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[RedLion]

So I figured I'd start a thread for discussing events going on around the world that, individually, wouldn't merit their own thread. I guess it's kind of for IR geeks like me who want to discuss events in and between nations. But feel free to post any news stories you want!

For instance: This is pretty big. The ruling AK Party in Turkey has dodged being closed by one vote on Turkey's Supreme Court. As someone who watches Turkey very closely, and studied it for 2 years, I cannot stress how huge this is. Some 14 political parties have been closed before in Turkey's history, often for lesser things than what the AK Party was accused of doing: threatening the secularism that is the foundation of modern Turkey. The party has serious flaws, particularly in their choice of leader, Recep Tayip Erdogan, a somewhat aloof, megalomaniac who seems convinced he can do no wrong. But they've brought about massive reforms that have opened up Turkey's culture, integrated it with the West, opened 8 chapters of E.U. membership, presided over a sustained period of economic growth that has made Turkey's economy twice as large as Greece.

This is really a victory for the people of Turkey, for Turkey's E.U. membership aspirations, and for the principal of democracy in general.

Also of note, a huge cabal of conspirators has been uncovered in Turkey. A group called Ergenekon has been plotting over the last 8 years to bring down the government. This has included the seemingly unrelated murders of liberal politicians, outspoken journalists, Armenian-Turks, Christians, and judges, and terrorist attacks in south-eastern Turkey and Istanbul in an attempt to bring about fear and instability and allow a nationalist regime to come to the fore and take power. This thing involves a huge group: generals in the military, opposition politicians, Kurdish terrorists, etc.

These two events--the victory of the idea of democracy, and the arrest of those responsible for so much of the instability in the last decade--truly heralds a new moment for Turkey.

[Thlayli]

I'm all in favor of progress in the Eastern Mediterranean region, but I get the feeling all those events amount to is treading water. They won't impress the EU all that much, and the government's official stance against Armenia doesn't appear to be changing. At best, they just maintained the peace.

[RedLion]

I'd rather not turn this into a thread about Turkey, but on the issue of Armenia, in the last few days Turkey has entered into negotiations with the Armenian government to open up flights between the two countries and to increase trade. Further, it seems to me Armenia is the one with the authoritarian, militaristic government (crushing protests in the street with violence; continually occupying a huge chunk of Azerbaijan and threatening that country with war if it try to retake their what is, by law, its territory; having official links to Armenian-nationalist terror cells overseas.)

[Verergoca]

Eh, every countries history has its black pages. The main difference i see with Turkey and the Armenians, and say, the Dutch and our Golden Age (yay, plieing the 7 seas, trading slaves wherever we can!), is that while our govenrmentis constantly apologising for it, due to an increased understanding/change of morals, the Turkish government isnt.

Now, the way i see this, this has several reasons:

a). The Armenian Genocide happened during the deaththroes of the Ottoman Empire (iirc). The current Turkish government was founded by Ataturk, who is still revered as leader of the Turks etc.

Now, if the current turkish government would admit fault in this caboodle, it would a). admit that they have some black pages of their own. b). take (part) of the blame away from the Ottomans. (yay, dead governments make easy scapegoats), and c). be forced to admit that Ataturk, also had a few negative points (this actually beeing a major point of me).

Contrary to that, the "problems" (i dont see them as problems as the dutch govnmnt. is constantly apologising) the dutch government has with the golden age/slavery past, is the fault of the direct forefathers (well, if you can call the VoC/WiC that) of what is the current government. No scapegoat there...

Same with the Japanese government continually apologizing for the WW2/brutality. (In this case, even though countless reports are there, the whole Comfort Woman (look that up on wiki), still stirs up problems.

What i admire in the Turkish situation, is the the-consitution-counts-for-all,-even-if-it-knocks-down-our-government stance.

Anyway, i had to much beer and forgot where i was going with this. Ohwell...