Iran Starts Litigation to Release $1,6 Billion Frozen Assets in Luxemburg.

Iran Starts Litigation to Release $1,6 Billion Frozen Assets in Luxemburg. (Fars).

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi announced that the country has started legal proceedings to release its $1.6bln frozen assets in Luxemburg.

"The money belongs to the Central Bank of Iran and was in Europe during the sanctions era and we couldn't access it due to the sanctions," Takht Ravanchi told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday.

Noting that Luxemburg blocked the Iranian account before the start of the nuclear talks in 2013, he said, "The money is in Europe and this is not a new development."

"The Central Bank's lawyers are in contact with the Luxemburg company (which has blocked Iran's money) and are making the necessary consultations to find access to the money," Takht Ravanchi said.

He explained that the money was frozen in Luxemburg after an approval in the US to freeze Tehran's assets and the extension of the same approval to other states as a result of the antagonistic moves made by certain anti-Iran elements.

In a relevant development last year, Tehran lodged a complaint with the International Court of Justice in the Hague against a court ruling by the US Supreme Court which authorized the transfer of $2 billion of Tehran's frozen assets to the families of the victims of a 1983 bombing in Beirut.

"The US courts have issued illegal rulings and said that the properties should be provided to the Americans and the families of those people killed in Lebanon and it is not clear what the Americans did in Lebanon (at the time) and how the issue is related to Iran," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in June.

"We shouldn’t remain silent vis a vis this event and we officially filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice yesterday and will pursue the case until attaining results," he added.

RELATED: 

High-ranking officials of Iran and Luxembourg have signed an agreement to support investments and improve banking ties.

'Poor' Greece to become the 'refugee dump' of the European Union?

'Poor' Greece to become the 'refugee dump' of the European Union? (AA).

The European Union's executive said on Thursday that member states should be allowed to send some asylum-seekers back to Greece from mid-March, in a step Brussels hopes will help restore the bloc's migration policies, which collapsed under a mass influx last year.


Under EU rules, the first country of entry is responsible for handling an asylum claim, but that system broke down last year in Greece, the main gateway to Europe for more than a million refugees and migrants.

Unable to cope, Greece let many of them pass through on their own to Germany and other wealthy EU states in defiance of the bloc's rules. That led countries along the route gradually to close their borders, stranding many in Greece, which struggled to offer them proper shelter.

The European Commission on Thursday said Greece has improved in hosting and registering arriving asylum-seekers.

It recommended that EU states be allowed to send back to Greece asylum-seekers who enter the bloc that way and make it deeper into Europe from mid-March onwards. The recommendation does not apply to those who have already made that journey.

"This will provide further disincentives against irregular entry and secondary movements, and is an important step for the return to a normally functioning ... system," the Commission's deputy head, Frans Timmermans.

The bloc's asylum policy and its zone of internal free travel both collapsed last year as an uncontrolled flow of migrants and refugees triggered bitter disputes between EU states on how to handle them.

These disputes remain unresolved and more than 62,000 people are still in Greece, even though an EU agreement with Turkey in March reduced the arrivals to a trickle.

The failure is in large part due to reluctance by EU states to take in people from Greece and Italy to help process their asylum requests and ease the burden on the two frontline states.

So far, fewer than 8,200 people have been moved from these two Mediterranean countries to other EU states under a plan that was supposed to cover 160,000 people and which expires next September. The Commission called on EU states to step up.

"Our aim is to relocate all those in Italy and Greece who are eligible for relocation within the next year," said the bloc's migration chief, Dimitris Avramopoulos.

Brussels put additional conditions on returning people beyond March, saying Greece should give individual assurances of fair treatment for any returnees and that unaccompanied children not be sent back at all.

Obligatory quotas on refugees are now the focus of a tug of war between EU states seeking to reform their troubled common asylum rules.

The Commission said arrivals from Turkey to Greece stood at an average of 92 people a day since March, compared to thousands that were making at times making it in a single day before the deal with Ankara. It said 1,187 people have been deported from Greece to Turkey since March 2016.


