ISTANBUL: Turkey will no longer hold high-level talks with neighboring Greece, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday amid rising tensions between the traditional rivals.
Ankara resumed negotiations with Athens last year following a five-year break to address differences over a range of issues such as mineral exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and rival claims in the Aegean Sea.
“We broke off our high-level strategy council meetings with Greece,” Erdogan told a meeting of his party’s lawmakers in Ankara, adding: “Don’t you learn any lessons from history? Don’t try to dance with Turkey.”
The talks had made little headway, but were a means for the two countries to air out their grievances without resorting to a potential armed standoff as had occurred as recently as two years ago.
Erdogan’s pivot on the talks appeared to have been triggered last week when he signaled his displeasure at comments made by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis during a trip to the US
Erdogan said Mitsotakis “no longer exists” for him after accusing the Greek leader of trying to block Turkey’s acquisition of F-16 fighter planes.
Erdogan also commented on Turkey’s objection to Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Ankara has complained the Nordic states harbor terror suspects and arm a group in Syria it accuses of being an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK that has waged a 38-year insurgency inside Turkey.
“NATO is a security organization, not a support organization for terrorist organizations,” he said.
The US and EU have categorized the PKK as a terror group. However, its Syrian wing, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, has played a leading role in the US-led fight against the Daesh group.
Erdogan said those who tried to legitimize the PKK with “letter tricks” were “deceiving themselves, not us.”
The president added that Turkey would not change its stance on the Swedish and Finnish NATO application without seeing “binding documents” demonstrating a hardened approach to those Ankara considers terrorists.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told a news conference in Stockholm that she’s looking forward to “further constructive meetings” with Turkey to “sort out any issues or misunderstandings that there might be.”
Sweden has a significant Kurdish diaspora and most of Ankara’s complaints about support for “terrorists” seem directed there. Finland, meanwhile, has a Kurdish-speaking population of around 15,000.
Regarding a new cross-border military operation in Syria, Erdogan said Turkey was “entering a new phase” in its goal to create a 30-kilometer (19-mile) buffer zone south of the frontier.
The territory is controlled by a Syrian Kurdish administration and Ankara says it has been used to launch attacks on Turkey.
Erdogan singled out the towns of Tall Rifat and Manbij as targets Turkey will be “clearing of terrorists.” Both lie west of the Euphrates river while the main Kurdish-controlled region is to the east.
Turkey breaks off high-level talks with Greece as rift grows
https://arab.news/z4kt7
Turkey breaks off high-level talks with Greece as rift grows
- Ankara resumed negotiations with Athens last year following a five-year break to address differences
- “We broke off our high-level strategy council meetings with Greece,” Erdogan told a meeting of his party’s lawmakers in Ankara
Lebanon central bank seeks to recuperate embezzled funds to bolster liquidity, governor says
- The central bank had filed a criminal complaint against an unnamed former official of the central bank
- Souaid said the bank would become a primary plaintiff in the state’s investigation against Forry Associates
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s central bank will seek the repayment of public funds embezzled by at least one former central bank official and by lawyers and commercial bankers, to help guarantee its liquidity, Central Bank Governor Karim Souaid said on Thursday.
Souaid did not name Riad Salameh, the former central bank governor whose 30-year term ended in disgrace amid investigations into whether he embezzled more than $300 million between 2002 and 2015.
Instead Souaid told reporters that the central bank had filed a criminal complaint against an unnamed former official of the central bank, a former banker and a lawyer over alleged illicit enrichment through misuse of public funds.
He said the operations were carried out through four offshore shell companies in the Cayman Islands that he did not name.
COORDINATING WITH FRENCH INVESTIGATORS
Souaid said the bank would become a primary plaintiff in the state’s investigation against Forry Associates, suspected of receiving commissions from commercial banks and transferring them out of the country.
Forry is controlled by Salameh’s brother, Raja. Both Raja and Riad Salameh deny wrongdoing.
The pair are under investigation in France, Germany, Switzerland and other countries over the alleged embezzlement. Souaid said he would travel to France to meet with the investigators this month “to exchange highly sensitive information held by the French authorities.”
Souaid would not say how many people in total were suspected of involvement in the scheme or the full sum now thought to have been embezzled.
“Our mission is to pursue these individuals and entities, seek their conviction, and seize their movable and immovable assets and the proceeds of their illicit activities to ensure liquidity for the rightful owners, first and foremost the depositors,” he said.
A Lebanese source familiar with the central bank’s new measures said they were prompted by lots of evidence — both new material uncovered in the central bank’s records and other evidence made available from external investigators.
The source said the bank’s leadership suspected Salameh was aided in his scheme by other members of the institution.
Salameh was detained for nearly 13 months over the alleged financial crimes committed during his tenure, and was released last September after posting a record bail of more than $14 million.
He remains in Lebanon under a travel ban.
