One quibble about turkey and one implication for Pakistan. The turks are trying to "veto" a lawful commercial infrastructure project, using ridiculous maritime claims for their EEZ (squiggly lines drawn laterally or through others waters). HOWEVER, even if this subsea infrastructure were transiting through their EEZ, they have no legal right to stop it- it would be governed by conventions on sub sea infrastructure that only require national consent when transiting national waters (like Nordatream near Bornholm Island). A veto here would be an illegal violation (nothing new to the turks,.who are now producing maps with Allepo, Mosul, Armenia and Cyprus colored red as part of a greater Turkey).
As for Pakistan, they have hundreds of thousands of "guest workers" (most trafficed throgh Turkey and illegal) in Greece and the rest of Europe, sending back needed remittances and easily replaced by Indians or South Americans. An easy pressure point.
I get your point, but I don't believe that international law is much of a restraint on the behavior of aspirational Great Powers like Turkiye anymore. Turkiye has also previously flouted such principles as its critics claim in Cyprus, Syria, etc., so it already has a track record of "going its own way" in pursuit of what it regards as its national interests. I therefore don't expect international law to have any influence whatsoever on what Turkiye might or might not do in this context.
Very interesting, I was not aware of this particular power struggle “corner of the world”. I just wanted to say that I read the latest James Corbett Substack this morning and you both echo similarly - there is no international law (if it ever existed?!?).
James dubbed 2026 year of the Storm and foresees Venuzurla as one of the many to come…
Guess it’s buckle up time!
And enjoy everything we can time, since 2020 I’ve felt a strong sense that health and happiness are the best counters to the fear and boogey men being pushed by “them” in the narratives.
And of course learning and widening my views from authors like you!
I'm not at all fan of Turkey and even less of Erdogan.
However.
1: Turkey didn't recognise the " international sea right" which are, actually, the western sea rights.
2: After WW1, turkish empire was split awfully and all the little islands very close of Turkey were given to....Greece.
Look at a map, it's scandalous. Since one century, Turks have been feeling a terrible injustice and humiliation for that and, understandably, never accepted that.
I imagine french mood if every tiny island near the french shore had been given to, for example, Spain and all the sea until 250 km from those shores had been given to Spain.
In history, there have been wars for less than that.
That said, Erdogan is a snake who will lay down as soon as it's US master will frown.
Darras, I have some issues with some of the points you made - the easiest of which are factual, but that leads into world-views and historical context.
Turkey and International Sea Rights:
*Turkey’s approach is “a la carte”: in the Black Sea and EastMed, where the new UNCLOS rules serves her, she has expanded her territorial waters to 12NM but in the Aegean, she insists on the old rules and 6NM limits and a continental shelf argument for economic zones (EEZ).
*In the Black Sea she delimitated her EEZ based on the UNCLOS customary law (which she rejects in the Aegean and EastMed). As such, delimitation is based on E/W and N/S lines of latitude and longitude. If they were to follow Turkey’s lateral approach with Libya, Russia and Bulgaria or Romania and Georgia could claim common maritime borders and a third of Turkey’s Black Sea EEZ would be “contested territory”.
*At this point Ankara is like a child playing with crayons on a naval map, using any mix of arguments she thinks makes sense to justify maximalist claims. In reality, it’s Turkey’s carpet-seller, bazaar- negotiations strategy: through up outrageous, maximalist demands, stomp around in anger, issue threats, belligerent brinkmanship, declare “grey areas” where, in fact, things are very clear, avoid a legal dispute resolutions because she knows her case is weak, and try to negotiate based on threats. We’ll see how that goes, but in this area she does not have the backing of the Islamic world who have huge interests in UNCLOS to secure their EEZs and territorial waters from encroachment from China and other great powers.
Territorial Disintegration of Ottoman Empire
*No-one “gave” Greek islands from Turkey to Greece. These islands earned their independence, along with the European part of the Greek Homeland, through blood. They were never part of Turkey.
*Greeks paid a heavy price in blood for their independence, with ~20% of the Greek populations in the Balkans, Anatolia and the islands being massacred and genocided along with the Armenians and Assyrians. Since the early 1800s, and especially from the time of Abdulhamid in 1885, there were systematic anti-Christian massacres, including of the Patriarch after Greek independence, and half the island of Chios - 50,000 people massacred after they revolted against Kostantiniyye. The British and French, BTW, had ships in the harbour instructed not to interfere: they took notes and sketches and wrote articles and made paintings like Delacroix’s in the Louvre, virtue-signalling their horror but profiting from it.
*Most importantly, the vast majority (90%+++) of the Aegean Islands were Greek Orthodox and not Muslim (what we call “Turkish” today is a mix of ex-Ottoman citizens that converted to Islam, of which Turks were the plurality).
*There were three groups of islands that were “given”: (1) the British forced Greece to give Greek-majority Imbros & Tenedos in the northern Aegean to Turkey with self-government and minority rights as part of the Straits regime of the Lausanne Treaty (Turkey has violated those provisions and instigated terror campaigns and pogroms), though these should have been returned after the Montreux Convention; and (2) the Greek-majority Dodecanese islands were given by the great powers to the Italian Empire (along with part of Anatolia) against the will of their inhabitants which wanted to join with Greece. Turkey later tried to negotiate being given these islands in exchange for entering WW2 (just as they were negotiating to be sold Slavic Muslims from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before WW2!!!) but in the end the islands were allowed to accede to Greece after Italy’s defeat; and (3) Cyprus, which Britain took for itself (over 78% Greek and 82% Christian and wanted to join Greece( which for geo-political reasons was dismembered.
*So, if the inhabitants aren’t Turks, and the islands haven’t ever been part of Turkey, on what basis “should they go to Turkey”?
*Given that Turkey doesn’t care for facts, it is more accurate and pertinent to say that Greece was allowed to keep most of the Greek-inhabited islands for geostrategic reasons - to limit the maritime potential of the Turks, while leaving them in a precarious position in need western support (like India was cut off from the MidEast by Pakistan, but Pakistan was left with an open wound in its Afghan border creating a permanent need for an external balancer).
Anatolian Injustice and World-Views
*The Turkish worldview is something like this: we arrived by divine right into Anatolia and the Near East, and brought civilization to these lands. The people before us, their histories and civilizations, lost and don’t matter and no longer counts for anything: they should be glad we did not kill all of them, pay loyalty (as Muslims, or Jizya as Infidels) to our Great Turko-Islamic civilization which now belongs to us forever.
*For rather understandable reasons, the native Arabs and Persians in the Middle East didn’t like being second class citizens to this tribe of bodyguards that they viewed as civilizationally inferior. Even more so the native Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians of Anatolia or the Greeks, Latins and Slavs of the Balkan, and rebellions were CONSTANT throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire. The Egypt of Ali Pasha marched on Kostantiniyye, but the Ottomans were assisted by the Russians (who wanted it for themselves, but later!).
