Trump Reportedly Tells Erdogan US Will Cease Arming Syrian Kurds

Just after Putin hosted trilateral talks on Syria and the Middle East in Sochi involving Russia, Iran, and Turkey, President Trump spent part of his Friday after Thanksgiving on the phone with Turkey"s Erdogan. While the two discussed Syria and other regional issues, it appears they broached the delicate and contentious topic of US support to Syrian Kurdish fighters (namely, the Kurdish YPG, which forms the core of the Syrian Democratic Forces). The call came amidst a flurry of diplomatic activity over the Middle East driven by the Kremlin, and follows a lengthy Trump-Putin phone call on Tuesday.

Members of the Kurdish YPG, Mint Press

Though the details of the call are still unclear, Trump outlined what was to be generally discussed in a tweet, and said this morning, "Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!"

Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2017

Though not verified by the US side, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Trump told Erdogan during Friday"s call that the US will cease supplying weapons to the Syrian Kurdish fighters, according to the AP. Turkey has long considered Syrian Kurdish militant groups to be terrorists, and Erdogan reportedly insisted at the Sochi summit that Syrian Kurds be excluded from all negotiations over the future of Syria on the grounds that they have links to the PKK. However, it is unlikely that a lasting political settlement for Syria can be negotiated and successfully held without Syrian Kurdish input.

But should Turkey"s current claims that Trump vowed to end US military support to Syrian Kurds be confirmed, it would be a major development impacting the lasting arrangement of Syria and the war"s outcome. "Mr. Trump clearly stated that he had given clear instructions and that the YPG won"t be given arms and that this nonsense should have ended a long time ago,” Cavusoglu said at a news conference shortly after the call. And Erdogan presented an upbeat assessment of the call, tweeting shortly after: “I had a fruitful phone conversation with the U.S. President Donald Trump today."

Meanwhile Trump"s reference to $6 trillion appears to be related to a Nov. 8 Wall Street Journal story on a new study from the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, which calculates that the cost to US taxpayers for American troop deployment and wars in the broader Middle East - including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria - is about $5.6 trillion. Could a major pull-out and disengagement from Syria and other parts of the region be on the table (consistent with Trump"s "America first" non-interventionist campaign promises)?

We previously explained that that US strategy and support to the Kurds was predicated on the Pentagon forcing itself into a place of affecting the Syrian war"s outcome and final apportionment of power: the best case scenario for American power and planners in the region being permanent US bases under a Syrian Kurdish federated zone with favored access to Syrian oil doled out by Kurdish partners.

But it appears the Kurds may already be cutting separate deals and are in secret talks with Syria and Russia, which means a US exit from Syria could be forced sooner rather than later. According to University of Oklahoma Middle East expert Joshua Landis, the Kurds and the Syrian government are now sharing oil revenues from disputed oil fields controlled by Kurdish groups in some parts of Syria"s east.

Landis confirmed last week that "the Syrian gov, Syrian Kurds, and Arab tribes share oil revenues already. SAG gets 65% of revenues in Rmeilan field. PYD gets 20% (powerful Kurdish confederation in Syria"s north: the Democratic Union Party). Arab forces get 15%." Landis also posted the question, "is this the model for a future deal between Kurds, Arabs, and the Syrian Government in northern Syria?"

Should the White House confirm a commitment of US disengagement from the SDF with a concrete timeline, it would represent a monumental shift in policy, and would further ensure that Russia remains in the driver"s seat concerning the future of Syria and the Levant.

Turkey Sentences Wall Street Journal Reporter To Jail For Terrorist Propaganda

A Turkish court has just fanned the flames of an incipient diplomatic crisis between the US and NATO"s most problematic member, when it found a Wall Street Journal reporter guilty of engaging in "terrorist propaganda" in support of a banned Kurdish organization. Ayla Albayrak was sentenced to more than two years in prison for writing a 2015 story about clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish separatists in the country’s restive southeast.

