WAR Regional conflict brewing in the Mediterranean
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Update: Word is French Aircraft Carrier is also a message for Erdogan not to try to take Sirte with the GNA in Libya.
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Update: Word is French Aircraft Carrier is also a message for Erdogan not to try to take Sirte with the GNA in Libya.
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Turkey’s Challenge to the Regional Status Quo Begins in the Eastern Mediterranean
Jonathan Gorvett Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020
On July 24, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined thousands of worshippers in the streets around the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul for a doubly symbolic moment. Surrounded by a swarm of politicians, soldiers, security forces and imams, the Turkish leader made his way into the giant, former Byzantine cathedral through doors once hammered open by conquering Ottoman soldiers in 1453. Inside, he read out the namaz, or Muslim prayer, formally turning the 1,500-year-old building back into a mosque.
In doing so, Erdogan was turning the page on nine decades of recent history, during which this extraordinary structure and UNESCO World Heritage Site had been a globally recognized symbol of secular Turkey. Indeed, since 1934, Hagia Sophia had been neither a cathedral nor a mosque, but a secular museum, established as such by the very founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Yet Erdogan was not only challenging Ataturk’s vision of a secular state that day. By choosing July 24 to hold the reopening ceremony, Erdogan was also challenging the entire foundation of modern Turkey’s international status.
It was on that date in 1923 that Ataturk’s Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which ended years of war and occupation, while giving international recognition to the new Turkish Republic. That treaty also formally dissolved the republic’s predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, which had once stretched from the Caucasus to Yemen and from Iraq to Libya. In signing the Treaty of Lausanne, Ankara had renounced all claims to those lands and, with them, its former imperial grandeur.
Turkey is now making a major move to end the regional status quo that the Treaty of Lausanne largely established. And the crucible for that challenge is increasingly the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean.
“Reopening Hagia Sophia reminds us of our strength,” Erdogan told his fellow Turks in a nationally televised address on July 2. “It is a symbol of our resurrection and a breaking of the shackles put on our feet… We will continue to march and we will not stop until we reach our destination.”
For many of Turkey’s neighbors and current allies in Europe, that march is already having some significant and dangerous consequences.
Contested Waters
The Treaty of Lausanne has long been presented by Turkey’s secularists as a triumph for Ataturk and Turkish diplomacy, establishing the modern secular republic and ending Turkey’s international conflicts with a policy of “peace at home, peace abroad” for the new nation.
Yet, the treaty has never been seen that way by Turkey’s Islamists, like Erdogan, or its right-wing nationalists. “Some tried to make us carve Lausanne as a victory,” Erdogan told an assembly of neighborhood representatives, or muhtars, back in 2016. “As a result of Lausanne, we gave away the islands, which are so near [to our shores] that even a shout could be heard [from them]. What makes up the continental shelf, what will happen up in the air, what will happen on land—we are still struggling with this.”
Erdogan was referring in particular to the status of the Aegean Sea, the northern extension of the Eastern Mediterranean that Turkey shares with Greece. The treaty saw Turkey renounce its claims to all but a couple of islands there.
This region had once been entirely under Ottoman rule, although by 1923 most of it was part of Greece. Some islands, such as Rhodes and tiny Kastellorizo, were administered by Italy up until after World War II, when the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties also assigned these to Athens.
“Turkey is being squeezed into a very small and unjust sea area,” says Altug Gunal, a professor in the department of international relations at Ege University in Izmir. “Greece has the leading role in this siege. It claims that even very tiny Greek islets that are outermost to the Greek mainland and adjacent to mainland Turkey have the same extent of maritime jurisdiction as the Greek mainland.”
This Greek claim is backed up by the 1982 iteration of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS III, which essentially enables islands to extend the maritime rights of the mainland nations they belong to. For Athens, this is a major benefit, as it means that Greek waters curl around the southern coast of Turkey to Kastellorizo and far beyond. In the Aegean, too, the dense constellation of Greek islands means that no seaborne approach to key Turkish ports, such as Izmir, can be made without effectively going through Greek waters.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Turkey has therefore never signed up to UNCLOS III. Instead, it continues to follow the convention’s original iteration, the 1958 UNCLOS I, which did not treat islands the same way. Instead, it assigned “continental shelves” to their contiguous mainland, giving the waters around most offshore islands to the nearest continental state.
This interpretation is also significant for a second long-standing dispute in the Eastern Mediterranean—Cyprus.
The island has been divided into a Turkish Cypriot north and a Greek Cypriot south since the 1974 Turkish invasion. The Republic of Cyprus, or ROC, in the south continues to enjoy international recognition as the de jure government of the whole island, with only Turkey recognizing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that declared independence in 1983 and remains the de facto ruler of the north under Ankara’s patronage.
As the internationally recognized legitimate government, the ROC claims full maritime rights for the whole island of Cyprus. Under UNCLOS III, that means exclusive rights to the resources—including what lies under the seabed—within an exclusive economic zone extending 200 nautical miles beyond its 12-nautical-mile territorial waters.
In 2011, this became a major boon for the ROC when, at the farthest reaches of that exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, south of Cyprus, Nobel Energy discovered the Aphrodite natural gas field. Since then, the ROC government has also parceled out exploration blocks across the island’s EEZ, bringing in ExxonMobil, France’s Total and Italy’s ENI to survey and drill within them. Further discoveries—the Calypso and Glafkos fields—were made in 2018 and 2019 by ENI and ExxonMobil respectively. All these offshore fields lie well south of Cyprus, in ROC jurisdiction under UNCLOS III.
These developments were greeted with consternation in Ankara. Consistent with its view on the maritime limits of islands derived from UNCLOS I, Turkey refuses to acknowledge that the ROC has any rights to an EEZ. Instead, it sees its own EEZ extending southward from its long Mediterranean coast, with Cyprus possessing only its 12-nautical-mile territorial waters. These, Ankara argues, should also be divided between those belonging to the ROC in the south and those accorded to the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Much of the EEZ claimed by the ROC, in Ankara’s eyes, is therefore within Turkey’s EEZ, giving Turkey the right to explore there.
For the past few years, then, Turkish seismic research vessels, and more recently drilling ships, have been operating in the waters off Cyprus claimed by both parties. In 2018, this led to Turkish warships threatening to ram a ship contracted by ENI to conduct undersea prospecting, while from August 2019 into early 2020, Turkish ships drilled off the coast of northern Cyprus in waters within the ROC-claimed EEZ, provoking alarm and protest from Nicosia and its close ally, Greece.
The Libyan Connection
These tensions further escalated in November 2019, when Turkey signed an agreement with Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli, known as the Government of National Accord, or GNA, that grew out of the complicated regional dynamics of that country’s civil war. The fighting ostensibly pits the GNA against the forces of Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s breakaway Libyan National Army, which is loyal to the rival, Tobruk-based government led by Aguila Saleh Issa. But over the course of 2019, the Libyan conflict became a full-blown proxy war. Turkey and Italy back the GNA, while Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and France have provided support—including military assistance—to Haftar’s forces, although Paris denies any formal backing.
In response to a sudden offensive by Haftar’s forces in April 2019 that eventually pushed to the outskirts of Tripoli, Ankara began sending Turkish-aligned Syrian mercenaries to support the GNA, along with trainers, special forces, arms and equipment. The November 2019 agreement formalized this support, which proved decisive in helping the GNA push the Libyan National Army back from the outskirts of Tripoli to those of the coastal city of Sirte in the east.
At the same time, the agreement also delineated the maritime boundary between Turkey and Libya. Again, according to the Turkish argument that islands do not possess EEZs, the Greek islands that lie between Turkey and Libya—most notably Crete, Rhodes and Kastellorizo—also do not have such zones. This leaves only Mediterranean water between the coasts of Turkey and Libya.
A Turkish warship and a Turkish drilling ship in the Eastern Mediterranean, July 9, 2019 (Turkish Defense Ministry photo via AP).
As Ankara sees it, the maritime element of its Libyan agreement gives Turkey the right to explore for oil and gas not only off of Cyprus, but also just off the shores of Greek islands such as Crete and Kastellorizo as well. Sure enough, this summer, in July, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that Turkey would take up this right and dispatch its seismic research and drilling vessels to what Athens—and most other governments around the Mediterranean—see as Greek waters.
This extended Turkish maritime claim also exacerbates the Cyprus gas dispute. With the Aphrodite gas discoveries lying so far south of Cyprus, and the largest potential market for that gas being in distant Europe, transporting the gas to market has long been an issue. One potential solution is the proposed EastMed gas pipeline. This 1,200-mile, largely undersea feat of engineering would link neighboring Cypriot, Israeli and potentially Egyptian gas fields, then run northwest to Cyprus, Greece and Italy, where it would join the existing European gas pipeline network.
The Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement, however, means that the EastMed pipeline’s planned route now runs straight through the area claimed by Turkey. According to Ankara, that gives it a say in the project’s construction. This latest Turkish move naturally provoked a major diplomatic reaction from Greece, which in a Foreign Ministry statement on July 21 accused Turkey of having “complete contempt for international law.” The Greek navy was subsequently put on alert.
French President Emmanuel Macron also began to weigh in, particularly after a tense standoff between a French frigate and three Turkish warships off the Libyan coast on June 10. The French vessel, operating in a NATO operation to enforce a U.N. arms embargo on Libya, had sought to stop and inspect a Tanzanian-flagged cargo ship suspected of smuggling weapons. According to the French Defense Ministry, one of the Turkish vessels accompanying the cargo ship then flashed its targeting radar on the French frigate, and the Turkish sailors on board donned their bullet-proof vests and took their stations behind light weapons. Turkey claimed the cargo ship was carrying humanitarian aid.
Macron subsequently described Turkey as bearing “a historic and criminal responsibility” for its intervention in Libya. He called for a NATO investigation into the standoff near the Libyan coast, as well as for European Union sanctions on Turkey over its drilling campaign in the Eastern Mediterranean. In July, Brussels followed through, imposing sanctions on top officials from the Turkish state oil and gas exploration company.
By late July, then, tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean had become higher than at any time in decades.
continued
Jonathan Gorvett Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020
On July 24, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined thousands of worshippers in the streets around the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul for a doubly symbolic moment. Surrounded by a swarm of politicians, soldiers, security forces and imams, the Turkish leader made his way into the giant, former Byzantine cathedral through doors once hammered open by conquering Ottoman soldiers in 1453. Inside, he read out the namaz, or Muslim prayer, formally turning the 1,500-year-old building back into a mosque.
In doing so, Erdogan was turning the page on nine decades of recent history, during which this extraordinary structure and UNESCO World Heritage Site had been a globally recognized symbol of secular Turkey. Indeed, since 1934, Hagia Sophia had been neither a cathedral nor a mosque, but a secular museum, established as such by the very founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Yet Erdogan was not only challenging Ataturk’s vision of a secular state that day. By choosing July 24 to hold the reopening ceremony, Erdogan was also challenging the entire foundation of modern Turkey’s international status.
It was on that date in 1923 that Ataturk’s Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which ended years of war and occupation, while giving international recognition to the new Turkish Republic. That treaty also formally dissolved the republic’s predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, which had once stretched from the Caucasus to Yemen and from Iraq to Libya. In signing the Treaty of Lausanne, Ankara had renounced all claims to those lands and, with them, its former imperial grandeur.
Turkey is now making a major move to end the regional status quo that the Treaty of Lausanne largely established. And the crucible for that challenge is increasingly the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean.
“Reopening Hagia Sophia reminds us of our strength,” Erdogan told his fellow Turks in a nationally televised address on July 2. “It is a symbol of our resurrection and a breaking of the shackles put on our feet… We will continue to march and we will not stop until we reach our destination.”
For many of Turkey’s neighbors and current allies in Europe, that march is already having some significant and dangerous consequences.
Contested Waters
The Treaty of Lausanne has long been presented by Turkey’s secularists as a triumph for Ataturk and Turkish diplomacy, establishing the modern secular republic and ending Turkey’s international conflicts with a policy of “peace at home, peace abroad” for the new nation.
Yet, the treaty has never been seen that way by Turkey’s Islamists, like Erdogan, or its right-wing nationalists. “Some tried to make us carve Lausanne as a victory,” Erdogan told an assembly of neighborhood representatives, or muhtars, back in 2016. “As a result of Lausanne, we gave away the islands, which are so near [to our shores] that even a shout could be heard [from them]. What makes up the continental shelf, what will happen up in the air, what will happen on land—we are still struggling with this.”
Erdogan was referring in particular to the status of the Aegean Sea, the northern extension of the Eastern Mediterranean that Turkey shares with Greece. The treaty saw Turkey renounce its claims to all but a couple of islands there.
This region had once been entirely under Ottoman rule, although by 1923 most of it was part of Greece. Some islands, such as Rhodes and tiny Kastellorizo, were administered by Italy up until after World War II, when the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties also assigned these to Athens.
Kastellorizo is a particular case in point, too, when it comes to contemporary Turkish objections to the consequences of Lausanne. The island lies only a mile off the Turkish coastal town of Kas, but 354 miles southeast of Athens.
“Turkey is being squeezed into a very small and unjust sea area,” says Altug Gunal, a professor in the department of international relations at Ege University in Izmir. “Greece has the leading role in this siege. It claims that even very tiny Greek islets that are outermost to the Greek mainland and adjacent to mainland Turkey have the same extent of maritime jurisdiction as the Greek mainland.”
This Greek claim is backed up by the 1982 iteration of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS III, which essentially enables islands to extend the maritime rights of the mainland nations they belong to. For Athens, this is a major benefit, as it means that Greek waters curl around the southern coast of Turkey to Kastellorizo and far beyond. In the Aegean, too, the dense constellation of Greek islands means that no seaborne approach to key Turkish ports, such as Izmir, can be made without effectively going through Greek waters.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Turkey has therefore never signed up to UNCLOS III. Instead, it continues to follow the convention’s original iteration, the 1958 UNCLOS I, which did not treat islands the same way. Instead, it assigned “continental shelves” to their contiguous mainland, giving the waters around most offshore islands to the nearest continental state.
This interpretation is also significant for a second long-standing dispute in the Eastern Mediterranean—Cyprus.
The island has been divided into a Turkish Cypriot north and a Greek Cypriot south since the 1974 Turkish invasion. The Republic of Cyprus, or ROC, in the south continues to enjoy international recognition as the de jure government of the whole island, with only Turkey recognizing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that declared independence in 1983 and remains the de facto ruler of the north under Ankara’s patronage.
As the internationally recognized legitimate government, the ROC claims full maritime rights for the whole island of Cyprus. Under UNCLOS III, that means exclusive rights to the resources—including what lies under the seabed—within an exclusive economic zone extending 200 nautical miles beyond its 12-nautical-mile territorial waters.
In 2011, this became a major boon for the ROC when, at the farthest reaches of that exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, south of Cyprus, Nobel Energy discovered the Aphrodite natural gas field. Since then, the ROC government has also parceled out exploration blocks across the island’s EEZ, bringing in ExxonMobil, France’s Total and Italy’s ENI to survey and drill within them. Further discoveries—the Calypso and Glafkos fields—were made in 2018 and 2019 by ENI and ExxonMobil respectively. All these offshore fields lie well south of Cyprus, in ROC jurisdiction under UNCLOS III.
These developments were greeted with consternation in Ankara. Consistent with its view on the maritime limits of islands derived from UNCLOS I, Turkey refuses to acknowledge that the ROC has any rights to an EEZ. Instead, it sees its own EEZ extending southward from its long Mediterranean coast, with Cyprus possessing only its 12-nautical-mile territorial waters. These, Ankara argues, should also be divided between those belonging to the ROC in the south and those accorded to the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Much of the EEZ claimed by the ROC, in Ankara’s eyes, is therefore within Turkey’s EEZ, giving Turkey the right to explore there.
For the past few years, then, Turkish seismic research vessels, and more recently drilling ships, have been operating in the waters off Cyprus claimed by both parties. In 2018, this led to Turkish warships threatening to ram a ship contracted by ENI to conduct undersea prospecting, while from August 2019 into early 2020, Turkish ships drilled off the coast of northern Cyprus in waters within the ROC-claimed EEZ, provoking alarm and protest from Nicosia and its close ally, Greece.
The Libyan Connection
These tensions further escalated in November 2019, when Turkey signed an agreement with Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli, known as the Government of National Accord, or GNA, that grew out of the complicated regional dynamics of that country’s civil war. The fighting ostensibly pits the GNA against the forces of Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s breakaway Libyan National Army, which is loyal to the rival, Tobruk-based government led by Aguila Saleh Issa. But over the course of 2019, the Libyan conflict became a full-blown proxy war. Turkey and Italy back the GNA, while Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and France have provided support—including military assistance—to Haftar’s forces, although Paris denies any formal backing.
In response to a sudden offensive by Haftar’s forces in April 2019 that eventually pushed to the outskirts of Tripoli, Ankara began sending Turkish-aligned Syrian mercenaries to support the GNA, along with trainers, special forces, arms and equipment. The November 2019 agreement formalized this support, which proved decisive in helping the GNA push the Libyan National Army back from the outskirts of Tripoli to those of the coastal city of Sirte in the east.
At the same time, the agreement also delineated the maritime boundary between Turkey and Libya. Again, according to the Turkish argument that islands do not possess EEZs, the Greek islands that lie between Turkey and Libya—most notably Crete, Rhodes and Kastellorizo—also do not have such zones. This leaves only Mediterranean water between the coasts of Turkey and Libya.
A Turkish warship and a Turkish drilling ship in the Eastern Mediterranean, July 9, 2019 (Turkish Defense Ministry photo via AP).
As Ankara sees it, the maritime element of its Libyan agreement gives Turkey the right to explore for oil and gas not only off of Cyprus, but also just off the shores of Greek islands such as Crete and Kastellorizo as well. Sure enough, this summer, in July, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that Turkey would take up this right and dispatch its seismic research and drilling vessels to what Athens—and most other governments around the Mediterranean—see as Greek waters.