Under the deal with Turkey, which looks fragile now due to a breakdown in ties following Ankara's crackdown in the wake of a botched military coup in July, Brussels also said it had spent 677 million euros of the 3 billion promised to help Syrian refugees living on Turkish soil.

Video - Final Statement Geert Wilders at his Trial, 23 Nov. 2016

Tehran says not to authorize the European Union to open an office in Iran.

Tehran says not to authorize the European Union to open an office in Iran. (Taz).

Iran will not authorize the European Union to open an office in Tehran, said Human Rights Staff Chief Mohammad Javad Larijani in reference to a recent EU strategy resolution on Iran.

Such an office will be a “house of corruption, and the Judiciary will not allow such a thing,” he said, ISNA news agency reported October 26.

“The report has many problems,” Larijani said, adding, “The EU is not entitled to tell us we have to mend ourselves.”

The statements come a day after the Iranian Foreign Ministry hailed the EU’s resolution on “normalization of ties with Iran.”


“This issue [passing the resolution] demonstrates the positive will of the EU towards expansion and deepening of bilateral ties with Iran in all spheres,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said.

Luxembourg foreign minister calls for Hungary to be booted from EU.

Luxembourg foreign minister calls for Hungary to be booted from EU. (SofiaGlobe).

Tuesday’s edition of Die Welt newspaper carried an interview with the foreign minister of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, in which he called for Hungary to be “temporarily, or in the worst case, permanently” excluded from the European Union.

“We cannot accept that the basic values of the European Union are being massively violated,” Asselborn said in the article.

 “Anyone, such as Hungary, who builds fences against war refugees, or who infringes on the freedom of the press or the independence of the justice system” should be excluded.


Hungary has been one of Europe’s most outspoken critics of taking in refugees from conflict areas such as Syria. The nation, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has taken several steps to keep refugees out, including building fences along its borders. Hmmm.....So it's OK To violate human rights for 'Islamist' Turkey, and Iran, but not for Hungary? More here at DieWelt

Obama 'admin' allows South Korea to do Iran trade in euros.

Obama 'admin' allows South Korea to do Iran trade in euros. (Iranfrontpagenews).

Financial transactions are currently conducted in the local won currency between the two countries because US sanctions prohibit dollar-based trade with Iran.

Iran prefers a payment system in euros but South Koreans say it is impossible because they have to convert payments into dollars which could go against US law.

According to Korean media reports, the US government has indicated its readiness to allow payments in euro with Iran and Seoul will start trial run in the new system as early as next month.

The euro-based payment system will allow Korean financial institutions to make monetary transactions in euro via European banks as intermediaries, news reader and mobile content distribution platform Pulse reported.

“Under the system, when Korean companies would send money to European banks that would exchange won into euro before transferring the money to Iranian banks,” it said.

The new system will facilitate monetary transactions between Iran and South Korea which signed $45.6 billion of project deals in May and accelerate their revival of trade relations which shriveled under sanctions.


According to Pulse, South Korean companies have been under compliance of US sanctions and Seoul still needs to confer with Washington about the scope of reviving trade and launching new business ventures in Iran.

Iranian Official Denies Mogherini’s 'Secret' Letter to Zarif.

Iranian Official Denies Mogherini’s 'Secret' Letter to Zarif. (Iranfrontpage).

An official at Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied reports that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has received a secret letter from European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherin.

Speaking to Tasnim on Sunday May 5, the official made it clear that no such letter exists.

It came after rumours went around that Mogherini had sent Zarif a secret letter, saying the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) has lived up to all of its commitments under a lasting nuclear deal with Iran, and that the outstanding problems in financial and banking ties with Tehran have nothing to do with their commitments under the accord.

While the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (also known as the P5+1 or E3+3) came into force in January, some Iranian officials complain about the US failure to fully implement the accord.

In an interview with Tasnim in April, Mogherini said the EU has been holding talks with the US to remove the obstacles in the way of banks trying to get into Iran after implementation of the nuclear deal. Hmmmm.....We all know EU politicians never lie.

