But after last summer’s elections in Turkey, everyone seemingly forgot about Ankara’s apparent complicity when Erdogan granted the US access to Incirlik from which Washington was henceforth allowed to fly combat missions. That, combined with Erdogan’s promise to step up the war on “terror,” was supposed to be “proof” of Turkey’s commitment.
Despite numerous reports to suggest that Turkey wasn’t striking ISIS at all, but rather simply targeting the PKK (Kurdish insurgents with whom Turkey has been at war for years), the mainstream media generally stuck to the script that said Ankara had officially joined the war on Islamic State.
And then, in November, Vladimir Putin pushed Turkey’s cozy relationship with ISIS back into the spotlight following Ankara’s move to down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Since then, the world has begun to question whose side the Turks are really on, especially in light of the evidence Moscow has presented linking Erdogan to Islamic State’s illicit oil trade.
Eyebrows were also raised when Erdogan jailed several generals who dared to inspect a weapons-laden MiT trucks crossing the border with Syria.
This week, we get the latest evidence that Turkey is Islamic State’s number one state sponsor as Cumhuriyet released transcripts of phone calls that allegedly took place between Turkish military officers and Mustafa Demir, the ISIS commander in charge of the Syria-Turkey border.
The transcripts are part of a court case on ISIS at the Ankara 3rd High Criminal Court. “The issues alleged in the case came to light because of an investigation launched following information given by six Turkish citizens whose relatives joined ISIL,” Today’s Zaman reports. “Upon the application by the relatives, monitoring of the communications of 19 people started, and a prosecutor named Derda Gökmen reportedly filed a claim against 27 suspects.”
Below, find the transcripts.
Read the rest here...