This extended Turkish maritime claim also exacerbates the Cyprus gas dispute. With the Aphrodite gas discoveries lying so far south of Cyprus, and the largest potential market for that gas being in distant Europe, transporting the gas to market has long been an issue. One potential solution is the proposed EastMed gas pipeline. This 1,200-mile, largely undersea feat of engineering would link neighboring Cypriot, Israeli and potentially Egyptian gas fields, then run northwest to Cyprus, Greece and Italy, where it would join the existing European gas pipeline network.
The Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement, however, means that the EastMed pipeline’s planned route now runs straight through the area claimed by Turkey. According to Ankara, that gives it a say in the project’s construction. This latest Turkish move naturally provoked a major diplomatic reaction from Greece, which in a Foreign Ministry statement on July 21 accused Turkey of having “complete contempt for international law.” The Greek navy was subsequently put on alert.
French President Emmanuel Macron also began to weigh in, particularly after a tense standoff between a French frigate and three Turkish warships off the Libyan coast on June 10. The French vessel, operating in a NATO operation to enforce a U.N. arms embargo on Libya, had sought to stop and inspect a Tanzanian-flagged cargo ship suspected of smuggling weapons. According to the French Defense Ministry, one of the Turkish vessels accompanying the cargo ship then flashed its targeting radar on the French frigate, and the Turkish sailors on board donned their bullet-proof vests and took their stations behind light weapons. Turkey claimed the cargo ship was carrying humanitarian aid.
Macron subsequently described Turkey as bearing “a historic and criminal responsibility” for its intervention in Libya. He called for a NATO investigation into the standoff near the Libyan coast, as well as for European Union sanctions on Turkey over its drilling campaign in the Eastern Mediterranean. In July, Brussels followed through, imposing sanctions on top officials from the Turkish state oil and gas exploration company.
By late July, then, tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean had become higher than at any time in decades.
continued
jward
passin' thru
(continued)
Blue Homeland
Disputes over maritime boundaries are nothing new between Turkey and Greece. And the Cyprus issue has been a cause of division since the 1950s. So what prompted this latest escalation, as well as Turkey’s intervention in Libya? The answer can be found in the gradual, yet significant political shift in Ankara epitomized by the reopening of the Hagia Sophia as a mosque.
“Ataturk presented Lausanne as a victory,” says Zenonas Tziarras, a researcher with the Peace Research Institute Oslo, who is based in Nicosia. “But the ideological current in Turkey now represented by Erdogan thought the opposite—[to them] Lausanne was the end of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate, which had been centered on Istanbul, and so it was a defeat. Erdogan came to power as an expression of this current, and as he has consolidated power, he has been increasingly able to express this in his foreign policy.”
Indeed, by late 2017, ahead of what was billed as a conciliatory visit to Greece, Erdogan felt confident enough to say in an interview broadcast on Greek TV: “I think that over time all treaties need a revision. The Lausanne Treaty, in the face of recent developments, needs a revision.”
Most recently, too, with Turkey’s economy ailing, Erdogan’s government has seen its popularity dwindle at home, losing control of both Ankara and Istanbul in municipal elections in 2019. His Justice and Development Party, the AKP, was also forced to form a coalition government after failing to win an outright majority in 2018 parliamentary elections.
As a result, a naval strategy long popular with the MHP known as “Blue Homeland,” or Mavi Vatan, has been adopted by Erdogan and the AKP as both military doctrine and presidential policy. Turkish military spending has steadily increased. The defense budget rose by 86 percent between 2010 and 2019, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI, with 27 percent of that coming between 2017 and 2018 alone. Although actual figures are state secrets, the navy has likely received a major share of this increase, as have indigenous naval industries, with Turkey now designing and building its own frigates, landing craft, light aircraft carriers, and oil and gas exploration ships.
By March 2019, the Turkish navy was thus able to hold its largest-ever exercise, Sea Wolf, deploying 131 warships in the Mediterranean, Aegean and Black seas. Erdogan then followed this up in September by being photographed in front of a map showing some 462,000 square kilometers of those three seas as Turkish waters.
“The strategy is to build a military force that is no longer mandated to defend the homeland, but to have a regional stance, if needed,” says Atilla Yesilada, an Istanbul-based Turkish analyst. “In the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey sees itself as the victim, rather than the aggressor, with Greece, the Greek Cypriots, Egypt and Israel all working together to parcel out the sea between them and confine Turkey to within a few miles of its shoreline.”
Few see the issue as only about resources, either. Indeed, the current combination of worldwide economic recession due to COVID-19, a long-standing global natural gas glut, and moves toward renewable energy make the high cost of extracting and transporting Eastern Mediterranean gas look highly questionable in purely economic terms.
“In the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey’s gas exploration is not about economics, but about supporting a claim of sovereignty,” says Charles Elinas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “They want a say in everything that happens there.”
Diplomatic Off-Ramp, or Escalation?
In 1964, when Turkey and Greece were about to come to blows over Cyprus, a telegram from U.S. President Lyndon Johnson was enough to halt the crisis. In 1996, too, the arrival of a U.S. warship defused a potentially grave Turkish-Greek dispute over an Aegean islet claimed by Athens as Imia and by Ankara as Kardak.
This time, however, while the State Department urged Turkey “to avoid steps that raise tensions in the region” in a July 20 statement, there has been no major or decisive U.S. response to a spat between two key NATO allies.
On Libya, too, while the U.S. ramped up its efforts to have a cease-fire declared in July, its position has been largely problematic. “There is a perception that the increasing Russian presence in Libya is a threat, so the U.S. is more prepared to greenlight Turkish moves,” says Claudia Gazzini, a Libya expert at the International Crisis Group. “Yet, the U.S. doesn’t want to alienate its Arab allies, who support Haftar, so it is walking a difficult tightrope.”
The U.S. downgrading of the Mediterranean as a strategic priority predates Donald Trump’s presidency. But there is a widespread perception in the region’s capitals that under Trump, the U.S. has further retreated from its usual, policing role in the region.
“A post-U.S. world order is accelerating,” says Tziarras, “and countries will take advantage of U.S. weakness, including Turkey.”
Greek and French military vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aug. 13, 2020 (Greek National Defense photo via AP Images).
One unexpected consequence of America’s absence, however, has been to propel into the spotlight a country that has not exercised major diplomatic influence in the Eastern Mediterranean since the time of Bismarck: Germany. As the largest and most powerful economy in Europe—and also the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, allowing it to shape the bloc’s political priorities for six months—Germany has a major role to play in managing the crisis.
On one side are Greece and Cyprus, two EU member states, backed up by a French president who seems to believe further escalation is the only way to deter Erdogan. On the other is Turkey, a major market for EU goods and a key backstop against refugees and migrants trying to enter Europe, which has been a hot-button political issue in the EU since 2015.
It’s no surprise, then, that in late July, Germany launched a significant diplomatic intervention to try and defuse the potentially damaging confrontation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel engaged directly with both Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, after which Turkey declared it would put its drilling operations on hold for at least a month and announced a meeting in Ankara between Turkish and Greek officials. Merkel had managed to halt an escalation—temporarily.
Greece’s prime minister subsequently threatened to unilaterally expand the country’s territorial waters to the east toward Turkey, leading Turkey’s foreign minister to threaten war if it does. France dispatched naval vessels to participate in joint exercises with Greece and fighter planes for joint exercises with Cyprus, while Germany once again called for dialogue. The U.S. also finally intervened, with Trump calling both Mitsotakis and Erdogan to urge them to find a compromise.
In late August, however, Turkey instead announced that it would hold live-fire military exercises in the disputed zone off northwest Cyprus from Aug. 29 until Sept. 11. On Aug. 28, a weary Merkel called on all EU members to back Greece and Cyprus, while the EU itself announced that it will meet to discuss sanctions against Turkey on Sept. 24-25.
The EU is Turkey’s largest overseas market, making EU sanctions a real threat to a Turkish economy that was already shaky even before COVID-19 hit its important tourism sector and collapsed demand for its foreign exchange-earning manufactured goods. Yet the price of permanently resolving the crisis may ultimately be what Erdogan has been after all along: an international renegotiation of the Lausanne Treaty.
“Turkey knows that if it agreed to go to the international courts over its claims, it wouldn’t get what it’s asking for,” says Tziarras. “The strategy is more to pressure Greece into negotiating things it doesn’t want to negotiate and to create a precedent for future claims, beyond the Aegean.”
The events of July, in which diplomacy deescalated tensions, demonstrates that both sides are still able to walk back from the brink of conflict. By contrast, the events of August raise the question of how willing they are to follow through on the dialogue necessary to actually reconcile their claims. Most of all, the events of this summer indicate that a whole new balance of power is emerging in this highly strategic region, one in which old certainties—and treaties—are being increasingly called into question.
Jonathan Gorvett is a journalist, writer and analyst specializing in European and Near Eastern affairs, currently based in Ireland.
www.worldpoliticsreview.com
Blue Homeland
Disputes over maritime boundaries are nothing new between Turkey and Greece. And the Cyprus issue has been a cause of division since the 1950s. So what prompted this latest escalation, as well as Turkey’s intervention in Libya? The answer can be found in the gradual, yet significant political shift in Ankara epitomized by the reopening of the Hagia Sophia as a mosque.
“Ataturk presented Lausanne as a victory,” says Zenonas Tziarras, a researcher with the Peace Research Institute Oslo, who is based in Nicosia. “But the ideological current in Turkey now represented by Erdogan thought the opposite—[to them] Lausanne was the end of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate, which had been centered on Istanbul, and so it was a defeat. Erdogan came to power as an expression of this current, and as he has consolidated power, he has been increasingly able to express this in his foreign policy.”
Indeed, by late 2017, ahead of what was billed as a conciliatory visit to Greece, Erdogan felt confident enough to say in an interview broadcast on Greek TV: “I think that over time all treaties need a revision. The Lausanne Treaty, in the face of recent developments, needs a revision.”
Most recently, too, with Turkey’s economy ailing, Erdogan’s government has seen its popularity dwindle at home, losing control of both Ankara and Istanbul in municipal elections in 2019. His Justice and Development Party, the AKP, was also forced to form a coalition government after failing to win an outright majority in 2018 parliamentary elections.
This has left the AKP much more reliant on its coalition partner, the National Movement Party, or MHP. A right-wing nationalist party, the MHP also rejects Lausanne, but believes that the treaty’s supposed inequities should be redressed by force if necessary. The failed military coup against Erdogan in 2016 also strengthened the MHP’s hand, as the subsequent purge and mass arrests of those responsible—many of them MHP rivals within the military—left it ascendant within the armed forces.
As a result, a naval strategy long popular with the MHP known as “Blue Homeland,” or Mavi Vatan, has been adopted by Erdogan and the AKP as both military doctrine and presidential policy. Turkish military spending has steadily increased. The defense budget rose by 86 percent between 2010 and 2019, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI, with 27 percent of that coming between 2017 and 2018 alone. Although actual figures are state secrets, the navy has likely received a major share of this increase, as have indigenous naval industries, with Turkey now designing and building its own frigates, landing craft, light aircraft carriers, and oil and gas exploration ships.
By March 2019, the Turkish navy was thus able to hold its largest-ever exercise, Sea Wolf, deploying 131 warships in the Mediterranean, Aegean and Black seas. Erdogan then followed this up in September by being photographed in front of a map showing some 462,000 square kilometers of those three seas as Turkish waters.
“The strategy is to build a military force that is no longer mandated to defend the homeland, but to have a regional stance, if needed,” says Atilla Yesilada, an Istanbul-based Turkish analyst. “In the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey sees itself as the victim, rather than the aggressor, with Greece, the Greek Cypriots, Egypt and Israel all working together to parcel out the sea between them and confine Turkey to within a few miles of its shoreline.”
Few see the issue as only about resources, either. Indeed, the current combination of worldwide economic recession due to COVID-19, a long-standing global natural gas glut, and moves toward renewable energy make the high cost of extracting and transporting Eastern Mediterranean gas look highly questionable in purely economic terms.
“In the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey’s gas exploration is not about economics, but about supporting a claim of sovereignty,” says Charles Elinas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “They want a say in everything that happens there.”
Diplomatic Off-Ramp, or Escalation?
In 1964, when Turkey and Greece were about to come to blows over Cyprus, a telegram from U.S. President Lyndon Johnson was enough to halt the crisis. In 1996, too, the arrival of a U.S. warship defused a potentially grave Turkish-Greek dispute over an Aegean islet claimed by Athens as Imia and by Ankara as Kardak.
This time, however, while the State Department urged Turkey “to avoid steps that raise tensions in the region” in a July 20 statement, there has been no major or decisive U.S. response to a spat between two key NATO allies.
On Libya, too, while the U.S. ramped up its efforts to have a cease-fire declared in July, its position has been largely problematic. “There is a perception that the increasing Russian presence in Libya is a threat, so the U.S. is more prepared to greenlight Turkish moves,” says Claudia Gazzini, a Libya expert at the International Crisis Group. “Yet, the U.S. doesn’t want to alienate its Arab allies, who support Haftar, so it is walking a difficult tightrope.”
The U.S. downgrading of the Mediterranean as a strategic priority predates Donald Trump’s presidency. But there is a widespread perception in the region’s capitals that under Trump, the U.S. has further retreated from its usual, policing role in the region.
“A post-U.S. world order is accelerating,” says Tziarras, “and countries will take advantage of U.S. weakness, including Turkey.”
Greek and French military vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aug. 13, 2020 (Greek National Defense photo via AP Images).
One unexpected consequence of America’s absence, however, has been to propel into the spotlight a country that has not exercised major diplomatic influence in the Eastern Mediterranean since the time of Bismarck: Germany. As the largest and most powerful economy in Europe—and also the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, allowing it to shape the bloc’s political priorities for six months—Germany has a major role to play in managing the crisis.
On one side are Greece and Cyprus, two EU member states, backed up by a French president who seems to believe further escalation is the only way to deter Erdogan. On the other is Turkey, a major market for EU goods and a key backstop against refugees and migrants trying to enter Europe, which has been a hot-button political issue in the EU since 2015.
It’s no surprise, then, that in late July, Germany launched a significant diplomatic intervention to try and defuse the potentially damaging confrontation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel engaged directly with both Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, after which Turkey declared it would put its drilling operations on hold for at least a month and announced a meeting in Ankara between Turkish and Greek officials. Merkel had managed to halt an escalation—temporarily.
Tensions have subsequently heated back up after Mitsotakis sealed a maritime boundary agreement with Egypt on Aug. 6 that overlaps with the Turkish-Libyan delimitation. Ankara instantly denounced the agreement, and the German-sponsored talks collapsed. Instead, Turkey announced that it was sending its survey and drill ship the Oruc Reis, accompanied by a naval escort, into the disputed waters between Crete and Cyprus.
Greece’s prime minister subsequently threatened to unilaterally expand the country’s territorial waters to the east toward Turkey, leading Turkey’s foreign minister to threaten war if it does. France dispatched naval vessels to participate in joint exercises with Greece and fighter planes for joint exercises with Cyprus, while Germany once again called for dialogue. The U.S. also finally intervened, with Trump calling both Mitsotakis and Erdogan to urge them to find a compromise.
In late August, however, Turkey instead announced that it would hold live-fire military exercises in the disputed zone off northwest Cyprus from Aug. 29 until Sept. 11. On Aug. 28, a weary Merkel called on all EU members to back Greece and Cyprus, while the EU itself announced that it will meet to discuss sanctions against Turkey on Sept. 24-25.
The EU is Turkey’s largest overseas market, making EU sanctions a real threat to a Turkish economy that was already shaky even before COVID-19 hit its important tourism sector and collapsed demand for its foreign exchange-earning manufactured goods. Yet the price of permanently resolving the crisis may ultimately be what Erdogan has been after all along: an international renegotiation of the Lausanne Treaty.
“Turkey knows that if it agreed to go to the international courts over its claims, it wouldn’t get what it’s asking for,” says Tziarras. “The strategy is more to pressure Greece into negotiating things it doesn’t want to negotiate and to create a precedent for future claims, beyond the Aegean.”
The events of July, in which diplomacy deescalated tensions, demonstrates that both sides are still able to walk back from the brink of conflict. By contrast, the events of August raise the question of how willing they are to follow through on the dialogue necessary to actually reconcile their claims. Most of all, the events of this summer indicate that a whole new balance of power is emerging in this highly strategic region, one in which old certainties—and treaties—are being increasingly called into question.
Jonathan Gorvett is a journalist, writer and analyst specializing in European and Near Eastern affairs, currently based in Ireland.
Turkey’s Challenge to the Regional Status Quo Begins in the Eastern Mediterranean
On July 24, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined thousands of worshippers in the streets around the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul for a doubly symbolic moment. Surrounded by a swarm of politicians, soldiers, security forces and imams, the Turkish leader made his way into the giant...
www.worldpoliticsreview.com
jward
passin' thru
ETA "this won't end well" :: deep breath ::
TurkishFacts4u
@TurkishFacts4U
22m
BREAKING: #Turkey and #Russia will be conducting live firing exercises in the Eastern #Mediterranean. The Russian Navy sought the consent of Turkey to operate in Turkey’s EEZ zone thereby recognizing Turkey’s sovereignty/claim over the area. Greece+France VS Turkey+Russia
TurkishFacts4u
@TurkishFacts4U
22m
BREAKING: #Turkey and #Russia will be conducting live firing exercises in the Eastern #Mediterranean. The Russian Navy sought the consent of Turkey to operate in Turkey’s EEZ zone thereby recognizing Turkey’s sovereignty/claim over the area. Greece+France VS Turkey+Russia
ETA "this won't end well" :: deep breath ::
TurkishFacts4u
@TurkishFacts4U
22m
BREAKING: #Turkey and #Russia will be conducting live firing exercises in the Eastern #Mediterranean. The Russian Navy sought the consent of Turkey to operate in Turkey’s EEZ zone thereby recognizing Turkey’s sovereignty/claim over the area. Greece+France VS Turkey+Russia
Hummm....IMHO the Russians are playing this as long as they can before the balloon goes up in Libya, the Aegean and Syria.
jward
passin' thru
hmm.
