After a Turkish military attack last December left 34 Kurds from a village called Uludere -- mistakenly thought to be Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants -- dead, Ankara hoped to put the matter to rest by paying the victims' families compensation and promising an investigation into the incident. But in recent days a raging debate over the incident and its aftermath has been reignited in Turkey.
As mentioned in a previous post, the renewed discussion about the Uludere (Roboski in Kurdish) incident was set off by a recent Wall Street Journal article, which focused on how intelligence provided by American unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) might have factored into the attack, in which Turkish warplanes and artillery targeted a group of smugglers coming across the border from Iraq. But the response of officials from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the WSJ article, which implied that the Turkish military made have not done enough to follow up on the original intelligence provided by the American drones, has only deepened the debate.
Defending the military's actions in the botched attack, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the the armed forces did what they needed to do and followed up on the American intelligence with their own drone surveillance. From the Hurriyet Daily News:
"That region is a terror region,” he told reporters accompanying him on a trip to Pakistan.
In what appears to be a major victory for freedom of expression in Turkey, a top appeals court in Ankara has overturned a decision to jail two Kurdish politicians for referring to Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), as "sayin," a Turkish honorific that means both "mister" and "esteemed."
Hatip Dicle and Selim Dadak, members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), were each sentenced to six years in prison after a lower court decided that they had "praised a terrorist organization" by referring to Ocalan as "mister" in interviews. But the Supreme Court of Appeals recently overruled that verdict, arguing that using that expression is protected by Turkey's constitution and -- more significantly, as human rights lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz points out -- by the European Convention on Human Rights and precedents set forth by the European Court of Human Rights. Reports HaberTurk:
The high court called for an holistic interpretation of the interview, and stated that the phrases were covered by the article 26 of the Constitution as well as the article 10 of the ECHR.
The preamble for the overruling stated that the phrases were covered by the "freedom of expression which is held up by the verdicts of the High Court of Appeals and the European Court of Human Rights." The high court unanimously absolved the accused, stressing that they could not be tried for using the phrase in question.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about a Turkish military attack last December that left 34 Kurdish smugglers dead has led to intense debate inside Turkey and has given rise to new questions about the level of American involvement in Ankara's fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The attack, which took place near a village called Uludere on the Turkey-Iraq border, came after the Turkish military came to believe that a convoy of PKK fighters was trying to enter Turkey through a mountain trail. After Turkish warplanes struck the convoy, based on intelligence provided by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), it turned out that it was actually made up of villagers -- mostly teenagers -- smuggling fuel into Turkey. Although the Turkish government promised to investigate the incident and has also paid the victims' families compensation, there has still been no explanation as to what caused the intelligence failure that led to 34 innocent people being killed.
The WSJ article from two days ago adds a new and dramatic wrinkle to the story: the original intelligence about the convoy was given to the Turkish military by an American UAV. Reports the Journal:
It was a U.S. Predator drone that spotted the men and pack animals, officials said, and American officers alerted Turkey.
The U.S. drone flew away after reporting the caravan's movements, leaving the Turkish military to decide whether to attack, according to an internal assessment by the U.S. Defense Department, described to The Wall Street Journal. "The Turks made the call," a senior U.S. defense official said. "It wasn't an American decision."
Oenophiles tend to classify wines into either coming from the "old world" -- France, Spain, Italy and other European countries that have traditionally produced wine -- and the "new world," which includes upstarts such as the United States and Australia. Soon, though, we might need to come up with a new classification: the "ancient world," which would cover bottles coming from what's often described as wine's birthplace, Transcaucasia, a region that includes Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and parts of Iran and Turkey.
While history and archeological finds may back up the region's "birthplace of wine" claim, the quality of the wine produced there -- at least in decades past -- mostly made a mockery of it. That is beginning to change, though. Georgian wines have, in recent years, made great strides in quality and have started earning international attention and acclaim. Wines produced from indigenous grapes grown in vineyards in eastern Turkey have also started to show promise.
