Israeli report criticizes Netanyahu's handling of flotilla raid

JERUSALEM -- More than two years after an Israeli raid on an aid flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip turned deadly, a report released Wednesday criticizes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as making poor decisions and misunderstanding the magnitude of the unfolding confrontation.

In a special 153-page report, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss used harsh words to describe a long list of flaws in the government's preparation for the approaching flotilla, which carried activists determined to run Israel's blockade of Gaza.

Lindenstrauss accused the Netanyahu administration of failing to coordinate the actions of relevant agencies, ignoring military warnings about potential violence, keeping the National Security Council out of the loop and dropping the ball on media response and public diplomacy.

The interception of the Mavi Marmara, the largest ship in the mainly Turkish aid flotilla, turned violent when the shipboard activists fought back against Israeli commandos. The clash resulted in the deaths of nine passengers and fierce international condemnation of Israel, forcing it to ease its blockade of the Hamas-controlled coastal strip. The attack also worsened relations with Turkey, already soured following an Israeli military assault on Gaza, sending them into a tailspin from which they have not recovered.

Although Lindenstrauss found fault with others, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the army, his report holds Netanyahu responsible for the overall outcome.

"The prime minister's decision-making was made without proper coordination, documentation or preparation," despite the fact that all were aware that the Turkish flotilla was larger and more politically sensitive than those that preceded it, he wrote.

Israeli lawmakers discuss commemorating Armenian genocide

JERUSALEM -- Israeli lawmakers dedicated a session of parliament Tuesday to discussing whether to commemorate the Armenian genocide, a controversial and sensitive issue that could further aggravate the country's strained relations with Turkey.

When ties were stronger, Israel refrained from official recognition of the killings of minority Armenians early in the 1900s as genocide, citing diplomatic reasons. But diplomatic relations have been strained since Israeli soldiers killed nine Turkish activists in 2010 during an attempt to block a flotilla of aid bound for the Gaza Strip.

Some Israeli lawmakers say the time has come for their nation to finally divorce the issue from diplomatic concerns and take a clear, moral stance.

"The Armenian genocide has been swept under the rug" for fear of upsetting foreign relations, said Zehava Galon, who initiated the debate. "We must not politicize this matter," said Reuven Rivlin, the Knesset speaker, a longtime supporter of Israel making a clear statement of recognition.

The Knesset came to no decision on the motion Tuesday but plans to hold another session on the issue.

U.S. exempts seven countries that consume Iran oil from sanctions

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration announced Monday that it had exempted seven countries that are major consumers of Iranian oil from threatened U.S. sanctions aimed at punishing Tehran for its disputed nuclear program.

Officials said India, South Korea, Turkey, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Africa and Sri Lanka had reduced their purchases of Iranian crude sufficiently to cut Tehran’s exports without upsetting global oil prices. In March, the Obama administration similarly exempted 10 European countries and Japan from sanctions, saying they too had done enough to wean themselves from Iranian energy.

U.S. officials said Iran now exports at least 700,000 barrels per day fewer than last year’s exports of 2.5 million barrels a day, cutting into a crucial source of revenue. U.S. and European officials have sought to squeeze Iran’s energy sector as part of the international campaign to pressure Iran to stop enriching uranium that could be converted for use in nuclear weapons.

“We are sending a decisive message to Iran’s leaders: Until they take concrete actions to satisfy the concerns of the international community, they will continue to face increasing isolation and pressure,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement Monday.

Another round of Western sanctions is  due to begin July 1, including an embargo on purchases of Iranian oil by all European Union members. Mark Dubowitz, an energy specialist at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, said the new embargo could cut Iran oil exports to below 1.2 million barrels per day, less than half last year’s output.

Although the tightening sanctions have hurt Iran’s economy, Iranian negotiators have shown little sign in two rounds of international talks that they may slow down their nuclear development. Many countries believe Iran is enriching uranium so it can become capable of producing a nuclear bomb if it decides to do so. Iran maintains it is interested only in peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Obama administration officials didn’t say how much the seven countries had cut their oil purchases. In March, U.S. officials signaled that they were seeking reductions of 15% to 22% of purchases.

Several large countries, including India and Turkey, said publicly that they were reluctant to reduce imports of Iranian oil because of their long reliance on the Islamic regime. They appear to have met the minimum level of cooperation that Washington demanded, however.

Many of the countries have begun buying additional oil from Saudi Arabia to make up for their Iranian supplies.