*From the perspective of these native populations, the Turks were interlopers to be overcome, a long but temporary phase of foreign occupation to be evicted as the Mongols had been evicted in the East, or as Moors had been evicted from Iberia. As a side-note, if this seems an extreme attitude, try this idea on the other way around: the aborigines in Australia or America had their land stolen from them by the White man, or the Palestinians are occupied and have a right to fight for their land back.
*Before the Balkan wars Muslims made up a minority of about 10% in the Balkans, about 60% in Anatolia, and about 90% in the Middle East but relatively few Turks. The Balkans gained independence first, after huge bloodshed by the Ottomans and then against resident Muslims, both local and Turks. The Arabs voted with their feet, and the last battles were in the strategically most important part: Anatolia.
*According to Turkish Historiography, the native Turkish homeland was invaded by western imperial powers - Britain, France, Italy, Greece and faced extermination campaigns by the Armenians aligned with the Russians. In propaganda the best place to hide a lie is between many truths: Britain, France and Italy were imperial invaders - but they were also imperial competitors against Turkish imperial designs on Kurdish and Arab lands in Iraq and Syria. And the Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians (who, again, were the NATIVES subject to massacres for a century, especially since 1885) were fighting to be free and reclaim their ancestral lands. They dominated certain regions of Anatolia- the Armenians in the Anatolian/Armenian highlands and Silesia, the Assyrians near Mesopotamia, and the Greeks along the Thracian & Aegean coasts (across from the islands you mention!) as well as the Pontic mountains.
*So who, then, suffered the most terrible injustice? The native peoples who had never attacked Turks in their Altai and steppe homelands? The 40% of the pre-war Anatolian population that was Christian and got 0% of their native territory, being either genocided or expelled? And in case you’re not aware, many of the Greeks expelled from the Greek-majority Asia Minor coast ended up in these close by Aegean islands as refugees. Or do you think the Turks suffered a terrible injustice because their occupation and domination of other people was ended, and they “lost” the Aegean islands and the oilfields of the Middle East? Or perhaps the Kurds, who are not yet free?
The past is the past, written in blood like as are current borders. The Lausanne Treaty was supposed to draw a line, however much everyone was unhappy with the new borders. Unfortunately the Turks seem to think that treaties are temporary, compliance is optional, and have been violating it since before the ink was dry: claiming Alexandreta (Hatay), Cyprus, the rest of Thrace (from Bulgaria and Greece) half the Aegean (for now), northern Syria, Northern Iraq, part of Iran and all of Armenia. They view themselves as a “great power, destined to conquer” but I’m afraid that as the world re-aligns they will repeat their Ottoman mistakes and overplay their hand. The west shielded them from Russia as long as they were useful (like the Sultan urging Indonesians and Raj Muslims to comply with their western overlords), and then accelerated their breakup when they tried to act independently. As in WW1 or Shah’s Iran, or Saadam’s Iraq, Erdogan’s Turkey is flying into the same fate and will create more terrible injustices.
you are right about turkey, and this argument should have been used earlier to pacify the area, if not for the games of (mostly) europeans themselves. and now, (at least some of) these islands versus something else would still be a fair exchange for peace, or a very good asset in a case of war, if things go in the same way and the west will be smart to start it before dozens of millions turks will invade it. unlike in the case of romanians where the signs were clear from the beginning, the smart, intellectual and good willing turkish diaspora in europe is nothing like those that would come. and i don't say this like the greek diaspora would be innocent, they aren't.
stop saying it's incoherent, sounds insulting; say i am incapable to understand instead. now for the argument - i respect greece, she's an undeservedly tiny country with a huge history and at least for this deserves to be bigger - i even have my ideas about it, mostly through exchanges with turkey, cyprus and macedonia and some population exchanges that cramp an already small country. the territory of greece is truly the quintessence of arcadia - the innocent land which makes you abandon your bad impulses. but there is too a dark side of it that was mostly moved from outside and laid bad fruits everywhere. the movers were pelasgian remnants, thracians and (at least some) doric migrants, or whatever other instruments the evil could find, and unfortunately much of the greek diaspora is made of the cultural consequences of such moves. that's why, if offered the chance, they won't hesitate to join this turanist movement (which is much more than that) and i feel many are involved in it - what we know as hellenists, byzantines or any other imperial form this took. and if these things go too far, too fast, i am really not sure on which side greece will be then, while i am pretty sure cyprus will be on the bad one. but, in the best case, as i kept writing during the years, greece needs land, turkey needs water, and you can divide the islands in three groups - one too loaded with greek history to be abandoned, one too important for turkey to be left, and one which can be negotiated.
There is zero trust between Israel and current Turkey. Collaboration might have happened 40 years ago. But today? With primary support for Hamas coming out of Turkey (as well as Qatar and Iran)? This applies both to the gas pipeline and to Lybia. In Lybia, it looks like Israel is quietly supporting the Egyptian-Russian side against the Turkish side too. Egypt also hasn't forgotten that Turkey was supporting Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Mursi et al. If Turkey further allies with Pakistan, India will move to the anti-Turkish side too.
yes exactly, very unlikely that Israel and Turkey could share the major power factor in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean when both want to be the largest power factor there.
Qatar was bombed which is a US "friend" in the Gulf and the US did absolutely nothing.
Turkey may feel that they are next in line because Israel has made it clear that it is absolutely possible for a "Greater Israel", which includes land in Turkey.
So there are no pipelines, whether gold or gas flows through them that can unite both countries to share the power factor in the area.
One wonders how the US would react if Turkey which is a NATO country but gets a slap in the face from Israel.
Turkey is just as infected from within as Iran when it comes to Mossad activities "the wolves"
The case of Adnan Oktar: Proves that Jews actually have nothing against "Muslims" as long as the so-called "Muslims" dance to Jewish tunes.
Adnan Oktar, under the pseudonym "Harun Yahya", is a Turkish author and "Islamic preacher" who has written several books critical of Israel and Judaism, books such as "Israel's Kurdish Card" and books on Freemasonry such as "Judaism and Freemasonry" and "The New Masonic Order".
When Adnan Oktar was an "anti-Semite" who published anti-Jewish "conspiracy theory" texts, he was strongly condemned and maligned by the Jewish media.
Suddenly, Adnan Oktar changed his tune and went from anti-Israeli to pro-Israeli, to pro-Jewish!
Turkey must now start to really decide where they stand.
