In a surprising move, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced on February 29 that he will be re-opening his country’s border to Europe, thus allowing tens of thousands of mostly Syrian refugees into Greece and other European countries.
Expectedly, over 100,000 people rushed to the Ipsala border point in the Edirne province separating Turkey from Greece, hoping to make it through the once-porous border.
Conn M. HALLINAN
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest gamble in Syria’s civil war appears to have come up snake eyes. Instead of halting the Damascus government’s siege of the last rebel held province, Idlib, Turkey has backed off, and Ankara’s Syrian adventure is fueling growing domestic resistance to the powerful autocrat.
The End of an Era. When the first World War came to its end, intimations of an end to the European Era were already evident in symptoms: aching diplomatic joints, straitened perceptual political vision and the general financial health of the patient about to turn acute, as the constipated monetary policies of the Central Banks ushered in the Great Depression. But ‘life’ went on: European men and women wildly danced the Cancan throughout the 1920s; It was Cabaret, party time. No one wanted to acknowledge the omens of what lay afore them.
Once again it was Russia that just prevented the threatened ‘Muslim invasion’ of Europe advertised by Erdogan
Pepe ESCOBAR
At the start of their discussion marathon in Moscow on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with arguably the most extraordinary diplomatic gambit of the young 21st century.
Well, it takes one to know one. The foul scheming and intrigues over the past nine years of war in Syria by the foreign aggressors and their terror proxies will have proven one thing to all the criminal accomplices – none of them can be trusted, even when they claim to be “partners”.
Mideast Discourse — Turkey increased its military invasion of Syria last month to prevent the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) from liberating Idlib province from the occupation of terrorists, who are supported by Turkey and had been supported by the US before 2017 when President Trump cut off their funding through the CIA.
As Putin meeting looms, no one in Moscow believes any word, promise or cajoling from Erdogan anymore
Pepe ESCOBAR
The latest installment of the interminable Syria tragedy could be interpreted as Greece barely blocking a European “invasion” by Syrian refugees. The invasion was threatened by President Erdogan even as he refused the EU’s puny “offer you can refuse” bribe of only one billion euros.
Will Idlib be the tipping point for Erdogan whose troops are certainly taking a beating from Russia? If it is, Russia will finalise the process of bringing Assad in from the cold, in line with Gulf Arabs’ plans. But it will be the end of the affair for Putin and Erdogan.
Turkey is threatening Europe with an influx of millions of refugees from Syria’s conflict, while the United States this week announced over $100 million in “humanitarian aid” for Syria. The Europeans are wringing their hands over further problems from unwanted migration, yet Brussels continues to pile economic sanctions on war-torn Syria, thus impeding the nation’s recovery and exacerbating suffering.
The guilty parties to Syria’s suffering and misery have the rank audacity to profess seeming compassion.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan should call German Chancellor Angela Merkel some point soon to compare notes on how it feels to be trapped between the U.S. and Russia.
