Throughout the US military involvement against ISIS in Syria, they’ve heavily relied on their air base in Incirlik, Turkey. The use of this base has also given Turkey some potential leverage over US operations, which again are being brought to bear, with a new round of calls to expel the US from the base.
The most recent call was in major national newspaper Sozcu, where a front-page editorial was published on Friday calling for the base’s complete closure to express displeasure over the US military’s growing support for the Kurdish YPG, which is considered a terrorist organization within Turkey.
The YPG controls much of northeastern Syria, and the US has been supporting their territorial gains against ISIS. Despite mounting complaints from Turkey, the Trump Administration last week announced plans to arm the YPG with even more heavy weaponry.
Such an expulsion is unlikely to happen right now, with President Erdogan planning to visit the US this month, and the timing of the announcement was likely based on limiting Turkey’s ability to react, beyond likely complaining during the visit itself.
Most people are not aware that Incirlik airbase was built on a Christian Armenian farm that Turkey illegally confiscated after the Armenian genocide. This issue is now in the courts.
The Americans use the Kurds because the Kurds are all they’ve got. There are no “moderates.” It is all Kurds.
The Kurds are terrorists in Turkey. American weapons given to Kurds are recovered by the Turks in Turkey. That has been true for a decade, not new at all.
But the Kurds are the least bad available to the Americans, mostly because they are the only choice at all available to the Americans.
The only alternative for Americans would be to get out, just stop. That is what the US ought to do.
ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria are creations of the US involvement. The US only makes them worse. Let Turkey and Assad settle that. They both want to, and both would.
It’s amazing that the U.S. and
European nations have been subjected for so long and so often to Turkish blackmail without complaining.Turkey would have no economy or army without the assistance of the U.S. and the European states. Yet Turkey has always threatened that if it doesn’t have its way it would quit or nowadays go to bed with Russia.
What does Turkey bring to the table? Its geography. Lands stolen from the Greeks and the Armenians, including Incirlik which belongs to an Armenian family massacred or driven out by the Turkish government.
These days Turkey also threatens Europe that it would send more Muslim immigrants and urges Muslims of Europe to have lots of children so as to take over Europe one day.Turkey also interfered in the internal affairs of a number of European countries.
How can the West tolerate saboteur Turkey for so long is a mystery. When will the West develop backbone and tell Turkey to get lost?
Exactly.