Otherwise, it will be fatal for the Turks. Starting to deal with their internal problems "the wolves"
With USA interested in Danish Greenland, NATO doesn't mean that much .It would be a 2nd intra-NATO conflict, after Greece and Turkey's over Cyprus. I am a bit astonished by references to Freemasons in Turkey. Is that really real? The more adjacent thing would have been Dönmeh. These were in fact a more common component in the early Turkish Deep State after WW1. But now 100 years later, they have now been completely pushed aside by the Turkish Islamist Renaissance.
If Trump takes Greenland, it will be the downfall of NATO, that would be incredibly nice, then over time Western Europe will be free from hypocrisy.
Yes, you are absolutely right about dönmeh, it is dönmeh and sabbatism.
A significant number of Jews, most of whom had escaped Spanish persecution in 1492, lived in the Ottoman lands. They spoke a mixed language of Hebrew and Spanish, called Ladino, and lived mostly in Thessaloniki, Izmir and Istanbul.
Sabbatai Zevi was a rabbi who was born in Izmir in 1626. In 1648 he proclaimed himself the long-awaited Jewish messiah.
Freemasonry in Turkey is one of the oldest, their greeting phrase is the wolf's ears, that is, closed fist with little and index fingers outwards, but not holding the hand up, but to the side.
It still lives in Anatolia, it happens that Erdogan sometimes makes interventions in the country and imprisons 100s of people at regular intervals that the West calls opposition.
In my opinion, Turkey has never been a stronghold for a strong Islamic state after Ataturk and Enwar. But with Erdogan they have found the right way, or not :)
I link to you regarding zevi, sabbatism and dönmeh.
this is where many sefardi came from, no matter what the article says, they weren't brought by sea to spain. they originate among byzantine "own jews", among which the older layers of defeated cananites, the hellenized ones and such, and were given a final shape after the settling of the huns. many of the features they display are still present or at least explainable through studying their origins. even ladino could have been brought back from spain or formed in both places, spain and byzantine/ottoman empire, based on the latin still spoken in the early years of the byzantine empire, mixed with the speech of the latin christian franks traders, the only europeans allowed in constantinople, that were neither latin, christian or franks, but rather agents of the narbonensis corporation established by the cananites formed under the influence of the babylonian amorite dynasty.
the Byzantines you are talking about are dönhem who originated from Thessaloniki, and ataturk is from there. Sephardim in all probability have nothing to do with dönhem. It is the same people/ideology but different movement.
again, ask yourself where did they come from - the jews of the true roman empire were loyal subjects and would go to form the european jewry, while these subversives held in reserve were pushed back and forth, together with the advance of the byzantine and hunnic armies. sure, during centuries there appeared many true jews among them, like there were many subversives among europeans, like the romanian hasidic houses. and the name might be indeed confusing, but only until you replace it with a definition: bizanti, including turkish (not all of them, there are also european and urfa jews), greek, italian, balkan (in both these areas there are also smaller european groups) and finally spanish and portuguese ones, those whose name is used more frequently because they had more freedom of initiative, being further from the power center and working more openly while the others were more discreet. only look at colombo - what is he, spanish, italian, portuguese? no one knows, and no one seems to care, since it's the same thing anyway.
One of the stranger aspects of Israel is that many of the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship like living there, and are treated well for the most part outside of institutional matters by their Jewish neighbors. Israeli Jews treat stateless Palestinians as an existential threat only because they would swamp the Jewish vote in a single-state solution, and cover their land in any other solution. But inter-personally, Israeli Arabs are the blue-collar labor for their mostly wealthier Jewish neighbors, and are treated similarly to the deference shown to Hispanics in blue-collar U.S. cities.
"iranian support for jamas" is a trap that iran fortunately avoided in time. if anything, iran is now punished for being too soft against israel, not too hostile. as for the "benefit of india becoming anti-turkish", i think an even bigger benefit would be for an apolitical and anideological (since they don't have much in common in this line) aggrupation of in-pk-ir-af to keep their corner safe, since chaos there won't bring much benefit to the west, but a lot of trouble in different forms. this education through whipping produces very temporary and localized effects and usually replaces a vice with another, sometimes more dangerous.
not anymore. the pressure points it had were the underground networks, when turkey tried to be independent; now, these networks themselves are engaged in this turkish turanist strategy. they were never loyal to america, they were just partners in crime, and now they themselves see a bigger profit in attacking the west. i would only wish europe, that only counts her steps starting from the previous one, not by looking at a map, would not fall in the same trap.
if their account is at a rotschild, ephrussi or sassoon bank (cananites and huns), or at an old italian (infiltrated byzantines) or swiss one (templars, a byzantine tool, lead from the interesting countries of italy and portugal), they have no reason to worry; alternatively, either americans or europeans fall in love with these guys, trying to prove themselves to them. like romanians before them, the turkish subversives aim at the top, without bothering with details like the entire west. if anyone thought 10 million romanian luxury migrants were the problem, with their wave of terrorist attacks, governments and heads of state installed or removed (such a long list), they should wait for the 30-40 million "turks" (mostly azeri, kurds, sufi and huns). why do you think they are helped to recruit so frantically populous countries like iran and pakistan? the new recruits will be the grunts, while these migrants will be the special forces.
> Which side the US would support, however, remains unclear
Given the dominance Israel has on U.S. politics, media, and oligarchs, and the current President being an Israel-first uber-Zionist, it's not that murky who comes first and gets U.S.' full support.
The interests of the Americans in the region are those of the Israelis. As much as the Pakistan factor seeks to help the Turks, the Kurdish factor lurks for Turkey. East Med was stopped due to green financing and Lebanon has signed an EEZ with Cyprus and Israel. Syria is not certain that it will not be dismembered. In addition, both Greece and Israel are arming themselves to a great extent, discouraging such a development.
turkey attacked the kurds that were a problem for herself, the remaining ones would accept to work with turkey or with anyone else to push their objectives.
The Kurds' war against the Turks is the worst since the Armenian genocide.
I have tried to find why there is peace right now between the Kurds in Turkey and the Turks, but I haven't really found it. It could be because of the following:
1- Erdogan is deceiving the West, has started to appreciate the Kurds and made the leader understand that the Kurds are being deceived by Israel or the USA and will never get their own country. And have a common enemy (if Erdogan is real)
2- The Kurdish leader in northern Iraq has closed the border for Kurds in Turkey and is hiding up in the mountains and they have no way to resist and get weapons through that channel.
But the peace is temporary. Kurds never forget what Turkey did to the öcalan.
Believe it or not, but the leader in northern Iraq (Barzani) made sure that the northeastern part of Syria (Kurds) did not become part of Kurdistan (the northern part of Iraq)
Part of it is terrain, the Iraqi and Turkish Kurds are both bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates and have trouble crossing out of the are in between the rivers.
yes but with the power of the Mossad in northern Iraq and a free route from Israel to northern Iraq through Syria they can deliver weapons and other equipment.
