Last week, Turkey arrested Metin Topuz, a US consulate employee in Istanbul. Turkey accuses Topuz of having links to Pennsylvania-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Following the arrest, the US placed visa restrictions on Turkish citizens seeking to enter the US. When Turkey responded in kind the Turkish Lira Took a 6.6% Dive.
The Turkish lira slumped as much as 6.6% against the U.S. dollar on Monday after a spat over visas between the two countries intensified.
The nosedive in the currency came after the U.S. embassy in Ankara announced late Sunday that it would cease processing most kinds of visas for Turkish citizens.
Turkey’s embassy in Washington D.C. quickly responded in kind, saying it would halt visa applications for Americans. The lira clawed back most of those losses by late morning Hong Kong time and was trading down about 2.8% versus the dollar.
Turkey wants Gulen, who it blames for last year’s attempted coup, extradited from the U.S. to Turkey. Topuz is the second U.S. government employee in Turkey to be arrested this year.
The latest moves by both governments mean they will stop processing all visas except those for applicants who are seeking to emigrate. That will make it much harder for Americans to visit Turkey for business or leisure.
Open Secrets
CNN notes the US maintains 50 nuclear weapons in Turkey housed at the US air base at Incirlik. The weapons are Cold War-era B-61 “gravity” bombs.
“It’s an open secret” the bombs are at Incirlik, Joshua Walker of the German Marshall Fund, who specializes on US-Turkey relations, told CNN.
Turkey Chooses Russia Over NATO for Missile Defense
In July, Bloomberg reported Turkey Chooses Russia Over NATO for Missile Defense.
On September 12, The New York Times reported Turkey Signs Russian Missile Deal, Pivoting From NATO.
In the clearest sign of his pivot toward Russia and away from NATO and the West, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Tuesday that Turkey had signed a deal to purchase a Russian surface-to-air missile system.
The deal cements a recent rapprochement with Russia, despite differences over the war in Syria, and comes as Turkey’s ties with the United States and European Union have become strained.
It is certain to stir unease in Washington and Brussels, where officials are trying to keep Turkey — a longtime NATO member, and an increasingly unlikely candidate for European Union membership — from entering Russia’s sphere of influence.
Although a prospective missile purchase from Russia was made public several months ago, Mr. Erdogan’s announcement was the first confirmation that Turkey had transferred money to pay for the missile system, known as the S-400.
Mr. Erdogan’s announcement of the deal with Russia came after Germany said that it was suspending all major arms exports to Turkey because of the deteriorating human rights situation in the country and the increasingly strained ties
The real fireworks start when Turkey threatens to close US air base at Incirlik.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Trump’s goomba posturing has the counterproductive result of accelerating the demise of US power.
SWIFT is effectively dead which means sanctions will be near impossible to implement successfully in the future.
The US military is the laughingstock of the ROW, having proven itself during the last 15 years to be good only at blowing stuff up in sand land and not much else.
The Euros openly mock us these days . My Euro friends are baffled that a supposed first world country still strings up electric cables in the air instead of placing them underground.
The chincoms are long into diversifying their economy. away from dependence on selling us stuff.
Even the Japanese have woken up and are distancing themselves from Washington in their quiet way.
Same in Canada. Even in the richest, most exclusive areas. Cables everywhere, like in a South American slum.
Another thing that is weird from Euro-perspective – homes are made of particle board. Like movie props. But people put “high end” finishes on them and live in it.
Cable poles are infinitely preferable to underground conduits, as they make it much simpler for new entrants to hang new cables from them. San Francisco, true to childish progressive form, have spent a fortune attempting to alleviate this particular brand of Inferiority-vs-Euros complex, by removing poles and burying cables.
Resulting in a virtual impossibility for neighborhoods to play utility suppliers against eachother to obtain cheaper prices; and for startups to get going locally by simply simply hanging cable. Great for incumbents, sucks for everyone else. But it allows the dumb, childish and petty ones, to believe they are now somehow sophistimecated, like the idle captives of Europe…..
Housing is another matter altogether. US housing policy, like all US policy, is targeted solely at making people pay as much as possible, for as little as possible. Wit the difference going into the pocket of the leeching classes. Again in SF, $3mill for what is realistically a $50,000 house isn’t too far off norm. That way, as little money as possible goes to productive people, who actually build houses; and as much as possible goes to the usual army of leeching rent seekers that comprise the entirety of the US real estate rackets. Up to and including the President of the USA.
