Report: Major Rift Starts between Erdogan, Army after Downing of Russian Warplane over Syria

November 29, 2015 By administrator

TEHRAN (FNA)- The crisis that started by Turkey’s shooting down of the Russian Su-24 bomber in the Syrian airspace is leading to a standoff between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the country’s army, Turkish media reports said.

Arab media outlets quoted the Turkish-language daily, Sözcü, as reporting that Erdogan and the Turkish army’s joint chief of staff are now at odds after the Turkish president in controversial remarks – that was contradicted later – claimed that Ankara did not know the warplane was Russian when targeting it.

“We would have acted differently if we had known that the fighter jet was Russian,” Erdogan said.

The Turkish paper quoted an informed military source as saying that Erdogan had taken a “hasty” position and declared that the army had been unable to identify the nationality of the plane in official remarks, “and this complicated the problem”.

“Had the politicians kept quiet, we could have resolved the problem very fast,” the unnamed source told the Turkish daily, according to the Arab media.

After Turkey shot down Russia’s Su-24 bomber as it was conducting an anti-terrorism operation against terrorists in Syria, the relations between the two countries strained.

Only a few days into the incident, Russia deployed S-400 air defense system to take harsh measures against any possible threats in Syria by tracing 300 targets at ranges up to 400 kilometers.

Military explanations show that the sophisticated air defense shield can cover the entire Syrian airspace.

Informed sources said earlier today that the Turkish Air Force has warned its pilots to avoid any further violation of the Syrian airspace after Russia deployed its sophisticated S-400 anti-aircraft missile system in Lattakia.

The arrival of S-400 system coupled with the Russian fighter jets’ maneuvers along the Turkish border, has forced Ankara to take prudent measures to ease tensions with the Russian Federation after they downed the latter’s SU-24 bomber in Syia’s Lattakia province on Tuesday, the sources said.

The Russian Air Force amplified the number of airstrikes along the Turkish border on Saturday, striking the Turkish backed ISIL militants at the Aleppo border-city of A’zaz and inside the Turkmen Mountains of Northern Lattakia.

Now no Turkish plane can violate the Syrian airspace even in the mountainous areas due to the capabilities of S-400 air defense systems.

On Tuesday, a Turkish F-16 shot down the Su-24, claiming that the aircraft violated its airspace. Russian officials and the Su-24 pilot, who survived the crash, insist that the plane did not cross into Turkey. The crew, according to the pilot, did not receive any warning prior to the attack.

The Russian media reported on Thursday that the country has already deployed S-400 missile defense systems in Syria, a move many political and military analysts see as the start of Moscow’s response to NATO following the downing of its bomber by Turkey over Syria.

The S-400, an upgrade of the S-300 Growler family, is a new-generation anti-aircraft defense system operated solely by the Russian military. The S-400 ensures air defense using long- and medium-range missiles that can hit aerial targets at ranges of up to 400 kilometers (almost 250 miles).

In what is a prime example of twisted logic, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Russia against using its ultra-modern S-400 air defense system to shoot down Turkish fighter jets if they violate Syrian airspace just days after Ankara brought down a Russian Su-24 bomber.

Asking for Trouble: Erdogan Drags Europe Into New ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’?

November 29, 2015 By administrator

Turkey’s “unprecedented” provocation could well lead to a standoff reminiscent of the darkest days of the Cold War, political analyst Pyotr Iskenderov asserted, adding that by downing the Russian Su-24 bomber Ankara managed to achieve the unthinkable: it “outperformed” the Soviet Union’s archrival.

“It also proves the existence of a very dangerous geopolitical trend directly related to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which have already become NATO or EU members, or cherish the dream of joining these organizations (often at any price),” the expert wrote for the Strategic Culture Foundation.

Turkey, according to Iskenderov, decided to shoot down the Russian bomber because President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is confident that NATO and particularly the US will back him no matter what happens. Moreover, “the desire to exploit the contradictions between great powers has always been an instrument of the (Neo)Ottoman Empire’s policy,” he explained in an article titled “Turkey Paves Way for Another Cuban Crisis.”

