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Turkey has been skillful enough to play both Russia and the United States. Goes back to the Cuban missile crisis, “divide and conquer”

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Turkey has been skillful enough to play both Russia and the United States to extract the best possible deals for Ankara’s own interests. The stress test of the downed Russian jet in late 2015, however, made Erdogan more cautious not to overplay his cards with Putin. Moscow and Ankara have since been more prudent when walking on each other’s terrain. The current state of affairs in Syria makes this experience particularly helpful. Russia shows empathy for Turkey’s fundamental security concern about the YPG and other Kurdish forces. Turkey, in turn, has to side with the Russian agenda on preserving Syrian territorial integrity and on Assad as being ruler of the country.

Trump’s “handing over” of Syria to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is largely seen in Moscow as a reflection of this intent. So are the likely sale of the Patriot air-defense system and the lifting of sanctions against Turkey.

Russia’s Agriculture Ministry announced it is considering doubling the quota for tomato imports from Turkey to 100,000 tons a year.

Erdogan vows to clear Syria of a US-backed Kurdish militia

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ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday promised to clear Syria of a US-backed Kurdish militia and militants after the US decision to pull troops out.
“In the next months we will see an operational style aimed at removing the YPG (Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia) and Daesh elements on the ground in Syria,” Erdogan said in Istanbul.
He promised last week to start a Turkish-led operation before US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered 2,000 American ground forces to leave Syria.
Erdogan welcomed Trump’s decision but said he remained “cautious” because of “past negative experiences,” referring to Ankara’s continued disappointment over the US administration’s failure to stop providing military support to the YPG against Daesh.
In November last year, Turkish officials said Trump had promised not to supply weapons to the YPG militia, although the White House was not as explicit about its intentions.
American support to the YPG militia which spearheaded Washington’s battles in Syria to eliminate militants has long been a source of tension between the NATO allies.
Turkey says the YPG is a “terrorist offshoot” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
The PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey, the US and the European Union.

Erdogan said on Dec.12 that Turkey would start an offensive in northern Syria in “the next few days” but on Dec. 14, he spoke to Trump on the phone.
According to Turkish daily Hurriyet on Friday, Trump decided to pull out of Syria during that call with Erdogan and ordered his national security adviser John Bolton to “start the work” to prepare withdrawing troops.
The Turkish head of state on Friday said the US decision meant Turkey would “wait a little longer” before launching an operation which would involve Syrian rebels.
“Of course this is not an open-ended waiting period,” he warned, adding that Turkey was working on plans to “neutralize Daesh elements” that still exist in Syria.
“Mr Trump told us during our conversation ‘will you clean Daesh from here?’ We have cleared them and after this, we will clear them. As long as you give us the support in terms of logistics. And have they (the US) started to withdraw? They have,” he added.

Turkish Dictator Erdogan denies the Armenian Genocide during G20 summit

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During a press conference at the G20 summit in Argentina, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied the Armenian Genocide after a question from a journalist of Armenian origin. When asked about the rights of minorities in Turkey, the journalist added: “I am one of the descendants of the families that suffered the Armenian Genocide,” according to Horizon Weekly.

“Turkey cannot be blamed of having committed a genocide against the Armenians,” said Erdogan. “On the question of genocide, please let’s leave the discussions to the Historians and let’s listen to what the Historians have to say. This is not a part of our history and I can very confidently say that and we are ready to get involved in any discussion whatsoever,” added Erdogan.

“Do you know how many Armenians live in my country right now? Hundred of thousands. About 30,000 of them are citizens and the rest are undocumented. They have fled Armenia only to settle in Turkey. And we allow them to do so. A total of 100,000 Armenians live in our country. They were never discriminated on the basis of citizenship, we have never deported any Armenians on those grounds. We are very humane in our conduct and we will keep on doing so,” said the Turkish President.
Before the arrival of the Turkish President to Argentina, the Armenian community held a demonstration in front of the residence of the Turkish Ambassador on Monday, November 26. “Erdogan is the head of a state that maintains a state policy of denial and non-recognition of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish State between 1915 and 1923,” denounced the Armenian community at that time.

