Tag Archives: Turkey

Austria to shut down mosques, expel foreign-funded imams

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and Interior Minister Herbert Kickl attend a news conference in Vienna, Austria June 8, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria’s right-wing government plans to shut seven mosques and could expel dozens of imams in what it said was “just the beginning” of a push against radical Islam and foreign funding of religious groups that Turkey condemned as racist.

The coalition government, an alliance of conservatives and the far right, came to power soon after Europe’s migration crisis on promises to prevent another influx and restrict benefits for new immigrants and refugees.

The moves follow a “law on Islam”, passed in 2015, which banned foreign funding of religious groups and created a duty for Muslim organizations to have “a positive fundamental view towards (Austria’s) state and society”.

“Political Islam’s parallel societies and radicalizing tendencies have no place in our country,” said Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who, in a previous job as minister in charge of integration, steered the Islam bill into law.

Standing next to him and two other cabinet members on Friday, far-right Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache told a news conference: “This is just the beginning.”

Austria, a country of 8.8 million people, has roughly 600,000 Muslim inhabitants, most of whom are Turkish or have families of Turkish origin.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said the new policy was part of an “Islamophobic, racist and discriminatory wave” in Austria.

“The Austrian government’s ideologically charged practices are in violation of universal legal principles, social integration policies, minority rights and the ethics of co-existence,” Ibrahim Kalin tweeted.

The ministers at the news conference said up to 60 imams belonging to the Turkish-Islamic Union for Cultural and Social Cooperation in Austria (ATIB), a Muslim group close to the Turkish government, could be expelled from the country or have visas denied on the grounds of receiving foreign funding.

A government handout put the number at 40, of whom 11 were under review and two had already received a negative ruling.

ATIB spokesman Yasar Ersoy acknowledged that its imams were paid by Diyanet, the Turkish state religious authority, but it was trying to change that.

“We are currently working on having imams be paid from funds within the country,” he told ORF radio.

One organization that runs a mosque in Vienna and is influenced by the “Grey Wolves”, a Turkish nationalist youth group, will be shut down for operating illegally, as will an Arab Muslim group that runs at least six mosques, the government said in a statement.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Additional reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Poll shows Turkey presidential vote going to second round

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends a meeting with Chairman of the Tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina May 20, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

By Gulsen Solaker

ANKARA (Reuters) – Tayyip Erdogan is seen falling short of a first-round victory in Turkey’s presidential election and his ruling AK Party is forecast to lose its parliamentary majority in the June 24 vote, a survey by pollster Gezici showed on Thursday.

Erdogan called the snap elections in April, more than a year early, saying Turkey needs to switch to a powerful executive presidency to tackle economic and security challenges. The new presidential powers were narrowly approved last year.

Gezici’s survey of 6,811 respondents, conducted between May 25-26, showed Erdogan receiving 48.7 percent of votes in the first round of presidential election, with the main opposition candidate, Muharrem Ince, getting 25.8 percent.

Erdogan and Ince were followed by Meral Aksener, a former interior minister who founded the Iyi Party last year after being sacked from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which has entered an election alliance with the AK Party. Aksener was seen getting 14.4 percent of votes, Gezici’s poll showed.

The jailed candidate of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, has 10.1 percent support, the poll showed.

Even though he is campaigning from behind bars, Demirtas, one of Turkey’s best-known politicians, is expected to boost his party’s chances of overcoming a 10 percent threshold needed to enter parliament.

PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY

Erdogan, modern Turkey’s most successful and divisive leader, and his AK Party have ruled for more than 15 years, and currently hold a parliamentary majority.

However, Gezici’s poll showed that the AK Party’s alliance with the nationalist MHP would fall short of a majority in the 600-seat assembly, with 48.7 percent of the votes.

Their rival alliance, composed of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Iyi Party and Saadet Party, is seen receiving 38.9 percent of votes, the poll showed, while the HDP was seen at 11.5 percent.

