=by= Stephen Lendman
Erdogan celebrating recent victory. As vile an international figure as one can find. His US-supplied air force bombs the Kurdish rebels but protects ISIL.
Turkey is one of many US imperial partners against world peace, stability and security – both nations waging endless wars of aggression, profiteering from grand theft.
Moscow documented Turkey’s involvement in refining and selling stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil – President Erdogan, his son, one or more other family members, and complicit regime officials profiting directly.
Putin blasted his lawless enterprise, along with supporting terrorists and committing an act of war by downing a Russian aircraft. Washington (along with Erdogan—see below) rejects what’s clear for the whole world to see, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren calling Ankara a “great partner.”
Declared Pres. Putin after the Russian jet was shot down by the Turks: “ISIS has big money, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, from selling oil. In addition they are protected by the military of an entire nation [i.e., Turkey]. One can understand why they are acting so boldly and blatantly. Why they kill people in such atrocious ways. Why they commit terrorist acts across the world, including in the heart of Europe…”
Warren’s job is lying for his bosses, right up the chain of command to the top, including the joint chiefs of staff, defense secretary, vice president and president – all guilty of high crimes against peace, using ISIS and other Takfiris as imperial foot soldiers, waging naked aggression against one country after another, Turkey caught red-handed profiteering from stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil.
Warren compounded his Big Lie by claiming Ankara partners with America’s nonexistent war on terrorism, “supporting (the phantom moderate) Syrian opposition.”
Turkey backs ISIS like Washington, waging naked aggression on Iraqi and Syrian Kurds – on the phony pretext of combating terrorism.
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter admitted in testimony before Congress that most Turkish “air operations are not directed at ISIL.” None are, Carter stopped short of explaining!
State Department spokesman Mark Toner also ignored clear evidence of Turkish oil smuggling operations, war profiteering he refused to admit. Ankara uses what Russia calls a “living (oil) pipeline” from Syria and Iraq into Turkey unobstructed, along with supplying ISIS and other terrorists with weapons and munitions, as well as providing them safe haven on Turkish territory.
Erdogan’s rogue regime is an enemy of peace, his latest action more evidence of reckless policy – complicit with Washington, doing nothing geopolitically without its OK.
He imposed a de facto maritime blockade on Russian vessels, passing through the Bosphorus Strait in either direction, preventing free, unobstructed transit. The waterway is a continental boundary between Europe and Asia, connecting the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, via the Dardanelles, Aegean and Mediterranean Seas.
Russian vessels are massed on both sides of the strait in the Mediterranean and Black Sea – Turkish authorities deliberately blocking them for lengthy hours.
What’s happening is in clear violation of maritime standards. Blockade in times of peace between nations constitutes an act of war, a thumb in the eye to Putin, testing his patience, complicit with Washington.
Sputnik News reported dozens of Russian ships moving in both directions held up near the Bosphorus Strait for hours – “a clear violation of international law,” it stressed.
The 1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits gives Turkey control over the Bosphorus waterway and Dardanelles, regulating naval transit.
It guarantees free, unobstructed passage of civilian vessels in peacetime, restricting it for warships not belonging to Black Sea states (Russia very much one of them).
Ankara may legally block passage of foreign warships during wartime, when its security is threatened. It can stop non-military vessels from transiting through the Bosphorus belonging to countries at war with Turkey – clearly not the case with Russia.
Neither country declared war on the other, despite Erdogan’s flagrant act of aggression, downing a Russian Su-24 bomber in Syrian airspace. He’s recklessly playing with fire. If a blockade of Russian vessels continues, anything ahead is possible – Putin discreetly acting to prevent a bad situation from getting worse.
Erdogan is an international outlaw, a dangerous loose cannon, supporting ISIS and other Takfiri terrorists, complicit with Washington against Russia.
The European and Asian parts of Istanbul separated by the Bosphorus Strait and wedged between the Sea of Marmara to the south and the Black Sea to the North.
Expect Putin to respond appropriately, politically and economically, not militarily – waging righteous war on terrorism, not aggressive attacks on other nations the way Washington and rogue partners operate.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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