To ease Turkish pressure on Saudis over killing, White House weighs expelling #Erdogan foe #Gulen

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“Once they realized it was a serious request, the career guys were furious,” a U.S. official said of request tied to Khashoggi killing.

By Carol E. Lee, Julia Ainsley and Courtney Kube

WASHINGTON — The White House is looking for ways to remove an enemy of Turkish President Recep Erdogan from the U.S. in order to placate Turkey over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to two senior U.S. officials and two other people briefed on the requests.

Trump administration officials last month asked federal law enforcement agencies to examine legal ways of removing exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen in an attempt to persuade Erdogan to ease pressure on the Saudi government, the four sources said.

The effort includes directives to the Justice Department and FBI that officials reopen Turkey’s case for his extradition, as well as a request to the Homeland Security Department for information about his legal status, the four people said.

They said the White House specifically wanted details about Gulen’s residency status in the U.S. Gulen has a Green Card, according to two people familiar with the matter. He has been living in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s.

Career officials at the agencies pushed back on the White House requests, the U.S. officials and people briefed on the requests said.

“At first there were eye rolls, but once they realized it was a serious request, the career guys were furious,” said a senior U.S. official involved in the process.

A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment. The FBI also declined to comment.

The State Department, Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

A lawyer representing Gulen declined to comment.

A Turkish official said the government does not link its concerns about the Khashoggi murder with Gulen’s extradition case.

“We definitely see no connection between the two,” the official said. “We want to see action on the end of the United States in terms of the extradition of Gulen. And we’re going to continue our investigation on behalf of the Khashoggi case.”

The secret effort to resolve one of the leading tensions in U.S.-Turkey relations — Gulen’s residency in the U.S. — provides a window into how President Donald Trump is trying to navigate hostility between two key allies after Saudi officials murdered Khashoggi on Oct. 2 at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

It suggests the White House could be looking for ways to contain Erdogan’s ire over the murder while preserving Trump’s close alliance with Saudi Arabia’s controversial de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The kingdom, after initially denying any role in Khashoggi’s disappearance, reversed course and admitted that Saudi officials were responsible for the killing. On Thursday, Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor recommended the death penalty for five out of the 11 suspects charged with killing Khashoggi. A total of 21 suspects have been arrested in connection with the case, according to Saud al-Mojeb.

Erdogan, meanwhile, has kept the pressure up by leaking pieces of evidence and repeatedly speaking out to accuse Prince Mohammed of orchestrating the murder of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and outspoken critic of the Saudi leadership.

Saudi Arabia is critical to Trump’s Middle East policy. The White House’s relationship with Prince Mohammed is key to Trump’s goals of countering Iran and helping to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Turkey is a NATO ally in possession of evidence about Khashoggi’s murder that positions Erdogan to stoke international outrage over Riyadh’s culpability in and cover-up of Khashoggi’s murder.

Erdogan has for years demanded the U.S. send Gulen back to Turkey. The Turkish leader accuses the elderly cleric of being a terrorist who was behind a failed coup against Erdogan’s government in 2016. After the coup attempt, Ankara made a formal request to the U.S. for Gulen’s extradition.

One option that Turkish and Trump administration officials recently discussed is forcing Gulen to relocate to South Africa rather than sending him directly to Turkey if extradition is not possible, said the U.S. officials and people briefed on the discussions. But the U.S. does not have any legal justification to send Gulen to South Africa, they said, so that wouldn’t be a viable option unless he went willingly.

Trump and Erdogan also recently discussed another option to relieve tensions — the release of Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who was sentenced in May to 32 months in prison by a U.S. federal judge for his role in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran, two people familiar with the discussion said. Erdogan has criticized the case against Atilla as a political attack aimed at undermining his government.

