The last few years have seen some very positive and exciting developments in the world of Turkish wine, one of the most significant ones being the return of the small Aegean island of Bozcaada as a producer of quality wines. Known as Tenedos in ancient times, the island has been a wine-making center since antiquity, but -- like much of the Turkish wine industry -- went through a rather rough and uninspired patch for most of the 20th century. Today, though, Bozcaada is home to Corvus, perhaps Turkey's most respected upscale winery, and to a number of new wineries that are hoping to tap into the island's wine-friendly terroir.
In a wonderful piece for the New York Times, Rome-based travel writer Katie Parla takes a look at the latest developments on Bozcaada, which one winemaker describes as a place where "the earth was made to produce wine." From her article:
An image can call to mind a place, and occasionally a sound does, too. And, of course, so do scents.
One enduring memory of my trip last summer to Bozcaada, an island off the western coast of Turkey, is the aroma of maturing figs, lavender and rosemary carried by persistent winds that locals say help shape the island’s character. Funneled through the Dardanelles, which connects the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean, the winds repel all but the most committed travelers in the winter and attract small numbers of them in the spring and summer. And they help create an environment far different from the mainland: breezy, pleasantly warm and dry, ideal for cultivating grapes.
That means that this 15-square-mile island — a seven-hour trip from Istanbul by bus and ferry — offers solitude with a dash of culture in its only town, also called Bozcaada, and vineyards, whose output has helped make this one of Turkey’s most promising wine destinations.
A week after being shot down by Syrian forces, a Turkish air force fighter jet and its two crew members remain missing at sea. While rescue crews have been searching for it, Turkish officials announced that the EV Nautilus, a research ship that had previously been used to search for the wreck of the Titanic, was being called in to help with finding the wreckage of the F-4 jet.
What also remains unclear a week later is what was the Turkish jet's real mission and how and where it was shot down. As the BBC lays out in a helpful graphic, Ankara and Damascus have given vastly different accounts of the event, which has led to a serious ratcheting up of tensions along the Turkey-Syria border, where the Turkish military is now beefing up its presence and has made clear that any Syrian military activity in the area would now be viewed quite differently than before.
Although the Syrians clearly shot the Turkish jet down without any warning and, based on Damascus's track record, their explanation of the event should be taken with many grains of salt, the questions about what the jet was doing near the Turkish border are important, considering its downing has now put Turkey and Syria -- and perhaps even the region -- many steps closer to all out conflict.
Perhaps following the Latin proverb "in vino veritas," a group of Azeri hackers decided to recently use the website of a major Armenian wine producer to spread their version of the "truth." Reports Armenia's News.am:
Azerbaijani hackers cracked the website of Armenia-based “Armenia Wine” factory on the night of June 25.
A group of hackers calling themselves “Anti-Armenia team” posted an article about alleged Armenia’s “aggression” towards Azerbaijan, photos, videos about Azerbaijani leader and armed forces.
In response, the Armenia Wine company said the hack was not fueled by the political tensions that exist between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but rather by Azeri sour grapes over the recent growth of the Armenian wine industry. Again, from News.am's article:
In its statement the company said Azerbaijanis are angered by Armenia’s ability to develop production and enter international market even being under the blockade. The company representatives assured that promotion of Armenian wines in the international market will continue regardless of any attempts.
Indeed, as previously reported on this blog, the Armenian wine industry has been making strides lately, with the creation of a handful of new wineries that are working to bottle world-class wines and with several older wineries also revamping their production to boost the quality of their product.
Are armed drones the answer to Turkey's continuing fight against the militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)? That certainly seems to be the signal coming out of Ankara, which has been pushing Washington to provide it with American-made Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, which can be armed with air-to-ground missiles.
To a large extent, Ankara's military strategy regarding the PKK fight seems to be evolving in a direction that mimics that used by the United States in Pakistan and Yemen, where drones have become a central weapon in Washington's counterterrorism efforts. Like the US has learned in Pakistan, though, Turkey has recently also discovered that relying on drones can lead to trouble. As described in this previous post, the use of UAV's has become a topic of intense debate in Turkey after the Turkish military last December killed 34 Kurdish villagers that were mistakenly thought to be PKK militants. The deadly attack on the 34, part of a convoy of smugglers heading towards the Turkish border from Iraq, came as a result of intelligence provided by an American drone on loan to Turkey that first noticed the convoy.
In a highly illuminating article, Turkey-basd analyst Aaron Stein takes a look at Turkey's efforts to develop its drone fleet and some of the politics behind it, asking the important question of whether Turkish policymakers have really thought through the implications of introducing armed UAV's into their country's military strategy. From Stein's article:
After last week's Syrian downing of a Turkish air force jet, some things are becoming clear. Turkey, while refraining from doing anything rash and doing all it can to get international and NATO backing for its diplomatic efforts, is also leaving itself with a military option for responding to Syria's action. In a speech in parliament today, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Syrian forces to stay away from the now tense border with Turkey or face retaliation from Turkish forces who may perceive their movements as a threat. At the same time, Ankara also sent to the border area a (somewhat symbolic) convoy of fifteen military vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers.
