The Foreign Ministers of Russia, Iran, Syria and Turkey meet in Moscow. Lavrov said that the launch of the process of normalization of Turkish-Syrian relations has a positive impact on the situation in the region and the Middle East as a whole. pic.twitter.com/XtwuqBByiN
🇸🇾🇹🇷🇷🇺🇮🇷 A meeting of the foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia, Iran, and Syria on Syria has started in Moscow. Lavrov noted that the launch of the process of normalization of Turkish-Syrian relations has a positive impact on the situation in the region and Middle East as a whole. pic.twitter.com/HIgmrSO9rH
— 🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉 (@apocalypseos) May 10, 2023
The conclusion of “No Evidence So Far” in the title referred to the strong suspicion that this horrendous quake was the result of an ENMOD engineered disaster. (Environmental Modification Techniques). Up to this day it killed more than 48,000 people, injured more than half a million, and still tens of thousands are missing.
Will there ever be justice?
Will the presumed perpetrators be brought to trial?
The “no evidence” statement is wearing thinner and thinner, especially, when listening to Serdar Hussein, the Head of the Turkish Space Agency talking on Russian TV.
He uses hyperbolic emblematic speech when talking about the hard titanium alloy material being launched to the Earth. It refers to using the titanium alloy rods to send these deadly, super-power beams of energy to earth, deep into the ground to cause the earthquake:
You know those power poles on the streets. They are similar to these pillars, about 8-10 meters high. Metal rods.
There is nothing inside the rod, no explosives, nothing, but it’s a metal rod made of a hard titanium alloy material.
They put them in a satellite. A certain amount of. And then they aim and launch them to Earth. It’s like a stick with a sharp point. For example, God forbid, it falls somewhere, we will not name the disaster scenario now, but as soon as it falls to the ground, it penetrates up to 5 km deep into the earth.
This happens very quickly and creates an earthquake of magnitude 7-8.
As a result of the impact, everything that is there will be destroyed. Look, there are no weapons here, no explosives, no bombs, nothing like that. Simple sticks [rods]. But there is such a force that comes from outer space, and you have no chance to see it, stop it, or defend yourself.”
Serdar Hussein’s statement remains to be verified.
Peter Koenig, February 22, 2023
According to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “More than 13 million people have been affected by the devastating earthquake in Turkey.” (quoted by Tass, February 7, 2023)
“The earthquake has caused colossal damage. It was the biggest-ever calamity not only in our country’s history but in the history of the entire world,” Erdogan was quoted telling local television channels.
“We are living through the most painful days in our history. Two powerful earthquakes, with the epicenters in Pazarcik and Elbistan in Kahramanmaras, [close to the city of Gaziantep] have caused large-scale damage in ten provinces. Around 13.5 million [out of 85 million Turkish population] of our citizens have been affected on these territories,” he said.
Early Monday morning at around 4 AM on February 6, 2023, a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked southeast Turkey and Syria. According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake’s epicenter hit an area about 30 km from Gaziantep (2.1 million population), a major city and provincial capital 100 km from the Syrian border. The quake was centered about 18 km deep.
It was followed by a strong 6.7 magnitude aftershock about 10 minutes later. Read more here. See also NY Post drone video below of some of the devastated areas.
The death toll from the earthquake so far exceeds 5,400, and some 32,000 people were injured. This is only after day two when most of the destruction and rubble has not yet been searched for survivors or bodies.
The earthquake also hit northern Syria, leaving so far at least 1,200 deaths and thousands injured. (See 2 google maps to the left).
By comparison, the 1960 Chile earthquake hitting the Santiago area was one of the most devastating tremors in recent history, killing some 1,700 people, plus the ensuing tsunami with a death toll of between 2000 and 2,500, and tens of thousands of injured.
A Gigantic Act of Terror?
If President Erdogan is right, that this is one of the world’s largest calamities ever – and it looks very much like he is right – wars notwithstanding, is this an act of terror?
What has Turkey done to elicit such a devastating reaction – by whom?
The US of A? NATO, which as far as command goes is also Washington and the Pentagon?
A few recent initiatives by Turkey – a key member and heavy-weight of NATO for her strategic geographic location between east and west – may have provoked the wrath of her NATO allies.
Not necessarily in order of priority:
1. Turkey has entered an alliance with Russia – which for a NATO-member is like “sleeping with the enemy”. (Michel Chossudovsky) See this and this. Such a partnership with a NATO enemy is indeed an absolute no-go for the West.
2. Under this alliance, Turkey has decided to buy theRussian S-400 Air Defense system, instead of the US Patriot system, as it would behoove for a NATO member, especially one as crucial as is Turkey. Patriot (standing for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target) is a surface-to-air missile and anti-ballistic system. It is NATO’s air defense system. Instead, Turkey’s decision for the more sophisticated, more precise and effective Russian S-400 is a strong backbone for her alliance with Russia.
3. President Erdogan brokered in 2017 a US$ 2.5 billion deal with President Putin for the S-400. First deliveries of the S-400 missile batteries arrived in 2019.
4. The S-400 system is said to pose a risk to the NATO alliance as well as the F-35, America’s most expensive weapons platform. Turkey was severely sanctioned at the time by President Trump, notably by a foreign-manipulated currency devaluation of the Turkish Lira – which had a devastating impact on Turkey’s economy. It is unusual, almost unheard of, for Washington to “punish” a NATO member for misbehavior.
5. US warship USS Nitze barred from entering the Black Sea through the Turkish controlled Bosporus. According to USNI News, the US warship USS Nitze, a US destroyer, was spotted in early February 2023, operating near the Black Sea. It is said to be the closest a US warship has come to Russia since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began.
6. On February 3rd, the Nitze was seen at the lower edge of the Bosphorus Strait, en route to a port call in Turkey. The last US warship to pass through the strait was the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), which left the Black Sea on December 15, 2021. See Google map below, followed by video on the USS Nitze
7. In February 2022, Turkey closed the Bosphorus passage from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea for all vessels which do not have a national port within the Black Sea. This means, US war ships are not allowed to cross from the Med-Sea through the Bosporus into the Black Sea, from where Russia may be vulnerable for cruise missiles form US destroyers, for example the USS Nitze. In the meantime, Nitze has scheduled a port call at Gölcük Naval Base, in the Sea of Marmara (see Google map above).
8. Turkey, a key NATO country, between East and West, with the crucial Bosphorus as the dividing line, is closing a critical strategic passage to her NATO ally – NATO commander – protecting Russia, the US enemy – may not be seen with joy by Washington.
9. Turkish – Syrian rapprochement, is certainly not what Washington wants. It is the latest development in regional surprises, as reported by Arab Center Washington DC – see this.
10. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s interest in a rapprochement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the latest chapter in his delicate domestic and regional balancing act, and it has his friends and enemies alike, especially the US, scrambling for how this development might impact them. The rapprochement, if it succeeds, would further complicate the domestic and regional dynamics in northern Syria without securing any clear advantage for Erdogan beyond, perhaps, in the upcoming Turkish elections.
11. Remember the Russian Involvement in Syria – when the US was chased out of Syria? At the request of President Bashar al-Assad – Russian military, mostly air force interference from September 2015 until the end of 2017, was largely responsible for Washington’s significant withdrawal, albeit not complete, from Syria. In 2017, when “mission accomplished”, Russian combat troops were withdrawn, but Russia keeps a nominal military police presence in Northern Syria.
12. Turkey’s Bombshell – a few days ago, rejecting Sweden as NATO member, may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. For a new country to become a NATO member, ALL NATO nations must approve the new candidate.
13. Sweden says they cannot meet some of the Turkish conditions. Among them are Turkey’s accusations that Sweden is supporting members of the Kurdish Working Party – the PKK, archenemies of Erdogan’s.
14. According to a Turkish Crisis Group, some 30,000 to 40,000 people are estimated to have died in fighting between the PKK and Turkish government, since 1984.
15. Maybe there were also some Russian interests at stake in Turkey’s rejection of Sweden as a NATO member. Although peace has prevailed between Sweden and Russia, since 1809, the two countries never achieved a close relationship, unlike the situation with other neighbors. This is particularly the case with the current Swedish Government.
Turkish General Elections on 14 May 2023.
If the timing of the earthquake was part of a plan, it would fit perfectly into the coming General Elections on 14 May 2023. President Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party), are currently not doing well in popularity polls.
Depending on his dealing with the consequences of the earthquake, he and his Party may gain or lose in approval ratings. Usually, „natural“ disasters do not bode well for the governments in place, regardless of whether they bear any responsibility.
In any case, new elections bring new “opportunities”. In the meantime, it is clear to most analysts, that no elections are truly “democratic” – that there is literally no election in the world in which the decisive vote – the decisive influence – is not exerted by the Anglosaxon western empire.
Replacing Erdogan with a US stooge, might bring Turkey back as the desired all obedient NATO country, no alliance with Russia, no more “sleeping with the enemy”.
Is it a coincidence that just a few days after Turkey rejected Sweden’s candidacy for NATO membership, a massive, deadly and all-destructive earthquake hits Turkey, with serious ramification for Syria, and even impacting on Cyprus and Lebanon.
Was The Earthquake the Consequence of A Terror Attack? No Evidence
Artificial earthquakes have been prompted before. For example, the 12 January 2010 earthquake off Port-au-Prince, capital city of Haiti, is suspected having been prompted by underwater / underground explosions, in order to bring huge oil reserves lodged largely around the shores of the Caribbean Sea, closer to the surface to be easier accessible and exploitable. William Engdahl’s “Strategic denial of oil in Haiti?” points clearly in this direction.
