The Guardian informed its readers that Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal will not seek renomination after 16 years at the helm of the Palestinian Islamist group. A statement from Meshaal's office said the Damascus-based leader would not seek re-nomination after 16 years at the helm, but would continue to serve the movement. It followed reports of the move earlier this week. Meshaal has indicated in recent weeks that Hamas should make a strategic departure from armed struggle to popular non-violent resistance in the wake of the Arab spring revolutions and the success of Islamist parties in elections. The new approach caused a rift with the internal Gaza leadership, which said there would be no change in Hamas policy. "There has been no change concerning our mode of thinking towards the conflict," Mahmoud Zahar, the most senior Hamas figure inside Gaza, told the Guardian in an interview this month.
According to the Hurriyet Daily News, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vowed never to visit France again if a proposed bill that would criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide is passed in the country's Senate on January 23. The contentious bill, which was approved by the French Parliament in December, penalizes denial of the Armenian genocide with a 45,000-euro fine and one year in jail. The bill needs to be approved by the Senate before it can come into effect.
The same agency published an article claiming that in the light of sanctions proposed by the US against Iranian crude oil exports, Turkey is working on a plan to avert difficulties on the matter. A working group has been formed to analyze the situation ahead of the Foreign Minister's crucial visit to Washington. Although Turkish officials voiced their intention to seek exemption from sanctions, (as they would only abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions), the government is weighing various ways to gradually reduce Iranian oil imports, including using Saudi Arabia and Russia as potential alternative suppliers. In official remarks, Turkey has openly said it would only implement sanctions if they were imposed by the U.N. Security Council. Within this framework, a working group consisting of technocrats from the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Energy and Trade, as well the Treasury and other related institutions, has begun working on how Turkey should respond to Washington’s sanctions on Iran. For Ankara, the situation is a very complicated one, with multiple economic and political dimensions, as Turkey has special relations with both Iran and the U.S. Amid ongoing discussions over sanctions against Iran, Ankara and Tehran signed a deal late on Thursday to increase their trade volume to $30 billion by 2015. Apart from commitments to further deepen cooperation in the field of energy, Urban Planning and Environment Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar said the two countries were working on improving cooperation in the banking system. “Work is underway for Turkey to enter the Iranian banking system and for Iran to enter the Turkish banking system. We plan very important steps on money transfers,” he said, without giving details.
The Washington Post published an article headlined ‘Turkey’s government is the new normal in the Middle East’. Its author says that the boneheaded remark made by former Republican Party candidate Rick Perry about Turkey recently in a debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, easily qualifies as the foreign policy low point of the presidential campaign so far. Some Islamic movements may turn out like Hamas and Hezbollah — implacably hostile. But others, like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, are likely to weave through an ambiguous middle ground, trying to balance the need for Western investment and the secular aspirations of their populations with their religious ideology. According to the author, the right way to respond to them is to be nimble. While Erdogan’s drift toward domestic autocracy remains a major concern, some officials believe a new constitution his party is drafting will lead to better checks and balances, and fewer journalists in prison. This will not make Turkey an ideal ally of the US, or remedy its still-troubled relations with Israel. But it’s much better than turning its Islamists into adversaries — or failing to distinguish them from terrorists.
