@noemon
According to your source, the UAE, a country of less than 10 million people is a larger trading partner of Iran than the whole of the EU!
Sure, it's the banking hub of the middle east, trade in services with the UAE is the largest for most middle eastern countries.
while 'European' investment in Iran includes Turkish investment as well. As such your argument remains wrong.
And? Turkey's foreign investments as a whole barely compares to that of countries like Germany and the wider EU in Iran.
How does Turkey investing in Iran as well somehow refute my claim?
Germany and Spain are the largest investors, not Turkey.
Germany and Spain were the biggest investors in Iran over the period, with more than $3.96 billion and $3.2 billion worth of investments respectively.
https://financialtribune.com/articles/d ... on-in-mena In addition, the argument that Europe should sanction Iran even more than she already is in order to protect her borders from migrants being pushed into Europe by Turkish police is wholly and entirely laughable Anasawad and you must surely be able to realise why.
I don't, please explain why?
As far as I view it, it is Iran and Iranian backed militias doing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in mass and are the main reason for the refugee crisis, as such stopping them is a key step to resolve the refugee flow from the source.
Finally you have not provided a single reason as to why Europe should succumb to Turkish blackmail in Syria? Why?
I have.
The refugee crisis is mainly affecting Turkey, as such Turkey is attempting to treat it from the source.
If Turkey failed to do so, its economy will collapse and it will turn into a failed state, not only resulting in the huge mass of refugees heading to Europe on their own, but will result in even more instability and refugees coming from Turkey.
Turkey has purged the Kurds from Northern Syria and purging around 30% of your own population is not actually possible in the modern day and age for a variety of reasons both internal and external.
Turkey has purged the Kurdish militias in Northern Syria, pushing them into Iraqi Kurdistan in order to ensure no Kurdish state rising on its borders and inciting insurgency from the Kurdish population within and an ensuing war of independence.
However, that is no the same type of ethnic cleansing and purge the Baath and Iranian militias use.
a) Turkey is an active meddler in Syria, whatever she gets back from it is 100% her own fault.
Depends.
1- Turkey isn't the only one to help flame up the war, European countries were in on it as well.
2- Turkish role was minor before the last couple of years compared to other countries, which include many European powers.
So if Turkey deserves what it gets and should solve it on its own, then that same thing can be said about the EU.
b) Erdogan is not fuming because Greece is preventing the migrants from crossing, he is fuming because his blackmail is not working and he appears weak and incompetent.
His entire policy is driven by an attempt to relief the Turkish economy and state from the refugee crisis.
His blackmail of Europe is guided by the crisis.
c) the Bulgarian border is only a couple of km away and not a single migrant has attempted to cross from there. Why do you think that is? Because Erdogan tries to befriend Bulgaria and is working to develop a relationship there and doesn't want to mess this about by angering the Bulgarian PM. Erdogan does not care about the migrants at all, he only cares to achieve his expansion in Syria and to boast to his audience that his blackmail has humbled the Europeans, now that he is the one being humiliated he is having a fit of rage. Yet you are arguing that Europe should humiliate herself before Erdogan instead, why?
How exactly is Europe helping in finding a solution for the crisis humiliation?
And his audience doesn't care about the "blackmailing of Europe" nor does he, the state media in Turkey, directed at Turks and primarily his audience shows very clearly what and how the Turks view the situation.
Giving Turkey the European stamp of approval to expand in Syria will not solve any of these problems as you and Erdogan claim.
Disagree.
If Turkey's safe zone failed, the refugee flow will not only continue but be magnified.
First of all, Turkey cannot be trusted that she will keep any agreement with anyone like she proves time and again and like she has proven right now by reneging on the agreement she signed 4 years ago.
The agreement where the EU promised to help with the financial costs of handling the 4-5 million refugees but ended up with the EU not committing to any of the payments it promised where out of the nearly 7 billion Euros, less than 2 billions were sent resulting in the burden being held by the Turkish government and most NGOs and aid agencies falling short unable to provide anything for the refugees? That's the one you mean?
If any one has failed to meet its part in that agreement, it's the EU.
Second, giving Turkey a beachhead in Syria will only achieve one thing alone to boost Erdogan's ego and empower him to pursue more foreign adventurism either deeper into Syria and/or in Europe and/or in Libya. It will not solve any migrant issue, it will simply legitimise Turkey to go create more migrants and refugees both in Syria and elsewhere.
1- How is the creation of a safe zone, where people can be protected by international forces instead of having to flee and become refugees, a solution that will result in more refugees?
It did seem to work with American and Kurdish forces in the past couple of years until Trump bailed out on it.
I mean, that's the only disagreement I have with Turkey on this issue, which is that they shouldn't have broken that safe zone.
2- Weren't this safe zone proposed around, roughly, 2015 and proposed to have UN and international forces in to enforce it instead of just Turkish ones? If it was a Turkish expansion, I don't think they'd invite others to join in in keeping it.
The Syrian refugee issue started because several countries with Turkey first and foremost among them decided to create, fund and sustain a civil war against the legitimate Syrian government.
The Syrian refugee crisis started because Syria, an authoritarian fascist state, had a coup that turned into a civil war due to the intervention of Iranian forces and militias getting into the country in 2013, with other countries siding with the new rebels along with many Islamist groups joining into the war afterwards.
Syria has been having civil wars, attempted coups, uprisings, insurgencies, etc all the way back to the 80s; The difference between this one and the ones prior is that the prior ones all ended in the full extermination and genocide of all opposition. This one however had an unstable semi-stateless Iraq next door which allowed for the insurgency to gain outside support along with other armies going in.
If Turkey haven't involved, the war wouldn't have changed much for the first few years, but we would've seen a genocide taking place in the past year or so as the Baath regime along with Hezbollah and the wider Quds forces moving in to genocide all remaining resistance as did happen in Iraq in the 2006-2008 war.
See, that's the difference between my view and yours. You're trying to blame everything on Turkey, while I tend to look a little bit on the history of these regimes, allowing me to see how Turkish involvement right now is the only thing stopping a genocide as has been the routine for the past several decades.
Now all these countries have left and only Turkey remains in a tiny strip of land that she is losing inch by inch every day. It's time for her to come to terms with reality as well instead of chasing EUnicorns.
If Turkey withdrew, then the massacres will intensify, refugee flow will continue and grow, terrorism will increase much further as the main recruiters for many of these refugees are Islamists (See how ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Al-Shabab, etc all came to be) and further wars and crises will follow in the coming years.
And Europe is right there next to the middle east, so it will be forced to get involved in all of them.
Turkey losing its Syrian adventure will not turn it into a failed state, it will simply humble Erdogan and teach him that he cannot be going around doing anything he wants in the neighbourhood.
It will just overburden the Turkish state to the point of bankruptcy, which, considering the current events in its surroundings, primarily the restart of Kurdish insurgency in Iran and the unrest and potential civil war in both Iraq and Iran, would likely expand to Kurdish areas inside of Turkey (The thing that guided Turkey to attack the Kurds in north eastern Syria in the first place) all while it's bankrupt and unable to act. Meaning it will become a failed state.
Turkey is trying to expand in Syria and is trying to expand in Greece as well. Why would we legitimise her expansion? You have yet to offer a single reason mate.
Turkish-Greek conflict has been going on for a far longer time and is an entirely different issue.
And for that "one" reason, I have provided multiple reasons in each of my posts so far.