Regional geopolitics

[londontsi]

Re: Regional geopolitics

[Joseph]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Indeed. As a US citizen I hate this administration and all it's lackeys that protect Turkish interests and provide shelter to islamists.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Indeed. As a US citizen I hate this administration and all it's lackeys that protect Turkish interests and provide shelter to islamists.

The administration is irrelevant. The whole two party system is a scam. You do not have any choices at all. Had this been a republican president the results would have been identical.

[HyeSocialist]

Re: Regional geopolitics

The administration is irrelevant. The whole two party system is a scam. You do not have any choices at all. Had this been a republican president the results would have been identical.

Finally making some sense. The level that the Anglo-Americans, Turks(including Azeris), and Israel work together is pretty annoying.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Russia Vindicated by Terrorist Surrenders in Syria

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 31.12.2015 | 00:00




As Syrians gather in their capital Damascus to celebrate, there is a sense that the New Year will bring a measure of peace – the first time such hope has been felt over the past five years of war in the country.

Russia’s military intervention to help its Arab ally at the end of September has been the seminal event of the year. After three months of sustained Russian aerial operations in support of the Syrian Arab Army against an array of foreign-backed mercenaries, there is an unmistakable sense that the «terrorist backbone has been broken», as Russian President Vladimir Putin recently put it.

This past week sees several local truces being implemented across Syria with evacuation of militants from towns which they have held under armed siege. The civilian populations in these locations have been effectively held hostage as human shields by the militants, thus preventing Syrian army advances up to now. The Western media, such as US government-owned Voice of America, invert reality by claiming that it is the mercenaries themselves who have been under siege from the Syrian army instead of the fact that the mercenaries have been holding civilians in their midst as hostages, as was the case earlier in the siege of Homs, which was eventually also broken.



What has changed dramatically is the advent of Russian air power – over 5,000 sorties in three months – which has enabled the Syrian army to wipe out militant bases, oil smuggling and weapons supply routes in northern Syria along the Turkish border. This has left militants further inland to wither from the severance of supply lifelines. Hence the readiness now to accept truces and evacuation deals – under the auspices of the United Nations and International Committee for the Red Cross.

Thousands of anti-government insurgents are being bussed out of locations around Damascus, including Zabadani, al Qadam, Hajar al Aswad and Yarmouk.

An air strike reportedly by Russia forces killing the commander of the Jaish al-Islam militant group, Zahran Alloush, in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta, dealt a devastating blow to morale among the self-styled jihadists. Alloush was reportedly killed along with several other commanders. That strike translates into «the game is up».

What is interesting is how the Western news media are reporting all this. Their reportage of the truces and evacuations are straining to minimize the context of these developments. This BBC report is typical, headlined: «Syria fighters’ evacuation from Zabadani ‘under way’».

The British state-owned broadcaster tells of hundreds of «fighters» being relocated from the town of Zabadani as if the development just magically materialized like a present donated by Santa Claus. What the BBC fails to inform is that that truce, as with several others around Damascus, has come about because of Russia’s strategic military intervention in Syria dealing crushing blows against the militant networks. The Western media have preoccupied themselves instead with claims from the US State Department that Russia’s military operations have either been propping up the «Assad regime» or allegedly targeting «moderate rebels» and civilians.

The disingenuous Western narrative, or more prosaically «propaganda», then, in turn, creates a conundrum when widespread truces and evacuations are being implemented. That obviously positive development signaling an end to conflict thanks to Russia’s military intervention has to be left unexplained or unacknowledged by the Western media because it negates all their previous pejorative narrative towards Russia and the Assad government.

Furthermore, the Western media are obliged to be coy about the exact identity of the «fighters» being evacuated. As noted already, the militants are variously described by the Western media in sanitized terms as «fighters» or «rebels». But more informative regional and local sources, such as Lebanon’s Al Manar, identify the brigades as belonging to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State group and al-Nusra Front. These are terror groups, as even defined by Washington and the European Union. So, the Western media has to, by necessity, censor itself from telling the truth by peddling half-truths and sly omissions.

The Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), whose commander was killed, is also integrated with the al-Qaeda terror network. Jaish al-Islam is funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and serves as a conduit for American CIA weapons to the more known terrorist outlets. Notably, Voice of America referred to the terror commander Zahran Alloush with the euphemistic cleansing term as a «rebel leader».

What the Russian-precipitated truces and termination of sieges is demonstrating is that the western side of Syria, from Daraa in the south, through Damascus and up to the northern Mediterranean Sea coast around Aleppo and Latakia, are infested with the terror brigades of IS and Al-Nusra and their myriad offshoots.



Western media have repeatedly accused Russia of conducting air strikes against «moderate rebels» and not the IS brigades, which they claim, were concentrated in the east of Syria. It is true that the IS is strongly based in eastern cities of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, from where its oil smuggling operations are mounted.

Russia has stepped up its air strikes on IS smuggling routes in eastern Syria with devastating results. But also integral to the air operations is the cutting off of weapons routes in the northwest to fuel the insurgents along the entire western flank, including around Damascus.

The surrender of the various mercenary brigades and the breaking of sieges around Damascus is vindication of Russia’s military tactics; and also its narrative about the nature of the whole conflict in Syria.

The Western notion of «moderate rebels» and «extremists» is being exposed as the nonsense that it is. And so Western media are compelled to evacuate any meaningful context from their coverage of recent events in Syria.

Riad Haddad, Syria’s ambassador to Russia, spoke the plain truth in recent days when he said: «We are at a turning point in the Syrian army operations against terrorists – namely the transition from defense to attack… [because of] the effective work of the Russian air force in Syria». But the ambassador’s comments were scarcely, if at all, reported in the Western media. Simply because those words vindicate Russia’s military intervention and its general policy towards Syria.

Also missing or downplayed in the Western media coverage of the truces across Syria is the question of where the surrendering mercenaries are being evacuated to. They are not being bussed to other places inside Syria. That shows that there is no popular support for these insurgents. Despite copious Western media coverage contriving that the Syrian conflict is some kind of «civil war» between a despotic regime and a popular pro-democracy uprising, the fact that surrendering militants have no where to go inside Syria patently shows that these insurgents have no popular base.

In other words, this is a foreign-backed war on Syria; a covert war of aggression on a sovereign country utilizing terrorist proxy armies.

So where are the terrorist remnants being shipped to? According to several reports, the extremists are being given safe passage into Turkey, where they will receive repair and sanctuary from the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and no doubt subsidized by the European Union with its $3.5 billion in aid to Ankara to «take care of refugees».

Again, this is another indictment of the state-terrorist links of NATO-member Turkey, which the EU is recently giving special attention to for accession to the bloc.

Russia is not only vindicated in Syria. The Western governments, their media and their regional client regimes are being flushed out like the bandits on the ground in Syria.

If the UN-sponsored peace process due to start in the New Year succeeds to end the conflict in Syria, it will be largely down to Russia’s military campaign that has wiped out the terrorist proxies working on behalf of the Western criminal enterprise for regime change in that country.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Following much debate about whether or not to join the US-led air campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria Britons are wondering if their contribution is even effective after it has become clear that Britain carried out only four air strikes in the month since the country began strikes into Syria in addition to their ongoing aerial campaign in Iraq.

"There is an almost complete disconnect between the heated political debate in Britain over Syria and what the government has actually done," a military aviation expert named Jon Lake told The Telegraph newspaper. "Britain's air campaign in Syria so far is basically a non-event which can have had little, if any impact on the balance of power on the ground."

Manned British jets have sought to target economic targets they believe will undermine ISIS. On December 3 (the opening salvo) they hit the ISIS held Omar oil fields in eastern Syria.

