Turkey: İHSAN YILMAZ: The US government’s ambivalent approach to Turkish democracy

September 2, 2015 By administrator

I do not remember how many times I have criticized the US government’s ambivalent approach to Turkish democracy. It has generally centered on the concept of “Bon, pour l’Orient” (Good, for the Orient). That is, the de facto understanding of the US government has been that a limited, procedural, illiberal democracy is what Turks have deserved and this is all they can achieve, It would be an exaggeration to claim that the US treats the Turkish government’s disrespect of human rights, democracy, pluralism and the rule of law in the same category as Saudi Arabia.

But whenever Turkish democracy has trials and tribulations, what Turkish democratic forces see is an American government that becomes enchanted by Pentagonism; i.e., security and military relations are above the rule of law, democratic solidarity, universal human rights and respect for pluralism. It would be unjust to expect that the US must pressure all governments for these, but it is our right to expect that the US must do whatever it can with its soft power to stop its one of NATO allies from receding into dictatorship. On that account, US governments have miserably and consistently failed Turkish democrats.

Remember the Feb. 28, 1997 coup process: The Turkish militarist elite, a conglomerate of military officers, judiciary members, businessmen, media personalities and intellectuals had been oppressing the devout Muslims in the country. If the Justice and Development Party (AKP) can still receive 40 percent of the votes, this is thanks to the trauma that the Feb. 28 process left in the minds, hearts and consciousness of practicing Muslims. In other words, the Feb. 28 militarist elite is the illegitimate father of the AKP and Erdoğanism. Similar to today, innocent civilians had been oppressed by the state at that time, just because they did not share the worldview and lifestyle of the hegemonic elite. Similar to today, journalists, media outlets, civil society associations, private schools, human rights defenders and ordinary citizens were constantly abused.

What was the US government doing during those turbulent, traumatic, monstrous and evil times? Similar to today, it was obsessed with military relations with Turkey, and did not care much about what was happening in Turkey. Journalists in Washington, D.C., did not hear a single word of criticism about all these undemocratic and inhumane acts of the Turkish state just because of the fear of disturbing powerful Turkish rulers. Just like today.

Nobody is asking the US government to bomb Turkey. God forbid! Nobody is asking the US to incite a coup in Turkey. God forbid! Yet are being almost completely silent or bombing Turkey the only two existing alternatives? Are American diplomatic minds not able to come up with creative solutions to pressure the Turkish state to keep its promise of abiding by standards for universal human rights, the rule of law, respecting everybody, democracy and humane treatment for its critics? NATO members have mutual duties and rights on these issues. If the US has similar problems in future (!), we will condemn our own government here for silence about these problems in a friendly country.

published on Zaman

Armenian Government Chooses U.S. Firm to Probe Electricity Networks

August 14, 2015 By administrator

YEREVAN (Combined Sources)—The Armenian government has selected Deloitte & Touche to determine whether a decision by Armenia’s Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) to allow Armenia’s national power distribution company to raise electricity price was economically justified or resulted from alleged corruption and mismanagement.

Deputy Prime Minister Vache Gabrielyan said that the government had sent requests to top international consulting companies to take part in a tender that would select one of them to conduct a probe of the Electricity Networks of Armenia (ENA). Two firms—McKinsey and Deloitte & Touche—responded to the request. Deloitte & Touche was chosen because they reportedly offered a lower commission price for their service.

“Deloitte and Touche is an internationally renowned company, and I think that after their conclusions we will have sufficient grounds to move forward,” Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian said at a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.

The decision to conduct an audit of the company was reached on June 26 during President Serzh Sarkissian’s meeting in Yerevan with Russian transport minister Maxim Sokolov, the Russian co-chairman of the joint Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation. The following day, Sarkissian said the government will keep electricity prices unchanged for consumers by subsidizing their increased cost at least until the release of findings of a future audit.

Earlier, Sarkissian said that an audit would find out whether the price hike approved by state regulators was economically justified or resulted from alleged corruption and mismanagement in the ENA.

The government has yet to select a foreign consulting firm that will conduct the audit. Abrahamyan said on Thursday that it is still negotiating with “the Russian side” on the matter.

