Turkey

First he set the police on his own people, now 'democratic' Prime Minister Erdogan is refusing even to meet them. The peace talks he promised are being held not with protestors themselves but with a group of official mediators the protestors have never met. In the days to come, Erdogan will try to persuade the world that he is battling extremists, but as Claire Berlinski points out in her heart-breaking piece in this week's magazine — written from the centre of the riots in Istanbul last night — the demonstrators were until recently very ordinary citizens from all walks of life, brought together in peaceful protest.

It must be boring for you too, returning to the same complaint, over and over again. Report on the BBC’s 10 O’Clock News about the trouble in Turkey. Not a single mention, in the three minutes, of the words Islam, or Muslim, or Islamification. You had to infer everything. Without prior knowledge of what was going on, you would have been utterly mystified as to why people were unhappy. You noted that all of the protestors were young, middle class, educated and the women fashionably unveiled; well spoken, good English and so on. And you would have wondered then who the alleged ‘50 per cent’ who support the Prime Minister might be; what are they dressed like? Is this an argument about poverty, or what? Not a mention of the causes.

Is it now time for William Hague to send money, and possibly arms, to the rebels now participating in what we might call a Turkish Spring? There have been violent demonstrations, clashes with police, petrol bombs thrown and the like. The protestors are largely from Turkey’s most secular cities and regions and include gay rights supporters, students, professionals, football supporters (?), women’s groups, journalists and the like. Their objection, principally, is the growing Islamification of what was, until comparatively recently, a proudly secular and fairly modern state.

The situation in Syria grows worse by the minute. President Assad seems to have taken the UN Security Council’s deadlock as carte blanche to launch an all-out attack on Homs. Russia looks like she wants to mediate, while Turkey is preparing a new initiative with countries who oppose the Syrian government, a sort of anti-Assad group. Meanwhile, the Gulf States have expelled all Syrian ambassadors.   The chances of a ceasefire are low, as are the prospects of a military intervention. Russia has an interest in persuading Assad to abdicate, but can Assad be persuaded? Syria still has friends in Iraq and Iran, where the governments are supporting the regime both materially and financially.

The Syrian situation is worsening by the day. Now the Arab League has pulled back its monitors in recognition of their failure to ease the violence. Foreign Secretary William Hague has said he is ‘deeply concerned,’ while the Gulf states are pushing for the whole mater to be referred to the UN Security Council. But the chances of a ceasefire and the start of a transition are low. The Russian government is growing tired of Bashar al-Assad but does not want to condone any kind of intervention, which they think is likely if the matter is referred to the UN Security Council. Russia still regrets backing the Libya resolution, believing they were hoodwinked by the West into allowing a military intervention against Muammar Gaddafi.

The relationship between Turkey and France — which started with the alliance between Francis I and Suleiman the Magnificent — is in precarious territory following the French Parliament's decision to ban denial of the Armenian Genocide. Turkey's moderate Islamist government has taken as hard a line on the issue as previous Kemalist governments did, and has announced, in response to the French move, that Turkey would halt 'all political consultations, joint military activities and manoeuvres.' Not content with a formal rebuke, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to make the conflict personal; claiming (falsely) that Sarkozy's father served in Algeria in the 1940s and would have direct knowledge of 'massacres' committed there by French troops.

The year is ending not with a successful US withdrawal from Iraq — as President Barack Obama claims — but with what amounts to a coup d'etat by the country's Shiite prime minister (and former ally of the US) Nouri al-Maliki. Less than 24 hours after the last US soldier left Iraq, the country's Sunni vice-president Tareq al-Hashemi was wanted on charges that he led death squads, in a case most observers think could reignite the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07. Violence in Iraq has subsided since 2006-07, when Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen killed thousands of civilians each month — but, without U.S. troops to act as a buffer, many Iraqis now fear a return to those days.

It's not going to happen. That's what everyone says who knows anything about the subject that we're going to be hearing quite a bit about this week: Turkey's membership of the EU.  I've heard it from someone who works for William Hague, from a political editor, from a diplomat. Which makes this week's state visit by the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, on his three-day state visit to Britain seem pretty well beside the point.  The British government is right behind Turkey's bid for EU membership, no country more so. David Cameron and William Hague have if anything been even more effusive in their support than Tony Blair and Jack Straw before them — the duo who managed to ensure that Turkey became officially a candidate nation for EU membership.

Last summer, I spoke to Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, about the Mavi Marmara row. Davatoglu was not only animated, but clear on what he thought. Unless Israel apologised, he said, the “relationship would change”. Now, Turkey has reacted to the publication of a UN report (which insists that Israel's naval blockade of Gaza was legal but that Israeli soldiers used unreasonable force) by following through on some of Davutoglu's threats. Many military agreements between Turkey and Israel have been suspended and the Israeli ambassador has been expelled. The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, has also warned that relations will disintegrate further unless Israel offers an apology, pays compensation and removes the embargo against the Gaza Strip.

After weeks of violence, the end of the Assad regime is now inevitable. It may take weeks, months or years, but the kind of damage that President Assad has inflicted on his domestic credibility and international standing cannot be repaired. The country's two most populous cities, Aleppo and the capital Damascus have remained calm, but now protesters are defying the army. More than 300 members of the governing party have resigned and publicly condemned the crackdown. Crucially, the army's loyalty is now in doubt. It is said some military units have refused to quell the protesters in Damascus.