TR Foreign Policy & Geopolitics

Asena_great

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They still believe Istanbul and Anadolu belongs to them.

Now the water too LOL
What I don't understand about these European politicians and observers , it was Turkish nationalists and secularists who got rid Turkey of Greeks , Armenians, Asyrians Yezidis etc. Banned Free Masonary etc . It wasn't work of the Islamists.
you must understand what is happening to you in order to combat it. the westerns civilization build up on twin pillars of anti Semitism and anti Turkism. the so called enlightened class of their society use foreign elements like jews and turks in order to civilized their people, hence the ideology of the west always need an enemy. if you read the memories of people like lloyd george and others they had genocidal thoughts on Turks ( with some decree also jews ) they able to end Turkish civilization in Balkans which was the homeland of Turks for 400 years and in doing so killed so many of us they wanted to do the same for Anatolia but Atatürk throw their dream into the sea. they would have done the same thing they did to jews in ww2 to turks in ww1 have if not for Atatürk. we lacked the awareness of what is happening to us . after ww2 and holocaust jews develop the awareness both on themselves and on the people of the West hence both jews and westerners can detect and reject anti Semitism but we didn't develop such awareness . i even didn't look at the issue like this, this is the benefits of having friends who study philosophy, they can break down ideology for you. nvm since Turks didnt develop this awareness they cant understand why this is happening to them they say its just a racism no its not , its deeper since they dont have the same awareness like jews they cant stop anti Turkism. and when event such as kaan's first flights happens this anti turkism show itself. the situations was like this unti 9/11 after that Arabs become number 1 enemy of the west we are taking back seat in that car for now
 
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mehmed beg

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you must understand what is happening to you in order to combat it. the westerns civilization build up on twin pillars of anti Semitism and anti Turkism. the so called enlightened class of their society use foreign elements like jews and turks in order to civilized their people, hence the ideology of the west always need an enemy. if you read the memories of people like lloyd george and others they had genocidal thoughts on Turks ( with some decree also jews ) they able to end Turkish civilization in Balkans which was the homeland of Turks for 400 years and in doing so killed so many of us they wanted to do the same for Anatolia but Atatürk throw their dream into the sea. they would have done the same thing they did to jews in ww2 to turks have if not for Atatürk. we lacked the awareness of what is happening to us . after ww2 and holocaust jews develop the awareness both on themselves and on the people of the West but we didn't. i even didn't look at the issue like this, this is the benefits of having friends who study philosophy, they can break down ideology for you. nvm since Turks didnt develop this awareness they cant understand why this is happening to them they say its just a racism no its not , its deeper since they dont have the same awareness like jews they cant stop anti Turkism. and when event such as kaan's first flights happens this anti turkism show itself. the situations was like this unti 9/11 after that Arabs become number 1 enemy of the west we are taking back seat in that car for now
That part in regards of Balkans, I went through. My father and 2 cousins didn't make it though. Just my sister as an asthesiologist did about 1000 operations.
I know these people very well, what they think of you they think of me. Anyway, very good observations 👍👍👍
 

_Mu_

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How Turkey Moved East​

Erdogan and the Rise of an Anatolian Foreign Policy​

By Soner Cagaptay

https://marketplace.copyright.com/rs-ui-web/mp/details/journal/122798584

In late January, the Turkish parliament ratified Sweden’s accession to NATO, bringing an end to nearly two years of stonewalling by the Turkish government. Ankara had held up Stockholm’s entry into the alliance ostensibly because Sweden has allowed members and fundraisers of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, an internationally designated terrorist group that has fought with the Turkish state for decades, to operate on its soil. But Turkish opposition to Swedish membership melted away once Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan secured what he really wanted: 40 F-16 fighter jets from the United States, equipment upgrades to Turkey’s existing fleet of aircraft, and a potential opportunity to meet U.S. President Joe Biden.
That Washington agreed to this $23 billion arms deal is no small matter. A de facto embargo on U.S. weapons sales to Turkey had been in place ever since Ankara purchased Russian missile defense systems in 2017. At the time, an angered Congress placed a hold on Turkey’s request to buy F-16 aircraft, and U.S. officials and lawmakers berated Turkey for purchasing weapons from a NATO adversary. U.S. President Joe Biden is also the only U.S. president not to have invited Erdogan to the White House in Erdogan’s two decades in power. And yet the United States is so eager to bolster the ranks of NATO and suppress any fractiousness within the alliance that it has caved to Turkish demands. All this has given Erdogan—who as recently as last spring was largely shunned by the White House—a rather emphatic diplomatic victory. U.S. officials have even hinted that Biden may soon invite his Turkish counterpart to the White House.
Some analysts have interpreted this deal as representing a major reset in U.S. relations with Turkey. Allowing Sweden into NATO may augur a period of warming ties between Turkey and the West and may signal Turkey’s closer alignment with the alliance’s core members on all issues.

That would misread Turkey’s true geopolitical orientation. Instead, the deal reflects the fundamentally transactional nature of foreign policy under Erdogan, a leader willing to look east, west, north, and south in pursuit of his ambitions. Indeed, a deeper and more important shift is underway within Turkey, one that, even amid the current reconciliation over NATO expansion, is pulling it away from the West.
The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, also known as Ataturk, forged the country as a European secular republic. Many Turkish leaders and elites followed Ataturk in trying to shape the state and its institutions along European lines. They would secure the country’s entry into NATO in 1952 and, in later decades, strive to join the European Union. But at least since the early years of this century, the Western-leaning Turkish elites of yesteryear began to lose control over a society that they had tried to direct ever since the country’s founding, in 1923. Erdogan embodies that shift even as he is not entirely responsible for it. Unlike Ataturk, who came from the Ottoman Empire’s European provinces, Erdogan hails from Anatolia; his political base consists of pious Anatolians, many of whom never fully adopted Ataturk’s radically secularist project. Accordingly, Erdogan’s Turkey has fewer emotional and political attachments to the West. The new Turkey that he has crafted is anchored not in Europe but in the Turkish hinterland. Its foreign policy represents the political and cultural sensitivities of Anatolians far removed from the secularist ethos of the elites who founded the country.
This is not to say that Turkey will abandon its seat at the table of the West. After all, Turkey’s quest to join the West, which goes as far back as the first attempts at Europeanization by Ottoman elites in the early eighteenth century, is as old as modern Europe itself. Rather, with its center of gravity now in Anatolia, Turkey can be expected to position itself as a hybrid power between the West and the rest of the world. A European-influenced outlook governed Turkish foreign policy for decades, but the new Turkey will freely engage other countries without regard to Western objectives or priorities. That is because Turkey now sees the world through an Anatolian lens.

