Russia says Syria peace talks impossible in near future “blamed the West for supporting “terrorists”

November 1, 2016 By administrator

russia-dm Russia’s defense minister has said Syrian rebels cannot be negotiated with, making peace talks impossible for the time being. He blamed the West for supporting “terrorists.”

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow was not expecting a resumption of Syrian peace talks in the foreseeable future because of the “impossibility” of negotiating with forces opposed to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Militants in the northern city of Aleppo were “shooting dozens of civilians a day for attempting to approach humanitarian corridors” opened by a pause in Russian and Syrian air attacks, he said in comments carried by the state news agency TASS.

“Is this really an opposition with whom it is possible to negotiate?” he said, adding, “As a result, the prospect for the beginning of a political process and returning peace to the Syrian people is being postponed indefinitely.”

Supporting terrorists?

He accused the West of continuing to support violent Islamists as a by-product of its help to so-called “moderate” rebels fighting against Assad’s forces, which are receiving backing from the Russian military. Much of Aleppo is under the control of Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda.

“It is time for our Western colleagues to determine whom they are fighting against: terrorists or Russia,” Shoigu said. “In order to destroy terrorists in Syria it is necessary to act together and not put a spanner in the works of partners.”

Strained ties

With its military support for the Syrian regime, Russia has increasingly come onto a collision course with the United States and its allies, who want to see Assad removed from office.

Shoigu, who was addressing a meeting of Russian military officials, said he was surprised that some European governments had not allowed Russian naval vessels headed for Syria through the Mediterranean Sea to dock for refueling or restocking, but said the refusals had not affected the naval mission.

NATO had voiced concern that the ships could be used in airstrikes in Syria, which it says have killed large numbers of civilians. Moscow denied the charges.

tj/sms (Reuters, dpa)

Source: DW.com

Turkey threatens to attack Kurdish-held Manbij, Syria

October 27, 2016 By administrator

Turkish forces in Syria will attack the Kurdish-held town of Manbij after taking the town of al-Bab from Islamic State, the Turkish president has said. He added that Turkey would not allow the Kurds to hold an area west of Mosul, Iraq.

In addition to threatening Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a speech on Thursday reiterated Ankara’s willingness to send troops to Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) Syrian stronghold Raqqa after dealing with al-Bab. Erdogan also said he had informed the US of the plans on Wednesday.

Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik told state broadcaster TRT on Thursday that Ankara does not want Kurdish forces to take part in a future offensive on Raqqa, and has asked the US not to call them in. The US military had earlier said Kurdish YPG militias would be part of the offensive against IS in Syria.

Turkey launched a ground incursion into Syria in August, attacking both IS and Kurdish militias. The force includes both Turkish regular troops and Turkish-backed Syrian militias fighting as the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The Turkish Air Force supports the offensive.

Kurdish militias have been a key ally of the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State both in Syria and Iraq. Iraqi Kurds are taking part in the ongoing offensive against Mosul, another stronghold of the terrorist organization. In Syria, coalition airstrikes helped a mixed Kurdish-Arab force dominated by the YPG to take Manbij from IS in August.

The US support for the Kurdish fighters has angered Ankara, which considers them terrorists and a major security threat to Turkey. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey waged a decades-long guerrilla war against the Turkish government. Ankara says Kurds in neighboring Syria and Iraq are helping the PKK in the hostilities and regularly attacks Kurdish positions in both countries.

The Mosul operation in Iraq highlighted the disarray in the coalition, with Turkey forcing its way into taking part in the campaign despite objections from the Kurds and the Iraqi government. It also insisted that Shiite militias, which helped the regular Iraqi Army fight IS, were not part of the offensive.

On Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu threatened that Turkey will use its ground forces in Iraq to attack the Kurds if it felt threatened. In his Thursday speech, President Erdogan said Turkey would not allow the Kurdish militias holding the region of Sinjar west of Mosul to turn it into a new base for the PKK.

Launching an offensive in Raqqa is reportedly an option that the administration of President Barack Obama may take before he leaves office in January. Providing more weapons to the Kurds is considered a possible element for such an operation, but Turkish actions, which have already disrupted the White House’s timetable for Raqqa, have put the plan into question, the New York Times reported last week.

