By Pepe Escobar : posted with permission
As Putin meeting looms, no one in Moscow believes any word, promise or cajoling from Erdogan anymore
Refugees wait Saturday to cross the border between Turkey and Greece near the Pazarkule border post, in Turkey. Thousands of migrants and refugees, including Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis, have massed at Turkey’s border with Greece after Erdogan announced on February 28 that Turkey would no longer prevent them from leaving for the European Union. Photo: AFP / Burcu Okutan / Sputnik
The latest installment of the interminable Syria tragedy could be interpreted as Greece barely blocking a European “invasion” by Syrian refugees. The invasion was threatened by President Erdogan even as he refused the EU’s puny “offer you can refuse” bribe of only one billion euros.
Well, it’s more complicated than that. What Erdogan is in fact weaponizing is mostly economic migrants – from Afghanistan to the Sahel – and not Syrian refugees.
Informed observers in Brussels know that interlocking mafias – Iraqi, Afghan, Egyptian, Tunisian, Moroccan – have been active for quite a long time smuggling everyone and his neighbor from the Sahel via Turkey, as the Greek route towards the EU Holy Grail is much safer than the Central Mediterranean.
The EU sending a last-minute emissary to Ankara will yield no new facts on the ground – even as some in Brussels, in bad faith, continue to carp that the one million “refugees” trying to leave Idlib could double and that, if Turkey does not open its borders with Syria, there will be a “massacre.”
Those in Brussels spinning the “Turkey as victim” scenario list three conditions for a possible solution. The first is a ceasefire – which in fact already exists, via the Sochi agreement, and was not respected by Ankara. The second is a “political process” – which, once again, does exist: the Astana process involving Russia, Turkey and Iran. And the third is “humanitarian aid” – a euphemism that means, in fact, a NATO intervention of the Libya “humanitarian imperialism” kind.
As it stands, two facts are inescapable. Number one: the Greek military don’t have what it takes to resist, in practice, Ankara’s weaponizing of the so-called “refugees.”
Number two is the kind of stuff that makes NATO fanatics recoil in horror: Since the Ottoman siege of Vienna, this is the first time in four centuries that a “Muslim invasion” of Europe is being prevented by, who else, Russia.
Fed up with sultan
This past Sunday, Ankara launched yet another Pentagon-style military adventure, baptized as Spring Shield. All decisions are centralized by a triumvirate: Erdogan, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and the head of MIT (Turkish intel) Hakan Fidan. John Helmer has memorably called them the SUV (Sultan and the Ugly Viziers).
Behlul Ozkan, from the University of Marmara, a respected Kemalist scholar, frames the whole tragedy as having been played since the 1980s, now back on the stage on a much larger scale since the start of the so-called Syrian chapter of the Arab Spring in 2011.
Ozkan charges Erdogan with creating “conquering troops out of five unlikely fundamentalist groups” and “naming the armed groups after Ottoman sultans,” claiming they are a sort of national salvation army. But this time, argues Ozkan, the results are much worse – from millions of refugees to the terrible destruction in Syria, and “the emergence of our political and military structures affecting national security in a dangerous way.”
To say that the Russian General Staff are absolutely fed up with the SUV’s shenanigans is the ultimate understatement. That’s the background for the meeting this Thursday in Moscow between Putin and Erdogan. Methodically, the Russians are disrupting Turk operations to an unsustainable level – ranging from renewed air cover to the Syrian Arab Army to electronic countermeasures totally smashing all Turkish drones.
Russian diplomatic sources confirm that no one in Moscow believes any word, promise or cajoling emanating from Erdogan anymore. So it’s useless to ask him to respect the Sochi agreement. Imagine a Sun Tzu-style meeting with the Russian side displaying the very picture of self-restraint while scrutinizing Erdogan on how much he is willing to suffer before desisting from his Idlib adventure.
Those non-nonsense proto-Mongols
What ghosts from the past evolve in Erdogan’s unconscious? Let history be our guide – and let’s go for a ride among the empires of the steppes.
In the 5th century, the Juan Juan people, proto-Mongols as much as their cousins the White Huns (who lived in today’s Afghanistan), were the first to give their princes the title of khan – afterwards used by the Turks as well as the Mongols.
A vast Eurasian Turco-Mongol linguistic spectrum – studied in detail by crack French experts such as J.P. Roux – evolved via conquering migrations, more or less ephemeral imperial states, and aggregating diverse ethnic groups around rival Turkish or Mongol dynasties. We can talk about an Eurasian Turk space from Central Asia to the Mediterranean for no less than a millennium and a half – but only, crucially, for 900 years in Asia Minor (today’s Anatolia).
