ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Thursday Russia and Iran would soon realise they had little choice but to join international diplomatic efforts for the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

He acknowledged, however, the divisions in the Syrian opposition and its lack of preparedness to take power, saying it must create a structure that embraces all segments of society.

“This transformation will no doubt take time.”

Turkey has been in the forefront of fostering the Syrian opposition since abandoning its long-time ally Assad over his violent crackdown on protests. The opposition Syrian National Council meets in Istanbul and the ‘Free Syrian Army’ operates from Turkish soil on the Syrian border.

Turkey and Western and Arab allies were angered by Russia’s vetoing, along with China, of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Assad’s use of force, which has intensified in past days with a siege against the city of Homs.

“We have to wait and see how long Russia will be able to take upon itself the burden of this regime,” he told Reuters in an interview. “In my opinion, it won’t be very long.

“In the time of the Cold War, such things happened in a very closed environment. However, today developments take place in the open.

ISTANBUL, Dec 9 (Reuters) – He has been feted in Arab states as the midwife of Islamic democracy. At home in Turkey, he strides the political stage unchallenged, a powerful army tamed, a hostile judiciary subdued, citizens savouring the taste of economic success.

Yet there are doubts about Tayyip Erdogan. Tucked away in an anonymous backstreet near Istanbul airport, the Sozcu (Spokesman) newspaper stands out in lampooning and criticising the prime minister at a time when over 60 journalists are in pre-trial detention and once-outspoken newspapers appear cowed.

“Yes, we’re a lifeboat,” News Editor Ferda Ongun said in the daily’s sparsely furnished offices. “Many of our journalists are people who can’t get published any more in the big papers.

“But this boat has limited capacity,” she said. “We need more boats.”

Troubles for the media began in earnest in 2009 when Dogan Yayin Holding, then the most powerful media group and a forthright critic of Erdogan for his Islamist origins, was presented with a multi-billion dollar tax fine.

The tax dispute was settled after Dogan, which also has interests in energy, manufacturing and finance, sold two dailies and a key television channel as part, it said, of a routine restructuring. The government denied any political motivation.

Around the same time, investigation of a coup plot began to sprawl, drawing in many journalists besides businessmen, academics and military. What had at first been welcomed by rights activists as a bid to root out the dark forces of an entrenched hardline security establishment, known popularly as the “Deep State”, seemed then to take on a darker aspect.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin has ceased to be the “darling” of a Russian people afflicted by a sense of aimlessness and alarmed by a state apparatus offering little protection from arbitrary abuse, a veteran Russian commentator said on Monday.

Vladimir Pozner, a television compere with high-level contacts to elites stretching back to Soviet times, said the losses suffered by the prime minister’s United Russia party in Sunday’s parliamentary election reflected anger over a lack of clear vision for the future.

“In addition to that, there’s a feeling of being totally unprotected. If anyone from government wants to go after you, you have nowhere to go. The feeling is that the courts are not courts, police can pretty well do what they want,” he told Reuters in an interview.

“If someone wants to take over your business they can take it over. There’s a sense of ‘What can I do?’”

President Dmitry Medvedev has repeatedly promised to reform Russia’s judicial system to bolster the rights of the individual in dealing with state institutions, curb corruption and enforce fairness in business.

Medvedev and Putin announced in September they had agreed in 2008 that Medvedev would serve only one term as president, allowing Putin next March to reclaim the presidency he had been required to relinquish after two successive terms.

“You understand that whatever Mr Medvedev said, he would not be able to follow it through, and had no intention to follow it through, which makes it even worse,” Pozner said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian voters have dealt Vladimir Putin’s ruling party a heavy blow by cutting its parliamentary majority in an election that showed growing unease with his domination of the country as he prepares to reclaim the presidency.

Incomplete results showed Putin’s United Russia was struggling even to win 50 percent of the votes in Sunday’s election, compared with more than 64 percent four years ago. Opposition parties said even that outcome was inflated by fraud.

Although Putin is still likely to win a presidential election in March, Sunday’s result could dent the authority of the man who has ruled for almost 12 years with a mixture of hardline security policies, political acumen and showmanship but was booed and jeered after a martial arts bout last month.

