Turkey

[blindpig]

As NATO Bids Farewell to Reality, Moscow and Beijing Pursue Win-Win Deals With Türkiye
Posted on July 15, 2024 by Conor Gallagher

In back-to-back weeks Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended first the Shanghai Cooperation Organization gathering in Astana and then the NATO summit in Washington DC. The contrast was stark.

Erdoğa made clear Türkiye’s opposition to escalation with Russia and US support for Israel, while Washington tried its usual small-carrot-big-stick approach. Far more interesting was what was happening with Türkiye, Russia, and China at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization gathering the week before the NATO summit.

But first, the problems with the world’s “most successful military alliance.” Türkiye is opposed to further escalation of Washington’s conflict with Russia. Public opinion at home is overwhelmingly against Israel and the US (during the NATO summit Erdogan said the US is “complicit” in Israeli war crimes). The US continues to support Türkiye’s Kurdish enemies in Syria while there are increasing problems with Syrian refugees in Türkiye. NATO generally seems hellbent on starting even more conflicts, such as with China which is in no one’s interest, but only Türkiye, Hungary, and Slovakia are apparently willing to say so.


Meanwhile, Ankara is facing fresh sanctions threats from the US where the House of Representatives is pushing forward with legislation that would require the Biden administration to sanction Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom and “its affiliates and subsidiaries…[and] authorize secondary sanctions on any foreign person engaged in significant transactions with Rosatom.”

This would have major implications for Türkiye’s first and only nuclear power plant, which was inaugurated last year with the delivery of the first nuclear fuel to the plant site – a major occasion in Türkiye as it marked the country joining the ranks of nuclear power nations. Rosatom financed and is building the plant that would provide roughly 10 percent of Türkiye’s energy needs once completed, but has recently faced delays due to difficulties obtaining equipment from third countries because of US sanctions. [1]

At the same time that the US is trying to muscle out Rosatom 14 years after it signed a deal with Ankara and after nine years of work on the project, it is is trying to pressure Türkiye into deals with American companies to build reactors in the country despite a whole host of issues with US designs, safety, cost, and the overarching geopolitical strategy since they would likely still rely on Russia (or possibly China) for key parts of the nuclear fuel supply chain.

Despite the threat of sanctions, Türkiye remains in talks with Russia for a second nuclear power plant, as well as with China’s for a third plant.

That is representative of the overall trend of Türkiye’s relations with the US on one side and Russia and China on the other. Slowly but surely Türkiye is being drawn further East, and while US sanctions might erect some speed bumps, they are not stopping the process. Barring a government coming to power in Ankara that takes its orders from Washington, which at this point would require a coup given the Turkish public’s increasing opposition to the US and the EU. Despite the rising resentment of the West in Turkiye, the sanctions weapon is unlikely to be sheathed, and there will be even more calls from US lawmakers for more pressure to force Ankara to “abide by international law,” [2]

Türkiye and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

While the NATO nobility spent last week talking about starting wars they can’t win and controlling events they can’t control, Erdoğan enjoyed a warm reception at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Astana two weeks ago. He met with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and both pledged to continue strengthening ties with Türkiye.

Founded in Shanghai in 2001, the SCO has always emphasized the importance of combating terrorism and radicalism, especially in Central Asia. The recent summit, however, was seen as an expansion of the SCO’s ambitions to become the security provider to the Eurasian continent. Belarus joined the SCO at the summit, which also counts Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, and Iran as members. Afghanistan and Mongolia are observer states, and there are 14 dialogue partners.

This is an organization that now represents roughly 42 percent of the world population and 80 percent of the Eurasian landmass. Most importantly, these countries constitute about one-third of world GDP and roughly $6 trillion more than the EU.

One only needs to look at a map to see how this bloc is becoming the center of the world in more than ways than one with Europe left out on the periphery – a decision of its own making.



What the SCO wants to guard against above all else is efforts by the West to use terrorism or any other division strategies to thwart the growing power of its member states. The US has tried to use central Asian nations in this way in recent years to no avail as investment by China and Russia in these countries absolutely dwarfs what the West has on offer.

The importance of security in Eurasia helps explain Türkiye’s attractiveness to the SCO and BRICS, which is increasingly the economic partner organization to the former. It’s not just that Türkiye is the world’s 18th most populous country with a GDP per capita at purchasing power parity that places it 47th. It’s not just that it has a customs union agreement with the EU that currently makes it an attractive point to get around tariffs or sanctions.

It’s also that Türkiye would be a key piece to security architecture of the SCO. Here’s Erdoğan stressing this point following a meeting with Xi:

“The organization has become one of our important dialogue channels with Asia owing to our dialogue partner status, which we’ve held since 2013,” he said. “Our many years of experience fighting terrorism show that international cooperation is essential to dealing with this threat. In this context, we are ready to further strengthen our dialogue with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”

Erdoğan, once an outspoken critic of Beijing due to its alleged treatment of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority of Turkic origin in western China, has almost completely dropped his criticism in recent years.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was in China in June talking up the possibility of Türkiye joining BRICS, but most importantly, he made some major statements regarding Xinjiang. According to a Chinese statement, Fidan told Chinese Vice President Han Zheng that Türkiye adhered to the one-China principle and “will not allow activities in Türkiye that undermine China’s territorial integrity”. China attaches immense significance to the issue and would likely be the number one topic in any discussions with Türkiye about further integration with BRICS or the SCO.

That cements a major shift for Türkiye, which used to call Xinjiang “East Turkistan,” accuse China of “genocide” against Uyghurs (a claim the rest of the West still makes), and allegedly play a role in training Xinjiang militants. The change in Türkiye’s stance likely causes consternation in Washington, but is a clear sign of the shift underway for a country that is no stranger to supporting jihadists to further its and Washington’s goals in West Asia.

Inching Closer to Türkiye-Syria Reconciliation (and a Major Blow to US Occupation of Syria)?

One of the biggest items on the SCO agenda involving Türkiye is resolving the Syria issue and getting the Americans out – a goal for which Türkiye would need to play a central role.

We can see those pieces starting to come together with Syria now.

On his trip back from the NATO summit, Erdoğan announced that Türkiye and Syria will determine a roadmap to revive long-frozen relations between the two neighbors and will take steps accordingly. FM Fidan is being tasked with restoring ties and setting up a meeting between Erdoğan and Assad.

Erdoğan showed renewed motivation to mend fences with Damascus following his meetings in Astana. Whatever he saw or didn’t see in Washington apparently provided even more motivation to restore ties with Syria – a relationship that was destroyed by Türkiye, in cahoots with the West, playing a major destabilizing role by funneling fighters to Syria and funding them. There has been noise about a Ankara-Damascus reconciliation for some time, but due to the steady encouragement from Moscow, it would appear to be getting closer. There would be benefits for both Türkiye and Syria of burying the hatchette, but the biggest impact viewed through a wider lens would be to make the US position in Syria more untenable.

And going forward, a Türkiye that is a member of the SCO and more in lockstep with Moscow and Beijing, would further the SCO mission to keep destabilizing forces at bay in Eurasia.

What other factors are pushing Türkiye towards the East?

Western Hubris

The EU may look back at some point in a decade or two and rue the decision to snub Türkiye, but Türkiye has long been expected to go along with the wishes of NATO and the EU despite often being treated like a second-class citizen. The failure of Türkiye’s EU accession is just one of many examples.

As mentioned above, the US threatening to torpedo the nuclear power plant in Türkiye is representative of another. The US sanctions Turkish individuals and companies for “aiding Russia,” for “aiding Iran,” and the US is already threatening to slap on more sanctions over Turkish firms’ exports to Russia. A quick search on the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control site turns up a whopping 232 sanctioned Turkish individuals or entities. This is not a great look when Türkiye is going through its worst economic crisis in two decades.

There have also been, from the Turkish point of view, a lack of consideration of Turkish defense needs. In the 1990s, Ankara asked NATO multiple times to deploy early warning systems and Patriot missiles to Türkiye, but it never came to pass. In 2017 Russia sold Türkiye its S-400 missile defense systems, which are arguably superior to anything the West has. In response the US expelled Türkiye from its F-35 program and sanctioned the country’s defense industry organization and its leaders.

While the US keeps slapping more sanctions on Turkish entities, the economic relationship between Türkiye and SCO countries is growing exponentially.

The Economy – Sanctions or Investment?

Ahead of the SCO summit, the Turkish broadcaster TRT World highlighted the fact that Turkish exports to SCO countries increased by 85% in last 5 years:

Turkish exports to Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member countries have skyrocketed 85 percent over the last five years from a value of $14.1 billion in 2019 to nearly $26.1 billion in 2023. The share of these countries in Türkiye’s overall exports last year was 10 percent.

Türkiye’s imports from SCO member countries also reached $106.3 billion last year, around double the $55.6 billion total in 2019.

Still, the EU is by far Türkiye’s top trading partner, accounting for almost one third of its trade while Türkiye is the EU’s seventh trading partner, making for 3.6 percent of total EU trade.

But Türkiye’s weak economy has the government seeking foreign investment. Enter China with its vast financial resources, which looks ready to provide an influx of capital for the price of cooperation on China and SCO goals.

Both Erdoğan at the SCO summit and FM Fidan in his recent trip to China were asking for more investment from Beijing in Türkiye. It looks like that is already coming through. Chinese automotive company BYD just announced that it will construct a $1 billion plant in western Türkiye. From the South China Morning Post:

The new factory would improve BYD’s access to the European Union, because Türkiye has a customs-union agreement with the bloc. The EU moved ahead this week with plans to impose provisional tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China, hitting BYD with an additional 17.4 per cent charge on top of the existing 10 per cent rate.

There’s also a domestic market to serve, with EVs accounting for 7.5 per cent of car sales last year in Türkiye, a country with a population of almost 90 million.

Türkiye announced Friday that it was walking back plans announced almost a month ago to impose an additional 40 per cent tariff on all vehicles from China, citing efforts to encourage investment. That decision followed talks between Erdoğan and China’s President Xi Jinping on Thursday during a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Astana, Kazakhstan.

There is a belief that this BYD plant will open the floodgates to more Chinese investment turning Türkiye into a “production hub” with a heavy focus at least for now on tariff-free exports to European countries thanks to Ankara’s customs union agreement with Brussels.

As the economic balance of power cements its shift to Asia while Europe suffers through a partially self-inflicted decline, then Türkiye’s long-term importance is less clear. How valuable is Türkiye’s customs agreement with the EU going to be in 10 years?

But Türkiye could still be an important market on its own and security policy could be more important than a backdoor into the declining EU market. Russia, for example, would like to ensure going forward that Türkiye will not open the Turkish Straits to NATO warships thereby allowing them access to the Black Sea, and neither Beijing or Moscow want to see Ankara helping to destabilize central Asia.

Notably, China is also considering defense production cooperation with Türkiye, which would be a major step. Even as China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) rises in Türkiye, it still has a ways to go to match Europe. In 2022 Chinese FDI in Türkiye stood at $1.7 billion, but the EU-27 countries still contribute 59 percent of Türkiye’s FDI inflows. As for Russia, it supplies Türkiye with nearly half of its natural gas and a quarter of its oil. The two nations also cooperate on nuclear energy with Russia financing and building the aforementioned Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, and in talks to construct another.

Public Opinion

Türkiye’s pursuit of BRICS membership would mark a fundamental shift in the country, which has been positioning itself to become part of “the West” for decades, but in many ways the public in Türkiye has already turned its back on the EU and the US and looks more favorably to the East:

A poll conducted in December 2022 by the Turkish company Gezici found that 72.8% of Turkish citizens polled were in favor of good relations with Russia. By comparison, nearly 90% perceive the United States as a hostile country. It also revealed that 24.2% of citizens believe that Russia is hostile, while 62.6% believe that Russia is a friendly country. Similarly, more than 60% of respondents said that Russia contributes positively to the Turkish economy.

More recent polling for NATO’s 75-year anniversary by Pew Research Center don’t show such a dire picture, but Turks still have the second lowest approval rating of the alliance among members:



For Now, The Middle

Erdoğan talked about being part of both East and West in an interview with Newsweek. He’s effectively distancing himself from the lunatics at NATO while declaring neutrality in its conflicts. That’s playing to Türkiye’s advantage right now, but might not be all that valuable to be the bridge between Europe and Asia due to Europe’s long term economic prospects. It also becomes dangerous. There’s no way that NATO, for example, would tolerate Türkiye being a member in the SCO, and it will likely continue to try to wield stick measures in response to Ankara’s increasing cooperation with Moscow and Beijing. Türkiye has no reason to choose a side, as the commentary often goes, but it would not be uncharacteristic of the West’s with-us-or-against-us policies to try to force it to do so. That’s where the risk exists of being pulled apart by trying to straddle both sides as there is still a sizable bloc in the country that favors an exclusively western-oreiented policy.

It’s interesting to note that new legislation in Türkiye is attempting to crack down on “foreign interests.” According to Turkish Minute, that would apply to “anyone who carries out or orders research on (Turkish) citizens and institutions with the aim of acting against the security or the political, internal or external interests of the state, on the orders or in the strategic interests of a foreign organization or state.” Those convicted would face three to seven years in prison. These types of laws are increasingly being considered by states that say they fear Western meddling in their country, oftentimes with the aim of instigating color revolutions.

Should NATO and Turkiye suffer some sort of break, it will likely be the result of NATO’s flight from reality – not Turkiye. If the past is any guide, Türkiye has good odds to successfully navigate the transition to a more multipolar world with the Eurasian core at its center.

I’ve made the comparison before, but I think it bears repeating: In 1941, Türkiye and Germany signed a nonaggression pact, and Ankara raked in economic and military aid from both Axis and Allies trying to woo Türkiye to their side. As the tide changed in WWII, however, Türkiye wisely bet on the eventual victors, moving increasingly to the Allied side. In 1944 Türkiye stopped exporting chromite to Germany, a key ingredient in the manufacture of stainless steel, and later that year severed diplomatic relations with Germany. In 1945 Türkiye declared war on Germany – two months before its defeat.

Notes

[1] Ankara had been trying to get a nuclear power plant built for 50 years before signing a deal with Russia in 2010 to build the Akkuyu plant. Back in the 1990s Ankara had bids from Westinghouse + Mitsubishi, AECL, and Framatome + Siemens but had to cancel because it was going to cost more than the Turkish government could afford at the time.