F. William Engdahl says Geo-physics suggest there could be massive oil and mineral deposits in and off-shore Haiti. See this 9-min video from 30 January 2010.
The US Air Force’s Weather Warfare
Weather-modification, according to the US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report, “offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary”:
‘Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.”
The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)
The US Air Force’s “Weather Warfare” is related to The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) which was developed in the early 1990s.
A scientific report (HAL Id: hal-01082992) regarding HAARP (2011, 2014) explains that high-power ELF radiation generated by modulated HF heating of the ionosphere could cause Earthquakes, Cyclones and localized heating. The paper by Fran De Aquino Maranhao summarized the scientific findings as follows:
“HAARP is currently [2014], [the project was closed in Gakona, Alaska and transferred in 2014] the most important facility used to generate extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic radiation in the ionosphere. In order to produce this ELF radiation, the HAARP transmitter radiates a strong beam of high frequency (HF) waves modulated at ELF.
This HF heating modulates the electrons’ temperature in the D region ionosphere and leads to modulated conductivity and a time-varying current which then radiates at the modulation frequency. Recently, the HAARP HF transmitter operated with 3.6GW of effective radiated power modulated at frequency of 2.5Hz. It is shown that high-power ELF radiation generated by HF ionospheric heaters, such as the current HAARP heater, can cause Earthquakes, Cyclones and strong localized heating.”
The patents used to develop the HAARP program are owned by Raytheon through its E-Systems subsidiary.
It should be noted that with the closing down of The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) program in Gakona, Alaska in 2014 for another location, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been actively involved in ENMOD research, most of which is classified. See this
At the time of writing, there is suspicion, but no concrete evidence that the Turkey-Syria Earthquake was an Act of Terror, triggered by Environmental Modification Techniques.
The above statements remain to be fully ascertained.
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Featured image: The earthquake destroyed buildings in the town of Jandaris, near Afrin, Syria.Credit: Rami al-Sayed/AFP/Getty
The original source of this article is Global Research
Relations between Turkiye and the US faltered after Ankara accused Washington of trying to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a coup in 2016.
Suggesting that Europe has turned into America’s “pawn” in Africa, Soylu said that “there is no such thing as Europe” today. “Do not overthink it. America exists. Europe is the train in the US convoy. It does not have any special features.” The official pointed to the numerous problems facing Europe, including the constant discrediting of its leaders, the aging of the population, and economic problems.
Relations between Turkiye and the US faltered after Ankara accused Washington of trying to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a coup in 2016. Earlier this month, Erdogan blasted the US ambassador to Turkiye and said his office’s doors were “closed to him” after the envoy met with a senior opposition leader ahead of the May 14 election.
The world has no lost love for America, and the West’s efforts to impose its culture and values on the planet are doomed to fail because its hegemony no longer exists, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has said.
America is losing its global credibility and the “whole world hates America,” Soylu said, speaking at a pre-election meeting with young people in Istanbul Tuesday.
Suggesting that Europe has turned into America’s “pawn” in Africa, Soylu said that “there is no such thing as Europe” today. “Do not overthink it. America exists. Europe is the train in the US convoy. It does not have any special features.” The official pointed to the numerous problems facing Europe, including the constant discrediting of its leaders, the aging of the population, and economic problems.
The interior minister said that he was “not afraid of terrorism” because the activities of terrorists and efforts necessary to fight them are clear. “But one of the greatest dangers in the world is cultural terrorism, and we are facing cultural terrorism. We are facing a cultural terrorism that’s aimed at destroying the family structure, morality…the civilizations of nations, their history, our religion, our values, traditions, customs, what our mothers and fathers taught us,” he said.
Emphasizing the importance of the upcoming elections, Solyu suggested they will be history in the making.
“Turkiye is changing history. This is the election that will completely change history. That is why America is pressing us, Europe is pressing us. That’s why Kandil [the hills of northern Iraq where Ankara alleges Turkish Kurdish fighters to be holed up, ed.] are in a hurry, while the PKK [a Kurdish militant group Turkiye classifies as terrorists] are pressing us. This is not the choice of Tayyip Erdogan, this is the choice of Turkiye’s future generations, the choice of Turkiye’s full independence,” Solyu said.
Turks will go to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14, with Erdogan representing the People’s Alliance led by the ruling Justice and Development Party. Opposing him is Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the Nation Alliance. Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu have been running neck and neck in the polls since March, with polls ranging dramatically depending on who’s conducting the polling, from a nine and a half point lead for Kilicdaroglu, to a 7.7 point lead for Erdogan. A runoff race will be held at a later date if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round.
Pro-Erdogan forces’ anti-American feelings were ramped up earlier this month after US Ambassador to Turkiye Jeff Flake privately met with Kilicdaroglu. Erdogan slammed the move, saying the ambassador “needs to know his place” as a diplomat.
Turkiye, once the bulwark of NATO along its Black Sea and Mediterranean flanks, has gradually pushed to increase its strategic autonomy from Washington under Erdogan amid Turks’ cooling attitudes toward the US and the West in general. Alleged American support for the July 2016 coup attempt, more than three decades of stalled talks on Turkiye’s possible accession to the EU, and other grievances have left many Turks cynical about the alliance with the West, and demanding a more independent foreign and domestic policy.
“The Turkish president once again sincerely thanked for the assistance in dealing with the consequences of the earthquake, including the recent deployment of a Russian field hospital in Hatay Province. It was also agreed to study the possibility of arranging shipments of building materials from Russia so as to rebuild the devastated infrastructure and housing,” the statement said.
The Turkish leader once again thanked his Russian counterpart for the assistance provided in overcoming the consequences of the earthquake, the Kremlin press service reported
MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/. Russia can start supplying construction goods to Turkey in order to rebuild infrastructure and housing in that country ravaged by the earthquake, the Kremlin reported after a phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday.
“The Turkish president once again sincerely thanked for the assistance in dealing with the consequences of the earthquake, including the recent deployment of a Russian field hospital in Hatay Province. It was also agreed to study the possibility of arranging shipments of building materials from Russia so as to rebuild the devastated infrastructure and housing,” the statement said.
Two powerful 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes rocked Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province, located in the country’s southeast, within nine hours on February 6. The quakes have caused extensive destruction and suffering in eleven Turkish provinces. The tremors, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, were also felt in neighboring countries, of which Syria was the worst affected. The death toll from the devastating earthquakes has exceeded 50,000.
Erdogan previously pledged to have 650,000 buildings erected in the quake-hit areas, and the main construction work is scheduled to be completed within a year.
If President Erdogan is right, that this is one of the world’s largest calamities ever – and it looks very much like he is right – wars notwithstanding, is this an act of terror?What has Turkey done to elicit such a devastating reaction – by whom?The US of A? NATO, which as far as command goes is also Washington and the Pentagon?”
You know those power poles on the streets. They are similar to these pillars, about 8-10 meters high. Metal rods.
There is nothing inside the rod, no explosives, nothing, but it’s a metal rod made of a hard titanium alloy material.
They put them in a satellite. A certain amount of. And then they aim and launch them to Earth. It’s like a stick with a sharp point. For example, God forbid, it falls somewhere, we will not name the disaster scenario now, but as soon as it falls to the ground, it penetrates up to 5 km deep into the earth.
This happens very quickly and creates an earthquake of magnitude 7-8.
As a result of the impact, everything that is there will be destroyed. Look, there are no weapons here, no explosives, no bombs, nothing like that. Simple sticks [rods]. But there is such a force that comes from outer space, and you have no chance to see it, stop it, or defend yourself.”
Replacing Erdogan with a US stooge, might bring Turkey back as the desired all obedient NATO country, no alliance with Russia, no more “sleeping with the enemy”.
The conclusion of “No Evidence So Far” in the title referred to the strong suspicion that this horrendous quake was the result of an ENMOD engineered disaster. (Environmental Modification Techniques). Up to this day it killed more than 48,000 people, injured more than half a million, and still tens of thousands are missing.
Will there ever be justice?
Will the presumed perpetrators be brought to trial?
The “no evidence” statement is wearing thinner and thinner, especially, when listening to Serdar Hussein, the Head of the Turkish Space Agency talking on Russian TV.
He uses hyperbolic emblematic speech, when talking about the hard titanium alloy material being launched to the Earth. It refers to using the titanium alloy rods to send these deadly, super-power beams of energy to earth, deep into the ground to cause the earthquake:
You know those power poles on the streets. They are similar to these pillars, about 8-10 meters high. Metal rods.
There is nothing inside the rod, no explosives, nothing, but it’s a metal rod made of a hard titanium alloy material.
They put them in a satellite. A certain amount of. And then they aim and launch them to Earth. It’s like a stick with a sharp point. For example, God forbid, it falls somewhere, we will not name the disaster scenario now, but as soon as it falls to the ground, it penetrates up to 5 km deep into the earth.
This happens very quickly and creates an earthquake of magnitude 7-8.
As a result of the impact, everything that is there will be destroyed. Look, there are no weapons here, no explosives, no bombs, nothing like that. Simple sticks [rods]. But there is such a force that comes from outer space, and you have no chance to see it, stop it, or defend yourself.”
Serdar Hussein’s statement remains to be verified.
