Obama and British Deploy Turkey to Provoke Putin

The Turkish government of ISIS-ally Recep Erdogan is being deployed by the Obama administration and the British to try to provoke Russian President Putin into their trap of escalating conflict towards thermonuclear war.

The 150 Turkish troops and 25 tanks that entered northern Iraq uninvited this weekend are “right next to Mosul and right between the Kurds and ISIS,” directly on the smuggling route for illegal ISIS crude into Turkey from Iraq, wrote ZeroHedge.com on Dec. 5. The Turkish daily Hurriyet added that the intent is that “Turkey will have a permanent military base in the Bashiqa region of Mosul.”

The Iraqi government Saturday protested that the Turkish action was an “invasion” and demanded their immediate withdrawal, and today escalated with a statement from the Prime Minister’s office saying: “In the absence of the withdrawal of these forces within 48 hours, Iraq has the right to use all available options, including recourse to the [U.N.] Security Council.” Turkey has so far only responded laconically that it has suspended any further troop transfers.

Given these developments, Zerohedge asks: “Ultimately, this is yet another escalation from Erdogan, and the timing, location, and vague explanation raise all sorts of questions about what exactly those 150 troops and 25 tanks are doing, but you can be sure that, if Baghdad rebukes Washington and green lights Russian recon and airstrikes in Iraq, we’ll find out soon enough.”

In a couple of new incidents between Turkey and Russia, Turkey earlier this week detained four Russian commercial ships in Turkey’s port of Samsun, for alleged “lack of documents” and safety violations. Three of the four ships were released on Dec. 4, but one remains detained. The Turkish action reportedly came after Russia held five Turkish ships at Novorossiysk, all of which have since been released. And the Turkish Foreign Ministry has protested that a Russian servicemen brandished a rocket launcher on his shoulder on deck of a Russian vessel as it passed through the Bosphorus strait, which bisects Istanbul.