THE RELOCATION OF TURKEY

Countries can uproot themselves. It is often said that Poland “moved” in the early twentieth century. After World War I, Poland included parts of what is now Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belarus. But after World War II, it relocated westward—to its current location—losing its eastern territories and gaining stretches of what was then Germany. It physically moved from east to west.
Turkey moved in the opposite direction. In the late nineteenth century, during Ottoman times, many of the major urban centers of the empire were in its European provinces in the Balkans, including Shkoder (in modern-day Albania), Pristina (in modern-day Kosovo), Plovdiv (in modern-day Bulgaria), Skopje (in modern-day North Macedonia), and Thessaloniki (in modern-day Greece). Thessaloniki, Ataturk’s birthplace, especially shone, as the empire’s second-largest city (after Istanbul) and as its cultural and commercial capital—the equivalent of New York City in the United States today.
But the Ottomans had lost all of these European territories—with the exception of Istanbul, Edirne, on the Bulgarian border, and a strip of territory in between—by the end of the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. The modern Turkish state ended up relocating to Anatolia in the east, constituting itself across the vastness of the Asia Minor plateau, including in traditionally Kurdish areas and those recently depopulated of Armenians in eastern Anatolia. To anchor the new country in Anatolia, Ataturk picked as its new capital Ankara, which lay at the heart of the peninsular steppe and was his former headquarters during the Turkish war of independence. Initially designed as a garden city with villas, reminiscent of those eastern European cities lost in prior decades, Ankara symbolized the birth of a European country from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire—in the middle of Anatolia.
At the republic’s founding, Turkey’s elites—many of them born in Europe and catapulted into Anatolia during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire—held on to European-influenced ideas of statecraft and social life. At the helm of this group, Ataturk expelled Islam into the private sphere, banned religious brotherhoods, purged Islam from Turkish laws, and came close to outlawing religious education. Additionally, he changed the country’s alphabet from an Arabic-based script to a Roman one, expunging Arabic and Persian words from Turkish while retaining French and Italian borrowings. Turkey also dropped the Islamic Hegira calendar in favor of the Western Gregorian alternative and banned fezzes and turbans for men. In this way, modern Turkey’s founder hard-formatted the country to embed it firmly into the West.

Ataturk hard-formatted Turkey to embed it firmly into the West.
Ataturk and his followers, known as Kemalists, from cabinet interior ministers in charge of his feared and powerful single-party state down to idealist schoolteachers crisscrossing Anatolia to spread the new modern secular ethos, were often born and raised in the Balkans. These founding elites were occasionally distraught when visiting Anatolia’s vast and steppe-like plateau and meeting its conservative and pious inhabitants. One writer of this era, Sevket Sureyya Aydemir, a prominent Kemalist intellectual with roots in Ottoman Bulgaria, described Anatolia in his 1959 memoir as “nothing but an already dead piece of the earth’s crust.” At Republic Day balls organized across small Anatolian towns only years after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the loss of its European provinces, Kemalist bureaucrats would dance to European tunes played by jazz bands, to the bewilderment of the attending Anatolian peasants.
Ataturk’s European project, however, was by no means limited to the country’s elites. During the unraveling of the Ottoman Empire, which started in the nineteenth century, millions of Turks and non-Turkish Muslims—including Albanians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Macedonians—moved into Anatolia. These groups, who had faced persecution in newly formed Balkan countries, were joined in Anatolia by an even bigger exodus of Turks and other Muslims from Europe during the Balkan Wars. Together with Muslims expelled by Russia from the former Ottoman territories north of the Black Sea (such as Circassia and Crimea), European Muslims thus accounted for nearly 40 percent of Turkey’s population by the time Ataturk founded the republic, in 1923. And they tended to support Ataturk’s project of strict secularization.
Modern Turkey became a multiparty democracy in the 1950s less than two decades after Ataturk’s death, in 1938, and his Kemalist followers on the left and right, many of them born in the Balkans or descendants of immigrants from Europe, perpetuated the idea of Turkey as a European entity. Turkey’s democratic evolution after World War II and inclusion in the West during the Cold War further strengthened the country’s claims to a European and Western identity. Ankara joined many pan-European organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Council of Europe, as a founding member, and was admitted to NATO soon after the alliance’s creation.
With the passing of a century, however, the connection to Europe held by many Turks became increasingly tenuous. When Erdogan came to power, in 2003, native Anatolians constituted an overwhelming majority of Turkey’s population. Hailing from the peninsula’s steppe interior, mountainous east, and Black Sea littoral, this population tended to be devoutly Muslim and, for the most part, had never been fully at ease with the republic’s secularist founding project. As these conservative hinterland Turks began to enter the middle class and climb up the ladder of political power, the European identity that Ataturk grafted onto the nation became thinner with each passing decade, eventually falling away. Unlike the Kemalists, the new Anatolian elites do not think of themselves primarily as European, and their view has come to form the heart of Turkey’s geopolitical identity.

