Now Erdogan is attempting to mobilise his voters by a threat of war. Turks are patriotic chaps, they were brought up on worshiping their WWI hero General Kemal Ataturk. For them (like for many nations), a threat of war is a clarion call for unity and support of government. For this reason he plans to pull Turkey to the brink of war with Russia. So claims the Turkish “Deep Throat”, an anonymous and knowledgeable insider who sends his twits under nickname fuat avni https://twitter.com/fuatavni_f He has a strong record of disclosing noxious plans of the government. Now he claims Erdogan has given orders to shoot down Russian planes operating in Syria while claiming they have intruded into Turkish air space.
Turkish forces already shot down a drone, claiming it was a Russian one. At the same time, they carry out operations against Syrian Kurds, the preferred allies of the Americans. The Turkish opposition insists that the big terrorist attack on the Kurd peace demo in Ankara (95 dead, 215 wounded) perpetrated by ISIS had been used, or even instigated by Erdogan. Bearing in mind that Erdogan was the architect of a new peaceful policy towards the Turkish Kurds, this is a particularly unpleasant development.
Erdogan has lost his allies. The US prefers the Kurds and is annoyed that Turkey bombs them while declaring they fight against ISIS, the main enemy of the Kurds. It is not clear whether they will rush to his support in case of trouble with the Russians.
<<< https://archive.is/mZTQ3#selection-367.0-385.0
