Tag Archives: Turkey

Turkey detains co-mayors of mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir

Turkey official

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities on Tuesday detained the co-mayors of the mainly Kurdish southeast’s biggest city on charges they aided militants, part of a government crackdown after more than a year of violence in the region.

Gultan Kisanak, a former member of parliament before her election as mayor in Diyarbakir, and Firat Anli, her co-mayor, were taken into custody as part of an investigation into terrorism links, the local prosecutor said in a statement.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said the removal of elected officials and civil servants who are accused of links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, is a key part of the fight against the armed group.

The two are accused of making speeches in support of the PKK and of greater political autonomy for Turkey’s estimated 16 million Kurds, the Diyarbakir prosecutor’s statement said.

They are also accused of using municipal vehicles to transport the bodies of dead militants and of inciting violent protests, it said.

Turkey appointed new administrators in two dozen Kurdish-run municipalities in September after removing their elected mayors over suspected links to militants. Those arrests triggered protests across the region.

Authorities were also searching the mayor’s office, security sources said. An aide to Kisanak said the mayor’s home was being searched by police but was unable to provide further details.

Police formed a security cordon around city hall in case the latest detentions stirred unrest, witnesses said.

Kisanak, 55, is a well-known Kurdish political figure and became Diyarbakir’s first female mayor in 2014. Earlier on Tuesday, she testified upon the invitation of lawmakers at a parliamentary commission in Ankara looking into a failed military coup on July 15.

It was not immediately clear whether her testimony was related to the detention order. Kisinak was detained upon her return to Diyarbakir at the airport, while Anli was detained at his home, sources said.

Erdogan accuses their opposition party, the Democratic Regions Party and its larger, sister party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, which is the third-biggest grouping in parliament, of links with the PKK, which both parties deny.

The autonomy-seeking PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, and more than 40,000 people have died in the war.

The PKK abandoned a two-year ceasefire in July 2015 after peace talks had ground to a halt, and violence has escalated sharply since. Hundreds of soldiers and police officers, thousands of militants and about 400 civilians have been killed.

(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Ayla Jean Yackley; Editing by Alison Williams and James Dalgleish)

Turkey’s post-coup emergency rule led to torture, abuse

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during his meeting with mukhtars at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey,

By Humeyra Pamuk

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey has effectively written a “blank check” to security services to torture people detained after a failed military coup attempt, a U.S.-based rights group said on Tuesday, citing accusations of beatings, sleep deprivation and sexual abuse.

A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said a “climate of fear” had prevailed since July’s failed coup against President Tayyip Erdogan and the arrest of thousands under a State of Emergency. It identified more than a dozen cases raised in interviews with lawyers, activists, former detainees and others.

A Turkish official said the Justice Ministry would respond to the report later in the day; but Ankara has repeatedly denied accusations of torture and said the post-coup crackdown was needed to stabilize a NATO state facing threats from Kurdish militants as well as wars in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at HRW, said in a statement it “would be tragic if two hastily passed emergency decrees end up undermining the progress Turkey made to combat torture.”

“By removing safeguards against torture, the Turkish government effectively wrote a blank check to law enforcement agencies to torture and mistreat detainees as they like,” he said.

Erdogan reined in police use of torture especially in the largely Kurdish southeast, seat of a militant rebellion, when he first came to power in 2002. But the battle with Kurdish militants has become more fierce since the breakdown of a ceasefire last year and drawn accusations of rights abuses.

HRW said it had uncovered allegations that police had used methods including sleep deprivation, severe beatings, sexual abuse and the threat of rape since the failed coup. Cases were not limited to possible putschists, but also involved detainees suspected of links to Kurdish militant and leftist groups.

Turkey has arrested more than 35,000 people, detained thousands more and sacked over 100,000 people over their suspected links with Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based cleric blamed for orchestrating the coup attempt. Gulen denies the charge.

The government says the widescale crackdown is justified by the gravity of the threat to the state on July 15, when rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and fighters jets, bombing parliament and killing more than 240 people.

Erdogan declared a state of emergency days after the failed putsch, allowing him and the cabinet to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary.

