(Thirteenth in an occasional series as time and events allow)
Turkey agrees to use of bases for airstrikes" by Ceylan Yeginsu New York Times July 24, 2015
Only problem is, my print copy is by Liz Sly and Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post:
"Turkey agrees to allow U.S. military to use its base to attack Islamic State" by July 23
BEIRUT — Turkey has agreed to let the United States use Turkish soil to launch air attacks against the Islamic State, signaling a major shift in policy on the part of the once-reluctant American ally, U.S. officials said Thursday.
The decision to allow U.S. warplanes to use the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey is one element in a broad cooperation plan first broached nine months ago. Additional elements — including expanding U.S. airstrikes into the western part of the border area and using Turkish military ground spotters to guide them — are being discussed and finalized. Turkey had resisted being drawn too deeply into the war against the Islamic State because of concerns about the direction of the Obama administration’s Syria policy.
Related: World War III: U.S. Troops Inside Syria
Turkey is helping ISIS but is going to fight ISIS, great.
The Incirlik deal was sealed in a telephone conversation Wednesday between President Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a senior U.S. administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
A White House statement said only that the leaders had discussed “deepening our ongoing cooperation in the fight against ISIL, as well as common efforts to bring security and stability to Iraq and a political settlement to the conflict in Syria.” The Islamic State is also known as ISIS and ISIL.
Use of the Incirlik base, located just 60 miles from the northwest Syrian border, would enable piloted U.S. warplanes and armed drones to move more quickly and efficiently against Islamic State targets in their northern Syrian strongholds, U.S. officials have said. Planes currently fly from Iraq, to Syria’s east, and from Arab states such as Jordan and in the Persian Gulf region that are a part of the anti-Islamic State coalition.
Surveillance aircraft have been permitted to fly from Incirlik, but the Turkish government’s refusal to allow the base to be used for air attacks had triggered one of the deepest rifts in the U.S.-Turkish alliance in more than a decade, reflecting deep-seated policy differences between Ankara and Washington over ways to address the Syrian war. Incirlik has hosted American forces under the umbrella of the NATO alliance for many years, but it remains subject to Turkish sovereignty.
Oh, so this isn't really anything new. It's just an escalation against Assad, I mean ISIS.
Turkish officials made no immediate comments, although several Turkish media outlets reported the Incirlik agreement. In a news conference Wednesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Bülent Arinç said Turkey had “agreed on certain topics to support the [anti-Islamic State] coalition’s efforts during a recent meeting with the U.S. special representative,” a reference to retired Gen. John R. Allen, the administration’s coordinator for the coalition, who visited Turkey earlier this month.
“A unanimity of thought and action has been reached about the issue of joint operations in the future,” Arinç said, according to the Hürriyet newspaper. “A related cabinet motion is now open for a signature.”
The newspaper quoted an unidentified U.S. official as saying that American strike operations from Incirlik will begin in August.
When Congre$$ is gone and no one is watching.
The agreement was reached amid heightened tensions on the Turkish-Syrian border. In their first significant ground engagement with the Islamic State, Turkish troops on Thursday fired artillery into militant territory near the Kilis border crossing, killing two fighters. The move followed what Turkish media reports said was an Islamic State attack on Turkish troops in the area that killed at least one Turkish soldier.
The shooting erupted after Turkey sought to prevent militant fighters from entering its territory illegally via one of the many smuggling routes used to ferry goods, supplies and people in and out of Syria, Turkish media said.
What, after allowing and facilitating such things the last four years?
The Turkish military said in a statement that it scrambled four F-16 fighters to the area to guard against a possible escalation.
The U.S.-Turkish talks already had picked up speed in recent weeks as the Islamic State increased its presence in northwestern Syria, moving beyond its strongholds in the eastern and central parts of the country in the direction of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. The United States has in recent weeks carried out a growing number of attacks in the area.
