Regional geopolitics

[Artashes]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Looks like none of the countries of the region are willing to get the kurds a homeland. US and Russia care less of their useless existence.
Seems like turks will be using them for target practice. If they had two inches of brain they will move their war into turkey.

--- none of the countries are willing to get the Kurds a homeland ---
That's because the Kurds left their homeland (Parthia/Persia) and have been --- STEALING --- by murder and treachery since they *** left their homeland ***.
They occupy Assyria, Armenia, Iraq, Syria, amongst the ruins of Assyrians, Armenians,Iraqis,Syrians, and claim that as ??? Their homeland ???
Kurd logic for many , many , heartless many centuries.
All the Kurds claim is someone else's land (and anything else they can steal).

[Azad]

Re: Regional geopolitics

--- none of the countries are willing to get the Kurds a homeland ---
That's because the Kurds left their homeland (Parthia/Persia) and have been --- STEALING --- by murder and treachery since they *** left their homeland ***.
They occupy Assyria, Armenia, Iraq, Syria, amongst the ruins of Assyrians, Armenians,Iraqis,Syrians, and claim that as ??? Their homeland ???
Kurd logic for many , many , heartless many centuries.
All the Kurds claim is someone else's land (and anything else they can steal).

Agree! You forgot to mention their most powerful weapon ... they multiply like rats.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

17.03.2016 Author: Martin Berger



Turkey and Ukraine: The Misfits Alliance


Column: Politics

Region: Middle East

Country: Turkey



T222056he presidents of Turkey and Ukraine, while facing a dramatically growing number of both domestic and foreign policy challenges have decided to create an “alliance of misfits.” The rapidly deteriorating economic situation and an ever increasing danger of civil war in both of these states have brought their officials to the conclusion that they should exploit the fact that those two states lie on route between the East and West, at the crossroads of geopolitical interests of great powers.

In March 2015, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan visited Kiev with an official visit, this step was later followed by the official visit of the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Ukraine in February 2016. Just a month later the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made a trip to Turkey. The exchange of visits of high level officials, according to the official rhetoric of Kiev and Ankara is aimed at bringing the bilateral relations “to a new strategical level.”

On the eve of Poroshenko’s visit, Turkish and Ukrainian maritime forces held a joint exercise in the Sea of Marmara. It is therefore not surprising that a particular stress in this new bilateral partnership has been made on the military cooperation, along with the development of bilateral trade and economic relations, which should lead to the revival of the project of a free trade zone between Ukraine and Turkey, that was brought to a screeching halt back in 2013.

It’s no mystery that one of the reasons for Kiev and Ankara falling in love with each other is the envy of Russia that they both share, along with the complicated relationships with the EU, the union there countries desperately seek to accede, despite the reluctance of the European Union to allow them in. Of course, Turkey embarked on this “mission” more than half a century ago, while Ukraine is just making first steps in this direction. But both Ukraine an Turkey are united by the understanding that they won’t be able to accede to the EU any time soon, which makes them feel somewhat rejected. Under these circumstances, Turkey and Ukraine have found an urgent desire to provide mutual support, in a bid to create a “strategic alliance of misfits” to share their envy of Russia.

What Poroshenko wants from Turkey is clear. Those are cash loans, weapons, mercenaries and the support of his anti-Russian policy. As it has been explained by the supporters of the Ukrainian president, Turkey is important for Ukraine as a promising partner since it has lost Russian support that it enjoyed for so long. Kiev is satisfied with the rigid position occupied by Turkey on the Crimean issue, and it hopes that the expansion of its economic cooperation with Turkey would somehow compensate the fact that both countries have lost access to the Russian market.

In turn, Turkey has always been watching Ukraine with a carnivorous look, since it wouldn’t mind to occupy its southern regions to create a neo-Ottoman Empire. Ankara has been planning to get a hold of Crimea for centuries and even now it plans to force the rapidly weakening Ukraine into admitting that the peninsula should be transformed in a Crimean Tatar autonomy. “We’ve discussed how we can join our efforts to achieve the de-occupation of the Crimea, by joining our forces “, – Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page a while ago.

