have “economists and diplomats," quoted today in The Wall Street Journal in an article titled "Turks to the Rescue? An Unlikely Cyprus Bailout":
[S]triking a loan deal with Turkey and pursuing reunification with Turkish Cypriots in the north may pose the best option for President Nicos Anastasiades, some economists and diplomats say.” [...]
“We are asking for help clearly, but something that would make also economic sense for Russia,” Cypriot Finance Minister...Continue reading →
Last week's dust-up between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the latter's characterization of Zionism as a crime against humanity—at the UN Conference for the Alliance of Civilizations, a dialog forum dedicated to inter-cultural and inter-faith tolerance—should be understood for the revelation that it was. In this most recent of his growing list of unfiltered rants, Erdogan pulled back the curtain on the dirty little secret of anti-Semitism that is pervasive in Turkish politics and society. Critics of Erdogan's governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) charge that anti-Semitism in today's Turkey is a recent phenomenon wholly associated with Islamist governance, but that sort of analysis is seriously off the mark. The fact of the matter is that the AKP era inaugurated with Turkey's 2002 general elections has provided an echo chamber for the widespread, latent anti-Semitism long percolating across social strata and...
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It’s been less than one month since Pope Benedict XVI gave two weeks’ notice that he would become the first person in six centuries to resign from his position as the Bishop of Rome and Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. In the short time since his announcement, the Pope became emeritus on February 28, departing Vatican City in the helicopter that deposited him safely in the pontifical summer residence that will be his home until he relocates to a monastery in Vatican City. And meanwhile, 115 Elector Cardinals have arrived in Rome from all the world’s continents, to begin their congregational deliberations on Benedict’s successor. Very soon, those hierarchs will begin the official conclave that will culminate when white smoke billows from the chimney of the special stove in St. Peter’s Basilica to announce the election of a new Pope. As spiritual leader of the planet’s 1.2 billion Roman...
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Turkey's Prime Minister has expended much time, effort and money over the last years crafting the image of a moderate Middle Eastern politician. Yet every now and again, there are moments when Erdogan’s unpolished persona and politics reveal themselves. The world saw one such moment about a week ago during the Fifth Global Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations. There, Erdogan made the following statement:
“Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomes unavoidable that Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity."
His comparison of Zionism to fascism and a “crime against humanity" drew strong rebukes around the world. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
released a statement calling Erdogan's comments "wrong" and stressing that "contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based.” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called the comment “sinister and mendacious.” The White House, through National Security Council spokesperson Tonny Vietor, called Erdogan’s statement “offensive...
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Today is a day of both celebration and remembrance in America. The inauguration in Washington of Barack Hussein Obama for a second term as the 44th President of the United States of America coincides with MLK Day, the holiday of remembrance for American civil-rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated in Tennessee in 1968 because of his non-violent campaign to ensure freedom and equality for all American citizens. For the first time in the country’s history, the invocation at the presidential inauguration will be delivered by a lay person and a woman, Myrlie Edgar-Williams, tireless civil-rights activist and widow of Medgar Evans, who was murdered in Mississippi in 1963 for championing school desegregation and voting rights for all American citizens.
There is almost a providential feel to today’s tableau of America, which conveys an inspirational message that the United States stands for universal human rights—rights intrinsic to every human...
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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew leads the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians. Several weeks ago, he called out income inequality as the moral crisis of our time. He's been one of the few world leaders to do so in such a consistent and forceful manner.
While Pope Benedict used
his holiday message to call for peace but to also renew his campaign against marriage equality, gay adoption, and abortion, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was striking a much different tone. He chose to focus his call to action on
addressing income inequality and the concentration of political power:
We human beings have not been reconciled, despite God’s sacred will. We retain a hateful disposition for one another. We discriminate against one another by means of fanaticism with regard to religious and political convictions, by means of greed in the acquisition of material goods, and through expansionism in the exercise of political power....Continue reading →
