Troubles In Turkey

[Tim the Tank Nut]

Erdogan has made all his own choices. In the case of Turkey there isn't a wide gap between the President and Congress (how unusual)

The Turks are free to sell their country to China. They were never likely to maintain close ties with Europe and now the chances of that diminish. Rule of law counts in the markets and Turkey doesn't have that right now.

When Erdogan engineered the false coup it was to put him in power for the rest of his life

[Roman Alymov]

The Turks are free to sell their country to China.

Don’t forget China is also under US sanctions, so hardly any longer able to dictate their will in business deals like they used to. To some extent US is doing its best to make their competitors alliance more balanced and stable.

[Tim the Tank Nut]

you are looking at it from the wrong side of the glass. Nations have interests and while I don't blame China for being "China First!" I am tired of the costs to the USA that are involved. If China and Russia decide to work with Turkey and bail them out then that is okay. China's needs and Russia's needs will still conflict with Turkey's desires.

China's population imbalance and residual poverty are real issues; coupled with pollution and corruption China has to be considerate of where their money goes. At least Russia has the advantage of being self sustaining with no real need for imports.

[Roman Alymov]

I am not blaming China for following their own interests (see how long and complicated were talks between Russia and China about Russian NG exports, price of it and financing pipeline construction). China was having very good negotiation position back than to leverage their interests, as Russia was already under Western sanctions and China enjoying massive profits from foreign trade. What I am saying is that now China is in position not so good it used to be (but still good) – it will make reaching agreements easier, as sides (China and Russia, China and Turkey, China and Iran etc) will be more equal (but still China is massively bigger economy than any of its above mentioned partners – and with equally massive internal problems).

Will see how it will work in practice.

[Jeff]

the Yuan has its own problems

 

There is certainly a risk in driving markets toward China but NOBODY does business with China and comes out ahead. If you get in with China, they own you completely and forever and segments of the market know that

If anyone really wants to put their economic trust in the yuan, go for it and good luck. Don't say you weren't warned.

[glenn239]

 

the Yuan has its own problems

 

There is certainly a risk in driving markets toward China but NOBODY does business with China and comes out ahead. If you get in with China, they own you completely and forever and segments of the market know that

If anyone really wants to put their economic trust in the yuan, go for it and good luck. Don't say you weren't warned.

 

 

For our imports we buy US dollars, (via, eventually, a US bank), transfer the funds to the factory's bank via the US SWIFT system, which then uses the US dollars to purchase local Yuan. If the Chinese went to the Yuan for their exports, we'd just buy Yuan instead of USD for the payments. What we'd care about is that the Yuan exchange rate does not change in value that much in the timeframe of a container order and shipment, so that we don't bank on a widget costing $100 and it turns out to cost $200 due to changing currency values. Also, that when we pay a Chinese bank in Yuan, that the money gets to the factory it supposed to get to and the container goes to port for shipment.

 

I'd assume it does not even have to be the Yuan. It could be any currency - or even a commodity like gold - that's stable in price and can be traded reliably and in the volume necessary. We don't GAF about the logistics. All we care about is getting our goods here having paid the number of CDN dollars we expect to pay.

[Josh]

The yuan has absolutely seen a lot of fluctuation recently, though I suppose only in a relatively good way for importers. Also I'd hardly call the yuan the more stable currency long term given that the monetary policy of China can change much more quickly than the US, given the CCP's absolutely control over their banking system vice the relative independence of the Fed. But we can agree that a key metric for an exchange currency is stability.

[Jeff]

The yuan has absolutely seen a lot of fluctuation recently, though I suppose only in a relatively good way for importers. Also I'd hardly call the yuan the more stable currency long term given that the monetary policy of China can change much more quickly than the US, given the CCP's absolutely control over their banking system vice the relative independence of the Fed. But we can agree that a key metric for an exchange currency is stability.

 

Not just stability but transparent and accurate value. If the major world stock markets give people heartburn, just look at the Chines stock market. You could throw darts at a dartboard and get more believable values. Just how much trust do people have in official Chinese economic numbers? They may be stable but I doubt they're very accurate. And if you don't like US hegemony in the world market, you'll just love the kinder, gentler Chinese hegemony.

[glenn239]

The Yuan is used by 1.5 billion Chinese daily to live their lives. If their factories are willing to be paid in Yuan from overseas, then that's not much different from what they accept as normal already.

