From northwest Iraq to Tripoli on Libya’s African coast, Turkey is flexing its muscles – without the slightest nod to the supposedly ‘pro-Western’ and ‘pro-NATO’ orientation that Turkey’s Western apologists like to recall.

 By  Dr. Jonathan Spyer

Turkish forces are at the present time bolstering newly constructed outposts in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Turks have established five new positions on mountainous terrain near the villages of Sharanish and Banka, in the Zakho area adjoining the border with Turkey, since commencing operation in the area in mid-June. Troops have been transported in by helicopter to man the new positions.

This is the latest phase in an operation that has brought the Turkish armed forces to 30 kilometers (18 miles) inside Iraqi Kurdish territory. Operation Claw-Tiger was launched on June 17, following Turkish air attacks on targets Ankara identified as associated with the PKK at a number of sites in the Kurdish Regional Government-controlled area. The areas destroyed in the airstrikes included a number of Yezidi villages in the Mount Sinjar area. A refugee camp at Makhmur was also targeted.

Elements of the 1st and 5th Commando Brigades, both elite Turkish airborne formations, are taking part in the operation on the ground. Iranian artillery shelled the Choman area of the Qandil Mountains on June 16th, in a move widely interpreted as supportive of the Turkish offensive. Iranian cooperation with Turkey derives from immediate shared interests: both countries have restive and alienated Kurdish populations living in geographically distinct areas.

Both wish to see the weakening of both the PKK and the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. The PKK originated among Turkish Kurds, but also has a franchise among Iranian Kurds (PJAK). Beyond the Kurdish issue, Iran has huge hydrocarbon reserves, while Turkey has a need for oil and gas. As a result, Turkey has been assisting Iran in avoiding US sanctions.

Turkey’s ongoing gas imports from Iran were suspended on March 31, 2020, due to a PKK operation that temporarily disabled the pipeline. Supplies are set to recommence this month. Iran and Turkey both seek the end of the US-led security structure in the region, and are similarly opposed to the various allies in the region of that structure. Hence, there is at present a great deal of common ground between the two countries.

The PKK is a pan-Kurdish organization, and the fighters in Qandil come from across the Kurdish area. The organization was formed in Turkey, however, and its top leadership remains dominated by Turkish Kurds. Despite the considerable dimensions of the current offensive, Kurdish sources do not consider that it represents the beginning of a long-awaited general Turkish attempt to destroy the PKK in Qandil.

Rather, it is seen as continuing an established pattern of ongoing Turkish operations into Kurdish controlled northern Iraq, conducted without inquiry as to the wishes of the local Kurdish authorities, and intended to establish a widening Turkish military infrastructure in the area adjoining the border.

Turkish media reports largely concur. According to a recent article in the Hurriyet newspaper, 12 permanent observation posts had already been established in the KRG controlled area in the period between 2016 and the present operation.

Hurriyet quoted Turkish security officials who depicted the PKK as seeking to establish a corridor from their forces on the Iranian border in Suleimania province, via Sinjar, to the Kurdish controlled area in northeast Syria. In this regard, it is worth noting that both PJAK and other Iranian Kurdish military groups opposed to the Iranian regime, such as the Iranian Kurdish Democratic Party (PDKI) maintain bases and positions inside KRG territory, adjoining the border with Iran.

Ankara considers the YPG (Peoples’ Protection Units), which is the main force in this area, to be a franchise of the PKK. The Turkish operation, according to Hurriyet, is intended to break this corridor from Syria to the Iranian Kurds. It should be noted that the current deployment of Turkish forces is not sufficiently deep to cut any such notional line.

The Turkish newspaper likened the current effort to previous Turkish operations in northern Syria in 2016 and 2019 which resulted in Turkish occupation of two non-contiguous blocs of territory along the Syrian Turkish border. Turkey hopes to expand the easternmost of these areas, which cuts directly into Kurdish controlled northeast Syria.

Kurdish sources, meanwhile, suggest an additional, domestic political motivation for the current operation. They note the dire state of the Turkish economy, and the consequent loss of public support indicated in a number of recent polls, for the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its main ally, the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP). According to this perspective, the Turkish operation is intended to rally the government’s political base through its fear of and hostility to Kurdish aspirations and to distract from socio-economic failure.

