Germany protests over Turkish minister's comments

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, left, welcomes German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, during their meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, June 21, 2013. Preparations for signing the Association Agreement and European integration will be in the focus of Friday’s talks between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle, who has arrived in Kiev on a brief visit. (AP Photo/Sergey Dolzhenko, Pool)

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's Foreign Ministry summoned theTurkish ambassador on Friday to protest after a minister accused Chancellor Angela Merkel of picking on Turkey for domestic political gain before German elections, adding to tensions overTurkish security forces' crackdown on demonstrators.

Merkel on Monday criticized the crackdown as "much too strong." The chancellor has long been skeptical of Turkey's ambitions to join the European Union; her coalition government supports continuing membership talks but this week blocked a decision to move forward the negotiations.

Egemen Bagis, Turkey's minister in charge of EU affairs, said Thursday that if Merkel is looking for "internal political material" ahead of Germany's September elections "this should not be Turkey." He also pointed to the election defeat last year of then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a fellow opponent of Turkish EU membership.

"If Mrs. Merkel follows and reviews what happened to Sarkozy, who previously tried to use (Turkey) as political material, she will see that the fate of those who mess around with Turkey is not all that good," said Bagis, who is Turkey's chief EU negotiator.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke told reporters that ambassador Huseyin Avni Karslioglu was summoned to the ministry Friday.

He would say only that the reason was comments by a Turkish official regarding Germany and the future of the EU membership talks, adding: "These are comments that met with incomprehension — this is not in order."

Last month, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was hopeful of opening negotiations on another chapter in the membership talks before the end of June. But on Thursday, Germany and the Netherlands blocked a decision to do so.

That chapter concerns regional policies, not Turkey's protests. Asked whether the decision to block its opening was linked to the Turkish crackdown, Peschke said it was down to "open technical questions" on which he wouldn't elaborate.

However, he added that "of course, as always in life, everything is linked to everything else."

Human rights groups have said the protests in Turkey have left more than 5,000 people injured and more than 3,000 were detained, then released.

The demonstrations were sparked by a police crackdown on environmental activists in Istanbul May 31, but also criticized what some regard as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's authoritarian style of leadership.

NATO member Turkey began EU accession negotiations in 2005 but has made little progress, in part reflecting unease among some in Europe to admitting a populous Muslim nation.

Turkey's entry talks cover 35 different areas, or chapters. Only 13 have been opened, and several areas have been frozen over Turkey's refusal to allow ships and planes from Cyprus, an EU member, to enter its ports and airspace.

Germany itself is a potential obstacle to Turkish EU membership given that Merkel and her conservative party have long advocated a lesser, vaguely defined "privileged partnership," though Westerwelle's Free Democrats — her junior coalition partners— are less skeptical.

A spokesman for Merkel stressed Friday that Germany's support for continuing membership talks remains unchanged.

"Neither the chancellor nor the government are in any way questioning the accession process," Georg Streiter said. "It's not about whether, only about how the accession process is continued."

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Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

Putin criticizes arms supplies to Syrian rebels

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Friday defended Russian arms supplies to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and said the West should not deliver weapons to rebel forces because they include "terrorist" groups.

"If the United States ... recognizes one of the key Syrian opposition organizations, al-Nusra, as terrorist ... how can one deliver arms to those opposition members?" Putin said in an appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a Russian economic forum.

"Where will (those weapons) end up? What role will they play?" he said.

France proposed in May that the United Nations declare the al-Nusra Front a terrorist organization, to differentiate it from other Syrian rebel groups. The United States did so last year and says the group is little more than a front for al Qaeda.

U.S. President Barack Obama decided a week ago to provide military aid to rebels trying to overthrow Assad, citing use of chemical weapons by government forces.

Russia has been Assad's most powerful foreign protector during a conflict that has killed at least 93,000 people since it began in March 2011.

Putin reiterated Russia's statement that it is violating no laws by providing arms to a standing government and suggested it was foreign supporters of Syrian rebels who were doing that.

"It's clear that without deliveries from abroad, what is happening in Syria now would simply be impossible. Money is going in, weapons are going in, and well trained armed groups are going in," Putin said.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Steve Gutterman and Robin Pomeroy)

GOP leader warns of attacks on free speech

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Republican leader, who last year accused the Obama administration of Nixon-style dirty tricks, said Friday that the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups is part of a broader government assault on free speech.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky seized on the spate of controversies besetting the White House, saying Americans are recognizing a pattern of attack on First Amendment rights across government agencies, the administration, President Barack Obama's congressional allies, left-wing groups and public-employee unions.

"As serious as the IRS scandal is, what we're dealing with here is larger than the actions of one agency or any group of employees," McConnell, who is up for re-election next year, said in a speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "This administration has institutionalized the practice of pitting bureaucrats against the very people they're supposed to be serving, and it needs to stop."

Speaking to the same organization last year, McConnell accused the administration and Obama's re-election campaign of leaking tax information and maintaining an enemies list in a chilling style reminiscent of President Richard Nixon, the Republican who resigned in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal. McConnell's criticism was largely dismissed as election-year hyperbole.

In the first six months of Obama's second term, the administration's problems have produced an assortment of political targets for Republicans. One is the IRS affair, which has resulted in resignations and departures from the agency. So far, no evidence has come to light that anyone in the Obama administration outside the IRS was involved in targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

Other issues facing the Obama administration this year include government surveillance of phone and Internet records; its handling of last year's terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans; the Justice Department's seizure of phone records of journalists at The Associated Press and, in another case, reading the emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen.

McConnell referred to the IRS episode with a bit of I-told-you-so.

"When I warned about all this last year, I got slammed by the usual suspects on the left. They said I was full of it," he said. "But even some of them now seem to realize that just because McConnell is the one pulling the alarm doesn't mean there isn't a fire. The IRS scandal has reminded people of the temptations to abuse that big government, and its political patrons, are prone to. People are waking up to a pattern here."

In comments certain to appeal to Republican voters, McConnell described public sector unions as power hungry and able to expand their reach with the help of congressional friends. He said the unions no longer serve the public's interest but rather the government's.

"There's no better illustration of this than the announcement this week that in the midst of congressional hearings into their activities, unionized employees at the IRS are about to get $70 million in bonuses," McConnell complained.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said earlier this week that the IRS plans to hand out $70 million in bonuses to employees. Under a contract with the employees' union, IRS workers can receive individual performance bonuses of up to $3,500 a year.

In response to Grassley's criticism, the agency said it's under a legal obligation to comply with its collective bargaining agreement with the National Treasury Employees Union. The agency and the union say they are in negotiations over the matter.

McConnell used the speech to deliver a forceful defense of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, which lifted many restrictions on corporate spending in political elections.

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