Nearly 100 civilians dead in Turkey-backed Syria op: monitor

October 24, 2016 By administrator

hundreds-desd BEIRUT (AFP Nearly 100 civilians have been killed in a two-month offensive by Turkey and allied rebels in northern Syria, a monitoring group said on Monday.

No comment could be immediately obtained from Turkish officials, but in the past Ankara has disputed accusations of civilian deaths in its campaign.

The “Euphrates Shield” operation was launched in northern Syria on August 24 to fight both the Islamic State jihadist group and a Kurdish militia that Ankara considers a “terrorist” group.

Since then, Turkish air strikes and shelling as part of the assault have killed 96 civilians, including 22 children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based monitor said rebels involved in the assault were leading the fight on the ground with Turkey lending heavy firepower — mostly air strikes and artillery fired from Turkish soil.

“Ninety-two of the civilians, mostly Kurds, were killed in areas controlled by the Islamic State group,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

The Battle for Aleppo intensifies after ceasefire ends

October 23, 2016 By administrator

The battle for control of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo intensified on Sunday with air strikes, ground offensives and shelling, the morning after a resurgence in fighting ended a Russian ceasefire, a monitor and rebel groups said.

There was fierce fighting between insurgents and Syrian government and allied forces along a strategic frontline in southwest Aleppo. In August rebels briefly broke through this government-held strip of land to try to break a siege on rebel-held eastern Aleppo enacted in July.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there was heavy rebel shelling onto the government-controlled Hamdaniya district, part of this battle front.

Syrian or Russian air strikes hit a number of rebel-held areas just west of Aleppo city from dawn on Sunday. Air raids also hit north of Aleppo and deeper into west Aleppo countryside, the Observatory said.

Aleppo has been a major battleground in the Syrian conflict, now in its sixth year. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by the Russian military, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and an array of Shi’ite Muslim militias, wants to take full control of the city.

Russia had declared a unilateral ceasefire from Thursday which was rejected by rebels, lasted three days and did not result in hoped-for medical evacuations from the city or aid deliveries.

Air strikes within the city stopped for three days, but resumed late on Saturday as the third day of the truce expired.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel alliance, which has said it is preparing for a big attack to break the siege of eastern Aleppo, warned residents in and around the city to stay away from Syrian government military buildings for their own safety in a statement on Saturday.

FSA rebel groups said in statements they had repelled various offensives by government and allied forces along the frontline separating rebel- from government-held Aleppo city late on Saturday.

Turkish jets kill scores of Syrian Kurdish YPJ fighter

October 20, 2016 By administrator

Turkey says its warplanes have carried out more than two dozen airstrikes against Kurdish positions in northern Syria, killing scores of militants.

Jets carried out 26 airstrikes against YPG targets, killing 160 to 200 militants, the Turkish army said in a statement on Thursday.

The army said its jets hit militant targets in the villages of al-Hasiya, Um al-Qura and Um Hosh and destroyed nine buildings, one armored vehicle and four other vehicles that belonged to the Kurdish militia.

YPG forces had recently captured the areas from Daesh militants. Attacks on YPG positions have been an ongoing source of contention between the United States and Turkey.

The US says it supports YPG and considers the militia group to be an effective force against Daesh Takfiris in Syria. Ankara says the YPG is an extension of its own outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which it considers a terrorist organization.

Ankara won’t “wait for terrorists to come and attack” Turkey, said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the airstrikes.

In August, Turkey sent troops and tanks into northern Syria without Damascus’ consent purportedly to help drive out Daesh and Kurdish militants from the border area.

Ankara, which is an open backer of militants fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, is helping the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) militants take territory near the border.

The FSA and its affiliated groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam, as well as more than a dozen other militant groups are fighting the government in Damascus since 2011.

Erdogan Vows to Tackle Turkey’s Enemies Abroad Evoking Ottoman Past,

October 20, 2016 By administrator

Erdogan Ottoman imperialist ambitions map

ANKARA, ISTANBUL (Reuters)—Smarting over exclusion from an Iraqi-led offensive against Islamic State in Mosul and Kurdish militia gains in Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Wednesday Turkey “will not wait until the blade is against our bone” but could act alone in rooting out enemies.

In a speech at his palace, Erdogan conjured up an image of Turkey constrained by foreign powers who “aim to make us forget our Ottoman and Selcuk history,” when Turkey’s forefathers held territory stretching across central Asia and the Middle East.