Two more similar air attacks were conducted around the same area on December 6. Then nothing until December 25 when an unmanned Reaper drone hit an ISIS outpost in the Syrian city of Raqqa with a Hellfire missile. That case was the only one where it is believed a British air strike killed ISIS terrorists in Syria.

Aside from that British jets have not carried out any other strikes ever since. Raising questions about just how effective Britain's contribution is following so much impassioned argument by Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative party about whether or not to begin strikes in Syria.

The lessening number of clear targets coupled with strict rules of engagement aimed at preventing civilian casualties are possible reasons for such a low number of bombing runs.

Britain continues to support coalition air strikes in Iraq and gave close air support the Iraqi Army when it recently forced ISIS from the city of Ramadi.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Social Europe
Jan 4 2016

Turkey's Military Onslaught On The Kurds: Why Are Europe And The US Silent?

by Mehmet Ugur on 4 January 2016


In a way that revives the memories of the Armenian massacres from
1894-1915, the Turkish state is now embarked on a new wave of ethnic
cleansing against the `separatist-terrorist' Kurds. It can be argued
that the military onslaught on Kurdish towns and cities is a farce
given that the Turkish state is still not sure of its unity a century
after the Armenian genocide. However, the farce is already producing
tragic consequences. Since July 2015, 108 civilians have been killed,
of whom 54 are children. The death toll is set to increase, given the
number of troops mobilised, the duration of the sieges around towns
and neighbourhoods, the military's deliberate targeting of drinking
water and electricity supplies, and the approaching cold winter in the
region.

Yet, the international community has been largely silent. There is
very little information about the scale of the military operation in
the Kurdish region. Whatever information we have reflects official
statements from the Turkish government and briefings by European and
US governments. As the latter justify the onslaught on the grounds
that the Turkish state has the right to defend itself against
terrorism, Western media outlets roll out cheap information that
depict the situation in the Kurdish region as clashes between the PKK
guerrillas and Turkish security forces. In what follows, I will make a
plea to reconsider the facts.

Turkish State's Fear Of Its Citizens

Once, quite a few academics made successful careers writing about the
`strong state tradition' in Turkey. This argument was well received
because it coincided with extensive state involvement in the economy
and import-substitution policies. The more the statist model got into
trouble, the more the argument has featured in journal articles and
PhD theses. But then Turkey embraced the market in the 1980s. Since
then the narrative has been about Turkey's potential to be a secular
and democratic role model for Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Both lines of arguments are simplistic and reflect the wider
ideological currents of the time. As I argued in the late 1990s, the
Turkish state is strong against individual citizens but weak against
organised interests. This was the case not only during the early
Republican era, but also throughout the following decades. That was
why Turkey's commitment to EU membership has not been credible;
several coups have been staged as and when the state felt it was
losing control; Kurdish demands for recognition and autonomy have been
met with mass killings in the 1920s and 1930s; and with mass torture,
imprisonment, displacement and extrajudicial killings in the 1990s.

The Turkish state has not been able to come to terms with the concept
of individual liberty because it has woven an ideological cocoon
around itself with three sets of beliefs: (i) the Turks have
established sixteen states, fifteen of which collapsed and the last
one (the Republic of Turkey) must not face the same fate; (ii) the
state is a father figure and the first duty of its sons (daughters are
excluded explicitly or implicitly) is to obey the father's authority;
and (iii) the Turkish state is surrounded by all sort of enemies who
work with internal collaborators to destabilise the country and
prevent it from fulfilling its full potential.

Organised interests in Turkey (business organisations, their lobby
groups, bosses of co-opted trades unions, most university rectors, the
religious establishment, etc.) have read this script correctly. They
presented their specific interests as true reflections of the national
interest, which the Turkish state served in return for continued
loyalty. That is why both sides have always been in tune when it comes
to suppressing any opposition that questions the de jure or de facto
rules of the game. Any change in the rules can happen only when the
`father state' and its allies are happy to grant it. Because this
unholy alliance lacked generosity, demands for institutional change
have continued; and so has the suppression of demands for fairer
institutions ` whether made by students, workers, farmers or the
Kurdish people.