In addition, Turkey does not want the Syrian crisis to be resolved and is ready to add fuel to the fire if necessary, the analyst stated. Protracted civil war in the neighboring country will allow Ankara to continue its illegal oil business with ISIL. It is also trying to pit the radical group against the Kurds as much as possible.

ISIL’s defeat, according to the analyst, does not suit Turkey. “It also does not serve the interests of the United States implementing its strategy of controlled chaos and geopolitical isolation of Russia,” Iskenderov observed.

The downing of the Russian bomber, which was engaged in an anti-ISIL operation, cast a shadow on the already strained relations between Moscow and Western capitals. Therefore, preventing Erdogan from dragging Turkey and other European countries “into a new Cuban crisis” is a priority, the analyst emphasized.

“It should be noted that … as the crisis of 1962 unfolded the opposing sides did not bring down each other’s aircraft. These days, Turkey has ‘outperformed’ even the United States of the Cold War era,” Iskenderov added.

Trade Ties between Erdogan’s Son Balal and ISIL Main Cause of Russian Jet Downing by Turkey

November 27, 2015 By administrator

TEHRAN (FNA)- The large-scale trade and energy cooperation between the son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ISIL terrorists group was behind the downing of the Russian fighter jet by the Ankara government, media reports said.

“The cooperation between Balal Erdogan and the ISIL in Syria and Iraq crude sales is the main reason why Turkey shot down Russia’s warplane,” the Russian-language ‘Trud’ newspaper quoted political analysts as saying.

The report comes as political observers have on numerous occasions announced that the ISIL gains between $40 million to $50 million per month from the sales of oil the terrorist group illegally extracts from the oilfields of Iraq and Syria.

In August, the European media published information showing that a joint British-Turkish company refines and sells the oil extracted by the ISIL.

Two Turkish F-16 fighter jets downed Russia’s SU-24 bomber that was flying in the Syrian air space which resulted in Russia’s harsh reaction and the two countries’ relations strained.

On Thursday, the Russian media reported that Moscow has already deployed S-400 missile defense systems in Syria, a move many political and military analysts see as the start of Moscow’s response to NATO following the downing of its bomber by Turkey over Syria.

The S-400 Triumf (NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler) next generation surface-to-air missile system has been deployed to the Hmeymim airbase in Syria where the Russian Aerospace Forces group is stationed.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced the deployment of the S-400 systems on Wednesday, a day after Turkish fighter jets had shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber, which had been taking part in Russia’s anti-terror campaign in Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described the incident as a “stab in the back, carried out against us by accomplices of terrorists.”

Pepe Escobar: Sultan Erdogan’s War on…Russia “Must Read”

November 27, 2015 By administrator

Photo, by gagrule

Let’s cut to the chase. The notion that Turkey’s downing of a Russian Su-24 by a made in USA F-16 was carried out without either a green light or at least pre-arranged “support” from Washington invites suspension of disbelief.

Turkey is a mere vassal state, the eastern arm of NATO, which is the European arm of the Pentagon. The Pentagon already issued a denial — which, considering their spectacular record of strategic failures cannot be taken at face value. Plausibly, this might have been a power play by the neocon generals who run the Pentagon, allied with the neocon-infested Obama administration.

The privileged scenario though is of a vassal Turkey led by Sultan Erdogan risking a suicide mission out of its own, current, desperation.

Here’s Erdogan’s warped reasoning in a nutshell. The Paris tragedy was a huge setback. France started discussing close military collaboration not within NATO, but with Russia. Washington’s unstated aim was always to get NATO inside Syria. By having Turkey/NATO — clumsily, inside Syrian territory — attacking Russia, and provoking a harsh Russian response, Erdogan thought he could seduce NATO into Syria, under the pretext (Article 5) of defending Turkey.

