WarSclerotic

Turkish PM: Warships will escort … JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

    Turkish warships will escort any Turkish aid vessels to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in remarks broadcast on Al Jazeera television on Thursday.

Erdogan also said that Turkey had taken steps to stop Israel from unilaterally exploiting natural resources from the eastern Mediterranean, according to Al Jazeera’s Arabic translation of excerpts of the interview, which was conducted in Turkish.

The comments from Erdogan came as Turkey has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and heated up rhetoric against the Jewish State in the aftermath of the publication of the UN Palmer Commission report on the Mavi Maramara raid and Israel’s refusal to answer Turkish demands to apologize for the incident.

Erdogan, when asked Wednesday by reporters about the economic cost to Turkey of the sanctions the country has taken against Israel, said, “The cost could be $15 or $150 million. We, as Turkey, would not be bothered by this. What is important for us is that we don’t let anyone trample on our pride.”

Erdogan, who has rattled the saber by promising to step up naval patrols in the eastern Mediterranean to ensure freedom of maritime traffic, and who has frozen all defense contracts with Israel, also used the opportunity to preach to Israel about business ethics.

He accused Israel of not providing maintenance for Heron unmanned aerial vehicles that Israel Aerospace Industries supplied to Turkey last year. In 2005, IAI and Elbit Systems won a $183m. contract to supply 10 Heron UAVs and associated systems to the Turkish Air Force. Deliveries were completed last year.

“Israel is not being loyal to bilateral agreements in the defense industry,” Turkish Today’s Zaman’s website quoted Erdogan as saying. “There could be difficulties, problems with another country, such things may happen, but there is an international code of ethics that needs to be upheld in business agreements.”

Turkey and Egypt will hold a joint naval exercise at the end of the year, according to an unconfirmed report in Egyptian news Web site ‘Masrawy’ Thursday. An unnamed Egyptian official told the web site the drill would help in the exchange of knowledge and combat techniques between the countries.

Erdogan will make an official visit to Cairo next week and meet with high-ranking Egyptian officials in a bid to strengthen strategic and business relations between the two countries.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 8, 2011, 6:26 PM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian tanks hunt Turkish command center at Jabal Al-Zawya

The Syrian ruler has ordered his military chiefs to get set to launch their biggest operation they have ever staged to once and for all destroy the protest movement bedeviling his regime for six months, debkafile‘s military sources report exclusively. All units are deployed around the protest centers  on full preparedness for coordinated strikes in the coming days and all leaves cancelled.
Assad’s preparations entail three additional steps:
1. He has filled the vacant position of deputy chief of staff with Gen. Ali Ayub, commander of the 1st Formation made up of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th Divisions, deployed until now on the Golan Heights and Mt. Hermon borders with Israel. Its personnel have been left out of Assad’s military campaign against the opposition until now.

2. Those divisions, made up mainly or Sunni conscripts, have begun pulling back from their positions on the Syrian-Israeli border and are heading north.
For the first time, therefore, Assad feels he can safely send Sunni troops into battle against protesters and is not afraid to leave his borders undefended against an Israeli attack.

3. The Syrian president holds Erdogan responsible for authorizing the Turkish army and his National Intelligence Organization-MIT to set up a state-of-the-art command center for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood at Jabal al-Zawiya in the Syrian province of Idlib near the Turkey border. He believes it is working with a parallel command center on the Turkish side which directs the steps of Syrian protest tacticians against the Assad regime.

To settle its score with Ankara, Damascus this week stepped up military raids on towns and villages near the Turkish border, seeking out for destruction the Turkish MIT command center ahead of Assad’s final massive onslaught on opposition centers.
4.  Thousands of protesters turned out in Aleppo Tuesday, Sept. 6  for the first time in the anti-Assad uprising. Syria’s second largest city and its financial hub has therefore been included in Assad’s targets for his major offensive.

The Syrian ruler has also added Turkey’s Erdogan government to his list of enemies. Tuesday, debkafile discloses, Assad secretly ordered without warning  the total suspension of the Syrian-Turkish free trade treaty. Neither partner has revealed this decision, which our sources estimate will cost Turkey a trading loss of $5 billion per annum.

