Ocalan's isolation an 'invitation to war' in Turkey: pro-Kurdish MP

Reuters | Ankara

Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan’s isolation in his island jail near Istanbul amounts to an “invitation to war”, a prominent pro-Kurdish lawmaker said on Thursday, as conflict flares between security forces and rebels in southeast Turkey.

Ocalan, jailed in 1999, has not been allowed visits by a delegation of pro-Kurdish lawmakers since April. The 67-year-old leader of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has also not seen any family members since 2014 or his lawyers since 2011.

Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast is currently experiencing its worst violence since the 1990s after a two-year ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish state collapsed in July, wrecking a peace process launched by Ankara and Ocalan.

“Isolating Ocalan, sowing worries among the people about his life, safety and health conditions, is issuing an invitation to war,” said Sirri Sureyya Onder, spokesman for the delegation that often visited Ocalan before the peace process fell apart.

“The path to prevent this is clear ... They must enable Ocalan to speak with his lawyers, us and his family,” he told a news conference in the capital Ankara.

Two inmates sent to join Ocalan in jail on the island of Imrali to end his isolation were transferred to another prison two weeks ago, Onder added. Ocalan’s family have voiced concerns about his well-being.

Peace process “on ice”
Onder stressed that his comments should not be understood as a “call to war”. His Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) says it is opposed to violence and wants a peaceful solution for Turkey’s large Kurdish minority.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan initiated the peace talks with Ocalan in 2012 with the aim of ending a three-decade conflict with the PKK which has killed around 40,000 people.

Erdogan, who says the peace process is now “on ice”, said on Wednesday some lawmakers and mayors from the HDP were behaving like members of a terrorist group and he called for legal action against them.

He views the HDP as an extension of the PKK, a group deemed terrorist by Turkey, the United States and European Union.

Clashes have intensified in recent days as a major military campaign entered its fourth week. Residents complain that the operations are indiscriminate and that round-the-clock curfews have even left the sick unable to get to hospital.

In the town of Cizre, near the Syrian border, tanks pounded apartment blocks on Thursday, Reuters television footage showed. Helicopters circled and gunfire echoed through the town.

The authorities say the military campaign is targeting PKK militants, not civilians, and that it was launched in response to attacks on the security forces.

Car bomb in Libyan oil port kills 7, wounds 11: guards spokesman

Reuters | Benghazi (Libya)

A car bombing at a checkpoint in the Libyan oil port of Ras Lanuf left seven people dead and 11 wounded on Thursday, a Petroleum Facilities Guard spokesman said.

Ali al-Hassi said the car had been in a queue at the checkpoint and exploded when it reached the front. The casualties included guards and civilians, he said

No war with Iran, says Saudi deputy crown prince

Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said a war between his country and Iran would be the beginning of a catastrophe, and Riyadh will not allow it, British magazine The Economist reported on Thursday.

"It is something that we do not foresee at all, and whoever is pushing towards that is somebody who is not in their right mind," it quoted him as saying in an interview. “It will reflect very strongly on the rest of the world. For sure we will not allow any such thing.”

Salman’s comments were made during a five-hour conversation with The Economist, marking his first on-the-record interview.
 

Love Story Ended with Joining ISIS

Mahmoud Aladdin ,an Egyptian man got married to a Swiss woman ,called  Francesca Astadelman.They lived a happy life.They met in France  while he was studying at the American University there, for nearly 7 years.She converted to Islam three months after their return to Cairo where they lived in Rehab city  and put birth to a baby boy, "Adam”. She used to travel to Switzerland every year to visit her family. After fights between them, they got divorce.

Mahmoud used to see his son from time to time till he was surprised of their disappear.”I knew that my ex-wife joined ISIS and abducted my son with her”,said Mahmoud.

“I went to New Cairo police station and filed a complaint accused my ex-wife of joining Daesh, and heading to Iraq” ,he added.He accused her of  adopting  jihadist ideas, where she  began to be more extremist  and following  terrorist organizations websites  , especially al-Qaeda .”She started reading jihad books for "Anwar al-Awlaki," a Yemeni-American, prominent leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen” he said. She began to  prohibit watching television ,listening to the songs and wore the niqab.

“She considered me and my family as disbelievers and stopped visiting us” ,said  he.Problems  erupted between her and the family  after her call for  them to adopt jihadist ideas and join ISIS, that led Mahmoud  to report to the security services to carry out the necessary investigations.

He pointed out that, following their separation, he kept visiting his son weekly in her apartment. “December 26,was my son’s birthday and the last day to see him” said he.

 “The following day I called her to check on my son, but her phone was off that lasted for two days that worried me” said Mahmoud.He went to the her house to check on them and was surprised of her absence. the neighbors assured him that she  sold the contents of the house that  continued for more than two months, which led him to file a complaint  number 8524 at New Cairo police station.

Its noteworthy that a lot of European flee from families to join ISIS and other jihadi groups that led a lot of these countries to monitor citizens traveling to countries like Turkey and other countries in the Middle East .