As Bay-of-Pigs dangerous as this may be, it has nothing to do with WWIII — as apocalyptic purveyors are braying. It revolves around whether a state which supports/finances/weaponizes the Salafi-jihadi nebulae is allowed to destroy the Russian jets that are turning its profitable assets into ashes.

Married to the (Erdogan) Mob

President Putin nailed it; it was “a shot in the back”. Because all evidence is pointing towards an ambush: the F-16s might have been actually waiting for the Su-24s. With Turkish TV cameras available for maximum global impact.

Two Su-24s were getting ready to strike a bunch of “moderate rebels”. Ankara says they were Turkmen — which the Turks finance and weaponize. But there is just a small bunch of Turkmen in northern Syria.

The Su-24s were actually after Chechens and Uzbeks — plus a few Uyghurs — smuggled in with fake Turkish passports (Chinese intel is also on it), all of these operating in tandem with a nasty bunch of Turkish Islamo-fascists. Most of these goons transit back and forth between the CIA-weaponized Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Jabhat al-Nusra. These were the goons who machine-gunned the Russian pilots as they parachuted down after the hit on the Su-24.

The Su-24s posed absolutely no threat to Turkey. Turkish UN Ambassador Halit Cevik’s letter to the Security Council is a joke; two Russian jets “warned 10 times in five minutes” to change direction, both flying “more than a mile” into Turkey for an interminable 17 seconds. The whole thing has already been amply debunked. Not to mention that Turkish — and NATO — planes “violate” the Syrian border all the time.

Erdogan well knows how US neocons were livid with French President Francois Hollande after his “it’s war” cry was followed by a drive to work together with Russia against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

So the real target was not a Su-24, but the evolving possibility, after the Paris attacks, of a real coalition — the US, Britain and France on one side, the “4+1” (Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah) on the other side — finally converging their interests into a unified fight against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

Where would that leave Ankara, which for years has invested heavily in the Salafi-jihadi nebulae, from Jabhat al-Nusra to Ahrar al-Sham and myriad other outfits, culminating with aiding and abetting and even funding ISIS/ISIL/Daesh?

Turkey, for all practical purposes, has been a handy, sprawling Salafi-jihadi Infrastructure and Logistics Center; it offers everything from porous borders enabling countless jihadi return tickets from Syria to Europe, facilitated by corrupt police, to a convenient crossroads for all kinds of smuggling and a hefty money laundering ops.

So Ankara, with a missile, thought it might completely change the narrative.

Hardly. Just follow the money. Even in the US and Europe the Turkish game is becoming increasingly transparent. A research paper at Columbia University details at least a fraction of the multiple instances of collusion between Turkey and ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

Bilal Erdogan, the Sultan’s son, is a major profiteer of illegal trading of stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil. Imagine his terror after Putin revealed to G-20 leaders in Antalya — Turkish territory! — how Russian intel has identified most of the mobster maze of connections pointing directly to ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

Imagine mobster/Turkish commodity dealer sentiment at the prospect of losing their cut with the impossibility of buying Syrian stolen oil to the tune of $50 million a month. After all the Russian Air Force had already destroyed oil farms, refineries and most of all over 1,000 tanker trucks — and counting; imagine the prospect of losing all the oil flow, the money flow, a Smugglers Inc. scattered in the desert with no place to go.

And we Also Do Extortion

NATO command may be stand-up comic material — just watch Dr. Strangelove’s Greatest Hits, as in Gen. Philip Breedlove and his “Russian aggression” meme. But the generals are not foolish. NATO won’t go to war with Russia over a mere vassal. And Russia won’t provide NATO with a pretext for war.

In the Big Power Politics arena, certainly now we do have the post-modern return of the historic tension between the Russian and Ottoman empires. But that will play over time, slowly. The Russian direct response will be cold, calculated, extensive, swift — and most of all unexpected. No response would imply a carte blanche for “moderate rebels” to be weaponized in Syria ad infinitum.

