Daesh Receiving Assistance From Turkey ‘With Ankara’s Tacit Approval’
Sputnik – March 4, 2016
Mounting evidence appears to indicate that Turkey is providing extensive support to Daesh and al-Nusra Front, the two key terrorist organizations that have turned Syria into ruins and wreak chaos elsewhere.
“Taking publicly available information into account, we’ve come to the conclusion that Turkey has directly or indirectly served as Daesh’s mediator and ally by helping the radical group to prepare and commit terrorist acts, acquire necessary resources and recruit new fighters,” Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the current Honorary President of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), told Sputnik.
Despite its tough anti-Daesh rhetoric, the Turkish leadership has done nothing to dismantle the existing terrorist network in the country. “After so many horrible terrorist acts, not a single real participant or mastermind has been arrested,” the Turkish politician observed.
Kürkçü also mentioned that some in the Turkish military and law enforcement agencies are in direct contact with the terrorist group. He was referring to a recent report, released by the Cumhuriyet newspaper.
The opposition daily published transcripts of several phone conversations between unnamed Turkish officers and a key Daesh operative in the region bordering Syria. The documents appear to show that Turkish officers not only frequently communicated, but worked with the militants.
It follows then that “at the moment Daesh receives support and recruits with the tacit approval of the Turkish government, as well as the country’s president and prime minister,” Kürkçü concluded.
Meanwhile, RT has published footage shot on the outskirts of the Syrian town of Azaz, which is controlled by al-Nusra Front militants. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have been unable to liberate Azaz because Turkish forces shelled the area.
The YPG told RT’s Lizzie Phelan that al-Nusra Front fighters receive regular supplies of weapons from Turkey.
“We can actually see here the important border town of Azaz, that Turkey is determined to prevent YPG from taking. Just a little beyond that you can see the Bab al-Salam border crossing and a heavy flow of vehicles coming from Turkey into Azaz,” the RT correspondent narrated.
Torn Apart: What Lies Behind Washington’s ‘Plan’ B for Syria
Sputnik – 02.03.2016
Syria may be divided into four parts, the Turkish conservative newspaper Yeni Safak recently reported. According to the article, such a scenario is part of a US plan B if the ceasefire agreement between government and opposition forces fails.
The first area would be controlled by Bashar Assad’s government, including southern Damascus, Homs and Tartus and to the Syrian-Turkish border. The second part is the Kurdish region, including the Kurdish-controlled line east of Aleppo. The third zone is central Idlib controlled by opposition groups. The forth projected part is Daesh-controlled areas as well as Raqqa and Palmyra.
After Daesh is defeated this area would be controlled by the international coalition fighting terrorists, the article in Yeni Safak read.
After a ceasefire deal on Syria was reached Washington announced it was considering a backup plan which should be used if the deal fails. The cessation of fire in Syria commenced on February 27.
According to Yeni Safak, among those supporting the plan B are US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, and CIA Director John Brennan. They have called for President Barack Obama to pressure Moscow and intensify support for Syrian rebel groups.
In the current context, such stove-piping activity is logic, analyst on Middle Eastern affairs Stanislav Tarasov said.
“The recent events have proved that Turkey’s actual policy toward Syria is aimed at dividing the country. What is more, it is logic in the broad context of the Arab Spring, with the gradual fragmentation of Arab states,” he told Svobodnaya Pressa.
According to him, despite the Geneva peace process, there is still a scenario to divide Syria, and some forces are pushing it now.
“One of the most serious issues is Syrian Kurds. If Assad stays in power it would have to pass a new constitution with a new form of territorial division of Syria. Syrian Kurds are now enjoying support from both the US and Russia. And they are likely to ask for more autonomy,” the analyst pointed out.
The Kurdish question is a big concern for Ankara, he added. If Kurds create their own autonomies in both Syria and Iraq, Turkey will be geographically and politically blocked. Such a prospect is also encouraging the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) to intensify its struggle against Ankara, including for a Kurdish autonomous region in Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot let this happen.
This is why, now the Turkish government is testing public attitudes toward this scenario.
As a result, it is clear that despite the course on preventing Syria from disintegration, there are a number of actual processes and contradicting interests in Syria, like it was in Iraq after the US invasion, he concluded.
What is more, he added, some, especially in the Middle East, have insisted that there is no need to destroy Daesh. According to them, only its radical groups should be destroyed, to establish dialogue with its “moderate wing.”