THE MARCH OF THE ANATOLIANS

I was born in Anatolia and grew up in Turkey during the late twentieth century, where I received a staunchly Kemalist education. Even with that upbringing, it perplexed me during my teenage years to observe the ways in which Turkey clung to European identity. In school, we spent days studying European countries, including some far away, while the curriculum merely glanced over Turkey’s immediate Middle Eastern neighbors. Many Turks understood the Middle East similar to the way many Argentinians saw Latin America. Just as Argentinians would say that they are not really Latin American but Europeans who happened to live in Latin America, Kemalism encouraged its citizens, including me, to think that Turks were, in fact, Europeans who happened to live close to the Middle East. On local Turkish TV networks, international weather forecasts would beam a map of Europe centered not on Turkey but often on Switzerland, with Turkey tucked in the map’s lower corner, as if Turks should imagine their country as an appendage to a larger European whole.
Yet Europe was more hesitant about its relation to Turkey. Between 1995 and 2013, during the rapid expansion that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the European Union absorbed 16 new countries. At first, it looked like Turkey might join this group: its own accession process had begun before the end of the Cold War, in 1987, and received a shot in the arm with Erdogan’s coming to power, in 2003. Erdogan was hailed by many European observers as a new style of moderate Islamist who was deeply committed to democratic institutions and willing to take on the country’s entrenched military and turn Turkey into a full-fledged democracy. In 2005, the EU started formal talks with Turkey regarding membership.
But Turkey remained on the outside. Soon after talks began, Brussels notified Ankara that no offer for membership would be forthcoming. Ostensibly, that decision had to do with the abiding dispute between Turkey and Cyprus regarding North Cyprus, but in reality, France and Germany were reluctant to welcome a country of Turkey’s size and heft into the union. The EU had never before started accession talks with a country that did not culminate in an offer of membership. The unique signaling this time around was clear: Turkey had no home in Europe.

Coupled with Turkey’s disappointing EU membership talks, Erdogan’s transformative rule helped firmly anchor Turkey in Anatolia. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) encapsulates—par excellence—the rise of the Anatolians in the country. The AKP is a machine fueled by voters, businesses, elites, and an ethos rooted in Anatolia’s interior and the Black Sea coast—where Erdogan’s parents are from—and in the east, which includes many Kurds. Erdogan’s cabinets have been stacked with politicians from these areas. The politicians with ties to the Balkans who dominated cabinets before Erdogan’s rise have all but disappeared. The same can be said of the ranks of the bureaucracy, as well as high courts and key media outlets, many of which have been taken over by Anatolians sympathetic to the president.
Along these lines, Turkey’s powerful, pro-European business lobby, TUSIAD, has seen its influence diminish in recent years. Dominated by businesses in Istanbul and Izmir that were formed by people who had come from the former European provinces of the Ottoman Empire, TUSIAD often drove the political agenda in the country; it called for EU accession in the 1980s and funded a bold study in the 1990s, at the height of the PKK insurgency, that proposed a political solution to Kurdish separatism. Since Erdogan came to power, however, a different business elite has held sway and shaped the political agenda; Anatolian-run businesses and billionaires who often hail from the Black Sea coast back the president and encourage Turkey to shed its commitment to Kemalist secularism, maintain economic ties with Russia, and increase its political footprint in the global South.
This Anatolian takeover is simply a product of Turkey’s demographic shift over the past decades and the diminishing hold of the old secular elites over Turkish society. Erdogan is not the cause of this change so much as he is a major symptom of it. Turkey’s new Anatolian elites have taken charge, and they do not see the country’s identity in the terms laid down by Ataturk and his Kemalist successors. These elites, often informed by more conservative strains of Islam, also see Islam as inherent to Turkey’s national identity. In fact, these new elites celebrate Islam as vigorously as Ataturk tried to suppress it. The AKP movement has long sought to challenge and then eliminate Turkey’s Kemalist-era attachment to Europe and the West, and with that, the country’s commitment to European-style secularism that mimicked (and perhaps exceeded in its severity) France’s system of laicity. Since coming to power, Erdogan has lifted Turkey’s Kemalist-era ban on the hijab while also allowing Islam to flood into the country’s educational curriculum and political life.
Under Erdogan, ties with Russia have improved. The two countries are historic competitors, and they have been on different sides in wars in Syria, Libya, the South Caucasus, and Ukraine—Ankara has been providing Kyiv with crucial political and military support. Despite this competition, Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have had a close bond ever since 2016, when a coup attempt in Turkey failed. At the time, Turkey’s Western allies, including the United States, then led by President Barack Obama, missed a major opportunity by not embracing Turkey and its democracy after the traumatic putsch attempt. Putin, astutely, hosted Erdogan barely two weeks after the failed coup, forming the rapport that lasts to this day. That, in return, has allowed Ankara and Moscow to craft power-sharing arrangements in Syria and Libya, where they back different parties to the conflict. The two countries have also seen booming trade and tourism ties and the shared notion emerging among Turks and Russians that they are both “in-between peoples,” impossible to pigeonhole into a singular identity globally.

HERE TO STAY

A hundred years after being constituted by Ataturk, Turkey is settling in its place, much like a house settling in its foundations: in Anatolia, at the crossroads between the Middle East, Europe, and Eurasia. This Turkey still sees itself as part of Europe, but not to the detriment of its other associations. Ankara now freely engages with Iran, Russia, the United States, wealthy Gulf monarchies, Europe, and other regional and global actors without feeling that it has to choose a favorite partner. Where twentieth-century Turkish leaders had an emotional attachment to Europe, Erdogan does not; his Turkey is more self-guided and convinced of its own virtues.
This new Turkey will, of course, remain a member of NATO, which brings Ankara cachet as well as protection from Moscow (at some point, Turkey’s elites fear, the relationship between the two countries may once again become more hostile), and leverage with other NATO powers. But it will simultaneously forge ties and partnerships with countries in the Middle East and Eurasia. Ukrainian forces often use Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, for instance, even as Turkey’s overall trade with Russia has only increased since the outset of the Kremlin’s February 2022 attack on Ukraine. In the Middle East, Erdogan has recently reset Ankara’s ties with Riyadh. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey dipped after Saudi operatives assassinated the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, as Turkish officials helped link Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the killing. But in March 2023, Turkish courts transferred the prosecution of the crown prince to Saudi courts, and in return, the Saudi Fund for Development deposited nearly $5 billion in Turkey’s central bank to help the country’s embattled economy—conveniently just ahead of the May presidential election in Turkey, which Erdogan won.