What’s certain is that Russia will turbo-charge the bombing of all ISIS/ISIL/Daesh supply corridors from Turkey into northern Syria, as well as the stolen oil smuggling routes from northern Syria into Turkey.

Russia can play with so many options to increase the pressure. For instance, S-300 and S-400 air defense systems covering the Turkish-Syrian border. That would be part of a Russian no-fly zone in Syria, approved by Damascus, for any jet daring to fly without explicit permission from the government. The Sultan wouldn’t dare “violate” this airspace.

Erdogan’s desperate gambit reveals that the last thing Ankara wants is a Vienna-conducted peace process in Syria. “Assad must go” is non-negotiable — for an array of geopolitical reasons (neo-Ottomanism), political (the need for a Sunni-dominated, pliant, Syrian satrapy) and economic (the proposed Qatar gas pipeline traversing Syria all the way to Turkey.)

German chancellor Angela Merkel had to go to Ankara to kiss the Sultan’s feet so she may be able to “save” her refugee policy. Erdogan came up with the proverbial offer you can’t refuse. You want me to hold the refugees here? Just give me 3 billion euros. Unfreeze Turkey’s accession dossier to the EU (guess who’s the top nation against it: France). And let me have my “safe zone” in the Turkish-Syria border.

Incredible as it may seem, Europe gave in. The European Commission (EC) has just given Erdogan the 3 billion euros. He starts getting the cash on January 1, 2016. The official spin is these funds are part of the “efforts to solve the migrant crisis.” European Commission First-Vice President Frans Timmermans glowingly framed the so-called Turkey Refugee Facility as “providing support to further improve the daily lives and socio-economic conditions of Syrians seeking refuge in Turkey.”

Don’t expect the EC to monitor how the cash will vanish in the mobster maze — or will be used to further weaponize “moderate rebels”.

Erdogan does not give a damn about refugees. What he wants is his “safe zone”, not in Turkey, but 35 km deep in northern Syria, out of bounds for the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), militias under Iranian command, Hezbollah forces and most of all the Russian Air Force. He wants his no-fly zone and he wants NATO to get it for him.

Erdogan is on a mission from Allah — at least his version of Allah. The downing of the Su-24 is just the preamble. Get ready, because 2016 promises an even bigger bang.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.

Source: sputniknews

Pepe Escobar

Journalist

Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist. He writes a column – The Roving Eye – for Asia Times Online, and works as an analyst for RT as well as Al Jazeera and Iran’s Press TV

Insulting Erdoğan door of heaven will close & door of hell will open 250 people prosecuted

November 22, 2015 By administrator

The number of the people who have been prosecuted for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reached 250, a crime for which only one person was tried under the previous four presidents, according to the Sözcü daily.

On Friday, two people were detained by the police in the town of Birecik in southeastern Şanlıurfa province and accused of insulting the president.

During the tenure of the previous four presidents, only one person was brought to trial on the charge of insulting the president, then-President Abdullah Gül, according to the recent Sözcü report.

The defendant was sentenced to eight months in prison in January of this year, but his sentence was deferred. The court ruled that it would drop the charge if the suspect did not commit another crime in the next five years.

While some of the 250 who have been accused of insulting Erdoğan since his election to the presidency in 2014 have been released pending trial, others have remained in jail until their trial. Some have been sentenced to jail time while others paid fines.

Several high school and university students are among those who have been charged, like Emin A. (16), who was released after being held for two days in Konya in December 2014 and whose trial is still pending. Another, H.U.C., was detained in January 2014 in Antalya, released pending trial and ultimately sentenced to eight months in prison in February 2015. The court suspended H.U.C.’s sentence.

The varied profile of those accused also includes lawyers, workers, members of political parties, and several journalists.

Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) sentences anyone convicted of insulting the president to a jail term between one and four years, though judges have some discretion and may also commute the jail sentence to a fine.

Feyzi İşbaşaran, a former Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy was fined TL 10,600 on Nov. 17 for insulting Erdoğan on social media.

