Error by Washington and Moscow

In December 2015, the United States and Russia made an agreement to bring down President Erdoğan.

From the Russian side, it’s the support of Erdoğan’s friends – the NGO’s IHH and İmkander— for the Caucasian jihadists from 1995 to the end of the year 2000, then, today, the personal support by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for Daesh, and finally the planned destruction of a Soukhoï over Syria last November which have triggered their anger. Given that the Turco-Mongol empires were always the historical enemies of Russia, Moscow is not worried about the future of the country, but want only to overthrow its chief whatever the cost.

The United States, on the other hand, make a distinction between Turkey, a allied member-state of NATO, and President Erdoğan, an autocrat who is bathing in delusions of grandeur and stamping all over Western ideals. Overthrowing him is a necessity, partly in order to be able to continue presenting NATO as the defender of democracies, and partly because no leader is allowed to defy Washington without being punished. The CIA already caused him to lose the elections last June by creating the HDP from nothing , but was overtaken by the massive ballot-rigging during the elections in September.

Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin thus agreed to support the Syrian Kurds against Daesh, thinking that in the end they might come to represent a military force capable of disturbing the machinations of the apprentice dictator of Ankara. And in fact, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vehemently condemned the Pentagon’s support for the YPG (People’s Protection Units), the visits to Syria by the Commander of the anti-Daesh Coalition, Brett McGurk, and the head of CentCom, General Joseph Votel. Consequently, the Turkish secret services (MIT) have stepped up their aid for Daesh to help it resist the invasion.

But it seems that the White House and the Kremlin have misread their adversary. Far from considering the development of the YPG as dangerous, President Erdoğan has integrated it into his strategy.

The Americans and the Russians wrongly believe that the Syrian Kurds form a united group. But in reality, the YPG is the armed branch of the PYD (Democratic Union Party), which has two co-Presidents - a woman, Asya Abdullah, and a man, Salih Muslim. Asya Abdullah is faithful to the principles of Abudllah Öcalan – the founder of the PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) – and intends to create a Kurdistan on Turkish territory. Salih Muslim is a traitor who, in a secret meeting at the Elysée on the 31 October, negotiated an agreement with Presidents Hollande and Erdoğan.

In these conditions, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan intends to turn to his own advantage the trap that is being set for him by the US and Russia.

On his instructions, the police and the Turkish army are currently carrying out operations against the Kurds of the PKK. These forces of repression have already destroyed several villages and terrorised the population of several others, forcing them to flee. Over the last few weeks, this campaign of terror has provoked the displacement of the Kurdish populations of a number of Turkish villages situated at the Syrian frontier. The White Palace then offered their houses to Syrian Sunni refugees whom he thinks are favourable to the jihadists. This is how the transmutation of the population along the Turco-Syrian frontier began.

In order to understand what President Erdoğan is doing, we have to remember that at the end of the 19th century, Sultan Abdülhamid II – who also wanted to homogenise the Turkish population - encouraged the Kurds to expel the Christians, even to massacre them. This programme continued and grew in force with the arrival of the Young Turks, who massacred a million and a half Pontic Greeks and Armenians. The end of this programme supposed that the Kurds should be the ones to be expelled this time, and be replaced by Turks, or, failing them, by Sunni Arabs.

This is the programme that, in 2011, France agreed to implement with Turkey, hoping to limit the massacres. According to a secret Treaty signed by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the time, Alain Juppe and Ahmet Davutoğlu, Paris and Ankara were to create a new state in Syria in order to dislodge the Kurds of the PKK. This is the agreement that François Hollande agreed to apply by organising, at the Elysée, the meeting Erdoğan-Muslim. And it is this agreement that Washington and Moscow, without knowing it, are in the process of completing.