At the time of writing it may be done, who knows, but it is possible to get there. due to the war between the Kurds and Saddam in northern Iraq I have been able to get on mountain roads from Sleimaniya to Dohuk, Zakho, Silopi, the same thing from Hasakah to northern Iraq via the terrain roads to Zakho and Silopi, . no problems.
kurds are a group with heterogenic and sometimes turbulent origins, acting mostly as an intentional community. if they will be given a global purpose, like when the hunnic-oriented young turks have thrown them against armenians, they won't look back at a petty quarrel with turkey (and which turkey, indeed, since there are three big or six-seven smaller of them). under our eyes, they did the same with the hunno-azeri pahlavist, forgetting decades of genocide!
Even today Kurds are blamed for mass murders against the Syrians orthodox who lived in Turkey before the end of World War I, not Assyrians, Syrians orthodox.
Kurds have lived in south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, north-western Iran for about 5000 years.
the problem with Kurds is that they do not agree with each other, may be because they were split up in different countries.
But Kurds have not been thrown at Armenians if that is what you pointed out.
right now, the problems with kurds, azeris or turks are merely virtual, since the countries in the region are not strong enough to attack each other, which is one of the possible definitions of peace. the whole responsibility belongs to outsiders trying to stir the pot, and the scandinavian impulse to hook themselves on a belligerent faction and try to create local conflicts using it is that of a sparrow-killing child. there are no polite ways to say it - they have a dynamite stick and want to see it explode, for the fun of it. are the kurds in some danger? after few genocides their number grew 2-3 times, while the assyrian and armenian "pretenders", even greeks in their way, although this was more balanced, were reduced few times in number. and, with israel learning more about the field realities, the whole kurdish thing remains a western affair. and a sad one, since the guys tend to clean out any other population in their area, which makes their supporters direct accomplices to genocide. and, again about scandinavians, not kurds, they must ignore loads of mathematics, history and logic if their idea of "supporting our indo-european brothers" focuses on 20-30 million people while destroying the whole south and central asian branch, plus europe as a bonus. first, the north-western iranics don't have iranic origin (they are the zagrosian-elamites plus others) and second, like 2000 years ago, they were one of the main factors that made impossible the connection with the more cultured south eastern (sogdians, khwarezmians, tocharians, wusun) and stronger north eastern iranics (scythians), instead making possible the invasion of the opportunistic huns that took advantage of this weakening of this area when the chinese were crushing them. such "smartness" destroyed 10-20 germanic, slavic, iranic, anatolian, armenian and celtic countries that were buried in the dust of western steppe, so how many are the "geniuses" ready to see pulverized again? armenia, anybody, led by the yazidi kurd pashinyan? simple memory...
again, nothing against the kurds, you and other products of the hunnic invasion and previous underground infiltration like romanians, roma, ottomans or azeri are fine prosper, so i wouldn't call any of them a humanitarian emergency; just the "what if" nostalgia of sharing this corner of the world with suppressed cultures like the caucasian, semitic and even baltic ones, who would have a place to go in the medieval period. and the finns, sami and hungarians could still be here, since they came also running from the huns before being lobotomized by their propaganda.
peace and happiness, only don't tear down the fences.
I can see that you have a lot of experience. Maybe many people don't like it when you write about it but mix in off topic events that may have an indirect factor, but it becomes a bit long writing, but to be precise you have to write long posts sometimes.
But some of what you write can be a bit annoying for some then you go outside the news that is current. But I buy it, because you have at least 80% in your statements. Don't take offense.
We can start with your Byzantines :) . You are very right about that. It was Mehmet II and his son Beyazit who saved them (Sephardim) from Spain, then other sultans who sent them out to Salonika because it was difficult to rein them in. Do you know who Rehsan Cevit is?
Kurds, I wouldn't want to have my own country on other people's blood. But the fact is that Kassites, Guters were in northwest Iran long before Azerbaijanis existed as a people, hence your mixture of information which is a span of many hundreds of years, if not a thousand, then you get confused and find no interest in continuing and reading.
I don't think the Scandinavians care about Indo-European blood, in this case Kurds. The Scandinavians, not all with the majority must feel what it is like to be in war, famine, losing family members, otherwise the whole universe is a scam. Scandinavians have caused a lot of murder, they must feel it themselves. Therefore the war must come to Scandinavia, they must lose their country/countries.
In Sweden, the penalty scale for tax crimes is much much much higher than pedophilia and rape, . They point with their whole hand and say common sense, but selling weapons that kill, molesting their own children when they are small is ok.
A smart Yugoslav told me this. Swedes are not pedophiles but pedophile is Swedish.
British, Scandinavians are to blame for why Kurds don't have their own country when they prioritized the Ottomans, but now since two or three decades ago Kurds are prioritized.
There is a saying for it in Arabic.
It goes like this (we are playing a game, the game is that either I fuck you or I don't want to play)
As I wrote in a previous comment, the interests of the Americans in the region are those of the Israelis. Kemal Atatürk after World War I accepted the dissolution of the empire to save its Turkish core. He conquered the Balkans, Arabia, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus and kept Anatolia. There he imposed a single identity and language. This pressure temporarily closed rifts like those that had torn the Empire apart in the first place. Greeks, Assyrians, Kurds, Alevis, seculars, Muslims, were either exterminated or forced into a single "Turkish" mold. Within this context, Turkey could be an ally of Israel, a member of NATO and a regional power without imperial fantasies. Today the front becomes clear with Iran being in a phase of transition, the Arab world having already passed into the realm of management and the real front of the coming years remains unresolved, the showdown for the southern post-Ottoman area between Israel and Turkey. So you can suppose what's coming...
It is no surprise that the Eastern Mediterranean is in turmoil. Israel is there with full American backing. After the slaighter in Gaza there is little likelyhod that this area wil; calm down. At least no American lives are in trouble. Let the people in the area settle their own problems.
One quibble about turkey and one implication for Pakistan. The turks are trying to "veto" a lawful commercial infrastructure project, using ridiculous maritime claims for their EEZ (squiggly lines drawn laterally or through others waters). HOWEVER, even if this subsea infrastructure were transiting through their EEZ, they have no legal right to stop it- it would be governed by conventions on sub sea infrastructure that only require national consent when transiting national waters (like Nordatream near Bornholm Island). A veto here would be an illegal violation (nothing new to the turks,.who are now producing maps with Allepo, Mosul, Armenia and Cyprus colored red as part of a greater Turkey).
As for Pakistan, they have hundreds of thousands of "guest workers" (most trafficed throgh Turkey and illegal) in Greece and the rest of Europe, sending back needed remittances and easily replaced by Indians or South Americans. An easy pressure point.