Fighting in the northwest and in and around Aleppo has been primarily between Syrian opposition fighters and forces of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, and the United States has been reluctant to use its air power, which it has said is devoted solely to the fight against ISIS.
Under the plan, U.S. airstrikes could extend from Kobane, a Syrian town on the Turkish border, westward to the town of Azaz, about 20 miles north of Aleppo.
Whether Turkey has secured any concessions from the United States regarding its own concerns was not immediately clear. Turkey has repeatedly said it wants Washington to focus as much on removing Assad as on fighting the Islamic State.
Yeah, that's the ultimate goal here, yeah, and where the print copy ended it.
It also has said it wants a safe zone in the area, protected by air power, that would allow it to transfer back to Syria some of an estimated 2 million refugees on Turkish territory.
Looks like a LAND GRAB to me!
It was unclear whether the U.S.-Turkey arrangement under discussion would recognize any safe zone, but increased control of the 560-mile border would enhance efforts to prevent Islamist militants from crossing into Syria.
Significant gains by Syrian Kurds against the Islamic State in northern Syria to the east of Kobane also have contributed to the evolution of Turkey’s thinking. In recent weeks, Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units have seized large swaths of territory, consolidating Kurdish control over what Turkey fears represents the early outlines of a new Kurdish state.
Which the Kurds have every right to form according to the U.N. charter, but we can also see in this clipped cut that this about more than Assad.
The Kurdish advances have been aided by U.S. airstrikes, leaving Turkey at risk of losing out all along the border.
By aligning more closely with the U.S.-led coalition, Turkey may be seeking to forestall further Kurdish gains in the eastern border region and secure more robust support for the Syrian rebels in the west than would have been possible had it remained on the sidelines of the fight.
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I wonder if the printed misfire killed any civilians:
"Violence continued on the ground and suspected Islamic State militants fired at a Turkish military outpost from inside Syrian territory on Thursday, killing a Turkish soldier and wounding two others. Turkish troops retaliated to the attack and at least one Islamic State militant was killed, according to Turkish official Suleyman Tapsiz, the governor for the Kilis province. The attack follows a suicide bombing in a Turkish town near the Syrian border on Monday which killed 32 people. Authorities have blamed the attack on militants linked to Islamic State."
And that, my friends, is justification for Turkish troops to invade Syria and establish a "buffer zone."
Now, about that "terror" attack:
Bombers kill 30; Turkey’s leader hints of Islamic State plot
Turkey bombing suspect linked to Islamic State
SURUC BOMBING IN TURKEY - 'INSIDE JOB'
Wait until you see how far down the connections go in that hole.
Turkey: Jets Target "ISIS", Mass Arrests inc. PKK. Kurds Continue Their Ethnic Cleansing
Is Civil War Being Exported To Turkey, or Just More War Upon the Kurds?
"Turkey Plans to Invade Syria, But to Stop the Kurds, Not ISIS" "Turkey Re-Lauches War On Kurds" This could be WWIII. -- xymphora
Another leg of it anyway:
"Turkish jets bomb Islamic State sites in Syria; Airstrikes mark change in policy toward militants" by Liz Sly and Erin Cunningham Washington Post July 25, 2015
BEIRUT — Turkish leaders pledged further action against the Islamic State on Friday, after Turkish jets bombed Islamic State targets in Syria for the first time, opening a new front in the war against the militants.
The strikes early Friday came after US and Turkish officials said Turkey had agreed to allow the United States to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State from Turkish territory, a major strategic shift aimed at facilitating more extensive attacks against the militants in their northern Syria strongholds.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Friday confirmed the government’s decision to grant access to Turkish bases to ‘‘manned and unmanned aircraft from the US and other coalition countries.’’
The Turkish air force will also participate ‘‘with the same objective,’’ the ministry said in a statement, calling the Islamic State ‘‘a primary national security threat for Turkey.’’
