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Syria: The Turkish Russian Apology Contest
"The incident which happened two days ago in the skies over Syria defies common sense and international law. The plane was shot down over Syrian territory. And we have yet to receive an intelligible apology from Turkey on a top political level, " [the Russian President Putin] said.
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"I think if there is a party that needs to apologize, it is not us," [the Turkish President Erdogan] said. "Those who violated our airspace are the ones who need to apologize. Our pilots and our armed forces, they simply fulfilled their duties, which consisted of responding to … violations of the rules of engagement. I think this is the essence."
Erdogan did not take the exit ramp Putin offered. So who will win this contest?
U.S. Air Force General (ret) Charles J. Dunlap assesses that Russia wins the legal case. The Turkish shoot down of the Russian bomber was plainly illegal under international law as there was no threat to Turkey from the Russian plane. Even Turkey itself does not allege that the Russian bomber intended to attack that country. There was no self-defense situation that would allow such behavior.
Russia is taking all kinds of small and bigger economic measures to let Erdogan feel the consequences of attacking the Russian military in Syria:
The businessmen were selling their stuff at the Krasnodar agro trade exhibition illegally as they only held tourist visa. There are more such measures like official warnings to Russians not to go on vacation in Turkey and thorough safety controls of Turkish ships in Russian ports. More can follow.
Over all 55% of Turkey's gas consumption depends on Russian gas. A quarter of Turkey's electricity production runs on Russian gas. It is unlikely for now that Russia will use the leverage that comes with this Turkish energy dependency. But should another big incident happen "technical problems" with gas deliveries will come into play.
An overview of other economic and trade ties shows that Russia would probably lose some business in Turkey should the economic fight escalate. But the damage for the Turkish economy from losing business in Russia would be much bigger. The Turkish construction, agriculture and tourism industry would all lose their best or second best customer.
The Syrian army is intensifying the fight on its side of Syrian-Turkish border in the Latakia area where the Russian bomber was shot down. The "Turkmen" in that area have been joined by Erdogan's party youth "volunteers":
Emrah Çelik, a 27-year-old district organization member of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in northwestern Tekirdağ province who joined the Turkmen forces voluntarily, said the 2nd Coastal Division has been fighting against regime forces for the last seven months.
That people from his own political party fight in Syria gives Erdogan some interior political problems. He will be urged to fight on their side but a direct fight against Russian forces, without NATO backing, is too big a risk for him.
Russia says it 'destroyed' the rebels in that area:
"The terrorists operating in that area and other mysterious groups were destroyed," [military official Igor Konashenkov] said.
The Russian airforce also attacked (vid) other fortified "Turkmen" positions in Latakia and it again attacked truck convoys near Azaz next to the Turkish-Syrian border crossing. Some of those convoys carry "aid" in the name of the IHH, a Humanitarian Relief Foundation with ties to Erdogan's party. Such "aid" is measured as 7.62mm, 23mm or some other caliber.
Over the years various IHH "aid" trucks on their way to Syria had been stopped by Turkish police and were found to carry weapons and ammunition. Just today two leading Turkish journalist were arrested for publishing about such arm transfers. They were charged of being members of a terror organization, espionage and revealing confidential documents. A very stupid move by Erdogan as it highlights the very issue Russia is pocking at.
Syria will soon officially demand that all the "aid" trucks crossing the border be checked by United Nations personal to make sure that no weapons or ammunition are carried with them. Any truck not having been checked risks to be bombed.
The Kurdish YPG fighters are using the Russian air cover in the area and advance from the east along the border attacking the "moderate" rebels of al-Nusra and Ahrar al Sham within the corridor from Turkey down to Aleppo. This is precisely the area where Erdogan wanted to have his "safe zone". He had earlier threatened to bomb the Kurds should they move to close that corridor. But how can he do that now when Russia gives them air cover and has excellent air defense (see below) readily available? Should he invade? If he does there is no chance that NATO will stand with him.
All this looks like Putin is celebrating thanksgiving and having Turkey for lunch.
Additional Russian targets today were again oil storage (vid) and truck distribution points (vid) around Raqqa run by the Islamic State. Why has the U.S., flying there daily for the last 13 month, never attacked these obvious targets?