Erdogan’s transformative rule helped firmly anchor Turkey in Anatolia.
The new Turkey has many identities, none of them exclusive or easy to classify: if it is a Middle Eastern country, then it is also the only Middle Eastern state that is also a Black Sea power. And if it is a European country, then it is the only European state that borders Iran. And if it is a Eurasian power, it is the only one that belongs to NATO.
The best way for the United States to approach Turkey is to acknowledge the reality of these multiple alignments. Erdogan is fond of being seen as the center of things, with the world turning around Turkey—he has tried to serve as an arbiter in the war in Ukraine, played an active role in the South Caucasus, and projected Turkey’s power in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, South Caucasus, and the Western Balkans. He relishes being the dealmaker or the middleman in regional conflicts, which boosts his already monumental standing at home. The United States must deal with Turkey as it does other middle powers, such as India and Indonesia, accepting that these countries see no contradiction in maintaining strong ties with both Washington and its adversaries.
After all, for all his years of bluster, Erdogan may now have little interest in antagonizing the West. After winning the 2023 presidential election, Erdogan no longer faces any significant domestic challenges, and is entering the legacy-building phase of his career. Having reshaped Turkey’s geopolitical path, he now wants to leave behind a positive legacy. This presents Biden, or Biden’s successor, an opportunity to embrace the new Turkey and leverage Ankara’s influence in the era of great power competition. Ankara could be eager to work with Washington on a bevy of issues, including the reconstruction of Ukraine and Gaza and countering Russian and Chinese influence in Africa and the Balkans, even as it retains ties with Russia and Gulf monarchies. Turkey has jettisoned any desire to join the West, and the United States must recognize that its multialignment is here to stay.
 
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_Mu_

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Can Turkey and Iraq pull off the ‘Dry Canal’ project?​

While experts believe the ‘Dry Canal’ project involving road and rail networks faces an uphill battle, the initiative seems to stand a better chance than its alternatives.

https://www.al-monitor.com/authors/barn-kayaoglu.html
February 18, 2024

Barin Kayaoglu
ANKARA — As security concerns over the Red Sea have expedited the so-called Dry Canal project aiming to connect the Persian Gulf to Turkey, experts believe implementation of the initiative faces an uphill battle.
The initiative, which is also known as “Development Road,” aims to connect Iraq’s Grand Port at Al-Faw near the Persian Gulf to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast and then to Europe via new rail and road networks.
The initiative was also among the issues discussed between Turkish, Iraqi, Emirati and Iraqi Kurdish officials earlier this week during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visit to the United Arab Emirates on Feb. 12-13.
“The Development Road is a giant project in which the UAE, Iraq and we are also involved,” Erdogan told journalists on his return from the visit, adding that the talks about the initiative were ongoing.
Turkey and Iraq leverage their location
The Iraqi government originally proposed the Dry Canal idea in the early 2010s but had to shelve it when the threat from the Islamic State (ISIS) emerged.
The project, which is also dubbed as the “New Silk Road,” is expected to cost approximately $17-18 billion and will have the capacity to carry one million passengers, 3.5 million containers and 22 million tons of bulk cargo by 2028, according to Abu Dhabi-based think tank Emirates Policy Center. Cargo capacity is expected to more than double through additional phases of development by 2038, figures show.
The idea has also attracted Turkish imagination, given Ankara’s growing interest in turning Turkey into a hub at the intersection of the major international trade routes.
Turkey, along with its Caucasus countries and fellow Turkic republics in Central Asia, has already been working on expanding the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route to link China to Europe through Central Asia and Turkey. Also called the “Middle Corridor,” the route considerably lessens the distance for China-Europe trade and helps to cut transport times in half while also benefiting Turkish commerce with Asia.
The reality of the Suez Canal and additional challenges
Along similar lines, the Turkey-Iraq route is promoted as a “dry” alternative to the Suez Canal. Yet even the most enthusiastic champions of the Dry Canal admit that it cannot realistically compete with the Suez, through which 88 million containers transit annually. The Turkey-Iraqi route will be able to accommodate about 10% of that cargo volume by 2038 — that is, if everything goes according to plan.
There are also political challenges facing the Dry Canal. According to Zmkan Ali, an associate fellow at Chatham House, the project’s sustainability and long-term stability are question marks, given autonomy of militia groups that are only nominally under the control of the central government in Baghdad.
These militias would expect to gain from the Dry Canal economically, Ali told Al-Monitor. “If not, they are highly likely to jeopardize trade on routes and in areas they control.”
Ali added that a good portion of the project’s rail and road networks will be passing through Iraqi territory where the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) enjoys considerable influence. PKK, which has been waging a war for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and the majority of European capitals.
Ali pointed out that without offering buy-in to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the ruling party in the KRG and Turkey as an ally against the PKK, the Development Road may not come to fruition.
According to Mehmet Alaca, a journalist and researcher specializing in Iraq and the KRG, the existing Habur crossing, the main crossing between Turkey and Iraq, cannot accommodate the expanded rail and road networks envisaged under the Dry Canal.
The new Turkey-Iraq corridor will require the construction of the long-discussed-but-never-materialized Ovakoy crossing to the west, Alaca said.
“The KDP is worried that it could be sidelined from the project or that if tensions with Ankara were to escalate in the future, Ankara and Baghdad could use Ovakoy to bypass Habur and the KDP,” he told Al-Monitor.
And then the KDP would not be as enthusiastic about helping Turkey against the PKK. In a detailed study that he co-authored in Feb. 2023, Alaca wrote, “The completion and future of the Dry Canal is dependent upon a strong Ankara-Erbil-Baghdad political framework."
Notably, following his meeting with KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on the sidelines of his visit to the UAE earlier this week, Erdogan also admitted that Iraqi Kurdish officials were indeed concerned in that regard.
“Northern Iraq has some sensitivities in regard to this project. We do too. That's why we're taking our steps accordingly," Erdogan said.
Turkey and Iraq’s trump card
Still, several factors put the Turkey-Iraq route at an advantage. Increasing attacks by Yemen-based Houthis’ on commercial ships passing through the Red Sea since the start of the Hamas-Israel war — not to mention an accident that closed the Suez off for a week in March 2021 — indicate alternatives to the Suez Canal are needed.
The Dry Canal project also has a better chance to challenge the proposed India-Middle East Economic Corridor (IMEC), which is aimed at linking India to the Mediterranean through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. Yet the IMEC plan, which has its terminus in Israel’s port of Haifa, also faces the security risks as the Suez-Red Sea route.
In fact, those very risks could improve Ankara and Baghdad’s chances to secure funding from the Saudis and the Emiratis for the Dry Canal.
Indeed, the Gaza war may have moved up Ankara and Baghdad’s timeline. In Sept. 2023, Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said the railway component of the project could be finished as early as 2025, and “the entire project may be completed in 2028.”
All told, much like the Middle Corridor enabling Turkish access to the Caucasus and Central Asia, the Turkey-Iraq Development Road could prove to be a helpful mechanism in bypassing main trade routes that are at risk of major logistical and security disruption.
 

