Turkish invasion

[aboutt]

Hello fellas! Good luck with the new forum!

[cromwell]

Basically, at the moment Turkey is a key player in the power ballance both in Europe and in the world. So both Russia and USA would let Erdogan do his things in order to pull him to West or East.. And.. he just play his cards in the best way possible. Very smart man in my eyes. Turkey would be part of NATO and at the same moment would buy some new rockets and would sign some treaties with Russia. Never underestimate Turkey.Turkey is very strong country. Not only because it is in top 7 armies in the world. But because of the political unity. Most of those 80 million people are polliticaly unified and like their statesman. Turkey has some influence in my country as well, which is on its northern border. My country, Bulgaria, is divided in 28 areas. 3 of them are populated with the majority of people who consider them as turkish.

Hello Aboutt and welcome to the forum  :hattip

[aboutt]

Basically, at the moment Turkey is a key player in the power ballance both in Europe and in the world. So both Russia and USA would let Erdogan do his things in order to pull him to West or East.. And.. he just play his cards in the best way possible. Very smart man in my eyes. Turkey would be part of NATO and at the same moment would buy some new rockets and would sign some treaties with Russia. Never underestimate Turkey.Turkey is very strong country. Not only because it is in top 7 armies in the world. But because of the political unity. Most of those 80 million people are polliticaly unified and like their statesman. Turkey has some influence in my country as well, which is on its northern border. My country, Bulgaria, is divided in 28 areas. 3 of them are populated with the majority of people who consider them as turkish.

[Sampanviking]

I think Trump is taking a lot of undeserved flak over his decision here.

The US in Syria was in a no win situation.

The Kurds were not going to lead a charge against Damascus

The US presence simply inflated unrealistic dreams of Kurdish statehood

This simply caused major friction with a major NATO ally

Otherwise US forces were doing and could achieve nothing.



So Trump has chosen NATO over the Kurds

A major conflict in Eastern Syria has been avoided

The Kurds will pocket a high degree of autonomy from Damascus and be happy  with that as a result.

It is a big step to finally ending the Syrian War and only those that do not want to see peace will be disappointed by the events and the outcome.

[Streetwalker]

Turkey have called a ceasefire to allow the Kurds to withdraw from the region .  Cant see the Kurds or indeed Syrian forces complying with that one .

[patman post]

Although the Armenian atrocities happened a 100 years ago, the Turks are still sensitive about the issue. They haven't learned the art of being strong enough to bulldoze through criticism like Israel, Belgium, UK, etc...

[Tarn]

The Turks, despite the appearance of a modern civilisation, have always been a barbaric nation, and I don't think they are about to become more civilised under Erdogan. Has anyone heard of the Armenian genocide which began around 1915? There were around 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire at that time - by 1922 there were only 300 odd thousand left. (And it wasn't until March 2010, a U.S. Congressional panel at last voted to recognize the genocide.)

In summer 1915, during the massacres of the Armenian population in Mush, the city was set on fire by the Turkish army: thousands of Armenians were burnt alive in their houses. According to the note left by Bodil Biørn on the back of the photo, the teacher Margaret and her children were also burnt alive.

http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/15.04.2015-100photos.php">http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/15.04 ... photos.php">http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/15.04.2015-100photos.php



It is interesting that Richard von Kühlmann, the German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1916-1917) wrote this - ""Massacre of Armenians was carried out massively. This policy of extermination will discredit the name of Turkey for so long".

[patman post]

I'm usually sympathetic to Turkey and its people — they seem to get the rough end of the stick in international affairs and get criticised when they react (eg, when the went to protect Turkish Cypriots from Greek terrorism).

Turkey has taken over 3.5 million Syrian refugees and given some $8 billion in refugee aid. We have many Turks and Kurds around north London who seem to co-exist.

But under its current leader Turkey's been drifting more towards becoming an unpredictable confrontational and warlike regime committing the type of atrocities already familiar in the Middle East. Unfortunately, we have to hope the usual disparate response by Western nations will still persuade Turkey to cease its current military activities...

[Sheepy]

I doubt they are,I don't doubt the Kurds showing just how well populism works and the contentment it brings helped much either,I guess we should have been expecting an all out attack by the pyramid at some point.The leaders who came and went and you never knew they had been.

[Barry]

But haven't they been accused of chemical warfare on their own people. How can this be good? Where does Russia fit into this? Aren't they on both sides?

Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.

Do you think that Syria is going to stand by while Turkey bomb the hell out of their territory so they can grab a 20 mile width piece of land, on the grounds it is for their security?

I don't think so.

[Sampanviking]

The thought that the US would ever really side with a Rebel militia against a long standing NATO ally is rather fanciful.

I think Trump made the right decision, the US could do nothing where it was only a matter of time before the Kurds started guerilla actions in Turkey as well.

With the US gone, the Kurds have had to face simple reality and make good with Damascus. Not that the Kurds and Damascus were ever real enemies as they often fought together against the various Jihadi groups. This does mean however that Kurdish regions will now start to fully reintegrate into the Syrian state and this can only be positive for the stability of the region.

Does anyone else have the feeling that there is an element of pantomime in all this prescripted between Washington, Moscow and Ankara?

[Churchill]

I don't know what Trump really had in mind, perhaps he thought the threat of economic sanctions of Turkey would be enough to keep the Turks in line  turns out he was very wrong.

On past performance I can't imagine anything that would keep Erdogan in line. I fear that it has opened a nasty can of worms which might not have a happy outcome any time soon.

I agree he is ruthless

[Streetwalker]

I don't know what Trump really had in mind, perhaps he thought the threat of economic sanctions of Turkey would be enough to keep the Turks in line  turns out he was very wrong.

I guess what he had in mind was upholding his election promise of not getting involved in foreign wars .  Erdogan called Trump last week and told him he was invading Kurdish  Syria .Trump was not prepared to commit forces to protect the Kurds and that that . The situation goes a long ways back to Obamas policy in the region ,the price to pay in protecting the Kurds was not one that America  was prepared to pay .



This article went some way to making the situation a little clearer for me .



''Trump avoided war with Turkey this week and he started extracting America from an open ended commitment to the Kurds that it never made and never intended to fulfil  ''

https://canadafreepress.com/article/trump-did-not-betray-the-kurds">https://canadafreepress.com/article/tru ... -the-kurds">https://canadafreepress.com/article/trump-did-not-betray-the-kurds

[T00ts]

I don't know what Trump really had in mind, perhaps he thought the threat of economic sanctions of Turkey would be enough to keep the Turks in line  turns out he was very wrong.

On past performance I can't imagine anything that would keep Erdogan in line. I fear that it has opened a nasty can of worms which might not have a happy outcome any time soon.

[Churchill]

I don't know what Trump really had in mind, perhaps he thought the threat of economic sanctions of Turkey would be enough to keep the Turks in line  turns out he was very wrong.