“We’re playing Russian roulette with people’s lives, letting convicted, known, radicalised jihadi criminals walk about our streets”. — Chris Phillips, former head of the UK National Counter Terrorism Security Office, The Guardian, December 1, 2019.
If the current crisis facing Turkey is entirely of Mr Erdogan’s own making, that has not prevented the Turkish president from trying to deflect attention away from his own mishandling of the conflict by seeking to provoke a new migrant crisis in Europe.
Turkey would apparently like to see more progress in the talks to grant it admission as a full member of the European Union…. Erdoğan would most certainly like the West overlook his massive democratic deficit, and to help Turkey secure even more dominance over the Greek islands off its coast, as well as its claims on the gas fields beneath the eastern Mediterranean.
Just last week, France agreed to send war frigates to the eastern Mediterranean, a decision welcomed by Greece and decried by Turkey. The relationship between Paris and Athens has been strengthened over the issue of access to energy reserves, with the two countries pursuing a more comprehensive framework for strategic defense. The French deployment of warships can just as easily be seen as a signal to Turkey, which has stationed its own navy in the Mediterranean, ostensibly as a show of force. France and Turkey find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict in Libya, and French President Emmanuel Macron has publicly castigated Turkish leader Tayyip Recep Erdogan for Ankara’s increasing involvement in Libya.
The potential for an energy bonanza in the eastern Mediterranean has led to increased tensions throughout the region, from southeastern Europe to North Africa. Vast deposits of natural gas have been discovered off the island of Cyprus, a country divided since the mid-1970s between a Greek Cypriot majority and a Turkish Cypriot minority. The internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot government has moved forward with exploring the surrounding waters for energy deposits, bringing in the French energy giant Total and Italy’s ENI to continue searching for natural gas. The discovery of large deposits of hydrocarbon reserves in 2009 exacerbated existing but somewhat dormant tensions between countries in the eastern Mediterranean. The fight for energy exploration and production licenses has highlighted the commercial element to this geopolitical struggle.
An agreement between Turkey and Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) sets out new maritime boundaries and has contributed to an increase in the friction between Greece and Turkey. The newly forged deal with Libya represents just one in a series of commercial, legal, and diplomatic spats over maritime boundaries and potential supply and shipping routes. Turkey’s claims, under the agreement, infringe upon existing claims by Greece and Cyprus. The ‘EastMed’ pipeline project has led to opposing blocs, with Greece, Israel, Cyprus, and Egypt on one side, and Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (only recognized by Turkey) and Libya’s GNA on the other. The project is intended to deliver Israeli gas to southern Europe through Greece and Cyprus.
Libya has been caught in the middle, serving as a battleground for foreign interference and external military intervention. Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar has enjoyed the support of the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and France, despite his forces’ penchant for indiscriminate killings and war crimes. The role played by the UAE has been particularly pernicious, with Abu Dhabi supplying drones and fixed-wing aircraft to Haftar and the Libyan National Army (LNA). The Emiratis, Russians, and others have flooded Libya with weaponry in blatant violation of the United Nations arms embargo, which some have referred to as ‘toothless.’ The LNA has waged a scorched-earth campaign to capture Libya’s capital Tripoli, killing thousands, including hundreds of civilians in the process. Libya’s infrastructure is being destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced. Turkey continues to support the besieged GNA by providing military support and helping orchestrate Syrian mercenaries to the battlefield. Erdogan’s most significant contribution will be, if he can achieve it, helping to bring a temporary respite in the fighting for long enough that a cease-fire or peace deal can be negotiated, In the meantime, he will continue seeking to exploit Libya’s energy resources.
On October 26, 2019, U.S. Special Forces launched a major operation that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The French president’s recent speech is a sign that moderate leaders are waking up to the threat posed by political Islam.
Britain has tightens curbs against Kurdish terror groups in a new round of measures against extremists.
Tunisia’s interior ministry confirmed that security units had discovered, between February 10 and 22, three terrorist camps in the Kasserine Mountains in western Tunisia.
A new exhibition of photographs taken during and immediately after the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999, showing the suffering of the people on the ground, has opened in Prishtina.
This third extract from Ian Bancroft’s new book, ‘Dragon’s Teeth: Tales from North Kosovo’, tells the story of the so-called ‘University of Pristina, temporarily located in Kosovska Mitrovica’ and how it has become the lifeblood of north Kosovo.