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As the Syrian crisis enters its 11th year this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has appealed for Western support in Syria in an apparent hope to advance plans for a safe zone along the Turkish border and hamper Russia in Idlib, if not revive his regime-change ambitions.

In a March 15 article for Bloomberg, Erdogan argues that restoring peace in Syria depends on strong Western support for Turkey and that the most sensible option for Western leaders is to throw their weight behind Turkey and become part of the solution in Syria, at minimum cost and with maximum impact.

Erdogans emphasis on minimum cost has unpleasant political connotations in Turkey, dating back to the early years of the Cold War, when American leaders would often advocate military partnership with Turkey as a cheap way of advancing US security interests. In remarks to Congress in 1953, for instance, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles argued that Turkish soldiers get 23 cents a month, while US soldiers would cost you 10 times as much. Such comparisons left lasting marks in Turkeys political lexicon and the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, an avowed socialist, even penned a poem titled The 23-cent soldier. For many, military collaboration with the United States remains akin to being Americas cheapest soldiers.

In his article, Erdogan describes Idlib as the oppositions final stronghold, never mind that the province is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which Ankara itself designates as a terrorist group, and other al-Qaeda-inspired factions. He claims Turkey saved millions of lives in Idlib a year ago when it struck regime positions to stop attacks on the region. Yet Turkeys intervention in Idlib in February 2020, which claimed the lives of dozens of its soldiers, failed to stop regime forces from taking control of the key M5 highway and besieging Turkish military outposts in the region. Moreover, the population in the area was hardly in the millions as locals had already fled their homes in droves. More crucially, the groups Erdogan calls the opposition are the same groups he pledged to eliminate in two deals with Russia in September 2018 and March 2020.

Erdogan frames the Syrian conflict as the terrible outcomes, including terrorism and irregular migration, of the regimes crackdown on popular demands for freedom and democracy, obscuring Ankaras role in militarizing the conflict through weapons transfers to the rebels with CIA help in the early years of the conflict and loose border control that allowed foreign jihadis to cross to Syria. While stressing the need to preserve Syrias unity, Erdogan seems to insist on a regime change, writing, The Turkish people believe that creating a political system, capable of representing all Syrians, is key to restoring peace and stability. We reject any plan that does not address the Syrian peoples demand for human dignity.

Erdogan boasts that Turkey was the first country to deploy combat troops against terrorist groups in Syria, even though he had gloated at the Islamic States (IS) onslaught on Kurdish areas along the border in 2014. US raids against IS began in September that year, while Turkey launched its first military campaign, Operation Euphrates Shield, in 2016 to stop the advances of the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) after their ouster of IS from northern Aleppo. The operation, which also was aimed against IS, was certainly instrumental also in dispelling criticism that Turkey was supporting the militant group.

The areas that Turkey and its Syrian rebels allies have come to control through Operation Euphrates Shield and two ensuing operations, Olive Branch and Peace Spring, have seen clashes between Turkish-backed groups, moves to alter demographics at the expense of the Kurds and myriad violations such as looting, extortion and the destruction of religious and historical sites. Erdogan, however, paints a rosy picture, writing, The safe zones, which Turkey created in cooperation with its local partners have become islands of peace and stability, as well asself-sustaining ecosystems.He refers also to a large-scale housing construction plan in northern Syria to settle up to 2 million refugees, which he had raised at the UN in 2019. According to Erdogan, Turkeys actions have sheltered Europe from irregular migration and terrorism, and secured NATOs southeastern border.

Erdogans offer to the West is not without conditions. Ankara, he writes, expects the West to adopt a clear positionagainst the YPG and support the legitimate Syrian opposition. He warns that failure to share Turkeys burden may result in fresh refugee waves to Europe. The warning evokes the crisis in February 2020, when Erdogan encouraged refugees in Turkey to cross to Europe via Greece. He now wants the West to invest in the safe zones in Syria and unequivocally endorse this peace project.

Finally, Erdogan appeals to the Joe Biden administration to stay true to its campaign pledges and work with us to end the tragedy in Syria and to defend democracy.

Less than two years ago, Erdogan was hailing the Astana process between Turkey, Russia and Iran as the sole initiative capable of producing effective solutions in Syria. And earlier this month, Turkey launched a new peace track with Russia and Qatar. Yet Erdogans Bloomberg article shows he still entertains the ambitions he had before his rapprochement with Moscow in 2016.

