New failed round of Astana, corruption files in Istanbul municipality after defeating AKP

On Saturday morning, the Arab newspapers touched upon the failure of the 12th round of Astana meeting, and the corruption files in Istanbul Municipality during the rule of AKP.

Al-Hayat: "unclear points" are slowing down the formation of the Constitutional Commission on Syria

On the Syrian issue, al-Hayat touched upon the 12th round of Astana series and its failure, and said, "In Kazakhstan, two-day talks about the Syrian war, involving Iran, Russia and Turkey had ended without achieving tangible progress on the establishment of a constitutional committee leading to a political settlement in the country."

In a joint statement issued by the three countries sponsoring the talks, the meeting discussed the establishment of the constitutional committee with the UN envoy in charge of the Syrian file, Geir Pedersen. It added that the parties "reaffirmed their commitment to continue the political process led and owned by the Syrians and supervised by the United Nations, in line with the Security Council resolution (No.2254).

The statement added that the meeting is part of "accelerating the work of launching the constitutional committee as soon as possible, in line with the decisions of the Syrian National Dialogue Conference in Sochi, and they decided to hold the next round of these consultations in Geneva and affirmed their full readiness to contribute to the efforts of the special envoy, including effective dialogue with the Syrian parties."

Alexander Lavrentiev, the envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin in charge of the Syrian file, said that "unclear points" are slowing down the establishment of this committee.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat: «Astana meeting» fails to exceed the maturity of the formation of «Syrian constitution»

"Astana talks which ended on Friday in the capital of Kazakhstan did not show any result, did not result in progress in the basic file that Moscow and its Turkish and Iranian partners have made an important breakthrough in. The organizers were forced to announce the failure to bring the views of the constitutional committee closer together, so that the dispute over six names in the civil society list remains.

In the rounds of dialogue held at bilateral and trilateral levels, the parties discussed the situation in Idlib against the backdrop of the failure to implement the agreement on the establishment of the demilitarized zone. According to the statement, the guarantor countries agreed to "take measures to reduce violations in the Syrian Idlib region."

Without specifying the measures, the joint statement pointed to "specific measures to reduce the number of ceasefire violations in the De-escalation zone in Idlib." The head of the Iranian delegation, Ali Asghar Khaji, said negotiations on Syria would continue until a political settlement was reached.

While Lavrentiev said that the issue of Idlib «is still on the agenda». He said that this issue "is discussed at all levels during consultations with all delegations, due to the difficult situation in the governorate of Idlib, where Hayet Tahrir al-Sham group controls 90 per cent of the land."

Al-Arab: Justice and Development adheres to Istanbul to hide the corruption of a quarter century

Notably, the name of the company listed on the list of the receiver of the bill was Istanbul Digital Media Tikrit AS, owned by the deputy secretary general of the Istanbul-based AKP's party, Jagtay Kalanki.

The director of the media company is Abdul Rahman Titch, one of the candidates of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the parliamentary elections held on June 24 Titch is also the owner of the Istanbul Agency, a media company that publishes a newsletter every 15 days about the municipality. The Calyon Group, a business group linked to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) with a media group, including pro-government ATV and Sabah outlets, and the newsletter is printed at Calyon Press.

An advertising company belonging to the Ono Bloc, Ezzat Balaz Oglu and his older brother Mohiuddin Balaz Oglu received 3.597 million lira ($ 615,000) in a bid to organize a marathon on the historic Istanbul peninsula. This exemplifies two examples of the transfer of municipal funds to the circles close to the ruling party after the elections of March 31. This is compared to the total rental value taken by the government supporters of Istanbul residents."

(T/S)

ANHA