Served in A simple demitasse cup for a very simple cup of Turkish coffee.
Posted on 01/08/2005 9:19:18 AM PST by rface
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry met Saturday with Syria's president and said he was hopeful that strained U.S.-Syrian relations could be improved, provided Washington seized "a moment of opportunity" currently available in the Middle East.
The United States has accused Syria of doing too little to stop insurgents from infiltrating into Iraq to attack coalition forces. Washington also has imposed sanctions on Damascus, accusing it of seeking weapons of mass destruction and hosting Palestinian groups Washington deems to be terrorist organizations.
Syria denies the accusations but says it cannot fully control its long, porous border with Iraq.
Sen. Kerry, D-Mass., met for two hours with President Bashar Assad and then with Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa, with both meetings centering on Iraq and how to prevent militants from moving from Syria into neighboring Iraq.
"I think we found a great deal of areas of mutual interest, some common concerns and some possibilities for initiatives that could be taken in the future to strengthening the relationship between the U.S. and Syria," Kerry told reporters after meeting with al-Sharaa.
"I leave here with a sense that we can improve our relationship. There are significant possibilities, particularly with the elections in Iraq and the elections in the West Bank ... This is the moment of opportunity for the Middle East, for the U.S. and for the world. I hope that we would seize that opportunity."
Assad stressed "the importance of dialogue between the two sides over all issues under discussion, especially those of common interest," Syria's official news agency reported.
Kerry said he and Assad discussed Iraq, security, Lebanon and weapons of mass destruction.
In September, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution calling on Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and dismantle the Syrian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla group. Syria, with some 14,000 troops stationed in Lebanon, is the main power broker in that country.
More recently, President Bush has warned Syria and Iran against "meddling" in the internal affairs of Iraq. Washington and Baghdad both have said that key support for the insurgency in Iraq was coming from a half brother of Saddam Hussein and Baath Party leaders based in Syria.
Kerry, who is on a two-week tour of the Middle East, arrived Friday from Iraq, where he met U.S. troops in the volatile northern city of Mosul, the scene of a suicide bombing last month on a military base that killed 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers and three American contractors.
Kerry, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will be in the West Bank for Sunday's Palestinian election and is expected to visit a polling place.
After Kerry left the Foreign Ministry on Saturday, 13-year-old Mustafa al-Nabulsi approached him with a drawing of the senator as a soldier in his Vietnam days.
"You have made me much more important than I was, though. You made me a general," Kerry said.
"I wish you were the president," al-Nabulsi said.
"Thank you very much. So do I," Kerry said.
Well this SOB has been proven to be a traitor...I'm sure he's there NOT to ask Assad to stop terrorist going across border....geezzz...he's most likely trying to figure out how to totally destroy our military....sKerry hates America and all it stands for....he should be in a fed pen!!! for his acts against his "Band of Brothers."
I was wondering what was the deal with all of John Kerry's recent visits to known terrorist rat-holes like the Palestinian territories and now Syria...and then it hit me:
Maybe he's just thanking all those 'unnamed foreign leaders' that supported his campaign.
Where to next John, North Korea?
So lurch has his own freelance foreign policy now? WTF?
Someone needs to go up there and tell this fool he WASN'T ELECTED. Is he genuinely subversive in this effort, or just Syria's patsy?
Vintage Kerry. Why should it be incumbent upon the U.S. to "seize the moment"?
Seems to me that it should be incumbent upon Assad to "seize the moment" -- before we lay waste to his pissant country and throw him into a cell next to Saddam.
Why do I have the feeling we somehow lost ground in Syria, by virtue of Kerry's very presence there?
I knew this POS would meet with the enemy sooner or later.
You can't teach an old traitor new tricks.
Served in A simple demitasse cup for a very simple cup of Turkish coffee.
Apparently he can't speak English correctly without a script, besides being a traitor.
Oh, I forgot to say PUKE.
Traditional Turkish Coffee
by Sabahattin TURKOGLU
(source: )
Most people in the world have heard of Turkish coffee, but far fewer have ever tasted it. Europe acquired the coffee habit from the Turks, and adapted it to their own tastes over subsequent centuries, Then the Turks borrowed percolated and instant coffee, so that two very different coffee drinking concepts now exist side by side in Turkey. Traditional Turkish coffee is a culture apart, with its own methods of preparation and serving.
Although the Turks brought coffee drinking to a fine art, the beans were known earlier in Arabia, Egypt and India. The word coffee derives from the Turkish kahve, which in turn comes from the Arabic kahwa, thought to be based on Kaffa, the region in Ethiopia where the coffee plant was originally discovered. In those early day the beans were pounded to a paste and eaten with bread.
Two different stories attribute the introduction of coffee into Turkey either to two Syrians named Hukm and Sems in 1555, or to Ozdemir Pasa, Ottoman governor of Ethiopia during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566).