Turkey: Gülenists betrayed me, Erdoğan says, vowing to press ahead with the fight

November 19, 2015 By administrator

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he was “betrayed” by the movement of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, vowing to press ahead with the fight against what he refers to as the “parallel structure.”

“I should say this very clearly: They know me very well personally, but I know them too. They have betrayed Tayyip Erdoğan. My struggle is to take whatever belongs to my people from them,” Erdoğan said in an interview broadcast on A Haber TV station late on Nov. 18.

His statement came on the same day as a court appointed a panel of trustees to Kaynak Holding, thought to be sympathetic to Gülen. The move came almost three weeks after Koza Holding and its media groups were also seized by judicial order. Both Koza Holding and Kaynak Holding, which have diverse interests across sectors, are accused of financing the Gülen movement, which was this year outlawed as a “terrorist organization” by the government.

“I have already said that I will continue this struggle even though I will be on my own. You also see that we conduct this struggle within the limits of the law,” Erdoğan added.

Erdoğan’s previous governments and the Gülen movement once enjoyed a close alliance, starting from the early years of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). However, this relationship was broken after the police and the judiciary launched a huge corruption investigation against senior AKP officials, including some of Erdoğan’s family members.

The AKP said this operation was a plot conspired by Gülenist police officers and prosecutors who established a “parallel structure” within the state in order to overthrow the government.

Gülen, a self-exiled religious leader residing in Pennsylvania, is now accused of being the leader of a terrorist organization and of controlling all of its activities.

Asked whether he had requested the deportation of Gülen from the U.S. in his recent meeting with President Barack Obama, Erdoğan said there were “discussions.”

“Beyond all of these meetings, we as the state and the government have signed very serious contract with a law firm. I believe that this will give results very soon. It’s not right for me to disclose details, but we are taking some very special steps that will make them live a very different future,” he added.

“This is not an ordinary thing. They should be cleared out from the state. Legal regulations are necessary for this. I am of the opinion that we’ll get more results rapidly if the government can make these legal regulations hand in hand with the opposition,” Erdoğan also stated.

‘Mafia organization’

The president also referred to an investigation carried out in the U.S. into malpractice at charter schools run by Gülen sympathizers in a number of states.

“They have these famous charter schools, around 300 of them. They are receiving a serious amount of money from them, but they are very quiet about them. This money amounts to around $150 million a year. That’s not a small amount of money, but when you question them about their financial sources, they use a subtle wit [to answer],” Erdoğan said, describing the Gülen movement as “little different from a mafia organization.”

“Although this group is trying to promote itself with its activities in education and emphasizing tolerance, it is little different from a mafia organization … The people will never forgive those who cooperate with such a terrorist organization,” he added.

November/19/2015

Turkish columnist faces probe for ‘insulting Erdoğan’

November 11, 2015 By administrator

Two separate probes have been launched against Cengiz Çandar, Radikal news portal columnist, for his seven articles allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“The personal rights of my client, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, were abused by accusation via press including insults,” said Erdoğan’s lawyer, Ahmet Özel, in his petition.

In a notice from a prosecutor’s office, seven articles of the columnist, which were published between July 26 and August 19, were cited.

Separately, Hürriyet newspaper columnist Ertuğrul Özkök ruled out in his Nov. 11 article claims that he was called to testify by the prosecutor’s office.

Pro-government broadcaster A Haber claimed a day earlier that upon an Istanbul public prosecutor’s invitation to Özkök to testify with a similar accusation of insulting Erdoğan, the columnist allegedly went abroad.

Özkök completely ruled out the claims in his column.