The PSRC’s decision on June 17 to increase the electricity price for consumers by 6.93 drams (16.7%) sparked a vigorous public backlash and street protests against the increase.

Saudi Determined to Crash Oil Prices Until US Shale Breathes Its Last

August 13, 2015 By administrator

AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik

Never in its wildest dreams did the Obama administration expect it would face a financial disaster after it conspired with Riyadh to drop oil prices and flood the market with cheap petroleum, rerunning the highly successful US-Saudi deal of 1986 that resulted in the collapse of the USSR, F. William Engdahl notes.

Although it was not made public, on September 11, 2014 US Secretary of State John Kerry and King Abdullah concluded a secret deal to use the Saudi “oil muscle” in order to bring Russia and the Kremlin to its knees, rerunning the highly successful Washington-Riyadh deal of 1986, American-German economic researcher and historian F. William Engdahl pointed out.Remarkably, on the very next day, the US Treasury’s aptly-named Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, headed by Treasury Under-Secretary David S. Cohen imposed new sanctions on Russia’s energy companies Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftgas and Rosneft and prohibited US oil corporations from participating in Russia’s offshore oil projects in the Arctic.

“Then, just as the ruble was rapidly falling and Russian major corporations were scrambling for dollars for their year-end settlements, a collapse of world oil prices would end Putin’s reign. That was clearly the thinking of the hollowed-out souls who pass for statesmen in Washington today. Victoria Nuland was jubilant, praising the precision new financial warfare weapon at David Cohen’s Treasury financial terrorism unit,” Engdahl narrated with a touch of irony.

Meanwhile, nothing hinted at any trouble in July, 2014: West Texas Intermediate traded at $101 a barrel, and “the shale oil bonanza was booming, making the US into a major oil player for the first time since the 1970’s,” the historian noted.However, when WTI slid to $46 per barrel in January, 2015, the US strategists have suddenly realized that they had cut their own throat. Indeed, “the over-indebted US shale oil industry” was about to breathe its last because of the plummeting oil price.

Although Washington and Wall Street have made every effort to artificially stabilize the dire situation (that resulted in a slowly rising oil price since February to May, when it hit $62 per barrel), the US political and financial elite have underestimated the importance of the Saudi factor.

“It was al-Naimi [the Saudi Oil Minister] who reportedly saw the golden opportunity in the Kerry proposal to use the chance to, at the same time, kill off the growing market challenge from the rising output of the unconventional USA shale oil industry. Al-Naimi has said repeatedly that he is determined to eliminate the US shale oil “disturbance” to Saudi domination of world oil markets,” Engdahl said.

Alas, the Saudi are very unhappy with Washington’s shale oil advance and the Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration with Tehran. “In fact the Saudis are beside themselves with rage against Washington,” the historian stressed.

“This has all added up to an iron Saudi determination, aided by close Gulf Arab allies, to further crash oil prices until the expected wave of shale oil company bankruptcies,” Engdahl noted, adding that on July 29, 2015, WTI fell to $49.

“We anticipated that OPEC would not cut, but we didn’t foresee such a sharp increase,” Morgan Stanly, the Wall Street bank, reported in panic.

“This downturn would be more severe than that in 1986. As there was no sharp downturn in the 15 years before that, the current downturn could be the worst of the last 45+ years. If this were to be the case, there would be nothing in our experience that would be a guide to the next phases of this cycle…In fact, there may be nothing in analyzable history,” Morgan Stanley’s report admitted as quoted by the historian.

What makes matters even worse for Washington, Saudi Arabia, its longstanding and subservient ally, has begun to play its own geopolitical games. On June 18, 2015 Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister and son of King Salman visited Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The parties discussed up to $10 billion trade deals.”Saudi Arabia today is the world’s largest oil producer and Russia a close second. A Saudi-Russian alliance on whatever level was hardly in the strategy book of the Washington State Department planners,” the historian remarked.

F. William Engdahl underscored that October, 2015 is the next key point for American shale companies: banks will decide whether to keep funding US’ fading shale production or roll-over their loans. At the same time, if the Federal Reserve will raise US interest rates in September, the highly-indebted US shale oil manufacturers will face “disaster of a new scale.” Unfortunately, such a “doomsday” scenario may be accompanied with further unintended consequences for American and global financial system.

