Etiket arşivi: Turkey-Syria

Syria’s Unsustainable Conflict

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31 August 2015
Efforts to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict appear to be gaining momentum. Whatever the outcome, recent diplomatic flurry can be attributed to the following:
• The completion of the Iran nuclear deal,
• ISIL’s holding its ground in Iraq and Syria despite the US-led air campaign,
• Admission by President Assad that he is facing a recruitment problem in the armed forces raising fears that the Islamic State (ISIL) may take over should the regime fall,
• Iraq’s continuing internal instability and failure to effectively combat ISIL,
• Growing ISIL- related global concern for home security,
• The humanitarian disaster in the Middle East and the prospect of an endless influx of refugees into Europe. Okumaya devam et →

2013 German Federal Election – 2015 Turkish Parliamentary Election

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12 August 2015

The last German federal election was held on Sunday, September 22, 2013. The Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) led by Chancellor Merkel won nearly 42% of the vote and nearly 50% of the seats in the Bundestag (just five short of majority). However, their coalition partner Free Democrats (FDP), failed to meet the 5% vote threshold. Thus, the CDU/CSU and the main opposition party Social Democrats (SPD) started talks for a grand coalition. After five weeks of intense negotiations they reached agreement. Three party leaders signed a 185-page document on policies to be followed by the new government. The SPD then submitted this document to a vote by its members who approved it. On December 17, the Bundestag elected Angela Merkel as Chancellor and the new government was sworn in. In other words, the political process took nearly three months. Okumaya devam et →

Turkey’s Metamorphosis

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28 July 2015

The EU summit held in Brussels on December 17, 2004 decided that accession negotiations with Turkey would start on October 3, 2005. The process was accordingly launched at the Luxembourg Intergovernmental Conference.
This was two years after the Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) coming to power when “democratic reform” appeared to be high on the agenda.
In early April 2009 President Obama visited Turkey. He addressed the Turkish Parliament and referred to Turkey’s strong, vibrant, secular democracy as Ataturk’s greatest legacy.
Turkey’s contribution to regional stability was highly valued.
Six years later we still have the JDP in power but another Turkey.

Okumaya devam et →

Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before

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22 July 2015

A suicide bombing killed 32 people and wounded more than a 100 in the town of Suruç on Turkey’s border with Syria. Am I grieved? Of course I am. Am I disturbed? Of course I am. Am I surprised? No I’m not. Investigation to establish the exact identity of the perpetrators of the crime is continuing. But everybody already knows the perpetrator. The perpetrator is the misguided Syria policy of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) Government.

In the face of Arab Spring uncertainties, Turkey would have been well-advised to maintain its traditional policy of non-involvement in inter-Arab affairs, put emphasis on crisis management, diplomatic solutions and make use of whatever had remained of its soft power. Unfortunately, the JDP Government dismissed caution as a sign of weakness. It miscalculated Assad’s capacity to survive and became a party to the conflict, taking part in shifting Arab alliances. This turned our 1300 kilometer border with Iraq and Syria (400 and 900 kilometers respectively) into a war zone between ISIS, the anti-ISIL coalition, Al Nusra, the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition with a multitude of negative consequences for Turkey. With our porous borders ISIL eventually became an internal threat as well. Okumaya devam et →

Signs of Stress in the Anti-Assad Coalition

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3 July 2015

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter and General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently told the House Armed Services Committee that:
• Assad appears to be weakening and on the defensive,
• There are not enough “moderate” recruits for the train-and-equip program.
One may conclude therefore that the “Army of Conquest” which is a coalition of groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and a few others deserves at least part of the credit for pushing Assad on the defensive. The “moderate opposition” seems to be lost, confirming what President Obama had said in the past (*).
It is widely reported that the Army of Conquest is supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey following an agreement between Riyadh and Ankara to shelve their differences, at least temporarily, over the Muslim Brotherhood. They are sometimes referred to as the “Sunni bloc”. Okumaya devam et →

Turkey’s Failed Syria Policy

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24 June 2015
A week ago, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter and General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before the House Armed Services Committee.
According to the Associated Press, the Secretary told the Committee that the U.S. will fall way short of meeting its goal of training 24,000 Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State militants by this autumn since only enough recruits to train about 7,000 — in addition to about 2,000 counterterrorism service personnel – has been received so far.
Carter said that the train-and-equip mission in Syria also lacks enough trainees to fill existing training sites, primarily because it’s difficult to make sure the recruits are people who can be counted on and are not aligned with groups like IS. “It turns out to be very hard to identify people who meet both of those criteria…” Carter said. Okumaya devam et →