Turkey

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Isgrimnur
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Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

We need a Turkey thread.

WaPo
On Friday, the Turkish lira suffered its biggest one-day devaluation in nearly two decades, dropping more than 14 percent against the dollar. The minister of finance — the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — couldn’t avert the slide, delivering a halting speech that did little to boost confidence.

But Erdogan, as he so often does, placed the blame on a foreign scapegoat: the United States.

“Shame on you, shame on you,” he declared at a rally. "You are swapping your strategic partner in NATO for a pastor.”

The pastor in question is Andrew Brunson, an American clergyman who has been in Turkish custody since 2016. He is charged with espionage and other crimes — charges that he and U.S. officials reject. Attempts to win his freedom have so far failed.

According to my colleagues, Ankara hoped to swap Brunson for Hakan Atilla, a banker convicted in the United States for his role in a scheme that skirted U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil. But the Trump administration resents Turkey’s use of Brunson as a political hostage. A high-level meeting in Washington last week with a visiting Turkish delegation ended abruptly after the Americans demanded the pastor’s immediate release.

President Trump then announced increased tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel, which sent the value of the lira plummeting to a historic low. Turkey’s economic woes are of its own making, but the tariffs made things worse — and Trump was only too happy to take credit.
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Re: Turkey

Post by GreenGoo »

I'm conflicted. On the one hand, it's very satisfying watching Erdogan lose his shit as the lire plummets and no amount of nationalistic gibberish can stop it. I hate Erdogan and watching him splutter and bleat has been awesome.

On the other hand, this can only be seen as a win for Drumpf, and I hate Drumpf even more. I expect Turkey to embrace an authoritarian despite years of democratic progress. I did not expect the US to follow suit.

I'll have to settle for watching Erdogan squirm powerlessly as his economy burns.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Kraken »

And I'm confused. Why did Trump and Erdogan stop being BFFs? Weren't they goose-stepping through the tulips before this row?
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Re: Turkey

Post by GreenGoo »

Kraken wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 11:03 pm And I'm confused. Why did Trump and Erdogan stop being BFFs? Weren't they goose-stepping through the tulips before this row?
That's a good question. I've been assuming this is Pence's work, mainly because a Christian minister imprisoned before Drumpf was elected would normally be below Drumpf's notice.
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Re: Turkey

Post by El Guapo »

GreenGoo wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 11:30 pm
Kraken wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 11:03 pm And I'm confused. Why did Trump and Erdogan stop being BFFs? Weren't they goose-stepping through the tulips before this row?
That's a good question. I've been assuming this is Pence's work, mainly because a Christian minister imprisoned before Drumpf was elected would normally be below Drumpf's notice.
Apparently Brunson is a cause celebre among Trump's evangelical base, which is presumably how this became a thing.

I don't doubt that Trump and Erdogan will be BFFs again in a month or two.
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Re: Turkey

Post by GreenGoo »

Erdogan is not going back to bff's. His economy is in shambles and he has been humiliated on the national stage.

And the economic damage isn't over yet. Turkey is in real trouble (unlike Canada under Saudi's attacks). You don't forgive something like this easily.

Erdogan is a real tyrant so I'm glad he's losing face. The country itself is taking a beating though and a lot of innocent people are being economically hurt. That's a little harder to celebrate.
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Re: Turkey

Post by GreenGoo »

Erdogan is not going back to bff's. His economy is in shambles and he has been humiliated on the national stage.

The powerlessness he feels is causing him to lose his shit (which is awesome to watch).

And the economic damage isn't over yet. Turkey is in real trouble (unlike Canada under Saudi's attacks). You don't forgive something like this easily.

Erdogan is a real tyrant so I'm glad he's losing face. The country itself is taking a beating though and a lot of innocent people are being economically hurt. That's a little harder to celebrate.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Kraken »

Haven't we always been at war with Eastasia?
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Re: Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkey would boycott U.S.-made electronic products, escalating a feud with the Trump administration that has contributed to the rapid decline of the Turkish currency.
...
“We are going to apply a boycott on America’s electronic products,” Erdogan said Tuesday during a televised speech, adding that there were alternatives, produced
by South Korean or Turkish companies. He did not say when the boycott would start or how it would be enforced.

“If they have the iPhone, there is Samsung on the other side,” he said, referring to the phone by Apple that became closely associated with Erdogan himself two years ago when he used the device’s FaceTime feature to rally citizens during a coup attempt.
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Re: Turkey

Post by GreenGoo »

Just read a state-run op-ed piece in a Turkey paper. Well, a translated one.

