Tag Archives: NATO

In historic referendum, Turkey’s Erdogan faces his biggest test

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets his supporters during an event ahead of the constitutional referendum in Istanbul, Turkey April 12, 2017. Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Nick Tattersall and Humeyra Pamuk

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Much like the vast mosque he has commissioned atop one of Istanbul’s highest hills, President Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters hope a referendum on Sunday will be a crowning achievement in his drive to reshape Turkey.

The vote, in which millions of Turks will decide whether to replace their parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency, may bring the biggest change in their system of governance since the modern Turkish republic was founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago.

The outcome will have repercussions beyond Turkish shores.

(Graphic – Turkey’s referendum: a simple vote but a close race: http://tmsnrt.rs/2pyhiFR)

Never in recent times has Turkey, one of only two Muslim members of the NATO military alliance, been so central to world affairs, from the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, to Europe’s migrant crisis and Ankara’s shifting allegiances with Moscow and Washington.

The campaign has split the country of 80 million down the middle, its divisions spilling over to the large Turkish diaspora in Europe. Erdogan has accused European leaders of acting like Nazis for banning rallies on security grounds, while his opponents overseas say they have been spied on.

Erdogan’s fervent supporters see his drive for greater powers as the just reward for a leader who has put Islamist values back at the core of public life, championed the pious working classes and delivered airports, hospitals and schools.

Opponents fear a lurch toward authoritarianism under a president they see as addicted to power and intolerant of dissent, chipping away at the secular foundations laid by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and taking it ever further from Western values on democracy and free speech.

“Within the past 15 years he has achieved everything once considered impossible, unthinkable for Turks, be it bridges, undersea tunnels, roads, airports,” said Ergin Kulunk, 65, a civil engineer who heads an Istanbul mosque association that is financing the new mosque on the city’s Camlica Hill.

“The biggest quality of the Chief is that he touches people. I saw him at a recent gathering literally shaking almost 1,000 hands. He’s not doing that for politics. It comes from the heart,” he said, as Erdogan’s voice boomed from a television in the corner, broadcasting one of his daily campaign rallies.

In Kulunk’s office on Camlica Hill, once a hunting ground for the Ottoman well-to-do and now a popular viewing point, a signed picture of Erdogan hung on the wall next to portraits of Ataturk and Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid.

But for Erdogan’s opponents – including secularist liberals, left-leaning Kurds and even some nationalists – his tightening grip poses an almost existential threat.

“He’s trying to destroy the republic and the legacy of Ataturk,” said Nurten Kayacan, 61, a housewife from the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, attending a small “No” rally at an Istanbul ferry port.

“If the ‘Yes’ vote wins, we’re headed to chaos. He will be the president of only half of the country,” she said.

“ONE-MAN SYSTEM”

Erdogan assumed the presidency, then a largely ceremonial position, in 2014 after more than a decade as prime minister, and has since continued to dominate politics by force of personality, making no secret of his ambition for greater powers.

He has ridden a wave of patriotism since an abortive coup in July, casting Turkey as at peril from a cocktail of outside forces and in need of strong leadership to see off threats from Islamic State, Kurdish militants, the enemies within who tried to oust him and their foreign backers.

A poll two weeks after the attempted putsch showed him with two-thirds approval, his highest ever, but more recent surveys suggest a much closer race. A narrow majority of Turks will vote “Yes”, two opinion polls suggested on Thursday, putting his support at only a little over 51 percent.

Pollsters acknowledge there may be a hidden “No” vote, whose numbers are hard to assess, among traditional supporters of the ruling AK Party concerned about Erdogan’s authoritarian instincts, particularly after more than 120,000 civil servants were sacked or suspended since the failed coup.

Etyen Mahcupyan, a one-time chief adviser to former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a key figure in the AKP, wrote in the Karar newspaper on Thursday that he would be voting “No”.

“The (proposed) model will cause great harm in the medium term to conservatives and Turkey,” he wrote, saying the changes would usher in a “one-man system” open to abuse. “Every AKP member must vigorously stand up for the protection of the party and for its capacity and potential to govern.”

