Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif have met today in Ankara, and agreed that the two nations will engage in “greater cooperation” on the Syrian Civil War, despite being on opposite sides of the conflict.
Iran is among Syria’s closest allies, while Turkey has been backing the rebellion from the beginning. The two foreign ministers, however, agreed to keep “closer contact” over the conflict and appeared to have common ground in both backing the “territorial integrity of Syria.”
This is a significant shift, however, and comes immediately after a comparable agreement between the Turkish government and Russia over Syria, suggesting the Erdogan government is dramatically rethinking its position on the civil war.
Turkey may well be lamenting their previous gamble that the Arab nationalist rebels would quickly conquer Syria and would crack down on Kurdish pushes for autonomy, which has instead left them with Islamist rebels controlling half the Turkey-Syria border, and an independent Kurdish faction on most of the rest of it.
Erdogan is in the process of a complete overhaul of Turkish foreign policy,and now realizes how the West installs Quislings in Europe and the Middle East.
Nothing happens overnight. Turkey state was in a kong term conflict between Atlsnticists and Eurasian sovereignists. It started back in nineties, when a political process pushed up into power Erdogan’s party. And that came through deception as in order to get approval and be legitimate the party declared “reforms” to be primary goal. Clinton administration believed in the power of politicized and radicalized Islam as a means of spreading US influence but also tying Turkey to US. Gulem — the protagonist of spreading influnce under the banner of Islam lost out to Erdigan in party leadership and Clinton administration took him into an unofficial exile in 1999. He became a figurehead for a massive foundation — inserting its followers into Turkey institutions and throughout central Asia and Balkans. His foundation rivals the extent of its reach and capital to Soros Foundation. What we see today is the process that started with Erdogan’s push for economic development — particularly very neglected Anatolia and regions outside big cities. Fast forward to Turkey building economic ties to Russia, China and Iran — and applying for SCO membership. With applicagion a cepted on a partner level — Turkey signs onto three chapters. Economy, secutity ans culture.
As the scope and importance of deals grows, NATO took steps to reign in the errant ally.
Nuclear power plants, energy pipelines, Silk Road i frastructure. Erdogam increasingly became target of color revolutions, coup plots in military, rising secessionism in Kurdish areas. And US Soudi cooperation on Syria presented a massive danger — a possibility of Wahhabi-sponsored Salafi cults breaking down Syria and installing regime that will threaten Turkey permanently. Joining NATO mantra placed Turkey at the decision table — but also exposing it to be pushed into ground war. Turkey deftly avoided the trap by insisting in NATO meeting that all members send ground forces. But with the end of Erdoban’s mandate as Prime Minister and his election for President deprived him of most powers to run state. Davutovlu’s reign was marked by pressures on Erdogan, increased demonization in western media and terrorist attacks. It was a crawling coup aiming at pressure on Erdogan loyalists. All support that hundreds of Gulenist humanitafian groups gave to various terrorist gtoups — was blamed on him and his family. The attack on Russian plane came as a blessing in disguise — as it allowed Russia to hit hard on Turkish actions — from Syria rebels to smuggling oil. Most people do not recall that it was the Atlanticist segment of the elite — bolstered by Gulen money that had the reigns of power. It was during Davutoglu rule that Soros funded groups facilitated the movement of hundreds of thousands people to Europe — and that Germany dangled a visa free travel for Turkish citizens. Erdogan then went into offensive — revealing publicly the 72 conditions Germany demanded. Among them demanding the legitimacy for Kurdish secessionism. The crisis in the AKP party leadership resulted in a decive loss to Atlanticist elite and huge win for Erdogan loyalists. The following day new prime minister announced the change in Turkish foreign policy towards Russia and Syria. Russia brokered deal with Israel was signed. Under the ferms of the deal Turkey will be the conduit of development money and pronects into Gaza, i believe that Israel wants to connect to Russia-Turkey gas pipeline and influence Europe to sign onto a new version of South Stream. Coup was a last ditch effort to eliminate Erdogan — as the politically engineered crawling coup failed with the fall of Davutou’s attempt at bancing Turkish interests and NATO demands. What we see today is an unappologetic announcement of Eurasian integration of Turkish politics, economy, energy, and transpotration infrastructure — into the structures of SCO, Infrastructure Bank, Silk Road and Russia’s transcontinental links. Deal with China on large scale trading IT platform, energy deals with Russia, political and security considerations sdvanced through intermediaries such as Kazakhstan as well as a joint policy statement on Syria with Iran and Russia — all point to a continuation — now in the open — of processes that were in operation for more then 15 years. The only new element is the post-coup opportunistic removal of various agents of foreign influence — from military to academia, from judiciary to prosecutors. Many people will have their careers affected or outright ruined. Those may have absolutely nothing to do with a coup. But ghis may be the first large scale defeat if all those that thought they were protected by the virtue of being vocally pro US or have accepted funds from western foundations, such as Soros and Gulen. Since the end of Cold War — this is the first such political backlash. None if this was sudden — even though the path may have been different.
Aug 12, 2016 Iran and Turkey pledge greater cooperation on Syria
Despite their differences, the foreign ministers of Turkey and Iran are pledging greater cooperation on trying to resolve the Syrian crisis – after meeting in Ankara.
https://youtu.be/whXYW-khgq0