ISTANBUL- Anadolu Agency

Turkey‘s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Aug. 30 spoke to EU’s foreign policy chief over the phone over latest developments in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Çavuşoğlu and Josep Borrell discussed regional developments amid heightened tensions between Greece and Turkey over energy exploration, according to diplomatic sources.

Greece has disputed Turkey’s current energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, trying to box in Turkish maritime territory based on small islands near the Turkish coast.

Turkey- the country with the longest coastline on the Mediterranean- has sent out drilling ships to explore for energy on its continental shelf, saying that both Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) have rights in the region.

TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Iran has hit out the U.S. and the EU for harboring the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK) terrorist group, which has murdered thousands of Iranians.

“Aug. 29, the national Day of Fight Against Terrorism, is the time to remember Prz Rajai & PM Bahonar who, 39yrs ago today, were martyred in a bombing by the MEK terrorist group. Despite assassinating 1000s Iranians & fighting alongside Saddam, MEK is sheltered by the US & EU,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a tweet on Saturday, commemorating the national Day of Fight Against Terrorism.

The occasion is named after the 1981 assassination of then president Muhammad Ali Rajaei and prime minister Muhammad Javad Bahonar.
The two and several other officials had convened at the Tehran office of the Iranian prime minister in a meeting of Iran’s Supreme Defense Council when a bomb explosion ripped through the building.

Survivors said an aide, identified as Massoud Kashmiri, had brought a briefcase into the conference room and then left.

Subsequent investigations revealed that Kashmiri was an MKO operative, who had infiltrated the then-prime minister’s office disguised as a state security official.

The MKO has conducted numerous assassinations and bombings against Iranian statesmen and civilians since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where they enjoyed Saddam’s backing.

Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the MKO’s acts of terror.
The anti-Iran cult was on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations until 2012. Major European countries, including France, have also removed it from their blacklists.

The Government has not yet decided if it will nominate two candidates for the post of EU commissioner despite a request from president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to put forward one man and one woman.

                                                    <p class="no_name">Senior Government sources believe it is increasingly likely the Government will nominate one candidate instead with the current Minister for Foreign Affairs <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Simon+Coveney">Simon Coveney</a> seen as the frontrunner.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name"><a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_organisation=Fine+Gael">Fine Gael</a> MEP Mairead McGuinness confirmed on Sunday that she would be interested in succeeding <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Phil+Hogan">Phil Hogan</a> as Ireland’s European Commissioner and suggested it would be “unwise” for the Government not to put forward both male and female candidates for the role.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">A spokeswoman for the Government said that the three party leaders met on Friday to discuss the issue and would meet again on Monday, and there had also been contacts over the weekend.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“It is in everyone’s interest to fill the vacancy as soon as possible but there is a process in <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_location=Brussels">Brussels</a> as well with president and parliament.” </p>
                                                    <h4 class="crosshead">‘Difficult patch’</h4><p class="no_name">Mr Hogan resigned from his position following controversy over his attendance at an Oireachtas golf society dinner and questions around his movements throughout Ireland before and afterwards in apparent breach of Covid-19 guidelines. </p>
                                                                                                        <aside class="related-articles--instream has-3"/><p class="no_name">Speaking on Sunday, Ms McGuinness said she was interested in the role. “My name is in circulation and yes I’m interested in being the commissioner,” she said on the This Week programme on RTÉ Radio 1. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“But, as we all know, the decision is a government’s decision. We’ve been through quite a difficult patch over the last couple of days. Our name in <a class="wpil_keyword_link " href="https://europeantimes.news/category/europe/"  title="Europe" data-wpil-keyword-link="linked">Europe</a> is being spoken of in ways we would rather it wasn’t. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“The president of the commission was very clear that she wants nominations soon so that we can move on from the place we are in. There are a lot of other names there as well, but my name is among them.</p>