In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said, ‘‘Turkey has granted clearance’’ for US and coalition aircraft to use its bases, and ‘‘that includes Incirlik air base.’’
‘‘We’re looking for deeper cooperation with Turkey and with the members of the coalition,’’ and this is another step in that process, Toner said.
In addition to deploying manned and unmanned aircraft from Incirlik, he said, the United States is ‘‘looking at how we can deepen the train-and-equip program, operational coordination and intelligence sharing.’’
Train and equip who?
Turkey had refrained from full participation in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State since last summer, citing concerns that the Obama administration’s strategy did not adequately address the complexity of the Syrian war.
Recent events, including gains by both the Islamic State and Syrian Kurds along the Turkish border, as well as signs that the Islamic State is gaining a deeper foothold inside Turkey, appear to have galvanized Turkey to act.
Uh-huh.
‘‘We have entered a very difficult struggle,’’ Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul, according to local media reports. ‘‘This is not an operation limited to only tonight, and it will continue in a determined way in the coming period, too.”
Erdogan confirmed that a deal has been reached with the United States regarding use of Incirlik air base ‘‘within a certain framework,’’ suggesting details still need to be worked out.
The Turkish strikes could potentially draw the country’s NATO-allied forces deeper into the Syrian conflict and risk retaliation at home from the militants.
That's the plan, yeah.
On Thursday, Islamic State fighters killed a Turkish soldier on the border, prompting Turkish troops to retaliate with artillery fire and airstrikes.
Turkey is acting more like Israel all the time.
A statement from the office of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said three Turkish F-16s struck two Islamic State sites and a gathering of fighters Friday shortly before 4 a.m.
‘‘The state of the Republic of Turkey is decisive in taking any precaution to safeguard its national security,’’ the statement said.
A Turkish official told the Associated Press that Turkey did not violate Syrian airspace, suggesting that the planes skimmed the border and fired on the Islamic State positions from the Turkish border province of Kilis.
Doesn't matter; where did the missiles land?
Hours later, thousands of Turkish police launched raids against suspected Islamic State, Kurdish, and leftist militants in towns across the country, a sign of Turkey’s concerns that its deeper engagement in Syria could prompt domestic terrorism at home. One person was killed and 297 detained nationwide, the government said.
Ah, Turkish tyranny makes a return under the guise of the "War on Terror."
‘‘They are at risk of some kind of blowback, but there is a risk of blowback no matter what Turkey does,’’ said Aaron Stein, a Geneva-based analyst with the Atlantic Council.
How come all the experts in my jew$paper are war-promoting Zionists or globalists?
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Not the only blasts in Turkey.
"Two killed in blasts at Kurdish rally in Turkey" by Suzan Fraser Associated Press June 06, 2015
ANKARA, Turkey — Two people died and more than 100 were injured after two explosions rocked a large Kurdish party election rally in southeast Turkey on Friday, the country’s Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker said.
Given the Turkish governments proclivity for false flag attacks.... you reach your own conclusions.
The blasts occurred five minutes apart at the rally of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, as party leader Selahattin Demirtas was preparing to address the crowd of tens of thousands in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many of the injured were seriously hurt.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the first blast occurred inside a garbage container, and the second, more powerful one was inside a power-distribution unit.
Rally organizers told the crowd that the explosion resulted from a problem with the power-distribution unit and urged calm. But Energy Minister Taner Yildiz later said the blast was caused by an ‘‘external interference’’ with the power unit, though he did not say whether he believed a bomb was involved.
The explosions come at a tense time, two days before Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Turkey, in which the Kurdish votes will be critical.
Who would want to keep them away from the polls?
The party is vying to pass the threshold of 10 percent of total votes required to take seats in parliament. If it succeeds, it could make it impossible for the ruling AKP to reach a supermajority in Parliament. That would scuttle the AKP’s ambitions to introduce a new constitution and change Turkey’s parliamentary system into a presidential system that could give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan executive powers.