Türkiye eventually pivoted to Russia’s build-own-operate model because it was an arrangement Ankara could afford. Under this arrangement, Russia financed, built, and is delivering the fuel to Akkuyu. Russia will also handle the waste. For the moment Rosatom owns 75 percent of the shares in the plant, although it reserves the right to sell a project share of not more than 49% to other investors’, thus keeping the controlling interest of 51 percent.

Türkiye will buy a fixed proportion of the power at a fixed price of 12.35 ¢/kWh for 15 years. The proportion will be 70 percent of the output of the first two units and 30 percent of that from units 3 and 4 over 15 years. The remainder of the power will be sold by the project company on the open market. After 15 years, when the plant is expected to be paid off, the project company will pay 20 percent of the profits to the Turkish government.

Turkish nuclear engineers are also receiving training from the Russians. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says: “Given the costs for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the plant, as well as for the management and transport of the waste, this was considered ‘an economically well-negotiated agreement’ by nuclear energy policy experts. In short, it was a good deal for Türkiye.”

[2] There were also the usual calls to “re-engage” with Türkiye like the following piece from the Atlantic Council arguing that the US should open a “dialogue” and involve Türkiye in Black Sea plans.” That’s probably a problem if the argument needs to be made to involve the country that controls access to the Black Sea and is part of the world’s “most successful military alliance.”

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/07 ... ijing.html

[blindpig]

Did Türkiye Win the Battle, But Lose the War?
Posted on December 11, 2024 by Conor Gallagher

The Turks are in a celebratory mood following the collapse of the Syrian government which they helped orchestrate.

There's a belief that all the refugees will be returned. The Kurds will be defeated once and for all, and Turkish President Recep Erdogan will rule Syria through proxy. It’s hard to see how any of that happens, however. As Moon of Alabama pointed out:

Türkiye had nurtured and pushed the al-Qaeda derived Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to take Aleppo. It did not expect it to go any further. The fall of Syria is now becoming a problem for Türkiye as the U.S. is taking control of it. Washington will try to use HTS for its own interests which are, said mildly, not necessary compatible with whatever Türkiye may want to do.

A primary target for Türkiye are the Kurdish insurgents within Türkiye and their support from the Kurds in Syria. Organized as the Syrian Democratic Forces the Kurds are sponsored and controlled by the United States. The SDF are already fighting Erdogan’s SNA and any further Turkish intrusion into Syria will be confronted by them.

The SDF, supported by the U.S. occupation of east-Syria, is in control of the major oil, gas and wheat fields in the east of the country. Anyone who wants to rule in Damascus will need access to those resources to be able to finance the state.

The Turkish economy, while not on Syrian levels, is in no shape to prop up a rump Syria. The country was seeing decades-long highs in inflation of 80-plus percent in recent years as Erdogan insisted on keeping low interest rates. It was in such bad shape that Seymour Hersh reported that Biden promised to lean on the IMF for an $11-13 billion line of credit to Türkiye in exchange for Ankara’s vote to allow Sweden into NATO. While the IMF loan didn’t come to pass, Erdogan reversed course on interest rates and inflation is down but still high (47 percent in November). The country is also now in recession.

At the same time, it’s more than likely the refugee problem gets even worse. Türkiye currently hosts upwards of 3 million Syrians, and while Ankara is hurriedly pushing them back into Syria and the media expresses concern that the loss of low-paid refugees will hurt the economy, that seems short-sighted.

Islamist extremist turned freedom fighter Abu Mohammad al-Jolani is having his inclusive message that encourages refugees to return home spread far and wide by Western and Turkish media. His record and that of ​​Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham which he leads does not — to put it mildly — support such statements however.

Nonetheless, wishful thinking abounds in Türkiye.

Turkish Exceptionalism

Viewed from afar, the atmosphere reminds me of when I was living and working in Istanbul 2015-2017 at TRT World. At that time Project Syria was well underway although running into problems. Still, there was an atmosphere of euphoria among the elite at TRT (you had to be a well-connected Turk to get a position there) that Türkiye was on the march, reclaiming its rightful position as leader of the Muslim Arab world (despite the country’s population being less than five percent Arab), and there was full support for neo-Ottoman aspirations to expand Turkish influence, if not territory.

That euphoria frequently ran into reality checks, such as after the shooting down of a down Russian fighter jet in November of 2015. Despite the initial excitement, Türkiye was eventually forced to apologize and even arrested the pilots who fired on the Russian aircraft after Moscow retaliated with economic measures and military action in Syria. It ended up being more of an embarrassment for Türkiye.

Euphoria returned a few months after the conclusion of that incident when Turkish direct military involvement began in Syria in August of 2016.

While some observers place nationalism and Islamism apart in Turkish politics, the Türkiye of those years seemed more a fusion of Islamism and ethno-nationalism. It seemed this ideology finally hit a wall as Project Syria stalled out, Türkiye was stuck with at least 3 million refugees from the conflict, and the economy tanked. On the surface Ankara scaled back its ambitions, learning to work with an ascendant Russia and China and publicly renounced its use of jihadist mercenaries — even as it did not do so in practice. Meanwhile, Türkiye’s expansionist aims were not only lying dormant but potentially growing.

In elections of 2018 and 2023 the biggest winners were the Islamist nationalists who believe in Turkish superiority. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Iyi party took 21 percent of the vote and won 92 seats in parliament in 2018. Anti-refugee sentiment and economic hardships increased the vote share of Islamist ethno-nationalist parties in 2023, and they continue to have major influence on Turkish foreign policy. It’s not hard to draw a line between the history of say, the MHP, and Turkish support for extremist proxies.

The MHP was founded by Alparslan Turkes, an army colonel with links to Operation Gladio and it gathered strength with its tight relationship with right-wing paramilitaries like the Grey Wolves and Turkish organized crime in their CIA-backed battle against left-wingers, Communists, Kurdish, and Alevi organisations.

With their belief in Turkish superiority and goal to rule the Arab world, these forces are in many ways the flip side to the same coin of Zionism.

They are now emboldened.



Sanctions and The Kurds

This ethno-nationalist neo-Ottoman ascendant wing of the Turkish elite is obsessed with the defense industry almost as much as they are with the destruction of the Kurds.

Due to US sanctions on Turkish defense industries and the presence of the US in eastern Syria and Washington’s use of the Kurds as proxies the two issues are inextricably intertwined. Sen. Lindsey Graham offers a reminder:

I appreciate the air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria, but it will not be enough. We have to ensure that the roughly 50,000 ISIS prisoners in northeastern Syria — being primarily held by Kurdish forces — are not released.

We should not allow the Kurdish forces — who helped… Show more

The West, however, has been removing a lot of roadblocks for the Turkish defense industry in recent months.

It looks like the US is rethinking the sale of F-35s to Türkiye, which was dropped from the program over its purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense system. On November 26, Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said an agreement was reached that will see the S-400s remain inactive and that the Americans have reconsidered their stance on selling F-35 fighter jets to Türkiye.

Likely more important than the faulty F-35s is relief from the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which has been used against Türkiye to get it to fall in line. There’s also been a years-long unofficial embargo imposed by Western allies on Türkiye, which has hampered its defense sector development. Here’s former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland earlier this year:

“If we can resolve this S-400 issue, which we wish to do, the United States would be happy to welcome Türkiye back into the F-35 family. If we can get past this issue, sanctions under CAATSA will be removed and we can resume talks on the F-35.”

I haven’t seen any announcement from the US on the sanctions yet, but it is notable that the unofficial Western embargo recently came to an end. Der Spiegel recently reported that Germany’s Federal Security Council, which meets in secret, is approving the sale of $368 million worth of heavy weaponry to Türkiye, as well as reconsidering Türkiye’s request to purchase Eurofighter warplanes.

Türkiye also recently announced big plans for its own air defense project, one that likely reflects a belief that the end to sanctions — which hurt particular imports like semiconductors and microchips — are going to be relaxed.

Yet per Graham’s tweet above, it looks like the CAATSA sanctions will now be used in an effort to prevent Türkiye from steering its extremist army towards the US-backed Kurds in northeastern Syria.

On the Kurdish question, there’s been a lot of noise in Türkiye in recent months about a potential peace deal, which would be almost as shocking as Syria’s sudden collapse. Was that all another headfake?

Reuters reports that the US and Türkiye have a deal for US-backed Kurdish forces to withdraw from the town of Manbij, in northeastern Aleppo, Syria where they have been besieged there by Türkiye’s extremist proxies. Their retreat east of the Euphrates would be a win for Türkiye, but will it be enough? And can Ankara even continue to control the forces it has unleashed in Syria?

Türkiye’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, insisted on Sunday that any groups that were “an extension of the PKK” could not be part of talks on the future of Syria.

Will the threat of sanctions cancel out Türkiye’s desire to annihilate the Kurds. With the US and Türkiye it’s a waiting game between two non-agreement capable nations to see who will betray the other one first.

In the meantime we have a situation where an increasingly militarist government in Türkiye is desperate to project Turkish power but is simultaneously eager to get out from under sanctions holding back its defense industry.

Where Else Do US and Turkish Interests Overlap?

In some ways Türkiye, which is likely to be banished from future Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS developments (more on that below), is even more incentivized to push forward with expansionary aims in order to make itself an indispensable partner in the region — one that China and Russia are forced to continue to work with despite Turkish duplicitousness.

There’s a lot of talk that Türkiye wanted to do this while still having leverage over Russia, i.e., the Ukraine conflict still going on. The one big question is if — and this is an enormous if — the Trump administration can come to some agreement with Russia on Ukraine and the US overall belligerent policy towards Russia that extends from the Baltic and the Arctic to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, Turkey would become less important. Are it and the US neocons done trying to reshape the board before Trump comes into office?

Because Türkiye is desperate to ramp up its homegrown defense industry for which it needs sanctions relief and because its economy is reliant on the EU, it’s unlikely it doubles down on its “success” in Syria with moves on Cyprus or disputes with Greece over islands and territorial waters in any serious way.

I think the question is where else do Turkish and US-Israel interests align. What Syria makes clear is that Türkiye’s imperialistic ambitions fit just fine with Washington — as long as it can be molded to fit US-Israel objectives as well:

The Zionist regime is moving troops deeper inside Syria. Meanwhile, it's destroying all of Syria's military infrastructure, including its navy.

Not a word from Erdogan or his Al-Qaeda henchmen.

Apparently, now that Syria is "free," it should no longer be able to defend itself.


Note: Turkey did condemn Israel’s “occupying mentality” after its forces entered a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights, but is there any reason to take that more seriously than all Erdogan’s fiery rhetoric against Israel over the past year?

While differences remain on the Kurdish question, and Greater Israel and Greater Türkiye could be on a collision course, there’s still one area where the US, Israel, and Türkiye all see eye to eye.

Pan-Turkism and Weakening Iran

I’ve written about the Zangezur Corridor often (you can read more here and here) so I will keep this brief.

The Zangezur Corridor is a 42-kilometer strip of land in southern Armenia wedged between Azerbaijan and its exclave, Nakhchivan, and bordered by Iran to the south. While small it holds outsize importance for the region. That’s because it could deal a major blow to Iran (goal of Israel and therefore the US) while cementing Turkish power in the region.



On Saturday the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee Chair renewed calls to open the corridor and expressed his country’s readiness to in exchange normalize relations with Armenia. Türkiye believes it would lead to the country’s rise as an Eurasian Great Power. Here’s what Ankara envisions:

A gas pipeline from Baku to Türkiye through the corridor.
Increased leverage in negotiating gas prices with Iran.
Resurrecting the Trans-Caspian pipeline and transporting that gas through Türkiye to Europe (A pipeline through a Nakhchivan corridor could help boost supplies to Europe to upwards of 31 bcm, although that would be years away, and ironically, due to its heavy investments in the Azerbaijani oil and gas sector, one of the bigger beneficiaries of any Brussels-Baku deals would be Russia. Azerbaijan is even importing more Russian gas itself in order to meet its obligations to Europe.
A logistics corridor stretching to China.
A railroad line from Türkiye to Nakhchivan could make Türkiye a regional transit hub in addition to an energy one.
It could require China to work with Türkiye on Middle Corridor logistics — especially if the West is successful with its Georgia color revolution efforts that would deal a major blow to Beijing’s efforts to open a huge Black Sea port there. The corridor could potentially deal a blow to Russia as well depending on the finer points of any deal.



The corridor situation for Iran has similarities to Syria. It would harm Iranian influence in the region in a major way.Iran would be eliminated as a bypass route around Armenia. Details from Al Monitor:

Iran earns a 15% commission from Azerbaijan’s gas supplies to Nakhchivan. It serves also as a route for Turkish exports to Central Asia. An average of about 12,000 Turkish trucks use the route monthly, with Iran charging passage fees of up to $800 for their 1,800-kilometer (1,120-mile) journey to the Turkmenistan border.

More than the money, however, Iran doesn’t want to lose influence over Azerbaijan, which relies on transit through Iran to connect to its exclave. And Tehran is especially worried about a NATO Turan Corridor which sees the West link up hypothetical client states throughout central Asia. From Dr. Vali Kaleji, a Tehran-based expert on Central Asia and Caucasian Studies:

Iran sees the creation of the Zangezur corridor as a matter beyond the access of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan exclave and believes that this corridor will provide direct military access for Türkiye as a NATO member in the Caucasus and west of the Caspian Sea. Indeed, a significant number of Iranian elites and experts believe that the expansion of Türkiye’s presence in the South Caucasus, especially through the Zangezur corridor, will strengthen pan-Turkism in the region, which is a direct threat to the Azeri regions of north-western Iran.

There’s been a lot of talk of red lines and the like, but what does Tehran do if Armenia, guided by the Americans, chooses to allow the opening of the corridor? Like Syria where Assad reportedly turned down Iranian assistance, is Iran really prepared to go against the wishes of another government in order to defend its interests — in this case something along the lines of occupying southern Armenia?

Azerbaijan is key. It enjoys a strong relationship with Russia, and while there are still holdups between Baku and Yerevan, it’s unclear if Azerbaijan wants the corridor under US guidance at the cost of damaging ties with its powerful neighbors in Iran and Russia. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s closest ally is Türkiye, and Baku has major economic ties with Israel (and it’s believed a heavy Mossad presence in the country).

