Author: Aylin D. Miller

  • USA: Mysterious Nazi submarine from WWII discovered in Great Lakes

    USA: Mysterious Nazi submarine from WWII discovered in Great Lakes

    February 18th, 2016 | by Barbara Johnson

    Niagara Falls| Divers from the U.S coast guard took part this morning, in a delicate wreck recovery operation to bring to the surface a Nazi submarine discovered two weeks ago  at the bottom of Lake Ontario.

    The U-boat was spotted for the first time by amateur scuba divers in late January and they had contacted the authorities. Archaeologists associated with Niagara University of  and master divers from the U.S Coast Guard were mobilized on site to determine what it was, and they soon realized that they were dealing with a German submarine that sank during World War II.

    A wreck recovery vessel  of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society was mandated to refloat the ship and bring it back to Niagara Falls, where it must be restored before becoming a museum ship. The delicate recovery operation took nearly 30 hours to complete, but the submarine was finally brought down on the bank with relative ease.

    The divers of the U.S. Coast guard braved the frigid water temperature to go attach cables to the wreck for the recovery operation.

    The submarine was identified as the UX-791, a unique experimental German submarine, based on the U-1200 model, and known to have participated in the “Battle of the St. Lawrence”. It  was reported missing in 1943 and was believed to have been sunk near the Canadian coast.

    Professor Mark Carpenter, who leads the team of archaeologists, believes that the U-boat could have traveled up the St-Lawrence River, all the way to the Great Lakes, where it intended to disturb the American economy.

    A report from the dated from February 1943 suggests, that the ship could have attacked and destroyed three cargo ships and two fishing vessels, even damaging the USS Sable (IX-81), an aircraft carrier of the U.S. navy that was used for training in the Great Lakes, before finally being sunk by anti-sub grenades launched by a Canadian frigate.

    “We have known for a long time that the Nazis had sent some of their U-boats in the St-Lawrence River, but this is the first proof that they actually reached the Great Lakes,” Professor Carpenter told reporters. “This could explain the mysterious ship disappearances that took place in the region in 1943, and the reported “Battle of Niagara Falls” which had always been dismissed as a collective hallucination caused by fear.”

    The restoration of the submarine could take more than two years, but once completed, the museum ship is expected to become one of the major tourist attractions of the region.

    America Archeology History Nazi USA WW2
    211

    Comments

    1. cafemoon says:

      五大湖で発見された第二次世界大戦からの謎のナチス潜水艦

      Reply
      • George Hord says:

        大戦からの謎の

      • donny-boy says:

        Ah so, deska.

    2. Ric says:

      If it was sunk with crew aboard this is a War Grave and should be left alone!!!!!
      Who authorized its disturbance?
      As a submariner I find this very disturbing.

      Reply
      • drib says:

        Ric,

        you only made that statement to tell people you are a submariner. You could literally care less. The military decided to pull this vessel and the museum will work towards restoration appropriately and respectfully. Go back in your hole where you pretend to care.

      • j mcdowell says:

        that looks more modern. that doesn’t resemble any u boat I’ve seen .salvage a u boat that could potentially contain un exploded torpedoes etc. something isn’t adding up here.

      • Mike says:

        j mcdowell, that’s because that’s a November class Soviet sub. Specifically K-159. It’s kind of sad a submariner didn’t recognize it.

      • Mike says:

        drib:

        Your comment is uncalled for. Why the personal attack? While your post is silent as to a submarine background, one can easily infer that you do not have one thus you are not qualified (pun not intended) to justify whether of not he cares. If you did, you would know about the tolling of the bells and the respect of submariners for those on eternal patrol.

        Ric’s point is correct. Only under unique circumstances is a warship raised. For example there is a well know submarine wreck off of Newport RI that would be easily raised but it is designated as a war grave. Given the short time between discovery and raising, I doubt that they ascertained whether remains are on board. I also note the the article is silent as to Navy involvement. It appears to be a Coast Guard operation. In that this is not a hazard to navigation it should have been left alone until the Navy cleared it to be raised. As j mcdowell says, there may well be armed torpedoes aboard.

      • Jeff says:

        If there are Nazis on board dead for all those years retrive there remains to the shore make a pile with them and set them on fire they started a major world war then killed 6 million people

      • Alana Smith says:

        It states nowhere that the men of this ship escaped or were captured, this is a war grave albeit the enemy but never-the-less A WAR GRAVE this is desecration we wouldn’t want or allow on a submarine belonging to our people

      • Bill says:

        drib…. the name fits…. better if it was dumbassdrip tho.

      • George Hord says:

        Yeah, those Submariners did walk a little light in the loafers, maybe those guys were doing the big nasty when it hit that depth charge, just saying

      • Mike says:

        Like the CSS Hunley, which you submariners were all about raising and “preserving”?

      • Dallas says:

        Did ANYONE read the article? It has been identified and the type was given. It is NOT a Soviet sub.

      • Michael Kusuplos says:

        Grave Robbers! What about the lost crew of this vessel. It is a graveyard for sailors. Since when is it accept to rob graves?

      • Coonradt says:

        Unless Germany wants their sailors remains back. Germany may want to clear up some MIA files since they literally had thousands of MIA during the war. The ship wasn’t brought down in international waters either.

      • Mike says:

        I was wondering that same thing!

      • Vincent DeGennaro says:

        drib, you are a Loser and need to crawl back into your Mothers cunt, pic was right in what he said. You probably never served and you deserved a good fuck in the ass.

      • dingus says:

        You heard the man… it’s to be a major tourist attraction for the region… the dead be damned.. I agree with you – make it a dive site, but that’s all ..

      • Kepha says:

        I’m sure any bodies will be identified, family contacted, and proper reburial seen to.

      • GhostOfJefferson says:

        Its all about the monetarily game, show me the money.

      • Robert says:

        The article says how the sub was sunk but does not say anything one way or the other about the fate of the crew.
        Show some respect for those who participated in and authorized the raising of the sub that they know what it and is not a War grave. They are not idiots as you are implying. Very likely they know whether their was any crew remains, something you do not, and if so, obtained the proper permissions beforehand.
        What is disturbing is knee-jerk comments when you don’t know any of the facts.

      • Hans Gans says:

        I think this sub should be returned to Germany after America loses WW3.

      • Stan Lupkowski says:

        Waah,waah! Get this guy a box of kleenex already!!!

      • Devon says:

        I LOVE HOLES

      • Mike says:

        Who knows for sure … maybe they all deserted then sunk it themselves

      • John Wolf says:

        I agree Ric, I am also a submariner and this should have been left as a war grave just as the one off of Block Island, Rhode Island.