I get your point, but I don't believe that international law is much of a restraint on the behavior of aspirational Great Powers like Turkiye anymore. Turkiye has also previously flouted such principles as its critics claim in Cyprus, Syria, etc., so it already has a track record of "going its own way" in pursuit of what it regards as its national interests. I therefore don't expect international law to have any influence whatsoever on what Turkiye might or might not do in this context.
Very interesting, I was not aware of this particular power struggle “corner of the world”. I just wanted to say that I read the latest James Corbett Substack this morning and you both echo similarly - there is no international law (if it ever existed?!?).
James dubbed 2026 year of the Storm and foresees Venuzurla as one of the many to come…
Guess it’s buckle up time!
And enjoy everything we can time, since 2020 I’ve felt a strong sense that health and happiness are the best counters to the fear and boogey men being pushed by “them” in the narratives.
And of course learning and widening my views from authors like you!
" I don't believe that international law is much of a restraint on the behavior of aspirational Great Powers like Turkiye anymore. "
Yes, the US recently made sure of that. Only a nation of fools would follow " international law" at this point.
I'm not at all fan of Turkey and even less of Erdogan.
However.
1: Turkey didn't recognise the " international sea right" which are, actually, the western sea rights.
2: After WW1, turkish empire was split awfully and all the little islands very close of Turkey were given to....Greece.
Look at a map, it's scandalous. Since one century, Turks have been feeling a terrible injustice and humiliation for that and, understandably, never accepted that.
I imagine french mood if every tiny island near the french shore had been given to, for example, Spain and all the sea until 250 km from those shores had been given to Spain.
In history, there have been wars for less than that.
That said, Erdogan is a snake who will lay down as soon as it's US master will frown.
Darras, I have some issues with some of the points you made - the easiest of which are factual, but that leads into world-views and historical context.
Turkey and International Sea Rights:
*Turkey’s approach is “a la carte”: in the Black Sea and EastMed, where the new UNCLOS rules serves her, she has expanded her territorial waters to 12NM but in the Aegean, she insists on the old rules and 6NM limits and a continental shelf argument for economic zones (EEZ).
*In the Black Sea she delimitated her EEZ based on the UNCLOS customary law (which she rejects in the Aegean and EastMed). As such, delimitation is based on E/W and N/S lines of latitude and longitude. If they were to follow Turkey’s lateral approach with Libya, Russia and Bulgaria or Romania and Georgia could claim common maritime borders and a third of Turkey’s Black Sea EEZ would be “contested territory”.
*At this point Ankara is like a child playing with crayons on a naval map, using any mix of arguments she thinks makes sense to justify maximalist claims. In reality, it’s Turkey’s carpet-seller, bazaar- negotiations strategy: through up outrageous, maximalist demands, stomp around in anger, issue threats, belligerent brinkmanship, declare “grey areas” where, in fact, things are very clear, avoid a legal dispute resolutions because she knows her case is weak, and try to negotiate based on threats. We’ll see how that goes, but in this area she does not have the backing of the Islamic world who have huge interests in UNCLOS to secure their EEZs and territorial waters from encroachment from China and other great powers.
Territorial Disintegration of Ottoman Empire
*No-one “gave” Greek islands from Turkey to Greece. These islands earned their independence, along with the European part of the Greek Homeland, through blood. They were never part of Turkey.
*Greeks paid a heavy price in blood for their independence, with ~20% of the Greek populations in the Balkans, Anatolia and the islands being massacred and genocided along with the Armenians and Assyrians. Since the early 1800s, and especially from the time of Abdulhamid in 1885, there were systematic anti-Christian massacres, including of the Patriarch after Greek independence, and half the island of Chios - 50,000 people massacred after they revolted against Kostantiniyye. The British and French, BTW, had ships in the harbour instructed not to interfere: they took notes and sketches and wrote articles and made paintings like Delacroix’s in the Louvre, virtue-signalling their horror but profiting from it.
*Most importantly, the vast majority (90%+++) of the Aegean Islands were Greek Orthodox and not Muslim (what we call “Turkish” today is a mix of ex-Ottoman citizens that converted to Islam, of which Turks were the plurality).
*There were three groups of islands that were “given”: (1) the British forced Greece to give Greek-majority Imbros & Tenedos in the northern Aegean to Turkey with self-government and minority rights as part of the Straits regime of the Lausanne Treaty (Turkey has violated those provisions and instigated terror campaigns and pogroms), though these should have been returned after the Montreux Convention; and (2) the Greek-majority Dodecanese islands were given by the great powers to the Italian Empire (along with part of Anatolia) against the will of their inhabitants which wanted to join with Greece. Turkey later tried to negotiate being given these islands in exchange for entering WW2 (just as they were negotiating to be sold Slavic Muslims from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before WW2!!!) but in the end the islands were allowed to accede to Greece after Italy’s defeat; and (3) Cyprus, which Britain took for itself (over 78% Greek and 82% Christian and wanted to join Greece( which for geo-political reasons was dismembered.
*So, if the inhabitants aren’t Turks, and the islands haven’t ever been part of Turkey, on what basis “should they go to Turkey”?
*Given that Turkey doesn’t care for facts, it is more accurate and pertinent to say that Greece was allowed to keep most of the Greek-inhabited islands for geostrategic reasons - to limit the maritime potential of the Turks, while leaving them in a precarious position in need western support (like India was cut off from the MidEast by Pakistan, but Pakistan was left with an open wound in its Afghan border creating a permanent need for an external balancer).
Anatolian Injustice and World-Views
*The Turkish worldview is something like this: we arrived by divine right into Anatolia and the Near East, and brought civilization to these lands. The people before us, their histories and civilizations, lost and don’t matter and no longer counts for anything: they should be glad we did not kill all of them, pay loyalty (as Muslims, or Jizya as Infidels) to our Great Turko-Islamic civilization which now belongs to us forever.
*For rather understandable reasons, the native Arabs and Persians in the Middle East didn’t like being second class citizens to this tribe of bodyguards that they viewed as civilizationally inferior. Even more so the native Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians of Anatolia or the Greeks, Latins and Slavs of the Balkan, and rebellions were CONSTANT throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire. The Egypt of Ali Pasha marched on Kostantiniyye, but the Ottomans were assisted by the Russians (who wanted it for themselves, but later!).
*From the perspective of these native populations, the Turks were interlopers to be overcome, a long but temporary phase of foreign occupation to be evicted as the Mongols had been evicted in the East, or as Moors had been evicted from Iberia. As a side-note, if this seems an extreme attitude, try this idea on the other way around: the aborigines in Australia or America had their land stolen from them by the White man, or the Palestinians are occupied and have a right to fight for their land back.
*Before the Balkan wars Muslims made up a minority of about 10% in the Balkans, about 60% in Anatolia, and about 90% in the Middle East but relatively few Turks. The Balkans gained independence first, after huge bloodshed by the Ottomans and then against resident Muslims, both local and Turks. The Arabs voted with their feet, and the last battles were in the strategically most important part: Anatolia.