We’ll see. Türkiye and Erdogan are anything but predictable. While Türkiye might have its hands full in Syria, that doesn’t mean it won’t take on another major risk. It’s not hard to see the pieces sliding into place for an additional major move by the US-Israel neocon-Zionists and the Turks that would seemingly benefit both sides. The great question would be how Iran and Russia would react.

Win the Battle, Lose the War

Common wisdom is that Erdogan is the big winner in the toppling of the Assad government. Türkiye could also end up being the biggest loser long-term.

It could be swamped with more refugees. As the Syrian extremists are no longer united by the goal of deposing Assad and are faced with the impossible task of governing, prolonged power struggles are likely, which will force Türkiye to back a faction thereby making new enemies. . ANd it’s entirely possible — if not likely — that the fight comes to Türkiye and we see a return to the terrorist attacks that plagued the country in the mid-2010s. There’s also tension brewing at home over Türkiye’s ongoing poorly disguised support for Israel, which maybe Syria helps paper over a time, but is unlikely to go away.

It’s unclear what economic benefits this “victory” has for Türkiye. The Financial Times opined that “Türkiye, already struggling with high inflation and recession, would benefit from resuming full business and trade ties along the 900km Syrian-Turkish border. Its construction sector, which has close links to Erdoğan, could cash in on a rebuilding bill expected to run to hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Hard to see how that happens unless the country magically finds peace and security. It’s much more likely this all ends up blowing up in Türkiye’s face. I noted the similarities between American and Turkish exceptionalism. One major difference is that the US can make a mess and retreat to its home between two oceans. Syria shares a border with Türkiye, and the US has likely destabilized not just Syria but Türkiye as well with its support for the Turkish-led operation to topple Assad.

Ankara could end up missing Assad, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah and their stabilizing presence.

Unlike the euphoria following the 2015 shoot down of the Russian fighter jet, there won’t be any putting the toothpaste back in the tube this time following the inevitable come-down from the recent high.

At the same time, Türkiye has burned some serious bridges with Beijing and Moscow. The powers that are strengthening in the New Cold War (China, Russia, and even India) will not look kindly on a Türkiye willing to use extremist proxies to pursue its goals. They’ll look even less kindly on it after Turkish officials spent recent months lying to their faces. There were two paths open to Türkiye in the New Cold War, WWIII, or whatever you want to call it:

1.Continue to play the middle ground as conflict in Ukraine continues while simultaneously forging stronger ties with Moscow, Beijing, the SCO, and BRICS. This is largely what Türkiye was doing and seemed to reflect an acknowledgement that while the Islamist ethno-nationalist short-term goals might align with declining US-Israel, Türkiye’s long term interests lie with good relations with all its neighbors, especially Russia.
2.Side with one side. I’ve written often about how the West with its pressure campaigns and US-Israel genocide was making Türkiye’s position untenable. Shockingly, Türkiye decided it was more in its interests to bow to the US-Israel in this case rather than move in the other direction.

Now the Turks obviously don’t frame it as choosing door number two. They think they’re solely on the side of Türkiye and pursuing Turkish interests. But Russia, China, and the Global South will view it as a major betrayal. That’s because Türkiye didn’t just happen to have overlapping interests with the US-Israel in this case, but it spat in the face of what the BRICS and SCO stand for by relying on extremist mercenaries, violating sovereignty and agreements, and in retrospect it’s clear that Turkish officials were lying to the faces of their Russian and Chinese counterparts. You can read here what Erdogan and Turkish officials were telling the Russians and Chinese at the summer SCO summit, which coincidentally had a focus on settling the Syrian issue and bringing Türkiye into the operation to secure the Asian “heartland” from Western meddling and regime change operations.

Will China and Russia continue to work with Türkiye when necessary? Türkiye is counting on it as it relies on Russia for most of its gas and oil and is courting Chinese investment to serve as a backdoor into the EU customs union. But Turkey is now viewed as a problem that must be dealt with, not a country that can be enticed by economic carrots and appeals to mutual self-interest. It is an enemy to the project of Eurasian integration and SCO defense against imperialism.

And should Türkiye’s reliance on jihadists, Nazis, and Zionists blow up in its face, it will get very little sympathy from China, Russia, the BRICS, or SCO — nor for that matter will the West shed a tear.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/12 ... e-war.html

******

What’s Erdogan’s next move in Syria?

Martin Jay

December 11, 2024

Western media will no longer be able to ignore the fact that the West bankrolls the most gruesome, horrific terrorists in the world.

In 2016, Steven Bannon interviewed me about the Middle East for his very popular talk radio show. The kind of questions he asked me showed clearly that he really knew very little of the region. But Bannon is smart. He asked smart questions. One of those was who is the trouble maker of the region? I answered that possibly this could be Turkey’s leader Recep Erdogan who had just survived a coup d’état masterminded by arguably the most powerful leader of the region, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan who is often called MBZ. I argued that Erdogan had such huge geopolitical ambitions, the money, the military resources and the true grit to actually make Turkey a regional power, competing with KSA and UAE. I said that Erdogan had a lot to prove and was eager to make a wave and that he might just pull it off if he can keep a cool head.

To my great surprise, I noted a couple of weeks later Bannon do an interview with a Saudi newspaper and repeated all of what I had told him verbatim. He even copied my expressions!

But levity aside, there are some serious points about Erdogan’s role and what now he must be thinking about Turkey’s positioning in the region.

Syria falling took everyone by surprise. The sheer speed of the Assad regime collapsing as an entire army walked away from the slew of jihadists driving at high speed south, until they reached Damascus, was stunning. Presently we are only left with journalists’ clichés. Who are the winners and losers? Does this now weaken Iran thus tempting the U.S. and Israel to take a second shot at it? Or will Israel now target Iran’s allies in the region now that the Shia Crescent no longer has a lifeline highway which can be used to supply Hezbollah in Lebanon?

All of these questions still hang in the air as we need to see whether these jihadists from Idlib have the political skills to feather their own beds with regional players. Perhaps within Syria, it might be harder as already, at the time or writing, the HTS is already fighting key towns in the north which are controlled by Turkey’s main foe, the PKK, or should we say the YPG as it is known – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which is largely made up of Kurds, with a minority of Syrian army defectors thrown into the mix.

This clash now is interesting as the Kurds own the key part of Syria which has both the oil and the best agricultural land. Surely, one would argue that Jolani will now move to kick out the Kurds, even though their backers – the USA – are his as well. It is often the case that rival groups in Syria who are both on Uncle Sam’s payroll fight one another. But the scale of this potential conflict is huge and should not be underestimated. Syria is flat broke. Its economy is tatters with government regime soldiers only earning 7 USD a month in local Syrian pounds, probably one of the world’s most devalued currency in the last decade.

But it’s interesting how it was a Turkish leader often despised by U.S. officials who took the place of the Saudis and Emiratis who, in 2006, just after the embarrassing 34 day war in Lebanon which gave Israel a bloody nose, assured Dick Cheney that America would never be seen to be actually funding the most brutal terror group in the Middle East to fight its dirty wars. America, under Obama, actually gave Al Quada, ISIS and its affiliates hundreds of millions of dollars to fight Assad once the CIA had officially given approval to the plan to topple Assad in 2014. It was actually U.S. government policy to overthrow Assad with Syria always seen, even back then, as the weakest link in Iran’s sphere of power and influence. What the downfall of Assad is significant for, in terms of salient points it raises, or myths it debunks, is that western media will no longer be able to ignore the fact that the West bankrolls the most gruesome, horrific terrorists in the world while standing in line with the Charlie Hebdo funeral procession and condemning the Ariana Grande Manchester concert bomb. Despite CNN putting in a sterling effort in an interview with Jolani to rebrand him, the cat is out of the bag.

It’s really about relations. How to keep them, how to win new ones and how to lose them.

Ironically, it was Assad in the end who was the weakest link. He refused to have his army trained both by the Russians and then later by the Iranians. He decided that his longevity was via Israel, and so cozied up to the UAE who helped him with the lobbying in DC which some believe was working. Assad was actually trying to make himself the spy who came in from the cold with his Washington contacts rather than stay with the Russians and the Iranians. Given that it was Russia who saved him from a humiliating defeat in 2015 when most western hacks were already writing his eulogy, perhaps there is a lesson there for regional leaders.

But most leaders don’t learn lessons. In recent years relations between Assad and Erdogan swung from one high point to the other. Assad could have worked with Erdogan on destroying the SDF and take back the territory. There was an offer there. Yet Assad was blinded by his own dogma and vanity which is perhaps the key point which he has in common with Erdogan.

The Turkish leader now must reevaluate himself and his country. On the one hand, he has earned a great many points with both the U.S. and Israel, the latter being an arch enemy which has served his political narrative for some time, particularly recently. Does Erdogan now fulfil his dream of having a government in Damascus which is made up of Ottoman type functionaries and the same ideology? Or do both Israel and the U.S. now cast Erdogan aside thinking they have no longer any use for him, a move, in itself which would spark a full-scale civil war in Syria between these two main players now. Erdogan must now present himself as the key broker who is invaluable in finding a political solution, but how does he do that now he has pissed in the soup of two key regional powers that helped him for so long, Iran and Russia? Funding on behalf of the Americans a terrorist group which Washington doesn’t want to sully its hands with was smart. Finding about a third of the HTS’s fighters from Central Asia, will hold him in good stead as a contender at the poker table with all the regional leaders amassed. But now that he has fulfilled a dream, which coincidentally is the same as Netanyahu’s – the destruction of Syria as an Iranian super proxy – how does he keep his élan and relevance, given that the west loves to hate him so much and often takes great pride in shunning him on occasion?

Perhaps Steve Bannon has the answer to all these questions.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... -in-syria/

[blindpig]

Grey Wolves: The Rise of Ethnonationalism and Turkey’s Roving Death Squad
Posted by Internationalist 360° on January 4, 2025
Reactionary International


The French Wolf Pack

“We are going to kill the Armenians,” chanted crowds of Turkish nationalists as they marched through the outskirts of Lyon, France in October 2020.1 Waving Turkish flags and raising their hands to form a symbolic wolf head, the 250-strong mob advanced toward France’s memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.2 They were on the “hunt” for Armenians, said a spokesperson for the Coordination Council of Armenian Organisations in France, who recalled the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. These hunters left little doubt about their identity. The words “Gray Wolves” were sprayed in lurid yellow paint across the memorial. This signature was accompanied by a second slogan: RTE, the initials of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Moving to ban the Grey Wolves in the aftermath of these events, the French Interior Minister said the organisation “incites discrimination and hatred and is implicated in violent actions.” He noted that Grey Wolves members had participated in a “youth weapons camp” organised in the Ardèche region of France in 2019.3 Ankara responded angrily to the charge.4 Turkey’s foreign ministry condemned the decision as “disgraceful” and vowed to “respond in the firmest way possible.” But who are these ultranationalists and how did they win the support of the Turkish state despite their behavior?

The Grey Wolves emerged as the paramilitary wing of the far-right National Action Party (MHP), founded in 1969 by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş.5 Prone to quoting Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Türkeş had been the Nazi Party’s primary Turkish contact during the Second World War.6 Under his tutelage, Grey Wolves members came to support the establishment of “Turan” – an ethnonational state stretching from modern-day Turkey to East China and uniting all Turkish ethnicities.7 The Grey Wolves’ ultranationalism was paired with virulent anti-communism. Their position was rooted in the fear that the growth of the Turkish left would see the nation align with the Soviet Union against the United States amidst the Cold War. Throughout the 1970s, the Grey Wolves thus sought to protect Turkey from the threat of communism. In this mission, the far-right organisation was assisted by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation).

Operation Gladio: Feeding The Wolves

When the Second World War ended, Turkey became geo-strategically vital to the US. Washington campaigned relentlessly for the nation to join NATO. When Turkey joined the alliance in April 1952, it guarded one-third of NATO’s borders with Warsaw Pact countries and would soon amass the largest armed forces in Europe.

Only months before Turkey’s membership was ratified, NATO had collaborated with the CIA to inaugurate the infamous Operation Gladio, a clandestine effort to create “stay behind” anti-communist armed resistance networks. As early as 1949, the Pentagon identified Turkey as “extremely favourable territory for the establishment of both guerrilla units and Secret Army Reserves.”8

During this period, Colonel Türkeş and the Grey Wolves were integrated into NATO’s apparatus. Despite his Nazi sympathies, Türkeş was among the founding members of Turkey’s Special Warfare Department. This was the local CIA-funded command centre for Operation Gladio, which in Turkey was codenamed Counter-Guerrilla. Such was their prominence in the deep state that the Grey Wolves could barely be distinguished from the Turkish intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT).

The Grey Wolves also established relations with the CIA-supported Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN).9 Founded by infamous Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Yaroslav Stetsko, the ABN was an umbrella organisation for reactionary anti-communist resistance.

The Terror of the Wolves

On 12 March 1971, amidst a wave of trade union militancy and popular demands for fair pay, the Turkish military seized state power for the second time during the post-war period. Their coup d’état inaugurated a decade of political violence which, Daniele Ganser argues, resembled an “outright civil war.”10 This was indisputably the case given that at least 22 people died every day as a result of political violence in Turkey in the late seventies.

With protection assured by the Counter-Guerrilla programme, members of the Gray Wolves made up the rank and file of the “stay-behind” network which carried out the terror of the 1970s, assassinating leftists, journalists, and dissidents. The organisation created at least 28 military boot camps and recruited retired soldiers to train and teach militants. “We are the Counter-Guerrilla. Even the President of the republic cannot touch us,” one journalist was told by the Grey Wolves as he was tortured.

In October 1978, Alparslan Türkes described the then Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit as a “puppet of the communists” who must be “erased”; such “Moscow dogs” have “no right to live” in Turkey, said Türkes.11 Only months later, the Grey Wolves murdered more than 100 of Turkey’s Alevi community during a 10-day pogrom that became known as the Maras Massacre. As Landua notes, the Grey Wolves’ “uniformed marches and demonstrations and their violent clashes with leftist groups” drew “comparisons with fascist and Nazi youth groups.”12

During this period of state-sanctioned persecution, Abdullah Catli rose through the ranks of the Grey Wolves. Working for Counter-Guerrilla at the behest of the Special Warfare Department, Catli built a reputation as the Wolves’ enforcer and emerged as the organisation’s second-in-command. Implicated in the murder of seven trade unionists, Catli was forced to flee Turkey for Latin America in 1978, where he traveled with Italian neo-Nazi Stefano Delle Chiaie.

