Written by Boyan Chukov; Originally appeared at A-specto, tranlsated by Desi Tzoneva exclusively for SouthFront
Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, returned from a visit to Moscow a few days ago. Previously, Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a statement that Ankara will seek to become a member of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization). A proposal for amendment of the Turkish Constitution was submitted to the Turkish parliament, moving the country to a presidential regime. It is an old dream of Recep Erdogan. If these adjustments are made, the constitution will abolish the post of a prime minister. The president will appoint ministers. As a whole, the Turkish President will become a true “Sultan”.
Comments on these events had not subsided yet when on 10th December 2016, Istanbul was covered in blood again. Two blasts exploded in the center of the city, near the football stadium, “Besiktas”. 38 people were killed. 30 of them were employees of law enforcement. The youth organization, ‘Falcons of Freedom of Kurdistan’, took responsibility. The organization is excluded from PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) because of its radicalism. In the consequence of terrorist attacks in Turkey, the motivational component and the receiver can definitely be traced. The potential of certain forces to methodically impose their interests and goals is demonstrated. As a result of the two blasts, members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Party of Nations, which is represented in Parliament, were arrested.
The last bloody chaos serves to criminalize the opposition of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who seeks to expand his powers. One thing is clear. External and internal forces are trying to destabilize the domestic political situation in Turkey through terror. Until recently, our southeastern neighbor had an image of a stable and successfully developing country. Today, things are exactly the opposite. The European Parliament froze the negotiations regarding EU membership with Ankara. Threats of economic sanctions are coming from Brussels for violating human rights. Generally, in the global media, an image of Turkey as a country in which very serious changes are inevitably forthcoming, is created. Obviously, the “flexible” policy of Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not suit certain forces on the continent and beyond. Turkey, in recent years, participated very actively in international conflict on the territory of Syria and Iraq. What happened recently? Ankara in recent months “reformatted” its relations with a number of regional and global players in the Middle East conflict in accordance with its national interests. Turkey even changed its extreme hostility to Bashar Assad through the prism of the “Kurdish factor”.
To explain more clearly the reason for the bloody chaos in the Middle East and sort out the complex puzzle, it is necessary to capitalize on the regional character of the many wars in the region. The state borders are established here in a voluntarist way by the former metropolises. The countries in the Middle East for many years tried to turn their population into people. Only Egypt, Syria and Iraq managed. Let’s look at the Kurdish factor in the region only. According to the global media, the Kurds live freely in Iraq, where they enjoy the autonomy imposed by the United States federal system. In Syria, they fight against the dictatorship of the Alawites in the face of Bashar al-Assad and against the Sunni DAESH. But mostly, the Kurds have been persecuted in Turkey for many years. The Kurds have the same culture, but different languages and history. The Kurds in Iraq during the Cold War were pro-American. Those who lived in Turkey and Syria supported the USSR. During the civil war in Turkey in the 80s, hundreds of thousands of Turkish Kurds fled to Syria together with their leader, Abdullah Ocalan. There, they received protection and shelter and something more. In 2011, they were granted Syrian citizenship.
Until 2012, the Kurdish factor was not exposed. It all started after the Paris conference of the self-proclaimed “Friends of Syria” jihadists. The same, who were later invited by Nikolay Mladenov to a meeting of “democrats” in Pravets. This happened in 2012. Then everyone thought that Syria will soon collapse as a state. “Muslim Brotherhood” will come to power, supported by Qatar and Turkey. And Bashar Assad will end his life like Muammar Gaddafi. At that time, Turkey allowed the population, living in northern Syria to cross to Turkish territory for protection from shocks caused by the “people’s revolution”. In September of the same year, Veysel Dalmaz was appointed by the Turkish authorities as valli. Under the personal control of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he rationed among the “refugees” billions of dollars received from oil-and-gas-dictatorships in the Gulf.
The motive of Ankara for this ‘noble’ act was not clear at the time. Four years ago, the expert Kelly Greenhil, close to the representative to the United Nations, Samantha Power, published in the academic journal an article: “Strategic Migration Designed as an Instrument of War” (Civil War Journal, Volume 10, Issue 1, July 2008). The publication impressed the experts. Turkey built cities for the Syrians, but did not allow them in immediately. The cities were deserted. The Turkish approach to the Syrian refugees was interesting. The selection was made according to their political beliefs. Some of them are kept in camps and study warfare. Later, they are sent back to Syria to fight. Others are mixed with the Turkish population and are used for cheap labor. In northern Syria mainly Christians, Kurds and Turkmen remained. The Turkmen, as it became clear after the downing of the Russian bomber Tu-24, passed in mass to the “Grey Wolves” fascist organization. And they killed the Russian pilot.
To protect its interests, Damascus created armed detachments of Christians and Kurds to protect their own territories. For two years the Syrian Kurds fought under the flag of SAR (Syrian Arab Republic). But the situation changed radically. The head of the Syrian Kurds, Salih Muslim betrayed Abdullah Ocalan, the historic leader of the PKK. He passed on the side of Turkey. He became a collaborator. A significant part of the family of Salih Muslim was killed by the Turks in the 80s. On 31 October 2014 according to French sources, Salih Muslim had gone secretly to Paris, to the Elysee Palace, to meet with President Francois Hollande and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He signed a contract with them. Paris and Ankara pledged to recognize the creation of an independent state in northern Syria, with President Salih Muslim. In return, he had to “clear” this territory through the mass destruction of the Christian population.