The U.S. and Turkey have been engaged in negotiations over a series of sensitive diplomatic issues over the past few months, including a deal for last month’s release of an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, who was imprisoned in Turkey and an agreement for joint U.S. and Turkish military patrols in Manbij, Syria.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. for almost two decades, denies any involvement in the failed coup in Turkey in 2016. A one-time ally of Erdogan, he’s become an influential cleric with a wide network of followers known as “Gulenistas.” His movement includes a host of nonprofit organizations, businesses and schools, in the U.S., as well as South Africa.

After Khashoggi’s murder, Erdogan appeared to see an opportunity to ratchet up pressure on the Trump administration over Gulen, the U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter said.

Turkish officials made clear to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his Oct. 17 meeting with Erdogan in Ankara that they wanted the Trump administration to turn over Gulen, the U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter said.

“That was their number one ask,” said a person briefed on the meeting.

Pompeo asked if Erdogan had new evidence of Gulen’s involvement in the failed coup, prompting the Turkish leader to try to make the case that Gulen has terrorist ties, a senior U.S. official briefed on the meeting said.

In remarks to reporters traveling with him, Pompeo acknowledged having discussed Gulen with the Turks. “We did talk about Fethullah Gulen and we talked about the set of issues surrounding that organization as well,” Pompeo said. “It’s something that the Turks remind us of often, and we’re mindful of places that we can work with them to make sure that we all have a shared set of facts as well. But it’s mostly not a State Department issue; it’s mostly a Justice Department issue.”

The Turkish official wouldn’t discuss details of Erdogan’s conversation with Pompeo but said, “The Gulen issue is a part of any diplomatic conversation that we’re having with our American counterparts.”

Pompeo, who also met with Saudi leaders in Riyadh on that same trip, briefed Trump on his discussions after returning to Washington.

The Trump administration later sent word to Erdogan that officials would re-examine the Gulen issue, the U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter said.

Justice Department officials responded to the White House’s request saying the review of Turkey’s case against Gulen two years ago showed no basis for his extradition and that no new evidence to justify it has emerged, the U.S. officials and others familiar with the requests said.

Trump administration officials then asked for other options to legally remove him, the U.S. officials and others said.

They said the White House specifically wanted details about the terms under which Gulen resides in the U.S. Officials from the law enforcement agencies informed the White House there is no evidence that Gulen has broken any U.S. laws, the U.S. officials and others familiar with the requests said.

The requests on Gulen in mid-October mark at least the second time the Trump administration has re-examined Turkey’s extradition request since taking office. In the weeks after Trump’s inauguration, the White House asked the Justice Department to review Gulen’s case, NBC has reported.

Some officials have described the first request as a routine part of a new administration reviewing its relationship with a key ally. The request, however, took place under Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, whose ties to Turkey came under scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling. Flynn, who resigned in February 2017, entered into a plea agreement with Mueller last December and has been cooperating with the investigation.

Turkey provided boxes of materials to the U.S. in 2016 that Erdogan says shows Gulen was behind the failed coup. But officials at the Justice Department and FBI didn’t find evidence that met the standard for extradition, which requires U.S. prosecutors to determine that someone committed crimes abroad that would also be illegal in the U.S.

Relations between U.S. and Turkey have been strained under Trump.

Khashoggi’s disappearance after entering Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul introduced new friction. Turkey publicly accused Saudi Arabia of flying in an assassination team to murder Khashoggi. The two countries have long been rivals.

Amid Saudi denials over Khashoggi’s disappearance, Turkey ramped up international pressure on Riyadh by leaking its possession of evidence, including recordings from inside the consulate that Turkey officials say show the Saudi government murdered Khashoggi.

After nearly a month, Saudi Arabia admitted its government officials carried out a premeditated murder of Khashoggi. The government, though, has insisted Prince Mohammed knew nothing of it in advance. Some officials from the U.S. and other countries have said they believe otherwise.

Erdogan said this past weekend that he’s given Turkey’s audio recording of Khashoggi’s murder inside the consulate to U.S., U.K., Saudi, French and German government officials. His comments were a public reminder of the evidence Erdogan could expose at a time of his choosing, if he wanted to put pressure on the U.S. or Saudi Arabia. .

