Perhaps their activities in Syria and Libya are rehearsals for another crack at Cyprus . . .
Or maybe it's Neo-Ottoman-ism and they're trying to be the Sunni heavyweight, using hard power to displace Saudi's position in the community. Turkey is backing the GNA (and Muslim Brotherhood). Saudi is backing Hafter, and vigorously opposes the MB.
The just promised at a conference together with other parties to not export arms & munitions to Libya. I'd need to look up if deploying troops is a violation to the document signed. I doubt it.
Anyway; Erdogan still playing great power and Ottoman Empire heir.
Scratch that. It appears to be a brazen violation of what Erdogan promised just a couple days ago. That's lying moron-level stupid.
quote: The Berlin participants "commit to refraining from interference in the armed conflict or in the internal affairs of Libya" and urge all international actors "to do the same".
Erdogan is playing to the Pan-Turkic elements of his party to supposedly help out the five percent of Libya's population that identifies as ethnic Turks. Those Libyan Turks are leftover from when the Ottomans ruled Libya from Tripoli.
They bomb Kurds for that distraction. I see this rather as an entertaining game for Erdogan. He got bored with his previous failures to achieve anything decisive or of value, ever, anywhere, with his foreign policy adventures.
Years ago Turkey was on a 'good neighbourhood relations' foreign policy grand strategy (excepting Armenia). That, too, got too boring to him.
I suspect his main reasons are the potential gifting of oil & gas rights by the Libyan beneficiaries of his war effort. If he wins of course, and if Greece and Egypt and France let him get away with it.
Plus Pan-Turkic dreams as the Libyan GNA Prime Minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, hails from an old ethnic Turkish family in Libya.
Erdogan doesn't have to drop bombs for a distraction. He gets that by inciting mob violence on peaceful Turkish Kurds who dare to speak Kurdish in public, or sing or play Kurdish music, or wear traditional Kurdish clothing. Or throw Kurdish mayors in jail for belonging to the HDP political party.
Sounds like there's SOMEthing going on involving Turkish arms in Libya (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51302525) - the really oddball part is that it sounds like the footsoldiers are Syrian mercs, presumably some of the Sunni rebels chased out by Assad's SAA.
Now THERE's what Libya needs; more unmoored Islamic religious nutballs.
When does our boy Erdogan proclaim himself Sultan Tayyip I (The Magnificent)?
Ahval reports that Turkey pays $2000/month to Syrian mercenaries in Libya. Those fighting against Assad in Syria itself are getting less than $100/month from Turkish paymasters, which is why they are looting and pillaging the Kurdish, Assyrian, and Armenian areas.
Ahval also claims there are 3000 Syrian mercs already in Libya. Plus a PMC HQ led by Turkish nationals that has set up a War Room in Tripoli. MIT maybe?
Some twitter accounts are reporting four Turkish Frigates in the area. One was escorting a RORO ship to Tripoli, which the tweeters assumed to be carrying armor. Wonder if Erdo is sending MBTs? Or just light armor? Or mobile SAMs? They have reported shooting down one of Haftar's LNA drones, but the LNA denies it.
Meanwhile, back at the other end of the Med, Trump's boy Jared rolled out his Palestinian Bantustan Plan to a chorus of ridicule outside the (both U.S. and Israeli) wingnuttosphere.
But the laugh may be on the Pals, because my guess is that this apartheid plan will quietly roll through. The Sunni Middle Eastern states that matter (Saudi, Egypt, Turkey) have no enthusiasm to confront the US and Israel over this while they're fighting the Sunni-Shia Cold War, the EU will protest but eventually shrug, and the poor bastards in the Israeli ghettos will continue to be stateless and powerless.
IIRC the real nastily pernicious piece of this nasty little version of a 19th Century native American "treaty" is that it makes Israeli Arabs part of the stateless Palestinian "state", depriving them of their already second-class Israeli citizenship and making them, too, effectively stateless.
Just when you think that there's nothing that can make the Middle East worse than it is, along comes a Trump...
Netanyahu applauded at Trump's announcement of the plan in the WH East Room, and had a big shit-eating-grin on his mug. He knows the conditions will never be accepted by the Palestinians, but he'll implement it anyway worsening the problem.
The feeling by Jared and the Likud and other rightwing parties in Israel is "If only the Palestinians would give up their demands so that then we could compromise with them."
Just two months ago Netanyahu was indicted on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud. Yet he still gets invited to the White House. And he gets special deals. You would think that Trump who is supposedly so worried about foreign corruption (a la the Ukraine) would not go anywhere near Benny.
Perhaps their activities in Syria and Libya are rehearsals for another crack at Cyprus . . .
ReplyDeleteOr maybe it's Neo-Ottoman-ism and they're trying to be the Sunni heavyweight, using hard power to displace Saudi's position in the community. Turkey is backing the GNA (and Muslim Brotherhood). Saudi is backing Hafter, and vigorously opposes the MB.
The just promised at a conference together with other parties to not export arms & munitions to Libya. I'd need to look up if deploying troops is a violation to the document signed. I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway; Erdogan still playing great power and Ottoman Empire heir.
