Erdogan Awakens the Sleeping Russian Bear

(Israel Hayom) Dore Gold - The Russian Foreign Ministry has publicly backed the right of Cyprus to develop its Mediterranean gas. Last week the Russian daily Pravda published an article entitled "Turkey Wants to Revive the Ottoman Empire," predicting greater Turkish activity in the Caucuses and in Crimea, "which cannot but worry Russia." Erdogan has succeeded in awakening a sleeping Russian bear by reviving Moscow's historical concerns with Turkish ambitions to restore its old areas of influence. The Turkish Islamist IHH was responsible for the violence on the 2010 Gaza flotilla. The Russians probably noticed that one of the IHH operatives on the Mavi Marmara, Erdinc Tekir, participated in a 1996 terrorist attack on a Russian ferry in the Black Sea, whose purpose was to obtain the release of Chechen terrorists from a Russian prison. Indeed the founders of the IHH served as volunteers in the Mujahideen Brigade that fought the Russians' Serbian allies during the Bosnian War. The writer, a former Israeli UN ambassador, is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.


2011-09-21 00:00:00

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