Good lord, I don't know who it was written for, but it was hilarious in the amount of winning Turkey is doing, how Drumpf has played right into Erdogan's hands, and how the rest of NATO should step into protect one of it's members.

Also how Brunson should get off his ass and demand Drumpf stay out the Turkey justice system. Brunson is the Christian Pastor central to the issue for those not paying attention.

It's...Drumpf era worthy in its denial of reality.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
A Turkish court on Friday convicted American pastor Andrew Brunson of aiding terrorism but sentenced him to time served and ordered his immediate release.
...
In Washington on Friday, Jay Sekulow, an attorney working for Brunson’s family and involved in pushing for his release, said the pastor had been released to the custody of U.S. diplomatic officials and would be flown to a U.S. air base in Germany. There, his health would be evaluated and eventually he would be flown back to the United States, Sekulow said.
...
Within minutes of the verdict, President Trump tweeted, “working very hard on Pastor Brunson.”

“PASTOR BRUNSON JUST RELEASED,” he tweeted later. “WILL BE HOME SOON!”
...
In recent months, the administration made the pastor’s release a priority, and in August, the United States imposed sanctions on two senior Turkish cabinet ministers as a way to pressure authorities here.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said that his government could not interfere in a judicial case. But U.S. officials said Thursday that an agreement between the two sides to free Brunson was negotiated on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last month.

The deal, they said, would include the lifting of U.S. sanctions in exchange for reduced charges that would allow Brunson to either be sentenced to time served or serve any remaining sentence in the United States.

Turkish prosecutors had sought a 35-year sentence for Brunson, whom they accused of spying and supporting terrorists under the cover of humanitarian aid and interfaith dialogue. That request was later reduced to 10 years at the trial.
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Unagi
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Re: Turkey

Post by Unagi »

I wonder how this dovetails with the bugged torture/murder audio release.

kinda an 'all in' move by Turkey it feels like.
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Re: Turkey

Post by malchior »

I think those are coincidental. That deal was likely struck well before the Khashoggi incident.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Holman »

I wonder what we're giving Turkey in exchange. This release gives Trump an October win to parade for his base, and Ankara clearly knows how valuable that is.

As it happens, Turkey is holding other Americans as well, but none of them are a cause célèbre like Brunson.
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Re: Turkey

Post by em2nought »

I'm hoping to get one for about $0.39 per pound this Thanksgiving. :wink:
Technically, he shouldn't be here.
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Re: Turkey

Post by naednek »

So the recently freed pastor and his wife prayed with Trump, and the first thing Trump asks after the prayer, Who did you vote for?

Jesus, the guy can't be more of a self serving, egotistical asshole.
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Re: Turkey

Post by em2nought »

naednek wrote: Sat Oct 13, 2018 4:55 pm So the recently freed pastor and his wife prayed with Trump, and the first thing Trump asks after the prayer, Who did you vote for?

Jesus, the guy can't be more of a self serving, egotistical asshole.
Trump's slipping, he should have gotten in the fact he didn't pay a $1.8 billion ransom either. :wink:
Technically, he shouldn't be here.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Default »

Yeah, with his negotiating skills, it was 2.3 billion.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Max Peck »

Turkey elections: Questions over 'voter aged 165' and other irregularities
Political parties in Turkey are crying foul after thousands of unlikely voters appeared on the electoral roll.

Among the oddities are many first-time voters over 100 years old - and one aged 165.

Opposition parties also said they had discovered more than 1,000 voters registered at a single apartment.

The discovery comes ahead of local elections in March, in which President Erdogan's AK Party may face its toughest political challenge in years.

Turkey has faced economic stagnation in recent months, and the value of its currency is significantly lower than it was a year ago. That has led to speculation that the dominant AKP could lose several key cities, including the capital, Ankara.

Opposition parties now say that voter lists are being manipulated.

The Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) allege that the unusual voter records they have found are mostly areas where AKP lost by a small number of votes in previous elections.

CHP says there are more than 6,000 registered voters over 100 years old, many of which are supposedly older than the oldest documented living person, currently 116.

It includes 165-year-old Ayse Ekici, allegedly born in 1854, at the time of the Ottoman empire, and registered to vote for the first time his year, CHP said.

