Erdogan ally set to be appointed Turkey's new prime minister

May 22, 2016

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's ruling party held a special convention on Sunday to confirm a longtime ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as its new chairman and next prime minister, a move that is likely to consolidate the Turkish leader's hold on power.

Binali Yildirim, the transport and communications minister and a founding member of the governing Justice and Development Party, is set to replace Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu who announced earlier this month that he is stepping down amid differences with Erdogan.

Yildirim, 60, who is running unopposed for the party's leadership, is widely expected to be more in tune with Erdogan, who is pushing for an overhaul of the constitution that would give the largely ceremonial presidency executive powers.

Traditionally, the post of premier in Turkey goes to the leader of the largest party in parliament and Erdogan is expected to formally ask Yildirim to form a new government after the convention. Supporters credit Yildirim for his role in developing major infrastructure projects which have helped buoy Turkey's economy and boost the party's popularity. But critics, including the leader of the main opposition party, have accused him of corruption. Yildirim has rejected the accusation.

The change in party leadership comes at a time when NATO member Turkey is facing an array of security threats including renewed conflict with Kurdish rebels in the southeast, a wave of suicide bombings linked to Kurdish and Islamic State militants, as well as growing blowback from the war in neighboring Syria.

The transition also coincides with growing tensions with the European Union over a controversial deal to reduce the flow of illegal migrants from Turkey to Greece, which Davutoglu helped broker. Davutoglu, a one-time adviser to Erdogan and a former foreign minister, fell out with the president over an array of issues including the possibility of peace talks with Kurdish rebels, the pre-trial detention of journalists accused of spying and academics accused of supporting terrorism.

Turkey's president is pushing for a broader definition of terrorism, alarming rights groups who say existing laws are already too widely interpreted to crush dissent. His stance is also at odds with EU conditions for Turkish citizens to benefit from visa-free travel.

Crucially, Erdogan wants to turn the figurehead presidency into an all-powerful position while the independent-minded Davutoglu was believed to be less-than-enthusiastic toward that project. Many believe Yildirim will work to push Erdogan's agenda through.

Greek minister's visit to Albania greeted with a protest

June 06, 2016

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Protesters in the Albanian capital scuffled with police Monday ahead of a visit by Greece's foreign minister, as members of Cham community, which was expelled from northwestern Greece during World War II after Athens claimed they had collaborated with the Nazis, demanded their property back.

A few hundred supporters of the small Party for Justice, Integration and Unity, which represents the Cham community, tried block the entrance of the Foreign Ministry in Tirana as Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias was to arrive. Kotzias delayed his arrival briefly and his Albanian host, Ditmir Bushati, came out to meet PDIU leader Shpetim Idrizi to clear the road.

Four issues have soured bilateral ties between the two neighbors: the Chams' claims on their confiscated property; the technical state of war still in place since then-fascist Italy attacked Greece through Albania in 1940; an unresolved maritime dispute and Greek claims of discrimination against the ethnic Greek minority in Albania.

Hundreds of thousands of Albanians poured to Greece after the communist regime fell in 1990. Both ministers said dialogue will be the best way to resolve any disputes, insisting there is no territorial claim from both sides. They have agreed to create a joint mechanism that will convene periodically and also a road map for how to resolve the issues.

"Good neighborliness and the respect of the neighbor's territorial integrity dominate above everything," said Bushati at a news conference, adding that on the Cham issue, Tirana's stand was "on the respect of the fundamental freedom and rights of that population."

"We should resolve the existing problems and look forward to big future projects," said Kotzias. Bushati reiterated Monday that Greece was an important neighbor. "Relations with Greece are strategic ones and with a high potential that we should exploit to the best," he said.

Kotzias, the Greek minister, said at the news conference Monday that Athens believed a 1987 government statement and the 1996 bilateral friendship treaty mean the two countries were not in war now. "Albania's integration into NATO and its EU prospects makes us not only friends but partners too," he said.

Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Greece, contributed to this report.

Afghan Taliban elects new leader

25 May 2016 Wednesday

The Afghan Taliban on Wednesday announced influential religious figure Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new leader after confirming supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansour's death in a U.S. drone strike.

"Haibatullah Akhundzada has been appointed as the new leader of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) after a unanimous agreement in the shura (supreme council), and all the members of shura pledged allegiance to him," the insurgents said in a statement.