While charges have been pending against the reporter - who presently resides in New York and was convicted in absentia – for more than a year, the decision will promptly be interpreted by the US as the latest recrimination in a spat that began last week when Turkey arrested a local employee at the US consulate in Istanbul on terrorism-related charges, alleging he was a supporter of Fehtullah Gulen, an Turkish cleric living in self-imposed exile in the US who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed for last year’s coup attempt. The arrest prompted the US to suspend visa issuance for Turkish citizens, a move that was swiftly reciprocated by the Turkish government. On Monday, Turkey announced charges against another US embassy employee, sending the Turkish lira crashing the most since the July 2016 failed "coup", while local stocks and bonds tumbled in sympathy.

WSJ Editor in Chief Gerry Baker slammed the Turkish court’s decision" “This was an unfounded criminal charge and wildly inappropriate conviction that wrongly singled out a balanced Wall Street Journal report,” said Baker. “The sole purpose of the article was to provide objective and independent reporting on events in Turkey, and it succeeded.”

The reporter, Ayla Albayrak, has dual Finnish and Turkish citizenship. On Aug. 19, 2015, WSJ published an Albayrak story titled “Urban Warfare Escalates in Turkey’s Kurdish-Majority Southeast.” The story and an accompanying video reported on the state of a conflict in Silopi, Turkey, between Turkish security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. It included interviews with the local mayor and residents, a Turkish government official, as well as a representative of an organization Turkey says is the youth unit of the PKK. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by both Turkey and the UK.

“Given the current climate in Turkey, this appalling decision shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me, but it did,” said Ms. Albayrak.

Trump and Erdogan discussed the improving US-Turkey relationship during a press conference in Washington earlier this year (which in retrospect could have gone better) and Trump offered his personal congratulations to Erdogan after the Turkish president won a referendum vote to retool the country’s constitution and dramatically expand his own powers. However, Turkey has been frustrated by Trump’s refusal to turn over Gulen, as well as a local prosecutors’ decision to charge members of Erdogan’s security detail with assault for attacking a group of Kurdish protesters during Erdogan’s Washington visit.

As part of the article she was convicted for, Albayrak interviewed a person who described herself as a member of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement, or YDG-H, which the Turkish government says is the youth unit of the PKK. She has maintained that her reporting was based solely on objective fact, and didn’t represent advocacy for the separatists’ cause.

WSJ points out that the case is a rare example of Turkey bringing terrorism charges against a reporter working for a Western media outlet. Deniz Yücel, a prominent German-Turkish journalist for newspaper Die Welt, was arrested in Istanbul in February under terrorism suspicions and remains in pretrial detention.

Turkey’s crackdown on the press has intensified in recent years. Amnesty International and other rights groups say Turkey has more journalists jailed than any other country in the world. Since last summer’s coup attempt, authorities have closed more than 150 media outlets citing Erdogan’s state of emergency.

Turkey is ranked 155 on Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index this year, worse than Russia or Pakistan.

* * *

Meanwhile, after tensions eased modestly following yesterday"s crash in the Turkish Lira, which as noted above plunged as much as 8%, its biggest one day drop since the July 2016 "attempted coup", which however promptly drew the Buy the Dippers out of the woodwork, news of the sentencing launched another major round of selling, and in light of the daily tit-for-tat deterioration in diplomacy, this time buyers of Turkish assets may just think twice.

Only 3% Of Germans Think The State Is Reacting Correctly To Extremism

The ferocious street riots during the G20 summit earlier this month in Hamburg have fueled the discussion about political extremism and violence in Germany. One talking point is centered on the question if the state and the police reacted adequately, and how extremism should best be countered in general.

Just days before the summit, German Federal Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière, presented an annual report on extremist activities in Germany. As Statista"s Dyfed Loesche points out, according to the domestic intelligence service (BfV), the overall number of politically motivated offenses is on the rise.

In total, there were 23,555 offenses on the right, 9,389 on the left, and 3,372 offences committed by foreign actors (such as the Kurdish PKK and their sympathisers) in 2016.

You will find more statistics at Statista

According to a recent survey by YouGov, 81 percent of Germans are under the impression that extremism is on the rise too. 78 percent of the respondents thought the state wasn"t on top of the situation. Asked how the state should react, 61 percent thought stricter sentencing would be advisable, 46 percent also thought that extremist parties should be outlawed.