Still, while Ankara is ratcheting up the pressure against Damascus, last week's incident still leaves behind it some big questions that have profound implications for how Turkey, Syria and the allies of both countries will or can move forward. Among these:
The international sanctions against Iran were designed to punish the country for the continuing efforts to develop its controversial nuclear program. But it appears the sanctions are also starting to impact the daily life -- and eating habits -- of average Iranians. As the Wall Street Journal reports, rising food prices have led to a spontaneous three-day boycott of grocery stores and bakeries that a surprising number of Iranians appear to have joined. From the WSJ's report:
Iranians protesting soaring food prices launched a spontaneous three-day boycott of milk and bread purchases, in a sign that growing economic hardship could lead to more civil disobedience.
The grass-roots campaign, which ran from Saturday through Monday, wasn't affiliated with any opposition group. Dozens of Iranians said in interviews and on social-networking sites and blogs that they had participated in the boycott, and a number of bakeries and grocery stores across Tehran, the capital, reported declines in milk and bread sales of as much as 90%.
Iran's economy has been deteriorating amid domestic mismanagement, corruption and international sanctions that have made it difficult for manufacturers to import raw material and to conduct banking transactions. A European Union embargo on Iranian oil is set to start July 1.
Prices of basic goods rise almost daily. Independent economists estimate annual inflation is hovering between 50% and 60%. In the past two weeks, the price of bread has increased 33%, chicken 28.5% and milk prices are climbing daily, according to Iranian newspapers and semiofficial news websites.
For the last few months, Turkey has been executing a rather complicated dance with regards to troubled next door neighbor Syria. While supporting and housing elements of the Syrian opposition, Ankara has continued to insist it only providing aid for "humanitarian" -- rather than military -- efforts inside Syria. And although Ankara has clearly moved far back from its once warm relations with the Assad regime, it is also clearly not interested in a military confrontation with Damascus.
Is the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) trying to undermine nascent efforts to solve the decades-old Kurdish issue? Is the militant organization itself split between a moderate leadership and a more hardline wing that's trying to undermine these reconciliation moves? These two questions are being asked in the wake of Tuesday's brazen and well-coordinated attack by a large group of PKK militants on a military outpost in eastern Turkey, which resulted in the death of eight Turkish soldiers and has led to retaliatory strikes against PKK strongholds in northern Iraq.
The timing of the attack struck many as curious, coming right on the heels of recent conciliatory messages given by Kurdish political leaders in Turkey and by one of the PKK's top leaders in northern Iraq. In an interview published on June 14 in Hurriyet, veteran Kurdish politician Leyla Zana -- who was recently sentenced to ten years in jail on charges of "propagandizing" on behalf of the PKK -- told the paper she does not believe an armed struggle can solve the Kurdish issue and that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan should be supported in his efforts to solve the conflict. Meanwhile, in a recent interview with veteran Turkish journalist Avni Ozgurel, PKK leader Murat Karayilan gave what many interpreted as positive messages, expressing his support for a now suspended process that brought together representatives of the PKK and the Turkish government for secret talks in Oslo, Norway.
The demolishing of Sulukule, a historic Roma neighborhood inside Istanbul's ancient walls, has been one of the most egregious examples of the destructive nature of the numerous "urban transformation" projects that have been enacted in the city in recent years. In general, this "transformation" has meant evicting or relocating lower-income residents from neighborhoods in newly-desirable locations, tearing down their homes, and replacing them with soulless new buildings that appeal to Turkey's fast-growing middle class.
This has certainly been the case in the plan to "transform" Sulukule, which started in 2008, when the local municipality started evicting Roma families from a large part of the hardscrabble neighborhood in order to make way for the construction of 640 "Ottoman-style" homes that none of the area's original tenants could possibly afford to buy or rent. Although the construction project is already well on its way, with most of these homes built, a new court ruling is giving Sulukule residents and their supporters a sense of limited hope. From the Hurriyet Daily News:
A transformation project in Istanbul’s predominantly Roma neighborhood of Sulukule is “not beneficial to the public,” Istanbul’s Fourth Administrative Court ruled yesterday, adding that construction of new villas “must be stopped.”
The ruling comes after a four-year court case launched by the Istanbul Architects Board, Urban Planning Board and the Sulukule Roma Association.
All the new buildings in Sulukule are illegal and must be torn down, Mücella Yapıcı of the Architects Board said in the wake of the ruling. “Justice when it comes late is not justice,” she added.
In a recent post, this blog ran an interview with the founder of Zorah, a new winery that's trying to revive Armenia's ancient (as in millennia) wine industry and reintroduce the use of certain native grape varieties.
Turns out Zorah is not the only winery trying to take Armenian winemaking back to its roots. In a very informative article in Palate Press, an online wine magazine, Becky Sue Epstein, the website's international editor, reports on a recent visit to Armenia, where she was able to visit some of the country's established wine and brandy makers who are working to update their offerings as well as a handful of other new wineries with lofty ambitions. From her report:
Going out from Yerevan in the opposite direction (west), I also took a day trip to the Armavir area, specifically to Armavir Vineyards, which has an international group of winemakers working at its 400-hectare site. Originally, most of the grapes planted here were “cognac varieties” that were sold for industrial production. This is gradually evolving to wine grapes that are vinified in modern production methods on the property. Grapes are hand-harvested here, because of tradition, available manpower and, I suspect, lack of machinery. This winery is owned by an Argentinean-Armenian industrialist, and his winemakers also treated us to a lovely traditional Armenian lunch with fresh salads, meat and cheese dishes breads and herbs. (Though I later noticed the young workers who came into the dining room had a range of dry cereals for their snacks, just like young people in the West.)