      • x says:

        if its a war grave, they are in hell by now and can’t reincarnate, its not sacred grounds where good people died, its military killers who died, nothing sacred about that.

      • Luke Koppendberg says:

        well they are nazi’s and i think its frickin awesome good job people that found it and your in the military cool i salute you

      • Major Lackland says:

        Ric: You sound disturbed.

      • Greg MaTigue says:

        I agree sir. Much as I would love to see more people experience what a German sub looks like, if there are souls aboard her she should remain intact and in place. I’ve dove the U-352 and a few others, but I would never penetrate a sub with known persons aboard, as many others have done. Let the German sailors rest in peace!

      • Sarg says:

        If I understand what I have read, no sign of bodies were mentioned, and in the cold temperature of the lakes, the preservation of remains would have been very good, and if sunk by the canadian coast, the chance of it making it up the river would have been very slim, if at all.
        But if hit! and obtaining minor damage, it could have made it up river to the great lakes and there be scuddeled? Remember it was an experimental U bout, special parts that may not have been available for repairs, but safe to disembark. Just a theory. Mainly because it looks pretty good for a destroyed U-bout
        I agree with you if it was a floating tumb, however I would wait for more info before being upset over it.

      • Nicole says:

        Not to be rude, but this is a “grave ship” site of nazis who were only there to destroy us. Why should we worry about disturbing it? I’m sure nazis would have the same respect.

      • CG Joe says:

        I agree. But they will also be remembered by others now and for time to come. It was war, regardless of who side they are or were on they are humans. They will be honored by many..

      • de7d254a15d48cf1ef9418346779bb30?s=80&d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar George says:

        I totally agree. As a retired military veteran, I appreciate your comment!

      • Ben says:

        No way. their skeletons will be on display.

      • 34ff7c69fa2e4f9d477e086fad3e15c2?s=80&d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar Ange T Kenos, ex Australian navy says:

        I agree Ric. And folks, a sub is a boat, NOT a ship

      • Hadrian Sculptor says:

        fully agree with you, Ric, and besides think, that to preserve this ship as a war memorial serves nobody and nothing

      • Al Gore says:

        The only right grave for a Nazi is the one he finds in HELL.

    3. Tom says:

      There have been stories of Crews that have defected so it may not be a WAR GRAVE. The Crew may have scuttled it and went lived among the populous.

      Reply
      • Kimberly B Stone says:

        That’s an intriguing possibility. Would make a good movie.

      • Marilyn says:

        I think I read that NOVEL about the German sub being sunk in Lake Ontario and the surviving crew living in Canada & northern US states.

      • John says:

        This is exactly what I think. More than likely an escape sub from Germany. Could be that someone in Canada knows all about it, or they made their way down to South America with a few bars of gold.

    4. Davis Love says:

      Nazi’s? Leave it down there to rot.

      Reply
      • Kimberly B Stone says:

        Most rank and file members of the military in WWII Germany were not members of the Nazi party. They were guys drafted and doing a job.

      • Dan says:

        Cruel bastards — yes, Nazis — not so much excepting the SS.

      • robert says:

        Germans and the s.s very different. My grandfather was first into italy and spent 10 months in stalag 7a and he never said he hated the German soldiers who he hated more was the Italians for raping a lot of women who he later shot he commented after walking up onto a village and these italians had french women hung and body parts missing. Even one mission the germans went into new york city to find key landmarks of interest. Glade they found this. I still have a medal my grandfather gave me that hitler gave to women who bore first sons he got it in a village that was destroyed along with nazi currency.

      • Johann says:

        They where not any different than todays US conservatives… same idiology

      • IndianaFerg says:

        US Conservatives are most definitely not akin to Nazism. Nazism is a branch on the Marxist tree, it a is perversion of Marxism more closely related with communism.

      • Manson says:

        It is understandable that most people still think Germany started the War and it is hard to convince them that the Germans were put on an extermination list in the late 1800s. That was because they were a threat to financial interests.

      • CG Joe says:

        I think the movie is call RED OCTOBER..

      • Dan Andrews says:

        They may still be alive! Get them out.

    5. c5db9a63762fd2a8d339c85c9f740aa0?s=80&d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar Dennis Barrett says:

      How did this get past the falls? without being noticed?

      Reply
      • Robert Irwin says:

        The falls are above lake Ontario.

      • Vinny says:

        It sounds like it was found in Lake Ontario. The falls are in between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario

      • Anthony Ferradino says:

        Niagara Falls is at the WEST end of Lake Ontario, not at he end of the St. Lawrence Seaway. And they say American’s don’t know geography!

      • Michael Kusuplos says:

        only way to do that is via the locks.

      • curious george says:

        How did it get through the lock system on the st Lawrence seaway?

      • Jim Hunter says:

        I’d like to know how it pass the Wellington Canal. And any of you feel sorry for the Nazis on the sunken sub read the book MIRACLES WATER about how the Nazis sunk a British passenger ship fill with children being transported to Canada to escape the bombing of England by the Nazis. The biggest mistake we made in WW2 was not letting the Nazis and Soviets chew each other up.

      • Jim Hunter says:

        It had to go up the Wellington Canal which is in Canada two of three miles north of Niagara Falls.

  • Foreign Relations: Turkey – United States 1949

    Foreign Relations: Turkey – United States 1949

    1175544Foreign Relations of the United States 1949
    Volume VI, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa [Document 1145]

    711.67/5–549

    [Document 1145]

    Department of State Policy Statement1

    [Washington,] May 5, 1949.secret

    Turkey

    a. objectives

    Our fundamental objective in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East is to promote peace and stability. This requires that we endeavor to prevent rivalries and conflicts of interest in that area from developing into open hostilities which might eventually lead to a third world war. In the case of Turkey, we are committed to a peacetime policy of military and economic assistance with the object of preserving that nation’s independence and maintaining it in its present role of bulwark against Soviet expansion in the Near and Middle East. As a corollary, any effect which US aid may have in building up Turkey’s military strength will to that extent tend to make available to the US and to our allies the Use of this vitally strategic area as a base of operations in the event of war, and conversely to deny the Soviet Union and its satellites access to its land and resources.

    A second US objective toward Turkey is to assist, by appropriate means, that government’s determined and successful efforts to achieve a fuller democracy and a more productive economy, and thus to counteract the infiltration of Communism and Soviet influence not only in Turkey but in adjacent countries to the south and east.

    b. policies

    The cornerstone of Turkish foreign policy in recent years has been traditional and unflinching resistance to Russia. Since the war, the USSR has caused deep apprehension in Turkey by intermittent pressure for a dominant role in the control of the Turkish Straits, by its claims to Kars and Ardahan, and by carefully contrived border incidents and troop movements on Turkey’s Bulgarian and Caucasian frontiers, to the accompaniment of press and propaganda diatribes from Moscow. Although there have been no new demands in recent months, none of the demands made by Moscow has been retracted. In the circumstances, the Turks feel that they are obliged to keep more men under arms and out of productive labor than their present economy can well support.