_Mu_

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Fratricidal Jihad: Assessing the Central Asian ISKP Attacks on Turkey​

Due to linguistic, religious, and cultural commonalities, members of the Islamic State and al-Qaida from Central Asia can often bypass security filters in the wider Turkic world.
By Uran Botobekov
February 23, 2024

Although Turkey regards the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia as its strategic allies, viewing them as “brothers with common historical, linguistic, and cultural ties,” and confidently assumes the role of a “big brother” (Büyük Abi) to politically and economically integrate the vast Turkic world, it has paradoxically encountered security threats from Central Asian Salafi-Jihadi groups affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaida over the past decade.
Beyond Borders: Tajik ISKP’s Calculated Strike on a Catholic Church in Istanbul
The January 28 assault targeting an Italian church in Istanbul’s Sariyer district during Sunday worship deeply unsettled Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally reached out to the church’s priest, Rev. Anton Bulai, to convey his condolences and express support for the country’s Christian community.
In the aftermath, the Islamic State, through its official Amaq News Agency, claimed responsibility for the attack, which resulted in the death of one congregant and the injury of another. The group stated that the attack was perpetrated as part of their new global campaign titled “And Kill Them Wherever You Find Them,” which specifically targets Jews, “Crusaders,” and their perceived criminal allies, in response to Israeli military actions in Gaza, according to the Amaq News Agency. The attack was carried out by two Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) members.
Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MIT) swiftly apprehended two perpetrators allegedly responsible for the terrorist attack, naming them as Amirjon Kholikov from Tajikistan and David Tanduev from the North Caucasus in Russia, along with 34 suspected accomplices. The individuals are under investigation for alleged charges of “membership of the ISKP terror organization” and “premeditated murder.”
The incident once again highlights how, due to linguistic, religious, and cultural commonalities, members of the Islamic State and al-Qaida from the Central Asian republics can often bypass security filters in the wider Turkic world. They can legally reside and work in Turkey, successfully infiltrating the local society. They patiently await commands from their emirs to carry out lone-wolf terrorist attacks, adeptly navigating security measures. According to MIT, Tajik ISKP member Kholikov had a residence and work permit in Istabul’s Basaksehir, which is a favorite haven for Uzbek, Tajik, and Turkmen migrants. Kholikov reportedly kept his residence permit inside a Quran, the holy book for Muslims.
One of the detained suspects, identified as Alisher Ugli Mirzoev and appearing to be of Uzbek nationality based on his name, attempted to organize weapons training for Islamic State members on a farm in Istanbul. He planned to send them to the U.S. in July 2023, as reported by Turkish intelligence. MIT asserted that Mirzoev, failing to accomplish his objectives, reported to Adam Khamirzaev, one of the Central Asian ISKP leaders, seeking permission to execute an operation in Turkey. These details, along with the insights from Telegram discussions among ISKP members, lead us to the conclusion that Tajik and Uzbek ISKP members have been attempting to plan transnational operations on U.S. soil. Their intent is to strike at the core of the “big enemy,” a warning previously emphasized by U.S. Central Command’s Gen. Michael Kurilla.
Resurfacing Horrors: The Lingering Impact of Past Uzbek ISKP Attacks in Istanbul
Significantly, acting upon the Islamic State Shura Council’s hukum (order), its Central Asian members executed three high-profile targeted attacks on Turkish territory in the past seven years. Overall, IS-linked foreigners were involved in at least seven of the 17 ISIS attacks in Turkey between 2014 and 2024 that killed some 300 people in total. These actions were aimed at undermining Ankara’s counterterrorism efforts, both domestically and in neighboring Syria and Iraq.
The most prominent IS attack in Turkey involving Central Asian militants was the assault on the Reina nightclub on January 1, 2017, which was described by the Amaq News Agency as “God’s punishment for those who deviated from Islamic norms of life and celebrating the polytheistic [pagan] holiday of New Year.” The attack saw IS fighter Abdulkadir Masharipov (alias Muhammed al-Khurasani), an Uzbek national, open fire at the Istanbul nightclub, killing 39 people. Following an extensive manhunt, Turkish security forces arrested Masharipov on January 17, 2017, in Esenyurt, an Istanbul district densely populated by Central Asian migrants, where he had reportedly been hiding in the home of a Kyrgyz national since the shooting.
Masharipov hailed from a small town in the Fergana region along the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border. He was born in 1983 and graduated from Fergana State University in Uzbekistan. Associated with jihadi terrorist organizations since 2011, Masharipov received military training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan. Subsequently, while in Pakistan, Masharipov joined ISKP, pledging allegiance to IS’ first leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at a later point.
Another sophisticated suicide attack involving Central Asian IS terrorists took place at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul on June 28, 2016. The assailants, hailing from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and the Russia’s Dagestan, carried out the attack on behalf of the Islamic State after traveling to Turkey from IS-controlled Syria. The incident resulted in the tragic loss of 45 people, with over 230 individuals sustaining injuries. Turkey’s MIT identified the mastermind behind the Istanbul airport attack as Akhmed Chataev, a Chechen Salafi jihadist and the leader of a Russian-speaking IS faction in the post-Soviet space. As a component of the subsequent counterterrorism operation, Turkish security forces implicated and apprehended 42 migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. In June 2022, the Bakirkoy High Criminal Court in Istanbul sentenced six IS members to 46 aggravated life sentences and a cumulative imprisonment term of 2,604 years.
Unmasking Central Asian Clandestine Terror Cells in Turkey
As revealed by court documents on IS terror attacks in Turkey involving Uzbek and Tajik militants, evident linkages and tight coordination exist within the triangle: the Islamic State’s core leadership in Iraq and Syria, and its provinces of “Wilayah Türkiye” and “Wilayah Khurasan,” encompassing aspects such as recruitment, logistics, and fundraising. According to Masharipov’s 2017 testimony to the Turkish prosecutor, he was dispatched to Syria by his ISKP parent organization. The command to attack the Reina nightclub came through Telegram from an IS emir in Raqqa, named Abu Shuhada. Furthermore, the funds (amounting to $197,000), weapons (an AK-47 with six loaded magazines and three stun grenades), and multiple cell phone SIM cards were provided by the IS-Central cell in Istanbul. An investigation into the Reina attack revealed that over 50 IS operatives from Central Asia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq directly provided support to Masharipov before and after the attack.
