There have been several clashes between Syrian and Turkish military forces in the last two weeks, as Syria attempts to retake Idlib province from rebel forces. Turkey has carved out a demilitarized zone in Idlib, which is supposed to be a safe zone for Syrian civilians. Their goal is to prevent a flood of refugees from crossing the Syrian border.

But Syria is ignoring the Moscow-negotiated cease-fire and driving hundreds of thousands of refugees toward Turkey, most of them in desperate straits.

The UN is warning of a humanitarian catastrophe as 700,000 Syrians are on the move with nowhere to go. But there are likely to be more refugees as Syria and Turkey have now come to blows, with President Erdogan promising to "punish" Syria for attacking Turkish positions in Idlib.

Washington Times:

The Trump administration is seizing the chance to egg Turkey on Syria. The farther Erdogan goes in his Idlib adventure the more pressure there is on Russian-Turkish relations, and the more the US can advertise its unquestioned support for Turkey contrasted with Russian opposition and resistance.

It would be clever politics but for the fact it means siding with al-Qaeda.

Now we have Turkey protecting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from the Syrians, and the US offering to “coordinate” with Turkey (presumably to insulate it from Russian pressure and/or reaction) as it does that.

For the first time in about 8 years of the war, Syrian government forces have established control of the entire M5 highway, which runs from the border with Jordan through Damascus, Homs and Hama to Aleppo.

The PR department of the Turkish Defense Ministry dealt a crushing blow to forces of the Assad regime that had once again treacherously attacked innocent Turkish personnel in the province of Idlib. At least 5 Turkish soldiers were killed and 5 others were injured in the attack.

On February 10, the Turkish statement targeted 115 ‘regime targets’, ‘neutralized’ 101 ‘regime personnel’, ‘destroyed’ 3 tanks, 2 artillery positions and ‘hit’ a helicopter. After the February 3 Syrian strike on Erdogan forces, Ankara said that the Turkish military had stricken over 50 ‘regime’ targets ‘neutralizing’ at least 76 pro-government fighters. Therefore, the scale of decisive claims demonstrated a successful growth.

Syrian forces enter al-Qaeda-held town or Saraqeb.

After the Turkish military attacked and killed scores of Syrian soldiers in the same area, Syria has launched a new offensive against al-Qaeda-held Saraqeb, and Syrian forces have reportedly entered the town.

Turkey is very averse to the idea of Syria taking any more territory from al-Qaeda, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is demanding Russia immediately force Syria to stop all offensives in Idlib Province.

Cavusoglu said Russia must “immediately stop the regime,” and that Turkey considers Syria contesting these towns as a source of “humanitarian drama.”

Syria’s interest in Idlib, beyond it being part of Syria and just rife with Islamists, is that two towns, Maarat al-Numaan and Saraqeb, are on the main highway between Damascus and Aleppo. Syria would very much like full control of that highway, and having already taken the former town, they are pushing to take the later as well.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We have often discussed the struggle of women in Muslim countries in resisting religious-based requirements for coverings and limitations on their movements and interactions. Turkey was once the exception among these countries as a secular, modern nation. That was before the rise of Islamic parties under the authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey under Erdogan has already rolled back on protections for girls and women in abuse cases.

Now the country is considering a horrific law aptly called the “marry-your-rapist” bill.

Under this legislation, men accused of having sex with underaged girls could avoid punishment if they marry their victims.

Ankara will not sit idly by as the Syrian Army carries out an offensive in northeastern Idlib province, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned, saying all options, including the most extreme ones, are on the table.
“We will not watch the situation in Syria… We will not hesitate to do whatever it takes, including using military force,” Erdogan said on Friday in Ankara. He claimed that attacks by the “Syrian regime” causes an influx of migrants into Turkey.

"We will do what is necessary when someone is threatening our soil. We will have no choice but to resort to the same path again if the situation in Idlib is not returned to normal quickly."

On Tuesday, Syrian government forces entered a town south of Idlib city and had significant success in their fight against militants. Turkey warned that it would retaliate if any of its 12 observation posts around the city were caught in the crossfire.

Via AlMasdarNews.com,

The Libyan National Army (LNA) announced that Turkey had deployed two Turkish warships, anti-aircraft missiles and air defense systems to the capital city of Tripoli.

In addition to this accusation, the LNA said the Turkish military sent at least 3,000 Syrian militants to Libya since late December.