    1. Political

    The present US policy of active assistance to Turkey had its inception when the British, on February 24, 1947, informed the Secretary of State that as of March 31, 1947, the UK would be obliged to discontinue the military, economic and advisory assistance which it had been giving to Greece and Turkey. The latter government had on various occasions applied to the US for financial aid, but until the enactment of Public Law 75 (the Greek-Turkish Aid Act) we lacked the facilities for acceding to these requests. During the first year after the passage of this legislation (May 22, 1947), we instituted a military, naval and air force modernization and training program, as well as a limited public roads program, making available to Turkey by outright grant equipment and services of a value of $100,000,000.2 The Aid Program is now well into its second year, under the legislative authority of Title III, Public Law 472, with an additional allotment, under present estimates, of between $50,000,000 and $75,000,000. Of the total for the two years, $106,864,476 had been encumbered as of January 31, 1949. It is hoped that the US military assistance will result in the formation of a more compact and effective national defense structure of decreased manpower but with greater mobility and firepower, and thus make an effective contribution to Turkey’s determination to resist Soviet pressure as well as releasing manpower badly needed for economic development.

    There are no serious outstanding political issues between the US and Turkey. Despite certain misunderstandings, our relations are currently sound and based upon mutual awareness of our common cause. Prior to the inauguration of the US-Turkish Aid Program, We gave Turkey our active diplomatic support in rejecting Soviet demands for joint control of the Straits, and our moral support in resisting the Kars-Ardahan and Georgian claims put forward quasi-officially by Moscow.

    We have encouraged Turkey’s policies of active participation in the affairs of the United Nations, the maintenance of its 1939 alliances with the UK and France, and its desire to seek in so far as possible the friendship of all nations, including the USSR. Turkey feels itself to be in an exposed and precarious situation, however, and is constantly seeking reassurances regarding its security. The Turkish Ambassador early sought US support for Turkey’s adherence to the North Atlantic pact, but, as the situation developed, Turkey was deemed ineligible for membership because of the complications that would ensue if the alliance were extended beyond the Western European-North Atlantic area. Both the US and the UK recognized, however, that the conclusion of the pact might have undesirable repercussions on Turkey as well as other nations such as Greece and Iran necessarily excluded from its scope. Not only these nations but the USSR might construe such an omission as an indication that aggression against those states would not cause any serious reaction on the part of the major Western powers. The US and UK, therefore, considered an attempt to counteract this dangerous possibility by the issuance of special declarations which, in the case of Turkey, would serve to supplement and reemphasize President Truman’s statement of October 29, 1948.3 When we intimated this possibility to the Turks, they took the position that only the US, the UK and possibly France should be parties to a declaration since nothing was to be gained by a statement regarding Turkey’s security emanating from the smaller European nations. Since the announcement of the North Atlantic Treaty, the Secretary of State has twice referred publicly to our continuing interest in Turkey,4 and the President again adverted to it in his speech at the Treaty signing ceremonies.5 No further formal declarations are planned at the present time.

    Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Sadak has been actively exploring the possibilities of establishing a Mediterranean pact, similar in principle to the North Atlantic alliance. During February 1949, he journeyed to London, Paris and Brussels, but his conversations with Bevin, Schuman and Spaak6 were largely inconclusive. We informed the Turkish Ambassador that we were not prepared, at this time, to take a position either for or against such a regional grouping. Sadak has publicly reiterated Turkey’s willingness to join a Mediterranean pact as a supplementary means of safeguarding peace in the Middle East. Despite Turkey’s exclusion, he hailed the North Atlantic Treaty as a measure “that will bring confidence to European nations and thus help to prevent war.”

    We have welcomed Turkey’s participation in the European Recovery Program and are making available ECA funds in limited amounts on a credit basis. Entering the war late, the Turks escaped destruction of their productive facilities, and hence no problem of reconstruction is involved. As a contributor, however, Turkey is in a position to play a significant part in European recovery by increasing production and export of certain commodities.

    American educational and philanthropic institutions, such as Robert College, missionary hospitals and schools in the provinces, the American College for Women and the Admiral Bristol Hospital at Istanbul, have for many years made significant contributions to Turkish-American understanding. Through them, and thanks to the general awareness of our consistently non-imperialistic foreign policy, a growing number of young Turks, some of whom now occupy influential positions in the government, have become enthusiastic disciples of the American liberal tradition and are determined that the political institutions of their Republic shall evolve along democratic western lines. It is partly for this reason that Turkey is the only country in this area in which Communism has made no headway. As soon as the Smith-Mundt and Fulbright Acts7 are fully implemented, we will be in a position to pursue these and similar activities on an inter-governmental basis. In particular, the established American educational institutions should receive our full support, including financial aid if needed.

    2. Economic

    Our economic policy in Turkey is to promote economic progress without domination, a general increase in production, and the expansion of multilateral world trade consistent with the principles of the Charter for an International Trade Organization. Primary US sponsorship and financing of cooperative international economic measures, and the increasingly close political and economic ties between the two countries in the face of a common threat should favor US efforts to obtain Turkish cooperation. One obstacle to obtaining such cooperation, aside from those created by general world economic and political conditions, lies in the intensely nationalistic spirit of the Turks, now slowly receding. Furthermore, many Turks fear and distrust the consequences of active foreign participation in the economic life of their country, a reaction undoubtedly traceable to the humiliating period of the Ottoman Capitulations. Their extreme sensitivity to any suggestion of an encroachment on their sovereignty must also be borne in mind.

    We should encourage Turkey to keep to the fore the objectives sponsored by the US in the ITO Charter and in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)8 and to adopt measures consistent with these objectives as Turkish and world conditions permit. We should urge it to ratify the Charter, which it has signed, and we believe it will do so after ratification by the US, in view of its demonstrated desire to participate in international cooperative measures supported by the leading western powers, particularly the US. We should also encourage the Turks to accede to the GATT.

    While the granting of licenses for imports from the US has been drastically limited due to the dollar shortage, imports from other countries in many cases have been maintained or increased as a result of bilateral agreements and compensation or barter deals. We recognize that present world conditions make discrimination of this kind virtually inevitable and are not protesting it unless in specific cases the discrimination appears avoidable. We are hopeful that it will disappear as conditions permit the Turkish Government to adopt more liberal trade policies which we believe that it desires to do.