TurkishFacts4u
@TurkishFacts4U
9m
#Russia has realized that the #EU was planning to assume de facto control of the Bosphorus Straits by getting Greece to extend her territorial waters in the Aegean to 12nm & thereby make the Aegean a Greek lake. This has naturally pushed Russia + Turkey together. (1)
View: https://twitter.com/TurkishFacts4U/status/1301319621027360768?s=20
The #EU knows that once Canal Istanbul is built Turkey can allow Russia's Black Sea Fleet to enter the Mediterannean Sea without any restriction. Hence it devised a plan to get Greece to extend its territorial waters in the Aegean in a bid to block these vessels into the Aegean.
TurkishFacts4u
@TurkishFacts4U
9m
#Russia has realized that the #EU was planning to assume de facto control of the Bosphorus Straits by getting Greece to extend her territorial waters in the Aegean to 12nm & thereby make the Aegean a Greek lake. This has naturally pushed Russia + Turkey together. (1)
View: https://twitter.com/TurkishFacts4U/status/1301319621027360768?s=20
The #EU knows that once Canal Istanbul is built Turkey can allow Russia's Black Sea Fleet to enter the Mediterannean Sea without any restriction. Hence it devised a plan to get Greece to extend its territorial waters in the Aegean in a bid to block these vessels into the Aegean.
jward
passin' thru
I thought someone somewhere intimated that this would be the switch to set off those balloons, but I can no longer keep track.
jward
passin' thru
TurkishFacts4u
@TurkishFacts4U
2h
BREAKING: Russia has OK'ed #Turkey developing a Turkish software/source code package for the S-400 Air defense systems. Turkey will also license produce the systems for on-sale to other NATO members as NATO standard ADS.
TurkishFacts4u
@TurkishFacts4U
2h
BREAKING: Russia has OK'ed #Turkey developing a Turkish software/source code package for the S-400 Air defense systems. Turkey will also license produce the systems for on-sale to other NATO members as NATO standard ADS.
I don't think it will be ready before this mess runs its course. And if things go dumb and loud those S-400 systems have PGMs with their map coordinates in them going out Hour 1/Day 1.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
For videos please see source article.....HC
Posted for fair use.....
www.thedrive.com
Face-Off In The Aegean: How Greek And Turkish Air Forces Stack Up
With tensions rising over energy reserves in the Aegean Sea, the disgruntled neighbors have air arms that are well-equipped and at high readiness.
By Thomas Newdick
September 3, 2020
HELLENIC AIR FORCE/TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
SHARE
Greece and Turkey have a long history of animosity despite both being NATO members. However, there’s a real concern that the current spike in tensions — mainly related to control of oil and gas reserves and maritime rights in the eastern Mediterranean — could escalate. If they do, the respective air arms of the two countries are likely to be heavily engaged, so it’s a good time to take a detailed look at their respective assets and how their capabilities compare.
It’s worth noting here that the Hellenic and Turkish Air Forces regularly spar over the Aegean Sea. Turkey and Greece broadly have a long history of confrontation, including an all-out war fought in support of competing factions in Cyprus in 1974. That independent Mediterranean island, which is still divided between areas under the control of ethnic Greek and Turkish Cypriots to this day, remains a focus of antagonism between the two countries. However, current developments in the region have caused alarm in both NATO and the European Union.
Greece Plans to Spend Billions Upgrading Its F-16 Fighter Jet Fleet
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Leaving Nuclear Weapons In Turkey Is Just Poor Strategy
By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
Enough With The Indian Mig-21 Bison Versus Pakistani F-16 Viper Bullshit
By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
USAF Is Spending Millions To Upgrade Turkey Bases Amid Turkish Threats To Kick Them Out
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Turkey Now Has Swarming Suicide Drones It Could Export
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Latest developments
The background to the current dispute surrounds the race to exploit energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. The two countries have claims on overlapping areas containing undersea oil and gas fields. In July, Turkey announced it was sending its research vessel Oruç Reis to carry out a drilling survey in disputed waters off the coast of southwest Turkey, but close to the Greek island of Kastellorizo. The Greek military was put on alert and the vessel eventually left port on August 10, 2020.
NormanEinstein/wikicommons
“The illegal and provocative behavior of Turkey has a serious backlash not only to peace and stability in the eastern Mediterranean but to the cohesion of NATO and to its relations with the European Union,” said Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, in response to the Turkish drilling mission.
“Greece claims 40,000 square kilometers of maritime jurisdiction area due to this tiny island [Kastellorizo] and attempts to stop the Oruç Reis and block Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean,” declared Çağatay Erciyes, Director General at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The build-up to the latest phase in the standoff included a collision between Greek and Turkish frigates on August 12, 2020. The Turkish warship involved was one of five escorting the research vessel Oruç Reis. The Greek frigate Limnos made contact with its Turkish counterpart Kemal Reis and the resulting damage was apparently confirmed by photos published soon afterward in the Greek media.
U.S. NAVY/MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 3RD CLASS LOUIS THOMPSON STAATS IV
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) executes drills with the Hellenic Navy frigate Aigaion (F 460) in the Mediterranean, August 24, 2020.
As well as a war of words and aggressive acts between ships, there have been other examples of direct posturing, too. The Turkish Ministry of Defense released what it claims is footage from the head-up display (HUD) of one of its F-16 fighters showing an incident that occurred on August 27, 2020, in which six Greek F-16s were supposedly warded off by Turkish Vipers. According to a statement from the ministry, the Greek fighters launched from Crete and were heading towards southern Cyprus when they approached an area in which Turkey had previously declared a restricted zone for a naval exercise.
The Turkish Ministry of Defense said the Greek jets were “removed from the region” and local media reported that the Oruç Reis was also active in the area at the time. The supplied HUD footage shows F-16s in a turning fight at close quarters and includes several tone alerts indicating that the Turkish pilot’s AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile (AAM) was locked on to the opposing F-16. The full story behind the incident is unclear, but encounters of this kind are not uncommon over the contested waters of the Aegean. However, by posting the video now, the Turkish Ministry of Defense seems keen to display its willingness and ability to take on Greek airpower to protect its interests in the region.
The most recent altercations between Greek and Turkish forces, and the soaring rhetoric that has come with them, have been met with concern among the wider European Union, of which Greece is a member. The German Defense Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has called for the situation in the Aegean to be “defused” and criticized the latest rounds of potentially provocative naval exercises staged by both countries in the area. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s words suggest there’s now a wider recognition that another incident could put Greece and Turkey on a more serious collision course again, including in the air.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on August 28, 2020, to talk about developments in the eastern Mediterranean. Stoltenberg stressed dialogue and de-escalation and the two discussed deconfliction mechanisms to prevent further incidents. For NATO, any tensions between Greece and Turkey threaten the solidarity of the alliance, potentially diminishing its ability to confront common security challenges.
“We’re urging everyone to stand down to reduce tensions and begin to have diplomatic discussions” added U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “It is not useful to increase military tensions in the region.”
After examining the background to the latest standoff, let’s look at the key combat aircraft types that make up the two countries’ respective air arms.
F-16
The two countries’ air forces are spearheaded today by Lockheed Martin F-16 Viper fleets, which have now recorded three decades of service in Greece and Turkey. In both cases, the fighter jets were primarily purchased to replace aging F-104 Starfighters and F-5 Freedom Fighters.
The Hellenic Air Force (HAF, or Elliniki Polemiki Aeroporia) received 170 F-16s of various types between 1989 and 2010 and, with a large-scale modernization program underway, the Viper will remain the backbone of the air arm for many years to come.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
A Hellenic Air Force F-16C Block 50 in the markings of 341 Mira and armed with AGM-88 HARMs.
Greek Vipers were acquired via Foreign Military Sales (FMS) channels, through the Peace Xenia program, which included four distinct phases.
Peace Xenia I provided 34 single-seat F-16C and six two-seat F-16D Block 30 jets delivered between 1988 and 1990.
Peace Xenia II added another 32 F-16C and eight F-16D Block 50 aircraft. These jets are capable of night attack missions with the LANTIRN targeting pod and have AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) capability, making them suitable for the suppression/destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/DEAD) mission.
Peace Xenia III provided 40 F-16C and 20 F-16D Block 52+ jets, all equipped with conformal fuel tanks for extended range. These were delivered between 2003 and 2004.
After scrapping plans to purchase the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Greek government instead opted for another Viper order, under Peace Xenia IV, to replace the veteran fleet of A-7H/TA-7H Corsair II attack jets. The deal covered 20 F-16C and 10 F-16D Block 52+ Advanced versions, also sometimes referred to as Block 52M aircraft, and was signed in December 2005.
The HAF’s aging F-16 Block 30s are now consolidated with a single squadron, 330 Mira, and the jets have undergone the Falcon UP service-life extension, work being undertaken locally by Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI).
Continued.....
Posted for fair use.....
Face-Off Over The Aegean: How Greek And Turkish Air Forces Stack Up
With tensions rising over energy reserves in the Aegean Sea, the disgruntled neighbors have air arms that are well-equipped and at high readiness.
www.thedrive.com
Face-Off In The Aegean: How Greek And Turkish Air Forces Stack Up
With tensions rising over energy reserves in the Aegean Sea, the disgruntled neighbors have air arms that are well-equipped and at high readiness.
By Thomas Newdick
September 3, 2020
SHARE
Greece and Turkey have a long history of animosity despite both being NATO members. However, there’s a real concern that the current spike in tensions — mainly related to control of oil and gas reserves and maritime rights in the eastern Mediterranean — could escalate. If they do, the respective air arms of the two countries are likely to be heavily engaged, so it’s a good time to take a detailed look at their respective assets and how their capabilities compare.
It’s worth noting here that the Hellenic and Turkish Air Forces regularly spar over the Aegean Sea. Turkey and Greece broadly have a long history of confrontation, including an all-out war fought in support of competing factions in Cyprus in 1974. That independent Mediterranean island, which is still divided between areas under the control of ethnic Greek and Turkish Cypriots to this day, remains a focus of antagonism between the two countries. However, current developments in the region have caused alarm in both NATO and the European Union.
Greece Plans to Spend Billions Upgrading Its F-16 Fighter Jet Fleet
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Leaving Nuclear Weapons In Turkey Is Just Poor Strategy
By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
Enough With The Indian Mig-21 Bison Versus Pakistani F-16 Viper Bullshit
By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
USAF Is Spending Millions To Upgrade Turkey Bases Amid Turkish Threats To Kick Them Out
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Turkey Now Has Swarming Suicide Drones It Could Export
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Latest developments
The background to the current dispute surrounds the race to exploit energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. The two countries have claims on overlapping areas containing undersea oil and gas fields. In July, Turkey announced it was sending its research vessel Oruç Reis to carry out a drilling survey in disputed waters off the coast of southwest Turkey, but close to the Greek island of Kastellorizo. The Greek military was put on alert and the vessel eventually left port on August 10, 2020.
NormanEinstein/wikicommons
“The illegal and provocative behavior of Turkey has a serious backlash not only to peace and stability in the eastern Mediterranean but to the cohesion of NATO and to its relations with the European Union,” said Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, in response to the Turkish drilling mission.
“Greece claims 40,000 square kilometers of maritime jurisdiction area due to this tiny island [Kastellorizo] and attempts to stop the Oruç Reis and block Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean,” declared Çağatay Erciyes, Director General at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The build-up to the latest phase in the standoff included a collision between Greek and Turkish frigates on August 12, 2020. The Turkish warship involved was one of five escorting the research vessel Oruç Reis. The Greek frigate Limnos made contact with its Turkish counterpart Kemal Reis and the resulting damage was apparently confirmed by photos published soon afterward in the Greek media.
Complicating matters, some of the recent exercises in the area have involved foreign participation, including French Air Force Rafale fighter jets that arrived at Souda-Chania Air Base on Crete for joint training with Greek F-16s on August 13, 2020. The French Ministry of Defense described the deployment as a “temporarily strengthening [of] their presence in the eastern Mediterranean.” Souda then received four F-16E/F Desert Falcons from the United Arab Emirates, which had touched down at the Greek base by August 27 to take part in further joint exercises.
On August 26, Greece began a naval exercise south of Cyprus involving forces from Cyprus, France, and Italy. At the same time, warships from Turkey and the United States were taking part in separate drills in the same area. The U.S. Navy has taken part in maneuvers with both the Greek and Turkish navies in recent weeks, including involvement from Greek F-16s and the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill.
U.S. NAVY/MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 3RD CLASS LOUIS THOMPSON STAATS IV
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) executes drills with the Hellenic Navy frigate Aigaion (F 460) in the Mediterranean, August 24, 2020.
As well as a war of words and aggressive acts between ships, there have been other examples of direct posturing, too. The Turkish Ministry of Defense released what it claims is footage from the head-up display (HUD) of one of its F-16 fighters showing an incident that occurred on August 27, 2020, in which six Greek F-16s were supposedly warded off by Turkish Vipers. According to a statement from the ministry, the Greek fighters launched from Crete and were heading towards southern Cyprus when they approached an area in which Turkey had previously declared a restricted zone for a naval exercise.
The Turkish Ministry of Defense said the Greek jets were “removed from the region” and local media reported that the Oruç Reis was also active in the area at the time. The supplied HUD footage shows F-16s in a turning fight at close quarters and includes several tone alerts indicating that the Turkish pilot’s AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile (AAM) was locked on to the opposing F-16. The full story behind the incident is unclear, but encounters of this kind are not uncommon over the contested waters of the Aegean. However, by posting the video now, the Turkish Ministry of Defense seems keen to display its willingness and ability to take on Greek airpower to protect its interests in the region.
The most recent altercations between Greek and Turkish forces, and the soaring rhetoric that has come with them, have been met with concern among the wider European Union, of which Greece is a member. The German Defense Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has called for the situation in the Aegean to be “defused” and criticized the latest rounds of potentially provocative naval exercises staged by both countries in the area. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s words suggest there’s now a wider recognition that another incident could put Greece and Turkey on a more serious collision course again, including in the air.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on August 28, 2020, to talk about developments in the eastern Mediterranean. Stoltenberg stressed dialogue and de-escalation and the two discussed deconfliction mechanisms to prevent further incidents. For NATO, any tensions between Greece and Turkey threaten the solidarity of the alliance, potentially diminishing its ability to confront common security challenges.
“We’re urging everyone to stand down to reduce tensions and begin to have diplomatic discussions” added U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “It is not useful to increase military tensions in the region.”
After examining the background to the latest standoff, let’s look at the key combat aircraft types that make up the two countries’ respective air arms.
F-16
The two countries’ air forces are spearheaded today by Lockheed Martin F-16 Viper fleets, which have now recorded three decades of service in Greece and Turkey. In both cases, the fighter jets were primarily purchased to replace aging F-104 Starfighters and F-5 Freedom Fighters.
The Hellenic Air Force (HAF, or Elliniki Polemiki Aeroporia) received 170 F-16s of various types between 1989 and 2010 and, with a large-scale modernization program underway, the Viper will remain the backbone of the air arm for many years to come.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
A Hellenic Air Force F-16C Block 50 in the markings of 341 Mira and armed with AGM-88 HARMs.
Greek Vipers were acquired via Foreign Military Sales (FMS) channels, through the Peace Xenia program, which included four distinct phases.
Peace Xenia I provided 34 single-seat F-16C and six two-seat F-16D Block 30 jets delivered between 1988 and 1990.
Peace Xenia II added another 32 F-16C and eight F-16D Block 50 aircraft. These jets are capable of night attack missions with the LANTIRN targeting pod and have AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) capability, making them suitable for the suppression/destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/DEAD) mission.
Peace Xenia III provided 40 F-16C and 20 F-16D Block 52+ jets, all equipped with conformal fuel tanks for extended range. These were delivered between 2003 and 2004.
After scrapping plans to purchase the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Greek government instead opted for another Viper order, under Peace Xenia IV, to replace the veteran fleet of A-7H/TA-7H Corsair II attack jets. The deal covered 20 F-16C and 10 F-16D Block 52+ Advanced versions, also sometimes referred to as Block 52M aircraft, and was signed in December 2005.
The HAF’s aging F-16 Block 30s are now consolidated with a single squadron, 330 Mira, and the jets have undergone the Falcon UP service-life extension, work being undertaken locally by Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI).
Continued.....
Continued.....
Of the 150 or so Vipers still operational, the bulk is divided among eight operational squadrons based at Araxos, Lárisa, Néa Anghialos, and Souda-Chania, but the HAF also maintains a number of rotational detachments on islands in the Aegean. All HAF F-16 squadrons maintain a full air-to-air capability and undertake quick reaction alert (QRA) readiness duties to counter potential Turkish airspace violations, despite the fact that some are specialized air-to-ground squadrons.
The Collins Aerospace DB-110 reconnaissance pod is available to Greek F-16s for reconnaissance missions, and additional weapons options include the AIM-120C AMRAAM, AGM-154C Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW), Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), and — reportedly — Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers (WCMD). Unusually, the HAF has opted for the pan-European IRIS-T as the primary short-range AAM for the Viper, rather than the AIM-9X Sidewinder.
Eyeing a longer-term modernization for its Vipers, Greece selected the F-16V upgrade that will bring 84 aircraft — all of them Block 52+ and Block 52+ Advanced jets — to Block 70/72 standard, including the AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) with active electronically scanned array (AESA), Raytheon Modular Mission Computer, remodeled cockpit including the second-generation Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS ΙΙ), and the Link 16 data link, among other enhancements. Most of the work will be undertaken by HAI in Greece. There have been suggestions that the remaining 38 Block 50 jets could also undergo an upgrade, bringing them to a so-called Block 50+ Advanced standard, but this hasn’t been contracted. The fate of the Block 30 aircraft is unclear, but they could be sold off, or perhaps used as aggressors for air defense training.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
A Turkish Air Force F-16 pair heads out for a training mission, led by an F-16C Block 50.