“From now on we will not wait for problems to come knocking on our door, we will not wait until the blade is against our bone and skin, we will not wait for terrorist organizations to come and attack us,” he told hundreds of “muhtars,” local administrators generally loyal to the government.

“Whoever supports the divisive terrorist organization, we will dig up their roots,” he said, referring to Kurdish PKK militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey and have bases in northern Iraq and affiliates in Syria.

“Let them go wherever until we find and destroy them. I am saying this very clearly: they will not have a single place to find peace abroad.”

Erdogan has struck an increasingly belligerent tone in his speeches in recent days, frustrated that NATO member Turkey has not been more involved in the U.S.-backed assault on Mosul, and angered by Washington’s support for Kurdish militia fighters battling Islamic State in Syria.

He is riding a wave of patriotism since a coup attempt failed to oust him in July, his message of a strong Turkey playing well with his fervent supporters.

Ankara has been locked in a row with Iraq over the presence of Turkish troops at the Bashiqa camp near Mosul, as well as over who should take part in the offensive in the largely Sunni Muslim city, once part of the Ottoman empire and still seen by Turkey as firmly within its sphere of influence.

Erdogan has warned of sectarian bloodshed if the Iraqi army relies on Shi’ite militia fighters.

He said agreement had been reached with the U.S. military on Turkish jets joining the Mosul operation, although Washington has said it is up to the Iraqi government on who takes part.

“They thought they could keep us out of Mosul by bothering us with the PKK and Daesh (Islamic State) … They think they can shape our future with the hands of terrorist organizations,” he said. “We know that the terrorists’ weapons will blow up in their hands soon.”

Turkey has felt increasingly powerless to control events across its borders as the U.S.-led coalition focuses on fighting Islamic State in Syria rather than on removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the root cause of the war in Ankara’s view.

It has been particularly angered by U.S. support for Kurdish militia fighters in Syria. Washington views the Kurdish YPG as useful allies in the fight against the jihadists, but Turkey sees them as a hostile force and an extension of the PKK.

“We know this business in this region. You are foreigners here. You do not know,” Erdogan said, to loud applause, in a speech on Tuesday to mark the opening of the academic year.

While criticizing the West, the Turkish leader has restored ties with Moscow in recent weeks, vowing to seek common ground on Syria after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, despite Moscow’s backing of Assad.

Erdogan said he discussed with Putin by phone an agreement on Tuesday night on removing from Aleppo the group formally known as the Nusra Front, and now called Jabhat Fatah al Sham. He gave no details.

Erdogan has made repeated references in his speeches this week to the term “Misak-i Milli” or National Pact, referring to decisions made by the Ottoman parliament in 1920 setting out the borders of the Ottoman Empire.

He often laments the concessions made by Turkish leaders after World War One, with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne that brought modern Turkey into being in 1923. Pro-government media this week published maps depicting Ottoman borders encompassing an area including Mosul.

He warned of efforts to “restructure the region” and said Turkey would not sit by.

“I’m warning the terrorist organizations, the sectarian fanatic Baghdad government, and the Assad government that kills its own people: you are on the wrong path. The fire you are trying to start will burn you more than us,” Erdogan said.

“We are not obliged to abide by the role anyone has set for us in that sense. We have started carrying out our own plan.”

UN rep. vows commitment to aid Syrian-Armenians

October 18, 2016 By administrator

The country representative of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights affirmed the organization’s commitment to aid Syrian-Armenians as he met with Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan for a special discussion.

According to a press release by the Human Rights Defender’s Office, the sides particularly considered housing-related issues and the UN’s possible role in facilitating assistance.
The ombudsman also stressed the importance of legal counseling.
Christoph Bierwirth said that the UN Refugee Agency has undertaken the necessary efforts towards directing its aid to the families settling in Armenia.
Tatoyan highly praised the mission’s role in aiding Syrian-Armenians. Both sides mutually stressed the importance of more frequent meetings and discussions.

Sputniknews Report: Washington and Riyadh ‘Plan to Let 9,000 Daesh Leave Mosul and Move to Syria’

October 13, 2016 By administrator

deash-move-to-syria Intelligence agencies of the United States and Saudi Arabia plan to allow more than 9,000 Daesh fighters leave the Iraqi city of Mosul and travel to eastern Syria where they will take part in a major offensive to recapture Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra among over things, an unnamed source in military and diplomatic circles in Moscow told RIA Novosti.