The HDP’s performance in the parliamentary polls is important because it does not have an alliance partner. If it fails to cross the 10 percent threshold, its seats go to the party that came second in districts where the HDP came first.

That would most likely benefit Erdogan’s ruling AKP, which is also strong in the east and the mainly Kurdish southeast.

“According to the poll, the ruling party is seen losing the parliamentary majority. Despite the alliances that will be in parliament after the June 24 elections, no single party or alliance is seen reaching a simple majority,” the poll said.

However, the polling group’s chairman Murat Gezici told Reuters that voters were not sympathetic toward alliances and that this caused the distribution of votes to vary in the poll.

Independently, the AK Party is seen getting 43.1 percent, while their nationalist partner receives 6.2 percent, still falling short of a majority in parliament but marginally higher than what the poll shows as support for their alliance.

The elections will herald Turkey’s switch to the new presidency championed by Erdogan, but an ailing economy and a deteriorating record on human rights and freedoms after a 2016 coup attempt have led to a shift of sentiment in voters, the poll showed.

“These general and presidential elections will be the most difficult elections in Turkey’s past 20 years,” Gezici said.

(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Turkish dam project threatens rift with Iraq over water shortages

A general view shows a costruction site of the Ilisu dam by the Tigris river in southeastern Turkey, September 27, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Ahmed Aboulenein and Ali Kucukgocmen

BAGHDAD/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Iraq is surprised by Turkey’s decision to start holding back water behind its Ilisu dam earlier than promised, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday, suggesting it was done to win support for the government in upcoming elections.

Turkey has started filling the dam basin, a step that has alarmed neighboring Iraq, which is struggling with a water crisis.

“The Turkish prime minister had promised me they would start filling the dam at the end of June, not the start, so I was surprised to see they started,” Abadi told a news conference.

“I am aware that they have elections on June 24 and perhaps need to get the support of farmers,” he added, referring to Turkey’s planned general elections for president and parliament.

Turkey’s ambassador in Baghdad said Ankara is cooperating.

“We will not take any step without consultation with the neighboring country on how we can cooperate and provide support during any problem, Fatih Yildiz told a news conference through an Arabic translator.

A spokesman for Turkey’s Ministry of Forest and Water Management spokesman said Turkey was “partially” filling the dam’s basin.

Around 70 percent of Iraq’s water resources flow from neighboring countries, especially in the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Both flow through Turkey.

Abadi was at lengths on Tuesday to show his outgoing government was doing everything it can to tackle the issue.

“There are plans to secure our water resources on both the domestic and foreign fronts. Yes, there is a water shortage this year, but it is not a crisis,” he said.

The government has plans to provide water to farmers, Abadi said, especially for Iraq’s strategic wheat crop. At the same time, it might reduce plots of land reserved for planting other crops that consume a lot of water.

Iraqi media suggested Baghdad had asked Ankara to delay holding back water because of its own election, which took place on May 12. Abadi’s bloc came third, but he may yet secure a second term if he gathers support from the winning groups.

The dam issue was not the only point of contention between Baghdad and Ankara on Tuesday. Abadi demanded Turkey respect Iraq’s sovereignty in its approach to Kurdish militias.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu had said on Monday that Turkish forces were waiting for the right time to carry out an operation in northern Iraq’s Qandil region where high-ranking members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are located.

Soylu had said that “Qandil is not a distant target” anymore. Abadi countered that the Turks had been “talking about that for over 35 years” and again suggested the statement was an attempt to score points before the Turkish elections.

“We will not accept any violations of Iraq’s sovereignty,” he said, adding there was no military coordination with Turkey on this issue.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Baghdad and Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; additional reporting by Maha El Dahan in Dubai; writing by Michael Georgy and Ahmed Aboulenein; editing by Larry King)

Assad raises prospect of clashes with U.S. forces in Syria

Syria's President Bashar al Assad attends an interview with a Greek newspaper in Damascus, Syria in this handout released May 10, 2018. SANA/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad raised the possibility of conflict with U.S. forces in Syria if they do not withdraw from the country soon.