Emergency decrees have since extended the period of police detention without judicial review to 30 days from 4, allowed the authorities to deny detainees access to lawyers for up to five days, and to restrict their choice of lawyer.

HRW said it had found 13 specific cases of alleged abuse in its report, which was based on interviews with more than 40 lawyers, activists, former detainees, medical personnel and forensic specialists conducted in August and September.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall)

First unaccompanied children from Calais ‘Jungle’ reach Britain

UK Border Force staff escort the first group of unaccompanied minors from the Jungle migrant camp in Calais to be brought to Britain as they arrive at an immigration centre in Croydon, south London,

LONDON (Reuters) – A first busload of children arrived in Britain on Monday from the “Jungle” camp near the French port of Calais as the British government started to act on its commitment to take in unaccompanied migrant children before the camp is destroyed.

The fate of children staying in the Jungle, a squalid camp where up to 10,000 people fleeing war or poverty in the Middle East and Africa have converged seeking ways to cross to Britain, has been a political problem for the British government.

Religious leaders, refugee rights campaign groups and opposition parties have accused the government of dragging its heels on helping to move unaccompanied children out of the camp, which France has said it will soon demolish.

The French and British interior ministers, Bernard Cazeneuve and Amber Rudd, agreed in talks on Oct. 10 to speed up the process of moving children eligible to go to Britain out of the Jungle.

Fourteen children, the first whose cases have been processed, arrived by bus in Croydon, south London, to be reunited with relatives already living in Britain. Faith leaders and aid workers were on hand to welcome and assist them.

“The camp at Calais is a desperate, dangerous, horrible place, nowhere any adult should be, let alone any child,” said Bishop of Croydon Jonathan Clark.

“So this is a really good day to celebrate as some of those children begin to make their journeys to be reunited with their families,” he told reporters outside a Croydon church.

It is not known exactly how many children will be brought to Britain. The British interior ministry has said 80 children had been accepted for transfer from France so far this year under EU family reunification rules known as the Dublin regulation.

The Red Cross estimates that 1,000 unaccompanied children are living in the Jungle, of whom 178 have been identified as having family ties to Britain. It has said some of these children have been held back by bureaucracy.

Separately from the Dublin process, Britain has sent out a team to work with the French authorities to identify children who can be brought to Britain under the terms of a change to British immigration law known as the Dubs amendment.

It states that Britain will take in “vulnerable unaccompanied child refugees” who arrived in the EU before March 20, even if they do not have relatives in Britain.

March 20 was date of an EU-Turkey deal aimed at limiting the flow of migrants into the bloc, which reached crisis levels in 2015. The Dubs amendment is named after the politician who proposed it, Alf Dubs, who came to Britain as a Jewish child refugee fleeing Nazi persecution.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Stephen Addison)

Turkish army says Islamic State putting up ‘stiff resistance’ in Syria

A Turkey military vehicle near an ISIS stronghold

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Islamic State militants in northern Syria are putting up “stiff resistance” to attacks by Turkish-backed rebel fighters, Turkey’s military said on Wednesday, almost two months after it launched an incursion to drive them away from its border.

Supported by Turkish tanks and air strikes, the rebels have been pushing toward the Islamic State stronghold of Dabiq. Clashes and air strikes over the past 24 hours have killed 47 jihadists, the military said in a statement.

“Due to stiff resistance of the Daesh (Islamic State) terror group, progress could not be achieved in an attack launched to take four settlements,” it said, naming the areas east of the town of Azaz as Kafrah, Suran, Ihtimalat and Duvaybik.

However, the operation to drive the jihadists away from the Turkish border, dubbed “Euphrates Shield”, has allowed Turkish-backed rebels to take control of about 1,100 square km (425 square miles) of territory, the military said.

A Syrian rebel commander told Reuters the rebels were about 4 km (2.5 miles) from Dabiq. He said capturing Dabiq and the nearby town of Suran would spell the end of Islamic State’s presence in the northern Aleppo countryside.

A planned major offensive on the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab, southeast of Dabiq and an important strategic target, depended on how quickly rebels could take control of the roughly 35 km (22 miles) in between the two cities, he said.