“American and Saudi intelligence services have reached an agreement to provide all militants a safe passage to leave the city with their families before” Iraqi security forces and their allies launch the operation to free Mosul, he suggested. The matter was ostensibly settled during the preliminary phase of the offensive.

When the Mosul campaign begins, “coalition warplanes will launch airstrikes solely against isolated and abandoned houses within the city,” the source noted, adding that these targets have been chosen in coordination with the militants.

Daesh fighters, he said, will then move to Syria.

“More than 9,000 Daesh fighters from Mosul will be redeployed to eastern Syria to carry out a large-scale offensive which will involve among other things taking control over Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra,” the source detailed.

For Washington, this plan, the source suggested, will be an attempt to diminish Russia’s success in Syria. Moscow has been credited with helping the Syrian Arab Army turn the tide of war that has seen Damascus fighting against foreign-sponsored terrorist groups for more than five years. “Apart from political dividends, the other goal of this operation clearly involves discrediting the achievements of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Surely, this is also an attempt to undermine [Bashar] al-Assad,” the source said.

Senior officials at the General Intelligence Directorate, Saudi Arabia’s primary intelligence, served as mediators between the US and the militants, the source said, adding that they will also guarantee that Washington delivers on the deal. He explained that a similar idea was previously employed in Fallujah.

Baghdad-led forces freed Fallujah in late June after a three-months-long siege. Political analyst Alexander Perendzhiev doubted that this plan will work. Daesh “has Iraqi roots; Mosul is their stronghold and they will clearly be unwilling to leave Iraq,” he told RIA Novosti. “Mosul will probably remain in the hands of terrorists. Some of them will travel to Syria and the rest will pretend that they surrender.” The expert further said that the Democrats will try to claim any success in Mosul, whether perceived or real.

Hillary Clinton’s Axis of Evil, neocon 2 potentially terrifying, thermonuclear consequences.

October 12, 2016 By administrator

clinton-russia BY Pepe Escobar

Let’s cut to the chase; Hillary Clinton is ready to go to war against Russia in Syria – with inbuilt, potentially terrifying, thermonuclear consequences.

Anticipating an outcome of the US presidential election as a remix of the 1972 Nixon landslide, Hillary has also coined, George “Dubya” Bush-style, a remixed axis of evil: Russia, Iran and “the Assad regime”.

That’s not even counting China, which, via “aggression” in the South China Sea, will also feature as a certified foe for the Founding Mother of the pivot to Asia.

And if all that was not worrying enough, Turkey now seems on the path to join the axis. President Putin and President Erdogan met in Istanbul. Moscow positioned itself as ready to develop large-scale military-technical cooperation with Ankara. That includes, of course, the $20 billion, Rosatom-built, four-reactor Akkuyu nuclear power plant. And the drive to “speed up the work” on Turkish Stream – which will de facto strengthen even more Russia’s position in the European gas market, bypassing Ukraine for good, while sealing Ankara’s position as a key East-West energy crossroads. In addition, both Moscow and Ankara back UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura’s position that “moderate rebels” (the Beltway’s terminology) holding eastern Aleppo hostage must be eradicated. The geopolitical game-changer is self-evident. As much as Erdogan may be a whirling political dervish, impossible to fathom and trust, while Putin is a master of the strategic long game, Moscow’s and Ankara’s interests tend to converge in the New Great Game; and that spells out closer integration in the dawn of the Eurasian Century. Quite a cup of hemlock for Hillary Clinton, who has already equated Putin with Hitler. Regime change or hot war? In the appalling spectacle that turned out to be round two of the interminable Trump/Clinton cage match, Donald Trump once again made a rational point – expressing his wish for a normalized working relationship with Russia. Yet that is absolute anathema for the War Party, as in the neocon/neoliberalcon nebulae in the Beltway-Wall Street axis.

The Clinton (Cash) Machine-controlled Democrats once again condemned Trump as a tool of Putin while bewildered Republicans condemned Trump because he goes against “mainstream Republican thinking”.

