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.

Democracy's Power

Long ago I likened Erdogan to Gorbachev. Both unleashed the forces of democracy without truly understanding either its nature or its power. Democracy is beautiful, just like a sailboat crossing the waters, but few people appreciate the magnitiude of the forces that make up that beautiful image. The disintegration process is now visible in "Turkey", with just the tip of the tip of the iceberg discernible to the common eye.

Turkish opposition leader condemns 'dictator' Erdogan | the GUARDIAN 15/2/13

Turkish opposition leader condemns 'dictator' Erdogan | Kemal Kilicdaroglu, chairman of the Republican People's party, warns that PM is driving Turkey towards constitutional 'disaster' | Simon Tisdall | guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 February 2013 12.33 GMT

Turkey's prime minister is behaving like an "elected dictator" and inciting a constitutional crisis in a bid for greater personal power, the leader of the country's main opposition party has warned.

CHP Raises 'Turkish Question' In Dealing With Kurds ' | Al-Monitor

Ethnic Turks of "Turkey" are just beginning to accept an inescapable truth. That they have their very own "Turkish Cypriot" community at home. A minority, that unlike the Cyprus one, has a valid historical and ethical claim on a large contiguous piece of "Turkey" 's territory. Ethnic Turks must sooner or later choose between favoring the minority community of Cyprus or themselves, the ethnic majority of "Turkey". Unfortunately, they cannot have it both ways.

It's inevitable

The landmass we incorrectly refer to as "Turkey" will disintegrate to some extend or another. Erdogan's choices, though intended to prevent the worst case scenario, are in actual fact expediting the inevitable.

I dare predict that the utter and complete failure, expected in 2013 sometime, to adopt a western constitution that addresses just Kurdish demands and introduces wider democratization reforms, will be a turning point in "Turkey" 's history & the beginning of a lethal spiral into unprecedented uncertainty as well as misery for all the constituent parts of the country.

'Turkey’s wrong turn' by STEVE HUNTLEY Chicago Sun-Times

Anyone looking for hopeful signs of the role democratically elected Islamist governments might play in international affairs will find disappointment in how Turkey irresponsibly exploited the Israel-Hamas fighting with bluster, lies and fanatical characterizations of the Jewish state.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel a “terrorist state” and accused it of “ethnic cleansing” when its only offense is defending its citizens against rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip by the terrorist organization Hamas.

Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 ANKARA 000087

16. (C) The greatest potential strategic problem for the US, however, and the one that has some of the commentators howling, is the Turks neo-Ottoman posturing around the Middle East and Balkans. This "back to the past" attitude so clear in Davutoglu's Sarajevo speech, combined with the Turks' tendency to execute it through alliances with more Islamic or more worrisome local actors, constantly creates new problems. Part of this is structural. Despite their success and relative power, the Turks really can't compete on equal terms with either the US or regional "leaders" (EU in the Balkans, Russia in the Caucasus/Black Sea, Saudis, Egyptians and even Iranians in the ME). With Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources, to cut themselves in on the action the Turks have to "cheat" by finding an underdog (this also plays to Erdogan's own worldview), a Siladjcic, Mish'al, or Ahmadinejad, who will be happy to have the Turks take up his cause. The Turks then attempt to ram through revisions to at least the reigning "Western" position to the favor of their guy. Given, again, the questioning of Western policy and motives by much of the Turkish public and the AKP, such an approach provides a relatively low cost and popular tool to demonstrate influence, power, and the "we're back" slogan. Source: Wikileaks

Turkey on the European doorstep

Open publication - Free publishing - More cyprus

Turkey: NATO’s ‘Open Prison’

With Egypt’s Islamists scoring a crushing electoral victory over their secular opponents, governments and pundits alike are considering the likely denouement of the vaunted Arab Spring in the region’s largest country, Turkey. It is therefore worth noting some very troubling recent developments in the country that the Muslim Brotherhood and many in the West consistently tout as a successful “Islamist democracy” worth emulating.

They are angry!

Mehmet Ali Birand 27/10/2011 "However many members the state of the Turkish Republic puts in jail, KCK fills the blanks immediately. There are two states in the region. One is the BDP-KCK formation; the other is the state of the Republic of Turkey. It is openly felt that there is a subtle race, a competition between these two powers. ...

