Dr. Çetiner’s Blogs (Prof. Dr. Beytullah Gültekin Çetiner)

Obama’s Afghanistan strategy at Risk
President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan strategy is at risk at a critical Nato summit on Friday because of Turkish resistance to his choice of Denmark’s prime minister for the job of the Alliance’s new Secretary-General.

France, Germany, Britain and the United States had hoped to use the symbolic meeting, marking the Alliance’s 60th anniversary, to install Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the post.

But Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, has opposed this move because of Mr Rasmussen’s refusal, three years ago, to apologise for Danish newspapers printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad which triggered violent protests across the Muslim world.

“Nato needs to think about its image in the Muslim world, especially at an important time for Afghanistan,” said one Turkish diplomat.

Riots over the cartoons also spread to Afghanistan the Taliban have exploited their appearance for propaganda value.

The issue has become highly sensitive at a time when Nato and Mr Obama are stepping up military, policing and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, with Muslim Turkey playing a key role.

“There are concerns in Nato that as Secretary-General Rasmussen would face fierce protests when he visited Muslim countries,” said one diplomat.

Turkey, which has 900 non-combatant troops in Afghanistan, takes over the command of Nato forces in the country in August, when Afghans go to the polls for crucial elections.

Ankara has not yet threatened an outright veto of Mr Rasmussen, but the Turkish resistance has overshadowed the summit and prevented an easy transition to a new Nato leader.

Diplomats are concerned that the longer the leadership issue drags on, the less chance Mr Rasmussen has of taking the job, making the Alliance appear disunited.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the current secretary general, steps down in July, after having his term extended to allow a successor to be crowned in Strasbourg during this summit’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

The US must also decide whether to accept a request for another 10,000 American troops from the commander of Nato-led forces in Afghanistan.

The surge of 17,000 troops ordered to the country by Mr Obama in January amount to two of three brigades General David McKiernan originally asked for to stem the insurgency in the south and east of the country.

Up to 30,000 police have been mobilised to protect the summit of 28 Nato countries - their ranks newly enlarged by Albania and Croatia - as tens of thousands of left wing and anarchist demonstrators descend on Strasbourg, and neighbouring Kehl and Baden Baden in Germany.

Border controls and an unprecedented security clamp down came into force on Thursday evening to protect venues on both sides of the Rhine, chosen to symbolise Franco-German reconciliation after the Second World War.

France is deploying 10,000 security forces including riot police, while Germany is positioning 14,600 police and has gone so far as to mobilise 600 soldiers.

Airspace over Strasbourg and Baden Baden will be shut down and access to many major roads is to be cut off on Friday morning.

By Bruno Waterfield in Strasbourg and Ben Farmer in Kabul

Turkish Resistance to Denmark’s Rasmussen as New NATO Chief Secretary General
NATO leaders Friday piled pressure on Turkey to drop its resistance to the appointment of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance’s next chief.

Discussions on the post of NATO secretary general are conducted by the alliance’s heads of state and government behind closed doors, so information on the process is scarce.

But as NATO leaders gathered in France and Germany for a summit, it was clear that the 56-year-old Rasmussen was the only official candidate, having announced his intention to run for the job during a cabinet meeting prior to his departure from Copenhagen.

It was also common knowledge that his primary opposition was from Turkey.

Turkey is the only NATO member state to have announced its displeasure at his appointment, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan citing opposition in the Muslim world over Rasmussen’s refusal to take action against the 2005 publication in Danish media of cartoons deemed offensive towards the Prophet Mohammed.

Speaking in London on Friday, Erdogan also complained about Denmark’s hosting of Roj TV, a satellite broadcaster with close ties to the separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).

‘The media arm of the terror organization in my country is broadcasting from Denmark. I’ve asked Mr. Rasmussen do stop this but he either couldn’t or wouldn’t do it,’ Erdogan told a forum in London that was broadcast on Turkish television.

Hours before NATO leaders were due to discuss the matter over dinner in the German city of Baden-Baden, it was still unclear if Turkey would veto Rasmussen or if it was merely trying to drive up the price for its assent.

Complicating matters further, Turkish President Abdullah Gul seems far more open to a possible Rasmussen appointment, saying recently in Brussels that he had no problems with his candidacy.

He also suggested that a decision could be postponed because the mandate of the current NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, does not expire until the end of July.

A delay, however, would be disastrous for Rasmussen, since everybody in Denmark now expected him to step down and be replaced by his finance minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, as early as next week.

‘What a relief,’ Danish daily Politiken quoted Danish People’s Party Leader Pia Kjaersgaard as saying after Rasmussen had ended months of speculation by officially throwing his hat into the ring.

‘We have been without leadership in this country for too long. Everything has been paralysed, so we have been waiting for clarification,’ said Kjaersgaard, whose party supports Rasmussen’s centre-right coalition government.

The Danish premier enjoys the key backing of the United States, France, Germany, Britain and Italy in his quest to head the alliance.

And NATO diplomats said Friday that US President Barack Obama had made it clear to Turkey’s leaders that he favours the Dane for the job.

The main task of the NATO secretary general is to broker discussions within the 28-member alliance and represent the organization around the world.

Analysts say two of today’s main rifts within the alliance involve its prickly relationship with Russia and its struggling operations in Afghanistan.

