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Erdogan Establishes No-Fly Zone Over Syria
Turkey PM 'will support' Syria no-fly zone – May 10 2013
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, has told a US television station that his country will support a US-enforced no-fly zone in Syria.
Turkey's Erdogan says U.N. must decide on any Syria no-fly zone– May 17 2013
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday it would be up to the U.N. Security Council to decide whether to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria and said he backed the involvement of Russia and China in planned peace talks.
Turkey's Erdogan calls for no-fly zone in Syria – Sep 26 2014
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that a "no-fly zone" should be created in Syria to protect part of it from attacks by Syria's air force.
Erdogan: Allies Warming to Idea of Syria ‘Safe Zone’ – Nov 10 2015
Speaking to CNN today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that his allies are “warming” to the idea of imposing a safe zone in northern Syria, a plan that his government had advocated for years as an alternative to Turkey accepting massive numbers of refugees.
Turkey's Erdogan renews call for creation of secure, no-fly zone in Syria – Nov 11 2015
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has renewed a call for the creation of a no-fly zone in Syria that would allow refugees to return to their homeland.
Only a few weeks ago Erdogan's long desired no-fly zone looked increasingly possible. But then the guardsman passed by.
by Viliam Weisskopf, published 1958 in the Czech magazine Roháč (bigger)
Caught in the act Erdogan is now compelled to install the desired no-fly zone over Syria. For Turkish jets.
Turkey suspends Syria flights after crisis with Russia – Nov 27 2015
The Turkish army has suspended flights over Syria as part of an ongoing joint military campaign with the United States against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) after it shot down a Russian jetfighter, sparking an unprecedented crisis between Ankara and Moscow.
The decision was taken following the eruption of the crisis with Russia in which a Turkish F-16 downed a Russian warplane early Nov. 24 after it allegedly violated Turkish airspace, according to diplomatic sources.
Getting shot of Daesh is a no-brainer.
All one has to do is starve it.
Control the borders, only persons who want to enter / leave, with one suitcase each, would be cleared to pass. All humans would be allowed in or out.
No planes, a blanket no-fly zone, and absolutely no vehicles of any kind, not even humanitarian trucks. Taxis, buses, would be obliged to do the ‘over border thing’ (share the biz..)
A tall order, heh, as the ‘border’ is endlessly long, indeterminate, not established, and moving day by day. A case, nonetheless, where ‘partial’ is potentially effective (as opposed to a cancer operation, a ‘partial’ op is dire and maybe worse than nothing.) Might be arduous, peskily complex, and require military enforcement. The forces would be ‘non violent’ – ‘unless attacked’, with air force protection, there you go. Reportedly 50 or more countries have joined the ‘anti IS’ coalition, let them put their actions where their mouths are.
Cut communications: financial flows, banking, internet, phones, etc. Easy and practically costless in terms of dollars, zero lives lost.
Sit back and monitor the situation. Wait. No direct bombing or killing.
IS (+/ ..) fighters and controlled regions would literally starve -food, food again, water(?), other first necessity goods like cigs, antibiotics, boots, to come down to the ground. IS would have energy though for vehicles, arms galore.
Syria, since 2012 or well before, has been chosen as the theatre of an almighty proxy war between many different factions. Putin stopped that, froze it, in Ukraine. Somehow prefered Syria.
The only accredited pol I noticed writing in such a direction is Dominique de Villepin, article from MSM paper Libé copied by a blogger.
http://tinyurl.com/pcao99c
Posted by: Noirette | Nov 27 2015 17:25 utc | 48
“Erdogan’s mistake” is a bit subtle. His strategic goal was to maintain supplies to rebels, and that is hard if Russia bombs right at the border. Not impossible, mind you, because Viet Cong operated exactly like that: trucking supplies in spite of heavy bombardment, but (A) Vietnamese communists had enormous manpower, the loss of fifty thousand fighters would basically finish northern rebels while Viet Cong lost many times that number, (B) bombing is more accurate nowadays, Russians were chided for using “dumb bombs” but whatever they are using, they can hit trucks quite reliably, (C) other means, like using mules on mountain tracks are also vulnerable in the age of drones, (D) the length of the border that can be used for smuggling weapons is orders of magnitude smaller than in Vietnam war.
In the weeks preceding the shooting down Erdogan tried to impose a no-flying zone protecting “ethic Turkmen” in northern Latakia next to Turkey’s Hatay province, and maintain de-facto no-flying zone near Azzaz. It was clear that the exchange of threats will have paramount importance in that war, but poor Erdogan does not have that many arrows in his quiver. Yet, he does have the capability of shooting air-to-air missiles, so in some sense, he had to try.
His mistake was ignoring the divergence of interests between Turkey and NATO members. I wrote that this is a subtle mistake, because NATO is a deeply hypocritical organization and figuring what their interests are is not entirely straightforward. In that situation, Erdogan chose to interpret the ambiguous and contradictory rethoric optimistically. If only, say, Mario Rubio were a President of U.S.A. ??? But what is NATO interest, more precisely, NATO minus Turkey? In the aftermath of poison gas incidents in Ghouta, it became apparent to me that the policy is “we cannot allow either side to win”. This motif appeared in a number of articles and speeches, and the executed policies matched that attitude best. A conclusive win for either side presented unwanted consequences.
From that perspective, attacking ISIS is logical because it has a potential to win. It seems that ISIS is not a pathologically terrorist organization, namely, they perpetrate terrorist attacks almost only as a defensive measure, to discourage being attacked, so it is quite possible that would the West let them be, there would be no terror attacks like the ones in Paris. But the win of ISIS is not in NATO minus Turkey interest. Similarly, if sanctions of Syrian government were lifted, the government, with modicum of help from Russia and Iran, would have a good chance of winning. So, again nope. But a direct attack on Syrian government would allow rebels to win. And so on.
Least flattering for Erdogan, it is perhaps his own personality that makes the victory of Islamists in Syria so dreadful to NATO minus Turkey. Rather than pro-Western Turkey exercising moderating influence, we would have Islamism taking over Turkey. Right now, this is already happening, but still somewhat tentatively. The glory of victory would alter the situation in the most dreadful way. Say, the conquering sword of Sunni Islam progressing from Syria south, through Jordan to Egypt, eliminating the Zionist entity on the way. Do you think it impossible for Erdogan to try to restore the glory of Sunna under Ottoman caliphate? Erdogan is on record as a very grumpy looser and a very peevish victor, and with ego much larger than his country.
And the victory of Assad evokes similar nightmares.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 27 2015 17:55 utc | 50
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