These were highly hierarchical and militarized societies, unstable, but still capable, given the right conditions, such as the emergence of a charismatic personality, to engage in a strong collective project of building political constructions. So the charismatic Erdogan Khan mindset is not much different from what happened centuries ago.
The first form of this socio-cultural tradition appeared even before the conversion to Islam – which happened after the battle of Talas in 751, won by the Arabs against the Chinese. But most of all it all crystallized around Central Asia from the 10th and 11th centuries onwards.
Unlike Greece in the Aegean, unlike India or Han China, there was never a central focus in terms of a cultural berth or supreme identity organizing this process. Today this role in Turkey is played by Anatolia – but that’s a 20th century phenomenon.
What history has shown is an east-west Eurasian axis across the steppes, from Central Asia to Anatolia, through which nomad tribes, Turk and Turkmen, then the Ottoman Turks, migrated and progressed, as conquerors, between the 7th and the 17th centuries: a whole millennium building an array of sultanates, emirates and empires. No wonder the Turkish president pictures himself as Erdogan Khan or Sultan Erdogan.
“Idlib is mine”
So there is a link between the turcophone tribes of Central Asia from the 5th and 6th centuries and the current Turkish nation. From the 6th to the 11th centuries they were set up as a confederation of big tribes. Then, going southwest, they founded states. Chinese sources document the first turkut (Turkish empires) as eastern Turks in Mongolia and western Turks in Turkestan.
They were followed by more or less ephemeral empires of the steppes such as the Uighurs in the 8th century (who, by the way, were originally Buddhists). It’s interesting that this original past of the Turks in Central Asia, before Islam, was somewhat elevated to mythic status by the Kemalists.
This universe was always enriched by outside elements – such as Arab-Persian Islam and its institutions inherited from the Sassanids, as well as the Byzantine empire, whose structural elements were adapted by the Ottomans. The end of the Ottoman empire and multiple convulsions (the Balkan wars, WWI, the Greek-Turkish war) ended up with a Turkish nation-state whose sanctuary is Asia Minor (or Anatolia) and eastern Thrace, conformed into a national territory that’s exclusively Turk and denies every minority presence that is non-Sunni and non-turcophone.
Evidently that’s not enough for Erdogan Khan.
Even Hatay province, which joined Turkey in 1939, is not enough. Home to the historic Antioch and Alexandretta, Hatay was then re-baptized as Antakya and Iskenderun.
Under the Treaty of Lausanne, Hatay was included in the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon. The Turkish version is that Hatay declared its independence in 1938 – when Ataturk was still alive – and then decided to join Turkey. The Syrian version is that Hatay was acquired via a rigged referendum ordered by France to bypass the Treaty of Lausanne.
Erdogan Khan has proclaimed, “Idlib is mine.” Syria and Russia are responding, “No, it’s not.” Those were the days, when turcophone empires of the steppes could just advance and capture their prey.
Regarding ceasefire protocols in the DEZs. All of the zones are under a ceasefire architecture, to enable humanitarian aid, medical aid, and passage out for those civilians who want to leave the zone. However, with each zone, the Russians laid out clearly in the protocols as each DEZ was enacted, that if there was any gunfire of any sort, they would use firepower to put down the violators.
So the ceasefire has worked everywhere except in Idlib. Turkey was failed its obligation to disarm or move out all fighters from the DEZ.
The Syrians and Russians have enforced this a few times in other DEZs in small scale.
What we have seen for 1.5 years is Idlib as launching pad for attacks on Latakia AFB, drones and mortars and attacks using vehicles (VIEDs) as suicide vehicles.
This time, it is not “rebels”, “moderates”, militants, or terrorists who alone are in violation. It is the Turks who have joined with al Nusra and who are using their other pro-turk militias to fight the Syrians.
Instead of a DEZ, Idlib has been turned into a near free-fire zone. The Russians and Syrians will use whatever tactics and munitions to destroy the opponents of the Assad government.
If this is a massive misjudgment by the trio of Turk leaders, it will lead nonetheless to a clean sweep by the Syrians and Russians. If Turks are still in the way, they will be fall beside the terrorists.
Larchmonter445
Readers need to understand that Turks are not a European ethnic group, but an Asian one. The whole of current Turkey was once inhabited by Byzantine Greeks. After modern Greece obtained it’s independence, there was a large exchange of population between Greece and Turkey, with Greeks residing in what is present day Turkey being brought over to what is present day Greece.