Another voter, known only as Zulfu, is supposedly 149. There is also Ayse, said to be 148 years old.

There are also widespread examples of suspiciously large numbers of people registered at a single address, opposition parties say.

In addition to the 1,000 people reported registered at a single apartment, there are many apparently registered at buildings that are empty, or at construction sites, or on the fifth floor of a four-storey building in one case in Istanbul.

There are also surprisingly large shifts in voter numbers - one district in Cankiri saw its registered voters grow by 95% in six months.
I suppose if you're sufficiently confident in the end result, you can trot out all of the voter fraud tropes and see how they fare in practice.
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Re: Turkey

Post by GreenGoo »

Heh.

I'm curious why he made the polling information available to the opposition. Perhaps for the reason you mentioned. Because what does it matter?

I'm sure drumpf will send his congratulations and comment how impressed he is at democracy in action. Perhaps a little envious as well. Maybe he'll ask Erdogan for some tips.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Max Peck »

Taking a cue from Trump's musings about the American invasion of Iraq, Erdogan has decided to keep the (olive) oil from the part of Syria that Turkey has occupied.
Kurds in Turkey and the Syrian region of Afrin, which Turkey now controls, have accused Turkish forces of stealing the region's olive crops.

"After this area fell to the Turkish occupation, thousands of olive trees have been cut down. It has since emerged that they have been stealing the olives," said a commentary in the Turkish Kurdish newspaper Yeni Ozgur Politika last week.

The issue has been raised since the start of the olive harvest.

In September, a former agricultural council leader in Afrin, Salleh Ibo, told a PKK-linked news agency that Turkish forces had confiscated olive groves from people who had fled the area, and were taking the region's harvest back to Turkey.

"We can say that 80 percent of the olives in Afrin are being taken to Turkey," he said. "They stand to make 80m dollars from the olives they steal this way."
. . .
Turkey has acknowledged taking Afrin's olives. It views its actions as justified given its occupation of the area, and says this is being done with the backing of the local authorities that it supports.

Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli told parliament in November that 600 tonnes of olives had "entered the country".

"We do not want revenues to fall into PKK hands," he said. "We want the revenues from Afrin... to come to us. This region in under our hegemony."
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Re: Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
In local elections across Turkey on Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost all the major cities, including Istanbul and the country’s capital, Ankara. After a divisive campaign in which the opposition candidates were accused of either being terrorists or being backed by terrorists, with threats of imprisonment or removal from office, Erdogan’s AKP also lost the entire Turkish coastline, all but one of Turkey’s major cities, and main Kurdish cities in the east. Despite a repressive atmosphere and relentless media coverage in favor of the AKP, Turkish voters have rallied behind opposition candidates in big cities, sending Erdogan a clear message: Enough is enough.
...
This is just a local election, and Erdogan will rule Turkey for a long time yet. But unless he hears the message from the voters, what happened in Istanbul on Sunday will happen on a national level at the next general election. For spring is here.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Holman »

Max Peck wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 6:13 pm Taking a cue from Trump's musings about the American invasion of Iraq, Erdogan has decided to keep the (olive) oil from the part of Syria that Turkey has occupied.
Kurds in Turkey and the Syrian region of Afrin, which Turkey now controls, have accused Turkish forces of stealing the region's olive crops.

"After this area fell to the Turkish occupation, thousands of olive trees have been cut down. It has since emerged that they have been stealing the olives," said a commentary in the Turkish Kurdish newspaper Yeni Ozgur Politika last week.

The issue has been raised since the start of the olive harvest.
[...]
Whoa. Shades of history.

Warfare in the ancient Mediterranean world often involved theft and destruction of olive crops because (a) olives were very useful and valuable and (b, and more importantly) olive trees can require a full human generation to mature and begin bearing fruit.

Nothing in modern technology has changed that. Cutting down a region's olive trees wrecks its agricultural economy for 20-30 years.
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Re: Turkey

Post by El Guapo »

Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Apr 01, 2019 4:14 pm WaPo
In local elections across Turkey on Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost all the major cities, including Istanbul and the country’s capital, Ankara. After a divisive campaign in which the opposition candidates were accused of either being terrorists or being backed by terrorists, with threats of imprisonment or removal from office, Erdogan’s AKP also lost the entire Turkish coastline, all but one of Turkey’s major cities, and main Kurdish cities in the east. Despite a repressive atmosphere and relentless media coverage in favor of the AKP, Turkish voters have rallied behind opposition candidates in big cities, sending Erdogan a clear message: Enough is enough.
...
This is just a local election, and Erdogan will rule Turkey for a long time yet. But unless he hears the message from the voters, what happened in Istanbul on Sunday will happen on a national level at the next general election. For spring is here.
Erdogan's party has announced that they're challenging the results in Istanbul and Ankara. I'm sure that the challenge procedures will be fair and balanced.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Pyperkub »

