Good news. Politicians fail to find common ground on lifting Turkey's head scarf ban | StarTribune.com:

"Turkey's governing party failed to win key opposition support on Wednesday for plans to lift a ban on the wearing of Islamic head scarves at universities, a deeply divisive issue in a country with secular laws and a Muslim population.

The conflict over the head scarf reflects a struggle over Turkey's direction between the Islamic-oriented government, which argues for more religious freedom, and critics who believe the country's secular principles are in peril.

In Turkey, women are free to wear Islamic head scarves, but students, teachers and state-employed officials are not."

Background:
"Headscarf ban is against freedom of believe", Erdogan says.
Chief of Religious Affairs Directorate asks politicians to solve headscarf's problem by themselves.

German President Christian Wulff will pay a visit to Turkey on Monday at the invitation of his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gül, to hold talks on the Turkish community’s difficulties integrating in Germany as well as with Turkey’s European Union membership talks. This will be the first visit from a German head of state to Turkey in 10 years.

...Muslims in Germany, including the Turkish community, highly regard the newly elected German president, particularly after his remarks earlier this month that “Islam also belongs in Germany.” Wulff delivered the remarks at a festival in Bremen celebrating the 20th anniversary of Germany’s reunification.

Tensions between Muslim immigrants, estimated to number 4 million and mostly ethnic Turks, and the German government have been simmering since an outspoken board member of Germany’s central bank, Thilo Sarrazin, accused Muslim immigrants last summer of leeching off the welfare state, refusing to integrate and lowering the nation’s intelligence. Wulff’s warm remarks relieved the Muslim community in the country.

Wulff is scheduled to meet with Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan next week. The details of the Erdoğan-Wulff meeting were also discussed during the former’s visit to Germany to have talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Oct. 8.

Germany adamantly opposes Turkey’s full European Union membership and proposes a “privileged partnership” for the candidate countries as an alternative to the membership. Turkey claims the EU leaders have pledged Turkey that membership talks will lead to only full membership and it claims the promises should be honored.

Source.

According to Merkel, "multiculturalism in Germany has failed miserably".

She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

The comments come amid rising anti-immigration feeling in Germany.

A recent survey suggested more than 30% of people believed the country was "overrun by foreigners".

The study - by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think-tank - also showed that roughly the same number thought that some 16 million of Germany's immigrants or people with foreign origins had come to the country for its social benefits.

Background:
Germany: 69% against Turkish entry in the EU, poll shows.
CDU politician calls to stop Muslim immigration.
"Muslims should obey Constitution, not Sharia", Merkel says.
Conservative leaders reject Wullf's remarks on Islam.
Germany agrees in making easier for Turks to get visas.

 

More than two-thirds of the Germany citizens are against Turkey's EU entry, according to a poll, whose results emerged as Turkish PM Erdogan met Chancellor Merkel in Berlin.

69% of the Germans do not want to see Turkey in the EU, according to a survey of Emnid Institute while only 27% back this idea, reported Die Welt.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived Friday in Germany where together with Angela Merkel he watch the Germany vs. Turkey qualification match for Euro 2012 in Berlin, in the which the Germans won 3:0.

Erdogan and Merkel have held political talks on Saturday during which both called for the integration of the large Turkish community living in Germany.

"It's about participation in our society based on the foundations of our society. Assimilation is not at all on the agenda," Merkel said after meeting the Turkish PM.

Erdogan welcomed the statements by President Christian Wulff that Islam is now part of Germany as well as Christianity and Judaism.

"The EU must keep its promises. There can be no slowdown," Erdogan stated while asking Germany to advocate for the furthering of Turkey's EU accession negotiations.

Merkel in turn said the outcome of the accession talks was open but pointed out that at present they are stalled by the EU's insistance that Turkey open its ports and airports to ships and planes from Cyprus.

Source.

If Erdogan welcomes something, then we can safely say it isn't right...

Background:
CDU politician calls to stop Muslim immigration.
"Muslims should obey Constitution, not Sharia", Merkel says.
Conservative leaders reject Wullf's remarks on Islam.
Germany agrees in making easier for Turks to get visas.

Turkey's prime minister said on Wednesday a law that prohibits women wearing the Muslim headscarf at university was against freedom of belief, in his strongest hint yet the AK Party might try again to lift the ban.

Turkey's Constitutional Court struck down in 2008 an attempt by the ruling AK Party to remove the ban. But after voters approved constitutional changes in September to overhaul the court, AK Party officials have put the sensitive issue back on the government's agenda.

"We agree with society on the headscarf issue," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech to university students in Istanbul, which was broadcast live.

"We do not want to disappoint our youth. There is no sense in being so interventionist in freedom of belief and education anymore," Erdogan said.

His comments come months before a election that will herald a new constitution if his party wins.