Erdogan’s supporters reject such charges, saying the 18 constitutional amendments being put to a simple “Yes/No” vote contain sufficient checks and balances, such as the provision that a new presidential election would be triggered should the president dissolve parliament.

Erdogan has focused in recent campaign events on trying to ridicule the leader of the main secularist CHP opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, playing videos of his gaffes in the apparent hope that voter patterns will reflect the last national election in November 2015, when AKP dominated the electoral map.

Such populist tactics have won him boisterous applause from those who revere him. But he has spent less time on the details of the proposed constitutional reforms.

“Eighty percent of voters in Turkey vote according to ideology. That is, they will cast their votes in this referendum without knowing its content,” said Murat Gezici, head of the Gezici polling company.

“If ‘Yes’ emerges victorious, they’ll only find out what they said yes to by experience. Only then will they face the problems,” he said in his Istanbul office.

(Additional reporting by Umit Bektas, Melih Aslan and Daren Butler; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Germany balks at Tillerson demand for more European NATO spending

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Lesley Wroughton and Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany said on Friday that NATO’s agreed target spend of two percent of members’ yearly economic output was neither “reachable nor desirable”, countering Washington’s demands that European partners comply and quickly.

The United States provides nearly 70 percent of NATO’s budget and is demanding that all allies make clear progress toward the agreed target this year. Only four European NATO members – Estonia, Greece, Poland and Britain – have done so.

“Two percent would mean military expenses of some 70 billion euros. I don’t know any German politician who would claim that is reachable nor desirable,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the first NATO meeting attended by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Tillerson, however, reiterated Washington’s demands and said the U.S. will push that agenda when NATO leaders meet on May 25 for the first top-level summit of the alliance. U.S. President Donald Trump will attend that meeting.

“Our goal should be to agree at the May Leaders meeting that by the end of the year all Allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how…the pledge will be fulfilled,” Tillerson said.

“Allies must demonstrate by their actions that they share U.S. governments commitment.”

In Berlin, German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the government was committed to increasing defense spending and would continue to do so “because we know it is necessary and makes sense to further strengthen our armed forces”.

Members have until 2024 to comply with the spending target.

Tillerson did however offer assurances of Washington’s commitment to NATO, softening Trump’s stance.

Trump has criticized NATO as “obsolete” and suggested Washington’s security guarantees for European allies could be conditional on them spending more on their own defense. He has also said he wants NATO to do more to fight terrorism.

“The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense,” Tillerson said at the meeting in Brussels. “We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said ties between European NATO members and the United States were “rock solid”.

He said the ministers would discuss “fair burden sharing to keep the trans-atlantic bond strong” and “stepping up NATO efforts to project stability and fight terrorism”.

Stoltenberg confirmed ministers would discuss national defense spending plans on Friday as the bloc seeks to respond to the new, harsher tone from across the Atlantic, which has galvanized European NATO allies.

Though Washington has also offered reassurances, Tillerson’s initial decision to skip his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers reopened questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to the alliance.

The meeting was later rescheduled and Tillerson was attending on Friday, though has not scheduled meetings with individual countries as is customary by the secretary of state during such a meeting.

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Tillerson seeks to keep focus on Islamic State in delicate Turkey visit

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, accompanied by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu (3rd R), meets with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (3rd L) in Ankara. Hakan Goktepe/Prime Minister's Press Office/Handout via REUTERS

By Lesley Wroughton

ANKARA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held talks with Turkey’s leaders on Thursday in a one-day visit to a NATO ally crucial to the fight against Islamic State but increasingly at odds with Washington and its European partners.

Tillerson held a closed-door meeting with President Tayyip Erdogan at which he was expected to discuss the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State, including the planned offensive against its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, where Turkey has been angered by U.S. support for Kurdish militia fighters.

He earlier met Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and discussed efforts to defeat Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, Yildirim’s office said. A U.S. State Department official said Tillerson had emphasized Turkey’s “important role” in regional security.

Erdogan has been incensed by Washington’s readiness to work with the Kurdish YPG militia in the fight against Islamic State. Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of PKK militants who have fought a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey and are deemed a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.