Despite his collaboration with Moscow, Erdogan has played a double game, waging military operations against the Kurds on the one hand while continuing to shield rebel forces on the other. By setting up more than 70 military outposts in southern Idlib over the past year, Turkey has effectively erected a barrier to the Syrian army. Erdogans offer to the West is a reminder of the value of Turkeys posture in Syria and a message to Biden who still keeps him waiting for a phone call on how the two could reconcile.

Yet the offer, in its current form, could hardly resonate with its addressees, who have harshly criticized Turkeys actions in Syria. Just last week, a European Parliament resolution denounced Turkeys illegal invasion in Syria and praised the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as an ally against IS.

Arab states, which have collaborated with the West in Syria, are unlikely to be impressed either, as they have come to see Turkeys influence expansion as a threat. Some are already pressing for Syrias return to the Arab League to counter Turkish and Iranian influence in the region.

Erdogans condition to the West to renounce the YPG is, in fact, self-destructive to his offer. Biden has displayed little flexibility on the issue and even the Donald Trump administration, which was ready to abandon the Kurds in 2019, had to step back under pressure from Congress.

More importantly, Erdogans offer bumps into Russia, which remains a steadfast ally of Bashar al-Assads government. And any move to create a safe zone along Turkeys border depends on Russias approval. As if responding to Erdogans intended pivot to the West, the Russians have recently hit oil facilities used by Turkish-backed rebel forces.

Commenting on Erdogans article, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov asserted ongoing disagreements with Turkey in Syria. The situation in the areas of [Turkish-Russian] interaction remains quite difficult. Terrorist elements remain there, hindering normalization. Nevertheless, interaction continues, he said.

Erdogans appeal to the West might stem from a sense of urgency. By failing to fulfill his commitments in Idlib, he has been paving the way for a fresh Syrian-Russian thrust on the region. An escalation in the next couple of months would not come as a surprise. Erdogan might be trying to deter such a prospect, while offering Biden a ground for score-settling with Russia.

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What lies behind Erdogans Syria offer to the West? - Al-Monitor

ISTANBUL Handcuffed and naked, Melek Ipek endured a night of beatings, sexual assault and death threats from her husband that left her and their two daughters battered and traumatized. By morning, after he went out and came back to the house, she had picked up a gun and killed him in a struggle.

Ms. Ipek, 31, was detained after calling the police to the scene in the southern Turkish city of Antalya in January. On Monday, she went on trial, charged with murder and facing a life sentence in what is shaping up to be a politically contentious case for womens rights in the country.

Womens rights organizations have leapt to support her, saying that she acted in self-defense and had suffered years of abuse by her husband before a long night of torture. If she had been given health care and a psychiatric evaluation after the assault, she would not even be on trial, the Antalya Feminist Collective said in a statement.

For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of a conservative Islamist movement who has championed the traditional family as the Turkish ideal, episodes like Ms. Ipeks case have become an increasingly explosive issue. His opponents accuse him of allowing violence against women to soar during his tenure, and women in his own party, if more cautiously, are supporting better protection for women.

Womens right groups have pointed to a sharp rise in deaths of women over the last two decades almost three a day occur somewhere in Turkey and the impunity of men charged with domestic abuse.

According to Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, 266 women were killed in episodes of domestic violence last year. Womens rights groups say the real toll is much higher, citing their own figures of 370 recorded femicides last year that is, women murdered by men because they are female and 171 cases of women who lost their lives in suspicious circumstances. On top of that are womens suicides that are barely investigated, they say.

They point to a steep rise in murders of women from 2002, when Mr. Erdogans Justice and Development Party was elected into office. Murders of women rose from 66 in 2002 to 953 in the first seven months of 2009, according to Sadullah Ergin, Mr. Erdogans justice minister at the time. The government stopped releasing data on murders according to gender after 2009.

In Turkey at least three women are being killed every day, said Berrin Sonmez, an activist and commentator on womens issues. More important, we observe that murders of women have become more violent.

Some of the brutality of recent cases amounts to systematic torture, she said.

Ms. Ipek appeared in court on Monday by video link from jail. She said she was sad about what had happened and offered condolences to her husbands family. Weeping, she added, But I want to tell everything that I have been through without being ashamed and scared anymore.

She said that she had been a successful student and had dreamed of becoming a math teacher, but that her husband, Ramazan Ipek, had sexually assaulted her while she was still in high school to force her to marry him.