Scratch that. It appears to be a brazen violation of what Erdogan promised just a couple days ago. That's lying moron-level stupid.
Deletequote:
The Berlin participants "commit to refraining from interference in the armed conflict or in the internal affairs of Libya" and urge all international actors "to do the same".
Erdogan is playing to the Pan-Turkic elements of his party to supposedly help out the five percent of Libya's population that identifies as ethnic Turks. Those Libyan Turks are leftover from when the Ottomans ruled Libya from Tripoli.
ReplyDeleteSome are claiming Erdogan is hoping to metastasize the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. And he is bowing to the ultranationalist Gray Wolves, who are gaining more and more influence in Ankara:
https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/the-year-of-the-gray-wolf-the-rise-of-turkeys-new-ultranationalism/
He also has his eye on a share of the offshore oil and gas in the Libyan & Cyprus economic zones.
Erdogan has also lost face in Idlib province with the Syrian Army advances. So this Libyan adventure distracts the man in the street in Ankara.
DeleteThey bomb Kurds for that distraction.
DeleteI see this rather as an entertaining game for Erdogan.
He got bored with his previous failures to achieve anything decisive or of value, ever, anywhere, with his foreign policy adventures.
Years ago Turkey was on a 'good neighbourhood relations' foreign policy grand strategy (excepting Armenia). That, too, got too boring to him.
Boredom?
DeleteI suspect his main reasons are the potential gifting of oil & gas rights by the Libyan beneficiaries of his war effort. If he wins of course, and if Greece and Egypt and France let him get away with it.
Plus Pan-Turkic dreams as the Libyan GNA Prime Minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, hails from an old ethnic Turkish family in Libya.
Sven -
DeleteErdogan doesn't have to drop bombs for a distraction. He gets that by inciting mob violence on peaceful Turkish Kurds who dare to speak Kurdish in public, or sing or play Kurdish music, or wear traditional Kurdish clothing. Or throw Kurdish mayors in jail for belonging to the HDP political party.
Sounds like there's SOMEthing going on involving Turkish arms in Libya (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51302525) - the really oddball part is that it sounds like the footsoldiers are Syrian mercs, presumably some of the Sunni rebels chased out by Assad's SAA.
ReplyDeleteNow THERE's what Libya needs; more unmoored Islamic religious nutballs.
When does our boy Erdogan proclaim himself Sultan Tayyip I (The Magnificent)?
Ahval reports that Turkey pays $2000/month to Syrian mercenaries in Libya. Those fighting against Assad in Syria itself are getting less than $100/month from Turkish paymasters, which is why they are looting and pillaging the Kurdish, Assyrian, and Armenian areas.
ReplyDeleteAhval also claims there are 3000 Syrian mercs already in Libya. Plus a PMC HQ led by Turkish nationals that has set up a War Room in Tripoli. MIT maybe?
Some twitter accounts are reporting four Turkish Frigates in the area. One was escorting a RORO ship to Tripoli, which the tweeters assumed to be carrying armor. Wonder if Erdo is sending MBTs? Or just light armor? Or mobile SAMs? They have reported shooting down one of Haftar's LNA drones, but the LNA denies it.
Meanwhile, back at the other end of the Med, Trump's boy Jared rolled out his Palestinian Bantustan Plan to a chorus of ridicule outside the (both U.S. and Israeli) wingnuttosphere.
ReplyDeleteBut the laugh may be on the Pals, because my guess is that this apartheid plan will quietly roll through. The Sunni Middle Eastern states that matter (Saudi, Egypt, Turkey) have no enthusiasm to confront the US and Israel over this while they're fighting the Sunni-Shia Cold War, the EU will protest but eventually shrug, and the poor bastards in the Israeli ghettos will continue to be stateless and powerless.
IIRC the real nastily pernicious piece of this nasty little version of a 19th Century native American "treaty" is that it makes Israeli Arabs part of the stateless Palestinian "state", depriving them of their already second-class Israeli citizenship and making them, too, effectively stateless.
Just when you think that there's nothing that can make the Middle East worse than it is, along comes a Trump...
Jesus wept.
Netanyahu applauded at Trump's announcement of the plan in the WH East Room, and had a big shit-eating-grin on his mug. He knows the conditions will never be accepted by the Palestinians, but he'll implement it anyway worsening the problem.
DeleteThe feeling by Jared and the Likud and other rightwing parties in Israel is "If only the Palestinians would give up their demands so that then we could compromise with them."
Just two months ago Netanyahu was indicted on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud. Yet he still gets invited to the White House. And he gets special deals. You would think that Trump who is supposedly so worried about foreign corruption (a la the Ukraine) would not go anywhere near Benny.
DeleteGood article on Newsweek yesterday regarding the Libyan Civil War.
ReplyDeleteWill Libya end up divided with a Russian port at Tobruk and a Turkish base at Tripoli?
https://www.newsweek.com/libyas-split-brings-turkish-delight-russian-revenge-opinion-1485078