Rasmussen is regarded as a skillful diplomat, a key quality for the NATO job. This is one of the reasons why another potential candidate, Radek Sikorski, has enjoyed far less backing - Poland’s foreign minister is viewed as being far too antagonistic towards Russia.

The Danish premier has also been an enthusiastic supporter of NATO and US operations in Afghanistan.

Denmark is currently providing about 800 soldiers to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Perhaps more importantly, Danish soldiers have not been afraid to confront the Taliban insurgency in the country’s restive south.

Experts note that Turkey is a key NATO ally and one of its biggest contributors in terms of troops. Its strategic location, and the fact that it is a Muslim nation, gives it a powerful voice within the alliance.

Whether NATO leaders were willing to risk antagonizing its president, and the rest of the Muslim world, was one of the biggest questions regarding Rasmussen’s appointment.

By Nicholas Rigillo/Europe News

NATO leaders fail to agree on new alliance chief
Will Rasmussen of Denmark be able to win the position of secretary general?
The most recent news is as follows:-

Leaders of the NATO military alliance failed Friday to agree on a new secretary general, despite pressure from Germany to overcome Turkish opposition to favourite Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

“There has been no decision now. The discussion will continue into tomorrow on the succession to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,” said NATO spokesman James Appathurai, after a working dinner between heads of state and government.

The threat of a Turkish veto hangs over the nomination of Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen due to his defence of a series of cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed, which sparked anger in the Muslim world.

But Appathurai refused to comment on which candidates were discussed or how many of the 28 NATO nations raised objections, saying only that the leaders were “not being particularly brief”.

“We always arrive at consensus at NATO. We will arrive at consensus on this issue as well. Until then, the only way to describe it is that we don’t have consensus,” he said.

“We will get there, this alliance always gets there,” he added, after the first session of a two-day summit hosted by France and Germany.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed confidence earlier that a decision would be reached on Friday and said Rasmussen, Danish prime minister, would be an “excellent choice.”

“I am convinced that we will name a new NATO secretary general this evening,” Merkel told reporters in Baden-Baden, southern Germany, at a joint press conference with US President Barack Obama.

She said she would “do everything” to persuade other NATO leaders to back the Dane, who has the support of other alliance heavyweights Britain, France and the United States.

“I believe that Mr. Rasmussen would be an excellent choice,” she said. “If we choose him he would be a strong secretary general.”

According to Danish press reports, Rasmussen has privately announced his candidacy to take over from Dutch diplomat Scheffer, whose term ends on July 31.

But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is angered by Rasmussen’s failure to ban a Denmark-based TV station linked to Kurdish rebels and by his stance during the crisis over Danish cartoons.

NATO’s secretary general is chosen by an informal process involving negotiations behind the scenes and in corridors at NATO headquarters in Brussels, but all 28 nations must agree on the nominee.

It remained unclear whether Turkey, a mainly Muslim nation, would veto the move.

In Istanbul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose ruling party has Islamist roots, urged NATO to find an alternative candidate.

“Why do we have to stick to a single name? Aren’t there other alternatives?,” he told reporters. “We wish to find another person with whom the issue will be settled.”

But Turkey is represented at the summit by President Abdullah Gul, who has appeared slightly more conciliatory.

Rasmussen invoked Danes’ right to freedom of expression to defend the publication of the cartoons in September 2005.

NATO is fighting Islamist militants in Afghanistan while trying to work with neighbouring Pakistan and reach out to Iran for help, and the alliance is therefore particularly wary of how it is perceived in the Muslim world.

Potential candidates for NATO’s top civilian job — which has only ever been held by European nations in the alliance’s 60-year history — almost never declare their intention to run.

Norway’s Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere appears to be the only other strong candidate left.

His Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski said earlier Friday that he was not in the running and Canada was low key about the chances of its Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Source:BADEN-BADEN, Germany (AFP)

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised objections Friday to his Danish counterpart’s possible nomination for NATO’s top job, citing lingering Muslim anger over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

In an interview with NTV television, Erdogan said he explained his objections to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen personally in a lengthy telephone conversation earlier Friday.

“I told him about the annoyance of the public” over his possible nomination for NATO secretary-general, Erdogan said.

“My party has principles… and I definitely cannot contradict them,” he said. “I told him he can appreciate what that means.”

Erdogan said he had received calls from the leaders of Islamic countries urging Turkey, NATO’s only predominantly Muslim member, to veto Rasmussen.

“There was serious indignation in Muslim countries because of the cartoon crisis. These countries are now calling us,” he said.

Rasmussen invoked freedom of expression to defend the publication of a series of irreverant cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper in September 2005, which triggered outrage among Muslims worldwide.

Erdogan said Rasmussen had also failed to act on Turkish requests to ban a Denmark-based Kurdish TV station, widely seen as the mouthpiece of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.

“It has been four years now and they have not finalised the issue… We are seriously disturbed,” he said.

However, President Abdullah Gul had suggested earlier Friday that Turkey would not block Rasmussen’s nomination, saying that Ankara does not have “any attitude against the prime minister or anyone else on that matter.”

Rasmussen is a favourite to take over NATO’s top civilian post from Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in August, with most of the alliance’s big powers solidly behind him, but Turkey is seen as a key obstacle.

NATO leaders meet in Strasbourg, France and neighbouring Kehl in Germany on April 3-4 for a 60th anniversary summit, but it is unclear whether the next secretary general of the 26-nation alliance will be announced there.