Progress in the Cyprus, Kurdish and Armenian issues will help the region achieve stability, according to the British Ambassador to Ankara Nick Baird, whose new post will start next month in London as director-general for Europe and Globalization. If Turkey’s Kurdish, Armenian and Cyprus issues are resolved, the region will be much better off, according to the outgoing British ambassador, who added that Turkey is making good progress in solving the points of contention. On Turkish efforts to normalize ties with its neighbor Armenia, the ambassador said the government was very courageous to take that step. The process has been blocked, however, by Ankara linking an open border with Yerevan to progress in Nagorno-Karabakh upon pressure from inside and its regional ally Azerbaijan. Britain is one of the strongest advocates of Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. While Cypriot leaders are preparing for the give-and-take in October to reunify their divided island, the Brussels deadline to review Ankara’s performance in complying with Ankara protocol obligations is nearing. Turkey hopes a solution will be reached on Cyprus by the end of this year, which will give it an upper hand in its rocky EU journey. In Turkish-EU negotiations, eight chapters were frozen due to Ankara’s refusal to open its ports to shipping from Greek Cyprus. Turkey has so far opened 11 chapters since it formally started entry talks in October 2005. “If Turkey can make progress in such a way as to unfreeze those chapters, then that would really give extra momentum to the process,” said Baird.
President Demetris Christofias has rejected criticism leveled against him by the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community that he trying to change provisions of the 1960 treaties, which established the Republic of Cyprus. “I seek to change the Zurich and London Agreements which provide that the President of the country is directly elected by the Greek Cypriots and the Vice President by the Turkish Cypriot. Both must be directly elected by the people of Cyprus, on a common ballot,” President Christofias has said. Christofias stressed that “each Cypriot, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot, should bear responsibility for the election of the President and the Vice President on a common ballot. In that sense and under this condition, we have accepted the rotating presidency, in the context of the current negotiations” for a political settlement, he said. He explained that in a six year presidency term, the President during the first four years will be a Greek Cypriot and the Vice President a Turkish Cypriot, and during the last two years they will change offices. The President called for self-criticism among the island’s two communities, “if catharsis is to take place and true reconciliation is to follow, as it has happened in South Africa”, which he described as a “very good example Cyprus should study”. He also stressed the need for the two communities to apologise to each other for what they have done to each other and the need for Turkey apologise for the crimes it has committed against the people of Cyprus, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory.
The Balkans will not be one of the priorities of U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, U.S. professor Steven Meyer said. Meyer, a professor of political science at the National Defense University, said that Obama’s administration will only pay an extra amount of attention to the Balkans if a crisis breaks out in the region. He told Voice of America that the Balkans will not be ignored, however, "since there are many people in his administration from the administration of former president Bill Clinton", adding that the current situation in the Balkans is a “result of activities by the Democrats and their political heritage”. Meyer said that he does not believe that “concrete measures will be taken in the current situation” especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, but said that “the situation in Bosnia is sliding towards uncertainty more and more”. “On the other hand, in Kosovo, you have the evolution of a frozen conflict. Belgrade does not want to give up on sovereignty over Kosovo, while the U.S. and other western countries, along with Priština, do not want to give up on independence. In essence, the reality is that there have been no significant changes either in Bosnia or Kosovo,” he said. Meyer added that changes in general in Obama’s foreign policies are negligible, because the administration is currently focused on internal problems, especially with the financial crisis.
The ongoing de-Christianization of Kosovo continues and unlike the past frenzy of the anti-Serbian mass media in the West, we mainly have a deadly silence about the reality of Kosovo and the continuing Albanianization of this land. However, how is it “just” and “moral” to persecute minorities and to alienate them from mainstream society; and then to illegally recognize this land without the full consensus of the international community? How ironic it is that the same United States of America and the United Kingdom, two nations who were in the forefront of covertly manipulating the mass media; remain mainly silent about the destruction of Orthodox Christian churches, Serbian architecture, and of course the past killings of Serbians and other minorities in Kosovo. According to Minority Rights Group International (MRG) which is based in the United Kingdom, it is apparent that exclusion and discrimination is rife. Therefore, minorities face a bleak future and Serbians, Bosniaks, Roma, Croats, Turks, Gorani and Ashkali Egyptians are either being forced out because of alienation or because of limited economic opportunities.
These days, one of Egypt’s most well-known converts to Christianity is living a mobile lifestyle, but not by choice. Maher El Gohary, the second Egyptian to legally request to change his religious status, and his 15-year-old daughter, Dina, are living like “fugitives.” Every few months, the father and daughter move to a new apartment to escape the Muslim extremists who want them dead for leaving Islam. “I'm not so much afraid of the government anymore,” Gohary told the Times. “It's conservative Muslims who worry me. Some of them believe whoever kills me is rewarded. When I go to court, I'm surrounded by police protection." Gohary is the second known convert to file a request to change his religious identity from Muslim to Christian. In June, a Cairo judge rejected his petition even though he provided a baptism certificate and a letter of acceptance into the Coptic Orthodox Church as the judge had requested. The judge made the excuse that the church deals with Christians and not with Muslims who convert to Christianity. It was the first time the Coptic Church had issued a letter recognizing the baptism of a convert. The result of Gohary’s case is similar to that of Mohammed Hegazy, the first convert to legally request to change his religious status. The 2008 case ended up with Egypt’s Supreme Court judge saying that Hegazy can believe what he wants in his heart, but that he cannot change his religion in his legal documents. “Islam is the only thing Egyptians are 150 percent sure of. If you reject Islam, you shake their belief and you are an apostate, an infidel,” Gohary said. “I can see in the eyes of Muslims how much my conversion has really hurt them.”
Chechen rebels called on Tuesday for prominent separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev to be killed, saying he had abandoned Islam by recognising the legitimacy of the restive region's Kremlin-backed government. "Public remarks show that he (Zakayev) has fallen away from Islam," the website said, adding that Doku Umarov, Chechnya's most wanted separatist leader, was behind the order. "The court has ruled that the killing of this apostate is a duty for Muslims." It did not say what court had issued the ruling. Zakayev, who lives in London, represents the moderate wing of the separatist movement and has clashed with radical Islamist insurgents in Russia's southern republic of Chechnya. Russia has tried to extradite Zakayev for 13 alleged crimes including kidnapping and murder, but a British court rejected the request in 2003, causing a diplomatic row.
Restoration work that would result in an historic Greek Orthodox church being recognized as a mosque has caused uproar in Turkey. At issue is the 178-year-old St Dimitrios church in the northern Turkish village of Silivri. The village was once a Greek settlement but, after the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, ethnic Greek residents had to leave in a forced resettlement that swapped 1.5 million ethnic Greeks from Turkey for 600,000 ethnic Turks living in northern Greece. After the resettlement, the church was briefly used for prayers while work was underway to build a mosque for the new Muslim residents. A minaret was attached to the building, but its cross was never removed. Later, the church was used for storage and as a stall. However, current work on the church is being billed as 'restoration of the Ortakoy Mosque,' causing an uproar. Adding to the grievances is the fact that the renovation work was approved by local leaders of the AKP Justice and Development Party, which runs the government at the national level. Representatives of the Greek Orthodox church in Turkey have not commented on the issue.