MESOPOTAMIA KURDISTAN DAILY INDEPENDENT NEWSSERVICE

Mezopotamian Development Society (Registered) GERMANY

THE MOST REQUESTED DAILY & ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWSSERVICE ON KURDISTAN FOR THE HIGHLY INVOLVED PEOPLE – email : mesop@online.de – Watch our website : www.mesop.de

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MESOP TODAYS HEADLINE : CHANGING OF THE GUARDS !  IRAN – DAMASKUS – ANKARA

Ali Akbar Velayati commented on the July 15 coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: “Most interestingly Syrian President Bashar Assad was among those who actually expressed support for Erdoğan’s government and condemned the coup.” www.mesop.de

 

MESOP TODAYS RELEVANT TWEETS & SHORT CUTS

MESOP : CHARLES LISTER’S POINT OF VIEW

Charles Lister@Charles_Lister 4h4 hours ago  – FWIW – #Aleppo offensive is being heavily backed by #Turkey whose role seemingly minimally affected by failed coup.

#Aleppo opposition offensive began 4th stage today & has made discernible progress; now aims to break siege & impose new one on city’s west. www.mesop.de

 

MESOP TODAYS OPINION : Is Maliki plotting return to power with Kurdistan visit? By Author Mohammed A. Salih  – AL MONITOR

4 August 2016 – In a scene surprising to many, a smiling Nouri al-Maliki disembarked from an Iraqi airliner July 18 in the city of Sulaimaniyah and was received by senior officials from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two major parties in Iraqi Kurdistan. Maliki said his visit was merely a normal meeting with PUK and Gorran (Movement of Change) leaders in the wake of the two parties’ having formed an alliance earlier this year. Many also noted, however, that the trip was taking place amid unconfirmed reports of his hopes of taking back the premiership from Haider al-Abadi, a fellow Islamic Dawa member and that party’s leader. General elections are due to be held in 2018. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76702

 

MESOP TODAYS OPION: By Efraim Inbar – Begin/Sadat Center Tel Aviv

The Destruction of Islamic State is a Strategic Mistake

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 352, August 2, 2016

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not its destruction. A weak but functioning IS can undermine the appeal of the caliphate among radical Muslims; keep bad actors focused on one another rather than on Western targets; and hamper Iran’s quest for regional hegemony.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently gathered defense ministers from allied nations to plan what officials hope will be the decisive stage in the campaign to eradicate the Islamic State (IS) organization. This is a strategic mistake. – Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76710

 

MESOP CASE : PROSECUTING ASSAD –  WAR CRIMES, MASS ATROCITIES & U.S. POLICY

Featuring Wa’el Alzayat, Stephen J. Rapp, and Ben Taub – PolicyWatch 2667 – August 5, 2016

On August 2, Wa’el Alzayat, Stephen J. Rapp, and Ben Taub addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Alzayat is the senior policy advisor on Iraq and Syria to U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations Samantha Power, and a lecturer at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. Rapp, the former U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, currently serves as a Global Prevention Fellow at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide and a distinguished fellow at The Hague Institute for Global Justice. Taub is a contributing writer with the New Yorker, where he authored the recent articles “The Assad Files” (on documentation tying the regime to mass torture and killings) and “The Shadow Doctors” (on regime targeting of doctors and hospitals). Reporting for “The Assad Files” was facilitated by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Andrew Tabler, the Martin J. Gross Fellow in the Institute’s Program on Arab Politics, served as the event’s moderator. Read all : http://www.mesop.de/?p=76729

 

NORTH KURDISTAN (TURKEY)

MESOP QUOTATION : Clear words by emancipated revolutionaries of stalinist PKK

“We see life without our leader as being worse than hell. For this reason we are warning (the government): we will make life hell for those making our life hell,” the KCK said. 4 August 2016

 

MESOP : A LIFE WITHOUT CHAIRMAN APO IS ONLY HELL / LONESOME REVOLUTIONARIES WITHOUT THE GREAT LEADER

Kurdish Movement Warns Turkish Government About Öcalan’s Isolation – Kurdish Question

The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the umbrella organisation of the Kurdish Movement, has issued a serious warning to the Turkish government about the continuing isolation of Abdullah Öcalan. “We see life without our leader as being worse than hell. For this reason we are warning (the government): we will make life hell for those making our life hell,” the KCK said. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76704

 

MESOP ; OBAMA’S UNFAVORABLE PUTSCH IN TURKEY / THE QUESTION NOW: WHAT TO DO WITH GUELEN ?

Kerry to make first US visit after failed coup attempt

ISTANBUL – 5 August 2016 – Hurriyet – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to pay a visit to Turkey by the end of August, CNN Türk reported Aug. 4 amid tensions that emerged after Ankara expressed its discontent over the lack of support it received from the West in the wake of the July 15 coup attempt.

