US blasts Turkey over cancellation; Turkey holds exercise with Syria
Yet another Muslim country is thumbing its nose at President Obama. This time it's Turkey. Syria announced that it conducted a military exercise with Turkey on the same day that the Obama administration blasted it for causing the cancellation of a joint exercise with NATO by excluding Israel. US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that "as to the question of whether there was a government that was invited to participate and then removed at the last minute, we think it's inappropriate for any nation to be removed from an exercise like this at the last minute."
He was asked whether that was what happened, and if Israel was the spurned country. He confirmed both.
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Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, meanwhile, revealed Tuesday that Turkey and Syria had held military maneuvers last week - the same week Ankara canceled the annual Anatolian Eagle exercise because the IDF was to participate.
"One week ago, Syria and Turkey carried out maneuvers near Ankara," Muallem said, according to Al-Jazeera. "This is important because it refutes reports of poor relations between the military and political institutes in Turkey over its strategic relations with Syria."
Muallem's comments came on the same day that 10 Turkish cabinet ministers traveled to Syria for the first meeting of the newly formed Turkey-Syria High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council.
While Israel may be the immediate target of Turkey's wrath (something our foreign and defense ministries are bending over backward to minimize), their behavior is also clearly a snub to the United States. While the United States did not have to cancel the military exercise because of Israel's exclusion, you can bet they were not pleased that Turkey conducted an exercise with Syria last week. The United States has apparently dropped earlier efforts to 'engage' Syria.
What could go wrong?
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