U.S.-Turkish relations have also been strained by the continued presence in the United States of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Erdogan for a failed coup last July and whom Ankara wants extradited.

Ties soured under former U.S. President Barack Obama and officials in Ankara have been hoping for a reset under President Donald Trump. But there have been few signs of improvement.

Tillerson’s visit comes less than three weeks ahead of a referendum at which Erdogan is seeking constitutional change to boost his powers, a move which his opponents and some European allies fear will bring increasing authoritarianism.

Senior U.S. officials have said Tillerson will not meet the Turkish opposition during the visit, a sign that he will seek to avoid discussion of domestic issues while trying to keep the focus on the fight against Islamic State.

But his trip has been further clouded by the arrest in New York on Monday of an executive of Turkey’s state-run Halkbank <HALKB.IS>, who is accused of conspiring in a multi-year scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Shortly after Tillerson’s arrival in Ankara, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told broadcaster A Haber that the arrest was a “completely political move” designed to tarnish Turkey and Erdogan, and questioned the evidence in the case.

Tillerson is expected to say the arrest of Halkbank deputy General Manager Mehmet Hakan Atilla is a matter for the U.S. justice authorities and not political. He is hoping his visit can focus instead on the campaign to retake Raqqa.

U.S. officials say Tillerson, who has said the number one priority in Syria for President Donald Trump’s administration is defeating Islamic State, will emphasize the importance of Kurdish YPG forces in the Raqqa offensive.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Ralph Boulton)

NATO to spend 3 billion euros on satellite, cyber defenses

FILE PHOTO - A NATO flag flies at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, March 2, 2014. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO plans to spend 3 billion euros ($3.24 billion) to upgrade its satellite and computer technology over the next three years as the Western military alliance adapts to new threats, a senior official said.

Seeking to deter hackers, and other threats including Iranian missiles, the investments underscore NATO’s recognition that conflicts are increasingly fought on computer networks as well as in the air, on land and at sea.

A senior official at the NATO Communications and Information Agency said the plans include a 1.7-billion-euro investment in satellite communications to better support troops and ships deployed across the alliance, as well as aiding the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

It was not immediately clear if NATO allies would fund a new military communications satellite to be launched into space or if an increase in broadband capacity could be gained from existing U.S. and other allied satellites.

Non-NATO member Japan launched its first military communications satellite in January.

The proposals, for which some funding must still be approved by NATO governments, also envisage spending about 800 million euros on the computer systems that help command air and missile defenses, said the official, who declined to be named.

Seventy-one million euros will go to improving the protection of NATO’s 32 main locations from cyber attacks.

NATO says it has seen a five-fold increase in suspicious events on its networks in the past three years, while Russian group APT28 is blamed by Western intelligence for the hacking of the U.S. Democratic Party during last year’s U.S. election.

NATO officials have told Reuters they suspect Russia sponsors attacks against their networks before major summits.

Another 180 million euros are to be spent to provide more secure mobile communications for alliance soldiers in the field.

NATO will present its needs in detail at a conference in Ottawa in April and then begin launching the bidding process.

It is likely to attract major Western defense contracts including Airbus Group, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp, the official said, in part because “there cannot be content that does not come from NATO nations.”

NATO rules prohibit Russian or Chinese suppliers unless there is a specific need that allied companies cannot provide.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Russia may be helping supply Taliban insurgents: U.S. general

Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti speaks during a news conference in Tallinn, Estonia, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. general in Europe said on Thursday that he had seen Russian influence on Afghan Taliban insurgents growing and raised the possibility that Moscow was helping supply the militants, whose reach is expanding in southern Afghanistan.

“I’ve seen the influence of Russia of late – increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban,” Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

He did not elaborate on what kinds of supplies might be headed to the Taliban or how direct Russia’s role might be.

Moscow has been critical of the United States over its handling of the war in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union fought a bloody and disastrous war of its own in the 1980s.

But Russian officials have denied they provide aid to the insurgents, who are contesting large swaths of territory and inflicting heavy casualties, and say their limited contacts are aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

According to U.S. estimates, government forces control less than 60 percent of Afghanistan, with almost half the country either contested or under control of the insurgents, who are seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster.

