The Syrian Conflict Thread

Seriously said:
So you are saying that Turkey are blocking russian ships from passing though turkish sovereign waters? Interesting indeed. I wonder why?
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Tit-for-tat but they just say hampering/interfering with passage, not blocking. They can only do that if they are at war. It reminds me of the Suez crisis and Egypt.
 
Israeli, Russian officials to meet for talks on continued Syria coordination

Israeli and Russian military officials are set to meet on Tuesday for talks on deepening the two countries’ coordination in Syria amid a bloody civil war that has seen increasing intervention from Moscow.

It was not immediately clear where the officials would be meeting, according to Army Radio.

The meeting comes after talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Paris climate conference on Monday.

Netanyahu said after the meeting that Israel and Russia are to increase their military coordination during the latter’s ongoing airstrikes in Syria.

“I just had an important talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We agreed to deepen the coordination between us in order to prevent mishaps and to do so on a broad basis,” Netanyahu told reporters after their brief meeting.

“I think that every citizen of Israel understands today, in light of recent events on the Turkish border, the great importance of my trip to Moscow and these ongoing contacts with the Russian president,” he said, referring to the Russian jet shot down last week by Turkey along the Turkish-Syrian border.

Furthermore, Netanyahu said, senior Israel Defense Forces and Russian military officers were to meet Tuesday “in order to continue this policy.”

The prime minister said the Kremlin strongman had updated him on the developments with the Russian warplane.

Putin also expressed satisfaction at the deconfliction agreement reached with Netanyahu in September, which outlined a mechanism to avoid unintended clashes between the activity of the IDF and the Russian army.
He also acknowledged the mechanism had been proposed by Netanyahu.

More.. http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-russian-officials-to-meet-for-talks-on-continued-syria-coordination/
 
Seriously said:
So you are saying that Turkey are blocking russian ships from passing though turkish sovereign waters? Interesting indeed. I wonder why?
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According to that article its more restricting access and making Russian ships wait a long time than outright blocking.
 
Seriously said:
Putin do not at all look interested in that capture?
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he always has that same gormless look on his face no matter what (like there is a bit of boiled cabbage stuck between his incisors and upper lip)- unless of course when riding horses bare chested and wrestling wild animals to the ground
 
grantza said:
he always has that same gormless look on his face no matter what (like there is a bit of boiled cabbage stuck between his incisors and upper lip)- unless of course when riding horses bare chested and wrestling wild animals to the ground
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LOL :D

gormless - Wiktionary
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gormless
gormless (comparative more gormless, superlative most gormless). (chiefly Britain, of a person) Lacking intelligence, sense or understanding; foolish.
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Just like Zuma? I think at least he is more intelligent, I mean Putin of cause.
 
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grantza said:
he always has that same gormless look on his face no matter what (like there is a bit of boiled cabbage stuck between his incisors and upper lip)- unless of course when riding horses bare chested and wrestling wild animals to the ground
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We should start a purile humour thread.
 
AntiGanda said:
We should start a purile humour thread.
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it's a russian thing - you wouldn't understand.


but thinking of it, you must be the life and soul of every social event you attend - that dazzling personality, sparkling sense of humor - the very thread that holds the fabric of society together.
without you, we are doomed to a life of dull misery
 
LoL at the joke/humour comments. SadSacks or now SpongeBoB's have so little value to add about the topic at hand or just do not know what to say?
 
Seriously said:
So you are saying that Turkey are blocking russian ships from passing though turkish sovereign waters? Interesting indeed. I wonder why?
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The Straits aren't considered sovereign waters in the conventional sense, in times of peace the Montreux Convention allows free and unhindered access to and from the Black Sea.

Article 1 provides that "The High Contracting Parties recognise and affirm the principle of freedom of passage and navigation by sea in the Straits".

Article 2 states that "In time of peace, merchant vessels shall enjoy complete freedom of passage and navigation in the Straits, by day and by night, under any flag with any kind of cargo."