Russia activated one S-400 air defense system at its Hmeimim air base in Latakia. One S-400 system consist of two radar vehicles, a command and control vehicle and up to twelve launcher vehicles with four missiles each. Parts of this system were already in Syria for at least two weeks. After additional transport arrivals (vid) it is now set to permanent combat readiness. With a range of 400 kilometers the system can cover west Syria and south Turkey as well as Lebanon and most of Israel. Another S-400 system is on its way to Syria. Also on their way are up to twelve additional fighter planes which will help the four fighters already deployed to fly air-to-air cover for the Russian ground bombers and helicopters. These fighters are modern and can match all modern "western" systems.
Seemingly completely detached from the real situation in Syria U.S. neocons have opened a concerted campaign for the eradication of the Sykes-Picot borders and the destruction of Syria and Iraq.
All three op-eds are merely fantasies and neither consider all actors on the ground nor the various motivations and aim of those actors. All three require large U.S. troop deployments into a fighting zone.
Why do they believe that the U.S. should decide border issues of Syria or Iraq? And, after the mess the U.S. created in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, why do they believe it could?
@11- Very interesting. They’re now back with a new plan – to clean up from the mess that their disastrous failure of their last plan created. Its the arsonist fire-fighter again – as always.
“U.S. foreign policy is failing, and its rejuvenation and adjustment to new conditions are necessary for the maintenance of a prosperous and secure global order. “
Amazing that they still see things as a “choice”. Despite the reappearance of Russia and the rise of China, it is, apparently for these insulated clowns, still a matter of just “choosing” to create their own reality. And of course its a “reality” that allows now space for any peer. But this invented reality, at this point in post-Cold War history, has no longer any relation to the far more important reality – real reality! Someone really needs to knock their heads together and let them get the difference.
So long as this “world order” tries to exclude two of the major powers, it will require more chaos and more “disorder” by definition. There can be no prosperous and secure global order so long as there are these efforts to try and encroach on and attack other major powers and their key allies.
The problem, as always, is that any tension between Russia and her neighbors – even if it causes havoc in both Russian and the neighbor – the US wins. Of course the US doesn’t care what happens in Turkey or in Russia. The more chaos the merrier. So you can be sure that the US is whispering “do it!” into the Turks ears, no matter how much it hurts on the ground. After all, it would take a whooooole lot of chaos to penetrate the golden dome of silence that is Erdogan’s palace. He’s shielded, let the truck drivers take one for Turkey! Erdogan get’s his good feelings from the support of the Americans, not from the support of his countrymen. So this still is a problem. The key, I would think, is to coordinate the response from all of Turkey’s neighbors (Iraq and Iran and even Greece, if possible to convince them) so as to make the balance of hurt land far more on the side of Turkey.
Here’s another good Pepe interview, though its about a year old, it gives a good run down of the “Empire of Chaos” machinations which are clearly at work in this latest episode of “Let’s you and him fight” set up by the Americans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87sscLJIJjQ
About the partition of Syria – this is the last game plan. As soon as Russia started their operation, we heard “well, Russia may not let Assad loose, but they can’t make him win either!” and so this partition is plan B. And its obviously being pushed hard, and as Jackrabbit said, maybe by using up Turkey’s vitality as “the crazy factory”, the US can make this happen. But I don’t see that – as any partition would mostly benefit ISIL. Should the Syrian’s deicide that they no longer will bother with fighitng ISIL, then they could simply settle into their partitioned state and the only people left to fight ISIL will be the Americans and al Nusra. It would be the surest way to bolster ISIL, not a way of “crushing them”.
As for those who attack Russia constantly trying to tell Russia what it should and shouldn’t do (Morningstar, foff’s latest incarnation, “mr. honesty’s” 7th screename in three threads) no one is buying that. Putin has 85% support among his people for a reason. The Imperial “Rebels” crossed a red line with their taking of Idlib and attacks on Latakia, the Russian’s did what they had to do when it became clear that the Syrians and their local allies were facing more outside interference than they could handle. Russia is matching escalation with escalation, but they’ve made it clear that Syria will not become some dismembered collection of insane, Wahabbi run, statelets. They’ve proven that they’re willing to fight to maintain the Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanon supply lines for the Palestinian resistance (and no mistake that there is a third intifada threatening) and that – though they won’t do it without local support – they’ll fill any breach that appears.
Posted by: guest77 | Nov 26 2015 20:00 utc | 16
I guess that we need a bit broader perspective.
Russian-Turkey confrontation was there right from the start, because of (a) Syria being Russian ally, (b) Turkey being the chief architect of the war against Syria by recruiting, training and supplying paramilitary forces fighting the government. While the “architect” worked with materials supplied by others, chiefly Gulf states but also CIA etc., this war is a project that projects Erdogan’s personality.
