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tv   To the point  Deutsche Welle  October 31, 2019 8:30pm-9:01pm CET

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big brands have committed to fear working conditions and sustainable production. but who is rather trying to some contractors. and investigative documentary goes to italy and china and looks behind the glamorous facades of fashion houses for. luxury behind her starts nov 5th on t w. there's a growing sense that warts on syria and centering a new phase that could mean new opportunities but also new dangers well the situation on the ground changed dramatically when u.s. president donald trump made the unexpected decision to in large measure at least withdraw american forces from syria in doing so the americans abandon their erstwhile allies the kurds russia and turkey have stepped into the vacuum would
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flow to meet putin and wretched tie a better one appearing to be the key players in the region it's certainly a volatile situation and we ask old faces new alliances who will win the battle for syria. thanks very much for joining us here on the show and my panel is made up of 3 guests here they are beginning with christine held back a featured mideast analyst with a number of european publications she says with his plan for northeast and syria putin has made both added one and us out happy it's the kurds who are paying the price also what this is all imposing a regular commentator for the berlin based state he developed who argues russia and iran have already won the struggle for syria now it's important for the west not to lose to. ok and a warm welcome to cherry as to be a form d.w.
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turkish department he believes turkey's only game is syria narrow is to come sorry in the perceived security threats and help us out rick perry in power. brokers who hold back about to begin with you and i ask you i mean it's been a really torrid week in syria once again and i'd like to ask you sir if you would sort of medicare where we find ourselves now where the end of that torrid week and where this is leading for the the cruelly poor syrian people yes i mean the battle for syria is decided i would argue you know bashar al assad the syrian president won the war militarily with the help of blood. he has militarily won the war he is regaining control of the last remaining regions which is to the west with military force with the support of the russian air force basically and the north east which she will go back to smoothly and by doing so
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destroying kurdish autonomy so it's decided to this extent and very important is the big guy who holds all the strings in the bank all industries pulling the strings and he does so very cleverly because now he gave out a once to some extent what she wanted an area inside syria to resettle syrian refugees to control it to maybe build some kind of other talk of protectorate and giving the whole northeast back to bashar assad is just lined out but the problem of let me put it is the following he kept assad in power but he has not the financial means to stabilize this regime so this is why he needs something that looks like a political solution to make the west pay for reconstruction and to normalize relations with damascus so that's the big plan afoot you know how to get a political solution something that looks so to make everybody conciliate with assad ok very fascinating insight. to begin with to me give us an idea of what the
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turkish people are saying about the latest developments about turkey having such a central presence now in syria. the situation in turkey is quiet like there is only one voice of what's going on in syria and that is pretty much counsel david by the fact that the media is pretty much console they did under the influence of the government so. when the incursion started it apart from the pro turkish party h.t.t.p. almost everybody in turkey was kind of lined up behind i or the one including the main opposition party including the voices that we were thinking that the would kind of challenge ireland in the future they were just all pro incursion and that is mostly be because of the fact that this operation is being perceived as as a vital threat to turkey like a threat that would. put turkish lives at risk so people kind of
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went option after the army and said that we're all supporting the incursion maybe in the long term not the political repercussions of it when it comes to the security on the border yes there was this huge consensus in the country which is very surprising considering the reactions coming from the other parts of the world to them to be concerns about the fact that bashar al assad is now resurgent as we just heard from christine and they have already been clashes between turkish units and syrian regime units yeah while those clashes were mostly it's hard to support a militia units and they are like just reporters and we don't know for a fact at the moment and those skirmishes could happen because it's a war zone and in those wars owns these things always happen it doesn't mean that the turkish army is fighting bashar al assad's army at the moment but it. i think
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what is going on in turkey at the moment on the political level as well on the societal level is that people are focusing on the short term. calms of the operation rather than the long term outcomes and we need to have a healthy environment to discuss all the aspects of these and i don't think it's being discussed widely at the moment in turkey because of the political atmosphere okeydokey now imposed a new stage in syria's recent history no question mark. well obviously is a new stage in the history of the whole region because basically from what when the british with through in 48 till just recently america was the only name in the game it was the power broker that for all the you know the egyptian israeli reconciliation for most everything and now and after the and now the only name of the game is really new putin and maybe the people in iran. this is an incredible is a geopolitical shift. and we have in the case of turkey