Al-Bab is also a strategic target for the Kurdish YPG militia, which, like the rebels, is battling Islamic State in northern Syria but is viewed as a hostile force by Turkey.

In a daily round-up on Euphrates Shield’s 50th day, the Turkish army said 19 Islamic State fighters had been “neutralized” in clashes and eight rebels were killed. Twenty-two rebels were wounded and Turkish forces suffered no losses.

Turkish warplanes destroyed five buildings used by Islamic State fighters, while U.S.-led coalition jets “neutralized” 28 of the jihadists and destroyed three buildings, it said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Louise Ireland)

After failed coup, what sort of Turkey does Erdogan want?

A supporter holds a flag depicting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a pro-government demonstration in Ankara, Turkey,

By Luke Baker

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Looking across Istanbul’s skyline, it is impossible not to be struck by the array of red-and-white, star-and-crescent flags fluttering from buildings, monuments, bridges and flagpoles.

Patriotism in Turkey has always been strong, but in the wake of July’s failed coup by members of the military, President Tayyip Erdogan has tapped freely into the populist, banner-draped fervor to remould the nation in his image.

The questions are, what sort of Turkey does Erdogan want, and what steps will this powerful and sometimes unpredictable leader take to achieve his vision?

The answers could have far-reaching implications for the global role played by the Muslim-majority NATO member, whose assistance is seen in the West as vital in the war against Islamic State and in tackling the migrant crisis.

At one level, diplomats and analysts say, Erdogan has made his aims perfectly clear. In the three months since the coup attempt, authorities have suspended or dismissed 100,000 civil servants, judges, lecturers, military personnel and police – purging some of the most established pillars of society.

Anyone with suspected links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Erdogan accuses of masterminding the putsch, is a possible target. Gulen has denied plotting against the state and any involvement in the coup.

More than 30,000 people have been arrested. Five percent of the entire police force has been removed from duty. Whole ministerial departments have been shut down.

Some Western allies fear creeping authoritarianism and a shift toward a political model built around a strong leader and dominant single party but lacking checks and balances in Turkey, whose size, military power and location between Europe, the Middle East and Asia give it significant strategic clout.

“He wants a Turkey where he is the undisputed, unchallenged decider without the constraints of a normal democratic system,” said James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Ankara and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute.

“He won’t overturn the constitution or get rid of democracy, but he wants to render the opposition incapable of challenging him and to exercise clear power over them,” he told Reuters.

By contrast, Erdogan’s loyal supporters see him as the champion of the pious masses, forging a proud and independent nation that will not be dictated to by outside powers.

The president and his aides bristle at the notion he is dictatorial. They point to his succession of election victories, first as leader of the ruling AK Party, and then in Turkey’s first popular presidential election in 2014.

OTTOMAN PRIDE

But Erdogan’s ambitions likely go further than taking back control and projecting authority.

While the 62-year-old may have no desire to recreate the Ottoman empire, political analysts and diplomats say he wants to draw on that sense of greatness to craft a Turkey that bestrides the world, respected and perhaps a little feared by neighbors and peers.

In speeches and comments before and since the failed putsch, Erdogan has frequently referenced the Ottoman period, when Turkey’s forefathers held territory stretching from southeast Europe to the Caucasus, North Africa and Iraq.

He often laments the concessions made by Turkish leaders after World War One, with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne that brought modern Turkey into being in 1923, as if to suggest only he can restore the nation’s illustrious past.

“What you’re witnessing in Turkey is tied up with an almost constant desire to reclaim the heritage of the Ottoman empire, which was of course a polyglot, multi-ethnic entity,” said Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“In almost every one of Erdogan’s speeches there are these themes: You can be proud you are a Turk, proud that you are a Muslim, we have influence in our region and beyond. The expression ‘Great Turkey’ is used almost all the time.”

In August, with great symbolism and fanfare, Erdogan inaugurated a new bridge over the Bosphorus between Europe and Asia. The span, the third over the strait, was named after a 16th-century Ottoman ruler, Yavuz Sultan Selim. “Be proud of your power, Turkey,” announced adverts on television.