 

In terms of hegemony, there will be none unless the United States or China implodes. And neither will. It will be international currency/trade balance of power, probably a cross or mash up between the US free market system after the Cold War and the trading blocs of the Cold War.

Edited August 15, 2018 by glenn239

[JWB]

Sultan has released Taner Kılıç:

 

https://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights/2018/08/16

[BansheeOne]

They also released two Greek soldiers who had been jailed after straying across the border in March, in an apparent attempt to curry favor with the Europeans as a balance to the conflict with the US. As I saw some American expert being quoted, that's the trouble with hostage policy - you end up releasing some hostages to try and compensate for the damage you caused by taking others. Obviously they can't free Brunson right now without a major loss of face; I guess they could release the American-Turkish NASA guy and the three US embassy staffers, but nobody really seems to care about them (there are always more and less PR-valuable hostages).

 

Turkish court rejects U.S. pastor Brunson's appeal for release - Haberturk

 

By Reuters • last updated: 17/08/2018

 

ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish court has rejected an appeal to release American Christian pastor Andrew Brunson from house arrest, broadcaster Haberturk said on Friday.

 

Brunson, an Evangelical pastor residing in the coastal province of Izmir, is standing trial in Turkey over terrorism charges. His case now lies at the heart of a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the United States that has prompted a crash of Turkey's lira currency.

 

The lira, which has lost some 40 percent of its value this year, weakened beyond 6.21 against the U.S. dollar after the news, from 6.04 beforehand.

 

http://www.euronews.com/2018/08/17/turkish-court-rejects-us-pastor-brunsons-appeal-for-release-haberturk

[Mistral]

They also released two Greek soldiers who had been jailed after straying across the border in March, in an apparent attempt to curry favor with the Europeans as a balance to the conflict with the US. As I saw some American expert being quoted, that's the trouble with hostage policy - you end up releasing some hostages to try and compensate for the damage you caused by taking others. Obviously they can't free Brunson right now without a major loss of face; I guess they could release the American-Turkish NASA guy and the three US embassy staffers, but nobody really seems to care about them (there are always more and less PR-valuable hostages).

 

Turkish court rejects U.S. pastor Brunson's appeal for release - Haberturk

 

By Reuters • last updated: 17/08/2018

 

ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish court has rejected an appeal to release American Christian pastor Andrew Brunson from house arrest, broadcaster Haberturk said on Friday.

 

Brunson, an Evangelical pastor residing in the coastal province of Izmir, is standing trial in Turkey over terrorism charges. His case now lies at the heart of a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the United States that has prompted a crash of Turkey's lira currency.

 

The lira, which has lost some 40 percent of its value this year, weakened beyond 6.21 against the U.S. dollar after the news, from 6.04 beforehand.

 

http://www.euronews.com/2018/08/17/turkish-court-rejects-us-pastor-brunsons-appeal-for-release-haberturk

 

Actually the two were held as a bargaining chip, there are 8 Turks who fled with a UH-60 to Greece back in 2016 after the coup, since March both the Sultan and his ministers directly asked for an exchange implying that the two are held over espionage but if they 8 were returned then... to no avail a number of times.

 

They indeed have raised hostage taking to an art over there.

[Markus Becker]

 

They indeed have raised hostage taking to an art over there.

 

I disagree. Taking hostages from nations goverened by spineless leaders isn't a challange. Which is what the regime has been doing mostly.

[BansheeOne]

Well, that the US government took about half a year to get in gear about their hostages can probably be attributed in part to the coincidental transition period between the Obama and Trump administrations - and to transient National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who was in Erdogan's pocket, published an article demanding support for Turkey's fight against "terrorism" even on election day, and tried to have Gülen deported. It may have indeed encouraged Erdo to try the same trick with others' citizens, but after this initial slack, all affected countries reacted more or less the same way.

 

I just found a quite recent report by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies on the whole sorry topic which looks at the US, German and Greek responses in particular, but also makes reference to other cases I hadn't heard of so far - British, Czech, Dutch, French and Swedish. In fact next to the two American citizens, the two Czech guys have been in prison the longest, detained since November 2016. This part from page 18 f. is really the essence of the Turkish policy:

 

Hostage Diplomacy

In the spring of 2017, a series of statements, reports, and actions by the Turkish government and its Western counterparts began to indicate that Turkey’s detentions of American and European citizens served a purpose beyond the harassment and intimidation of Erdogan’s foreign and domestic critics: They helped Ankara gain leverage in its dealings with Washington and European governments.

