MIDDLE EAST: Daily headlines from Gaza, Israel, Iran in your mailbox

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It includes stories from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as links to articles about the frictions and encounters between Islam and the West in the United States and Europe.

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— Los Angeles Times staff

IRAN: Will Obama meet Khatami at Turkey confab?

Iranian and Turkish media are all abuzz about the possibility that President Obama and former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami might meet at a U.N.-sponsored conference in Turkey this week.

Hurriyet, the big Turkish daily, is reporting that since both men are expected to attend the Alliance of Civilizations conference in Istanbul on Monday and Tuesday, the odds of a chance encounter are high, although noting that "it was not clear as of yesterday if the two would be at the summit at the same time."

Iran's conservative Mehr News Agency cited a close aide to Khatami as saying that "most probably" on the second day of the summit "a short talk will be held between" Khatami and Obama.

"One of the reasons for Obama's visit to Turkey and his presence in the second day of the Alliance for Civilizations summit on Tuesday is that he wants to meet a number of figures who participate at the summit, including ... Khatami, and talk to them about the issues concerning world nations and international climate," the source was quoted as saying.

EGYPT: Erdogan hailed as hero

By recently walking off the stage after a clash with the Israeli president over the Gaza Strip at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was viewed as a hero among Arabs who accuse their own leaders of not standing up to the Jewish state.

Erdogan was provoked when the moderator interrupted him while he was responding to comments made by Israeli President Shimon Peres, who defended Israel's military incursion into Gaza. Outraged at being cut off, Erdogan gathered his papers and walked out, saying: “And so Davos is over for me from now on.”

He had earlier told Peres: “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.”

ISRAEL: The Gaza effect on sports, diplomacy

This week, Turkish sports fans and angered citizens took their fury over Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip to the basketball court.

Thousands protested in Ankara, the capital, outside an arena where visiting the Israeli basketball team, Bnei Hasharon, was warming up to play Turk Telekom.

Indoors, the mood was red-hot with crowds chanting slogans against Israel and supporting Hamas.

Although police were present, things didn't cool down, and when fans threatened to charge the court, the Israeli team retreated and took cover in the locker rooms for three hours before being safely extricated.

TURKEY: Ataturk's grave, head scarves and the call to prayer

Walking along Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s mausoleum is like visiting a reproduction of an ancient temple. Though it is a burial site in a country with an absolute Muslim majority, no trace or engraving of Islam can be found. On the contrary, the creators of this spacious grave seemed to have no interest in recognizing religion, choosing instead symbols belonging to the Hittite civilization that flourished before Islam reached Anatolia.

The mausoleum for the nation's first president appears as evidence that Ataturk and the Kemalists founders of the Turkish state wiped Islam from public space to build a capital dedicated to secularism. But history has a way of repeating itself, and if Ataturk were alive today, he might be shocked at the images and sounds drifting just beyond the stone columns of his resting place.

Across this canonical cemetery, the call for prayers echoes in Arabic five times a day, attesting to the ceaseless battle between Ataturk’s secular heirs and rising Islamists. I felt as if I were back in my native Cairo, not in a country seeking entry to the European Union. While walking downtown, I spotted posters and pictures of Ataturk hanging on public buildings and displayed by street vendors. Yet, I was also struck by the high number of veiled women and store windows featuring modern Islamic fashion.

SAUDI ARABIA: A barber spared beheading

The king spared the barber.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has rescinded the death penalty against a Turkish barber convicted of “cursing” the name of God.

Sabri Bogday, who cuts hair in the port of Jidda, was sentenced to beheading for swearing during an argument with his neighbor, a tailor.

Turkish media reported  that Turkey’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia informed Bogday’s family that he had been spared.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul had asked the king to set aside the verdict.

After Bogday's arrest, the Arab News in Saudi Arabia quoted a lawyer who described how the court viewed using God's name in vain: 

“Some judges consider it heresy and infidelity, and say that the accused cannot repent and so faces the death penalty. Others consider the statement to be disbelief, thus allow the accused to retract what he has said and repent and then set him free. ... Sentences in these cases are limited and considered rare, because the judgment is not based on something that is written.”

IRAQ: Turkey's fight with Kurdish separatists

A separatist Kurdish leader sounded defiant this week after Turkey's parliament authorized more attacks against his group in northern Iraq. "We are ready and our forces are ready. We are not afraid of them. If they want to attack Iraq's Kurdistan, then the Middle East will turn into a fire ball,” Bozan Takeen, a senior leader from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), warned on Thursday by phone from his hideout in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Takeen, who is based in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Qandil mountains, which border Turkey and Iran, was speaking after Turkey’s parliament on Wednesday extended for one more year Ankara’s right to carry out military raids against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan.

SYRIA: Bashar Assad meets Nicolas Sarkozy at the summit

It was designed to be a diplomatic success for both countries. Syria received a pat on the back for what was described as its peace efforts in the Middle East, and France tried to shine as a major Western force playing a key mediating role between Arabs and Israelis. 

The celebrated event was a summit that brought together French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, as well as Qatar’s emir and Turkey’s prime minister.

The goal behind the summit was to reach a breakthrough between Israel and Syria, according to the website of Arab satellite-TV channel Al Jazeera. But beneath the high-minded talk, crass business interests were also involved. More on that below.

Regarding peace, Assad revealed that his country had presented, through Turkey, a six-point proposal to Israel:

We are awaiting for Israel's response to six points that we have submitted through Turkey. ... Our response would be positive, paving the way for direct talks after a new U.S. administration -- that believes in the peace process -- takes office. ... We are also waiting for the Israeli election to be assured that a new prime minister would be on the same track as [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and be ready to completely withdraw from the occupied land in order to achieve peace.

ISRAEL: Olmert's peace offensive

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is waging a peace offensive as he battles on the home front against allegations of corruption that threaten to cut short his term in office.

In an interview with The Times this week, he spoke of a "race against time" to reach an interim accord with the Palestinian Authority in U.S.-backed peace talks before President Bush leaves office in January. "If we miss the opportunity," he said, "then how long will it take before we can restart with a new American administration?"

Broadening his peace effort Wednesday, Olmert went public with the existence, since early last year, of talks between Israel and Syria through Turkish mediators, aimed at ending the two neighbors' long enmity. That represents a longer-term effort by Olmert to end Syria's backing for the Palestinian movement Hamas, a sworn enemy of Israel that is not part of the talks with the Palestinian Authority. The move weakens the Bush administration's policy of trying to isolate Syria.

An Israeli-Syrian accord could oblige Israel to return most or all of the militarily strategic Golan Heights, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. In return, Israel would expect Syria to break its alliance with Iran, which backs the Lebanese group Hezbollah as well as Hamas. Israel is alarmed by Hezbollah's recent muscle-flexing in Lebanon, and by Wednesday's internal political agreement there that appears to solidify the group's status as an armed force overshadowing the power of the state.

—Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem

IRAQ: The Kurds struggle, inside a tent city

She was singing in a low voice while sewing a frock for her little girl, Tavga Ahmed, who stood quietly at her side. Home for the girl and her mother, Owaz Jamal, is a tent, one of about 200 erected in a remote mountainous area of Iraq near the Iranian border.

This tent city was hastily established after the latest round of air strikes from Turkish forces sent residents of Rezga, about 35 miles away, fleeing for safety. Most left everything behind — their livestock, their clothes, sometimes even their money. It is a life many have become accustomed to as the tensions between Kurdish separatists operating from bases in the mountains lead to clashes with Turkish troops.