{"id":10782,"date":"2012-07-12T06:59:29","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T13:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10782"},"modified":"2012-07-12T06:59:29","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T13:59:29","slug":"opportunists-court-russia-over-syria-like-sharks-swimming-in-bloody-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10782","title":{"rendered":"Opportunists Court Russia over Syria like Sharks swimming in bloody water"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Erdogan to visit Russia next week<\/strong><br \/>\n12 July, 2012 &#8211; Al Akhbar<\/p>\n<p>Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan leaves for Russia next Wednesday to discuss the developments in Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his office announced Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Significant regional and international developments led by Syria are on the table to be discussed thoroughly,&#8221; during Erdogan&#8217;s visit, the written statement said.<\/p>\n<p>The talks are a new link in the chain of effective dialogue at the highest level between Turkey and Russia, the statement added.<\/p>\n<p>Ankara and Moscow remain at odds regarding the armed conflict between President Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s regime and the opposition that has claimed thousands of lives since mid-March last year.<\/p>\n<p>Erdogan&#8217;s one-day visit comes after Ankara clashed with Damascus over the downing of a Turkish warplane on June 22 by Syrian fire over the Mediterranean and the death of its two crew.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey viewed the incident as a hostile act and has taken steps to fortify its border with Syria, while Russian media outlets, citing unnamed Russian officials, placed the blame on the &#8220;provocative&#8221; Turkish fighter, which illegally entered Syrian airspace.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey, a one-time ally of Damascus, has actively supported Syrian rebels, including providing them sanctuary on Turkish soil. Moscow has previously criticized foreign powers arming rebel groups as undermining peace efforts.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey shelters more than 37,000 refugees on its side of the border with Syria, where rebel forces made up of Syrian army defectors are also based.  <a href=\"http:\/\/english.al-akhbar.com\/content\/erdogan-visit-russia-next-week\" target=\"_blank\"> &#8230;source<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D10782&amp;text=Opportunists+Court+Russia+over+Syria+like+Sharks+swimming+in+bloody+water&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Erdogan to visit Russia next week 12 July, 2012 &#8211; Al Akhbar Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan leaves for Russia next Wednesday to discuss the developments in Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his office announced Thursday. &#8220;Significant regional and international developments led by Syria are on the table to be discussed thoroughly,&#8221; during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10782#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3188],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10784,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782\/revisions\/10784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}