Bloodthirsty Erdogan will reside in Istanbul’s Yildiz palace of bloodthirsty Sultan Abdul Hamid II

November 9, 2015 By administrator

Two Turkish bloodthirsty Sultan Abdul Hamid II and Sultan Erdogan

Neo-Ottoman Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the traces of the Ottoman Empire sultans decided to reside during his stay in Istanbul’s Yildiz palace of Sultan Abdul Hamid II bloodthirsty, the slaughterer of 300,000 Armenians between 1894 and 1896. Thus, according to the Turkish website Birgün, Erdogan will dwell Palace “Red Sultan”, the “great tapper”. The Turkish government has for this purpose to transfer the Yildiz palace presidential site. Abdul Hamid II had resided until his dismissal by the Young Turks in 1909. Today, Erdogan caressing the dream of a reconstructed Turkish Empire will take over in this palace that has known countless intrigues and crimes.

Analysis: Were the Turkish election results rigged?

November 8, 2015 By administrator

By Rachel Avraham,

Turkish election observer Burak Ant Kilic and Turkish Jewish journalist Rafael Sadi discuss the Turkish election results and whether they were rigged. They also discussed how the Turkish election results will affect Israel.

It has been announced that the ruling AKP Party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan won in the recent elections in Turkey but there were voices inside Turkey that indicated that the election was a sham and didn’t truly represent the wishes of the Turkish people. As Burak Ant Kilic reported, “I was an observer and it hadn’t been ten minutes since we handed out ballots and the government run Anadolu News Agency declared that 70-80% of the votes were counted and the AKP was winning a majority with 50% of the votes. Which votes did they count? There are tons of posts on social media that they are getting Syrian refugees to vote and it adds up to a number of new votes that the AKP got in predominately Kurdish populated areas.”

However, because to date the YSK, the official Turkish government body that is supposed to supervise the election results, has cut off access to their website: “We have absolutely no means of challenging the results. From early numbers, there was a lot of information on social media drawing attention to the ‘fishy’ spikes in number of voters (around 10% in most places) in a lot of places compared to the elections on June 7 and somehow all these new votes seem to have gone to the AKP but then again, we have no way to officially verify this.”

Kilic added that this situation with the YSK website is nevertheless very suspicious: ““You also can’t access the results from the last elections as well. They are not even trying to hide it. It is such blatant censorship.” Kilac does not think that the AKP really got almost 50% of the vote: “I believe that AKP should be around 40-42% of the vote.”

Aside from this, a number of other irregularities were reported during the November 2015 Turkish elections. According to Turkish Jewish journalist Rafael Sadi, “There are a lot of complaints that the voting bags changed and the computers were set by the AKP people. .Also, there is a lot of claims that the AKP paid different fees in different zones to people who voted for the AKP or even paid important sums to village rulers (Muktars) to push their community to vote for AKP.” Multiple polling stations in Kurdish areas had power outages. Additionally, Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Eren Erdem was suspicious of the fact that the electricity was cut off for 1.5 hours in a polling station in Istanbul, a city with many left wing supporters.

The Turkish government even utilized brute force in order to arrest Kurdish activists within the country. For example, the HDP Provincial head of the Kirklareli Province was arrested due to the opposition of a party official existing at the polling station and he was not the only Kurdish activist to be arrested. Additionally, fighting erupted between AKP and CHP supporters after an AKP official helped an elderly 80-year-old woman cast her vote. The Police used tear gas in order to deal with the dispute. Many routes to the polls were also cut off by the authorities. Aside from that, Kilic noted that there has been foul play by the ruling AKP party since the last elections: “AKP continued its scandals since June 7, which in any democratic country would’ve meant impeachment and/or jail time for the authorities; it was actually rewarded in these elections.”

According to Turkish Jewish journalist Rafael Sadi, Erdogan took this move because he had no choice but to rule the country by himself: “He and his party members including his son committed a lot of legal crimes and if somebody else will rule the country, he and his party members would be in jail for years.” These crimes include stealing money from the country’s safe, violating the Turkish Constitution by trying to change the secular order in the country and having religious classes in Turkish schools, imposing apartheid between the Sunni and Alevi communities, and discussing giving away part of Turkey’s lands to the Kurds, which is a criminal offense within the country.

