The Washington Post published an article headlined ‘Turkey bashes Perry over debate comments’. The Turkish government on Tuesday denounced Rick Perry’s comments about the country during a GOP presidential debate in South Carolina, accusing the Texas governor of making “unfounded and inappropriate allegations.” The statement comes after Perry argued that Turkey, a democratic U.S. ally, is ruled by “what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists” and should have its NATO membership reconsidered.
According to the same news agency Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday that Israel was “very far off” from making a decision on a possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. The remarks appeared to be part of an effort to allay U.S. concerns that Israel is preparing for an attack despite Washington’s objections. Barak was interviewed on Army Radio on the eve of a visit to Israel by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Martin Dempsey is scheduled to arrive Thursday for talks with Barak and the Israeli army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, and possibly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It will be Dempsey’s first official trip to Israel since he assumed his post in September. While the agenda has not been disclosed, the talks are expected to focus on responses to Iran’s nuclear development effort, which Tehran says is for peaceful pur¬poses.
The Hurriyet daily News published an article entitled “France’s ‘genocide’ bill stumbles ahead of vote”. According to this material, it would be unconstitutional for France to approve a bill to outlaw denial of the Armenian genocide, but the move was unlikely to stop the diplomatically fraught bill passing at a final vote Jan. 23. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu yesterday said the French bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian claims of genocide was unlawful “even by French laws,” which he said was clearly shown by a French parliamentary committee decision. “This shows that the attempt is unlawful even by the standards of the French laws. We hope that the French Senate will act wisely and drop it off the agenda even before debating it,” Davutoğlu said.