                                                    <p class="no_name">“I think we need to listen very carefully to what the president of the commission Ursula von der Leyen has actually said. She wants the Government to act swiftly, and she wants two names. She wants a woman and a man.” </p>
                                                    <h4 class="crosshead">‘In the mix’</h4><p class="no_name">Ms McGuinness said nobody from Government circles had sounded her out about the position yet, but admitted she been in contact with one senior figure for advice on the matter. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“I think because of my position as first vice-president of the parliament that my name was in the mix early on,” she said. “I spoke to one person who is a good friend of mine for advice.”</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">In relation to Ireland’s chances of retaining the key trade portfolio, Ms McGuinness said there was too much emphasis on that aspect of the discussion in Ireland. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“This is about someone who is committed to Europe,” she said. “I think we have forgotten that here in Ireland. We have focused on Ireland’s interests as if they are exclusive and different from European. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“Whoever gets this position – man or woman – will be a European commissioner, clearly with an Irish background, but not batting only for Ireland.” </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">Ms McGuinness also said Ireland’s reputation had suffered in Europe as a result of the controversy, but not “in the sense that we cannot recover”.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“I think it’s very clear that when any member state is at the centre of a difficult crisis or controversy that lasts over a number of days it’s not good news for us and it’s an uncomfortable position,” she said. </p>

European civil society groups angered by decades of mass industrialized agriculture converged Sunday on Koblenz, where 12 EU farm and fisheries ministers began two days of informal talks hosted by Germany’s Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner.

Police said 350 protesters, some on tractors and in animal costumes, headed towards the venue, a riverside palace, while a cross-European alliance, including bio farmers, environmentalists and slow-food advocates, put its turnout at 1,300 persons.

Koblenz lies at the junction of the (larger) Rhine and Moselle rivers in Germany’s state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Read more: Europe’s hedgehogs endangered by farming practices

The alliance of 400 European civil society groups, calling itself in Germany “We are fed up with the Agra industry” (Wir haben Agraindustrie satt!) and “Good Food, Good Farming, Europe, urged ministers to make “radical” changes to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Better distribution of EU‘s farm budget urged

At €55 billion ($65 billion) a year — roughly a third of the bloc’s budget — CAP’s allocation of flat-rate subsidies for land areas farmed was clearly out-of-date and should be oriented instead toward the new European Commission’s Green Deal plan, said the alliance.

“The Green Deal sets the course that the post-CAP must follow,” it said, and ministers must “ensure” sustainable food sovereignty for future generations and rebuild ecosystems, soils and resilience in rural livelihoods.

Current EU policy of fetching cheap, unsustainable imports also degraded land in developing countries, said the alliance, echoing a German finding in June that Germany’s “footprint” through imported foodstuffs was three times heavier abroad than on its own soil. 

‘Immense’ responsibility

Germany, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, had an “immense” responsibility to bring a CAP reform into line with climate and biodiversity goals, the alliance insisted, directing its remarks at German Minister Klöckner, who hails from Rhineland-Palatinate.

Klöckner, who has floated a European animal welfare label and an EU “farm-to-fork” campaign to reduce usage of herbicides, fertilizers and antibiotics, drew a caution Sunday from Joachim Rukwied. 

The farming federation president — for German growers,  and Europe‘s association Copa — said extra costs should not be imposed on farmers, who instead should get supplements to their incomes for environment protection and animal welfare tasks.

‘Massive’ concentration

The alliance of civil society groups said EU policy of recent decades of rewarding large landowners had “fueled” a massive concentration in farm and land ownership.

Across the EU, between 2005 and 2016, more than four million farms — often family-run livelihoods — had been forced to shut down due to economic pressures. 

“The remaining operations run increasingly large areas,” said the alliance.

ipj/sri (dpa, AFP)

The two explosions that tore through Beirut on Aug. 4 marked the latest catastrophe for Lebanon, a country beleaguered by a massive financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. The explosions killed at least 160 people, injured thousands and left many homeless. Lebanese officials blamed the disaster on a cache of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, which had been kept improperly for years in a warehouse at the city’s port.

This chemical long has been favored by Hezbollah for attacks, though the Iranian proxy has denied stockpiling it at the port, which it controls. While it is currently unclear who owned the ammonium nitrate behind the explosions, Hezbollah has stored and used the same material abroad, including in Europe — all while evading a full terrorist designation by the European Union (EU).

In 2012, for instance, a bus carrying young Israeli tourists was bombed in Burgas, Bulgaria, killing six people and wounding dozens. Bulgarian, American and Israeli authorities all linked the attack to Hezbollah, and law enforcement determined that “ammonium nitrate was an active ingredient in the explosives,” according to a US Justice Department complaint.