One can ask, why states fight by proxy. Well, a direct confrontation is orders of magnitude more expensive, even a full blast economic confrontation is an “Economic Mutually Assured Destruction”. Moreover, every escalation causes an international reaction and it can backfire, dependent on circumstances.
The rough chain of events in recent months was that as the balance of war slowly but seemingly, inexorably, was turning against Syrian government, and as a major diplomatic obstacle, sanction negotiations of Iran, was gone, Russia provided direct airforce and Iran, thousands of recruited and trained paramilitaries. However, while the tide of war changed direction, the speed of change remains quite disappointing, and the top reason are the supplies of heavy weapons, most notably TOW missiles, to the rebels. Initially, Russia was waiting for the possible political change in Turkey, but Erdogan proven to be a canny and ruthless politician (by “ruthless” I do not mean skillful use of arrests, confiscations, media closures and even massacres to increase electoral support to the precious 50% level). As the elections are over, new government in place and weapon supplies to the rebels as vigorous as ever, Russia started to bomb closer and closer to the border. I mean, within a kilometer or half a mile.
Then Turkey used what they conceived to be the trump card, “the right to defend ethnic Turks (this is what “Turkoman” means in Syria, as opposed to Turkmenia) from Russian depredations”. Russia shrugged on that, and a Russian bombing plane was shot down.
However, while Erdogan as canny and ruthless, he has less resources and foresight than Putin. Well, with perfect foresight he should not engage his personality and prestige in this stupid war. Now that a Russian plane is down, Russian escalated bombing of the border, and for the first time they target highway crossings from Turkey that can actually cause a humanitarian crisis in “Idlibstan”, including the main crossing of the “safe zone”, Ciliz-Azzaz. The government fight in the Jabal-al-Turkoman, Turkmen Mountains on the border with Turkey, accelerated. My reading of the situation is that in Putin’s calculation, a premature direct bombing of the crossing would cause to much of international opposition, and he waited for a proper moment for that step. Moreover, he increase the number of aircraft that is involved.
Among other events that happen next to border crossings, rebels are now readying to attack YPG Kurds in Afrin and Aleppo. I suspect that YPG will benefit from some Russian supplies and air support if they push will come to shove. They apparently have a lot of fighters, although I can only guess if they have adequate weapons, most importantly, they are a force that you wish to have on your side: they proven to be competent fighters and their positions are within few kilometers of two principal highway crossings between Turkey and rebel territories.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 27 2015 0:54 utc | 49
Facepalm @67:
Can’t see the Russkies materially supporting YPG at all at all.
Ypg are NATO’s creation as far as I can tell.
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This is a general misconception in discussions on events in a variety of places. In fact, “creating” is very rare, local political-military movements have their own history, motivation and interests, and of course, in need they shop of outside support. But it rarely makes them puppets. In fact, a reverse process can be observed: the handlers dedicated to convey the supports become the advocates of their beneficiaries, and alter the policy of the sponsor state in a way that can be counter-productive.
In the particular case of YPG, the movement is closely linked to PKK, a Marxist (some say, Stalinist) group that operated in Turkey for decades, and was duly designated by our State Department as “terrorist” (every year, close to Christmas, DoS makes a list, checking it twice, which armed group is naughty and nice, PKK is naughty). Syrian Kurds were settled mostly close to Turkish border, and the Baath regime treated them quite shabbily, for example, they were denied citizen rights. Having similar social status and, I am guessing, the same dialect of Kurdish, they were naturally attracted to PKK ideology. And when civil war came to Syria, PKK could provide experienced officers and fighters. However, their rebellion from the start was different than Islamist movements, and now they have local tacit collaboration with the government. I assume that Russians view them as a necessary element of post-war coalition that can stably rule Syria (roughly, 14% of Alawates and Shia, 10% of Christians, 6% of Druze, 10% of Kurds and those Sunni who are disenchanted with Islamist or who were never enchanted with them).
The connection of YPG with NATO is very recent, and it kind of accidentally allow each side to satisfy some urgent needs. YPG clearly needed weapons and air support to withstand ISIS. American government had to show some success story to the citizenry after ISIS emerged taking Mosul and a huge swath of Iraq. Ultimately, the chief interest of USA in the region is to look good. The jury in that beauty contest his not impartial, heavily recruited from think tanks that are either funded by Zionists or Gulfies, but the broad public participates too. The plucky Kobane resisting invading hordes presented an enormous appealing picture, worth billions, and in actuality, costing much less. And they had fetching female fighters! Who cares if they are Stalinists or Social Democrats. (This theory has limitations, there are other interests at play, but the beauty contest is very important.)
