Writing by Ethar Abdulhaq
(Zaman Al Wasl)- The hotel chosen to host the negotiations between the opposition and regime delegations in the Kazakhstan's capital does not appear at first glance to be special or remarkable in any way. The 'Rixos President Astana' resembles numerous other hotels across the world. Yet behind the Rixos President Hotel are several strange, and even perverse, stories and facts that make its hosting the Astana Conference both remarkable and questionable.
(Zaman Al Wasl)- The hotel chosen to host the negotiations between the opposition and regime delegations in the Kazakhstan's capital does not appear at first glance to be special or remarkable in any way. The 'Rixos President Astana' resembles numerous other hotels across the world. Yet behind the Rixos President Hotel are several strange, and even perverse, stories and facts that make its hosting the Astana Conference both remarkable and questionable.
The story of Rixos Astana begins with its founder and owner Fettah Tamince, a Turkish national, who established a hotel group in 2000. He named the group Rixos as a tribute to one of the Greek heroes who built the city of Antalya where Tamince was born.
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Over time, the young man became a figure to be reckoned with in the world of business and investment, and his business ventures led him to expand his business towards the media sector and sports while continuing to invest in construction and hotels. Through his business dealings, he became acquainted with many companies and persons which led in time to many tangled and intertwined relations as well as political, financial and moral scandals.
Many commentators who present Tamince as a successful businessman note that he began work at 18 and within five years had become one of the largest taxpayers in Turkey generally as a demonstration of the size of his holdings and wealth.
In 2000, Tamince established himself in the world of hotelier launching Rixos company which includes 26 hotels distributed over various countries including, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey. Statistics from 2013 show that Tamince’s companies and hotels employed around 13,000 employees with an annual profit of 1.3 billion US dollars.
-Panama Papers-
Commentators aware of the connection between politics and money in the al-Assad regime, identify Tamince as one of the Turkish investors closest to al-Assad. He repeatedly visited Syria during the “honeymoon years” in the relations between Ankara and Damascus. Even after the souring of relations between the two countries, Tamince was present in Damascus heading a delegation of Turkish businessmen at the end of July 2011, so at the height of peaceful demonstrations which al-Assad and his intelligence apparatus confronted with iron and fire.
For instance, in 2009 in the space of 20 days, Tamince visited Damascus twice. On one of these visits, he met with Bashar and Asma al-Assad and their two children (they only had two children at that time). They had dinner together on 26 November 2009 and images from that evening show the intimacy of the relationship. The Turkish investor left Damascus three days after the gathering.
On 22 December 2009, Tamince returned to Damascus travelling aboard his private jet. At the time, his personal office communicated with the Ministry of the Affairs of the President of the Republic in Syria asking them to facilitate the task of his aircraft landing and his reception.
Tamince’s relationship with al-Assad is just the tip of the iceberg compared with other information obtained about the man whose hotel is hosting the Astana talks which the Russians and their backers are advertising as the end of the war.
With the leaking of the Panama Papers in the spring of 2016, further information came to light regarding his connections and relations showing his deep and diverse network.
The Panama Papers revealed the activities and off-shore companies of several wealthy Turkish nationals including Tamince. Tamince was involved in tax evasion by establishing offshore companies in tax havens across the world.
A series of investigations and reports based on the Panama Papers and other facts confirm that Tanimce and his companies were connected to companies related to Donald Trump, the newly elected President of the United States. The mediator for these relations was a Kazak businessman by the name of Tevfik Arif. It appears he was and remains one of Tamince’s biggest partners and he is considered a major player in Kazakhstan’s markets where he holds massive investments including four hotels.
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Savarona
At the start of the current millennial, a property development investment company by the name Bay Rock appeared in the United States. It was later connected to cases of embezzlement, fraud and bankruptcy. As well as being connected to companies and a locus for suspicious relations with key figures in American business including businessman and current American President Trump, Felix Sater an American businessman of Russian origin, other than Arif and Tamince.
In the Soviet period, Arif served in the Ministry of Trade and when the Soviet Union collapsed Arif headed for Turkey to invest in properties and hotels. It was there that he met Tamince, and as Tamince admitted, they subsequently became business partners in different ventures.
While the Bay Rock issue erupted several years ago, the topic remains hot and continues to haunt Trump who was subjected to extensive questionings regarding his relationship with Arif and Sater. During the investigation, he admitted that he was a partner in Bary Rock and he had knowledge of the company’s activities, but he was unaware of the problems surrounding its ownership.
Other than Bay Rock’s involvement in fraud, waste, and embezzling millions of dollars, the company highlights Trump’s connection to the Russians via Arif and Sater, as well as his relationship to the cases of moral and financial corruption which Arif and Sater were accused of.
Sater’s extensive criminal record is well known to the Americans and Russians including his Mafioso past mixed with hints of espionage. Despite his past, Sater reached the position of high ranking executive in Bay Rock and became one of the highest consultants for the Trump Group. He also became close to the Trump family as evidenced by his accompanying them on their trip to Moscow in 2006.
Other than the Bay Rock scandal, Arif was involved in managing a prostitution network focused on “velvet” clients from politicians and businessmen. He and several others involved in the ring were caught in the Autumn of 2010 abroad the Savarona, one of the largest yachts in the world and famous for hosting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Following this scandal, Tamince denied having any connection with Arif, but he was unable to deny that they had been business partners in the past.
In the spring of 2016, when the 11.5 million documents from the Panama Papers came to light, Arif and Tamince’s returned to the limelight as the documents proved they were involved in massive tax evasion. Before the release of the Panama Papers, Tamince and Arif emerged in the spotlight due to their involvement in a thorny case concerning a company trying to trade players in a manner that breaches sports rules and regulations.
Other than his involvement in these issues, Tamince is a figure who elicits much debate in Turkey starting from his relationship with the governing Justice and Development Party and his strong relationship with the Fethullah Gulen, head of the so-called parallel entity. Tamince was supposedly one of his biggest supporters before the attempted coup against Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan.
Additionally, it is interesting that Tamince spends a large amount of his time in Kazakhstan where he is well known for his extensive investment and business dealings in the country, while Arif, a Kazak national, spends much of his time in Turkey.
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Tamince’s life and his network are larger and more extensive than can be summarized here. We attempted to focus on relations and connections which cannot be ignored, especially as Tamince’s hotel was chosen by a state or several states to host what is considered a transitional moment in Syrians’ lives.
The coincidences and probabilities are too many and too much to ignore. Where many people are waiting for white smoke to emerge with regard to the Syrian file, Rixos’ owner appears enveloped in a cloud of black smoke under which multiple connections have been constructed connecting him to al-Assad, Erdogan, Trump and the Russians all at once.
Finally, while a side note, the issue enters into the core of the matter at hand, the Rixos President Astana was not chosen randomly to host the opposition’s talks with the regime. It is the same hotel that, in the summer of 2015, hosted a conference for those called by some “the opposition’s opposition” or the opposition close to the regime. It appears that Moscow’s insistence on choosing the same location is a clear message to the opposition negotiating now that the Russians brought them to the place they refused to come to before, and which they referred to at the time as game to distort the results of the Geneva Conference and sabotage it. The message has been received.
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