    We should seek to avoid the recurrence of situations such as developed last year in connection with Turkey’s efforts to regain its major pre-war export market for tobacco in Germany. JEIA’s9 intention to meet German requirements through purchases of US surplus tobacco, to the virtual exclusion of Turkish tobacco, raised serious doubts in the minds of the Turks as to the sincerity of our avowed aims in promoting ERP, as well as to our desire to strengthen the Turkish economy. Recent arrangements through the ECA provide for the purchase by the German Trizone of $11.5 million of Turkish tobacco during the period January 1, 1949 through June 20, 1949, and other ERP countries have programmed large quantities of Turkish tobacco for import so that we believe Turkey’s fears have now been allayed. Situations such as the above tend to strengthen the hand of the element in Turkey which shrinks from increased involvement of Turkey in the international cooperative measures of the western powers.

    We would like to negotiate a treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation with Turkey as a modern comprehensive successor to our present treaties of Commerce and Navigation (1929) and Establishment and Sojourn (1931). However, until there is a likelihood that Turkey will accept the provisions relating to national treatment which we have incorporated in other recent treaties there appears to be little to be gained by a new treaty.

    In contrast to other countries in the Middle East, Turkey has been able to acquire and maintain substantial gold resources and to manage its exchange and fiscal affairs in a conservative manner. Since any economic and financial deterioration would weaken Turkey’s strategic position in the Middle East, it is our policy to help maintain its financial stability, and to provide maximum technical assistance to the Turkish Government on financial matters. In determining the extent to which Turkey should utilize its own resources before requesting assistance from the International Bank and the US Government, including ECA, we have accepted Turkey’s contention that substantial reserves of gold must be available in case of a military emergency.

    The Central Bank of Turkey is understood to hold about $3.4 million worth of gold bars, identifiable as looted from Belgium and apparently acquired from Germany (perhaps unknowingly through substitution in a shipment sent from Switzerland via Germany). Our policy with respect to Turkey in this matter is the same as our policy vis-à-vis other countries similarly situated. We, in concert with the UK and France, had proposed that the Government of Turkey deliver to the Gold Pool the equivalent of the looted gold held by the Central Bank. The action proposed by the Turkish Government in answer to that note was not regarded as adequate and conclusive. Therefore, in association with the UK and France in October 1948, we proposed to the Turks a meeting of experts of the four countries to consider the restitution of looted gold and the liquidation of German assets in Turkey. A formal reply to this note has not yet been received. We will continue to press for such a meeting with the view to reaching an over-all settlement with the Turkish Government on these long outstanding interrelated problems. In the meantime, Turkey remains subject to the Treasury Department’s restrictions on the purchase of gold under the Gold Declaration of 1944.10

    We believe that Turkey possesses the potentialities for economic development which, if carried out along sound lines, will raise the low standard of living of the Turkish people and improve the country’s international economic position, thus contributing to the maintenance of Turkey’s stability and making the country better able to support the military burdens which the US at present is helping to carry. We also believe that Turkey can contribute to European recovery through increased production and export of foodstuffs and minerals. Increased production of chrome is of especial interest to the US. It is our policy to lend our support, through ECA, the International Bank, and the Export-Import Bank,11 to the financing of development projects which we find to be realistically related to the potentialities and requirements of the Turkish economy. We attach particular importance to Turkey’s participation in the European Recovery Program, and we should continue to urge that Turkey’s ECA programs be given sympathetic consideration.

    We should encourage the Turkish Government to take measures to attract private investment, both domestic and foreign, recognizing that continued movement away from “étatism” will be slow and will be conditioned by the ability of private capital to demonstrate that it can contribute to Turkey’s development.

    We should discourage the Turkish Government from further ostentatious adventures in production for which the country is not ready, and should emphasize the importance of better agricultural methods, improved transportation, and the training of Turkish technicians at home and abroad, through apprenticeship as well as by formal schooling. As funds become available for the execution of the program envisaged in “Point Four” of the President’s Inaugural address,12 we should provide assistance to facilitate and supplement such training programs.

    We have received numerous requests from various Turkish Government departments for American experts to make surveys preliminary to the execution of economic projects and reforms in governmental organization. We should do our best to meet these requests, with “Point Four” funds or otherwise, when their objectives, terms, and conditions appear sound. The Turks, however, have all too frequently lost the benefits of the expert advice provided by US and other technicians in the past by delay or inaction on the recommendations that have been made. We should, therefore, encourage them to seek assistance in the execution as well as in the formulation of programs. The work of the US Public Roads Administration in administrative guidance and on-the-spot training, within the Turkish Department of Roads and Bridges and in the field, is an example of the kind of technical assistance we think is most effective.

    Turkey and Greece, are strategically located across normal air routes between eastern Europe and the Middle East. US aviation policy calls for coordinated US and UK diplomatic encouragement of Turkish efforts to halt by legal means commercial air operations of satellite aircraft into and through Turkish territory.13

    c. relations with other states

    Since the war Turkey has been under severe though intermittent pressure from the USSR, which seeks as one of its primary objectives the establishment in Ankara of a “friendly” government on the Polish or Rumanian model. Thanks to the almost total absence of native Communist elements, the determined will to resist of the homogeneous Turkish people, and above, all, to active Anglo-American support, Turkey today is one of the few countries on the Soviet periphery that have been able effectively to withstand Soviet pressures. The tensions thus created dominate Turkey’s relations with the great powers and with its neighbors, both within and without the Soviet orbit.

    Although relations with the US are of paramount importance in Turkey’s foreign affairs, we have nevertheless encouraged the Turks to maintain close and cordial relations with the UK and France on the basis of the 1939 treaties with those countries. As regards Greece and Iran, its neighbors to the west and east, Turkey has shown a sympathetic attitude in their efforts to cope with Communist aggression but has avoided any firm commitments to them or any gestures which might furnish the USSR with the propaganda theme of provocation. Relations with Iran are generally good, although the Iranian Government has occasionally shown sensitiveness over the extent of US aid to Turkey. Soviet propaganda has played tip Turkey’s alleged desire to acquire Persian Azerbaijan.

    The Turkish Government has sought to strengthen its relations with the several Arab States, and has entered into treaty relations with Iraq, Lebanon and Transjordan. On the explosive Palestine issue, Turkey expressed sympathy with its Moslem brothers of the Arab League to the extent of voting against partition in the General Assembly, but has made it plain that it will not allow that issue to jeopardize its close collaboration with the US. When partition became a fact, Turkey adhered to its UN obligations by accepting membership in the Palestine Conciliation Commission, created by resolution of the General Assembly on December 11, 1948. Turkey has decided to recognize Israel de facto, deferring de jure recognition until the work of the Commission is terminated, and bars which previously hindered Jewish emigration from Turkey have been lifted. If the trend of the current exodus continues, Turkey’s Jewish minority of approximately 75,000 may eventually be reduced to insignificant proportions.14

    A minor problem which may in time assume larger proportions is Syria’s claim to the Alexandretta region, known in Turkey as the Hatay. The transfer of this area to Turkey by the French mandatory in 1939 has never been recognized by Syria. Intermittent attempts to negotiate the Hatay question have thus far proved fruitless, owing to the intransigence of both sides.