Demirtas urged for calm while describing the incident as an ‘‘attack’’ against his party.
‘‘The powers behind this attack will, hopefully, be revealed,’’ he told thousands of supporters later Friday from the top of a campaign bus outside the party’s headquarters in Diyarbakir. ‘‘These attacks must not remain unsolved.’’
Uh-huh.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said authorities will investigate the cause of the explosions.
Oh, well, nothing to worry about then.
‘‘Whatever is behind this incident — whether it was a power transformer explosion, an assassination attempt, an act of provocation — we shall investigate it,’’ he said.
Yeah, whatever.
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So how did the vote go?
"Turkey’s ruling party loses parliamentary majority; Vote viewed as rebuke to power grab by Erdogan" by Tim Arango and Ceylan Yeginsu New York Times June 08, 2015
ISTANBUL — Turkish voters delivered a rebuke Sunday to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as his party lost its majority in Parliament in a historic election that dealt a blow to his ambition to rewrite the constitution and increase his power.
The election results represented a significant setback to Erdogan, an Islamist who has steadily increased his power as president, a partly but not solely ceremonial post. After more than a decade as prime minister, Erdogan has pushed for more control of the judiciary and cracked down on any form of criticism, including prosecutions of those who insult him on social media, but his efforts appeared to have run aground Sunday.
The election was also a significant victory to the cadre of Kurds, liberals, and secular Turks who found their voice of opposition to Erdogan during sweeping antigovernment protests two years ago.
Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, still won by far the most seats in Parliament, but not a majority, according to preliminary results released Sunday night. The outcome suggested contentious days of jockeying ahead as the party moves to form a coalition government. Already, analysts were raising the possibility of new elections if a government cannot be formed swiftly. Many Turks were happy to see Erdogan’s powers curtailed, even though the prospect of a coalition government evokes dark memories of political instability and economic malaise during the 1990s.
With 99 percent of the votes counted, the AKP had won 41 percent of the vote, according to TRT, a state-run broadcaster, down from nearly 50 percent during the last national election in 2011. The percentage gave it an estimated 258 seats in Parliament, compared with the 327 seats it has now.
“The outcome is an end to Erdogan’s presidential ambitions,” said Soner Cagaptay, an expert on Turkey and a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
As I was saying....
Almost immediately, the results raised questions about the political future of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who moved to that position from that of foreign minister last year and was seen as a loyal subordinate of Erdogan.
Speaking Sunday night from a balcony at the party headquarters in Ankara, Davutoglu struck tones of triumph and optimism, touting his party as the winner because it won the most seats, without mentioning the loss of its majority.
Erdogan, who as president was not on the ballot, will probably remain Turkey’s dominant political figure even if his powers have been rolled back, given his outsize personality and his still-deep well of support among Turkey’s religious conservatives, who form the backbone of his constituency. But even among those supporters, including ones in Kasimpasa, the Istanbul neighborhood where Erdogan spent part of his youth, there are signs that his popularity is flagging.
“A lot of people in Kasimpasa have become disheartened by Erdogan’s aggressive approach in recent weeks,” said Aydin, 77, who gave only his first name because some of his family members are close to Erdogan.
Turnout was 86 percent for the election, which was seen as a referendum on Erdogan’s tenure, especially his plan for a presidential system that would have given him more power. Polling had consistently shown that the majority of Turks are opposed to the change.
Look at that turnout!
By law, Erdogan can call for a new election after 45 days if a coalition is not formed.
The election turned on the historic performance at the ballot box of Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which aligned with liberals and secular Turks opposed to Erdogan’s leadership to win almost 13 percent of the vote, passing a 10 percent legal threshold and earning representation in Parliament.
Selahattin Demirtas, 42, a former human rights lawyer who leads the largely Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, told reporters Sunday night: “As of this hour, the debate about the presidency, the debate about dictatorship, is over. Turkey narrowly averted a disaster.”