“The number of Syrian mercenaries transported by Turkey to Libya exceeded three thousand,” the Libyan National Army spokesman, Major General Ahmed al-Mesmari said at a press conference yesterday evening, noting that “Ankara transported dangerous terrorists from Syria to Libya through the Misrata and Mitiga airports and Port of Tripoli.”

At a moment tensions are soaring over Turkey's expansive East Mediterranean claims, and after starting early last summer it began sending oil and gas exploration and drilling ships off Cyprus' coast, Ankara is demanding that Greece “demilitarize” its islands in the Aegean Sea, reports Bloomberg.

The demand from Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who formally requested Greece move to withdraw armed forces and weaponry from 16 Aegean islands near Turkey on Wednesday, is rich given it's Turkey that's been provocatively sending warships and military jets to accompany illegal gas drilling in the area, something lately condemned by the EU.

At a moment tensions are soaring over Turkey's expansive East Mediterranean claims, and after starting early last summer it began sending oil and gas exploration and drilling ships off Cyprus' coast, Ankara is demanding that Greece “demilitarize” its islands in the Aegean Sea, reports Bloomberg.

The demand from Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who formally requested Greece move to withdraw armed forces and weaponry from 16 Aegean islands near Turkey on Wednesday, is rich given it's Turkey that's been provocatively sending warships and military jets to accompany illegal gas drilling in the area, something lately condemned by the EU.

Just days after Turkey vowed “to teach a lesson” to Libya’s strongman General Haftar, Greece – still at odds with Ankara – told him that it could send in some “forces,” tasked with observing a truce and “removal of mercenaries.”
Nikos Dendias, Greece’s Foreign Minister, had “a long conversation” with General Khalifa Haftar, who paid a low-key visit to Athens ahead of a Libya peace conference in Berlin. “We want a ceasefire, the removal of mercenaries and the cancellation of illegal agreements,” Dendias said without elaborating.

The chief diplomat told Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army (LNA), that Greece was ready to help “with [deploying] forces” that would monitor the ceasefire with the rival Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).

“All of this is a contribution to the future of the Libyan people. We want it to be a modern democratic country,” Dendias proclaimed.

he U.S. Air Force has announced that it will pay eight different Turkish firms tens of millions of dollars to update the infrastructure and complete other construction projects at facilities it operates in that country over the next five years. This comes amid threats from Turkey's government, including from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to suspend or outright terminate American access to various bases in the country, including Incirlik Air Base, where the United States presently stores approximately 50 B61 nuclear bombs.

The Pentagon announced the Air Force deals, worth $95 million in total, in its daily contracting announcement on Dec. 23, 2019. The notice does not say how much each of the Turkish companies received. The Air Force only considered offers from local companies in accordance with the U.S.-Turkey Defense Economic Cooperation Agreement (DECA), which the two countries signed in 1980 and includes guarantees for Turkish participation in military construction projects.

Bloomberg has confirmed on Friday the prior rumors that Turkey will be sending mercenaries to Libya — where it is propping up the UN-backed government in Tripoli (the GNA) — are true. "Turkey is preparing to deploy troops and naval forces to support the internationally-recognized Libyan government, joining a planned push by Ankara-backed Syrian rebels to defeat strongman Khalifa Haftar," reports Bloomberg.

Though Ankara has yet to confirm or deny the new reports, Erdogan's Turkey has for years overseen a Libya-to-Turkey-to-Syria arms "rat line" which saw both heavy weaponry and jihadists fighters transported for the purpose of toppling Assad. But now with Erdogan's eyes set on defeating Benghazi-based General Khalifa Haftar, it appears this arms and jihadist rat line has conveniently been reversed.

Late on December 23, the Turkish-based “Syrian Interim Government” (an entity funded by Turkey in an attempt to legalize its actions in Syria) threatened the real Syrian government with a military action.

In a released statement, it claimed that forces that participated in Turkey’s Olive Branch and Euphrates Shield operations are now moving to Greater Idlib in order to support their counterparts in repelling an attack by “regime forces, Russia and Iranian militias”.

It remains unclear what “forces” the barely existing “defense ministry” is planning to send to Idlib because Turkish-backed militant groups are already supporting al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the battle against the Syrian Army. The Turkish-backed coalition of militant groups, the National Front for Liberation, has always been a useful partner for al-Qaeda in Idlib.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE
As we predicted the Libyan war 2.0 has spilled into the Mediterranean and now standings on the brink of becoming a major renewed international proxy conflict bringing in regional powers, especially Turkey, Egypt, and potentially Russia.