The cutbacks by the seven nations haven’t raised global oil prices, largely because of the economic slowdown in both Europe and China, as well as increased supply from several countries, including Iraq and Libya.

Two importers of Iranian oil that have not yet been granted exemptions are China and Singapore.

China has been increasing purchases of Iranian oil in the last two months, after a sharp reduction earlier in the year. But Beijing has forced Tehran to grant it substantial price cuts. Since price cuts reduce Iran’s profit, China may ultimately be granted an exemption, some analysts believe. The tiny nation of Singapore imports relatively small amounts of Iranian oil overall.

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Lebanese pilgrims abducted in Syria freed, officials say

BEIRUT-- A group of Lebanese Shiite pilgrims abducted in northern Syria earlier this week were freed Friday and arrived in Turkey on their way back to Beirut, according to officials.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati confirmed the hostages had been released. Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Moussawi told The Times that the 11 hostages were in "good shape." Some media reports said the group of captives numbered 12, including the group's Syrian bus driver.

The Shiite Muslims were expected to fly home on a plane belonging to Lebanon's Sunni ex-premier Saad Hariri, who heads an anti-Syria opposition group and is at odds with the Shiite-controlled Hezbollah group. Hariri's gesture suggests the incident may result in a rare moment of national unity. The official National News Agency (NNA) reported Hariri's private jet taking off from Beirut on Friday evening for Adanah airport in Turkey.

The group was snatched by gunmen near Syria's second largest city, Aleppo, as they were believed to be returning in buses from a pilgrimage to Iran. Families of the abducted and media reports said the group was kidnapped by Syrian rebels. When the bus crossed into Syria from Turkey it was intercepted and the women were set free.

Previous reports raised the possibility of the pilgrims being kidnapped by insurgents for a potential prisoner swap deal. But officials in the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group of rebel factions, reportedly denied they were behind the kidnapping. Some even blamed it on the Syrian government. Lebanon's Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour said Wednesday in a statement quoted in media reports that the captives were held by "a splinter group of the armed Syrian opposition."

The ordeal triggered concerns that Syria's conflict could incite Lebanon's sectarian divides. When news broke about the abduction, protesters blocked roads with burning tires and trash cans in Beirut's Shiite-dominated southern suburbs. Roads where soon reopened for traffic after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah went on TV and appealed for calm and restraint.

Lebanon's political landscape is sharply divided over Syria with most Sunni groups wanting to see Syrian President Bashar Assad overthrown. Hezbollah and some other factions have supported Assad as he attempts to quell a 15-month uprising against his rule. Nasrallah delivered a speech on Friday night highlighting the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in 2000.

Lebanon has witnessed a spike in security incidents in recent days and Syria-linked clashes have killed at least 10 people in Lebanon just in the past two weeks.

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Photo: Relatives of abducted Lebanese Shiite pilgrims kidnapped in northern Syria celebrate their release as they wait for the pilgrims' arrival at Beirut International Airport on Friday. Credit: Joseph Eidjoseph / AFP/ Getty Images

Gul drops in, talks up the Turkish political model

Egyptians voting this week in their first free presidential election face a choice between Islamist and secular candidates. To some Middle East observers, Turkey, with its constitutional boundaries on Islamist parties, provides a possible model for nations in the so-called Arab Spring movement to reconcile the values of Islam and democracy.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul came to California this week after addressing the NATO summit in Chicago. He spoke with Tribune Media's Global Viewpoint Network Editor Nathan Gardels in San Francisco.

Gardels: In a speech earlier this year in Cairo, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Muslim Brotherhood and others contending for power in their new democracy that they "should not fear secularism,” which has been the foundation of Turkey’s rapid economic development.

Is Turkey’s system, in which a Muslim-oriented party governs within a secular framework, a template for Egypt and the other liberated Arab states as they put together their constitutions?

Gul: What is unfortunate for the Arab and Maghreb countries is that their interpretation of secularism has been based on the French model, which is a “Jacobin” model of imposing a kind of irreligiousness. 

When you speak of secularism to Muslim communities of the region, it is misunderstood because of this French implication. In practice, the implementation of secularism in the Arab and Maghreb countries has meant fighting against Islam in the name of secularism. So we have to understand this sensitivity.

Two Turkish journalists, missing two months, are freed in Syria

BEIRUT -- Two Turkish journalists who had disappeared two months ago while reporting in Syria have been released by authorities there.

