Photo: President Erdogan
Following the downing of a Russian warplane on November 24 by Turkey in Syrian airspace, tension continues to build between the governments of the two countries.
Russia’s President Putin called the attack a “stab in the back by accomplices of terrorists,” accusing the Turkish government of shooting their plane in order to protect oil supplies from the Islamic State to Turkey.
Turkish President Erdogan, the leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), responded to Putin stating he would resign if Putin or anyone else provided proof of the accusation: “We are not that dishonest as to buy oil from terrorists. If it is proven that we have, in fact, done so, I will leave office. If there is any evidence, let them present it, we’ll consider it.”
The Foreign Minister of Syria, Walid al-Muallem also implicated Turkish government profiting from oil trade with the Islamic State as he said “Turkey continues to maintain export and transportation of oil stolen in Iraq and Syria by IS militants. Then, the oil is transported to ports abroad.” There are allegations that Erdogan’s own son, Bilal, who who owns a marine transport company called BMZ Group, is actively involved smuggling and selling stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil.
Speaking on November 27, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoub said: “All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company’s nerves. They’re importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artifacts as well.”
Russia provides evidence of AKP’s involvement in the smuggled oil trade with the Islamic State
On December 2, the Russian Defense Ministry held a press briefing, providing information related to the funding of the Islamic State. The evidence provided during the briefing including satellite images and video of IS oil trucks crossing from territories under IS control into Turkey pointed to role of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey in the trade of oil smuggled by the Islamic State from Iraq and Syria. According to the data provided, the oil is transferred to Turkey via three main paths, two in Syria and one in Iraq.
Speaking at the briefing, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said: “The main consumer of this oil stolen from the legal owners in Syria and Iraq is Turkey. According to available information, this illegal business includes the upper political leadership of the country, President Erdogan and his family.”
According to Antonov, revenues from the sale of oil which amount to around $2 billion annually are the major sources of activity by terrorists in Syria as these funds are used to hire militants from around the world and provide them with weapons, equipment, and arms.
Turkish President Erdogan and the U.S. government as its NATO ally had no option but to dismiss Russian claims. Echoing the words of Erdogan who called all claims by Russian officials as “slander,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said: “We just don’t believe that to be true in any way, shape or form,”
On December 1, the Russian government also announced the ratification of economic and travel sanctions against Turkey, prohibiting the import of food from Turkey, banning all charter flights between two countries and cancelling visa-free travel to Russia for Turkish citizens.
U.S. administration and NATO back Turkey’s shooting of Russian plane
Following a meeting with the Turkish President Erdogan in the climate conference in Paris and commenting on the recent confrontation between Russia and Turkey, U.S. President Obama had to come to the defense of Turkey, a NATO member, a major U.S. ally in the region and a member of the so-called U.S.-led coalition against IS. That was not an easy job given the Turkish government’s ties to the Islamic State, which are now glaringly obvious to the whole world.
“I want to be very clear: Turkey is a NATO ally. The U.S. supports Turkish rights to defend itself and its airspace and its territory,” Obama said.
But then he also had to add:
“There are about 98 kilometers that are still used as a transit point for foreign fighters [and] Isil shipping out fuel for sale that helps finance their terrorist activities,”
The “98 kilometers” is a reference to the section of the Turkish border between the Syrian towns of Jarabulus and Afrin which is controlled by IS.
Speaking for the NATO alliance, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg backed Turkey’s action. He said: “As we have repeatedly made clear, we stand in solidarity with Turkey and support the territorial integrity of our NATO ally, Turkey. We will continue to follow the developments on the south-eastern borders of NATO very closely.”
NATO’s and Obama’s defense of AKP’s action is based on the already debunked myth about the Russian plane’s violation of Turkish airspace. It boils down to nothing more than sheer imperial hypocrisy when one stops to consider the simple fact that just in the year 2014 alone, the Turkish airforce has violated the airspace of Greece more than 2200 times. Ironically, Greece is another NATO country.
U.S. imperialism and AKP policies in Syria, not always aligned
Regarding the crisis in Syria: Both the U.S. and AKP, its ally in the region, share the common goal of ultimately overthrowing the Syrian government. To that end, the Islamic State has been seen as playing a role in fighting the Syrian government. However, the two countries’ priorities at times have come into conflict when it comes to their positions towards the Kurdish forces in Northern Syria and the Islamic State.
The U.S. government’s position towards Kurdish forces in Syria has been a showcase of imperialist treachery. While paying lip service to Kurdish national aspirations for tactical battlefield convenience or for its own “humanitarian intervention” propaganda purposes, the violence unleashed by the Islamic State on the Kurdish people in Northern Syria has been used by U.S. imperialism as a means to pressure the secular Kurdish-based People’s Protection Units (YPG) into cooperating with the other reactionary and imperialist-backed opposition groups aimed at overthrowing the sovereign Syrian government. As long as it served its imperialist interests, the U.S. also had no problems partnering with the AKP against the Kurdish forces, as exemplified by its tacit approval in June of AKP’s bombing of PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) in Northern Iraq in exchange for access to Turkey’s Incirlik air base, a facility strategically located very close to Syria which enabled U.S. imperialism to intensify NATO military operations inside Syria, under the pretext of fighting the Islamic State.