To achieve the territorial division of the weakening Ukraine and launch an armed aggression against Crimea, Ankara has been busy sending its mercenaries to this country. This effort has been facilitated by the recent law that was adopted by the Ukrainian parliament that made the presence of foreign mercenaries its territory a legal fact. Previously, foreign governments tried to keep such activities a because since it contradicted the Minsk agreement, that prohibited the presence of foreign troops near the conflict zone in Ukraine. So while Ukranian radical fighter have been supporting ISIS in Syria to do a favor to Turkey, Turkey has been flooding Ukraine with its militants.

Turkey doesn’t care much about Ukrainian authorities but it would gladly exploit the country that it leads by getting access to military technologies that were accumulated there back in the USSR years. Turkey obtained a large amount of Soviet weapons after the collapse of the USSR and its companies are actively seeking ways to enter the arms market with these old technologies. In this capacity Ankara could take advantage of Ukraine’s military potential by using its defense enterprises, where outdated armored vehicles would be subjected to restyling to successfully sold to third world countries later on. Kiev has an extensive amount of armored junk too, which can be sold with Turkish assistance too.

Back in 2014, Turkey decided that it wants to get its hands on the Ukrainian rocket industry that has developed by the Ujmash factory. This factory is still in possession of huge number of technologies that Turkey hopes to buy back at an outrageous discount. And it seems that it would succeed in this endeavour, since Kiev puts most anything on sale – from corn and black soil, to military technologies and equipment. In April 2015 Ukrainian military experts announced that they would be working with Turkish designers to create a brand-new Turksih missile complex and finish the project of the Turkish main battle tank Altay. A number of other projects for Turkey is now being discussed, including the construction of medium-haul transport aircraft on the basis of Antonov, co-operation in the production of elements of drones, armored vehicles, aircraft engines and helicopters. It’s been announced that Poroshenko and Erdogan signed a deal on the establishment of Turkish space program, though no confirmation has ever been received.

But today, Turkey and Ukraine are interested in the market of agricultural products, on which Russia has refused, in particular, the purchase of high-quality wheat, which Turkey used to buy from Russia.

So the area of the so-called strategic cooperation between both countries is very wide. But will this “cooperation” help both leaders to retain power in their countries? Since it may happen that the rapidly growing civil discontent will put an end to the relations between Turkey and Ukraine, making an “alliance of misfits” a history.

Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.

http://journal-neo.org/2016/03/17/turkey-and-ukraine-the-misfits-alliance/

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Russia backs self-ruling Kurdish buffer state at Turkey’s back door
18/03/16
debka


Just four days after drawing down the bulk of Russian forces in Syria, President Vladimir Putin was quietly redrawing the Syrian map on federal lines, and planting Russian influence in its first semiautonomous region. DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that the Russian leader's hand was behind the establishment of the Syrian Kurdish federal region on March 17, at a meeting of Kurdish Democratic Union Party leaders in the Syrian town of Rmeilan.
The new self-ruling entity covers three Kurdish-controlled enclaves:: Jazira, Hassakeh and Qamishli and the two cities of Kobani and Afrin, They include areas captured in battle from the Islamic State.
One of the DUP leaders, Nawaf Khalil, noted the presence at the ceremony of representatives of the three enclaves, some parts of which are still controlled either by the Syrian army, Syrian rebel groups or ISIS.
The Syrian Kurds are expected next to fight, with Russian backing, to connect the three enclaves into a contiguous self-ruled territory 500-kilometer long, adjacent to the Turkish border.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has warned repeatedly that Ankara would not tolerate the establishment of Kurdish self-rule in Syria and would send his army across the border to prevent it. Our sources report that Putin has assured Kurdish leaders that the Russian air force would be there to defend the new region if Turkey invaded.
Erdogan tried to enlist the Obama administration for action to deter the Kurds from its step.
But the State Department only responded to the Kurdish initiative after the event. "We don't support self-ruled, semiautonomous zones inside Syria,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby Thursday night. “Whole, unified, nonsectarian Syria -- that's the goal."
The new Kurdish federal region turns out to be the first no-fly zone over northern Syria, which the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia long advocated, but which has finally comes into being under the Russian aegis.
President Bashar Assad, Moscow’s ally, strongly opposes the Kurdish move, as the first step in the country’s breakup into ethnic or religious federal entities. But Assad is helpless to fight back or bomb the Kurdish enclaves when Moscow stands behind them and some Russian warplanes remain in Syria for any contingencies.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources find significance in the location of the Kurds’ ceremonial declaration of their semiautonomous region: The only US base in Syria is located outside Rmeilan. It houses US and allied special operations forces with helicopters for fighting the Islamic State.
Clearly, Putin was perfectly willing to show the Americans what he was about.
In any case, US officials, such as Secretary of State John Kerry, have been talking freely to Middle East leaders about a federal solution for Syria as Washington’s Plan B, should the current talks between the warning sides in Geneva fail to reach an accord on a political solution for ending the calamitous five-year war.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Russia to keep S-400 in Syria until Saudi warplanes leave Turkey
debka
16/03/2016



