U.S. halts F-35 equipment to Turkey, protests its plans to buy from Russia

One hopes the USA has gotten certain items out of Incirlik by now, that were reputed to be there.

I was always struck by how the Turkish military had been such watchdogs of the Ataturk legacy ... and then seemingly suddenly folded when the current leader took over.

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

It was always a ruse.

Adopt a western leaning public face, to benefit regionally.
Underneath the surface however the islamist nature of turkey always remained, the West just turned a blind eye.

It turned a blind eye largely because Jewish lobby groups particularly in America were in bed with the Turkish state. Plus during the Cold War Turkey, along with Greece formed an important southern flank against the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact in eastern Europe.
Then the USSR collapsed, and US attention shifted to the Middle East. So Turkey filled a role there. Thats were the lobby groups fit in, creating the narrative that Turkey was a valuable ally and Incirlik was indispensible.

The heavy amd growing favoritism by the US towards Turkey pushed Greece closer to the Arab world. An anomaly.

Greece, like Israel, is surrounded by hostile and semi hostile countries who want a piece.
Greece and Israel, with Cyprus, should be natural allies especially these days as they face the same belligerent Turkey. They are two small democracies in a sea of #.

But we all know US foreign policy doesnt always follow or allow for logical outcomes.

Thankfully, for the time being, we are seeing a change and a shift to a Greek-Israeli axis with Washingtons blessing basically. Hopefully this alliance grows, politically, economically, and in the defence sphere as well. Theres been some defence cooperation so far.
No secret that Israel is one of the top uav manufactures. Little known fact that Greece worked on and developed UAVs as far back as the 1970's. There was even cooperation or a joint project with Northrop I believe.
Greeces shipyards are being restored and some of the results so far are impressive. Theres designs/plans for a corvette, frigate and even destroyer. Israel has its small corvettes. The two should get together and do joint projects, particularly in the naval field. But even more so in the high tech defence sector, I think most people would be surprised with what both already do and can do, and what they could do together.

Greece is putting a rover on the moon in a few years. Israel tried to land something on the moon.

Theres huge potential for cooperation together in many many fields. With and without US participation too.

Is it time to turn Turkey into the next Yugoslavia?
Is it time to hit Turkey with Iran style sanctions?
Is it time for Erdogan to meet the same fate as Gaddafi and Saddam?


Earlier this week, Erdogan came out with outrageous comments regarding nuclear weapons. Why should others have nuclear weapons, but not me(Turkey)?
it should be noted that Turkey is trying to build nuclear power stations. It should also be noted that Turkey has a missile program, mostly copied Chinese ballistic missiles.

Yesterday, Erdogan has threatened to open the flood gates on Europe, and push millions of Syrian refugees into Europe. IF he does not get what he wants from the West.
It should be noted here that the EU has an agreement with Turkey, that Turkey stop the flow of illegals coming into Europe, and that Turkey accepts the return of illegals who originated in Turkey before entering the EU. The EU has paid Turkey billions as part of this agreement. Turkey continues to not meet it's obligations, as this week several thousand new arrivals landed in Greece(EU) from Turkey.
This week as well, Erdogan posed for a photo at a Turkish naval accademy, with a map behind him showing Turkish claims on Greece in the Aegean. They call it the blue homeland.
Turkey is a NATO member, as is Greece. With moves like this, together with it's continued violations, it shows it does not respect international law.

If you add this to the continued provocative, beligerent and hostile behavior of Turkey, you get a very dark picture.
You look down at Cyprus, and Turkey has sent three survey ships into Cyprus' EEZ and territorial waters.
It has plans to send a fourth ship into Greek waters. If we go back in history a little to the late 1980's, Turkey tried to send a survey ship into Greek waters back then. The Greek response was to mobilize their armed forces for war. Turkey backed down.

These past few days, Turkey had issued a navtex for Greek waters near the islands of Kastelorizo and Rhodes. For live fire exercises.
Greece in response issued it's own navtex for the same coordinates, the same day and time. Live fire exercises also.
Elements of the Greek navy were there, ready and waiting. The Turkish ships assigned to their own exercises didn't leave their ports.

The Turkish navtex was illegal. Much like air space is assigned to certain regions of control with FIR, so are maritime regions.
The region in question with both navtex's is under the control/authority of Greece in Navarea 3 and the station of Iraklio in Crete, Turkey has no jurisdiction in that area. So it was an illegal navtex, and it could have led to at the very least a hot incident, at worst all out war.