Turkish PM Erdoğan in Libya, last stop at Arab Spring Tour
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrived and greeted warmly in the Libyan capital on Friday on the final leg of his “Arab Spring” tour, where he aims Turkey to be the role model and himself the idol of Arab World.
Turkey leader Tayyip Erdoğan arrived from Tunisia at Tripoli’s airport, Libya, where he has received a warm greeting from Mustafa Abdel Jalil, number two in the new ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) whose forces last month toppled ex Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.
Just a day after the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s PM David Cameron, Libya is hosting this Friday Turkey’s Superman Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan. The Libyans reserved another warm welcome for Erdogan, whose country also played a key role in the revolution that ended with the overthrow of Colonel and Tyrant Muammar Gaddafi.
Turkish PM Erdogan in Arab Tour, his state Turkey fights a war with Terror
The Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan began his show-off Arap Spring tour in Egypt, where he received a rapturous welcome, confirming his rising and Turkey’s regional status, while back in Turkey everyday a renewed attack from PKK terror organisation kill Turkish soldiers in the east-south east area in Turkey.
Besides holding talks with the new leadership, Erdoğan was to attend the weekly Muslim main prayers and the most important one of them fridays at an Ottoman-era mosque in Cairo, which is a must be show off in muslim world.
Turkish Pm Erdoğan who drew comparisons with the late Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose pan-Arabism and defiance of foreign powers made him a regional hero in the 1950s, has gained and enhanced regional stature as well as popularity in the Arab world, stemming mainly from his strong confrontations with Israel, at a time when regional leaders were seen by their people as impotent when it comes to the Jewish state and the West. The latest developments in Israel-Turkey relationships helps the ever ambitous Turkish leader walk on a thin rope.
Turkey PM Erdogan Conquers Arab’s Hearts with usual tricks
On his visit to Egypt, PM Erdoğan has gained regional stature as well as popularity in the Arab world, stemming mainly from his strong confrontations with Israel, at a time when regional leaders were seen by their people as impotent when it comes to the Jewish state and the West. Alarmingly, Pm Erdogan also threatened to send Turkish warships to patrol the eastern Mediterranean to deter potential aggression against any Gaza-bound aid ships in.
Erdoğan has also become a champion of the Palestinian cause in the eyes of Arab world, specially in the eyes of the uneducated fraction. Palestine is entering a crucial phase with the Palestinian Authority’s plan to take a further step towards statehood by seeking UN membership later this month.
Arab League Turkey : Joined Forces for Palestine case against Israel
In a keynote address to the Arab League in Cairo on Wednesday, Erdoğan argued that supporting the Palestinian bid was an obligation for Turkey and every Arab. On Thursday, he made the case for “Islam and democracy” in Tunisia, where moderate Islamists modelled on his own party in Turkey are tipped to win landmark October polls.
On a visit to the country where the “Arab Spring” began, Erdoğan asserted that “Islam and democracy are not contradictory.”Turkish PM Erdoğan Begins Visit to Libya in Third Leg of ‘Arab Spring’ Tour. Turkey’s bilateral trade with Libya was $2.4 billion in favour of Turkey before the chaos and the two countries had waived travel visas to boost that trade.
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Is Turkey trying to change the world? If so, will Turkey face China too? If Israel should leave occupied territories righty theirs, by biblical history, then should China have to leave Tibet also? Turkey is indirectly rubbing Chinas nose against the sand. The law of association works naturally. Off of all nations, Turkey is the one with the biggest glass house, so why throw stones at others.
On the end, Turkey is just returning to its primitive ways, unless Mr. Erdogan is functioning on a carnivore dinosaur instinct with a dinosaur size brain.
If Turkey is truly preoccupied with human rights and ethnic groups having their own voice, then Turkey must set dialog with the Kurdish people and return Kurdistan to the Kurds. Otherwise, Turkey is simple trying to return to its Ottoman Empire grandure.
Turkey must apologize and re-compensate the Armenians, for butchering a million Armenians. If Israel must compensate for defending itself legally according to the UN, then Turkey must compensate the Armenian people for its deliberate genocide by Turkey, the Armenians’ children are still waiting.
Turkey is the very example of the opposite of what they are claiming to fight for. In reality, since Saddam is gone, Turkey no longer needs Israel, nor the European Union, nor the USA. If a war will breakout between Iran and the EU or the USA, Iran will quickly return to its primitive instincts, and join Iran in fighting against the EU or against the US.
Turkey has reached the lowest of respect, for it is being nothing more than Iran’s attack-dog.
I disagree with the notion that Erdogan “conquered the hearts of Arabs with usual tricks.” Erdogan conquered the hearts of Muslims and Arabs because he stands up to Israel and the U.S. in a region where anti-American and anti-Israeli hostility is a boiling cauldron!
It used to be that the U.S. pushed all its Arab dictators and despots to accept Israel, and then it allowed Israel to become a bully in Middle East under U.S. protection. During those years, the U.S. also controlled the Turkish foreign policy through its control of the Turkish military. Any Turkish elected government who didn’t toe the U.S. line
was dismissed by the Turkish military – under U.S. pressure on the U.S. trained and supplied Turkish army. The most striking was the dismissal of prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, on June 30, 1997. It took Tayyip Erdogan 3 elections to obtain a solid parliamentary majority, and a tough courage to refuse a demand by the chiefs of the Turkish army, navy and air force to order the release of 200 army officers arrested for planning a coup against him. The chiefs resigned in protest, and Erdogan appointed new commanders. And that fall marked the end of the U.S. clout to either approve or dismiss the elected Turkish governments. (Note: The European Union has denied membership to Turkey until it brought its military under civilian control).
Erdogan’s stature has now become a big problem for the U.S., and his popularity is enhanced by the high anti- U.S. and anti- Israeli sentiment in the Middle East. The U.S. has accused Iran and Syria as “terrorist supporting states” for supporting Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. But the U.S. doesn’t dare to accuse Turkey as a “terrorist supporting state” for doing the same! And when Obama called Erdogan recently and asked him to reconcile with Israel, Erdogan replied sternly that he should take his advise to Israel – according to reports in the press.
In short, the scale of political and military influence in Middle East is changing, and the U.S. and Israel are on the losing side. Erdogan owes his meteoric rise in Middle East to a a high anti-American sentiment in Turkey, 99.5% during the Bush years (Turkish Weekly, November 9, 2006), and a 93% anti-American sentiment in Global Polls (National Public Radio, Chicago, June 13, 2006 – confirmed the same day by Indiana Senator Richard Lugar in the Lehrer’s Report) With such high anti-U.S. and anti Israeli sentiments brewing worldwide, Erdogan’s call to “stop the Israeli lawlessness in the Middle East” (Al Jazeera, June 2, 2010) have made him a “Middle East idol,” and a statesman that the U.S. and Israel will be forced to reckon with! Nikos Retsos, retired professor