Saturday, June 21, 2008

Coming war against Iran: Increasing Anglo-American pressure on Turkey

by Cem Ertür
Global Research, June 21, 2008

"Covering the period of March-June 2008, this article will try to highlight the political pressure applied by the US and UK governments on Turkey in view of their war plans against Iran. It is complementary to an earlier article titled "Will Turkey be Complicit in Another War Against Another Neighbour?" [1].......

Turkey was the last stop of US Vice President Dick Cheney's tour in the Middle East in March. Coverage of the event by the Turkish press gave the impression that Mr Cheney did not make any demands from Turkey's President, Prime Minister or Chief of General Staff, concerning the US foreign policy in the Middle East and/or Afghanistan. Given the increasingly evident Anglo-American hostility against Iran on all fronts, this wasn't very plausible. In fact, all the evidence since then suggests otherwise......

On June 17, Turkish daily Hurriyet reported the following exchange:

"Recently [outgoing] U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson visited the Turkish Minister of Energy [Hilmi Guler] asking him to discontinue the energy projects with Iran. The Minister of Energy rejected the request on the basis of a lack of an alternative source. When Wilson suggested buying energy from Iraq, the Turkish minister expressed his pessimistic opinion about Iraq being an alternative, indicating that Iraq had no gas reserves. He said, 'A bird in the hand is better than two birds on a tree.' In response, Ambassador Wilson stated 'in a short time, the bird may burn with the branch it is sitting on' " [26].......

Meanwhile, a US-sponsored political engineering process has entered its last phase, warning the entire political spectrum in Turkey to toe the line. It is relentlessly trying to ensure that a fully compliant government is in power before launching the next Anglo-American war on Iran and possibly on Syria."

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