The number of Europeans joining Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq has risen to more than 3,000, the EU's anti-terrorism chief has said in an interview with BBC.

Mr de Kerchove said the number of 3,000 included all those who have been to the region, including those who have returned and those who have been killed there.

The CIA estimates that IS may have up to 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria - three times as many as previously feared.

Mahmoud is in Greece now ,where he got information that his wife  and son was arrested there while trying to leave from Greece to Turkey to be able to travel to join ISIS. 

Gulf leaders decry ‘racist’ rhetoric against Muslims

Reuters, Riyadh 

Gulf Arab leaders condemned “hostile, racist” remarks against Muslims and Syrian refugees in a statement issued on Thursday, days after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a ban on the entry of Muslims into the United States.

“The supreme council expressed its deep concern at the increase of hostile, racist and inhumane rhetoric against refugees in general and Muslims in particular,” the Gulf Cooperation Council said, referring to a GCC heads of state meeting in Riyadh.

Gulf Arab states also called for an international reconstruction conference for Yemen after any peace deal to end the country’s civil war.

The call came in a statement by Gulf Cooperation Council leaders at the conclusion of their summit meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh, which was read out by GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani.

"The council (GCC) members called for an international conference for Yemen reconstruction after the parties reach the aspired political solution," Zayani said in the statement broadcast on Saudi state television.

He said such a programme would be done in accordance with a "practical programme to rehabilitate the Yemeni economy and to ease its merger into the Gulf economies".

Yemeni warring parties are due to gather in Switzerland next week for U.N.-sponsored peace talks to end a civil war that had killed nearly 6,000 people.

The two-day summit in Riyadh brought together Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain. Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz said it was imperative for the GCC states to stand united and work together to fortify themselves against foreign threats at a time when the region is passing through tough times.

King Salman reiterated the keenness of the coalition states to achieve security and stability of Yemen under the leadership of its Yemeni President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi’s government.

“We, the GCC states, will support a peaceful solution so as to enable Yemen overcome the crisis and restore its march toward development,” he said.

At the conclusion of the summit, Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa announced that Manama would host next year's GCC summit.

Over 350,000 petition to ban Trump from UK

Reuters, London

More than a quarter of a million Britons have signed an online petition to ban Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump from the country following his proposal to stop Muslims from entering the United States.

Trump, who owns two golf courses in Scotland which he visited earlier this year, called for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S. “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”. His comments followed last week’s deadly shooting spree by two Muslims in California.

The number of signatories to the petition was growing fast but Britain’s finance minister George Osborne said on Wednesday that Trump should not be banned from the country.

In the past, people have been banned from entering Britain for fostering hatred that might provoke inter-community violence.

The petition says: “If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behavior’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as the powerful.”

It was launched by Suzanne Kelly, a Scottish-based campaigner and longtime critic of Trump’s latest golf course in Aberdeenshire.

Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University said on Twitter on Wednesday it was revoking an honorary degree awarded to Trump in 2010 because he had “made a number of statements that are wholly incompatible with the ethos and values of the university”.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also stripped Trump of his role as a business ambassador for Scotland, a spokeswoman for her Edinburgh-based government said in a statement.

“Simply wrong”

The British government responds to all petitions that gain more than 10,000 signatures, and topics are considered for parliamentary debate if they reach 100,000.

Prime Minister David Cameron said through his spokeswoman on Tuesday that Trump’s comments were “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong”.

But finance minister Osborne went further on Wednesday when he stood in for the absent Cameron at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session in parliament.

“Frankly, Donald Trump’s comments fly in the face of the founding principles of the United States,” he said, adding that they should be confronted through robust democratic argument.

“That is the best way to deal with Donald Trump and his views rather than trying to ban presidential candidates.”

In seeking to defend his proposal, Trump said the U.S. needed to be vigilant because parts of London and Paris were now so radicalized they could no longer be policed by officers, who feared for their lives.

London’s Metropolitan Police took the rare step of criticizing Trump.

“We would not normally dignify such comments with a response, however on this occasion we think it’s important to state to Londoners that Mr Trump could not be more wrong,” the police force said in a statement.

The capital’s Mayor Boris Johnson dismissed Trump’s comments as nonsense, adding: “The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”

Iran president decries U.S. ‘terrorism’ after Trump remarks

AFP, Tehran
Iranian President Hassan Rowhani has accused the United States of having “created terrorism” as he reacted to presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the country.

During a cabinet meeting in Tehran, Rowhani said “Islam is the religion of goodness and peace”.

“Unfortunately certain people around the world claim that Muslims should be barred from entry in order to fight terrorism,” he said.

“These are particularly bizarre remarks because they (the United States) themselves created terrorism... with their money and their men, and plant the seeds of terrorism in the region.”

On Monday, Republican frontrunner Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States, saying the ban should remain in place “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

“We have no choice,” Trump said, speaking days after the massacre in California of 14 people by a Muslim couple believed to have been radicalized by extremists.