However, Kilic has a different idea regarding the motivation for all of this. He believes that Erdogan is merely power hungry and just wants to be a Sultan. “The political significance of this lies with Erdogan’s dreams of changing the constitution,” Kilic noted. Erdogan seeks for Turkey to have a presidential system similar to Putin’s in Russia so that he can obtain massive power instead of having the president merely have a ceremonial position: “For that, he needed 400 MPs. The AKP MKs repeated on many occasions this goal by saying, ‘Give us 400 and we will solve this peacefully.’” Kilic emphasized that before the June elections, Erdogan violated the Turkish constitution by breaking the impartiality of the president by asking the people to vote for the AKP. This led the HDP to adopt the slogan: “We will not make you President.” According to Kilic, this helped the HDP win over 10% of the vote for the first time in their history. However, immediately after the June 7 elections, Erdogan Consultant Burhan Kuzu tweeted: “I said stability or chaos; people chose chaos.”

Immediately afterwards, Kilac noted that the ceasefire with the PKK ended and clashes erupted that resulted in the death of 109 Turkish soldiers as well as hundreds of PKK members in retaliation for killing two Police officers that were accused of assisting ISIS: “The suspicious part about this is the timing and the responses. First of all, PKK never admitted to killing these two police officers. They even made a statement that they had nothing to do with it and maybe it was done by some rogue groups outside of PKK. Second, there had been other minor clashes in the past years ending up with a small number of deaths, Army or PKK, and these incidents were always contained with politicians standing firmly behind the peace progress. This snowballed into more retaliations from both sides and the deaths of hundreds of people. AKP kept its threats that all these events were happening because they failed to get a majority and last week, Prime Minister Davutoğlu even made references to the ‘White Toros,’ which was the killing and disappearance of Kurdish activists and intellectuals during the 1990s.”

“The bombing of the Ankara Peace Walk happened right in the middle of this environment and as the AKP promised, chaos and bloodshed was everywhere,” he noted. “While any left-wing protest is traditionally escorted (and in the end assaulted) by security forces, somehow that day there were only a few cops around and the Turkish Intelligence failed to intercept a bombing in such a massive scale right in the middle of the capital city, resulting in the largest terror attack in the history of the Turkish Republic, killing about 100 people This turned out to be a huge political success for the AKP – winning them votes from both parties they could steal votes from; HDP and MHP.”

According to Kilic, HDP has two main sources for votes. The first one is among ethnic Kurds: “What the international media doesn’t know is that while the Kurdish population in Turkey is left-wing, they have a serious number of extremely religious Muslims that have a demographic effect in the area. The not so popular Hizbultahrir committed many ISIS style executions and other various terror acts in southeastern Turkey up to the late 1990’s, even early 2000’s and Hizbullah connected Hudapar still has some visible support in the area. There has been a wave of violence between these two groups especially in the past few years. While left wing Kurds have supported HDP, religious Kurds have sided with the AKP until June 7. They probably again would have if it wasn’t for ISIS. The obvious support of AKP for ISIS combined with the emotional siege of Kobane helped the anti-AKP sentiment peak among Kurdish voters. The second source of HDP voters is left wing young Turks, who helped them pass the 10 percent threshold for the first time.”

“The second opposition party is the Turkish Nationalistic MHP, whose main ideology is Turkish-Islamic right wing conservatism,” Kilic explained. “The third opposition party is the historically secular, democratic CHP that was founded by Ataturk, which has the secular Turkish votes. Out of all these groups, AKP can’t get a single vote from CHP. They’ve been around 25% for a long time and give or take a few points, they’ll remain there for a while. They also can’t get the left-wing Kurdish or Turkish votes from HDP. That only leaves two main groups to manipulate, the MHP voters and the religious Kurds. This is where the bloodshed comes in.”