It added that Sirajuddin Haqqani, an implacable foe of U.S. forces, and Mullah Yakoub, the son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, were appointed his deputies.

Haibatullah was one of two deputies under Mansour, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Saturday, the first known American assault on a top Afghan Taliban leader on Pakistani soil.

Mansour's killing is a major blow to the militant movement just nine months after he was formally appointed leader following a bitter power struggle, and sent shockwaves through the leadership.

Haibatullah's appointment comes after the Taliban's supreme council held emergency meetings that began Sunday in southwest Pakistan to find a unifying figure for the leadership post.

Taliban sources said the supreme council members were lying low and constantly changing the venue of their meetings to avoid new potential air strikes.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/headlines/173077/afghan-taliban-chooses-new-leader.

Syrian refugees who want to return home are stuck in Germany

June 01, 2016

BERLIN (AP) — Nine months ago, after the Syrian army razed his neighborhood, Mohammed was desperate to make his way to Germany. Now he is desperate to go back to Syria because his wife and eight children can't get out. But he fears the only way he can return is the same way he came — illegally.

Mohammed, a farm worker from the outskirts of Damascus, is one of at least hundreds of Syrian refugees who want to go home, often because it's taking too long to bring their families here. But in an unlikely twist, they are finding themselves stuck in Europe.

While Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers get financial support and organized plane trips to go home, the German government and the International Organization for Migration say they can't send Syrians back to a war zone. There aren't even flights from Germany to Syria because of the brutal civil war there. And neighboring countries that initially took in the bulk of the Syrian refugees have all but closed their doors; Turkey has introduced tough visa requirements, and Lebanon is refusing to take Syrians who left illegally through Turkey.

That leaves little hope for the dozens of Syrians per week who have requested departures since the beginning of this year, according to travel agents and case workers at migrants' return programs. "I came here only for the future of my children," said Mohammed, who did not want to give his last name because he is afraid the Syrian regime will harm his family. "If they're not here, it makes no sense for me to be here."

A stocky man with tired eyes who looks much older than his 45 years, Mohammed first came to Germany because his children could barely survive on the boiled grass their mother cooked for them. So he paid smugglers to take him across the Mediterranean on a shaky dinghy and trekked up the Balkans, in the hope of quickly finding a job and then bringing his family in.

He got asylum in March. But his wife calls him every day, crying and begging him to come back home. She doesn't have any money to feed their seven daughters, and their only son, 12-year-old Marwan, quit school to sell vegetables on the market.

He bought a plane ticket to Beirut in April, but German security didn't let him on the plane. Two weeks ago, Mohammed tried to board to Athens, but was again stopped. He pulled two crumpled online tickets slowly from the pocket of his oversized brown coat, a worthless reminder of his futile efforts. Covering his face with his hands, he said he will try until he finally finds a way out.

While nobody has exact figures, interviews with government officials, case workers, travel agents and dozens of refugees themselves show that the number of Syrians leaving Germany is growing steadily.

Alaa Hadroos, who runs the Golf Reisen travel agency in Berlin, said between five and 10 people come by his office every day asking him for ways out of Germany. At the beginning of the year, it was more like 20 daily, but now some have realized he can't help them.

"We are getting here a lot of Syrian refugees who want to go home, but it is very, very hard for them to actually get there in any way," he said. Hadroos said most Syrians now try to book flights from Germany to Athens, then hire traffickers to walk them across the Greek-Turkish border illegally to eventually make it back home.

"It's not a legal route, therefore we cannot offer this as a travel agency," Hadroos added. "We can only book flights for those who have valid travel documents to Athens. But we don't want to have anything to do with the route from Athens to Syria."

Several migrants confirmed to The Associated Press that they planned to use this route. They told the AP they had bought or were going to buy plane tickets to Athens from traffickers in Berlin, even though they had no valid travel documents because German authorities hadn't yet returned their passports. While Berlin and Athens are part of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, the airlines still need to see valid travel documents.

More than 420,000 Syrian refugees came to Germany last year, and the majority will eventually receive asylum. But the country is so overwhelmed that it is taking months, if not years, to process the requests, let alone the hundreds of thousands of applications for family reunions.