The Burgas bombing was not an isolated incident. Eighteen years prior, a suicide bomber drove a van packed with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil into a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, murdering 85 people and wounding hundreds. Argentine prosecutors have accused Hezbollah of carrying out the massacre under Iran’s direction.

Indeed, Iran has an extensive record of directing its Hezbollah proxy to conduct attacks on foreign soil. In the same year as the Burgas atrocity, Iran was accused of plotting against American, Israeli and Western targets in Azerbaijan; and orchestrating bombings against Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia. Plots were also uncovered in Thailand, Kenya and Cyprus, where a Hezbollah operative was arrested over his role in a bid to attack Israeli tourists. “I was just collecting information about the Jews,” the operative reportedly told police. “This is what my organization is doing, everywhere in the world.”

In 2013, the EU finally designated Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization. This paved the way for member states to freeze funds linked to Hezbollah’s military wing and for greater law enforcement cooperation. Yet the ban did not apply to the Iranian proxy’s political wing, effectively enabling it to continue operating in the EU and undermining the designation’s impact. Unfortunately, qualifying the terrorist designation between two wings is illogical, because all Hezbollah operations are coordinated and directed by its political elites. Indeed, even Hezbollah leadership has refuted and mocked this distinction.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons have continued plotting terrorist attacks in Europe. In 2015, Hezbollah-linked operatives were caught stockpiling more than three tons of ammonium nitrate in the U.K., and 8.5 tons of the chemical in Cyprus. In 2018, France accused Iran of seeking to bomb an opposition group rally in Paris. In June, a Danish court sentenced a man over an Iranian plot to murder an Iranian opposition activist in Denmark. In July, reports emerged that Israel thwarted Iranian attacks on its diplomatic missions in Europe.

Hezbollah sustains its reach largely through Tehran’s support, which according to 2018 U.S. estimates amounts to $700 million annually. Yet it also maintains an independent fundraising apparatus, engaging in money laundering, drug trafficking, and other criminal operations across Europe, and exploiting businesses and charity front groups to funnel resources to its terrorist operations.

This April, Germany unilaterally banned Hezbollah in full, reportedly after being tipped off about a stash of ammonium nitrate in the country’s south. Lithuania designated Hezbollah as a terrorist group this month. Such positions align with those adopted by the U.S., U.K., Canada, Israel, Argentina and the Arab League, among others. Yet most EU nations continue to rely on the bloc’s insufficient designation, which grants Hezbollah’s fundraising activities valuable breathing room.

As Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, noted in a recent report, investigations into Hezbollah “face the difficulty of demonstrating that the funds collected are channeled to the military wing of the organization.” Aligning Hezbollah’s terrorist designation with the reality of its operations would empower European law enforcement authorities to comprehensively target the group and its resources within the EU.

A full designation also would help further delegitimize Hezbollah at a time when the Lebanese government has resigned, and furious citizens demonstrate against the ruling elite. Indeed, it is notable that some of these protesters are directing their ire at Hezbollah, and even hanging Hezbollah leaders in effigy. The Lebanese are justifiably outraged over the governing malfeasance that set the conditions for this tragedy after running the Lebanese economy into the ground. But there is also evidence that they are fed up with Hezbollah’s parasitic exploitation of their country. Ramping up this terror group’s delegitimization is more urgent than ever to support a Lebanese movement to free their country from Iran and Hezbollah.

Deep reforms are needed if Lebanon has any hope of restoring governing normalcy. Unfortunately, Hezbollah, which exploits Lebanon’s weak political system to operate with no transparency or accountability, presents a major barrier to such reform and the hopes of the Lebanese people. By comprehensively blacklisting Tehran’s top proxy, the EU would decisively signal that Hezbollah is not a legitimate actor, directly threatens stability in and beyond Lebanon, and must be countered if Beirut is to have a hope of a true recovery.

Mark P. Fitzgerald, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, is a former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa and of Allied Joint Force Command, Naples. He is on the board of advisers for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).

Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former military attorney and intelligence officer, is the Vinson & Elkins Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law, Houston, and a distinguished fellow at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense & Strategy.