The pro-Haftar Libyan National Army (LNA), based in the war-torn country's east, announced late Saturday it seized a Turkish vessel and briefly detained several Turkish crew members while the freighter was searched for weapons. "A vessel under the flag of Grenada, with a team of Turkish citizens on board, was detained," the LNA press service said. It was seized “because it entered Libya’s territorial waters without prior permission,” the LNA spokesman added.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey may need to draft a bill to allow for troop deployment to Libya and its parliament is working on the issue, Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Tuesday, after Ankara signed a military cooperation agreement with Tripoli last month.

“There might be a need for an authorisation in line with the developments over there. The parliament is conducting work on this issue,” Kalin told a news conference in Ankara.

“We will continue to support the internationally recognised Libyan government. This support may be in terms of military training, or other areas, such as political support,” Kalin said.

At a moment Erdogan has his hands dirty in Syria and is preparing to get more militarily involved in Libya, Turkey's president has yet again threatened Europe with a refugee horde so large no country will be able to handle it. He's now specifically threatened Greece as being among the first to bear the brunt of the first waves of refugees unleashed by Turkey.

His threats are now centering on the major uptick in airstrikes by Russia and Syria on Idlib province, said to number in the "hundreds" since a new operation began on Dec.16. Since then, tens of thousands of civilians living under al-Qaeda's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have reportedly fled.

"Turkey cannot handle a fresh wave of migrants from Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, warning that European countries will feel the impact of such an influx if violence in Syria’s northwest is not stopped," Reuters reports.

UN-recognised government in Tripoli says it will boost cooperation with Ankara, sources tell Al Jazeera.

Citing transcripts of Israel Police interrogations, British newspaper The Telegraph says the group is operating out of Istanbul, where at least 11 senior Hamas members are now living, with the Turkish president only telling the group to stay away from his own country's institutions

During the past week, the situation significantly escalated in Libya, with Turkey expanding its military involvement in the conflict.

In late November, Turkey signed with the Government of National Accord (GNA), which controls only a small part of northern Libya, deals on security cooperation and maritime jurisdiction. By this move Ankara, the main backer of the GNA and pro-GNA militants, tried to legalize its economic zone claims in the eastern Mediterranean and thus legalize its controversial drilling activities in the region. At the same time, Turkey sees its involvement in the Libyan conflict as a tool of expansion of its own influence in the entire region.

A week ago Erdogan said that he was ready to deploy troops to Libya on short notice. Today rumors appeared in Arab media, still unconfirmed, that Turkish special operations forces landed in Tripoli.

The Libyan war between two Libyan parties will now become a very different beast. Egypt will not tolerate a Muslim Brotherhood led Libya as its neighbor. Before the Turkish support allows the GNA government to defeat Haftar Egypt will intervene. The situation can thereby soon develop into an intense war during which Turkish troops fight on Libyan grounds against the Egyptian military.

Both countries have rich Arab sponsors who can finance a long and intense conflict. Both have lots of material and many many soldiers who they can throw into the fight. The Egyptian side has one advantage. Its long land border allows for easy resupply while Turkey will have to rely on supplies that come by sea and air and can be cut off or at least interrupted.

Turkey has warned that the United States’ decision to end a decades-old arms embargo on Cyprus would be a “dangerous escalation.”

In a statement issued late Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the US decision “will have no outcome other than hampering efforts toward a settlement on the island and creating a dangerous escalation.”

The US Congress voted Tuesday to lift the arms embargo on Cyprus, which has been in place since 1987. The measure has passed both chambers of Congress as part of a massive defense spending bill, with President Donald Trump likely to sign it.

The bill comes at a time of tensions between Turkey and the US over such issues as Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 system and Washington’s support for Kurdish-led militants in Syria.

Is this how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to "get back" at Washington for the recent US bill that recognizes the 1915 Armenian Genocide? Last month he had warned Trump directly of dire consequences if the term "genocide" is formalized in US law.

And now, according to The Independent, Erdogan says Turkey could in turn give legal recognition to the mass killing of native Americans by European settlers and American colonists in the latest tit-for-tat move against the Congressional resolution.

