Posted on 10/12/2007 8:53:03 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
ISTANBUL, Oct. 12 -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that he is prepared for a rupture in relations with the United States if his government launches an incursion into northern Iraq in search of Kurdish rebels.
"If such an option is chosen, whatever its price, it will be paid," Erdogan said to reporters Friday after meeting with party leaders. "There could be pros and cons of such a decision, but what is important is our country's interests."
Erdogan criticized the United States for warning against a Turkish attack in one of the few relatively stable regions of war-ravaged Iraq.
"Did they seek permission from anyone when they came from a distance of 10,000 kilometers and hit Iraq?" Erdogan asked. "We do not need anyone else's advice."
U.S.-Turkish tensions over separatist rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have been exacerbated by a congressional committee's approval Wednesday of a resolution labeling the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago genocide. Turkey acknowledges the deaths of tens of thousands of Armenians but argues that they occurred in fighting after the Armenians allied themselves with Russian forces invading the Ottoman Empire.
"Democrats are harming the future of the United States and are encouraging anti-American sentiments," Erdogan said Friday, referring to Democratic Party leaders who supported the measure. President Bush had lobbied hard against the resolution. On Thursday, Turkey summoned its ambassador from Washington for emergency consultations.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“Democrats are harming the future of the United States and are encouraging anti-American sentiments,” Erdogan said”
He’s got that part right.
Oil fields in Kirkuk and Mosul.
Erdogan would not do this if he wasn’t collaborating with the Islamicist factions inside the Turkey military brass.
That is exceedingly dangerous.
People keep saying that Turkey is our ally. Wake the F*** up. They are not.
The military has been a strong supporter of secularism.
They are what keeps Turkey from slipping over to the dark side.
All the blame here goes to the Dems who are more an enemy to the security of the U.S. than Turkey is. If the Dems were their own country they would be our weakest ally, not Turkey.
[snip]
General Solmaztuerk retired from the military last year, but he sees himself and his country as involved in a daily battle with forces he says are trying to destroy the gap between mosque and parliament and ultimately make Turkey an Islamic state under Sharia law.
"The enemy,"he says, "is a way of thinking, of subjecting political decisions to religious rules.
"I believe I am in line with values held dear by the EU and all Western democracies."
Religious roots Turkey's government strongly denies that it wants to undermine secularism. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an eager proponent of Turkey joining the European Union, recently stressed the need to "strengthen democracy, secularism... and the rule of law."
But there is an increasing number of people in Turkey who doubt his secular credentials. His government has its roots in a party banned several years ago for allegedly trying to Islamise the country. His so far unsuccessful efforts to ease the headscarf ban, to promote religious vocational schools, to criminalise adultery and discourage alcohol consumption have outraged the secularists who are prominent in Turkey's judiciary, academia and above all in its military.
Raison d'etre Solmaztuerk cannot speak for the military, not officially. No-one, it seems, is prepared to do that.
With a refusal to allow the BBC any access to serving personnel or bases, the army preserves its reputation for secretiveness.
Turkey's charismatic pro-Islamic leader
Conviction
But his pro-Islamist sympathies earned him a conviction in 1998 for inciting religious hatred.
He had publicly read an Islamic poem including the lines: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..."
He was sentenced to 10 months in jail, but was freed after four.
However, because of his criminal record, he was barred from standing in elections or holding political office.
Parliament last year changed the constitution to allow Mr Erdogan to stand for a parliamentary seat.
Islamicist factions inside the Turkey military brass?
Somebody better tell General Buyukani he's got Islamists in the ranks.
I'm surprised also, I thought the Turkish military services regularly purge the officer corps of suspected Islamist sympathizers. Under current Turkish law, expelled officers have no right of appeal.
If the military policy has changed I'd like to see the source. Thanks.
enemy in the first world war, neutral in the second, they were a tenuous ally at best, one brought to heel more than partnered with. Screw them and their Sharia loving leadership.
The US chooses the time and place to humiliate the Turks for recent past barbarity. The codemnation was obviously timed to bring pressure against Turkey in anticipation of their engaging in military action against the Kurds. Nothing happens by accident. Lantos gets one well placed call from State and it’s on.
Nevertheless, Amb. Morganthau's writings make clear that the intent of the Ottoman Empire leaders was to expel the Armenians and apparently they did not really care if the Armenians arrived at the border dead or alive.
Something else about Morganthau's revelations. German Christian missionaries in Turkey were bitterly disappointed that Germany did nothing to stop the Ottoman Turk leaders.
In fact, one illustration in the online version of Morganthau's book has this caption with the photo of "KAISER WILLIAM II, IN THE UNIFORM OF A TURKISH FIELD MARSHAL. He remained acquiescent, refusing to intercede, while his allies, the Turks, murdered anywhere from 600,000 to 1,000,000 Armenians. This assassination of a whole people was the worst outcome of the Prussian doctrine,---that anything is justified which promotes the success of German arms. After the massacre was over, the Kaiser decorated the Sultan, precisely as in 1898, after Abdul Hamid had just massacred 200,000 Christians, he visited that potentate and publicly embraced him."
Maybe Germany should also be asked about it?
Would changing the description to "genocide" make one iota difference to the victims?
So why the the decades' long bitter dispute?
IMO it's for reparations, Armenia claims on Turkey's eastern territory, and pay out from Western life insurance companies.
In fact, Morganthau's book has this about how the Ottoman Turk leaders themselves wanted to collect the life insurance, "One day Talaat made what was perhaps the most astonishing request I had ever heard. The New York Life Insurance Company and the Equitable Life of New York had for years done considerable business among the Armenians. The extent to which this people insured their lives was merely another indication of their thrifty habits."
I believe that there needs to be laws to force the companies to provide the lists of policyholders. France I believe has such a law. Lawyers here are working on it.
A "conviction" on the charge of genocide just might help Armenia's case -- meanwhile they occupied and expelled civilians in neighboring Azerbaijan -- what about those victims?
By Kurds do you mean the PKK, Kurdish Marxist workers party?
or, the Kurdish Region of Iraq beyond the border is about to be invaded? That would really be dumb. Turkey has issues there but now it's the PKK.
Gen. (Ret.) Joseph Ralston, Special Envoy For Countering the PKK Interview
We were suppose to be cooperating but.. Turkey will have to do it on Her own to stop the terrorist attacks in southeastern Turkey. Ankara has been talking to Baghdad about it.
I notice that General Ralston just resigned -- having served with virtually no movement from the Kurdish Regional government, Baghdad, and Washington in solving the PKK problem -- and the Turkish general he'd been working with retired leaving his contacts in Ankara wanting.
Turkey's gone after the PKK along the border in the past. No one should be surprised to see it happen. The Kurdish Regional government does not control that strip of land, the PKK does.
“weakest”
Actually our strongest enemy because they live among us in the very country whose ideals they hate.
No I am not. The dems gave him the excuse Erdogan needed to mouth off. Yes their congress did change the law to allow him to run but the government did try to silence him before.
Remember how important honor is among those people and the dims gave them the excuse to say we were not honorable allies and did not care about their interests.
He has been a thorn but he was relatively powerless. The dems gave him the soap box and the reason to incite the islamic elements against us.
Sorry “relatively powerless” should have said “held in check”.
So now I guess our troops in Iraq could get into a shooting war with a NATO ally. Way to go, donks!!!!!
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