Be wary of playing Turkey’s great game ...
If Syrian rebels were active on the Turkish side of the border, and the Turkish authorities were doing nothing to apprehend them, then Assad loyalists might have felt within their rights to attack them.
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the Turkish leader would be happy to see the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria emerge as the eventual victors of the crisis in that country, a development which would lead to the establishment of a network of Islamist governments – a “Sunni arc” from the shores of North Africa to those of the eastern Mediterranean.
It is highly questionable whether such an outcome would benefit Western interests. And with the Turkish parliament yesterday approving a measure that effectively gives Mr Erdogan a “green light” to invade Syria, Nato leaders should take care not to involve themselves in a conflict that only helps to further the Turkish leader’s Islamist agenda.
Comments:
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It's a double-speak for Turkey,
as it's long been a part and parcel in the war in Syria. They have been supporting armed terrorists, providing weapons and all sort of logistic supports to the terrorists. Now, they are claiming Syrian forces have attacked them. Who attacks first? It's like who will throw the stone first. Shame on Turkey and those Western countries who support blindly in the so-called Arab Spring.
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Photo: Reuters
The state is taking a lead role in unseating Syria’s Assad, but it has a hidden agenda
Syria might be getting all the blame for firing the first shot in the sudden eruption of hostilities on the Turko-Syrian border, but Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, can hardly claim to be an innocent party when it comes to stoking the fires of a conflict that retains the potential to ignite a regional conflagration.
For more than a year now Turkey has been taking a lead role in the campaign
to overthrow the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Working closely
with a number of Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, that are also
committed to ridding Damascus of Assad’s Alawite clique, the Turks have been
carefully co-ordinating international support for Syria’s rebel forces. There
are even reports that the Turks have established a shared command centre in
southern Turkey which is supervising the transfer of arms, supplies and
volunteers across the Syrian border to the rebels. In short, the Turks are doing
everything in their power to achieve regime change in Damascus, a position that
is not lost on Mr Assad.
Whether forces loyal to the regime were responsible for firing the mortar
round that killed five civilians – including three children – in a Turkish
border village this week is unclear. If Syrian rebels were active on the Turkish
side of the border, and the Turkish authorities were doing nothing to apprehend
them, then Assad loyalists might have felt within their rights to attack them.
The Syrian government, for what it’s worth, denies any involvement and says it
is investigating the incident.
Alternatively, amid the fog of war, there is always the possibility that
Syrian rebels – or those sympathetic to their cause – fired the round into
Turkey as a deliberate attempt to provoke the country and its allies into
retaliating. To this day there are still some who believe the Bosnian
government, in a similar cynical exercise, shelled its own citizens at a market
in Sarajevo at the height of the civil war in 1995 to compel the West to
intervene against the Serbs.
Irrespective of who was responsible for the attack on the Turkish village of
Akcakale, its effect has been to galvanise the Western powers into action, with
Nato convening an emergency session of its 28 members to condemn the attack.
The uncompromising tone of Nato’s statement, which denounced Syria’s “flagrant violations of international law”, will be music to Mr Erdogan’s ears, as the Turkish prime minister has spent most of this year agitating for greater Western intervention in Syria. Apart from achieving regime change in Damascus, Mr Erdogan has argued that the refugee crisis on the Turkish border, where an estimated 80,000 Syrians have sought refuge, is a compelling reason for the Western powers to play a more active role in halting the bloodshed.
But before Nato gets too carried away with committing itself to Turkey’s defence, alliance leaders would do well to consider Mr Erdogan’s less-than-altruistic reasons for seeking a change in the way Damascus is governed.
In some quarters, Mr Erdogan’s 12-year stint in office, during which per capita income has nearly tripled and the country has been re-established as a regional power, has been hailed as a model of what a progressive Muslim government can achieve. It is for this reason that both Washington and London have urged the EU to reconsider its obstructive handling of Turkey’s bid for full membership.
But against Mr Erdogan’s impressive economic track record must be set his increasingly authoritarian style of government, with politicians and journalists regularly being jailed for criticising his policies, and his desire to build alliances with radical Islamic governments. Before the recent wave of Arab uprisings hit the Middle East, Mr Erdogan’s main focus was to develop better relations with the ayatollahs in Tehran.
He was forced to abandon this policy only after it became clear that he could no longer tolerate the survival of the Assad regime, which just so happens to be Iran’s most important regional ally. To compensate, Mr Erdogan has made a point of befriending Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian president, whose Muslim Brotherhood recently emerged as the victors of Egypt’s bout of unrest.
Like Mr Morsi, the Turkish leader would be happy to see the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria emerge as the eventual victors of the crisis in that country, a development which would lead to the establishment of a network of Islamist governments – a “Sunni arc” from the shores of North Africa to those of the eastern Mediterranean.
It is highly questionable whether such an outcome would benefit Western interests. And with the Turkish parliament yesterday approving a measure that effectively gives Mr Erdogan a “green light” to invade Syria, Nato leaders should take care not to involve themselves in a conflict that only helps to further the Turkish leader’s Islamist agenda.
The uncompromising tone of Nato’s statement, which denounced Syria’s “flagrant violations of international law”, will be music to Mr Erdogan’s ears, as the Turkish prime minister has spent most of this year agitating for greater Western intervention in Syria. Apart from achieving regime change in Damascus, Mr Erdogan has argued that the refugee crisis on the Turkish border, where an estimated 80,000 Syrians have sought refuge, is a compelling reason for the Western powers to play a more active role in halting the bloodshed.
But before Nato gets too carried away with committing itself to Turkey’s defence, alliance leaders would do well to consider Mr Erdogan’s less-than-altruistic reasons for seeking a change in the way Damascus is governed.
In some quarters, Mr Erdogan’s 12-year stint in office, during which per capita income has nearly tripled and the country has been re-established as a regional power, has been hailed as a model of what a progressive Muslim government can achieve. It is for this reason that both Washington and London have urged the EU to reconsider its obstructive handling of Turkey’s bid for full membership.
But against Mr Erdogan’s impressive economic track record must be set his increasingly authoritarian style of government, with politicians and journalists regularly being jailed for criticising his policies, and his desire to build alliances with radical Islamic governments. Before the recent wave of Arab uprisings hit the Middle East, Mr Erdogan’s main focus was to develop better relations with the ayatollahs in Tehran.
He was forced to abandon this policy only after it became clear that he could no longer tolerate the survival of the Assad regime, which just so happens to be Iran’s most important regional ally. To compensate, Mr Erdogan has made a point of befriending Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian president, whose Muslim Brotherhood recently emerged as the victors of Egypt’s bout of unrest.
Like Mr Morsi, the Turkish leader would be happy to see the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria emerge as the eventual victors of the crisis in that country, a development which would lead to the establishment of a network of Islamist governments – a “Sunni arc” from the shores of North Africa to those of the eastern Mediterranean.
It is highly questionable whether such an outcome would benefit Western interests. And with the Turkish parliament yesterday approving a measure that effectively gives Mr Erdogan a “green light” to invade Syria, Nato leaders should take care not to involve themselves in a conflict that only helps to further the Turkish leader’s Islamist agenda.
04 Oct 2012
''Τelegraph''
ΤΟ ΚΕΙΜΕΝΟ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΡΤΗΣΕΩΣ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΕΤΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΙΣΤΟΣΕΛΙΔΑ:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/9587435/Be-wary-of-playing-Turkeys-great-game.html
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