... Kurdish partners.”
Evgeniia Drozhashchikh, Rethinking Russia expert and postgraduate student at Lomonosov Moscow State University, asked Michael Gunter, professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville and authority on Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, and Kerim Has, PhD in Political Science, expert on international affairs and Russia-Turkey relations with RIAC, about their views on Trump’s motives and willingness to use “the Kurdish card” in elevating relations with either one ...
..., among others. The Western coalition, which decided to launch air raids against the terrorists, needed a regional air base. Turkey, an ally of NATO, has such a base. However, Ankara did not allow NATO forces to be deployed at Incirlik Air Base until ... ... Syria, were another source of irritation for Washington. It was some time before the Turkish authorities decided to help the Kurds, which also dealt a blow at the country’s image in the eyes of the international community. As a result, Washington strengthened ...
... other. Iran has faced a resurgence of violence in its own Kurdistan in the past months, whereas southeastern Turkey is the theater of more than guerilla warfare between Turkish forces and the PKK[3].
The Geneva process could bring a momentum to Russia-Kurds relations. Now that Turkey has grabbed its sphere of influence in northern Syria, preventing the emergence of Rojava, and solving by the same token Damascus’ Kurdish problem, both Turkey and the Syrian regime might be less frustrated by the potential participation ...
... important changes in Turkey’s position, changes that have not gone unnoticed by the United States, for whom increased cooperation between Russia and Syria is
undesirable
. It is for this reason that the United States has demonstrated its support for Turkey, rather than the Kurds. Following the talks in Ankara, the US Vice President noted that the United States favoured a unified Syria and does not encourage the formation of an independent Kurdish state.
According to Mr. Biden
, cooperation with the Kurds was limited,...
... success due to very different policy choices so far. The key question is whether Moscow will stop its support of the Syrian Kurds in return for Ankara giving up its attempts to overthrow Bashar al-Assad administration. Declaration on unprecedented partnership ... ... activities in the Middle East, including Syria. With this mechanism, joint operations against ISIS could be started. In this case Turkey would be able to make cross-border interventions against PYD forces in North Syria to prevent completion of Kurdish corridor,...
... southeast. Because of this, Turkey seeks to prevent the establishment of close contacts between Russia and the Kurds, and it is one more reason for normalizing relations with Russia. The Turkish government forged mutually beneficial relations with the Iraqi Kurds. Since 2014, Erbil has been
pumping
oil from Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey (and on to Israel) via a pipeline, while
the market in the Kurdish part of Iraq
is saturated with Turkish goods, and Turkish business has a big presence in the region. All this, along with the
temporary presence
of Turkish advisers in Iraq, could ...
... insisted its political project has been set on a territorial basis, not on an ethnical nor a religious one, arguing that other minorities (Christians, Arabs…) are intended to be politically represented in Rojava. Ankara, which considers Syrian Kurds’ ambitions as fueling Kurdish separatism in Turkey, is set to consider this move as hostile. This move might be interpreted as an attempt of the Syrian Kurds to buy their way in the Geneva peace process from which they have been so far excluded due to Turkish pressure. The political message would ...
... conversation between Recep Erdoğan and his son Bilal on December 17, 2013, during which the President ordered his offspring to get rid of all the cash he had stored at home immediately.
And the Ravens Ridiculed
EPA/TOLGA BOZOGLU/Vostock Photo
Ilshat Saetov:
Turkey Politics: Who Wins from Stirring the War
against Kurds?
As per tradition, the Party once again found an external culprit. The government, which was the victim in the whole affair, discovered a plot against them. And the obedient media repeated the details. It was, of course, the usual suspects – ...
... chance to easily hand out the multi-billion contracts to his cronies, thus losing the effective financial levers.
For the sake of more votes the government may as well step up its efforts up to a small victorious war and the state of emergency in the Kurds-dominated southeast of Turkey.
To this end, Erdogan and his team decided to block the formation of a coalition government and hold early elections on November 1, 2015, undercutting the HDP support base. So, they chose to make the U-turn that implies demonization of Kurds, ...
... negotiations between Washington and Ankara on the use of Turkish territory in the fight against ISIS in Syria. What is more, on July 25, the Turkish Air Force attacked PKK positions in Northern Iraq. This was the first attack of its kind since 2011, when Turkey bombed the region for six consecutive days. The Turkish police ended up detaining hundreds of armed Kurds and Islamists.
The July 20 attack demonstrated that the military operations being carried out by Kurds and jihadists in Syria and Iraq have spread to Turkish territory.
The events of July 2015 exposed two interconnected security issues. The July ...