Europe, particularly Germany, for all it’s fault, still has a lobby consisting of competent people. Not just useless leeches. So while Germany/Europe too have Ricky Retardo land use and zoning laws, at least they enforce building codes that guarantees some of the millions people pay for a house, goes into actually building a house. Not a cardboard box priced as a castle, as is the standard in the US.
Many municipalities in Germany, and spreading to other countries in Europe, by now demand Passivhaus certification for new housing. Which, contrary to what the idiots parroting US real estate racket prapple claim, does NOT make housing more expensive. As the price of housing is 100% constrained by how much someone can borrow, and by availability limited by zoning. It has nothing whatsoever to do with cost of production.
Hence, all higher standards serve to do, is to transfer money from useless leeches, to people who produce a higher quality good. Over time resulting in, as usual, German building industry being world beating wrt to quality, efficiency, and competitiveness. Resulting in huge amounts of high paying jobs for highly competent and productive workers, and their ecosystem of highly sophisticated tool and component suppliers. As opposed to the US, where slapping cardboard together for minimum wage, while kissing up to worthless bankster and other rent seekers, is the only standard left.
Haha that’s your response to a legitimate issue pointed out? Talk about inferiority complex 🙂 This is truly 3rd world mentality with the excuses and all.
As for housing, you bring up Germany, but even the ex-communist Central-European countries have better quality SFH construction than Americans. Particle board is only used for garden sheds. In the US, the same material is used in multi-million dollar mansions.
It’s not a lobby that prevents Europeans from building paper houses. There have been US and Canadian companies trying to bring the “superior” American building system to Europe, but nobody would buy them. People know that it’s all crap.
If my “…idle captives of Europe..” quip came off as a slight towards Europeans, that was not the intention. Instead it was directed at a certain class of Americans who uncritically assume everything that exists in Europe must necessarily be better than kn America; for no other reason than that claiming so, makes you sound like you are “well traveled’ or some similar nonsense. Some things are still arguably “better” in America, but just as much is better in Europe. Back when America was a free country and Europe was not, Europeans flocked here by the shipload. Now that America is no longer a free country, it’s hard to argue one is systematically better than the other.
As for housing, anywhere not completely destitute or war torn, and without a legally imposed shortage of housing like America has, will have higher quality houses than the US. Simply because noone would buy contemporary US houses, if alternatives were available across the street. Where Germany differs a bit, is that they do have all manners of legal bans on supplying houses. But at least they reduce the worst fallout of those policies. By demanding that, as long as houses are going to be ridiculously overpriced either way, those paying for them should at least get something for their money. Not a roach and rodent infested shack costing at most a tenth of the selling price to build, just so that some army of zero productivity, zero contribution leeches can get away with charging a one thousand percent combined markup.
Stuki Moi – excellent post.
“…usual army of leeching rent seekers that comprise the entirety of the US real estate rackets.”
Bang on!
I don’t know. Where I live, all new power is underground, and the only new overhead power lines I’ve seen in the last 50 years has been for long distance energy transfer.
You sure have strange “Euro friends”…
EU was pushing very hard to join Turkey into the Union until Erdogan did what a tyrant does jailing innocent people, torturing them and doing everything to show his true colors.
The people – my “Euro friends” included – were against Turkey membership from the beginning. Nothing good could come from that. Also as reminder, Germany has millions of Turks living inside its borders…
My belief is that there will be another time when USA has to come to help its European friends. Somehow people tend to forget that there is much to be thankful for US armed forces when WW2 was put to an end.
In case you live inside USA you have all the right for self-hatred but don’t count me or many Europeans as hating Trump or the good ol’ USA of America. My grandmother was born in Philadelphia, btw.
There might be real problems in US as anywhere else but if people like Erdogan are allowed to do what they want, we will real soon have something much worse to think of.
I’m curious; do you consider that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m ambivalent, myself, just to be clear (assuming ambivalence provides clarity). 🙂
That was @ vooch, BTW, in reference to declining American power.
I don’t know a single turkish person who believes the coup attempt was real. everyone thinks it was staged by erdogan himself
Who really cares what the Europeans think. They are destroying their countries through immigration. Money is the God of Europe.
O/T A lot of political discussion going on today surrounding Cataluña, starting to point towards a declaration of independence taking place tomorrow…no one is stating that outright though.