In May 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in Vatican Square. The Pontiff was rushed to hospital for life-saving surgery. His assassin was apprehended: Grey Wolves member and friend of Catli, Ali Agca. Two years earlier, the pair had conspired to kill a prominent Turkish journalist. The official investigation into the assassination attempt found that the operation was ordered by the KGB. However, as investigative journalist Lucy Komisar writes, “This has never been proven, and a much more plausible case can be made that it was a rightist plot.” Daniele Ganser alleges that the CIA blamed the Soviets to divert attention from their own links to the would-be assassin. Indeed, in 1990, ex-CIA analyst Melvin Goodman admitted to the US Senate Intelligence Committee that “The CIA had no evidence linking the KGB to the plot”’.

Caged In Turkey, Free in Europe

Turkey’s third military coup of the post-war period came in September 1980. With the support of the CIA, General Evren took charge of the nation and promised an end to the violence that had plagued the 1970s. The Grey Wolves and the MHP were outlawed alongside an array of other parties while Colonel Türkeş was imprisoned. In their indictment against the MHP and Grey Wolves, the Turkish military government charged 220 members of the party and its affiliates with 694 murders.13

Violent events associated with the Grey Wolves in Turkey dropped significantly during the 1980s.14 Their priorities had changed. Members fled Turkey to construct an international network following the ban. As of 1983, the Wolves reportedly had 18,000 members across Europe, dedicated to spreading and defending the ideology of Pan-Turkism.15 In the four decades since the influence of the Grey Wolves across the continent has only grown.

The Wolves At War

Amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Grey Wolves eyed an opportunity to expand Pan-Turkism – and their organisation – eastward. When the first Nagorno-Karabakh war broke out in 1988, many Grey Wolves volunteered to fight the Armenians. In 1992, Iskander Hamidov founded the Boz Qurd, which means “Grey Wolves” in Azerbaijani.16 Hamidov had served as Azerbaijan’s interior minister in the early nineties when he had played an important role in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. While not subordinate to their Turkish equivalent, Boz Qurd shared their ultranationalist sentiments and commitment to anti-communism.17

Like the Grey Wolves – who fought alongside the Chechen separatists and reportedly organised armed shipments to Chechnya with the implicit endorsement of the Turkish state – the organisation’s leadership supported Chechen independence, training troops for President Dudaev in 1995.18 That year, exiled Grey Wolves leader Abdullah Catli resurfaced in Azerbaijan, where he and fellow extremists tried, unsuccessfully, to topple the government.19

Consequently, this formation of the Grey wolves was relatively short-lived as President Aliyev’s government quickly outlawed the Boz Qurd and arrested Hamidov. However, the Grey Wolves left an ideological legacy in Azerbaijan and an Azerbaijani general was recently spotted making their salute during a military parade in Baku.20 Following the second six-week Nagorno-Karabakh war (2020), Turkey’s President Erdoğan committed to opening a new Grey Wolves school in territory occupied by Azerbaijan.21 The idea for the school, which Erdoğan opened alongside Azerbaijan’s President, was instigated by the MHP and legitimized the Grey Wolves’ presence in an area where they have been responsible for the extrajudicial killing of Armenians.

Following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, reports circulated in the Russian media that a detachment of up to 3,000 Grey Wolves had crossed the Ukrainian-Polish to join the Ukrainian war effort.22

Wolves in Germany, Austria and Bosnia

Germany holds the largest foreign Turkish electorate in the world and is home to some 3.5 million Turkish immigrants. The country offers the Grey Wolves fertile ground to recruit. In service to the anti-communist cause, there was a deliberate attempt to create a “favourable psychological climate” for the Grey Wolves in the late 1970s in parts of the Federal Republic.23 These efforts proved successful and current estimates suggest there are as many as 11,000 Gray Wolves in Germany.24 This makes them one of the nation’s largest right-wing extremist organisations.

The vast majority of German Gray Wolves are members of one of three civil society organisations. The Federation of Turkish Democratic Idealist Associations in Germany (ADÜTDF) was founded in 1978 and has 170 local chapters. When the Grey Wolves were banned in Turkey following the 1980 coup, the organisational infrastructure and resources of the ADÜTDF allowed the group to continue operating around Europe.25 The Union of Turkish Islamic Cultural Associations in Europe (ATIB) and the European–Turkish Union (ATB) also boast significant numbers of members.

Beneath this official facade, Germany’s Grey Wolves have strong links to violent crime. Osmanen Germania BC, a Turkish nationalist biker gang, was banned by the German state in 2018 after members faced charges of attempted murder, extortion, drug trafficking, deprivation of liberty and forced prostitution.26

The impunity with which the Grey Wolves have been permitted to operate in Germany may be explained by their ties to the CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union). In the late 1970s the then-CSU Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss met often with Grey Wolves founder Alparslan Türkes.27 CDU politician Hans-Eckhardt Kannapin helped to ensure Türkes’ German envoy received a resident permit to begin his work establishing the German Grey Wolves.28 After significant public criticism of these links, CDU/CSU Conference voted in 2016 on whether to make Grey Wolves membership incompatible with Party membership. The vote fell. As recently as 2020, reports emerged that CDU Duisburg politician Sevket Avci was a Grey Wolves member. When a party member reported Avci, he was told to keep quiet and apologise to Avci about his allegations “so close to an election”.29

The Grey Wolves thus retain close relations at a local level with Germany’s CDU/CSU. While providing the Christian Democrats with support among Germany’s sizeable Turkish community, the Grey Wolves receive organisational legitimacy. This public image is aided by support from German celebrities. Former Arsenal, Real Madrid and German National Team footballer Mesut Özil boasts a Grey Wolves tattoo.30 At Özil’s wedding, his best man was none other than Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In recent years, Grey Wolves’ violence has spread across the border to Austria. A rally organised by a Kurdish women’s organisation in Vienna to highlight the rising rate of femicide was targeted by a mob of Grey Wolves in June 2020.31 This followed a pattern of similar incidents in previous months.

Attempts have also been made to build a Grey Wolves cell in Bosnia. Speaking to Balkan Insight, Huseyin Cakalli, who has led these efforts, gave an insight into his progress.32 While not officially registered with Sarajevo’s authorities, the Bosnian Branch of the Grey Wolves, which Cakalli leads, has a Facebook page with more than 5,000 followers.

Wolves in Syria

The Grey Wolves presence in the Syrian Civil War is “an unprecedented cross-border venture”.33 The Wolves claim to be protecting the Turkmen, ethnically Turkish Syrians who generally live along the Turkish border. To do this, the Grey Wolves began to establish Turkmen brigades in 2013, posing for photographs and making the Grey Wolves’ salute.34 These units reflect the Grey Wolves’ ultranationalism, taking their names from former Ottoman rulers such as Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror.35

The Turkmen brigades have largely been organized within the Second Coastal Division, established in Ankara with the assistance of the Turkish state and pro-government newspapers like Yeni Şafak and Star.36 The division counts Alparslan Celik among its commanders.37 A member of the MHP and the Grey Wolves, Celik rose to prominence in 2015 when militia members under his command killed a Russian pilot after Turkish missiles shot down his airplane. Explaining his motivation for taking up arms, Celik said “The lands that are the relics of our ancestors are today under Russian bombardment. Almost all our villages there have been seized by the Russians.”38

Celik’s father, Ramadan, is a former MHP district mayor who has talked of his pride in his son’s decision to fight in Syria. Ramadan’s sentiments are commonplace within his party.39 Indeed, senior figures within the MHP – including the heads of two district branches in Istanbul – traveled to fight in Syria.

Nipping At The Heels of Power

While outlawed in Turkey, the Grey Wolves ran free in Europe, building support for their eventual return. Since their establishment in the late sixties, the MHP had never achieved significant electoral success. This changed with the 1999 General Election when they won 18% of the vote much to the surprise of the MHP’s leader Devlet Bahçeli. A former Grey Wolves member, Bahçeli ascended to the Party leadership – where he remains today – after the death of Alparslan Türkeş in a car crash two years earlier.

The reaction to Türkeş’ death conveys the influence the Grey Wolves continued to exert over Turkish politics despite their prolonged period of exile. Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan said that the Grey Wolves founders’ “loyal services always deserved the highest praise”. Former Police Chief Kemal Yazicioglu described Türkeş as ‘My Chief Wolf!’, stating “I have learned everything from you.”

After the 1999 election, the MHP entered government as part of the ruling coalition. Grey Wolves’ violence dipped again during this period. However, when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the 2002 General election and initiated the so-called ‘Kurdish Opening’ – a state-sponsored attempt to co-opt the Kurdish movement through the partial expansion of democratic rights to the Kurdish population – the Grey Wolves began to target the Kurdish community.40 In Parliament, the MHP made opposition to the AKP’s agenda their primary issue, presenting themselves as the only Party to refuse concessions to the Kurds.41

The Kurds

Turkey’s Kurdish community – who make up around 20% of the nation’s population – has long been a target of the Grey Wolves’ violence. In the 1930s, Turkey’s Minister of Justice proclaimed that “those who are not of pure Turkish stock can only have one right in this country, the right to be servants and slaves.”42 His ultra-nationalist sentiments are reflected in the Grey Wolves’ persecution of the Kurds and those who do not identify as ‘pure Turk’. The organisation does not operate alone, however. Their war against the Kurds comes at the behest of the Turkish state. Mehmet Eymur, an ex-head of the counterterrorism department of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation, said the Grey Wolves were used as a tool against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).43 “These activities cannot be carried out with ordinary people,” Eymur said, adding, “We [the Turkish state] need men who can break things.” This relationship has allowed the Grey Wolves to escape justice for the murder of at least 6,000 Kurds over the last six decades.44

Senior Gray Wolves member Abdullah Catli, who fled Turkey in 1978, was covertly recruited by Turkish Intelligence services after the 1980 coup to advance the state’s war against the Kurds.45 In return, the government turned a blind eye to Catli’s drug trafficking. He was not alone. When Kurds rather than communists became the central target of Counter-Guerilla, renamed the Special Forces Command in 1992, Grey Wolves members became pivotal to anti-Kurdish operations.

In 2021, Grey Wolves attacked a Kurdish family in the city of Konya.46 Chanting “We are grey wolves, we won’t let you live here,” a mob attacked with knives and rocks. Of the six individuals remanded in custody for the attack, at least four were released without charge. “Now I know much better that there is no justice for the Kurds,” said one of the victims.

Pact With Erdoğan


Erdogan salutes the Grey Wolves


Erdogan’s Rabbi’ah gesture, the Muslim Brotherhood hand sign

Having refused to participate in the ‘Kurdish Opening’, when Erdoğan initiated peace talks with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) the MHP escalated their attacks on the then Prime Minister. At one protest in 2013, furious Grey Wolves reportedly chanted “Tell us to strike and we will strike! Tell us to die and we will die.”47 Addressing the crowd, Bahçeli replied, “Don’t worry, the time will come for that too.”

Following the collapse of the PKK-Turkey ceasefire in 2015, Erdoğan’s AKP lost their majority in that year’s March general election. Rather than negotiate a coalition agreement, the AKP called a snap election for November. In the meantime, the AKP turned against the Kurds, towards Turkey’s ultranationalists. The establishment of relations with the MHP helped Erogan regain the AKP’s parliamentary majority in November 2015.48

Two years later, both the MHP and the Gray Wolves supported Erdoğan’s efforts to alter the Turkish constitution to empower the office of the President. The success of the Grey Wolves international work was conveyed in the 2017 referendum results. The Turkish diaspora supported the constitutional changes by a considerably greater margin than the domestic electorate.49 The centrality of Grey Wolves’ support for Erdoğan’s dominance was conveyed in 2018 when the President was pictured making their infamous salute.

As Britain’s TUC noted in their report on the Turkish far-right, “With the AKP increasingly reliant on the MHP to get anything done, the latter has been able to exert greater influence over government policy.”50 This was highlighted in March 2021 when Erdoğan allowed Turkey’s chief public prosecutor, at Bahçeli’s insistence, to submit an application to ban the second-largest opposition party, the left-wing, pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP).51

Furthermore, as the release of Alaattin Çakıcı illustrates, the alliance provides the Grey Wolves with government protection. Çakıcı was a senior Grey Wolves member who was arrested after the Turkish military coup of 1980 for the murder of 41 leftists. Upon his release, Çakıcı was recruited by the Turkish intelligence service as a hitman, targeting leftists and pro-Kurdish groups.52 In 2004, he was eventually convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to 19 years in Sincan Closed Prison. Çakıcı continued to threaten journalists from prison who investigated his crimes, stating “They will be punished by the people who love me in Turkey or abroad.”53 From behind bars, Çakıcı also reminded Erdoğan to whom he owed his electoral dominance.54“You are not the master of the state,” said Çakıcı. “Don’t forget, you are only a traveler, and the idealists [Grey Wolves] as well as the Turkish nationalists and all patriots, no matter which ethnic group they belong to, operate the shelter.” Çakıcı’s crimes did not prevent Bahçeli from calling for his release in 2018, describing him as a ‘brother who loves his nation and his country’.55 Bahçeli’s wish was granted in 2020 and Çakıcı was freed.

As Turkish journalist Can Dündar said in 2021, “Erdoğan carries the drum, but Bahçeli pounds out the beat.”56 The Grey Wolves more consequently are embedded, and insulated by, the Turkish government, their influence bolstered by a growing network of international cells that boast thousands of members.

(References at link.)

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/01/ ... ath-squad/

[blindpig]

What Sultan Erdogan is really up to

Pepe Escobar

January 29, 2025

On the table, a geopolitical banquet – served by some of the best independent analytical minds from Bursa to Diyarbakir.

ISTANBUL – The scene is a Circassian restaurant off fabled Istiklal street in historic Beyoglu. On the table, a geopolitical banquet – served by some of the best independent analytical minds from Bursa to Diyarbakir. The menu, apart from a meze feast, is simple: only two broad questions about Sultan Erdogan’s approach to BRICS and to Syria.