“Can we speak about America without mentioning [Native Americans]? It is a shameful moment in US history,” Erdogan said in a televised interview this week, raising the threat of a reciprocal measure. Theoretically such Turkish legislation would mean the Turkish government could not associate itself with any event or institution which involved denial of the 'genocide' of native Americans.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has dropped a bombshell by announcing that he could shut down the NATO-controlled Incirlik airbase that hosts U.S. nuclear bombs and the U.S. missile warning radar at Kurecik military base, in response to Washington’s threats of sanctions against Turkey. These nuclear bombs are of course placed purposefully close to Russia. The Incirlik air base in the southern Turkish province of Adana is used by the U.S. Air Force while the U.S. military also maintains a missile warning radar in the Kurecik district in Turkey’s southeastern Malatya province, which is part of NATO’s missile defense system in Europe.

“If it is necessary for us to take such a step, of course, we have the authority… We will close down Incirlik if necessary,” Erdo?an said on A Haber TV on Sunday.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday said he needed to speak with his Turkish counterpart to understand how serious Ankara about shutting down two strategic airbases.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Sunday that Turkey could close Incirlik and Kurecik air bases in response to threats of Washington sanctions and a US Senate resolution that recognized the Armenian Genocide, Daily Sabah reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that in response to the US Senate’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, the Turkish Parliament may adopt a resolution on the genocide of Native Americans during American colonization, RIA Novosti reports.

“We have opened more than a million documents on the events of 1915; come and study [them],” Erdogan said on A Haber TV. “We are talking about documents held in our hands. We must also take action against you by such decisions of our parliament; and we will. How can we keep silent about Native Americans when talking about America? This is a shameful chapter of the US.”

French President Emmanuel Macron complained during the NATO summit in London earlier this month about Turkey's decision to buy a Russian missile-defense system and its invasion of Syria, musing about how Turkey could justify its continued membership in the alliance if it counties to flout its interests at every turn.

These comments, only the latest round of complaints about Turkey's behavior toward its Western NATO allies, inspired speculation about whether NATO could formally expel Turkey. But aside from whatever legal complications might lie in wait, we posit that there's another more fundamental reason why NATO likely won't be able to expel Turkey. Because Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would likely quit first.

The years-long war for post-Gaddafi Libya now threatens to spill over into the Mediterranean as Turkey and Greece line up on either side of the conflict. Each side is now threatening the others' allied ships in southern waters after a controversial maritime deal expanded Turkish claims off Libya's coast.

On Thursday Benghazi-based General Kalifa Haftar declared his Libyan National Army has begun its "final decisive battle" to wrest control of the capital of Tripoli from the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).

"Zero hour has come for the broad and total assault expected by every free and honest Libyan," Haftar said in a televised address, reports Al Jazeera. "Today, we announce the decisive battle and the advancement towards the heart of the capital to set it free... advance now our heroes." Beginning eight months ago Haftar launched a siege of Tripoli, which has been stalled in recent months.

With the world fixated on Turkish actions against Syria, Greece and Libya at the moment, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate of the United States Congress approved a bill, “Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act,” spearheaded and thoroughly promoted by staunch anti-Syria/Venezuela/Iran/Russia Democratic Senator Robert Menendez who celebrated the bills passing on his Twitter. The Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 18-4 to send the bill for a vote in the full Senate.

The approval of the bill was widely reported in the mainstream media as an “anti-Turkey bill.” Senator Jim Risch, the panel’s Republican chairman, a fellow endorser of the bill with Menendez, said that the approval of this bill is because of the “drift by this country, Turkey, to go in an entirely different direction than what they have in the past. They’ve thumbed their nose at us, and they’ve thumbed their nose at their other NATO allies.”

The day before, the Senate joined the House of Representatives in passing a resolution to officially recognise the Armenian genocide, which for years has been a divisive issue in the US politics.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned on Friday US Ambassador to the country over the US Senate's latest decision to recognise the Armenian genocide.

Turkey will consider requesting that the U.S. withdraw from Incirlik Air Base if Washington imposes sanctions on Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu said.

In an interview on A Haber news channel, the Turkish minister highlighted that Turkey will consider all options if the U.S. imposes sanctions in response to the purchase of Russia's S-400 missile defense systems.

On December 10, the military situation escalated in northern Lattakia and the surrounding area. According to pro-government sources, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and allied militant groups conducted attacked and shelled several positions of the Syrian Army near the M4 highway and south of the town of Kbani.

In response, Syrian air forces and artillery units conducted strikes on militants’ positions near Jisr al-Shoughur, al-Janoudiya, and at a contact line near the M4 highway and Kbani. Pro-militant sources immediately described these strikes as an example of blatant aggression and ceasefire violations by the Assad regime.