Peter Koenig, February 22, 2023
According to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “More than 13 million people have been affected by the devastating earthquake in Turkey.” (quoted by Tass, February 7, 2023)
“The earthquake has caused colossal damage. It was the biggest-ever calamity not only in our country’s history but in the history of the entire world,” Erdogan was quoted telling local television channels.
“We are living through the most painful days in our history. Two powerful earthquakes, with the epicenters in Pazarcik and Elbistan in Kahramanmaras, [close to the city of Gaziantep] have caused large-scale damage in ten provinces. Around 13.5 million [out of 85 million Turkish population] of our citizens have been affected on these territories,” he said.
Early Monday morning at around 4 AM on February 6, 2023, a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked southeast Turkey and Syria. According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake’s epicenter hit an area about 30 km from Gaziantep (2.1 million population), a major city and provincial capital 100 km from the Syrian border. The quake was centered about 18 km deep.
It was followed by a strong 6.7 magnitude aftershock about 10 minutes later. Read more here. See also NY Post drone video below of some of the devastated areas.
The death toll from the earthquake so far exceeds 5,400, and some 32,000 people were injured. This is only after day two, when most of the destruction and rubble has not yet been searched for survivors or bodies.
The earthquake also hit northern Syria, leaving so far at least 1,200 deaths and thousands of injured. (See 2 google maps to the left).
By comparison, the 1960 Chile earthquake hitting the Santiago area was one of the most devastating tremors in recent history, killing some 1,700 people, plus the ensuing tsunami with a death toll of between 2000 and 2,500, and tens of thousands of injured.
A Gigantic Act of Terror?
If President Erdogan is right, that this is one of the world’s largest calamities ever – and it looks very much like he is right – wars notwithstanding, is this an act of terror?
What has Turkey done to elicit such a devastating reaction – by whom?
The US of A? NATO, which as far as command goes is also Washington and the Pentagon?
A few recent initiatives by Turkey – a key member and heavy-weight of NATO for her strategic geographic location between east and west – may have provoked the wrath of her NATO allies.
Not necessarily in order of priority:
1. Turkey has entered an alliance with Russia – which for a NATO-member is like “sleeping with the enemy”. (Michel Chossudovsky) See this and this. Such a partnership with a NATO enemy is indeed an absolute no-go for the west.
2. Under this alliance, Turkey has decided to buy theRussian S-400 Air Defense system, instead of the US Patriot system, as it would behoove for a NATO member, especially one as crucial as is Turkey. Patriot (standing for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target) is a surface-to-air missile and anti-ballistic system. It is NATO’s air defense system. Instead, Turkey’s decision for the more sophisticated, more precise and effective Russian S-400 is a strong backbone for her alliance with Russia.
3. President Erdogan brokered in 2017 a US$ 2.5 billion deal with President Putin for the S-400. First deliveries of the S-400 missile batteries arrived in 2019.
4. The S-400 system is said to pose a risk to the NATO alliance as well as the F-35, America’s most expensive weapons platform. Turkey was severely sanctioned at the time by President Trump, notably by a foreign-manipulated currency devaluation of the Turkish Lira – which had a devastating impact on Turkey’s economy. It is unusual, almost unheard of, for Washington to “punish” a NATO member for misbehavior.
5. US warship USS Nitze barred from entering the Black Sea through the Turkish controlled Bosporus. According to USNI News, the US warship USS Nitze, a US destroyer, was spotted in early February 2023, operating near the Black Sea. It is said to be the closest a US warship has come to Russia since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began.
6. On February 3rd, the Nitze was seen at the lower edge of the Bosphorus Strait, en route to a port call in Turkey. The last US warship to pass through the strait was the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), which left the Black Sea on December 15, 2021. See Google map below, followed by video on the USS Nitze
7. In February 2022, Turkey closed the Bosphorus passage from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea for all vessels which do not have a national port within the Black Sea. This means, US war ships are not allowed to cross from the Med-Sea through the Bosporus into the Black Sea, from where Russia may be vulnerable for cruise missiles form US destroyers, for example the USS Nitze. In the meantime, Nitze has scheduled a port call at Gölcük Naval Base, in the Sea of Marmara (see Google map above).
8. Turkey, a key NATO country, between East and West, with the crucial Bosphorus as the dividing line, is closing a critical strategic passage to her NATO ally – NATO commander – protecting Russia, the US enemy – may not be seen with joy by Washington.
9. Turkish – Syrian rapprochement, is certainly not what Washington wants. It is the latest development in regional surprises, as reported by Arab Center Washington DC – see this.
10. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s interest in a rapprochement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the latest chapter in his delicate domestic and regional balancing act, and it has his friends and enemies alike, especially the US, scrambling for how this development might impact them. The rapprochement, if it succeeds, would further complicate the domestic and regional dynamics in northern Syria without securing any clear advantage for Erdogan beyond, perhaps, in the upcoming Turkish elections.
11. Remember the Russian Involvement in Syria – when the US was chased out of Syria? At the request of President Bashar al-Assad – Russian military, mostly air force interference from September 2015 until the end of 2017, was largely responsible for Washington’s significant withdrawal, albeit not complete, from Syria. In 2017, when “mission accomplished”, Russian combat troops were withdrawn, but Russia keeps a nominal military police presence in Northern Syria.
12. Turkey’s Bombshell – a few days ago, rejecting Sweden as NATO member, may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. For a new country to become a NATO member, ALL NATO nations must approve the new candidate.
13. Sweden says they cannot meet some of the Turkish conditions. Among them are Turkey’s accusations that Sweden is supporting members of the Kurdish Working Party – the PKK, archenemies of Erdogan’s.
14. According to a Turkish Crisis Group, some 30,000 to 40,000 people are estimated to have died in fighting between the PKK and Turkish government, since 1984.
15. Maybe there were also some Russian interests at stake in Turkey’s rejection of Sweden as a NATO member. Although peace has prevailed between Sweden and Russia, since 1809, the two countries never achieved a close relationship, unlike the situation with other neighbors. This is particularly the case with the current Swedish Government.
Turkish General Elections on 14 May 2023.
If the timing of the earthquake was part of a plan, it would fit perfectly into the coming General Elections on 14 May 2023. President Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party), are currently not doing well in popularity polls.
Depending on his dealing with the consequences of the earthquake, he and his Party may gain or lose in approval ratings. Usually, „natural“ disasters do not bode well for the governments in place, regardless of whether they bear any responsibility.
In any case, new elections bring new “opportunities”. In the meantime, it is clear to most analysts, that no elections are truly “democratic” – that there is literally no election in the world in which the decisive vote – the decisive influence – is not exerted by the Anglosaxon western empire.
Replacing Erdogan with a US stooge, might bring Turkey back as the desired all obedient NATO country, no alliance with Russia, no more “sleeping with the enemy”.
Is it a coincidence that just a few days after Turkey rejected Sweden’s candidacy for NATO membership, a massive, deadly and all-destructive earthquake hits Turkey, with serious ramification for Syria, and even impacting on Cyprus and Lebanon.
Was The Earthquake the Consequence of A Terror Attack? No Evidence
Artificial earthquakes have been prompted before. For example, the 12 January 2010 earthquake off Port-au-Prince, capital city of Haiti, is suspected having been prompted by underwater / underground explosions, in order to bring huge oil reserves lodged largely around the shores of the Caribbean Sea, closer to the surface to be easier accessible and exploitable. William Engdahl’s “Strategic denial of oil in Haiti?” points clearly in this direction.
F. William Engdahl says Geo-physics suggest there could be massive oil and mineral deposits in and off-shore Haiti. See this 9-min video from 30 January 2010.
The US Air Force’s Weather Warfare
Weather-modification, according to the US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report, “offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary”:
‘Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.”
The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)
The US Air Force’s “Weather Warfare” is related to The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) which was developed in the early 1990s.
A scientific report (HAL Id: hal-01082992) regarding HAARP (2011, 2014) explains that high-power ELF radiation generated by modulated HF heating of the ionosphere could cause Earthquakes, Cyclones and localized heating. The paper by Fran De Aquino Maranhao summarized the scientific findings as follows:
“HAARP is currently [2014], [the project was closed in Gakona, Alaska and transferred in 2014] the most important facility used to generate extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic radiation in the ionosphere. In order to produce this ELF radiation, the HAARP transmitter radiates a strong beam of high frequency (HF) waves modulated at ELF.
This HF heating modulates the electrons’ temperature in the D region ionosphere and leads to modulated conductivity and a time-varying current which then radiates at the modulation frequency. Recently, the HAARP HF transmitter operated with 3.6GW of effective radiated power modulated at frequency of 2.5Hz. It is shown that high-power ELF radiation generated by HF ionospheric heaters, such as the current HAARP heater, can cause Earthquakes, Cyclones and strong localized heating.”
The patents used to develop the HAARP program are owned by Raytheon through its E-Systems subsidiary.
It should be noted that with the closing down of The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) program in Gakona, Alaska in 2014 for another location, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been actively involved in ENMOD research, most of which is classified. See this
At the time of writing, there is suspicion, but no concrete evidence that the Turkey-Syria Earthquake was an Act of Terror, triggered by Environmental Modification Techniques.
The above statements remain to be fully ascertained.
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Featured image: The earthquake destroyed buildings in the town of Jandaris, near Afrin, Syria.Credit: Rami al-Sayed/AFP/Getty
The original source of this article is Global Research
At the end of January 2023, talks between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Swedish Government detonated. In order to be accepted into NATO, Sweden and Finland needed the vote from Turkey. But talks disintegrated after a Swedish-Danish politician set fire to the Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm.