Here’s what Trump said; “I don’t like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS and Iran is killing ISIS.” Trump’s outlook on Southwest Asia relies on only one vector; destroy ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. That’s what adviser and former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has been infiltrating into Trump’s notoriously short attention span. Flynn may have admitted on the record that ISIS/ISIL/Daesh’s progress was a “willful” decision taken by the Obama administration. Yet in his disjointed book Field of Fight, Flynn insists that, “the Russians haven’t been very effective at fighting jihadis on their own territory”, are “in cahoots with the Iranians”, and “the great bulk of their efforts are aimed at the opponents of the Assad regime.” This is a neocon mantra; unsurprisingly, the co-author of Flynn’s book is neocon Michael Ledeen. From dodgy American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) armchair “experts” to former counselors at the State Department, they all subscribe to the laughable view that the remixed axis of evil – now fully adopted by Hillary – is useless against jihadis; the good guys doing the difficult work are “the US-led coalition”. And damn those who dare criticizing the “relative moderates” backed by the CIA. What Trump said is anathema not only for establishment Republicans who despise Obama for not fighting against the Hillary-adopted remixed axis of evil. The real mortal sin is that it “disregards” core US foreign policy bipartisan assumptions held to be as sacred as the Bible. Thus the success of the neocon Ash Carter-led Pentagon in bombing the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire deal which would imply coordinated airstrikes against both ISIS/ISIL/Daesh and the Front for the Conquest of Syria, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a. al-Qaeda in Syria.

Neocons and mainstream Republicans blame lame duck Team Obama for the “unholy reliance” on Russia and Iran, while neoliberalcons blame Russia outright. And high in the altar of righteousness, hysteria rules, with the neocon president of the NED calling for the US government to “summon the will” to pull a Putin regime change.

Ready to go nuclear? Hillary Clinton continues to insist the US is not at war with Islam. The US is de facto at war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan’s tribal areas; involved in covert war in Iran; and has totally destroyed Libya. It’s not hard to do the math. © AFP 2016/ FADI AL-HALABI ‘Afghan Scenario’ to Unfold in Syria as US Halts Ceasefire Talks With Russia

In parallel, the deafening talk about Washington now advancing a Plan C in Syria is nonsense. There has never been a Plan C; only Plan A, which was to draw Russia into another Afghanistan. It did not work with the controlled demolition of Ukraine. And it will not work in Syria, as Moscow is willing to supply plenty of air and missile power but no boots on the ground of any consequence. That’s a matter for the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Iran and its Shi’ite militias, and Hezbollah.

Ash Carter has threatened Russia with “consequences”. After blowing up the ceasefire, the Pentagon – supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff — now is peddling “potential strikes” on Syria’s air force to “punish the regime” for what the Pentagon actually did; blow up the ceasefire. One can’t make this stuff up. Major-General Igor Konashenkov, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman, sent a swift message to “our colleagues in Washington”; think twice if you believe you can get away with launching a “shadow” hot war against Russia. Russia will target any stealth/unidentified aircraft attacking Syrian government targets – and they will be shot down. The only serious question then is whether an out of control Pentagon will force the Russian Air Force – false flag and otherwise — to knock out US Air Force fighter jets, and whether Moscow has the fire power to take out each and every one of them. So in this three-month window representing the “death throes” of the Obama era, before the likely enthronization of the Queen of War, the question is whether the Pentagon will risk launching WWIII because “Aleppo is falling”.

Afterwards, things are bound to get even more lethal. The US government is holding open a first-strike nuclear capacity against Russia. Hillary firmly supports it, as Trump made clear he “would not do first-strike”.

The prospect of having axis of evil practitioner Hillary Clinton with her fingers on the nuclear button must be seen as the most life-and-death issue in this whole circus.

Destruction in Kurdish capital of south-east Turkey is dark mirror to Syria

October 11, 2016 By administrator

turkey-south Hundreds of houses are peppered with bullet holes in Diyarbakir, where the Kurdish PKK, or Workers’ Party, are fighting the Turkish government

By Robert Fisk in Diyarbakir

All day and all night, the big white trucks roar along the muddy road inside the black, volcanic walls of Diyarbakir. They enter the old city empty and leave piled high with rubble. When I walk down the same narrow road after dusk, two massive bright searchlights switch themselves on. Despite the glare, I can see a crumpled house, a smashed roof. And then a policeman in a flak jacket holding an AK-47 steps into the light. “You can go no further,” he says to me in Turkish, bored, tired. He’s given this order a thousand times to the Kurds.

