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Press TV has interviewed Veterans Today’s Jim Dean to talk about Turkey’s role in the strengthening of ISIL Takfiris who are currently engaged in terrorist activities targeting civilians in Iraq.

Press TV: Your take sir. It appears that during the reign of Erdogan as prime minister, Turkey has gone through many changes, economically and politically. Has it been odd to you at all that more and more Ankara has become allies, at one point to Riyadh and then now we see to extremist elements even like ISIL?

Dean: Well, we really were surprised when Endogen really stood up for Turkey during the Mavi Marmara incident. They had very close relationship with Israel for a long time; joint military work, even allowing the Israeli military to train and do low-level bombing in Turkey in preparation for practicing attacks on Iran nuclear facilities, as a matter. And then, when the Mavi Marmara situation happened, everything changed on a dime and we are not used to seeing that happen for people who have had any close relationship with Israel, because usually the parliaments have a lock on what the presidents do. So, relations were very cold there and we saw a very independent asserting manner there in NATO and not subservient.

And then when the Syrian war came, at first he started just taking care of refugees, and then after about a year, we began to see that he was siding with the West, he had thrown in with their destabilization program with Turkey, and then even got in heart and soul into supporting the insurgency, training facilities, really quite more than has been in the newspapers. And as we had always been advising them, once you start working, particularly, the terrorist groups in northern Syria, they tried to get a second flight going, you are letting Frankensteins loose all over the region, which is the last thing the region needs, because no matter what happens in Syria, all of these people with all of these fighting experience, they are going to be looking for another fight to get in to. And we are going to be living with this possibly for decades with this horrible mistake.

Press TV: As you have talked about the seizing of the 49 diplomats, we know that it took a long time just recently the last couple of days, that Ankara even talked about that situation in public. They hadn’t even really acknowledged it in public. So looking at that, Mr. Dean, it appears that Ankara has been basically in bed with these terrorists in one way or another. I want you to expand on that. What is your perspective on that?

Dean: Well, I think they just didn’t jump in with both feet. It started and it became... it kind of grew. We have tracked the phony sarin gas attack which was going to be tried to be used to trigger an American involvement. That came down through the Republic of Georgia and was transmitted through Turkey. So he was going to conduit there, some of it we do not know, they intercepted some shipments, which may have been for show and they let some go through so they...
We have seen some cooperation there. And recently, we are tracking now ISIL and other jihadists that are taking over the oil areas, most of that oil, they are selling it, transporting it to Turkey. So Turkey is actually helping them fund themselves, which is making them independent even from the Gulf states, and we are working now to see how that is flowing and we are pretty sure oil is being trucked over, it is being taken to tank farms and some of the oil field they have there, and then actually flowing in to the oil pipeline to the Ceyhan Port, and of course Exxon runs that and wherever that extra oil goes into the pipeline and gets loaded on a ship, somebody has to ride a check to somebody and that is being done by Exxon.

So we are seeing the possibility of some rather very larger powers involved in helping launder this oil money, which by the way is a very serious felony of a large number of international crimes. Money laundering is supporting terrorism.

Press TV: There are many paradoxes in the situation when you look at Turkey and its relationship with many entities. As Mr. Richard Weitz has pointed out, he looked back at the Mavi Marmara incident, of course we know on the one hand that Erdogan was very adamant when he was talking to Shimon Peres. However, we also know that actually nothing happened on the ground and the Israeli embassy was still there and Israeli companies still functioning and basically, nothing happened. Now, we look at this situation. On the one hand, as you have seen some of our viewers are saying, what proof do you have? Actually, they are working hand in hand with ISIL and you just talked about first of all, the oil, and the overall situation. However, what is trying to be shown perhaps is something different. The bottom line to this is why would Erdogan want to work with these extremist elements? What is he getting or what does he think will be attained for propping up the extreme elements in the region?

Dean: Well, as Mr. Weitz said it is a very complex political situation which Turkey, the country has always been a key area between East and West and the politics there and the intrigue is going on for centuries. But we have to look at it little broader because it is not only Erdogan, but look at the Gulf states and their support for not only these terrorists operations, but feel the terrorist groups in brigade formations. We were stunned when we saw that they were actually funding brigades. In fact there were advertisements in Saudi Arabia, where it was almost like you could buy a piece of a football club by putting $1,000 in and you can have a video made of a beheading for a certain amount of money.

It was absolutely incredible and of course the Gulf states are also at risk that once these terrorist groups as we see, they may be dependent on them in the beginning for funding, but they are smart enough to realize that while they are out there in the field, they have got to rob and steal everything they can get, form other relationships, so they are not totally dependent on one group. And then they can turn around and bite the hand that feeds them, which means they can be paid off once the war is over rather than be cast aside as the Americans did with the Taliban after the Soviet-Afghan war and that came back to bite us in the behind. So, and then lastly what we always have in politics is they never accept responsibility for their mistakes.

Press TV: And Mr. Dean, how likely re the policies that have already been implemented by Erdogan likely to backfire as we have seen him support these extremist elements and of course being that Turkey is secular itself. How likely is this all going to backfire and blow up into space right there in Turkey itself?

Dean: Well it easily could and his relationship with the military are strained because of all the trials and some of the opposition, still he has been clearing out the military and now also the police. So he could find himself in a no man’s land, where when he needs the security people, they are not really sure he is going to stand because he has said, you can use us one day to help you and save you and support you, and then you can be prosecuting us in a year or a couple of years from now. So I think we are going to see a very delicate balancing act as people juggling for influence and power and it is really in determinant.