John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, said Tuesday that U.S. officials who listened to Turkey’s recording assessed it does not implicate Prince Mohammed.

Saudi Arabia has yet to disclose the location of Khashoggi’s remains, and Turkey continues to put public pressure on Riyadh.

Trump has expressed reluctance to respond too strongly given Saudi Arabia’s economic and strategic value to the U.S. At a news conference last week, Trump said he is working with Turkey, Congress and Saudi Arabia to determine next steps and will have a “much stronger opinion” on Khashoggi’s killing over the next week.

Following the Saudi prosecutor’s announcement Thursday, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against 17 people for their suspected role in Khashoggi’s murder.

The group includes Consul General Mohammed Alotaibi, who was in charge of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as well as senior Saudi officials and members of the suspected assassination team who arrived in Istanbul in the hours before Khashoggi disappeared.

The 17 were sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act, which bars foreign officials from entering the U.S. and freezes any assets they have in American banks.

#Erdogan doing everything to undermine Saudi Arabia, by exposing How Khashoggi was killed

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The recordings that could reveal the killing of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Turkey in shocking detail have been shared with France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and the US, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

“They all know since they all listened to the conversations and everything,” Erdogan said in a televised speech on Saturday.

Erdogan also accused Saudi Arabia of knowing that the killer of the former Washington Post columnist is among a group of 15 Saudis who touched down in Turkey the day prior to the killing, leaving again for Riyadh in the hours following Khashoggi’s death.

The father of all False-Flag Operation #Erdogan had more question than answer about Khashoggi murder

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that evidence showed the killing of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi was “brutal” and “premeditated.”

The accusation, which contradicts Saudi claims that the dissident journalist died after a “quarrel” at its Istanbul consulate, could further inflame the diplomatic crisis over the case.

“It appears that the squad who planned and executed the murder had been informed of Jamal Khashoggi’s visit,” Erdogan said in a much-anticipated speech in parliament detailing what Turkey believes happened to the Saudi critic after he entered the building on Oct. 2.

After vehement denials that Saudi officials were involved in his disappearance, the Saudi prosecutor on Friday admitted the writer had died after a “suspect” traveled to Istanbul to meet with him. The discussions “did not go as required” and Khashoggi died in a subsequent fight, the prosecutor said.

Erdogan said a team of Saudis arrived in Istanbul the day before Khashoggi was killed, and cameras outside the consulate were disabled the same day Khashoggi disappeared.

Following are excerpts about Khashoggi from Erdoğan’s speech as it happened:

* Khashoggi first came to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Sept. 28 to get his marriage documents. The road map to kill Khashoggi started with this visit.

* On Oct. 1, a team of three [Saudis] landed in Istanbul and went to the consulate. Another consulate team went to Istanbul’s Belgrad Forest and the [neighboring] Yalova province.

* Then another group came and this 15-member team went to the consulate on Oct. 2 morning and removed the hard disks of security cameras there.

* Khashoggi went inside in the afternoon and never left. His fiancée notified Turkish authorities about his disappearance. Our officials checked the security camera footage in the neighborhood and confirmed that Khashoggi never left the building.

* The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation and found out that 15 Saudis including intelligence officers and forensics experts came to Turkey ahead of Khashoggi’s visit.

* One of them tried to appear like Khashoggi by donning his clothes, glasses and a fake beard, before leaving Turkey with the others.

Another Major Erdogan Corruption Scandal; This Time on US Soil

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By Harut Sassounian,

Not a week passes without the disclosure of another major scandal in Azerbaijan or Turkey. The latest such scandal was exposed by the Stockholm Center for Freedom in an article written by exiled Turkish writer Abdullah Bozkurt, titled: “Utah case exposes more dirt on Turkey’s Erdogan.”
 
