Could Turkey implode? | WASHINGTON POST

Internal and external forces are tearing at the nation’ seams

By Shehab Al Makahleh - - Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Turkey, an erstwhile U.S. ally long hailed as a bastion of secular democracy in the Muslim world, could be spiraling toward all-out civil war and potential dissolution as conflicts between Turkish security forces and Kurds and other ethnic minorities continue to escalate. These conflicts have been exacerbated by the catastrophic war in neighboring Syria, which has created a refugee crisis in Turkey, expanded Turkey’s bloody campaign against Kurds into Iraq and Syria, and pushed Turkish officials into a convenient collusion with the Islamic State, or ISIS.

The lurch toward a more Islamist, autocratic posture by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long worried regional and western observers, particularly his strong curbs on political speech and active political repression of the Kurds. That policy has taken a bloody turn with the repeated bombing of Syrian and Iraqi Kurds — both of whom have been anti-ISIS bulwarks — and, since July 2015, escalating crackdowns at home. The murder in November of Tahir Elci, a leading Kurdish human rights advocate and president of the Diyarbakir Bar Association in southeastern Turkey has dramatically increased tensions and violence inside Turkey and put the Kurdish issue — seemingly settled only a few years ago — back on the agenda. The killing, which Human Rights Watch called an “assassination,” demonstrated to the world how out of control the province has become.

From TMT to ISIS: Turkey conducts politics with the same old field manuals

by Lambros George Kaoullas

Introduction

Whether by shelling Kurdish fighters in Syria or downing a Russian fighter jet, Turkey undeniably seems more willing to protect and sustain ISIS rather than confront it. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because Turkey has been conducting politics with the same old field manuals for decades. Proxy warfare to destabilise a region and further strategic ends has not been the brainchild of AKP’s government, but has rather been a staple in Turkish military thinking for decades, starting with the Armenian, Pontian Greek and Assyrian Genocides.

So while the nebulous ISIS became a household name, very few heard of TMT (Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı), a paramilitary formation that operated as a Turkish proxy in Cyprus between 1957 and 1964. TMT unified under its banner several other political and paramilitary organisations operating since 1955. Its objective was to create the necessary destabilising conditions that would facilitate a Turkish military invasion in order to artificially partition the island into two ethnically clean zones. To do that, it employed provocations, assassinations, fomentation of inter-communal strife, and large-scale demographic engineering.

I will juxtapose today’s events with examples from Cyprus sixty years ago, focusing on ISIS and the Turkmen militias, which are the ones closest to Turkey.

Pakistanisation of Turkey | TRIBUNE

By Imtiaz Gul, October 7, 2015 - Will the Syrian crisis and two million refugees have the same impact on Turkey as the Afghan jihad and the refugee exodus from Afghanistan had on Pakistan? This question has started doing the rounds among Turk intellectuals and political analysts.

The West Fears Russia’s Success in Syria - Not Its Failure | Sputnik

04.10.2015, Alexander Mercouris, Sputnik - The Western response to the Russian air campaign in Syria provokes a sense of deja vu.

In every respect it is identical to the Western response to the Russian campaign in Chechnya in 1999. In the weeks following the start of that campaign Western pundits made a host of claims and predictions. They claimed the Russian airforce was bombing civilians, and accused Russia’s leadership of war crimes. They said Russian military action would radicalise the population, turning it against Russia. They predicted more terrorist attacks against Russia, and predicted Russia’s defeat.

All these claims and predictions proved wrong.

Turkey's Syrian Kurdish Problem | Jerusalem Post

by Jonathan Spyer, July 4, 2015 - Syrian Kurdish forces this week succeeded in turning back a murderous and determined attempt by the forces of Islamic State to claw back control of areas of northern Syria recently liberated by the Kurds. The cost was high, nevertheless.

Recent Kurdish successes, meanwhile, have raised the specter of a Turkish armed intervention in northern Syria to crush the growing Kurdish autonomous zones along the border.