Pro-Turkish sources reported that units affiliated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces shelled positions of Turkish-backed militant groups near the city of Afrin.

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara will not abandon the Russian S-400 air defence systems in order to buy American Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a statement that Ankara may insist that the US leave Incirlik air base if Washington goes ahead with the sanctions it has threatened in response to Turkey's purchase of S-400 missiles.

"We will assess the worst-case scenario and make a decision. If the US imposes sanctions against Turkey, then the issue of the Incirlik and Kurecik bases may be on the agenda," Cavusoglu said.
The missile attack early warning radar, which is part of the NATO missile defence system in Europe, deployed in the Kurecik region of Malatya province in southeastern Turkey, was put into operation in early 2012. Its functioning is provided for by the US military.

Two recent developments highlight how the new world is being invented by the Chinese—and how it will affect the Middle East and central Asia.

Last month, while Congress busied itself with impeachment hearings, a mammoth Chinese cargo train arrived in Turkey en route to the heart of Europe. It will be remembered as the first freight train to pass from China across central Asia and under the Bosphorus Strait, using the Marmaray tunnel as part of China’s historic Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Like the Suez Canal in its day, this “Iron Silk Road” through central Asia is a time saver, with the added bonus of circumventing sea routes now controlled by the West. It will reduce the transportation time between China and Turkey from one month to 12 days, while the entire journey from Xi’an to Prague in the heart of Europe will take only 18 days, half the time of a similar journey by sea and at similar cost.

On December 9, Russian forces entered the city of Raqqa for the first time since the start of their anti-terrorism operation in 2015. A unit of the Russian Military Police set up a temporary humanitarian point and provided locals with aid. According to the Russian side, such humanitarian actions will be a regular practice.

A series of firefights erupted between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Turkish-led forces to the southeast of Ras al-Ayn. Nonetheless, no side carried out offensive actions. Local sources links the recent clashes with individual initiative of some field commanders.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units have deployed large reinforcements near the Syrian-Iraqi border, west of Mosul.

Via Al-Masdar News,

A Greek fighter jet allegedly obtained 'missile lock' on a Turkish frigate that was traveling off the coast of Cyprus on December 8, 2019, the Aviationist reported.

Citing photos from the Twitter profile of journalist Yannis Nikitas, the Aviationist reported that a Greek Mirage 2000 jet targeted the Turkish frigate with Exocet anti-ship missiles during a show of force over the weekend.

We first started noticing major 'odd' exports of gold from Turkey to Iran in May 2012. Turkey’s trade balance fluctuated wildly as gold stocks flowed out of the country in bursts.

“Turkey’s going to continue it,” the Turkish economy minister said. “If those casting aspersions on the gold trade are searching for immorality, they should take a look in the mirror.”

Then, in 2014, we discussed Turkey's "200 tons of secret gold" trade with Iran detailing how a complex network that spanned Turkey, China, Dubai and Iran was used to skirt US sanctions on energy exports from Iran.

The operation featured an Iranian-born businessman who liked fast horses, faster cars and the fastest planes. His unique skill: Getting gold into sanctions-encircled Iran.

Enough gold that for a time he became the government’s key instrument in improving Turkey’s irksome economic imbalance.

Republican Senator Kevin Cramer prevented the U.S. Senate from voting on a resolution on Thursday that would recognise as a genocide the mass killings of Armenians a century ago, saying it was not an appropriate time to pass legislation that would anger Turkey.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives passed the resolution by an overwhelming 405-11 in late October. But there has not been a vote in the Senate, where President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans hold a majority of seats.

OURCE: ZEROHEDGE
We first started noticing major 'odd' exports of gold from Turkey to Iran in May 2012. Turkey’s trade balance fluctuated wildly as gold stocks flowed out of the country in bursts.

“Turkey’s going to continue it,” the Turkish economy minister said. “If those casting aspersions on the gold trade are searching for immorality, they should take a look in the mirror.”

Then, in 2014, we discussed Turkey's "200 tons of secret gold" trade with Iran detailing how a complex network that spanned Turkey, China, Dubai and Iran was used to skirt US sanctions on energy exports from Iran.

The operation featured an Iranian-born businessman who liked fast horses, faster cars and the fastest planes. His unique skill: Getting gold into sanctions-encircled Iran.