United Russia had 49.94 percent of the votes after results were counted in 70 percent of voting districts for the election to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. Exit polls had also put United Russia below 50 percent.

“These elections are unprecedented because they were carried out against the background of a collapse in trust in Putin, (President Dmitry) Medvedev and the ruling party,” said Vladimir Ryzhkov, a liberal opposition leader barred from running.

“I think that the March (presidential) election will turn into an even bigger political crisis; disappointment, frustration, with even more dirt and disenchantment, and an even bigger protest vote.”

Putin made his mark restoring order in a country suffering from a decade of chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He moved quickly to crush a separatist rebellion in the southern Muslim Chechen region, restored Kremlin control over wayward regions and presided over an economic revival.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russians voted on Sunday in parliamentary polls seen as a test of Vladimir Putin’s personal authority ahead of a planned return to the presidency, and an electoral watchdog complained of ‘massive cyber attacks’ on a website alleging violations.

Putin remains by far the most popular politician in the country but there are some signs Russians may be wearying of his cultivated strong man image. The 59-year-old ex-spy looked stern and said only that he hoped for good results for his United Russia party as he walked past supporters to vote in Moscow.

“I will vote for Putin. Everything he gets involved in, he manages well,” Father Vasily, 61, a bespectacled and white-bearded monk from a nearby monastery said. “It’s too early for a new generation. They will be in charge another 20 years. We are Russians, we are Asians, we need a strong leadership.”

A Western-financed electoral watchdog and two liberal media outlets said their sites had been shut down by hackers intent on silencing allegations of violations. Sites belonging to the Ekho Moskvy radio station, online news portal Slon.ru and the watchdog Golos went down at around 8 a.m.

“Massive cyber attacks are taking place on the sites of Golos and the map showing violations,” Golos said on twitter.

Golos said it was excluded from several polling booths in the Siberian Tomsk region. Moscow prosecutors launched an investigation last week into Golos’ activities after lawmakers objected to its Western financing. On Saturday, customs officers held Golos’s director for 12 hours at a Moscow airport.

Washington said it was concerned by “a pattern of harassment” against the watchdog.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin must open up the country’s tightly controlled political system after his return to the Kremlin or Russia could face a catastrophe, tycoon Alexander Lebedev said in an interview on Thursday.

Invoking the consequences of the French Revolution and the Arab Spring rebellions, Lebedev said that public perceptions of Putin were changing after 12 years of rule as president from 2000-08 and then as prime minister.

Two decades after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia remains in desperate need of both economic and political reform. Nonetheless, he said, a Russia without Putin might be more worrying than Russia with Putin.

“Clearly this system is at the brink of extinction in my view: so the option is something happens from above or something happens from below,” said Lebedev, a former Russian spy who made billions trading stocks and bonds after the Soviet collapse.

“I would definitely suggest a certain liberalisation take place,” Lebedev said in an interview.

When asked what risks Russia faced without major change, he said: “I have to agree with the use of the term catastrophic.”

Opponents say Putin has crafted a brittle political system which excludes independent voices and has centralised Kremlin control over the media, economy and Russia’s 83 regions.

ISTANBUL, Nov 28 (Reuters) – Turkey offered to bow to EU demands and open its ports, airports and airspace to Cyprus under what it called a “Taiwanese-style” diplomatic arrangement to help drive Cypriot reunification talks resuming on Monday under U.N. pressure for a breakthrough.

The European Union Ankara seeks to join demands Turkey end an embargo on Greek Cypriot traffic that damages Nicosia’s economy. Turkey for its part says the EU should ease isolation of breakaway Turkish northern Cyprus, something Greek Cypriots reject as implicit recognition of a renegade state.

Turkish EU minister Egemen Bagis told Reuters he believed a simple arrangement could help free up talks over the east Mediterranean island that has brought NATO partners Greece and Turkey to the brink of war on several occasions.

Exploration for natural gas around the island, and disputes over sovereign rights, has again raised international concerns.

