Putin Is Being Pushed to Abandon His Conciliatory Approach to the West and Prepare for War - HUFFINGTON POST

05/17/2016
Alastair Crooke, Fmr. MI-6 agent; Author, ‘Resistance: The Essence of Islamic Revolution’

BEIRUT — Something significant happened in the last few days of April, but it seems the only person who noticed was Stephen Cohen, a professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University.

In a recorded interview, Cohen notes that a section of the Russian leadership is showing signs of restlessness, focused on President Vladimir Putin’s leadership. We are not talking of street protesters. We are not talking coups against Putin — his popularity remains above 80 percent and he is not about to be displaced. But we are talking about serious pressure being applied to the president to come down from the high wire along which he has warily trod until now.

Turkey’s increasingly desperate predicament poses real dangers - Washington Post

By Liz Sly February 20 2016

ISTANBUL — Turkey is confronting what amounts to a strategic nightmare as bombs explode in its cities, its enemies encroach on its borders and its allies seemingly snub its demands.

As recently as four years ago, Turkey appeared poised to become one of the biggest winners of the Arab Spring, an ascendant power hailed by the West as a model and embraced by a region seeking new patrons and new forms of governance.

All that has evaporated since the failure of the Arab revolts, shifts in the geopolitical landscape and the trajectory of the Syrian war.

Russia, Turkey’s oldest and nearest rival, is expanding its presence around Turkey’s borders — in Syria to the south, in Crimea and Ukraine to the north, and in Armenia to the east. On Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced the deployment of a new batch of fighter jets and combat helicopters to an air base outside the Armenian capital, Yerevan, 25 miles from the Turkish border.

Is It Time to Expel Turkey from NATO? | The National Interest

Ted Galen Carpenter, December 4, 2015

Turkey’s rash action in shooting down a Russian plane that apparently violated Turkish airspace for no more than 17 seconds is only the latest incident that should set off alarm bells in other NATO capitals.  Ankara’s reckless belligerence was exceeded only by its hypocrisy.  Turkish planes violated the airspace of Greece more than 2,000 times in 2014 alone, and 2014 was a typical year for such incidents.  Greek officials have long complained that their country must devote a considerable portion of its defense budget to intercept aircraft engaging in such violations.  Fortunately, though, Athens has never emulated Turkey’s standard and blasted offending aircraft out of the sky.

Open letter to NATO secretary general over Turkey’s policy against Kurds | EKurd Daily

September 29, 2015 by Aziz Baran | Special to Ekurd.net

Mr Jens Stoltenberg
Secretary General, NATO HQ
Bd Leopold III, B-1110 Brussels
Belgium
Fax: +32 2 707 4232
Email: Stoltenberg.Jens @hq.nato.int

Dear Mr Stoltenberg,

Your recent expression of solidarity with Turkey against “terrorism” is tantamount to unleashing attack dogs against Kurdish citizens with a decidedly racist subtext.

Turkey Needs to Practice in Turkey What It Preaches in Cyprus | Gatestone Institute

by Kyriacos Kyriakides
September 20, 2015 at 4:00 am

• Turkey has claimed all along that it stays in Cyprus to "protect" the Turkish Cypriot minority. Since Turkey has "protected" them, almost half of Turkish Cypriots have abandoned Cyprus. They have been conveniently replaced by Anatolian Turks whose Islamic orientation and ethos could not be more foreign to Cyprus.
• If Turks are so keen on "saving" minorities, why have they not applied the same principles in Turkey to save their own Kurds? 
• With these circumstances in mind, it might be helpful to summarize the demands of the Turkish Cypriot minority and their patron, Turkey. 

NATO's confession of its role in the 1974 Cyprus crime

Castro of Mediterranean

Published on Mar 16, 2015 - The originator and nearly-60-years-the-director of Theatro Technis, George Eugeniou, had written and prepared the performances of 'Castro of Mediterranean' during the 40th-year anniversary of the Turkish invasion and its continuing occupation of 38% of the island of Cyprus. This video highlights some sections from the play on the 19th October 2014 and on 30th December 2015 and the overall situation which Cyprus is facing. The fundamental content of the play is that the US Government should, from many years ago have had a case brought against it at the International Criminal Court regarding its influence in supporting Turkey against Cyprus. Guarantor-power-Britain, acting in conjunction with US-interests and with their combined influence within the United Nations and also NATO, supporting Turkey, in the context of Cyprus, should all be brought to JUSTICE ... is the main content of the play.

Obama’s Hypocrisy Regarding Forcible Border Changes | CATO Institute

FEBRUARY 12, 2015 - By TED GALEN CARPENTER SHARE

In a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Obama stated that he was considering sending weapons to the government of Ukraine.  Noting that Russia had already annexed Crimea and was now backing separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, the president warned that “the West cannot stand and simply allow the borders of Europe to be redrawn at the barrel of a gun.”

Turkish protesters rough up US sailors in Istanbul | The Times of Israel

Footage of incident shows Turks restraining serviceman, briefly putting a white sack over his head - November 13, 2014
ISTANBUL (AP) — Anti-American protesters shouting “Yankee, go home!” roughed up three US Navy sailors Wednesday in Istanbul near where their warship was docked on an inlet of the Bosphorus Strait in the Black Sea.

Turkey's Contempt for NATO Principles By Seth Cropsey | Real Clear World

October 29, 2014 - When John Churchill, later the first duke of Marlborough, led the Anglo-Dutch alliance against Louis XIV, he and his ally differed constantly over tactics. Marlborough sought a knock-out. The Dutch preferred maneuver warfare to the risk of all-out battles. But the two states agreed on the broader goal: preventing Louis from achieving hegemonic continental power.