The article reveals that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s corrupt tentacles reach into the United States, which makes the subject of this scandal of particular interest to Special Counsel Robert Mueller in connection with his Russia probe and “international organized crime network,” according to Bozkurt.
 
“A federal grand jury in Utah returned a sealed indictment on Aug. 1, 2018, naming Erdogan as the leader of a foreign country who met with highly controversial businesspeople in California and Utah in what was claimed to be a major money laundering and tax fraud case,” Bozkurt reported.
 
The indictment, unsealed on Aug. 24, 2018, charged that “Jacob Ortell Kingston, the chief executive officer, and Isaiah Kingston, the chief financial officer of Washakie Renewable Energy (WRE), by filing false claims for tax credits, obtained over $511 million in renewable fuel tax credits that were designed to increase the amount of renewable fuel used and produced in the US. Lev Aslan Dermen (Levon Termendzhyan), owner of California-based fuel company NOIL Energy Group with links to a transnational criminal enterprise, is also identified as a partner in this grand scheme. From 2010 through 2016, they fabricated documents and rotated products within the US as well as overseas to make it appear that they were engaging in real trade to qualify for the tax credits,” Bozkurt wrote.
 
The indictment stated that Jacob Kingston was arrested on Aug. 23, 2018, while on his way to Salt Lake City international airport headed to Turkey after he was tipped off. Bozkurt reported: “The Kingstons had already bought a luxury mansion in a seaside town in Turkey according to a wire transfer from a WRE account to Termendzhyan’s account at Turkey’s Garanti Bank on March 5, 2014. More wire transfers to Turkey were listed in the indictment. Jacob Kingston, who frequently traveled to Turkey to meet with top Turkish officials including Erdoğan, was often greeted like a VIP at the Turkish airport, was provided a police escort and did not even use his passport to enter Turkey according to witness testimony in the US indictment.”
 
Jacob Kingston first met Erdogan in New York in September 2017 when the Turkish President came to the US to attend the UN General Assembly. This meeting took place “after FBI raided the Kingston group’s properties on Feb. 10, 2016, and the revelations of the fuel tax scam had already made the headlines in Utah,” according to Bozkurt.
 
“In early November 2017, Jacob flew to Turkey to hold a series of high-level meetings in both Ankara and Istanbul. He tapped Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, the chairman of SBK Holding LLC, as the main conduit in Turkey, while he kept a separate investment and asset management firm, Mega Varlık Yönetim A.Ş., which was set up with equity of $450 million in Turkey,” Bozkurt wrote.
 
“Termendzhyan also has a company named SBK Holdings USA, which is a sister company to Korkmaz’s SBK Holding LLC in Turkey. Korkmaz was quoted as telling the Turkish press that his partnership with WRE has resulted in an investment valued at $1 billion and thanked Erdoğan for personally facilitating the business deals. According to the press release issued on Sept. 9, 2016, by the Turkish government’s Investment Support and Promotion Agency (ISPAT), WRE, the Noil Energy Group and SBK Holding LLC have made significant investments in Turkey and planned to do more. The partnership with SBK Holding began in 2013 with Noil Energy making the first batch of investments in real estate. Construction and real estate businesses comprise the prime source for ill-gotten proceeds for Erdoğan’s massive multi-billion-dollar wealth. The total investment reached $500 million with another half million dollars assigned to a Mergers and Acquisitions fund for operations in Turkey. The trio has made investments in all types of sectors including pharmaceuticals, automotive, chemicals, technology, glass, and food,” according to Bozkurt.
 
“With Erdoğan’s political backing and cover, SBK Holding has expanded its operations into various areas including finance, energy, real estate, defense, mining, industry, tourism, technology, and logistics. The company is mainly active in the finance industry through investment banking, asset management, and raw materials financing. It also has substantial interests in the energy sector that span both the US and Russian markets. Erdoğan was not bothered at all by the fact that Termendzhyan was already implicated in a major probe that was being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security for money laundering, tax evasion, and stolen oil. Edgar Sargsyan, the ex-president and former legal counsel for SBK Holdings USA, stated in his declaration filed in court on July 14, 2017, that Termendzhyan, a Russian [Armenian], is the head of a criminal organization. It is worth remembering that he was arrested in 1993 for a gas tax scam in the US, where the Russian mafia was known to have been actively involved in similar scams in the ’80s and ’90s. He was also charged with tax fraud and armed assault in the past and was convicted of battery in 2013,” Bozkurt reported.
 