This agreement is very reminiscent of what happened a century ago in the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds killed Christians in favor of the High Gate at the time. Salih Muslim agreed to accept on his territory Turkish Kurds connected with the formations of the Turkish branch of the PKK. In their place, Ankara plans to settle Sunnis who escaped from Syria. This plan, according to French sources, was developed in 2011 by Ahmet Davutoglu and Alain Juppe, both of them foreign ministers of their countries at the time. In short, this is done before the war of Turkey against Muammar Gaddafi and the events in Syria. In 2013, this plan was approved by the United States.
Robin Wright then published in the New York Times a map of a future state called “Sunnistan” which later became the caliphate of DAESH. But it also mentioned another country called “Kurdistan”, which is not located on the territory of historical Kurdistan. Two countries are planned on the territory of Syria and Iraq to totally block the southern branch of the “Economic Belt of the New Silk Road”. Obviously, these plans harm the geo-economic strategy of China.
Now it becomes clear why Beijing got out of its role as a neutral observer in relation to the conflict in Syria. Nothing is new after all. This is an old plan of Abdulhamid II, the “Young Turks” and the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) – Turkey to turn into a Sunni country driving out the other nations. On this occasion, Raphael Lemkin introduced the term “genocide”. He wants to prevent the implementation of this plan, to condemn those who realize it, to protect the lives of Armenians and Pontic Greeks. The Sunnis, in general, today disagree with the Franco-Turkish plan.
And because the Armenians, unlike us, Bulgarians, have a strong historical memory they did not hesitate to defend their compatriots in Syria. In the region of Aleppo and northern Syria, “poor” Armenia has quietly succeeded greatly in humanitarian operations. According to a statement by a Russian expert of Armenian origin, Simeon Bagdasarov, Yerevan drew discreetly from Syrian territory over 10,000 Armenians and sheltered them on its territory. Compare the policy of Armenia towards the policy of Bulgaria regarding ethnic Bulgarians in Ukraine two years ago.
A terrorist act was committed in Suruch city, Turkey, populated mainly by Kurds in July 2015. The victims were numerous. An explosion near the Cultural Center in the Turkish city of Suruch, near the border with Syria, killed at least 27 people and injured many others, according to “Reuters”. Many Kurds and Alawites, supporting SAR were killed. Turkish authorities blamed DAESH for the bloody act. The Kurdish side accused the Turkish authorities for organizing the terrorist act. Thus, the ceasefire agreement with the PKK from 2009 ended. In parallel, the delivery of supplies to a carefully selected part of the Syrian refugees was suspended. Those who have a retentive memory, recall that it was during this period when Turkey exerted enormous pressure to create a “no-fly zone” in northern Syria, which was a part of the Franco-Turkish plan for migration engineering. To that purpose, the Bulgarian Prime Minister was involved by Ankara, probably without realizing it, and became complicit in the Franco-Turkish scheme with Kurdish participation for redrawing the region. Of course, officially, the developed arguments for the implementation of the plan were very “humane”. Behind them, however, they were hiding sinister intentions. In October 2015, the people of Salih Muslim began to forcibly compel Assyrian Christians to study Kurdish at schools. And in Turkey, people serving Recep Erdogan plundered 128 regional committees of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Party of Nations, whose leader, Salahadin Demirtas was recently arrested. Turkish authorities robbed over 300 sales points belonging to Kurds. The Turkish Special Forces were uncompromising and destroyed more than 2,000 Turkish Kurds and Kurds were expelled from the cities of Cesar and Silopi in the region of Anadolia. At that time, the media was silent about these bloody events in this part of Turkey. Only now some Western media outlets have begun to remember the two martyr cities.
In March 2016, one of the leaders of the PKK, Duran Kalkan, warned the authorities in Ankara. He said that in response to the Turkish repression of the Kurds there will be a “Kurdish Spring” in the country. With the support of the pro-American Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani in Iraq, the collaborator Salih Muslim introduced conscription for Syrian Kurds to increase the military potential under his personal command. Then global media spoke in a romantic tone for the creation of the Autonomous Region of Rojava. In September 2016, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would give citizenship to all Syrian refugees who remain in the country; those who are not against the conversion of the southeastern neighbor in extremely Sunni country. For this part of the Syrian refugees homes were designed and built four years ago. But something went wrong. The collaborator, Salih Muslim was trapped between his personal ambitions and the Turkish “Muslim Brotherhood”. He broke up with Ankara. The Turks issued a warrant for his arrest.
After the meeting with NATO Secretary General on 8 September 2016, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he would “review” the Lausanne Treaty; he intends to annex Greek Islands, the northern part of Cyprus, part of Syria and Iraq and to realize his neo-Ottoman dreams by 2023. The Americans began to withdraw diplomatic staff and their families from Istanbul in November because they had received warnings of impending terrorist acts. Shortly thereafter, on 10th December this year, another set of blasts roared in Istanbul taking away lives. Unfortunately, it is obvious that such bloody chaos will not be the last.
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