The People’s Democratic Party, known as HDP, was able to broaden its base by fielding a slate of candidates that included women, gays, and other minorities and appealed to voters whose goal was to curtail Erdogan’s powers.
The Kurdish party opted to run as a unified slate, rather than field independent candidates as it had in the past. But it was a big risk: either it would reach the 10 percent threshold and enter Parliament, or it would be shut out, and its seats would have gone to the AKP.
In the city of Diyarbakir, in the Kurdish heartland in the southeast, celebrations broke out as people flooded the streets, dancing and setting off fireworks.
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How to move forward?
"Turkey’s Erdogan urges parties to put differences aside" Associated Press June 12, 2015
ANKARA, Turkey — The surprisingly strong loss was a slap to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions. The ruling party, which had governed alone, is now forced to seek a coalition partnership with three smaller parties he had attacked during the campaign.
Those parties have been reluctant to join forces with the ruling party, although reports say behind-the-scenes meetings are underway.
Erdogan, Turkey’s dominant political figure for the past decade, had hardly been seen in public since Sunday’s electoral upset. A humorous Internet clock showed he had been off the airwaves for at least 3 days and 21 hours.
On Thursday, Erdogan delivered a speech at a graduation ceremony for foreign students in which he made no mention of the electoral setback....
In denial?
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"Turkish leader stymied on coalition bid" Associated Press July 15, 2015
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s nationalist party is unwilling to join the ruling party in a coalition alliance, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Tuesday after a meeting with officials of the party long considered its most probable partner.
Davutoglu is meeting party leaders as part of his search for a coalition partnership after the ruling Islamic-rooted party lost its parliamentary majority in Turkey’s June 7 elections.
The prime minister was given a mandate on July 9 to form a government. He has 45 days from that date to build a coalition, and if he can’t, new elections will be called.
With more than a month to go before that deadline, Davutoglu told reporters after talks with Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli that the far-right party would prefer to remain an opposition party.
Davutoglu didn’t rule out, however, more talks on forming a coalition with the party in the future. The two parties share a common religious and conservative voter base.
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He's no Demirel.
Time to tunnel out of Turkey:
"Kurds find Islamic State group tunnel near Turkish border" Associated Press June 22, 2015
ISTANBUL — Kurdish forces have discovered a 440-yard long tunnel dug by Islamic State militants near the Turkish border with Syria, a spokesman for the militia said Monday.
Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, discovered the half-completed tunnel after they captured the border town of Tal Abyad last week, spokesman Redur Khalil said. He said it wasn’t clear whether it was eventually meant to lead into Turkey; the tunnel splits into two directions at one point.
A tunnel linking Turkey to Islamic State-held territory might offer some insight into the many ways in which Muslim radicals from around the world have slipped across the Turkish border to reach the fanatical group, whose territory straddles Syria and Iraq.
What, when Turkey wasn't sending the trained rebels over the border itself?
The YPG captured Tal Abyad from militants, cutting off a vital supply line to the group’s self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa.
The Kurdish advance prompted thousands of Syrians to flee the fighting into Turkey, but hundreds began moving back into Syria after Turkey reopened a nearby border crossing Monday.
In Sanliurfa Province, officials confirmed Monday that Syrians were beginning to return. The Turkish news agency DHA put their number at 500....
Actually, the permanent refugees are meant to reshape the Middle East as the Syrians weave themselves into the fabric of Turkish life.
It's the New World Order right in front of your eyes.
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"On Turkey’s border, chaos looms" by Stephen Kinzer July 06, 2015
Living next to a country consumed in conflict is never easy. Turkey is making the best of it. As civil war in neighboring Syria drags through its fourth year, however, Turkey is being sucked in. People I met a few weeks ago in the thriving Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, are nervous and worried. Life looks normal, but the sense of unease is palpable.