“We are witnessing a trend to legalize Daesh as a pseudo-state formation. Earlier, the US and Turkey proposed a new Sunni state in Daesh-controlled parts of Syria and Iraq,” the analyst said.
He also assumed that if Syria is divided into four parts controlled by different groups difficulties will persist in the implementation of peaceful agreements.
The autonomy of the Syrian Kurdistan is almost an accomplished fact, Semyon Bagdasarov, head of the Center for Middle East and Central Asia Studies, said.
“Syria in its current form is nearing the end. But it’s hard to predict how the country will be divided and which parts will governable and which not,” he said.
Pentagon OKs $683 Million Smart Bomb Deal for Turkey
Sputnik – 01.03.2016
As the Turkish government escalates tensions across the Middle East, the Pentagon has authorized a multimillion dollar deal to sell smart bombs to Ankara.
Last December, the Turkish government deployed a battalion of 25 tanks and roughly 1560 troops into northern Iraq. Acting without Baghdad’s permission, the move was roundly condemned as a breach of sovereignty. Ankara has also been engaged its own internal war against Kurdish communities in the country’s southeast, with the death toll reaching some 5,000 people.
Now, with all parties honoring the Syrian ceasefire, Turkey is threatening to plunge its neighbor back into the five-year civil war.
“[The Turkish government] view themselves as victims and losing parties in the Syrian war,” Germany’s Telepolis magazine noted. “For this reason they will resort to provocations until the ceasefire is shattered.”
Despite Turkey’s destabilizing influence in the region, Washington has chosen to award a $682.9 million contract which will provide Ankara with an undisclosed number of smart bombs.
“The deal came timely as we are deeply engaged in asymmetrical warfare and need smart bombs,” one Turkish military official said, according to Defense News.
The contract was granted to Ellwood National Forge and General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, and includes the sale of of an unnamed number of BLU-109 bunker busters. These bombs contain roughly 550 pounds of a high explosive compound known as tritonal, and thanks to tail fuse delays, the bomb’s detonation is stalled until it reaches its intended underground target.
This is the first such sale to Turkey by US defense contractors, and Ankara expects the transaction to be completed by 2020.
Despite its continuing aggression, Turkey is a key NATO ally, so Washington’s complicity in Ankara’s actions do not come as a surprise.
The US has also played an active role in Saudi Arabia’s Yemen campaign, providing the bombs used during Riyadh’s air campaigns.
“Saudi Arabia has engaged in war crimes, and the United States is aiding and abetting them by providing the Saudis with military assistance,” Marjorie Cohn writes for teleSUR.
“In November 2015, the US sold $1.29 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia. It included more than 10,000 bombs, munitions, and weapons parts manufactured by Raytheon and Boeing, as well as bunker busters, and laser-guided and ‘general purpose’ bombs.”
Greece Detains Turkish Ship Carrying Weaponry, Heading towards Lebanon
Al-Manar | March 1, 2016
Local media outlets in Turkey reported that the Greek coast guard detained on Sunday a Turkish ship loaded with weaponry, adding that it was heading towards Lebanon.
The ship which took off from the Turkish city of Izmir on February 4 contained six containers, two of them holding weapons and munitions.
The Greek authorities also arrested all the crew members who are: six Syrians, four Indians and a Lebanese.
Al-Manar’s correspondent noted that the Turkish officials have not commented on the report.
It is worth noting that Turkey has been providing the terrorist groups in Syria with weaponry, inflaming the crisis which erupted in 2011.
Moscow Notes Multiple Attempts to Distort Syrian Truce With Fake Reports
Sputnik – 29.02.2016
Moscow has noted a large volume of information fleecing and attempts to disrupt the truce in Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday.
“I’d like to say that there are very many dupes and attempts to distort facts and deliberately disrupting the agreements. Our Western colleagues must very carefully approach the task of controlling those groups that for the most part listen to them and Syria’s neighbors. We are strictly fulfilling all the agreements,” Ryabkov said.
Gazprom cutting gas supplies to Turkey
RT | February 26, 2016
The already strained relations between Moscow and Ankara have taken a turn for the worse. Gazprom has cut gas supplies by nearly a quarter after failing to reach an agreement with Turkish importers on discounts for Russian natural gas.
Delivery is down 23 percent, compared to the same period last year, Interfax reports, quoting data from Bulgarian gas operator Bulgartransgaz that processes about 50 percent of Russian gas going to Turkey.
According to the news agency sources, the reduction is linked to a price dispute between Gazprom and Turkey’s private gas importers.