The first coffee house in Istanbul, which was situated in the district known as Tahtakale behind the Spice Market, was soon attracting not only enthusiastic customers, but the unwelcome attention of theologians and clerics, who considered this strange new substance to be a harmful narcotic. To stem the tide of the new craze they forbade it on the grounds that consuming substances made black
by roasting was sinful. Ships carrying loads of coffee are said to have been sunk in Istanbul harbour.
Yet despite all these measures coffee drinking spread like wildfire, and by the reign of Murat III (1574-1595) there were over six hundred coffee houses in Istanbul alone.
Coffee houses were generally constructed in the form of pavilions commanding an attractive view, and most had verandas and sometimes an ornamental pool in the centre. Low platforms for customers to sit upon surrounded the interior walls. Water pipes or the long slender pipes known as cubuk were also provided. Fashionable Turkish coffee houses served as gentlemen's clubs, whose members discussed literature and listened to music and as such are regarded as the forerunners of the Paris cafs.
The wide variety of often beautifully decorated equipment used for roasting, grinding, preparing and serving Turkish coffee could fill a museum on their own. The coffee is boiled in long handled coffee pots known as cevze, which have their own distinctive shape, as do the tiny coffee cups. In the past Turkish coffee cups had no handles, and were put in beautiful filigree or jewelled holders. Even the
coffee trays are specially designed for the purpose, having an arched handle by which the tray is suspended. Porcelain coffee cups were produced at the iznik or Kutahya potteries, for the Turkish market. Sets of Turkish coffee cups were subsequently produced for local European markets and known as "a la turque" coffee sets. Carved wooden containers for cooling the roasted coffee beans and others for storing them were once part of the equipment in every household, as were the decorated wooden coffee grinders made in Istanbul.
Connoisseurs expected their coffee to be heated slowly over charcoal embers for 15 to 20 minutes, the copper coffee pot being frequently taken away from the fire to prevent overheating. One strict condition still observed is that a layer of froth should cover the cup. A heaping coffee spoon plus sugar to taste is allowed for each cup as a general rule today, although in the past most Turks drank their coffee without any sugar. Instead, it was customary to eat or drink something sweet either before or after the coffee, perhaps sweetened fruit juices known as sherbet, fruit conserves, Turkish delight or other confectionery. Another custom which has died out today is the addition of some fragrant substance such as jasmine, ambergris, cloves or coriander.
The entire process of coffee making was ceremonial, from the roasting to the protocol of serving guests. For centuries coffee epitomised hospitality and respect for visitors. Even today, when a boy's family visits the home of a girl to ask for her hand in marriage, the girl prepares and serves the coffee, as an indication to her prospective in-laws of her domestic skills. Reading the coffee grinds is a favourite pastime particularly amongst women. The empty cup is turned upside down in the saucer, and left for a while. Then the expert at fortune-telling in the group examines the patterns formed inside the cup and on the saucer. This custom still survives in all the countries of the former Ottoman Empire including Bulgaria, Greece, Egypt, Macedonia and Bosnia.
So long as it is drunk in moderation, Turkish coffee is not harmful to the health, but on the contrary, has a calming and restful effect. There is 50 mg of caffein per cup, and this is expelled immediately without accumulating in the body, so in this respect the Turkish coffee cup is ideally proportioned. In larger quantities Turkish coffee is a stimulant. It also aids in digestion, and this is a factor in
preventing excessive weight gain.
The flavour and aroma of well prepared Turkish coffee is an experience not to be missed in the land where coffee was never cultivated, but first became a specialised endeavour.
I guess Kerry wanted a New Years in Syria to go with his Christmas in Cambodia. What a great American those dems have as their leader--he's out of the country the day the results of the election he was running in are made official!
Did I miss the headline where Bush made Kerry an Ambassador? He's doing just what he did in Nicaragua in the 1980's. Meanwhile, when will the poor people of Massachusettes have full time, sensient representation in the US Senate?
What a scumbag.
Terrorists and commies are to Kerry what 12 year old boys are to Michael Jackson. I guess Kerry's a thugophile, then.
I guess I shouldn't have had lunch. These developments are making me sick to my stomach.
President Bush needs to bring this to an immediate halt. Kerry doesn't give a damn about our Country and he needs to stay the hell out of foreign affairs.
I love President Bush, but if he doesn't bring this to an immediate halt, I would not hesitate to support a Recall of the president. Allowing Kerry to do any of this places us all in jeopardy, and in my view, no less jepardy than the terrorists already present. I sure don't want to offend any Freepers, but I am so hot over this I can't see straight!
Kerry should be in prison, not screwing around and undermining the President of this Nation. I am going to pray that the jerks prostrate cancer starts up again.
Rant over....for now.
Bump!
I think we found a great deal of areas of mutual interest, some common concerns
I'll just bet they did.
But the Democrats completely ignore that rule, with the complicity of the MSM.
RULES? We don't need no stinking rules. Rules are only for the little people not for the elites in the democrat party.
He already has. The media doesn't mention it much though because they take a while to catch on to what the words a "terrorist state" actually means. Syria is in big trouble with us, and only their leaders, the liberal media, and John Kerry do not seem to realize it.
If this story isn't a joke, the boy and his drawing was a setup.
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