Friday, December 11, 2009

TURKEY STILL MAINTAINING MILITARY TIES WITH ISRAEL

And that's only for now. We can't be sure it'll survive in another decade. From The Bulletin:
Jerusalem – Israel and Turkey have managed to retain military cooperation despite rising political tension, a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs said.

The report asserted that the Islamist government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has kept their military partnership with Israel despite their political crisis this year. Still, the Center, in a report by a leading U.S. analyst, warned that Israeli-Turkish relations were threatened by Ankara’s strategic alliance with Syria.

“Israel’s military relationship with Turkey, including ongoing joint air force training, military exchanges, and arms sales, appears to be secure for the time being,” the report, titled “The Islamist Transformation in Turkish Politics,” said. “Should bilateral political tensions continue, and as Ankara and Damascus enhance strategic ties, inevitably Israeli-Turkish military-to-military relations will suffer.”
I think sooner or later, Israel will have to come to terms with how Islamofascism is on the rise again in Turkey, and that's why continuation of army ties is just not worth it.
Mr. Schenker, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, said Ankara’s embrace of Syria over the last three years reflected the decline of Turkey’s military. He said Mr. Erdogan’s party, which has succeeded in marginalizing the military, has been promoting relations with such countries as Qatar, Sudan and Syria while rejecting pro-Western Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia.
Are they so sure they're pro-western? Because signs are that even Jordan is slowly cooling from that stance. And one can only wonder how it'll be before Turkey's army becomes more Islamised.
The report said Turkey began weakening its relationship with Israel as early as 2006. This year, however, Ankara sparked a crisis with Israel during its war with Hamas as the Turkish government improved relations with Syria. This included the first Syrian-Turkish military exercise in April.

“Clearly, 2009 was a watershed year for the Turkey-Syria bilateral relationship and a year of setbacks for Israeli-Turkish ties,” the report said. “While the long-term implications of these developments remain to be seen, the current trajectory is not cause for optimism.”
They got that right.

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