Last year, Gazprom gave the importers a 10.25 percent discount, but is now doing away with it as energy prices have dropped significantly.
Business daily Kommersant’s sources say Gazprom stopped giving the discount at the beginning of the year. For January deliveries, Turkish companies had to pay at a higher price, but on the payment date of February 21 they only paid the discounted price.
As a result, Gazprom has cut the volume delivered by the size of the underpayment.
Enerco Enerji, Bosphorus Gaz, Avrasya Gaz, Shell, Bati Hatti and Kibar Enerji are the importers affected. Overall, they import 10 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year. Kommersant’s sources in the companies say the cancellation of the discount hurts their business, as they have signed contracts with clients based on the discount gas price.
From the 1st to the 24th of February Gazprom under-delivered 117 million cubic meters worth $30 million, the newspaper’s calculations say. Kommersant added that Turkey could fine the Russian gas monopoly $2.5 million for not fulfilling its obligations.
The source in Gazprom claimed the reduction in supply will not affect supply of the Turkish market, “especially because Botas does not reach its contractual volumes.”
State-owned Botas imports about 17 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year. In 2015, it didn’t get a discount from Gazprom due to the failure of the Turkish Stream negotiations and is now suing Gazprom.
America’s Plan B: Supporting Terrorists Till the Bitter End
By Martin Berger – New Eastern Outlook – 25.02.2016
At a time when the international community is looking forward to the possibility of putting an end to the bloody conflict in Syria that has dragged on for years, while putting their hopes behind the agreement that was achieved between the US and Russia on February 22 regarding the cessation of all hostile activities in Syria, certain forces in the United States carry on banging the war drum.
As it has been pointed out by the The Wall Street Journal :
Defense Secretary Ash Carter; Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan have voiced increasingly hawkish views toward Moscow in recent White House meetings, calling for new measures to “inflict real pain on the Russians,” a senior administration official said.
Moreover, those gentlemen are somehow convinced that Moscow will break the ceasefire, so they have formulated a “Plan B,” that will imply the strengthening of their support to extremists and the introduction of new sanctions against Russia.
Of course, one could only be amazed by such behavior from Washington’s “hawks” if one did not take into consideration the evidence exposing their direct involvement in the continuous aggravation of the situation in Syria, which makes them directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians. Those actions would for sure present the perfect subject for a careful investigation of an international tribunal.
In particular, according to the facts presented by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Nathaniel Barr in the Daily Beast, the CIA is now assisting the terrorist organizations that the United States has been allegedly fighting for 15 years. This program was launched in 2013 to further aggravate the armed conflict in Syria. According to this publication, at least one of these CIA-backed groups severed its ties with the CIA and joined a listed terrroist-led coalition, Later, Associated Press reported that CIA-backed groups are gaining ground in Syria, “fighting alongside more extremist factions.”
The article concludes:
Analysis of the geography of “moderate” rebels’ gains during this period and reports from the battlefield demonstrate that CIA-backed groups collaborated with Jaysh al-Fateh, an Islamist coalition in which Jabhat al-Nusra—al Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate—is a leading player…
and
At this point it is impossible to argue that U.S. officials involved in the CIA’s program cannot discern that Nusra and other extremists have benefited. And despite this, the CIA decided to drastically increase lethal support to vetted rebel factions following the Russian intervention into Syria in late September.
The authors are convinced that now it’s more important than ever to organize a public debate in the US about the role that the CIA played in the Syrian conflict and the considerable strengthening of radical groups.
It would be no less interesting to take a look at yet another investigation of the criminal role American intelligence agencies played in the inciting of the Syrian conflict that was published in The New York Times. The authors, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo described in detail how the United States was using Saudi money to provide radical militants in Syria with lethal weapons. Yet, this is but an episode in the continuous and vicious cooperation between Saudi and American security agencies that lasted for decades. The alliance was in place during the Iran-Contra scandal, the hidden fight against Soviet troops in Afghanistan and countless proxy wars in Africa.
These forces are actively involved in the Ukrainian conflict, openly opposing any form of peaceful settlement, pushing all the blame on Russia while Turkey is pulling the strings behind the stage and sending radical mercenaries to Ukraine.
Therefore, one shouldn’t be surprised that this Plan B will be put into action regardless of the facts surrounding how the parties actually observe the agreements reached or even before it’s imposed. It would be safe to assume that the CIA will be put in charge of the operation, funded with the money provided by Saudi Arabia, therefore we can await provocations and misleading articles about how it is Russia who is continuing with provocations, not these forces hidden in plain view.