Indeed, as a proverb says “curses, like chickens, come home to roost.”

Souce : http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150808/1025540019.html#ixzz3iiEG3fvQ

US Fox News: Turkey’s PKK strikes outrage US military in Iraq

August 11, 2015 By administrator

(Photo: AP)

After granting the US permission to use Turkish air bases for strikes against radical terrorist group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria, Turkish air forces began heavily pounding bases of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, causing ripples of dismay and outrage among senior officials within the US military, the US-based Fox News Channel has said.

According to a Fox News report on Tuesday, Turkey launched its air strikes against the PKK “with only 10 minutes notice to their American partners.”

“The U.S. had barely enough warning to make sure its own forces were out of the way, according to a military source with knowledge of the tension Turkey’s attack caused in the Combined Air and Space Operations Center [CAOC], the allied headquarters in the air war against ISIS [ISIL],” the online version of the Fox report said.

“A Turkish officer came into the CAOC, and announced that the strike would begin in 10 minutes and he needed all allied jets flying above Iraq to move south of Mosul immediately,” Fox reported a military source as saying, who then described events that took place “in the center, in a secret location in the Middle East.” “We were outraged,” Fox quoted the source as saying.

In addition to targeting forces engaged in the fight against ISIL, US officials believed the Turkish military’s sudden move raised the risk of friendly fire casualties, the report added.

“We had U.S. Special Forces not far from where the Turks were bombing, training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters,” the source said. “We had no idea who the Turkish fighters were, their call signs, what frequencies they were using, their altitude or what they were squawking [to identify the jets on radar].”

When the Turkish officer returned the next day to inform his international partners of another strike, US military officials made their objections clear. The Turkish liaison officer was sent away, but not before a back-and-forth in which US leaders demanded the specific flight plans of the attacking Turkish warplanes and the Turkish officer sought the locations of the US trainers.

The coalition air force officers in the ops center refused to share the sensitive information.

“No way we were giving that up,” said the military source, according to Fox News. “If one of our guys got hit, the Turks would blame us. We gave the Turks large grids to avoid bombing. We could not risk having U.S. forces hit by Turkish bombs.”

Critics of the new agreement between the US and Turkey say the deal gives Ankara cover to carry out strike missions against Kurdish fighters in Iraq and even Syria, where Kurds have won hard-fought gains against ISIL. While the Kurdish fighters have been remarkably effective fighting the terrorist army, Turkey remains their nemesis and fears the recent expansion of Kurdish control along the border could provide Kurds more incentive to form their own country in the future.

Turkey began a campaign of air strikes on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, the PKK and ISIL fighters in Syria in July, in what acting Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu dubbed a “synchronized fight against terrorism.”

The Turkish military began bombing terrorist PKK targets in northern Iraq late last month, the first such strikes since a settlement process with the Kurds was launched in 2012, in response to the killing of two policemen in southeastern Turkey by the youth wing of the PKK.

The PKK is held as a terrorist organization by the US government and many EU nations.

“The PKK’s Syrian affiliate [the People’s Protection Unit (YPG)] has been the leading ground force against ISIS in Syria, and a close ally of the U.S. military,” the report said, adding “In Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, separate from the PKK and YPG, have been praised by many U.S. lawmakers for their success in fighting ISIS [ISIL].”

Bernie Sanders Only 2016 Candidate Drawing Tens of Thousands to Rallies

August 10, 2015 By administrator

Bernie-Sanders for President

A self-described socialist, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has just set a new record for the largest political event of the 2016 presidential contest at a campaign rally in Portland, Oregon.

Roughly 9,000 people gathered around the Moda Center on Sunday in Portland for Sanders’ campaign rally. And these were just the people who couldn’t get in. The large arena itself was packed with an estimated 19,000 people, as the remaining thousands were directed to overflow areas to listen to the Senator on loudspeakers outside.This brought the total number of attendees to 28,000, breaking Sanders’ own records as his populist message continues to draw in larger and larger crowds.

“Whoa. This is an unbelievable turnout,” Sanders said after taking the podium at Moda Center. “Portland, you have done it better than anyone else!”