IS-Central, operating through its “Wilayah Türkiye” and “Wilayah Khurasan” branches, effectively engages in clandestine recruitment within the Central Asian migrant community in Turkey. Many Uzbek, Tajik, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz migrants in Turkey had previously faced challenging conditions as migrant workers in Russia. Finding themselves unable to endure the religious pressures associated with Russian chauvinism and nationalism, they turned to Turkey. The Kremlin’s coerced deployment of disenfranchised Central Asian migrants as combatants in the Russia-Ukraine war, coupled with economic stagnation and the rise of pro-war nationalist-imperialist Putinism, is compelling Central Asian Islamists to undertake migration from Russia to Turkey. Some individuals thereafter have become ensnared in the recruitment networks of Central Asian Salafi-Jihadi groups, such as the Katibat al-Tawhid wal Jihad (KTJ), the Turkestan Islamic Party, and ISKP. Although the threat posed by IS to Turkey has diminished since it held vast territory in Iraq and Syria, Central Asian Salafi-Jihadi groups affiliated with IS, al-Qaida, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) clandestinely continue to utilize Turkish territory as a rear base, logistics hub, and hawala transit center.
It is widely acknowledged that IS specifically deploys Central Asian militants to carry out terrorist attacks within Turkey. This choice is influenced by shared language and culture, making them less likely to attract the attention of the Turkish security forces. Moreover, Ankara’s simplified visa regime permits residents of Central Asia’s Turkic-speaking countries to stay in Turkey for up to 90 days without a visa, further facilitating the activities of ISKP followers.
There is no singular solution to the challenges Ankara faces from Uzbek and Tajik ISKP members. Over the past quarter-century, Turkey has been on the frontline of combating global religious terror groups, enduring significant impact from both Arab and Turkish IS fighters, as well as Central Asian ISKP members. Following the recent deadly attack on the Santa Maria Catholic Church by the Tajik ISKP wing, Turkey launched a comprehensive counterterrorism operation, resulting in the detention of 147 ISKP suspects in January 2024. Additionally, in December 2023, Turkish security forces arrested 189 individuals suspected of having ties to IS as part of “Operation Heroes-38,” a coordinated effort spanning 37 provinces. In June 2023, the Turkish MIT arrested Shamil Hukumatov of Tajikistan, a “high-ranking” ISKP operative and the Tajik wing financier, for recruiting Central Asian migrants to IS and providing them with finances.
Uzbek ISKP’s Propaganda War Against Erdogan
The opulent Islamic heritage of Turkey, the heir to the Ottoman Empire, which presided over the fourth major Islamic Caliphate for over six centuries, has become the target of vehement ideological assaults from Central Asian ISKP jihadists. In the 26th edition of the Voice of Khurasan magazine, an article titled “Call to the Turkish People: Abandon Erdogan’s Highway to Hell and Join the Century of the Islamic Khilafah” fervently implores Turks to dismantle “Erdogan’s Taghut regime” and lend support to the authentic Islamic State. The latter identifies itself as the legitimate successor to the Islamic Caliphate and condemns modern Turkey for straying from the divine path of Allah.
Developing propaganda attacks, the Uzbek-language Xuroson Ovozi also featured a comprehensive article on the decline of the Ottoman Empire and its perceived deviation from Islam. Abu Muhammad al-Uzbeki, the notorious ISKP ideologist, contends that the Ottoman Empire wasn’t deserving of the Caliphate title as it favored Sufis over Salafis, actively targeting the latter. He accuses Turkey of persisting in its continuing official support for the Sufi sect, members of which are deemed “apostates” by IS due to their veneration of mystics and the construction of shrines to saints. Consequently, ISKP draws a connection between its ongoing war against Afghan Sufists and its critique of Erdogan’s Turkey, merging both religious and political dimensions.
From the perspective of ISKP’s Al-Azaim Media Production, Turkey is classified as a taghut (idolater) state, and its leader, Erdogan, is labeled an apostate. The Uzbek and Tajik language pro-IS media arms have consistently targeted Erdogan personally, issuing explicit death threats and employing takfir, a form of excommunication. On February 18, 2023, the Voice of Khurasan, in its 22nd issue, published an article titled “The crimes of the Turkish Taghut,” listing reasons why Allah purportedly punished Turkey with deadly earthquakes in 2023. IS-Khurasan ideologies assert that God’s punishment has befallen Turkey for “replacing sharia with Kuffar (unbeliever) laws, committing Shirk, waging war against Islam, collaborating with NATO alliance, HTS, Afghan Taliban, Iran, and Russia, and legalizing alcohol, homosexuality, adultery, and nudity.”
Frequently, Uzbek KTJ and ISKP’s Uzbek wing engage in public disputes online regarding religious purity and the lofty objectives of holy jihad. These disagreements often escalate with threats to locate and execute their jihadi adversaries. Notably, Uzbek ISKP supporters allege that their counterparts within the Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Tajik KTJ ranks have forsaken Islam, transforming into pawns manipulated by Erdogan.
Strategic Imperative: Establishing a Counter-Terrorism Body in the Turkic World
Given the intensification of anti-Turkey propaganda, there exists a notable possibility that Ankara may once more become the focal point for attacks orchestrated by formidable Uzbek and Tajik ISKP terrorists. These potential attacks could materialize both within the borders of Turkey and against its strategic interests in Central and South Asia.
The challenges posed by Uzbek and Tajik jihadi groups highlight deficiencies in the exchange of information about individuals affiliated with IS between Central Asian states and Turkey at the intelligence service level. Facilitating robust cooperation in this regard is essential for effectively tracking, apprehending, and, if necessary, prosecuting, or repatriating individuals associated with ISKP, who may utilize Turkish territory as a transit zone.
Nevertheless, the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), which includes Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Turkey, notably lacks dedicated military and counterterrorism institutes. Turkey’s persistent endeavors to establish a military bloc among the Turkic states within the OTC framework face a vehement backlash from the Kremlin. In apprehension of potential dilution of its Collective Security Treaty Organization military bloc, Putin’s Russia opposes the formation of an alternative Turkic military union in post-Soviet Central Asia.
The establishment of a counterterrorism body within the OTS could serve as a preventive measure against terrorist attacks, benefiting not only Turkey but also Western nations. Such a development would be crucial for effectively addressing the challenges posed by Central Asian ISKP, given that its members occasionally attempt to infiltrate Europe and the U.S. to carry out lone-wolf terror attacks.
 

