To Progress and Back: The Rise and Fall of Erdogan's Turkey | Hacker News Reader

To Progress and Back: The Rise and Fall of Erdogan's Turkey

spiegel.de

14 pointsmerusame22 comments

That article is from 24th September. So much has happened since then - it could have been a different eon.

And Edogan's turkey is far from fallen. He is also rogue autocrat protected by Article 5 of NATO. And from what I observe he has cleaned the state from people that were believing in Ataturk's Turkey. So the secular people will have an uphill battle against him.

And we have the Kurds (that might suddenly begin to receive a lot of russian weapons and training soon)

So much wrong could happen with Europe and middle east now - I envy the people in the Americas - it is good to know you are on a different continent.

I'm still hoping that Erogan (and, very similarly, Putin) has overstretched his luck. The HDP is still quite strong after the recent elections, NATO only hesitantly supports his adventures vs. Russia and based on some of my friends there, there's a large and energetic generation of young secular students who see their future in Europe. It's hard sustain an autocracy based only on the rural, old population and with no support from the intellectuals/business leaders/journalists etc.

Syria is now Putin vs. Erdogan vs. Al Quaida vs. ISIS vs. Assad vs. Hisbollah (+ EU, US). It'd be fantastic to watch them all lose if there weren't so many innocents involved.

Don't forget Rojava (YPG), the most successful fighters against ISIS. Right at Turkey's border — and as Putin made it impossible to ignore, Erdogan supports ISIS. (Apparently Erdogan has dreams of being Caliph.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/a-dream-of-utopia...

In my view, their society has ethically surpassed anything in "the West". Obama's in the absurd position of supporting Erdogan against them, despite YPG being the US's most effective ally against ISIS. ("Contradictions of empire", it's maybe called.)

> Erdogan supports ISIS. (Apparently Erdogan has dreams of being Caliph.)

Please, do not succumb to this kind of statements. Erdoğan does not support ISIS, but he does not support YPG or PKK either. So when he did not take active action why is he portrayed as ISIS supporter? Did not Turkey do enough to host and feed people from Kobane and treated the wounded Kursdish fighhters? Turkey simply did not want to enter the mess deeper (But we are already in anyway..)

He knows that he cannot be a Caliph or such, maybe he had the melancholy of the Ottoman times, but that's past already.

Erdogan also did its best to prevent the supply corridor for Kurds from Iraq to Kobane.

First, Irak and Syria are neighbors you know that right? And Turkey did allow Iraqi Kurds to enter from Turkish border, but not the PKK.

Please, do not succumb to this kind of statements. Erdoğan does not support ISIS

But he at the very least used to collaborate. ISIS is Sunni, they fight Assad, Iran and the Kurds and needed someone to take their oil off their hands.

That whole terrorist thing and delusions of world domination aside, from Erdoğan's perspective what's not to like?

Is there anybody ISIS does not fight? Turkey lost 130 people with suicide bombings in last 6 months. What were you expecting? Entering Syria with tanks? It is easy to talk from an armchair when you are far away from the fire.

The targets of the terrorism were on pro-Kurdish rally. Just before the election. Very convenient for mister Erdogan for ISIS to attack his adversaries.

Logical fallacy. Just because those were the expected targets of ISIS it does not make him an accomplice. Remember the bombings of HSBC Istanbul in 2003? was it also orchestrated by him?

The talking-point you repeated is well known: conveniently leaves out who the targets were.

Please, it is stated two threads up. For those who commented on the subject but did not bother following the related news or reading Wikipedia : They were mostly far-left / pro-Kurdish (some pro-PKK). These are probably reasons enough for ISIS to chose them as a target. HSBC bombings target was, well, people work at HSBC building.

I'm not merely talking out of my ass here - it's an open secret that Turkey has been complicit:

http://www.dw.com/en/is-supply-channels-through-turkey/av-18...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/isis-syria-turk...

"Every day, trucks laden with food, clothing, and other supplies cross the border from Turkey to Syria. It is unclear who is picking up the goods."

It is a well known fact that Turkey aided Syrian opposition and people live under attack. Perhaps IS might have seized some goods. It is hard to dispatch anything when there is a war. But this news piece starts with a silly assumption. Completely loses the value.