For months, Sanders has been attracting an overflow of crowds at campaign rallies across the country, including events held in conservative states like Texas and Arizona. The continued upward trend in turnout and both state and national polling has reflected the growing resonance of the Vermont Senator’s populist message, centered on an agenda of challenging the economic and political status quo.

During his campaign, the presidential hopeful has vowed to take on the “billionaire class,” take money out politics, fight corporate greed, and combat climate change.

‘”Almost all the wealth is held by a small handful of people and together, we are going to change that,” Sanders said at Sunday’s rally, Common Dreams reported. Adding that he wanted to end corporate tax breaks and break up major Wall Street financial institutions, he said “if they’re too big to fail, they’re too big to exist!”

Sanders’ large crowds have become a huge talking point for political pundits, as the Independent senator continues to attract more people than Hillary Clinton, his contender for the Democratic Presidential nomination. So far, Clinton’s largest campaign event has gathered an estimated 5,500 people, a far cry from the crowds Sanders draws in.

“He listens I think, more than she does,” Claire Met, who attended Sunday’s rally, told CNN. “She seems more out of touch.”

“I appreciate his honestness and his frankness,” Brian Foren, another attendee said. “She has a lot of baggage and I worry that her baggage might cost us the election.”

Meanwhile, after his Saturday address in the University of Washington, Seattle was interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters, Sanders’ campaign has added a “Racial Justice” tab to his website as a new campaign issue.

“There is no candidate who will fight harder to end institutional racism in this country and to reform our broken criminal justice system,” Sanders said at Sunday’s rally, adding that “bringing people together” was at the core of his campaign.

Sanders also released an updated issue statement on Sunday, in which he detailed the need to address the “four central types of violence waved against black and brown Americans: physical, political, legal and economic.”

Source: sputniknews

Istanbul: US consulate in Turkey targeted as wave of attacks kills 9

August 10, 2015 By administrator

STANBUL/DIYABAKIR: Two women shot at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul Monday and at least eight people were killed in a wave of separate attacks on Turkish security forces, weeks after Ankara launched a crackdown on ISIS, Kurdish and far-left militants.

The NATO member has been in a heightened state of alert since starting its “synchronized war on terror” last month, including airstrikes against ISIS fighters in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq. It has also rounded up hundreds of suspected militants at home.

A far-left group that killed a Turkish security guard in a 2013 suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Ankara claimed it was involved in Monday’s attack.

The Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, said one of its members was involved in the attack, and called Washington the “arch enemy” of the people of the Middle East and the world.

Police with automatic rifles cordoned off streets around the U.S. consulate in the Sariyer district on the European side of Istanbul, following the gun attack there.

Ahmet Akcay, a resident who witnessed the attack, told Reuters that one of the women fired four or five rounds, aiming at security officials and consulate officers.

“Police were shouting ‘drop your bag, drop your bag.’ And the woman was saying: ‘I will not surrender,'” Akcay said.

“The police warned her again: ‘Drop your bag or we will have to shoot you,’ and the woman said: ‘Shoot.'”

One of the two women was later captured wounded, the Istanbul governor’s office said.

The Dogan news agency said the injured woman was aged 51 and had served prison time for being a suspected member of the DHKP-C. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

“We are working with Turkish authorities to investigate the incident. The Consulate General remains closed to the public until further notice,” a consulate official said.

On the other side of Istanbul, a vehicle laden with explosives was used to attack a police station, injuring three police officers and seven civilians, police said.

One of the attackers was killed during the bombing, while two others and a police officer died in a subsequent firefight, the Istanbul governor’s office said. Broadcaster CNN Turk said the officer was a senior member of the bomb squad who had been sent to investigate the attack.

Shooting continued into Monday morning in the Sultanbeyli district on the Asian side of the Bosphorus waterway, which divides Istanbul, as police carried out raids.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either of the attacks, but U.S. diplomatic missions and police stations have been targeted by far-left groups in Turkey in the past.

The DHKP-C, whose members are among those detained in recent weeks, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the U.S. embassy in Ankara in 2013 which killed a Turkish security guard.

Turkey opened its air bases to the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS last month after years of reluctance and carried out its own bombing raids, stepping up its role after a suspected ISIS suicide bomber killed 32 people in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border.