On the night of Jan. 6, Mr. Ipek, 36, who worked as a driver, hit her with a rifle butt and threatened to kill her and their daughters, ages 9 and 7, firing the gun and shattering the window beside them, according to her account in the indictment.

He left the house in the morning and said he would return to kill the two children and then her. When he came back shouting an hour later, a still-handcuffed Ms. Ipek picked up his rifle and the gun went off in a struggle, she said in her account. He was killed by a single round at close range.

Lawyers and activists in Antalya have been dismayed that Ms. Ipek was detained. They are also concerned that the indictment described Mr. Ipek as a family man and charged that Ms. Ipek had chosen to shoot her husband rather than seek help from the police or neighbors.

Everyone is judging Melek right now: Why did she not call the police? Why didnt she accuse him before? Why didnt she get divorced before? said Gurbet Kabadayi, a teacher and activist at the Antalya Womens Counseling Center and Solidarity Association, which has offered support to Ms. Ipek and her family.

The indictment cites the fact that Ms. Ipek did not apply to the state for help or protection, or seek it from her neighbors, before or during the attack as evidence of her intention to kill him. She was ordered to remain in jail until the next hearing, on April 2.

But activists and lawyers say that the police and the judiciary in Turkey frequently fail women in need. Police officers often persuade battered women to return to their husbands, restraining orders are rarely enforced, and the courts often give reduced sentences for good behavior, which encourages a sense of impunity among perpetrators of violence, Ms. Kabadayi said. In one case, a Turkish court in 2017 acquitted two men accused of helping to kill their sister because of her Western lifestyle.

Political opponents and womens rights campaigners have accused Mr. Erdogan of encouraging the sense of impunity and the subsequent rise in violence by expressing conservative views on womens role in society and his increasingly authoritarian grip on the judiciary and law enforcement.

In principle, Turkey recognizes womens rights in legislation and in the Constitution, largely because female activists took part in crafting them, said Hulya Gulbahar, a lawyer who is a member of the Equality Monitoring Platform.

The issue is, she said, as we have seen in the Melek Ipek case, none of the clauses in those laws and the Constitution that are in favor of women are applied.

In his first decade in power, Mr. Erdogan was applauded for instituting democratic reforms as part of Turkeys bid to gain membership of the European Union. He also hosted and became the first signatory of the Istanbul Convention, the first international agreement to take on domestic violence, in 2011.

Yet a decade later, womens rights campaigners say they are fighting attempts from Islamists to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, roll back legislation like articles covering alimony and inheritance rights, and lower the age of consent from 18 to 12.

Unfortunately we are in a state of trying to protect what we already gained, Ms. Sonmez said.

As the issue of withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention came to a head last year, Mr. Erdogan encountered resistance from women in his own camp, including in his family.

The Women and Democracy Association, a nonprofit womens rights organization founded in 2013, of which Mr. Erdogans daughter, Sumeyye Bayraktar, is vice president, came out in favor of the Istanbul Convention. Mr. Erdogan appears to have shelved the idea of withdrawing.

The womans association is closely aligned with Mr. Erdogans Justice and Development Party and supports its Islamist ideals, emphasizing the importance for women of family and raising children. But its female members have also been supportive of justice for women in marriage and in the work force.

Nurten Ertugrul, a former party member who resigned after being passed over for a position as deputy mayor in favor of a man, said it was the groundswell of support for womens rights with the Islamist movement that had prevented the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention. Conservative women cannot always speak out, but they encourage others to do so, she said.

If the Justice and Development Party had not been afraid of their own womens rage, and of the women who voted for them, she said, they would easily have withdrawn from the Istanbul Convention.

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Trial of Woman Who Killed Her Husband Highlights Domestic Abuse in Turkey - The New York Times

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday sued his main opposition rival for claiming he was personally "responsible" for the deaths of 13 Turks in Iraq.

Turkey accuses outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants of executing the 13 police officers and security personnel, whom they had abducted in Turkey and held hostage in a cave in northern Iraq.

But the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and its Western allies, said the 13 were killed by Turkish bombs dropped during a rescue operation Ankara launched last week.

The failed rescue attempt has piled political pressure on Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey as prime minister and president since 2003.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), said in parliament on Tuesday that it was "Erdogan who is responsible for our 13 martyrs".

"You are launching an operation but all the hostages died," Kilicdaroglu said.

