The Islamist President has launched a new offensive against what may remain of "democracy" in the Turkish Republic. Tayyip Erdogan, self-proclaimed admirer of Hitler and one of the main backers of Islamist terror in Syria and Iraq, has taken yet another step forward in his career to become an absolutist tyrant, ordering the arrest of many leaders of the Democratic Party of the Peoples (HDP), including its two co-presidents, which are both MPs. In order to do that he has decreed the end of Parliamentary immunity.
Among the victims of Erdogan's fascist repression are Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag (photo), Turkish and Kurdish, male and female, co-presidents of the internationalist and socialist party that was in the last half-transparent elections (the last ones were a partial fraud) the third largest in the Turkish state and, by far, the largest one in Northern Kurdistan and some other "less Turkish" areas of the East. Also arrested have been the co-mayors of Diyarbakir, Gultan Kisanak and Firat Anli, who have been replaced by some guy directly appointed by Ankara. Many other HDP MPs have been arrested as well.
Connection to Internet in North Kurdistan and possibly other areas of the Turkish state has been severed. In the rest of the state access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. is extremely difficult.
Coverage of what is happening, in Western as well as in Russian media, is scant at best, very distorted at worst.
Erdogan's slow motion coup recap
Right after the (staged?) military putsch attempt of July, Erdogan began purging the state from everyone who disagreed with him: public officers, judges, teachers, etc. were expelled en masse. This was the real coup, something Erdogan had prepared beforehand. A new phase of the coup is happening this week: first he jailed key progressive journalists of the main independent newspaper Cumhuriyet, now he's frontally charging against the HDP. If someone blinks, as Merkel just did, he says that they are "aiding terrorism", by which he means not the terrorism of his Islamist paramilitary dogs nor the one perpetrated by the Turkish state against Kurds recently as well, but the armed struggle of the Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK).
Incidentally the very first part of Erdogan's coup was to break the years-long truce with the PKK (using, as the Nazis did so often, a false flag attack as pretext) in September 2015. This change of Kurdish policy awaited almost exactly until the arm of Syriza was broken in the Greece-EU standoff of early 2015. Why? Because earlier he was ready to stage a war against Greece if Athens dared to disobey the Troika's mandate. Only once the "western front" was clear, he turned to the "eastern front" with all his might and cruelty. That is because the petty dictator knew that Turkey would have a very hard time fighting in those two fronts simultaneously, plus the still not healed internal Turkish class front (remember the widespread 2013 protests).
But why would Turkey attack Greece? Because the Western powers asked them maybe? Well, I can't say for sure but most probably yes. It was mainly because of the unspoken but known Turkish threat that Greece could not afford to challenge the Troika, exactly the same reason why Cyprus could never incorporate the British colonial bases because, well, Turkey invaded the north of the island back in the day.
So when Erdogan now, after the mysterious military coup of which we know almost nothing, appears to have pushed him towards Russia, I just have a very hard time believing anything. Putin is here behaving very naively, in my opinion, unless he has some hidden cards that I am unaware of. It would not be the first time the retorted maneuvers of the Western secret services catch the Kremlin off guard anyhow, look at what happened in Ukraine!
Russia is tough in the military aspect no doubt but when it comes to intelligence they seem to be always behind NATO and particularly Washington. It is not the first time that Russia plays unwillingly the West's game: a lot of UN Security Council resolutions that gave the USA pretext for war against small countries, from Afghanistan to Syria itself, were passed with the approval of Moscow and Beijing. Putin is not that smart, really: he's been conned too often. Maybe this Turkey's flirting is just another instance of the same NATO convoluted power games, or maybe is just Erdogan on his own tricking Russia into not backing the PKK (a well funded Kurdish guerrilla would be a nightmare for his totalitarian aspirations), only to backstab Moscow later again when he feels stronger.
In any case Erdogan, Hitler's 21st century apprentice, is clearly consolidating his totalitarian power in the Turkish state, without making any major concessions to anyone, blackmailing the EU into submission by manipulation of refugee flows and quite possibly terrorist attacks signed by his loyal DAESH puppet, making peace with Russia after shooting down their airplane and keeping the very all-powerful USA unwilling to make any sudden move against him.
One could say it's masterful, I say it's devilish.
Erdogan is playing a dangerous game. He is counting on Putin and Iran to his new BFF and support him. I am not so sure it will pan out.