Assad’s move against Turkey had important implications for the balance of his confrontation with countrywide protest. The suspension of free trade with Turkey has hit Aleppo’s merchants in their pockets since most of their business came from trade with Turkey and finally brought them out against the regime.
It is therefore hard to fathom Assad’s motivation for striking Turkey at the risk of potentially raising Syria’s financial center against him when, for six months Aleppo’s trading and religious leaders took care to keep its five million inhabitants out of domestic strife.
One theory explains the Syrian ruler’s action by the discovery of weapons and funds for the protesters hidden in containers of Turkish goods delivered to Aleppo.

Analysis: Turkey’s gunboat diplomacy makes waves in region | Reuters.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan Erdogan visits the Seyidka camp in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu August 19, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Omar Faruk

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s plan to flex its naval muscles in the eastern Mediterranean risks being perceived as an over-reaction in Ankara’s dispute with former ally Israel and as an assertion of regional power that could alienate even its new Arab admirers.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s ploy may fuel Western unease over Turkey’s reliability as a NATO partner and its penchant for actions designed to court popularity in the Muslim world.

Turkey’s mix of economic growth and secular democracy under an Islamist government has fascinated Arab countries eager for a new model, but even those in the throes of popular uprisings may feel qualms if Ankara starts throwing its military weight about.

Stung by Israel’s refusal to apologize over last year’s killing of nine Turks during an Israeli commando raid on an aid ship bound for Gaza, Erdogan said Turkish warships would be seen in waters where Israel’s navy operates, raising the risk of a clash between the once close allies.

Bolstered by a booming economy and unprecedented political stability at home, Turkey has seen its “soft power” rise in the region under Erdogan’s AK Party, rooted in political Islam.

Conservative on social and religious issues and liberal on economic ones, the AK government has cemented business ties in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa and pursued a foreign policy of “zero problems with neighbors” — a policy buffeted by the dispute with Israel and tensions with Syria.

But threats to deploy warships show that Turkey, a prickly NATO member and European Union candidate, is now tempted to use its military power to push its interests in a changing region.

“Erdogan is taking a very aggressive stance to assert Turkey’s status as a regional power instead of using the soft power we have seen until recently,” said Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based security analyst.

“There is a sense in the AK Party that Turkey is a major regional power and that the Mediterranean is its sphere of influence. But NATO and the West increasingly see Turkey as a loose cannon,” he said.

“Turkey played its cards well in the past when it had good relations with everyone, but now it is playing them very badly.”

Jenkins said non-Arab Turkey behaving like a neighborhood bully would be regarded with grave concern by Arabs, who were subjects of the Ottoman empire for centuries.

“The Arabs distinguish between a Turkey that stands up to Israel and engages with them and a Turkey that wants to dominate the entire region,” Jenkins said.

Omer Taspinar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said Turkey might be using Israel as a convenient punching bag following a series of diplomatic setbacks and domestic failures, including the Kurdish problem.

Turkey’s ties with Syria, a former friend, are near breaking point — President Bashar al-Assad has defied Turkish calls for him to end a bloody crackdown on protesters. Shi’ite Iran, another close ally of Turkey, has reacted frostily to Ankara’s decision to host a NATO early-warning radar system.

“Turkey is going through a difficult period and Israel has given Erdogan the chance to demonstrate he is a strong leader in a strong country,” Taspinar said.

“Turkey has experienced a period of economic growth and political stability and it feels very powerful. But they don’t realize there is a price to pay for this saber-rattling.”

A larger presence of Turkish vessels in the eastern Mediterranean would be unsettling Greece and for the divided island of Cyprus as it eyes oil drilling exploration.

Turkey says oil deals granted by the Greek Cypriot government, which represents the island in the European Union, are illegal as the borders of Cyprus remain undetermined while Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots pursue reunification talks.

Turkey and Greece, also a NATO member, have a history of territorial disputes, and their navies were involved in a standoff in 1996 over an uninhabited islet in the Aegean Sea.