Underlying the insurgents’ growing strength, Taliban fighters have captured the strategic district of Sangin in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, officials said on Thursday.

The top U.S. commander in the country, General John Nicholson, said last month that Afghanistan was in a “stalemate” and that thousands more international troops would be needed to boost the existing NATO-led training and advisory mission.

Scaparrotti said the stakes were high. More than 1,800 American troops have been killed in fighting since the war began in 2001.

“NATO and the United States, in my view, must win in Afghanistan,” he said.

Taliban officials have told Reuters that the group has had significant contacts with Moscow since at least 2007, adding that Russian involvement did not extend beyond “moral and political support.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Exclusive: Tillerson plans to skip NATO meeting, visit Russia in April – sources

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks in Washington. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Arshad Mohammed and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to skip a meeting with NATO foreign ministers next month in order to stay home for a visit by China’s president and will go to Russia later in April, U.S. officials said on Monday, disclosing an itinerary that allies may see as giving Moscow priority over them.

Tillerson intends to miss what would have been his first meeting of the 28 NATO allies on April 5-6 in Brussels so that he can attend President Donald Trump’s expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, four current and former U.S. officials said.

Skipping the NATO meeting and visiting Moscow could risk feeding a perception that Trump may be putting U.S. dealings with big powers first, while leaving waiting those smaller nations that depend on Washington for security, two former U.S. officials said.

Trump has often praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Tillerson worked with Russia’s government for years as a top executive at Exxon Mobil Corp, and has questioned the wisdom of sanctions against Russia that he said could harm U.S. businesses.

A State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson would meet on Wednesday with foreign ministers from 26 of the 27 other NATO countries — all but Croatia — at a gathering of the coalition working to defeat the Islamic State militant group.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was due to have arrived in Washington on Monday for a three-day visit that was to include talks with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and to take part in the counter-Islamic State meetings.

The State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson would not have a separate, NATO-focused meeting the 26 foreign ministers in Washington but rather that they would meet in the counter-Islamic State talks.

“After these consultations and meetings, in April he will travel to a meeting of the G7 (Group of Seven) in Italy and then on to meetings in Russia,” she added, saying U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon would represent the United States at the NATO foreign ministers meeting.

‘GRAVE ERROR’

Representative Eliot Engel, the senior Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, said that Tillerson was making a mistake by skipping the Brussels talks.

“Donald Trump’s Administration is making a grave error that will shake the confidence of America’s most important alliance and feed the concern that this Administration simply too cozy with (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,” Engel said in a written statement.

“I cannot fathom why the Administration would pursue this course except to signal a change in American foreign policy that draws our country away from western democracy’s most important institutions and aligns the United States more closely with the autocratic regime in the Kremlin,” he added.

A former U.S. official echoed the view.

“It feeds this narrative that somehow the Trump administration is playing footsie with Russia,” said the former U.S. official on condition of anonymity.

“You don’t want to do your early business with the world’s great autocrats. You want to start with the great democracies, and NATO is the security instrument of the transatlantic group of great democracies,” he added.

Any Russian visit by a senior Trump administration official may be carefully scrutinized after the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday publicly confirmed his agency was investigating any collusion between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign.

Trump has already worried NATO allies by referring to the Western security alliance as “obsolete” and by pressing other members to meet their commitments to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

Last week, he dismayed British officials by shrugging off a media report, forcefully denied by Britain, that the administration of former President Barack Obama tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race with the aid of Britain’s GCHQ spy agency.

A former U.S. official and a former NATO diplomat, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said the alliance offered to change the meeting dates so Tillerson could attend it and the Xi Jinping talks but the State Department had rebuffed the idea.

The former diplomat said it was vital to present a united front toward Moscow. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 to serve as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

“Given the challenge that Russia poses, not just to the United States but to Europe, it’s critical to engage on the basis of a united front if at all possible,” the diplomat said.