    A slight improvement is discernible in the relations between Bulgaria and Turkey. During the course of 1948 a series of incidents and reprisals raised the political tension almost to the breaking point. Diplomatic Chiefs of Mission and service attachés of both countries were recalled and Turkish-Bulgarian relations came to a virtual standstill. In late February, however, a new Bulgarian minister presented his credentials to President Inönü.

    Relations with other Communist-dominated Balkan states have followed a similar though less spectacular trend. Hungary, Yugoslavia and Rumania at one time recalled their Chiefs of Mission from Ankara in what appeared to be a concerted anti-Turk campaign, but new representatives from these three countries have now been accredited and diplomatic relations are currently correct but cool.

    d. policy evaluation

    US support, both moral and material, has been an indispensable factor in the stiffening of Turkey’s resistance. If the Turkish Government had had to rely solely on its own limited resources, it would in all likelihood long since have been obliged to make concessions to the USSR. Our policy with regard to Turkey up to the present can therefore be regarded as successful in helping to achieve our broad objectives. Turkey is oriented toward the western democracies, and fully alive to the necessity of continued US support if its political independence and territorial integrity are to be preserved. Moreover, since the survival of Turkey as an independent, stabilizing element in the Middle East is of prime importance to us, it is imperative that such westward orientation be maintained. We should therefore be especially vigilant not to allow any situation to arise which might weaken Turkey’s intention to resist because of doubts of our determination to continue our assistance. We should avoid any action, through public declarations or otherwise, which might give the USSR and Turkey the impression that we are more immediately concerned with the security of other countries or groups of countries than we are with that of Turkey. This should not be lost sight of now that the North Atlantic Treaty has been negotiated. While the Secretary’s press statement of March 2315 reassured the Turks that US interest in their security had in no wise been lessened by the North Atlantic Treaty negotiations, they obviously regard a declaration as far less of a guarantee than a pact would be.

    It is clear that Turkey views with grave concern its nonparticipation in the North Atlantic Treaty. The Turkish Government feels that the inclusion of Italy in the Treaty has destroyed the argument that Turkey’s exclusion is based on purely geographic reasons, and underlines the position of Greece and Turkey as the only free European nations wishing to join the pact not admitted. The Turks have expressed fears that this situation will encourage the Russians to increase pressure on Turkey in the belief that they can do so without, serious reaction on the part of the US or the western European powers, and will weaken the unified determination of the Turkish people to resist Russian pressure.

    In carrying out our economic policy we have received encouraging cooperation from the Turks. Such cooperation is based not only on recognition of the increasing importance of the US to Turkey’s independence and economic development but on recognition of the fact that our economic policy seeks to create conditions which are also in the interests of Turkey. So long as the US exerts constructive leadership in the field of international economic cooperation, we believe that we can count on Turkey’s support. While there has been some criticism in American business circles of apparent Turkish ineptitude in business relations, and improvement in such methods is to be desired, this problem is not of sufficient importance to justify a reconsideration of the fundamental premises upon which American aid to Turkey is based.

    In order to strengthen our present effective policy with respect to Turkey, consideration should be given to further support along the following broad lines: (1) resistance, by action in the UN or by other appropriate means, to all diplomatic offensives of the Soviet Union directed against the territorial integrity of Turkey or toward any change in the status of the Straits which would adversely affect Turkey’s position; (2) continuation of military assistance to Turkey, under legislative provisions; (3) consideration of Turkey’s desire to join the Atlantic Pact, or of creating some other defensive regional arrangement including Turkey; (4) active support of Turkey in obtaining necessary economic assistance, primarily from international and private sources but including ECA credits consonant with the general policies and purposes of ERP; (5) intensive assistance under “Point Four” of the President’s Inaugural speech; and (6) keeping the American public informed concerning the current situation in Turkey and its implications with respect to our national security, so that US public opinion will be receptive to further positive action in support of Turkey, should such action be necessary and desirable.


    1 The Department of State Policy Statements were concise documents summarizing the current U.S. policy toward a country or region, the relations of that country or region with the principal powers, and the issues and trends in that country or region. The Statements provided information and guidance for officers in missions abroad. The Statements were generally prepared by ad hoc working groups in the responsible geographic offices of the Department of State and were referred to appropriate diplomatic missions abroad for comment and criticism. The Statements were periodically revised.
    2 For documentation on the origin of United States military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey in 1947 (Truman Doctrine), including the events and measures referred to here, see Foreign Relations, 1947, vol. v, pp. 1 ff. On November 28, 1949, President Truman transmitted to Congress the eighth quarterly report on United States military assistance to Greece and Turkey. The report, which covered the period from April 1 to June 30, 1949, and included cumulative statistics on the program, reviewed military assistance to Turkey and the organization of the American Mission for Aid to Turkey. The report indicated that military assistance valued at over $28 million had been delivered to Turkey from January 1 to June 30, 1949. For the text of the report, see Eighth Report to Congress on Assistance to Greece and Turkey for the Period Ended June 30, 1949, Department of State Publication 3674, Economic Cooperation Series 22 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1949).
    3 Regarding the statement under reference here, see footnote 10 to the Secretary of State’s memorandum of conversation of April 12, p. 1650.
    4 See footnote 11 to the Secretary of State’s memorandum of conversation of April 12, ibid.
    5 For the text of President Truman’s address on the occasion of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, April 4, 1949, see Department of State Bulletin, April 17, 1949, pp. 481–482, or Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1949, pp. 196–198.
    6 British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ernest Bevin, French Minister for Foreign Affairs Robert Schuman, and Belgian Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Paul-Henri Spaak.
    7 The references here are to the United States Information and Educational Act of January 27, 1948, Public Law 402, 80th Congress, 2d Session, popularly known as the Smith-Mundt bill, and the Act of August 1, 1946 to amend the Surplus Property Act of 1944, Public Law 584, 79th Congress, 2d Session, known as the Fulbright Act, which authorized the Secretary of State to use currencies acquired abroad from the sale of surplus property for educational purposes. For the texts of the two laws, see Senate Document No. 123, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., A Decade of American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1941–49 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1950), pp. 1224–1236.
    8 For documentation on United States policy with respect to international trade and investment, the International Trade Organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and the conference at Annecy in 1949, see vol. i, pp. 657 ff.
    9 The Joint Export-Import Agency of the U.S.–U.K. Zones of Occupation of Germany.
    10 For documentation on the measures taken during 1948 for the disposition of gold looted by Germany during World War II, see Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. ii, pp. 853 ff.
    11 On May 25, 1949, the Export-Import Bank of Washington approved two credits to Turkey totaling $8 million: one credit to the Turkish State Railways and Ports Administration for $3,750,000 to finance the purchase of rails, accessories, structural steel, and railroad ties in the United States, and another credit of $4,250,000 to the Turkish State Seaways and Harbors Administration to cover the design, construction in the United States, and towing to Turkey of a floating drydock and a floating crane. Four smaller Export-Import Bank credits amounting to more than $2 million were also approved during 1949. Details of these credits were reported upon in the Eighth and Ninth Semiannual Reports to Congress of the Export-Import Bank, covering the periods January–June and July–December 1949.
    12 For documentation on the genesis of the Point Four (technical assistance) program, see vol. i., pp. 757 ff.
    13 For documentation on United States civil aviation policy toward Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, see vol. v, pp. 184 ff.
    14 For documentation on United Stages policy with respect to the new state of Israel, see pp. 594 ff.
    15 Department of State Bulletin, April 3, 1949, p. 428.