In an interview with Russia’s RT international broadcaster, Assad said he would negotiate with fighters backed on the ground by Washington, but would reclaim territory they control by force if necessary, whether or not American troops supported them.

Assad also responded sharply to U.S. President Donald Trump’s description of him as an animal, saying “what you say is what you are”.

Assad, who is backed by Russia and Iran, appears militarily unassailable in the war that has killed an estimated half a million people, uprooted around 6 million people in the country, and driven another 5 million abroad as refugees.

Around 2,000 U.S. special forces troops are believed to be on the ground in Syria, where they have aided a group called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is led by the YPG, a Kurdish militia.

The U.S.-backed group holds the largest area of Syrian territory outside government control, but has tried to avoid direct clashes with the government during the multi-sided war.

Assad said the government had “started now opening doors for negotiations” with the SDF.

“This is the first option. If not, we’re going to resort to … liberating those areas by force. We don’t have any other options, with the Americans or without the Americans,” he said in a text of the interview published by Syria’s state news agency.

“The Americans should leave, somehow they’re going to leave,” he said, adding that Washington should learn the lesson of its war in Iraq, which lasted longer and was much costlier than anticipated.

“They came to Iraq with no legal basis, and look what happened to them. They have to learn the lesson. Iraq is no exception, and Syria is no exception. People will not accept foreigners in this region anymore,” he said.

Trump said in April he wanted to withdraw American troops from Syria relatively soon, but also voiced a desire to leave a “strong and lasting footprint”.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on April 30 the United States and its allies would not want to pull troops out of Syria before diplomats win the peace.

Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the SDF, said in response to Assad’s comments that a military solution “is not a solution that can lead to any result”, and would “lead to more losses and destruction and difficulties for the Syrian people”.

The SDF wants a “democratic system based on diversity, equality, freedom and justice” for all the country’s ethnic and religious groups, he added in a voice message to Reuters.

WHAT YOU SAY IS WHAT YOU ARE

Trump called Assad an “animal” after a suspected poison gas attack on a rebel-held town near Damascus in April. Medical aid organizations said the attack killed dozens of people.

The attack triggered U.S., French and British missile strikes against what they called chemical weapons targets, the first coordinated Western strikes against Assad’s government of the war. But the Western retaliation had no impact on the wider conflict, in which Assad’s forces continued their advances.

In his interview, Assad reiterated the government’s denial of blame for the chemical attack. Asked if he had a nickname for Trump similar to the “animal” comment, Assad replied: “This is not my language, so I cannot use similar language. This is his language. It represents him, and I think there is a well-known principle, that what you say is what you are.”

Assad also sought in his interview to minimize the extent of Iran’s presence in Syria. Israel, which is deeply alarmed by Tehran’s influence in Syria, said it destroyed dozens of Iranian military sites in Syria in May, after Iranian forces in Syria fired rockets at Israeli-held territory for the first time.

Assad said Iran’s presence in Syria was limited to officers assisting the army. Apparently referring to the May 10 attack by Israel, Assad said: “We had tens of Syrian martyrs and wounded soldiers, not a single Iranian” casualty.”

Asked if there was anything Syria could do to stop Israeli air strikes, he said the only option was to improve air defenses, “and we are doing that”. Syria’s air defenses were much stronger than before, thanks to Russia, he added.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Toby Chopra and Peter Graff)

Turkey sentences 104 people to life in prison in post-coup case: Hurriyet

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, April 18, 2018. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

ANKARA (Reuters) – A Turkish court on Monday sentenced 104 people to life in prison for involvement in a failed military coup in 2016, the Hurriyet newspaper said, in one of the heaviest penalties given since the attempt.

The court in the Aegean coastal town of Izmir handed 104 of 280 defendants “aggravated life” sentences, Hurriyet said, the harshest punishment possible under Turkish law as it raises the minimum time in jail required for parole.