(Additional Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Lisa Shumaker & Simon Cameron-Moore)

New U.S.-led force to deter Russia in Poland with NATO

U.S. (R to L), Poland's flags and jack of the President of Poland are seen during the inauguration ceremony of bilateral military training between U.S. and Polish troops in Zagan, Poland,

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A U.S.-led battalion of more than 1,100 soldiers will be deployed in Poland from the start of April, a U.S. commander said on Monday, as the alliance sets up a new force in response to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

More than 900 U.S. soldiers, around 150 British personnel and some 120 Romanian troops will make up the battlegroup in northeastern Poland, one of four multinational formations across the Baltic region that Russia has condemned as an aggressive strategy on its frontiers.

“This is a mission, not a cycle of training events,” U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Steven Gventer, who heads the battlegroup, told a news conference. “The purpose is to deter aggression in the Baltics and in Poland … We are fully ready to be lethal.”

Britain, Canada and Germany are leading the other three battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are due to be operational by June. They will have support from a series of NATO nations including France.

In total, some 4,000 NATO troops – equipped with tanks, armored vehicles, air support and hi-tech mission information rooms – will monitor for and defend against any potential Russian incursions.

Moscow, which denies having any expansionist or aggressive agenda, accuses NATO of trying to destabilize central Europe and has respond by forming four new military divisions to strengthen its western and central regions and stepping up exercises.

Seeking to avoid stationing troops permanently on Russia’s borders, the new NATO force across the Baltics and Poland can rely on a network of eight small NATO outposts in the region, regular training exercises and, in the case of attack, a much larger force of 40,000 alliance troops.

“We are not the entirety of NATO’s response,” said U.S. Army Major Paul Rothlisberger, part of the U.S.-led battalion to be based in Orzysz, 220 kilometers (137 miles) northeast of Warsaw.

The alliance is seeking to show the ex-Soviet countries in NATO that they are protected from the kind of annexation Russia orchestrated in February in 2014 in Ukraine’s Crimea.

It also wants to avoid a return to the Cold War, when the United States had some 300,000 service personnel stationed in Europe, and stick to a 1997 agreement with Moscow not to permanently station forces on the Russian border.

The plan is being implemented as Western powers try for a peace settlement in eastern Ukraine, where NATO says Russia supports separatist rebels with weapons and troops.

Russia plans to stage large-scale war games near its western borders this year, but has not said how many troops will take part.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Trump, Germany’s Merkel to hold first face-to-face meeting at White House

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a statement at the Chancellery in Berlin. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Jeff Mason and Andreas Rinke

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump welcomes German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday for a White House meeting that could help determine the future of the transatlantic alliance and shape the working relationship between two of the world’s most powerful leaders.

The new U.S. president and the long-serving stateswoman, whose country is Europe’s largest economy, will discuss funding for NATO and relations with Russia in their first meeting since Trump took office in January.

The meeting is consequential for both sides.

Merkel, who officials say has prepared carefully for the encounter, is likely to press Trump for assurances of support for a strong European Union and a commitment to fight climate change.

Trump, who as a presidential candidate criticized Merkel for allowing hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany, will seek her support for his demand that North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations pay more for their defense needs.

Relationship building will be a less overt but important agenda item. Merkel had close relations with Trump’s Democratic and Republican predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, and she is likely to seek a strong working relationship with Trump despite major policy differences and wariness in Germany about the former New York businessman.

“Those who know the chancellor know that she has a knack for winning over people in personal discussions. I am sure that Donald Trump will not be immune,” said Juergen Hardt, a conservative lawmaker who helps coordinate transatlantic relations for the German government.

Trump is eager to see follow-through on his demand that European countries shoulder more of the burden of paying for the NATO alliance, which he has criticized.

He will also seek counsel from Merkel on how to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader Merkel has dealt with extensively and whom Trump, to the consternation of Republican and Democratic lawmakers, has praised.

“The president will be very interested in hearing the chancellor’s views on her experience interacting with Putin,” a senior administration official told reporters.

CLIMATE ACCORD

A U.S. official said the Trump administration’s position on U.S. participation in the Paris agreement to curb climate change would likely come up in the Merkel meeting and be further clarified in the weeks and months ahead. Merkel is a strong supporter of international efforts to fight global warming.