BALANCE OF FORCES

Turkey is NATO’s second biggest military and its navy is considered to be far superior to that of Israel, although the Jewish state is widely assumed to have submarines that carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

Israel has expanded patrols in the eastern Mediterranean to enforce the Gaza blockade it says is needed to prevent arms smuggling to the Palestinian group Hamas and to deter any Lebanese Hezbollah militant attack on offshore gas platforms.

Few Turkish analysts believe Turkey is planning to send frigates in open defiance of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which the United Nations has declared legal, but their mere presence in international waters not far from Gaza could risk a clash.

It seems implausible that Turkey, as a NATO member, could get involved in actual hostilities with Israel.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday that the Turkish-Israeli relationship was a “bilateral matter” and urged the two to find ways to ease tensions.

However, Erdogan’s words that Turkish naval bases have “the power and opportunity to provide escorts,” suggesting that Ankara could put a future aid flotilla under its protection, set off alarm bells.

“They have created the conditions for another flotilla to challenge the blockade,” said Henri Barkey, a Turkey expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

“What is the Turkish navy going to do if another flotilla decides to go in? They would have to keep their promise and escort the flotilla. This puts the U.S. administration in a terrible position.”

President Barack Obama’s administration is keen to smooth ties between its two most important allies in the Middle East and U.S. diplomats are working in private to heal the rift.

CYPRUS

Some Turkish and Israeli analysts say that Turkey’s motive is not to seek a showdown with Israel over Gaza, but to build up a naval presence between Cyprus and Israel to create a sense of menace and scare investors away from the gas fields there.

Turkey has been chafing at Cypriot-Israeli energy deals, and the tensions with Israel could enable Ankara to send a message without making explicit threats.

“Turkey’s emphasis on freedom of navigation is also connected to the assessment that in the eastern Mediterranean there are natural gas deposits beyond what have already been discovered,” said Gallia Lindenstrauss of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Sinan Ulgen, from the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, said Erdogan, known as a temperamental leader, is driven by public opinion.

Erdogan, who won a third consecutive term in office last June, has become a hero among Muslims for his stance against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians.

“It is very dangerous for a country when it starts to believe its own propaganda,” Jenkins said.

France accuses Syria of crimes against humanity as regime forces kill 23 people.

Al Arabiya

Thursday, 08 September 2011

A Syrian military tank takes position in a residential street in the flashpoint city of Homs, 100 miles northeast of Damascus. (Photo by AFP)

inShare3

Iran urges Assad to cease violent crackdown of Syria protest – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iranian president, longtime ally of the besieged Syrian leader, says Assad should negotiate with opposition, saying: ‘A military solution is never the right solution.’

By The Associated Press

Syrian President Bashar Assad should back away from his violent crackdown on protesters and enter talks with the opposition, Iran’s leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday.

“There should be talks” between the Syrian government and its opponents, Ahmadinejad said in a live interview in Tehran with Portuguese broadcaster Radiotelevisao Portuguesa.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, holds up the hand of his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad after he awarded Iran’s highest national medal to Assad, October 2, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

“A military solution is never the right solution,” Ahmadinejad said, according to a simultaneous Portuguese translation of his comments.

“We believe that freedom and justice and respect for others are the rights of all nations. All governments have to recognize these rights,” he said. “Problems have to be dealt with through dialogue.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said last month that Assad should answer the legitimate demands of his people.

“Other countries in the region can help the Syrian government and people to talk to each other with a view to resolving their differences and introducing the reforms that are needed,” Ahmadinejad said.

Iran, Damascus’ chief ally, has blamed the U.S. and Israel for instigating more than five months of protests in Syria.

The U.S. and other nations have accused Iran of helping Assad crush the uprising.

“Other countries have no right to interfere in … domestic discussions,” Ahmadinejad said, citing NATO’s intervention in Libya as an example of misguided actions.

Iranian president’s comments came as new reports claimed that Syrian security forces have unleashed a barrage of gunfire, killing at least 11 people and leaving thousands cowering in their homes,

Nine of those killed on Wednesday died in Homs, a hotbed of opposition to Assad’s autocratic regime. Two others were shot dead during raids in Sarameen, in northern Syria.