There is a round of news stories today concerning the return of Syrian refugees and Turkey providing electricity/water for the refugees. This is exactly the type of action by Turkey I would have expected to see take place. Should of said it here, but, always tell my hubby anyway. And what is being reported is what would be expected if Turkey was creating their long envisioned safe zone.Flashback:Turkey has long had a plan to create a safe zone and move refugees back into the area to impede the creation of Kurdistan straight across it’s border. In fact there were news stories floating around last week that Turkey would have implemented it's version of the safe zone last year, but, there was that incident with the Russian jet. The shoot down that sure wasn't to Turkey's advantage...Also saw a report that Turkey had asked Russia to provide additional ground troops? Turkey’s version of the safe zone was covered here last year- then mentioned again a couple of weeks ago: July 25/2015: Turkey: Creating "Safe Zones", Fighting for it's Survival, Turkey's letter to UN If you read or reread that post you will understand that nothing has changed all this time with Turkey's claims.
Stated here last year: Their intent is to return all the Syrian refugees. Thereby preventing the creation of a Kurdistan in Syria- Which will serve as a second base of attack against Turkey.
Turkey's FM: "Syrian refugees in Turkey and in neighboring countries will be able to settle in these safe regions"
So here’s what I said to hubby last week- Turkey cleared one area, then immediately moved westward. I suspected the area between the two points would be cleaned up. Bombs removed, etc and then Turkey would quickly move people in.Image included in post explaining westward move- post directly below
Turkish Tanks Cross into Syria’s al Rai at Kilis
There are reports that this is exactly what is taking place:Turkey sends power lines into Syrian town cleared of IS
Turkey has begun laying an underground power cable to supply the Syrian town of Jarabulus with electricity before the commencement of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.Turkey's energy ministry confirmed that work was under way on a 3km cable from Karakamis in Turkey’s Gaziantep province to Jarabulus. It said a 2km stretch of the cable would be on Syrian territory and the rest in Turkey“With hundreds of Syrian refugees returning to recently-liberated areas across the Turkish-Syrian border, supplying electricity is a crucial step to accomplish that task.”It is also to prevent the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) from establishing a continuous corridor along Turkey’s southern border.Turkish authorities reported that Syrian refugees had started returning to areas cleared by FSA fighters.The electricity will be provided free of charge as part of the Turkish government’s humanitarian relief efforts, according to an official, who requested his name be withheld for procedural reasons.The plan also involved the provision of potable water to Jarabulus, supplied by the Gaziantep municipality.Turkey used to provide sections of northern Syria with electricity until October 2012 under a deal with Bashar al-Assad's government in Damascus.
So we have a plan for electricity and water being suppliedLet’s talk refugee return:AlJaz
Hundreds of Syrian refugees have left Turkey for the Syrian town of Jarablus, according to Turkish officials, in the first wave of civilian resettlement since the launch of an Ankara-backed incursion into northern Syria two weeks ago.More than 250 Syrians, including women and children, arrived at a sports complex in the Turkish border town of Karkamis for registration early on Wednesday, Turkey's state-run Anadolu agency said.After the registration process, they went through security checks before crossing into Syria through the border gate at Karkamis, the agency said.Saif Abu Bakr, general commander of the Hamza Division, a rebel faction affiliated with the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, told Al Jazeera that "approximately 250 to 300 civilians, including men women and children, were transported back across the border" at about 5pm local time. "They were all originally from Jarablus," he said, adding that all the returnees wanted to go back home"There was no pressure from the Turkish side," Bakr said from Jarablus. "They asked to go back to their homes."Bakr said that all families from Jarablus, approximately 10,000 civilians, were now expected to be brought back to their hometown in the near future.
image included with euronews Euronews
Turkish officials say nearly 300 Syrians have gone back to the town of Jarablus; marking the first formal return of civilians since Turkey launched a massive military campaign last month against Islamic State militants.“We return to the embrace of our country, Syria, our dearest country, and to Jarablus we return. We thank the Turks and the others, may God forgive them. Thank you,” said Omar, a refugee from Jarablus.Jarablus, which had been held by the ISIL, was the first town captured by Turkey’s army and its Syrian rebel allies; and the relief among residents was clear.“All the people returned. The people who left came back. The situation is good, but we are suffering from a shortage of services. The main problem is water, bread and electricity,” said market worker Abu Ahmad.Turkey has urged world powers to back plans for a “safe zone” in northern Syria to stem the flow of migrants but it’s so far failed to win support for the idea.
In advance of that soon to be implemented ceasefire??? Right before an upcoming holiday????And a question? A question that begs asking?Much ado has been made about the speed with which ISIS was cleared from Turkey’s border by the Turkish military... Most of what I've read has been nonsense. Speaking for myself... It has much to do with the two combined allies of the US/Israel fleeing from a real fight. Yes, I’m referencing KurdIShIS. And have demonstrated on numerous occasions the symbiotic relationship between the two- When faced with a real fight vs theatre- the puppets fled.A much bigger question that begs asking and no one else has asked, choosing to spin very, very Israeli sounding propaganda instead, is this one:How or why did the U.S.-backed YPG fighters and the entire U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, of at least 50 countries, fail to clear ISIS from northern Syria even though they have allegedly fought and bombed the area for more than one and a half years??Looking for answers from readers as to how thousands of airstrikes (50,000 bombs on ISIS) and the ‘fiercest fighters on the ground’ failed to clear the border of the baddest scariest threat in the entire world in well over a year and a half ! This is why I am still sticking with my KurdIShIS symbiosis. It fits. It quite nicely explains the failure to clear ISIS. Clearing ISIS was not a goal. Ethnically cleansing and displacing the populace to remake the ME was always the agenda. ISIS the pretext- Kurd fighters part of the false/contrived good vs evil dialectic.