Turkey

[Reaper]

Main Greek headline!

Turkey in bigggg trouble now. Greeks are pulling out their most famous tactic and Dora's favourite! The letter!!! The Turks must be shuddering as the UN put this one like the others in their shredder!!

https://www.tovima.gr/2020/02/27/pol...n-an-mesogeio/

[Don Giovanni]

Erdogan spoke about a planned meeting with Putin. The Kremlin responded that no such meeting was in the offing:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kremlin-r...093000119.html

The Kremlin said on Thursday that President Vladimir Putin had no plans to meet Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on March 5 to discuss the situation in Syria's Idlib region despite statements by Erdogan saying such a meeting was likely.

The Turkish president said on Wednesday he would probably meet Putin in Istanbul for talks on Idlib next week.

"Putin has other working plans for March 5," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. (Reporting by Anastasia Teterevleva; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)

Erdogan's grasping at straws. I think his threats of invading Syria will come to nothing. He'll have to withdraw and let Syria reclaim her territory.

Inside Turkey's parliament, there is open discussion of the fact that Turkey is effectively supporting al-Qaeda in this fight (rebranded as HST). There is a lot of opposition to Turkey's involvement in Libya and Syria, that Turkey should in fact be working more closely with the EU.

I can't see Erdgoan pursuing these follies beyond this point, especially given his growing isolation. If he makes the mistake of thinking he can invade these countries and go to war, hoping eventually to win American/Western support in a fight with Russia, he's very mistaken. The exact opposite will occur and suddenly Turkey will be in the same position as Iraq, Libya and Syria were.

[Filikieteria1821]

I think Erdogan can't afford to back off now. His entire leadership and foreign policy objectives rely on aggression and conquest. Given how much military equipment continues to be thrown towards Syria I happen to think Turkey is either going to go all in on idlib, or try to defend Afrin.

There was a report the other day that Turkey is training 1,400 pakistanis to fight in Afrin.

I think Erdogan knows he's going to get pummeled in Idlib, but he's already changed much of Afrin to mimic the illegally occupied north cyprus.

When turks invade and conquer, the only way to get rid of them is through shear brutality.

If a war is to serioulsy break out between Russia and Turkey, I am hoping Russia shows the world what Turkey's all about. I do not think any NATO ally will offer Turkey support, especially in a matter like this.

[Don Giovanni]

Maybe he's more brainless than I imagine him to be.

[Brklyngrk]

Apparently he activated Article 4 invoking NATO to help. There is an emergency meeting this week.

[Don Giovanni]

Erdogan makes good on his blackmail of the EU.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/turkey...r-troop-attack

In an apparently coordinated effort by Turkey to raise the pressure on Europe, Turkish state news agencies on Friday showed videos of hundreds of migrants making their way to the Turkish-Greek land border, seemingly facilitated by the Turkish authorities.

The broadcasts, an apparent effort by Turkey to press European leaders into supporting its military campaign in northern Syria, came hours after Turkey suffered heavy losses in fighting in Idlib Province in Syria, prompting an extraordinary NATO ambassadors’ meeting and fears of escalation.

Reports say they lost 33 soldiers. Their blood is on Erdogan's hands. His arrogance and foolishness led to their deaths.

Videos released by Anadolu, Turkey’s state-controlled news wire, showed migrants making their way through fields and roads close to the Turkish-Greek border. A migrant interviewed by a Turkish channel near the border said she had been driven there free by bus.

A Turkish news crew also filmed a boat of migrants as it departed for Greece, in a stunt that implied coordination among smugglers, Turkish officials and the private news media, whose owners are heavily influenced by the government.

Given what's going on with the coronavirus, the islands riots, and now this, I'd say Mitsotakis better to get a grip on the circumstances and shut the border down! Turn these people back! It's Turkey's war, they can deal with the refugees. We have enough problems. Greece needs to take control of her sovereignty. Let the EU and NATO condemn us if we must. We have no obligation to them when the price comes to our security!

Edit: Not to mention the +6 billion euros the EU gave Turkey to deal with the migrants. It's their problem now to deal with it. Make them own up to it. The morons needs to leave Syria in defeat.

[Don Giovanni]

NATO so far offering up empty words. Good,

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/nati...t-air-strikes/

Turkey’s 28 allies also expressed their condolences over the deaths, but no additional Nato support was offered during emergency talks, chaired by Mr Stoltenberg, between Nato ambassadors.

Erdogan can get fucked.

[Don Giovanni]

BTW, the death toll may be much higher. There could have been a hundred or so dead Turkish soldiers after today's airstrikes.

[Reaper]

Greece being inaded by land and sea today by immigrants and refugees as Erdogan punishes europe for not helping him occupy Syria. Germans are quiet.

Tear gas at the Greek border. EU solidarity.. Merkel's Europe.



Lines of immigrants/refugees going back for miles:



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...led-Syria.html

[Filikieteria1821]

Erdogan uses refugees in his game of chess in order to get as much monetary/political support from the EU/NATO. Good on Greece for closing all borders.

This has obviously not resulted in a few crossings, namely on the islands.

Will the media pick up on Erdogan's tactics? And why is the EU/Turkey deal still in effect if Erdogan is opening the borders for 72 hours?

The EU will likely succumb to Erdogan because let's all be real, the EU is spinless

[Reaper]

The EU is Merkel. Merkel is a massive supporter of Turkey. Everything else is small details.

