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Comment by forvelin | Hacker News Reader

is this unexpected ? erdogan literally buys weapons from russia as a nato member, allies with putin at every occassion and disregards any civilized values. he'd like to squeeze minorities as he wants, oppress the opposition as he wants and ally with whoever he wants. at that point, people might not want to cooperate with you, a bit of diplomacy eh ?

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> erdogan literally buys weapons from russia as a nato member

After US refused to sell PAC 3 despite Istanbul pleading for it since even before Erdogun

istanbul does not plead for anything, ankara may though.

Erdogan may use Putin when it suits him, but when the interests no longer allies, he has no problems acting very much against Russia wishes. Like it was in the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan or when Turkey sells weapons to Ukraine.

In the case of Armenia, the country was becoming a hotbead of CIA activity. So Putin wanted to make an example of it.

Russia allowed Azeris to win that war, just to show Armenia how vulnerable it is without Russian help. Plus, they now have troops patroling along the border with Nagorno-Karabah.

The US has always put arms embargoes and blockades on Turkey, even having formal ones in the 1960s and 1970s. The US also arms the terrorists in Turkeys south to attack and terrorize the country. According to CIA agent John Stockwell and others they have been arming those terrorists since the 1970s on Kissingers orders to attack Turkey. The US also refused to sell defensive systems to Turkey under the Obama blockade. The Turks bought it then instead from the Russians. Other NATO countries also have both Russian weaponry and the S-class defensive system like Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary. Turkey is clearly not competent enough to build it itself which is why it bought it.

So, he is acting like a leader who puts his country first? How is that bad?

If US doesn't want to sell weapons to Turkey, its NATO ally, is Turkey supposed to give up and stay defenceless against terrorists that attack its borders?

> If US doesn't want to sell weaoons to Turkey

America is happy to sell to Turkey. Turkey wants to dual source. The U.S., reasonably, doesn’t want its latest stealth tech painted by Russian radars phoning home. Sometimes playing the middle ground helps. Sometimes it gets you a raw deal. In Turkey’s case, the people are losing.

US refused to sell Patriot missile system to Turkey. It also refused to sell it's F-35 fighter jets before Turkey formally requested to buy S-400 anti-air missile system.

US knows that it cannot keep Turkey on a leash like it can, for example, France or Greece. So it does not want to sell it weapons, in case Turkey ever becomes a "problem" (read too powerful to control).

> in case Turkey ever becomes a "problem" (read too powerful to control)

Is this honestly the line Turks are being fed? The concern is Turkey becoming a failed state and terrorist hotbed, for the U.S. and Russia, and a new migrant source, for the EU. If Turkey could reliably project force in the region, it would solve a lot of American strategic problems.

"The concern is Turkey becoming a failed state..."

Of course, there is a real danger of that happening. Turkey can indeed become a failed state...if USA attempts another coup or color revolution.

Look, there are multitude of concurrent attacks, both military (inside Syria by using Kurds/SDF) and economic being made agains Turkey for it's failure to be a "good NATO ally". I don't like Erdogan, and I care not about what happens to him. Turks do, though.

Many people will die if Turkey turns into another Iraq, Libya or Syria. And I don't want that to happen.

> if USA attempts another coup or color revolution

The article this thread attached to is about home-grown economic orbital bombardment. If the Anatolian elite can keep the populace distracted by phantom foreign threats, they’ll succeed in extracting their wealth before the house falls.

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