Another 21 people were given 20 years in prison for insulting the president, while 31 others were sentenced to 10 years and six months for “membership of a terrorist organization”, Hurriyet said.

More than 240 people, most of them unarmed civilians, were killed on the night of July 15, 2016, when a group of rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and warplanes in an attempt to attack parliament and overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan.

The government blames the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan, for orchestrating the failed coup. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement and condemned the putsch.

Since the coup attempt, authorities have detained 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number of civil servants as part of a sweeping crackdown, the U.N. human rights office said in March. Of that number, more than 50,000 have been formally charged and kept in jail pending trial.

The scale of the crackdown has alarmed rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies, who fear the country is sliding further into authoritarianism under Erdogan and accuse the president of using the failed putsch as a pretext to quash dissent.

The government, however, says the measures are necessary, given the extent of the security threats it faces.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Ece Toksabay and Catherine Evans)

Erdogan’s policies driving Turkey to the edge, challenger says

FILE PHOTO: The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaks at Chatham House in central London, Britain May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo

By Dominic Evans and Birsen Altayli

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan is driving Turkey “to the cliff” through ideological politics and a determination to control the central bank, the main opposition party’s presidential candidate said on Wednesday as the lira hit new record lows.

Muharrem Ince, who seeks to end Erdogan’s 15-year hold on power in next month’s elections, said the central bank and other economic institutions must be able to operate independently.

Erdogan said this week he plans to take greater control of the economy after the June 24 presidential and parliamentary polls, comments which drove the lira to fresh record lows. It is down 15 percent against the dollar this year.

“He’s taking the country to the cliff. The central bank needs to be independent, and the other economic bodies need to be autonomous. The rules need to operate,” Ince told Reuters in an interview.

The victor in next month’s election, held under a state of emergency imposed after a failed coup in 2016, will exercise sweeping new executive powers after Turks narrowly approved a constitutional overhaul in a referendum last year. The changes come into effect after the June vote.

Polls show Erdogan is comfortably the strongest candidate, though he could face a challenge if the presidential vote goes to a second round in July and his opponents rally around the other remaining candidate.

Ince, 54, a combative parliamentarian and former physics teacher, has energized his secularist opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) since he started campaigning and may emerge as the leading opposition candidate – although he faces competition from former interior minister Meral Aksener.

Aksener’s nationalist Iyi (Good) Party and the CHP have joined with two other smaller parties in an opposition alliance for the parliamentary election. She and Ince are competing separately in the presidential vote.

“WIND OF CHANGE”

Ince said the president was driven by “ideological obsessions” and pushing Turkey in the wrong direction.

Erdogan, a self-described “enemy of interest rates”, wants lower borrowing costs to boost credit and new construction, and has said the central bank will not be able to ignore the president’s wishes. That has fueled concerns about the bank’s ability to fight double-digit inflation.

Since his Islamist-rooted AK Party swept to power in 2002, Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics. His power is reinforced by a near-monopoly of broadcast media coverage. Most TV channels show nearly all his campaign rallies, but rarely offer a platform to his opponents.

“The state of the media is heartbreaking. They have surrendered, they have kneeled,” Ince said, adding he had told broadcasters that unless they started to cover his speeches, he would hold a rally directly outside their offices to shame them.

If elected, Ince pledged to reverse some of the powers granted to the new presidency, saying it handed total control of the budget, judiciary and executive to one person.

Several European Union countries have expressed alarm that those changes are pushing Turkey deeper into authoritarian rule. Turkey is still a candidate for EU membership, though negotiations have stalled over rights concerns and other issues.

Erdogan says the increased powers are necessary to tackle security threats following the failed coup and conflict on Turkey’s southern borders with Syria and Iraq.

“No mortal should be given such authority,” Ince said. “It shouldn’t be given to me either.”