Here’s a concise synopsis of our dinner – more relevant than a torrent of Western-manufactured word salads. Enjoy it with a hefty dose of the best arak. And let the table have the first – and last – word.

On BRICS: “Türkiye feels itself as part of the West. If we look at our political party leaderships and Turkish elites, right-wing or left-wing, there’s no difference. Maybe a little bit part of the East… Ankara is using its membership in BRICS as a bargaining chip against the West.”

Türkiye simultaneously could be a member of BRICS and NATO?

“Erdogan has no clear future plans. After Erdogan there’s no clear answer for the future of the AKP party. They could not establish a normal, permanent system. We have a governmental system just for Erdogan. We are receiving gas from Russia. We buy materials from China, assembling them in Turkish factories and selling them to Europe and the U.S. We have advantages in foreign trade compared to the EU, according to statistics published by the Turkish government. The biggest trade deficit is against Russia – and then China. This is our special position – and explains why Ankara does not want to lose the Eastern option. And at the same time we depend on the West to defend ourselves. All that explains our unique foreign policy behavior.”

So there’s no guarantee Ankara will agree to become a BRICS partner?

“No. But Ankara will not completely close the door to BRICS. Türkiye knows the West is losing its power. There are new dynamics, rising powers, but at the same time we are not a completely independent power.”

On the three pillars of Turkish society: “You can’t think about geopolitics without ideology. Erdogan and the AKP decided that it’s only possible to integrate Türkiye with a liberal-Islamist project. Almost two generations have grown with them – and they don’t know what happened before. They are neo-Ottomans, Islamists, pro-Arabization guys. In Türkiye, if someone openly supports Islamism, he is Arabized, ideologically. Here we have three pillars. The first one is a nationalist view – we have right Kemalism and left Kemalism. The other one is a Western perspective. And the third one is Islamist, also divided in two factions; one is nationalist and the other is liberal Islamist, integrated with Western institutions, NGOs and capital. That’s why we can say that wokeism and Islamism are different sides of the same coin. These guys are using the Turkish state to maneuver in the broader Middle Eastern geography – but in fact they are focused on Western-minded neoliberal economy, politics, society.”

Neo-Ottomanism, revived: “The West planned Syria together with them – the neo-Ottomans. During the Gaza war they kept sending oil to Israel, it was a P.R. thing for Erdogan, he needs to give this message to the grassroots anti-imperialist, Islamist part of Turkish society. The problem for Erdogan is that Türkiye is different from Arab countries, while Turkish capital is connected to the West, some of it connected with Russia, and Türkiye is dependent as much as 40% on Russian energy. Ankara needs to act in a balanced way, but that does not change the whole picture: Capital that supports Erdogan, and benefits from Erdogan, including 40% of the Turkish exports going to Europe. When it comes to BRICS, they can try to manage the relationship but they will never agree to join the BRICS directly.”

The Sultan never sleeps: “Erdogan is a pragmatist. Ideological. He can sell out the Palestinians – easily. He may be very powerful, and grasp how the state system works, but he does not enjoy total obedience from society to rule. That’s why he’s always aiming for some sort of balance.”

Can we say that with Greater Idlibistan under the control of Türkiye’s MIT – with Jolani as one of their main assets, if not the top asset – the MIT knew about the capabilities of HTS, and they knew this would stop in Aleppo?

“Not all the way to Damascus. That was the original plan. The aim of the operation was attacking the regime, The aim was not the conquest of Damascus. This was the best unexpected result of the attack. The military leadership of HTS said, “we lost our best warriors in the first moments of the operation”. But then came the collapse of the Syrian Army.”

So what does Erdogan really want? Rule over Aleppo or over the whole of Western Syria?

“Syria was part of the Ottoman empire. In his dreams, this is still the Ottoman empire. But he knows Türkiye’s limits in trying to rule over Syria – and the Arab world, enraged, could align against Türkiye. It’s possible – partly – to have a proxy government in Damascus. This is what Erdogan wanted from the Assad government only six months ago. Erdogan was begging to Assad, ‘please come to the table’. It turned out that he was actually sincere. Jolani said “we were really anxious that Assad would accept the offer by Erdogan’. This was the Assad government’s big mistake. Assad had already lost the ability to rule the country. Ankara never wanted the sudden collapse of the Assad government. To rule this chaos is not easy. And Türkiye does not have the military capacity to do it. HTS also does not. And without Türkiye HTS cannot survive.”

So Syria as a province of neo-Ottomanism is not gonna happen?

“This is not just Türkiye’s strategy. This is American and Israeli strategy – to cantonize Syria. So they achieved something, but it’s not finished. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. Remember before October 7, geopolitically no one could foresee what happened in Gaza. In Turkey’s case, this was a joint project. It began in 2011. The main goal was so obvious, to integrate Syria into the Western world. That failed, but the Americans stayed there, because they created a brand called ‘ISIS’, American investment in the Kurds, and in the end Türkiye, what they got was Idlib; it was necessary at the time, because Syria, Russia, Iran, they are not like the Americans or American-connected Islamists, they are not a destructive power. Step by step they wanted to “earn” Türkiye, with the Astana process. Türkiye in the end stuck with the American policy, they waited and waited and waited, and now they have something other than what they wanted. And that’s an alarming situation for Türkiye – because they don’t want Syria to be partitioned. It’s not even certain that the Americans will let Türkiye train the new Syrian army. The West now has total economic leverage.”

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... lly-up-to/

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What accounts for Turkiye's aggressive naval expansion?

Now, the most powerful maritime force in West Asia, Turkiye’s naval expansion is not just a military ego trip. Ankara is making a strategic bid for regional dominance, securing energy resources, and reshaping the balance of power in the Mediterranean, Black Sea, and beyond.


Erman Çete

JAN 30, 2025


Photo Credit: The Cradle

In recent years, Turkiye has significantly amplified its naval ambitions in the Mediterranean, aiming to assert its influence and protect its interests in the region. Most recently, the Mavi Vatan 2025 exercise, a large-scale naval operation held in the Black Sea, Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea between 7-16 January, showcased Ankara's strategic maritime aspirations.

The strategic importance of securing energy resources and trade routes has propelled Turkiye into direct competition with regional players, positioning its navy as a key instrument of geopolitical maneuvering.

In the run-up to the presidential elections in May 2023, the TCG Anadolu, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called “the world's first UCAV ship,” toured Turkish ports, not only celebrating its launch but also becoming a symbol of Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) election campaign.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition party who was Erdogan’s rival at the time, criticized the use of the TCG Anadolu for election campaigns. “Whatever our political debates are, our military has to stay out of it. Just as campaigning cannot be done with the flag, it should not be done with the ship of the army,” Kilicdaroglu said.

‘Local and national’

Beyond its political symbolism, however, the launch of TCG Anadolu signaled a broader transformation: Turkiye was emerging as a serious naval power.

According to Erdogan, the localization rate of the ship was 70 percent. “Local and national” (“yerli ve milli” in Turkish) is one of the pillars of the new Turkish policy of Erdogan, in both domestic and foreign spheres.

This fits into a larger trend: the Turkish Navy currently has 31 warships under construction, including an indigenous aircraft carrier, guided-missile destroyers, multirole frigates, and attack submarines. Expanding its naval capacities has been a focal point for Turkiye, reflecting its aspirations for strategic autonomy and regional dominance.

TCG Anadolu is listed as a “multipurpose amphibious assault ship” in the navy inventory. Its design is based on the Spanish amphibious assault ship Juan Carlos I, with similar specifications in length, height, width, and speed.

Originally planned for American-made F-35 aircraft, TCG Anadolu’s role changed when Turkiye was expelled from the US F-35 program after purchasing Russian S-400 missile defense systems in 2019. Instead, the ship is now being optimized for a fleet of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), which aligns with Turkiye’s growing drone warfare capabilities.

It is noted that the length of the TCG Anadolu deck is not sufficient for the take-off of the F-16 and F-117 jets in the Turkish Armed Forces inventory. Reuters reported that the TCG Anadolu is being re-planned for unmanned aerial vehicle systems following this crisis. With some additions, it is aimed to reach the take-off speed of UAV-UAV systems at 100-150 meters.

More than just warships: A strategic naval doctrine

The capacity of the Turkish navy is not limited to the TCG Anadolu. Turkiye is simultaneously constructing multiple advanced warships. The ADA Class Corvettes, the first four ships produced under the National Ship (MILGEM) Project, are already in service.

From the fifth ship onwards, the construction of the ISTIF Class Frigates has begun, with seven currently under construction. In addition to this, Turkiye is building the HISAR Class Offshore Patrol Vessels, the Reis Class Attack Submarines, and a new type of mine search vessel.

Turkiye is also developing a fully indigenous aircraft carrier under the MUGEM Project and advancing work on the TF-2000 Air Defense Destroyer. A growing arsenal of underwater drones is further strengthening Turkiye’s maritime dominance.

But Turkiye’s naval buildup is not just about expanding its fleet. It is underpinned by the “Blue Homeland” (Mavi Vatan) doctrine, which seeks to extend Turkiye’s maritime control over vast areas of the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Sea.

Although Erdogan and the AKP use these developments for domestic political consumption, some critics point out correctly that the construction of a strong navy is a long-term process, and a significant portion of these projects predate the AKP.

Retired Rear Admiral Ali Deniz Kutluk, who served for six years as the director of NATO's Military-Political Headquarters in Brussels, explains to The Cradle that each of these is a project development to meet another requirement. They are developed within the structure envisaged by the Force Planning System, to be implemented in two or three year cycles.

Indeed, since the mid-1990s, the Turkish navy has been exploring national resources to design, develop, and build a fully indigenous corvette. In 2004, the Istanbul Shipyard Command established the MILGEM Project Office to execute and coordinate design, engineering, and construction projects.

It may thus be surprising to recall that the Turkish navy, of which the AKP government is so proud, was once the subject of prosecutions.

Turkish navy Admiral Ozden Ornek, one of the most important officials initiating the MILGEM project during the first part of the 2000s, was at the time blamed for his ‘Coup d’etat diaries’ by the AKP and its once-ally Fethullah Gulen Organization (FTO), for planning a coup against Erdogan and the AKP with his comrade-in-arms.

‘Blue Homeland’ and its implications

Maritime space is a key element in contemporary Turkiye geopolitical doctrine. Until recently, the main point of tension in the maritime domain was with Greece and Cyprus. The development of the technical capacity for drilling for oil and gas at sea, the discovery and exploitation of the Prinos field in the Aegean Sea, and the UN process of drafting the Convention on the Law of the Sea started to change things in the 1970s.

Senior officers of the Turkish Navy adopted and used the term “Blue Homeland” in 2006 to denote the need for Turkiye to claim and defend a wide exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In the 2010s, this doctrine was extended beyond the Aegean and Cyprus to the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Since then, Erdogan has become a leading exponent of the “Blue Homeland,” and the concept is considered the foundation of Turkish ‘proactive’ regional politics.

Although the doctrine is also related to the new energy resources in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, it can be viewed as a broad geopolitical concept that ultimately aspires to control the eastern sea transit routes to Europe.

Kutluk points to this aspect of the doctrine:

“The Mediterranean is an important geopolitical maneuvering ground in many respects. As many as 7,000 merchant ships a day provide a significant part of Europe’s logistics through transportation on this sea. It is the transit route for Middle Eastern oil and gas to the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Aegean, the Black Sea, Europe and the Atlantic. Two-way hydrocarbon transportation via this route is important for Turkey and others. Therefore, it can be considered the vital geography of our foreign trade.”

Retired admiral Alaettin Sevim, who was arrested on charges of a “coup attempt” during the “Ergenekon” trials jointly planned by the AKP and the FTO, thinks similarly. He tells The Cradle that the region is important not only for its potential energy resources, but also for ensuring that the energy resources of neighboring regions are transported to markets.

“It is the intersection of important sea routes for world trade, such as the Suez Canal, the Turkish Straits and the Mediterranean routes. The Mediterranean has always been the geostrategic center (heartland) of the world at sea. Today, this center has shifted to the Eastern Mediterranean.”

Additionally, Kutluk thinks that the Turkish navy’s presence in Libya, Somalia, and the Horn of Africa, as well as in Lebanon with the UN UNIFIL force, and in Qatar with other Turkish Armed Forces elements, each have their own reasons. “It is more reasonable to see all of them as related to the expansion of Turkey's spheres of interest and influence,” he posits.

In addition to hydrocarbon resources, including gas hydrate, it is also suitable for energy production from the seas through wind, tidal currents, and by laying solar panels.

Moreover, the island of Cyprus, Kutluk claims, which is the security of Turkiye’s southern coasts, also provides its security through the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

Between the Big Powers, but tilting towards NATO

Turkiye’s aggressive naval expansion has led to growing tensions with Greece, Egypt, and Israel, all of whom have overlapping claims in the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece, in particular, has reacted strongly to the “Blue Homeland” doctrine, fearing encroachment on its territorial waters.

Turkish naval expansion is, therefore, not just about defense but also about regional power competition. The assertive positioning of Turkish naval forces in these contested waters has increased diplomatic strains and raised concerns about potential military confrontations.

Despite tensions with western allies over issues like the Russian S-400 missile system and energy disputes, Turkiye remains a crucial NATO member. Recent naval exercises with the US, such as the August 2024 joint drill in the Eastern Mediterranean, signal that Ankara continues to maintain strong military ties with Washington.

The exercise was understood to be a ship-to-ship harmonization drill between Turkiye, which has an amphibious assault ship navy in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the US, with the aim of ‘deterring aggression and ensuring stability’ in the region.

The US amphibious warship USS Wasp made its appearance in the Turkish media thanks to its announcement on the warship’s social media account. The “harmonization exercise” between Wasp and TCG Anadolu in the Eastern Mediterranean was accompanied by the US landing ship USS Oakhill and the Turkish frigate TCG Gokova.

Wasp has been in the Mediterranean since late June. It is one of two US amphibious assault ships sent to the region to counter Iranian or Hezbollah attacks on Israel amid the occupation state’s military campaign in Gaza, where more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed.

Regional ambitions

While it does not yet rival global naval powers like the US or China, Turkiye now possesses the most powerful navy in West Asia and ranks among the top 10 naval forces worldwide.

