World press on French-Turkish relations and Iranian nuclear problem (January 18, 2013)

Hurriyet published an article by Burak Bekdil devoted to the French-Turkish relations. "Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would probably be a much happier man if the Jews, the French as well as the secular, Shia and Alevi Muslims lived on Mars. As I argued/anticipated in this column more than once, his presumed honeymoon with French President François Hollande, the enemy of his one-time enemy Nicolas Sarkozy, ended before it even began," the article begins. 

"Moreover, for Mr. Erdoğan, Mr. Hollande can become the new Mr. Sarkozy as more and more French tend to see Turkey’s democratization under Mr. Erdoğan’s government as a big farce, and especially if the French president decided to revive the now-defunct legislation to make denial of the Armenian genocide illegal," the author writes.

The Moscow Times published Paul Bracken's article 'Beware of 2nd Nuclear Age'. "North Korea's launch of a long-range missile in mid-December was followed by a flurry of global condemnation that was almost comical in its predictability and impotence. But the launch underscored a larger reality that can no longer be ignored: The world has entered a second nuclear age. The atomic bomb has returned for a second act, a post-Cold War encore. This larger pattern needs to be understood if it is to be managed," the article reads.

"The contours of the second nuclear age are still taking shape. But the next few years will be especially perilous because newness itself creates dangers as rules and red lines are redefined. This took at least 10 years in the first nuclear age, and this time may be no different," the author writes.

"Thus, the old problem of Arab-Israeli peace is now seen in the new context of an Iranian nuclear threat. The two problems are linked. How would Israel respond to rocket attacks from Gaza, Lebanon or Egypt if it simultaneously faced the threat of nuclear attack by Iran? What would the U.S. and Israel do if Iran carried its threat to the point of evacuating its cities or placing missiles in its own cities to ensure that any attack on them would cause massive collateral damage?" Bracken writes.

"The most urgent problem stems from the breakdown of major countries' onetime nuclear monopoly and the empowerment of smaller countries like North Korea, Pakistan, Israel and possibly Iran. A new set of rules for diplomacy, military strategy and arms control is needed to stabilize this emerging nuclear order. Pretending that it does not exist is not a strategy," the article reads.