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a nato member going openly against the wishes of its partners to align itself with with russia which we consider an adverse or e. . this is it's huge it's not just serious the whole region and the european sort of death very quickly to this fact that the u.s. are out of the game of the middle east and they are not even very much they don't have a lot of affects from the problems in the middle east contrary to europe you know all the all the consequences will be felt inside europe and as mr trump by true pointed out that the u.s. has 10000 kilometers far away and we are just neighbors so it's up to the europeans to think more. in a long term perspective and to formulate visions and interests in the region and how to put them forward and it is ok i know a lot of the attention this past week has inevitably been devoted to the death of a bar don't be the leader of the so-called islamic state apparently took his own
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life after being hunted down by u.s. special forces so what exactly beat him so important. in the end all that was left of the world's most wanted terrorist was a gaping crater. self-appointed caliph of the islamic state terrorist group was no charismatic leader and compared to al qaeda leader osama bin laden who. killed in afghanistan in 2011 by a us military special operations unit. well the daddy locked in public image any more than made up for in brutality he bears responsibility for thousands of deaths torture and slave minute attacks by isis the world over. us president donald trump was unabashedly triumphant when he announced albert dottie's killing he died like a dog he died like a coward the world is now a much safer place. and security analysts have little doubt that isis has enough
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financial means and fighters to pose a continuing threat. has al baghdadi his death really made the world a safer place. to me what's your answer to that question donald trump says the world is a safer place is it while in the short term it might appear to be so because isis has been already disorganized for the past few good months and. it couldn't carry out the attacks that it used to and the difference the main difference between isis or and the organizations like al qaeda was that controlled a swath of territory for you know a few good years so in that sense i think that is a setback for isis in general but the ideology is there or the conditions at which people choose to join the ices and choose to fight against what they claim to be
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threats against islam and the rest are going to be there and it's not going to go anywhere because the forces the conditions that create isis remains the same in the in the end of the day christiane you have been noting yes i completely agree with that you know the ground for extremist organization is there if all over the region you know with perspective the economic perspective that the stands. humiliation you know not the opt in for political participation this is these are all conditions that create a field high ground for any kind of extremist organization and isis has not disappeared even in syria we have almost on a daily level we have in the northeast we had attacks car bombs whatever they have just gone underground and they now use the chaos that was created by the turkish invasion you know to break out of these prisons to reorganize themselves and to us to kind of reorganize themselves and to recruit among the people that are there a lot of family members around there so they will just they will start to be
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a be another force and they don't they're not disappearing and i don't think that the world is a lot more safer now you know what about donald trump what's what's his position now let me get to the he's ordered this mission to conspire duddies wallowed in the success of the mission does that mean that he has learned the error of his ways in india surely appearing to withdraw u.s. forces completely from syria no i think. that's an aberration i mean they had the opportunity they've been planning this for a long time for months and they and they carted out with panache had some of the u.s. special forces in to the people who helped them. every dead terrorist is a good terrorist but. the fact is that on the one hand he does this and on the other hand as been pointed out he pulls out of an area leaving. the kurds who are god ing thousands if not more of i says terrorists in the lurch they're desert in
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these camps of course because they have to fight or have to relieve the region and these terrorists are going to come back home not to find states to europe the fact is that donald trump has decided to cut his losses in the middle east he's decided we spent 5 trillion dollars there we've lost $7000.00 men we're going to go home and leave it to the rest of the world to sort it out he said he said oh these people have to fight it out it's like 2 kids in a school in a school ground you have to fight well it's not going to be like that it might look that way from washington but it's not going to be got for us because these isis terrorists are going to come home to us if if if russia calls the shots in the middle east we're going to see the consequences in myriad ways they're going to assert themselves more in europe later too and so on and so on and so on and we didn't even take responsibility for the isis fighters that have all nationalities right talking about $84.00 german isis fighters and the family members a 3rd of them is considered to be dangerous dangerous so we should have taken them
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before this is what the kurds asked us for this is what the trump asked us for and we still try to you know keep them away you know to and now they will come in and in a regulated way which makes it even more dangerous americans got permission from the russians to use the air space to control to carry out the bug the mission what does not tell us about the bizarre and often unfathomable relationship between vladimir putin and donald trump at this point in time that when it comes to terrorism. they are ready to cooperate but it's very interesting to discuss where he was hiding he was hiding in the north and part of it led example trife kilometers away from turkey turkey is supposed to control this area with 13 observation posts so what are they doing out of was they not do not i i don't get i mean i personally cannot speculate on that whether turkey had the intel that he was hiding over there or not they might have some intel about it but we shouldn't forget the fact that for the government in turkey the private private priority at the moment is syrian democratic forces or have turkey causes why p.g.