Some violence in Valencia – a minutes skirmish between bands, someone getting kicked in the face, not good….goes on in spite of police presence, not that police don’t intervene, but that their presence is ignored till they charge.
That is strange. Valencians want independence too?
https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/10/09/actualidad/1507571459_012037.html
– With a Current Account Deficit of about 10% of GDP Turkey was already very vulnerable. And a slumping turkish Lira (think: rising price inflation & recession) is the best way to correct that Deficit.
– The relationship between Turkey and the US has been on “a roller coaster ride” in the last say 20 years. I do blame BOTH countries for this “bumpy ride”. A number of decisions made in the US (think: e.g. Syria) may have benefitted US interests in the short run but have turned out to be detrimental for the relationship in the long run and I fear the relationship will continue to get worse in the (near) future.
– Mrs. Sibel Edmonds made some dire predictions regarding Turkey. See her website “Newsbud.com” and search with the word “Turkey”. LOTS of good/interesting stuff available.
Turkey did not allow US forces to cross Turkey during the war with Saddam Hussein. Turkey repeatedly attacks US troops and US allies in Syria and Iraq. Turkey is a tinpot dictatorship. Turkish body guards attacked American demonstrators in Washington D.C.. President Trump knows the score. He supplied Syrian Kurds with $2.2 billion of weapons. Every day the Iraqi Kurd Peshmerga work with US forces against ISIS. USA supplies weapons and air support to Peshmerga. Kurdistan has declared independence. The USA is backing Kurdistan. Greater Kurdistan includes corridors to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Iran, Syria, and Turkey object to 50 million Kurds hiving off their homeland in these nations. It suits US objectives to have a strong Greater Kurdistan. The battle may be long but victory goes to the Kurds. Kurdistan was divided among the several nations after WWI for spite because the English Army was defeated by the Kurds in every encounter. Kurds are ancestors of Europeans and Kurds are good solid fighters.
You must live in Washington DC.
No. I am not a government employee after military service.
This reminds me of this board game… Fortress America.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91i1wAHnyBL._SL1500_.jpg
From a European POV, if Turkey falls out of the Western Sphere, it may no longer serve nearly as well as a buffer between Europe and the Middle East. I doubt Russia much cares whether a weakening Turkey gives Middle Easterners obtain easier access to Europe or not.
Heck, seeing the whole region devolve into Syria style chaos, will just make it harder for Europe to secure oil supplies from others than Russia. Allowing the Russians to sell oil to Europe, weapons to the Middle East and, via influence over whatever is left of a regime in Ankara, to “sell” tacit protection from millions upon millions of budding refugees as well.
Try feud for spelling, Mish
Best – Ron
>
Let’s play that game.
America recognizes a Kurd homeland in Turkey. Will supply weapons and support a no fly zone. Turkey is essentially cut in half.
Turkey is then told to end it’s illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus and to return land and assets, with interest, from the Armenian and Greek genocides.
Your move.
+++++
“The real fireworks start when Turkey threatens to close US air base at Incirlik.”
Turkish relations are further disintegrating on Trump’s watch, but he was the candidate that pointed out NATO is dead except on paper. Turkey’s military dwarfs all the imaginary powers that like to think of themselves as NATO allies — France and German militaries combined amount to less than 1/3rd of Turkey’s military force.
Obama’s real foreign policy legacy is retreat. He failed Turkey and set in motion the bad blood that continues well after Obama’s reign of terror ended. Failures in Egypt. Failures in Libya — it goes way beyond getting the ambassador killed. Alienating Saudi Arabia. And alienating Israel at the same time. Failures (lots of them) in Jordan and especially Syria. And a moronic surrender to Iran masquerading as a treaty. Obama’s foreign policy was a disaster on par with UK PM Chamberlain.
Putin’s dominating influence in the middle east happened because of Barack Obama. Putin’s influence in southeast (second to China) happened because of Obama’s neglect. North Korea got missile technology from Ukraine while Obama played golf.
Obama was an epic failure, and its overdue for the media to admit they called his presidency wrong.
PS — as predicted, Trump’s tax reforms are dead in the water, because they can’t be paid for until Obamacare gets repealed. Countries that are already running $700 billion spending deficits (with health care costs exploding out of control) cannot afford to cut taxes. Obamacare will get repealed whether the exempt deadbeats in Congress like it or not — their way of life depends on repeal, no matter how much they try to fight it.