This element notwithstanding, Operation Claw Tiger fits into an arc of Turkish military assertiveness currently extending from northern Iraq, across northern Syria, going down via the Mediterranean and via Israel, and reaching Libya. Turkey also has a military presence to the south and east of this area, in Qatar, in Sudan and in Somalia. In the Mediterranean, Turkey is challenging Greece, Cyprus and Israel for the gas riches beneath the water.

Via its SADAT military private company, Ankara is deeply engaged in support of Hamas against Israel. SADAT, sometimes referred to as Erdogan’s “Revolutionary Guards,” is involved in other, similarly more murky ends of Turkey’s regional assertion. The company, founded by the Turkish President’s military advisor General Adnan Tanriverdi, took responsibility for the training of Syrian Islamist and jihadi rebels under Turkey’s flag. These forces were subsequently deployed against the Syrian Kurds in 2019-20.

They are now engaged in Libya, fighting against the Libyan National Army of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. SADAT, incidentally, is currently also involved in training Sunni Islamist forces loyal to the Government of National Accord in Libya. The Africa Intelligence website and Sharq al Awsat newspaper reported this week that the Turkish company has signed an agreement to this end with Security Side, a Libyan security company headed by one Fawzi Abu Kattaf, a Palestinian Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood supporter with close ties to Qatar.

So, what does this flurry of overt and semi-covert Turkish regional military assertion amount to? Can a common theme be established?

In Syria and Iraq, obviously, Ankara is on the face of it challenging its old PKK enemy. But there are additional layers. Erdogan was first to support the Syrian Sunni Arab insurgency. He has proved its last and most faithful ally. Western states, discouraged by the insurgency’s Islamist and jihadi nature, peeled away from it years ago. Turkey, untroubled by these loyalties because it shares them, has remained.

The enclaves in northern Syria do serve to bisect the area of Kurdish control, and in Afrin a large-scale ethnic cleansing of Kurds has taken place. But Turkey is now pouring money and forces into northwest Syria, in an effort to shore up this enclave and ensure its semi permanence. This is not only about opposing Kurdish aspirations. It is about establishing a corner of Syria intended to be forever Turkish (and Sunni Islamist). The Turkish Lira has now been introduced as the currency in these areas, to replace the devastated Syrian pound. The Turkish postal service has even opened branches in a number of towns in northwest Syria.

In Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Erdogan wants to lay claim to the cause of recovering al-Aqsa from non-Muslim custodianship. Covert military support to Hamas runs alongside active soft power efforts. These are managed by the government aid agency TIKA. Tens of millions of dollars are spent each year, via such projects as the Turkish Culture Center on Hashalshelet Street in Jerusalem’s Old City.

In the Mediterranean, the interests, of course, are related to Turkey’s need for gas supplies. But the bald assertiveness of laying claim, together with the client government in Tripoli of a massive swathe of the east Mediterranean and thus stymying plans by Israel, Greece and Cyprus to pipe gas to Europe has the additional advantage for Turkey of depicting itself as the regional dominant force.

In Libya, finally, again geo-strategic and ideological aspects coincide: Serraj is kept in place by Muslim Brotherhood associated forces. He represents a last remnant of the hoped for alliance which Erdogan had thought to lead, before the military coup in Egypt of 2013, the departure of the En Nahda party from power in Tunisia and the revival of Bashar Assad’s fortunes in Syria.

So, all the way from Zakho Province in north west Iraq, to Tripoli on Libya’s African coast, assisted by Qatari direct financial investment, Turkey is flexing its muscles. It is an independent, ambitious foreign policy, without the slightest nod to the supposedly ‘pro-Western’ and ‘pro-NATO’ orientation that Turkey’s Western apologists like to recall. It has its origin in a combination of nationalist assertiveness, tinged with Ottoman-era nostalgia, and the ambitions of MB-style Sunni political Islam. This is a potent mix, which is not required to place itself before the judgement of the Turkish voter until 2023. As of now, its main impact is an arc of destabilization, stretching across land and sea from Iraq to Libya.

The resurrection of Hagia Sophia heralds the Liberation of the Al-Aqsa mosque, the Turkish Presidency website says.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN   

JULY 11, 2020 18:23

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to “liberate al-Aqsa mosque” from Israel after “resurrecting Hagia Sophia” as a mosque on Friday.