The journalists, Adem Ozkose and Hamit Coskun, were flown out of the country to Tehran, where they were waiting for a plane to take them home, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported Saturday.

Ozkose and Coskun told the news agency they were in good health and were waiting to be reunited with their families.

Ozkose, a reporter for the magazine Gerçek Hayat and the daily Milat, and cameraman Coskun were in Syria’s northwest Idlib province filming a documentary when they disappeared March 9. Like many journalists who have reported from Syria, they had entered the country illegally from Turkey.

The journalists, as well as some Syrians who were accompanying them, were abducted by militia members known as shabiha at a checkpoint outside a Shiite town in the predominantly Sunni province, Reporters Without Borders said.

Rebels in Idlib said the pair had gone to the Shiite town to interview residents there about a string of revenge kidnappings between members of both sects when they were taken themselves.

Leaders within the rebel ranks said they tried to negotiate for the journalists’ release but weren't successful. Eventually the Turks were handed over to Syrian authorities.

Iran was said to have played a large role in negotiating their release, acting as a mediator, since Turkey’s relations with Syria have soured in the 14-month uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Muslims in Middle East, Asia think poorly of Al Qaeda, poll finds

A new poll covering thousands of Muslims in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and Lebanon found that most thought poorly of Al Qaeda nearly a year after Osama bin Laden's death.

The results came just after U.S. intelligence officials announced that the terrorist group has been greatly diminished since the death of Bin Laden, suggesting that Al Qaeda has been losing Muslim hearts and minds along with organizational muscle.

The Pew Research Center poll, carried out nearly one year after Bin Laden was killed by American forces on May 2, showed that in the countries surveyed, Al Qaeda was most popular in Egypt, where more than 1 out of 5 Muslims said they had a favorable opinion.

Yet even in Egypt, 71% of those surveyed said they disliked the group. In Jordan, only 15% of Muslims surveyed said they had a favorable opinion of the group; in Pakistan, 13%; in Turkey, 6%; and in Lebanon, 2%.

Pew based its findings on face-to-face interviews with more than 900 Muslim adults in each country, except Lebanon, where 566 people were interviewed. The results were part of a larger survey of more than 1,000 people in each of the selected countries between March 19 and April 13.

In past surveys, Pew found that confidence in Bin Laden to do the right thing had plummeted before his death. In Jordan, those numbers fell from 61% to 24% between 2005 and 2006, likely reduced by Al Qaeda suicide attacks in Amman, the Jordanian capital. By last year, only 13% of Jordanian Muslims were confident in Bin Laden.

His support level also fell markedly in Indonesia, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories from 2003 to 2011. But even with his popularity dropping, his backing remained significant in some areas: More than a third of Muslims polled in the Palestinian territories in 2011 said they had confidence in Bin Laden.

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Photo: Pakistanis in February watch demolition of the compound where Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was slain last year in the town of Abbottabad. Credit: Aamir Qureshi / AFP/Getty Images

Australia to mostly end Afghan mission next year

As the U.S. and its allies refine plans to reduce their troop levels in Afghanistan and turn combat operations over to Afghans, Australia has announced that it will pull most of its forces out next year.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the move Tuesday, under which most of Australia’s 1,550 troops are likely to be back home by the end of 2013.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization plans to finish the transfer to Afghan control by the end of 2014. U.S. officials announced in February that Afghans would take over the lead combat role next year, and that American troops would shift their focus to training and advising the Afghans.

That February announcement came just a week after French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he would remove all of his country’s combat troops next year, a year earlier than planned. Sarkozy’s leading challenger in his reelection bid, Francois Hollande, has pledged to pull troops out even faster.

U.S. officials downplayed the significance of Australia’s actions. But public support for the war is falling in many countries, and in recent months U.S. officials have sought ways of heading off a push by allies to go home.    

Australia has far fewer troops on the ground than other powers  -- the U.S. has about 90,000 and Britain about 9,500. But experts say its action could threaten the political cover that has allowed countries to commit troops to an increasingly unpopular mission.

“Every little crack in this dike creates a danger of the whole thing bursting,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “If individual nations start defecting, the public in all these countries are going to say, ‘If these guys can do it, we can too.’”

Fifty countries are involved in the coalition in Afghanistan, though some have only a handful of soldiers and others have pulled out combat forces completely. Canada bowed out last summer. Dutch troops left in 2010. Britain is under domestic pressure to reduce its troop presence. Even Ireland, with only seven soldiers there, has faced calls to get out.