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Unravelling Turkish involvement in the Sahel Policy Brief​

Geopolitics and local impact​

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The Clingendael Institute
Jul 2023

Introduction:​

In the past decade, Turkey has significantly expanded its engagement in Africa, leading to concerns within the European Union (EU) that this influence might be used to undermine EU policy and member states. This policy brief analyses the strategic motives and evolution of Turkish involvement in the Sahel region, focusing specifically on Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Drawing from interviews conducted with Sahelian and Turkish political, business, diplomatic and educational stakeholders between October and December 2022, the authors contend that Turkey’s foreign policy in the Sahel demonstrates a multifaceted approach that aims to strengthen its presence across economic, cultural, defence and development spheres. However, it is also emphasised that Turkey’s engagement in the Sahel remains relatively limited when compared to its activities in other African countries, for example Libya, Somalia and Algeria. In light of these findings, this policy brief recommends that the EU adopt a pragmatic approach, drawing lessons from Turkey’s strategy while trying to manage, and where possible benefit from, the impact of Turkish security assistance and to foster opportunities for Sahelian populations in Europe through scholarships and employment initiatives.

Full Policy briefing PDF​

Conclusion:​

  • Turkey has pursued a multi-faceted set of policies in the Sahel for much of the last decade, slowly increasing its presence across the defence, economic, cultural and development spheres.
  • This expansion was first diplomatic, then increasingly became focused on economic and security issues, particularly as the Sahel’s security situation worsened and Turkey’s economic and political tumult since 2016 necessitated greater exports and deeper political ties outside of Europe.
  • Although Turkish trade and presence in the Sahel remains small compared to other regions, it is not only growing but has taken shape in key sectors, particularly construction (including showcase construction projects like the airport in Niamey), as well as in healthcare, security cooperation and equipment, mining, education and development.
  • Turkey has also increasingly espoused anticolonial (and particularly anti-French) discourses in the region, presenting itself as a different kind of partner, one that shares interests as well as religious and some historical ties with the Muslim-majority countries of the central Sahel, although its diplomatic, political and economic investments are by no means limited to countries formerly colonised by France.
  • Turkey has expressed support for coup governments in Mali and Burkina Faso, and pursued closer military 90 Ibid. 91 Interview with an economist in Niger, Niamey, November 2022. and economic ties despite the region’s political and security tumult. In turn, Sahelian countries have increasingly called on Turkish expertise and assistance in key areas, and experts interviewed for this study frequently cited Turkish approaches and the broad-based (even if relatively small) Turkish presence across the region as representing a reliable partnership with Sahelian countries, one they often contrasted with European approaches.
 

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Turkish FM meets Venezuelan president in Caracas

'With sister nation of Türkiye, we are consolidating strong friendship with busy work agenda, concrete agreements, tangible achievements,' says Nicolas Maduro


More oil from Venezuela and less from Russia/Iran ?
 

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Listen closely to Putin: His imperial ambitions could include Turkey

Yes, it's NATO propaganda, but the author does make a salient point on right-wing and historic Russian sentiment towards Turkey, and especially Istanbul.

Russia can never be trusted even if we left Nato.

By the way Turkiye could have stayed neutral or non aligned if it wasnt for the Russians demanding the straits and land hence why they had to join nato.

Russians have themselves to blame for this fck up.
 
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TheInsider

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Turkish FM meets Venezuelan president in Caracas

'With sister nation of Türkiye, we are consolidating strong friendship with busy work agenda, concrete agreements, tangible achievements,' says Nicolas Maduro


More oil from Venezuela and less from Russia/Iran ?
We can develop oil fields and mines in Venezuela. We have the technology. We can buy agricultural goods from them. In a decade Venezuela might become rich again.
 

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Trump wins South Carolina, beating Nikki Haley in her home state

images (12).jpeg


COLUMBIA, South Carolina, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Donald Trump easily defeated Nikki Haley in South Carolina's Republican contest on Saturday, extending his winning streak as he marches toward a third consecutive presidential nomination and a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.


Trump is coming like the Saviour, the Messias, the Prince who was promised.

The USA needs Trump
The world needs Trump.
Turkey needs Trump.

- Trump will achieve peace between the both Korea's.
- Trump will end the Ukro-Russian war.
- Trump will give the world trade a boost and outplay the Chinese monopolies
- Trump will bring most of US troops back to home.
- Trump will leave NATO.
- Trump will go at war against the Epstein-gang and other international childmolesters.
- Trump will curve Iran and their militias.
........
........
........
........
- And, Trump will be Erdoğan's greatest ally, signing big militairy agreements and trade deals with the Turkish Republic and also sabotate a Kurdish state in Syria/Irak.

Afcourse, if Trump not gets killed first like Lincoln or the Kennedy brothers.
 

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Yes, it's NATO propaganda, but the author does make a salient point on right-wing and historic Russian sentiment towards Turkey, and especially Istanbul.
it's not only NATO propaganda but also ukranian .
1708847065680.png

I personally think the greatest guarantor for Turkiye’s ability to maneuver in this stage and this current world order is a strong enough Russia, not a weak defeated Russia.