Article 11 states that Black Sea states are permitted to transit capital warships of any tonnage through the straits.
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When US special forces raided the compound of an Islamic State leader in eastern Syria in May, they made sure not to tell the neighbours.

The target of that raid, the first of its kind since US jets returned to the skies over Iraq last August, was an Isis official responsible for oil smuggling, named Abu Sayyaf. He was almost unheard of outside the upper echelons of the terror group, but he was well known to Turkey. From mid-2013, the Tunisian fighter had been responsible for smuggling oil from Syria’s eastern fields, which the group had by then commandeered. Black market oil quickly became the main driver of Isis revenues – and Turkish buyers were its main clients.

As a result, the oil trade between the jihadis and the Turks was held up as evidence of an alliance between the two. It led to protests from Washington and Europe – both already wary of Turkey’s 900-mile border with Syria being used as a gateway by would-be jihadis from around the world.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/isis-syria-turkey-us?CMP=share_btn_tw
 
The US on Wednesday accused Syria of buying oil from the Islamist militants of Isis and imposed sanctions on a Syrian businessman it claimed is at the centre of the trade.
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While US officials have often claimed that the Syrian government purchases oil from Isis, Wednesday's announcement represents the most direct accusation yet by the administration about the links between the Syrian regime and Isis.

"The United States will continue targeting the finances of all those enabling Assad to continue inflicting violence on the Syrian people," said Adam Szubin, acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/26/us-accuses-syria-of-buying-oil-from-islamic-state.html;)
 
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Syrian government forces seem to be making some progress now they have the air cover from Russia.

Rebels in Homs have brokered a ceasefire to surrender the parts of the city they hold

Syrian government officials said on Tuesday they had agreed on a deal for opposition fighters to withdraw from the last insurgent-held area of the city of Homs with their weapons as part of a local ceasefire agreement.

The Syrian army and allied militia launched a major ground offensive north of Homs city after Russia, main ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, started carrying out air strikes in support of the Syrian army and allied fighters two months ago.
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Other areas could be following suit.

Last month a powerful Syrian rebel group said it was studying the proposal put forward by an international mediator for the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...oms-idUSKBN0TK4TN20151201#BpwzCK8tS4WIFt3b.97
 
Erdogan has a trump card against Putin that would transform the Syrian war

Following the downing of a Russian warplane last week by Turkey, Russia has shown no signs of letting up on its military operations near the Turkish-Syrian border.
Prior to the incident, Moscow ignored calls by Ankara to put an "immediate end" to its airstrikes on Turkmen rebel brigades operating along the border.

The tension culminated in Turkey's decision to down the Su-24 fighter jet, which had been bombing units of Liwa Jabal al-Turkman — an ethnic Turkish group backed by Turkey — at the time it was downed.

Russia insisted the plane had been bombing "terrorists" in the area.

Burned by the incident, Russia deployed an advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system to the coastal province of Latakia and ordered that all Russian Su-24s be equipped with air-to-air missiles. Russian warplanes have continued pounding Turkmen rebels — the Turkish aid convoys along the border that supply them — with airstrikes.
These provocative moves are evidently meant as a message to deter Turkish jets from shooting down Russian planes in the future. But Russia has financial and geopolitical interests in keeping its retaliation asymmetrical — specifically, by bombing Turkish-backed rebel groups in Syria while refraining from engaging with Turkey in a military confrontation directly.

Asymmetrical or not, Turkey could feasibly perceive Russia's military buildup along the Turkish-Syrian border as a serious threat and invoke its most valuable trump card: the Turkish Straits.

The straits, which consist of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus, are a series of waterways in Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea — and the Mediterranean — to the Black Sea.
Turkey, which has full control over the Dardanelles and the Bosporus under the 1936 Montreux Convention, acts as the straits' custodian and regulates the passage of naval ships belonging to Black Sea states.

