Turkey's protracted shopping for a long-range air defense system has been a sort of geopolitical bellwether for the country: in addition to considering systems from NATO allies U.S. and Italy, Ankara has been looking at Russian and Chinese options. If it goes for the latter, NATO has reportedly promised to cut Turkey out of its air defense monitoring system. But now it looks like Turkey may be abandoning the purchase altogether, reports Defense News:
Turkey's highest defense body might decide to indefinitely postpone the country's $4 billion air defense program, effectively killing it, sources and observers said.
In addition to analysts' criticism that the long-range air and missile defense system is too expensive, other recent developments have raised questions about the project.
This month, for example, MBDA of Italy, one arm of bidder Eurosam, arranged a tour for several Turkish journalists to observe firing tests at two Italian land and naval installations. Turkish defense authorities at the last minute declined to permit reporters to visit the Italian sites, and MBDA had to cancel the tour.
This led to speculation that the program was going to be canceled or indefinitely postponed.
(Not really germane to the main point, but it's remarkable that the Turkish government could forbid reporters from visiting Italy to see an Italian company exhibition.)
The problem is that Turkey may not need such a system:
Today marks the start of Eid al-Adha -- the Feast of the Sacrifice -- across the Muslim world. The holiday honors Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his eldest son to God. (Satisfied with Abraham's loyalty, at the last minute God gives him a ram to sacrifice instead.)
In Turkey, where the festival is known as Kurban Bayramı, it is celebrated with family gatherings and ritual slaughter. Families with means buy an animal and donate a portion of the meat to the poor. In Istanbul, the city now provides special areas for farmers to sell sheep, cows and goats, and for butchers to perform the slaughter for a fee.
At one such public slaughteryard in Istanbul's Piyalepasa neighborhood, hundreds turned out on October 25. Some took their purchases home to kill and butcher themselves; others found a professional who would perform the duties for 50 Turkish lira (about $28) for a sheep. Sheep cost between 500-700 lira. Cows and bulls are significantly more.
Sometimes the men say a prayer before the animal is killed. Sometimes it's just work. But the calming techniques used by the butchers and the swiftness of the animals' deaths testify to the skill and experience built up over centuries (except when they let amateurs take a whack at it).
David Trilling is EurasiaNet's Central Asia editor.
The face of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, is seen in the process of being tattooed on a man's leg at Istanbul's first tattoo convention, which was held September 15-16. The owner of the tattoo stepped outside for a cigarette in the middle of getting the inking on his upper leg.
Images of Ataturk and his signature are popular tattoos for Turks, who want to express their belief in his secular ideals. Often, tattoo artists will give Ataturk tattoos for free on November 10, the anniversary of his death.
Many tattoo artists say the permanent ink image of Ataturk has become more popular recently as Turkey's ruling Islamist-based Justice and Development Party (AKP) gives fresh importance to religion in Turkish society.
Justin Vela is a freelance reporter based in Istanbul.
An Alawite woman prays in a shrine in Samandag, Turkey on July 13. Alawites, who in Turkey are sometimes called Arab Alevis, compose a small minority in the country. Alawites in Samandag said that the support of Turkey's ruling Sunni Justice and Development Party (AKP) for Syrian rebels seeking to topple the Alawite-dominated Assad regime in Syria has marginalized Alawites in the country.
Justin Vela is a freelance reporter based in Istanbul.
Didn’t know NATO was in the personal-protection business? Neither did NATO.
Istanbul vendors selling watches, knives and batteries from folding tables are offering a product bound to surprise the NATO officials who regularly visit the city: pressurized canisters of “American Style NATO Super-Paralisant.”
Also known as pepper spray, the 40-milliliter bottles of “CS-Gas Silliarde” claim to be made in Germany. But the G.I. Joe-look is 100-percent American.
It’s unclear how much demand there is for the spray in a city where the crime rate is relatively low.
One merchant in an underpass in the Eminönü neighborhood said he first saw the product – which he sells at the competitive price of 6 Turkish lira (roughly $3.50) – about two years ago. He laughed when told the slogan on the carton, which reads “Body Protect Aerosol Type,” could be misunderstood as a different type of defense: We were thinking deodorant.
But don’t be alarmed: NATO isn't arming the Turkish population. A spokesman in Brussels confirmed to EurasiaNet.org that the spray is “not a NATO product.”
Foreign Ministers of the SCO member states, in Beijing
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is strengthening its ties with two countries aligned to the West, Turkey and Afghanistan. The foreign ministers of the SCO states met last week in Beijing, in advance of next month's summit there, and apparently one of the decisions made was to admit U.S.-occupied Afghanistan as an observer country, and NATO member Turkey as a dialogue partner.