In April 2017, in the midst of a war of words with German Chancellor Merkel about the arrest of reporter Deniz Yucel, Erdogan vowed in a public speech that Yucel would not be released “as long as I remain in office,” citing the reason as Germany’s refusal to extradite suspected Turkish coup fugitives seeking asylum there.

That same month, an infamous Turkish prisoner in New York, the Iranian-born sanctions-buster Reza Zarrab, hired former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and ex-U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey as his lawyers. The two attorneys told the court that they had met with Erdogan earlier in February – a meeting the duo described as part of their efforts to seek “a state-to-state resolution” to the sanctions-buster’s case, adding that “senior officials in both the U.S. and Turkish governments remain receptive to pursuing the possibility of an agreement.”

In July 2017, the German daily Bild reported that Turkey had allegedly offered to release Turkish-German prisoner Deniz Yucel in exchange for Berlin’s extradition of two former Turkish generals who had fled to Germany after the failed coup, but that German officials had refused.

Meanwhile, the July 5 Turkish raid on human rights activists and Amnesty International, including Steudtner and Gharavi, came a day before high-level meetings in Ankara with the European Union enlargement commissioner, exacerbating suspicions about Turkish intentions behind the arrests.

On August 18, BuzzFeed published a report, citing European security officials accusing Turkish representatives of repeatedly linking the arrests of Americans and Europeans to the extradition of Turkish citizens sought by Ankara abroad – mostly ones accused of involvement in the 2016 coup attempt. The report cited European officials from different countries, including Germany and France. Critically, it quoted German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel responding to BuzzFeed’s question on why Deniz Yucel was still imprisoned without an indictment: “Turkey, in my opinion, holds him as a hostage.”

On August 25, Erdogan issued an emergency decree that authorized him to trade foreign detainees in Turkey for Turkish citizens held abroad. The decree, which followed the issuing of additional charges against jailed Pastor Andrew Brunson, signaled that Erdogan might be seeking to trade the American prisoner for the Turkish prisoner in New York, Zarrab, who possessed damaging information on how Erdogan’s government executed a massive scheme to launder billions of dollars to Iran at the height of international sanctions targeting Tehran’s nuclear program in 2012-2013.

On September 28, 2017, Erdogan suggested swapping Pastor Brunson for the U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose extradition Ankara had been demanding from Washington for over a year since the coup attempt. In a televised speech, Erdogan linked the fates of the two men and said, “‘Give us the pastor back’, they say. You have one pastor as well. Give him to us, then we will try [brunson] and give him to you.” The U.S. State Department promptly dismissed the possibility of such a deal.

[...]

Edited August 17, 2018 by BansheeOne

[Tim the Tank Nut]

I just can't see any reason for coddling the Turks at this point. Drive them into the arms of the Russians, who cares?

The Sultan will not learn until he feels the gentle caress of real power as handle by the Russian President

[Ssnake]

They indeed have raised hostage taking to an art over there.

 

If we want to call it an art form, they are not very good at it. I don't see them getting a lot out of it, except losing a lot of credit literally everywhere.

[Mikel2]

 

 

They indeed have raised hostage taking to an art over there.

 

I disagree. Taking hostages from nations goverened by spineless leaders isn't a challange. Which is what the regime has been doing mostly.

 

 

Isn't this the way the Ottoman empire operated for many centuries anyway?

[Colin]

Start putting travel warnings and affecting the tourism trade and they might think twice about it.

[BansheeOne]

That's what Germany did after the arrest of human rights activist Peter Steudtner in May last year, with further elevation last September; though at a point where a peak of 55 German residents (not necessarily citizens) where detained in Turkey, it was really a no-brainer, even if the Turks bitterly complained about "unjustified sanctions". Number of tourists from Germany accordingly dropped from 5.6 million in 2015 to 3.6 million in 2017. The advisory was downgraded after the Turkish state of emergency was ended following the presidential elections this June, but remains elevated; by my count, nine German-Turks are currently in custody there, slightly up from six earlier this year.

 

However, German tourism to Turkey already started to normalize after the high-profile cases of Steudtner and journalists Denis Yücel and Mesale Tolu were resolved between last October and this February, with other means like blocking arms exports and limiting government guarantees for general export businesses also used to effect this (though everybody denied the former was linked to the hostage crisis when the ban was lifted at the time Yücel was released). Of course the resurgence was in part because prices for Turkish vacations had crashed by 30-40 percent.