Turkey knows

"Despite all that, Turkey, with its government and public, should never give up being cautious. Although there is no inclination or intention to implement a policy of hard power at the moment, even the seemingly most trivial and little tensions in international relations have the potential of turning into a disaster and spiraling out of control. There are many examples of this. It is very possible for a crisis between two countries to unexpectedly deteriorate into a conflict or a hot confrontation. What is more, an artificial crisis can be stirred up intentionally with the provocation of actors from inside and outside of the country. Therefore, we are of the view that Turkey is or should be rational enough not to carry its military activities to further levels under any circumstances. Additionally, we also believe that Turkey is or should be aware of the fact that tumbling into a military confrontation is bound to result in all the gains and advantages it has scored in recent years going down the drain." - Military activism in Turkish foreign policy: End of soft power approach? 23 October 2011, Sunday / RAMAZAN GÖZEN TODAY'S ZAMAN

Megalomania

“The AK Party is not only a party of Turkey, it is a party of the world from Mogadishu to Bosnia and Herzegovina, from Damascus to Skopje, from Sana to Bishkek, from Abu Dhabi to Islamabad, from Gaza to Benghazi, from Pristina to the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". Where there is a victim in the world, the AK Party is there by his side. This is the kind of party we are” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

It's official! I envy tCypriots. The Prime Sinister's comments are spot on for the tCypriot victims who so perfectly fit the bill! And they play the part so darn well!

No!

"Can We Write a New Democratic Constitution?" asks Nuray Mert of Hurriyet Daily News. The simple answer is 'NO'. Hers follows: "Last week, Prof. Burhan Kuzu of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), who is the president of the parliament’s constitution committee, expressed his recent views on the new Constitution in an interview in the Vatan daily under the title of “God will punish those who will be an obstacle for the new constitution!” " Can We Write a New Democratic Constitution? October 16, 2011 Nuray Mert Hurriyet Daily News

Turk vs. Kurd on Al Jazeera

You must spend the 20 or so minutes to watch this. Pay attention to Kurds' need for community rights, for equality with the ethnic Turks of Turkey. In the end, you will come to understand Turkish über hypocrisy for the support of tCypriots' rights in Cyprus.

A bluff gone sour!

I believe Turkey is playing her last round at the Cyprus poker table. Cyprus, over the years, played her game well given the prevailing power balance. Today we sit on a UN ID, an EU membership, and a potential treasure. We have every reason to be cautiously optimistic. By July 1st 2012 all players will show their hand. Choosing sides means that they all have to state unequivocally their support for the RoC. The alternative means siding with Turkey. Extremely doubtful given the present power balance & Turkey's Islamic tendencies and flirting in all the wrong places.

Civil war

Emre Uslu "Two things have changed. The perception of “Kurds” among Turks has changed. In the 1990s Turks differentiated the Kurds from the PKK. Therefore, they did not associate their Kurdish neighbor with the PKK. Now, however, there is an increasing tendency for Turks not to separate ordinary Kurds from the Kurdish nationalist PKK and its sympathizers. Second of all, the recruitment pool of the PKK has shifted from the southeastern Kurdish-dominated cities to the major metropolitan centers such as İzmir, İstanbul, Mersin and other Aegean coastal cities. Therefore, the new generation of PKK militants now knows how to operate within the urban centers and is able to hit and hide...Its new war strategy is to trigger a civil war between the ordinary Kurds and Turks."

Understanding Turkey 101

Half of Turkey believes in the invulnerability of the so called 'Father of the Turks' and the other half in that of the 'New Father of the Turks'. Each half hates the other with a passion. Both "religions" are laughable to anyone with western logic and reason capacities.

Now, the other third of the country

A most interesting "Turkish" what-if of an ethnic Turk

Davutoğlu “went to Libya and took part in an opposition demonstration. What if a Western diplomat joins a demonstration in Diyarbakır one day?” he [ Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu] said.

Cheap nationalism in Turkey?

“Turkey still has not been delivered from cheap nationalism. Why should Dalaras hesitate about giving a concert in Turkey, and why should we not listen to the velvet voice of the Aegean? Why should Aynur be forced off stage because she sang in Kurdish?” asked Hasan Saltuk, the owner of Kalan Music, who is also dubbed as the archaeologist of Anatolian music, in a phone interview with the Daily News.

Terrorists or freedom fighters?

Nuray Mert - "One must be cruel to take the risk and feel ready to pay the price of a Kurdish-Turkish confrontation not only in the big cities but also in all parts of the country where Turks and Kurds live side by side. One must be delusional to think there is no such risk."