Turkey is in the middle of a big clash of interests

Three important news stories, one after another, were reported by international news agencies on the same day.
The first one was a statement by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who openly accused the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria of massacres in Aleppo. 

The second story was Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement. “Negotiations are blocked by those who want to oust al-Assad … The U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254 demands the beginning of negotiations … Unfortunately, for more than half a year, negotiations have been blocked by those who, in violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution, are promoting an ultimatum that it is preliminarily necessary to remove al-Assad, which is of course unacceptable because such agreements have not been made,” Lavrov said. 

These two stories were reported from Rome at around the same time when the U.S. and Russian foreign ministers were attending the Med Dialogues 2016 conference. 

At the same time, we received a third story: A message from Iranian President Hasan Rouhani to the U.S.
“We are committed to an acceptable implementation of the nuclear deal but in response to non-commitment, violation or hesitation in its implementation, we will act promptly,” Rouhani said.  

Iran “will not tolerate the JCPOA’s violation by any of the P5+1 group of countries,” he said, adding that the U.S. Senate’s vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for a decade is “in blatant contravention to the JCPOA, and will be followed by Iran’s decisive response.” 

Then two days ago another key story came: Sirvan Barzani, a senior Peshermga official in the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said they were in talks with Baghdad for a possible independent state. According to him, Baghdad said ‘’Why not?” 

Who is this Baghdad administration? And who is it dependent on? Of course, it is dependent on the U.S. So the source of the “independent Kurdish state” green light signaled to Barzani is apparent. In other words, the U.S. from the beginning has foreseen a Kurdistan region or state, dependent on it, on the Syria-Iraq line. That is in the interests of the U.S. 

As for Russia, it fully supports the al-Assad regime. It has opened naval bases and military fields in the east of the Mediterranean Sea, and for this reason Lavrov is not giving up on al-Assad. Meanwhile, Moscow is in close cooperation with Iran against the U.S.   

Now, regarding Iran, the U.S. is reheating the “nuclear sanctions” issue in order to corner Tehran, which has serious initiatives in Syria and has formed a sphere of influence through sectarianism.

So in this region we can see great states engaged in an enormous “war of influence.” They want to re-draw the region’s borders.

At a time when Turkey cannot generate policies in parallel with these interests, these powers are trying to make “fine-tuning.” Turkey is at the center of this century’s great “clash of interests” and at the center of the fight to “re-draw” borders. It is at the center of the wars fought by forces aiming to create new small states.

It is also very important to pay attention to the fact that the decision on whether to apply sanctions on Iran, accusing it of building “a nuclear bomb,” has come from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Interestingly, the joint feature that the U.K., the U.S., China, Russia and France share is that they all have nuclear weapons.  

So is it a must to possess nuclear weapons in order to become a permanent member of the Security Council? What can we say about such a nuclear order, in which humanity is still seeking justice under World War II circumstances.   

Are those who have the weapons the decision-makers of humanity? Will nuclear powers continue to determine the fate of everyone else? 

Turkey is trapped in such a dangerous region, amid such a power-based sense of justice. So we certainly should be careful as a nation.