During Kerry’s visit, Turkish authorities are expected to express the country’s sensitivities on the issue of the failed coup attempt and reassert its demand for the extradition of Fethullah Gülen, the U.S.-based Islamic scholar believed to have orchestrated the coup attempt, to Turkey. The first U.S. official visit after the coup attempt was paid by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford on Aug. 1.  Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76712

 

“KNOW BETTER WITH MESOP” : PORTRAITS OF ERDOGAN’S MEN

Ibrahim Kalin: Erdoğan’s U.S.-Trained Enforcer – by Stephen Schwartz

Independent Journal Review – August 2, 2016 – Originally published under the title “A US College Helped Train Another “Weaponized” Servant for Islamist Ideology.”

A “weaponized academic” trained in the U.S. has risen to become Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “deputy undersecretary and senior advisor,” yet another servant for Islamist ideology produced by the American Middle East studies industry.

Ibrahim Kalin received his doctorate in Middle East Studies/Islamic Studies from George Washington University and is a senior fellow with the Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) at Georgetown University. He taught at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., from 2002 to 2005. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76708

 

MESOP SPECIAL : ISIS Warlords –  From Nobodies to Rich Men With Sex Slaves

By Paul Wood – 2016-08-04  THE SPECTATOR – At the base, the emir, or commander, was so delighted to have two infidel prisoners that he got on to his radio to spread the good news. ‘All units, all units,’ he gleefully proclaimed: ‘We have two journalists. Thanks be to God.’ He ordered them to be handcuffed, blindfolded and taken to jail. It was the start of an ordeal of constant beatings and death threats that came to an end ten months later when the Kurds arranged a prisoner swap. Some time after they arrived in the cell, a new inmate joined them. It was the emir who had ordered their detention. It seems he had been declaring rich local Muslims to be infidels in order to steal their money — but had overplayed his hand and was now in his own jail. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76716

 

EAST KURDISTAN (IRAN)

“KNOW BETTER WITH MESOP” – Tehran’s Latest Show of Support for Syria’s Assad

August 05 – By Scott Lucas – eaworldview – In its latest show of support for Syria’s President Assad, Iran has sent a leading MP to Damascus.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of Parliament’s National Security Commission, met Assad on Thursday. A coordinated statement, carried by Iranian and Syrian State media, declared the two men agreed that the “insistence of some countries on irrational policies and supporting terrorism…is not in the interest of those countries and has helped the spread of terrorism and regional insecurity”.

Assad insisted that “the region’s nations will stand against these policies to tackle terrorism and maintain their independence”.

Boroujerdi endorsed the view with the declaration that a victory for the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war could “re-draw the map of the region“. The Iranian-Syrian statement proclaimed: Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76721

 

MESOP : SPLENDID OBAMA !  – Obama administration denies Iran cash payment was a ransom

WASHINGTON | By Lesley Wroughton – REUTERS  – 5 Aug 2016 –  U.S. President Barack Obama answers a question as he and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong hold a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, U.S. August 2, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst – U.S. President Barack Obama answers a question as he and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong hold a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, U.S. August 2, 2016.The Obama administration said on Wednesday that $400 million in cash paid to Iran soon after the release of five Americans detained by Tehran was not ransom as some Republicans have charged. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76719

 

MESOP MIDDLE EAST

MESOP BACKGROUNDER :  Israeli-Russian Relations –   Respect  & Suspect

By Eran Etzion | Aug 03, 2016 – Middle East Institute –  (…) In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are walking a tight rope of joint and conflicting interests in Syria, in the region and vis-a-vis the United States and the European Union. Read all http://www.mesop.de/?p=76723

 

THE GERMAN KURDISH CHAPTER

MESOP REPORT : Auslieferung Fetullah Gülens –  Erdogan sollte das Kleingedruckte lesen

Der türkische Präsident Erdogan fordert die Festnahme des in Amerika lebenden Predigers Fetullah Gülen. Die Amerikaner fordern Beweise und wiegeln ab. – 05.08.2016, von Andreas Ross, Washington

Seit 1979 regelt ein umfassendes amerikanisch-türkisches Abkommen, unter welchen Umständen die Länder mutmaßliche Straftäter aneinander ausliefern. Unermüdlich verweisen amerikanische Regierungsvertreter auf diesen Vertrag, wenn es um Fetullah Gülen geht. Der türkische Prediger lebt seit 1999 mit einer dauerhaften Aufenthaltsgenehmigung auf einem Anwesen in den Poconos-Bergen von Pennsylvania. Volltext http://www.mesop.de/?p=76714