Just 3 percent thought the state was reacting correctly to extremism...

Erdogan Could Face Arrest In Sweden After Officially Being Accused Of Genocide

Via TheAntiMedia.org,

Marking the first time Sweden - the country - has ever lodged a complaint against a head-of-state, this week five members of parliament (MPs) from the Scandinavian country officially accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of genocide.

The MPs’ complaint alleges Erdogan has committed war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity against the Kurdish majority in Turkey’s southeast region since a truce between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and government forces fell apart in 2015.

The official complaint was filed in the Swedish International Public Prosecution Offices.

If that department decides to move forward with an investigation, warrants could be issued for the arrest of Erdogan and several other Turkish officials, such as Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

MP Carl Schlyter says he likes the idea of Erdogan potentially having limited freedom of movement in his part of the world and hopes neighboring countries will follow suit:

“If [Mr Erdogan] is hindered from roaming around in Europe and influencing European countries the way he wants, then I hope that this will affect his politics.”

Such a move against President Erdogan was only made possible by a Swedish law passed in 2014 that allows the country to hold and judge its own court cases involving genocide and crimes against humanity, regardless of where those crimes took place.

“Anyone, who in order to completely or partially destroy a national or ethnic group of people” kills or causes serious pain or injury is “guilty of genocide,” the legislation reads.

The PKK, which originally sought an independent homeland for Turkey’s 15 million Kurds, launched its insurgency back in 1984. Since that time, an estimated 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have died in the conflict.

Turkey Warns It's Ready For Military Intervention In Syria, Accuses US Of Creating A "Terrorist Army"

Speaking in an interview with France 24, in which Turkish president Recep Erdogan lashed out at Germany for not allowing him to address the Turkish community there and preventing him from bringing his bodyguards to the upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg, Erdogan warned that Turkey is ready to intervene militarily in north Syria to repel Syrian Kurdish forces there, forces which recall are armed and supported by the US but are seen as a terrorist organisation by Turkey.

He also said that to avoid military intervention, a de-escalation zone could soon be established by Turkish and Russian troops in the region.

Separately, Turkey"s deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told Reuters on Wednesday that Turkish military preparations in northwest Syria are "legitimate measures against a threat from Kurdish forces in the Afrin region, and Turkey will retaliate against any hostile move." He added in an interview that "This is not a declaration of war. We are making preparations against potential threats" adding that "It"s ... a legitimate measure so that we can protect our independence. We cannot remain silent against those sending missiles from Afrin."

Kurtulmus was responding to the head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, who told Reuters that Turkish military deployments near Kurdish-held areas of northwestern Syria were a declaration of war which could trigger clashes within days.

"Their (YPG) primary goal is a threat to Turkey, and if Turkey sees a YPG movement in northern Syria that is a threat to it, it will retaliate in kind," Kurtulmus said.  "This isn"t a fantasy for us...it is an indispensible approach to protect Turkey"s border security."

The problem stems from Ankara"s consideration of the US-allied YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish PKK group which has waged an insurgency in southeast Turkey since the 1980s. Turkey was angered by a U.S. decision to arm the YPG as it marched with it allies on Raqqa.

Some more details on the latest tactical positioning:

The YPG forms a major part of the U.S.-backed campaign to capture Islamic State"s stronghold of Raqqa. It also controls a pocket of territory in Afrin, about 200 km (125 miles) west of Raqqa. Tensions between Turkish forces and the YPG have been mounting in the Afrin region in recent weeks.

Turkey"s military, which launched an incursion last August into part of northern Syria which lies between Afrin and a larger Kurdish-controlled area further east, has said that it has returned fire against members of YPG militia near Afrin several times in the last few weeks.

Adding to the absurdity of the situation, last month the Turkish defence ministry said that the Pentagon had sought to give assurances that Washington would retrieve weapons provided to the YPG after Islamic State fighters were defeated. Clearly this was a ludicrous assertion and Turkey slammed it as such:

"There has never been an incident where a group in the Middle East has been armed, and they returned the weapons," Kurtulmus said. The United States "have formed more than a terrorist organisation there, they formed a small-scale army." 