Retired Admiral Sevim notes that while Turkey’s naval power has expanded considerably, it remains in a transitional phase, being ‘a medium-sized force’ at the global level and ‘a large-scale force’ at the regional level.

He suggests that Turkiye’s future role will depend on how it integrates these naval advancements into a broader geopolitical strategy. Kutluk, on the other hand, emphasizes that peace and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean should remain a priority, warning that unchecked naval competition could lead to unintended conflicts.

For Kutluk, the Turkish Navy cannot be considered a (high seas) navy with a “global dimension.” Rather, they can be seen as instruments of regional power struggle. While naval power enhances Ankara’s strategic options, it also comes with risks, particularly in an environment where tensions with Greece, Israel, and NATO partners remain unresolved.

This buildup is not just about prestige. It is about securing energy resources, controlling vital trade routes, and asserting Turkiye’s strategic influence from the Mediterranean to Africa. The coming years will test whether Turkiye’s naval ambitions translate into lasting influence or trigger further instability.

For now, its growing fleet and assertive maritime doctrine ensure that it will remain a central player in West Asia’s evolving balance of power.

https://thecradle.co/articles/what-acco ... -expansion

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Turkiye’s Breaking Point: Erdogan Moves To Crush His Biggest Electoral Threat
March 26, 2025


Compilation image showing protestors and Recep Erdoğan. Photo: The Cradle.

By Ceyda Karan – Mar 23, 2025

Facing an unprecedented challenge from popular opposition leader Ekrem Imamoglu, President Erdogan is launching a sweeping crackdown that could determine not just the next election – but the future of democracy in Turkiye.

After years of lacking a charismatic leader, Turkiye’s opposition found one in Ekrem Imamoglu – a sharp orator and tactician whose growing popularity poses a serious threat to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decades-long grip on power. But as Imamoglu’s star rises, so too does the pressure from Erdogan’s government, culminating in a sweeping campaign to derail his political future.

This week, Imamoglu’s university diploma, which is a requirement to qualify for the Turkish presidency, was suddenly revoked by the academic institution. The next day, he was detained in a dramatic dawn raid on controversial ‘corruption and terrorism’ charges along with 105 others. Their assets were frozen, and pro-government media splashed the arrests across headlines in an apparent attempt at public defamation.

Today – 23 March – Imamoglu was formally arrested in the early morning hours. As the accusations against the popular politician slowly unfold, the traces of a tragicomic political revenge operation become visible.

The rapid chain of events has given way to massive protests across the country since the weekend. Turkiye is being shaken in a way it has not experienced for many years. For days, populations in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, Antalya, Adana, and other major cities have violated the government’s demonstration ban. And they don’t seem to be leaving the streets.

The Erdogan-Imamoglu fight is no longer just a political rivalry – it is becoming a defining confrontation that could reshape Turkiye’s democratic future.

Imamoglu, Istanbul’s mayor since 2019, is viewed by Erdogan as a palpable political threat to Erdogan, who has ruled Turkiye for 23 years, consolidating power, sidelining institutions, and transforming the country into a presidential system via a controversial 2017 referendum.

A familiar pattern of suppression
For two-thirds of its more than 100-year history, the modern Turkish Republic was accustomed to peaceful transitions of power in a viable parliamentary democracy. Although military interim regimes produced striking results, the army always eventually paved the way for civilian politics in short order.

For the Turkish people, changes in leadership were commonplace in a relatively competitive environment. Things changed with the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its own charismatic leader Erdogan, who came to power in the early 2000s as part of the country’s integration into the western neoliberal model of governance. The Turkish people have not known another ruler since.

Throughout his reign, Erdogan has relied on a mix of political maneuvering, populist rhetoric, institutional control, and favorable international conditions to eliminate rivals and maintain dominance. But Imamoglu represents a different kind of challenge.

The scale and speed of the campaign to sideline Istanbul’s mayor has shocked observers across the political spectrum. Analysts are likening the media spectacle to the notorious “Ergenekon operations” of the 2000s, when alleged coup plotters were swept up in mass arrests led by the Gulenist network within the judiciary – many of whom later turned on Erdogan during a failed 2016 coup to unseat him.

To most, the spate of mass detentions this past week is a clear sign that Erdogan is trying to eliminate his most credible challenger ahead of the next presidential election.

More than just a mayor: Imamoglu’s meteoric rise
Imamoglu’s journey to national prominence has been swift and, for Erdogan, deeply inconvenient.

Originally the mayor of Beylikduzu, a fast-growing district on Istanbul’s western edge, Imamoglu was relatively unknown beyond his constituency. But in 2019, pro-Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu nominated him as the party’s candidate for Istanbul – a surprising choice at the time.

To nearly everyone’s astonishment, Imamoglu won. However, his victory of 23,000 votes was challenged by Erdogan’s AKP, which demanded recounts and ultimately annulled the result. The Supreme Election Council controversially ordered a re-run, citing irregularities despite no concrete evidence.

Rather than weaken Imamoglu’s momentum, the move galvanized public support for him. In the June 2019 re-election, he won by over 800,000 votes, delivering Erdogan his most painful political defeat to date and returning control of Turkiye’s largest city to the opposition after decades.

For Erdogan, the loss was personal. Istanbul is the city where he began his political career as mayor in the 1990s. It is Turkiye’s economic powerhouse, and controlling it has long been central to his party’s political machine.

Imamoglu’s popularity has only grown since those events to scuttle his candidacy. Though a member of the secular, center-left CHP, he hails from a conservative, business-oriented family in Trabzon on the Black Sea coast. He speaks in a language that resonates with a broader audience – including both religious conservatives and nationalists. His appeal cuts across ideological lines in a way few CHP figures have managed.

Calm, humorous, and articulate without a teleprompter, Imamoglu stands in contrast to both Erdogan’s bombast and the staid image of the CHP’s traditional elites. He is also seen as emotionally in tune with voters – a political asset in a country increasingly weary of economic hardship and polarization.

Internationally, Imamoglu has also drawn attention. Western policymakers view him as someone who could restore balance and predictability to Turkiye’s foreign relations – without alienating the electorate.



The painful 2023–2024 election cycle
The stakes were already high when the 2023 presidential election came around. Amid a deepening economic crisis, Erdogan faced a serious challenge from CHP leader Kilicdaroglu, who ran as the joint candidate of the National Alliance. But to secure consensus within the bloc, Kilicdaroglu promised to appoint both Imamoglu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas as vice presidents if elected.

Despite the unusual coalition he assembled, Kilicdaroglu lost narrowly in the second round. The National Alliance collapsed soon after, and the CHP descended into internal disputes. Kilicdaroglu was eventually replaced as leader by Ozgur Ozel in November 2023.

But in the 2024 local elections, the CHP rebounded. Imamoglu was re-elected mayor of Istanbul with a record margin, defeating Erdogan-backed candidate Murat Kurum by over a million votes. The CHP retained the mayorship of Ankara and also won several other provinces, dealing a humiliating blow to Erdogan.
The victory also cemented Imamoglu’s place as the leading opposition figure – and, for many, the natural presidential candidate for 2028.

Erdogan’s candidacy for the presidency in the last election was also problematic due to the constitutional limit of two 5-year terms. He ran for a third term in 2023. His first term in office in the parliamentary system before the transition to the Turkish-type presidential system did not ‘count.’

That momentum may be why the government’s legal offensive has intensified. Imamoglu already faced a suspended prison sentence and a political ban over a flippant comment in 2019, when he called the annulment of the Istanbul election “stupid” – a remark deemed insulting to the election board.

In 2024, attention turned to supposed irregularities in his university transfer from Northern Cyprus to Istanbul in the early 1990s. Then, this month, Istanbul University suddenly invalidated his degree – effectively disqualifying him from running for president.

This was followed by the mass detention operation in which city officials and businesspeople linked to the municipality were arrested. Some of the charges leveled against them were simply bizarre. For example, the head of Istanbul’s Planning Agency, Bugra Gokce, was accused of “contradicting state statistics” by publishing cost-of-living data more aligned with the Chamber of Commerce than the state-run statistics agency, TUIK.

The government’s allegations of ‘corruption’ contain few details, and include charges such as concert fees paid to artists at municipal events and tenders to public relations companies. Furthermore, it appears that most of the accusations are based on secret witnesses and mere rumors.

Pro-government media tried to frame the arrests as a blow against elite corruption. For the detained developer businessman Ali Nuhoglu, it was stated that ‘Nuhoglu, who sold cheap houses to Imamoglu, was caught while fleeing with 40 million TL’. However, a video of Nuhoglu accompanying the police to his office, entering the password of his safe, and handing over his money and documents was later published – debunking the government’s dramatic narrative.

Erdogan insists the judiciary is independent. Yet he admitted in a speech that many of the case files were initiated based on information provided by members of Imamoglu’s own party – undermining the government’s claims of neutrality.

The ‘Terror’ card and the Kurdish question
The most explosive accusation against Imamoglu thus far is that he “collaborated with terrorism” by forming an election alliance in 2019 with the HDP (now DEM), the party representing Kurdish interests. Prosecutors now claim the agreement led to municipal jobs for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)-linked individuals – despite security clearances being the Interior Ministry’s responsibility.

The timing of Ergodan’s latest offensive is critical. Since late 2023, the Turkish president has launched a “second Kurdish opening” aimed at reducing armed conflict and possibly engaging with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. This shift, driven by his nationalist coalition partner Devlet Bahceli, could create a new political alliance with DEM.

Some analysts believe Erdogan hopes to trade constitutional reform for DEM’s political support. Columnist Mehmet Ali Guller argues that removing Imamoglu from the scene is central to this strategy:

“Erdogan wants to gain the right to be elected again, and this time without limits, with a new constitution. This is the ‘internal reason’ for the process of agreement with Ocalan , which was initiated under Bahceli ’s leadership. Erdogan hopes to first change the constitution by getting DEM votes under Ocalan’s instructions, and then win the election.”

Turkish political analyst Aydin Sezer agrees:

“This has put Erdoğan on a path of no return. In the short term, he is trying to ensure that he becomes a candidate through elections and that Imamoglu cannot be a candidate, while he is working on a position that involves the design of the politics after him. For Erdogan, there is no other way but to conclude this successfully. He took a serious risk.”

Guller draws attention to the irony of accusing Imamoglu of supporting ‘terrorism’ due to his alliance with DEM:

“In other words, the Palace is both trying to get Kurdish votes and to liquidate Imamoglu, who has the potential to get Kurdish votes. At the same time, he is trying to convict the CHP of collaborating with terrorism in order to weaken the nationalist votes of the possible new candidate who may be nominated to replace Imamoglu. They used to say ‘there are many games in the Ottoman Empire’, ‘there are many games in the Neo-Ottoman Empire’ too.”

Can elections be trusted anymore?
Inside the CHP, Imamoglu continues to build support as the party’s likely next presidential candidate. Although Ozgur Ozel currently holds the leadership position, Imamoglu is seen as the one with national recognition and cross-ideological backing. His recent countrywide tour was widely interpreted as the first step toward a presidential bid.

Associate Professor Fatih Yasli believes Turkiye is already transitioning into what he calls a “de-electionized” system, where elections are held, but genuine competition is stifled. The legal system, media, and even electoral boards can be weaponized, while opposition parties are reduced to controlled alternatives.

Yasli also sees Erdogan’s recent overtures to the EU – framed around regional diplomacy and peacekeeping in Ukraine – as a bid to legitimize his increasingly authoritarian governance model on the global stage.

“Erdogan’s goal,” Yasli says, “is to be leader for as long as his lifespan allows.”

The campaign against Imamoglu is a turning point for Turkiye. For years, Erdogan thrived on a narrative of popular victimhood, pointing to past injustices to justify his rule. But now, he risks turning his most dangerous opponent into the same kind of martyr he once was.

With economic pain worsening and democratic safeguards eroding, the battle over Imamoglu’s fate is not just about one man. It is about the future of political change in Turkiye – whether it can still happen at the ballot box, or whether the system has already closed in on itself.

(The Cradle)

https://orinocotribune.com/turkiyes-bre ... al-threat/

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A protest in Ankara over the detention of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. (Photo: Wikimedia)

What Is Happening in Turkey? The Rentier Opposition and the Resistance
By Mehmet Özbağcı (Posted Apr 04, 2025)

On March 18, Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul and the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) presidential candidate, had his university diploma revoked. The decision was made by a committee at Istanbul University, where İmamoğlu had graduated, with a majority vote. Under Turkish law, a university degree is required to run for president, so the decision effectively disqualified İmamoğlu’s candidacy.

Many saw the İmamoğlu as the only politician capable of defeating President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has ruled the country for 23 years. İmamoğlu’s disqualification through such a crude maneuver sparked widespread anger among opposition supporters. However, in line with a longstanding tradition within Turkey’s opposition, İmamoğlu himself chose to absorb this anger rather than mobilize it. He responded to the annulment of his diploma with a restrained video statement filmed at a Ramadan dinner. In the video, he emphasized the Islamic concept of “kul hakkı” (right of the believer), and argued that the revocation of the diploma he obtained 33 years ago signaled a broader threat to private property and civil rights in Turkey. İmamoğlu’s statement included neither a call to protest the decision nor a clear roadmap for how he intended to challenge it.

The cost of this restraint would be heavy. On the morning after the university’s decision, dozens of police vehicles were stationed in front of İmamoğlu’s home. The mayor of Turkey’s most populous city was taken into custody. Around the same time, nearly 100 individuals, including journalists, opposition politicians, and municipal staff, were also detained, and İmamoğlu’s construction company was seized by the government. The charges against him included leading a criminal organization, corruption, bribery, and money laundering. A few days later, on March 23, İmamoğlu was officially arrested.

İmamoğlu’s detention sparked large-scale protests, particularly on university campuses. In response, the government canceled police leave, suspended public transportation in major cities, and placed public squares under heavy police control. Twelve years after the nationwide Gezi Protests, Erdoğan’s government and opposition groups were once again set to confront each other in the streets.

Timing the Takedown
In political trials, reality and fiction intertwine, and secret witness testimonies and questionable procedural practices are routinely employed. Since its early years, Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has used such trials as its primary tool for political retaliation. Therefore, while the sudden branding of the mayor of the country’s largest city as the leader of a criminal organization was shocking, it was not unexpected. The key question here is why the AKP government felt the need to use this tool at this particular moment.