*According to Turkish Historiography, the native Turkish homeland was invaded by western imperial powers - Britain, France, Italy, Greece and faced extermination campaigns by the Armenians aligned with the Russians. In propaganda the best place to hide a lie is between many truths: Britain, France and Italy were imperial invaders - but they were also imperial competitors against Turkish imperial designs on Kurdish and Arab lands in Iraq and Syria. And the Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians (who, again, were the NATIVES subject to massacres for a century, especially since 1885) were fighting to be free and reclaim their ancestral lands. They dominated certain regions of Anatolia- the Armenians in the Anatolian/Armenian highlands and Silesia, the Assyrians near Mesopotamia, and the Greeks along the Thracian & Aegean coasts (across from the islands you mention!) as well as the Pontic mountains.
*So who, then, suffered the most terrible injustice? The native peoples who had never attacked Turks in their Altai and steppe homelands? The 40% of the pre-war Anatolian population that was Christian and got 0% of their native territory, being either genocided or expelled? And in case you’re not aware, many of the Greeks expelled from the Greek-majority Asia Minor coast ended up in these close by Aegean islands as refugees. Or do you think the Turks suffered a terrible injustice because their occupation and domination of other people was ended, and they “lost” the Aegean islands and the oilfields of the Middle East? Or perhaps the Kurds, who are not yet free?
The past is the past, written in blood like as are current borders. The Lausanne Treaty was supposed to draw a line, however much everyone was unhappy with the new borders. Unfortunately the Turks seem to think that treaties are temporary, compliance is optional, and have been violating it since before the ink was dry: claiming Alexandreta (Hatay), Cyprus, the rest of Thrace (from Bulgaria and Greece) half the Aegean (for now), northern Syria, Northern Iraq, part of Iran and all of Armenia. They view themselves as a “great power, destined to conquer” but I’m afraid that as the world re-aligns they will repeat their Ottoman mistakes and overplay their hand. The west shielded them from Russia as long as they were useful (like the Sultan urging Indonesians and Raj Muslims to comply with their western overlords), and then accelerated their breakup when they tried to act independently. As in WW1 or Shah’s Iran, or Saadam’s Iraq, Erdogan’s Turkey is flying into the same fate and will create more terrible injustices.
The islands were not given to Greece. Greece fought and was among the victors of World War II, even with enormous losses, at a time when Turkey was looking... https://el-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%CE%A3%CF%84%CF%81%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B9%CF%89%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE_%CE%B9%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1_%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82_%CE%95%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%AC%CE%B4%CE%B1%CF%82_%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%AC_%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BD_%CE%92%CE%84_%CE%A0%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%BA%CF%8C%CF%83%CE%BC%CE%B9%CE%BF_%CE%A0%CF%8C%CE%BB%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%BF?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=el&_x_tr_hl=el
Please, Greece "only" lost 26000 men in WW1. Turks 800 000, French 1,6 million.
Without French and British, Greece was nothing in front of turkish empire. British and French gave Greece all the turkish islands.
Maybe you should read history again, the Aegean islands were given to Greece at the end of World War II on March 7, 1948, because of its struggles!!!
Ok, Gaven to Greece by who?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Greece_during_World_War_II
you are right about turkey, and this argument should have been used earlier to pacify the area, if not for the games of (mostly) europeans themselves. and now, (at least some of) these islands versus something else would still be a fair exchange for peace, or a very good asset in a case of war, if things go in the same way and the west will be smart to start it before dozens of millions turks will invade it. unlike in the case of romanians where the signs were clear from the beginning, the smart, intellectual and good willing turkish diaspora in europe is nothing like those that would come. and i don't say this like the greek diaspora would be innocent, they aren't.
I don't understand your argument. It's incoherent.
stop saying it's incoherent, sounds insulting; say i am incapable to understand instead. now for the argument - i respect greece, she's an undeservedly tiny country with a huge history and at least for this deserves to be bigger - i even have my ideas about it, mostly through exchanges with turkey, cyprus and macedonia and some population exchanges that cramp an already small country. the territory of greece is truly the quintessence of arcadia - the innocent land which makes you abandon your bad impulses. but there is too a dark side of it that was mostly moved from outside and laid bad fruits everywhere. the movers were pelasgian remnants, thracians and (at least some) doric migrants, or whatever other instruments the evil could find, and unfortunately much of the greek diaspora is made of the cultural consequences of such moves. that's why, if offered the chance, they won't hesitate to join this turanist movement (which is much more than that) and i feel many are involved in it - what we know as hellenists, byzantines or any other imperial form this took. and if these things go too far, too fast, i am really not sure on which side greece will be then, while i am pretty sure cyprus will be on the bad one. but, in the best case, as i kept writing during the years, greece needs land, turkey needs water, and you can divide the islands in three groups - one too loaded with greek history to be abandoned, one too important for turkey to be left, and one which can be negotiated.
There is zero trust between Israel and current Turkey. Collaboration might have happened 40 years ago. But today? With primary support for Hamas coming out of Turkey (as well as Qatar and Iran)? This applies both to the gas pipeline and to Lybia. In Lybia, it looks like Israel is quietly supporting the Egyptian-Russian side against the Turkish side too. Egypt also hasn't forgotten that Turkey was supporting Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Mursi et al. If Turkey further allies with Pakistan, India will move to the anti-Turkish side too.
yes exactly, very unlikely that Israel and Turkey could share the major power factor in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean when both want to be the largest power factor there.
Qatar was bombed which is a US "friend" in the Gulf and the US did absolutely nothing.
Turkey may feel that they are next in line because Israel has made it clear that it is absolutely possible for a "Greater Israel", which includes land in Turkey.
So there are no pipelines, whether gold or gas flows through them that can unite both countries to share the power factor in the area.
One wonders how the US would react if Turkey which is a NATO country but gets a slap in the face from Israel.
Turkey is just as infected from within as Iran when it comes to Mossad activities "the wolves"
The case of Adnan Oktar: Proves that Jews actually have nothing against "Muslims" as long as the so-called "Muslims" dance to Jewish tunes.
Adnan Oktar, under the pseudonym "Harun Yahya", is a Turkish author and "Islamic preacher" who has written several books critical of Israel and Judaism, books such as "Israel's Kurdish Card" and books on Freemasonry such as "Judaism and Freemasonry" and "The New Masonic Order".
When Adnan Oktar was an "anti-Semite" who published anti-Jewish "conspiracy theory" texts, he was strongly condemned and maligned by the Jewish media.
Suddenly, Adnan Oktar changed his tune and went from anti-Israeli to pro-Israeli, to pro-Jewish!
Turkey must now start to really decide where they stand.