Militant groups fighting in Syria, including ISIS, maintain cells in Gaziantep. Wounded ISIS fighters are treated here. Mysterious arms shipments rumble across the border. A businessman told me his European partners have just pulled out of a joint venture. “It would take six months for us to build our factory here,” he said, “and they are afraid that, by then, Gaziantep will be unstable and dangerous because the Syrian war will come to our door.”
Americans sometimes forget how difficult it is to live in a turbulent region. Turks know. Their country is a relatively stable democracy and NATO member. Near the border with Syria, though, chaos is literally just down the road.
The most visible signs of nearby war are the nearly two million Syrian refugees who have surged into Turkey since 2011. It is a staggering figure, larger than the population of West Virginia or Kosovo. Turkey has done an exemplary job of dealing with the greatest humanitarian crisis of this century. Refugee camps like one I saw on the shore of the Euphrates River are clean and safe. All have health clinics, police forces, schools for children and adults, and even fire departments. Over the last four years, Turkey has spent $5 billion to care for Syrian refugees.
Many refugees living outside the camps are packed into rundown neighborhoods and have trouble finding work. Local people complain that they have pushed up rents, depressed wages, and strained health care resources. Syrian children earn pennies by collecting cardboard and other refuse to sell to recycling companies. According to a study by Nil Tuzcu, an MIT graduate student who is from Gaziantep, Syrian refugees have given the border region “a new layer of marginality and inequality.”
Cynics say that Turkey has a special obligation to care for refugees because its policies have contributed to prolonging the Syrian war. Turkey, like the United States, declared when the war began that it would refuse to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad, or consider any political solution in which he played a role. Every journalist and activist I met in the border area told me that Turkey has clandestinely sent many truckloads of weaponry to anti-Assad fighters. Reports of this traffic have surfaced several times in the Turkish press, most recently a few weeks ago, when a news site posted footage it said showed three trucks full of arms crossing into Syria. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was angry — not about the shipment, which he evidently authorized, but at the journalists who revealed it. He warned that they would “pay a high price.” In a previous episode, border police officers who stopped an arms shipment were prosecuted for espionage.
No one I met could say which militant groups in Syria are receiving these weapons. Nor do they know whether the weapons come from Turkish stocks or are trans-shipped from Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. All agreed, however, that ISIS is conducting support operations inside Turkey with at least tacit approval from the Turkish government. American and European intelligence services have opened stations in Gaziantep. This onetime backwater is now in the eye of a geopolitical storm.
“Foreign fighters going to Syria live in Gaziantep before crossing over,” a local political party leader told me. “This is the biggest danger to our community, that we can be dragged into war. We are afraid Gaziantep could become another Peshawar.”
I froze when I heard that word. Once I felt safe wandering the back streets of Peshawar, a Pakistani city near the Afghan border. Now it is a base for terror groups fighting on the other side, and highly dangerous for strangers. I cannot imagine anything like that happening in Gaziantep, partly because Turkey is a far stronger state than Pakistan and maintains tight control over its territory. Not everyone shares my optimism.
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All part of the Kinzer collection.
Nothing but Globe gristle left on the turkey leg.
UPDATE: Turkish Jets Strike Kurds in Iraq, Complicating Anti-ISIS Fight
NDU:
"Turkish jets attack Kurdish militant camps in northern Iraq" by Ceylan Yeginsu New York Times July 26, 2015
ISTANBUL — Turkish fighter jets, which last week began attacking Islamic State targets in Syria, have launched a wave of airstrikes in northern Iraq, targeting camps of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party for the first time in four years, the prime minister’s office said Saturday.
???????????
The Iraq raids, which began late Friday and continued into Saturday, effectively ended an unstable two-year cease-fire between the Turkish government and the Kurdish militants, also known by the initials of their Kurdish name, PKK.
After a three-decade conflict that claimed at least 40,000 lives, the two sides reached a fragile peace in 2013, though there have been a few minor clashes since then.
