Kurds

Just days after the U.S. presidential election, newspapers allied with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) published stories alleging that elements of the U.S. government would conspire to prevent Donald Trump from governing. Trump, the consensus in the pro-government media held, was a better choice for Turkey: As a billionaire who is outside of the Washington mainstream, he is above influence from members of the Gulen Movement, some of whom gave money to Hillary Clinton’s super-PAC.

Two co-leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and at least 12 of its MPs have been arrested as police raided homes in Ankara and Kurdish-majority areas in eastern Turkey. The arrests are linked to “terrorist propaganda” cases, Reuters said.

Cavusoglu insisted that invading Iraq is Turkey’s “most natural right.” Turkey presently has about 500 troops in Iraq, which they’ve had for around a year. The Iraqi government has repeatedly demanded Turkey withdraw, but Turkish officials have insisted they will stay and participate in the war against ISIS.

As a result of this, with the building of the Rojava Revolution, all equilibrium was gone. And that has given a basis for the start of a new war in the Middle East. Kurdish forces have taken their place as active actors in this war. Against the Kurds are all the capitalist international forces. The global powers are in a great amount of fear and they are struggling to prolong

On October 24, the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Turkish Armed Forces launched a full-scale advance on the direction of strategic ISIS-controlled town of Al-Bab in the northern part of Aleppo province.

If the anti-Isis forces ultimately succeed in recapturing Mosul it will be the fifth time the city has changed hands in the course of 13 years of war. The first time was in April 2003 when the Iraqi army was breaking up and surrendering and the Kurdish Peshmerga burst into the city. There was looting on a mass scale which the Arabs blamed on the Kurds and vice versa, but in fact both took part. I saw crowds ransack the governor’s mansion, the Central Bank and the university.

The same forces which "predicted" and encouraged the July coup in Turkey are again in action. Michael Rubin, a neoconservative activist, connected in the past with Turkish Kemalists, has posted an article in the website of the ultra-hawkish American Enterprise Institute titles "Is a new coup in the cards in Turkey". Rubin's "prophecies" may not ne just "prophecies". They constitute also an indirect, still clear threat. Rubin and the AEI are anything but innocent observers. The same author has already written about the possibility of a coup in Turkey in March 2016, encouraging the Turkish army to go on with it.

Turkey's parliament voted last week to extend the deployment of an estimated 2,000 troops across northern Iraq by a year to combat "terrorist organizations" - a likely reference to Kurdish rebels as well as Islamic State. Iraq condemned the vote, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned Turkey risked triggering

Speaking before a United Nations Security Council meeting on Syria Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry demagogically blamed Russia and the government of President Bashar al-Assad for the escalating violence that has left a ceasefire reached earlier this month in tatters.

The US and Russia have committed to a ceasefire beginning Monday at sunset, which is to last for a week over the Eid holiday. The US-backed rebel groups are supposed to cease attacking government-held areas, although it appears increasingly likely that some rebel groups will refuse to implement the deal. The Assad government has agreed to allow humanitarian supplies into Aleppo.