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so isis has always been a threat to turkey it carried out attacks in turkey it killed so many people incurred in turkey as well but at the end of the day it's the white p.g. that turkey is prioritizing its mission into so and it was folk who let all these foreign fighters pass through turkey to reach during during the war you also said the syrian opposition to take part in the in the northern syria ok but also speculation one thing is for sure developments in recent weeks have certainly played into the hands of god i'm a poet and as we see. turkish president rate chip air to one needed a favor from russian president putin. turkey a nato partner found itself asking its old bold russia for permission to intervene militarily in northern syria. the images make plain the new balance of power in the region blatta mir putin's russia is now the dominant peacekeeper in syria the
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agreement between putin and gives a boost to syrian president bashar assad through him putin can secure his position in the region and return assad's getting nearly one 3rd of his territory back while the station's troops along the turkish border in the north. after withdrawing its forces the united states has virtually no part left to play is the u.s. fading to a regional power while russia returns as a. world power. was looked out already let's just talk a little bit more about vladimir putin the report suggests that he's the know the dominant player in the region i think that's what you said earlier if he is the dominant player in the region is that a good thing or about think it's a terrible thing of course i mean for one thing he doesn't have the means to back up the power he's got russia's economy the size of spain right they cannot control a world empire which they just falling into that into their lap due to the west and
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. i don't know not caring and so he he can be what he wants to be in the end he's he's managed to to as a side but it's just the beginning of the complications further down the road there's no way that russia can impose the kind of peace the kind of thing that the pax americana once was excuse me and he is definitely not a peacekeeper i mean it was just that he is the only peace keeper and he was keeping peace inside syria everybody just intervening for his own interest and if you talk about russia you have to mention that in it lived during the last few months and years lots of medical places hospitals were attacked it's 54 hospital since april and we have a very very strong research by the new york times that in very detailed form proves that that was an attack on 4 hospitals within 12 hours by the russian air force so
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this is very crucial to understand how readily putin leads a war against civilians you know and it's not an anti terror war but if he says brothers you are telling me here is the influence of law to me putin is baleful as you are making out why is turkey going so promiscuously to bed with bloody middleton i think turkey has been pushed to those to do that in one way and 3 pushed by the west pushed by the nato and pushed by most importantly the united states. so whenever turkey wanted to get something out of the u.s. whether that be the patriot missile systems that was not approved by the obama administration that turkey had to go to russia knocked on the door and said we want as 40 for $400.00 missile systems and it was only after that that the u.s. decided to put sanctions on turkey because it might potentially threaten the radar systems of $35.00 fighter jets that are coming up so in all cases turkey has been somehow pushed to the to the russians to be able to deal with its perceived
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secor that's right that's one thing and on another level turkey has used this double game as a leverage over time it also used that during the cold war where it was aligned with nato alliance and soviets were the enemy but turkey sometimes was using that to get what you wanted and ireland has been playing this cards for a good 20 years almost now and as like the context is so complicated right now in the ground like sometimes are done can i get what he wants sometimes put it can i get what he wants sometimes trump kind of get what he wants and i think they're just trying to find a way to maneuver in this making you have to go along in this in this puzzle and find a way to get what they want but the sad part is that it's not up to trump in a more it's not up to the u.s. president anymore so counterbalance the reactions coming from the from the u.s.