"We know how important it is for these people, who have only one wish — to be reunited with their families as quickly as possible," a spokesman for the German Foreign Office said earlier this month. The spokesman, Martin Schaefer, said the government has increased the staff at its embassies in the Middle East to speed up the visa process for Syrian family members. The capacity of the German embassy in the Lebanese capital of Beirut to issue visas has gone up from 5,000 a year in 2012 to 30,000. But because of war, Germany no longer has an embassy in Damascus, which makes it difficult for many Syrian families to even apply for visas in the first place.

Many Syrians say the long separation from their children and wives is unbearable. Others can't cope with life in cramped shelters, where they cannot work during the asylum procedure. And yet others say they are simply too homesick.

"They are more or less trapped in Germany," said Silvia Kostner, the spokeswoman for Berlin's Lageso office, which organizes voluntary returns for migrants. "Of course, they can try to get out through different ways — and some are doing exactly this because they're missing their families so badly — but we can't take on the responsibility to help these people travel back to a war zone."

Syrian refugee Abdullah Hamwi, a textile merchant who sold caftans at the old market in the city of Aleppo before it was destroyed, said he initially settled in Istanbul. But he moved to Germany in 2014 with his wife and baby son, hoping for a good education and better future.

After half a year in a shelter with 400 other migrants, no asylum, no work and the same three pieces of bread, butter and jam for breakfast every morning, they say they've had enough. They complain that they stand in line for days to pick up pocket money.

"Until now I didn't see anything good here," said Hamwi's wife, Dania Rasheed, embracing her big pregnant belly with her hands. "Everything is difficult, they want papers here, papers there; tell us to go here and go there — the treatment is bad, it's not the life we used to live in Syria."

The young couple went for days without heat in the middle of the winter. They get by on 330 Euros ($368) per month and said security staff enter their little room day and night. Hamwi, a pale, skinny man with dark circles under his eyes, takes his wife to the bathroom every time because he fears the strangers around.

Such grievances are not likely to be resolved quickly in any big German city where thousands — both citizens and migrants —are suffering from an acute housing shortage. Hamwi has already checked out the current smuggler's rate to get back to Istanbul: 300 euros per person for Berlin to Athens and another 1500 to get them all into Turkey.

"As soon as our daughter is born, we will find a way to get out of here and back to Istanbul," Hamwi said. "At least there we can live in dignity and work — here we are not getting any respect." Spiro Hadad, a journalist and a photographer, is one of those who have successfully made it home to Syria. After losing his house, he left Syria in June last year and went to Austria. He stayed there for six months and spent 4500 euros. But he soon became frustrated, among other things, that could not bring his mother in, so he asked the human rights office in Austria to allow him back home.

"They tried to convince me to stay, but I refused," he said. They eventually gave him a ticket to Istanbul and Lebanon. Lebanon let him in even though he had originally left illegally through Turkey, because he showed officials his press card. Then he drove home to Damascus.

"I lost everything in Syria and I tried to improve my conditions. Unfortunately, I lost much more," he said. "Most people prefer to return because they can't stand it."

Albert Aji contributed reporting from Damascus, Syria, Zeina Karam from Beirut, Lebanon and Dominique Soguel from Istanbul, Turkey.

Jordan world's 8th refugee welcoming country

By Khetam Malkawi
May 23,2016

AMMAN — Jordan ranked among the top 10 refugee welcoming countries, according to a global index issued this week.

The “Refugees Welcome Index” issued by Amnesty International, based on a global survey of more than 27,000 people and carried out by GlobeScan, ranks 27 countries across all continents based on people’s willingness to let refugees live in their countries, towns, neighborhoods and homes.

China, Germany and the UK topped the index measuring public acceptance of refugees; while Russia came in the bottom.

Jordan ranked 8th, with 96 per cent of the 1,000 surveyed Jordanians said they would take refugees into their country.

Generally, the index said that the vast majority of people (80 per cent) would welcome refugees with open arms, with many even prepared to take them into their own homes, but criticized the governments’ policies on hosting refugees.

“Globally, one person in 10 would take refugees into their home,” the report said, adding that 32 per cent said they would accept refugees in their neighborhood, 47 per cent in their city, town or village and 80 per cent in their country.

Globally, only 17 per cent said they would refuse refugees entry to their country.

“The Refugees Welcome Index exposes the shameful way governments have played short-term politics with the lives of people fleeing war and repression. Governments must heed these results, which clearly show the vast majority of people ready and willing to make refugees welcome in their country,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty in a statement posted on the organisation’s website.

