Statements of the Turkish government regarding the Syrian conflict

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN  


November 29/2016) In my estimation, nearly 1 million people have died in Syria. These deaths are still continuing without exception for children, women and men. Where is the United Nations? What is it doing? Is it in Iraq? No. We preached patience but could not endure in the end and had to enter Syria together with the Free Syrian Army [FSA],” Erdoğan said at the first Inter-Parliamentary Jerusalem Platform Symposium in Istanbul.

“Why did we enter? We do not have an eye on Syrian soil. The issue is to provide lands to their real owners. That is to say we are there for the establishment of justice. We entered there to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorizes with state terror. [We didn’t enter] for any other reason,” the president said.

1 December 2016) “The aim of the Euphrates Shield Operation is no country or person but only terror organizations. No one should doubt this issue that we have uttered over and over, and no one should comment on it in another fashion or try to [misrepresent its meaning],”

 “They never care about the future of Syria, Iraq or Libya. Do they have oil? If yes, they are there, Turkey will continue its struggle against terror organizations even if it is completely abandoned. We are facing very serious obstacles stemming from Western countries. Some companies in Europe declare that they won’t sell military equipment to Turkey.”

27 January 2017) The coalition led by the USA has not been able to take steps that we have been expecting in Syria and in Libya. A new process has started in Astana and will continue in Geneva. Of course we don't know where these talks will reach. We hope that this positive step will be beneficial in a short time. I am planning to have a conversation with Mr. Putin about this. Also I could have a phone conversation with Mr. Trump before meeting in person. El-Bab is already known and there is also Raqqa and Manbij.

We can not just sit and wait here, we have to take necessary steps as soon as possible.

(Possibility of facing with the regime in Al-Bab) We are already facing with the regime. We faced with them in Jarablus, Al-Rai and Dabiq. They used proxies. For example, PYD/YPG was the proxy in Afrin. Where did the weapons from US go to? PYD, YPG, even DAESH. I hope that Geneva process and Astana process with Iran and Russia will bring the regime to a positive position and Al-Bab will be done. We must quickly finish the Al-Bab thing and not go deeper than that and this is currently what we are doing.

Ahmet Davutoğlu

October 2015) “There is a 360-degree, not 180-degree, difference between the Islam we defend and what Daesh has on its mind,”

September 2015) "We have the conviction that with al-Assad in charge during the transition period, that transition period would no longer be transitory. We believe that this situation would turn into a permanent status quo. Our conviction on this matter hasn't changed,"

"Nobody can foresee Syria's future with al-Assad. It's not possible to accept a person responsible for killing 300,000 to 350,000 people, a dictator."

February 2016) “How would they be able to defend themselves if there was no Turkish support of the Syrian people? ... If there’s today a real moderate Syrian opposition, it’s because of the Turkish support. If today the [Assad] regime isn’t able to control all the territories [it’s] because of Turkish and some other countries’ support,”

“We will be doing everything for Syrian brothers and sisters – without asking any assistance from anywhere – for refugees as well as for the heroic people in Syria… all Syrians, those, who are raising their voice against this aggression by the regime, by terrorists like YPG (Kurdish People’s Protection Units), Daesh (Islamic State, IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and foreign forces, who are invading Syria today, like Russia and Iran.”

25/01/2017 Euphrates Shield (War report)

Sultan Murat Brigade in Norther Syria (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvck8xXH5kM)

Despite the Euphrates Shield being a small operation in this relatively sparsely populated area in Northern Syria, it is of enormous importance for the Turkish government for it to succeed swiftly and smoothly noticing the tense political situation at home and the upcoming referendum that would decide if Turkey continues as a parliamentary system or a presidential one which could officially grant the current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan more executive powers.

In the meantime, the Turkish Armed Forces were sent into Syria, for which reason? Well, noticing the continuously flipflopping of the Turkish government we will never know, after all, the Turkish president even said once:"In my estimation, nearly 1 million people have died in Syria. These deaths are still continuing without exception for children, women, and men. Where is the United Nations? What is it doing? Is it in Iraq? No. We preached patience but could not endure in the end and had to enter Syria together with the Free Syrian Army [FSA],”

And he immediately reversed his position when he noticed that there are still translators around, and came up with: "The aim of the Euphrates Shield Operation is no country or person but only terror organizations. No one should doubt this issue that we have uttered over and over, and no one should comment on it in another fashion or try to [misrepresent its meaning],"

So currently, according to the Turkish government officials, the mission is meant to destroy all the organizations on Turkey's terrorist list, which include ISIS and PKK (PYD/SDF). To fast forward a bit, the Turkish Armed Forces alongside several rebel factions managed to conquer a part of SDF held territory near Manbij until they were stopped by US Special Forces, reached the outskirts of ISIS-controlled Al-Bab and successfully prevented the YPG linking the cantons. However, public opinion inside Turkey becomes more and more hostile towards the war with every casualty, something that both the Turkish government and ISIS understand, yet a more importing thing to think about would be how the situation currently is within the Turkish Armed Forces.

