Invasion Archives

Iraq: Kurds Protest Erdogan’s Invasion, Bombings of Iraq

December 10, 2015 By administrator

Kurds in Iraq protested Turkey’s invasion of Iraq, which is a threat to both the independence of Iraq and the Kurds living in the northern part of the country.

Although Turkey found a friend in Iraqi Kurdistan’s most dominant clan leader and current president Massoud Barzani, many Iraqi Kurds have opposed the measure.

On Wednesday, Turkish jets bombed Iraq, hitting the mountainous Qandil region, on the border with Iran, AP reported. According to Turkey, the mountains are home to camps of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, banned in Turkey.

“Yesterday, in multiple provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan there were popular manifestations, which local politicians also took part in. The protest expressed a harsh condemnation of the invasion and quartering of Turkish troops on the territory of a foreign state,” head of Kurdish News Network (KNN) Sohayeb Ahmad Kakeh Mahmoud told Sputnik Persian.

Mahmoud added that protesters chanted nationalist slogans, expressing their disapproval of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s silence in regards to the Turkish military’s actions. At the same time, Barzani left Iraqi to hold talks with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.

Syrian Kurds also reportedly condemned Erdogan’s actions.

“[Democratic Union Party head Salih Muslim] emphasized that Turkey is violating the territorial integrity of another state. Muslim also made an important statement: Turkey, which is ready to defend its territorial integrity at all costs, even shooting down Russian planes on its border for so-called airspace violations, yet itself invades an independent state,” Mahmoud added.

Is Iran Next on Erdogan’s Hit List?

Turkey has also continued to attack Kurdistan Workers’ Party positions in the Qandil Mountains, which border Iran.

“Despite the Turkish air force now attacking Qandil, the mountainous region bordering Iran, I still believe that Ankara is not ready to open yet another front by starting a war with Iran,” Mahmoud said.

Turkey has also managed to turn nearly all of its friends in the region into enemies, as Iranian Ettelaat newspaper Abulkasem Kasemzade recently noted, breaking the relationships he once had with Russia, Syria and Iran.

“Turkey has now simply surrounded itself with a circle of confrontation. On one hand, there is cooled Russia, from another, scrapes associated with the exposure of its collaboration with Daesh terrorists, lastly the simply insufficiently considered military operation against Kurds,” Mahmoud added.

According to Mahmoud, Syria and Iraq must cooperate to drive Turkish troops out of Iraq, as the invasion, and Turkey’s attacks on Kurdish groups in the region, is dangerous for Kurds living in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Source:sputniknews.com

Russia intends to bring up Ankara’s invasion of northern Iraq at the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

December 8, 2015 By administrator

“The issue will be raised at a closed-door meeting,” TASS cited a diplomatic source within the organization as saying. The source also dismissed earlier reports that Moscow was going to call a separate UNSC meeting.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed grave concern over reports of the US-led coalition’s missile airstrike on the Syrian Army base near Ayyash in the Deir ez-Zor province, which killed three Syrian soldiers, as well as an airstrike in Al-Hasakah Governorate that resulted in multiple civilian casualties.

“Generally, these facts serve proof that the situation on the frontline with Islamic State is heating up,” the Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department acknowledged.

“An additional and extremely dangerous factor promoting international tensions is the unlawful presence of the Turkish armed forces on Iraqi territory near the city of Mosul, which arrived there without a request and approval of the legitimate government of Iraq,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“We consider this [military] presence unacceptable,” the statement says, adding that violation of international law principles, such as respect towards other states’ sovereignty is “at the core of the emerging problems.”

According to Iraqi media, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has put the Iraqi Air Force on high alert and the ruling National Iraqi Alliance has given the prime minister the go-ahead to take “any measures” to ensure territorial integrity and protect its borders, including addressing the UN and the Arab League.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that the country is suspending further deployment of troops to Iraq, but refuses to withdraw servicemen and hardware already on Iraqi soil.

Baghdad was informed of Ankara’s decision in a phone conversation between the Turkish and Iraqi foreign ministers late on Monday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reiterated Ankara’s respect for Iraq’s territorial integrity, Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters.

In a separate statement, Turkish PM Davutoglu expressed readiness to visit Baghdad as soon as possible to discuss the current troop deployment crisis between Ankara and Baghdad.

Iraqi media reported earlier that on December 4 Iraq’s PM said: “Turkish troops numbering around one regiment armored with tanks and artillery entered Iraqi territory,” labeling the incident as a “serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty.” He added that the move “does not conform with good neighborly relations,” and called on to Ankara to “withdraw immediately from Iraqi territory.”