After Erdogan’s declaration Turkey and Northern Syria were devastated by a series of earthquakes in southern Turkey with a death toll that has reached over 11,000.
Turkey is no stranger to earthquakes. The majority of them occur in the eastern and western portions of the Country. But strange anomalies occurred just before the earthquakes. Leading many to question whether a HARRP weapon may have been used to punish the Turkish Government for failing to toe the line of NATO’s New World Order overlords.
These weapons of geopolitical terrorism will be able to mold the climate change narrative and bend Countries to the will of the New World Order as the target date of UN Agenda 2030 draws nigh.
Turkey lashed out at Washington, going so far as to suggest the United States was to blame for the blast. “Turkey’s interior minister accused the U.S. of being complicit in a recent bombing in the city of Istanbul on Sunday that left at least six people dead and dozens of others injured,” The Hill reports.
“I emphasize once again that we do not accept, and reject the condolences of the US Embassy,” Soylu said, according to Turkish state media publication Anadolu Agency.
We reported earlier on Monday that Turkey has made an arrest for the terror bombing of a busy tourist hub in central Istanbul which left six people dead and dozens more injured.
But soon after the rare deadly attack which Turkey quickly blamed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) – and despite no official initial claims of responsibility – Ankara officials used the incident to air broader geopolitical grievances.
Turkey lashed out at Washington, going so far as to suggest the United States was to blame for the blast. “Turkey’s interior minister accused the U.S. of being complicit in a recent bombing in the city of Istanbul on Sunday that left at least six people dead and dozens of others injured,” The Hill reports.
The accusation was prompted by an official condolence statement from the US Embassy in Ankara. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu in a dramatic press conference said that Turkey has rejected the condolence statement from Washington.
“I emphasize once again that we do not accept, and reject the condolences of the US Embassy,” Soylu said, according to Turkish state media publication Anadolu Agency.
Soylu slammed the US statement as being akin to “a killer being first to show up at a crime scene.” The allegation was hurled due to America’s well-known longtime support of Syrian Kurds, which form the core of the US-trained Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Ankara has long alleged that Washington is giving aid to “terrorists”.
The hugely provocative Turkish reaction to the US condolence message came despite the White House saying it stands “shoulder-to-shoulder” with its NATO ally Turkey.
The U.S. strongly condemns the act of violence that took place today in Istanbul, Turkiye. Our thoughts are with those who were injured and our deepest condolences go to those who lost loved ones. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our NATO Ally Turkiye in countering terrorism.
Turkey will likely hold this against NATO applicants Finland and Sweden as well, given it has been blocking their membership to the Western military alliance based on accusations that they harbor Kurdish terrorists and entities linked to the outlawed PKK.
Turkey says it has a Syrian woman linked to the PKK in custody. However, both the PKK and Syrian YPG (as well as SDF) have issued official statements denying their involvement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has backed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s idea of creating an international natural gas hub in Türkiye, to deliver Russian supplies to Europe. According to the Turkish leader, both he and Putin have now ordered their respective governments to present construction plans as soon as possible.
Erdogan said the two countries’ energy authorities will work together to designate the best spot to build the distribution center, which will most likely be in Türkiye’s northwest, in the Thrace region which borders Greece and Bulgaria.
“Together with Mr. Putin, we have instructed our Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the relevant institution on the Russian side to work together,” Erdogan told reporters on the presidential plane while returning from Kazakhstan on Thursday.
“They will conduct this study. Wherever the most appropriate place is, we will hopefully establish this distribution center there,” he added, noting that while Türkiye already has a national distribution center, the new infrastructure will be the country’s first international gas hub.
The decision comes after a closed-door meeting between Erdogan and Putin on the sidelines of a regional summit in Astana on Thursday. The Russian president offered to build a major gas hub in Türkiye to handle supplies which were previously directed to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea. The pipeline, along with the as-yet unused Nord Stream 2, were severely damaged in a series of explosions in late September, which are widely considered to be the result of sabotage.
Praising Türkiye as one of “the most reliable” partners for the transit of Russian fuel to Europe, Putin noted that an international gas hub would serve not only as a distribution platform, but could also be used for determining gas prices and avoiding “politicization” of the issue.
The Kremlin had previously urged Ankara to consider further developing its gas infrastructure after several people were detained in Russia for allegedly plotting to sabotage the TurkStream pipeline. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says the pipeline is now the only “fully functional, fully loaded and working as clockwork route” for Russian gas to reach Europe.
If one needed any proof that the USA is a rogue evil regime this is it. The USA wants war, blood, mayhem, destruction, the killing of innocents, savagery. Good thing Turkey, Russia, and pretty soon the rest of the world, are not listening to these war criminals. Shame on you America, you have turned into a flatulent bully.
US opposition reportedly blocked the UN Security Council from backing the agreement between Russia and Turkey for a ceasefire in Syria’s Idlib province. US diplomats earlier sought to back Turkey’s incursion in the area.
Friday’s meeting was requested by Russia, after President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan hammered out a ceasefire after a six-hour meeting in Moscow the day before.
However, “one of the parties” blocked the Security Council statement that would have expressed support for the agreement, Russian envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said.
Though Nebenzya refrained from naming the culprit, both AFP and TASS reported that it was the US that vetoed the statement, citing diplomatic sources on East River.
Having pulled back its small contingent in Syria – there in violation of domestic and international law – to seize and hold oilfields, the US has nevertheless sought to influence the situation on the ground by egging on Erdogan to invade Idlib in force.
US envoy to the UN Kelly Craft actually went into Idlib and met with the “White Helmets,” the so-called civil defense actually operating hand in arm with militants affiliated with Al-Qaeda. She later went to Ankara and met with Erdogan on the eve of his trip to Moscow, but apparently to no avail.
Washington’s special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey also visited Turkey, promising “ammunition” and supplies for the Turkish army’s incursion into Syrian territory – only for aides to walk that back afterward as nothing more than routine cooperation with a NATO ally.
The agreement reached in Moscow halts the advance of Syrian government forces, but also establishes a corridor through Idlib that would be jointly patrolled by Russian and Turkish forces, effectively removing militants from the area. It allows Erdogan to save face, but falls far short of his demand for Syrian withdrawal to 2019 frontlines.
It also made it plain that Russia and Turkey will not fight a war and will continue to work together on peacefully resolving the Syrian conflict, however much some in Washington might have hoped otherwise.
Since mid-2018, Turkey has faced mounting financial woes, with the lira devaluating after several rounds of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and amid the heightened geostrategic tensions with its NATO allies.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Turks to convert their foreign currency to Turkish lira, asking them to “leave the dollar”.
“Leave the dollar and the rest. Let’s turn to our money, the Turkish lira. The Turkish lira doesn’t lose value anymore. Let’s show our patriotism like this,” Erdogan said.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan also added that Turkey plans to have its own locally made fighter jet ready in 5-6 years amid an ongoing dispute with the United States over the purchase of F-35 jets.
In 2019 lira has dropped 10 percent, as the Turkish government has delayed key economic reforms amid the rising political tensions within the country.
In 2018 Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that his country would boycott US electronic goods, citing “an economic attack” against Turkey. He continued to say that Turks should instead opt for locally produced gadgets or those manufactured by Turkey’s economic partners, possibly “new” ones, in a bid to strengthen the lira.
Turkish national currency collapsed amid geopolitical tensions and deteriorating relations with the United States.
In mid-September last year, the central bank raised its key rate by 625 basis points to 24 percent per annum, which helped strengthen the Turkish lira.
Thrilled by the enigma of a famous video shot in Turkey over a decade ago, some internet dwellers processed it through a powerful stabilization tool, revealing uncanny images that could dazzle even sophisticated ufologists.
The mystery started back in 2008 when a Turkish night guard named Yalcin Yalman began videotaping bright, crescent-shaped objects that regularly appeared and hovered over the Marmara Sea near the resort village of Kumburgaz.
His pastime earned him fame as a UFO spotter, and his videos quickly went viral due to their authenticity confirmed by numerous experts and witnesses who saw the same objects at the time of filming.
The gear Yalman used wasn’t top-notch at all as the original videos he made were quite shaky. The quality and definition of the unstabilized tapes dropped significantly when zoomed in or out, which led some skeptics to suggest the UFO was actually a US stealth drone or other aircraft.
There were several attempts to stabilize the Kumburgaz videos, with the last one surfacing online just this week. Uploaded by a YouTube channel called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, the footage stabilized in Adobe Premiere video editing tool tries to solve the mystery of the greenish dots in the middle of the lit-up crescent.
The clip was also hailed by netizens for its outstanding quality and high definition, with many users, of course, noticing striking resemblance between the magnified dots and the perceived look of aliens.
All in all, the edited Kumburgaz images add to a growing throve of “unexplained aerial phenomena” caught on camera. Earlier, the US military confirmed authenticity of three widely-circulated videos appearing to show encounters between Navy aircraft and UFOs.
The news came into the spotlight given never-ending rumors about the US military keeping its eye on, or coming in contact with, UFOs visiting Earth.
Just back in October, the army made headlines by announcing a partnership with a group called To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA). Owned by former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge, it claims to be in possession of a range of mysterious metal alloys that are allegedly beyond current engineering technology.
