Category: Uncategorized

Erdogan rival plans Türkiye EU bid

Kemal Kilicdaroglu said he’d revive membership talks, which have been stalled since 2016

Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has told the Financial Times that he would revive EU membership talks if he defeats President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in next month’s election. While Kilicdaroglu’s campaign rhetoric makes heavy use of pro-Western rhetoric, Erdogan’s government has scathingly criticized Brussels.

Kilicdaroglu said on Friday that he would “immediately move towards resurrecting Türkiye’s moribund EU membership talks,” in the newspaper’s words.

The 74-year-old former civil servant, whose People’s Republic Party (CHP) leads the six-party National Alliance, condemned Erdogan for restricting civil liberties and said that if elected, his main priorities would be “the economy and democracy.”

Türkiye applied for EU membership in 1987 and was recognized as a candidate in 1999. Membership negotiations opened in 2005, but progress was slow, and no talks have taken place since 2016. EU officials have since condemned Erdogan over alleged human rights abuses, and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament warned in a 2017 report that constitutional reforms strengthening his powers could run afoul of EU law and threaten Ankara’s membership bid.

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Erdogan hails Türkiye joining nuclear club

Erdogan dismissed Brussels’ warning. “You can write as many reports as you want,” he said at the time. “We do not recognize your reports. We will not recognize them in the future, either.”

Türkiye places little stock in what the EU says as Europe’s geopolitical influence is waning and its states are little more than American vassals, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu explained earlier this month. “There is no such thing as Europe,” he told members of a youth association in Istanbul. “Europe is a mule in America’s convoy. It has no special features.”

Kilicdaroglu has been more obsequious toward the EU and its demands. “We are going to start with the normalization process in domestic politics,” his adviser, Unal Cevikoz, told Politico last month. “This will simply give the message to all our allies, and all the European countries, that Türkiye is back on track to democracy, and that certainly will create a very serious change in the perception about Türkiye’s position.”

Türkiye is the only member of NATO that has not condemned Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, and Ankara and Moscow have strengthened their trade links since the conflict began. Kilicdaroglu told the Financial Times that he would maintain economic links with Russia, but declared that “we do not find it right for [Russian President] Vladimir Putin to attack and occupy Ukraine.”

To secure a third term in office, Erdogan will need to win over an electorate grappling with stubbornly high inflation and a weakening currency, in addition to the economic fallout caused by last month’s earthquakes near the southern city of Gaziantep. Polls currently put Erdogan and Kiliicdaroglu in a statistical dead heat.

Italian weapons supplied to Ukraine not battle-ready – FT 

The paper, citing an unnamed official in Kiev, claims that none of the 20 howitzers provided earlier this year were up to par 

Some of the military hardware given to Ukraine by Italy earlier this year was not combat-ready, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Earlier this week, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky revealed that the country needs even more weapons to pull off a successful counteroffensive.   

The FT report quoted an anonymous adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry as saying that none of the “20 self-propelled howitzers Italy provided to Ukraine earlier this year was battle ready.” 

The outlet also noted that Kiev’s attempts to persuade the US to supply it with longer-range missiles and F-16 fighter jets have so far been in vain.  

According to the report, if the Ukrainian counteroffensive fails to live up to expectations in the West, critics may be emboldened in the US and elsewhere, questioning the feasibility of further military support. Western governments could eventually decide to force Kiev to accept a negotiated settlement, the Times said. 

The newspaper concluded that securing major territorial gains against the Russian forces would likely be a tall order for Kiev.  

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Western arms may not be enough, Ukrainian troops tell NYT

On Wednesday, President Zelensky’s aide, Mikhail Podoliak, insisted that Ukraine still needs more weaponry and equipment, contradicting the US commander of NATO forces in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, who claimed before the House Armed Services Committee that Kiev’s backers had already delivered 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine. 

Last week, Foreign Policy magazine reported that the German-made Leopard tanks given to Ukraine by eight countries would likely pose a logistical challenge to Kiev’s military. The hardware reportedly uses a range of different munitions, meaning Ukraine would not be able to procure the ammunition in bulk.  

The Abrams tanks which Washington pledged to provide Kiev earlier this year will likely take months to actually arrive on the battlefield.

 

‘It strengthens anti-establishment forces’: Pension reform protests threaten Macron’s agenda

A global credit ratings agency downgraded French debt worthiness a notch on Saturday, citing pension reform protests as a cause. Two weeks after the contested pension reform passed, persistent social movements threaten to erase the financial gains that the French government expected.