The decision to change the status of the ancient Hagia Sophia church, which had been transformed into a mosque in 1453 and then into a museum in 1934, was made controversially last week.

It follows an increasingly religious authoritarian agenda from Ankara that has made Turkey the world’s largest jailer of journalists, seen dissidents imprisoned for “terrorism” and witnessed increasing military invasions of neighboring countries by Turkey.

The resurrection of Hagia Sophia heralds the liberation of the al-Aqsa mosque, the Turkish Presidency website says. “The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the footsteps of the will of Muslims across the world to come… the resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the reignition of the fire of hope of Muslims and all oppressed, wrong, downtrodden and exploited.”

The speech, which was in Turkish, was translated slightly differently to Arabic and English, apparently as a way to hide part of Ankara’s full views on how it has linked Hagia Sophia to a wider agenda.

In Arabic the speech says that turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque is part of the “return of freedom to al-Aqsa,” essentially meaning Israel should be ejected from controlling Jerusalem’s Old City where al-Aqsa is located.

Turkey’s president linked the decision to reviving Islam from Bukhara in Uzbekistan to Andalusia in Spain. This terminology, linking al-Aqsa in Jerusalem to Hagia Sophia and Spain, is a kind of coded terminology for a wider religious agenda. In the Turkish translation the same reference to Spain does not appear to be included as in the Arabic.

Turkey’s current president has long championed the Palestinian cause and been an extreme critic of Israel, famously walking off the stage at Davos during a discussion with former president Shimon Peres in 2009. Turkey then sent the Gaza flotilla to try to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza, leading to the deaths of 10 Turkish citizens when Israeli forces raided the Mavi Marmara ship.

In recent years Turkey’s religious and political authorities have been making increasingly adversarial statements about Israel, vowing to mobilize the “Islamic ummah” in June against Israel’s annexation plans.

Linking the major change at Hagia Sophia to Jerusalem illustrates that Ankara’s ambitions are far larger than just reasserting Islamic prayers at the historic mosque and church in Istanbul; it is part of a larger Islamic agenda for the region.

Turkey’s ruling AK Party is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey is a close ally of Hamas in Gaza. Hamas is also rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood. This strategy by Turkey seeks more influence across the region with like-minded groups and countries, such as Qatar and the Government of the National Accord in Libya.

Turkey is seeking to supplant Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, such as Egypt and Jordan, as the main determiner of what is “Islamic.”

This means Ankara’s leadership believes that its changes to Hagia Sophia are only one step of a larger religious militarist agenda in the Middle East. Turkey invaded part of eastern Syria in October 2019 after depopulating the Kurdish region of Afrin in Syria in January 2018.

Turkey then recruited Syrian refugees to fight in Libya’s civil war as part of an energy and military deal with Tripoli. In June, Turkey launched airstrikes in Iraq against Kurdish groups, claiming to be fighting “terrorism.”

One day, Turkey could even aim its sights at Jerusalem. The speech about Hagia Sophia clearly indicated this is on the agenda in the future.

By HERB KEINON   

JUNE 23, 2020 21:17

Even if nothing else were happening in the world today, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could be expected to react with fury at any Israeli move come July 1 to extend its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.

That’s just what Erdogan does when it comes to Israel.

But now, with Turkey and Egypt possibly on the verge of war in Libya, as each country is backing opposing sides in the deadly civil war there, an Israeli annexation move is likely to cause Erdogan to spit hellfire.

Why? Because the two Muslim countries will be battling for public opinion in the Arab and Muslim world, and if there is one thing Erdogan has perfected in his 17-year-reign in Turkey, it is to use anti-Israel and antisemitic positions and rhetoric to bolster his stature in both those worlds.

In Libya, very simply put, Turkey and Qatar – two countries sometimes characterized as Muslim “Brotherhood-lite” and who support Islamic groups such as Hamas – are backing Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA), against the Libyan National Army forces of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, supported among others by Egypt, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Muslim Brotherhood has a great deal of sway inside the GNA, while Haftar is opposed to that form of political Islam. Libya, therefore, is just one of the regional theaters where the rivalry between political Islamist forces and the more moderate Sunni states are playing out.