The highly-advanced S-400 air defense missiles will also eventually be evacuated from Syria, said high-ranking officials in Moscow on Wednesday, March 17, according to an exclusive DEBKAfile report. But their presence for now is crucial in view of the continuing Saudi buildup of warplanes in Turkey, close to the Syrian border.
Our military sources disclose that the initial Saudi deployment of four warplanes to the Turkish air base of Incirlik earlier this month, has been expanded to sixteen, while Saudi officials declare that Riyadh and Ankara are preparing to intervene jointly in the Syrian conflict.
According to our sources, Turkish armored and infantry troops have already crossed the border and set up positions in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, just a few hundred meters inside the border.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov referred Sunday, March 14, to evidence of “a creeping expansion by Turkey in the sovereign nation of Syria.”
This was taken as a warning that Moscow would not tolerate any further Turkish encroachments in Syria, any more than it would accept Saudi air force intrusions of Syrian air space.
The Russians infer from Turkish military movements that Ankara aims to establish enclaves inside Syria as no-fly or security zones, which Moscow has consistently opposed. The presence of the top-grade S-400 anti-air missiles in Syria is meant to obstruct this plan and discourage Turkish and Saudi aerial flights over Syria.
At the same time, the presence of the S-400 missiles close by is a worry for the Israeli Air force. The batteries, currently positioned at the Latakia base, would cover a broad stretch of air space over northern and central Israel if they were moved further south.
A word of reassurance on this score was understood to have come from Russian military sources Wednesday. They said that the S-400 would be removed eventually, leaving behind only the Pantsir-S1 anti-air missile systems, which have never posed a challenge to the Israeli air force in the last decade.
DEBKAfile’s military sources also confirm that Putin has so far kept his promise to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to withhold advanced S-400 and S-300 air defense missiles from Iran, by executing a series of delays.
On Feb. 17, Iranian military officials announced a ceremony the next day at the Caspian port of Astrakhan for the handover of the first batch of S-300s. The ceremony never took place.
This week, Russian arms industry sources announced that the missiles would be not be delivered to Iran before August or September – another delay, which is unlikely to be the last.

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

18.03.2016 Author: Salman Rafi Sheikh



Making sense of Turkey’s shift to Iran


Column: Politics

Region: Middle East

Country: Iran



1375691420043614000-e1375716610259After experimenting with taking a belligerent stance on the Syrian question, Turkey seems to be shifting to diplomacy once again. This shift does make sense given that belligerence has cost Turkey a lot. On the domestic front, Turkey has had to face a reasonably organized Kurdish resistance. On the external front, its un-necessary belligerence has cost her relations with Russia, ending up in the form of Russian sanctions on Turkey. Two factors seem to have pushed Turkey to make this shift. First, it has failed to achieve its basic objective vis-à-vis Syria i.e., territorial disintegration of Syria by carving it into “zones.” Second, it has failed to push Russia off the ground through deliberate provocations. In addition to it, Russian sanctions have certainly put constraints on easy supply of energy resources to Turkey, causing damage to its economy. Hence, Turkey’s shift to Iran to seek alternative sources of oil and gas.

It is in this context of multiple failures that we must read Turkey’s ‘positive’ diplomatic overtures to Iran. As such, following the recent consultations between the two foreign ministries in Ankara, Turkey and Iran have decided to reset their bilateral ties. Iran is confident that Turkey has lost the war in Syria and a new phase in Ankara’s policies is about to begin. Some recent developments on the war-front indicate this failure clearly. In addition to it, Turkey is a well-established market that the Iranian economy can earn substantial money from. Hence, Iran’s emphasis on bolstering economic ties.