Interestingly, “Korkmaz appears to be the main conduit linking the Kingstons and Termendzhyan to pro-Erdoğan businessman Ekim Alptekin, whose Dutch shell company Inovo BV hired former national security advisor Mike Flynn’s Flynn Intel Group to run a smear campaign and defame Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, a US-based cleric who emerged as the main critic of the Erdoğan regime. Flynn tapped former CIA director James Woolsey to do the work against Gülen in a meeting held with Korkmaz in California in August 2016. Woolsey and his wife had a meeting with both Korkmaz and Alptekin in New York City on Sept. 20, 2016, to discuss the proposal. On Sept. 19, 2016, Flynn met with Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the foreign minister of Turkey, and Berat Albayrak, Erdoğan’s son-in-law who is also a minister in his cabinet, to discuss another proposal to kidnap Gülen and whisk him away from US soil to Turkey. Two months later, on Nov. 8, 2016, Flynn published a poorly written, derogatory op-ed on The Hill news website about Gülen, which many suspected was penned by Turkish operatives, not Flynn. Flynn later admitted to making false statements including lying about the fact that Turkish government officials were supervising and directing the work. He also misrepresented his lobbying on behalf of the Erdoğan government and lied about the op-ed he published on The Hill website,” Bozkurt wrote.
 
Alptekin fled to Turkey after he was interviewed by the Mueller team in May 2017 and dodged the subpoena that was subsequently issued after investigators concluded that he had lied to them. Korkmaz was also ordered to testify before a grand jury in Washington on Sept. 22, 2017, over possible violations of federal criminal laws including the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). He also did not comply with this subpoena. “It was believed that money in the amount of some $450,000 that Alptekin’s Dutch shell company paid to Flynn, in fact, came from Korkmaz. The Utah indictment reveals that Termendzhyan fled to Turkey in August 2017 on the day state search warrants were executed on his home and office,” Bozkurt revealed.
 
“If there was an independent judiciary in Turkey, this would have been addressed first and foremost by the Turkish criminal justice system, and Erdoğan would have been forced to leave office in disgrace, at the very least. Most likely he and his thugs would have been sentenced to prison for breaking about a dozen Turkish laws. That is no longer possible since the corrupt Turkish president has crippled the judiciary, destroyed the independent media and suspended the rule of law in the aftermath of a major graft investigation in December 2013 that uncovered his corrupt practices involving highly controversial Iranian and Saudi businesspeople. Now we see US judicial action on Erdoğan’s crimes that extended all the way to American soil. This time he won’t have the political clout to cash in to derail or hush up the legal cases that implicate him. He unsuccessfully tried before in the Hakan Atilla case in New York, and he will likely suffer the same fate in the Utah case as well,” Bozkurt concluded.



 

Turkey’s Erdogan Has Been Masterfully Driving the Khashoggi Crisis

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By Joshua Keating,

The Republic of Turkey currently ranks as the world’s leading jailer of journalists, with 73 behind bars at the end of 2017. Since a failed coup in the summer of 2016, the government has pursued a massive and brutal crackdown against thousands of its critics and opponents, both real and probably imagined. This has included U.S. citizens: Pastor Andrew Brunson was finally released after two years in custody on laughable terrorism charges earlier this month. Former NASA scientist Serkan Golge remains in prison.

Turkey’s dragnet has extended beyond its borders from Kosovo to Mongolia, sometimes with little respect for local laws. The U.N. has accused the Turkish military of killing thousands and razing entire neighborhoods in the southeast of the country in recent years as part of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against Kurdish militants.