In the narrow laneways behind me, where a tiny 16th century palace tea-house and an ancient Islamic madrasa school have survived, there are hundreds of houses peppered with bullet holes, their glass broken, scorch marks above the windows. When I walk into the broken entrance of one, I find the internal lower walls have been smashed through as fighters sought to move between buildings to avoid government snipers. There are the remains of tunnels through which the same men climbed to avoid capture.

Sound familiar? But no. This is not Aleppo. Nor Homs. Nor the crushed suburbs of Damascus. This is the Kurdish capital of south-eastern Turkey today, the dark mirror to the tragedy of Syria; a largely unreported catastrophe which has joined all the other forgotten suffering of this region – occupied “Palestine” comes to mind – now that Washington and Moscow are fighting over the right to decide the future of the Middle East. Only today, of course, it is the Kurdish PKK “workers’ party” – more gruesomely-obedient party than workers, I’ve always thought – which is fighting the Turkish government’s soldiers and policemen.

Walking around both the brashly, almost repulsively new, and staggeringly old versions of Diyarbakir, you cannot fail to understand its uniqueness. No Islamist fighters would ever join this battle. Indeed, they might choose to take the side of the Erdogan government, which effectively restarted this old war when it abandoned a genuinely optimistic peace process with the Kurds and whose AKP – and here’s the rub for lovers of independence wars – has more adherents in “Kurdistan” than any Kurdish party. Until the truce fell apart amid Erdogan’s arrogant assumption that nationalism was more important than peace, many Kurdish people in this land believed there might be rapprochement at last with their Turkish neighbours.

But amid the daily attacks in the city and in the countryside – on PKK fighters, police stations, army patrols – all that was gained when Kurds briefly entered the national parliament is now being squandered. Kurdish newspapers have been closed, along with their television stations. Even the Tigris University is still constrained to call its Kurdish department “the Department of Living Dialogue”, although at least it still exists. Take the battles that consumed this city towards the end of last November and then in the first months of this year. Not only did they destroy part of the centre of Diyarbakir, a small- scale version of the soukh-destruction of Aleppo, but they turned war once more into something normal.

After a recent gun battle amid the orchards alongside the miserable sewer that still passes for the Tigris river, the authorities were only just prevented from cutting down this city’s biological lung – as American troops often did in Iraq and Israeli troops do in the occupied West Bank and Syrian soldiers do north of Lattakia – by the threat of mass protests. Thus the pageant of trees remains, courtesy of potential demonstrations, as both cover for the PKK and ambush points for the army. Truce saves arboretum.

Everyone can recall the most recent drama – Kurds and Turks tell remarkably similar stories – which was the culmination of street battles between the PKK and the army. On 28 November last year, the head of the local Bar Association, Tahir Elci, was holding a press conference in front of the “minaret of the four legs” – a sobriquet earned by the rather Big Ben-style minaret which is supported by four stone piles — in the very centre of Diyarbakir. He wished to protest about the continuation of the fighting. Two PKK fighters apparently set out to assassinate him.

Both were apparently being trailed by the cops. A battle broke out and the two PKK members hijacked a taxi which – as in every movie – happened to be driven by an off-duty police officer. He managed to contact his headquarters whose uniformed police then stopped the taxi. The gunmen then killed both the police and the off-duty driver and fled towards the scene of Elci’s press conference. More police then opened fire on the PKK and the two men shot back and Elci was hit by a bullet in the head – “right between the eyes”, as one witness told me, as if to emphasise the deliberateness of the act. A stray round? And if so, who fired it? Thus began, even before Elci’s funeral, the inevitable question: was the man “assassinated” by the police or by the PKK?

In the aftermath, the battles resumed in the city centre, and the authorities managed to destroy so much of the place in their scramble to destroy the PKK fighters there – the PKK, of course, being the “terrorist” force infinitely more important to Erdogan’s “anti-terror” war than Isis — that national shame has taken the place of victory. The police have draped a huge curtain of heavy plastic across the street where Elci died beside the minaret – so that you can no longer see the destruction of the ancient buildings behind. The plastic sheet has taken the place of words.

Source:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/destruction-in-kurdish-capital-of-south-east-turkey-is-dark-mirror-to-syria-a7354161.html