One greater lesson for Turkiye -more than any other country (except maybe China)- is preparing for a scenario where a world (US) can use a nation in your border (no longer Greece only, but look at what the French are doing with Armenia now) to literally destroy your country or enter a self-destructing cycle without ending and without even having to lose a life for that. So not like before, They have influence in your internal affairs and once you liberate yourself from this influence you can go. They can have as much damage from outside your borders and they won't be unable to find pretexts...

Do you think it will be hard anytime in the future to replace the “Monstrous Russians” with any country they decide is the devil to be defeated ?
We are destroying the Russian army without losing a single American soldier. If we defeat Putin in Ukraine, the world will be a better place. All that is needed is American military support. In 18 months, the Ukrainian people regained half of their territories and not a single American died. The Russian economy is falling apart. The Russian Army has been destroyed. This is a good investment by the American people.
 

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New piece unpacking Turkiye-Somalia agreement, utilizing statements from diverse sources :

Also there is interteing article from 2021 mentioning plans to build a rocket launch site in Somalia

 

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it's not only NATO propaganda but also ukranian . View attachment 65961
I personally think the greatest guarantor for Turkiye’s ability to maneuver in this stage and this current world order is a strong enough Russia, not a weak defeated Russia.

One greater lesson for Turkiye -more than any other country (except maybe China)- is preparing for a scenario where a world (US) can use a nation in your border (no longer Greece only, but look at what the French are doing with Armenia now) to literally destroy your country or enter a self-destructing cycle without ending and without even having to lose a life for that. So not like before, They have influence in your internal affairs and once you liberate yourself from this influence you can go. They can have as much damage from outside your borders and they won't be unable to find pretexts...

Do you think it will be hard anytime in the future to replace the “Monstrous Russians” with any country they decide is the devil to be defeated ?


After Russia, China is next.

For us Turks, China has always been our oldest nemesis because they were one of the first enemies our ancestors fought.

Once Russia is gone. Turkiye and China will compete for Central Asia.

Then again we also have Russia and Iran. Lets not forget Pakistans aspirations too. Pakistan has also tried to stake its claim to Central Asia. India is also present in Tajikistan that too cant be ignored.

Central Asia will go through another Great Game.
 

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After Russia, China is next.
I have not seen any analysis that says “China is next” for Turkiye s near or medium term future strategic plans. I would appreciate it if you could recommend any!
1708855325130.png

Given the current world events, many would assume that the strategic directions are imposing themselves and that there is no longer a matter of choice, as we often read. I may be wrong, but I do see Turkiye have already made up its mind in choosing which priorities from that many directions.

If there are certain main strategic directions, they are according to many academics :
  • North in Ukraine to the Caucasus and the whole Black Sea Vector (the Northwest into the southeastern Balkans), where Russia, Ukraine,Georgia and Southern Balkans (Romania and Bulgaria) are, to wider Europe and Asia.
  • East of Iran and South East up to the Gulf, where the transit route for oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea is, and where the PKK in Iraq and Syria and the importance of the Gulf countries are
  • South: Levant (Israel), where Israel has a role in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine.
  • South West (Cyprus and Greece and de facto France), and the first stop past Istanbul to the wider world and the rights and interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.
One thing for sure is that the Eastern Mediterranean in the South West (Cyprus and Greece and de facto France) is a priority for Turkiye .
(Every day they make sure to send a reminder of that)

Then, Iraq/Syria/Levant (Israel) and East of Iran and South East up to the Gulf are where you find PKK, Israel, Iran, and Armenia (France)
I bieleve I don't even need to write about them in the light of what's happening around us now
 
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Ryder

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I have not seen any analysis that says “China is next” for Turkiye s near or medium term future strategic plans. I would appreciate it if you could recommend any!
View attachment 65962
Given the current world events, many would assume that the strategic directions are imposing themselves and that there is no longer a matter of choice, as we often read. I may be wrong, but I do see Turkiye have already made up its mind in choosing which priorities from that many directions.

If there are certain main strategic directions, they are according to many academics :
  • North in Ukraine to the Caucasus and the whole Black Sea Vector (the Northwest into the southeastern Balkans), where Russia, Ukraine,Georgia and Southern Balkans (Romania and Bulgaria) are, to wider Europe and Asia.
  • East of Iran and South East up to the Gulf, where the transit route for oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea is, and where the PKK in Iraq and Syria and the importance of the Gulf countries are
  • South: Levant (Israel), where Israel has a role in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine.
  • South West (Cyprus and Greece and de facto France), and the first stop past Istanbul to the wider world and the rights and interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.
One thing for sure is that the Eastern Mediterranean in the South West (Cyprus and Greece and de facto France) is a priority for Turkiye .
(Every day they make sure to send a reminder of that)

Then, Iraq/Syria/Levant (Israel) and East of Iran and South East up to the Gulf are where you find PKK, Israel, Iran, and Armenia (France)
I bieleve I don't even need to write about them in the light of what's happening around us now

After the West is done with Russia, China is next.

I meant that.
 

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Turkiye has a casus belli about the nautical miles issue with Greece.

In 1996, Turkiye nearly went to war with Greece over Kardak.
 

_Mu_

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Turkiye has a casus belli about the nautical miles issue with Greece.

In 1996, Turkiye nearly went to war with Greece over Kardak.
That's why they are knocking every door possible to bring them to thier country and that seems not enough as they invite new ones every day, although they have the Americans , the Israelis and the French already
1708871810795.png

they are inviting the indians too lately 🤔 😂 !​

1708871951322.png

 

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It is really nice to see that Erdogan understands the significance and corelation between a strong domestic defence industry and strong foreign policy.
I have been extremely satisfied for the last week..... Truly.... Turkey is 100% on the right path


"The strong defense industry lies behind our increasing reputation in foreign policy. As foreign dependency in the defense industry decreased, our effectiveness in the international arena increased.
Turkey is literally writing an epic in the field of defense industry. Today, Turkish UAVs and UCAVs protect the skies of 34 different countries.
We will build the next segment of our aircraft carrier.
“Our Navy is carrying out the work.”
 
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