So it’s a little strange to note that for the past few weeks, American outrage over the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi—which has led to rare public scrutiny of Saudi influence in Washington, U.S. support for the war in Yemen, and the seven-decade-old U.S.-Saudi relationship—has been driven in large part by that very same Turkish government.

Ever since Khashoggi disappeared into the consulate on Oct.
2, Turkish government sources been steadily dripping out the grisly details of what happened inside. This strategy has worked brilliantly to keep the anger over the story boiling and overwhelm the efforts of the Saudi regime and its enablers in Washington to contain the scandal. Now, Erdogan has promised that in a televised speech on Tuesday, he will reveal the complete Turkish account of what happened to Khashoggi “in full nakedness.” There have also been reports that Turkish authorities possess recordings of Khashoggi’s killing, which would presumably contradict the shifting Saudi accounts of how he died.

It’s telling that the Turks have not yet released this evidence and appear to be giving the Saudis an opportunity to make it worth their while not to release it. But Turkish officials have so raised expectations for what they’re going to a reveal that it’s hard to imagine they can simply brush it all under the table to give the Saudis an out.

Given the Turkish government’s penchant for conspiracy theories, the lurid reports, of what’s on these recordings, usually sourced to anonymous officials or state-run media outlets, should be taken with a grain of salt. That being said, none of the major Turkish reports have been disproven so far, and shifting and laughable Saudi explanations have hardly cast doubt on them.

Erdogan was a personal friend of Khashoggi’s, but of course it’s unlikely his government is acting solely out of concern for the dissident writer. They’re certainly not motivated by concerns about press freedom or human rights. Turkish relations with Saudi Arabia as well as its ally, the United Arab Emirates, have been frosty for a while now. Erdogan was a strong backer of the Arab Spring protests and Egypt’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government, against strong Saudi and Emirati opposition. When the two Gulf States began a blockade of their neighbor, Qatar, last year, in part over its military cooperation with Turkey, Ankara responded by sending additional troops.

At the same time, U.S.-Turkish relations, which had reached a nadir in July when Trump announced sanctions in response to Brunson’s continued imprisonment, have shown signs of improvement lately after the pastor’s release and some recent agreements over contentious issues in Syria. In that context, Erdogan was unlikely to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

None of this context should interrupt this unexpected moment of soul-searching over just how much the U.S. should be willing to compromise its values to preserve a strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia, the strategic benefits of which are a lot less obvious than they used to be. This moment is welcome and long overdue, but it isn’t happening in a vacuum. The moment of questioning the relationship with one unreliable longtime U.S. ally with an atrocious record on freedom of speech and the rule of law may serve to benefit a different one.

Watch Turkish Dictator Erdogan walks off during Trump’s speech at UN General Assembly in NY “VIDEO”

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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly meeting being held in New York, as soon as United States President Donald Trump began his speech, highlighting the heightened tension between Washington and Ankara.

During the speech of US President Trump, his Turkish counterpart stood up with his entourage, including security guards and left the room, as representatives from 84 Heads of States and 44 Heads of Government from around the world looked stunned as Erdogan walked out “in protest,” according to Turkish media.

“In my two years as a leader I have achieved more success than almost all governments in the United States,” Trump said as Erdogan stormed off.

Tensions between the two nations have been strained for years, over policy in Syria toward the Kurdish population there and over Erdogan’s anti-democratic reforms.

The US doubled tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum a month ago, which contributed to a tumble in the Turkish lira, which added to the strain.

The Turkic Nations Dictators headed by Erdogan: proposes to trade without U.S. dollar @realDonaldTrump

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International trade’s dependency on the U.S. dollar should be decreased as it became an obstacle for Turkey says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sept. 3.

Erdoğan attended the 6th Summit of Turkic Council at Rukh Ordo Cultural Center in Kyrgyzstan, where he said, “We are proposing to trade in our own currencies rather than U.S. dollar.”

The summit is hosted by Kyrgyzstan’s President Sooronbay Jeenbekov at Rukh Ordo Cultural Center.