“The minute a British Airways, an Air France, a KLM, a Lufthansa plane lands at Ercan airport (in northern Cyprus), Turkey is ready to open all of her airports, sea ports and air space to Greek Cypriot planes and vessels,” Bagis said.

Northern Cyprus, recognised only by Ankara, has direct air links only with Turkey. It is also excluded from international sport, finance and trade.

Greek Cypriots, who represent the whole of Cyprus in the EU but whose authority is effectively confined to its south, fear any recognition of the breakaway state could make partition permanent.

LONDON (Reuters) – Turkey appears to be preparing for some form of civil war in neighboring Syria, wary of any unilateral intervention but fearful fighting there could quickly escalate to a broader sectarian conflagration in the Arab world.

“I observe a simmering threat in the region based on a Sunni-Shiite divide,” Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Wednesday. “It … has the potential to move the Muslim world from the 21st century into the darkness of the Middle Ages.”

These were words Gul would not have uttered in public even a couple of weeks ago. But Ankara has in recent days openly abandoned any notion of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad staying in power and is focused on dealing with the chaos that could follow his removal.

“Contingencies seem to be based on a worst-case scenario,” said Semih Idiz, a commentator with Milliyet newspaper. “The assumption seems to be that this is leading to some form of civil war.”

Political leaders had held consultations with military and intelligence officials on Tuesday over a protest movement in which 3,500 people have already been killed now taking on the characteristics of an armed conflict, as soldiers desert, with some alarming sectarian overtones.

‘BUFFER ZONE’

Turkish land forces commander Hayri Kivrikoglu visited the border area on Tuesday, declaring there was “no special reason for our visit.” Excursions by top generals to the area are indeed frequent, but they are not normally made public.

By Ralph Boulton

(Reuters) – Time was when U.S. presidents stood in the center of events at world summits. This week in Cannes, Barack Obama appeared at times a bewildered spectator as European leaders scrambled through a whirlwind of meetings called to bring Greece to heel and save the euro currency.

Where the U.S. President would traditionally be the last to arrive at a gathering, there was Obama on Friday morning, one of the first at the Palais des Festivals, chatting with the other leaders as they trickled into the lobby. Only when German Chancellor Angela Merkel crossed the threshold did he break off, hoping perhaps for news of the latest conclave or consultation.

“I guess you guys have to be creative here,” he told her, as he led her away to a quiet and distant corner. For six minutes they talked, Obama leaning back on a table, Merkel standing, gesticulating as, most likely, she explained the fast moving events, the many meetings, of the week or the morning.

Merkel has been at the center of efforts to still the storm around Greece’s debt crisis. She and French President Nicolas Sarkozy confronted Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou at a hastily-convened meeting on Wednesday, berating him for calling a referendum on a bailout that had been painstakingly agreed only the week before.

It was by far the most blunt-speaking and emotional of many euro-consultations. Within 24 hours it had shaped the course of Greek politics, prompting a backdown on the referendum on fears of Greek expulsion from the common currency.

A LOT OF MEETINGS

LONDON (Reuters) – They were standing in a close huddle like a knot of naughty boys in the school yard, up to no good, turning silent as I walked past.

Only this was no schoolyard, but the walled Kremlin gardens, and the “boys” were the head of the Soviet KGB, the country’s defence minister, the interior minister and the prime minister.

It was indeed the last day of term. The Soviet parliament had gone into summer recess and I was a straggler hurrying through the Kremlin grounds towards Red Square.

I spotted them as I turned a corner, wondering what they were gossiping about, the burly defence minister, Dmitry Yazov, the wiry security chief, Vladimir Kryuchkov, and their two partners in mischief.

Perhaps I should have asked. In those palmy days of ‘perestroika’, Western journalists rubbed shoulders with the mighty. But in any case, I did not have to wait long to find out.

A month or so later, in August 1991, they toppled their “headmaster”, Mikhail Gorbachev, and declared themselves the rulers of the Soviet Union. When the coup collapsed, they were marched off to Moscow’s “Sailor’s Rest” jail in disgrace.

It would be wrong to trivialise what happened in August 1991, an event that hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union and disrupted the lives of millions. Three people were killed and many more could have died. For some it was terrifying.