Are The Kurds Threatening Turkey's Unity Or Security?

There are three issues to consider before an answer can be attempted.
First, the Kurds feel that they had been robbed of a promise for
autonomy after the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, which recognized the
boundaries of modern Turkey. Under the treaty, Turkey relinquished any
claim to its former Arab provinces and recognized British possession
of Cyprus. In return, the Allies dropped their demands of autonomy for
the Kurds in Turkey. Yet Kurdish autonomy had been promised by Mustafa
Kemal from 1919-1922, with a view to securing Kurdish support for the
War of Independence. The Turkish state's failure to deliver on its
promises was the main driver behind a number of Kurdish insurrections
in the 1920s and 1930s.

Secondly, the Turkish state and the `white Turks' have treated the
Kurds as second-class citizens and denied them the right to be
educated in their mother tongue. In fact, during the military regime
of 1980-1983, the Turkish state fabricated `theories' that asserted
that the Kurds are nothing but mountain Turks, who came to be known as
Kurds because of the sound they made when walking on the snow. (See
also here).

Finally, neither the PKK nor the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) is
demanding independence from Turkey. True, for a period in the 1980s
and 1990s, the PKK was deliberately vague on the issue. However, since
the arrest of its leader in 1999, the PKK has been demanding autonomy.
This is because the nation state is now considered an anachronistic
institution; and local democracy (including recognition and
representation of distinct identities) has been embraced as a solution
not only for the Kurdish question but also for democratisation in
Turkey, Iraq and Syria.

Despite these facts, and detailed findings and recommendations by an
international delegation of human rights lawyers in 2005, the Turkish
government has been reluctant to agree to meaningful peace
negotiations and eventually pulled out of a half-baked `peace process'
just after the elections in June 2015. Indeed, the withdrawal from the
peace negotiations, the following rise in state-orchestrated terror
from June to November 2015, Turkey's interference in Syria and its
support for terrorist organisations including ISIS were all hallmarks
of a political choice made by President Erdogan with the government
and other state institutions in his tow. The political objective was
to ensure the continuity of AKP rule, preferably with a large majority
required to change the constitution and institute Mr Erdogan as a
president with no checks and balances. The Turkish military both
agreed to and supported this move because it appealed to its
security-based approach to the Kurdish problem ` and also promised a
more prominent standing for an institution that has lost part of its
halo among conservative Turks.

To put it bluntly, there is no ground to justify the Turkish state's
ongoing assault on the Kurds as a reaction to a security threat ` let
alone any threat of cessation. On the contrary, there has been a clear
consensus and a genuine desire for peace across a wide spectrum of
Kurdish groups and organisations. That was why the latter signed the
Dolmabahce Agreement with the AKP government on 28 February 2015.

The agreement consisted of 10 articles that set the framework for
resolving the Kurdish issue, including the `national and local
dimensions of the democratic solution'. It was President Erdogan who
scuppered the Agreement in July 2015, after the AKP failed to win a
majority in the elections in June. The government, five months after
it announced the Agreement publicly together with HDP representatives,
had to backtrack and follow the line of denial imposed by Mr Erdogan.

The President and the AKP government has put an end to the peace
process because they feared a `Turkish Spring'. The scare had a
material basis because successive AKP governments have been involved
in widespread corruption, violent oppression of peaceful protests,
interference in Syria, and support for terrorist organisations
operating in Syria. Given these liabilities and the risk of failure to
win a majority in the snap elections in November, the AKP government
has initiated the process of state-orchestrated violence that I
discussed in an earlier Social Europe article.