However, for Turkey, not only can Iran be a source of supply of oil and gas but also be used to settle the Kurdish question in favour of Turkey. Apart from it, Turkish business elite sees in Iran, just like the European entrepreneurs, a big market to invest in. For Turkey Iranian market has an additional element of significance: assess to it can allow Turkey to make amends for the losses it has suffered and continues to suffer due to strained relations with Russia.

Considering the potential benefits, it was but natural to see Turkey making a drastic change in its erstwhile position on Syria. Instead of paving the way for a ground invasion of Syria, Turkey is now explicitly favouring a sort of ‘political settlement’ of the crisis. The change clearly reflected during Turkish Prime Minister’s most recent visit to Iran. After returning to Ankara, Davutoglu made a startling remark that Turkey and Iran have reached an agreement on the settlement of the Syrian issue. He said, “We don’t want Syria to be divided into smaller states and we reached an agreement with the Iranian officials that this disintegration won’t happen and that Syria would continue its life and presence as a powerful country.”

This freshly designed Turkish position on Syria is something Iran has been advocating not only with regard to Syria but also Iraq and Kurds. During his visit to Turkey in the month of February, the Iranian diplomat thus stated Iran’s position vis-à-vis the wider regional problem, “Kurds are our historical friends. And we want them to continue their existence in prosperity and happiness within the states they live in. Our region is not strong enough to bear new crises. We hope Kurds in other countries will enjoy full citizenship rights as Kurds in Iran do. And if we defend the territorial integrity of Turkey and Iran, we do the same for Iraq and Syria as well.”

On the surface, Iran’s position is favourable to Turkish interests. Clearly, Iran is far from supporting an ‘independent’ Kurdish state in the Middle East. And, this is precisely what Turkey has been resisting through years.

The Iranian official unambiguously underscored that Iran and Turkey are on the same page on the Kurdish question and Ankara can count on Tehran to do all that is necessary to prevent the emergence of an ‘independent Kurdistan’ anywhere on the region’s map – be it inside or outside Turkey or along Turkey’s borders or in its neighborhood. Iran understands that a Kurdish state would certainly stir its own Kurdish population, leading to the emergence of an un-necessary political nuance at home. Hence, Iran’s advocacy of granting ‘citizenship rights’ to Kurds where ever they happen to have presence in the region.

However, despite the apparent Turkish-Iranian rapprochement over the Syrian and Kurdish question, differences continue to exist at some level. This is due to the fact that Iranian-Turkish rapprochement is not so strong as it looks on paper. The current gestures can be explained as both countries’ assessments about the potential benefits they can have by revamping their relations.

These differences were quite explicit even during the recent bi-lateral visits of Turkish and Iranian officials. For instance, No sooner did Davutoglu leave Iran for home than Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian (who is Iran’s point person on the conflict in Syria) briefed the Majlis’ National Security and Foreign Policy Commission that Turkey’s Syria policies have failed, but Ankara is still pressing ahead with policies aimed at the overthrow of the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the US.

The Iranian officials did not shy of mentioning to the Turkish officials their disagreement with the way some regional countries, especially Saudi Arabia, continue to back proxy groups to create tension in the region. Similarly, Iran’s official media also continued to reinstate Turkey’s role in creating the same geo-political tensions.

These differences notwithstanding, Iran still understands that it has more shared interests with Turkey than it could possibly have with any other regional power, especially Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies. The convergence of interests is, however, primarily in the economic domain as both need each other for different reasons. Geo-political tension amid the struggle for regional supremacy continues to exist between them, although both countries seem willing to put it on the backburner for some time at least.

