As Russia intensifies airstrikes on the terrorists’ oil smuggling routes, the Russian defense ministry released footage of Su-34 bombers destroying an ISIS oil-refining plant near the Syrian city of Ras al-Ayn on the border with Turkey. Released on Thursday the video shows Russian jets hitting the illegal oil reservoirs located on territory under Islamic State control.
Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
A year ago, Germany’s Green Party wanted to hold a vote on responsibility for the Ottoman massacres, a systematic expulsion and annihilation of over 1 million ethnic Armenians in 1915.
Germany delayed the vote, not wanting to upset Turkey... until yesterday, when Germany held the vote, upsetting Turkey much more.
After a near-unanimous vote, Turkey recalled its ambassador to Germany calling the vote, “null and void”.
Moments ago, in a move that will infuriate Turkey, the German parliament withstood a barrage of pressure from the Turkish government, and approved a symbolic resolution that declares the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces a ‘genocide’, a step widely viewed as a tacit escalation against Turkey. The vote was almost unanimous in supporting the resolution with just one MP voting against and another abstaining. The move was largely expected and was supported by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Hundreds of Turkish academics are waiting to find out whether they will be prosecuted or sacked for spreading “terrorist propaganda”, after they signed a petition calling for violence to end in Turkey’s southeast, where government forces have been fighting Kurdish separatists.
The Russian Foreign Minister has slammed the presence of Turkish troops on Iraqi soil as “unacceptable,” and has called on Ankara to pull out from the Arab country. “We demand that Turkey withdraw its troops from the Iraqi territory where they are located to strengthen the sovereignty of Iraq, according to ex-Prime Minister [Ahmet] Davutoglu,” Sergei Lavrov said. Press TV reports: Last December, Turkey deployed some 150 soldiers, equipped with heavy weapons and backed by 20 to 25 tanks, to the outskirts of Mosul, the capital of Iraq’s northern Nineveh Province.