His comments infuriated Erdogan, whose lawyers are now seeking 500,000 Turkish liras ($72,000, 60,000 euros) in compensation for "moral damages", the Anadolu state news agency reported.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), parliament's second-largest opposition group, also criticised Erdogan for the failed operation, arguing that negotiations would have been more effective.

But Erdogan's right-wing allies, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), threw their support behind the government.

"Turkey is a rising power which fought in (northern Iraq) not only against the PKK but also against strategic threats," MHP leader Devlet Bahceli tweeted.

The Turkish army regularly conducts cross-border operations and air raids on PKK bases in northern Iraq.

On Wednesday, Erdogan said more than 12,900 Kurdish militants -- 6,000 at home and 6,900 abroad -- have been killed since a ceasefire with the PKK broke down in July 2015.

The PKK have been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 that is believed to have left more than 40,000 dead.

Turkey's botched rescue attempt also caused a diplomatic spat between Ankara and Washington, which initially said it was waiting for official confirmation before blaming the deaths on the PKK.

Washington blamed the group after Erdogan accused the United States of siding with "terrorists".

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Erdogan sues opposition rival in row over Iraq deaths - WION

1. Turkey to land on moon by 2023: Erdoan | Daily Sabah  Daily Sabah
2. Turkey Aims to Reach Moon in 2023, Erdogan Says  U.S. News & World Report
3. Merkel tells Erdogan she welcomes eastern Mediterranean progress  DW (English)
4. Erdogan untamed | Comment  www.ekathimerini.com
5. Erdogan charm offensive falls on stony ground in White House  The Times
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Turkey to land on moon by 2023: Erdoan | Daily Sabah - Daily Sabah

At first glance, thethree-minute video featuringTurkeys President Recep Tayyip ErdoganmarkingInternational Holocaust Remembrance Dayseems indistinguishable from the many messages of commemoration and solidarity offered by world leaders.

Erdogan describes how the racism and hate crimes that led to the genocides of the Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda and Cambodia are still thriving today; he mentions the UN Genocide Convention; he ends with the hope for a future without discrimination and crimes against humanity.

But on further examination, its clear Erdogans words were far less anodyne, and far more cynical. Erdogan commemorated the Holocaust in order to instrumentalize its usefulness to his own stark political agenda.Rather than engaging with the Holocaust per se, he presented it in such a generalized context that he didnt even mention the word "Jew."

The same definitional revisionism, of a "Holocaust" alienated from its Jewish victims, is repeated on Turkey's new state "We Remember" website: Its prcis of the Holocaust is "the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately11 million peopleby the Nazi regime in Germany and its collaborators during the Second World War."

And, of course, one genocide was notably missing from Erdogan's conveniently selective framing of history: that of the Armenians, by the Turkish states predecessor, the Ottoman Empire.

Sp what were Erdogans "real" messages?

First, part of Erdogans efforts to be recognized as the de facto leader ofthe Islamic world requiresan overarching narrative of Europes hostility to Muslims, and of Erdogan as the savior of suffering Muslims.

That fuels his ongoing campaign to prioritize combating Islamophobia in the West, and his aggressive diplomatic language particularly against the EU In the video, he specifically referred to online hate crimes against Muslims. Why now?

Its not only becauseofErdoganspragmatic approach, which takes advantage of any event that advances his agenda,butalsobecause he is still surfing on the wave he helped incite of anti-French, anti-European feeling in parts of the Muslim world triggered by claims of blasphemy against Islam.

The latest wave began when French teacher Samuel Patti showed cartoons of Muhammad in his class; his throat was then cut by an outraged Muslim extremist. The teachers "provocation" provided a ready opportunity for Erdogan to intensify his criticism of Europe and strengthen his fearless, defender of the faith legacy at home and abroad.

An integral part of Erdogans assault on Europe and social media companies has been his equation of contemporary Islamophobia with the Holocaust, the same form of soft revisionism, if not supersessionism, evident in the Holocaust Day video. Indeed, Erdogan has declared that Muslims in Europe are subject toa "lynch campaign similar to that against Jews before World War II."

Secondly, as is now a mainstream convention, Erdogan mentioned in his addresstheBosnian, Rwandan,andCambodian genocides alongside the Holocaust,while noting that "all of these genocides remind the international community of its responsibility." That was a nod to the failure of the West to prevent those atrocities, some of which were products of European colonialism and imperialism.

