Turkey and Lebanon
Posted by Joshua on Friday, October 19th, 2007
Lebanon
I have heard from a good source that when Hariri was in Washington last week and met with Eliott Abrams, Abrams advised him not to allow for a compromise candidate to be accepted as President. The Lebanese opposition is insisting on a compromise candidate for president. Patriarch Sfeir is recommending this solution, believing it preferable to continued crisis.
UN envoy: Shaba Farms area may belong to Lebanon
The United Nations is becoming increasingly convinced that the Shaba Farms area belongs to Lebanon, according to UN envoy Geir Pedersen.
During a meeting recently with Amos Gilad, the head of the Political-Military Bureau at the Defense Ministry, Pedersen said that “the UN believes that there is merit in the Lebanese claims of sovereignty over Shaba Farms.”
The Norwegian diplomat stressed it would be beneficial if Israel initiated negotiations over this issue.
…Nonetheless, in Israel officials are confident that Pedersen’s upcoming report to the Security Council will not require Israel to carry out significant steps in the matter.
“From our point of view this issue is off the agenda for good,” senior political sources said. “There is no point in talking about this any more. We have no room to show flexibility on this matter because that only strengthen’s Hezbollah and does not serve [Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad] Siniora.”
Haaretz
US to build “strategic partnership” with Lebanese army, says Pentagon official
A senior Pentagon official said Thursday the U.S. military would like to see a “strategic partnership” with Lebanon’s army to strengthen the country’s forces so that Hezbollah would have no excuse to bear arms.
The comments by Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy, in an interview aired on Lebanese television two days after his visit, followed a published report in Beirut that Washington is proposing a treaty with Lebanon to make it a strategic partner to counter increased Russian influence in neighboring Syria.
The report, published by the opposition-leaning newspaper As-Safir, was at the time vigorously denied by the government and ridiculed by the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon.
“This is totally untrue, said Ahmed Fatfat, a leading member of the government team who holds the youth and sports portfolio, adding that Lebanon neither sought nor had the Americans asked for such a treaty.
Edelman’s remarks, however, shed a new light on the emerging relationship between the Lebanese and U.S. militaries two months after the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam group was crushed in a 3-month long battle.
…
AP
Nibras Kazimi is translating the Al-Akhbar articles on his blog, Talisman Gate:
Narrative of a Conspiracy, Part 1 and 2
I decided to translate the roller-coaster testimony made by Faisal Akbar—the Saudi citizen (…we think) who first confessed to a role in the Hariri assassination after he was arrested in January 2006 but then retracted his statement—which was published in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar over the last week.
It’s a lot of material, so I am dividing it up into four parts. This is a fascinating window into jihadist tradecraft that we don’t usually see in such open-source detail, and it should be of value to analysts interested in jihadism and related security issues. This is not the generic material in jihadists manuals, this is the real stuff.
Come back tomorrow for Part 2. I tried to adhere as much as possible to the original Arabic so that the tone and wording is not lost in translation. This makes it a bit of a clunky read.
This first translated chunk appeared in Al-Akhbar on October 10, 2007, under the byline of Fida’ ‘Itani.
Al-Dunia, a private Syrian satellite TV station is reporting from an “informed source” in the Syrian delegation to Turkey that Gul told Bashar that Israeli president tried to pre-empt Bashar’s visit when it was announced with a “self-invitation” to Turkey but the Turks rejected him to give way to the Syrian “state visit” to be the first State visit to the new Turkish president (and Bashar to be the first president to visit the new president).. a symbolic gesture and a privilege that is usually given to the closest ally in the country.
Israel is getting nervous. Earlier this month the AIPAC struggled to stop the “Armenian genocide” law in the US as it will impact Turkey-Israel/US relations. A month ago, Israel violated Turkey’s air space. A couple of weeks ago, the US did not allow Turkey to attack the PKK in Iraq. Now Turkey has decided that Europe, Israel and the US are playing it around. Full alliance with Syria appears to be its answer to them.
It seems that Turkey has decided to form a full alliance with Syria. The press conference today between the 2 presidents clearly displays some sort of strong alliance. Turkey has finally figured out that Syria is its “strategic depth” that needs to be kept in alliance. In return, and as a quick catch, Syria has just gave Turkey the Arab legitimacy to strike Kurdish PKK in north Iraq.
It seems that the Syrian foreign policy is finally becoming pragmatic and interest-oriented rather then ideology-driven. Apparently, Syria decided to cut all support to the Kurds. After decades of supporting Kurdish movements, activists and opposition figures in Iraq and Turkey (who in return turned against Syria with total obedience to the neo-cons on anti-Syria policy), Syria finally and wisely decided that Turkey is much more important. One could argue that Syria’s alliance today with Turkey is more concrete than that with Iran. It is definitely more popular in both countries. Turkish people I met in the last few years could not hide their affection with Syria and -hold your breath- Syrian president (and his wife). They keep going on and on about the “family ties”, “identical culture” and my favorite.. the “shared cuisine”!
The 2 countries just signed an MoU today on oil, water and free trade agreement. Bilateral trade is expected to be around $1.5 billion in 2007, more than triple the figure when the AKP came to power.
Gareth Jenkins has a good analysis on the DEEPENING RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN TURKEY AND SYRIA
October 17th, 2007, 7:56 pm