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 27 2015 2:26 utc | 55
Don’t know how interested you are in whether Erdogan is more than a little bonkers. He combines criminality, powerlust of the Empire-builder, all rationalized w a sense of himself as a Great Man in history, and religious mania.
Here’s a photo of him w historical guards/fighters of historic “Turkish” era. He doesn’t tolerate joking about them, and greets foreign dignitaries w them.
http://news.yahoo.com/pantomime-warriors-no-joke-turkeys-erdogan-040846498.html
He wants to make children learn Ottoman Turkish, which uses a different script & is a dead language.
His list of the “Turkic peoples” includes the 6 “stans” (which ARE Turkic), some areas extending into China, Crimea though it today has only a small Tatar population & other places I can’t recall.
He demanded the right a few months ago to jail the opposition parliamentarians. (he didn’t get it). He seems to use the power of the state as if it were personal power– like the Godfather. If Turkey gives him his “presidential-power constitution”
he will become a dictator.
Comments of a former Turkish ambassador:
A distinct downward trend marks the quality of Erdogan’s prime ministerial rule. He started well by enthusiastically embracing Turkey’s dream of membership in the European Union, and as part of the drill, proceeded to clip the wings of the mighty military, authors of four past coups. This was hailed as democratization. He presided over unprecedented economic prosperity.
His government declared a policy of zero problems with neighbours that came as a breath of fresh air in a restive region, and the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, was suddenly the toast of diplomatic salons. When the misnamed ‘Arab Spring’ occurred, the ‘Turkish model’ — that combined religion, secularism, democracy and economic success in a heady mix — was much in vogue. He tried to effect reconciliation with the Kurdish minority in the knowledge that even partial success here would heal a festering sore that has troubled Turkey for decades and make him a statesman the like of whom the country had not seen in a long while.
These were bold actions, typical of the man, and in taking many of the political risks, he was mentored and aided by a shadowy self-exiled cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who, through his Hizmet network of schools, banks, insurance funds and media outlets, had built up over the years an enormous influence in the higher echelons of the Turkish State.
But when things started to unravel for the prime minister later in his rule, rank opportunism and calculation to further his own career were seen to be behind many of his actions. It came to light that hundreds of high ranking military officers were sent to jail for long terms on trumped up conspiracy charges so that a coup threat did not cloud Erdogan’s horizons. In a shocking development, prosecutors launched investigations into charges of massive corruption by Erdogan’s ministers and family members. Many of his imperious decisions were greeted with raucous street demonstrations all over the country. In response, a cornered and angry Erdogan set new standards of high-handedness. He turned brash and irrational in dealing with the neighbours too, losing the mantle of the honest broker; his personal preference gave rise to a distinct pro-Sunni line in Turkey’s foreign policy that prompted even the government appointed religious head to caution that Turkey was forfeiting the role of an arbitrator by taking sides. His moralistic rants became a subject of ridicule and mirth. Samples: abortion is murder. C-sections are unnatural. Every woman should have three children.
Erdogan suspects his old ally and now opponent, Gulen, of stoking his troubles. In the biggest challenge to his political career, he has declared war against Gulen, charging him with running a ‘parallel state’ through well-placed adherents in the government. A nation-wide witch-hunt against judges, prosecutors, police officers, media — ‘Gulen’s men’ — continues in an atmosphere of charged paranoia.
These are disturbing trends for Turkey and its people. Erdogan, derisively called Turkey’s Putin, is unlikely to change. An executive presidency for him may, therefore, herald the beginning of a Turkey of far greater religious conservatism and intolerance at home and abroad, mirroring the leader’s paternal and autocratic style. This would exacerbate tensions and further polarize the already divided Turkish society. In a newspaper interview recently, President Gul rued: “We are alienated from the party we founded. Only one person’s projects have started to be realized, instead of those of all of us.” At the other end of the spectrum, a personal friend from Istanbul reported: “Turkey is now a one man show, all set for Erdogan’s values and decisions, which is tried to be passed off as a natural consequence of democracy. We feel humiliated.”
Here’s a photo of him w historical guards/fighters of historic “Turkish” era.
Posted by: Penelope | Nov 27 2015 5:29 utc | 88
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