Turkey: An opponent or NATO’s plan B for the ex-USSR?

29/05/2022

One nations, two states: Turkish-Azeri military merger brings NATO to Caucasus, Caspian

May 26, 2022
Azerbaijan, Turkey discuss prospects for development of military cooperation
Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov met with a delegation led by the Deputy Minister of National Defense of the Republic of Turkey Muhsin Dere on May 26….
…Hasanov noted…that cooperation with Turkey in military, military-technical and military education fields has been expanded in order to increase the…power of Azerbaijan….
The sides stressed [that] the support provided by Turkey in the military field, as in all areas, was of special importance.
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Azerbaijan assists pan-Turkic military integration of Kazakhstan

Trend News Agency
May 12, 2022
Azerbaijani defense minister meets chief of Kazakh MoD’s General Intelligence Department
Also see: Enhanced strategic partnership: Turkey pulls Kazakhstan into its military orbit
Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov met with a delegation led by the Chief of the General Intelligence Department of Kazakhstan’s Defense Ministry, Lieutenant General Serik Iztleuov….
Hasanov welcomed the guests and noted that relations between the two countries are based on a solid historical basis and close fraternal relations.
Besides, he gave detailed information about the work carried out in the territories liberated from Armenian occupation after the victory gained in the 2020 second Karabakh war under the command of the President of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ilham Aliyev.
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Turkey Shows What NATO Really Is

By Cihan Tugal
Dr. Tugal is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, who writes frequently on Turkey’s politics and society.
In April, as the world was occupied with Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a NATO member launched an attack on two of its neighboring territories. In a bombing campaign, Turkey targeted the camps of Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria, inflicting damage on shelters, ammunition depots and bases.
The irony went largely unnoticed. That’s hardly a surprise: For a long time, the Western world has turned a blind eye to Turkey’s heavy-handed treatment of the Kurds. Across decades, the Turkish state has persecuted the Kurdish minority — about 18 percent of the population — with devastating zeal. Thousands have perished and around a million have been displaced in a campaign of severe internal repression. But Western nations, except for a brief spell when Kurdish resistance was holding back an ascendant Islamic State, have rarely seemed to care.
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