MORALE 

For almost a decade the Turkish Armed Forces have been publicly shamed, through trials like the Balyoz one in which several high-ranking officers who once were the childhood heroes of many friends of me were thrown into jail with falsified evidence (back then during the Gülen-AKP alliance) or through television series and films indoctrinating the masses with the subtle message that the army is anti-Islamic (see for example Reis, a film about Erdogan).

Alongside that, it has become a total chaotic mess after the failed coup attempt, historical and prestigious institutions have been closed down and the officer corps has been purged, so drastically that even the soldiers currently fighting on the front lines fail to appear at court. According to one discharged officer who did his story to a Belgian journalist in a well-respected magazine Knack it has been currently replaced with pro-Russian Eurasianist Kemalists who are aligned to Doğu Perinçek (who on his part has close relations to Alexander Dugin) and to add the cherry on the cake ISIS brought out a horrific video in which they burned 2 soldiers alive, something the government denied ever happened or in their words 'are still researching the situation'.

It is then no surprise that around 50 professional soldiers have submitted their resignations since the start of this year according to nationalist journalist Ahmet Takan, who also claimed that there might be elements sympathetic towards ISIS inside the rebel factions fighting alongside the Turkish Armed Forces.

Which explains that even a NATO army has problems regarding this somewhat small scaled operation, it is not 'the Turkish army' but a hugely damaged and beheaded army led by a government has no idea what it is doing and is more concerned about consolidating its power.

Manbij 

Yet the reality of a damaged army and the situation on the ground doesn't stop the Turkish government continuing it's already disastrous policies, instead, they already started talking about taking a SDF stronghold Manbij (East of Al-Bab) as part of destroying the PKK in Syria.

"But the Arabs who run Manbij are adherents of the YPG’s ideology, making them indistinguishable in Turkey’s eyes — and in the eyes of local residents — from the Kurdish force, according to Aaron Stein of the Washington-based Atlantic Council. The YPG-backed Arab force in Manbij has already fought battles with ­Turkish-backed Arab rebels in the nearby countryside, and Turkey is threatening to launch an offensive to take over the town. 

At a recent ceremony for 250 Arab recruits who had just completed training with the U.S. military near Manbij, the newly minted soldiers were told they would be heading not to the Raqqa front lines but to Aleppo, to confront the rebels backed by Turkey, a NATO ally of the United States. As U.S. Special Operations troops looked on, Abu Amjad al-Adnan, commander of the Manbij recruits, rallied the soldiers to take the fight to the forces backed by “terrorist Turkey.” 

US expanding major base at Til Beder 35 km NW of Haska w airstrip & accomodation for 5000 troops. 800 troops there now.

Noticing that the fight against ISIS is already going pretty slow, you might start asking yourself even if the TAF will ever be able to defeat the PYD while making sure that their losses are minimal. ISIS in comparison is still a state fighting several enemies (PYD+SAA+FSA+Iraqi forces) whereas the PYD only has to fight ISIS meaning that they have far more manpower at their disposal to fight the TAF, not only that but they also have built up their international image up gaining a lot of sympathy around the globe and you could pretty sure imagine that the Russian air force, and especially the American airforce are not looking forward to attacking the PYD in order to gain Turkey's favor, making the TAF even more vulnerable against the PYD.

Take with it the assumption that most people support the PYD, or at least that's what I assume noticing that many ethnic Kurds from Syria are actually refugees from Turkey who fled the 1980 coup d'état and you'll find the TAF facing a huge army, armed to the teeth, battle hardened with enough manpower at their disposal to deliver heavy losses to the TAF which will not only threaten the political situation in Turkey but also it's diplomatic ties with the USA, as we speak the USA is currently fighting alongside the forces linked to the PKK in Syria and have made it clear with their latest military basis that they have chosen the SDF/YPG over Turkey's interests.

In the meantime, Turkish-backed rebels are getting eaten up by radical factions near Idlib and their own auxiliaries who should run the areas where Turkish soldiers gave their sweat and blood for have already shown not to be able to run their own state. 