So what does any of that have to do with an Israeli decision to extend its law over Ma’aleh Adumim and Alon Shvut?

If Erdogan can fashion himself with fiery antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric as the champion of the Palestinians, and try to paint Egypt as some kind of Israeli lackey – because of its peace treaty and close security relationship with the Jewish state – then perhaps the Turkish leader can gain points in the Arab world even as he is faces-off militarily – either directly or by proxy – against the Arab world’s most populous and important nation.

What this could conceivably do is force Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to take a much more strident stand against an Israeli move than he otherwise would have liked to, forced – as it were – to be more Catholic on the Israeli-Palestinian issue than the pope (Erdogan).

If the two countries go head to head in Libya, both will want the proverbial Arab street, and if there is one thing that plays exceptionally well on that street, it is bashing Israel.

Erdogan knows this well, having turned it into a diplomatic art form, having rode his Israel bashing to unprecedented popularity for a Turkish leader in the Arab world more than a decade ago.

The first indication of how Erdogan would use Israel slamming to shore up his credentials in the Arab world was in 2004, after Israel killed Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin during the height of the Second Intifada, a move which Erdogan – who became prime minister a year earlier and president in 2014 – called an act of “state terrorism.”

Five years later, Israel’s ambassador to Turkey at the time, Gabby Levy, was quoted in a cable revealed by Wikileaks as a saying that Erdogan was a “fundamentalist” who “hates us religiously.” And his hatred, Levy said, “is spreading.”

The first big wave of popularity that Erdogan felt for slamming Israel came at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2009, when he lashed out at president Shimon Peres for Israel’s actions during Operation Cast Lead a few weeks earlier, and then stormed off the stage. He was widely hailed in the Arab media for “putting Peres in his place.”

And that was only the beginning: he received plaudits for extracting an apology from then-deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon who upbraided the Turkish ambassador in Israel for an antisemitic Turkish television series while seating him on a low couch. And Erdogan was hailed as a hero for recalling Turkey’s ambassador and expelling Israel’s envoy from Ankara, after the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010.

Following that incident, Erdogan hinted that he would send warships to accompany “aid” ships to Gaza to relieve the blockade of Gaza, threatened to make a triumphant visit to Gaza, and claimed on Ankara billboards to have brought Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to his knees after Netanyahu apologized – at the behest of US President Barack Obama – for “operational errors” during the Mavi Marmara raid.

The harder Erdogan hit at Israel, the higher his popularity soared – at least in the Arab world.

The instances where Erdogan has used antisemitic and vitriolic anti-Zionist rhetoric are too numerous to list, so here are just a few highlights:

• In 2011, he accused “the Israeli people of genocide.”
• In 2013, he blamed Israel for orchestrating the July 3 coup that brought Sisi to power in Egypt. That year he also called Zionism “a crime against humanity.”
• In 2014, following Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Erdogan compared Israel’s military actions in Gaza to Hitler, saying, “They kill women so that they will not give birth to Palestinians; they kill babies so that they won’t grow up; they kill men so they can’t defend their country… They will drown in the blood they shed.”
• In 2015, a day before an election extended his executive powers in 2015, Erdogan said “Jewish capital” was behind The New York Times and The Guardian, which had written negative editorials about him.
• In 2017, he tried to delegitimize the independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan by alleging the Mossad was involved. That same year he was also the leading voice in the Muslim world against US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, calling Israel a “terrorist state.’’
• In 2019, he said at a meeting of Muslim leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting that “we view the Holocaust in the same way we view those besieging Gaza and carrying out massacres in it.”

Not only did those comments not detract from Erdogan’s standing either at home or in the Muslim world, but an argument can be made that they actually enhanced it.

It is a given, therefore, that he will slam Israel in the harshest terms for annexation. And whatever he would have said in normal circumstances, he will now surely say with even more vitriolic as Turkey stands at the brink of a military confrontation with Egypt in Libya. Because if there is one thing Erdogan has learned, it is that one way to gain popularity in the Arab world – popularity he will need if battling Egypt – is to bash Israel and the Jews without restraint.

Get ready for an Erdogan on Israel unhinged and ugly, Roger Waters style