Posted on 02/15/2018 10:34:26 PM PST by Texas Fossil
The discussions were expected to cover several proposals for improving cooperation along the border area. It's been a flashpoint over the years for Turkish-Kurdish tensions, al-Qaida and Islamic State fighters traveling back and forth, and incidents involving major powers including Russia.
Reflecting the sensitivity of the talks between Tillerson and Erdogan, only Turkish Foreign Minister Melvut Cavusoglu, serving as translator, also was included in the meeting, which lasted more than three hours.
Erdogan's office said the discussions touched on regional developments, including in Syria and Iraq, the fight against terrorism and bilateral relations. "Turkey's expectations and priorities on these issues were clearly communicated," according to a brief statement.
A U.S. statement cited "a productive and open conversation about a mutually beneficial way forward in the U.S.-Turkey relationship."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
OK, We will see tomorrow.
I like Tillerson.
The Turks have a simple position....no Kurdish homeland on their border, period. I don’t see the US able to counter that position. Keeping Incirlik open and US military operations continuing....are now a major question-mark. Given the slide since the coup, it’s just a matter of time before we are chased out of Turkey.
On the Kurd thing...if we start to accept this idea...it affects four significant countries in the region, and I think it just opens up a bunch of problems on down the line.
So do I. But I don’t envy his job on this one.
I loath Erdogan the Islamist. He is totally impossible.
As in Iran, the Turkish people are not in complete harmony with their leader either. Uprisings afoot! Only a matter of time...
Until “Istanbul” is “Constantinople” again, Turkey should not be in NATO.
I know how complicated it is.
We are not totally out of the bargaining chips. We are still the big dog militarily, if we want to be.
Israel’s back is to the wall, they will not flinch.
Iran is not a potent as they seem militarily, nor economically.
Trump and Tillerson are not Obama and Kerry.
Erdogan is in his own trouble. Economically, credibility (with Efrin) and elections coming. He thinks he is God, God knows he is not.
The Kemalists are not all dead. I see signs of their publications. Erdogan has largely left them alone. They have not been put in jail. Erdogan is afraid of them.
He has the Kurds unified and angry. Not a good thing.
Best thing that could happen is for Erdogan and Tillerson have some honest discussion and lay all the cards on the table and give him room to back away from the abyss.
If not? Erdogan is not sustainable.
Erdogan’s Turkey is not compatible with NATO.
And he has insulted everyone in the world.
Really wasted some serious political capital, for nothing but ego.
Could a Kurdistan Republic composed of Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan, with access to the sea be created? That is the multi-billion dollar question. Because we’ll be propping it up with billions a year for the rest of time, if it’s anything like the other (mostly) non-oil-producing Muslim states in the region. Between the klepto leaders in Iraqi Kurdistan and the commie leaders of the PYD, is there any wonder that decision makers are hesitant? If they were anything like Israelis, sure? But Kurds aren’t Jews.
Weirdly enough, if we could stand a Kurdistan Republic up, we wouldn’t need Incirlik. And massive military bases there would stimulate the local economy even without a formal aid program.
Turkey is islamicist and anti-west. That’s all one needs to know.
Yes, that is true. And they have lots of Jihadi’s loose within their borders.
ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood. al Qaeda and the FSA. The FSA looks like the bar scene in Star Wars, every possible kind of “freak” (term my Syrian friends call the Jihadi’s)
Health-wise, Erdogan is not likely to be around in five years. He’s got various issues. The bigger question will be if the state party will accept Erdogan’s son stepping in to fill dad’s shoes (Bilal Erdogan). If you back over the past decade, junior has been in and out of the news...over suggested money-laundering in Europe. Court episodes get dropped...mostly over limited evidence.
I think junior will take over for dad, and the current mess will evolve into different type of crisis. The days of value for Incirlik are long-gone. I’d be the last one to say some Kurd-state is the best solution...you’d just end up with a Erdogan-like-Kurd boss in five years and marginal stability.
On a separate note, I saw where the Russians are working up a deal to build a nuke energy plant in Saudi Arabia. That will help to hype the whole region.
Syrian Kurds don’t have anyone like Erdogan. I know none that are Islamists. Some are Muslim (not most in Syria), but not jihadi’s. That is whey they were excluded from Obama’s unicorn army of Jihadis.
If you went and bought into a Kurd Republic....it’d just fracture itself in ten years with various political groups on agendas, and you’d have an Assad-like nation on the verge of another civil war. I do agree...it is a ethnic group in search of one single nation.
There is an argument which goes on about the true population of the Kurds. Some say 30 million total exist in the world...some say 45 million. The bulk of what exists...are in four countries (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria)...probably amounting to 90-percent of Kurds. The other ten-percent sit in approximately forty countries around the world. Even if a Kurd Republic came to exist....a lot of those Kurds would not likely return and be part of this new deal.
There’s a fair amount of chat that almost half of the world Kurd population sits in Turkey....which is one reason why Erdogan is antsy about this republic talk. He’s not about to have some nation-state start up, and then 20 million Kurds in his country talk about taking a quarter of Turkey over to the Kurdish Republic.
This is true. From the Kurds that I’ve come across...if you measured them on Muslim-ness...they just never get hyped up on the religion. A lot of them are natural born traders or businessmen. It’s odd how this one single ethnic group just walked around the radical nature of Islam, and got caught in the middle of the Syrian civil war and ISIS.
If you went and bought into a Kurd Republic....it’d just fracture itself in ten years with various political groups on agendas, and you’d have an Assad-like nation on the verge of another civil war.
Whereas the Kurdish people have been fighting for self-determination for probably a thousand years. I suspect they will hang together reasonably well, especially given that they are literally surrounded by mortal enemies. And if Uncle Sam is the sponsoring nation, Kurdistan will be democratic, and the Kurds in that entity will have to channel their rivalries via the ballot box. Middle Easterners aren’t the most together people in the world, but they’re not sub-Saharan Africans.
I think that's what's standing between the Turks and Kurds - or am I a month behind?
Those are gone home from what I've read.
I'm pretty sure there are still some U.S. tanks there too.
1st, they have long been persecuted. Many of them escaped Massacres in Iraq and Turkey and arrived as refugees in Syria. They have seen the horrors of Muslim treatment of minorities.
In Iraq, almost all Kurds are moderate muslims. In Syria? They are truly secular in outlook. Many of them have become Atheist. There is a growing number of Christians, both among the Assyrian community and the Kurds. That is not discussed.
Even the Arabs in Syria are sick of ISIS and never want to go there again. That is why what Erdogan wants to do is not popular with anyone in Syria. And I don’t think they want any part of Iran either. Islamist is Islamist. Sunni or Shia.
So the bright spot of recovering stability is so threatening to the Islamist that they want to destroy the entire Kurd population and their allies.
Unfortunately Kurds are not unified. They have spent 100 years under bad governments in 4 countries. But what they are now facing in Efrin, may get the unification job done. I was told a couple of years ago, that it would take a long time to for unity to happen. If Turkey keeps pursuing this, they might actually get that job done and really open Pandora’s box.
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