Now an ambitious entrepreneur wants to revive Armenia's historic, but mostly dormant, winemaking tradition. Zorah, an Armenian boutique winery that just released its first vintage, was founded some ten years ago by Zorik Gharibian, an Armenian who grew up in Iran and Italy, where he now works in the fashion industry. Enlisting the help of a pair of Italian wine experts, Gharibian is making red wine using the indigenous areni grape and traditional methods, such as letting part of the wine's fermentation take place in large clay jars that are buried underground (Georgians use a similar technique).
Since the their rupture in the wake of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, Turkish-Israeli relations have been limping along, taking some hopeful steps forward and more worrying steps backwards. One of the problematic side effects of Turkey-Israel ties being stuck in the muck of mutual recrimination is that this state of affairs only strengthens a tendency among the Turkish public -- and, occasionally, Turkish officials -- to connect Israel to outlandish conspiracy theories. In recent years, for example, Turkish Islamists claimed a three-day heavy metal music festival in Istanbul was actually organized by a Mossad front and the head of Turkey's Higher Education Board (YOK) suggested that genetically modified tomato seeds bought from Israel could be "programmed" to harm Turks, if not destroy the whole Turkish nation.
For those of you who missed it, Central Asia-based Eurasianet contributor Myles Smith had a great story out of Bishkek about Begemot ("hippopotamus"), a local fast food chain that's revolutionizing the Kyrgyz food scene by selling western-style burgers. Curious to learn more about the story, I sent Smith -- a freelance analyst who has lived in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan for the last five years -- a few questions to find out how this Central Asian McDonald's was working its way into the hearts and stomaches of Kyrgyz eaters and -- most importantly -- just how does the "hippo" burger stack up against a Big Mac and its other "western" competitors:
1. How did you come upon this story?
Actually, the central processing facility for Begemot is outside the door of my house. I constantly get people ringing the doorbell saying they are coming to apply for jobs. Eventually, I just had to find out for myself.
2. How does the Kyrgyz take on western fast food differ from the real thing?
One of the interesting aspects of Begemot’s re-invention of western fast food is that it its target market and positioning is much more similar to its western antecedents than even McDonald's own relaunch in the CIS. Since its introduction in the late 80s, McDonald's has positioned itself in Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia, and other CIS countries as trendy, youth-oriented, sit-down cafe. In the US, it’s a practical, fast meal option. Most people don't eat in, and despite its marketing efforts, few find the place 'cool'. Begemot is similar - a practical, pick-up option, without a lot of pizzaz.
3. Have you been able to gauge the public's response to the hippo burger?
As previously reported on this blog, the production of caviar is no longer a strictly Caspian region affair. Far from it. Sturgeon farms turning out the valuable fish eggs are now operating in South America, China and even in the desert of Abu Dhabi. We can now add South Korea to the list of countries that are part of the caviar club. Reports the New York Times:
When Han Sang-hun brought 200 sturgeons on a chartered plane from Russia in 1997, South Korean officials regarded the alien fish with a level of suspicion that the owner of a fish pond might reserve for an invasion of sharks. After all, the sturgeon, because of its prickly looks, is called the armored shark in Korean.
“They said if any of them escaped into the rivers, they would ruin the local ecosystem, attacking and devouring other fish,” Mr. Han recalled with a pained amusement. “The sturgeon is a slow-swimming fish with no teeth to speak of.”
When he finally extricated his fish from customs, he placed them at a riverside farm in this town 90 kilometers, or 56 miles, southeast of Seoul. For the next 12 years, Mr. Han spent $1 million a year feeding and looking after a stock that grew to 50,000 sturgeons, all children of the original 200. But he got little in return until 2009, when the fish were old enough to yield caviar — one of the world’s most expensive delicacies, selling for as much as $400 per ounce, or $14 a gram.