Iraq Could Ask Russia for Help After ‘Invasion’ by Turkish Forces

December 6, 2015 By administrator

The head of Iraq’s parliamentary committee on security and defense, Hakim al-Zamili, in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, said that Baghdad could turn to Moscow for help after Turkey had allegedly breached Iraq’s sovereignty.

Numerous reports suggest that on Friday Turkey sent approximately 130 soldiers to norther Iraq. Turkish forces, deployed near the city of Mosul, are allegedly tasked with training Peshmerga, which has been involved in the fight against Daesh, also known as ISIL.

On Saturday, Baghdad described the move as “a serious violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” since it had not been authorized by Iraqi authorities.

“We may soon ask Russia for direct military intervention in Iraq in response to the Turkish invasion and the violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” Iraqi lawmaker al-Zamili said.

Earlier, Hakim al-Zamili threatened Turkey with a military operation if the Turkish soldiers do not leave Iraq immediately.

The parliamentarian reiterated that Turkey sent troops into Iraqi territory without notifying the government.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi urged Ankara to immediately pull out its forces, including tanks and artillery, from the Nineveh province. Iraqi President Fuad Masum referred to the incident as a violation of international law and urged Ankara to refrain from similar activities in the future, al-Sumaria TV Channel reported.

Bush, Blair plotted Iraq war 1 year before invasion had started: White House memo

October 17, 2015 By administrator

Bush and Blair are shaking hands in February 2001. (AFP photo)

A damning White House memo has revealed details of the so-called “deal in blood” forged by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush over the Iraq war.

The document, titled “Secret… Memorandum for the President”, was sent by then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell to President Bush on March 28, 2002, a week before Bush’s summit with Blair at his Crawford ranch in Texas, Britain’s Daily Mail reported on Sunday.

The sensational memo revealed that Blair had agreed to support the war a year before the invasion even started, while publicly the British prime minister was working to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

The document also disclosed that Blair agreed to act as a spin doctor for Bush and convince a skeptical public that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, which actually did not exist.

In response, Bush would flatter Blair and give the impression that London was not Washington’s poodle but an equal partner in the “special relationship.”

Powell told Bush that Blair “will be with us” on the Iraq war, and assured the president that “”the UK will follow our lead in the Middle East.”

Another sensational memo revealed how Bush used “spies” in the British Labour Party to help him to influence public opinion in the United Kingdom in favor of the Iraq war.

Both documents were obtained and published by The Mail on Sunday. They are part of a number of classified emails stored on the private server of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton which courts have forced her to reveal.

Blair has always denied the claim that he and Bush signed a deal “in blood” at Crawford to launch a war against Iraq that began on March 20, 2003, that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The Powell memo, however, showed how Blair and Bush secretly prepared the Iraq war plot behind closed doors at Crawford.

Powell told Bush: “He will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause.”

The top US diplomatic official added that the UK premier has the presentational skills to “make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace.”

Powell wrote that Blair will “stick with us on the big issues” but he needs to show the British public that “Britain and America are truly equity partners in the special relationship.”

n March 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding WMDs. But no such weapons were ever discovered in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as the result of the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

The US war in Iraq cost American taxpayers $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, according to a study called Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.

Source: presstv.com

Erdoagn-Davutoglu Mosul Like Invasion in play for Northern Syria

June 22, 2015 By administrator

Why Davutoglu desparately wanting to Form Government with MHP party?

Erdogan and Davutoglu are in second emergency security meetings possibly planing another false Flag operation invasion of northern Syria just like they did Mosul invasion, which they put ISIS as a buffer zone in between (Iraq) Baghdad and (Kurdistan) Erbil force both Kurd and Arab to capitulate the two oil pipeline going through Turkey this time they will play Turkmen CARD just like the way they used before the invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974.
They will intensify the propaganda that the kurd’s are ethnically cleansing the Turkmen. this time they will put Islamic State between Assad and Kurd (YPG) they will also mobilize Arab groups including ISIL and al-Qaeda and Turkish Secret army called (FSA) which is mostly are Turkmen from central Asia use them to create a buffer zone.
Davutoglu will offer anything and everything possible to MHP to form coalition government with (AKP) because MHP’s Animosity of Kurd (HDP)

10-Year Journey of Deepening Radicalism Turned Paris Brothers Into Hardened Killers