Against Erdogan, a skilled campaigner, the CHP has struggled to win support beyond its core base of secular-minded voters. In the last parliamentary election in November 2015 it took 25.3 percent of the vote.

Ince has pledged to be a non-partisan leader if elected, styling himself as “everyone’s president” and promising not to live in the 1,000-room palace built by Erdogan in Ankara.

“I see that a wind of change is blowing,” he said, pointing to what he described as a new atmosphere at his political rallies compared to last year’s referendum campaign.

“The momentum I have garnered is very different – there is a strong wind and people feel excitement,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen and Gulsen Solaker in Ankara; Editing by David Dolan and Gareth Jones)

Israel says Hamas curbed Gaza protests after Egyptian warning

Relatives mourn during the funeral of a Palestinian, who was killed during a protest at the Israel-Gaza border, in the central Gaza Strip May 16, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinian protests on the Gaza-Israel border have dropped off over the past two days, with Israel on Wednesday pointing to what it said were Egyptian efforts to restore calm after dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire.

Gaza’s dominant Islamist Hamas movement denied that it was under pressure from neighboring Egypt to scale back the six-week-old demonstrations, and said they would continue, although fewer Palestinians were now gathering in protest tents.

Gaza medics said two Palestinians were shot dead during Tuesday’s demonstrations along the 51 km (32 mile) border. On Monday, 60 were killed in a far greater turnout on the day the United States relocated its Israel embassy to Jerusalem.

Pushing back against foreign censure of its army’s actions, Israel has – with Washington’s backing – accused Hamas of using civilians as cover for attacks across the frontier fence and to distract from Gaza’s internal problems. Hamas denies this.

Angered by the U.S. embassy move and the Gaza bloodshed, Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador and consul to Istanbul, Ankara said on Wednesday. Israel responded to its envoy’s expulsion on Tuesday by expelling Turkey’s Jerusalem consul.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry announced the recall for consultations of its envoys in Romania, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic, citing those EU members’ participation in an official Israeli reception on Sunday for a U.S. delegation that inaugurated the American Embassy in Jerusalem.

There has been little Israeli domestic dissent at the lethal tactics around Gaza, where in the last decade Israel has fought three wars against Hamas, a group sworn to its destruction.

Dubbed the March of Return, the protests were launched on March 30 to demand Palestinian access to family lands or homes lost to Israel during its founding in a 1948 war. Larger crowds have flocked to the border after Muslim prayers on Fridays.

Israel and Egypt, citing security concerns, maintain a de facto blockade on Gaza which has reduced its economy to a state of collapse during more than a decade of Hamas rule and repeated war with Israel.

Two million people live in the narrow strip, most stateless descendants of refugees who fled or were driven out of homes in Israel at the time of its founding. They suffer from what the World Bank says is one of the highest rates of unemployment on earth, and say the blockade makes rebuilding impossible.

Gaza analyst Akram Attallah, pointing to the smaller number of protesters since Monday’s deaths, said: “I can see there is a retreat because of the Israeli bloody response … but Friday will represent an indicator to where things are going.”

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh made a brief visit on Sunday to Egypt, which has sought to act as a broker between the Islamists and other Palestinian factions, as well as Israel.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said an Egyptian intelligence chief, whom he did not name, warned Haniyeh that Cairo “knows and has proof” that Hamas was funding the protests and sending people to the border fence to serve “as living ammunition, women and children instead of shells and rockets”.

HOLDING FAST

The Egyptian official “made unequivocally clear to him (Haniyeh) that if this continues, Israel will respond and take far harsher steps, and Egypt will stand by and will not help,” Katz told Israel Radio in an interview.

“Haniyeh returned to Gaza, Hamas gave an order … and miraculously, this spontaneous protest by a public that could not handle the situation any more dissipated.”

There was no immediate response from Egypt to Katz’s statements, which Hamas dismissed as false.

“There is no mediation. The marches will continue until our people achieve their goals,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

At a news conference at a protest encampment on Wednesday, Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, urged people to take part in mass rallies on Friday.