Otherwise, it will be fatal for the Turks. Starting to deal with their internal problems "the wolves"
With USA interested in Danish Greenland, NATO doesn't mean that much .It would be a 2nd intra-NATO conflict, after Greece and Turkey's over Cyprus. I am a bit astonished by references to Freemasons in Turkey. Is that really real? The more adjacent thing would have been Dönmeh. These were in fact a more common component in the early Turkish Deep State after WW1. But now 100 years later, they have now been completely pushed aside by the Turkish Islamist Renaissance.
If Trump takes Greenland, it will be the downfall of NATO, that would be incredibly nice, then over time Western Europe will be free from hypocrisy.
Yes, you are absolutely right about dönmeh, it is dönmeh and sabbatism.
A significant number of Jews, most of whom had escaped Spanish persecution in 1492, lived in the Ottoman lands. They spoke a mixed language of Hebrew and Spanish, called Ladino, and lived mostly in Thessaloniki, Izmir and Istanbul.
Sabbatai Zevi was a rabbi who was born in Izmir in 1626. In 1648 he proclaimed himself the long-awaited Jewish messiah.
Freemasonry in Turkey is one of the oldest, their greeting phrase is the wolf's ears, that is, closed fist with little and index fingers outwards, but not holding the hand up, but to the side.
It still lives in Anatolia, it happens that Erdogan sometimes makes interventions in the country and imprisons 100s of people at regular intervals that the West calls opposition.
In my opinion, Turkey has never been a stronghold for a strong Islamic state after Ataturk and Enwar. But with Erdogan they have found the right way, or not :)
I link to you regarding zevi, sabbatism and dönmeh.
https://www.dailysabah.com/life/2017/04/28/sabbataism-and-doenmehs-in-ottoman-society
this is where many sefardi came from, no matter what the article says, they weren't brought by sea to spain. they originate among byzantine "own jews", among which the older layers of defeated cananites, the hellenized ones and such, and were given a final shape after the settling of the huns. many of the features they display are still present or at least explainable through studying their origins. even ladino could have been brought back from spain or formed in both places, spain and byzantine/ottoman empire, based on the latin still spoken in the early years of the byzantine empire, mixed with the speech of the latin christian franks traders, the only europeans allowed in constantinople, that were neither latin, christian or franks, but rather agents of the narbonensis corporation established by the cananites formed under the influence of the babylonian amorite dynasty.
the Byzantines you are talking about are dönhem who originated from Thessaloniki, and ataturk is from there. Sephardim in all probability have nothing to do with dönhem. It is the same people/ideology but different movement.
again, ask yourself where did they come from - the jews of the true roman empire were loyal subjects and would go to form the european jewry, while these subversives held in reserve were pushed back and forth, together with the advance of the byzantine and hunnic armies. sure, during centuries there appeared many true jews among them, like there were many subversives among europeans, like the romanian hasidic houses. and the name might be indeed confusing, but only until you replace it with a definition: bizanti, including turkish (not all of them, there are also european and urfa jews), greek, italian, balkan (in both these areas there are also smaller european groups) and finally spanish and portuguese ones, those whose name is used more frequently because they had more freedom of initiative, being further from the power center and working more openly while the others were more discreet. only look at colombo - what is he, spanish, italian, portuguese? no one knows, and no one seems to care, since it's the same thing anyway.
One of the stranger aspects of Israel is that many of the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship like living there, and are treated well for the most part outside of institutional matters by their Jewish neighbors. Israeli Jews treat stateless Palestinians as an existential threat only because they would swamp the Jewish vote in a single-state solution, and cover their land in any other solution. But inter-personally, Israeli Arabs are the blue-collar labor for their mostly wealthier Jewish neighbors, and are treated similarly to the deference shown to Hispanics in blue-collar U.S. cities.
The issue in the region is not a greater Israel but a secure Israel.
Safer yes, just look at the neighboring countries, but also larger ones, when the neighbors fall.
See if you can find a picture of an IDF soldier's arms where they have the flag and you will see the size of their country.
"iranian support for jamas" is a trap that iran fortunately avoided in time. if anything, iran is now punished for being too soft against israel, not too hostile. as for the "benefit of india becoming anti-turkish", i think an even bigger benefit would be for an apolitical and anideological (since they don't have much in common in this line) aggrupation of in-pk-ir-af to keep their corner safe, since chaos there won't bring much benefit to the west, but a lot of trouble in different forms. this education through whipping produces very temporary and localized effects and usually replaces a vice with another, sometimes more dangerous.
The United States, and by extension Israel, have many pressure points over Turkey.
And Turkey controls the Dardanelles, which is no small matter either.
not anymore. the pressure points it had were the underground networks, when turkey tried to be independent; now, these networks themselves are engaged in this turkish turanist strategy. they were never loyal to america, they were just partners in crime, and now they themselves see a bigger profit in attacking the west. i would only wish europe, that only counts her steps starting from the previous one, not by looking at a map, would not fall in the same trap.
Those Turkish rulers don't have western bank accounts, western properties? They don't like european vacations and shiny western toys?
if their account is at a rotschild, ephrussi or sassoon bank (cananites and huns), or at an old italian (infiltrated byzantines) or swiss one (templars, a byzantine tool, lead from the interesting countries of italy and portugal), they have no reason to worry; alternatively, either americans or europeans fall in love with these guys, trying to prove themselves to them. like romanians before them, the turkish subversives aim at the top, without bothering with details like the entire west. if anyone thought 10 million romanian luxury migrants were the problem, with their wave of terrorist attacks, governments and heads of state installed or removed (such a long list), they should wait for the 30-40 million "turks" (mostly azeri, kurds, sufi and huns). why do you think they are helped to recruit so frantically populous countries like iran and pakistan? the new recruits will be the grunts, while these migrants will be the special forces.
> Which side the US would support, however, remains unclear
Given the dominance Israel has on U.S. politics, media, and oligarchs, and the current President being an Israel-first uber-Zionist, it's not that murky who comes first and gets U.S.' full support.
The interests of the Americans in the region are those of the Israelis. As much as the Pakistan factor seeks to help the Turks, the Kurdish factor lurks for Turkey. East Med was stopped due to green financing and Lebanon has signed an EEZ with Cyprus and Israel. Syria is not certain that it will not be dismembered. In addition, both Greece and Israel are arming themselves to a great extent, discouraging such a development.
turkey attacked the kurds that were a problem for herself, the remaining ones would accept to work with turkey or with anyone else to push their objectives.
The Kurds' war against the Turks is the worst since the Armenian genocide.
I have tried to find why there is peace right now between the Kurds in Turkey and the Turks, but I haven't really found it. It could be because of the following:
1- Erdogan is deceiving the West, has started to appreciate the Kurds and made the leader understand that the Kurds are being deceived by Israel or the USA and will never get their own country. And have a common enemy (if Erdogan is real)
2- The Kurdish leader in northern Iraq has closed the border for Kurds in Turkey and is hiding up in the mountains and they have no way to resist and get weapons through that channel.