Facts About The Military Onslaught On The Kurds

Turkey is now a de facto divided country. Whereas people in
non-Kurdish provinces pretend business is as usual, people in the
Kurdish region fear dying any minute as a result of unprecedented
state violence perpetrated both by the military and special
paramilitary units. Known for his blunders, the Turkish Prime
Minister, Mr Ahmet Davutoglu, inadvertently revealed that the military
build-up and the arbitrary curfews in the Kurdish region were planned
already in November 2013. Speaking to a sympathetic journalist, he
said:

We had considered 12 critical towns in our deliberations in November
2013. If you look at the struggle over the last 2-3 months, you can
see Lice, Silvan, Varto, Kulp. Cizre is still going on. Next we have
Dogubeyazit and Yuksekova. We have established control in most of
these towns. Now there are only 4-5 towns where the struggle is
intense: Sur, Cizre, Silopi, Nusaybin, Dargeçit. We are concentrated
there at the moment.

As to what this `struggle' involves, we can refer to a recent report
by Human Rights Watch. It involves: artillery shooting in densely
populated neighbourhoods; disconnection of water and electricity
supply; denying access to medical treatment; preventing burials; and
abusive and disproportionate use of force against any peaceful
protest. According to the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human
Rights:

Imposing open-ended, round-the-clock curfews in entire neighbourhoods
or towns until further notice represents a massive restriction of some
of the most fundamental human rights of a huge population. Their
frequent and widespread use in South-Eastern Turkey since August does
not appear to satisfy the criteria of proportionality and necessity in
a democratic society.

There is also evidence that the Turkish military is using school
buildings as garrisons. Schools are empty not only because of curfews
but also because the Turkish government has ordered teachers to leave
their schools in many towns and cities, including Diyarbakir. The
graffiti on the walls and class whiteboards written by security forces
include: `in the name of god, the Almighty', `time to send you to
hell', `it is our turn to educate you', `obey or leave'; `my teeth had
the smell of blood'.

The mainstream Turkish media does not report these atrocities ` with
the notable exception of Cumhuriyet, the chief editor of which is
currently in prison charged with treason for reporting on Turkey's
arms supply to terrorist organisations in Syria. Instead, the Turkish
media depict all people in besieged towns as terrorists. Its
`reporting' is embellished with photographs of top brass officers
drawing attack plans in front of town/area maps or with masked
military personnel equipped with deadly weapons. Casualties are
reported as `annihilation of terrorists' as opposed to the `martyrdom
of security personnel'. The judiciary is completely in the
government's tow: even the High Court has recently rejected an appeal
by an HDP MP to rule on the legality of arbitrary curfews on the
grounds that the petition was not submitted by somebody affected by
them.

Why The Turkish Government Has A Free Hand

A recent article by Seymour Hersh sheds some light on why the Turkish
government is having a free hand in its onslaught on the Kurds.

Obama now has a more compliant Pentagon. There will be no more
indirect challenges from the military leadership to his policy of
disdain for Assad and support for ErdoÄ?an. Dempsey [the retired
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] remains mystified by Obama's
continued public defence of ErdoÄ?an, given the American intelligence
community's strong case against him ` and the evidence that Obama, in
private, accepts that case. ¦ The Joint Chiefs and the DIA [Defence
Intelligence Agency] were constantly telling Washington's leadership
of the jihadist threat in Syria, and of Turkey's support for it. The
message was never listened to.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

It is this US support that Turkey counts on in its onslaught on the Kurds.

Turkey also counts on political support from Germany and the UK, and
from France despite evidence of some movements of the perpetrators of
the November 13 Paris attacks through Turkey. Chancellor Merkel rushed
to be photographed with Erdogan after sealing a deal on refugees while
the UK Prime Minister still has not uttered any critical word against
the AKP government's conduct either in Syria or against its Kurdish
citizens. This political support also explains why NATO is putting a
positive spin on its air defence support to Turkey even though the
Turkish government is not wholly trusted. It also explains why the EU
postponed the publication of a critical progress report until after
the elections in November and agreed to `energise' EU-Turkey relations
on 29 November 2015 against a background of excessive state violence
in the Kurdish region.

