On March 6, a Turkish court ordered blocking access to You Tube because of videos allegedly insulting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state. Many Kurdish-English websites, newspapers, and TV channels are also being banned in Turkey – something that George Bernard Shaw of the New York Times called “the extreme form of censorship”. EU skepticism over an Islamic Turkish government
The skepticism of the European Union towards the efforts of Turkey's Islamist government to meet the EU standards has much elevated. Turkey has been at the center of the altercation between Islamism and freedom of speech. Scientists say religious Muslims in the government, that has its roots in political Islam, are trying to push Turkish education away from its traditionally secular approach.
Reuters newly noticed: Now here's a hilarious conundrum for the idiot left that cheers on reactionary Islamism as heroic anti-imperialism. Are we supposed to oppose this garbage when conservative Christians do it in the US, but support it when conservative Muslims do it in Turkey?
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has met and invited his Palestinian counterpart Ismail Haniya of the hardliner Islamist Hamas movement to visit Ankara. Haniya heads the new Palestinian government that includes Hamas, which is regarded as a terrorist group by Israel and the West. Turkey also has strong relations with Iran, which nowadays is almost an isolated regime in the international community, especially in relations with the US and its allies.
Turkish Islamist administration was annoyed by an EU mug in Brussels last March. The mug was offered to the French President by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the last European Union summit, but Turkish media said the lid of the mug portrayed the 1799 defeat of Turkish forces by Napoleon in Egypt. Although Turks are sensitive nationalists in the matter of their related issues, experts believe that the recent reaction by Turkish Foreign Minister was likely religion-related.
Another crucial trouble of Turkey with the EU is Cyprus. Last December, the EU suspended talks in 8 of the 35 areas because of Ankara's refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus, an EU member that Turkey does not recognize.
Now, it is still up to the US to decide whether to share Turkey’s heavy burden, which includes political, military, and financial assistance to overcome its ‘Kurd-phobia,’ the Armenian genocide, the Cyrus issue, the human rights violations, trouble joining the EU and so forth. Or, to support its’ new and loyal Kurdish ally in Kurdistan on which the Americans can depend without facing any hostilities and where, from the beginning of the Iraq War up to now – not a single US soldier has died.
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