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    Abbreviations & Terms

    • ECA
    • ERP
    • GATT
    • ITO

    kaynak: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1949v06/d1145

  • Ankara bombing: Facebook post asking ‘You were Charlie, you were Paris. Will you be Ankara?’ is widely shared

    Ankara bombing: Facebook post asking ‘You were Charlie, you were Paris. Will you be Ankara?’ is widely shared

    Taylor: “Charlie oldunuz. Paris oldunuz. Peki Ankara olacak mısınız?”

    ‘[It] is the equivalent of a bomb going off outside Debenhams on the Drapery in Northampton, or on New street in Birmingham, or Piccadilly Circus in London’

    İngiliz Independent  Gazetesinin web sitesinde “ Ankara Bombalanıyor:  Facebook  post soruyor  “ Charlie oldun,  Paris  oldun.  Ankara  olacak mısın? Geniş biçimde  paylaşılıyor” başlığı ile bir haber yayımlandı.  Haber bana  biraz  önce ulaştı. Önerim şudur; 1) İngiltere’ deki dostlarımız bu gazeteye  hepimizin teşekkürlerini  sunmalıdır. 2) Yabancı dili İngilizce olan bütün dostlarımız;  bizlere kin kusan, ölülerimize  bile  saygı  göstermeyen  insanlık dışı kişilere  hiç olmazsa  yorumlarımızla  hadlerini bildirmeliyiz.

    Saygılar,

    O. Tan

    Ankara-EPA1.jpg

    A man has shared a Facebook post calling for empathy with the victims of a suicide bomb attack in the Turkish capital of Ankara that killed at least 34 people and wounded 125.

    James Taylor, who lives in Ankara, encouraged readers to imagine the attacks happened where they live.

    “[It] is the equivalent of a bomb going off outside Debenhams on the Drapery in Northampton, or on New street in Birmingham, or Piccadilly Circus in London,” he wrote.

    “Can you imagine being there? Can you imagine the place you walk past every day, the bus stops you use, the roads you cross being obliterated.”

    “Contrary to what many people think, Turkey is not the Middle East,” Mr Taylor adds.

    “Ankara is not a war zone, it is a normal modern bustling city, just like any other European capital, and Kizilay is the absolute heart, the centre.”

    “It is very easy to look at terror attacks that happen in London, in New York, in Paris and feel pain and sadness for those victims, so why is it not the same for Ankara?

    “Is it because you just don’t realise that Ankara is no different from any of these cities?”

    Last month, a Kurdish militant group claimed an attack on a military convoy which killed 28 people.

    In October, 103 people were killed and 250 wounded when two suicide bombers targeted a peace rally in the deadliest attack in Turkish history.

    Mr Taylor concludes: “You were Charlie, you were Paris. Will you be Ankara?”

    =====================

    Taylor: “Charlie oldunuz. Paris oldunuz. Peki Ankara olacak mısınız?”

    Ankara’da yaşayan İngiliz James Taylor’dan dünyaya ‘Peki Ankara olacak mısınız?’ sorusu

    Ankara’da yaşayan İngiliz müzisyen James Taylor’ın, Kızılay’daki kanlı terör saldırısının ardından Facebook’ta Türk bayrağı ile paylaştığı Ankara yazısı, sosyal medyada büyük ilgi uyandırdı.

    Facebook’ta yaptığı paylaşım İngiliz Independent gazetesi ve Amerikan Newsweek dergisi tarafından da haberleştirilen Taylor, yönelttiği sorusuyla uluslararası kamuoyunu hain saldırının kurbanları için empati kurmaya davet etti.

    Taylor’ın gece yarısı paylaştığı yazı şu ana kadar 60 bine yakın Facebook kullanıcısı tarafından paylaşıldı. Yaklaşık 5 bin yorum alan ve 76 bini aşkın kişi tarafından “beğenilen” bu paylaşım, sosyal medya kullanıcılarının takdirini topladı.

    “Bu; Northampton’da, Drapery’deki Debenhams’ın dışında bir bomba patlaması gibi bir şey… Ya da Birmingham’daki New Street’te… Veya Londra’daki Piccadilly Circus’ta…” diye yazan Taylor, insanlardan şu soruların yanıtlarını düşünmelerini istedi:

    “Orada olduğunuzu hayal eder misiniz? Her gün yürüyüp geçtiğiniz yerleri, kullandığınız otobüs duraklarını, aşındırdığınız yolları?”

    Facebook’ta asıl memleketi Northampton olarak gözüken İngiliz müzisyen, “Birçok insanın düşündüğünün aksine; Türkiye, Ortadoğu değil… Ankara bir savaş bölgesi değil. Normal, modern ve hareketli bir kent. Tıpkı diğer Avrupa başkentleri gibi. Kızılay da tam onun kalbi, merkezi…” ifadesini kullandı.

    “Ankara benim evim”

    “Londra, New York, Paris’teki terör saldırılarına bakıp, kurbanların acılarını hissetmek ve üzülmek çok kolay. O zaman neden Ankara için de aynısı olmuyor? Nedeni, Ankara’nın bu kentlerden farksız olduğunu anlayamamanız mı?” ifadesini kullanan Taylor, yazısını şöyle bitirdi:

    “Ankara benim evim. 18 aydır böyle. Evim olmaya da devam edecek. Charlie oldunuz. Paris oldunuz. Peki Ankara olacak mısınız?”