Enough gold that for a time he became the government’s key instrument in improving Turkey’s irksome economic imbalance.

A Turkish diplomat has revealed a map which delineates waters in the Mediterranean claimed by Turkey, amid an ongoing months-long standoff with Cyprus and Greece over Turkish oil and gas exploration and drilling inside Cyprus' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

"After signing deals with its own puppet state in occupied northern Cyprus and with the pseudo-government in Libya's Tripoli, Turkey declares that it owns half of the eastern Mediterranean," Aron Lund, an analyst at The Century Foundation, observes of the newly published map.

With this renewed effort to combat Daesh forces in Syria, it’s understandable that some observers are scratching their heads, considering the fact that the commander-in-chief has declared ad nauseum that those same Daesh forces have been eliminated over the past year.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s repeated declarations of victory over Daesh, the US has - once again - announced a resumption in operations against the group. While the tug-of-war between the commander-in-chief and the Pentagon is apparent, one expert points out that there is one thing both parties can agree on: oil.

In a Saturday press conference, US Air Force Maj. Gen. Eric Hill announced that, following operations on November 22, a US-led coalition was able to not only capture a “significant amount” of small arms, ammunition and explosives, but also detained over a dozen Daesh soldiers.

Oil tankers and oil makeshift refineries in northeast Syria were bombed by ‘mysterious’ planes yesterday morning, SANA later stated it was done by the Syrian Army regional command.

The statement conveyed Syrian Arab News Agency SANA was brief but very meaningful:

“SANA’s correspondent in al-Hasakah quoted a field source as saying: after verifying that some Kurdish organizations in the Syrian Jazira region smuggle Syrian oil through tanks through Jarablus and Erbil region in northern Iraq to the Turkish regime, which they claim to be their main enemy, Groups of these tanks and oil refining centers were destroyed this morning.

The source stressed that strict measures will be taken against any smuggling of stolen oil from Syrian territory outside Syria.”

Syrian Jazira region refers to the Syrian territories east and northeast of the Euphrates.

That’s it!

Ankara has reportedly been blackmailing NATO, refusing to sign the proposed defense plan for the Baltics and Poland unless the alliance officially recognizes Kurdish-led militia in northern Syria as a “terrorist group.”
Agreeing on a new NATO defense plan for the eastern European countries has escalated from a formality into a true diplomatic battle, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing four senior sources within the bloc.

“[The Turks) are taking eastern Europeans hostage, blocking approval of this military planning until they get concessions,” one of the sources said.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
The Israeli government is aiming to increase the volume of Israel’s defence exports, reported Globes, which has revealed the main points of the plan for the first time.

The project, being overseen by the Defence Ministry’s International Defence Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) led by Brigadier General (Res.) Yair Kulas, will begin to be rolled out in early 2020.

According to Globes, the plan is based on “focused seminars for senior commanders in foreign armies”, Israeli military “assistance for promoting sales of Israeli weapons”, and “subsidising small and medium-sized defence companies seeking to sell arms around the world”.

Speaking this week, Kulas said that SIBAT favours a major expansion of agreements between countries, resulting in significant deals for the large defence companies, especially Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.

A Kurdish senior foreign affairs official, Aldar Xelil, reported that the US has assured Kurdish forces that US troops will remain in the oilfield area between Derik and Terbespiya, in eastern Syria.

This assurance doesn’t seem to be helping the Kurds feel a lot better, however. with Xelil pointing out that this really isn’t going to do anything to prevent the Turkish offensives into northeastern Syria.

The US announced a “pullout” from Syria but ended up just redeploying around the oil, with President Trump saying the oil is the priority. Xelil says the US has no intention of staying anywhere west of Qamilshli, and for the Kurds, that’s a problem.

The US is still in Syria, but there’s about 100 km gap between Syrian-held Syria and US-held oilfield where Turkey and its rebels are not only free to invade Kurdish-held territory, but to push potentially quite deep into Kurdish territory.

A Republican United States Senate member on Thursday blocked a resolution recognising the "Armenian genocide", the second time in a week that a member of President Donald Trump’s party halted the measure.

Senator David Perdue prevented a bipartisan effort to pass the resolution by unanimous consent, arguing that its passage during a sensitive period "would undermine the administration’s commitment to overcoming real challenges in our bilateral relationship with Turkey".

The move angered Senate Democrat Robert Menendez, whose effort had been rebuffed the previous week after Republican congressmen met with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"It is amazing to me that the greatest superpower on the face of the earth just can’t speak [the] truth of history," Menendez said.