At the U.N. General Assembly in September, the most high-profile speech Erdogan has made abroad since the failed coup, he expanded on two of his favorite themes: how Turkey helps the oppressed and serves as a role model in the Muslim world, and how power at the United Nations is too narrowly held.

“The world is greater than five,” he said, referring to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. “A Security Council that does not represent the entire world can never serve to re-establish peace and justice around the world.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan attend Democracy and Martyrs Rally, organized by him and supported by ruling AK Party (AKP), oppositions Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to protest against last month's failed military coup attempt, in Istanbul, Turkey

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan attend Democracy and Martyrs Rally, organized by him and supported by ruling AK Party (AKP), oppositions Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to protest against last month’s failed military coup attempt, in Istanbul, Turkey, August 7, 2016. REUTERS/Osman Orsal/File Photo

‘CRITICAL JUNCTURE’

Since coming to power in 2003, first as prime minister and then as president, Erdogan has overseen a period of rapid economic growth and increased regional influence.

While he may have no territorial ambitions, Turkey does have troops in northern Syria, is training militias in Iraq – to the growing concern of the government in Baghdad – and has hopes of turning itself into a regional energy hub, a crossroads between Russia, Iran and the East Mediterranean.

“He’s trying to exercise influence in the region by dint of Turkey’s large and powerful economy and its claim to be an Islamic power,” said Jeffrey. “There is a bit of going back to Ottoman times and going back to Turkish dominance of the region – he wants a more Islamic alternative to the West.”

It appears a popular formula. A poll in late July, two weeks after the coup attempt, showed Erdogan with two-thirds approval among Turkey’s 78 million people, his highest rating ever.

Yet in striving for that more self-confident and perhaps more feared Turkey, Erdogan has at times walked a thin line, straining ties with the European Union and the wider West, which are wary of what they see as his creeping authoritarianism.

Turkey’s $720 billion economy is fueled in large part by trade and investment with Europe. Its working week runs from Monday to Friday to align with business in London and New York, not the rest of the Muslim world. In theory, Turkey still plans to join the European Union and is a central player in NATO.

The country’s annual average growth rate has been tapering, to around 3 percent from 5 percent, and there is a need for a new impetus to bring unemployment down among millions of younger Turks. That requires staying open to the West.

Andrew Duff, a former member of the European Parliament who was vice-chairman of the Turkey-EU joint parliamentary committee, sees Erdogan as “entirely fickle” regarding Europe and focused for now on exploiting Islam and nationalism.

“I’m afraid this is only going to get worse,” said Duff, who has been accused by Turkish authorities of being a “Gulenist”, a charge he dismisses with a laugh. “I’m sure Erdogan’s aim is to remain in power at least until 2023, the centenary of the founding of the republic.”

Duff does not think Erdogan will pivot to the East permanently. But for now, Europe, NATO and the West find themselves with a volatile partner.

“From the historical point of view, it’s fascinating because Turkey is really poised,” said Aliriza. “Whether it continues to look to its nation-state past and its opening to the West, or a hoped-for glorious future in which Turkey will draw closer to its brethren in the East. It’s at a critical juncture.”

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Pravin Char)

Baghdad bridles at Turkey’s military presence, warns war

Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi of Iraq addresses the United Nations General Assembly in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S.,

By Maher Chmaytelli and Tuvan Gumrukcu

BAGHDAD/ANKARA (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has warned Turkey that it risks triggering a regional war by keeping troops in Iraq, as each summoned the other’s ambassador in a growing row.

Relations between the two regional powers are already broadly strained by the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State militant group.

Turkey’s parliament voted last week to extend its military presence in Iraq for a further year to take on what it called “terrorist organizations” – a likely reference to Kurdish rebels as well as Islamic State.

Iraq’s parliament responded on Tuesday night by condemning the vote and calling for Turkey to pull its estimated 2,000 troops out of areas across northern Iraq.

“We have asked the Turkish side more than once not to intervene in Iraqi matters and I fear the Turkish adventure could turn into a regional war,” Abadi warned in comments broadcast on state TV on Wednesday.

“The Turkish leadership’s behavior is not acceptable and we don’t want to get into a military confrontation with Turkey.”

