Headlines:
- Turkey’s President Calls for New Election After Government Deadline Passes
- Egypt Launches New Blog to Image Abroad
- US Asks Uzbekistan to Join Anti-Islamic State Coalition
- Soon Pakistan Could have More Nuclear Weapons than Every Country Except America and Russia
Turkey’s President Calls for New Election After Government Deadline Passes
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office says the Turkish leader has called for a new election one day after a deadline passed for forming a new government following a June election. A presidential statement on Monday didn’t say when the new elections would be held, but Erdogan has previously said they were likely to take place on 1 November. Erdogan was expected to re-appoint the prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, to form an interim government during a meeting on Tuesday. The Islamic-rooted ruling party, which Erdogan founded, lost its parliamentary majority in June for the first time since 2002. Davutoglu’s efforts to form a coalition alliance failed last week, setting the stage for Erdogan to declare repeat elections he is reported to have favored all along. Erdogan is thought to have pressed for new elections to give the ruling party the chance to win back its majority and rule alone. Turkey faces new elections as it is grappling with a sharp increase in violence between security forces and Kurdish rebels and is more deeply involved in the US-led campaign against Islamic State group extremists. The Turkish lira has dropped to record lows against the dollar amid the political uncertainty. More than 100 people – mostly soldiers and police – have been killed since July in renewed conflict between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK, and the security forces, which has wrecked a two-and-a-half-year-old peace process with the Kurds. [Source: The Guardian]
It is increasingly becoming clear that Erdogan has used the threat of ISIS and PKK after the Suruç bombing incident to rally people around AKP and call for early elections. In this way, Erdogan is exploiting the security situation to boost the chances of AKP to win with a majority in parliament. Meanwhile, the Syrian people suffering under Assad and the Kurds facing renewed oppression inside Turkey are forced to bear the brunt of Erdogan’s policies.
Egypt Launches New Blog to Image Abroad
The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched Sunday a new blog to communicate the situation in Egypt and demonstrate the country’s foreign policy trends, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid announced Sunday. “The launch of the new blog comes within the ministry’s integrated strategy to strengthen and diversify ways to communicate with the outside world, especially in light of the increasing and distorted media campaigns adopted by some western media on Egypt’s economic, security and political situation,” Abu Zeid was quoted by Youm7 Sunday. The move is the first of its kind since the ministry was established in first half of the 19th century. “This initiative aims to provide an informal platform for diplomats and officials, and equally scholars, academics and thinkers to contribute to debates on Egypt’s foreign policy and to share their comments, thoughts and analyses on Egypt’s role in the region and the world,” Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in the blog’s welcome note. [Source: The Cairo Post]
No matter how hard Sisi tries to change the image of Egypt, his draconian rule despised at home and well documented abroad will always stand in his way. Sisi lies and the routine distortions of extra-judicial killings under his rule will permanently blight his efforts to portray himself in a positive manner.
US Asks Uzbekistan to Join Anti-Islamic State Coalition
The United States said Thursday that it had asked Uzbekistan to join the multinational coalition it leads against Islamic State, saying Central Asia’s most populous state was free to choose a way of contributing to the fight against the militant group. “We have asked Uzbekistan … to join the coalition,” Daniel Rosenblum, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, told reporters during a visit to the Uzbek capital. Uzbekistan, a mainly Muslim nation with a population of 31 million, has been a strategic NATO partner in post-Soviet Central Asia, assisting a US-led war on the purist Taliban movement in neighboring Afghanistan. The US-led coalition hitting Islamic State forces in Syria and Iraq has a military component, apart from efforts to stop a flow of financing to Islamic State, Rosenblum said. The coalition also gathers information about the movement of people across borders and has five or six other “lines of efforts,” Rosenblum said. [Source: Voice of America]
America unwilling to defeat ISIS on its own is forever expanding its coalition by using the group as a threat to regional stability. The latest invitation is to Uzbekistan, which is run by a brutal dictator that has a history of torturing and killing Muslims at home.
Soon Pakistan could have More Nuclear Weapons than Every Country Except America and Russia
At the rate Pakistan is building nuclear weapons, it could have the world’s third-largest nuclear stockpile within five to 10 years, a new report by two American think tanks projects. The study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center suggests that Pakistan, driven by a fear of India, its nuclear-armed nemesis next door, may be building 20 nuclear warheads a year, which could result in the country possessing a total of at least 350 nuclear weapons within a decade. Right now, analysts estimate Pakistan has about 120 nuclear warheads. Some, such as Mansoor Ahmed, a nuclear expert at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, think the new report is “overblown.” Still, if its predictions are proven true, Pakistan will soon have the third-biggest nuclear arsenal on Earth — though still well behind Russia’s 7,500 and America’s 7,100. That means Pakistan would have more nukes than France, China, the U.K., India, ‘Israel’, and North Korea. Today, Pakistan is believed to have the world’s sixth-largest stockpile. “What the world must understand,” Ahmed told the Washington Post, “is that nuclear weapons are part of Pakistan’s belief system.” [Source: The Week]
Currently, it makes little difference to Pakistanis how many nuclear weapons Pakistan possess. This because the Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders are inept at using the country’s nuclear power and capability to ward off Pakistan’s arch enemies like America and India. Contrast this situation with North Korea that hardly possess a couple of nukes— Pyongyang has successfully thwarted American attempts to destabilize North Korea by using the nuclear threat.