Turkish PM: Zionism, Islamophobia are crimes against humanity

[Syt]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21628757

Israel condemns Zionism comments by Turkey's PM Erdogan

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been heavily criticised by the US, Israel and the UN for branding Zionism a "crime against humanity".

He told a UN forum this week: "As with Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it is inevitable that Islamophobia be considered a crime against humanity."

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu strongly condemned his comments.

New US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Ankara that Washington found Mr Erdogan's remark "objectionable".

At a news conference in the Turkish capital, Mr Kerry said he had already raised the issue with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and would also discuss it with Mr Erdogan himself.

Mr Davutoglu defended Mr Erdogan's comments.

The foreign minister again criticised Israeli troops for killing nine Turkish activists in 2010. The activists were aboard a flotilla of aid ships trying to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza.

"If some countries acted in a hostile way against our citizens' right to life, allow us to reserve our right to make a statement," Mr Davutoglu said.

Mr Kerry is holding talks in Turkey on the escalating crisis in neighbouring Syria.

'Hurtful' comments
Mr Erdogan made the controversial comments at a meeting of the UN Alliance of Civilisations Forum in Vienna earlier this week.

His words drew a sharp rebuke from Mr Netanyahu's office, which called them "a dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world".

Zionism is an ideology or movement that asserts that the Jewish people have a right to a national home or state in what was the Biblical "Land of Israel".

There is no consensus among Zionists as to where the borders of the state should be.

For Palestinians, the success of Zionism has meant the frustration of their national aspirations and life under occupation.

In the US, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said "the characterisation of Zionism as a crime against humanity... is offensive and wrong".

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's office said he heard Mr Erdogan's speech through an interpreter, and called it "unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership".

[Viking]

He did retract the zionism bit, but this is the islamist version of in vino veritas.

the really sad thing is that all his accusations against zionism, imaginary and true, were, objectively, purposefully and with vigour conducted respectively against the greeks of smyrna and trapezum (ethnic cleansing), armenians (genocide), greeks of cyprus (illegal occupation), kurds (denial of self determination and statehood) and free thinking turks (criminal prosecutions for insults against turkishness). Erdogan and the AKP certainly didn't initiate any of these policies but they certainly haven't shown remorse for what is past or any intention to remedy what remains current.

[Neil]

Fuck the Greeks of Smyrna.  They betrayed Turkey.

[Sheilbh]

The secular Turkish writers I follow think this may be a smokescreen. Erdogan wants to change the constitution to make a Turkey a Presidential Republic - which would be worrying. To do that he needs the support of another party in Parliament because the AKP aren't enough and, apparently and unprecedentedly, there's some internal opposition. For most of the last Parliament he was trying to get the ultra-nationalists to agree to it. That's fallen through so he's lately been making moves towards the Turks including reopening negotiations.

The morning he made these comments a paper had got hold of Ocalan's notes and minutes from the negotiations which was leading the news. So he makes deliberately inflammatory remarks and suddenly the negotiations with a terrorist leader's no longer the main story. Not so much in vino veritas as pretty cynical politics.

[Viking]

The secular Turkish writers I follow think this may be a smokescreen. Erdogan wants to change the constitution to make a Turkey a Presidential Republic - which would be worrying. To do that he needs the support of another party in Parliament because the AKP aren't enough and, apparently and unprecedentedly, there's some internal opposition. For most of the last Parliament he was trying to get the ultra-nationalists to agree to it. That's fallen through so he's lately been making moves towards the Turks including reopening negotiations.

The morning he made these comments a paper had got hold of Ocalan's notes and minutes from the negotiations which was leading the news. So he makes deliberately inflammatory remarks and suddenly the negotiations with a terrorist leader's no longer the main story. Not so much in vino veritas as pretty cynical politics.

I'm pretty sure you meant "Kurds" in the bolded bit above. 


sigh.. Realism in International politics needs to die. How did the realists do about getting Morsi right? Erdogan loses his temper regularly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrbQsHkVQ_4

so, no don't run on the assumption that there is such a thing as the rational national interest, that people are smart enough to realize what it is and that people are competent enough to construct a plan of action for achieving it seems to the be ultimate triumph of hope over reason. I hope Assad will be reasonable since it is in  his own best interest, the same goes for Morsi, Milosevic, Saddam, Mullah Omar and countless others.

[Martinus]

Remind me again, who were the idiots at Languish who cheered him on when he was elected?