Breaking: Turkey recalls it's ambassador to the US

[RB TexLa]

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Private NTV television reports that Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Washington over the Armenian genocide bill; naval commander cancels U.S. trip.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. Turkey, a reliable, friendly country,

the kind of democracy in muslim territory that Bush professes to support.

and we fuck it up. royally.

starting with nancy pelosi and her armenian bill.

[wuushew]

2. Turkey is a key route for supplies getting into Iraq.

starve the beast I say.

Plus if Turkey stays pissed at us long enough, no airbases for strike on Iran.

It was good that the bill passed.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. let's agree to disagree.

[MrCoffee]

4. Turkey is also jonesing to invade northern Iraq

[wuushew]

9. Yeah a Turkish invasion of Kurdistan would be bad...

but I don't know enough about that situation to have a qualified opinion. It seems in the past the Kurds have been both the bad guys and the victims, as well as pawns in what ever foreign policy aim the United States had at any given time.

[originalpckelly]

6. If we passed a bill condemning the Holocaust, would Germany act the same way?

I don't think so.

[Rhythm and Blue]

8. And they also want to invade northern Iraq,

and they refuse to acknowledge their past genocides.

Friendly! Reliable!

[Spazito]

5. Hmmm, didn't the Soviets always do that as well when another

country dared to tell the truth? Gee, I hope the message from Turkey to the US isn't "be a (Armenian) holocaust denier" or we will take our ball and go home, it sure smells like it is to me.

[Sneaky Sailor]

7. The Republicans tried to do this in the 90's

And Clinton asked Hastert to hush it up for the same reason.

[Spazito]

10. Yep, it is always sad when geopolitics trumps morals and ethics

which it has done, in this case, for too many years. I hope the bill does pass the House this time, it is well past time the Armenian genocide is acknowledged, it's only too bad that Turkey cannot admit it and then move on.

[knitter4democracy]

11. Not unforeseen. It's still an important bill, though.

Turkey slaughtered the Armenians, even though they're taught to this day that it never happened. A slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people with many, many direct witnesses. There's too darn much evidence saying it happened (talk to Armenian Americans who survived as kids or whose parents did--it's all still very real).

Then you have what Turkey did to Greece. They're still trying to get all Turkish Greeks to leave the country, and they passed a law about ten years back or so saying that our ecumenical patriarch has to be Turkish. There are bombings of the patriarch's grounds every week. Many priests and laypeople have died. We Orthodox hear about it in church from families and websites and such and from people who've travelled over there and seen it for themselves, and Turkey still pretends that's not happening.

Turkey's not the great and amazing ally everyone likes to think they are.

[wuushew]

12. What is the cause of the bad blood between Turkey and Greece?

Is it mainly from the civil war on Cyprus?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. some greek students I once had said

cyprus was but an excuse.
Some turk students I once had said
Cyprus was but an excuse.

They both agreed that the deep seeded animosity went so far back, that they actually forgot all the details in the fog of history.
They also both agreed that the animosity created the problems in Cyprus, and despite repeated efforts, one side was guaranteed to fuck up and opportunity. (I believe they take turns fucking it up, by some secret treaty, or secret handshake)

[Rhythm and Blue]

16. Goes back before the fall of Constantinople .

In which the cultural and political capital of the Greek-speaking world was taken by Turks and renamed Istanbul, and the Hagia Sophia defiled. Of course, before that, the Turks managed to capture most of the other traditional holy cities of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, from modern Turkey through all of Greece itself, as what remained of the Byzantine Empire fell apart. Then there was that little matter of Ottoman rule of Greece from the 1300s until 1821, and the Greek war of independence. Territorial boundaries were never quite set, and Greeks and Turks fought another war in 1921. Still the matter of Cyprus remains, and many Greek patriots are still somewhat upset that Constantinople remains in Turkish hands.

[knitter4democracy]

20. That's what I've been told--this one goes way back.

The war in 1921 was partcularly brutal. The Turkish soldiers raped Greek women, telling them that they'd have Turkish sons for the army. Greek bishops let the women get abortions, even, which is something our church doesn't normally condone.

Hagia Sophia is still something all Orthodox are upset about. They covered over the icons they could reach easily with verses from the Koran and such, and the Turks are still making it very hard to be Orthodox there.

[AuntPatsy]

13. Wow, I wonder what this will do for future relations, we have alot of

americans working there.

[EFerrari]

14. The manure has hit the rotating member.

That bill will not make it under this administration and that's shameful.

[w8liftinglady]

17. I suspect it is directly related to this..a previous post of mine

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2020772

[MrCoffee]

18. Turkey said it was directly because of the Armenian genocide bill

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071011/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_us_genocide;_ylt=An82lO393gJSGfKiAh_lhSCs0NUE

[Totally Committed]

19. AP: Turkey Bombs Suspected Kurdish Rebels

Turkey Bombs Suspected Kurdish Rebels
By Selcan Hacaoglu
The Associated Press

Wednesday 10 October 2007

Sirnak, Turkey - Turkish warplanes bombed positions of suspected Kurdish rebels Wednesday, and the prime minister said preparations for parliamentary approval of a military mission against separatist fighters in Iraq were under way.

A cross-border operation could hurt Turkey's relationship with the United States, which opposes Turkish intervention in northern Iraq, a region that has escaped the violence afflicting much of the rest of the country.

U.S. officials are already preoccupied with efforts to stabilize areas of Iraq outside the predominantly Kurdish northern region.

Turkey and the United States are NATO allies, but ties have also been tense over a U.S. congressional bill that would label the mass killings of Armenians by Turks around the time of World War I as genocide. President Bush strongly urged Congress to reject the bill, saying it would do "great harm" to U.S.-Turkish relations.

Turkish troops blocked rebel escape routes into Iraq while F-16 and F-14 warplanes and Cobra helicopters dropped bombs on possible hideouts, Dogan news agency reported. The military had dispatched tanks to the region to support the operation against the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in response to more than a week of deadly attacks in southeastern Turkey.

Entire article:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TURKEY_KURDS?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME


Not good.

TC