Turkey says its military is in Iraq at the invitation of Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, with which Ankara maintains solid ties. Most of the troops are at a base in Bashiqa, north of Mosul, where they are helping to train Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga and Sunni fighters.

Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmus, said the deployment had become necessary after Islamic State’s seizure of Iraq’s second city, captured in 2014

“Neither Turkey’s presence in Bashiqa nor its operation right now in Syrian territory are aimed at occupying or interfering with the domestic affairs of these countries.”

Iraq’s central government in Baghdad says it never invited such a force and considers the Turkish troops occupiers.

MOSUL TENSIONS

Tensions between Iraq and Turkey have risen with expectations of an offensive by Iraq and U.S.-backed forces to retake Mosul.

Turkey has said the campaign will send a wave of refugees over its border and, potentially, on to Europe.

Ankara worries that Baghdad’s Shi’ite Muslim-led forces will destabilize Mosul’s largely Sunni population and worsen ethnic strife across the region, where there are also populations of Turkmens, ethnic kin of the Turks.

Turkey is also uncomfortable with the arrangement of Kurdish forces expected to take part in the offensive.

In northern Syria, where Turkey is backing rebels fighting Islamic State, Ankara has warned that Kurdish militias are “filling the vacuum” left by Islamic State. Fearing that this will boost the Kurdish rebellion across the border in southeast Turkey, it has threatened to “cleanse” them.

Turkey announced late on Tuesday that it was summoning Iraq’s ambassador to complain about the parliamentary vote.

“We believe this decision does not reflect the views of the majority of Iraqi people, whom Turkey has stood by for years and attempted to support with all its resources,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said.

“We find it noteworthy that the Iraqi parliament, which has not said anything about the accepted mandate for years, puts this on the agenda as though it were a new development in times when terror is taking so many lives in Turkey and Iraq.”

On Wednesday, Iraq summoned the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad to protest what it said were “provocative” comments from Ankara about the troop deployment.

(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Turkey to extend state of emergency for another three months

ANKARA (Reuters) – The Turkish government has agreed to extend its state of emergency as Turkey fights to wipe out “terrorist organizations” following July’s attempted coup, deputy prime minister and government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference following the cabinet meeting, Kurtulmus said the extension will come into effect on October 19, when the first three months expire.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Luke Baker)

U.N. calls Aleppo a slaughterhouse as Russia, Syria forces bomb hospitals

Medics inspect the damage outside a field hospital after an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Maadi neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria,

By Ellen Francis and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian or Syrian warplanes knocked two hospitals out of service in the besieged rebel sector of Aleppo on Wednesday and ground forces intensified an assault in a battle which the United Nations said had made the city worse than a slaughterhouse.

Two patients died in one of the hospitals and other shelling killed six residents queuing for bread under a siege that has trapped 250,000 people with food running out.

The week-old assault, which could herald a turning point in the war, has already killed hundreds of people, with bunker-busting bombs bringing down buildings on residents huddled inside. Only about 30 doctors are believed to be left inside the besieged zone, coping with hundreds of wounded a day.

“The warplane flew over us and directly started dropping its missiles … at around 4 a.m.,” Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist at the M10 hospital, the largest trauma hospital in the city’s rebel-held sector, told Reuters.

“Rubble fell in on the patients in the intensive care unit.”

M10 hospital workers said oxygen and power generators were destroyed and patients were transferred to another hospital.

Photographs sent to Reuters by a hospital worker at the facility showed damaged storage tanks, a rubble strewn area, and the collapsed roof of what he said was a power facility.

There were no initial reports of casualties there, but medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said two patients had been killed at the other hospital, in shelling which took it out of service as well, leaving east Aleppo with only seven doctors in a position to undertake surgery.

“And this comes at a time when east Aleppo has been under siege since July and is suffering the bloodiest indiscriminate bombing since the beginning of the war,” MSF’s Syria head Carlos Francisco said.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian air power, Iranian ground forces and Shi’ite militia fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, has launched a massive assault to crush the rebels’ last major urban stronghold.

Syria’s largest city before the war, Aleppo has been divided for years between government and rebel zones, and would be the biggest strategic prize of the war for Assad and his allies.

