World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (August 16-17, 2011)

On August 16 the New York Times published an article headlined "Turkey
Warns Syria to Stop Crackdown." According to the author of the
article, Anthony Shadid, the comments by the Turkish foreign minister,
Ahmet Davutoglu, who visited the Syrian capital Damascus just last
week, were the latest addition to a semantic exercise in diplomatic
ambiguity, as the United States, European countries, Turkey and
Syria’s Arab neighbors have sought to condemn the violence while
leaving President Bashar al-Assad the chance to begin reforms.

On August 17 the Guardian also published an article devoted to the
Syrian unrest. In the article "Syria ignores protests over siege of
Latakia", Nour Ali and Martin Chulov underline that the Assad regime
continues attacks on the city amid calls from Turkey and regional
states for a halt to shelling and withdrawal of forces. What happened
in Latakia was a massacre, the authors say, adding that Assad is still
insisting to the international community that the violence is an
adequate response to the unrest.

The Los Angeles Times published an article devoted to an upcoming film
about the Iranian hostage crisis, in which artist-turned CIA technical
officer Tony Mendez pulls off a stunning caper, helping six American
diplomats in the Canadian embassy in Tehran escape by disguising them
as members of a Hollywood film crew.

"Transforming Turkey…" is the headline of an article published by the
Hurriyet Daily News on Tuesday. "Every day somehow some alarming
reports are coming from some corner of the country highlighting
advancing religious conservatism: a culture of tolerance is being
replaced with a culture of endurance," Yusuf Kanli, the author of the
article, believes. According to him, Turkey is living through a time
when it has become fashionable to systematically scorn the founder of
the republic, the Turkish military, patriots and nationalists and
instead praise Islamist fundamentalists, separatist Kurds and whatever
was considered unfriendly or at least unwanted yesterday.

On Wednesday the Moscow Times published an article entitled "Stalin
Caused the Soviet Collapse." According to the authors of the article,
Peter Rutland and Philip Pomper, Joseph Stalin is the man responsible
for the collapse of the Soviet Union rather than it's last leader,
Mikhail Gorbachev. In reality, Stalin’s projection of Soviet power
into Central Europe was a strategic blunder that ultimately doomed the
Soviet state. Following Lenin, Stalin misunderstood the nature of the
Western capitalism and was preparing for an impossible attack.