The Voice of Russia quotes political analyst Stanislav Tarasov saying that the move with Turkey is a "real breakthrough":
"The situation around Turkey is unique. Turkey has been sticking to pro-Western policies. It has been trying to join the EU for ten years but it was in vain so now it has to develop a new scenario of drifting to the East, which implies changes in Turkey’s foreign policy."
That ignores certain moves Turkey has made to strengthen its cooperation with NATO, notably its decision to host NATO missile defense radar. That is certainly a bigger commitment than being a dialogue partner in the SCO. Still, it's an intriguing move, and expect Turkophobes in the West to use this against Ankara.
As for Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai just gave an interview to Russian media, and though the subject of the SCO didn't come up, Karzai framed Afghanistan's security in terms that include a lot of the countries in the SCO (either as members or observers):
“Security is an issue that is not related to us alone… Had it been an Afghan issue, the Americans would have never come here – as they didn’t before September 11 [2001],” Karzai said, speaking to journalists from RIA Novosti, the Rossiya24 and Russia Today television channels in Kabul.
A demonstrator hoists a banner with images of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and the late Turkish communist leader Hikmet Kıvılcımlı to mark May 1, International Workers' Day.
Tens of thousands of people, including communists, Kemalists and members of labor unions, thronged central Istanbul's Taksim Square to celebrate the national holiday.
Istanbul's annual May Day rallies have been peaceful in recent years, though many in the crowd today remembered clashes 35 years ago that left at least 34 dead.
David Trilling is EurasiaNet's Central Asia editor.
With NATO members meeting soon to discuss the future of the alliance's nuclear weapons, and next-door neighbor Iran threatening to get nuclear weapons itself, it's a volatile time for Turkey and nukes. Currently, Turkey hosts some U.S. nuclear bombs, along with four Western European countries. NATO has been undergoing a review of how U.S. nukes should be deployed in Europe, which was supposed to be finished by next month's summit in Chicago. But according to a recent paper from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the alliance "is unlikely to resolve the question of what to do about its forward deployed nuclear weapons before the summit."
The most likely eventual outcome, however, would seem to be that some of the European hosts of U.S. nukes (Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands) would decide to give them up, while Italy and Turkey would keep them. Turkey has been interested in maintaining that concrete measure of NATO's dedication to its defense, but some other analysts are wondering if other developments are causing Turkey to rethink its nuclear strategy.
Sinan Ülgen, also writing for Carnegie, notes that many policymakers (generally with an interest in ginning up the Iranian threat) have claimed that if Iran got nuclear weapons, that Turkey and other countries in the region would follow suit:
After Turkey and Armenia signed historic protocols in 2009 to normalize relations and reopen the border between the two countries, the reconciliation process between the two countries quickly stalled. As my colleague Yigal Schleiffer wrote, "not much longer after they were signed, the agreement was as good as dead, killed off by a combination of Turkish buyer's remorse, Azeri bullying and Armenian naivete." A thorough report on the history of the diplomatic reconciliation process, by David Phillips, a scholar who has long experience working in Turkish-Armenian relations, concluded that the protocols were in fact effectively dead.
But Phillips spoke Tuesday in Washington, and said he is now more optimistic about the protocols' prospects than he was when he finished that report last month. Recent trips to Ankara and Yerevan and conversations with diplomats in both places gave him new reason for hope, and he said he now wanted to "disassociate himself" from the pessimistic conclusion he gave in his report.
Anyone who’s visited Istanbul knows the city is full of delicious food. But sometimes finding fare that’s not Turkish can be a challenge. Those longing for the delectable tastes of perfectly spiced khinkali, melt-in-your-mouth khachapuri, and the fresh-grape goodness of a genuine chacha shot, won’t regret going a little off the beaten path to a neighborhood bustling with visitors, traders, and émigrés from the former Soviet Union.
Café Euro, opened six years ago, serves up Georgian cuisine, one of the tastiest culinary traditions known in the Russian-speaking world. There is no menu per se. Proprietor Eka Pruidze will tell you what’s available, and whatever you order, she’ll say it won’t possibly be enough to sate you.
One specialty you’re likely to find is khachapuri, a flat bread baked with fresh, slightly salty Georgian cheese and brought to your table piping hot. Khachapuri comes in different varieties. The default at Café Euro is imeruli, hailing from Eka’s native region of Imeretia. It is round and sliced into wedges that can easily be folded around fresh parsley or scallions. But you can also order the canoe-shaped adjaruli variety, which comes with an egg (or several, Eka will offer) cooked sunny-side-up atop the cheese filling. Few eating experiences are as gratifying as breaking off a dangerously hot piece of the crisp, doughy crust and dipping it into the khachapuri’s steaming, golden middle.
