This is horrible from two perspectives. First, we are abandoning a staunch ally in the region. Second, it further encourages Iran to be belligerent against Saudi Arabia and Israel to test America’s resolve to support our allies.
US troops have begun withdrawing from positions in northern Syria, paving the way for a Turkish operation against Kurdish fighters in the border area.
Kurdish-led forces have until now been a key US ally in Syria, where they helped defeat the Islamic State group, but Turkey regards them as terrorists.
The main Kurdish-led group called the surprise US move a “stab in the back”.
But President Donald Trump defended the pullout, saying it was time “to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars”.
The withdrawal represents a significant shift in US foreign policy and goes against the advice of senior officials in the Pentagon and state department. It follows a White House statement issued late on Sunday, saying US troops were stepping aside for an imminent Turkish operation.
IZMIR, Turkey — American pastor Andrew Brunson walked out of court a free man today after 24 months of imprisonment, including house arrest.
A Turkish judge convicted Brunson on charges of “providing aid to terrorist groups without being a member,” while sentencing him to time served and lifting a ban on foreign travel, clearing the way for his return to the U.S.
Brunson hugged his wife and shed tears of joy as he left the courtroom flanked by an American delegation. Making a statement in perfect Turkish, the Evangelical Presbyterian minister, who moved to Turkey in 1993, said, “I’m an innocent man — I love Jesus, and I love this country.”
[…]
Brunson, who had maintained his innocence throughout the the trial, ran a small Evangelical Presbyterian parish in the coastal city of Izmir with about 50 members. He was active in humanitarian aid projects to serve Syrian refugees, and that’s where Turkish investigators say he came in contact with members of terrorist groups.
He was jailed in October 2016 amid accusations of having links to groups Turkey blames for a bloody coup attempt three months earlier. Several of Brunson’s parishioners testified as witnesses, both for and against him.
The final courtroom drama played out in a series of bizarre and dramatic surprises as several witnesses for the prosecution recanted their testimonies.
One woman said she did not personally know Brunson. Two men contradicted their past assertions. When the newly appointed prosecutor asked them about past statements they made asserting that a parishioner — a member of the blacklisted Kurdistan Workers Party — was building bombs, both men said that the statements were rumors they had heard from the other.
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities said they had arrested more than a thousand “secret Imams” who had infiltrated police forces on behalf of a U.S.-based cleric accused by President Tayyip Erdogan of trying to topple him last July.
The nationwide sweep was one of the largest operations in months against suspected supporters of the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan. Gulen denies any part in the coup led by military officers.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the overnight crackdown targeted a Gulen network “that infiltrated our police force, called ‘secret imams’.
“One thousand and nine secret imams have been detained so far in 72 provinces, and the operation is ongoing,” he told reporters in Ankara.
Another 9,103 personnel from Turkey’s police force were suspended on Wednesday, police headquarters in Ankara said in a statement on its web site, citing alleged links with Gulen’s network.
In the aftermath of the failed July coup, authorities arrested 40,000 people and sacked or suspended 120,000 from a wide range of professions including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with terrorist groups.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s push for an executive presidency succeeded with 51.4% voting for it.
The win was met with both celebrations and protests across Turkey.
[…]
What’s in the new constitution?
The president will have a five-year tenure, for a maximum of two terms
The president will be able to directly appoint top public officials, including ministers and one or several vice-presidents
The job of prime minister will be scrapped
The president will have power to intervene in the judiciary, which Mr Erdogan has accused of being influenced by Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based preacher he blames for the failed coup in July
The president will decide whether or not impose a state of emergency
Mr Erdogan says the changes are needed to address Turkey’s security challenges after last July’s attempted coup, and to avoid the fragile coalition governments of the past.
The new system, he argues, will resemble those in France and the US and will bring calm in a time of turmoil marked by a Kurdish insurgency, Islamist militancy and conflict in neighbouring Syria, which has led to a huge refugee influx.
Critics of the changes fear the move will make the president’s position too powerful, arguing that it amounts to one-man rule, without the checks and balances of other presidential systems such as those in France and the US.
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s parliament has approved key measures allowing the president to be a member of a political party and issue decrees, part of a constitutional reform the opposition says will fuel authoritarianism.
The ruling AK Party, backed by the nationalist MHP, is pushing through legislation that President Tayyip Erdogan says will bring strong executive leadership needed to prevent a return to the fragile coalition governments of the past.