Quoting materials from Iran Front Page is permitted only if the source is mentioned by name.

EU-Turkey 'deal' not legally binding, says EP legal chief.

EU-Turkey 'deal' not legally binding, says EP legal chief. (EUObserver).

The EU-Turkey deal was "nothing more than a press communique", the lawyer said.

The legal arm of the European Parliament on Monday (9 May) spoke out against the EU deal with Turkey.

It noted the statement between the two on 18 March is nothing more than a press release, which has no legal bearing.

"This statement was nothing more than a press communique," the parliament lawyer told MEPs in the civil liberties committee. "This statement is not a binding agreement."

He noted the statement came without any signatures and was not published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

"It is very difficult to conclude that both the European Union and Turkey wanted to be legally bound under international law by this declaration," he said.

"It is really a long way from the drafting standards of any international agreement," he said.
Despite the lack of clarity behind the statement, it still conforms to EU law, he noted.

Parliament will still have to sign off on visa-waiver plans and other issues like the budget and the resettlement of people on the one-to-one migrant swap deal. Hmmm.........Who authorized the 6 Billion Euro in aid to Turkey? Read the full story here.

EP stops work on Turkey visa waiver https://t.co/phOrTDLx3t

— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) May 11, 2016

German plot to keep EU army a SECRET till June 23 EXPOSED as plans drawn up in Berlin.

The blind leading the blind.

German plot to keep EU army a SECRET till June 23 EXPOSED as plans drawn up in Berlin. (Express).

Along with judicial, tax and immigration issues, a Euro-army has for long been one of the main irritants of anti-EU campaigners. 

The fact that Germany - the powerhouse of the project - is mooting one so close to the referendum on whether Britain stays or goes is seen as madness by politicians fighting to keep the UK within the group.

Now a white paper has been drawn up by Berlin. Media reports suggest that the Germans wanted to keep its proposals secret until after the June 23 plebiscite but it has now been leaked.

The paper outlines steps to "gradually co-ordinate Europe's patchwork of national militaries and launch permanent cooperation under common structures among the member states."

The initiatives proposed includes strengthening cyberwarfare abilities and relaxing Germany's self-imposed restrictions about deploying troops in peacetime within the country.  This was brought in after 1945 when Nazism was crushed and Germans turned away from militarism.

The draft proposal seeks to end the ban noting the "character and dynamic of current and future security-political threats."  This includes deep-rooted fears in Germany that it could suffer a Paris-style terror strike any time soon.

"German security policy has relevance — also for beyond our country. Germany is willing to join early, decisively and substantially as a driving force in international debates ... to take responsibility and assume leadership," the white paper says.

Moscow’s suspicions of such a move will be compounded by Juncker’s specific statement that forming such a body would make clear to Russia that the EU is “serious about upholding the value of the European Union”.

Juncker insisted the force would not be in competition with Nato, the 28-member alliance which includes most but not all EU countries and which the UK views as the bedrock of western defence cooperation.

“Rather a European army would bring an intensive cooperation in the development and the purchase of military equipment and bring substantial savings,” he added. Read the full story here.

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'Islamist' Sometimes NATO Ally Turkey wants to lead high-level NATO task force in 2021.

Head of Iran’s Human Rights Council Responds to Mogherini: 'EU had NO HR problem expanding Business'

Head of Iran’s Human Rights Council Responds to Mogherini’s Statements: "EU members had no problem with HR to expand expanded economic and military relations with Iran" (Iranfrontpage).

Mizan News – The Head of Iran’s Human Rights Council reacted to Mogherini’s statements on the continuation of human rights sanctions in Isamic Republic of Iran.

As reported by Mizan News, and quoted by the Human Rights Council Information Centre, Dr. Mohammad Javad Larijani emphasized that the Human Rights Council supports Iran’s Foreign Minister regarding Iran’s readiness for human rights negotiations with the European Union.

