Options
Russia accuses Turkey of preparing Syrian invasion
RepublicOfYorks
Posts: 3,013 Forum Member
✭✭✭
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN0VC169
Looks like things are coming to a head.
Turkey is a complete loose cannon, I can well imagine that they are planning this. In fact STRATFOR analysts have seen this coming for months.
So what happens then, with Turkey being a NATO member? If Syria and Turkey are at war, Russia will be in that war on Syria's side. Turkey closes the Bosphorus and Russia starts bombing Turkey itself, then God knows how the US and UK are going to react.
And before people say 'the Russians lie', yes they do, but what other reason would Turkey have to stop an Open Skies flights, dozens of which have been happening all the way through the Ukraine crisis?
Looks like things are coming to a head.
Turkey is a complete loose cannon, I can well imagine that they are planning this. In fact STRATFOR analysts have seen this coming for months.
So what happens then, with Turkey being a NATO member? If Syria and Turkey are at war, Russia will be in that war on Syria's side. Turkey closes the Bosphorus and Russia starts bombing Turkey itself, then God knows how the US and UK are going to react.
And before people say 'the Russians lie', yes they do, but what other reason would Turkey have to stop an Open Skies flights, dozens of which have been happening all the way through the Ukraine crisis?
0
Comments
Russia is in Syria at the request and invitation of the Syrian government. Turkey has no legal authority to be there. If they do invade, Russia has every right to fight any Turkish forces in Syria, and Turkey CANNOT ask other NATO countries to come and help them fight Russia. Collective defence (as the name suggests) only applies when you are defending, you cannot invade another country and then accuse the defenders of being the attacker when they fight back. An attacker cannot claim self defence if he initiates the attack.
STRATFOR are are a poor supplier of information that has been called out incessantly over the years for shoddy, inaccurate, agendaised info.
I'd sooner trust the Daily Express
True, but what could well happen is that Turkey declares itself 'at war' with Russia, by closing the Bosphorus, so what would Russia do then? Launch a military operation within Turkey to secure the waterway? We're in serious territory here, the US must do all it can to ensure Turkey doesn't do this, particularly as the Kurds - whom Turkey is clearly trying to stop - are about the Americans' only reliable ally within Syria against ISIS.
This is an almighty mess, and I fear that Turkey is going to unleash something that will escalate in completely unpredictable ways.
I don't know what Turkey means by this. A State Department official has already told BBC "we are not ready for World War Three over this." I think the Turks are growing increasingly frustrated with Kerry and Obama, and will take the law into their own hands. Russia wants to fight Turkey because it thinks it would crush the Turks, Turkey wants to fight Russia because it thinks it can drag NATO in, whatever Kerry and the State Dept say, and crush the Russians and Assad. There is no attempt at de-escalation from either side.
You don't think this is serious?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUKKCN0VC169
No the problem is partly that whoever acts, tends to set a fait accompli that everyone else then has to adapt to. Putin acted.And as he's not set clear limits, where he will act - everyone else now has to avoid him. What should have happened is that the Turks should have taken the Turkish and Sunni areas in the north, and Jordan should have taken the Sunni areas south of Damascus. Putin could then have shored up the Shia areas. And the US should have defended the Kurds from both Turkey and Assad. It was all planned, but everyone but Putin dithered. Now you have fighting, and Russian bombers, everywhere , rather than secured areas, everyone knowing where they couldn't operate, and the different areas ready to talk about some sort of federal solution.
I'm not sure Erdogan intends to 'avoid' him any longer. The fact that the last Russian incursion wasn't shot down suggested that the US was keeping a tight rein on the Turks, and the Turks were possibly allowing this to see how Kerry's diplomacy was going to work (or not) in Geneva.
Now everything in Geneva has collapsed, I think the Turks are fed up with the current US administration and once again thinking about doing their own thing. And if they get into difficulties with the Russians, expecting NATO to bail them out. Which is the height of arrogance - after all, they didn't care enough about Ukraine and Crimea to join in sanctions on Putin 2 years ago.
I'm not normally a fan of UKIP, but I think a lot of what they were implying about Turkey being a rogue state was spot on - ask Greece, ask Iraq, most of all ask Cyprus.
Well, the 'coallition' acted first. We'd been bombing Syria long before Russia started. Yet our efforts didn't seem to achieve much. Possibly because those efforts were being undermined by NATO, and hopeful EU member Turkey, plus a few of our other 'partners'. So a strange situation where we helped Al Nusra and ISIL gain territory, weapons and a foothold in Syria. Millions displaced, thousands killed and a selection of creative executions from the terrorists. Or moderate terrorists. Or.. well, Russia stepped in, and is showing how to do a proper 'War on Terror'.
Which leaves Turkey as an awkward problem.
But that would've meant invading Syria, which is the aggressive expansion stuff Russia's been blamed for.
Assad's forces haven't really been attacking the Kurds, and neither has Russia. Turkey, of course has, and the Russians released video claiming cross-border shelling from Turkey. And it would suit both Assad and the Russians to have a semi-autonmous buffer between Turkey and Syria. Of course Turkey doesn't want that, and the West doesn't seem willing or able to contain Turkey, or stop supplies crossing it's borders to terrorists in Syria.
Except with the appearence of Russian strategic bombers and other air power, the s**t got real. So now the terrorists are demanding cease fires, release of prisoners etc because they're probably struggling to convince jihadis to enter the meat grinder. And much like the intervention in Ukraine, it's created massive problems for the EU.. but not the creators.
Apocalyptic no.
Great track though.
Idiots everywhere folks.
Turkey the only terrorist pariah state in NATO, personal opinion states we cannot trust their government especially the wannabe WW3 starter Erdogan. Turkey will start something but the Russians will finish it and there is no way NATO should get involve military in a war with Russia if started by them.
It's due to Turkey that Europe is swamped with thousands of terrorists, sex offenders and criminals, give them help, I'd rather we cut all ties and left them in the mess.
I think the Turks have a real problem - Putin bombing the ethnic Turks in the NW, and the return of the coming blockade of Allepo throwing more ethnic Turks over the border, give him them a real problem with their Syrian kin. . Its worse though because Erdogan isn't all there, and a lot of his top generals, who ought to be advising him, are locked up, or sacked .If he wanted to declare a protected zone around Aleppo, the time to do it would have been when the Syrian army was a decent distance away.
The US is playing the game of getting boots on the ground that provide a redline protecting their allies, by embedding SF with the Kurds, and putting an airfield in to fly in support. The Israelis fly where they like, and bomb anyone they see as a threat, but Netanyahu understands the game well enough not to shoot down Russians flying over their border. The Israelis busy themselves grabbing the intelligence on all the nice new Russian kit deployed on their doorstep, for their electronic countermeasures and missile designers. But Turkey seems to have left it too late, reduced its own options by shooting Russians down, and does silly things.
The Turkmen are part of the problem, and one claims to have executed a Russian pilot...
As are members of the press who dare to question his actions, or his families..
So basically invading Syria without their government's permission. And Russia's been supporting the Kurds as well.. Which of course, Turkey doesn't like..
Netanyahu relies on Russian votes, and money almost as much as he relies on US patronage.