{"id":41742,"date":"2019-11-28T12:22:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T12:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41742"},"modified":"2019-11-28T12:22:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T12:22:34","slug":"at-least-8-iraqis-killed-as-security-forces-open-fire-on-protesters-in-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41742","title":{"rendered":"At least 8 Iraqis killed as security forces open fire on protesters in south"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nANKARA:\u00a0Ankara tested its S-400 Russian-made air defense system this week. That move is unlikely to shield the country from sanctions, though. Indeed, it seems likely the US Senate and the US Treasury will bring forward some sanction packages in retaliation against Turkey moving forward with the Russian system.<\/p>\n

\nThe chairman of the Senate\u2019s Committee on Foreign Relations, the Republican Jim Risch, has already introduced legislation that would impose stiff sanctions on Ankara following its military incursion into northern Syria. The senate only refrained from enacting those sanctions \u2014 \u00a0which have bipartisan support \u2014 on the condition that Turkey remove the S-400 system from its arsenal.<\/p>\n

\nThe committee was set to re-examine the situation early in December, but is now understood to be growing impatient with Ankara\u2019s defiance and strongly considering the enforcement of the 2017 Countering America\u2019s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), along with banning US purchases of Turkish sovereign debt, and punishing the Turkish banking and energy sectors.<\/p>\n

\nDuring his meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Nov. 13, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was asked to abandon the Russian system that began arriving in Turkey in July at the Murted Air Base in Ankara with much fanfare. In response, Washington removed Ankara from the multinational manufacturing program for F-35 joint-strike fighter jets and banned the sale of those aircraft to Turkey.<\/p>\n

\nThis week, Turkey unexpectedly tested a component of the S-400 radar system in Ankara for two days while US-made F-16 jets flew low across the Turkish capital. It had been expected that Turkey would keep the Russian system deactivated in order to avoid US sanctions.<\/p>\n

\nInstead, Ankara is widely considered to have issued a challenge to Washington that will likely see more voices urging congress to push ahead with CAATSA sanctions against Turkey as the radar tests are seen as a threat to NATO\u2019s security systems.<\/p>\n

\nCAATSA sanctions include a range of options \u2014 \u00a0from denials of visas of Turkish officials and the prohibition of export licenses to harsher measures such as the blocking of any transactions with the US financial system.<\/p>\n

\nIn a recent interview with the Turkish broadcaster NTV, Erdogan said he would continue trying to resolve the S-400 dispute with Washington until April 2020, when the system would be fully deployed. On Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu made it clear that Turkey needs the system. \u201cA product is not bought to be kept in the box,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nSoner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish program at the Washington Institute, described Turkey as \u201ca hybrid state\u201d in global politics, meaning it hopes to deepen its ties with Russia while remaining a member of NATO.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen Turkey\u2019s final word regarding the S-400 issue. Due to (Turkey\u2019s) hybrid nature, every discussion that Erdogan has with Trump has to be run by (Russian President) Vladimir Putin afterwards before he can finalize whatever he discusses with Trump,\u201d he told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nThere is a general expectation that Ankara will only declare its final intent after Putin\u2019s visit to Turkey in January.<\/p>\n

\nAaron Stein, director of the Middle East program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the implementation of the sanctions is up to Trump, but he expects some congressional efforts to insert related clauses into the consensus bill for the National Defense Authorization Act.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTrump is holding off an increasingly angry congress and, I think, eventually, he will capitulate,\u201d Stein told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nAccording to Cagaptay, Erdogan is still betting on Trump\u2019s desire to preserve Turkish-US ties to hold off sanctions.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe can expect very severe sanction legislation to be brought forward both in the House and Senate. But every sanction package has national security waivers that Trump can use to rescue Turkey again. Analysts are chronically underestimating the role of the Trump-Erdogan relationship to rescue (Turkey) from the crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nStein agrees, to an extent.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnkara has placed all its bets on Trump. It is working, for now. But let\u2019s see what happens if Trump caves to his own Republican caucus,\u201d he said. \u201cI think much of Turkey\u2019s response will depend on the severity of the sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANKARA:\u00a0Ankara tested its S-400 Russian-made air defense system this week. That move is unlikely to shield the country from sanctions, though. Indeed, it seems likely the US Senate and the US Treasury will bring forward some sanction packages in retaliation against Turkey moving forward with the Russian system. The chairman of the Senate\u2019s Committee on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}