January 17, 2015 By administrator

New York Times Special Report,

In the year after the United States’ invasion of Iraq, a 22-year-old pizza delivery man here couldn’t take it anymore. Sickened by images of American soldiers humiliating Muslims at the Abu Ghraib prison, he made plans to fight United States forces in Iraq. He studied a virtual AK-47 on a website. Then he took lessons from a man, using a hand-drawn picture of a gun.
It was an almost laughable attempt at jihad, and as the day of his departure approached, the delivery man, Chérif Kouachi, felt increasingly unsure of himself.
“Several times, I felt like pulling out,” he later told investigators. “I didn’t want to die there.”
A decade later, Chérif Kouachi, flanked by his older brother Saïd, no longer had any reservations, as the two black-clad jihadists, sheathed in body armor, gave a global audience a ruthless demonstration in terror.
Walking with military precision into the guarded Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, they killed 12 people in the name of Allah. Then in the hours before the brothers died in a gunfight with police, Chérif took a call from a reporter, to make sure the world knew they carried out the attack on behalf of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen.
Much remains unclear about the brothers’ lives. But thousands of pages of legal documents obtained by The New York Times, including minutes of interrogations, summaries of phone taps, intercepted jailhouse letters and a catalog of images and religious texts found on the laptops of Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, an associate who would later synchronize his own terror attack with the Kouachi brothers, reveal an arc of radicalization that saw them become steadily more professional and more discreet.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/world/europe/paris-terrorism-brothers-said-cherif-kouachi-charlie-hebdo.html?emc=edit_na_20150117

Court Orders Turkey to Pay Cyprus Over Invasion

May 12, 2014 By administrator

ISTANBUL May 12, 2014 (AP)
By DESMOND BUTLER Associated Press

Europe’s top human rights court in its largest ever judgment ordered Turkey on Monday to pay 90 million euros ($123 million) to Cyprus for its 1974 invasion and the island’s subsequent division.

The decision from the European Court of Human Rights said the passage of time did not erase Turkey’s responsibility in the case, ruling that Turkey must pay 30 million euros in damages to relatives of those missing in the operations and 60 million euros for “the enclaved Greek-Cypriot residents of the Karpas peninsula.”

Hundreds of Greek Cypriots still live in the Karpas peninsula in the northernmost tip of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot part of the island.

Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded in 1974 after a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state that was proclaimed in the north of the island.

The judgment comes as the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities are making a new effort to reunite the island.

Speaking ahead of the ruling on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned that a judgment against Turkey would come at a delicate time and said that he viewed it as “neither binding nor of any value.”

“Not only is it legally problematic, its timing is wrong,” Davutoglu said.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the decision would not detract from Turkey’s “determination” to reach a settlement.

Cyprus’ government spokesman Nikos Christodoulides hailed the court’s decision and called on Turkey to comply immediately.

“Despite the fact that the persecution and hardship that they have endured cannot be measured in money, the Cyprus government welcomes the fact that the court again condemns in this way Turkey’s policy of violating the human rights of the enclaved,” he said.

The court said it would be up to the government of Cyprus to determine how to award the damages. Turkey has not always complied with the court’s rulings.

In a 1998 ruling, the Strasbourg court ordered Turkey to pay Titina Loizidou compensation for depriving her of property in the seaside city of Kyrenia. It was the first case in which a Greek Cypriot successfully sued Turkey over the invasion and earned the right to compensation.

Turkey paid the money in 2003, but has yet to comply with an earlier European Court decision ordering Ankara to allow Loizidou to reclaim her property.

Analysts noted that the current case was notable not only because of its size, but also because it took Turkey to task for the invasion and awarded the money to Cyprus on behalf of individuals, a sensitive point that could affect current reunification talks.

“The big question is how the decision will affect the negotiations that are the most promising ever,” said Cengiz Aktar, an analyst on Turkey-EU affairs at the Istanbul Policy Center. “It could put the talks into difficulty.”

Achilleas Demetriades, a prominent human rights lawyer in Cyprus, who has won several cases in the European Court involving Turkey, said that the judgment also pertains to Turkey’s failure to carry out an effective investigation of the whereabouts of Greek Cypriots who disappeared during and after the invasion of the island, and to provide that information to relatives of the missing.

Nicos Sergides, president of the Greek Cypriot organization of relatives of missing persons, said the ruling could offer fresh hope for relatives to find out what happened to their loved ones.

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Angela Charlton and Lori Hinnant in Paris, Suzan Fraser in Ankara and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia contributed to this report.