Turco-US military relations under President Trump

Today marks the second day that President Donald Trump and his Administration lead the executive branch of the US government. Regarding Turkey, many predictions have been given about Turco-US relations and, I'm confident, many more will follow. Since this relationship is marked by war and conflict in the Middle East, I thought that it might be helpful to provide some insights on the new Secretary of Defense, Mattis, so that you are more equipped when entering a discussion about Turco-US (military) relations. Therefore, I have watched an interview (2015) between SoD Mattis and the leading interview of the Hoover Institution (Stanford University) Peter Robinson. The following will be four interesting remarks on that interview.

Around 5m00:

SoD Mattis said that political decision-makers should clearly state the political objectives and ask themselves whether it is achievable before they engage into military conflict. I think that this will lead to a reevaluation of Turco-US ties, in which the US will ultimately see that Turkey is too valuable a partner. This does not mean that the US will give Turkey and its current Administration a carte blanche, but I predict that the US will work together with Turkey and push forward to reform together.

Around 8m00:

SoD Mattis said that if the civilians do not clarify clear objectives, the professionals (i.e. the armed forces) cannot succeed. I subscribe to this view entirely and hope that the Erdogan Administration will come up with more clearly stated political goals and benefits in favor of entering Syria militarily. (This could also, for example, be to enhance NATO cooperation)

Around a point that I forgot to write down the time:

SoD Mattis said during his 2015 interview that the Generals and Admirals must (!!) make themselves heard, but not obeyed. This principle goes directly into the larger part of 20th century Turkish politics and I hope that this principle of SoD Mattis will be stressed during talks between Turkish and US military officials.

Around 18m00:

"The engine for our national security has always been our economy." If Turkey is to improve the state of its national security, then Turkey has to improve its economy. With investors like the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Japense investors announcing new investments into Turkey, I'm confident that the Turkish economy will continue to grow. However, this continuation of new investments from the outside means that the current (economic) turmoil is not so much an economic issue as it is (relatively) more a political one. The Erdogan Administration must stop denouncing decades-past established economic laws. This only scares investors away and hurts the economy.

Around 33m15:

Regarding the religion of Islam, then General (Ret.) and now SoD Mattis, stated that the religion itself is not a problem (although not in so many words). He gave the example of several Middle Eastern heads-of-government/state who pursued a political project and arrangement in which the state is ruled by human reasoning and not by divine rule/law/thought. This arrangement does not mean that religion has no place in society. In the contrary, religion can absolutely can play a role in society, however, it should not guide politics. 

That was it. I predict that SoD Mattis will improve Turco-US ties and at the same time stress the importance of healthy civil-military and state-military relations with his Turkish counterparts.

A journalist or propagandist ?

Yesterday I showed the other admin (Antepli) some tweets that sparked an interesting discussion.  In the first tweet, the Turkish justice minister had claimed that nobody [in Turkey] was imprisoned for journalism immediately followed by several other tweets showing lists of journalists that were imprisoned to which the other admin his argumentation followed from his notion that journalists are also subject to criminal law and that their journalistic rights protect their conduct and not their content even while he accepted that several of them were indeed unjustly arrested.

Yet I believe that there are some issues regarding this, the first being with the 'who' becomes 'when' a journalist or a writer for the PKK? If a PKK leader one day declares that "The Turkish state is a terrorist entity" and one journalist tweets pretty much the same, does that somehow mean that the journalist is writing for the PKK to spread their message? Unfortunately for the Turkish government is often can be enough reason to arrest you but this is exactly what creates the bigger problem, anybody who by chance says the same as what a PKK leader once has said suddenly becomes a terrorist in the eyes of the government further threatening the already pathetic state of freedom of speech in Turkey in which everybody could be a potential PKK propagandist.

Forex terrorism

Erdogan said that forex traders moving capital out of the country are also terrorist. The meaning of terrorist does not apply to forex traders who drop the lira as a logical decision due to its declining value. Although the AKP and Erdogan are good for the long-term prospects of Turkey via its politicizing value which in turn will connect the nation and, eventually, demarcate the political from the civil, it doesn't mean that the economy should be attacked or neglected like it is happening now. I have published several posts about the economy and its effect through a modernization approach on this page as well as our history page, however, even I'm getting concerned now.

Written by Antepli, posted by Kafkasli.