He said, “We support our Foreign Minister, but planning and enforcing sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s individuals and organizations under the excuse of human rights contraventions is a shameful and unjustifiable action.”

He said that Islamic Republic of Iran will consider such actions as political enmity, “The majority of EU members have expanded economic and military relations in our region without the least consideration of the norms of human rights.

Even worse is that these countries spend millions of dollars equipping or creating dangerous terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra and Ahrar al-sham, all met with absolute silence from the EU. They are the main reasons behind tragedies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Africa – they should be ashamed to think of them.”

He then posed this question: “Doesn’t the EU count these [tragedies] as contraventions of human rights? Don’t they find it necessary to take action in this regard? Unfortunately, applying double standards – along with obvious human rights infractions in the West including racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia – all of this depletes the value of Western human rights claims.”

Concluding his remarks, Larijani said, “Iran and Europe’s human rights negotiations should work to expose these double standards, and to show that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the greatest democracy of the region.”

Quoting materials from Iran Front Page is permitted only if the source is mentioned by name.

Iran calls on EU to confront and force US on nuclear deal implementation.

Iran calls on EU to confront and force US on nuclear deal implementation. (Taz).

Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) of Iran Ali Shamkhani has asked the EU to confront with what he called Washington's "obstruction" of nuclear deal implementation.

In a meeting with the visiting EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini on April 16, Shamkhani underlined that the Europe Union played a pivot role in concluding the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka nuclear deal), Iran's state-run IRINN TV reported.

Shamkhani further said that the achievement needs to be protected and implemented via continues cooperation of the EU.

He argued that the US is seeking to continue its sanctions policy against Iran and is troubling the implementation of the JCPOA, referring to Washington's approach as "undesirable and unconstructive".

Shamkhani further said that if the EU fails to adopt effective action against the US approach, the United States' present course of action will entail negative repercussions for continued cooperation and implementation of mutual commitments under the nuclear deal.

Earlier the same day, Iran's Foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, underlined that the other parties, in particular the US, should in practice fulfill their obligations under the nuclear deal.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Mogherini, Zarif said Washington should do more to remove obstacles to Iran's banking system.

Earlier, Valiollah Seif, the head of Iran's central bank, accused the US and the EU of failing to honor the JCPOA by keeping Iran locked out of the international financial system.


"In general, we are not able to use our frozen funds abroad," Seif said Apr. 15 at the Council on Foreign Relations in the US. Hmmm......Mogherini to the rescue. 

EU[nuchs] surrender to Turkey 'Agrees' on Migrant Crisis Deal

EU[nuchs], surrender to Turkey 'Agrees' on Migrant Crisis Deal. (Novinite)

EU leaders have said an agreement was reached between them and Turkey on a deal that is expected to ease pressure that hundreds of thousands of migrants have been applying on Europe over the past year.

A European Council meeting is taking place on Thursday and Friday, with EU leaders having smoothed out differences before meeting Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on the second day.

Finland's Prime Minister Juha Sipilä was the first EU leader to make the announcement on Twitter, saying the agreement had been reached. An official confirmation has yet to be made by other member states.

It was not immediately clear whether objections by several member states, such as Bulgaria and Cyprus, had been dropped. Bulgaria in particular demands that a deal include stepped up measures at its borders with Turkey, and not only between Turkey and Greece as initially planned.

At a meeting with Davutoglu last week, EU leaders agreed in principle to step up cooperation with Turkey in stemming the migrant flow from Turkey into Europe, with the deal to be finalized at this week's European Council.

Apart from the implementation of the EU-Turkey Action Plan, the EU leaders also agreed on the full application of the Schengen Borders Code, closure of the Western Balkan migrant route and reinforcement of humanitarian assistance to Greece.

The so-called “one-in, one-out” deal foresees the return of all migrants traveling to Greece from Turkey, the rule entering into force on Sunday (March 20) midnight. For each Syrian returned to Turkey, another Syrian already in Turkey will be resettled in the EU.

