There is one country in the world that in December 2011 was keeping 97 journalists in prison, and it is not mainland China. It is a country with just a fraction of China’s population: Turkey. Turkey also ranks among the countries that exerts the strictest censorship of the World-wide Web: one million websites are banned in Turkey (including mine, http://www.scaruffi.com).
Israeli abuses against Palestinians are widely reported by the international media, but in recent months Turkey has killed many more Kurdish separatists (and civilians) than Israel has killed Palestinian militants, and even bombed its neighbor Iraq in a blatant violation of international law. Turkey also insists that the Armenian genocide never took place, and even insists that the rest of the world should say the same.
The European Union is still negotiating the admission of Turkey, and Turkey is still a member of NATO. I was a strong supporter of both when Turkey was becoming more and more democratic. Now that it is becoming less and less democratic, one wonders what makes Turkey any better qualified than Egypt or even Iraq for admission in the European Union and NATO.
The international community should impose sanctions on Turkey until:
1. It releases dissident journalists from prison
2. It restores full access to the Internet
3. It grants autonomy or independence to the Kurds
4. It fully recognizes the Armenian genocides, apologizes in public, and restores full diplomatic ties with Armenia.
Turkey, that was one of the brightest hopes in the Middle East, is providing a bad example to its neighbors and becoming a danger to both democratic progress and stability in the region.
Turkey’s sense of humour
I must admit i am biased because Turkey banned my website http://www.scaruffi.com on August 18, 2011, and on the same page the New York Times had two articles.
The first one (and much larger) was about Turkey’s demand that Israel apologizes for killing Turkish citizens who entered Israeli territorial waters on a flotilla meant to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza’s Palestinians. The second one (much smaller) was about Turkey’s response to a “terrorist” attack by Kurdish separatists who killed some Turkish military men: Turkey struck deep into Iraq, where it claims that these “terrorists” have set up bases of operation.
Basically, Turkey condemns Israel for an action and then carries out an even worse action of the same kind. In fact, we then learned that Turkey and Iran struck together, in what presumably was a coordinated attack to decimate the Kurdish freedom fighters… oops, i meant “the vicious Kurdish terrorists” (one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter).
Candidates backed by the Kurdish separatist movement PKK won 36 seats in the Turkish parliament, but prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) managed to disqualify enough of them to force all the others to boycott the parliament, which means that right now 15 million Kurds are not represented in the parliament of the country that rules them against their will.
Now that the Palestinians are sailing towards independence, now that the Arab Spring has removed medieval dictators from so many Arab countries, now that Lebanon is a vibrant democracy, now that South Sudan has obtained independence, it is perhaps time to dismantle the last of the medieval aberrations of the Middle East: the non-existence of the Kurdish people, whose territory is split between Iraq (where they are largely autonomous), Iran and Turkey.
Let us not forget that Turkey never acknowledged the genocide it carried out in Armenia, and still punishes Armenia that refuses to remove two million dead bodies from its history books.
Terrorism is not only made by crazy individuals who kill civilians (and the Kurdish “terrorists” seem to target military personnel only). Terrorism is also made by stubborn governments that hold on to their imperial ambitions and are willing to kill an unlimited number of people to suppress the historical truth.