Casting the operations as a war on terrorist groups “without distinction,” it simultaneously launched airstrikes on PKK targets in Iraq and in southeastern Turkey, and has arrested more than 1,300 people suspected of links to Islamist, Kurdish and far-leftist groups in recent weeks.

It has been a high-risk strategy for a country straddling Europe and the Middle East which depends on tourism for around a tenth of its income, leaving it exposed to the threat of reprisals.

Violence between the security forces and suspected militants intensified in the mainly Kurdish southeast Monday.

Four police officers were killed when their armored vehicle was hit by roadside explosives in the town of Silopi, the governor’s office in the province of Sirnak said.

A soldier was also killed when Kurdish militants opened fire on a military helicopter in a separate attack in Sirnak, the military said in a statement. Security sources said at least seven other soldiers were wounded in the attack, which came as the helicopter took off.

The military launched an air campaign against PKK camps in northern Iraq on July 24 after a resurgence of militant attacks. State-run Anadolu news agency said Sunday that more than 260 militants had been killed, including senior PKK figures, and more than 400 wounded by Aug. 1.

The violence has left a peace process with the PKK, begun by President Tayyip Erdogan in 2012, in tatters. Erdogan said last month the process had become impossible, although neither side has so far declared the negotiations definitively over.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union, launched its insurgency in 1984 to press for greater Kurdish rights. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

ANCA urges Ethics Committee to publish data on pro-Azerbaijani funding of US Congressmen

August 7, 2015 By administrator

The findings of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) regarding the pro-Azerbaijani funding of the Congressmen should be publicly released, Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) statement reads.

The request is addressed to the Committee on Ethics to which OCE is accountable. ANCA Chairman Kenneth Hachikian addressed the letter to the Committee members Charles W. Dent and Linda T. Sanchez.

“The Committee should not to withhold from American citizens any information involving foreign attempts to manipulate our democratic system or that, in the Committee’s own words, reveals “evidence of concerted, possibly criminal, efforts” by any party—foreign or domestic—seeking any manner of undue influence with U.S. policymakers,” the statement reads.

ANCA urges defenders of government transparency to communicate their request to the Committee and make the 70-page analysis public.

Earlier, the Committee cleared 10 members of the House of Representatives and 30 members of Congressional staff, who took part in the conference “U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention: Vision for the Future.” The Committee decided that these politicians didn’t knowingly violate the law, since their trip was nominally funded by the Assembly Friend of Azerbaijani (AFAZ) and groups connected with the Turcik American Association (TAA). The latter apparently concealed the fact that the trip was actually funded by the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).

The Committee on Ethics sent the investigation results to the Department of Justice, but refused to release them, in defiance of its usual practice.

Houston Chronicle was the first newspaper to refer in July 2014 to the suspicions regarding the trips to Azerbaijan. It was followed by Washington Post in May 2015, which mentioned about the aforementioned report prepared by the Committee.

Center for Responsive Politics referred to the question on why the Committee is concealing the data. The article is available here: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/08/ethics-chair-received-contributions-from-donors-linked-to-groups-in-azerbaijan-probe/

U.S. Support of Syrian Kurds Ruffles Turkey’s Feathers

August 5, 2015 By administrator

Analysts say Ankara may have no choice but to come to terms with the emerging Kurdish reality along its border with Syria.

By: Semih Idiz, Columnist for Al-Monitor
Al-Monitor

Turkey and the United States may have agreed on the use of the Incirlik Air Base near the southern city of Adana against the Islamic State in Syria, but the deal appears to have some snags, especially with regard to US assistance to Syrian Kurds fighting IS. This unresolved problem is considered one of the reasons why Incirlik has not been used yet in active operations by the US-led coalition, despite the urgency of the fight against IS and other groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said earlier this week that armed drone missions were conducted out of the base last weekend, but added that none of the drones had launched airstrikes. Unarmed drones had already been flying out of the base. There are reports that the United States is delaying the use of manned aircraft from the base because it needs to set up search-and-rescue capabilities first.

But Ankara and Washington are in open disagreement over who the armed drones and manned aircraft in Incirlik will assist on the ground during the fight against IS. Ankara says the Incirlik deal does not cover support for the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has emerged as the umbrella organization of the Syrian Kurds. Ankara sees these groups as the Syrian extension of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is outlawed by Turkey as a terrorist organization.