On the other side, the Turkish Air Force, or Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (THK), is the world’s third-largest Viper operator, with a total of 270 aircraft delivered in successively more capable Block 30, Block 50 and Block 50+ configurations.
Local industry also plays a significant part in the Turkish Viper program, with involvement from Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) from the outset, including local assembly of aircraft and production of center/aft fuselage sections and wings.
The Turkish Viper procurement took place in four phases: Peace Onyx I to IV.
Under Peace Onyx I, Turkey received 136 F-16Cs and 24 F-16Ds, of which the first 44 were completed to Block 30 standard. The next 116 aircraft within Peace Onyx I were Block 40-standard jets that included the provision for LANTIRN pods. Deliveries took place from 1987.
Peace Onyx II covered 60 F-16C and 20 F-16D Block 50 aircraft, which were delivered between 1996 and 1999. Like the HAF Vipers, Turkish F-16 Block 50s were provided with the AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missile.
The Peace Onyx III contract provided the Common Configuration Implementation Program (CCIP) upgrade. As well as adding more sophisticated weapons and sensors, this improved logistics support and reduced life-cycle costs. Lockheed Martin provided a total of 163 CCIP kits for Turkey’s surviving F-16C/D Block 40/50s. After modernization, the aircraft featured APG-68(V)9 multi-mode radar, color cockpit displays and recorders, JHMCS, Link 16 data link, Sniper targeting pods, and new weapons, including the AGM-84K Joint Standoff Land Attack Missile — Expanded Response (SLAM-ER), AGM-154A/C JSOW, AIM-9X, and CBU-103/105 Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers (WCMD). Other weapons available to Turkish Vipers include the AIM-120 AMRAAM as well as the AGM-65 Maverick TV-guided air-to-ground missile.
The most recent Peace Onyx IV program provided another 14 F-16C and 16 F-16D Block 50+ jets, which are known to be compatible with the 1,300-pound Roketsan Stand-Off Missile (SOM) for standoff precision strike, as well as other indigenous weapons. These aircraft were delivered between June 2011 and December 2012.
More recently, TAI has set about upgrading 35 of its oldest Block 30 Vipers. This is based around a service-life extension using kits supplied by Lockheed Martin. The status of this program is currently uncertain, with reports that the U.S. Congress may have blocked the contract in response to Ankara’s purchase of the S-400 air defense system.
Today, the THK’s F-16C/D fleet is operated by two squadrons at Balikesir, two squadrons at Bandirma, two squadrons at Diyarbakir, one squadron at Eskişehir, one squadron at Konya, and two squadrons at Merzifon. Units are assigned particular roles, among them air defense, SEAD/DEAD, tactical air support for maritime operations, close air support, reconnaissance, and aggressor.
Eskişehir is home to 113 Filo, a former RF-4E operator, which is assigned the DB-110 reconnaissance pod that is used with the F-16, four of these pods having been acquired.
F-16 inventory (this and subsequent similar data is provided by Flight International’s World Air Forces 2020 publication):
Greece: 153
Turkey: 245
Mirage 2000
The Hellenic Air Force also operates the Mirage 2000 multi-role fighter, having acquired two distinct versions of the delta-wing jet. The first order was placed for 36 single-seat Mirage 2000EGs and four two-seat Mirage 2000DGs and deliveries began in 1988. Although being used primarily for air defense, these aircraft can be armed with the AM.39 Exocet anti-ship missile.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
Afterburner take-off for a Hellenic Air Force Mirage 2000-5EG.
The HAF subsequently obtained a further 15 new-build Mirage 2000-5BG/EG (Mirage 2000-5 Mk 2) jets and brought 10 of its earlier aircraft to the same standard. One reason for adding the more capable Mirage 2000-5 Mk 2 may have been to match the beyond-visual-range capabilities of Turkey’s F-16s armed with AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. The French-made jets are armed with the MBDA MICA missile, available in both radar-guided and infrared-guided variants.
The Greek Mirage 2000-5 Mk 2 jets also have an important long-range conventional strike role with the MBDA SCALP-EG cruise missile. A first airframe upgraded by HAI took to the air in 2005 and the first new-built fighters from Dassault began to arrive in Greece in 2007.
The HAF’s Mirage fleet is divided between two squadrons based at Tanágra, and the jets also conduct rotational detachments to islands in the Aegean.
Mirage 2000 inventory:
Greece: 42
F-4 Phantom II
As well as both flying the F-16, Greece and Turkey are among the last operators of the F-4 Phantom II. However, both countries have now retired their reconnaissance-configured RF-4 fleets.
The Hellenic Air Force has a single unit operating F-4E fighters that were upgraded to Peace Icarus 2000 standard under the Avionics Upgrade Program (AUP) between 1997 and 2001. Stationed at Andravida near the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, these jets are multi-role-capable, but it’s thought they now focus on air-to-ground missions.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
A Hellenic Air Force F-4E in its hardened aircraft shelter, armed with the Vietnam War-era HOBOS TV-guided bomb.
Among others, the AUP added AN/APG-65Y radar, inertial navigation system/GPS, AN/ALR-68(V)2 radar warning receiver, color multifunctional displays, a new head-up display, and hands on throttle and stick (HOTAS) controls. The Rafael Litening II laser targeting pod provides day/night precision targeting and weapons include laser-guided bombs, AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles, AIM-120 AMRAAM, and AIM-9 Sidewinder.
While 33 of the 36 Greek F-4Es that underwent the AUP remain operational, it’s thought that around 20 are actually available for operations at any given time.
Turkey’s Phantoms also underwent a significant mid-life upgrade, emerging as the F-4E Terminator 2020. The modernization involved Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and covered 54 airframes, including structural and avionics work. The upgraded avionics include an Elta EL/M-2032 multi-mode radar, digital glass cockpit, wide-angle HUD, and HOTAS controls. The jets can be armed with the Israeli-made Popeye standoff missile, as well as the indigenous Roketsan SOM for use against land and sea targets. Other stores include the HGK 500-pound INS/GPS-guided bomb, KGK 500-pound or 1,000-pound glide bomb, and the LGK-82 — an indigenous version of the 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bomb.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
A pair of Turkish Air Force F-4E Terminator 2020s.
While both countries have made efforts to acquire new-generation fighters to modernize their fighter arms, Turkey was ejected from the F-35 stealth fighter program in response to its purchase of Russian-made S-400 air defense systems. Greece, meanwhile, has been identified as a possible F-35 customer too, and more recently unconfirmed reports have emerged in the Greek press that the country is examining a potential purchase of 18 Rafale multi-role fighters.
It was expected that the Turkish Phantoms would be retired with the arrival of the F-35, but with Ankara’s expulsion from the Joint Strike Fighter program, it’s possible the THK F-4s will continue in service until around 2030, by which time the next-generation TF-X fighter may be available. Today, the F-4Es serve with a single squadron at Eskişehir.
F-4E inventory:
Greece: 33
Turkey: 48
Airborne early warning and control
Airborne early warning (AEW) is a critical function for modern complex air operations and both Greece and Turkey contribute to NATO’s E-3A Sentry Component, which maintains a pooled fleet of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft at Geilenkirchen Air Base in Germany. The component also has forward operating bases at Aktion in Greece and Konya in Turkey. However, both countries have also established independent airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) capabilities.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
The EMB-145H combines the Ericsson Erieye AESA radar with the Embraer EMB-145 bizjet airframe.
Greece opted for its own AEW&C solution in 1999 when it ordered four Embraer EMB-145H aircraft from an Embraer, Ericsson, and Thales consortium. The aircraft are equipped with Ericsson Erieye AESA radar. These aircraft also have a signals intelligence (SIGINT) capability using Elettronica ALR-733(V)5 electronic support measures (ESM). The Greek aircraft has five workstations and the mission crew typically comprises a radar operator, mission commander, SIGINT specialist, and two weapons controllers.
Prior to the delivery of the EMB-145H aircraft, the HAF leased a pair of S 100B Argus AEW&C aircraft from the Swedish Air Force for a two-year period as an interim solution. The EMB-145H aircraft have been operational at Elefsis, west of Athens, since 2009. Using the Link 11 and Link 16 networks, the Embraers can exchange data with airborne, naval, and ground-based assets.
BOEING
A pre-delivery shot of the fourth and final 737 AEW&C for Turkey.
Turkey’s airborne early warning and control fleet is based around the Boeing 737 AEW&C that was acquired under the Peace Eagle program and is sometimes referred to by the local designation E-7T. The aircraft’s primary sensor is the Northrop Grumman Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) surveillance radar. The impetus to acquire the aircraft seems to have been to “fill the gaps” in airspace coverage over Turkey’s mountainous territory, where ground-based radars wouldn’t necessarily detect high-speed, low-flying targets.
The Boeing 737 AEW&C was selected in 2000 and four examples were eventually ordered, the first provided by Boeing, while the remaining three were outfitted by TAI. The project experienced a number of delays, including as a result of a breakdown in relations between Ankara and Israel, the latter which was to provide the Elta ESM system. The first aircraft was finally delivered to the air force in 2014, six years late. Today, the four aircraft are stationed at Konya and as well as working with fighters and monitoring airspace over the Aegean, the fleet has been used to monitor movements along the Syrian border including reportedly tracking Wing Loong II drones operating over Libya. Unlike the HAF’s EMB-145H, the 737 AEW&C can use inflight refueling to extend the duration of its missions.
AEW&C inventory
Greece: EMB-145H (4)
Turkey: 737 AEW&C (4)
Continued......
Of the 150 or so Vipers still operational, the bulk is divided among eight operational squadrons based at Araxos, Lárisa, Néa Anghialos, and Souda-Chania, but the HAF also maintains a number of rotational detachments on islands in the Aegean. All HAF F-16 squadrons maintain a full air-to-air capability and undertake quick reaction alert (QRA) readiness duties to counter potential Turkish airspace violations, despite the fact that some are specialized air-to-ground squadrons.
The Collins Aerospace DB-110 reconnaissance pod is available to Greek F-16s for reconnaissance missions, and additional weapons options include the AIM-120C AMRAAM, AGM-154C Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW), Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), and — reportedly — Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers (WCMD). Unusually, the HAF has opted for the pan-European IRIS-T as the primary short-range AAM for the Viper, rather than the AIM-9X Sidewinder.
Eyeing a longer-term modernization for its Vipers, Greece selected the F-16V upgrade that will bring 84 aircraft — all of them Block 52+ and Block 52+ Advanced jets — to Block 70/72 standard, including the AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) with active electronically scanned array (AESA), Raytheon Modular Mission Computer, remodeled cockpit including the second-generation Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS ΙΙ), and the Link 16 data link, among other enhancements. Most of the work will be undertaken by HAI in Greece. There have been suggestions that the remaining 38 Block 50 jets could also undergo an upgrade, bringing them to a so-called Block 50+ Advanced standard, but this hasn’t been contracted. The fate of the Block 30 aircraft is unclear, but they could be sold off, or perhaps used as aggressors for air defense training.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
A Turkish Air Force F-16 pair heads out for a training mission, led by an F-16C Block 50.
On the other side, the Turkish Air Force, or Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (THK), is the world’s third-largest Viper operator, with a total of 270 aircraft delivered in successively more capable Block 30, Block 50 and Block 50+ configurations.
Local industry also plays a significant part in the Turkish Viper program, with involvement from Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) from the outset, including local assembly of aircraft and production of center/aft fuselage sections and wings.
The Turkish Viper procurement took place in four phases: Peace Onyx I to IV.
Under Peace Onyx I, Turkey received 136 F-16Cs and 24 F-16Ds, of which the first 44 were completed to Block 30 standard. The next 116 aircraft within Peace Onyx I were Block 40-standard jets that included the provision for LANTIRN pods. Deliveries took place from 1987.
Peace Onyx II covered 60 F-16C and 20 F-16D Block 50 aircraft, which were delivered between 1996 and 1999. Like the HAF Vipers, Turkish F-16 Block 50s were provided with the AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missile.
The Peace Onyx III contract provided the Common Configuration Implementation Program (CCIP) upgrade. As well as adding more sophisticated weapons and sensors, this improved logistics support and reduced life-cycle costs. Lockheed Martin provided a total of 163 CCIP kits for Turkey’s surviving F-16C/D Block 40/50s. After modernization, the aircraft featured APG-68(V)9 multi-mode radar, color cockpit displays and recorders, JHMCS, Link 16 data link, Sniper targeting pods, and new weapons, including the AGM-84K Joint Standoff Land Attack Missile — Expanded Response (SLAM-ER), AGM-154A/C JSOW, AIM-9X, and CBU-103/105 Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers (WCMD). Other weapons available to Turkish Vipers include the AIM-120 AMRAAM as well as the AGM-65 Maverick TV-guided air-to-ground missile.
The most recent Peace Onyx IV program provided another 14 F-16C and 16 F-16D Block 50+ jets, which are known to be compatible with the 1,300-pound Roketsan Stand-Off Missile (SOM) for standoff precision strike, as well as other indigenous weapons. These aircraft were delivered between June 2011 and December 2012.
More recently, TAI has set about upgrading 35 of its oldest Block 30 Vipers. This is based around a service-life extension using kits supplied by Lockheed Martin. The status of this program is currently uncertain, with reports that the U.S. Congress may have blocked the contract in response to Ankara’s purchase of the S-400 air defense system.
Today, the THK’s F-16C/D fleet is operated by two squadrons at Balikesir, two squadrons at Bandirma, two squadrons at Diyarbakir, one squadron at Eskişehir, one squadron at Konya, and two squadrons at Merzifon. Units are assigned particular roles, among them air defense, SEAD/DEAD, tactical air support for maritime operations, close air support, reconnaissance, and aggressor.
Eskişehir is home to 113 Filo, a former RF-4E operator, which is assigned the DB-110 reconnaissance pod that is used with the F-16, four of these pods having been acquired.
F-16 inventory (this and subsequent similar data is provided by Flight International’s World Air Forces 2020 publication):
Greece: 153
Turkey: 245
Mirage 2000
The Hellenic Air Force also operates the Mirage 2000 multi-role fighter, having acquired two distinct versions of the delta-wing jet. The first order was placed for 36 single-seat Mirage 2000EGs and four two-seat Mirage 2000DGs and deliveries began in 1988. Although being used primarily for air defense, these aircraft can be armed with the AM.39 Exocet anti-ship missile.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
Afterburner take-off for a Hellenic Air Force Mirage 2000-5EG.
The HAF subsequently obtained a further 15 new-build Mirage 2000-5BG/EG (Mirage 2000-5 Mk 2) jets and brought 10 of its earlier aircraft to the same standard. One reason for adding the more capable Mirage 2000-5 Mk 2 may have been to match the beyond-visual-range capabilities of Turkey’s F-16s armed with AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. The French-made jets are armed with the MBDA MICA missile, available in both radar-guided and infrared-guided variants.
The Greek Mirage 2000-5 Mk 2 jets also have an important long-range conventional strike role with the MBDA SCALP-EG cruise missile. A first airframe upgraded by HAI took to the air in 2005 and the first new-built fighters from Dassault began to arrive in Greece in 2007.
The HAF’s Mirage fleet is divided between two squadrons based at Tanágra, and the jets also conduct rotational detachments to islands in the Aegean.
Mirage 2000 inventory:
Greece: 42
F-4 Phantom II
As well as both flying the F-16, Greece and Turkey are among the last operators of the F-4 Phantom II. However, both countries have now retired their reconnaissance-configured RF-4 fleets.
The Hellenic Air Force has a single unit operating F-4E fighters that were upgraded to Peace Icarus 2000 standard under the Avionics Upgrade Program (AUP) between 1997 and 2001. Stationed at Andravida near the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, these jets are multi-role-capable, but it’s thought they now focus on air-to-ground missions.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
A Hellenic Air Force F-4E in its hardened aircraft shelter, armed with the Vietnam War-era HOBOS TV-guided bomb.
Among others, the AUP added AN/APG-65Y radar, inertial navigation system/GPS, AN/ALR-68(V)2 radar warning receiver, color multifunctional displays, a new head-up display, and hands on throttle and stick (HOTAS) controls. The Rafael Litening II laser targeting pod provides day/night precision targeting and weapons include laser-guided bombs, AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles, AIM-120 AMRAAM, and AIM-9 Sidewinder.
While 33 of the 36 Greek F-4Es that underwent the AUP remain operational, it’s thought that around 20 are actually available for operations at any given time.
Turkey’s Phantoms also underwent a significant mid-life upgrade, emerging as the F-4E Terminator 2020. The modernization involved Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and covered 54 airframes, including structural and avionics work. The upgraded avionics include an Elta EL/M-2032 multi-mode radar, digital glass cockpit, wide-angle HUD, and HOTAS controls. The jets can be armed with the Israeli-made Popeye standoff missile, as well as the indigenous Roketsan SOM for use against land and sea targets. Other stores include the HGK 500-pound INS/GPS-guided bomb, KGK 500-pound or 1,000-pound glide bomb, and the LGK-82 — an indigenous version of the 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bomb.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
A pair of Turkish Air Force F-4E Terminator 2020s.
While both countries have made efforts to acquire new-generation fighters to modernize their fighter arms, Turkey was ejected from the F-35 stealth fighter program in response to its purchase of Russian-made S-400 air defense systems. Greece, meanwhile, has been identified as a possible F-35 customer too, and more recently unconfirmed reports have emerged in the Greek press that the country is examining a potential purchase of 18 Rafale multi-role fighters.
It was expected that the Turkish Phantoms would be retired with the arrival of the F-35, but with Ankara’s expulsion from the Joint Strike Fighter program, it’s possible the THK F-4s will continue in service until around 2030, by which time the next-generation TF-X fighter may be available. Today, the F-4Es serve with a single squadron at Eskişehir.
