TURKEY: More Walls…Less Peace

“Build that wall. BUILD THAT WALL! Build that wall!” Donald John Trump

Not to be outdone by an American president who appears unwilling to take his advice on isolating the Kurdish fighters who have led the resistance to, and now the assault on, the Islamic State (ISIS) strongholds, Turkish President and Chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced plans, at the end of May, to construct walls to the south and south-east with neighbours Iraq and Iran, to complement the 403 miles (650km) of wall already completed since 2014 along the 911km Turkey-Syrian Border.

The goal of the wall, like the Trump extravaganza (invoice to be forwarded to the Mexican people), is to keep out unwanted visitors (not to keep the Turkish military confined within its own borders, unfortunately) which for the AKP regime means Syrian refugees and the PKK militants engaged in a bloody conflict with the Turkish military since President Erdoğan abandoned crucial peace talks in July 2015.

The Turkey-Iran border runs for almost 500 kilometers. Turkish officials drew attention to a number of PKK camps they believe exist across the border which, they say, harbour up to 1,000 militants who “enter Turkey, carry out attacks, and leave.”

Iran is reported as having no objection to the fait accompli of the wall once Ankara notifies Teheran of its plans, on the grounds that smuggling from Turkey across the border into Iran is it is estimated to be costing the Iranians “billions of dollars”.

As we now enter the Era-of-the-Wall, whether it is Israel’s ‘security fence’ in the West Bank or the Kurdish border regions of an existing Turkish nation-state, or the U.S.-Mexican Border, the message is loud and clear, whether you are a Syrian refugee, a Kurdish militant, a displaced person seeking refuge and security in an increasing hostile world or any one of a possible hundred other Other–identities (“foreigner“, “stranger“) in a world increasingly falling under siege:

“If you are not one of us – you are  not welcome here…”

 

…walls, razor wire, enemies, sentries, dungeons, torture-centres, concentration camps…darkness. What is it going to take before we human beings let some light in, to realise “we are all in the s–t together” now. as we face the greatest threat to our survival  since the last great Dinosaur species was wiped out..?

séamas carraher

Image:

By Justin McIntosh – The Photographer. Originally uploaded to a different location., CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1157066

Other References:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201706031054275116-turkey-border-wall/

Video:

Fox 10 Phoenix: “BUILD THAT WALL!” Donald Trump Chants After Major Endorsement

FRANCE 24 English: The Kurdish rebel movement: PKK, War on all Fronts

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