“Video footage of police forces using the speaker system in their cars yelling at people “you are all Armenians” to the protesters (AKP officials including Erdogan use Armenian and Greek as insults) and another video footage of police forces dragging the dead body of a young Kurdish militant through the streets were directed at the two main groups AKP was hoping the get the votes from,” Kilic explained. “Mr Bahceli, refusing any kind of coordination with HDP, lost the country’s first real chance to normalize Turkey by using the 60% of the votes the opposition parties got at June 7, although he was offered the seat of Prime Minister by CHP who actually had more votes than them. The HDP stated that if MHP wanted, they would remain outside the coalition, they did not demand any seats, and would support them from outside if they would sue Erdogan and other corrupt politicians and statesman. This made him look like a man without any real solution or even a will towards any solution, and he lost about 5% of his votes, dropping from 16% to 11%, almost being left outside the parliament because of the 10% threshold.”

“It also had a strong effect on the moderate Kurds, who voted in escorted by the Police Special Forces and the military, who claimed to be there for “security,” he noted. “With fears of returning to the dark 1980s and 1990s, they voted for AKP with the hope that the violence would stop. That led to the loss of about 3% of the HDP votes and transferred them to AKP. In short, I don’t know if AKP rigged the elections but I know that they used the state’s power to build a campaign built on bloodshed and war, and that is just as bad as tampering the numbers. These people have proven themselves to be capable of anything just to remain in power.”

The question remains, how will this affect Israel? According to Kilic, “As for the Israeli- Turkish relations, I don’t see it as too problematic, but that’s because I don’t believe that there is any real tension between the AKP and Israel. All AKP does as far as I can see is to make some hostile, populist remarks to please their base. They gather more votes but in action, Turkish-Israeli trade has tripled since 2009, the year before the Mavi Marmara incident, with almost a 50/50 import-export balance. Erdogan is a cold pragmatist with ideological delusions, and he won’t do anything that would jeopardize Turkish relations with the US. As long as the United States remains an ally of Israel, I doubt that Erdogan will dare to do anything directly aimed at Israel, and the massive corruption claims indicate that he would prefer a large trade volume with Israel instead of deteriorating relations. Long story short, he is all talk and no walk when it comes to Israel.”

In conclusion, Rafael Sadi proclaimed: “Since Erdogan now is calmer then before the elections and strengthened his position thus deleting the danger of to be sued, now there is a possibility to renew relations with many countries like Israel and even Azerbaijan. The most important point is how Turkey will act regarding the Syrian trouble and what kind of orders/requests they will get from the USA and Russia. Turkey is not in a position to lead the region anymore as Erdogan the Sultan had imagined. Putin is now the boss. We will wait and see if the USA and Russia needs Turkey as a friend of Israel.”

Source: Jerusalem online

Paris: Marine Le Pen, Erdogan “can say thank you” Merkel & Hollande

November 2, 2015 By administrator

Paris, November 2, 2015 (AFP) – The president of the Marine Front National Le Pen ruled Monday that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Islamic-conservative formation AKP has largely won Sunday Turkish legislation, could “say thank you” to Merkel, Holland.

“Going to worship before the one that remains of a free press in Istanbul or Ankara describes as Sultan, Merkel -suivie by redundant calls to the integration of Turkey into the European Union Mr Holland- has given Erdogan decisive legitimacy, “wrote Ms. Le Pen in a statement.

“The human rights abuses, repression of peaceful protests of the youth, multiple provocations Turkish President against European countries (even on French soil, such as recently in Strasbourg) will have found themselves faced with the total complacency Merkel-Hollande torque, “said the far-right leader.

“By taking its people hostage in the name of a struggle against the instability that he knowingly organized, Erdogan can now count on the leaders of the European Union to deploy out the red carpet to Brussels. With Merkel, Hollande and others, it will not only European Turkey, but the Turkish Europe “, launching the MEP.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was preparing Monday to install a government entirely to his hand after the unexpected landslide victory as his party in the parliamentary, which has revived fears about his authoritarian tendencies.

Hollande called Erdogan to “gathering and unity” of the country after the landslide victory of his party in parliamentary, in a telephone interview Monday night.