AKP on the other hand considers YPG, (a close ally of PKK which has waged a 30-year-long armed struggle for Kurdish independence in Turkey), an outright enemy. Throughout the crisis in Syria, AKP relied on the Islamic State in its fight to prevent the Kurdish forces from gaining control over a continuous territory in Northern Syria. It is worth remembering the words of Erdogan, spoken in late June, right after YPG/PYD forces had repelled the IS attack on Kurdish-held Kobani: “I say to the international community that whatever price must be paid, we will never allow the establishment of a new state on our southern frontier in the north of Syria.”
After YPG’s defeat of IS in Kobani and subsequent capture of Tal Abyad in June, the area between Jarabulus and Afrin, spanning the “98 kilometers” mentioned by Obama is the last area in Northern Syria that the Islamic State has been holding onto. Jarabulus is of strategic importance for the transfer of weapons and fighters into Syria and the transfer of smuggled oil into Turkey. It is not a coincidence that AKP has been pushing the U.S. for the establishment of a “no-fly zone” in that same area. Contrary to the AKP’s discourse, this safe zone would not be for housing Syrian refugees or protecting the Turkmens but would serve as a safe haven for a slew of AKP-backed Islamist groups, including the Islamic State all fighting the Syrian government for the control of Aleppo, which is very close.
In August, AKP declared as a “red line” the YPG crossing west of the Euphrates river next to Jarabulus: If the Kurds were to attack Jarabulus, Erdogan stated, Turkish forces would intervene against the YPG. The protection of Turkmens in the area would be the pretext for that intervention.
Who are the Turkmens? Turkmens in Syria are Syrian citizens of Turkic roots who have lived in the area since the 11th century. There are Turkmen villages in Northern Syria as well as north of Latakia. During the Syrian crisis, under the name “Syrian Turkmen Brigades,” the AKP armed and mobilized the Turkmen population against the Syrian government as well as the YPG while bolstering the myth that the YPG was trying to ethnically cleanse the Turkmens. According to Saleh Moslem, co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which leads YPG, most of the fighters in the Turkmen brigade have defected to the Islamic State.
Russia’s involvement in the Syrian crisis helps the Syrian government, cripples IS’s oil income in half
Since Russia’s direct military intervention in the war on behalf of the Syrian government at the end of September, the Russian air force started bombing opposition positions in Northern Syria including Raqqa, Hama, Idlib, Aleppo and Latakia provinces. Unlike any of the U.S. imperialist operations in Syria, Russia’s intervention was formally requested by the sovereign Syrian government and thus conforms to international law.
Russia’s strikes targeted not only the Islamic State but other jihadist groups including the Army of Conquest, an alliance of groups including Jabhat al-Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, Ahrar al-Shamit. The Russian operations significantly helped the Syrian armed forces in pushing back opposition forces and gaining ground in key regions and towns around Aleppo, Idlib and Latakia.
Russia’s operations also targeted oil complexes, refineries, stations and oil trucks operated by the Islamic State. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Islamic State’s income from illegal oil smuggling to Turkey has been reduced in half.
The Russian warplane that was shot down by the Turkish airforce in Syrian airspace was returning from an operation in the northern countryside of Latakia province. Despite the AKP’s claims that Russian bombing in the region was targeting civilian Turkmen villages, it was in fact groups operating under the umbrella of the Army of Conquest as well as the Turkmen militias that were targeted. The Turkmen militias play an important role in smuggling weapons into the area from Turkey.
It was the deputy commander of a Turkmen brigade, Alparslan Celik, a Turkish citizen with ties to the fascist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) who killed the Russian pilot.
What are the reasons behind AKP’s confrontation with Russia?
The shooting down of the Russian plane was an attempt by AKP:
– To sabotage the peace talks in Vienna on November 14 which resulted in an agreement suggesting a ceasefire followed by talks between the Syrian government and the opposition by January 1and national elections within 18 months
– To stop a potential reorientation of U.S. policy in Syria, which would temporarily downplay U.S.-led imperialism’s goal of regime change and to push U.S. and NATO into a direct intervention in Syria and confront Russia
– To prevent a deeper alliance on the ground between the U.S. and YPG/PYD against the Islamic State in Northern Syria
CP, Turkey (KP) statement on AKP’s confrontation with Russia
Calling AKP a mindless, irrational and immoral criminal gang, the statement described the AKP as the biggest threat to Turkey while also pointing to the role of NATO and US-led imperialism as AKP’s partner in the overall imperialist plans in the region.
The statement partially reads as follows:
“ Our country is indeed under a big threat indeed. This threat is the reactionary coalition whose so-called “foreign policy” of Turkey is to turn it into the patron of Islamist terror groups […]
“AKP and its coalition partners including the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and numerous intelligence services are the biggest threat we are faced with. Therefore it is irrelevant whether the Russian warplane did or did not violate our borders.
“Whether NATO, who pulls the strings of the reactionary gang ruling our country had a role in this attack, whether NATO approved the attack against Russia’s war plane or not and whether they will politically isolate Erdogan or not, these questions are of no importance past a certain point.
“Whether Putin, who is pursuing his country’s own interests is really the liberator of the peoples of the region or not, is of no importance.
What is important is the right of the Syrian people and its legitimate government to defend itself from reactionary terror.
“What is important is the right of our people to get rid of war mongers and criminal gangs. What is important is to fight against imperialism and reactionary forces to ultimately overthrow this system itself.
“The threat is obvious, so is the path to be taken to defeat it.”