Taking full control of the city would restore near full government rule over the most important cities of western Syria, where nearly all of the population lived before the start of a conflict that has since made half of Syrians homeless, caused a refugee crisis and contributed to the rise of Islamic State.

UNPRECEDENTED BOMBING

The offensive began with unprecedentedly fierce bombing last week, followed by a ground campaign this week, burying a ceasefire that had been the culmination of months of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow.

Washington says Moscow and Damascus are guilty of war crimes for targeting civilians, hospitals, rescue workers and aid deliveries, to break the will of residents and force them to surrender. Syria and Russia say they target only militants.

Asked by a reporter at the United Nations whether Syria had bombed the two hospitals hit on Wednesday, the Syrian ambassador to the world body, Bashar Ja’afari, appeared to laugh.

The Syrian army said a Nusra Front position had been destroyed in Aleppo’s old quarter, and other militant-held areas targeted in “concentrated air strikes” near the city.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said those using “ever more destructive weapons” were committing war crimes. Describing the situation in Aleppo, he said: “This is worse. Even a slaughterhouse is more humane.”

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he was working to put forward a United Nations Security Council resolution to impose a ceasefire in Aleppo, and that any country that opposed it would be deemed complicit in war crimes.

“This resolution will leave everyone facing their responsibilities: those who don’t vote it, risk being held responsible for complicity in war crimes,” he said.

Another hospital, M2, was damaged by bombardment in the al-Maadi district, where at least six people were killed while queuing for bread at a nearby bakery, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring body and residents.

Food supplies are scarce in the besieged area, and those trapped inside often line up before dawn for food.

The collapse of the peace process leaves U.S. policy on Syria in tatters and is a personal blow to Secretary of State John Kerry, who led talks with Moscow despite scepticism from other top officials in President Barack Obama’s administration.

Kerry spoke to Lavrov on Wednesday and Russia said later that it was ready to continue diplomacy on Syria and would soon send experts to Geneva for talks with U.S. counterparts on normalizing the situation in Aleppo and elsewhere.

The U.S. State Department said non-diplomatic options to halt the violence had been discussed within the administration, but declined to say what the options might be.

BATTLEFIELD VICTORY

Assad’s Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah allies have said in recent days the war will be won in combat.

But the rebels remain a potent military force even as they have lost control of urban areas. The collapse of peace efforts ends a proposed scheme to separate Western-backed fighters from hardened jihadists.

It has also raised the question of whether the rebels’ foreign backers, states including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States, will increase military backing to rebels who have long said weapons they provide are inadequate.

The rebels’ main demand has long been for the provision of anti-aircraft missiles, but Washington has resisted this, fearing they could end up in the hands of jihadists.

U.S. officials told Reuters in Washington that the collapse of the Syrian ceasefire had heightened the possibility that Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, might arm rebels with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

A senior rebel commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was not out of the question that this could happen. “The Americans might thinking about doing something, but nobody knows how big it will be,” the commander said.

Another rebel commander told Reuters his group had received deliveries of a new type of Grad surface-to-surface rockets. The rockets, with a range of 22-40 km, had arrived in “excellent quantities” and will be used on battlefronts in Aleppo, Hama and the coastal region, Colonel Fares al-Bayoush said.

Fierce fighting accompanied by air strikes was reported on Wednesday in northern Hama province between Syrian government and allied forces trying to recapture territory lost to insurgents this week, and rebels who made some advances, the Observatory and a rebel group said.

MORE GROUND ATTACKS

A senior official in Aleppo-based rebel group said pro-government forces were mobilizing in apparent preparation for more ground attacks in central areas of the city.

“There have been clashes in al-Suweiqa from 5 a.m. until now. The army advanced a little bit, and the guys are now repelling it, God willing,” a fighter in the rebel Levant Front group said in a recording sent to Reuters, referring to an area in the city center where there was also fighting on Tuesday.

Another rebel official said government forces were also attacking the insurgent-held Handarat refugee camp a few kilometers to the north of Aleppo.

“It doesn’t seem that their operation in the old city is the primary operation, it seems like a diversionary one so that the regime consumes the people on that front and advances in the camp,” the official, Zakaria Malahifij, head of the political office of the Fastaqim group, told Reuters from Turkey.