Timeline of Turkish History
200BC: Mao-tun unites the Turkic-speaking Huns (Xiongnu, Hsiung-nu) in Central Asia around Lake Bajkal and southeastern Mongolia
552: Turkic people led by Tumin/Bumin destroy the Juan-juan (Avars) and establish the Turkic Khaganate of Gokturk in Central Asia from the Black Sea to Mongolia
553: Tumin dies and the Turkic Khaganate splits into Western and Eastern Khanates
567: the western Turkic Khaganate invades Transoxania
603: the western Turkic Khaganate self-destroys in a civil war
630: The eastern Turkic Khaganate is conquered by China
682: the eastern Turkic Khaganate regain independence from China under Kutluk
694: Tugluk’s brother Khapghan extend the Turkic empire over Transoxania, thus unifying eastern and western Turks
712: the Arabs, led by Kutayba ben Muslim, conquer Transoxania and convert the Turks to Islam
833: Sultan al-Mutasim creates a regiment of Turkish slaves
744: the Turkic empire of Gokturk self-destroys again in a civil war
880: the Abbasid dynasty is replaced in Egypt by a Turkic dynasty
932: the Turkic Qarakhanid dynasty is founded in Kashgar
962: the Ghaznavid kingdom is founded in Afghanistan (at Ghazni) by Alp-tegin, a Turkic slave soldier of the Samanids
985: the Turkic-speaking Seljuks (led by Seljuk) invade Transoxania (Ilkhan) and convert to sunnite Islam
995: Gurgandj (Kunya-Urgench, Turkmenistan) becomes the capital of the Khorezmshakh state
1038: the Seljuks, led by Toghrul Beg/ Tugrul Bey, defeat the Ghaznavids at Dandanaqan (near Merv)
1042: the Seljuks conquer Khorezm
1048: Turk nomads raid the Byzantine empire for the first time
1055: the Seljuks (sunni), led by Toghrul Beg, defeat the Buyids (shiite), invade Mesopotamia and install themselves in Baghdad under the suzerainty of the Abbasids
1064: the Seljuk king Alp Arslan moves the capital to Ray (Tehran)
1064: the Seljuks invade Armenia
1071: the Seljuqs led by sultan Alp Arslan defeat the Byzantine army at the battle of Malazgird, capture Jerusalem and establishing a sultanate in central Anatolia
1072: the Seliuqs move the capital from Ray (Tehran) to Isfahan but Alp Arslan dies, succeeded by his son Maliksah
1073: the Seliuqs defeat the Qarakhanids, taking Bukhara and Samarkand
1076: the Seliuqs invade Syria and Palestine
1141: the Karakitai defeat the Seljuqs at the battle of Qatwan, thus destroying Seljuq power in Central Asia
1153: the Khwarazmis (Turkish mercenaries) conquer Persia from the Seljuqs
1157: Seljuq’s sultan Sancar dies
1175: the Ghaznavid state is absorbed into the Ghurid empire, which is also Turkic-speaking
1176: Byzanthium is defeated by the Turks of Rum at Myriokephalon
1169: Saladin Ayubbid, a Kurdish general, ends the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt and founds the Ayubbid dynasty
1174: Saladin takes Damascus from the Syrian ruler
1187: Saladin retakes Palestine and Jerusalem
1192: Saladin signs an armstice with King Richard I of England tha grants the Christians a small kingdom outside Jerusalem
1193: Saladin’s brother Malik Adil becomes sultan of Egypt and Syria
1194: the Seljuqs conquer Anatolia
1194: the last Persian Seljuq ruler dies and Seljuq power collapses in Iran
1200: Ali ad-Din Muhammad becomes shah of the Khwarizm/Khwarezmian empire that extends from Uzbekistan to Persia
1220: the Mongols invade Transoxania (Bukhara and Samarkand) and Iran/Persia
1241: Batu’s younger brother Shayban raids Hungary and then splits, establishing the Shaybanid Horde
1243: the Mongols conquer the Rum state in Anatolia
1301: Osman founds the Ottoman dynasty in Anatolia
1354: the Ottomans occupy Gallipoli, first outpost in Europe
1391: the Ottomans conquer Bosnia and Wallachia
1439: the Ottomans annex Serbia
1453: the Ottoman capture Constantinople/Byzantium and rename it Istanbul
1460: the Ottomans conquer Greece and Serbia
1516: the Ottomans annex Syria and Palestine
1517: the Ottomans conquer Egypt and western Arabia
1529: The Ottomans conquer Algiers
1534: the Ottomans capture Baghdad
1541: The Ottomans conquer Hungary
1555: the Ottoman empire conquers Mesopotamia
1555: The “false” Mustafa leads a revolt against the Ottoman ruler in Thrace and Macedonia but Mustafa is captured and killed and thousands of rebels are executed