Now documents, relating to the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), released by the War Zone website, say the military wants to “assess, test, and characterize” the materials at government facilities to compare them with known commodities.
Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages
October 18, 2019
No wonder Democratic Party bosses and mainstream media are trying to bury presidential contender Tulsi Gabbard. She is the only candidate, perhaps the only politician in the US, who is telling the American public exactly what they need to know about what their government and military are really up to: fighting illegal regime-change wars, and to boot, sponsoring terrorists for that purpose.
It didn’t come much clearer nor more explicit than when Gabbard fired up the Democratic TV debate this week. It was billed as the biggest televised presidential debate ever, and the Hawaii Representative told some prime-time home-truths to the nation:
“Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that started in 2011… along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing and cheer-leading this regime-change war.”
The 38-year-old military veteran went on to denounce how the US has sponsored Al Qaeda terrorists for its objective of overthrowing the government in Damascus.
It was a remarkably damning assessment of US policy in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. And it was by no means the first time that Gabbard has leveled with the American people on the brutality and criminality of Washington’s so-called “interventions”.
The other 11 Democratic candidates on the stage during the TV debate looked agog after Gabbard’s devastating and calmly delivered statement. All the others have proffered the false narrative that US forces are in Syria to “fight terrorism”. They deplore Trump’s announcement last week to pull back US troops from northeast Syria because, they say, it will undermine the fight against Islamic State (IS or ISIS) and other Al Qaeda affiliates. They also condemn Trump for “betraying Kurdish allies” by his partial troop withdrawal.
President Donald Trump talks about “ending endless wars” and “bringing our troops home”. But he still premises his views on a credulous belief that the US under his watch “defeated ISIS 100 per cent”. In that way, he essentially shares the same corny view as the Democrats and media that America is a force for good, that it is the “good guys wearing white hats riding into the sunset”.
On the other hand, Gabbard stands alone in telling the American people the plain and awful truth. US policy is the fundamental problem. Ending its regime-change war in Syria and elsewhere and ending its diabolical collusion with terror groups is the way to bring peace to the Middle East and to spare ordinary Americans from the economic disaster of spiraling war debts. American citizens need to know the truth about the horror their government, military, media and politicians have inflicted not just on countries in the Middle East, but also from the horrendous boomerang consequences of this criminal policy on the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Americans, including millions of veterans destroyed by injuries, trauma, suicide, and drug abuse.
Following the TV debate this week, it seems that Gabbard won the popular vote with her truth-telling. A major online poll by the Drudge Report found that she stole a march on all the other candidates, winning approval from nearly 40 per cent of voters. Top ticket candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden were trailing behind with 7 per cent or less.
Gabbard has clearly struck a deep chord with the US public in her honest depiction of American wars.
Despite her shattering exposé and seeming appreciation by the public, most mainstream media tried to bury her after the TV debate. Outlets like Vox and CNN declared that Warren was the winner of the debate, whose talking points were mainly about domestic policy issues. Like the other candidates, Warren plies the propaganda narrative of US forces “fighting terrorism”. Vox even slated Gabbard as “a loser” in the debate and claimed she had made “blatantly false” statements about the US’ role in Syria.
Other mainstream news outlets chose to ignore reporting on Gabbard’s demolishing of the official propaganda about American wars. Earlier this week, CNN and the New York Times smeared her as a “Russian asset” and an “apologist for Assad”, referencing a visit she made to Syria in 2017 when she held talks with President Assad.
The Democratic National Committee is claiming that Gabbard does not have sufficient support in polls it deems worthy for her to qualify for appearing in the next TV debate in November.
International events, however, are proving the Hawaii Representative right. US troops, as with other NATO forces, have been occupying Syrian territory illegally. They have no mandate from the United Nations Security Council. The pullback of US troops by Trump has created a vacuum in northeast Syria into which the Syrian Arab Army is quickly moving to reclaim the territory which US-backed Kurdish fighters had de facto annexed for the past five years. Several reports show the local people are joyfully welcoming the arrival of the Syrian army. The scenes are reminiscent of when Syrian and Russian forces liberated Aleppo and other cities previously besieged by terror groups.
America’s war machine must get out of Syria for the sake of restoring peace to that war-torn country. Not because “they have defeated ISIS 100 per cent”, as Trump would conceitedly claim, nor because “we are betraying Kurds in the fight against terrorism”, as most Democrats and US media preposterously claim.
Peace will come to Syria and the Middle East when Washington finally ends its criminal regime-change wars and its support for terrorist proxies. Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the only politician with the intelligence and integrity to tell Americans the truth.
Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops who had been protecting the SDF(Syrian democratic forces) in the northeast of Syria, prompting Kurdish leadership and the Damascus governed to strike a deal allowing Syrian Arab Army to retake control of the border with Turkey after nearly six years.
With the US troops withdrawn numbering around 150 to 200 (out of the 2,000 to 3,000 illegally squatting in Syria), it is understood that Trump’s decision is for reasons other than those stated.
The primary impression Trump wishes to convey to his voters is that of keeping his electoral promises, including that of defeating ISIS in Syria, meaning that US troops can now come back home.
Although it is clear (at least to those not under the sway of the mainstream media) that ISIS has not been completely defeated and that the US never really fought against the Caliphate, the impression is nevertheless conveyed that the “Winner-in-Chief” has triumphed and is bringing home the boys.
Given that the deep state retains ultimate control of US foreign policy, Trump is allowed to do and say what he wants – provided it is only within the confines of his media playpen, safe in the knowledge that his motivations are purely electoral and not really aimed and upending the foreign-policy consensus of the US establishment.
If we look beyond Trump’s histrionics, we can see that the US deep state continues its illegal stay in Syria, with Trump in reality having no intention of opposing the military-industrial complex (indeed often appointing its members to serve in his administration), with these two parties finding a common point of agreement in the alleged threat posed by Iran.
US troops will only shift near Iraq, looking at disrupting any form of cooperation between Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran.
Trump’s Saudi and Israeli allies in the region have long been conspiring with the Pentagon to bring down the Islamic Republic of Iran.
That said, the possibility of war with Iran does not align well with Trump’s focus on securing a second term. In any such war, Israel and Saudi Arabia would bear the brunt of hostilities, making pointless their support for Trump. The price of oil would rise sharply, throwing the financial markets into chaos; and all this would conspire to ensure that Trump lost the 2020 election. Trump, therefore, has nothing to gain from war and will prefer dialogue and negotiation with the likes of North Korea, even if it does not bear much fruit.
Trump’s main problem lies in the long-term damage his actions and statements may do to the credibility of the US empire. The photo-op with Kim was criticized by many in mainstream media for giving credibility to a “dictator”. But the anger of the military and intelligence community really lay in leaving Washington with nowhere to go after Trump’s threats of annihilation only led to negotiations that did not go anywhere.
I have previously written about the effectiveness of Pyongyang’s nuclear and conventional deterrence, something well known to US policy makers, making them careful to avoid exposing themselves too much such that Pyongyang calls their bluff, thereby revealing to the world that Washington’s bark is worse than its bite. To avoid such an embarrassing situation, Obama and his predecessors were always careful to refuse to meet with the North Korean leader.
The United States bases much of its military strength on the display of power, advertising its theoretical ability to annihilate anyone anywhere. By North Korea calling its bluff and revealing that the most powerful country in the world cannot in actual fact attack it, the projected image of American invincibility is thus punctured.
Similarly, when Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from the northeast of Syria (quickly downsized by the Pentagon), and above all gave the green light to Turkey to occupy the area vacated, the political establishment and mainstream media swung into action to dissuade Trump from communicating to the world that America does not stick with its allies. Even Fox News, now siding with the Democrats, started giving wide coverage to Trump’s impeachment story, inviting in the process an angry Twitter response from Trump.
Trump is of course more than aware that a complete US withdrawal from Syria would go against the interests of Riyadh and Tel Aviv, those who actually have an influence on him.
Turkey’s aspirations to occupy the northeast Syria are part of Erdogan’s strategy to improve negotiating positions with Damascus and Moscow with regard to the jihadists in Idlib. Erdogan hopes to be able to annex Syrian territory and fill them with the jihadists and their families who lost the war in Syria and who otherwise pose the security risk of invading Turkey from Idlib. Erdogan seems to have come to some kind of understanding with the US, which has hitherto been the protector of the SDF.
Erdogan and Trump didn’t seem to consider the possibility of the SDF and Damascus finding common ground, but this is exactly what happened.
The Syrian Arab Army is now in the North East of the country, protecting its borders against an invading army. Russia and Iran will try and convince Erdogan to downplay the operation in exchange for some sort of arrangement regarding Idlib. The Syrian government in the near future should be able to take back the rich oil fields, boosting its economy.
Turkey and the US have have for years armed and financed terrorism in the region, as have Qatar and Saudi Arabia (in spite of their ideological differences). Even the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were involved in the destabilization of Syria.
All this chaos is ultimately supervised and directed by the United States, which has for years been coordinating in the region color revolutions, the Arab Spring, and proxy wars. Any other interpretation of events would be disingenuous and untruthful.
The withdrawal of US troops from Syria simply reinforces Damascus’s position as the only legitimate authority in Syria, undermines confidence of European allies in the US, and emphasizes the consistency of Moscow’s actions, which has always been opposed to Washington’s chaotic actions in the region.
Amidst this generalized chaos and confusion, Russia, Iran and Syria are trying to put the house back in order again, which includes the international system where sovereign states are respected.