F-4E inventory:
Greece: 33
Turkey: 48
Airborne early warning and control
Airborne early warning (AEW) is a critical function for modern complex air operations and both Greece and Turkey contribute to NATO’s E-3A Sentry Component, which maintains a pooled fleet of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft at Geilenkirchen Air Base in Germany. The component also has forward operating bases at Aktion in Greece and Konya in Turkey. However, both countries have also established independent airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) capabilities.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
The EMB-145H combines the Ericsson Erieye AESA radar with the Embraer EMB-145 bizjet airframe.
Greece opted for its own AEW&C solution in 1999 when it ordered four Embraer EMB-145H aircraft from an Embraer, Ericsson, and Thales consortium. The aircraft are equipped with Ericsson Erieye AESA radar. These aircraft also have a signals intelligence (SIGINT) capability using Elettronica ALR-733(V)5 electronic support measures (ESM). The Greek aircraft has five workstations and the mission crew typically comprises a radar operator, mission commander, SIGINT specialist, and two weapons controllers.
Prior to the delivery of the EMB-145H aircraft, the HAF leased a pair of S 100B Argus AEW&C aircraft from the Swedish Air Force for a two-year period as an interim solution. The EMB-145H aircraft have been operational at Elefsis, west of Athens, since 2009. Using the Link 11 and Link 16 networks, the Embraers can exchange data with airborne, naval, and ground-based assets.
BOEING
A pre-delivery shot of the fourth and final 737 AEW&C for Turkey.
Turkey’s airborne early warning and control fleet is based around the Boeing 737 AEW&C that was acquired under the Peace Eagle program and is sometimes referred to by the local designation E-7T. The aircraft’s primary sensor is the Northrop Grumman Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) surveillance radar. The impetus to acquire the aircraft seems to have been to “fill the gaps” in airspace coverage over Turkey’s mountainous territory, where ground-based radars wouldn’t necessarily detect high-speed, low-flying targets.
The Boeing 737 AEW&C was selected in 2000 and four examples were eventually ordered, the first provided by Boeing, while the remaining three were outfitted by TAI. The project experienced a number of delays, including as a result of a breakdown in relations between Ankara and Israel, the latter which was to provide the Elta ESM system. The first aircraft was finally delivered to the air force in 2014, six years late. Today, the four aircraft are stationed at Konya and as well as working with fighters and monitoring airspace over the Aegean, the fleet has been used to monitor movements along the Syrian border including reportedly tracking Wing Loong II drones operating over Libya. Unlike the HAF’s EMB-145H, the 737 AEW&C can use inflight refueling to extend the duration of its missions.
AEW&C inventory
Greece: EMB-145H (4)
Turkey: 737 AEW&C (4)
Continued......
Continued.....
Tactical transport and tankers
With most combat operations anticipated to take place regionally, the Hellenic Air Force has a fairly modest tactical transport fleet. It also lacks an organic air-to-air refueling capability, meaning fighters would have to be refueled on the ground, perhaps at forward-located island airstrips. The air force operates around seven older C-130B/H Hercules airlifters, plus two more H-models modified for electronic intelligence (ELINT) missions. Surviving Hercules underwent an Avionics Upgrade Program (AUP) between 2005 and 2010, including modifications to the INS/GPS, autopilot, weather radar, and digital engine controls. A partially glass cockpit and revised electronic warfare system were also included.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
A Hellenic Air Force C-27J Spartan tactical airlifter.
The HAF also flies eight more modern twin-turboprop C-27J Spartan tactical transports, delivered from 2005, although these have experienced limited availability in recent years. Mainly employed for airlift, the Spartans can also be used for medical evacuation and maritime patrol.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
Three different Turkish Air Force tactical transports on the runway. From front to back: A400M, C-130, and C-160.
In contrast to the HAF, the Turkish Air Force has an aerial refueling capacity using seven KC-135R Stratotankers, which can deliver fuel via their boom or a boom-to-drogue adapter. For its transport needs, the THK relies upon around 16 C-130B/Es (airframes that are even older than those operated by Greece) and a diminishing number of Transall C-160Ds, as well as smaller CN235s, 42 of which were ordered and two of which have been adapted for ELINT duties.
The Turkish airlift fleet is also in the process of modernization through the induction of the A400M, and the last of 10 examples are scheduled to be handed over in 2022. Two C-160Ds have been adapted for communications jamming and can reportedly also undertake communications intelligence (COMINT) missions.
Tactical transport and tankers inventory
Greece: C-27J (8), C-130B/H (9)
Turkey: A400M (9), C-130B/E (16), C-160D (13), CN235 (42), KC-135R (7)
Maritime patrol
Both nations include fixed-wing maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) with anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities and, although these are assigned to their respective naval air arms, there is some crossover as Greece’s P-3 Orion aircraft are operated by Hellenic Air Force flight crews working alongside naval mission crews.
The Hellenic Navy ceased operations with its five P-3Bs in September 2009 before a mid-life upgrade and modernization program was launched, Lockheed Martin being awarded a $142-million, seven-year contract covering reactivation of one aircraft plus hardware and software for the other four. The first refurbished P-3B was handed over by HAI in Tanagra in May 2019.
LOCKHEED MARTIN
Official handover of the first refurbished P-3B to Hellenic Navy officials in May 2019.
The aircraft are initially undergoing an interim upgrade, but it’s planned for them to be brought up to full P-3HN standard that should provide another 20 years of service. This also includes an indigenous tactical mission suite, the Maritime Mission Integration and Management System (M2IMS). The Greek Orion fleet is stationed at Elefsis. Once back to full strength, the P-3 will provide Greece with a long-range maritime patrol capability to monitor the Mediterranean, and especially the Aegean, including the Aphrodite gas field off the coast of Cyprus.
Finally, the Turkish Meltem III program is now providing a more advanced MPA capability, based on the ATR 72-600 twin-engine turboprop, outfitted by Leonardo. The work has been subject to delays, however, and the first of six aircraft was reportedly still undergoing final tests in April 2020, having made a first post-conversion test flight back in 2014.
Maritime patrol inventory
Greece: P-3B (1, plus 4 to be refurbished)
Turkey: CN235M-100 MPA (6)
Combat search and rescue helicopters
With significant coastlines and numerous islands to patrol, search and rescue is a critical element of both the Greek and Turkish air arms. As well as a dwindling number of venerable “Hueys,” in various versions, the air forces are each equipped with a smaller fleet of helicopters configured for combat search and rescue (CSAR). These would be tasked with retrieving any downed pilots during a conflict, but are also very active during peacetime, during which they provide an important night/all-weather rescue capability.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
One of the dozen AS332C-1 Super Pumas in service with the Hellenic Air Force.
The HAF CSAR rotary-wing fleet includes a squadron of 12 AS332C-1 Super Pumas home-based at Elefsis, but with regular detachments to operational areas. Of the 12 Super Pumas, four are assigned to duties on behalf of the Hellenic Coastguard.
The THK operates around 20 of the more advanced AS532UL Cougar helicopter with detachments based throughout the country. The HAF Super Pumas are also understood to have a special forces support role and this may well extend to the Turkish Cougars, too.
It's worth noting that both militaries have more rotary-wing capacity with similar capabilities spread throughout their army and navy branches.
Combat search and rescue helicopters inventory
Greece: AS332C-1 (12)
Turkey: AS532UL (21)
UAVs
After the HAF’s retirement of the RF-4E, some reconnaissance taskings have been taken over by a squadron operating the HAI Pegasus II unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), based at Lárisa. Longer-term, the HAF will receive three maritime-configured Heron UAVs leased from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which will provide a much-needed capability boost. According to the Greek Ministry of Defense, these drones will mainly be used for “border defense.”
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
A Turkish Air Force Anka armed UAV.
The THK already operates the IAI Heron, alongside indigenous drones. The center of its UAV operations is Batman Air Base, which is home to the Heron, and located closer to the Syrian border. Meanwhile, indigenous TAI Anka drones are also found at Incirlik, while a squadron at Malatya is reportedly responsible for the armed UAVs, including examples of the indigenous Bayraktar TB2.
How do they stack up?
The orders of battle of the Greek and Turkish air arms are fairly well balanced, although Turkey maintains a notable edge in transport and tanker assets, with a total of 36 medium/heavy tactical airlifters and tankers compared with 17 for Greece, which has no aerial refueling tankers.
Turkey also enjoys a considerable UAV advantage over its Greek counterpart. The Turkish Air Force has extensive combat experience with drones in Libya and Syria as well as a highly active local industry involved in producing UAVs for different applications.
In terms of fighters, the capabilities of the two air arms are nearly on a par, while Greece has 228 fast jets compared with 293 for Turkey. So, Turkey does have a numerical advantage, but that is just one aspect of a force’s ability to project tactical airpower. The availability of refueling tankers could be a critical advantage for the Turkish Air Force. These force-multipliers would provide Turkey's larger fighter force with even more time on station and longer sustained sortie rates.
Combat helicopters — which would play a key CSAR role in times of conflict — also see Turkey edge out Greece in the numbers game, with 21 for the THK compared with 12 for the HAF.
Of course, these numbers only represent the total airframes understood to be in the inventory, and do not represent availability, or the numbers of sorties that could be generated in wartime. The other critical factor is pilot training, to which both air forces dedicate considerable resources, maintaining tactics and air warfare centers, plus a dedicated F-16 aggressor unit within the THK.
Decades of encounters over the Aegean have sharpened the combat capabilities of the Greek and Turkish air forces and the latest altercations are unlikely to see any major changes in posture, as the air arms continue to maintain their high levels of readiness. Greece and Turkey have been to the brink of war before, but since 1974, the various hostilities have never escalated beyond limited scenarios.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
A gaggle of Turkish Air Force F-16Cs top-up from a KC-135R air-to-air refueling tanker.
As we have mentioned, Greek and Turkish fighter jets have repeatedly clashed over the Aegean Sea without actually employing weapons, but the available accounts of those incidents tend to be highly partisan and it’s hard to find evidence of confirmed losses. An exception is the October 1996 encounter in which a Greek Mirage 2000 shot down a Turkish F-16D Block 40 using a Magic 2 air-to-air missile. While the Athens government said the Turkish jet had violated Greek airspace, Ankara claimed it had been on a training mission close to the Turkish mainland. The Turkish pilot died, while the co-pilot ejected and was rescued by Greek forces.
In another example of previous escalations, a Greek and a Turkish F-16C were apparently involved in a mid-air collision over the southern Aegean in May 2006. Two Hellenic Air Force F-16s had been scrambled to intercept a Turkish RF-4E reconnaissance jet escorted two Turkish F-16s. While the Turkish pilot was rescued by a civilian ship, the Greek pilot was reportedly killed.
As well as confronting Greek Vipers, the THK F-16 force has seen action against the Russian Aerospace Forces. An F-16C downed a Su-24M Fencer strike aircraft that had strayed into Turkish airspace during a mission over Syria in November 2015.
During Turkey’s Operation Spring Shield in March 2020, THK F-16s downed two Syrian Arab Air Force Su-24s, reportedly launching AIM-120C AMRAAMs from within Turkish aerospace. A Syrian L-39ZO was also downed during the same campaign. Meanwhile, air-to-ground missions have been flown by THK F-16s against the Kurdish Workers’ Party, a militant group better known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, which is based in the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq.
Despite Turkey having much more experience of recent combat operations, there are potential negative factors, too. The attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016 had a significant effect on the air force, and on the F-16 units in particular — the coup-plotters had used F-16s in their efforts to oust President Erdoğan. In the wake of the coup attempt, many F-16 personnel were arrested or removed from their posts and the Viper wing based at Ankara-Akinci was disbanded, the aircraft from its three squadrons (141, 142, and 143 Filos) being distributed to other units.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
Elements of an S-400 air defense system are unloaded from a Russian Il-76 transport aircraft at Murted Air Base, Turkey, in July 2019.
The Turkish Air Force may also be hampered by the political fallout from the increasingly strained relations with the United States, and above all on Ankara’s insistence to pursue its S-400 purchase. Turkish officials have voiced concerns that this might lead to a wider arms embargo, which could have negative operational impacts, especially on the air force’s U.S.-supplied fleets.
Overall, Turkey's quantitative edge in fighter airframes, albeit somewhat minor, paired with organic tanker support, would appear to give Turkey an advantage, although that is just in terms of hardware and numbers, and many factors are also at play, as we have discussed earlier.
While non-shooting skirmishes over the Aegean Sea are nothing new, it seems that the rhetoric surrounding the current dispute is becoming increasingly belligerent. Turkish Deputy President Fuat Oktay recently said that the Erdoğan government aims to take control of Greek islands close to Turkey. While statements of this kind are clearly engineered primarily for nationalist consumption, they also run the risk of potentially exacerbating an already precarious situation. Larger geopolitical shifts, including major energy reserves being potentially at stake and Turkey's far more expeditionary minded and assertive military strategy aboard, also point to an elevated possibility that this dispute could take a darker turn.
Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com
Tactical transport and tankers
With most combat operations anticipated to take place regionally, the Hellenic Air Force has a fairly modest tactical transport fleet. It also lacks an organic air-to-air refueling capability, meaning fighters would have to be refueled on the ground, perhaps at forward-located island airstrips. The air force operates around seven older C-130B/H Hercules airlifters, plus two more H-models modified for electronic intelligence (ELINT) missions. Surviving Hercules underwent an Avionics Upgrade Program (AUP) between 2005 and 2010, including modifications to the INS/GPS, autopilot, weather radar, and digital engine controls. A partially glass cockpit and revised electronic warfare system were also included.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
A Hellenic Air Force C-27J Spartan tactical airlifter.
The HAF also flies eight more modern twin-turboprop C-27J Spartan tactical transports, delivered from 2005, although these have experienced limited availability in recent years. Mainly employed for airlift, the Spartans can also be used for medical evacuation and maritime patrol.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
Three different Turkish Air Force tactical transports on the runway. From front to back: A400M, C-130, and C-160.
In contrast to the HAF, the Turkish Air Force has an aerial refueling capacity using seven KC-135R Stratotankers, which can deliver fuel via their boom or a boom-to-drogue adapter. For its transport needs, the THK relies upon around 16 C-130B/Es (airframes that are even older than those operated by Greece) and a diminishing number of Transall C-160Ds, as well as smaller CN235s, 42 of which were ordered and two of which have been adapted for ELINT duties.
The Turkish airlift fleet is also in the process of modernization through the induction of the A400M, and the last of 10 examples are scheduled to be handed over in 2022. Two C-160Ds have been adapted for communications jamming and can reportedly also undertake communications intelligence (COMINT) missions.
Tactical transport and tankers inventory
Greece: C-27J (8), C-130B/H (9)
Turkey: A400M (9), C-130B/E (16), C-160D (13), CN235 (42), KC-135R (7)
Maritime patrol
Both nations include fixed-wing maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) with anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities and, although these are assigned to their respective naval air arms, there is some crossover as Greece’s P-3 Orion aircraft are operated by Hellenic Air Force flight crews working alongside naval mission crews.
The Hellenic Navy ceased operations with its five P-3Bs in September 2009 before a mid-life upgrade and modernization program was launched, Lockheed Martin being awarded a $142-million, seven-year contract covering reactivation of one aircraft plus hardware and software for the other four. The first refurbished P-3B was handed over by HAI in Tanagra in May 2019.
LOCKHEED MARTIN
Official handover of the first refurbished P-3B to Hellenic Navy officials in May 2019.
The aircraft are initially undergoing an interim upgrade, but it’s planned for them to be brought up to full P-3HN standard that should provide another 20 years of service. This also includes an indigenous tactical mission suite, the Maritime Mission Integration and Management System (M2IMS). The Greek Orion fleet is stationed at Elefsis. Once back to full strength, the P-3 will provide Greece with a long-range maritime patrol capability to monitor the Mediterranean, and especially the Aegean, including the Aphrodite gas field off the coast of Cyprus.
Turkish MPA capability rests not with its air force but with its naval air arm. After the retirement of the veteran S-2 Tracker in the early 1990s, the Turkish Navy was left without a fixed-wing MPA capability until the launch of the Meltem project at the end of that decade. This has provided six MPA-configured CN235M-100 twin turboprops, acquired under Meltem I, and then outfitted with the Thales AMASCOS-300 (Airborne Maritime Situation and Control System) under Meltem II. For ASW missions, the aircraft can be armed with Mk 46 torpedoes.
Finally, the Turkish Meltem III program is now providing a more advanced MPA capability, based on the ATR 72-600 twin-engine turboprop, outfitted by Leonardo. The work has been subject to delays, however, and the first of six aircraft was reportedly still undergoing final tests in April 2020, having made a first post-conversion test flight back in 2014.
Maritime patrol inventory
Greece: P-3B (1, plus 4 to be refurbished)
Turkey: CN235M-100 MPA (6)
Combat search and rescue helicopters
With significant coastlines and numerous islands to patrol, search and rescue is a critical element of both the Greek and Turkish air arms. As well as a dwindling number of venerable “Hueys,” in various versions, the air forces are each equipped with a smaller fleet of helicopters configured for combat search and rescue (CSAR). These would be tasked with retrieving any downed pilots during a conflict, but are also very active during peacetime, during which they provide an important night/all-weather rescue capability.
HELLENIC AIR FORCE
One of the dozen AS332C-1 Super Pumas in service with the Hellenic Air Force.
The HAF CSAR rotary-wing fleet includes a squadron of 12 AS332C-1 Super Pumas home-based at Elefsis, but with regular detachments to operational areas. Of the 12 Super Pumas, four are assigned to duties on behalf of the Hellenic Coastguard.
The THK operates around 20 of the more advanced AS532UL Cougar helicopter with detachments based throughout the country. The HAF Super Pumas are also understood to have a special forces support role and this may well extend to the Turkish Cougars, too.
It's worth noting that both militaries have more rotary-wing capacity with similar capabilities spread throughout their army and navy branches.