1571: in the battle of Lepanto an army formed by the Pope, Spain, Venezia and Genova destroys the Ottoman navy, thus halting Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean
1576: The Ottomans capture Fez in Morocco
1676: Poland surrenders Ukraine to the Ottomans
1682: beginning of the Hundred Year War between the Hapsburg monarchy and the Ottoman empire
1699: the Ottomans lose Hungary to the Holy Roman Empire (“Treaty of Carlowitz”)
1699: The Ottomans and the Habsburgs sign the peace treaty of Karlowitz by which the Ottomans cede Hungary and Transylvania to the Habsburgs, Dalmatia to Venezia, southern Ukraine to Poland and Azov to Russia
1725: The Ottomans conquer Tabriz, Armenia and Georgia from Iran
1727: first printing press in the Islamic world (Istanbul)
1793: the Ottoman sultan Selim III proclaims the “new order”
1801: The Ottomans and the British defeat Napoleon’s troops in Egypt
1803: Mehmet I deposes the Ottoman governor of Egypt
1832: Greece becomes indepedent
1833: Egypt conquers Syria from the Ottoman Empire
1853: In the Crimean war Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire fight Russia (the first major war in which Christian countries side with a Muslim country)
1866: the Ottoman protectorates of Moldavia and Wallachia unite in the federation of Romania
1878: the Congress of Berlin grants Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania independence and creates an autonomous Christian principality of Bulgaria within the Ottoman Empire
1908: the “Young Turks” stage a revolution and depose sultan Abdulhamid II of the Ottoman empire
1908: Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman empire
1909: Tel Aviv is founded as a Hebrew speaking Jewish city in Ottoman Palestine
1912: Italy takes Libya and the Dodecanese islands from the Ottoman Empire
1913: a triumvirate (minister of war Enver, interior minister Talat, Istanbul governor Jemal) rules the Ottoman empire
1914: the Ottoman Empire enters World War I in an alliace with Germany and Austria
1915: the Ottoman empire massacres 1.2 millions of Armenians
1915: the Ottoman empire massacres 500,000 Assyrians between 1915 and 1920
1916: the Ottoman empire slaughters 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks between 1916 and 1923
1918: the Ottoman Empire is defeated in World War I, Britain takes control of Iraq and Transjordan while France claims Syria and Lebanon
1923: Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) abolishes the Ottoman empire, declares Turkey a republic, replaces the Arabic script with the Latin alphabet, outlaws the Islamic veil for women, and moves the capital from Istanbul to Ankara
1935: Turkey grants women the right to vote
1950: Turkey holds the first multi-party elections and elects Adnan Menderes prime minister
1952: Turkey joins NATO, the only Muslim country to do so
1955: Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran and Britain sign the Baghdad Pact that de facto asserts British influence in the Middle Eastagainst the Soviet Union
1960: Turkey’s prime minister Adnan Menderes is overthrown and executed by the army
1974: Turkey invades half of Cyprus to protect the rights of the Turkish population from the Greek majority
1974: the Kurdish Worker’s Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan or PKK) is founded in Turkey to establish an independent Kurdish state in predominantly Kurdish southeast Turkey
1980: Abdullah Ocalan leads the PKK in an armed struggles against the Turkish government
1999: Abdullah Ocalan is captured by the Turkish government
2003: the Islamic-oriented “Justice and Development Party” (AK Party) wins elections in Turkey and Recep Tayyip Erdogan becomes the country’s prime minister
2007: Following the killing of a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader, Kurdish separatists kill scores of soldiers in Turkey at the border with Iraq
2011: Turkish warplanes kill 35 people near the border with Iraq, mistaking them for Kurdish rebels
2011: Turkey’s economy grows 8.5%, one of the highest growth rates in the world
2012: There are 97 members of the news media in jail in Turkey, more than in mainland China, and about one million websites are blocked
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