Despite the risk of a confrontation with a Nato ally US, Turkey has attempted to carry out cross-border operations in 2016 and 2018, targetting the entire population of Rojava and North Syria.
Erdogan has been officially and openly feeding ISIS for many years. In 2015, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov disclosed that Turkey is the main consumer of illegal oil from Syria and Iraq, drawing attention to Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family’s direct involvement in the oil business of ISIS.
“The Erdogan family and their friends run organized crime in Austria, in Germany, in the Netherlands… which includes human trafficking on a massive scale, narcotics trafficking [and] credit card fraud” said Antonov.
In respect to the illicit oil trade, he explained, ISIS collaborates with a trucking and marine transportation company owned by Erdogan’s son, Bilal, that smuggles oil from Syria and Iraq into Turkey for export abroad.
“Now there are a series of pipelines across Turkey, more than anyone knows, some closer to the Iraqi-Syrian border than the typical drawings you’ll see, that offload into the Mediterranean and take oil to places like the United States for sale,” Duff disclosed in 2014.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had received additional evidence that oil from fields controlled by ISIS, which is prohibited in Russia, was being transported to Turkey on an industrial scale. Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, had shared that Moscow’s evidence against Turkish officials and Erdogan is both substantial and convincing.
Additionally, CNN Türk published a report on July 29 that Istanbul, Duzce and Adapazari have become terrorists’ gathering points. While the ISIS militants were trained in the sects, some of the videos taken during this training are uploaded to a Turkish web site, which makes ISIS propaganda.
This has been proved in practice and theory by countless reports: an ISIS commander who spoke to the Washington Post in August, 2012 had said “Many of the fighters who arrived at the beginning of the war, the gear, and supply arrived via Turkey.” The jihadists had been treated in Turkey hospitals, they had been provided Turkish logistic and had been professionally trained by the Turkish army. Following a fierce war, the remaining ISIS members had been ordered by their leaders to surrender, in order to save the remainder of their force. These members had later been placed in prisons and camps guarded by SDF forces.
Following the declaration of the military defeat of IS in Syria in March, the talks of a “safe zone” in Rojava and North Syria began between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump. The proposed safe zone would require that YPG forces move 30km away from the occupation border of Turkey and would be under the audit of Turkish forces. The SDF shook hands to clear 5km and began dismantling border fortifications.
Two months later, US troops pulled back from the border after Erdogan told Trump that Turkey was about to begin an operation to set up a “safe zone” alone. This would mean that Erdogan would be given a green light to attack and occupy the region as Article five of the NATO pact states that all other countries must help to defend a country if it is attacked. In short, had the US forces not pulled back, Erdogan would have officially started a war against every NATO country and with the economic situation at hand, this would have been a death wish for the Turkish state.
On 9 October, Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels launched a ground assault on SDF-held territory. Erdogan sold a project to the population of Turkey claiming that he would “neutralize terror threats against Turkey” and facilitate the return of Syrian refugees. The terror threat he aims to “neutralize” is the SDF forces that had cleared Syria, ISIS’ claimed land, from ISIS. This is very openly the threat that the SDF forces imposed on Erdogan, while the Syrian refugees he would sen back would be the jihadists he had trained.
*According to the nationalist newspaper Cumhuriyet, during the December 2012 corruption investigations it had been disclosed that Twitter user Fuat Avni had shared audio recordings linking the Al Qaeda terrorist organization to Turkey and had affirmed the financial and military aid being provided. In the records, Erdogan was pressuring the Turkish Armed Forces to enter a war with Syria. Erdogan, wanted MIT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan to produce excuses to attack Syria.
Four days later, with the Turkish-led forces would make little gains and with the death toll mounting, the US announced a full withdrawal from northern Syria. While this may come unexpectedly to some, this move was only another step in achieving the ultimate goal: chaos in the Middle East for US meaning oil, money, and power, and something to threaten the EU with, to kill the Kurds with and occupy more land with for Turkey -not to mention that this fits Erdogan’s religious front. The not so distant cousin of DAESH, the Free Syrian Army would be the perfect group of jihadist for the job. America had moved out of the way and Turkey would play its role. This equation of fairy dust would have worked perfectly fine had the SDF not sworn on its honour and dignity to never again allow a massacre from being imposed on its people. The SDF would make a military deal with the Syrian government, and Russia, both enemies of the US, even at the price of risking its autonomy to stop civilian deaths. The Syrian army would deploy along the border, while Russia would close the airspace to counter the Turkish offensive.
This deal would turn the tables. It would give Russia a reliable ally in the Middle East and a strategic point geographically in terms of trade deals.
The Russian Defense Ministry had again exposed information about ISIS training camps inside Turkey in 2015, to which Turkey responded with the usual denials and had started blocking Russian ship traffic through the Bosphorus despite its being a violation of the international navigation treaty. So Erdogan continued playing with the international bad boy. The Pentagon, being onboard the ISIS funding program, denied it knows anything about Turkey laundering ISIS oil.
Upon this realisation, Trump who had previously backstabbed the Kurds and left them to die, stating that “we are 7,000km away” would rush to make a deal to preserve his previous position. Trumps helper Pence would rush to Turkey and declare that they have brokered a golden ceasefire deal with Erdogan which would include all of the joint interests, signed and sealed. The marvellous deal would see that Turkey push the Kurds out of that part of Syria, that Trump gives them the OK to invade and that the US agrees to un-sanction Turkey. In the most basic terms, Erdogan would achieve his ultimate goal without firing another bullet and being sanctioned a penny.
Was this war completely pointless? Considering that 5,000 ISIS members have been freed from prisons and camps via specifically coordinated airstrikes and thousands of jihadists running to unleash relatives, this attack has reached part of its aim. While still unofficial, rumour has it that ISIS has declared itself revived. Should the attacks by the occupying Turkish state end today, this would still mean no peace in the region and that civilian deaths continue, but it would also mean that Erdogan’s state is not being sanctioned and that human rights violations are not formally being committed by Turkey.
Today, it isn’t just Russian ships being blocked. With Iran’s military power growing, it has become a potential power state. A state determined enough to seize American and British ships in the Hormouz for stealing 1m litres of oil, is not good news for hegemonic powers who thrive from instability in the Middle East.
Trump’s presence in the Middle East is becoming increasingly cursed, especially in the immediate region of Rojava. At this point, it has become clear that the dubious deals and blunders being made by Erdogan and Trump are the result of uncalculated moves. With every hegemonic power in the world being pressured to condone Erdogan and stop arms sales, Trump’s gang of ministers would turn against him.