Wearing the Muslim headscarf is a touchy issue in European Union candidate Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation with a strictly secular constitution.

Photo found at JcDurbant.

Image by World Economic Forum via Flickr

Western diplomats say they are alarmed by reports that Mr Erdogan has negotiated a deal with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Tehran to make a substantial contribution to the campaign funds of Turkey's leading Islamic party.

Under the terms of the deal Iran has agreed to transfer $12 million to the AKP, with further payments of up to $25 million to be made later in the year. The money is said to be meant to help support Mr Erdogan's campaign for re-election for a third term in next year's general election. 

"....The agreement between the AKP and Iran is a very worrying development," said a senior Western diplomat. "It will increase the suspicions of many Turks that the government is deepening its ties with Islamic states. 

Earlier this year Turkey annoyed Washington after it publicly backed Iran's controversial nuclear programme. Relations between Turkey and Iran have deepened following Ankara's backing for the aid flotilla which attempted to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza strip. 

Apart from transferring funds to the AKP, diplomats say Iran has also agreed to provide financial support for the IHH, the Turkish Islamic charity IHH which supported last May's aid flotilla which ended in disaster when it was intercepted by Israeli commandos, which resulted in the deaths of nine activists.

More about this which is one of the most worrying things happening in foreign policy now, whatever Estonian president chooses to think:

The AKP, however, viewed Turkey’s interests through a different lens – one colored by a politicized take on religion, namely Islamism. Senior AKP officials called the 2004 U.S. offensive in Fallujah, Iraq, a “genocide,” and in February 2009, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan compared Gaza to a “concentration camp.”

The AKP’s foreign policy has not promoted sympathy toward all Muslim states, rather, the party has promoted solidarity with Islamist, anti-Western regimes (Qatar and Sudan, for example) while dismissing secular, pro-Western Muslim governments (Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia). This two-pronged strategy is especially apparent in the Palestinian territories, where at the same time that the AKP government has called on Western countries to “recognize Hamas as the legitimate government of the Palestinian people,” AKP officials have labeled Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the “head of an illegitimate government.”

According to diplomats, Abbas’ last visit to Ankara, in July 2009, went terribly.

As the cancelled military exercises with Israel show, the AKP’s a la carte, moralistic foreign policy is not without inherent hypocrisies. An earlier example came in January 2009, when, a day after Erdoğan harangued Israeli President Shimon Peres, as well as Jews and Israelis, at the World Economic Forum in Davos for knowing “well how to kill people,” Turkey hosted Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha in Ankara.

This is a dangerous position because it suggests – especially to the generation coming of age under the AKP – that Islamist regimes alone have the right to attack their own people or even other states. In September, Erdoğan defended Iran’s nuclear program, arguing that the problem in the Middle East is Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

Some analysts have dismissed such rhetoric as domestic politicking or simply an instance of Erdoğan losing his temper. But Erdoğan is an astute politician, and he is now reacting to changes in Turkish society. After seven years of the AKP’s Islamist rhetoric, public opinion has shifted to embrace the idea of a politically united “Muslim world.”

 So, now Turkish citizens are more pro-Islamist than when they voted him? Do I need to remind that Saudi Arabia has awarded Erdogan with King Faisal International Prize for "services to Islam by defending the Islamic nation"?

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said Friday Europe must think about Turkey's membership from a global and strategic perspective and approve Turkey's membership.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara on Friday, Ilves said that he was pleased to be in Turkey.

“I had visited Mr. Gul while he was the prime minister. I have warm feelings towards Turkey and have made statements in the past in support of Turkey,” Ilves said.

“Relations between Turkey and Estonia began a long time ago. Turkey had recognized Estonia as a new country at a time of occupation by the Soviet Union and rejected the Soviets' occupation of Estonia. Turkey has always had great support for Estonia,” Ilves said.

“Turkey has the right to be present in the EU. Europe must look at Turkey's membership from a strategic perspective,” Ilves said.

“There are Turcology departments in Estonia's universities and many Estonians know how to speak Turkish. It is crucial for the peoples of our two countries to get to know each other. Estonians come to Turkey as tourists and we expect to see Turkish tourists in Estonia,” Ilves also said.

If it's so important for Estonia, just let Mr. Ilves sing: "Let's get together and feel alright". But don't try the rest are going to accept his ideas, specially when Turkish president was condemned for religious hate. Turkey is a democracy, so a majority of Turks didn't consider important that fact when they voted for him.

Related:

1. Erdogan calls Israel "principal threat" to peace in the Middle East.
2. Germany: Merkel calls for "biligualism and integration" of Turkish immigrants.
3. Merkel against Erdogan's initiative of Turkish schools' net.
4. Turkish constitutional reform angers judges.
5. Erdogan seeks influence through Turkish emigrants.
6. Saudi King awards Erdogan.
7. Erdogan's double standards.