In exchange for accepting the deal, the EU has proposed to double the financial aid it had previously promised to Turkey from EUR 3 B to EUR 6 B, accelerate the negotiations for Ankara's accession to the EU and provide Turkish citizens with vise-free access to countries from the Schengen Area.

The process of both sending back those who reached Turkey and relocation of Syrian refugees from Turkish camps is to begin over the weekend.

EU leaders say the deal will be implemented in accordance with international law.

Ankara is now expected to submit a budget proposal to inform Brussels about how it intends to spend the money.

A new chapter of Turkey's accession talks with the EU, No. 33 (Budgetary and Financial Affairs), by June.

Hollande vows 'no concessions' to 'Islamist' Turkey on rights, visas in migrant deal.

Hollande vows 'no concessions' to 'Islamist' Turkey on rights, visas in migrant deal. (Yahoo).

French President Francois Hollande said Saturday that the EU must not grant Turkey any concessions on human rights or visas in exchange for guarantees to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

"There cannot be any concessions on the matter of human rights or the criteria for visa liberalisation," Hollande told reporters ahead of the resumption next week of tough negotiations between Turkey and the EU in Brussels.

Hollande spoke after meeting in Paris on Saturday with more than a dozen social democrat leaders from the EU, including Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel.

Turkish whistle blower claims Erdogan Ordered not prevent refugee flow to Europe.

Turkish whistle blower claims Erdogan Ordered not prevent refugee flow to Europe. HT @AbdullahBozkurt

According to insider @fuatavni_f, #Turkey president #Erdogan believes the more refugees flock to Europe, the more money he would ask of #EU

— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) March 12, 2016

Whistleblower @fuatavni_f claims Interior Minister Efkan Ala ordered by #Turkey president #Erdogan to not prevent refugee flow to Europe

— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) March 12, 2016

#Turkey president @RT_Erdogan calls journos who call on @NATO & #EU for action as agents of influence, contractors, acting in espionage

— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) March 11, 2016

#Turkey president spox @ikalin1 scolds retired US envoys, says days of giving orders to #Turkey is over @BPC_Bipartisan

— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) March 11, 2016

The case of Turkey's mysterious disappearing refugees.

The case of Turkey's mysterious disappearing refugees. HT: Balkanist.

It seems nothing short of phenomenal that the European Union has not considered the discrepancy between refugee registration and refugee tracking in its dealings with Turkey—nor the large group of vulnerable individuals fleeing through Turkey from conflicts outside Syria. Frantic negotiations set to continue this weekend will be based around bargaining for Turkey to prevent this large number of Syrian refugees from entering Europe, many of whom are already there. Read the full story here.

Doubts arise over Turkish refugee numbers while the EU is being strong armed into an impossible deal https://t.co/ERzR3VXoU1

— Peter Nut (@nipped) March 9, 2016

Turkey already blowing up EU deal on refugees, saying it won’t take back migrants & refugees from Greek islands.

Turkey already blowing up EU deal on refugees, saying it won’t take back migrants & refugees from Greek islands. HT :  KeepTalkingGreece. (Yahoo).

The EU-Turkey deal is getting better day by day… Turkey will not take back migrants and refugees already on Greek islands under a deal proposed to European Union leaders at a crunch summit this week, Ankara’s EU affairs minister said Thursday.

Minister Volkan Bozkir was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying :

Turkey would take back “tens of thousands” of migrants, “not hundreds of thousands or millions”, and they would “not include the existing refugees on the Greek islands”.

Bozkir said the offer did not include migrants already on the Greek islands and sounded a note of caution about how many people Turkey, which already hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees, would take back.

“It would be more accurate to say the number of migrants to be returned to Turkey in the event of a readmission agreement with the EU will be thousands or tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands or millions,” Bozkir added.

A week before the crucial EU Summit on the Refugee and Migration Crisis, Minister Bozkir apparently wants to limit the number of migrants Turkey will take from the Greek islands.

As for the refugees on the Greek islands… apparently he wants to take none.
Bozkir’s statements quoted here. Hmmm.........You can't make deals with dictators and blackmailers. Read the full story here.