Combat search and rescue helicopters inventory
Greece: AS332C-1 (12)
Turkey: AS532UL (21)
UAVs
After the HAF’s retirement of the RF-4E, some reconnaissance taskings have been taken over by a squadron operating the HAI Pegasus II unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), based at Lárisa. Longer-term, the HAF will receive three maritime-configured Heron UAVs leased from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which will provide a much-needed capability boost. According to the Greek Ministry of Defense, these drones will mainly be used for “border defense.”
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
A Turkish Air Force Anka armed UAV.
The THK already operates the IAI Heron, alongside indigenous drones. The center of its UAV operations is Batman Air Base, which is home to the Heron, and located closer to the Syrian border. Meanwhile, indigenous TAI Anka drones are also found at Incirlik, while a squadron at Malatya is reportedly responsible for the armed UAVs, including examples of the indigenous Bayraktar TB2.
How do they stack up?
The orders of battle of the Greek and Turkish air arms are fairly well balanced, although Turkey maintains a notable edge in transport and tanker assets, with a total of 36 medium/heavy tactical airlifters and tankers compared with 17 for Greece, which has no aerial refueling tankers.
Turkey also enjoys a considerable UAV advantage over its Greek counterpart. The Turkish Air Force has extensive combat experience with drones in Libya and Syria as well as a highly active local industry involved in producing UAVs for different applications.
In terms of fighters, the capabilities of the two air arms are nearly on a par, while Greece has 228 fast jets compared with 293 for Turkey. So, Turkey does have a numerical advantage, but that is just one aspect of a force’s ability to project tactical airpower. The availability of refueling tankers could be a critical advantage for the Turkish Air Force. These force-multipliers would provide Turkey's larger fighter force with even more time on station and longer sustained sortie rates.
Combat helicopters — which would play a key CSAR role in times of conflict — also see Turkey edge out Greece in the numbers game, with 21 for the THK compared with 12 for the HAF.
Of course, these numbers only represent the total airframes understood to be in the inventory, and do not represent availability, or the numbers of sorties that could be generated in wartime. The other critical factor is pilot training, to which both air forces dedicate considerable resources, maintaining tactics and air warfare centers, plus a dedicated F-16 aggressor unit within the THK.
Decades of encounters over the Aegean have sharpened the combat capabilities of the Greek and Turkish air forces and the latest altercations are unlikely to see any major changes in posture, as the air arms continue to maintain their high levels of readiness. Greece and Turkey have been to the brink of war before, but since 1974, the various hostilities have never escalated beyond limited scenarios.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
A gaggle of Turkish Air Force F-16Cs top-up from a KC-135R air-to-air refueling tanker.
As we have mentioned, Greek and Turkish fighter jets have repeatedly clashed over the Aegean Sea without actually employing weapons, but the available accounts of those incidents tend to be highly partisan and it’s hard to find evidence of confirmed losses. An exception is the October 1996 encounter in which a Greek Mirage 2000 shot down a Turkish F-16D Block 40 using a Magic 2 air-to-air missile. While the Athens government said the Turkish jet had violated Greek airspace, Ankara claimed it had been on a training mission close to the Turkish mainland. The Turkish pilot died, while the co-pilot ejected and was rescued by Greek forces.
In another example of previous escalations, a Greek and a Turkish F-16C were apparently involved in a mid-air collision over the southern Aegean in May 2006. Two Hellenic Air Force F-16s had been scrambled to intercept a Turkish RF-4E reconnaissance jet escorted two Turkish F-16s. While the Turkish pilot was rescued by a civilian ship, the Greek pilot was reportedly killed.
As well as confronting Greek Vipers, the THK F-16 force has seen action against the Russian Aerospace Forces. An F-16C downed a Su-24M Fencer strike aircraft that had strayed into Turkish airspace during a mission over Syria in November 2015.
During Turkey’s Operation Spring Shield in March 2020, THK F-16s downed two Syrian Arab Air Force Su-24s, reportedly launching AIM-120C AMRAAMs from within Turkish aerospace. A Syrian L-39ZO was also downed during the same campaign. Meanwhile, air-to-ground missions have been flown by THK F-16s against the Kurdish Workers’ Party, a militant group better known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, which is based in the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq.
Despite Turkey having much more experience of recent combat operations, there are potential negative factors, too. The attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016 had a significant effect on the air force, and on the F-16 units in particular — the coup-plotters had used F-16s in their efforts to oust President Erdoğan. In the wake of the coup attempt, many F-16 personnel were arrested or removed from their posts and the Viper wing based at Ankara-Akinci was disbanded, the aircraft from its three squadrons (141, 142, and 143 Filos) being distributed to other units.
TURKISH MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE
Elements of an S-400 air defense system are unloaded from a Russian Il-76 transport aircraft at Murted Air Base, Turkey, in July 2019.
The Turkish Air Force may also be hampered by the political fallout from the increasingly strained relations with the United States, and above all on Ankara’s insistence to pursue its S-400 purchase. Turkish officials have voiced concerns that this might lead to a wider arms embargo, which could have negative operational impacts, especially on the air force’s U.S.-supplied fleets.
Overall, Turkey's quantitative edge in fighter airframes, albeit somewhat minor, paired with organic tanker support, would appear to give Turkey an advantage, although that is just in terms of hardware and numbers, and many factors are also at play, as we have discussed earlier.
While non-shooting skirmishes over the Aegean Sea are nothing new, it seems that the rhetoric surrounding the current dispute is becoming increasingly belligerent. Turkish Deputy President Fuat Oktay recently said that the Erdoğan government aims to take control of Greek islands close to Turkey. While statements of this kind are clearly engineered primarily for nationalist consumption, they also run the risk of potentially exacerbating an already precarious situation. Larger geopolitical shifts, including major energy reserves being potentially at stake and Turkey's far more expeditionary minded and assertive military strategy aboard, also point to an elevated possibility that this dispute could take a darker turn.
Undoubtedly capable and held at high levels of readiness, the air forces of Greece and Turkey have planned and trained for combat in the Aegean theater for decades. Clearly, a full-scale conflict in the eastern Mediterranean could potentially be very costly for both sides.
Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com
Hummm........
Posted for fair use.....
www.nytimes.com
Waves of Russian and Emirati Flights Fuel Libyan War, U.N. Finds
A confidential report sent to the Security Council details extensive breaches of the international arms embargo on Libya by eight countries since the beginning of the year.
The aftermath of a bombing by Khalifa Hifter’s forces in Tripoli in January. A 14-month campaign by Mr. Hifter to capture the city ended in failure, but drew Russia and Turkey more deeply into the war.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
By Declan Walsh
Even so, few expected the hypocrisy would be so blatant.
As leaders posed for a group photo with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Jan. 19, having signed a pledge to respect the arms embargo on Libya, at least five cargo airplanes filled with weapons from the United Arab Emirates and Russia were cruising across the skies of North Africa, bound for the battlefields of Libya.
Details of the secret, embargo-busting flights are contained in a confidential report to be presented to a panel of the Security Council on Friday. Such breaches are nothing new in Libya, where even U.N. officials call the embargo a “joke.” But the sheer scale of violations so far this year, combined with the volume of advanced weaponry now circulating inside the country, are a cause of growing international alarm.
Using flight data, ship records and other tools, investigators show that egregious violations by leaders who flout the embargo with seeming abandon have reached new levels.
Four of the cargo planes bound for Libya on Jan. 19 had been sent by the United Arab Emirates, whose leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, smiled as he lunched with Ms. Merkel in a luminous room just before the peace conference. Along with Russia and Egypt, the Emirates is backing the Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter in the war.
The fifth plane that day belonged to Russia — one of nearly 350 Russian military supply flights in nine months that have swelled its force of Russian and Syrian mercenaries to over 5,000 fighters, according to the latest American estimates.
Image
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia huddling during a conference to address peace efforts in Libya in January.Credit...Pool photo by Alexei Nikolsky
The United Nations report, which was seen by The New York Times and confirmed in interviews with officials, comes at a time of intense political instability in Libya, prompting fresh warnings that the country could plunge into a new, even more destructive round of battle.
“Libya is indeed at a decisive turning point,” the acting United Nations envoy to Libya, Stephanie Williams, warned the Security Council in a briefing on Wednesday.
Libya descended into chaos in 2011 after the ouster and killing of the longtime dictator Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi. Since then it has been divided between two administrations, in the east and west of the country, backed by rival foreign powers.
A 14-month campaign by Mr. Hifter to capture Tripoli ended in failure in June but drew Russia and Turkey more deeply into the war. With oil production halted, the bedraggled economy has sunk further, and living conditions are deteriorating rapidly for Libyans who have endured long electricity cuts in the summer heat.
Much of what comes next, though, may be determined by the war’s foreign sponsors who, according to the United Nations investigators, have transformed the conflict into a vast proxy war, one cargo plane at a time.
The recent escalation started in January when Turkey intervened forcefully, sending drones, air defense systems and thousands of Syrian mercenaries to back the besieged Tripoli government.
Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt responded by flooding military aid to Mr. Hifter’s forces, in what quickly turned into a giant, undeclared military airlift.
Investigators counted 339 Russian military flights between Nov. 1 and July 31, mostly from Hmeimim air base in Syria, with a potential volume of up to 17,200 tons. The flights supported mercenaries employed by the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked private military company that has become a crucial element in Mr. Hifter’s forces.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has repeatedly denied any Russia intervention in Libya.
Image
Satellite imagery from the United States Africa Command shows a Russian warplane at Al Jufra air base in Libya in May. Credit...United States Africa Command
But the Russian airlift has intensified through the year, from eight flights in December 2019 to 75 in July, even after the collapse of Mr. Hifter’s Tripoli campaign in June — a sign, according to several Western officials, of Russia’s growing stake in the conflict.
As fighting gave way to a stalemate centered on Surt in recent months, Russian mercenaries have moved into position around several of Libya’s biggest oil fields.
The report also focuses on the United Arab Emirates, which sent a further 35 military cargo flights to Libya in the 11 days after the Berlin conference in January, and another 100 or so in the first half of the year, many of them using three charter airlines registered in Kazakhstan.
Many of those aircraft turned off their transponders — tracking devices that identify their positions — as they entered Egyptian or Libyan airspace. But efforts to disguise the military supply flights were largely cursory.
Some of the flight manifests carried suspiciously vague descriptions of their cargo, claiming to be carrying frozen food, men’s suits or a consignment of 800 boilers, investigators said. Others were filled out in the name of the 4th aviation group of the U.A.E. armed forces.
Three of those airlines stopped flying in May when Kazakh authorities suspended their licenses after receiving international complaints. The Emirati military stepped up to fill the gap, using its American-built C-17 Globemaster cargo planes to “maintain the airbridge,” running 60 direct flights up to July 31, the report says.
Image
Fighters loyal to the U.N.-backed Libyan government inspecting shells seized from Mr. Hifter’s forces.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Since September 2019, the Emirates has also been recruiting Sudanese mercenaries to fight under Mr. Hifter in dubious circumstances. Investigators found that recruits had been hired to do private security work by a firm named Black Shield, then forced into military training and sent to fight in Yemen or Libya.
“These individuals were hired under false pretenses and forced into military training camps,” the report said.
The U.A.E. government failed to respond to several letters from the investigators seeking information or comment about its activities in Libya.
On the other side of the war, the report also accuses Turkey of extensive embargo violations. In early June, three attempts by European Union naval vessels to interdict a Turkish cargo ship bound for Libya were rebuffed by Turkish warships. Turkey claimed the cargo ship was carrying “humanitarian aid.”
Other Turkish military supplies arrive in western Libya aboard civilian airliners flying from western Turkey. “It is almost impossible to book a seat on any of these flights,” the report notes. “The flights are not for fare-paying passengers.”
The report also notes the return of Qatar to the war. American officials say that Qatar largely stopped funding Islamist groups in Libya during the Obama administration, under pressure from the United States.
Image
Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of Libya’s U.N.-recognized government, center, meeting with Turkish and Qatari officials this month.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But in May and June at least five Qatar Air Force cargo flights landed in Libya, the report notes. More recently, Qatar’s defense minister visited Tripoli alongside his Turkish counterpart in a pointed show of solidarity.
In an interview, a senior Western diplomat confirmed that Qatar has resumed funding to the Tripoli government.
Libyan civilians have particularly suffered in the intensity and confusion of a sprawling proxy war.
United Nations investigators have evidence that an Emirati warplane carried out an airstrike against a refugee center in Tripoli that killed at least 42 people in July 2019, mostly migrants.
Human rights groups and the United States military accuse Russian mercenaries of planting land mines and booby-traps as they retreated from the Tripoli suburbs in June. The bombs have killed at least 61 people and wounded 113, Ms. Williams, the U.N. envoy, said on Wednesday.
A Kremlin spokesman dismissed the American accusations as “crazy talk.”
By Air and Sea, Mercenaries Landed in Libya. Then the Plan Went South.
May 25, 2020
Declan Walsh is the Cairo bureau chief, covering Egypt and the Middle East. He joined The Times in 2011 as Pakistan bureau chief, and previously worked at The Guardian. @declanwalsh
Posted for fair use.....
Waves of Russian and Emirati Flights Fuel Libyan War, U.N. Finds (Published 2020)
A confidential report sent to the Security Council details extensive breaches of the international arms embargo on Libya by eight countries since the beginning of the year.
Waves of Russian and Emirati Flights Fuel Libyan War, U.N. Finds
A confidential report sent to the Security Council details extensive breaches of the international arms embargo on Libya by eight countries since the beginning of the year.
The aftermath of a bombing by Khalifa Hifter’s forces in Tripoli in January. A 14-month campaign by Mr. Hifter to capture the city ended in failure, but drew Russia and Turkey more deeply into the war.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
By Declan Walsh
- Sept. 3, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET
Even so, few expected the hypocrisy would be so blatant.
As leaders posed for a group photo with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Jan. 19, having signed a pledge to respect the arms embargo on Libya, at least five cargo airplanes filled with weapons from the United Arab Emirates and Russia were cruising across the skies of North Africa, bound for the battlefields of Libya.
Details of the secret, embargo-busting flights are contained in a confidential report to be presented to a panel of the Security Council on Friday. Such breaches are nothing new in Libya, where even U.N. officials call the embargo a “joke.” But the sheer scale of violations so far this year, combined with the volume of advanced weaponry now circulating inside the country, are a cause of growing international alarm.
Using flight data, ship records and other tools, investigators show that egregious violations by leaders who flout the embargo with seeming abandon have reached new levels.
Four of the cargo planes bound for Libya on Jan. 19 had been sent by the United Arab Emirates, whose leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, smiled as he lunched with Ms. Merkel in a luminous room just before the peace conference. Along with Russia and Egypt, the Emirates is backing the Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter in the war.
The fifth plane that day belonged to Russia — one of nearly 350 Russian military supply flights in nine months that have swelled its force of Russian and Syrian mercenaries to over 5,000 fighters, according to the latest American estimates.
Image
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia huddling during a conference to address peace efforts in Libya in January.Credit...Pool photo by Alexei Nikolsky
The United Nations report, which was seen by The New York Times and confirmed in interviews with officials, comes at a time of intense political instability in Libya, prompting fresh warnings that the country could plunge into a new, even more destructive round of battle.
“Libya is indeed at a decisive turning point,” the acting United Nations envoy to Libya, Stephanie Williams, warned the Security Council in a briefing on Wednesday.
Libya descended into chaos in 2011 after the ouster and killing of the longtime dictator Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi. Since then it has been divided between two administrations, in the east and west of the country, backed by rival foreign powers.
A 14-month campaign by Mr. Hifter to capture Tripoli ended in failure in June but drew Russia and Turkey more deeply into the war. With oil production halted, the bedraggled economy has sunk further, and living conditions are deteriorating rapidly for Libyans who have endured long electricity cuts in the summer heat.
Much of what comes next, though, may be determined by the war’s foreign sponsors who, according to the United Nations investigators, have transformed the conflict into a vast proxy war, one cargo plane at a time.
The recent escalation started in January when Turkey intervened forcefully, sending drones, air defense systems and thousands of Syrian mercenaries to back the besieged Tripoli government.
Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt responded by flooding military aid to Mr. Hifter’s forces, in what quickly turned into a giant, undeclared military airlift.
Investigators counted 339 Russian military flights between Nov. 1 and July 31, mostly from Hmeimim air base in Syria, with a potential volume of up to 17,200 tons. The flights supported mercenaries employed by the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked private military company that has become a crucial element in Mr. Hifter’s forces.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has repeatedly denied any Russia intervention in Libya.
Image
Satellite imagery from the United States Africa Command shows a Russian warplane at Al Jufra air base in Libya in May. Credit...United States Africa Command
But the Russian airlift has intensified through the year, from eight flights in December 2019 to 75 in July, even after the collapse of Mr. Hifter’s Tripoli campaign in June — a sign, according to several Western officials, of Russia’s growing stake in the conflict.
As fighting gave way to a stalemate centered on Surt in recent months, Russian mercenaries have moved into position around several of Libya’s biggest oil fields.
The report also focuses on the United Arab Emirates, which sent a further 35 military cargo flights to Libya in the 11 days after the Berlin conference in January, and another 100 or so in the first half of the year, many of them using three charter airlines registered in Kazakhstan.
Many of those aircraft turned off their transponders — tracking devices that identify their positions — as they entered Egyptian or Libyan airspace. But efforts to disguise the military supply flights were largely cursory.
Some of the flight manifests carried suspiciously vague descriptions of their cargo, claiming to be carrying frozen food, men’s suits or a consignment of 800 boilers, investigators said. Others were filled out in the name of the 4th aviation group of the U.A.E. armed forces.
Three of those airlines stopped flying in May when Kazakh authorities suspended their licenses after receiving international complaints. The Emirati military stepped up to fill the gap, using its American-built C-17 Globemaster cargo planes to “maintain the airbridge,” running 60 direct flights up to July 31, the report says.