Turkey objects to panelist regarding freedom of speech in Turkey panel:
A senior Turkish diplomat readily acknowledged making calls to Columbia, once members of the “Turkish American community . . . gave me a heads up” that Aslandogan was scheduled to speak. His participation “is quite unacceptable to us, categorically,” said the diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules set by his government.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Defiant »

Some good news:
The opposition candidate for mayor of Istanbul celebrated a landmark win Sunday in a closely watched repeat election that ended weeks of political tension and broke the long hold President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party had on leading Turkey’s largest city.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

CNN
President Donald Trump says Turkey will be banned from purchasing American F-35 fighter jets after it acquired a Russian air defense system, but made no mention of sanctions that the US is legally required to impose in response, worrying lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Trump misrepresented the developments that led Turkey to purchase the Russian system, blaming the Obama administration for the situation and sympathizing with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the "very tough situation that they've been forced in."
...
The result, said analysts and former officials, is that after months of Trump administration vows that Turkey will face sanctions for the Russian purchase -- which creates a threat to US national security and undermines the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- those punitive measures are being put off by the President himself.

"The President is the clear cause of the delay," said John Hannah, a senior counselor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "He doesn't want to pull the trigger on sanctions and torpedoing Turkey's purchase of the F-35 fighter jets. In the first place, he's got an unfortunate affinity for Erdogan."

Hannah noted that at the June G-20 meeting in Japan, Trump undermined US policymakers when asked about the S400 purchase. "Instead of reading Erdogan the riot act in a last-ditch effort to warn him off the S-400 deal, the President accepted hook, line and sinker Erdogan's ridiculous claim that it was all President Obama's fault, and that Turkey was somehow justified in alienating NATO and cozying up to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," Hannah said.
...
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump laid the blame for that purchase at the feet of the previous administration, saying it had refused to sell Turkey US-made Patriot missiles. That isn't accurate, analysts and officials involved in that sale said. The US has worked to sell Turkey a Patriot missile system since 2013, but Washington had balked at Turkey's technology transfer demands.
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Re: Turkey

Post by LordMortis »

he's got an unfortunate affinity for Erdogan.
That shouldn't make me laugh but it does.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

CNBC
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Europe with a flood of refugees on Thursday if the continent’s leaders call the Turkish invasion of Syria an “occupation.”

“We will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way,” Erdogan said while speaking to officials from his ruling AK Party, according to Reuters.
...
Erdogan has pledged to clear the area of “terrorists,” and says his aim is to allow a path for the return of Syrian refugees in Turkey to go back home. Numerous U.S. officials have cast doubt on that promise.
...
Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees in the world, with 3.6 million registered Syrian nationals in 2018 and 40,000 refugees and asylum-seekers of other nationalities, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
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Re: Turkey

Post by malchior »

Erdogan is doing this because he knows that the President won't do anything and is an idiot. Our allies are already on edge and this was a major pain point in Germany and across Europe. This is literally Putin's dream in motion.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

malchior wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2019 10:59 am This is literally Putin's dream in motion.
Better to reign in Hell, etc.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

Axios
An Oval Office meeting yesterday with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took a dark turn when Erdoğan pulled out his iPad and made the group watch a propaganda video that depicted Kurds as terrorists, according to three sources familiar with the meeting.

Why it matters: The meeting hosted by President Trump included five Republican U.S. senators who've been among the most vocal critics of Turkey's recent invasion of Syria and attacks on the U.S.'s Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS.
  • Erdoğan apparently thought he could sway these senators by forcing them to watch a clunky propaganda film.
  • The senators in the meeting took turns pushing back on Erdoğan, while Trump sat back and watched, intervening occasionally to play traffic cop.
  • The meeting comes as Erdoğan is trying to avoid sanctions over the purchase of a Russian missile defense system.
Erdoğan's video "was unpersuasive," according to a source who was in the room. It depicted members of the YPG (the U.S.-allied People's Protection Units) and the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which the State Department has designated as a terrorist group).
  • After the film concluded, according to the source, Sen. Lindsey Graham asked Erdoğan: "Well, do you want me to go get the Kurds to make one about what you've done?"
  • Erdoğan got into a heated back-and-forth with Graham over Turkey's recent invasion of Syria, according to four sources familiar with the meeting. A source in the room said Erdoğan took exception to Graham using the word "invasion" and that Graham also rebutted Erdoğan when he claimed that Turkey had fought ISIS.
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Re: Turkey

