Tag: Turkey

Middle East press review: How the region’s media covered Biden’s victory

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Middle East press review: How the region’s media covered Biden’s victory

Nedim Sener, a columnist at increasingly pro-government newspaper Hurriyet, wrote that Fethullah Gulen’s disciples, who are accused of perpetrating the coup attempt in 2016, have been pictured with Biden in the past.

“Biden revealed his intention to interfere in Turkish domestic politics in an interview with the New York Times, where he said that the US should support the opposition leaders,” Sener said. “Biden is coming to complete what he couldn’t do with the coup attempt.”

Why is the Turkish opposition demanding early elections?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Why is the Turkish opposition demanding early elections?

Everyone knows that at election time people are preoccupied with domestic politics and attention is diverted from what is happening regionally and internationally. Turkey is focused on some serious regional issues at the moment, such as the fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the dispute with Greece over maritime sovereignty.

I wonder: has somebody in the international community whispered in Kilicdaroglu’s ear telling him to demand early elections in order to distract Erdogan and Turkey with domestic issues, leaving the field free elsewhere?

Question of Syrian mercenaries takes over Armenia-Azerbaijan information war

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Question of Syrian mercenaries takes over Armenia-Azerbaijan information war

The reports of the Syrian militias indicate that they are former members of the “Syrian National Army,” which fought under Turkish command in northern Syria against Kurdish forces and the Islamic State in that country’s civil war. (Armenia has had its own small involvement in that war: it sent deminers and medics to Syria as part of a Russian military mission there.)

“These fighters, however, are not jihadists, as they are sometimes portrayed,” tweeted Elizabeth Tsurkov, a scholar of Syria who has been in touch with several Syrians who were recruited to fight in Azerbaijan. “Their willingness to fight for Turkey, a state jihadists consider to be apostate, attests to that. Thousands of them signing up to fight for Shia-majority Azerbaijan attests to that too.”

Related: Azerbaijan’s leader says no end to fighting until Armenia sets pullout timetable

Reminder: Armenia is occupying Azerbaijani land.