The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, yesterday accused Israel of being a “terrorist state“:
“Those who speak of Muslims and terror side by side are turning a blind eye when Muslims are massacred en masse,” he told a gathering of the Eurasian Islamic Council. “Those who turn a blind eye to discrimination toward Muslims in their own countries, are also closing their eyes to the savage massacre of innocent children in Gaza. … Therefore, I say Israel is a terrorist state.”
Erdogan spoke these words, fresh from his massacre of Muslim Kurds:
Turkish air force jets and attack helicopters pounded Kurdish militants along the border with Iraq and Iran for three days, killing 42 militants, the local governor’s office said on Friday.
In fact, Erdogan is invading Iraq in order to ‘massacre Muslims in their own country’:
Two Iraqi civilians were killed and three wounded in a Turkish air strike in Iraqi Kurdistan during the latest operation targeting Kurdish PKK separatist rebels sheltering there, a Kurdistan official said on Wednesday.
Only yesterday, Turkey was still killing Muslim Kurds:
Fourteen militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were rendered harmless during a special operation of the Turkish security offices in Semdinli district in Hakkari province yesterday, the Sabah newspaper reported.
Eight militants were reported killed, while six were detained. Two shelters of the militants were destroyed as well.
Erdogan is, apparently, thinking of reintroducing the death penalty, so Turkey can execute those it captures:
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey should consider bringing back the death penalty, a decade after Ankara abolished capital punishment as part of reforms aimed at European Union membership.
Political commentators accused Erdogan of populism ahead of the 2014 presidential election in which he is widely expected to run.
His comments, in a speech on Sunday, follow an upsurge in Kurdish militant violence which has raised pressure on the government to act over a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people since it began 28 years ago.
“In the face of deaths, murders, if necessary the death penalty should be brought back to the table (for discussion),” Erdogan told a crowd.
This isn’t new. Turkey has been waging this bloody war for decades. Neither side has let up – although talks are, once again, on the agenda, this week. Indeed, a couple of years ago, Erdogan has this to say to his opponents:
At a ceremony in the city of Van, Erdogan said: “I say here very clearly, they will not win. They will gain nothing. They will melt away in their own darkness … they will drown in their own blood.” The death toll in Saturday’s clash was one of the highest in recent years in a conflict which has killed more than 40,000 since the PKK took up arms against the state in 1984 with the aim of creating a homeland in the south-east
(The Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu: weeping for Palestinians while killing Kurds)
Of course, Turkey isn’t just killing any old Kurds. It is killing the Maoist, terrorist Kurds of the Khmer Rouge-like PKK. As far as the Islamist President of Turkey is concerned, no doubt, these Maoist Kurds are apostates, non Muslims. Perhaps that explains why he is so incensed by his fellow Islamists in Hamas are being killed in Gaza, but so keen to drown the PKK, and any unhappy civilians in their vicinity, in their own blood.
While Erdogan lambasts the world for not preventing Israel from targeting Hamas missiles and terrorists, he’s actually seeking assistance from Western governments for his own campaign against the PKK:
Germany has vowed to increase its support to Turkey in the fight against terror, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said yesterday, while also pressing for more action from other EU states.
“They told us they would increase their support in the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK]. I thank them. We have given orders to our ministers since it requires intense effort,” Erdoğan said, speaking alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel after their meeting in Berlin. His comments came a day after the inauguration ceremony of the new Turkish Embassy building in Berlin.
“The EU’s attitude toward the PKK is clear and we want to see the results of this attitude. There shouldn’t be any Western-backed separatist terror organization. The West should put forward a clear attitude on this, this is what we expect from them,” he added.Stressing that there were extraditions agreement between Turkey and most EU countries, Erdoğan said Turkey expected such countries to fulfill the requirements of these agreements. “As the prime minister of the country, I often sign extradition decrees for criminals of those countries. We expect the same, this is our natural right,” he said.
Sticks in the craw, doesn’t it?
Incidentally, the United States has quite literally nothing to say about its Turkish ally – in name, at least – calling another ally a ‘terrorist state”:
The Obama administration won’t say whether or not it agrees with the Turkish prime minister, who said today that Israel is a “terrorist state” that “massacres small children.”
The State Department’s refusal to comment on the statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid bare the administration’s constrained ability to publicly criticize allies like Turkey, which have been injecting themselves into the ongoing conflict between the Israeli government and Hamas in Gaza. State Department reporters got into a heated exchange with State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland at Monday’s press briefing over Nuland’s refusal to condemn the remarks.
“When the leaders of Turkey come out and say that Israel is engaged in acts of terrorism and you refuse to say that you don’t agree with that — or maybe you do agree with it — that’s being silent,” AP reporter Matt Lee pressed Nuland.