Alliances - or alliance members - that cannot agree on ultimate objectives are in trouble. NATO member Turkey and the rest of the Atlantic alliance once agreed on basic principles: democracy, and the need to keep the Soviets from swallowing the part of Europe that remained free after World War II. No such agreement about basic principles unites Turkey with the rest of NATO today.

Turkish foreign policy hits another cul-de-sac by SUAT KINIKLIOĞLU | Today's Zaman

October 22, 2014, Wednesday, The events of the last few days have been extraordinary, to write the least.

The United States-led coalition's determination to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and defend Kobani -- Washington's shift towards engaging directly with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria -- signifies an important shift in the region. The US has decided that it needs to help save Kobani regardless of what President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan thinks about the town. Patience in Washington has run out with Ankara's short-sighted policy of strangling the Kobani Kurds into submission. President Barack Obama “notified” his Turkish counterpart just hours before US cargo planes dropped off ammunition and medicine to the Kurds defending the city.

"How Turkey Went Bad" by Daniel Pipes

That said, one side alone cannot sustain an alliance. Ankara's record of friendly relations with Tehran, support for Hamas and the Islamic State, undermining the authority of Baghdad, virulence toward Israel, and threats against Cyprus make its membership in NATO questionable at best and duplicitous at worst.

Washington must signal that the bully tactics winning votes within Turkey fail in the rest of the world. TheWall Street Journal has helpfully proposed moving a U.S. military base in Turkey to Iraqi Kurdistan. Erdoğan's increasingly dictatorial rule must be repudiated as should Ankara's continued occupation of Cyprus, its support for terrorists, and its antisemitic effusions. Beyond these steps, the time has come for the U.S. government to make clear that unless major changes occur quickly, it will push for Turkey's suspension and eventual expulsion from NATO.

If Erdoğan insists on acting the rogue, then that's how its former ally should treat him.

Turkey's relations with Hamas, ISIS and the West‎ | Uzay Bulut

Turkey's relations with Hamas, ISIS and the West‎

‎"Just as it was in the past, if a leaf trembles in the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus or ‎Central Asia, Ankara will be the first to hear it and respond to it,"‎ Turkey's then-Foreign Minister and current Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in a speech in the Turkish parliament on July 1, 2010.

He also declared his stance on ‎Jerusalem:‎ ‎"Jerusalem is our issue. East Jerusalem is part of the state of ‎Palestine, not Israeli territory, and consists of territory that was invaded in 1967."‎

Jerusalem, he added, was a Turkish issue because of its period of Ottoman rule.‎

Turkey: The Jihadists’ Fifth Column in NATO? | Joseph Klein

Turkey: The Jihadists’ Fifth Column in NATO?

September 29, 2014 by Joseph Klein

Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.

Turkey’s autocratic Islamist president, Tayyip Erdogan, has allowed Turkey’s border to become a passageway for jihadist fighters streaming into Syria to join ISIS and the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra.

President Johnson's letter to Ismet Inonu from 1964 and its relevance to understand the Turkish invasion of 1974 | Daniel Pipes

DANIEL PIPES: "So I believe your question of "what really happened" might be posed differently : "Why could Turkey attack and occupy large parts of Cyprus in 1974 and couldn't do that in 1964 even though it did want to?"

A tempting explanation , I think , is given by analyzing the letter of President Lyndon Johnson to Turkish prime Minister Ismet Inonu from June 5th, 1964 ordering the Turks to drop their plans to invade Cyprus."

Our Non-Ally in Ankara | The Wall Street Journal

Our Non-Ally in Ankara
Turkey bugs out of the anti-ISIS coalition. Why not a base in Kurdistan?
Sept. 12, 2014 6:37 p.m. ET

Was it only a week ago that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel listed a "core coalition" of 10 countries willing to join the U.S. effort to destroy the Islamic State? Since then Britain has categorically ruled out military strikes in Syria, while Germany has ruled out any use of force. Now Turkey is bugging out.

Which one does NATO condemn?

Welcome to the Middle East, Cyprus!

Listen for a few minutes to the speech of the president of the Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes as he talks on Cyprus (go to minute 28). I apologise the minor mistakes in the quoted text below, but the audio is of bad quality. In the Q&A session he speaks about "Turkey" being suspended from NATO, or even rejected, and he also thinks it possible that "Turkey" could split into two, but not more pieces. He also finds Antifon's idea of renaming "Turkey" proper.

NATO Loses One, Wins Two

I know all of us are busy, thus I shall be brief. Mayhem breaks out in "Turkey" between Kemalists and Islamists. Kurds draw their own "green line" and declare a de-facto North Kurdistan autonomy. Erdogan prevails militarily in the west and attempts to recapture the east. South Kurdistan declares its secession from Iraq and unites with North Kurdistan. The USA and various western followers support the new marriage and recognize the new Republic of Kurdistan. Kurdistan joins NATO, while at the same time Islamic "Turkey" is thrown out. The Republic of Cyprus immediately joins NATO too. NATO warns "Turkey" to remove its troops from Cyprus. Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and possibly Iran challenge NATO on the Israeli, Cypriot, Iraqi and Mediterranean fronts (EEZ).

Once a member, always a member?

The EU (and EU-17) is a political / economic alliance. When members were proven to disobey the rules & allowed their finances to drift, and as a result not to fulfill their obligations towards the union, they faced intense pressure from fellow members to put their economy in order. They were even ridiculed and many voices were heard for allowing for such members to be evicted from the group. New terms were concocted, such as 'Grexit', coined by The Economist, to refer to a possible Greek exit from the eurozone (EU-17) and/or EU.