Posted on 02/05/2018 6:19:56 AM PST by Texas Fossil
News item | 05-02-2018 | 11:13
The Netherlands and Turkey have recently held talks at various levels. At this stage, these talks do not yet offer a perspective to normalizing the bilateral relations. Minister Zijlstra: 'Recent talks offered Turkey and the Netherlands an opportunity to come closer to each other, but we have not been able to agree on the way normalization should take place.'
Therefore the Dutch government has decided to officially withdraw the Netherlands’ Ambassador in Ankara, who has not had access to Turkey since March 2017. As long as the Netherlands has no Ambassador to Turkey, the Netherlands will also not issue permission for a new Turkish ambassador to take up duties in the Netherlands. This message has just been conveyed to the Turkish chargé d’affaires in The Hague. This has brought a pause in the talks with Turkey.
2 NATO allies?
"NATO allies Turkey and the Netherlands are locked in a bitter feud"
March 13, 2017
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-03-13/nato-allies-turkey-and-netherlands-are-locked-bitter-feud
Is Erdogan still playing to his Turkish nationalist political base or showing his true evil nature?
From the article that you linked (from a year ago): “Turkey has already responded furiously to fellow NATO ally Germany”
Turkey also has lost credibility with the Visegrad Group withing the EU (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia) over the immigrant issue. Historical animosities/distrust are also still alive in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.
The Turkish regime is growing increasingly alienated from Europe.
Yesterday, French President Macron (emerging as de Facto leader of the EU, due to Merkel’s domestic political weakness) had a phone call with Erdogan about his invasion of Afrin. Publicly, Macron has warned Turkey against trying to take territory in Afrin.
Things are coming to a head between Turkey and the EU, as Erdogan pushes for full EU membership - apparently trying to bully his way to acceptance. There will likely be a significant EU-Turkey summit next month in Bulgaria on this issue. Erdogan is in Rome today meting with the Pope.
The timing of the Afrin invasion is disastrous for Turkey’s chances at gaining EU membership - in fact, it threatens an historic break from Turkey seeking EU Membership, which formally started in 2005, and was perhaps the signature policy of Erdogan’s initial rise to power.
Thanks.
And we must consider the downing of the Russian jet in Syria by manpod. The Russians are not yet through analyzing the event and determining the source of the weapon and those involved in it’s delivery.
Suchkov wrote 2 articles in Al Monitory lately about this. And others are making similar observations. It is interesting to read their analysis, some expression indicates they would like to work jointly on anti-Terrorist efforts with the US but then they go into the anti-US mode for a few lines.
Timing of this is very odd. The 3 high ranking Russian intelligence officers were in the US last week. 2 of the 3 required special clearance because of the sanctions placed on them specifically by Obama near the end of his term.
Each aircraft is precious to the Russians - they have very few actually deployed into Syria, and air support is about their main combat function in Syria.
If MANPADS (MAN-Portable Air Defense Systems, “manpod” is an erroneous spelling) are available to the “rebels” in Idlib, Russian close air support can be removed from the tactical situation (their high altitude bombing is not accurate/effective like American B-52s).
As they say in Chess, Check.
This could potentially drive the Russians to a new strategy, which might have brought them to the US with a proposal (or threat). But there are so many things going on in the world, it could have been anything that brought them here.
Each aircraft is precious to the Russians - they have very few actually deployed into Syria, and air support is about their main combat function in Syria.
If MANPADS (MAN-Portable Air Defense Systems, “manpod” is an erroneous spelling) are available to the “rebels” in Idlib, Russian close air support can be removed from the tactical situation (their high altitude bombing is not accurate/effective like American B-52s).
As they say in Chess, Check.
This could potentially drive the Russians to a new strategy, which might have brought them to the US with a proposal (or threat). But there are so many things going on in the world, it could have been anything that brought them here.
Thanks.
Russians are quick to by reflex blame the US for everything. But they are calculating.
Friend of mine worked as an analyst for Russian material for a long time. She is retired now. I mentioned the 2 articles by Maxim Suchkov to her today and commented that they only act when it is in the interest of the Russians. She assured me that is exactly the way they operate, that the culture does not weigh the same values as the US in making decisions.
I have know her quite a while, long enough to appreciate her judgment on things relating to Russia.
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