[bojan]

 

Isn't this the way the Ottoman empire operated for many centuries anyway?

 

Pretty much. Plus slavery raids, plus children stealing etc.

[BansheeOne]

The advisory was downgraded after the Turkish state of emergency was ended following the presidential elections this June, but remains elevated; by my count, nine eight German-Turks are currently in custody there, slightly up from six earlier this year.

 

However, German tourism to Turkey already started to normalize after the high-profile cases of Steudtner and journalists Denis Yücel and Mesale Tolu were resolved between last October and this February

 

Slight correction, but additionally Tolu was still under a ban to leave Turkey while proceedings against her went on after she was released from jail. That just got lifted for no particular judical reason; definite charme offensive towards Europe in an attempt to counterweight the US sanctions.

 

ETA: Also:

 

Drive-by shooting at US embassy in Turkish capital, no casualties: report

By Edmund DeMarche | Fox News

Turkish authorities on Monday responded to a drive-by shooting at the U.S. embassy in Ankara amid increased tensions between the two countries over the detained American pastor, Reuters reported.

There were no injuries, but a window in a security cabin was reportedly hit. The shooting occurred at about 5 a.m. local time.

 

The report said the embassy was set to be closed this week for Eid al-Adha festival.

 

Private Ihlas news agency said four to five rounds were fired from a moving white car and targeted security booth outside Gate 6.

 

Earlier Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration rebuffed Turkey’s offer to release pastor Andrew Brunson if the U.S. halted the investigation into Turkish bank Halkbank.

 

The Turkish government agreed to drop terrorism charges against the pastor in exchange of the U.S. government dropping fines totaling billions of dollars against the bank.

 

“A real NATO ally wouldn’t have arrested Brunson in the first place,” the official told the Journal.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/08/20/drive-by-shooting-at-us-embassy-in-turkish-capital-no-casualties-report.html

Edited August 20, 2018 by BansheeOne

[Markus Becker]

Start putting travel warnings and affecting the tourism trade and they might think twice about it.

The chairwoman of the ailing SPD is proposing the opposite. German aid for Turkey. No kidding. The party is dropping in the polls like a safe in free fall and she said that. What a fail!

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

The advisory was downgraded after the Turkish state of emergency was ended following the presidential elections this June, but remains elevated; by my count, nine eight German-Turks are currently in custody there, slightly up from six earlier this year.

 

However, German tourism to Turkey already started to normalize after the high-profile cases of Steudtner and journalists Denis Yücel and Mesale Tolu were resolved between last October and this February

 

Slight correction, but additionally Tolu was still under a ban to leave Turkey while proceedings against her went on after she was released from jail. That just got lifted for no particular judical reason; definite charme offensive towards Europe in an attempt to counterweight the US sanctions.

 

ETA: Also:

 

Drive-by shooting at US embassy in Turkish capital, no casualties: report

By Edmund DeMarche | Fox News

Turkish authorities on Monday responded to a drive-by shooting at the U.S. embassy in Ankara amid increased tensions between the two countries over the detained American pastor, Reuters reported.

 

There were no injuries, but a window in a security cabin was reportedly hit. The shooting occurred at about 5 a.m. local time.

 

The report said the embassy was set to be closed this week for Eid al-Adha festival.

 

Private Ihlas news agency said four to five rounds were fired from a moving white car and targeted security booth outside Gate 6.

 

Earlier Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration rebuffed Turkey’s offer to release pastor Andrew Brunson if the U.S. halted the investigation into Turkish bank Halkbank.

 

The Turkish government agreed to drop terrorism charges against the pastor in exchange of the U.S. government dropping fines totaling billions of dollars against the bank.

 

“A real NATO ally wouldn’t have arrested Brunson in the first place,” the official told the Journal.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/08/20/drive-by-shooting-at-us-embassy-in-turkish-capital-no-casualties-report.html

 

 

Im finding the assertion of what constitutes a real NATO ally dependent on personal relationships with the United States as increasingly disconcerting.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Stuart Galbraith

[Jeff]

Im finding the assertion of what constitutes a real NATO ally dependent on personal relationships with the United States as increasingly disconcerting.

Because the US should just continue to shoulder the load and STFU. That's not what we think the definition of an "ally" is. I can see why Europe likes the idea but we don't.

[BansheeOne]

I don't even know where the report mentions personal relationships?