(Reporting by Tom Perry, Ellen Francis and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Philip Pullella in Vatican City, John Irish in Paris and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Lidia Kelly in Moscow, Michelle Nichols in New York and Arshad Mohammed in Washington, writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership and Philippa Fletcher)

Turkey may need to build more courts to try thousand over coup

Turkish riot police stand guard in front of the Justice Palace in Istanbul, Turkey,

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey may have to build new courthouses to cope with thousands of prosecutions over July’s failed coup, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Wednesday, as the number of people arrested reached 32,000.

Authorities have detained or sacked people from across local government, the military, the media and the judiciary, and asked the United States to deport Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, accusing him of organizing the aborted uprising.

Gulen, a former ally of President Tayyip Erdogan now branded a terrorist by Ankara, denies any involvement in the uprising which killed more than 240 people as rogue soldiers commandeered fighter jets, helicopters and tanks.

One new court room was already under construction in the town of Sincan, near the capital Ankara, Bozdag told private broadcaster NTV.

“We will build new courthouses as needed … Some defendants be prosecuted for membership in a terror organization,” he added.

He did not expect mass trials with “thousands of defendants” and added that some of the 32,000 people in custody over suspected links to Gulen could be freed as the legal process advanced.

GULEN, GOLD

U.S. officials have promised to respond to the extradition request for Gulen in a couple of days, Bozdag said in comments broadcast live, adding that he would seek a meeting at the U.S. Department of Justice this week.

Washington has said it is cooperating with Ankara and asked its NATO ally for patience as it processes the extradition request for the 75-year-old preacher.

Turkey is closely tracking the U.S. prosecution of a Turkish gold trader with alleged links to Erdogan, Bozdag said.

Businessman Reza Zarrab, 33, was arrested in Miami in March, then charged with helping Iran process millions of dollars in transactions that violated U.S. sanctions against Tehran in effect at the time. Zarrab has pleaded not guilty.

“As Turkey, we will remain opposed to this legal process that is being taken against us,” Bozdag said.

Erdogan said at the weekend U.S. prosecutors were trying to implicate him in the case and accused U.S. officials involved in the prosecution of links to the Gulen movement.

A successful overthrow of Erdogan, who has run the country of about 80 million people since 2003, could have sent Turkey spiraling into conflict.

(Reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Daren Butler and Andrew Heavens)

U.S. network of Turkish cleric facing pressure as those at home seek help

U.S. based cleric Fethullah Gulen at his home in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania

By Julia Harte and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A network of more than 150 U.S. charter schools linked to followers of Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric the Turkish government blames for instigating July’s failed coup, has come under growing financial and legal strain, according to school officials, current and former members of Gulen’s movement, and public records reviewed by Reuters.

The publicly financed schools, a key source of jobs and business opportunities for U.S. members of Gulen’s global movement, have sharply slowed their expansion in recent years, public records show.

The slowdown comes amid a series of government probes in more than a dozen states into allegations ranging from misuse of taxpayer funds to visa fraud. The investigations launched by state and federal officials have not resulted in criminal charges or directly implicated Gulen, whose name is not on any of the charter schools. The increased pressure on the schools also comes as the Turkish government is cracking down on Gulen supporters at home and presses hard for Gulen’s extradition.

Just three new schools were opened each in 2015 and this year to date, down from a peak of 23 new schools in 2010, according to a Reuters review of the public records of 153 charter schools and their management companies around the country.

The decline runs counter to the steady growth over the past six years of all U.S. charter schools, which receive taxpayer funds but are exempt from some rules that govern traditional state-run public schools.

At the same time, 15 schools have been closed or transferred to owners with no connection to Gulen’s movement since 2010. In at least 11 of those cases — including in Georgia, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio – the management firms or individual schools themselves had faced official investigations, Reuters found.

“Since these investigations and pressures from media coverage have been going on, the schools are much more, maybe five times more careful, in terms of their finances, how they hire contractors,” said Hakan Berberoglu, acting executive director of the Illinois-based Niagara Foundation, which aims to promote the inter-faith dialogue espoused by Gulen, its honorary president.