So where do things stand in the bloody war between the Kurds and the Sunni jihadists over Syria's north? And is there a realistic possibility that Erdogan might intervene?

A fiery phone call between Erdoğan and Putin ended in firing mutual threats | AWD News

Moscow- Nov 09, 2014,  The pugnacious Turkish President made a rare telephone call to his Russian counterpart to discuss the latest regional developments, particularly Syria’s raging conflict.

 According to Moscow Times, a renowned Russian English-language daily newspaper, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who stepped up his customary belligerent rhetoric against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, told his Russian counterpart that Turkey has allegedly reached a threshold where it cannot remain indifferent toward the “human carnage” in the Arab war-torn country, but to Erdoğan’s surprise, Putin was infuriated and vehemently warned Turkish President from further interfering in Syrian internal affairs otherwise Russia is ready to thwart Turkey from triggering a catastrophic war in the region.

Kobanê and Beyond: Unfathomable Risks for Turkey and the Kurds by Marc Pierini | Carnegie Europe

Kobanê and Beyond: Unfathomable Risks for Turkey and the Kurds, by MARC PIERINI, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 | Marc Pierini is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, where his research focuses on developments in the Middle East and Turkey from a European perspective.

The Islamic State’s current offensive against the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobanê is interfering with the politics of many countries, triggering a massive humanitarian emergency, and raising many questions. It also brings immense political and social risks for Turkey and the Kurds.

For the most part, the anti-Islamist resistance in Kobanê is provided by the Syrian Kurds of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The Western and Arab coalition that is fighting the Islamic State offers limited close air support, although the Sunni jihadists’ tactics and the absence of special forces on the ground render that support largely ineffective. Turkey has refused a transit of reinforcements of PYD-affiliated fighters to Kobanê from Qamishli, another Syrian Kurdish district to the east.

Turkey's leaders see Kobani as opportunity, not threat, by Amberin Zaman | Al Monitor

Turkey's leaders see Kobani as opportunity, not threat | The fall of Kobani would deal a severe blow to Kurdish independence hopes and bolster Turkey's political goals. | Author Amberin Zaman Posted October 7, 2014

As Islamic State (IS) fighters keep up their battle to gain control over Kobani, a strategic Syrian Kurdish-controlled enclave on Turkey’s border, the effects of the conflict are being felt in Turkey itself. Thousands of Kurds took to the streets across the country on Oct. 7 to protest Turkey’s inaction against IS' seemingly unstoppable advance. The government slapped curfews on six provinces in the mainly Kurdish southeast region after clashes between protestors and the security forces, and between rival Kurdish groups, left at least 14 people dead. Elsewhere across the country, police clashed with demonstrators, trying to push them back with pressurized water and pepper spray while the Kurds responded with Molotov cocktails in a foretaste of the violence that is likely to engulf the country should Kobani fall.

Joe Biden Is the Only Honest Man in Washington | Foreign Policy Magazine

Joe Biden Is the Only Honest Man in Washington

The vice president's apologies to Turkey and the UAE show the dangers of accidentally telling the truth.

BY GOPAL RATNAM OCTOBER 6, 2014
 
Vice President Joe Biden has had to apologize, twice, to two key U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State. It wasn't because he lobbed false accusations at them. It was because he accidentally told some inconvenient truths.

Something extremely sinister at play here!

This is a video everybody must watch! It also happened in Cyprus. The west as complicit as back then, with the establishment media playing first violin.

From Holding Hands to Giving The Finger!

Holding hands just two years ago!

Erdogan talks tough. He says a limited strike is not enough. He wants Assad to capitulate. How does Assad return the favor? By attacking "Turkey" of course. But how does he do so without risking an all out NATO retaliation? It attacks the illegally occupied, by "Turkey", northern part of Cyprus, which is recognized by noone as being part of "Turkey", but it is neither under the control of the Cyprus government or the EU.