The index also showed that 84 per cent of the surveyed Jordanians said the government should do more to support refugees. China topped this part of the index, followed by Nigeria and Jordan came third.

According to the latest official figure, Jordan hosts some 1.3 million Syrians with half of them registered as refugees, and 80 per cent of them living in host communities.

Iraqi refugees come second with more than 53,000, in addition to thousands of Sudanese, Libyan and Yemeni refugees, while there are about 400,000 Egyptian laborers.

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/jordan-world%E2%80%99s-8th-refugee-welcoming-country.

Western Sahara independence movement leader Abdelaziz dies

May 31, 2016

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — The head of the independence movement in the Western Sahara, Mohamed Abdelaziz, died on Tuesday after a long illness, the Polisario Front said in a statement. He was in his late 60s.

The movement ordered a 40-day mourning period, after which a new secretary-general will be chosen, the statement said. The death of Abdelaziz, leader of the Polisario Front for four decades, comes at a time of growing tension over the fate of the Western Sahara. The Polisario Front has fought for four decades for independence for the vast, mineral-rich disputed territory, which was annexed by Morocco after Spain withdrew in 1975.

Morocco now considers the territory its "southern provinces" and has pumped funds into the area's development over the years. Abdelaziz was born in 1948 in Smara, in the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, and led the Polisario Front, which he helped found, since 1976, according to Algeria's state-run APS news agency.

The status of the Western Sahara has recently spread new friction between two North African neighbors, Morocco and Algeria, which supports the Polisario Front, and like numerous other African countries recognizes the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic it defends. The Polisario Front is based in Tindouf, in southern Algeria.

Abdelaziz's death comes at a critical time, with ties between Morocco and Algiers growing increasingly prickly, and Morocco increasingly assertive with the United Nations, which has worked for years to help settle the issue.

The Moroccan government has proposed wide-ranging autonomy for the region, but the Polisario Front insists on self-determination through a referendum for the local population — as called for in U.N. resolutions.

Morocco expelled most U.N. civilian staff last month after the U.N. chief used the word "occupation" to refer to the situation in the region following a visit to a camp for Western Sahara refugees in southern Algeria. The U.N. mission had nearly 500 military and civilian personnel but 83 were ordered to leave and a military liaison was ordered to close, crippling its operation.

In April, a top member of the Polisario Front, Bachir Mustafa Sayed, warned that war is possible over the disputed territory if the U.N. Security Council fails to set a timetable for a vote on self-determination.

Abdelaziz warned in an April letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Morocco will have "a green light to a military aggression" unless the Security Council imposes "real and direct pressure" on Morocco to restore the U.N. mission's work. He warned that the Sahrawi people in Western Sahara will defend their rights in the face of aggression "by all legitimate means, including armed struggle."

The Polisario had mounted a desert war against Morocco after the territory was annexed. According to Article 46 of the Polisario's internal rules, an extraordinary congress will be held to replace Abdelaziz in 40 days, at the close of the period of mourning, the Polisario statement said. The movement has appointed the head of the movement's National Council, Khatri Abdouh, as interim Polisario leader.

Elaine Ganley reported from Paris. Samia Errazzouki in Ouarzazate, Morocco, contributed to this report.

Ghannouchi re-elected as head of Ennahda

May 24, 2016

There are problems within the Ennahda party but assessing the situation is part of how the group operates, the party’s head Rachid Al-Ghannouchi said in a speech yesterday.

Ennahda has succeeded in renewing itself according to the needs of the Tunisian people, Al-Ghannouchi said, promising a path of reform and development.

The group has pioneered the way to revisit its thoughts and further reinforce democratic values, he said during a speech at the group’s tenth congress.

The veteran leader seemed for a moment moved when it was announced that he was re-elected as the party’s head with a comfortable majority.

“Ennahda was a pioneer in reinforcing the idea of democracy and in self-criticism and accepting constant revisions,” he said.

The party has already dealt with the issue of separating between religion and politics and is now focused on the Tunisian people’s daily needs, he explained.

During the congress, Nahda announced the full list of elected Shura council members. They include former ministers, parliamentarians and senior leaders.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20160524-ghannouchi-re-elected-as-head-of-ennahda/.