ReplyDeleteObviously Turkey has great geopolitical significance, bot US and Russia wants it in their own camp. But I don't think Putin is a novice. Russia and Turkey are playing a very complicate geopolitical chess game in Syria. It looks like the deal was Russia acquiesce to Turkey having a trip of Northern Syria just north of aleppo along Turkish border. In return, Turkey is letting Russia do its thing in rebel held Aleppo.
Turkey's so called "Euphrates Shield" op drew thousands of Jihadists from Aleppo to the border strip between Jarablus and Azaz, leaving Aleppo rebel forces depleted enough that Syria-Hezbollah-Iran-Russian alliance were able to re-siege East Aleppo.
But Putin apparently also supported Afrin Kurdish YPG/SDF to advance eastwards against IS toward Al Bab, putting up a Kurdish buffer between Turkey sponsored "Euphrates Shield" jihadists and Aleppo gov held areas to prevent jihadists to open a 2nd front by attacking Aleppo in the back. Recently Turkey seemed to pushed too close toward Aleppo that after Turkish planes bombed YPG, they were warned by Syrian airforce not to violate Syrian airspace again.
The latest move by Erdogan seem to be a reaction to Belgium court ruling that PKK not terrorist group, and US choosing YPG over Turkey for Raqqa operation. He is thumbing his nose at West knowing that EU is largely spineless and counting on US/World Media attention being distracted by the giant clusterf*&k that is US election.
I am not sure Sultan's gambit will pay off. HDP had been pretty much sidelined already since the coup. But now Erdogan is shining spotlight on them again. He is making HDP leaders heroes by jailing them. In the short term, this will drive recruitment to PKK. Sultan maybe counting on provoking an open war with PKK to whip up Turkish Nationalist fervor thereby shoring up his support. But I don't see how that could be net positive for him over medium and long term since Turkish economy is already in shambles. Reigniting a bigger war is not going to help
Putin is a statesman, I reckon, but he has underestimated the aggressivity and twistedness of the West in the past. Washington and allies are still ahead with their plot to depose Assad and break up Syria and the vested interests of Turkey in that country are the strongest ones, and are frontally opposed to those of Russia and Syria.
DeleteYou say that Putin supported the YPG on their plan to cut DAESH at El Bab, however that plan was never completed because the USA opposed it (and it is only the USA who directly deals with the Rojava Kurds, Russia is not doing that) and because Turkey intervened across the border at Jarabulus. So Turkey, is notorious (not necessarily the same as the whole truth), is "playing independent" because the USA has "betrayed" them siding with the PKK-leaning Kurds, even if only in Syria (where the Barzanists don't exist, actually even in Iraq Barzani seems quite weakened).
I don't know what to think, really: I don't trust the sincerity of Erdogan nor I am 100% sure Putin knows what he's doing. I know that the South Stream pipeline project (another weakening of the blackmailing power of Ukraine and Poland) is a key part of the negotiations and also that for Russia the Bosphorus is crucial.
So I do understand the geopolitics involved, but what about the Washington-Ankara relationship, so cozy until way too recently? That's the part I don't wholly trust: the USA are not going to truly support communist separatists in Kurdistan, they are just using them (and to some extent also vice-versa) but it is a temporary deal only. They are not going to support Syria (Damascus) either and their whole game until recently was just to create and expand islamo-fascist "hornet nests", exactly the same "hornet nests" that Turkey has been so actively backing, be them Al Nusra or DAESH, both Al Qaeda derived. Divide and conquer? Sure but I just don't see the "conquer" part anywhere, no matter how many troops they accumulate in Turkey-owned Incirlik base. "Divide and do nothing else" is not any meaningful strategy at all.
"HDP had been pretty much sidelined already since the coup. But now Erdogan is shining spotlight on them again. He is making HDP leaders heroes by jailing them."
Absolutely. But Erdogan is a true fascist, a believer in that vertical command reactionary and nationalist-demagogic ideology: IMO, now that he's fully unleashed, he won't stop until he bans all other parties, CHP too (MHP he can play with them, I guess) and "restores Osmalia" under his iron fist.
PKK cannot win a war against Turkey, not alone, so it is the kind of "unrest" that a tyrant "can manage" and, more importantly, can exploit for his own national-demagogic purposes: "either you are with me or you are with the evil terrorists" is the logic he is using and will use, just as the Spanish governments, particularly those at the right, not too different from the AKP, used ETA's violence for their own national-demagogic purposes or the USA used Al Qaeda's purported attacks to rally mindless imperialistic "patriotism".
My two cents.