Russia currently depends on the unrestricted access to the straits afforded it under the Montreux Convention. Through the straits, it sends supplies to Syria from its Novorossiysk naval base in the Black Sea to Russian ports in Tartus and Latakia.

Historically, Russian ships have enjoyed unfettered access to the Mediterranean via the straits. Under Montreux, however, Turkey may legally block Russian military vessels from passing through the straits under two conditions: if it is at war with Russia or if it considers itself to be "threatened with imminent danger of war."
As Aaron Stein, a Turkey expert and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Business Insider on Tuesday, it remains unlikely that Turkey would go as far as to close the straits — even in these tense times.
"I think this scenario would only kick in a World War II type situation," Stein said in an email. "Turkey will keep the straits open per the convention and its historical practice."
But against the backdrop of Russia's escalating military presence along Turkey's southern border is Ankara's legal authority, under Article 21 of Montreux, to cut off one of Russia's most vital links to Syria if it feels threatened with war.
Turkey has already reportedly signaled that it is willing to take some steps of retaliation with the straits. Leonid Bershidsky, a Bloomberg View columnist, reported on Tuesday that Turkey is "making Russian cargo ships wait for hours before they're allowed to pass through the Bosporus."

That Russia has continued to target Turkmen villages and rebel brigades along the Turkish-Syrian border, despite Turkey's demands that it stop, would theoretically be enough for Turkey to invoke Article 21.
"It was the targeting of these Turkmen groups, villages, and convoys that led to Turkey summoning the Russian ambassador and demanding a halt to the strikes," The Soufan Group said on Monday. "Less than a week after, Turkey shot down the Russian jet."

Though Russia wants to weaken the Turkmen rebels so that they do not return to central Asia and strike Russia — and so they are less capable of fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces — Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is equally if not more invested in the continued well-being of the Syrian Turkmen, who are ethnically Turkish.
"Erdogan's determination to create a pan-Turkic sphere of influence is matched by Russia's to target Syrian Turkmen," the group added. "It is difficult to overstate how much this issue resonates with Turkey's President Erdogan and his government."


It is also difficult to overstate how important the Turkish straits are to Russia's continued military campaign in Syria.
"The so called Syrian Express deployments of Russian Ropucha and Alligator class landing ships and auxiliaries are vitally important to keep Russian troops inside Syria supplied," Cem Devrim Yaylalı, a Turkish naval analyst, wrote on his blog over the weekend.

"If Russia cannot send its ships through the Turkish Straits for any reason, the Russian soldiers deployed in Syria may find themselves in a very similar position of General Paulus' Army," he continued.
General Paulus was a Nazi commander in World War II who led Germany's drive on Stalingrad beginning in 1942. He and his troops were ultimately forced to surrender after their assistance from Germany's Sixth Army was cut off by strong Soviet Army formations.
The Germans' defeat at Stalingrad is said to have marked a turning point in the war, leading to the Allies' victory in 1945.

Yaylalı implied that Russia and Russian-backed troops in Syria could suffer the same fate if Russian naval ships are blocked from reaching the eastern Mediterranean and can't resupply their troops. Given how much pro-regime elements have benefited from Russian weapons and supplies since the war erupted in 2011, it is not an unreasonable prediction.

Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted how keeping its access to the straits — and to Syria — and avoiding a larger-scale conflict with NATO has likely factored in to Russia's decision to keep its retaliation limited and asymmetrical.

"Putin's options are limited," Zilberman said in an email, which is why he is "taking action on the margins/asymmetrically."
"That being said ... the Russian-Turkish relationship is a tinderbox," he added. "The deterioration in the relationship is a loss for both Moscow and Ankara. The egos of Putin and Erdogan may spin any future incident beyond control."
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/erdogan-trump-card-against-putin-222844006.html
 
Britain to bomb ISIS in Syria

The UK vote passes as yes to go ahead with bombing ISIS in Syria.
 
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