Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at a meeting in Istanbul on September 25, 2017. (Photo by the Turkish Presidential Press Service)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Israel’s Mossad spy agency has played a role in the recent Kurdish independence referendum in northern Iraq.

During a televised speech in the eastern Turkish city of Erzurum on Saturday, Erdogan expressed sorrow that Iraqi Kurds had acclaimed the recent independence referendum with Israeli flags.

“This shows one thing, that this administration (in northern Iraq) has a history with Mossad, they are hand-in-hand together,” Erdogan said.

“Are you aware of what you are doing? Only Israel supports you,” he added.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held a non-binding referendum on secession from Iraq in defiance of Baghdad’s stiff opposition on September 25. Kurdish officials said over 90 percent of voters said ‘Yes’ to separation from Iraq.

While much of the international community, including the UN, the European Union and Iraq’s neighbors, has opposed the referendum, Israel has been the only entity to openly support an independent Kurdish state, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backing “the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state” of their own.

Erdogan vowed that Iraq’s Kurdistan “will pay a price” for the “unacceptable” independence referendum.

“An independent state is not being founded in northern Iraq, but on the contrary a continuously bleeding wound is being opened,” he said.

“To ignore this reality benefits neither us, nor our Kurdish brothers in Iraq,” Erdogan said, urging Iraqi Kurds to “wake up from this dream” of independence.

Ankara has threatened a series of punitive measures against Iraqi Kurds, including shutting the land border between Turkey and the region and stopping the transit of oil from Iraqi Kurdistan to the southern Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Turkish carriers Turkish Airlines, Atlas and Pegasus suspended their flights to Iraqi Kurdistan for an unspecified period of time on Friday.

Before the Kurdish referendum, Ankara was boosting its trade ties with Iraq’s Kurdistan region, with Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani becoming a frequent visitor to Turkey.

In 2016, the business boom with Iraqi Kurds made Iraq, including the Kurdish region, the second-largest market for Turkish exports after Germany.

However, economists have warned that closure of Habur border gate between Turkey and Iraq’s Kurdistan could undermine the $7billion trade between Ankara and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region.

After the Monday referendum, the Baghdad government ordered the KRG to hand over its international airports in Erbil, and the city of Sulaymaniyah, as well as its border crossings.

It also asked the KRG to either cancel the result of the plebiscite or face potential sanctions, international isolation, and military intervention.

A ban on international flights into and out of the Iraqi Kurdish region also took effect on Friday.

The KRG has refused to either hand over the airports and land terminals or annul the outcome of the vote.

ISTANBUL

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodoğan said Jan. 31 that the Gülenists in the country, which he dubs “the parallel structure,” have joined forces with the Israeli intelligence service.

“The sincere people backing this parallel structure should see with whom this structure is cooperating with,” Erdoğan said, while addressing a meeting of the All Industrialist and Businessmen’s Association (TÜMSİAD) in Istanbul.

“Shame on them if they still cannot see that this structure is cooperating with the Mossad,” he said.

Erdoğan accuses the followers of the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen for illegal wiretappings and a “coup attempt,” starting from the revelation of a large corruption investigation in December 2013.

The Gülenists did not let the other religious organizations and associations live, Erdoğan said.

Turkey’s relations are tense with Israel since nine Turks and one Turkish-American were killed and several other pro-Palestinian activists were wounded when Israeli commandos stormed the ship Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010, bound for Gaza.

“They are not national, they are not local;” Erdoğan said for Gülenists. “The ones who are still accompanying them despite all these will face a big shame soon. We were hurt by [Gülenists] and don’t want others to be hurt. I address to those who think they are hiding at political parties, NGOs and associations right near us. They have no excuse in still remaining under that umbrella despite all this scum.”

‘Are you anarchist?’
The president also harshly criticized two former prosecutors in the country’s largest graft probe case that started in December 2013, which is closed both at the regular courts and a parliamentary inspection commission, without giving names.

“A newspaper, which has published the cartoons that insults our prophet, was insulting a prosecutor five years ago,” Erdoğan said.

The president was apparently referring to daily Cumhuriyet, whose two columnists published the small black-and-white images of the Charlie Hebdo cover printed by the French mag after the Paris attacks, and former prosecutor Celal Kara, who was one of the initiators of the graft probe.

“Now you see the same newspaper embracing that prosecutor. And that prosecutor is telling about how they materialized the Dec. 17 coup attempt,” Erdoğan said.

“This is openly a confession of the coup attempt,” he said.

Another graft probe prosecutor, Muammer Akkaş was also a targeted by the president. Criticizing Akkaş for distributing leaflets and making a press statement in front of a court house late in 2013, “Are you an anarchist, How can you distribute leaflets in front of the court house,” Erdoğan asked, still not giving a name.

The president said Jan. 29 in a televised interview that it would be apprapriate if the U.S. deports Gülen.

January/31/2015