Image
Fighters loyal to the U.N.-backed Libyan government inspecting shells seized from Mr. Hifter’s forces.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Since September 2019, the Emirates has also been recruiting Sudanese mercenaries to fight under Mr. Hifter in dubious circumstances. Investigators found that recruits had been hired to do private security work by a firm named Black Shield, then forced into military training and sent to fight in Yemen or Libya.
“These individuals were hired under false pretenses and forced into military training camps,” the report said.
The U.A.E. government failed to respond to several letters from the investigators seeking information or comment about its activities in Libya.
On the other side of the war, the report also accuses Turkey of extensive embargo violations. In early June, three attempts by European Union naval vessels to interdict a Turkish cargo ship bound for Libya were rebuffed by Turkish warships. Turkey claimed the cargo ship was carrying “humanitarian aid.”
Other Turkish military supplies arrive in western Libya aboard civilian airliners flying from western Turkey. “It is almost impossible to book a seat on any of these flights,” the report notes. “The flights are not for fare-paying passengers.”
The report also notes the return of Qatar to the war. American officials say that Qatar largely stopped funding Islamist groups in Libya during the Obama administration, under pressure from the United States.
Image
Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of Libya’s U.N.-recognized government, center, meeting with Turkish and Qatari officials this month.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But in May and June at least five Qatar Air Force cargo flights landed in Libya, the report notes. More recently, Qatar’s defense minister visited Tripoli alongside his Turkish counterpart in a pointed show of solidarity.
In an interview, a senior Western diplomat confirmed that Qatar has resumed funding to the Tripoli government.
Libyan civilians have particularly suffered in the intensity and confusion of a sprawling proxy war.
United Nations investigators have evidence that an Emirati warplane carried out an airstrike against a refugee center in Tripoli that killed at least 42 people in July 2019, mostly migrants.
Human rights groups and the United States military accuse Russian mercenaries of planting land mines and booby-traps as they retreated from the Tripoli suburbs in June. The bombs have killed at least 61 people and wounded 113, Ms. Williams, the U.N. envoy, said on Wednesday.
A Kremlin spokesman dismissed the American accusations as “crazy talk.”
By Air and Sea, Mercenaries Landed in Libya. Then the Plan Went South.
May 25, 2020
Declan Walsh is the Cairo bureau chief, covering Egypt and the Middle East. He joined The Times in 2011 as Pakistan bureau chief, and previously worked at The Guardian. @declanwalsh
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jward
passin' thru
Ragıp Soylu
@ragipsoylu
59m
NEW — Greece is officially out of NATO brokered technical talks “Turkey must drop 'threats' for talks to begin: Greek PM” via AFP
jward
passin' thru
TurkishFacts4u
@TurkishFacts4U
8m
Aselsan delivers more stand-off jammers to #Turkey. These are the systems that were able to jam Pantsir S1's in Syria and Libya.
Ismail Demir
@IsmailDemirSSB
Radar Elektronik Destek/Elektronik Taarruz (REDET-II) Projesi kapsamında Radar Elektronik Destek sistemi teslimatlarımız devam ediyor.
REDET-II Sistemi ile Silahlı Kuvvetlerimizin Elektronik Harp kabiliyetlerini daha üst seviyeye çıkarıyoruz.
@aselsan
View: https://twitter.com/IsmailDemirSSB/status/1301792370736992256?s=20
jward
passin' thru
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
3m
Greece delivers letter on Turkish activities to UN
View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1302022834286465024?s=20
@EndGameWW3
3m
Greece delivers letter on Turkish activities to UN
View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1302022834286465024?s=20
Hummm......
Posted for fair use.....
www.theafricareport.com
Turkey’s push to win over the Maghreb: The gateway to Africa
By Frida Dahmani, Larissa Samba
Posted on Friday, 4 September 2020 18:22
For several years, the Turks have been working to strengthen their ties with Algiers, Tunis and Rabat. This strategy is all the more crucial since Recep Tayyip Erdogan has engaged his country on several fronts in the region.
Gateway to the African market, the Maghreb is not terra incognita for Turkey. Diplomacy, trade, soft power … Morocco, and especially Algeria and Tunisia – once Ottoman provinces – have been the subject of special attention from Ankara for several years. This desire to establish a climate of trust is redoubling today, as Turkey ardently defends its interests and needs support more than ever.
This is the case in Syria, where it is working to guarantee its border against any presence of the PYD (the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party ). It is also the case in Libya, where it is struggling to help the President of the Council Fayez al-Sarraj, whose legitimacy is recognised by the UN, to triumph over what it calls the “pirate putschist Haftar”.
READ MORE Egypt and Turkey head-to-head in Libya, stalemate looms
And this is also the case in the eastern Mediterranean, where ships were sent to prospect in gas-rich areas also claimed by Greece.
In the face of criticism from the EU, which supports Athens, and the roar of Egypt, which is threatening to send troops to Libya, Ankara is trying to convince Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco of the legitimacy of its actions, but failing to get them out of their default neutral stance.
Mevlüt Çavusoglu, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, calls daily his Algerian counterpart Sabri Boukadoum, who was recently received in Ankara by his counterpart and Turkish President Erdogan. The latter is also taking care of his relations with his new Algerian and Tunisian peers, and is planning a visit to Morocco; one which promises to be delicate.
Tunisia: pro-Turkish
A revolution, 64 years of independence and 75 years of French protectorate seem not to have erased 300 years of Ottoman presence from the memory of Tunisians. Even Bourguiba, though very attached to the sovereignty of independent Tunisia, did not hide his admiration for the modernity instilled by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In 2020, it is rather Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is the example to follow for Tunisian Islamists. But it is not only a question of ideology; in Tunisia, pro-Turkish tropism is a reality.
“It is a destination accessible without a visa and not expensive. For Tunisians, going to Istanbul is a must,” explains a tour operator, who points out that the Turkish megalopolis has long been one of the most popular shopping destinations for Tunisian customers.
Those days are over and have given way to the flow of business. Since the revision in 2013 of the free trade agreement in force since 2005, things have not changed in favor of Tunisia. The elimination of customs taxes on certain food, consumer and equipment products has widened, at the end of 2019, a trade deficit of $913 million with Turkey, or 38.5% of Tunisia’s foreign debt service.
READ MORE Turkey’s leader puts Tunisia at risk of Libyan chaos
Tunisia is also struggling to sell its production, especially agricultural, in Turkey. “We have similar products; selling olive oil to the Turks is absurd,” said an olive grower in Mahdia. He is upset with the Tunisian Ministry of Trade for allowing Turkish food products to compete with local production.
Turkish investors not very interested in Tunisia
The situation is such that even Ali Onaner, the Turkish ambassador in Tunis, wants a rebalancing. He will have much to do in view of Tunisia’s low attractiveness for Turkish investors: out of 3,455 foreign companies established in the country, only 25 are Turkish. They work in services, international trade and tourism, for a total investment of 138 million dollars.
Ankara considers Tunisia as an open door to Africa, but was counting on an electoral victory of the Islamists of Ennahdha to advance its pawns. The Tunisian elections of October 2019 have shaken things up. This did not prevent President Erdogan from making a surprise visit to Carthage in December 2019, during which he exchanged views with his Tunisian counterpart, Kaïs Saïed, before launching his anti-Haftar offensive in Libya.
It is difficult to see clearly in this relationship of fascination-rejection between Turks and Tunisians. “On the political level, Erdogan’s attempts at interference are as much a source of discomfort as the Islamists’ servility towards him,” notes a left-wing observer. It is a different matter in everyday life, where the Tunisians’ attraction for Sublime Porte – the former central government of Ottoman Turkey – is largely satisfied through Turkish soap operas and a kind of nostalgia for the pomp of the Beylical period.
“At that time, the state apparatus was functioning,” asserts one detractor of the revolution. The craze was such that some institutions offered Turkish language courses, while kebabs and ice-cream parlors abounded alongside stores selling “made in Turkey” clothing. “This has destroyed our clothing sector, but it’s a fad that will pass,” says a former leader of the textile federation, who stoically asserts: “We’ll come to our senses when our debt has become unsustainable and politics can’t remedy it.”
Algeria: nostalgia and realpolitik
The restoration, by the Tika (the Turkish development agency), of the Ketchaoua mosque in Algiers illustrates the role that Turkey intends to play in this Algeria which was once an Ottoman province: that of a benevolent friend who exalts nostalgia for a common past, without losing sight of realpolitik and business sense. 500 years of history link the two countries, from that day in 1519, when the pirate Barbarossa proposed the attachment of the regency of Algiers to the Sublime Porte, until June 30, 2020, when Ankara donated to Algeria a whole medical arsenal to fight coronavirus.
Four official trips by Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Prime Minister (2006 and 2013), then as President (2014 and 2020), as well as the signing of a friendship and cooperation agreement (2006) have consolidated the bilateral relationship and boosted trade, which amounts to about 4 billion dollars, making Algeria the second partner (after Egypt) of Turkey in Africa.
With nearly 800 companies in the country, the Turks are the largest foreign employers (28,000 people) and, outside the hydrocarbon sector, the largest investors ($3.5 billion). Fuat Tosyali, the Turkish steel magnate, whose holding company has been present in Algeria since 2007, heads the local branch of Deik, the Council for Foreign Economic Relations. Close to Erdogan, the 59-year-old plays a key role at the crossroads of business and politics.
Algerian gas in Turkey
Turkey is of course present in its preferred sectors (construction, steel, textiles), but also in food and energy. Algeria is its fourth gas supplier. Thus, Sonatrach is linked to the Turkish company Botas by an agreement that provides for the annual delivery of 5.4 billion m3 of liquefied natural gas until 2024. The national company is also working with the Rönesans group on the construction of a petrochemical plant near Adana (southern Turkey), which should open in 2022. Cost of the project: 1.4 billion dollars.
READ MORE Two corruption cases rattle Sonatrach in Algeria and Lebanon
Of course, the “Turkish model”, from television series to the economic success of the last fifteen years, does not leave Algerians indifferent. Big buyers of weapons, they are interested in the Turkish combat drones Bayraktar, which have proven their worth in Libya, as well as the armoured vehicles by BMC – from which Tunisia has bought nine units.
On the political side, the cartel, good overall, is complicated by competition between Paris and Ankara, which are opposed on many issues (Libya, Eastern Mediterranean …). Erdogan did not refrain from castigating France’s colonial crimes, to the “surprise” of the Algerian authorities, who were reluctant to see a third party interfere in their complex relations with Paris. On the other hand, with regard to Syria, Algiers has sided (like its old Russian comrade) with the camp of Bashar al-Assad, of which Turkey is fighting.
The current passes between Tebboune and Erdogan
However, the current is going rather well between the Algerian and Turkish heads of state, who met for the first time in January, on the occasion of the Berlin conference on Libya. During their tête-à-tête, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune invited Erdogan to Algeria – an invitation that the latter honoured a few days later.
Much was said about Libya, where Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are actively helping Haftar, and where Qatar and Turkey are equally active in supporting the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNA).
Algerians want to play a mediating, if not a major diplomatic role, in resolving the conflict. And given they share 1,000 km of borders with Libya, they are concerned about the repercussions that Libya’s chaos could have on their own security. These two factors explain why, although they clearly are in favour of al-Sarraj, like the Turks, they persist a façade of neutrality.
Morocco: warming up the cold front
“The next visit of our president to Morocco should be a landmark,” said a relative of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, commenting on the invitation that Mohammed VI extended to the Turkish head of state in September 2019 as a sign of opening relations. To say that this trip will be carefully prepared is a sweet euphemism. For, if in 2005, Erdogan – then Prime Minister – had been received with all honors, it was not the same in 2013.
While Gezi’s revolt undermined Erdogan’s authority and blurred his image on the international stage, the king did not receive him, and Moroccan businessmen also ignored him, forcing him to shorten his stay.
Between the Commander of the Faithful, perhaps too close to Westerners in the eyes of Ankara, and a Turkish president, perhaps too close to the Muslim Brotherhood according to the Palace, relations did not return to normal, even if both sides now seem eager to improve them. “Some are trying to influence His Majesty. No doubt the North wind…”, says a Turkish diplomatic source alluding to France.
Free trade agreement and frictions
This being so, and even if Morocco is the Maghreb country with which Ankara has the least affinity, the “Turkish miracle” and the longevity in power of the AKP arouses a certain admiration, at least in the ranks of the Justice and Development Party (PJD). There is no doubt that President Erdogan’s visit – through the front door – will eventually materialise. Ankara’s position in the Western Sahara affair is likely to facilitate it. Like most chancelleries,” said another Turkish diplomatic source, “Turkey touts the line of Morocco, even if it refrains from making strong statements to spare the Algerians.
On the trade front, the entry into force of a free trade agreement in 2006 has been a source of progress… and the subject of some friction. Trade increased from $435m in 2004 to $2.7bn in 2018. More than 150 Turkish companies, employing 8,000 Moroccans, are established in the kingdom, whose skies are assiduously criss-crossed by Turkish Airlines.
Trade worth $1.9bn is more favourable to Turkey, whose exports (steel, textiles, industrial vehicles) far exceed those of Morocco (phosphoric acid, fertilisers, lead, leather, paper pulp).
As a result, earlier this year Rabat threatened to withdraw from the free trade agreement, leading Turkish Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan to promise that it would be revised and to call on its compatriots to invest in Morocco. At the centre of the dispute is Turkish textiles and clothing, whose imports, already taxed at 27% since January, have been taxed at 36% since July 27 under Morocco’s amended finance law.
Posted for fair use.....
Turkey’s push to win over the Maghreb: The gateway to Africa - The Africa Report.com
For several years, the Turks have been working to strengthen their ties with Algiers, Tunis and Rabat.
www.theafricareport.com
Turkey’s push to win over the Maghreb: The gateway to Africa
By Frida Dahmani, Larissa Samba
Posted on Friday, 4 September 2020 18:22
For several years, the Turks have been working to strengthen their ties with Algiers, Tunis and Rabat. This strategy is all the more crucial since Recep Tayyip Erdogan has engaged his country on several fronts in the region.
Gateway to the African market, the Maghreb is not terra incognita for Turkey. Diplomacy, trade, soft power … Morocco, and especially Algeria and Tunisia – once Ottoman provinces – have been the subject of special attention from Ankara for several years. This desire to establish a climate of trust is redoubling today, as Turkey ardently defends its interests and needs support more than ever.
This is the case in Syria, where it is working to guarantee its border against any presence of the PYD (the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party ). It is also the case in Libya, where it is struggling to help the President of the Council Fayez al-Sarraj, whose legitimacy is recognised by the UN, to triumph over what it calls the “pirate putschist Haftar”.
READ MORE Egypt and Turkey head-to-head in Libya, stalemate looms
And this is also the case in the eastern Mediterranean, where ships were sent to prospect in gas-rich areas also claimed by Greece.
In the face of criticism from the EU, which supports Athens, and the roar of Egypt, which is threatening to send troops to Libya, Ankara is trying to convince Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco of the legitimacy of its actions, but failing to get them out of their default neutral stance.
Mevlüt Çavusoglu, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, calls daily his Algerian counterpart Sabri Boukadoum, who was recently received in Ankara by his counterpart and Turkish President Erdogan. The latter is also taking care of his relations with his new Algerian and Tunisian peers, and is planning a visit to Morocco; one which promises to be delicate.
Tunisia: pro-Turkish
A revolution, 64 years of independence and 75 years of French protectorate seem not to have erased 300 years of Ottoman presence from the memory of Tunisians. Even Bourguiba, though very attached to the sovereignty of independent Tunisia, did not hide his admiration for the modernity instilled by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In 2020, it is rather Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is the example to follow for Tunisian Islamists. But it is not only a question of ideology; in Tunisia, pro-Turkish tropism is a reality.
“It is a destination accessible without a visa and not expensive. For Tunisians, going to Istanbul is a must,” explains a tour operator, who points out that the Turkish megalopolis has long been one of the most popular shopping destinations for Tunisian customers.
Those days are over and have given way to the flow of business. Since the revision in 2013 of the free trade agreement in force since 2005, things have not changed in favor of Tunisia. The elimination of customs taxes on certain food, consumer and equipment products has widened, at the end of 2019, a trade deficit of $913 million with Turkey, or 38.5% of Tunisia’s foreign debt service.
READ MORE Turkey’s leader puts Tunisia at risk of Libyan chaos
Tunisia is also struggling to sell its production, especially agricultural, in Turkey. “We have similar products; selling olive oil to the Turks is absurd,” said an olive grower in Mahdia. He is upset with the Tunisian Ministry of Trade for allowing Turkish food products to compete with local production.
Turkish investors not very interested in Tunisia
The situation is such that even Ali Onaner, the Turkish ambassador in Tunis, wants a rebalancing. He will have much to do in view of Tunisia’s low attractiveness for Turkish investors: out of 3,455 foreign companies established in the country, only 25 are Turkish. They work in services, international trade and tourism, for a total investment of 138 million dollars.
Ankara considers Tunisia as an open door to Africa, but was counting on an electoral victory of the Islamists of Ennahdha to advance its pawns. The Tunisian elections of October 2019 have shaken things up. This did not prevent President Erdogan from making a surprise visit to Carthage in December 2019, during which he exchanged views with his Tunisian counterpart, Kaïs Saïed, before launching his anti-Haftar offensive in Libya.
It is difficult to see clearly in this relationship of fascination-rejection between Turks and Tunisians. “On the political level, Erdogan’s attempts at interference are as much a source of discomfort as the Islamists’ servility towards him,” notes a left-wing observer. It is a different matter in everyday life, where the Tunisians’ attraction for Sublime Porte – the former central government of Ottoman Turkey – is largely satisfied through Turkish soap operas and a kind of nostalgia for the pomp of the Beylical period.
“At that time, the state apparatus was functioning,” asserts one detractor of the revolution. The craze was such that some institutions offered Turkish language courses, while kebabs and ice-cream parlors abounded alongside stores selling “made in Turkey” clothing. “This has destroyed our clothing sector, but it’s a fad that will pass,” says a former leader of the textile federation, who stoically asserts: “We’ll come to our senses when our debt has become unsustainable and politics can’t remedy it.”
