‘Erdogan, Obama in collusion against Syria’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Barack Obama have colluded to take advantage of the recent terrorist attacks in Turkey and carry out a regime change plot against Damascus, says an analyst.

According to an article written by Mike Whitney and published on Eurasia Review, the US president “seems to have realized that his Takfiri proxy-warriors aren’t ruthless enough to remove Assad, so he’s decided to team up with Sultan Erdogan instead.”

Turkey has been one of the countries accused of supporting the militants operating against the government in Syria since early 2011.

Erdogan claimed on October 1, 2014 that Turkey will fight ISIL and other “terrorist” groups in the region, but that Ankara will not relent in its determination to work for the removal of President Assad.

“Obama has… thrown his lot with Erdogan, because the Pentagon bigshots finally realize they’re going to need boots on the ground if they want regime change in Syria,” Whitney wrote in his article.

‘Spin and propaganda’

Kurdish forces have been fighting the Takfiri ISIL terrorist group in Syria and Iraq.

Whitney said Erdogan has “launched a war against the Kurds.”

“The media’s view of events–that Turkey has joined the fight against ISIS–is mostly spin and propaganda,” he said, adding, “The fact that the Kurds had been gaining ground against ISIS (ISIL) in areas along the Turkish border, worried political leaders in Ankara that an independent Kurdish state could be emerging.”

Whitney also pointed to the relationship between Washington and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which, he said, has been the subject of the US administration’s shift in policy.

‘Using a terrorist attack as an excuse’

In the so-called fight against the Takfiri ISIL terrorists in Iraq and Syria, he said, the YPG and the PKK “have been Washington’s most effective weapon.” The Obama administration, however, “has sold out the Kurds in order to strengthen ties with Turkey and gain access to Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base.”

The Turkish government on July 29 gave formal approval for the United States to use the base in southern Turkey for conducting attacks against purported ISIL positions in Syria.

The green light came in the wake of the July 20 bomb attack in Turkey’s southern town of Suruc, located on the Turkish border with Syria and close to Kobani, a Kurdish town in Syria that experienced days of battle between ISIL and Kurds earlier this year.

‘Who doesn't know what they are after?’

“All the while,” Whitney said, “the media has been portraying this ruthless assault on a de facto US ally (Kurds), as a war on ISIS. It is not a war on ISIS. It is the manipulation of a terrorist attack to advance the belligerent geopolitical agenda of Turkish and US elites.”

He said Washington wanted Ankara “to do the heavy lifting while the US provides logistical support and air cover” against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“That’s the basic gameplan. Naturally, the media can’t explain what’s really going on or it would blow Obama’s cover. But who doesn’t know that this whole campaign is aimed at removing Assad?” he said.

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