On a recent spring harvesting day, a farmhand gently massaged a sturgeon’s belly as Mr. Han traced a slender steel device up its egg-laying duct and popped a bulging egg sack inside. Roe poured out like so many black pearls into a bowl.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent statements that his country is united by "one religion" have caused quite a stir, drawing criticism both inside and outside Turkey. Erdogan made the comment in reference to the Kurdish issue in two recent speeches, saying what he advocates for is "one nation, one state, one flag and one religion." (A classic nationalist refrain heard in Turkey, mostly meant as a rebuke to Kurds, is that the country has "one flag, one nation, one language.")
Facing mounting criticism of Erdogan's remarks, Huseyin Celik, a deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said they were a "slip of the tongue":
Çelik suggested that Erdoğan might have intended to emphasize the common religion of Islam that Turks and Kurds share, in the face of “attempts by Turkish and Kurdish chauvinists to trace their origins to Shamanism and Zoroastrianism.” The prime minister “may have meant to say that a common faith is one of the main reasons that no ethnic strife has erupted in this country despite all the efforts of Turkish and Kurdish chauvinists,” he said.
Even Erdogan, a proud politician not prone to admitting his own mistakes, said he slipped up, meaning to say "one homeland" rather than "one religion." In a column in yesterday's Today's Zaman, analyst Lale Kemal takes a look at why Erdogan's "slip of the tongue" struck such an off note:
Tbilisi-based tipster E.O recently sent me a link to a wonderful piece about adjika, a red pepper based hot sauce that is the pride of Abkhazia and an essential part of the region's cuisine. The piece, by Oliver Bullough, a former Reuters correspondent based in Moscow, tells the story of how he first discovered adjika, got hooked on it, and then ended up having numerous conversations about the sauce whenever he went on reporting trips to Abkhazia after the Russian-Georgian war of 2008. From his article:
After the war, Russia recognised Abkhazian independence, and the territory became something of a pawn in the struggle between Washington and Moscow. This was always the nominal topic during interviews with politicians but, quite often, we ended up talking instead about adjika. Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Chirikba, for example, strongly recommended buying some from a woman called Seda in the market in Sukhum, the capital. “Everyone knows her, she makes the best adjika,” he said, with a degree of passion that had been missing from much of our previous discussion of Abkhazia’s strained foreign relations. “Just ask when you get into the market and they’ll tell you how you find Seda who sells adjika.”
That was a controversial viewpoint, however. Ruben Migranyan, spokesman for the prime minister, did not think much of Seda’s adjika at all.
“Seda’s neighbour in the market has much better adjika. Look out for her, she has blonde hair, though I can’t remember her name,” he said, as we waited for his boss to turn up. He pointed out that, as an ethnic Armenian, he was neutral in the Abkhaz adjika dispute, so his viewpoint was one you could rely on.
“Seda is a brand name. Buy it from Seda by all means, maybe it’s good, but you can find any other person who makes it better.”
The last year has not been kind to Turkey's "zero problems with neighbors" policy. Relations with Syria plummeted once Ankara -- after some initial delaying -- came out resolutely against the Assad regime. Ties with Iran, though still cordial on the surface, are suffering their own strains because of Ankara and Tehran's differing policies regarding the situation in Syria and Turkey's frustration with Iran over several other political and economic issues.Now Iraq can be officially added to the list of neighbors that Turkey has problems with. In late April, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki labeled Turkey an "enemy state" bent on interfering in his country's internal affairs. In response, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his Iraqi counterpart -- leader of a Shiite party -- lacks an understanding of democracy and is fanning the flames of sectarianism in Iraq. The exchange of words led to ambassadors being summoned in both capitals.
More pointedly, Turkey is now playing host to fugitive Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni who is currently wanted in Iraq on charges of running death squads in the country. The issue of the VP's fate will likely only further strain Turkey-Iraq relations now that Interpol has issued a "red notice" that asks for help in the capture of Hashimi, who says the charges against him are politically motivated.