Therefore, with an eye on the future, Iran visualizes that an extension of the gas pipeline connecting Turkey to Europe might be a feasible option to promote its gas exports to a lucrative market. On the other hand, such supply of energy resources from Iran would certainly help Turkey reduce its heavy dependence of Russia. As such, while geo-economics does seem to be making sense to both the countries, geo-strategy continues to cast dark shadows on the prospects of translating this prospective economic relation into a well-shaped strategic alliance.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

http://journal-neo.org/2016/03/18/making-sense-of-turkey-s-shift-to-iran/

[Joseph]

Re: Regional geopolitics

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/03/16/russian-warplanes-bomb-column-of-terrorists-entering-syria-from-turkey/

[Editor’s Note: FARS is the only source on this today, but it mentions both Russian and Syrian planes involved, which seems to have been a display of their conducting joint operations on the day Russia was flying some planes out.

I have been wondering why we had not seen more of these column attacks while they were easier targets on the road versus letting them been deployed, dispersed and dug in. We shall have to see if there is confirmation on this in the next day, or maybe something they prefer to be a quieter message sent to Erdogan not to do this during the ceasefire.

This would be the closest thing to firing on the Turkish troops inside the Syrian border, or the artillery battalions shelling from over the border. Lavrov’s major press statement today was on getting supplies from Turkey cut off, and he put that straight on Kerry’s plate… Jim W. Dean ]

The Russian Air Force tracked and targeted a long column of terrorists crossing Turkish border to join their comrades in Northern and Northwestern battlefields in Syria.

The terrorists, that were mainly Turkmen, were caught by the Russian Air Force’s reconnaissance planes attempting to enter the Lattakia province from one of the Turkish border-crossings near Yayladagi.

Upon the entry of Jeish al-Turkmen and al-Nusra Front into Syria, the Russian air fleet struck their convoy of vehicles in the Furniluk Forests, ending in the rebel fighters scattering around the border in order to evade the powerful aerial assault.

When the Russian warplanes backed off, the Syrian Air Force launched their own airstrikes over the Furniluk Forests, keeping up the pressure on the trapped rebel fighters.

Meantime, the Syrian Army, the Syrian Resistance, the National Defense Forces (NDF) and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) carried out a ground assault on the final villages located before the Turkish border-crossing into the city of Yayladagi.

Currently, the Syrian Armed Forces are only 7.5 km away from the Turkish border-crossing at Yayladagi; however, 3 km of that distance is empty forests.

On Monday, the Syrian army advanced in the Northeastern part of Lattakia province and encircled a large number of terrorists in the key town of Kabani, leaving them with only one way out.

The Syrian soldiers and allies imposed full control over Hill 1154 at the Southwestern perimeter of Kabani after a violent battle with al-Nusra Front, Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham and the Free Syrian Army’s “1st Coastal Brigade” and “Al-Ghaab Hawks Brigade”.

As a result of their success at Hill 1154 inside Jabal al-Akrad (Kurds Mountain), the Syrian Armed Forces were able to advance on Kabani from three different direction, leaving the extremists with only one outlet to retreat from this strategic town.

The military strategy used by the Syrian Armed Forces at Kabani is similar to that of their previous battles at Ghammam, Salma, Kinsibba, and Al-Rabi’ah, meaning they will surround the enemy combatants and leave only one road for the latter to use in order to retreat from the fight.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

[Vrej1915]

Re: Regional geopolitics

[londontsi]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Istanbul shopping area hit by suicide bomber

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35850625

A suicide bomb attack at a busy shopping area in the Turkish city of Istanbul has killed at least four people, officials say.

Three Israelis and an Iranian died, Turkish media reports. Another 36 people were injured in the blast near a government building on Istiklal Street.

No-one has admitted carrying out the attack, the latest in recent months.

The Turkish government has blamed Kurdish militants for previous attacks and has retaliated against them.

Saturday's attack in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, occurred at about 11:00 local time (09:00 GMT).

Uwes Shehadeh was some 500m (1,640ft) away when he heard "a horrific and horrible noise".

"People didn't know what was going on. It was very chaotic. Everyone was screaming and running away," he told the BBC.

"Istanbul is on high alert and people are very worried as to what will happen next."

Eleven Israelis were among the injured. Two Irish citizens, one national each from Germany, Iceland, Dubai and Iran were also wounded.

Both the so-called Islamic State (IS) and Kurdish militants have claimed recent attacks in Turkey.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said terror groups are targeting civilians because they are losing their struggle against Turkish security forces.

Turkey is part of the US-led coalition against IS and allows coalition planes to use its air base at Incirlik for raids on Iraq and Syria.