So much for drawing down in the Middle East. President Trump notified Congress on Tuesday that more American troops are en route to Saudi Arabia, which will bring their overall numbers to about 3,000 in the kingdom.

"These personnel will remain deployed as long as their presence is required to fulfill the missions described above," the president said in a letter.

The official White House notification of Congressional members described the American military presence there as essential in countering Iran's influence in the region.

President Trump’s position on the Syrian War aims to further simplify matters. Turkey’s President Erdogan says he is worried about Turkey’s border with Syria, and President Trump sees an opportunity to contrast his own war, saying “we left troops behind only for the oil.”

In the context of US-Turkey relations, this seems very straightforward and avoids conflicts of interest. Admitting that the whole US war is for oil isn’t the panacea Trump thinks it is, however, and he’s running up against other US officials on this issue.

Lawmakers are couching the Syrian War as being about protecting the Kurds, while the Pentagon’s leadership sees it heavily built around fighting ISIS and continuing to work toward regime change in Syria. Some even suggest it’s about countering Russia.

Trump’s all-oil agenda directly contradicts everyone else, and gives the impression that the US is being deliberately evasive about its military agenda and where US foreign policy is going.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) blocked a resolution on Wednesday that would have formally recognized the Ottoman Empire's genocide against the Armenian people.

Entirely to be expected, a new report in The Wall Street Journal has found that Turkish-backed Syrian forces currently fighting US-backed Kurdish groups as part of 'Operation Peace Spring' are guilty of war crimes, including summary executions of Kurdish civilians.

"U.S. military officials watched live drone feeds last month that appeared to show Turkish-backed Arab gunmen targeting civilians during their assault on Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, attacks the Americans reported to their commanders as possible war crimes, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the incidents," reports the WSJ.

What the report fails to mention, however, is the blatantly obvious and relevant recent history that the Islamist militants carrying out such atrocities are the very same militants which were a few short years ago funded, armed and trained by the CIA and Pentagon.

Have Turkey's floodgates begun to open? For months now the question of what to do with foreign jihadists which flooded Syria over the course of the eight-year long war has been intensely debated. President Erdogan has shocked European officials by repeatedly threatening to unleash them along with some three million Syrian refugees on Europe if his 'Operation Peace Spring' does not gain support, and if the EU rejects his 'safe zone' offer.

But as of Monday Turkish officials announced plans to begin sending hundreds of the some 1200 plus ISIS detainees and other jihadists it has in its custody back to Europe, saying Turkey "is not a hotel for jihadists" — to quote an Interior Ministry statement from last week.

Maj. Gen. Eric Hill, addressing the arrival of more armored vehicles at the US positions in eastern Syria, says it is part of the “resetting” of the US position further east, and required the US to have more “combat power here to sustain ourselves.”

Maj. Gen. Hill says that the goal is not simply to have power to match ISIS but “the militaries of the Syrian regime, the Russians, or even militias backed by fellow NATO partner Turkey.” The focus is on how everyone is carving up territory in eastern Syria, which was once controlled by the US and its Kurdish allies.

Though the Pentagon likes to brag about its ability to project power across the world, in Syria its ability to accomplish anything has historically hinged on getting the Kurds to do it for them. Though the deployment at the oilfields is no doubt capable of inflicting some casualties if control of the fields is challenged, it’s hard to imagine that the US believes it would truly hold this ground with a few hundred troops.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
The British founder of the organisation that trained the Syrian rescue group known as the White Helmets has died in Istanbul.

A spokesman for the White Helmets confirmed on Monday afternoon the death of James Le Mesurier, but said further details were yet to be established.

Le Mesurier, 48, was found dead near his apartment in central Istanbul’s Beyo?lu neighbourhood at around 4.30am. Turkish media reports said he was found with fractures to his head and legs near the building on Monday morning and appeared to have fallen from the balcony of one of the apartments.

The office of Istanbul’s governor said it had commenced a “comprehensive” investigation into the death.

Over the past days, Syria’s northeast has been the main point of instability in the war-torn country.

On November 10, the Turkish-backed coalition of militant groups, the Syrian National Army, announced that it was resuming it offensive in the area. The group justified this move by claiming that the Kurdish People Protection Units and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which are the core of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, violate the safe-zone agreement reached by Ankara and Moscow. According to the Turkish version of the events, Kurdish rebels did not fully with draw from the border area and continued attacks on positions of Turkish-led forces and civilians.