Post by coopasonic »

Graham's position here continuously surprises me given everything else he is doing for Trump. I don't understand it at all in that context.
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Re: Turkey

Post by El Guapo »

coopasonic wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:24 pm Graham's position here continuously surprises me given everything else he is doing for Trump. I don't understand it at all in that context.
Graham cares first and foremost about U.S. foreign policy, and he's been pretty consistent about that over the years (mostly to his credit, IMO). This stuff may well be what he tells himself at night to justify his abasement to Trump in every other area (e.g., "if I didn't do it, South Carolina Republicans would elect some other crazy Trumpist who wouldn't stand up for American and its allies abroad.").
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Re: Turkey

Post by malchior »

El Guapo wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:30 pm
coopasonic wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:24 pm Graham's position here continuously surprises me given everything else he is doing for Trump. I don't understand it at all in that context.
Graham cares first and foremost about U.S. foreign policy the GOP
Mortoned. U.S. foreign policy is a distant 2nd when it collides with that reality.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Holman »

That House resolution condemning the Armenian genocide as a genocide? The one that passed 405-11 in the House?

Lindsey Graham just blocked it in the Senate.
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Re: Turkey

Post by malchior »

Graham is such a huge hypocrite and a completely compromised piece of shit to boot. Meanwhile in the "Mirror, mirror" universe Fox is reporting about how he got into a screaming match with Erdogan. Give me a fucking break with this endless bullshit.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Holman »

malchior wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 4:51 pm Graham is such a huge hypocrite and a completely compromised piece of shit to boot. Meanwhile in the "Mirror, mirror" universe Fox is reporting about how he got into a screaming match with Erdogan. Give me a fucking break with this endless bullshit.
I’m beginning to suspect that we’re the Mirror Universe.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Kraken »

Holman wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 5:50 pm
malchior wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2019 4:51 pm Graham is such a huge hypocrite and a completely compromised piece of shit to boot. Meanwhile in the "Mirror, mirror" universe Fox is reporting about how he got into a screaming match with Erdogan. Give me a fucking break with this endless bullshit.
I’m beginning to suspect that we’re the Mirror Universe.
You knew something like this was coming when they turned on that Large Hadron Supercollider.
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Re: Turkey

Post by Isgrimnur »

War is Boring
Greek air force pilots scrambled to intercept Turkish fighter planes that illegally entered Greece’s airspace 40 times in a single day [last] week as tensions soar between the NATO allies over a territorial dispute in the eastern Mediterranean.

Fighter jets from the two countries on Tuesday engaged in 16 mock dogfights following multiple Turkish incursions into Greek airspace, defense officials in Athens told Greece’s Kathimerini newspaper.

Dogfights between the two NATO members are relatively commonplace and risky. Turkish jets and helicopters illegally entered Greek airspace 141 times on a single day in May 2017, the Hellenic National Defence General Staff said. Several Greek pilots have been killed in aviation accidents while intercepting Turkish jets in Greek airspace.

The fighter intercepts stem from a long-running row between the two countries over territorial claims in the Aegean Sea. Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos recently said the disputed area is under Greek military control, Kathimerini reported.

Among the issues disputed by the two NATO members are delimitation of territorial waters, airspace, exclusion zones and Turkish claims of sovereignty over a number of small islands off its southwestern coast.

Turkey could send military forces into the eastern Mediterranean and place armed drones in northern Cyprus over the territorial disputes, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said in parliament Tuesday.
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In October, Greece and the U.S. updated their defense cooperation pact, pledging to increase American troop rotations and joint exercises at several military sites in Greece, and to make infrastructure upgrades at the Navy’s longtime base at Souda Bay.

The moves come as Ankara threatens to cut off U.S. access to Incirlik Air Base if Washington moves ahead with sanctions over Turkey’s military offensive in northern Syria and its acquisition of a Russian missile system. A U.S. Senate committee last week backed legislation to impose sanctions on Turkey.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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