"We are giving the keys of Europe to Sultan Erdogan" liberal ALDE leader Guy Verhofstadt.

"We are giving the keys of Europe to Sultan Erdogan" liberal ALDE leader Guy Verhofstadt. (HLN). (ALDEgroup)

"We give the entrance keys to the gates of Europe to the successors of the Ottoman Empire: to Erdogan, Sultan Erdogan."

 During today's debate on the EU-Turkey agreement, ALDE leader Guy Verhofstadt voiced strong criticism:

"We need practical arrangements with Turkey, but with this deal we try to outsource our problems. We give the entrance keys to the gates of Europe to the successors of the Ottoman Empire: to Erdogan, Sultan Erdogan."

Agreement goes against Geneva Convention

"Europeans will block all refugees who are looking for protection and it will be Turkey and Erdogan who will decide on an individual basis who is a political refugee and who is not, who can enter in Europe and who not."

"I find this hugely problematic. This is a type of collective 'refoulement' forbidden by the Convention of Geneva."

" Turkey has not fully adhered to the Geneva Convention and is rapidly falling into autocracy."

Agreement will not reduce smuggling

"This agreement will dramatically reduce the legal entry points into the Union,  forcing desperate refugees to look for other routes. We will see again the revival of the Lampedusa route. A new Malta route. A new Albanian route. A new Bulgarian route."

ALDE Vice President Sophie in 't Veld said: 

"The EU-Turkey deal is not a sign of strength, but a sign of weakness of the European Union. This deal is morally reprehensible. the fruit of short-term thinking, not a solution for the long term. Apparently the national leaders prefer a dubious deal with an authoritarian leader, rather than to show courage, vision and to take responsibility for a fully-fledged and sustainable European asylum policy."

Three pillars necessary to get a grip on the crisis

Verhofstadt urged the Council to roll out a European strategy based on three pillars:

1.    A Common border and coast guard - to manage our borders: To register the arrival of the refugees, to make the distinction between real refugees and economic migrants and to manage the reception centres.

2.    Use the 3 billion directly in the camps in Turkey. Not to give this to Turkish authorities or to international organizations but directly to the refugees who have to live today with 7 dollars

3.    An EU asylum and migration policy, including a relocation mechanism: "What we do with this deal is not changing or abolishing the Dublin regulation but it puts Turkey inside Dublin." 

'EU Ready to Betray Greece as it Did Czechoslovakia in 1938'

'EU Ready to Betray Greece as it Did Czechoslovakia in 1938' (SP).

"The extraordinary March 7 summit on migration issues in Brussels suggests that [the continent's leaders] have realized, belatedly, what's going on. Convened on the initiative of the German chancellor, who has become the de facto leader of the continent, the summit focused on two priorities: an agreement with Turkey urging Ankara to hold back some of the refugees, and the closure of the migration's Balkan route."

As far as the first question is concerned, Teas argues that it is completely legitimate for Europe to demand that Turkey keep a portion of the refugees it accepts, since "one of the overriding principles of asylum law is that the victims of persecution do not have the right to choose the place where they are held," and must settle in the first place where are made safe.

"As for economic migrants, in other words – illegal immigrants, Turkey should not push them into Europe. Ankara's role, under international law and readmission agreements, is to return them to the country from which they came."

At the moment, Teas suggests, "Mr. Erdogan's Turkey seems to be engaged in a showdown with Europe, using a form of blackmail by conditioning its aid to migrants to accession to the EU, which would open it unlimited access to the European labor market and billions in structural funds. Yielding to these conditions would make Europe into Turkey's hostage."

Ultimately, Teas notes, one should not count on Turkey fulfilling its obligations in good faith, in this case, to save Europe, "nor on Greece playing the role of a scapegoat, sacrificing itself on behalf of our continent's collective errors."

"There is only one solution to this drama: Europe, through the governments of its five or six largest states, should, on an equal footing, take its destiny into its own hands." They have a "historical responsibility" to struggle against the smugglers, "those who accumulate fortunes by throwing millions of poor into the sea."