Whether to control the oil or flat out take the oil, US statements on the new military mission in Syria are heavily oil-themed. Other reports, however, suggest that the operation is a lot more complicated than that.

In reality, a lot of the goal is nation-building, with US forces meant to both keep the Syrian government out of this part of Syria, and try to “bring prosperity” to the region, propping up a potential territory of rebels.

This is again built around the assumption that the US can manufacture an autonomous, prosperous region, using the oilfields as the revenue source, and then steer that region toward hostility with the rest of Syria.

This will likely end up being a plan easier for the Trump Administration to sell than overt theft of oil, as it allows the US to retain its primary focus, military hostility toward Syria with an eye toward eventual regime change.

Submitted by Nauman Sadiq, an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

A car bomb exploded in northern Syria killing 13 and wounding 20. The blast on Saturday ripped through a crowded market in Tal Abyad, a town recently occupied by Turkish-backed militant proxies. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blast targeted pro-Turkey fighters and civilians were also among the dead.

Even though the Turkish Defense Ministry promptly laid the finger of blame on Turkey’s arch-foe, the Kurdish YPG militia, without conducting an investigation, car bombing as a tactic for causing widespread fear is generally employed by jihadist groups and not by the Kurds.

Compare US pillaging with Russia-Iran-Turkey’s active involvement in a political solution to normalize Syria..

What happened in Geneva this Wednesday, in terms of finally bringing peace to Syria, could not be more significant: the first session of the Syrian Constitutional Committee.

The Syrian Constitutional Committee sprang out of a resolution passed in January 2018 in Sochi, Russia, by a body called the Syrian National Dialogue Congress.

The 150-strong committee breaks down as 50 members of the Syrian opposition, 50 representing the government in Damascus and 50 representatives of civil society. Each group named 15 experts for the meetings in Geneva, held behind closed doors.

This development is a direct consequence of the laborious Astana process – articulated by Russia, Iran and Turkey. Essential initial input came from former UN Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. Now UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen is working as a sort of mediator.

The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to recognize the mass killings of Armenians a century ago as a genocide, a symbolic but historic vote instantly denounced by Turkey.

The Democratic-controlled House voted 405-11 in favor of a resolution asserting that it is US policy to commemorate as genocide the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. The Ottoman Empire was centered in present-day Turkey.

The vote marked the first time in 35 years that such legislation was considered in the full House, underscoring widespread frustration in Congress with the Turkish government, from both Democrats and President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans.

Donald Trump is justifiably condemned for approving Turkey’s assault against the United States’s Kurdish allies in the war against ISIS. What is not widely known is that the U.S., in a largely secret program dubbed Operation Nomad Shadow, appears to have been using drones for over a decade to help Turkey stalk and kill Kurds.

Although the U.S. is now publicly opposing the Turkish push into Syria, is Nomad Shadow continuing to be used secretly to support Turkish attacks on Kurdish forces there, given, among other things, the apparent U.S. desire to continue operating from Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base and to maintain its nuclear weapons there?

SOURCE: NEW EASTERN OUTLOOK

Timing is Everything

The supposed military operation – unfolding just miles from the Syrian-Turkish border – comes at a time when the prospects of America’s proxy war in Syria have reached all time lows.

First – US proxy forces jointly armed and aided by Turkey as well as other US allies – have been all but eliminated from the battlefield with their remnants residing in Idlib, increasingly encircled by Syrian forces.

Attempts by the US to intervene in Syria directly to oversee the overthrow of the government in Damascus was also thwarted by Russia’s military intervention beginning in 2015.

Moscow and Ankara are close to conclude a deal on the delivery of 36 Russian fighter jets Su-35 to Turkey, Daily Sabah newspaper reported on Friday citing its sources.

The Turkish daily also added that in line with the deal at the issue Turkey will also be granted the right for manufacturing parts and components of Russian fighter jets.

Turkey's Daily Sabah reports that Ankara is close to purchasing an initial round of Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, in what would mark a huge reversal of course following the heated Lockheed F-35 fighter and Russian S-400 saga with Washington, which has sunk US-Turkey relations to a low point over the past year.

Citing Turkish defense sources, the report reveals:

Turkish and Russian officials are discussing the details of the sale of a total of 36 Su-35 fighter jets to Turkey, two months after President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's visit to the International Aviation and Space Salon (MAKS) aviation show outside of Moscow.