The primary factor that drove the government to launch an operation against İmamoğlu was, without a doubt, his political rise. In the March 2019 municipal elections, İmamoğlu defeated AKP’s former prime minister, Binali Yıldırım. However, the election was annulled on the grounds of alleged irregularities. When the vote was held again, İmamoğlu won with an even larger margin, securing the Istanbul mayoralty. In the 2024 elections, he successfully retained his position, increasing his vote share.

Erdoğan, who once served as Istanbul’s mayor himself, had famously stated that “Whoever wins Istanbul wins Turkey.” After winning Istanbul three times, and with the CHP emerging as the leading party in the 2024 local elections, it became increasingly clear that İmamoğlu’s next target would be the presidency.

On March 23, the CHP administration decided to hold a symbolic primary election, confirming İmamoğlu as the party’s sole candidate. This decision allowed İmamoğlu to enter the race with the political legitimacy derived from the support of millions of members of the country’s second-largest party. It also ensured that the CHP would not repeat the mistakes of the 2023 presidential elections, when it delayed announcing its candidate. Because the AKP government knew that ousting a successful presidential candidate elected by millions would be far more difficult than detaining the mayor of Istanbul, the CHP’s decision spurred the government to act swiftly and eliminate İmamoğlu.

Yet this motivation alone was insufficient for such an operation, and favorable conditions in both international and domestic politics were essential. The Biden administration, which had always been distant from Erdoğan and had received significant financial support from the Fethullah Gülen sect that attempted to overthrow Erdoğan in 2016, had left office. In its place came Donald Trump, who has called Erdoğan as “my friend.” It was almost certain that the geopolitically focused Trump administration would remain indifferent to Turkey’s domestic affairs. Furthermore, Trump’s hesitation to sustain the Ukraine conflict significantly elevated Turkey’s strategic importance in the eyes of its European allies. The government understood that neither the United States nor Europe could afford to jeopardize their relations with Turkey over concerns about Turkish democracy. Official statements made since İmamoğlu’s detention have only validated this understanding.

Domestically, the government was engaged in a series of negotiations with Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). A few weeks before İmamoğlu’s arrest, the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, had issued a brief yet stunning statement calling on the organization to dissolve itself. This was followed by an agreement in Damascus between the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-majority group supported by the United States, and the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham administration, backed by Turkey. The Kurds, who had been a significant opposition force in recent years and supported the CHP candidate in the 2023 presidential elections, were neutralized by the negotiation process led by their leaders.

The Tragedy of the Rentier Opposition
Yet even these factors fall short of fully explaining how such an operation could be carried out against the CHP, which is not only Turkey’s founding political force but also the leading party in the last elections and the governing authority in all the country’s major cities. For a full picture, one must understand the nature of the CHP itself.

Marx defines rent as the value derived from monopolizing a specific resource, often land; a rentier is someone who earns rent by taking a share of the product without contributing to its production. If this concept is applied to politics, the CHP can be seen as having a rentier character, which prevents the party from converting its electoral victories and public support into genuine political power, leaving it vulnerable to the AKP’s maneuvers. The CHP’s voter base largely supports the party not because of its policies, but because it is perceived as the strongest alternative to Erdoğan’s AKP. Ironically, this very perception solidifies the CHP’s position as the primary opposition party. In this sense, the CHP functions as a rentier party, relying on its status as the main opposition rather than on substantive policy proposals. And in fact, a closer examination of the CHP’s policies reveals striking similarities to those of the AKP.

On paper, the CHP is a social democratic party, as outlined in its program and charter. However, the rhetoric of its leaders and its election promises reveal a strong adherence to neoliberal principles—arguably as much as, if not more than, that of the AKP. During the 2023 presidential elections, the Nation Alliance, led by the CHP, proposed an economic program that included privatizing the railways—a step even the AKP had not fully taken—and implementing austerity measures to address the economic crisis. Furthermore, the CHP nominated Ali Babacan, a former economy minister under Erdoğan and a staunch advocate of neoliberal policies, as vice president for economic affairs. Ironically, while the public ultimately chose Erdoğan’s economic approach—characterized by low interest rates, high exchange rates, and low unemployment—the AKP government reverted to its traditional neoliberal stance after the election. Mehmet Şimşek, a former finance minister with close ties to London’s financial circles, was reinstated and introduced strict austerity measures aligned with IMF guidelines. İmamoğlu even expressed support for Şimşek’s policies, stating, “We see Mr. Şimşek’s efforts to outline correct steps, good measures, and a respectable journey.” Ultimately, the economic differences between the CHP and AKP are superficial.

The relationship between the “social democrat” CHP and the working class likewise needs a closer analysis. AKP officials frequently criminalize strikes under the guise of security concerns, and even accuse striking workers of serving foreign powers. Yet the CHP shows similar tendencies: In CHP-governed municipalities, party-affiliated media and politicians often portray striking workers as agents of the AKP. Moreover, CHP municipalities have been known to engage in organized strike-breaking. In one district of Istanbul, İmamoğlu dispatched cleaners to remove garbage left uncollected by striking sanitation workers.

In the dichotomy between secularism and Islamism—a defining theme in Turkish politics—the CHP draws support primarily from secular urban populations. However, the party has long sought to emulate the AKP’s Islamist rhetoric and political strategies. While the CHP outlawed religious orders during Kemal Atatürk’s presidency, it appears to have recognized the political and organizational advantages these groups have provided the AKP. As a result, the CHP has actively pursued relationships with various religious orders to secure their backing. Despite these efforts, a significant majority of the population, including nearly all CHP voters, remain uneasy about the influence of religious groups in Turkish society. These organizations, which wield considerable economic and political power, frequently make headlines for scandals involving corruption, sexual harassment, and violence against children in unlicensed educational institutions.

İmamoğlu, who launched his political career within Turgut Özal’s neo-Ottomanist Motherland Party, embodies a moderate Islamist political approach. His tenure as mayor began with a prayer led by an imam in his office. Like Erdoğan, İmamoğlu has consistently used Friday prayers as platforms for political messaging. He also expressed admiration for Istanbul’s Islamic religious orders, and cultivated relationships with pan-Islamist organizations such as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a key tool in the AKP’s foreign policy agenda.

One of the CHP’s key criticisms of the AKP centers on the concept of “meritocracy.” While the CHP’s own economic policies show little divergence from those of the AKP, the party attributes the country’s economic crisis to the AKP’s practice of appointing loyal but unqualified individuals to key decision-making positions. However, the CHP’s own commitment to “meritocracy” appears largely superficial. The experience of Hatay, the city hardest hit by the February 2023 earthquake, gives a striking example. In the preceding years, under Haray’s CHP mayor Lütfü Savaş, illegal construction permits were issued, which played a significant role in the loss of thousands of lives. Despite Savaş’s widely acknowledged responsibility for this devastating tragedy, the CHP leadership decided to renominate him for the 2024 local elections, sparking widespread public outrage. At a ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of the earthquake, protests erupted against CHP leaders. When one woman pleaded, “Please don’t nominate Lütfü Savaş,” İmamoğlu’s response to was characteristic of his Islamist tendencies: “Please, sister. The Quran is being recited right now; let’s listen together.”

The CHP often criticizes the AKP as a system dominated by a single individual, where decisions are made without checks or balances. While Erdoğan’s extensive control over his party and the state apparatus is undeniable, the CHP operates in a remarkably similar fashion. The party’s chairman holds exclusive authority in selecting parliamentary candidates and mayors, consolidating decision-making power within the leadership. In some instances, the CHP leadership has even gone further than Erdoğan in its unilateral actions. After losing the first round in the May 2023 elections, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, then the CHP leader and opposition presidential candidate, secretly signed a pact with Ümit Özdağ, leader of the far-right, anti-immigrant Victory Party. According to the agreement, later disclosed by Özdağ, the Victory Party would pledge its support for Kılıçdaroğlu in exchange for key positions, including the Ministry of Domestic Affairs and the head of intelligence services. The arrangement effectively subjected millions of Kurdish and leftist voters to political manipulation, pushing them to vote for a candidate who had agreed to empower a far-right party. Despite this political maneuver, Kılıçdaroğlu ultimately lost the election.

Overall, there is no significant difference between the CHP and the AKP in economic and social policies or political practices. Both parties share a common vision for an economic system characterized by unchecked corruption, declining real wages, deepening social inequalities, and workplace accidents resolved through compensation rather than regulation. This alignment reflects the preferences of Turkey’s capitalist class, which backs both parties. While the CHP may aspire to take the helm of the ship, it shows no intention of steering it in a different direction.

The CHP has also worked just as diligently as the AKP to establish a political system where the public remain passive spectators instead of active participants. CHP leaders and their affiliated media have focused on reducing political engagement by opposition groups to mere electoral participation. They have promoted the idea that political commitments and demands are obstacles to defeating the AKP, urging opposition groups to prioritize electoral victory—even at the cost of abandoning their principles and identities. This strategy culminated with the 2023 parliamentary elections, in which millions of CHP voters, who deeply resented the AKP and held it responsible for the hardships in their lives, ended up electing former AKP Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, along with other former AKP ministers and deputies, into parliament under the CHP’s banner. Ironically, some of these deputies later returned to their original political home, the AKP.

The CHP’s obsession with electoral politics has significantly contributed to the near-eradication of protest culture in Turkey. Despite enduring a prolonged economic crisis and societal traumas like the 2023 earthquake, protests remain infrequent and lack broad participation. While the AKP government, which has criminalized the right to protest, bears primary responsibility, the CHP leadership and its affiliated media are no less complicit. The party has consistently framed protests against the government as actions that might portray the AKP as victims, potentially strengthening the AKP’s electoral position. Much like the AKP, the CHP dismisses any forms of political expression outside of elections as undemocratic. This has created a paradoxical situation where nearly everyone closely follows politics day by day and voter turnout always exceeds 90 percent, yet political demands are almost invisible in daily life. İmamoğlu refrained from calling for protests even after his disqualification from the election for the same reason: the very concept of protest has been excluded from the CHP’s political playbook.

The CHP’s strategy—suppressing genuine public demands, discouraging mass politics, and relying on voters to support it solely because it is not the AKP—has encouraged people to overlook their ongoing struggles and impoverishment, clinging instead to the hope of better days under CHP rule. Yet even this strategy collapsed when the AKP government seized an opportunity to launch a sweeping judicial operation against the CHP. Leveraging favorable domestic and international conditions, the AKP shifted the political landscape, detaining the CHP’s most prominent politician and leveling corruption charges against the party.

The tragedy of Turkey’s rentier opposition lies in this paradox: the ballot box, which the CHP has championed as the ultimate solution, has been rendered ineffective, and the only viable path left for the CHP is mass protest—which the CHP has spent over a decade undermining. The extent to which the AKP can push its operation against the CHP will ultimately depend on the resistance it faces in the streets.

Resistance on the Street
İmamoğlu’s detention has ignited widespread protests across Turkey, transforming the political landscape. Initially, a large crowd assembled outside the Istanbul Municipality building, resembling a CHP rally rather than a protest. Soon students from leading universities organized massive marches, which escalated into clashes with the police. Over time, streets and squares across the nation became hubs of resistance, with most cities witnessing significant demonstrations. A notable exception was the southeast, where the Kurdish political movement, still actively negotiating with the government, refrained from joining the protests.

A large share of the protesters are young people who see İmamoğlu as their only hope against the oppressive and impoverishing politics they attribute to the AKP. Many are joining protests for the first time, signaling a shift in how they engage with politics. They are beginning to move beyond the limitations of the ballot box and social media, and learning to voice their demands in the public sphere.

These protests have the potential to disrupt the two-party system that has shaped Turkish politics for decades. Many young demonstrators have openly criticized CHP leaders, including Chairman Özgür Özel, for their cautious and conciliatory stance. The arrest of İmamoğlu, combined with the CHP’s inability to mount an effective response, may drive people to explore new political alternatives.

Among these alternatives, socialist parties emerge as a compelling option. Despite their limited electoral presence, they have shown remarkable organization and active participation in the protests. To harness this momentum, socialist parties must transcend the electoral focus of İmamoğlu and the CHP, channeling public opposition to the AKP into concrete political demands. This shift is essential for fostering a broader, more inclusive political transformation—one that could ultimately liberate Turkey from the grips of neoliberalism and Islamism. In this lies the true hope for change.

https://mronline.org/2025/04/04/what-is ... esistance/

[blindpig]

Return of the Ikhwan: Erdogan reboots the Muslim Brotherhood in West Asia

With Damascus fallen and Sanaa under bombardment, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seizing a renewed opportunity to reassert Muslim Brotherhood influence across the Arab world – from Syria and Lebanon to Jordan and Yemen.


Musa Ozugurlu

APR 24, 2025


Photo Credit: The Cradle.

During the so-called Arab Spring, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan envisioned reviving Neo-Ottoman ambitions through ideological alignment with the Muslim Brotherhood. But as Brotherhood-linked movements faltered, especially after Egypt’s 2013 coup, those plans were shelved.

Now, 14 years later, with Damascus fallen and regional dynamics shifting, Erdogan sees an opening to rekindle the Brotherhood’s influence.

That influence now extends far beyond Syria and Egypt, with Brotherhood-affiliated movements resurging across Lebanon, Jordan, and Yemen – regions where Erdogan has maintained deep, often unofficial, networks of support.

Turkiye’s Islamist turn and Brotherhood networks

Erdogan never truly abandoned his broader regional agenda. Over the years, he gradually shifted Turkiye’s secular foreign policy to a more aggressive, Islamist-aligned approach – reaching out not only to states but also to ideologically aligned organizations and individuals.

That included offering state support to controversial figures like Tariq al-Hashimi, the former Iraqi vice president sentenced to death in Iraq, who received both a vehicle and driver from Istanbul’s municipal government under Erdogan’s rule.

Most notably, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood found refuge in Istanbul after being designated a terrorist organization by Cairo. Some members even aired broadcasts calling for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s assassination – beaming their message from Turkish soil. Erdogan’s strategic alliance with Qatar further solidified his patronage of the Brotherhood, creating friction with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

A legacy of Brotherhood ties

Erdogan’s ideological affinity with the Brotherhood is rooted in decades of Turkish-Islamist history. As noted by Professor Behlul Ozkan of Ozyegin University, Brotherhood figures such as Said Ramadan – the son-in-law of founder Hassan al-Banna – were forging ties with Turkish Islamists as early as the 1950s. In this context, Erdogan became both a product of and a model for Brotherhood-aligned movements.