The unipolarists have been suffering pronounced setbacks of late. The expensive air-defense systems of the United States were shown by the Houthis in the last month to be rather ineffectual; Saudi troops soon after this suffered a humiliating defeat in the south of their own country; Washington saw its high-tech drone shot down by Iran; and numerous European and Middle Eastern allies have lost faith in the US, as they watch factions fighting with each other over control for US foreign policy
The US is the victim of a unipolar world order onto which it desperately hangs without any thought of letting go, even as the rest of the world inexorably moves towards a multipolar world order, one that becomes ever more difficult to subdue with every waking day.
Following the Damascus-Kurdish alliance, Syria may become the biggest defeat for the Central Intelligence Agency since Vietnam, says Pepe Escobar.
What is happening in Syria, following yet another Russia-brokered deal, is a massive geopolitical game-changer. I’ve tried to summarize it in a single paragraph this way:
“It’s a quadruple win. The U.S. performs a face-saving withdrawal, which Trump can sell as avoiding a conflict with NATO ally Turkey. Turkey has the guarantee – by the Russians – that the Syrian Army will be in control of the Turkish-Syrian border. Russia prevents a war escalation and keeps the Russia-Iran-Turkey peace process alive. And Syria will eventually regain control of the entire northeast.”
Syria may be the biggest defeat for the CIA since Vietnam.
Yet that hardly begins to tell the whole story.
Allow me to briefly sketch in broad historical strokes how we got here.
It began with an intuition I felt last month at the tri-border point of Lebanon, Syria and Occupied Palestine; followed by a subsequent series of conversations in Beirut with first-class Lebanese, Syrian, Iranian, Russian, French and Italian analysts; all resting on my travels in Syria since the 1990s; with a mix of selected bibliography in French available at Antoine’s in Beirut thrown in.
The Vilayets
Let’s start in the 19thcentury when Syria consisted of six vilayets — Ottoman provinces — without counting Mount Lebanon, which had a special status since 1861 to the benefit of Maronite Christians and Jerusalem, which was a sanjak (administrative division) of Istanbul.
The vilayets did not define the extremely complex Syrian identity: for instance, Armenians were the majority in the vilayet of Maras, Kurds in Diyarbakir – both now part of Turkey in southern Anatolia – and the vilayets of Aleppo and Damascus were both Sunni Arab.
Nineteenth century Ottoman Syria was the epitome of cosmopolitanism. There were no interior borders or walls. Everything was inter-dependent.
Ethnic groups in the Balkans and Asia Minor, early 20th Century, Historical Atlas, 1911.
Then the Europeans, profiting from World War I, intervened. France got the Syrian-Lebanese littoral, and later the vilayets of Maras and Mosul (today in Iraq). Palestine was separated from Cham (the “Levant”), to be internationalized. The vilayet of Damascus was cut in half: France got the north, the Brits got the south. Separation between Syria and the mostly Christian Lebanese lands came later.
There was always the complex question of the Syria-Iraq border. Since antiquity, the Euphrates acted as a barrier, for instance between the Cham of the Umayyads and their fierce competitors on the other side of the river, the Mesopotamian Abbasids.
James Barr, in his splendid “A Line in the Sand,” notes, correctly, that the Sykes-Picot agreement imposed on the Middle East the European conception of territory: their “line in the sand” codified a delimited separation between nation-states. The problem is, there were no nation-states in region in the early 20thcentury.
The birth of Syria as we know it was a work in progress, involving the Europeans, the Hashemite dynasty, nationalist Syrians invested in building a Greater Syria including Lebanon, and the Maronites of Mount Lebanon. An important factor is that few in the region lamented losing dependence on Hashemite Medina, and except the Turks, the loss of the vilayet of Mosul in what became Iraq after World War I.
In 1925, Sunnis became the de facto prominent power in Syria, as the French unified Aleppo and Damascus. During the 1920s France also established the borders of eastern Syria. And the Treaty of Lausanne, in 1923, forced the Turks to give up all Ottoman holdings but didn’t keep them out of the game.
Turkish borders according to the Treaty of Lausanne, 1923.
The Turks soon started to encroach on the French mandate, and began blocking the dream of Kurdish autonomy. France in the end gave in: the Turkish-Syrian border would parallel the route of the fabled Bagdadbahn — the Berlin-Baghdad railway.
In the 1930s France gave in even more: the sanjak of Alexandretta (today’s Iskenderun, in Hatay province, Turkey), was finally annexed by Turkey in 1939 when only 40 percent of the population was Turkish.
The annexation led to the exile of tens of thousands of Armenians. It was a tremendous blow for Syrian nationalists. And it was a disaster for Aleppo, which lost its corridor to the Eastern Mediterranean.
Turkish forces under entered Alexandretta on July 5, 1938.
To the eastern steppes, Syria was all about Bedouin tribes. To the north, it was all about the Turkish-Kurdish clash. And to the south, the border was a mirage in the desert, only drawn with the advent of Transjordan. Only the western front, with Lebanon, was established, and consolidated after WWII.
This emergent Syria — out of conflicting Turkish, French, British and myriad local interests —obviously could not, and did not, please any community. Still, the heart of the nation configured what was described as “useful Syria.” No less than 60 percent of the nation was — and remains — practically void. Yet, geopolitically, that translates into “strategic depth” — the heart of the matter in the current war.
From Hafez to Bashar
Starting in 1963, the Baath party, secular and nationalist, took over Syria, finally consolidating its power in 1970 with Hafez al-Assad, who instead of just relying on his Alawite minority, built a humongous, hyper-centralized state machinery mixed with a police state. The key actors who refused to play the game were the Muslim Brotherhood, all the way to being massacred during the hardcore 1982 Hama repression.
Secularism and a police state: that’s how the fragile Syrian mosaic was preserved. But already in the 1970s major fractures were emerging: between major cities and a very poor periphery; between the “useful” west and the Bedouin east; between Arabs and Kurds. But the urban elites never repudiated the iron will of Damascus: cronyism, after all, was quite profitable.
Damascus interfered heavily with the Lebanese civil war since 1976 at the invitation of the Arab League as a “peacekeeping force.” In Hafez al-Assad’s logic, stressing the Arab identity of Lebanon was essential to recover Greater Syria. But Syrian control over Lebanon started to unravel in 2005, after the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, very close to Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) eventually left.
Bashar al-Assad had taken power in 2000. Unlike his father, he bet on the Alawites to run the state machinery, preventing the possibility of a coup but completely alienating himself from the poor, Syrian on the street.
What the West defined as the Arab Spring, began in Syria in March 2011; it was a revolt against the Alawites as much as a revolt against Damascus. Totally instrumentalized by the foreign interests, the revolt sprang up in extremely poor, dejected Sunni peripheries: Deraa in the south, the deserted east, and the suburbs of Damascus and Aleppo.
Protest in Damascus, April 24, 2011. (syriana2011/Flickr)
What was not understood in the West is that this “beggars banquet” was not against the Syrian nation, but against a “regime.” Jabhat al-Nusra, in a P.R. exercise, even broke its official link with al-Qaeda and changed its denomination to Fatah al-Cham and then Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (“Organization for the Liberation of the Levant”). Only ISIS/Daesh said they were fighting for the end of Sykes-Picot.
By 2014, the perpetually moving battlefield was more or less established: Damascus against both Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS/Daesh, with a wobbly role for the Kurds in the northeast, obsessed in preserving the cantons of Afrin, Kobane and Qamichli.
But the key point is that each katiba (“combat group”), each neighborhood, each village, and in fact each combatant was in-and-out of allegiances non-stop. That yielded a dizzying nebulae of jihadis, criminals, mercenaries, some linked to al-Qaeda, some to Daesh, some trained by the Americans, some just making a quick buck.
For instance Salafis — lavishly financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — especially Jaish al-Islam, even struck alliances with the PYD Kurds in Syria and the jihadis of Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (the remixed, 30,000-strong al-Qaeda in Syria). Meanwhile, the PYD Kurds (an emanation of the Turkish Kurds’ PKK, which Ankara consider “terrorists”) profited from this unholy mess — plus a deliberate ambiguity by Damascus – to try to create their autonomous Rojava.
A demonstration in the city of Afrin in support of the YPG against the Turkish invasion of Afrin, Jan. 19, 2018. (Voice of America Kurdish, Wikimedia Commons)
That Turkish Strategic Depth
Turkey was all in. Turbo-charged by the neo-Ottoman politics of former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the logic was to reconquer parts of the Ottoman empire, and get rid of Assad because he had helped PKK Kurdish rebels in Turkey.
Davutoglu’s Strategik Derinlik (“Strategic Depth’), published in 2001, had been a smash hit in Turkey, reclaiming the glory of eight centuries of an sprawling empire, compared to puny 911 kilometers of borders fixed by the French and the Kemalists. Bilad al Cham, the Ottoman province congregating Lebanon, historical Palestine, Jordan and Syria, remained a powerful magnet in both the Syrian and Turkish unconscious.
No wonder Turkey’s Recep Erdogan was fired up: in 2012 he even boasted he was getting ready to pray in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, post-regime change, of course. He has been gunning for a safe zone inside the Syrian border — actually a Turkish enclave — since 2014. To get it, he has used a whole bag of nasty players — from militias close to the Muslim Brotherhood to hardcore Turkmen gangs.