As for Syria, we have traditional Turkish tactics. To the Turks the so called “moderate rebels” (as if such people exist) and the not so “moderate rebels” are nothing more than “bashi-bazouks”, who during Ottoman times were irregulars inside the Turkish Army. They were sent ahead of the Army, where they caused terror behind enemy lines, the usual practice being plundering, killing and raping. Erdogan cannot forget the old times. He has proclaimed Idlib as “Turkish”. I am afraid this cannot be accepted.
Finally, Erdogan better take a look at the political and economic situation inside Turkey. There has already been a physical brawl inside the Turkish Parliament between Erdogans supporters and opposition members. This is not a good sign for Erdogan.
Whilst this is true, there are many Turks who have Roman blood in them. One can see this in their eyes and faces. Many Turks could easily pass for Europeans.
European DNA found it’s was into Turkey via the janissaries, young boys from eastern europe,. whom they took away by force to use them as soldiers.
Such a vast contrast…. Another highly informative peice from Pepe, along with the latest news from Syria, compared with a truly vile peice of crap in the ABC here in Australia about the situation in Idlib.
Not only did they show a 3 year girl Salwa, (with photos) to pull at the heartstrings of all the R2P humanitarian SJW types, they repeatedly referred to Idlib as ‘a rebel stronghold’ and referred to 1 million refugees who had fled the regimes advances, backed of course by big bad Russia.
No context, no jihadist headchoppers, no mention of who flooded Syria with all these ‘rebels’ in the first place.
You said no one believes Erdoğan anymore Pepe. Try the presstitutes in the Western ‘media’ especially here in Australia. The Southfront update posted today was also something you will never ever see in the MSM.
Good to see you back Gezzah…I have missed your forthright analyses!
Cheers
Col
Kia Ora Col…. I assume the mainstream presstitutes Empire cheer squad in New Zealand is as bad as they are in Australia?
I usually comment at Offguardian and occasionally at Caitlin Johnstone, tho the analysis here is superb, with a huge amount of background info and actual context of what is going on.
Am also impressed by the intelligence and knowledge of some of the other commenters here, and perhaps a bit daunted by that.
But sites like this one (and Offguardian) are where the truth of our surreal, Orwellian world is told, with no punches pulled.
“From the 6th to the 11th centuries they were set up as a confederation of big tribes. Then, going southwest, they founded states. Chinese sources document the first turkut (Turkish empires) as eastern Turks in Mongolia and western Turks in Turkestan.”
In the 13th century Marco Polo traveled through the Mongol empire headed by Kublai Khan, a grandon of Genghis Khan.He was an emissary and officer of the Khan in numerous cities of the empire for about two decades. During the period of Kublai’s reign) the empire was very well organized, in particular, far-flung communications were at least as effective as those later in the Austro-Hungarian empire. That is how Kublai Khan was able to manage this huge empire. In matters of religion teh Mongols were pretty loose. Kublai’s mother was a Nestorian Christian, and was a strong influence in the court before K became the Khan. The communications system was based on the Mongols’ incredible skill with riding, breeding, and relying on horses (also for sustenance on their long sojourns; they would drink blood from their horse’s veins). Messengers on horseback could cross thousands of kilometers via relays of horses on well-maintained routes, always getting new mounts at regular intervals at relay stations. Signal lights were also maintained on these imperial ways. A “safe passage” plaque from the Khan was universally respected and the traveler was safe. This is all described in detail in Polo’s “Travels.” His detailed accounts of the organization of Kublai’s empire, life at Kublai’s courts, its relations with the Chinese of the Southern Song, administrative innovations originating with the Mongols, including the use of paper money, and much else have been corroborated by later historians.
Katherine
Paper money was a Sòng dynasty inventioned, 2oo years before being adapted (to a very limited extent) by the Mongols and their Yuán dynasty.
Otherwise, I find today’s comments heavily deflated in worth by the anti-Turkish people slurs.
You should keep in mind the fact that most of problems in Balkans today, originate in 300+ years of Ottoman Occupation – all those muslims (Albanians, Bosnian muslims) were originally local colaborators to Ottoman Invaders, gaining priviledges for conversion from Christianity to Islam (in modern terms – “quislings”), or muslims who “immigrated” to Balkans along with Turkish Invaders.
I like this piece. I enjoyed the historical context of the migrations of the peoples in question. The hereditary history (and mythology, as regards legendary personalities and their deeds) is relatively effective on group psychology, and can be used to influence the beliefs and actions of large groups of people (just ask the Germans).
If I were to wager on the analysis of the current situation, my wager would be that you are very near to the bull’s eye.