I suppose the showing in Parliament had something to do with this as well. So under the banner of fighting ISIS, Turkey has now turned on the Kurds -- in Iraq, just after Ash Carter visited them and said thanks!
Fighter jets also struck Islamic State targets in Syria for a second day, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office said in the statement on Saturday. The jets entered Syrian airspace to do so, the statement said, unlike during the previous strikes, which the government said were carried out from the Turkish side of the border.
Whether they entered or not, it's still a violation of Syrian sovereignty and nothing that any NATO or Arab ally would tolerate. The reaction in my propaganda pre$$? Ho-hum.
“No one should doubt our determination,” Davutoglu said, speaking to reporters in Ankara, the capital, on Saturday. “We will not allow Turkey to be turned into a lawless country.”
Or let Assad rule Syria.
In the past week, Turkey began taking a more active role in fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, agreeing to let the United States use its air bases to attack the militants in Syria as well as carrying out its own strikes.
Which is strange because they have enabled them all this way -- and they are bombing Kurdish allies in that fight (unfortunately, Kurdistan is also a base for CIA and Mossad intelligence operations. I know the pre$$ doesn't tell you that, but there it is).
The moves came after a suicide bomber suspected of having ties to the Islamic State struck a cultural center in the Turkish border town of Suruc on Monday, killing at least 32 people, in one of the worst cases of spillover violence from the war in Syria.
The casus belli of a false flag being waved in your face!
In a series of counterterrorism raids over the past two days, Turkish authorities have arrested 590 people suspected of being members of the Islamic State or the PKK, Davutoglu said.
Filling up the jails with enemies of the state. I expect U.S. criticism very soo.... ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yeah, right. U.S. got there air base rights. Now you Turks do whatever you want (Armenian genocide all forgotten, now go to work!).
In the past year, Turkey, a longtime American ally and NATO member, has faced increased pressure from Western governments to take a more active role in the American-led coalition formed to fight the Islamic State.
That is, you know, the same coalition that created and funds if not directs ISIS.
Turkey’s reluctance stemmed in part from the fact that the government did not want to embolden Kurdish militias, who have been making gains across its frontier with Syria, having received increased military support from the United States to fight the Islamic State.
Again, the same coalition that.... sure is a good way to keep wars going, providing more excuses for bombings, invasions, or occupations, while enriching the war indu$try all the way along.
One militia, the People’s Protection Unit, or YPG, which is leading the fight against the Islamic State on the ground in Syria, is an affiliate of the PKK, and Turkey had been cautious about taking action in Syria to avoid straining relations with its own Kurdish minority.
What a bunch of bull. I'm sure some of those Kurdish parties were benefiting from the Turkish supply line for terrorists.
But the peace efforts, now in their third year, have broken down as the Turkish government has not agreed to Kurdish demands for greater rights and more autonomy after decades of being ostracized by the Turkish state.
“The truce has no meaning anymore after these intense airstrikes by the occupant Turkish army,” the PKK said on its website on Saturday.
Can't blame them for feeling that way, and how many innocents have been murdered in this latest flurry?
The bombing at the cultural center Monday also inflamed tensions between Turkey and Kurdish nationalists, who accused the government of collaborating with the Islamic State and facilitating their activities within Turkey.
The NYT puts that open secret in the alternative media out there in a sort of inside-out, upside-down half-truth way, thus confirming the false flag nature of the event. Cui bono?
Most of the victims of the attack were young Kurdish activists who had gathered at the center to discuss the rebuilding of Kobani, a war-torn border town in Syria that has come under numerous attacks from the Islamic State during the past year.
Oh, man, then it is outright murder!
The military branch of the PKK killed two Turkish police officers in Turkey’s southeast on Tuesday, in an attack that it said was in retaliation for the Suruc bombing.
On Friday, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that all terrorist organizations must lay down their weapons or “face consequences.”
Except for those they support, and they may turn on you in a New York minute.
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