İbrahim Karagül, the editor-in-chief of the pro-government Yeni Şafak daily, published an editorial on Friday condemning the United States and calling it an “enemy country,” saying it is no longer trustworthy and is neither a partner nor an ally of Turkey.
“… the U.S. is now the closest, greatest and most open threat for Turkey. It is an enemy country. It is a serious threat to our country’s existence, its unity, integrity, present and the future. It is carrying out an open attack, and an undeclared war against Turkey,” Karagül wrote.
After asserting that the US had fomented clashes in Turkey’s cities as a “rehearsal for invasion,” he accuses the US of pitting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against Turkey in Syria and claims the US caused the Syrian war to break out in the first place, which he says was the opening of the “Turkey front” in a plan “camouflaged by NATO … to divide and destroy Turkey.”
Claiming that Turkey is engaged in a new war of independence that is being carried out against the US and its close allies, Karagül says: “The threat has now been identified. The danger is now clear. A big front was established to stop Turkey, which is back on its feet after a century, to make it kneel, to make it shrink,” adding that “NATO alliance relations have no significance left for us. Friendship ties with the U.S. have no meaning left. For a country they could sacrifice to a terrorist organization, the U.S. and its close allies have become the primary threat.”
Karagül also insists that İncirlik Air Base, a Turkish military facility used by the US-led coalition forces to fight the war against ISIL in Syria, be immediately shut down since “terrorist organizations are being controlled from this base.” He says if it isn’t closed, “thousands of people [will] surround and siege” the base.
Saying Turkey is determined and will make all decisions not with the US’s prompting but “with its own identity, its historic stance, and its millennium-old political experience in the region,” Karagül writes: “Turkey should build islands of resistance not only along its border, but within the depths of the region, everywhere it can reach. … This is ‘relentless resistance.’ It is a resistance that will tear up their draft maps.”