“They are much more careful in how they expand,” he told Reuters.

Berberoglu said that the schools are not officially affiliated with Gulen and are not centrally controlled by anyone.

In another sign of a slowdown, the number of visa applications the schools submitted for guest workers from Turkey and other countries declined to 360 last year from more than 1,000 in 2010, immigration records show. The trend reflects a desire by the schools linked to Gulen followers to avoid further government scrutiny, according to current and former members of the movement.

In the wake of the failed coup, Ankara’s attorneys in the United States have stepped up an aggressive campaign to try to persuade local, state and federal authorities to open new inquiries and discredit the charter schools and other U.S. operations linked to Gulen.

Asked about signs that the movement is under stress in the United States, Alp Aslandogan, Gulen’s spokesman, said: “We are not worried about that.”

Many Gulen supporters in Turkey are now looking to their U.S.-based brethren for material support and safe haven, according to current and former members of the movement.

“It’s been my job to save people, to help people who want to come over here,” said one U.S.-based Turkish businessman, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his efforts to assist would-be immigrants.

The reclusive imam Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies involvement in the coup attempt.

BASE OF BUSINESS

Gulen’s global movement – known as “Hizmet”, which means “service” in Turkish – seeks to spread what his supporters say is the charismatic preacher’s moderate brand of Islam, which promotes Western-style education, free markets and inter-faith communication.

The United States has become the Gulen movement’s most important base of business operations outside Turkey except for Germany, according to independent experts on the movement.

In addition to the schools, followers run a loosely affiliated collection of businesses, civic associations and charities. Some Turkish-American-owned contractors who do business with the schools have been targeted in state and federal investigations over allegations they received preferential treatment, according to current and former members and legal documents.

Berberoglu said the schools have hired and done business with members of the movement because they can be relied on as trustworthy and capable.

“You want these schools to be successful, you need to depend on people that you know,” he said.

Groups linked to the Gulen movement, including several whose directors have also led charter schools, have sponsored hundreds of U.S. congressional trips to Turkey and nearby countries in the past eight years, according to congressional records. But such trips have mostly halted since 2015 when the Justice Department launched a criminal probe of possible irregularities in funding sources for some of the travels.

Aslandogan acknowledged that some of the schools were started by Gulen “sympathizers.” He added that the movement led by the 77-year-old cleric exerts no central control, and some followers say his role is strictly inspirational.

The school network has put down deep roots in the United States over the past nearly two decades with administrators deftly navigating the public funding process.

A series of bond sales have totaled $683 million since 2006, according to data collected by Reuters. Bond sales by four of the school chains alone in 2014 – the latest annual data available for this niche – accounted for 6 percent of the entire tax-exempt U.S. charter school bond market that year.

LEGAL ACTIONS

U.S. lawyers for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan say they suspect the schools are a front that generates $500 million annually that is funneled from Gulen’s movement for subversive activities against the Turkish state, such as bribing officials. The attorneys do not provide specifics on how they believe this is done.

Aslandogan, Gulen’s spokesman, dismissed the accusations as “false” and unsubstantiated, describing it as part of a vendetta against “movement participants” outside of Turkey.

In at least one instance – a Texas case – the Turkish government’s post-coup accusations against a large school chain have prompted renewed scrutiny.

The Texas Education Agency said in late July they were reviewing a complaint filed by the Turkish government’s legal team of alleged fiscal improprieties by Harmony Public Schools, a Houston-based firm that runs 48 charter schools.

In the complaint, lawyers for the Turkish government accused Harmony of misusing $18 million in public funds, funneling money to Gulen’s organization and also of discriminatory employment practices. No decision on whether to open a formal investigation has yet been announced

Soner Tarim, one of Harmony’s founders, denied any wrongdoing and said there was no “underlying conspiracy” in running the non-profit schools.

“The purpose was really to create math and science expertise,” Tarim told Reuters.

Tarim acknowledged, however, that his company has been squeezed by having to spend more on legal fees and public relations. “So it has some effect on our resources,” he said, “but not our reputation.”

 

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan, Kouichi Shirayanagi, Stephanie Kelly and Daniel Bases. Editing by Stuart Grudgings)