Christian Right in the US and pro-Islamic Turkish-movements

I read this scientific article in which the author (Esen Kirdis) compares the Christian Right in the US and the pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey. He researches the moderation of the Christian Right and the failure of the pro-Islamic Turkish movements by using the "most different systems approach". Below you'll find my remarks I want to share with you.

Kisir first starts off with the emergence of these parties, which is actually not relevant for now. He continues to employ the inclusion-moderation theory, which describes the mechanisms of how and why a political movement (once evolved into a political party) moderates. The Christian Right in the US demanded, for instance, that school's continued with the prayers like before. However, during and after (thus actually contributing to) the Christian Right's successful integration into the Republic Party as an important force to be reckoned with, the Christian Right changed their firm ideologically-based stances into demands for rights. Getting back to the previous example: they now demanded that students have the right to pray. Indeed, this is not radical and within the confines of liberty unlike their stances before the inclusion.

Now, the pro-Islamic Turkish-movements also had a similar problem of organizing. However, unlike the Christian Right that had to integrate itself into a political party (perhaps also due to the two-party system in the US), the Turkish pro-Islamic movements had to come up with a new strategy to transform themselves and become elected into parliament AND being allowed by the laic order of Turkey—the last requirement being the most important one. AKP successfully gathered the support of enough though different pro-Islamic Turkish-movements and became the first party being elected into the Turkish parliament and even government with a Muslim and perhaps Islamic background. They, of course, did this by staying within the boundaries of the laic political system and with the help of economic reforms and the EU. However, because there was no party to challenge them—personally, I think because the other parties and in particular the CHP never established themselves as true political parties—the AKP had some sort of carte blanche to prepare for the future decade. Especially since the Turkish electoral rules are thus that the AKP started out with only 34-35% of the votes and their best seat-score in parliament, while seeing seats vanish at the same time that more people vote AKP. 

My take from this article is that the crucial thing, among many, is that the Turkish pro-Islamic movements needn't to integrate themselves into an already established party and they met little effective resistance—they met real difficult and hard resistance—when they successfully got elected into parliament and government. This paved the way for stretching boundaries of the religiosity of the state and created the situation in which we are now. This sounds quite bad, but at the same time it is the inevitable sociology of Turkey, since many Turkish citizens are religious and have been repressed for decades. I think (hope) that this'll change over the course of the coming 1-1.5 decades when the Turkish economy modernizes. Modernization theory explains that when the economy modernizes (further), the political will follow. Many people will loose their religion since affluence will be their religion (cf. Western Europe just after WW2 and now). 

- Esen Kirdiş (2016) Immoderation: comparing the Christian Right in the US and pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey, Democratization, 23:3, 417-436, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2014.975125

AKP's electoral victories

In his article, K. Cinar argues that the state of the economy and the provision of public services are statistically significant, just as religiosity indicated by "preacher school attendance", for AKP support. Hence, a bad economy means less support for the AKP. 

Below you'll find an excerpt of his article. The table is explained in the note within the picture.

"Evidence of “economic voting” can also be found in the statistical analyses. Longitudinal analyses of individual elections [2002, 2007, 2011] show that both unemployment and percentage of province population out of social security negatively correlate with the AKP vote and seat shares. The impact of unemployment has risen statistically from the 2002 election to the succeeding elections, as evidenced by increased coefficients and t-scores. A one unit increase in the percentage of the unemployed caused a 1.8% decrease in AKP vote shares and 2.8% decrease in AKP seat shares in the most recent 2011 election. In a similar vein, the effect of the percentage of population out of social security increases over time, as evidenced by its ascending impact on AKP seat share regressions. A one unit increase in this figure led to 1.6% decrease in AKP seat shares in the 2007 election and 1.8% decrease in AKP seat shares in the 2011 election.

Furthermore, ordered logit regressions show that unemployment at the locality level hinders the occurrence of AKP’s electoral hegemony (“AKP Wins”). Simulations show that a 5% increase in the percentage of the unemployment in a province (from 5% to 10%) decreases the probability of the AKP electoral hegemony (that is, AKP Win = 3) by 27.2%. These results confirm that, contrary to established hegemonies, emerging hegemonies are affected by economic slumps. Hypothesis 3 regarding economic voting holds in light of these results. Voters reward the governing party for better services and punish them due to bad economic outcomes. Localities with better provision of public services and lower levels of unemployment are more likely to produce a strong electoral hegemony, as evidenced by the AKP case."

- Kursat Cinar (2016) Local determinants of an emerging electoral hegemony: the case of Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey, Democratization, 23:7, 1216-1235, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2015.1077228