The United States has also listed the PKK as a terrorist organization and concedes Turkey’s right to respond to attacks by the group, but has refused to bow to Turkish demands to outlaw the PYD and YPG as well. The PYD is currently allied with the United States against IS. PKK elements have also been fighting IS alongside the PYD, making the issue between Ankara and Washington more confusing.

Washington’s only concession to Turkey in this regard has been to refuse PYD leader Saleh Muslim a visa to the United States. Muslim and other PYD and YPG officials have, however, been welcomed by European countries that are part of the US-led coalition against IS, and there is a tangible increase in sympathy in the West for the Syrian Kurds, regardless of Turkish efforts to demonize them.

The YPG raised its profile considerably in Western eyes after its fighters captured the strategic town of Tell Abyad near the Turkish border in June with air support from US jets. Ankara looked on this development with concern, fearing a prelude to the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish zone along its border with Syria by groups allied with the PKK.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out indirectly at the United States after the capture of Tell Abyad, claiming the West was striking Arabs and Turkmens in the town and settling PYD and PKK militants in their place. “How can we look on this positively? How can we consider the West to be honest?” Erdogan said, reflecting the anger felt in official Ankara circles.

A few days later, he said Turkey would never allow a Kurdish entity to be established in northern Syria. “Whatever the cost, we will continue our struggle in this regard,” he said angrily June 26. Disagreement on the topic of US assistance to the YPG surfaced again after State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington on July 27 that the use of Incirlik would enable the US Air Force to assist YPG fighters on the ground more effectively.

Pointing out that the US-led coalition is already providing support to the YPG, Kirby said, “The fact that we now have access to bases in Turkey will allow for that support to be more timely and perhaps even more effective.” Kirby’s remarks, which were quickly picked up by the Turkish press, ruffled official feathers in Ankara. “The points indicated by Kirby do not reflect the agreement we arrived at [on Incirlik],” Ministry for Foreign Affairs spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters in a press briefing in Ankara.
Questioned later about Bilgic’s statement, State Department spokesman Mark Toner backed Kirby, indicating that Syrian Kurdish groups would be among those receiving support from the US-led coalition.

Many analysts in Ankara believe Turkey is in a weak position here and will have to eventually find a formula to accommodate US support for Syrian Kurdish fighters if it does not want to come out the loser from this dispute. Retired Maj. Gen. Armagan Kuloglu told Al-Monitor that the deal arrived at with the United States is primarily based on combating IS.

“Turkey joined this fight to allay the impression that it has been assisting IS. But it is also using the argument about the need to fight all forms of terrorism in order to get support from Washington against the PKK,” Kuloglu said. “Washington has given this support, albeit somewhat reluctantly, saying, ‘You have a right to fight the PKK,’ but it has also indicated that the PYD is altogether another matter,” he added.

Kuloglu, who comments frequently on political and military matters, went on to say it was unrealistic to expect the United States to give up its support of the Syrian Kurds. He added that it was also not possible for Ankara to revoke its decision to allow Incirlik to be used against IS because of US support for the PYD, which he suggested is here to stay. Kuloglu said active and effective participation by Turkey in the US-led coalition against IS may provide Ankara some leverage over the PYD.

Many analysts, however, have been noting Turkey’s lame response to IS when compared with its disproportionate response to PKK attacks and have taken this as a sign that Turkey is still not prepared to go all-out against IS even though it has been targeted by the group.

“Ankara has to find a formula for this problem with Washington because if it doesn’t, it stands to lose more than the US, especially with regard to its operations against the PKK in northern Iraq,” Kuloglu said, arguing that Iraq is effectively under US control, giving Turkey a free hand to carry on with its strikes against the PKK there.

Kuloglu also believes that Ankara’s insistence on its position toward Incirlik and the PYD would have a price in terms of turning international public opinion against Turkey again, given that Syrian Kurds have gained the sympathy of the West.

This appeared to be corroborated by a piece in the Independent by Patrick Cockburn, who argued, “So far, [IS] has not done too badly out of Turkey’s ‘game-changing’ turn against it.” He went on, “If US aircraft based at Incirlik are forbidden to attack [IS] fighters when they are battling either the Syrian Kurds or the Syrian army, the militants’ two main opponents on the ground, then they will be no worse off militarily than they were before.”

