Hollande’s frustration during Syria phone call with Obama

By: SAADET ORUÇ*

Sometimes it is best to recall certain moments of the past in order to understand the present.

As the leading threat against the stability of the Middle East, DAESH, inadvertently managed to legitimize all the terrorist factions following the so-called struggle against terror. It is clearer than ever that DAESH serves the realization of Western government plans in the long-term.

French daily Le Monde conducted nearly 60 interviews with French President François Hollande between 2012 and 2016, starting before the presidential mandate.

Recently, parts of these discussions are being published by the newspaper. In a very interesting piece, Le Monde shared a historical fact and the frustration of the French president with its readers.

On Aug. 30, 2013, French jets were readying for a strike against Syrian targets. At 6:05 p.m., the direct line between the White House and Elysee was on. There were just a few minutes for the two leaders, U.S. President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Hollande, to decide the start of the operation.

However, suddenly, Obama decided not to go ahead with it, in a move that “frustrated” the French president, Le Monde wrote.

As the French president stated (according to Monde) that Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s regime would be weakened, the opposition would be strengthened and DAESH would not reach its current presence if the operation went ahead. Still, Hollande asks, “But why?”

It may be difficult for Hollande or any European to understand Obama’s decision on that day. But we, as the inhabitants of this geography, can better understand the situation today in the light of this short anecdote.

HISTORICAL TURNING POINTWith the operation conducted by the Turkish military against DAESH in northern Syria, a turning point became visible.

The biggest card in the hands of those who argue that there is relation between Turkish leaders and DAESH is being destroyed.

Turkey was slandered with baseless arguments concerning a shelter provided for DAESH and tolerating the DAESH terrorists through its borders.

“Journalists” reporting about trucks of Turkish intelligence carrying weapons to DAESH were a part of the disinformation campaign that tried to pave the way toward the July 15 coup attempt.

Also a part of this disinformation campaign were the manipulations made by these journalists since the Gezi Park events, sponsored by social engineers based abroad, that tried to portray Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as authoritarian and dictatorial and remain an ongoing theme of Western media. Everything is clearer now.

Turkey is the leading player in the international fight against DAESH and other terrorist factions in its neighborhood.

Those who tried to eliminate Turkey and its leader with the DAESH card should try to find another tool now.

YAVUZ SULTAN SELIM BRIDGE Transportation projects are part of a government project to serve the public as well as the health services and agriculture.

As the U.S. concentrates on “Train Grande Vitesse” business with French company Alstom during the last turn to the presidential elections, the importance of mega transportation projects gained more importance than ever.

Yavuz Sultan Selim, the third bridge over Bosporus, was opened on Aug. 26 by President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım.

Leaders from different regions of the world gathered for the opening ceremony.

One of the main arguments of the Gezi protests was to cancel the construction of that bridge. An argument which can clearly be seen as nonsense in today’s world…

*SAADET ORUÇ is a Turkish journalist. She writes columns for Daily Sabah Turkish newspaper

(Published in Daily Sabah on Monday, August 29, 2016)