With the establishment of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), for the first time Turkey allowed foreign weaponized groups to operate on its own territory. A training camp was set up in 2011 in the sanjakof Alexandretta. The Syrian National Council was also created in Istanbul – a bunch of non-entities from the diaspora who had not been in Syria for decades.
Ankara enabled a de facto Jihad Highway — with people from Central Asia, Caucasus, Maghreb, Pakistan, Xinjiang, all points north in Europe being smuggled back and forth at will. In 2015, Ankara, Riyadh and Doha set up the dreaded Jaish al-Fath (“Army of Conquest”), which included Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda).
At the same time, Ankara maintained an extremely ambiguous relationship with ISIS/Daesh, buying its smuggled oil, treating jihadis in Turkish hospitals, and paying zero attention to jihad intel collected and developed on Turkish territory. For at least five years, the MIT — Turkish intelligence – provided political and logistic background to the Syrian opposition while weaponizing a galaxy of Salafis. After all, Ankara believed that ISIS/Daesh only existed because of the “evil” deployed by the Assad regime.
The Russian Factor
Russian President Vladiimir Putin meeting with President of Turkey Recep Erdogan; Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov standing in background, Ankara, Dec. 1, 2014 Ankara. (Kremlin)
The first major game-changer was the spectacular Russian entrance in the summer of 2015. Vladimir Putin had asked the U.S. to join in the fight against the Islamic State as the Soviet Union allied against Hitler, negating the American idea that this was Russia’s bid to restore its imperial glory. But the American plan instead, under Barack Obama, was single-minded: betting on a rag-tag Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mix of Kurds and Sunni Arabs, supported by air power and U.S. Special Forces, north of the Euphrates, to smash ISIS/Daesh all the way to Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor.
Raqqa, bombed to rubble by the Pentagon, may have been taken by the SDF, but Deir ez-Zor was taken by Damascus’s Syrian Arab Army. The ultimate American aim was to consistently keep the north of the Euphrates under U.S. power, via their proxies, the SDF and the Kurdish PYD/YPG. That American dream is now over, lamented by imperial Democrats and Republicans alike.
The CIA will be after Trump’s scalp till Kingdom Come.
Kurdish Dream Over
Talk about a cultural misunderstanding. As much as the Syrian Kurds believed U.S. protection amounted to an endorsement of their independence dreams, Americans never seemed to understand that throughout the “Greater Middle East” you cannot buy a tribe. At best, you can rent them. And they use you according to their interests. I’ve seen it from Afghanistan to Iraq’s Anbar province.
The Kurdish dream of a contiguous, autonomous territory from Qamichli to Manbij is over. Sunni Arabs living in this perimeter will resist any Kurdish attempt at dominance.
The Syrian PYD was founded in 2005 by PKK militants. In 2011, Syrians from the PKK came from Qandil – the PKK base in northern Iraq – to build the YPG militia for the PYD. In predominantly Arab zones, Syrian Kurds are in charge of governing because for them Arabs are seen as a bunch of barbarians, incapable of building their “democratic, socialist, ecological and multi-communitarian” society.
Kurdish PKK guerillas In Kirkuk, Iraq. (Kurdishstruggle via Flickr)
One can imagine how conservative Sunni Arab tribal leaders hate their guts. There’s no way these tribal leaders will ever support the Kurds against the SAA or the Turkish army; after all these Arab tribal leaders spent a lot of time in Damascus seeking support from Bashar al-Assad. And now the Kurds themselves have accepted that support in the face of the Trukish incursion, greenlighted by Trump.
East of Deir ez-Zor, the PYD/YPG already had to say goodbye to the region that is responsible for 50 percent of Syria’s oil production. Damascus and the SAA now have the upper hand. What’s left for the PYD/YPG is to resign themselves to Damascus’s and Russian protection against Turkey, and the chance of exercising sovereignty in exclusively Kurdish territories.
Ignorance of the West
The West, with typical Orientalist haughtiness, never understood that Alawites, Christians, Ismailis and Druze in Syria would always privilege Damascus for protection compared to an “opposition” monopolized by hardcore Islamists, if not jihadis. The West also did not understand that the government in Damascus, for survival, could always count on formidable Baath party networks plus the dreaded mukhabarat — the intel services.
Rebuilding Syria
The reconstruction of Syria may cost as much as $200 billion. Damascus has already made it very clear that the U.S. and the EU are not welcome. China will be in the forefront, along with Russia and Iran; this will be a project strictly following the Eurasia integration playbook — with the Chinese aiming to revive Syria’s strategic positioning in the Ancient Silk Road.
As for Erdogan, distrusted by virtually everyone, and a tad less neo-Ottoman than in the recent past, he now seems to have finally understood that Bashar al-Assad “won’t go,” and he must live with it. Ankara is bound to remain imvolved with Tehran and Moscow, in finding a comprehensive, constitutional solution for the Syrian tragedy through the former “Astana process”, later developed in Ankara.
The war may not have been totally won, of course. But against all odds, it’s clear a unified, sovereign Syrian nation is bound to prevail over every perverted strand of geopolitical molotov cocktails concocted in sinister NATO/GCC labs. History will eventually tell us that, as an example to the whole Global South, this will remain the ultimate game-changer.
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is “2030.” Follow him on Facebook.
It has recently become more obvious that the European Union cannot trust the United States, in which sentiment it has much in common with other groupings and individual nations around the world. The Trump policy debacle over Turkey and Syria is a significant sign in the expansion of general distrust.
The first round in Washington’s latest erratic performance on the international stage was the seeming decision by Trump to abandon the Kurds who have been strongly supporting the US against the extremist barbarians of Islamic State. No matter what anyone might think of the rights or wrongs of Kurdish separatism, the fact remains that they were staunch allies of Washington. But they are also enemies of Turkey. When the White House announced that Trump would not prevent or disagree with a Turkish operation to expel Kurdish forces from the Turkey-Syria border region the Kurds considered it was now open day for their slaughter — as did Europe.
Trump’s White House statement was “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation…” President Erdogan had told Trump about it being “long-planned” and he naturally thought he had US endorsement for whatever he wanted to do.
Then Trump appeared to back-pedal by tweeting “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families. The US has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!”
While Britain, France and Germany disapprove of Turkey’s assault, there is no indication of agreement with many of Trump’s semi-coherent twitter diatribes, which is the major factor that European nations should be considering.
It is obvious in European capitals (and around the world) that Trump America, the arrogant “USA is Great” of modern times, is far from consistent in its policies regarding trade, military operations, alliances or indeed any facet of international relations. Before taking action against perceived enemies, Washington rarely if ever consults with nations or groupings that have reason to regard themselves as relevant to the US decision.
The case of the Kurds is one of the more egregious examples of Trump’s go-it-alone fixation, as exemplified by his tweet of October 7 stating he intends to “bring our soldiers home” from regions in which they are engaged in warfare, such as Syria, whereupon, after his unilateral action, “Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out.”
Successive America governments have engaged in massive military operations throughout the Middle East in their flailing determination to prove to the electorate that they are ensuring safety for the “Homeland” — that magic word that persuades all Americans that if they do not support all official activities connected with their native land, they are being unpatriotic and disloyal to The Flag.
At the moment the US is headed by an extremely strange person whose erratic behaviour is dangerous for his country and the world. No trust can be placed in the man who on October 9 tweeted that “in no way have we Abandoned the Kurds, who are special people and wonderful fighters” and then declared disjointedly that “they didn’t help us in the Second World War. They didn’t help us with Normandy, as an example.”
His comments about Europe as a grouping and regarding individual nations of the European Union have been similarly inconsistent and often even illogical.
A year ago Trump told NBC’s ‘Sixty Minutes’ that “The European Union was formed in order to take advantage of us on trade, and that’s what they’ve done.” It is verging on the incredible that the leader of the world’s richest and most influential country should make such a bizarre public announcement, which displays not only profound ignorance of history but reveals spiteful maliciousness. In July the US Congressional Research Service noted that the EU is the United States’ largest trading and investment partner and that “ties have broadened as the EU’s membership has grown, and have deepened with the growth of global supply chains, trade in services, and cross-border investment.”
Yet Trump is intent on insulting Europe and when on July 14 (French National Day) he was asked by NBC News who he thought to be America’s greatest enemy declared “I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us is in trade. Now, you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe.” He went on in a rambling fashion, but left no doubt about his stance regarding the EU.
In July the French government legislated that US digital services’ companies should pay a modest tax — just three percent — on the vast profits they make from France. To most people this is reasonable action by a sovereign government, but Trump tweeted that “France just put a digital tax on our great American technology companies. If anybody taxes them, it should be their home Country, the USA. We will announce a substantial reciprocal action on Macron’s foolishness shortly. I’ve always said American wine is better than French wine!”
Until the arrival of Trump on the international political scene it had been practice for world leaders to refrain from personal insult but, while most of them continue to observe politeness, Trump loses no opportunity to abuse and disparage those he regards as opponents. At last July’s NATO summit in Brussels he went out of his way to attack “you, Angela” saying that Germany is “totally controlled by Russia” because of their mutually beneficial agreement concerning the Nord Stream pipeline. He tweeted “What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy? The US is paying for Europe’s protection, then loses billions on Trade.” In June, in an unprecedented instance of interference in the domestic politics of an ally he tweeted “The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”
Given Trump’s bizarre behaviour concerning the Turkey-Kurd debacle, when he failed to consult European allies about his intentions, together with his repetitive pronouncements assailing the EU and its leaders, collectively and individually, for their level-headed governance and supposed weaknesses, it is surprising that Europe is standing by Washington to the extent it seems to be doing.