Trump has called climate change a hoax and vowed during his campaign to “cancel” the Paris agreement within 100 days, saying it would be too costly for the U.S. economy.

Since being elected, he has been mostly quiet on the issue. In a New York Times interview in November, he said he would keep an open mind about the Paris deal.

Merkel is also likely to press Trump about U.S. support for European security, despite assurances from Vice President Mike Pence about that issue on his recent trip to Europe.

“There is still lingering doubt about … how the U.S. sees European security, and whether the U.S. sees its security and Europe’s security as intrinsically linked and inseparable,” Jeffrey Rathke, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Noah Barkin; Editing by Peter Cooney)

NATO head urges Turkey, Austria to resolve dispute

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg delivers his speech during the 53rd Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, February 18, 2017. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged Austria and Turkey on Friday to resolve a diplomatic dispute that has led to some cooperation programs being blocked.

Turkey, a NATO ally, has withdrawn from some alliance participation – mostly military training – saying the move is aimed only at Austria.

“It is a very unfortunate situation and it means some cooperation programs can’t be launched,” Stoltenberg told reporters during a visit to the Danish capital Copenhagen.

Austria, which is not a NATO member but cooperates with the alliance, led calls last year to halt Turkey’s European Union accession talks. Vienna has also spoken out against Turkish politicians holding rallies in European countries.

“It’s a bilateral situation between Turkey and Austria and we strongly urge them to solve it, so that it won’t have negative consequences for the cooperation,” he said.

The diplomatic tensions predate a current escalation with other European countries like Germany and Netherlands but as fellow NATO members Turkey cannot block cooperation with them.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has compared Germany and the Netherlands to fascists and Nazis for stopping Turkish politicians from rallying to promote a referendum granting him sweeping new powers.

Erdogan on Thursday said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had lost the friendship of Ankara after the diplomatic row.

NATO officials told Reuters that the blocking also affected other countries that cooperate with the alliance but are not members.

Separately, Austrian tabloid newspaper Oesterreich said its website was brought down on Friday morning by a cyber attack “from Turkey”, the latest in a series of similar incidents that appear to be connected to Vienna’s spat with Ankara.

It did not present evidence to support the accusation.

“The Turkish cyber attack on our website was launched out of anger by Erdogan’s cadres because oe24 and Oesterreich report critically and independently on Erdogan and his policies,” the newspaper said in an article.

(Reporting by Teis Jensen in Copenhagen, additional reporting by François Murphy in Vienna writing by Nikolaj Skydsgaard and Stine Jacobsen; Editing by Gareth Jones and Julia Glover)

Turkey says EU exercising democracy selectively, wrong to stand by Netherlands

Demonstrators gather to welcome the Turkish Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, who decided to travel to Rotterdam by land after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu's flight was barred from landing by the Dutch government, in Rotterdam, Netherlands March 11, 2017. REUTERS/Yves Herman

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said the European Union was exercising democratic values selectively and that it should not be standing by the Netherlands, which it accused of violating human rights and European values.

Ankara has suspended high-level diplomatic relations after Dutch authorities prevented its ministers from speaking at rallies of expatriate Turks, worsening a row between the NATO allies.

In a joint statement on Monday, EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn called on Turkey to refrain from “excessive statements” to avoid further escalating the dispute.

“EU counterparts are exercising democratic values and basic rights and freedoms selectively,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “It is very grave for the EU to hide behind member country solidarity and stand by the Netherlands, which has clearly violated human rights and European values,” it said.

Mogherini and Hahn’s statement included “inaccurate assessments”, the foreign ministry said.

“It should be understood that the EU’s statement… actually helps the cause of extremes such as xenophobia and anti-Turkish sentiment,” it said.

President Tayyip Erdogan, who is seeking Turkish voters’ support in an April 16 referendum on boosting his powers as head of state, had accused the Dutch government of acting like “Nazi remnants” for barring his ministers.

The sanctions include the banning of the Dutch ambassador and diplomatic flights from the Netherlands. They do not appear to include economic measures or travel restrictions for ordinary citizens.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday said that the sanctions were “not too bad” but were inappropriate as the Dutch have more to be angry about.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Daren Butler and David Dolan)