It will hardly be the first time the US has formed

Turkish Lira Tumbles After Trump Approves Plan To Directly Arm Kurds

Update: Reuters confirms that it"s now official:

• WHITE HOUSE APPROVES SUPPLYING WEAPONS TO YPG FIGHTERS IN SYRIA - U.S. OFFICIAL TELL REUTERS


• WEAPONS TO HELP YPG FIGHTERS IN RAQQA OFFENSIVE, NO TIMELINE DISCLOSED FOR START OF SUPPLYING ARMS

* * *

Turkey"s "sultan for life" Erdogan will not be happy. NBC News is reporting that two US defense officials have confirmed President Trump has approved a plan to arm the Syrian Kurdish militia - an important U.S. ally in Syria in the fight against ISIS.

As AP confirms, US officials say Trump administration approves providing heavier weapons to Syria’s Kurds, despite "sharp objections" from Turkey.  As a reminder, YPG forces have ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist group by both the U.S. and Turkey, and yet which due to its location and ideological alignment, has long been an ally of the US. Two weeks ago, the US even went so far as to deploy troops along the Syria-US border after a Turkish airstrike killed several Kurdish fighters.

One of the officials told NBC News that this policy decision is very significant "because it supports the notion that the Syrian Democratic Force is the fighting force that will eventually go in to Raqqa" the erstwile capital of ISIS, which however may soon succumb to allied forces.

The move also reinforces the idea that the entire Syrian Democratic Force, Syrian Kurds (YPG) and the Syrian Arab Coalition, has the backing of the U.S.

The officials could not say what might flow in first or how it would get there, but among the expected options are:

• Breaching equipment — bulldozers, engineering equipment


• more effective infantry equipment: rifles, ammunition, armor, communication gear (radios)

The officials said the equipment could be delivered by any number of methods: ground convoys, C-130s, and air drops are all possible, depending on what the equipment is and the area. What"s unclear is whether the U.S. may provide bigger equipment.

The Turks will be notified about this soon and the officials expect a strong reaction from them. In March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who sees the YPG as terrorists, about his opposition.

Even more shockingly, Reuters reported just minutes ago that U.S. President Donald Trump"s defense secretary emerged upbeat on Tuesday from talks with a Turkish official about the fight against Islamic State but did not disclose any progress toward settling a row over U.S. backing for Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Turkey, a NATO ally, is adamant that Washington should switch support for the planned assault on the Syrian city of Raqqa from the Kurdish YPG militia to Syrian rebels Turkey has trained and led against Islamic State for the past year.

For the U.S. administration, which is skeptical that the Turkish-backed force is large enough or sufficiently trained, the decision sets Trump"s wish for quick battlefield victories against the need to maintain its strategic alliance with Turkey.

"Our intent is to work with the Turks, alongside one another, to take Raqqa down, and we"re going to sort it out and we"ll figure out how we"re going to do it," Mattis told a news conference, after defense talks with members of the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State.

Pressed about the matter, Mattis said he did not want to disclose U.S. battlefield plans but suggested confidence that Washington and Ankara would get past the impasse.

"But we will work it out ... War sometimes doesn"t give you all good options. That"s the nature of war. It"s not a good situation," he said.

Well now we have the answer.

USDTRY has shot up from the 3.59 area towards 3.6200 (*lira weaker against the USD).

As Citi notes, while this is an arms, rather than military intervention plan, the decision is likely to upset the Turkish government. Note this comes amid broad reports of Trump"s new international plans. The Washington Post reported overnight that Trump is weighing a plan to send as many as 5k to Afghanistan following continued pushes from US General John Nicholson, who is the top commander in Afghanistan. Earlier today, he also formally extended the national emergency declaration in Syria.