“
Those were the days….” —> Gone are the days….…as I wrote in some other sites, it´s a good time for “The Bear” gives a SOUND SLAP (…sorry about caps…) in the ugly face of “friend recep”, in order to he realizes that he must leave all those stupid dreams about a “new ottoman empire”. That´s not the way the present world functions today,
Just “wait and watch”…
(…as usual, an excellent article from “nuestro Pepe”… ;) )
Kind regards, from “this southern suburb”…!
I suspect behind it all, the Russians are waiting (&baiting) the Turks into a double-bind they cannot extricate from without effectively handing back Hagia Sophia to the rising Orthodoxy. Erdogan is one miss-step away from meeting his maker f2f — that being no suitable (non-US) replacement on hand at the moment. I can see a retired ‘Putin the Great’ in ten years, with his pipe and slippers, praying with the Patriarchs in a newly re-activated Hagia Sophia. Stranger things have happened. And what better way to enter the thousand-year history books? And he has earned it, imo.
Hagia Sophia will one day be given back to the orthodox Christians will a long due apology.
Putin is a master politician and knows that Erdogan has his own 5th column and so will give him slack.
Well, I watched a short clip of Putin meeting Erdogan in Moscow.
With Erdogan sitting in his chair, Putin walks over and shakes the hands of all the Turk attendants.
Probably testing to see who will be next once Erdogan is dispatched.
Erdogan is clearly hyper annoyed at the clear snub to the top-Turk ‘Sultan-in-the room’ protocol.
And as Putin returns to his chair Erdogan gets up and awkwardly walks past Putin and off camera to the right of the screen.
Everyone waits a few moments and then appears and shuffles back to his chair — and the body language it there for all to see. A frail old man with not even a teaspoon of vital energy compared to Putin’s shining presence. He is clearly a spent force.
The Duran folk had an interesting chat on the topic and I agree with them; Erdogan seems to be in the deluded ‘last-days’ of Hitler’s WW2 campaign. He’s all but pronounced the Assad “Must Go!” curse and become yesterday’s news.
Assad will go of course, … on all the way to the Turk-Syrian border.
A picture is worth a thousand words
https://glav.su/files/messages/2020/03/05/5573460_301538213a2a60381ff1d6c9d70fa89e.jpg
One small cobmment to this great and creative article by the always inspireing and inspired Pepe Escobar.
You write:
“Jean-Paul Roux, PhD (5 January 1925 – 29 June 2009) was a French Turkologist and a specialist in Islamic culture.
“A vast Eurasian Turco-Mongol linguistic spectrum – studied in detail by crack French experts such as J.P. Roux – evolved via conquering migrations, ”
This leaves the impression with the reader that Turko-Tataric and Mongolian languages are ‘genetically’ related, which I hope is just a misinterpretation.
Most researchers believe that the two linguistic groups share some similarity to each other in sound systems, grammar and vocabulary due to cultural (and military) contacts between the late Hàn and late Yu´n eras, i.e. approx from 250-1400 after Christ. Not a genetic relationship.
Lumping all these groups together constitute an almost racist set ofmen a few ibs slurs that has been very common. Some have even grouped the Finno-Ugric-Hungarian languages into the same bag — making my own Sapmi (Sami/”Lappish” a few hours drive north of Oslo and South and East of Trondheim in Norway and Sweden int “Asiatics”.
If there were to be established any far-flung relationship at all, it had to be like the one between NaDnie (e.g. Navaho & Apache) languages and the Sino-Tibetan language families (which was only ascrtained by the discovery of a ‘missing link language’ on the Yenesay river spoken by some thousand peaople (described by Nordensköld and Nansen).
By the way: It seems Marco Polo spoke Kipchak (tattaric language spoken on the Crimea and in the Golden Horde Khanate) — probably learned frhom Jewish tradesmen and language instructors based in Khalkis (Negroponte). This was one of the two languages he spoke on his trvels (the other might hav been Persian).
My source for info on Marco Polo and his sojourn among the Tatars (as they were called) is Laurence Bergreen, “Marco Polo.” He almagamates both excerpts from Polo’s work, “Travels of Marco Polo” (different versions of the work), and commentaries on them, plus provides background info from other sources to complement Polo’s narrative, or fill in gaps.