The three articles approved overnight set out parliament’s supervisory role, enable the president to retain ties with a political party and detail the president’s executive powers as head of state, including the power to issue decrees.
Istanbul (AFP) – Turkey on Saturday ordered the dismissal of almost 8,400 civil servants and the closure of over 80 associations, including sports clubs, in the latest round of purges after the July failed coup.
More than 100,000 people have already been suspended or sacked in a crackdown on those alleged to have links to coup-plotters in a relentless purge that shows no sign of slowing.
According to three new decrees published within the state of emergency imposed after the coup, 8,390 more civil servants are to lose their jobs from 63 different state institutions.
They include 2,687 police officers, 1,699 civil servants from the justice ministry, 838 health officials and hundreds of employees from other ministries.
Another 631 academics and eight members of the Council of State were also dismissed.
The dismissals are authorised by the cabinet and require no parliamentary approval under the state of emergency, which has twice been extended and is now due to last until April 19.
Ankara (AFP) – Turkey faced fresh accusations it was flouting the rule of law with its purge of 50,000 people after an attempted coup, as the president gathered security chiefs Wednesday for the first time since the putsch.
Authorities have rounded up or sacked tens of thousands of police, judges, teachers and other civil servants from across the state bureaucracy in the aftermath of Friday’s failed bid to seize power by disgruntled elements in the military.
But the purge has sparked an outpouring of global concern with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman saying: “nearly every day we are seeing new measures that flout the rule of law and that disregard the principle of proportionality.”
A former air force commander has denied being a ringleader of Friday’s attempted military coup in Turkey.
Gen Akin Ozturk and 26 senior officers were charged with treason and remanded in custody by a court on Monday, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
But in a statement to prosecutors, the general insisted: “I am not the person who planned or led the coup.”
Anadolu had earlier quoted him as telling interrogators that he had “acted with intention to stage a coup”.
Officials have blamed the unrest, which killed at least 232 people and wounded 1,400, on the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and the “parallel structure” they say he has formed to topple the government.
“I don’t know who planned or directed it. According to my experiences, I think that the [Gulen movement] attempted this coup,” Gen Ozturk was quoted as telling prosecutors by Anadolu before appearing in court in Ankara.
“But I cannot tell who within the armed forces organised and carried it out. I have no information. I have fought against this structure.”
This alleged coup attempt is smelling stranger and stranger. Since when is there a coup without a leader proclaiming his or her cause to attract support? And it was crushed so quickly… I’m beginning to suspect that the whole thing was staged by the government as an excuse to purge their opposition. Then again, maybe it’s just late and time for me to go to bed.
(CNN)Some Turkish military units have attempted an uprising that will be not allowed to succeed, the country’s prime minister said late Friday in a phone interview with Turkish broadcaster A Haber.
A report from the U.S. Embassy in Ankara said military-appearing jets had been flying low over the city and over Istanbul for about an hour.
Two bridges in Istanbul are closed in one direction by the military.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has used crude language in a furious new attack on Turkey over the downing of a Russian combat jet last month.
The incident on the Syria-Turkey border was a “hostile act” but Russia was “not the country” to run away, he told his annual news conference.
“The Turks”, he said, had “decided to lick the Americans in a certain place”.
There was, he said, a “creeping Islamisation of Turkey that would have Ataturk rolling in his grave”.
The remark appeared to be aimed at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose AKP party, with its Islamist roots, has been accused of seeking to dismantle the secular state founded by Kemal Ataturk.
US defence secretary Ashton Carter later said Turkey had to do more to combat Islamic State militants , saying it had not effectively controlled its borders to stop the movement of IS fighters.
Perhaps Turkey should be offering IS fighters a path to citizenship. Aren’t they just looking for a better life?
ANKARA/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday after repeated warnings over air space violations, but Moscow said it could prove the jet had not left Syrian air space.
It was the first time a NATO member’s armed forces have downed a Russian or Soviet military aircraft since the 1950s and Russian and Turkish assets fell on fears of an escalation between the former Cold War enemies.
A Kremlin spokesman said it was a “very serious incident” but that it was too early to draw conclusions.
Footage from private Turkish broadcaster Haberturk TV showed the warplane going down in flames in a woodland area, a long plume of smoke trailing behind it. The plane went down in area known by Turks as “Turkmen Mountain”, it said.
