Today the Los Angeles Times published an article informing the public that the two Americans held in an Iranian prison on espionage charges will not have a chance to defend themselves in court for at least 2 1/2 more months, their lawyer Masoud Shafii said Sunday. Iran's legal system is often baffling, concludes the author of the article. Shafii said the judge had offered no explanation for the delay. The lawyer said he's done his homework and is ready to face the judge.
The Washington Post gave a full report of the situation concerning new START treaty ratification. According to the authors of the report, Russia was receptive but stopped short of accepting a historic NATO invitation Saturday to join a missile shield protecting Europe against Iranian attack. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to involve technicians in development plans, but did not make a commitment if it becomes operational and warned that Russia might decide against joining the U.S.-led effort if it doesn't feel it is being treated equally as a partner. Ministers from six European countries - Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Norway and Bulgaria - on Saturday urged U.S. lawmakers to ratify the stalled nuclear treaty, saying failure to do so would be a setback for European security. However, the treaty meets resistance from the US Senate.
Hurriyet published an article entitled 'Will the US back Turkey once again?' on November, 21. According to it, the NATO and the EU-U.S. summits in Lisbon are important for the future prospects of Turkey in the EU membership process because the outcome of the NATO Summit will have a direct effect on the amount of U.S. support at the EU-U.S. summit for Turkey's membership. As a conclusion, the author states that the interference of the U.S. has worked positively in Turkey-EU
relations. Nowadays, Washington has increasingly focused on the importance of Turkey as a key ally in its quest to deal with rising transnational crime involving drug trafficking, money laundering, trafficking human beings and most important of all terrorism. Turkish participation in peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia also demonstrated to the U.S. that Turkey is a "security-producing" country. Although there had been a temporary setback in Turkey-U.S. relations due to the developments in the Middle East and Iran, the U.S. has and still is supporting Turkey in its relations with Europe.
Another article, published by the same media agency, states that Turkey's positive response this weekend would push Ankara to steer away from its radical fans in the East, disappoint them and show that the AKP steers a country that has its own unique set of circumstances and would not leave the West so easily and so fast. In Washington, the U.S. senior administration officials made it clear this week that they want to win Turkey, they want Turkey to search for its own moderate voice and surely they want Turkey go forward with the missile shield. Hurriyet also published an article headlined 'Why Turkey will emerge as the leader of the Muslim World'. It states that even though Turkey is not thought of as the Muslim country par excellence, it is, perhaps, the most Muslim nation in the world. According to a recent poll by TESEV, an Istanbul-based NGO, the number of people identifying themselves as Muslim increased by 10 percent between 2002 and 2007, and almost half them described themselves as Islamist. In effect, the AKP's steady mobilization of Turkish Muslim identity along with its close financial and ideological affinity with the nation's new Islamist elites is setting the stage for a total recalibration of Turkey's international compass.
In the article 'Unclear agenda behind NATO defence' published by the Press-TV news agency, the author suggests that the NATO's new alliance wide ballistic missile defense system is as not only a deeply flawed but also as a hidden agenda. According to the expert, the purpose of the New World Order is to take control, where possible, of the world's natural resources, their markets and transit corridors. However certain NATO partners are not happy with the extended area of operations i. e. Afghanistan etc. It is only a matter of time before some of the allies pull out of this war.
