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Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Turkish president 'facing trial' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8056338.stm

Turkey Abdullah Gul AKP Necmettin Erbakan

shared by Argos Media on 19 May 09 - Cached
  • A Turkish court has ruled President Abdullah Gul should stand trial for alleged embezzlement in the late 1990s.
  • The Welfare Party, a precursor of the governing AK Party, was accused of misappropriating funds from the state treasury after being banned in 1998.
  • The case will now be considered by an appeal court. But it is unclear whether Mr Gul will end up going on trial, as he could have immunity as president. Correspondents say Turkey's secular establishment has often used the courts to oppose the activities of the Islamist-rooted AKP. Last July, the Constitutional Court came close to banning the party for allegedly trying to undermine the country's secular system.
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  • The Welfare Party briefly held power as part of a coalition government between 1996 and 1997, during which time it implemented some pro-Islamist reforms, such as allowing women to wear headscarves in government offices.
  • Its leader, Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, was eased from office following pressure from the military in a so-called "soft coup". In 1998, the party was banned for violating constitutional obligations to respect secularism.
  • In 2002, Mr Erbakan was sentenced to two years and four months in jail for embezzlement in connection with the alleged fraud, and fined. Mr Gul, who was deputy chairman of the Welfare Party and a state minister under Mr Erbakan, pardoned him last year.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Turkey's Gul seeks to calm military 'coup plot' fears - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8536216.stm

Turkey Ergenekon

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 25 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Turkey's president has said tensions over an alleged military coup plot will be resolved within the law, after meeting the head of the armed forces.President Abdullah Gul made the statement after a summit with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and armed forces chief Gen Ilker Basbug. Tension between the government and the military has risen following a round of arrests over the alleged plot. Twenty military officers were charged this week in connection with the case. They were among more than 40 officers arrested on Monday.
  • Turkey's military has overthrown or forced the resignation of four governments since 1960 - most recently in 1997 - though Gen Basbug has insisted that coups are a thing of the past.
  • The latest men to be charged were arrested over the so-called "sledgehammer" plot, which reportedly dates back to 2003. Reports of the alleged plot first surfaced in the liberal Taraf newspaper, which said it had discovered documents detailing plans to bomb two Istanbul mosques and provoke Greece into shooting down a Turkish plane over the Aegean Sea. The army has said the scenarios were discussed but only as part of a planning exercise at a military seminar. The alleged plot is similar, and possibly linked, to the reported Ergenekon conspiracy, in which military figures and staunch secularists allegedly planned to foment unrest, leading to a coup.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Turkish anger at US Armenian 'genocide' vote - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8550928.stm

Turkey US Armenia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Turkey has reacted angrily to a US congressional panel's resolution describing as genocide the killings of Armenians in World War I.PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had been accused of a crime it did not commit, adding the resolution would harm Turkish-US relations. Ankara has recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations and says it is considering other responses.
  • The BBC's Jane O'Brien in Washington says Turkey must be hoping that, as with a similar resolution two years ago, the issue will not come to the floor of the House for a full vote. In 2007, it passed the committee stage, but was shelved after pressure from the George W Bush administration.
  • Turkish President Abdullah Gul responded angrily to the committee's vote, saying it was "an injustice to history" to take such a decision with "political concerns in mind". "Turkey will not be responsible for the negative results that this event may lead to," he said.
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  • Talks between Turkey and Armenia helped defer a US congressional vote after 2007. The two countries signed an agreement to establish diplomatic relations on 10 October 2009 in Switzerland.That deal has since faltered. Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan has repeated his promise to Azerbaijan not to fix ties with Armenia until the the conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is settled. Turkey feels ethnic kinship with Azerbaijan and relies on it for gas supplies.
  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had urged the House committee not to vote on Thursday on the grounds that it would damage reconciliation efforts between Turkey and Armenia, and said she hoped it would go no further.
  • "We do not believe that the full Congress will or should act upon that resolution, and we have made that clear to all the parties involved," she said. During his campaign for the 2008 election, Mr Obama promised to brand the mass killings genocide.
  • In October last year, Turkey and Armenia signed a historic accord normalising relations between them after a century of hostility.
Argos Media

How Barack Obama refrained from using the 'g' word in Turkey | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...menia-genocide-us-turkey-obama

Obama US Turkey Armenian Genocide Armenia

shared by Argos Media on 07 Apr 09 - Cached
  • During last year's presidential election campaign, Obama had no doubt. "The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence."
  • Obama, with Turkey's president Abdullah Gul and before parliament yesterday, refrained from using what the Turkish media call "the g word". It was not because his views had changed, he said, but because of ongoing talks between Turkey and Armenia, they no longer matter. "What I want to do now is not focus on my views but on the views of the Turkish and Armenian people," he said.
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