    Taylor’ın İngilizce olarak kaleme aldığı yazı şöyle: 

    For those who do not know Turkey, or who distance themselves from these attacks, maybe this will open your eyes.

    The bombing this evening occurred in the one of the most crowded parts of the centre of town, next to many bus stops with people waiting to go home, arriving for a night out, and sitting in the park relaxing and drinking tea.

    Is is the equivalent of a bomb going off outside Debenhams on the Drapery in Northampton, or on New street in Birmingham, or Piccadilly Circus in London.

    Can you imagine being there? Can you imagine the place you walk past every day, the bus stops you use, the roads you cross being obliterated.

    Can you imagine the victims? The teenagers catching the bus to go home, the grandparents walking into town, the people waiting for a taxi after a long day laughing and socialising in the sun.

    Now imagine they were English, and this attack was in England. If these people were instead the people you see every day on your way to work, people just like you and I, normal, happy people. Families, policemen, students, artists, couples. Your friends maybe. These people are no different. They just happen to be Turkish.

    Contrary to what many people think, Turkey is not the Middle East. Ankara is not a war zone, it is a normal modern bustling city, just like any other European capital, and Kizilay is the absolute heart, the centre.

    It is very easy to look at terror attacks that happen in London, in New York, in Paris and feel pain and sadness for those victims, so why is it not the same for Ankara? Is it because you just don’t realize that Ankara is no different from any of these cities? Is it because you think that Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country, like Syria, like Iraq, like countries that are in a state of civil war, so therefore it must be the same and because you don’t care about those ones, then why should you care about Turkey? If you don’t believe that these attacks in Ankara affect you, or you can’t feel the same pain you felt during the Paris or London attacks, then maybe you should stop to think why, why is it that you feel like that. Turkey is an amazing country with truly wonderful people. I have never felt more welcome, more happy, more safe than I do here.

    Ankara is my home, it has been for the last 18 months, and it will continue to be my home.

    You were Charlie, you were Paris. Will you be Ankara?

     

     

  • A THREAT FAR BIGGER THAN PUTIN

    A THREAT FAR BIGGER THAN PUTIN

    From: Seyma Arsel [[email protected]]
    Sent: Monday, March 14, 2016 5:07 AM

    bunu yazan kıskanç biri galiba, hiç çekemiyor asrın yöneticisini !!

    =========================================

    A THREAT FAR BIGGER THAN PUTIN
    Peter Hitchens
    Daily Mail

    The noisy promoters of a ‘New Cold War’ rage and shriek at the wrongdoings of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, even though Russia has no designs on us and poses less of a threat to this country’s freedom and autonomy than Jean-Claude Juncker or Angela Merkel.

    How odd that these people seldom if ever say anything about Turkey’s swollen and increasingly dangerous despot, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    President Erdogan, who rules his spectacularly corrupt country from a gigantic new palace, kills his own people by thuggishly suppressing peaceful demonstrations. He hates criticism. His political opponents are arrested at dawn and tried on absurd charges.

    President Erdogan, pictured, who rules Turkey from a gigantic new palace, kills his own people by thuggishly suppressing peaceful demonstrations

    He throws journalists into prison and seizes control of newspapers that attack him. He has been one of the keenest promoters of the disastrous Syrian war, which has turned millions into refugees and hundreds of thousands into corpses.

    He is an intolerant religious fanatic, and curiously unwilling to deploy his large armed forces against Islamic State. And now he seeks to blackmail Western Europe into allowing his country into the EU and dropping visa restrictions on Turks, not to mention demanding trainloads of money.

    If we do not give him these things, then he will continue to do little or nothing about the multitudes of migrants who use Turkey as a bridge into the prosperous West.

    And yet for years he has been falsely described as a ‘moderate’ by Western media flatterers, and his country has been allowed to remain in Nato, supposedly an alliance of free democracies.

    He is a direct threat to us. Yet the anti-Putin chorus never mention him. Is it because they cannot pronounce his name?

    Or is it because they have a silly phobia about Russia, left over from the real Cold War, and aren’t paying attention to what’s really going on?

    =====================

    Peter Hitchens

    Peter Hitchens

    Author

    Peter Jonathan Hitchens (born 28 October 1951) is an English journalist and author. He has published six books, including The Abolition of Britain, The Rage Against God and The War We Never Fought. He is a frequent… wikipedia.org

    • October 28, 1951 (age 64), Sliema, Malta
    • British
    • Eve Ross (m. 1983-present)
    • Yvonne Jean, Eric Ernest Hitchens
  • ISIS and Turkey exchange150 militants

    ISIS and Turkey exchange150 militants

     

    14578704611

    Turkish security sources reveal that an imminent prisoner exchange brokered by Qatar will take place between ISIS and Turkish government

    Ankara — A few hours ago, Turkish media disclosed that 150 Qatari-backed ISIS detainees will be released from Turkish prisons in a secret prisoner exchange under Qatari auspices.

    According to the agreement brokered by Qatari regime, Turkish National Intelligence Organization, better known by its acronym MİT, has allegedly set free ISIS members and dispatched them —through al-Rai border crossing— to ISIS-held Syrian territories near the northern city of Aleppo.

    Other 62 ISIS members, including several prominent field commanders, shall be released next week in the second phase of the agreement forged between Ankara and ISIS leadership.

    In the mid-February, Ankara witnessed a horrendous suicide attack to a military convoy, killing 28 people mostly civilians. Although, in the aftermath of suicide attack, Turkish administration of Ahmet Davutoğlu rapidly pointed fingers at Kurdish secessionists; later investigations found ISIS sleeper cells culpable of the attack and shed light on ISIS plans to carry out further terrorist explosions in Istanbul, İzmir and Antalya.

    According to the purported agreement, ISIS pledges to not attack Turkish cities any more, and Ankara in return will release more ISIS members and facilitate their transfer to the war-torn Syria.

    Turkish political experts believe increasing public pressure after the bloody terrorist attacks,  forced the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to comprise and initiate a clandestine negotiation with terrorist ISIS organization which mail entail grave international consequences for Ankara , especially in its  already troubled relations with U.S. and EU.

  • STANLEY A. WEISS: IT’S TIME TO KICK ERDOGAN’S TURKEY OUT OF NATO

    STANLEY A. WEISS: IT’S TIME TO KICK ERDOGAN’S TURKEY OUT OF NATO

    It has always been a matter of historical curiosity that one of the American diplomats who was deeply involved in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was named Achilles. As the head of the State Department’s Office of Western European Affairs after World War II and the eventual U.S. Vice Deputy of the North Atlantic Council, Theodore Achilles played a lead role in drafting the treaty that was designed to deter an expansionist Soviet Union from engaging in an armed attack on Western Europe. With 11 European nations joining the U.S. as founding members in 1949, the alliance quickly grew to include two other countries – Greece and Turkey – by 1952 and today encompasses 28 members.