Kuloglu also indicated that reports of an agreement between Turkey and the United States for a safe zone in northern Syria had to be taken with a pinch of salt. Many in the West believe Turkey wants this zone to prevent the advances of the Kurds, although Ankara says it wants it to protect Syrian refugees against IS and the Syrian regime.

“Despite these reports, the US says it will not put boots on the ground to protect this zone. Turkey can’t do this on its own, and it is not possible to rely on the Turkmens there, as the recent fiasco relating to fighters trained and equipped and sent to Syria show,” he said.

He was referring to reports of the way the group — trained and equipped in Turkey by the United States, made up mostly of Turkmen fighters and acting under the name of Division 30 — was routed by Jabhat al-Nusra fighters as soon as it entered Syria.

Like Kuloglu, many Turkish analysts believe Washington is merely appeasing Turkey by going along with its calls for a safe zone. They argue that Washington’s ultimate aim is to establish a friendly Kurdish zone in northern Syria, and suggest there is little Ankara can do to counter this without locking horns with its Western allies and finding itself alone in its fight against the PKK.

State Dept. ‘frankly doesn’t know’ legal authority behind US airstrikes supporting Syrian rebels

August 5, 2015 By administrator

The US has been carrying out airstrikes against ISIS in Syria for almost a year, and the latest decision to bomb Syrian government forces in order to “protect” US-trained “moderate rebels” does not require any additional legal justification, the State Department believes.

Since the US-backed rebel groups in Syria are operating in the “lawless area” of the country, they are under the pressure from “a lot of different forces,” US State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner told RT’s Gayane Chichakyan while trying to explain the legal basis for the change in US policy.

“I frankly don’t know what the legal authority is,” Toner said, adding that the situation in Syria remains “complex and fluid.”

He clarified that Washington did not authorize itself to “go after Assad government forces,” insisting that such bombings would take place only in the “hypothetical” case that the US-backed militants would come under fire from Syrian forces

“We’ve been carrying out airstrikes in that region for many months now, almost a year – and the same – in defense of these groups, but also to help them gain territory back from ISIL,” the spokesman stated, referring to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) by the administration’s standard acronym for the militants.

“Any type of effort to protect them from Syrian forces would be defensive in nature,” he claimed. “But I’m not going to talk about the legal framework for it.”

When pressed to admit that the latest announcement is a major change in US policy in Syria, Toner said he would “respectfully disagree.”

“There’s no change in the legal framework,” he said. “Our main goal is to take the fight against ISIL. Nothing’s changed in that regard.”

Russia slams US for assisting Syria militants

August 3, 2015 By administrator

Demitry Peskov, the spokesman for the Kremlin

Russia has criticized the United States over its plans to support militants in Syria, saying it could further escalate the chaotic situation in the Arab country.

The spokesman for the Kremlin said Monday that Washington’s plans together with Turkey’s to provide air cover for some militants operating inside Syria could undermine the central government’s ability to fight Takfiri groups like ISIL.

“Of course, Moscow has repeatedly stressed that the aid, especially financial or technical, to the opposition in Syria, leads to further destabilization of the situation in the country,” Russian media quoted Dmitry Peskov as saying.

Washington and Ankara have declared that by helping the so-called “moderate” armed groups fighting ISIL in Syria, they aim to weaken the group in order to purge it from the long strip of land it controls along the Turkish border.

Peskov said, however, that the schemes would seriously hamper the Syrian government’s ability to fight ISIL.

“This essentially creates a situation which could be used by terrorists of [the so-called] Islamic State (ISIL),” Peskov said, adding that the move causes “the weakened leadership” in Damascus to simply lose its potential to stop the growth of the terrorist group.

The Russian official added that growing interest from the US to intervene in Syria clearly exposes the difference between Moscow and Washington’s positions toward more than four years of conflict in the Arab country.

“And this is absolutely no secret. We have never hushed up these differences,” Peskov added.

Since last year, the US-led so-called international coalition against ISIL have been hitting the positions of the group in Syria without the authorization of Damascus or a UN mandate. The Syrian government has criticized the uncoordinated attacks, saying they violate the country’s sovereignty.