"But is Europe in the face of its current leadership capable of getting out of its suicidal stupor and regaining its political will and respect the rule of law?", Teas asks.

At the moment, he warns, "it doesn't seem to have found the way." And, as far as France is concerned, "given the gravity and severity of the events, May/June 2017 [when France is set to hold its next presidential elections] seems light years away…" Hmmm.....Given all the new 'taxes' levied on the EU population to pay for the Turkish bribes, this can only result in a massive rise in extreme right voters, who in the long run will vote out all these cowardly politicians. Read the full  story here. 

The sight of Europe’s leaders kowtowing to the Turkish president, Erdogan, was sickening.

Translation: The EU Negotiates. 

The sight of Europe’s leaders kowtowing to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was sickening. (TheGuardian).

But all this is nothing compared to the strength of the hand Erdoğan has yet to play. With failed or failing states now in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, the more Turkish democracy fails, the more the west has to support him. And the more the European Commission, in particular, hangs on to the conceit that Turkey will one day join the EU, the more it strengthens forces in Europe who want to leave the union altogether.

Transcripts leaked to a Greek website last month appeared to show Erdoğan overtly threatening Europe with an uncontrolled flood of refugees unless he is given money and rapid accession to the EU. Although they were given credence by some news agencies, the transcripts have the ring of black propaganda of the kind Erdoğan’s newest enemy, the Russian secret service, is adept at producing.

Real or fabricated, the tragedy is that they cannot be far from the truth: Europe is already turning a blind eye to the erosion of democracy, to collusion with people traffickers, and to military action against civilians.

What happens next must be done calmly and proportionately.

The citizens of the EU have a right, first of all, to demand honesty from their own governments, and the commission itself. The EC’s “progress report” in November was an exercise in hypocrisy: while noting the slide to despotism, censorship and brutality, the report praised Turkey for its economic progress. Imagine what the same rapporteurs might have made of an accession request by Mussolini’s Italy.

The critical question is not, as the racists of eastern Europe ask, “Can 75 million Muslims join Europe?”

It is: can a state so fundamentally in breach of the Copenhagen criteria for EU membership remain in any kind of accession process?The answer must clearly be no – and once Erdoğan is told so, the EU has a duty to offer a programme of support to the secular democratic forces that need to come to power in order for accession talks to be resumed.

 The commission – which had no problem telling Greeks which way to vote in July 2015 – would surely have no problem supporting democratic parties against repressive ones in Turkey. Read the full story here.

EU Making `Historic Mistake' in Turkey Deal by selling out Human rights Kurdish Leader Warns.

EU Making `Historic Mistake' in Turkey Deal by selling out Human rights Kurdish Leader Warns. (Bloomberg).

The European Union is making an historic mistake in its haste to conclude a refugee deal with Turkey, overlooking human rights violations that risk plunging the bloc’s largest membership candidate into civil war, said Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the nation’s most prominent pro-Kurdish party.

The EU is turning a blind eye to an opposition crackdown in Turkey that’s polarizing society and complicating efforts to find a political solution to the nation’s Kurdish conflict, Demirtas said in an impromptu interview en route to Brussels. European leaders are expected to ink an agreement with Turkey on Monday that will offer faster EU membership negotiations and visa-free travel in exchange for stopping refugees from crossing the country to enter Europe.

"The EU is trying so hard not to upset Erdogan, and that’s a big mistake," Demirtas said, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "The world has gone very silent on what’s happening in Turkey, and that’s saddening and also short-sighted. If the war in Turkey continues like this, you’re also going to have refugees from Turkey." Hmmm.....The EU cowardly leadership has already shown in the past with Iran that human rights are worthless for them. Read the full story here.

#Turkey wishlist, via @alexebarker: another €3bn, visa liberalsiation quicker, 1 refugee to EU for every 1 returned https://t.co/VSN4WptKQx

— Peter Spiegel (@SpiegelPeter) March 7, 2016