
Turkey blocks Twitter, YouTube over hostage photo - gokhan
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-blocks-twitter-youtube-facebook-over-hostage-photo.aspx?pageID=238&nid=80638&NewsCatID=339
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iterationx
The first time around it didn't get adequate attention in the US media.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ban of YouTube occurred after a
conversation was leaked between Head of Turkish Intelligence Hakan Fidan and
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu that he wanted removed from the
video-sharing website.

The leaked call details Erdogan's thoughts that an attack on Syria "must be
seen as an opportunity for us [Turkey]".

In the conversation, intelligence chief Fidan says that he will send four men
from Syria to attack Turkey to "make up a cause of war".

[http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/turkey-youtube-ban-full-
transcript-...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/turkey-youtube-ban-full-transcript-
leaked-syria-war-conversation-between-erdogan-officials-1442161)

~~~
tomjen3
Great find, but unfortunately often there is a good reason that such things
don't get mentioned much, because there isn't much evidence for it.

How trushworthy is ibtimes?

~~~
iterationx
The reason they banned youtube is because the evidence was on youtube. You
need to re-evaluate your assumptions.

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saool
> In a 2010 meeting with the Austrian Foreign Minister, United States
> Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “With respect to Turkey, the United
> States, along with many other countries in Europe, support the membership of
> Turkey inside the EU. I know that it is an issue that divides the European
> Union. We don’t have a vote, but if we were a member, we would be strongly
> in favor of it.”[176]

> European Union During a televised debate on May 20, 2014 for the 2014
> European Parliament Elections, President of the European Commission
> candidates Jean-Claude Juncker and Martin Schulz (of the EEP and S&D blocs
> respectively) both argued that they would "promise" that Turkey would never
> join the European Union while either one of them were President, with the
> view that Turkey has turned its back on "European democratic values".[177]

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_Euro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union)

updated: broken link

~~~
exelius
Turkey in the EU would be great for Turkey and its citizens, but probably not
the EU. Turkey doesn't have its house in order with regards to corruption, and
their labor is too cheap (which becomes a problem because they don't have the
tax base required to support EU initiatives). Labor prices won't rise as long
as Syria is in turmoil, because Turkey is flooded with refugees who are a
source of cheap labor.

Turkey would quickly become another Greece, only likely with a violent
Islamist opposition instead of a violent Fascist opposition.

~~~
dogma1138
The fact that the EU considered Turkey was hypocritical, they've been
occupying half of Cyprus for over 60 years now.

Sadly it no longer seems that there is much hope for Turkey, in the 90's and
early 2000's they seemed to make so much progress but now they seem to be just
fine with devolving and going completely away from the path that Ataturk set
for them after the fall of the Ottoman empire.

What people seem to forget is that the majority of their population is very
rural, uneducated and really in opposite with western and European values and
their power base since the latest regime change just been growing, the
"Islamist" opposition you speak off is not an opposition any more it's the
ruling party.

They seem to be much more of a mix between Iran and Russia in their form of
government than a the disorganized EU nation like Greece or Italy they were in
the 90's and It's a shame. Turkey could have offered a huge boost to the
Eurozone they on a steady path to become one of the largest individual
economies in the world.

~~~
gajomi
I don't really take any issues with your comments about the outlook of the
political situation in Turkey in relation to the EU, but the hypothesis that
this is related the influence of rural populations can't be right. The
percentage of the population living in urban centers is roughly 70%, on par
with Germany, Austria, Czech Republic et al. [1]. Furthermore about 1/3 of
Turkish people live in cities with over 1 million people [2], which in a sense
makes Turkey even more urban than most of the big European countries. To
reiterate, I don't think this means your points are wrong, only that the
reason that they are right must lie somewhere else.

[1]
[http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_urban.aspx](http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_urban.aspx)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey#Demographics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey#Demographics)

~~~
dogma1138
Well "rural" wasn't the best choice, i didn't want to use "backward" or
"traditional" because it really doesn't reflect the exact situation either and
i didn't want it to come out too negative or condescending.

Turkey has the lowest educational attainment in the OECD, only 32% of adults
have high school education, and amongst the younger generation it's still bad
as less than 40% of it's male populations and less than 30% of it's female
population completes a high school equivalent education, and only a fraction
of that get higher secondary education.

Much of it's population is really on opposites sides of current western values
and the government crackdown on free press, opposition parties, taking control
over the courts and legal system, dismantling the (for once in a life time
remarkably positive) influence of the military, and just the complete mockery
of all attempts at democracy just put it on a completely different course than
it used to be only 2 decades ago.

------
cturhan
Yet another series of tapes maybe?

~~~
afsina
No. Read the article.

~~~
cturhan
I know. Already read the article.

Just wanted to point out some speculations out there.

