Turkey

One of the reasons, many observers believe, President Obama comes to Greece this week, is to press Athens to be “helpful” for a “solution” to the Cyprus problem. On the other hand the European Commission is also pressing hard both Nicosia and Athens to accept a solution, even worse than the one the Cypriot people had rejected back in 2004, by voting by an overwhelming majority NO in a referendum held in both the territories controlled by the Republic of Cyprus and those under the control of the Turkish Army, which invaded Cyprus in 1974 and does not seem in any way willing to leave the island, with or without an agreed solution.

Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on “the United Nations and the UN Special Adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide to stop trying to artificially appoint timeframes for reaching agreements and imposing solutions that are rejected by any of the parties to the Cyprus settlement.”

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.

Aris Petasis* The Cyprus problem is a Russian problem as well. The current purblind negotiations, ostensibly between the two Cypriot communities (82% Greek and 18%...

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.

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.

Like the Russian president, Mr. Erdogan did not shrink from challenging the existing status-quo, claiming for Ankara the status of leader of the Muslim world. From the point of view of the Western elite, both of these politicians have signed their own death warrants with such declarations.

The Avaaz petition does not aim to end the war and restore peace. It clearly aims to obstruct the Syrian government offensive to retake Aleppo. The Syrian army has undergone heavy losses in five years of war, its potential recruits have in effect been invited to avoid dangerous military service by going to Germany. Syria needs air power to reduce its own casualties. The Avaaz petition calls for crippling the Syrian offensive