The next question is - will this cause Erdogan to seek retaliation against Washington"s vassal states in Europe? Or run to Putin? (who also supports the Kurds if only on paper)

Erdogan: "Europeans Would Revive The Gas Chambers If They Weren't Ashamed"

Six months ago, it was virtually assured that as part of his daily out at the West, Philippines" president Duterte would accuse then-president Obama of being a "son of a bitch (or whore)." Now, a similar dynamic is playing out between Turkish president Erdogan and Angela Merkel, and/or the German (and Dutch) people, whom he now accuses on an almost daily basis of being Nazis, as a result of the escalating diplomatic spat between Turkey and Europe. And while some have grown accustomed to Erdogan"s daily verbal diarrhea, today the Turkish president took it to the next level: while on Sunday Erdogan once again compared Europe with the Nazis, and accused Angela Merkel of engaging “Nazi practices", he escalated dramatically when he said that Europeans “would revive gas chambers” if they weren"t ashamed."

Speaking at yet another demonstration in Istanbul on Sunday, where he rallied support for a "Yes" vote in Turkey"s upcoming constitutional referendum, Erdogan said Europe’s “masquerade ball” is over: saying the “struggle” against his country has reached a new level, Erdogan slammed European nations, particularly Germany and the Netherlands, for their “Nazi regulations” as they revealed “the hatred they have accumulated for years against our country, our nation or even against all Muslims on TV screens and newspaper headlines every day.”

Erdogan then stunned listeners when he compared treatment of Turks to Jews during the Second World War, when he said “if [Europeans] weren’t ashamed, they would revive the gas chambers,” he said quoted by the Hurriyet Daily News.

Predictably, the Turkish president then turned his sights on Angela Merkel. "When we call them Nazis they [European politicians] get uncomfortable. They rally together in solidarity. Especially Merkel," Erdogan said as cited by AFP. “Merkel. She backs [the Netherlands] too. You too are practicing Nazi practices. To whom? To my Turkish brothers and sisters in Germany,” the Turkish leader also said as quoted by the AP. Erdogan said that the current policy of a number of European states is based on fear of Turkey’s power.

“[The European states] do not have the urge to hide their intentions and cannot hide the discomfort they feel from Turkey, which is growing stronger," Erdogan said, as cited by Reuters.

Erdogan"s comments come as Turkey"s Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador to express Ankara"s anger over a Kurdish rally held in Frankfurt on Saturday. The Turkish president’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin also called Germany’s actions “a worst example of double standards.” Quoted by Deutsche Welle, Kalin said that “the German ambassador was invited, summoned, to the Foreign Ministry and this [rally] was condemned in the strongest way." The spokesperson added that the “scandalous” event in Frankfurt shows that European countries are in fact actively campaigning against Turkey"s constitutional reform, which of course is merely a pretext to give Erdogan near-supreme executive and legislative power.

Scheduled for April 16, the plebiscite proposes amendments to the constitution that will make Erdogan the sole executive head of state, with the authority to choose his own cabinet ministers, enact laws, call elections, and declare states of emergency. Turkish officials have been seeking meetings with Turks living in Europe ahead of the referendum hoping to get the support of the strong diaspora — in Germany alone, there are 1.5 million people with Turkish citizenship. But these plans did not go down well with the European authorities.

“It is unacceptable to see the symbols and slogans of the [outlawed Kurdistan Workers" Party] PKK [at a rally in Frankfurt] while Turkish ministers and politicians are barred from meeting with their fellow citizens,” Kalin told in an interview to CNN Turk. Around 30,000 Kurdish supporters took to the streets in Frankfurt on Saturday to denounce the Turkish president and the upcoming referendum which seeks to expand his presidential powers.

Kalin wasn"t finished, and in the day"s final assault on Germany, Erdogan"s spokesman said Turkey accused Germany of backing last summer"s Turkish "coup" plotters.Kalin responds to remarks by Bruno Kahl, head of Germany’s federal intelligence agency, who said Turkey failed to convince Gulen was responsible for coup attempt, in Der Spiegel interview published Saturday. According to Kalin, "Kahl’s comments were proof of Germany’s support to Gulen network."

“Why are they protecting them? Because these are handy instruments that can be used against Turkey,” Kalin asked and answered.