But the peace is temporary. Kurds never forget what Turkey did to the öcalan.
Believe it or not, but the leader in northern Iraq (Barzani) made sure that the northeastern part of Syria (Kurds) did not become part of Kurdistan (the northern part of Iraq)
Part of it is terrain, the Iraqi and Turkish Kurds are both bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates and have trouble crossing out of the are in between the rivers.
yes but with the power of the Mossad in northern Iraq and a free route from Israel to northern Iraq through Syria they can deliver weapons and other equipment.
At the time of writing it may be done, who knows, but it is possible to get there. due to the war between the Kurds and Saddam in northern Iraq I have been able to get on mountain roads from Sleimaniya to Dohuk, Zakho, Silopi, the same thing from Hasakah to northern Iraq via the terrain roads to Zakho and Silopi, . no problems.
kurds are a group with heterogenic and sometimes turbulent origins, acting mostly as an intentional community. if they will be given a global purpose, like when the hunnic-oriented young turks have thrown them against armenians, they won't look back at a petty quarrel with turkey (and which turkey, indeed, since there are three big or six-seven smaller of them). under our eyes, they did the same with the hunno-azeri pahlavist, forgetting decades of genocide!
small war with the Turks?
You are out cycling my friend.
Even today Kurds are blamed for mass murders against the Syrians orthodox who lived in Turkey before the end of World War I, not Assyrians, Syrians orthodox.
Kurds have lived in south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, north-western Iran for about 5000 years.
the problem with Kurds is that they do not agree with each other, may be because they were split up in different countries.
But Kurds have not been thrown at Armenians if that is what you pointed out.
right now, the problems with kurds, azeris or turks are merely virtual, since the countries in the region are not strong enough to attack each other, which is one of the possible definitions of peace. the whole responsibility belongs to outsiders trying to stir the pot, and the scandinavian impulse to hook themselves on a belligerent faction and try to create local conflicts using it is that of a sparrow-killing child. there are no polite ways to say it - they have a dynamite stick and want to see it explode, for the fun of it. are the kurds in some danger? after few genocides their number grew 2-3 times, while the assyrian and armenian "pretenders", even greeks in their way, although this was more balanced, were reduced few times in number. and, with israel learning more about the field realities, the whole kurdish thing remains a western affair. and a sad one, since the guys tend to clean out any other population in their area, which makes their supporters direct accomplices to genocide. and, again about scandinavians, not kurds, they must ignore loads of mathematics, history and logic if their idea of "supporting our indo-european brothers" focuses on 20-30 million people while destroying the whole south and central asian branch, plus europe as a bonus. first, the north-western iranics don't have iranic origin (they are the zagrosian-elamites plus others) and second, like 2000 years ago, they were one of the main factors that made impossible the connection with the more cultured south eastern (sogdians, khwarezmians, tocharians, wusun) and stronger north eastern iranics (scythians), instead making possible the invasion of the opportunistic huns that took advantage of this weakening of this area when the chinese were crushing them. such "smartness" destroyed 10-20 germanic, slavic, iranic, anatolian, armenian and celtic countries that were buried in the dust of western steppe, so how many are the "geniuses" ready to see pulverized again? armenia, anybody, led by the yazidi kurd pashinyan? simple memory...
again, nothing against the kurds, you and other products of the hunnic invasion and previous underground infiltration like romanians, roma, ottomans or azeri are fine prosper, so i wouldn't call any of them a humanitarian emergency; just the "what if" nostalgia of sharing this corner of the world with suppressed cultures like the caucasian, semitic and even baltic ones, who would have a place to go in the medieval period. and the finns, sami and hungarians could still be here, since they came also running from the huns before being lobotomized by their propaganda.
peace and happiness, only don't tear down the fences.
I can see that you have a lot of experience. Maybe many people don't like it when you write about it but mix in off topic events that may have an indirect factor, but it becomes a bit long writing, but to be precise you have to write long posts sometimes.
But some of what you write can be a bit annoying for some then you go outside the news that is current. But I buy it, because you have at least 80% in your statements. Don't take offense.
We can start with your Byzantines :) . You are very right about that. It was Mehmet II and his son Beyazit who saved them (Sephardim) from Spain, then other sultans who sent them out to Salonika because it was difficult to rein them in. Do you know who Rehsan Cevit is?
Kurds, I wouldn't want to have my own country on other people's blood. But the fact is that Kassites, Guters were in northwest Iran long before Azerbaijanis existed as a people, hence your mixture of information which is a span of many hundreds of years, if not a thousand, then you get confused and find no interest in continuing and reading.
I don't think the Scandinavians care about Indo-European blood, in this case Kurds. The Scandinavians, not all with the majority must feel what it is like to be in war, famine, losing family members, otherwise the whole universe is a scam. Scandinavians have caused a lot of murder, they must feel it themselves. Therefore the war must come to Scandinavia, they must lose their country/countries.
In Sweden, the penalty scale for tax crimes is much much much higher than pedophilia and rape, . They point with their whole hand and say common sense, but selling weapons that kill, molesting their own children when they are small is ok.
A smart Yugoslav told me this. Swedes are not pedophiles but pedophile is Swedish.
British, Scandinavians are to blame for why Kurds don't have their own country when they prioritized the Ottomans, but now since two or three decades ago Kurds are prioritized.
There is a saying for it in Arabic.
It goes like this (we are playing a game, the game is that either I fuck you or I don't want to play)
As I wrote in a previous comment, the interests of the Americans in the region are those of the Israelis. Kemal Atatürk after World War I accepted the dissolution of the empire to save its Turkish core. He conquered the Balkans, Arabia, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus and kept Anatolia. There he imposed a single identity and language. This pressure temporarily closed rifts like those that had torn the Empire apart in the first place. Greeks, Assyrians, Kurds, Alevis, seculars, Muslims, were either exterminated or forced into a single "Turkish" mold. Within this context, Turkey could be an ally of Israel, a member of NATO and a regional power without imperial fantasies. Today the front becomes clear with Iran being in a phase of transition, the Arab world having already passed into the realm of management and the real front of the coming years remains unresolved, the showdown for the southern post-Ottoman area between Israel and Turkey. So you can suppose what's coming...
It is no surprise that the Eastern Mediterranean is in turmoil. Israel is there with full American backing. After the slaighter in Gaza there is little likelyhod that this area wil; calm down. At least no American lives are in trouble. Let the people in the area settle their own problems.
You forget the tens of thousands US soldiers, aviators and sailors in the middle east.
So what ?? stay out of the fightingand you will not get killed/\. Do not be foolish and fight for Israel.