His open backing of Egypt’s late former President Mohamed Morsi included dispatching the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) chief propagandist, Erol Olcok, to assist in Morsi’s campaign. Yet the Brotherhood’s defeats – from Cairo to Tunisia – necessitated a tactical recalibration.

When Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt blockaded Qatar, Erdogan firmly sided with Doha, triggering years of strained ties with the Arab trio.

Eventually, rapprochements with these regional powers forced Erdogan to tone down overt Brotherhood ties. But behind the scenes, the groundwork for renewed cooperation persisted – especially through Syria, where Erdogan has actively supported groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the successor to Al-Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front, which now forms the backbone of the new Syrian government.

A violent Brotherhood in Syria

In the Syrian Arab Republic, the group’s legacy is marked by organized violence between 1979 and 1982, which culminated in the 1982 Hama incident, when a Brotherhood-led uprising prompted a brutal crackdown by Hafez al-Assad’s forces, leaving thousands dead.

In Syria the first major action of the Muslim Brotherhood was the Hama shutdown in 1964 against the expropriation practices of the Baathist government. This uprising was also the first bloodshed of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syrian history. That revolt, which first started as civil disobedience, later turned into hit-and-run actions against the state. However, the Baathist government's response to these actions was very harsh, and the revolt was ended.

The organization became much bloodier after 1973. Said Hawwa, one of the leaders of the Brotherhood, issued a secret declaration calling for the fall of the “Alawite sultanate,” and after this call, a military structure was established by Abdel Sattar al-Zaim in 1975 to fight against the government. This structure later pledged allegiance to Marwan Hadid, one of the leading figures of radical Islam in Syria. It was this military structure that carried out the bloody attack on the artillery school in Aleppo in 1979, which resulted in the massacre of dozens of young cadets, one of the most important stops in the war between the Baathist government and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition to acts of violence in many parts of the country, the organization attempted to assassinate the late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad.

At the time, articles appearing in the underground newspaper Al Nadhir by the “Mujahidin” group, which was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, referred to the Alawite sect as “un-Islamic” and ‘infidel’, while the government was characterized as “Alawite atheism.”

In 1982, calls for an all-out war against the Syrian government began to be made, centered on the city of Hama. However, the harsh and bloody official response to the uprising led the Muslim Brotherhood to virtually disappear from the Syrian political arena for decades.

Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is more often associated with moderate Islamism, especially in the western world. During the so-called Arab Spring uprisings, the Brotherhood line was the political line supported by the West.

HTS and the Brotherhood’s Syrian return

Fast-forward to events today, with the fall of Damascus and the rise of HTS's reach across the country, Erdogan sees an opportunity to reshape Syria’s post-Assad political order. Though the Brotherhood maintains a lower profile, it remains a foundational force in the anti-Assad movement. Syria’s Brotherhood faction – historically more inclined toward violence – could soon be reintegrated to moderate HTS’s militant image.

The groundwork is already visible in the re-emergence of groups like the Kubaysiyat (female-led Da’wah organisations) and meetings held by Brotherhood-linked figures in Istanbul. One such event hosted by the International Organization to Protect and Support Our Prophet (IOSPI) brought together leaders like Egypt’s Sheikh Muhammad al-Saghir and Sudan’s Abdulhayy Yousuf to coordinate resources for political Islam’s revival.

In parallel, Erdogan-backed humanitarian fronts – such as the Yunus Emre Foundation, IHH, and Turkish Red Crescent – continue operations that blur the lines between aid and ideological outreach across West Asia.

Wider ripples: Lebanon and Jordan

Lebanon and Jordan are also witnessing renewed Brotherhood-linked mobilization. In Jordan, a recent raid dismantled what authorities called a Brotherhood-linked rocket cell, with several suspects allegedly trained in Lebanon. As expected, the organization denied any militancy, painting its actions as “peaceful resistance” – a claim that history contradicts.

The Brotherhood, true to form, issued a familiar response: “We are peaceful.” Their past activities – bombings in Egypt and Syria, assassinations of political figures, and attacks on civilians – are all, in their rhetoric, acts of “peace.”

Even the fact that some of the militants arrested in Jordan had reportedly been trained in Lebanon is described as part of their so-called “peaceful” outreach.

A well-informed Jordanian source told The Cradle, "The Brotherhood movement in Jordan is very strong, given that a large portion of Jordanian society is of Palestinian origin and supports the Palestinian cause, particularly Hamas. This is why some Arab countries and Turkey are infiltrating Jordan's domestic arena to destabilize the country. The recent operation uncovered in Jordan is not new, and the authorities were already working on it. There are other operations that have not been announced."
The Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has operated under the name “Islamic Action Front” since 1942. In the parliamentary elections last September, it emerged as the largest political bloc, and has in recent years become particularly prominent in anti-Israel mobilizations.

Following the recent crackdown, however, the future of the Jordanian Brotherhood is uncertain, and the monarchy – long committed to a delicate balancing act – may finally be preparing to confront the group.
In Lebanon, the Brotherhood’s roots go back to 1964, when it began operating under the name Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya. While the group never attained the same clout as Hezbollah or Saudi-backed factions, it has secured parliamentary representation – typically through an alliance with the Saad Hariri-led Future Movement. Its media arm, aimed at drawing support from the Sunni community, even shares the name of the Brotherhood’s historical armed wing, Al-Fajr.

Being primarily a social movement, the Brotherhood’s strategic toolbox has remained consistent since its founding in 1920s Egypt: religious schools, charity networks, Quran classes, disaster relief, and Da'wah.

Founder Hassan al-Banna detailed these tactics in his own memoirs. Whether in Turkiye, Jordan, Lebanon, or elsewhere, these civilian-facing efforts remain active in peacetime – and can shift rapidly into armed struggle when the moment demands it.

In Yemen, Erdogan’s Turkiye has also quietly maintained relations with the Muslim Brotherhood’s local incarnation, the Al-Islah Party – though the group’s alliances have fluctuated between Riyadh, Doha, and Ankara depending on battlefield dynamics and regional pressures.

Meanwhile, the World Union of Muslim Scholars, headquartered in Qatar and led by Erdogan allies, issued a call for jihad under the guise of defending Gaza – though the true scope of the call is clearly broader.

Erdogan’s calculated patience

With friction cooling between Ankara and Arab capitals, Erdogan is playing the long game. The Brotherhood remains his ideological twin and political instrument, both domestically and throughout the Muslim world.

As reports confirm, Erdogan has continued providing behind-the-scenes assurances to the movement, even as he publicly moderates his tone.

As the region undergoes seismic shifts – from the collapse of old regimes to the decimation of Gaza – Erdogan is ready to pounce. For now, the Muslim Brotherhood has found its most secure base not in Doha or Cairo, but in Erdogan’s Turkiye.

Whether it’s negotiating maritime boundaries with Egypt in the Mediterranean, competing with Saudi Arabia for influence across West Asia, or simply expanding his reach in the broader Islamic world, Erdogan will continue seeking partners to bolster his position. And no movement aligns more closely – ideologically or politically – than the Muslim Brotherhood.

As long as Erdogan remains in power, this alliance looks set to endure.

https://thecradle.co/articles/return-of ... -west-asia

[blindpig]

Mass arrests of officers in Turkey
June 27, 13:13



This has never happened before and here it is again. In Turkey, officers are being detained en masse on charges of links to "Gulenists"

Mass arrests of officers in Turkey

Scandal in the Turkish army: officers controlling drones arrested

In Turkey, 163 people, including active officers, have been detained as part of an investigation into the activities of FETO (Fethullahçı Terör Örgütü, a terrorist organization led by Fethullah Gülen). Among them are pilots of combat drones, including an AEK colonel, an OFY major, and another KK colonel

. The operations were coordinated by the Istanbul and Izmir prosecutors. The arrests covered 41 provinces. The defendants include officers from the ground and air forces, intelligence, tank units, as well as active and retired police officers.

The investigation claims that they maintained contact with FETO curators via payphones and payment points, a typical method of covert communication for the organization.

What is known about the operation:
- 183 suspects were detained,
- 77 of them as part of the operation coordinated from Istanbul,
- among the detainees - 174 active military personnel, including 11 colonels, 16 lieutenant colonels, 46 majors, 27 captains and others.

Some officers had access to strategic UAV control systems, which calls into question the internal security of Turkey's defense structures.

The investigation is ongoing.

@istanbul_wolf - zinc

It may turn out that the Gülenists were planning a massive drone attack from within on the country's leadership and the army in preparation for another military coup, which are planned with enviable regularity in Turkey under Erdogan. If they really were preparing a coup again, then we can expect that the arrest of this group of officers will not be enough and the Turkish army will again face a large-scale purge. The last major cleanup took place after the failed military coup of 2016, when the plotters came close to killing Erdogan and seizing power, but due to their own mistakes, they screwed up.

P.S. The arrests continue.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9923557.html

Google Translator

******

Turkiye endorses new NATO defense spending cap, seeks to expand 'steel dome'

Turkiye is among the top five contributors to the alliance's operations

News Desk

JUN 26, 2025


(Photo credit: AFP)

Turkiye has voiced strong support for NATO’s decision to raise its defense spending target to five percent of GDP by 2035, according to a Turkish Defense Ministry source who spoke to Reuters on 26 June.

The new benchmark, agreed upon by NATO allies this week, significantly increases the previous two percent goal and reflects the alliance’s intent to bolster military and civil resilience amid alleged threats from Russia.

“Turkiye is above the two percent target criterion under the Defence Spending Pledge,” the source stated. “As NATO’s second-largest army, Turkiye is among the top five contributors to the alliance’s operations and missions.”

The official emphasized that Turkiye has fulfilled all its NATO capability targets and continues to invest heavily in defense development. This includes advanced research and production across multiple sectors: hypersonic, ballistic, and cruise missile systems; unmanned land, sea, and air platforms; and next-generation naval and armored vehicles, such as aircraft carriers, frigates, and tanks.

One of Turkiye’s flagship projects is a nationwide layered air defense network, built around the national “Steel Dome” system, aimed at providing comprehensive aerial protection.

The revised NATO target includes at least 3.5 percent of GDP for direct military expenditures, with the remaining 1.5 percent allocated for civil preparedness and infrastructure to improve national resilience.

At a NATO summit on Tuesday, Erdogan met with the leaders of France, Germany, and the UK for talks on regional tensions, bilateral ties, relations with the EU, and defense industry cooperation. Erdogan also met with US President Donald Trump later in the day.

During the NATO summit in the Hague, NATO chief Mark Rutte praised President Trump’s push for each NATO member to commit to defense spending of five percent of GDP.

“You are flying into another big success in the Hague this evening,” Rutte stated.

“Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,” he added.

“You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/turkiye-e ... steel-dome

[blindpig]

Why’d Erdogan Decide To Expand Turkiye’s Sphere Of Influence Eastwards?
Andrew Korybko
Jul 02, 2025



Assad’s downfall set into motion a fast-moving sequence of events that now threatens Russian influence in the South Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and Central Asia; i.e. its entire southern periphery.

The latest developments in the South Caucasus are connected to the expansion of Turkiye’s sphere of influence eastwards towards the Caspian Sea and thenceforth Central Asia. The unrest in Armenia is driven by the opposition’s concerns that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is prepared to turn the country into a joint Azeri-Turkish protectorate. That could occur if he reaches a deal with them like some have reported to open the “Zangezur Corridor” without allowing it to come under Russian control like agreed.

The Moscow-mediated Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire of November 2020 mandates the creation of a Russian-controlled corridor across Armenia’s southern Syunik Province, which Baku calls the Zangezur Corridor, for connecting both parts of Azerbaijan. Russian control would prevent Turkiye from streamlining its military logistics to Central Asia via these means for replacing Russia’s influence there with its own as part of a grand strategic powerplay that autonomously aligns with the West’s agenda.

The second development is directly connected with the first and relates to the newfound trouble in Russian-Azerbaijani relations. President Ilham Aliyev evidently believes that his country has a brighter future as part of a Turkish-led regional order instead of continuing to multi-align between it and Russia. He likely arrived at this conclusion due to the earlier cited reports about the Zangezur Corridor, which could have led to his policy recalibration that then emboldened him to bully Russia for regional prestige.

The catalyst for these developments is the credible possibility that the Zangezur Corridor might open up without coming under Russian control like agreed, which itself was brought about to a large degree by Assad’s downfall and the US’ subsequently changed policy towards the broader region in the aftermath. Turkish influence briefly surged in Syria before spooking Israel, which prompted Trump to bring previously terrorist-designated Ahmad al-Sharaa (Jolani) in from the cold to help manage their tensions.

He met him, encouraged him to join the Abraham Accords with Israel (which the latest reports suggest that Sharaa is considering), and removed the US’ sanctions on Syria. This sequence of events will greatly limit Turkish influence in Syria, but it’s balanced out by the PKK’s disbandment and the possible consolation prize that Trump could have given his friend Erdogan. That might involve him ceding the US’ previously envisaged joint US-French protectorate in Armenia to Turkiye and Azerbaijan instead.

It wouldn’t just be a goodwill gesture on Trump’s part but a pragmatic move since the US’ efforts to turn Armenia into a bastion for dividing-and-ruling the region required subordinating or overthrowing the Georgian government, which repelled several rounds of Color Revolution unrest to this end. This Biden-era failure derailed the US and France’s military logistics to Armenia, hence why it’s better to jettison this deadweight, which can now turbocharge Turkiye’s rise as a Eurasian Great Power at Russia’s expense.

These calculations and associated policy changes, which stem from the black swan event of Assad’s downfall, account for the latest developments in the South Caucasus. Nevertheless, Aliyev didn’t have to abandon Azerbaijan’s Russian-Turkish balancing act nor bully Russia as he clearly ordered his officials to do by raiding Sputnik’s office and beating up other detained Russians. These emotional, short-sighted, and totally unexpected moves inadvertently risk Azerbaijan becoming Turkiye’s junior partner with time.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/whyd-erd ... d-turkiyes