This is not a Monty Python skit:
Two women shot at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul on Monday and at least eight people were killed in a wave of separate attacks on Turkish security forces, weeks after Ankara launched a crackdown on Islamic State, Kurdish and far-left militants.
The NATO member has been in a heightened state of alert since starting its “synchronized war on terror” last month, including air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq. It has also rounded up hundreds of suspected militants at home.
A far-left group that killed a Turkish security guard in a 2013 suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Ankara claimed it was involved in Monday’s attack.
The Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, said one of its members was involved in the attack, and called Washington the “arch enemy” of the people of the Middle East and the world.
Reminds me of this:
BRIAN: Are you the Judean People’s Front?
REG: Fuck off!
BRIAN: What?
REG: Judean People’s Front. We’re the People’s Front of Judea! Judean People’s Front. Cawk.
FRANCIS: Wankers.
BRIAN: Can I… join your group?
REG: No. Piss off.
I joke, but Turkey’s “synchronized war on terror” is just the latest indication that the region’s turmoil is going to continue to spread and get worse.
I don’t have any particular thoughts on the centuries long blood feud between Turks and Kurds, but I was scrolling through the previous thread and I was astounded.
Your blog is getting overrun by outright racists, Booman. Is this worse than 2008? It feels worse, at least in this particular little corner. A half dozen aggressive White Redeemers in open pledge to purge the nasty blackness from the Democratic Party, because, you know, they’re so very progressive that way.
Ugly stuff. Clean house.
I’d appreciate some references to support your observation.
Yes, it looks the other way around to me.
I didn’t see any of that, but I will say that it’s unfortunate that what appeared to be real progress toward a raprochement between Turkey and the Kurds has suffered a definite setback. However, it’s important to note that the Kurdish Regional Government (in fact the government of de facto independent Kurdistan) has repudiated the PKK. The hope was that in exchange for Turkey granting cultural and political rights to its Kurdish minority, Kurdistan would shut down the PKK and renounce irredentist ambitions on Turkish territory. That did kind of happen but then hostilities between Turkey and the PKK ramped up again. Most observers blame Erdogan and Turkish domestic politics.
The PKK is trying to argue that Turkish attacks on them represent support for IS, which is really tendentious. The PKK’s ambitions are in Turkey, not Syria. Hopefully this will be contained. Throughout the Iraqi civil war, the sideshow war between Turkey and PKK killed untold numbers of people, but likely in the thousands, mostly Kurdish civilians in PKK controlled villages.
Here is a recent interview with Masrour Barzani, the head of intelligence for the KRG. He gives a fair representation of the Kurdish position toward Turkey. Note that this was before Turkey granted access to the Incirlik air base to the anti-ISIS coalition, so one of his complaints has been satisfied already. Here is an excerpt:
It is not my job to analyze the actions of governments and to tell the Turks what to do. But the facts are clear in terms of how every individual country is dealing with this particular issue. We have higher expectations from Turkey.
They should be doing a lot more than they are doing now. They are members of NATO, so they have to work out a system with the rest of the coalition members of how Turkey can best contribute. We are concerned by the deteriorating situation in Syria but also by the deterioration in the Kurdish peace process in Turkey. What we would love to see happen is for [IS] to be defeated and for the peace process to be expedited so that we can once and for all solve this problem of the Turks and Kurds inside Turkey.
Al-Monitor: But recent statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish government suggest that their position is hardening. Erdogan has said he will not tolerate the establishment of a Kurdish state on Turkey’s borders. And pro-government newspapers have described the YPG [People’s Protection Units] as being a greater threat than even IS.
Barzani: I think that the Turks should be more concerned about having [IS] on the borders of Turkey. Indeed, Turkish reaction to this should be one of relief that Kurds, as friends of the Turks, are controlling the border rather than [IS], which is the enemy of the entire world.
Now when I say Kurds, I don’t particularly mean the YPG. I am talking about many other Kurdish forces, other political parties [such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria (KDP-S)] that are moderate. Even if Turkey has concerns about a particular group [YPG] I think they should be helping to build up a coalition of all moderate forces. And the Americans are trying to encourage this [cooperation between the YPG and the KDP-S] because it’s the only way forward. We think all the parties should have a fair opportunity to participate and to work in [Syrian Kurdistan]. In any event, fighting IS doesn’t meant that there would immediately be an independent Kurdistan.
Note however, that he does insist that an independent Kurdistan is an eventual inevitability. But they are still trying to work things out with Turkey. The YPG is the Syrian equivalent of the PKK.
AKP is what the GOP wishes it could be.
The Guardian: Al-Qaida affiliate ceases fighting Isis in parts of Syria.
Not sure how much you’ve been following this, but Turkey has been using “war against terror” rhetoric to launch a pretty serious assault against Kurds in both Syria and Iraq. Pretty BS move, actually.
Specifically the PKK, which by the way the U.S. does classify as a terrorist organization and which has the ambition of carving out a Kurdish enclave from Turkey. So Turkey does have a legitimate issue with them. Turkey isn’t attacking “the Kurds,” but a specific faction.
I think it’s high time we backed an independent Kurdistan. I really don’t care if the Turks are in NATO. The Kurds are the closest thing to good guys the region has and they are continually dumped on, meaning killed.
I don’t see how a functioning recognized Kurdistan could possibly make the region less stable than it is.
>>I don’t see how a functioning recognized Kurdistan could possibly make the region less stable than it is.
except for the war it would take to make it happen.
Maybe it’s high time we stop meddling in the domestic affairs of other countries.
I am not enthused about factionalist nationalist movements. Every country has them. GB has Scotland and Wales. Germany is a polyglot of 50-60 states prior to Bismark. Spain has Catalonia.
If these all start forming nations, we will have more and more small nations, most of which would be economically unviable.
Plus within each small state, there are even smaller states. The process never ends.