Thirdly, what is most striking about Erdogans address is what he chose to omit: the Armenian genocide of 1915. The Ottoman Empires dislocation, ethnic cleansing and mass killing of approximately 1.5 million Armenians, acknowledged by many historians and parliaments worldwide, has been denied by Turkey ever since.

Ironically,Erdogan called for embracing the 1948UNGenocideConvention,a convention drafted by Rafael Lemkin, whose initial motivation was outrage over the Armenian genocide.

The legalistic logic of Turkish denialism rejects ex post facto recognitions of pre-WWII events as genocides, as the Convention was not yet in force. But it encourages the noisy virtue-signaling of outrage over subsequent genocides just as long as the Armenians are out of the equation.

Turkeys new "We Remember" website doesnt just deny the Armenian genocide but seeks to whitewash wholesale the Ottoman Empires behavior towards minorities, with the modern Turkish state as an equal beneficiary: It reads, "Turkey is firmly dedicated to the legacy of multi-faith tolerance and cultural pluralism inherited from the Ottoman Empire."

Fourthly, Erdogan puts his finger firmly on the scale towards a universal, not particular, understanding of the Holocaust.

In Israel, which marksYom HaShoah(the national day ofHolocaust remembrance) in late April every year,the Holocaust is commemorated as a "unique" genocide: it is almost impossible in Israels memory culture and public sphere to compare between the Holocaust and Jewish suffering to other genocides and their victims. In other words, there is a hierarchy of genocide victims. Jews first, and then all the rest.

In contrast, powerful vectors of international commemoration, such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and, to a lesser extent, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, lean towards the universalistic: That the lasting lessons of the Holocaust are its similarities with other mass atrocities, and the similar role of stoking racial hatred and both stand as a warning to the future. This was exactly the stated objective of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

That Erdogan doesnt mention that the Holocausts victims were Jewish is clearly an extreme take on this universalizing dynamic. But when he flattens the "hierarchy of victimhood," equalizing all victims of genocide, he is less distorting Holocaust memory than joining a mainstream view of the purposes of commemoration comparative, not hierarchical, focusing on the threat and prevention of genocide against any group albeit with a spin that suits him.

Finally, Erdogan talked with pride about Turkeys "open-door policy" for refugees. His immediate reference point is to the over three million Syrian refugees fleeing civil war who found sanctuary in Turkey. Erdogan famously used the Syrian refugees as political capital against Europe. As is his wont, Erdogan referred to the glorious heritage of the Ottoman Empire which, he declared, had an open-door policy for refugees.

Spanish and Portuguese Jews, given shelter by the Sultan after their 1492 expulsion from Spain are often used as a prime example that Turkey has not only never countenanced antisemitism, but that it protects its minorities; the Turkish state has often used this as a counter-argument against Armenian genocide "allegation" and an explanation for why Israel has never formally recognized the Armenian genocide as such.

Clearly, the diplomatic history is somewhat murkier; Israeli governments and the Knesset have, despite pushback from opposing politicians, serially refused to discomfort Turkey by endorsing that recognition. Specific incidents have fortified that position: for instance, Turkeys political elite claim they helped Jewish refugees fleeing the 1979 Iranian Revolution to cross the Turkish border, with the trade-off:that Israel would not recognize the Armenian genocide, to which Israel complied.

Inathree-minute video addressing International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Erdogan barely engaged with Holocaust memory or with antisemitism. But he engaged abundantly with the selective values framed as universalism and respect for human rights that bolster his own Islamist global leadership ambitions, while controlling the genocide "canon" to exclude whatever doesnt fit that narrative.

But although Erdogans video was both contradictory and cynical, the Turkish president was knocking on an open door. Commemorating the genocide of one group as a global lesson always runs the risk that it will be exploited for totally different objectives, even by antisemites.

Paradoxically,global Holocaust memory, especially during the age of pandemic, is ripe tobe leveraged by authoritarian leadersto justifybothrepressive policiesand historical revisionism.

Dr. Eldad Ben Aharon is a Minerva Fellow and Associate Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and a lecturer at Leiden University. His research focuses on Israel's diplomatic history, Turkeys foreign policy, intelligence history and counter-terrorism, Jewish and Armenian transnationalism and memory of the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. Twitter:@EldadBenAharon

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Erdogans take on the Holocaust is cynical, selective and self-serving - Haaretz