This complicity is unfolding in a context where Kurds in Turkey and
Syria are the only effective political actor with secular and
democratic policy objectives. They demand autonomy and local democracy
within existing state boundaries. They have realised significant
achievements in the empowerment of women. They have demonstrated that
they are highly effective in the fight against ISIS. They have secured
significant support in two elections in Turkey, despite mob attacks on
HDP offices and state-orchestrated violence that killed hundreds of
participants in rallies organised or supported by HDP. Last but not
least, the Kurds have not been involved in any hostility towards
Western interests in Turkey, Syria or Iraq. The only exception is the
Barzani-led administration in Northern Iraq, which receives full
support from the US and European governments despite conspiring with
Turkey to allow the latter to violate Iraq's sovereignty.

Since the early 1920s, the Turkish state has oppressed political
dissent in general and committed repeated atrocities against the Kurds
in particular. The motive has always been the same: preserving the
oppressive mould of the state and the power asymmetry between the
political-economic elite on the one hand and the ordinary individuals
on the other. This is a recipe for state failure ` as Acemoglu and
Robinson have warned. More to the point in the context of this
article, this is also an indication that the US and Europe are
propping up a state and a regime that tick all the boxes of bad
governance and may be liable for trial under international law.

Given this background, European and US governments may be repeating
the historical mistake that Germany committed in 1915, when it turned
a blind eye to the massacre of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in
return for the latter's declaration of war against Russia.

http://www.socialeurope.eu/2016/01/turkeys-military-onslaught-kurds-europe-us-silent/

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Al-Monitor
Jan 6 2016


First the Middle East, now Central Asia slipping away from Turkey

Author: Zülfikar DoÄ?an
Translator:Timur Göksel
Posted January 6, 2016

Turkey ' which with its deterioration in relations with Syria, Iraq,
Libya, Egypt and Israel lost its economic, political and diplomatic
influence in the Middle East ' is now on the verge of losing Central
Asia because of Ankara's crisis with Russia stemming from events in
Syria.

The sanctions Moscow imposed after the Nov. 24 downing of a Russian
plane are spreading to Russian spheres of influence in Central Asia
and the Caucasus, as Central Asian countries that had established
close ties with Ankara after the collapse of the Soviet Union appear
to be preparing to distance themselves from Turkey. At the December
2015 Moscow summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) '
which includes the Turkic states of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and
Tajikistan in addition to Russia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Belarus and
Armenia ' calls were made for Turkey to apologize to Russia.

Armenia holds the term presidency of the CIS-Collective Security
Treaty Organization, a military alliance of former Soviet republics.
The military chiefs of member states met before the gathering of heads
of state to hear their term chairman, Gen. Yuri Khachaturov, Armenian
chief of the General Staff, harshly criticize Turkey. Khachaturov
noted, `Chiefs of staff of all member states of the organization
supported the Russian actions and denounced Turkey's attack against
the Su-24 plane which was seen as an incendiary, shameless aggression.
As Russia said immediately after the attack, we also saw it as a stab
in the back.'

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, term chairman of CIS, also asked
the summit to express its support for Russia and denounce Turkey. He
said, `As member states, we declared our support for the Russian
position and decided to urgently declare unity to combat terror.
Turkey's attitude and its shooting down of the Russian plane have been
a setback to the struggle against terror.'

The real shock for Ankara was not Sargsyan's words, but those of the
Kyrgyzstan head of state, President Almazbek Atambayev, who in the
past had addressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as `my older
brother.' After the August 2014 presidential elections, Atambayev had
appeared with Erdogan, who was delivering his victory speech, and
lavishly praised him. At the CIS summit, Atambayev expressed support
for Moscow and President Vladimir Putin and suggested Erdogan and
Turkey apologize to Russia.

The support for Russia among the Central Asian Turkic republics, which
have received billions of dollars of credit and financing support from
Turkey, and Atambayev's call for an apology shocked Turkey,
disillusioning Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party
government. In 2014, the Cooperation and Coordination Agency of Turkey
had provided the republics more than $3.5 billion. When asked about
Atambayev's comment, Erdogan spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said, `If
nothing else, it was an unfortunate statement.'