Algeria: nostalgia and realpolitik
The restoration, by the Tika (the Turkish development agency), of the Ketchaoua mosque in Algiers illustrates the role that Turkey intends to play in this Algeria which was once an Ottoman province: that of a benevolent friend who exalts nostalgia for a common past, without losing sight of realpolitik and business sense. 500 years of history link the two countries, from that day in 1519, when the pirate Barbarossa proposed the attachment of the regency of Algiers to the Sublime Porte, until June 30, 2020, when Ankara donated to Algeria a whole medical arsenal to fight coronavirus.
Four official trips by Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Prime Minister (2006 and 2013), then as President (2014 and 2020), as well as the signing of a friendship and cooperation agreement (2006) have consolidated the bilateral relationship and boosted trade, which amounts to about 4 billion dollars, making Algeria the second partner (after Egypt) of Turkey in Africa.
With nearly 800 companies in the country, the Turks are the largest foreign employers (28,000 people) and, outside the hydrocarbon sector, the largest investors ($3.5 billion). Fuat Tosyali, the Turkish steel magnate, whose holding company has been present in Algeria since 2007, heads the local branch of Deik, the Council for Foreign Economic Relations. Close to Erdogan, the 59-year-old plays a key role at the crossroads of business and politics.
Algerian gas in Turkey
Turkey is of course present in its preferred sectors (construction, steel, textiles), but also in food and energy. Algeria is its fourth gas supplier. Thus, Sonatrach is linked to the Turkish company Botas by an agreement that provides for the annual delivery of 5.4 billion m3 of liquefied natural gas until 2024. The national company is also working with the Rönesans group on the construction of a petrochemical plant near Adana (southern Turkey), which should open in 2022. Cost of the project: 1.4 billion dollars.
READ MORE Two corruption cases rattle Sonatrach in Algeria and Lebanon
Of course, the “Turkish model”, from television series to the economic success of the last fifteen years, does not leave Algerians indifferent. Big buyers of weapons, they are interested in the Turkish combat drones Bayraktar, which have proven their worth in Libya, as well as the armoured vehicles by BMC – from which Tunisia has bought nine units.
On the political side, the cartel, good overall, is complicated by competition between Paris and Ankara, which are opposed on many issues (Libya, Eastern Mediterranean …). Erdogan did not refrain from castigating France’s colonial crimes, to the “surprise” of the Algerian authorities, who were reluctant to see a third party interfere in their complex relations with Paris. On the other hand, with regard to Syria, Algiers has sided (like its old Russian comrade) with the camp of Bashar al-Assad, of which Turkey is fighting.
The current passes between Tebboune and Erdogan
However, the current is going rather well between the Algerian and Turkish heads of state, who met for the first time in January, on the occasion of the Berlin conference on Libya. During their tête-à-tête, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune invited Erdogan to Algeria – an invitation that the latter honoured a few days later.
Much was said about Libya, where Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are actively helping Haftar, and where Qatar and Turkey are equally active in supporting the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNA).
Algerians want to play a mediating, if not a major diplomatic role, in resolving the conflict. And given they share 1,000 km of borders with Libya, they are concerned about the repercussions that Libya’s chaos could have on their own security. These two factors explain why, although they clearly are in favour of al-Sarraj, like the Turks, they persist a façade of neutrality.
Morocco: warming up the cold front
“The next visit of our president to Morocco should be a landmark,” said a relative of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, commenting on the invitation that Mohammed VI extended to the Turkish head of state in September 2019 as a sign of opening relations. To say that this trip will be carefully prepared is a sweet euphemism. For, if in 2005, Erdogan – then Prime Minister – had been received with all honors, it was not the same in 2013.
While Gezi’s revolt undermined Erdogan’s authority and blurred his image on the international stage, the king did not receive him, and Moroccan businessmen also ignored him, forcing him to shorten his stay.
Between the Commander of the Faithful, perhaps too close to Westerners in the eyes of Ankara, and a Turkish president, perhaps too close to the Muslim Brotherhood according to the Palace, relations did not return to normal, even if both sides now seem eager to improve them. “Some are trying to influence His Majesty. No doubt the North wind…”, says a Turkish diplomatic source alluding to France.
Free trade agreement and frictions
This being so, and even if Morocco is the Maghreb country with which Ankara has the least affinity, the “Turkish miracle” and the longevity in power of the AKP arouses a certain admiration, at least in the ranks of the Justice and Development Party (PJD). There is no doubt that President Erdogan’s visit – through the front door – will eventually materialise. Ankara’s position in the Western Sahara affair is likely to facilitate it. Like most chancelleries,” said another Turkish diplomatic source, “Turkey touts the line of Morocco, even if it refrains from making strong statements to spare the Algerians.
On the trade front, the entry into force of a free trade agreement in 2006 has been a source of progress… and the subject of some friction. Trade increased from $435m in 2004 to $2.7bn in 2018. More than 150 Turkish companies, employing 8,000 Moroccans, are established in the kingdom, whose skies are assiduously criss-crossed by Turkish Airlines.
Trade worth $1.9bn is more favourable to Turkey, whose exports (steel, textiles, industrial vehicles) far exceed those of Morocco (phosphoric acid, fertilisers, lead, leather, paper pulp).
As a result, earlier this year Rabat threatened to withdraw from the free trade agreement, leading Turkish Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan to promise that it would be revised and to call on its compatriots to invest in Morocco. At the centre of the dispute is Turkish textiles and clothing, whose imports, already taxed at 27% since January, have been taxed at 36% since July 27 under Morocco’s amended finance law.
jward
passin' thru
US report accuses Turkey of sending extremists, looters to Libya
According to the arms embargo on Libya it is prohibited to export, sell, supply or transfer military goods and technology to the country. The UN has complained about “blatant” embargo violations.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 18:16
A military vehicle which belongs to the Libyan National Army (LNA) commanded by Khalifa Haftar is seen at one of their sites in west of Sirte, Libya August 19, 2020
(photo credit: REUTERS/ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORI)
Turkeyhas recruited Syrian mercenaries, sending 5,000 of them to fight in Libya under dubious circumstances that may violate an embargo on the country designed to reduce the civil war. Undisciplined mercenaries may harm the security situation and are accused of theft, sexual assault and links to terrorist extremism.
The findings in a recent US Lead Inspector General report covering Africa illustrate how Ankara has added fuel to the fire in Libya and sent poverty-stricken Syrians, many of them having already lost their homes in a civil war in Syria, to fight and die for Ankara’s energy interests in North Africa.
According to the arms embargo on Libya, it is prohibited to export, sell, supply or transfer military goods and technology to the North African country. The UN has complained about “blatant” violations of the embargo. Turkey is a member of NATO, and it is unusual for NATO members to recruit mercenaries from refugee populations to fight in foreign wars.
However, the increasingly militaristic regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been hosting Hamas and pushing an agenda that has seen Turkey threaten Greece, France, Israel, Iraq, Syria, the United States and other countries. In November, after having invaded northern Syria and forcing the US to withdraw from areas in eastern Syria, Ankara signed a deal with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord in Libya to demarcate water and energy rights in the Mediterranean.
Over the last six months, reports about the thousands of Syrians shipped to Libya have appeared in major media. The Syrians were sent to help bolster the GNA’s fight against Egyptian-backed General Khalifa Haftar, who is based in Benghazi. Egypt, Greece, the UAE, Russia and France appear to back Haftar. Libya is now part of a proxy war.
In recent months, Egypt and Greece signed a deal over water rights, the UAE sent F-16s to Crete, Turkish F-16s harassed Greek F-16s, Turkey sent a naval flotilla to harass Greece, the French, Greeks and Egypt held naval drills, Israel backed Greece against Turkey, Turkey threatened to “liberate al-Aqsa” from Israel, the US ended an arms embargo on Cyprus, France signed a defense agreement with Cyprus, and Israel, Greece and Cyprus signed a pipeline deal for the Eastern Mediterranean.
In short: Turkey’s involvement in Libya and its shipment of mercenaries helped set in motion a series of escalations over the last six months.
THE US AFRICA Command report is supposed to be presented to Congress quarterly. This one deals with East, North and West African counterterrorism operations. Groups such as al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and al-Qaeda are preying on Africa and are causing widespread terrorism across the Sahel. The US has used secret and non-so-secret drones and military bases from Djibouti to Niger to kill terrorists.
However, ISIS recently took over a port in Mozambique, and France’s operations in the Sahel are hampered by a coup in Mali. Hard times lie ahead for the fight against terrorism in Africa. Turkey’s export of Syrian rebels – some of them religious extremists and others linked to war crimes against Kurds and other minorities – does not bode well.
The US report confirms what is largely known: that Turkish military aircraft are likely flying in the “Syrian mercenaries.” In addition, US AFRICOM assesses that “several dozen military trainers from a private military company, Sadat, were deployed to Tripoli to train both the GNA-affiliated militias and Syrian fighters.” The US says the fighters number around 5,000 and that they are paid. Small payments are often late, other reports have suggested.
“In addition to Turkish-supported Syrian opposition mercenaries, Turkey has also deployed several hundred regular military forces to Libya,” the US report said. “These individuals included trainers, advisers, ordnance disposal personnel – a large number of IEDs have been found in southern Tripoli – and operators and maintainers of Turkish air defense systems.”
Turkey’s air defense helped turn the tide against Haftar in April. But then Egypt’s government drew a redline near Sirte and warned Ankara against more advances. In July, a mysterious airstrike by unknown planes hit Turkish positions near the key military base at Watiya, which Turkey had helped the GNA retake.
Since then, Ankara has gotten the message that Libya may not be an easy walk in the park the way its invasion and alleged ethnic-cleansing of the Kurdish region of Afrin in Syria was when Turkey invaded in January 2018.
THE NEW US report covers the period from April to June, but it was released only in late August. Washington says the presence of the Syrian mercenaries “will continue to negatively affect the overall security situation in Libya. USAFRICOM described the Syrian mercenaries fighting in Libya as “inexperienced, uneducated and motivated by promises of considerable salary.”
This sounds like the same rabble that Ankara has deployed in Al-Bab, Afrin, Idlib and Tel Abyad, where pro-Ankara groups are accused of kidnapping and raping women and holding them in secret prisons, smuggling ISIS members and destroying the graves of minority Yazidis, as well as carrying out targeted killings of activists, such as Hevrin Khalaf.
“USAFRICOM added that there were increasing reports of theft, sexual assault, and misconduct by those mercenaries, which is likely to further degrade the security situation and generate backlash from the Libyan public,” the report said. “USAFRICOM said that extremists with previous terrorist links were involved in the Tripoli fighting, although it is possible they were fighting for financial and personal reasons rather than ideological reasons.”
The report reads eerily like those about the depravity and abuses done by similar Ankara-backed extremists during attacks on Afrin in 2018 and Tel Abyad in 2019, when there was widespread looting of property.
In June, videos emerged of women who fled a secret prison run by Turkish-backed gangs and extremists. Many Kurdish and minority families have said Syrian rebel extremists backed by Ankara have kidnapped women, stolen property and committed widespread abuses. Reports to the UN and human-rights groups have had the same allegations.
It now appears that Turkey has exported these abuses to Libya under the guise of helping the GNA, but primarily so Ankara can use the mercenary support as leverage for energy deals and conflict with Greece and Egypt.
posted for fair use
www.jpost.com
According to the arms embargo on Libya it is prohibited to export, sell, supply or transfer military goods and technology to the country. The UN has complained about “blatant” embargo violations.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 18:16
A military vehicle which belongs to the Libyan National Army (LNA) commanded by Khalifa Haftar is seen at one of their sites in west of Sirte, Libya August 19, 2020
(photo credit: REUTERS/ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORI)
Turkeyhas recruited Syrian mercenaries, sending 5,000 of them to fight in Libya under dubious circumstances that may violate an embargo on the country designed to reduce the civil war. Undisciplined mercenaries may harm the security situation and are accused of theft, sexual assault and links to terrorist extremism.
The findings in a recent US Lead Inspector General report covering Africa illustrate how Ankara has added fuel to the fire in Libya and sent poverty-stricken Syrians, many of them having already lost their homes in a civil war in Syria, to fight and die for Ankara’s energy interests in North Africa.
According to the arms embargo on Libya, it is prohibited to export, sell, supply or transfer military goods and technology to the North African country. The UN has complained about “blatant” violations of the embargo. Turkey is a member of NATO, and it is unusual for NATO members to recruit mercenaries from refugee populations to fight in foreign wars.
However, the increasingly militaristic regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been hosting Hamas and pushing an agenda that has seen Turkey threaten Greece, France, Israel, Iraq, Syria, the United States and other countries. In November, after having invaded northern Syria and forcing the US to withdraw from areas in eastern Syria, Ankara signed a deal with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord in Libya to demarcate water and energy rights in the Mediterranean.
Over the last six months, reports about the thousands of Syrians shipped to Libya have appeared in major media. The Syrians were sent to help bolster the GNA’s fight against Egyptian-backed General Khalifa Haftar, who is based in Benghazi. Egypt, Greece, the UAE, Russia and France appear to back Haftar. Libya is now part of a proxy war.
In recent months, Egypt and Greece signed a deal over water rights, the UAE sent F-16s to Crete, Turkish F-16s harassed Greek F-16s, Turkey sent a naval flotilla to harass Greece, the French, Greeks and Egypt held naval drills, Israel backed Greece against Turkey, Turkey threatened to “liberate al-Aqsa” from Israel, the US ended an arms embargo on Cyprus, France signed a defense agreement with Cyprus, and Israel, Greece and Cyprus signed a pipeline deal for the Eastern Mediterranean.
In short: Turkey’s involvement in Libya and its shipment of mercenaries helped set in motion a series of escalations over the last six months.
THE US AFRICA Command report is supposed to be presented to Congress quarterly. This one deals with East, North and West African counterterrorism operations. Groups such as al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and al-Qaeda are preying on Africa and are causing widespread terrorism across the Sahel. The US has used secret and non-so-secret drones and military bases from Djibouti to Niger to kill terrorists.
However, ISIS recently took over a port in Mozambique, and France’s operations in the Sahel are hampered by a coup in Mali. Hard times lie ahead for the fight against terrorism in Africa. Turkey’s export of Syrian rebels – some of them religious extremists and others linked to war crimes against Kurds and other minorities – does not bode well.
The US report confirms what is largely known: that Turkish military aircraft are likely flying in the “Syrian mercenaries.” In addition, US AFRICOM assesses that “several dozen military trainers from a private military company, Sadat, were deployed to Tripoli to train both the GNA-affiliated militias and Syrian fighters.” The US says the fighters number around 5,000 and that they are paid. Small payments are often late, other reports have suggested.
“In addition to Turkish-supported Syrian opposition mercenaries, Turkey has also deployed several hundred regular military forces to Libya,” the US report said. “These individuals included trainers, advisers, ordnance disposal personnel – a large number of IEDs have been found in southern Tripoli – and operators and maintainers of Turkish air defense systems.”
Turkey’s air defense helped turn the tide against Haftar in April. But then Egypt’s government drew a redline near Sirte and warned Ankara against more advances. In July, a mysterious airstrike by unknown planes hit Turkish positions near the key military base at Watiya, which Turkey had helped the GNA retake.
Since then, Ankara has gotten the message that Libya may not be an easy walk in the park the way its invasion and alleged ethnic-cleansing of the Kurdish region of Afrin in Syria was when Turkey invaded in January 2018.
THE NEW US report covers the period from April to June, but it was released only in late August. Washington says the presence of the Syrian mercenaries “will continue to negatively affect the overall security situation in Libya. USAFRICOM described the Syrian mercenaries fighting in Libya as “inexperienced, uneducated and motivated by promises of considerable salary.”
This sounds like the same rabble that Ankara has deployed in Al-Bab, Afrin, Idlib and Tel Abyad, where pro-Ankara groups are accused of kidnapping and raping women and holding them in secret prisons, smuggling ISIS members and destroying the graves of minority Yazidis, as well as carrying out targeted killings of activists, such as Hevrin Khalaf.
“USAFRICOM added that there were increasing reports of theft, sexual assault, and misconduct by those mercenaries, which is likely to further degrade the security situation and generate backlash from the Libyan public,” the report said. “USAFRICOM said that extremists with previous terrorist links were involved in the Tripoli fighting, although it is possible they were fighting for financial and personal reasons rather than ideological reasons.”
The report reads eerily like those about the depravity and abuses done by similar Ankara-backed extremists during attacks on Afrin in 2018 and Tel Abyad in 2019, when there was widespread looting of property.
In June, videos emerged of women who fled a secret prison run by Turkish-backed gangs and extremists. Many Kurdish and minority families have said Syrian rebel extremists backed by Ankara have kidnapped women, stolen property and committed widespread abuses. Reports to the UN and human-rights groups have had the same allegations.
It now appears that Turkey has exported these abuses to Libya under the guise of helping the GNA, but primarily so Ankara can use the mercenary support as leverage for energy deals and conflict with Greece and Egypt.
posted for fair use
US report accuses Turkey of sending extremists, looters to Libya
According to the arms embargo on Libya it is prohibited to export, sell, supply or transfer military goods and technology to the country. The UN has complained about “blatant” embargo violations.
www.jpost.com
jward
passin' thru
hmm.
Nic
@NicAthens
4m
The mad man warlord #Erdogan wants dialogue and political solution while in a new statement he said that: "A century ago we buried the Greeks in the ground and threw them into the sea. I hope they will not pay the same price". https://kathimerini.com.cy/gr/politiki/di
Nic
@NicAthens
4m
The mad man warlord #Erdogan wants dialogue and political solution while in a new statement he said that: "A century ago we buried the Greeks in the ground and threw them into the sea. I hope they will not pay the same price". https://kathimerini.com.cy/gr/politiki/di