    167078 11115

    It’s a reflection of how difficult it was to imagine that any member of the organization would betray the rest of the alliance that to this day, NATO has no formal mechanism to remove a member in bad standing or to even define what would constitute “bad standing.” Yet, nearly three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO members still make the same solemn vow to one another, known as Article 5, that they made in 1949: that an attack against any member state will be considered an attack against all member states, and will draw an immediate and mutual response. For nearly seven decades, this combination of factors has been the potential Achilles heel of NATO: that one day, its members would be called to defend the actions of a rogue member who no longer shares the values of the alliance but whose behavior puts its “allies” in danger while creating a nightmare scenario for the global order.

    After 67 years, that day has arrived: Turkey, which for half a century was a stalwart ally in the Middle East while proving that a Muslim-majority nation could be both secular and democratic, has moved so far away from its NATO allies that it is widely acknowledged to be defiantly supporting the Islamic State in Syria in its war against the West. Since Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2003, Turkey has taken a harshly authoritarian turn, embracing Islamic terrorists of every stripe while picking fights it can’t finish across the region – including an escalating war with 25 million ISIS-battling Kurds and a cold war turning hot with Russia, whose plane it rashly shot down in November. With those fights coming home to roost – as bombs explode in its cities and with enemies at its borders – Turkish leaders are now demanding unconditional NATO support, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declaring on Saturday that he expects “our U.S. ally to support Turkey with no ifs or buts.”

    But it’s too little, too late. NATO shouldn’t come to Turkey’s defense – instead, it should begin proceedings immediately to determine if the lengthy and growing list of Turkish transgressions against the West, including its support for Islamic terrorists, have merit. And if they do – and they most certainly do – the Alliance’s supreme decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, should formally oust Turkey from NATO for good before its belligerence and continual aggression drags the international community into World War III.

    This is an action that is long overdue. As I argued five years ago, “Erdogan, who is Islamist to the core, who once famously declared that “the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers”-seems to see himself as the Islamic leader of a post-Arab-Spring Muslim world.” He has spent the past 13 years dismantling every part of Turkish society that made it secular and democratic, remodeling the country, as Caroline Glick of the Center for Security Policy once wrote, “into a hybrid of Putinist autocracy and Iranian theocracy.” Last fall, he even went so far as to praise the executive powers once granted to Adolph Hitler.

    Under Erdogan’s leadership, our NATO ally has arrested more journalists than China, jailed thousands of students for the crime of free speech, and replaced secular schools with Islamic-focused madrassas. He has publicly flaunted his support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood while accusing long-time ally Israel of “crimes against humanity,” violated an arms ban to Gaza, bought an air defense system (and nearly missiles) from the Chinese in defiance of NATO, and denied America the use of its own air base to conduct strikes during the Iraqi War and later against Islamic terrorists in Syria. As Western allies fought to help repel Islamic State fighters in the town of Kobani in Western Syria two years ago, Turkish tanks sat quietly just across the border.

    In fact, there is strong evidence (compiled by Columbia University) that Turkey has been “tacitly fueling the ISIS war machine.” There is evidence to show that Turkey, as Near East Outlook recently put it, allowed “jihadists from around the world to swarm into Syria by crossing through Turkey’s territory;” that Turkey, as journalist Ted Galen Carpenter writes, “has allowed ISIS to ship oil from northern Syria into Turkey for sale on the global market;” that Erdogan’s own son has collaborated with ISIS to sell that oil, which is “the lifeblood of the death-dealing Islamic State”; and that supply trucks have been allowed to pass freely across Turkey in route to ISIS fighters. There is also “evidence of more direct assistance,” as Forbes puts it, “providing equipment, passports, training, medical care, and perhaps more to Islamic radicals;” and that Erdogan’s government, according to a former U.S. Ambassador, worked directly with the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the al-Nusrah Front.

    While Ankara pretends to take military action against ISIS, with its obsessive view of the Kurds, it has engaged in a relentless series of artillery strikes against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that are routing ISIS troops in northern Syria. The Kurds are the largest ethnic group on earth without a homeland – 25 million Sunni Muslims who live at the combined corners where Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey meet. Turkey has waged a bloody, three-decade civil war against its 14 million Kurds – known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK – claiming more than 40,000 lives. The most recent peace process failed when Turkey again targeted the PKK, plunging the southeast of the country back into war while increasingly worrying Erdogan that Syrian and Turkish Kurds will join forces just across Turkey’s border.

    The Kurds, like the Turks, are sometimes seen through the lens of who they used to be, and not who they are now. In 1997, Turkey convinced the U.S. to put the PKK on its list of terrorist organizations, and Erdogan claims Syria’s Kurds are guilty by association. But in fact, the YPG has worked so closely with the U.S. against Islamic terrorists that the Washington Post recently referred to its members as “U.S. proxy forces.” The Kurds – whether in Syria, Iraq, or Turkey – are, by all accounts, the fiercest and most courageous fighters on the ground in the war against the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria. What’s more, the group represents a powerful alternative to the apocalyptic vision of Islamic jihadists, embodying what has been described as “a level of gender equality, a respect for secularism and minorities, and a modern, moderate, and ecumenical conception of Islam that are, to say the least, rare in the region.”

    The Turkish government has tried to lay blame for recent bombings in Ankara at the feet of the YPG in an attempt to sway the U.S. to oppose the Kurds. An exasperated Erdogan railed about the loyalties of the West, accused the U.S. of creating a “sea of blood” in the region by supporting the Kurds, and issued an ultimatum: he demanded that the time had come for America to choose between Turkey and the Kurds.

    I couldn’t agree more: the time has come for the U.S. to choose the Kurds over Erdogan’s Turkey.

    Critics argue that the Kurds are unwilling to take the fight to ISIS beyond their borders, but this actually presents the U.S. with an opportunity. In exchange for fighting ISIS throughout the region, an international coalition can offer the Kurds their own state. A Kurdish state would become a critical regional ally for the US and play an invaluable role in filling the power vacuum that has emerged in the Middle East. With the help of the U.S., a Kurdish state could also help to accommodate Syrian refugees that have overwhelmed immigration systems in Turkey and Europe. In the long term, it would serve as a valuable regional partner to stabilize the region, and it would set a strong example of successful democracy. In other words, Kurdistan could play the role that Turkey used to play.

    It’s been said that the difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying. NATO can do without an Achilles heel: It’s time to kick Turkey out for good.

    Author: Stanley A. Weiss / pr-controlled.com ©
    Illustration: Antique old map of Turkey