For the second:

" From mid-2013, the Tunisian fighter had been responsible for smuggling oil from Syria’s eastern fields, which the group had by then commandeered. Black market oil quickly became the main driver of Isis revenues – and Turkish buyers were its main clients."

Smuggling. So Turkish government is perpetrator because there are oil smugglers? Please. IS sells oil to black market and smugglers (probably even Syrian Government) takes it. How is Turkish government is a supporter of IS here? Smuggling is a decades old problem in south east Turkey (Mostly Kurdish area). They tried to prevent it with special high tech chemical marker dyes and strict controls but you cannot stop it.

Also keep in mind that Guardian always use anti government sources for Turkish news. (Mostly left leaning, pro-kurdish or Gulenist.).

Remember Joe Biden talking about Turkey shipping weapons into Syria that ended up in the hands of Jihadis?[1]

They actually have been caught red-handed[2], and allegedly it's still ongoing[3].

I do not believe all accusations are merely propaganda by the West, Russia, the Kurds or his internal political enemies. Sure, that does happen, and I would eg take the accusations of Bilal Erdoğan's involvement in the smuggling of ISIS oil with a grain of salt. But supplying the enemy of your enemies with weapons and politicians trying to make deals with the devil? That's old news.

[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/05/politics/isis-biden-erdoga...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_National_Intelligence_Org...

[3] http://www.todayszaman.com/_raid-on-koza-i-pek-media-group-c...

[1] This is same deal, even ISIS seized something it was most probably not intentional. And he apologies for his comments. Nothing to see here.

[2] This scandal was the work of Gulenists. Most likely those weapons were headed to Syrian opposition but because of the on going war between Gulen and Erdoğan, Gulenist media presented this as if ISIS was the receiving side. Surely ISIS may intercept and seize some of weapons (Hey, they even took US sent weapons!) but portraying this as "ISIS aid" was purely according to Gulen's agenda. They made this propaganda especially in the foreign media to strengthen their attack.

[3] Today's Zaman is the most active Gulenist propaganda press. Starting from mid 2013 their sole aim is to throw Erdoğan from his position. Their credibility is even lower than pro-Government media.

I am a skeptic and a non-interventionist but I have yet to see any decisive or convincing proof that Turkish government actually aided ISIS deliberately and intentionally. I believe those news are mostly result of extreme confirmation bias, or blatant anti-Erdogan propaganda. There may be some individuals or group of people in Turkey supporting ISIS, or there might have been some Logistics screw ups so ISIS took stuff that were meant for others. But that is it.

Turkey has bombed the YPG explicitly because they were advancing too successfully upon ISIS, pushing west of the Euphrates. This, in effect, has created a protected zone for ISIS to operate. This makes him unambiguously an ISIS supporter.

YPG has a different agenda and everybody knows this. And albeit costly, ISIS actually gave them an opportunity. They just want to close the northern border of Syria for their liking. Just do not assume they are peaceful (http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/syria-turk...)

Turkey wants a protected zone to repel ISIS from Turkish border and YPG closing the north line. That's about it.

YPG has plenty of open space to fight ISIS if they want to. Do not overestimate YPG. Without US support, they probably would have lost the game long ago.

Yes, the article is already outdated. Most importantly, there have been elections again, and this time Erdogan's AKP did gain an absolute majority. Which will enable them to fulfill their plans for a strong presidential state with Erdogan himself as the president.

Summarizing: there is no 'fall of Erdogan's Turkey', Erdogan is now more powerful than ever. Whether that is good thing, time will tell ...

No. He didn't get majority for changing the Turkish constitution. Just the majority to rule. Which is scary in itself, but a lot less scary.

> He is also rogue autocrat protected by Article 5 of NATO.

That actually not true. Article 5 is talking only about members in Euope and North America, not a word about Asia Minor.

Source: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm

That's because it was written before Turkey and Greece were part of the treaty. See Note 1 in your link at the bottom, which refers to the "Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty on the Accession of Greece and Turkey": http://www.nato.int/cps/de/natohq/official_texts_17245.htm - which modifies Article 6 of the original treaty. (to "For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack: on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of Turkey or on the islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer; [...]")

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