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itself so you've seen the resolutions on the decisions just passed over the past 2 days in the from the house of representatives in the u.s. and they have the super majority to put sanctions on turkey so trump cannot be the gatekeeper to veto these decisions anymore so. needs to find a way to call miss not only trump but also the other u.s. representatives to be able to stop. huge sanctions coming up now because i heard on himself his wealth is being under investigation in the us or will be i would argue there's a certain chemistry between adeline and putting right because these are 2 autocrats and i'm very effectively pushing their own interests you know and if you remember it's 4 years ago that turkey would down a fighter jet and everybody was afraid of a new war and you had sanctions very strong reactions from moscow and then have a year later there was just you know 2 guys clapping the show said ok let's work
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together again you know they're very pragmatic they're very quick in their decisions and this is what the west especially western europe liberal democracies cannot follow on you know they're looking very thoughtful and i'm wondering if i mean that there are a growing number of voices just come back to turkey saying that turkey should somehow be i mean the no there's no way that we can actually be done there's no mechanism in nature but somehow turkey should be ejected from nato that would be the total wrong reaction i mean look you know you don't have to say have to like mr out one who does nobody does but no i mean he has many followers no like seen in the west i mean he's he's a pain but turkey is in this sense will ally it's a resilient state it's not something is going to fall apart like syria or other arab countries like iraq it's a resilient state it's been a bow walk against in the cold war in spite of double playing and so it's still
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crucial to solve every problem gas in the in the eastern mediterranean the precise crisis the refugee crisis there's no way if we pushed too far we're going to you know and now to one knows this and he tones us with this but he's right he says ok i'll let all the syrians of 3000000 i've got i'll let them come to europe do you want that and he's right he's got us by the short hairs and and i think you have to recognize that and you have to try. try and pull back. into into the fold rather than pushing it into the russian camp but i think also we need to discuss it least like you know pay attention to the fact that these all developments are happening in the shadow of the mistake developments in the countries in respects like for instance from the turkish perspective in turkey are the on was not having his best days just before the incursion he has been losing ground he is like former allies
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were turning against him by adding to 4 new parties the opposition was on the rise a lost soul many municipalities and major cities in the local elections so iran was in a kind of lonely position just before the incursion and you know what happened after they started the incursion apart from the procureur dish party everybody line up lined up behind ira dawn and supported the encouraging including the main opposition party and we have a thing the foreign enemy yeah it's a consulate his father already council they are we have a refugee situation in 30 with over 3000000 syrian refugees and. the turkish population is no longer happy about a whole stay over 3000000 refugees they're turning like you know races at the acts on the rise in turkey and he needs to somehow find a way to divert attention not only that you would remember that when the incursion started one of the discourses was that we're going to be set to one meal didn't see in the refuges in these. in these safe zones which he said that we did in the west
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of the freights of the river after the last operation and now this time in the east of it but it's not going to happen because of these old the old the agreement that is struck with the u.s. and russia so he needs to divert the attention and we can also discuss about the position in the us and i would love to go so many different directions we could go even though there's been a lot of ground that we've covered with i can see the. clock is ticking though it is against us so i'm just wondering if i might announce the following question to each of you and you get a sort of a relatively short answer which outcome of the sort of the constellations the coalitions the alliances that that are in the offing in syria but what would be the best outcome for the long suffering syrian people kristie oh the most realistic one is not the one in the interest of the syrian people and so i lines are shifting in syria which is the very interesting part of it and the new shift will be that. we conciliate with us not this is just happening and this is very clever by putting
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out the one with the yes and turkey was the country that most of the support of syrian opposition don't forget that the syrian uprising so now they will switch because they will say from our perspective assad is the lesser of 2 evils we will rearrange all self and syrian troops along the border russian military police can even withdraw putting this very happy normal responsibility there and this will be a major shift and the prize will be paid by syrian opposition or by syrian people that would long for something called freedom and dignity which is not there anymore so i would argue that the west should not fall into this trap of an international diplomatic solution which is not taking place because assad will just keep his power the way he did during the last decades jura history i 2nd the opinion and i think that will genuinely have to find a way to deal with it's already happening in his or a diligent to my zing future in syria and i agree with the argument that it's the lesser of 2 evils like you know instead of having or threatening turkey let's deal
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with us all because turkey or in the last minute things that it was trying to achieve in syria. it's a catastrophe is a catastrophe for the primarily for the kurds secondly for all the rest of the syrians who wanted human dignity and thirdly the west which is lost any influence it might have to project those values that alone material interests so i'm afraid you know i'd like i'd like to predict some hope but i don't see any. there's a tunnel at the end of the light. give us a little bit of hope you got tense or nukes yes i mean we should we should focus on syria diaspora people living in here yes and stressing the fact that they cannot go back to us not syria to work with them here for a brighter future and some time in the future flow campus life thanks very much for your insight is all for it is a very from being here on 2 very near to the point where we've been discussing old faces new alliances who will win the battle for syria thanks for being with us bye
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bye i'm. going to. follow. up on. the bottom of a. coach
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this is g.w. news live from berlin tonight making impeachment official u.s. lawmakers approved the rules for the trunk impeachment process the resolution passed by a majority in the democratic controlled house with no republican support so what does this mean for the u.s. president we'll go to washington to try to find out also coming up tonight a haunting chill goes through hong kong's party district for how we police fire
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tear gas to disperse masked prove democracy demonstrate.

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