This article by DESMOND BUTLER at TownHall.com explains many of the issues between the U.S. and Turkey that are making our diplomatic ties with them so very difficult to navigate. It's not a long article, but it lays out the dangers pretty well. I haven't posted excerpts, because there are too many important points mentioned, it's hard to pick just one or two. It's worth reading the whole thing.
In other recent news from Turkey:
ODP, Sixth Party in Turkish Parliament
Independent MP Ufuk Uras joined the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ODP) bringing the number of the political parties represented in the new Turkish parliament to six. Uras, a leftist, was ODP’s former leader. He had resigned from his party prior to the general elections to run as an independent, thus overcoming the barrier of the necessary 10% threshold for political parties. Yesterday, Uras joined his party (ODP) again.
While only two parties (AKP and CHP) were represented in the previous parliament, July 22 general elections have produced a wider representation in the legislature.
The current distribution in the 550 member parliament is as follows:
AKP: 341; CHP: 99; MHP: 70; DTP: 20; DSP: 13; ODP: 1; Independents: 5; Vacant (due to the death of a MHP MP): 1
Source: Sabah, Turkish Daily News, Turkey, August 7, 2007
(bold emphasis mine) Hopefully this new more diverse parliament will ease some of the tensions that the previous parliament created.
I can only wonder at what the name "Ufuk Uras" sounds like in Turkish. I don't know how one would pronounce it in English on radio or TV, if the need arose. He has his own website at: www.ufukuras.net.
You can click here to see a compilation of this and other posts I've done about Turkey.
No comments:
Post a Comment