Russia's freeze on issuing transit permits to Turkish truckers in
October has severely disrupted Turkish exports to the Central Asian
republics. Concerned with the prospect of losing the Central Asian
market, where Turkey has sizable construction contracts and
investments, Ankara began using the Caspian Sea for its exports thanks
to Azerbaijan opening its gates.

Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, ordered that Caspian port
capacity be increased and transit documents waived for Turkish trucks.
Even if Turkish truck traffic through the Caspian reaches 50,000 a
year, it would still fall far short of sustaining exports to the
Central Asian market.

With the sharp decline in oil and natural gas prices, Azerbaijan had
to devalue its currency 47% against the dollar and euro. Given the
economic bottlenecks it faces, no one can be sure that the country can
indefinitely be a contributor in regard to Turkey's commercial and
energy needs.

Moreover, an Aliyev-Sargsyan meeting in Switzerland Dec. 19 did not
yield a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis. Instead, both
countries announced that their cease-fire had ended. This development
greatly concerns Turkey, because it could negatively affect its use of
the Azerbaijani route for its exports. Meanwhile, Russia and Armenia,
which have been boosting political and economic links, in late
December decided to also expand their military cooperation.

In mid-December, Putin announced that visa requirements for Georgian
nationals would be eased and soon thereafter abolished. It has become
clear that the Russian-Armenian air defense agreement, normalization
of Russian-Georgian relations and resumption of fighting between
Azerbaijan and Armenia will impede Turkey's access to the Caucasus.
There are also fears that Russia, which has been firing cruise
missiles from its navy based in the Caspian, could block passage
through that sea, severely restricting Turkey's access to Central Asia
via that route.

Russian also made use of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) to move
against Turkey's relations with the Turkic republics. Turkey-EEU
negotiations to establish a free trade zone were suspended, and
instead, Putin announced, the EEU would enter into talks with Iran.
Thus Russia is helping advance Iranian economic interests in Central
Asia by closing the doors on Turkey advocating a customs union and
regional free trade. No doubt, this brought Turkey one step closer to
losing Central Asia in the wake of its isolation in the Middle East.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/turkey-losing-its-standing-in-central-asia-after-middle-east.html#

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

U.S. backed Syrian Democratic Forces launch a critical offensive in northeastern Aleppo
Written by Leith Fadel on 08/01/2016

The U.S. backed “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) have launched an imperative offensive to capture the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham’s (ISIS) stronghold of Menbeij in the Aleppo Governorate’s northeastern countryside on Thursday afternoon.

This news from Menbeij comes just two weeks after the Syrian Democratic Forces – backed by the U.S. and Russian Air Forces – captured the strategic Tishreen Dam that links the Aleppo and Al-Raqqa Governorates in northern Syria.

The city of Menbeij is situated just south of the Turkish border and directly west of the Al-Raqqa Governorate; its capture would leave ISIS in a difficult situation at Jarabulus (Aleppo Governorate) and ‘Ayn Issa (Al-Raqqa Governorate).

ISIS has long controlled this area without any-sort of resistance from the Kurdish forces, the Islamists (Nusra, FSA, and Ahrar Al-Sham), and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA); this is due in large part to the substantial amount of territory under the control of the self-proclaimed “Caliphate” (Arabic var. “Khalifa”).

Both the U.S. and Russian Air Forces have aided the Syrian Democratic Forces in their war against ISIS; however, the Russians have become more active as of late, striking several ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra (Syrian Al-Qaeda group) strongholds in both northern and northeastern Aleppo.

http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/u-s-backed-syrian-democratic-forces-launch-a-new-offensive-to-capture-the-isis-stronghold-of-menbeij/

Al-Masdar News

----
Talk is about the zone Turkey eyed for its "security zone" in Syria.
The famous red line turks draw west of the Yeprad, for the kurds not to cross, and link to the Afrin Kurdish enclave East of Alexandrette.