But the start on Thursday of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours, could limit the scale of the demonstrations.

In a statement issued at the news conference, the factions said the fasting would be taken into account. They said marches would continue through early June.

Organisers say the Gaza protests are civilian actions, noting the absence of Israeli casualties, compared to 107 Palestinian dead and thousands of wounded. Israel disputes this. The army said 14 of those killed on Monday were shot while firing on Israeli troops or trying to blow up the fence.

In Jerusalem, following the U.S. lead, Guatemala opened its embassy in the city on Wednesday. Paraguay is slated to do the same next week.

Most countries keep their embassies in Tel Aviv, however, saying the status of the holy city should be decided in peace talks between Israel and Palestinians, which want to have their own capital there. Those talks have been stalled since 2014.

Israel regards all of Jerusalem, including the eastern sector captured in the 1967 Middle East, as its capital. Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they want to establish in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller, William Maclean; Editing by Peter Graff)

Turkey’s lira hammered after Erdogan says wants greater economic control

By Daren Butler and Nevzat Devranoglu

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Investors hammered Turkey’s lira on Tuesday, sending it to a record low after President Tayyip Erdogan said he plans to take greater control of the economy after next month’s election, deepening concerns about his influence on monetary policy.

Erdogan’s comments, in an interview with Bloomberg Television in London, reinforced long-standing worries about the central bank’s ability to fight double-digit inflation amid the president’s drive for lower interest rates.

He said the central bank, while independent, would not be able to ignore signals from the new executive presidency that comes into effect after the June polls. A self-described “enemy of interest rates”, Erdogan wants borrowing costs lowered to fuel credit and new construction.

“I will take the responsibility as the indisputable head of the executive in respect of the steps to be taken and decisions on these issues,” he said in the interview broadcast on Tuesday.

Turkey has called snap presidential and parliamentary elections for June 24 and polls show Erdogan as the strongest candidate to win the presidential vote. Turks narrowly backed a switch to an executive presidency in a referendum last year. That change is due to go into effect after the vote.

Erdogan’s comments helped pushed the ailing lira  to a fresh record low of 4.4604 against the dollar, bringing its decline this year to more than 14 percent.

It clawed back some of its losses after one of his advisers, Cemil Ertem, said the central bank had the independence to use all the tools at its disposal.

Yields on 10-year government bonds briefly touched their highest since at least January 2010.

 

PRESIDENT RESPONSIBLE

“Centralization of power and interference in the monetary policy is a concern to us,” said Dietmar Hornung, an associate managing director and head of European Sovereigns at ratings agency Moody’s, at a conference in London.

However, Erdogan’s economic adviser Ertem said the reduction of rates was a general target, rather than a specific aim of the bank’s next rate-setting meeting on June 7 – comments likely designed to take some pain off the lira.

“President Erdogan’s emphasis is not directed towards June 7. What the president says is that interest rates should be reduced as a target,” he told Reuters.

Erdogan said citizens would ultimately hold the president responsible for any problems generated by monetary policy.

“They will hold the president accountable. Since they will ask the president about it, we have to give off the image of a president who is effective in monetary policies,” he said.

“This may make some uncomfortable. But we have to do it. Because it’s those who rule the state who are accountable to the citizens,” he said.

He also said Halkbank <HALKB.IS> executive Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who was found guilty by a U.S. court of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions, was innocent and Turkey wanted his acquittal.

“If Hakan Atilla is going to be declared a criminal, that would be almost equivalent to declaring the Turkish Republic a criminal,” he said.

To view a graphic on Turkey inflation and central bank funding, click: https://reut.rs/2rhsMkh

(Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London; Writing by Daren Butler and David Dolan; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Erdogan’s ‘crazy’ canal alarms villagers and environmentalists

A general view shows the village of Sazlibosna in Istanbul, Turkey, April 16, 2018. Picture taken April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

By Ali Kucukgocmen

SAZLIBOSNA, Turkey (Reuters) – When residents of Sazlibosna, a village near Istanbul, tried to attend a public meeting about the Turkish government’s plan to dig a 400 metre-wide canal through their farmlands, they were stopped by police.