Germany, which has the third-largest force among the allies, has suggested it may take more time, not less, to finish the job. During a trip to Afghanistan last month, Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wasn’t sure whether Germany would be able to pull out by 2014, implying that it might take longer.

Several other countries still have sizable forces on the ground: Nearly 4,000 Italian troops and roughly 2,500 Polish forces were committed to the Afghan mission as of January, according to the International Security Assistance Force. Close behind are Romania and Turkey, each with more than 1,800.

Poland, whose president has complained about the costs of the Afghan mission in the past, has pledged to keep forces there through 2014, the news agency Agence France-Presse reported last month. Romanian media recently reported forces would stay through the first half of 2013 before handing off responsibility to Afghans.

The number of U.S. troops, which peaked at about 100,000, will drop to 68,000 this year. Though President Obama has insisted that a “robust” U.S. force will remain through the end of the year, what happens in 2013 and beyond is unclear. U.S. officials say some American troops are likely to remain beyond 2014, targeting Al Qaeda and its allies.

Next month, NATO will meet in Chicago to discuss how to proceed in Afghanistan. 

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Photo: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard meets members of the 1st Mentoring Task Force during her October 2010 visit to the multinational base at Tarin Kowt in southern Afghanistan. Credit: Raymond Vance / AFP/Getty Images

 

Gunfire across Syrian border kills two in Turkish refugee camp

This story has been updated. See the note below.

REPORTING FROM BEIRUT -- Gunmen fired across the Syrian border into a refugee camp in Turkey on Monday, killing two camp residents and wounding at least four others, while gunfire along the Syrian border with Lebanon killed a television cameraman.

Syrian activists blamed the gunfire into the Kilis camp in Turkey on Syrian forces.

At least 15 other people were wounded outside the facility as they were fleeing Syria into Turkey, the activists said.

Clashes between Syrian forces and Free Syrian Army rebels are taking place regularly during the night along the Turkish-Syrian border, activists told The Times. However, this reportedly was the first known incident of direct fire at a refugee camp.

"There were clashes in the border area between FSA and the regular army," said an activist at the camp who requested to be identified only as Tariq. "It started around 3 a.m. We hear gunfire every night. But it is the first time they directly fire at the camp.”

Iran nuclear talks imperiled by dispute with Turkey

REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON -- A war of words between Turkish and Iranian leaders intensified Thursday, threatening to delay or even scuttle a new round of talks between Iran and world powers, and raising fresh doubt about whether Tehran will bargain over its disputed nuclear program.

One day after Iranian leaders ruled out talks in Istanbul next week because of Turkey’s position on the Syrian uprising, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Iran of dishonesty.

“It is necessary to act honestly,” Erdogan said at a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, according to Reuters. The Iranians “continue to lose prestige in the world because of a lack of honesty.”

The broadside marked a remarkable turnabout for Erdogan, who has worked hard for years to cultivate  ties with Tehran. He has repeatedly taken Iran’s side in its dispute with the West over its nuclear development efforts.

Erdogan’s comments suggested that Iran, which has few allies on the nuclear issue, is becoming even more isolated. And it also points to how the growing unrest in Syria is dangerously splitting the Middle East.

Officials of the European Union, who are trying to set up the talks with Iran next week, said no decision has been reached on the date and place. A White House spokesman said the Obama administration views jockeying over the site as a “sideshow” and that the issue may still be resolved.

But some diplomats close to the issue acknowledged that the outbursts this week have made Istanbul an unlikely choice, and that it may be difficult to find another venue in time to meet the target date of April 13-14.

Some diplomats said the dispute is the latest of many signs that the Iranian government is in no mood to give ground on the nuclear issue, despite growing pressure from economic sanctions and the threat of Israeli military strikes.

Although Iran said in a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton that it is ready to discuss the program, Iran has shown little other indication that it is ready to cooperate. It has continued to resist pressure from the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog agency to provide more information on its nuclear sites.

Iran has suggested several other possible meeting  sites, including Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, Syria,  and China. But China has been reluctant, and diplomats said Baghdad, Beirut and Damascus are unlikely choices because of security issues. Another possibility is Geneva, where talks were held in 2009.

Cancellation of this round of talks would not be totally unexpected.  Many diplomats have been pessimistic about the prospects for this round, and were saying that it could take months for the tightening web of economic sanctions to inflict enough damage to force Iran to negotiate.

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Photo: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of parliament at a meeting Tuesday in Ankara. Credit: Adem Altan / AFP/Getty Images