It must be faced that the Trump impeachment initiative is likely to fail, and that he could be re-elected next year by the millions of Americans who actually admire his personality, his disjointed and incoherent tirades, and his constant repetition that “The USA is Great”.
Europe must plan for its economic future, and its considerations should include the likelihood of a further Trump presidency and, therefore, further economic confrontation and other erratic behaviour. The solution is not to formally cut ties with Washington but to foster and develop economic links with Russia, its obvious and geographically convenient partner for the future. The United States can no longer be trusted by the EU — but Russia beckons.
Brian CLOUGHLEY
British and Australian armies’ veteran, former deputy head of the UN military mission in Kashmir and Australian defense attaché in Pakistan
It’s going to be a precarious balancing act, but only one nation can possibly help bring stability to the chaos unleashed in Syria by US President Donald Trump. That’s Russia.
Reports of a deal brokered over the weekend by Russia between Syrian government forces and Kurdish militia are a prelude to a wider effort by Moscow to achieve full peace in the war-torn country. That constructive role played by Russia is no doubt due to the mutual respect it holds among warring sides.
The deal brokered by Russia will allow the Syrian Arab Army to take over control of northern border areas with Turkey which were formerly under the control of the Kurds. Since Trump threw the Kurds under the bus last week and effectively green-lighted the incursion into Syria by Turkish forces, the Kurds have had to subsequently align with the Syrian government. Russia was crucial to facilitating the new alliance.
With the Kurdish areas returning to the control of the central government in Damascus – after five years of US-backed Kurdish occupation – that arrangement of a fully integrated Syrian territory is not just legally proper. It also could placate Turkey’s long-held demands for security regarding Kurdish militants, whom Ankara accuses of being “terrorists” trying to destabilise Turkey.
Russia and Iran have in recent days both warned Turkey to respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. With the Russian-backed Syrian army on the border facing Turk forces, it is a fair bet that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will think twice about escalating the incursion. Having had the Kurdish autonomous area dismantled and under control of Damascus again, the Turkish leader should feel assured to back off from further military action. Again, we may reasonably surmise that Russian President Vladimir Putin has quietly, but firmly, told Erdogan to calm down. Perhaps Putin is the only person whom the bullish Erdogan will heed at this point.
One thing is apparent though. The US and its European allies are a more than ever exposed as a hopeless bunch of losers whose criminal meddling and mischief in Syria, and more widely across the Middle East, leave them without a shred of credibility to resolve conflict.
“This is a monumental failure on behalf of the United States”, commented Aaron Stein of the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute think-tank, as quoted by Reuters.
Stein added that “it would be the Syrian government or Russia, not American sanctions, that could stop the Turkish operation… The only thing that will stop them is if the [Syrian] regime or the Russians move in significant numbers to where they stop”.
Washington and its European allies have created the entire bloody mess in Syria with their criminal, covert war for regime change against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the war on that country erupted in March 2011 – with as many as 600,000 dead. The Americans and other NATO powers have secretly weaponised jihadist terror gangs for their regime-change plot – an intrigue which failed because of Russia’s military intervention from the end of 2015 in order to defend the Syrian nation.
American soldiers walk together during a joint U.S.-Turkey patrol, near Tel Abyad, Syria September 8, 2019
The US and its NATO cronies also used Kurdish militants as proxies to break up Syria’s territorial unity. Officially, Western governments and media claim that the Kurds fought a war against jihadist terrorism. That may be partly true in the murky world of running anti-government insurgents. But, primarily, the Kurds were used by Washington to annex Syrian territory, especially the oil-rich and water-abundant northeastern regions. In doing that, however, the Americans antagonised Turkey by mobilising the Kurds and affording them a de facto state within the Syrian state.
Trump’s sell-out of the Kurds last week by withdrawing American special forces in the region aligned with them has unleashed the mayhem and violence seen over several days. Trying to claw back some credibility, the Trump administration is now moving to heap tough economic sanctions on Ankara to “wreck the Turkish economy”.
European states have also clamoured with condemnation of Turkey for its military operations against the Kurds, which have resulted in many civilian deaths and tens of thousands of terror-stricken refugees fleeing from the violence.
This is an incredible debacle. NATO members are bickering with and sanctioning fellow NATO member Turkey. There are even reports of Turkish artillery shelling positions near American special forces to cut them off from their former Kurdish ally.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Erdogan has basically told Washington and the Europeans to shove their sermonising and hypocrisy. Erdogan knows that the Americans and Europeans have blood on their hands from sponsoring Syria’s covert war, just as he does too.
Washington has no moral authority whatsoever to unravel the mess it has engendered in Syria.
Russia can salvage the disastrous situation because it has earned respect from all sides due to its principled and powerful military deployment in Syria. Moscow will want to avoid delving in too deeply whereby it ends up in a war with Turkey on Syria’s border. Somehow, however, Russia has the right balance between respect, diplomatic intelligence and power to salvage the morass made by America and its NATO cronies.
If peace can be settled between Syria and Turkey and Syria’s territorial integrity restored, then Russia stands to emerge with newfound status in the Middle East as an honest broker and neighbour – unlike the scoundrels barking in Washington and European capitals.
The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has called out the US for delivering more than 30,000 weapon-laden trucks to Syria to support the PKK-linked People’s Protection Units (YPG) terrorist group, reported Press Tv.
ANADOLU AGENCY (ENG)
✔@anadoluagency
#BREAKING Turkey not to remain silent to over 30,000 weapon-laden trucks sent by US to N.Syria as Turkey only country in region to fight, says Erdogan
Speaking at the Justice and Development Party’s meeting in Eskişehir, a city in northwestern Turkey, Erdogan said he wouldn’t sit back in the shadows anymore about a superhighway of weapons supplied by the US, amounting to more than 30,000 truckloads of weapons, equipment, and ammunition to northern Syria to support YPG terrorists.
Erdogan further criticized the Trump administration for its “lack of commitment” to construct a safe zone in Syria along the Turkish border. He added that he would “sort out” the issue with President Trump at a meeting later this month.
“We must resolve this … There are differences between what is said and what has been done,” Erdogan said.
Washington and Ankara have been at odds with one another of who should control northeast Syria, where YPG terrorist and other Kurdish militias have had the luxury of receiving American weapons.
Ankara has viewed the YPG as an extension of its own Kurdish militancy, insisting the US needs to cut ties with the terrorist organization.
Erdogan also criticized the European Union for the lack of support regarding the millions of Syrian refugees.
He said Ankara has already spent $40 billion hosting four million Syrian refugees, adding that a new project could be announced momentarily to resettle one million refugees in northern Syria.
“Our goal is to settle at least one million Syrian brothers and sisters in our country in this safe zone,” said Erdogan. “If needed, with support from our friends, we can build new cities there and make it habitable for our Syrian siblings.”
The European Union has given Turkey $7 billion since 2015 to restrict the flow of migrants. But with Turkey granting millions of refugees asylum status, the migrant problem is worsening through 2019.
“If there is no safe zone we can’t overcome this,” Erdogan said.
Syrians have already begun traveling to Europe again. Turkish and international refugee officials warned about new waves of migrants headed towards the continent. Over 500 refugees landed by vessel in the Greek island of Lesbos earlier this month.
Erdogan also touched on falling interest rates and said they would also lead to lower inflation rates.
“Inflation is falling, so are interests and they will fall even further. The capital market board will convene on Thursday, and I believe interests will fall afterward,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan has just given the world a dose of reality of where some of the weapons used by terrorists in Syria are coming from.
“And you had the Nobel Prize? That’s incredible. They gave it to you for what reason?”
(MEMO) — US President Donald Trump appeared confused and unfamiliar with the work of Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad as she urged him to help the Yazidis in Iraq.
Murad, one of thousands of Yazidi females abducted and taken as sex slaves by Daesh during their campaign of expansion from 2014 to 2018 and who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, was part of a group of survivors of religious persecution who met Trump in the Oval Office on the sidelines of an important meeting with the State Department.
She explained to the president how her mother and six brothers were killed and that 3,000 Yazidis are still missing, to which he responded: “And you had the Nobel Prize? That’s incredible. They gave it to you for what reason?”
Murad repeated her story, saying “after all this happened to me, I didn’t give up. I make it clear to everyone that ISIS [Daesh] raped thousands of Yazidi women.” She pleaded with the president to “please do something. It’s not about one family.”
She also requested Trump urge the Iraqi and semi-autonomous Kurdish governments to help facilitate safer living conditions for Yazidis in the country, at which he asked “But ISIS is gone and now it’s Kurdish and who?” before telling her later that “I know the area very well.”
Last year, Trump announced his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, basing it off the overall military defeat of Daesh which once controlled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria, which Trump credited himself with achieving.
The Yazidis are a minority group in Iraq and other parts of the Levant who follow an ancient faith often cited as an admixture between elements of Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam. Daesh, however, accused them of being devil-worshippers and launched a brutal campaign against them around their bases at Mount Sinjar, killing the men and taking the women captive.
It is also reportedly not the first time he has shown confusion at a well-known situation or crisis in the world, a previous incident being earlier in his presidency when he met with a representative of the Rohingya Muslim minority, which is being persecuted in Myanmar.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
What is happening in Syria, following yet another Russia-brokered deal, is a massive geopolitical game-changer. I’ve tried to 
Tales from the Conspiratum 