[Don Giovanni]

http://www.ekathimerini.com/250041/a...icy-aksoy-says

Amid reports that hundreds of migrants were walking through northwest Turkey toward its borders with Greece and Bulgaria following an escalation of tension in Syria, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said Friday that Ankara has not changed its migrant policy.

He acknowledged that developments in Idlib, which have led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, had increased the migrant pressure on Turkey adding that “some asylum seekers and immigrants in our country, who are concerned about the developments, started to move towards our Western borders.”

“If the situation worsens, this risk will continue increasingly,” he said.

An unnamed senior Turkish official had earlier told Reuters that Ankara would no longer stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe.

So a war all the way at the other end of the country is causing migrants to get on buses for free and then to walk or seafare the remainder of the way toward Greek land, all the while Turkish patrol boats do nothing to help impede these efforts.

[Reaper]

http://www.ekathimerini.com/250041/a...icy-aksoy-says





So a war all the way at the other end of the country is causing migrants to get on buses for free and then to walk or seafare the remainder of the way toward Greek land, all the while Turkish patrol boats do nothing to help impede these efforts.

Subterfuge Don. Turks actively escorting these afghans to the Greek border.

[Don Giovanni]

No question about that.

[Don Giovanni]

And here's what has Turkey acting like babies (do they know any kind of other behavior?):

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...sh-troops.html

What exactly transpired on Feb. 27? At around 5 p.m., a Turkish mechanized infantry battalion, comprised of about 400 soldiers, became the target of an airstrike on a road between al- Bara and Balyun, some 5 kilometers (3 miles) north of Kafr Nabl in southern Idlib. According to local sources contacted by Al-Monitor, two Russian Sukhoi Su-34 and two Syrian Su-22 fighter jets had launched intensive bombings of Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) targets in southern Idlib at around 11 a.m. that day. The same jets hit the Turkish convoy in coordinated action, the sources said. A first, a relatively lighter strike by the Su-22s forced the convoy to stop, after which the pounding intensified, forcing the soldiers to take shelter in several roadside buildings. What followed next was likely the dropping of KAB-1500L bombs — a variation of advanced laser-guided bunker buster bombs capable of penetrating to depths of up to 20 meters (65 feet) — by the Russian jets. Two of the buildings collapsed in the attack, leaving the Turkish soldiers under the rubble.

Moscow said Feb. 28 that Russian planes had not carried out strikes in the area, and that Russia did its best to ensure the Syrian army ceased fire to allow the evacuation of the troops. It said, however, that the Turkish soldiers should not have been in the area, where counterterror operations were underway, and Ankara had failed to relay information about their presence in advance.

Despite the denial of Russian involvement and a subsequent phone call between the Turkish and Russian presidents, the escalation appears to be a deliberate, well-calculated Russian move and Moscow’s attitude could hardly be taken for granted as a sign that it is willing to step back to de-escalate the crisis.

Ankara’s official death toll stood at 33 on the morning of Feb. 28, with 60 other troops wounded, among them 16 with serious injuries. It was still unclear whether any soldiers could be still trapped under the rubble. According to unconfirmed information obtained by Al-Monitor, the actual death toll is somewhere between 50 and 55.

Things came to a head on the morning of Feb. 27, when according to Russian media, Russian aircraft flying over southern Idlib became the target of intensive fire from man-portable air-defense systems, known as MANPADS, from Turkish military outposts in the area. Simultaneously, MANPADS and drone attacks reportedly threatened the Khmeimim base, Russia’s key military facility in Syria. Russian sources, contacted by Al-Monitor, claim that more than 15 MANPADS attacks, carried out directly by Turkish troops, targeted Russian and Syrian jets conducting air raids in southern Idlib after 1 p.m. that day. Some Russian aircraft allegedly suffered damage as they maneuvered to escape the fire. As the attacks on the planes and the Khmeimim base reached an intensity deemed intolerable, the Turkish convoy was hit at 5 p.m.

Erdogan’s communication chief Fahrettin Altun tweeted a series of messages, vowing a powerful response to “the murderous regime” and underscoring Ankara’s resolve to not withdraw its forces from Idlib.

I hope that scum lost some relatives.

Turkey is likely to come under mounting pressure to withdraw its military presence in the Euphrates Shield pocket and the Afrin area to the west of the Euphrates and even from areas to the east of the river, which it took hold of in October.

The most critical question now is whether Ankara will be prepared to end its military presence in Syria. Such a move appears unlikely in the near future. Ankara will at least seek to bargain and extract certain concessions from Moscow for a gradual pullout of its troops.

Despite Ankara’s hopes for Western support, neither NATO nor the United States are likely to get militarily involved in the crisis immediately. Both will probably pursue a wait-and-see approach for a while to get a better picture of how the Ankara-Moscow crisis evolves.

[Reaper]

A woman reacts as a dinghy transporting 27 refugees and migrants originating from Gambia and the Republic of Congo lands in Lesbos island after they were rescued by a war ship during their sea crossing between Turkey and Greece today

Greek police chase Afghans, Pakistanis, and perhaps 1 or 2 syrians back to Turkey:



Greek police fixing the smashed border:



I don't think the Greeks can hold it much longer:



Europe so so quiet. Concerning brexit - every hour you would get an official comment. Greta got audiences with top EU officials after seconds of asking. When it comes to Turkey and changing Europe's demographics... just watching quietly. Just watching. Like the day Constantinople fell. Just watching.