The 45 km (28 mile) Kanal Istanbul will link the seas north and south of Istanbul and ease traffic on the Bosphorus strait, a major global shipping lane. It will also redraw the map of one of Europe’s biggest cities, turning its western side into an island.

Critics, including the national architects association, have questioned the need for the canal and warned it will destroy an 8,500-year-old archaeological site near Istanbul and cause widespread environmental damage.

Real estate agent Murat Ozcelik talks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Kayabasi district in Istanbul, Turkey, April 16, 2018. Picture taken April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

Real estate agent Murat Ozcelik talks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Kayabasi district in Istanbul, Turkey, April 16, 2018. Picture taken April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

The experience of the Sazlibosna villagers illustrates how the government has shut them out of an enterprise that could displace thousands. Estimated to cost around $16 billion, the canal is one of the most ambitious of President Tayyip Erdogan’s infrastructure mega-schemes. He has publicly referred to it as his “crazy project”.

When the villagers, who described themselves as Erdogan supporters, arrived for the meeting in March in western Istanbul – a session intended to allow the public to voice concerns and learn about the project – they were met by police carrying rifles and tear gas who said the hall was full.

It was – with workers who told Reuters they had been bussed in from another government mega-project. The villagers were stuck outside the hearing, in a crowd of more than a hundred people, including environmentalists, who were also not let in.

“The owners of these lands need to be inside,” said Oktay Teke, Sazlibosna’s local administrator, as he stood with the villagers outside the Arnavutkoy municipal building where the meeting was underway.

“If land is going to be expropriated, it will be our land – we will lose our homes.”

A Reuters reporter saw dozens of men leave the hall and board buses after the meeting. When approached, three said they were workers from Istanbul’s giant new airport, which opens in October at the northern end of the planned canal.

“Projects at the airport are about to be finished. This (canal) is a job opportunity for us,” one said, without giving his name.

The spokesman for the Arnavutkoy municipality, Fatih Sanlav, said only a limited number of people were unable to enter the meeting, and no workers were bussed in to fill the hall.

ERDOGAN’S PROJECTS

In a decade and a half in power, Erdogan and his ruling AK Party have built roads, trains and hospitals and improved the lives of millions of lower-income, pious Turks. Under a state of emergency in effect since after a 2016 coup attempt, he has also overseen a sweeping crackdown against opponents.

Erdogan says the canal will take the pressure off the Bosphorus and prevent accidents there. He says “mega-projects”, such as Istanbul’s third airport, are major contributors to the economy.

Yet there is concern about overdevelopment. A protest in 2013 against plans to redevelop Istanbul’s Gezi park turned into a major anti-government uprising.

The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) criticized the canal as an environmental and urban “disaster” which should be abandoned.

Some 369,000 people live in the area that could be impacted by the canal, according to the Turkish Data Analysis Centre, a research company.

The canal will destroy archaeological sites around the Kucukcekmece lagoon that date back to 6,500 BC and provide the earliest evidence of the Hittites in Thrace, TMMOB said. The lagoon’s ecosystem, vital for marine animals and migratory birds, will also be destroyed.

The canal will demolish two basins that provide nearly a third of Istanbul’s fresh water and will increase the salinity of underground water streams, affecting agricultural land as far away as the neighboring Thrace region, TMMOB said.

The project will increase oxygen levels in the Black Sea, impacting the wildlife population, it said.

Three groups of artificial islands will be built just offshore in the Sea of Marmara from the earth dug for the canal, which environmentalists say will cause pollution there.

The Environment Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The Transport Ministry and Cinar Engineering, the company tasked with compiling an environmental impact report, declined to comment.