Polo seems to have spoken and understood more than two languages. He cites (p. 123) Polo’s self-assessment of his linguistic ability, viz.: ‘ “While he stayed at the court of the great Khan [KK’s court at Shang-tu, or Xanadu] this youth [i.e., Marco Polo] . . . being of very distinguished mind, learned the customs of the Tartars and their language and their letters and their archery so well that it seemed a wonder for all.” Before long, he had learned “several languages and four other letters and writings.” ‘ Bergreen writes, further, “As a loyal servant of Kublai Khan, Marco relied on Mongolian, the tongue of the conqueror, or Persian, the lingua franca of foreigners in the Mongol court. . . . He went east at the age of seventeen, and he came of age in the Mongol Empire, speaking languages he acquired en route, . . . ” No mention is made of Marco Polo spending any time in Crimea, Chalkis, or Negroponte. His father and uncle had had a mercantile outpost in the Crimea, but an unsuccessful one. They had also briefly been on the island of Negroponte (Euboea). They had already made an extended journey to the East, lasting about 15 years.
Regarding paper money, it sounds as though, although the Chinese invented the concept, they did not base their financial system on it. This was introduced by the Mongols. ” In 1260, the first year of [Kublai’s] reign, he ordered the Chinese to give up their coins made of copper, gold, and silver, in favor of paper currency, which had been in existence since the ninth century, if not earlier, with its Mongol counterpart. Soon three kinds of Mongol currency flooded China, one backed by silk, and the two others by silver. Despite Chinese resistance, the experiment worked. ” Bergreen then quotes Polo’s description (p. 129) of the actual production of the money from the bark of mulberry trees and the steps taken to stamp each sheet with a seal to guarantee its value. Then he quotes Polo’s description of how the printed money was used. ‘ “Each year [Kublai] has so great a quantity of them [sheets of paper money] made that he could pay for all the treasure in the world, though it costs him nothing. . . . All the people and regions of men who are under his rule gladly take these sheets in payment, because wherever they go the make all their payments with them both for goods and for pearls and for precious stones and for gold and for silver; they can buy everything with them, and they make payment with the sheets of which I have told you.” ‘ From this and other accounts it appears that the Mongols were the first to introduce a system of finance based on universal enforced use and acceptance of paper money issued by the imperial administration.
Katherine
Very impressive combination of scholarship and analysis of the present day situation. Thanks, Mr. Escobar. For what it’s worth, I suspect the other commenter is correct and Erd’s replacement has already been selected.
A sweeping and informative historical account by Pepe Escobar – enlightening. Leaders look to history to foretell their future, but ignore the seer’s warnings.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Jim Willie has stated repeatedly that the Empire needs Syria and Turkey to provide a path for a natural gas pipeline running directly from Qatar to Europe. Russia does not want the competition and is responding accordingly. By the way, what is the current status of Turkstream?
Russia’s actions in Syria have also interrupted the flow of heroin, prostitutes, human trafficking, stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil, and illegal organs via Turkey to Europe.
The Turkish economy is suffering, and Erdogan badly needs his people to focus on an external distraction. Why should the Empire become directly involved when Turkey can function as a proxy. As a bonus, the Empire promised the Turkish elites that they could keep the land that the annex from Syria.
Saker: Do you think that the Turks are bogged down in a no-win scenario in Idlib Province in the same way that the Ukrainian orcs are in the Donbass? Do you see parallels?
Since neither the Empire, nor Russia, nor China can keep the Turks under control, would they then agree it is in their best interests to allow Turkey to implode and to be split into several small, weak countries? It would make sense if they were to break Turkey up in the same manner as Austria-Hungry after WW 1.
That Turkey is the one nation that needs to be split up and otherwise neutered is the supreme irony in all this drama.
What would be the obvious lines of splitting?
Aside from the Bosporos and Dardanelles?
Katherine
I don’t know, don’t claim to know, but logic suggests Hatay province and everything south of the ridgeline of the Taurus Mountains.
Turkey needs to get a taste of its own medicine in terms of other parties arming and backing Kurdish rebels there and the resumption the Kurdish struggle for independence from Turkey.
Turkey would thus meet the same fate as the Ottoman Empire: balkanization and destruction as a nation.
That would be the supremely delicious irony: Turkish nationalists end up destroying Turkey itself with their imperial ambitions for resurrecting the Ottoman Empire.
I believe Armenians would want to get involved.
Oh, goody, more statelets for the Americans to play games with.
Who gets to control Incirlik??
Erdogan and Turkey are afraid for their lives when Syria is completed. Therefore they desperately try to create battles outside Turkey.
The Empire and its army have done their work of chaos and destruction of infrastructure and disabled state institutions in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghan, Yemen and Iran.
Their Kurdish proxies in Iraq and Syria have the last 6 month been military trained and served with thousands of trucks filled with heavy weapons. US nukes in Incirlik was been removed recently.
Turkey is the next chaos and destruction game for MIC.
The great invasion of Palestine in 40 bc started a confederated Parthia.