That is why today the international community is tasked with preventing the failure of the recent agreement between the leaders of the US and Russia by exposing those “hawks”, namely the CIA, the Pentagon, and Saudi intelligence services.
Using terrorists as pawns prolongs Middle East crises: Lavrov
Press TV – February 25, 2016
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the crises in the Middle East will not be settled as long as terrorists are used as pawns in pursuit of certain geopolitical agendas.
The fight against terrorism “cannot be successful if attempts are not stopped at using terrorists as pawns in doubtful geopolitical games,” Lavrov said in Moscow on Thursday.
“The further degradation of the situation presents a serious threat for the entire international architecture,” he told a session of the Valdai International Discussion Club.
“Obviously a strong stability of the situation is impossible without the destruction of the center of the terrorist threat, first and foremost Daesh,” he said.
During the session, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Moscow was concerned about statements from US officials about alternatives to a plan for the cessation of hostilities in Syria.
“We are concerned about claims of certain Western partners, including the United States, about the existence of a certain ‘plan B.’ We know nothing about it, and we are not discussing any alternate plans.”
The United States and Russia announced on February 22 that they had reached a deal for a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria, which would begin on February 27.
The Syrian government said the following day that it accepts the terms of the deal on the condition that military efforts against Daesh and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front continue.
In the lead-up to the agreement, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US had a “plan B” for military action to enforce if the cessation of hostilities failed.
Bogdanov, who serves as President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to the Middle East, said Russia expects the US to negotiate the implementation of the agreement with the Syrian opposition.
“Russia is doing the necessary work with Damascus and the legitimate Syrian leadership. We expect the United States to do the same with groups allied with them and supported by them,” he said.
The Russian diplomat also said the notion of setting up a buffer zone in Syria and to launch a ground operation in the war-hit country could only exacerbate the situation.
“Steps that could further worsen the Syria crisis cause our great concerns. In particular, this includes attempts to implement the idea of setting up a buffer zone on the Syrian-Turkish border and putting together some blocs for a land operation.”
Bogdanov was referring to Ankara’s plans to set up a buffer zone and by send ground troops into Syria by Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Docs Reveal That Turkish Officers Work With Daesh on Syrian Border
Sputnik – 24.02.2016
Despite Ankara’s declared commitment to fight Daesh, Turkey’s relations with the terrorist group are more complex. Documents recently released by the Cumhuriyet newspaper appear to show that Turkish officers on the border with Syria frequently communicated and worked with Daesh fighters.
The transcripts are said to be part of an ongoing investigation into several individuals and their ties to the terrorist group. They reportedly detail several phone conversations between unnamed Turkish officers and Mustafa Demir, a key Daesh operative in the border region.
“The transcripts and the documents in the investigation revealed that Demir received money… from smugglers at the border and cooperated with the officers as far as [border] crossings are concerned,” the Today’s Zaman newspaper quoted the daily as saying.
The documents also appear to indicate that Turkish officers met with Demir in the border region.
Demir is said to be linked to İlhami Balı, the 33-year-old Daesh leader, who is suspected of ordering the deadliest terrorist attack in Ankara’s history. The twin bombings last October left 102 people dead and more than 400 injured.
One of the transcripts translated into English by Today’s Zaman dates back to November 25, 2014. Demir asked an unnamed officer to arrange a meeting with a commander.
“Is it possible for you to arrange that I talk with the commander here, regarding the business here? What if we could establish a contact here as we helped you…” the Daesh fighter asked a Turkish officer. “Okay. If there are any needs [as far as your request is concerned], [tell them] to inform me here,” the officer responded.
In another conversation, a Turkish officer asked Demir to meet him and his comrades at a minefield. “We have stuff; come here from that side, the men are here… Come urgently; I’m in the mine [field] with a torch. Come running.”
“Okay, big brother, [I’m] coming,” Demir answered.The United States and other stakeholders have repeatedly urged Ankara to seal Turkey’s porous border with Syria, which Daesh, al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups use to smuggle fighters, weapons and supplies in and out of Syria. The Turkish government has so far failed to deliver on the promise.
Access to unlimited supplies and recruits delivered to the Syrian battlefield through Turkey is largely seen as the key source of Daesh’s resilience and longevity. Ankara’s inability to secure the 60-mile border region has prompted many to question Erdogan’s true agenda with regard to the deadly Syrian conflict.