While the Bosphorus is difficult to navigate, shipping companies do not need a new canal, said Cihangir Inanc of shipping agent GAC Shipping, adding it would be “more realistic” for the government to improve the strait.

Nearly 43,000 ships passed through the Bosphorus in 2017, down a quarter from a decade ago, although ships today are much bigger, according to government data. Traffic on the Bosphorus was nearly three times that of the Suez Canal.

GREEN HILLS

On the banks of Sazlidere dam, Sazlibosna is surrounded by rolling hills and green fields of grazing sheep and cattle. The canal will cut through that land, as well as land around nearly two dozen different villages and neighborhoods.

At the local tea house, villagers fear the government will compulsorily purchase land that has been in their families for generations and pay less than the market value.

Their concerns are fueled by a similar experience 20 years ago, when the government expropriated land to build the dam, paying below market value and devastating local farms.

“We had around 3,000 cattle then, we have 300 now,” Teke, the administrator, said.

Villagers fear the canal will destroy what remains of their agricultural land.

“Once this happens, there won’t be any husbandry or farming left. I’m going to have to stop farming, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said one villager, who grows barley, wheat, maize and sunflowers.

Teke said he wrote to Erdogan, the prime minister, and to government offices asking for more information about what will happen, but to no avail.

Erdogan has promised to hold the tender for the canal soon, saying it will be built no matter what.

“Whether they want it or not, we will build Kanal Istanbul,” he said.

(Editing by David Dolan and Giles Elgood)

Jailed U.S. pastor denies terrorism charges in Turkish court

Jailed U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson's wife Norine Brunson arrives at Aliaga Prison and Courthouse complex in Izmir, Turkey May 7, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

By Ezgi Erkoyun

ANKARA (Reuters) – A U.S. pastor denied terrorism and spying charges in a Turkish court on Monday and called them “shameful and disgusting”, in a prosecution that has been condemned by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Andrew Brunson, who could face up to 35 years in jail, denied links to a network led by U.S.-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, accused of orchestrating a failed military coup in Turkey in 2016, and the outlawed Kurdish PKK militant group.

The Christian pastor from North Carolina has lived in Turkey for more than two decades and has been jailed pending trial since 2016.

“I am helping Syrian refugees, they say that I am aiding the PKK. I am setting up a church, they say I got help from Gulen’s network,” Brunson said, referring to the testimonies of anonymous witnesses in court.

One of the secret witnesses accused Brunson of trying to establish a Christian Kurdish state, and providing coordinates to U.S. forces in the delivery of weapons to the Kurdish YPG militia, active in northern Syria.

“My service that I have spent my life on, has now turned upside down. I was never ashamed to be a server of Jesus but these claims are shameful and disgusting,” Brunson told the court in the Aegean town of Aliaga, north of Izmir.

Brunson has been the pastor of Izmir Resurrection Church, serving a small Protestant congregation in Turkey’s third largest city.

TURKEY WANTS GULEN EXTRADITED

Brunson’s legal case is among several roiling U.S.-Turkish relations, including one in New York against a former executive of Turkish state lender Halkbank. The two countries are also at odds over U.S. support for the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization.

Erdogan suggested last year Brunson’s fate could be linked to that of Gulen, whom Turkey wants extradited.

Gulen denies any association with the coup attempt. Tens of thousands of Turks have been arrested or lost their jobs over alleged connections with it.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted after Brunson’s first court appearance last month that the pastor was on trial for “no reason”.

“They call him a spy, but I am more a spy than he is. Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!” Trump said.

Outside the court on Monday, Sandra Jolley, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, called for the clergyman’s release.

“Every day that Andrew Brunson spends here in prison is another day that the standing of the Turkish government diminishes in the eyes of not just the U.S. but the entire world,” she told reporters.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who is expected to meet with U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo in Washington this week or next, said on Saturday any decision was up to the court.

“They say that the government should release him,” he said. “Is it in my power? This is a decision the judiciary will make.”

(Writing by Ece Toksabay; editing by Andrew Roche)