called cleansing inside syria turkey is as in the fact committing aggression against a sovereign state the city and state which has objected on the shelly to the entity of turkish troops so that i'm if you cations sharon that is the other point i wanted to raise he took is that there is some genuine fiction between turkey and the united states since the coup attempt last year which seems to have the. support to overthrow ok i'm going to in istanbul jump in yes. yeah actually you know it's in turkey you know something like forty years we have kurdish problems about this this is not really really kurdish problems turkey. was again it's not the kurdish people and kurdish people live you know in very good standouts according to if you compare with other countries such as syria iraq and iran but they're. about. gary last you know all terrorist groups.

one of the big problems and the. they are the main cause to kill kurdish people even this. this is a kurdish big they claim that this kurdish independence group they killed a lot of kurds in turkey and also turks as well you know. turkey is as a state it has no problem with it kurdish citizens in turkey believe peacefully and more democratically down in syria iraq and iran if we come to syria and the sheer issue in the beginning turkey would united states and european allies in order to support you know of freedom against bashar. regime but after a after two thousand and. thirteen ok. you know let me jump in got left your kid ok let me jump in here go to dan before

we go to the break here i mean but at the same time you know outside powers that's why it's a proxy civil war because this is from the outside ok i mean bringing democracy to syria is the last thing this is all been about ok it's been arming jihad is to overthrow a legitimate government that it had before we go to the break yeah i mean i agree i agree with what you say and i just wanted to comment on what sami was saying there is friction between between the u.s. and turkey and i would say that predates the coup attempt actually in fact really it goes back to the downing of the russian plane i would read that scene obviously correctly as a low point in russian turkish relations but i see that really as a last dance to let me jump in here to try and i join us here we're going to go to a short break and say are you going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on turkey and syria stay with r.t. .

they are imposing their sanctions we just start developing our domestic capabilities when tapping into new resources because remember how during the previous u.s. administration they said that the russian economy will be in shambles pointing to falling oil prices and sanctions and all that stuff. are we in shambles now quite the opposite. of all this getting away from u.s. dollars while reserve currency a one row one belt policy looking up russia and china is out of the dollar every last trade oil away from the dollar the countries are desperate to get out of the u.s. dollar so the dollar is going. lose value no matter what anybody says here's the treasury secretary we're trying to make it look like oh it's our policy for a lower dollar borrowing now what he says the dollar is going lower as i've been

saying for a number of years because the u.s. dollar is a currency that other countries recognize as funding the war and the weapons and the poverty that they're trying to escape. from. this little bundle of joy he would have no chills of surviving in the wild. as can only really one come at a time but usually cuba's to. china puts a lot of effort into making up for this cruel mistake of nature. is just. china's premier breeding has become something of a production line. it's almost as though they've been copied three d. printed and put on show for the public. several cubs are born here each year. but only less would buy dedicated scientists will be for nothing if panda love

can't be encouraged in captivity it's not as though they don't practice a tool but in the same lazy way they do everything else this proud mommy gave birth to twins and has no idea that a special love potion was formulated just for the. welcome back across the uk where all things considered i'm peter reminder we're discussing turkey and syria. ok let me go back to dan in oxford i hate going to hard breaks like that but it happens ok so i'm going to go let you finish your point here with the. proviso here i'm really glad we went to this point in talking about u.s. turkey relations because in the foreign policy blob's fear in washington the great

swamp of america i mean there's plenty of people that are writing off turkey completely say even we don't need them in nato i mean they're in this is in the national security council this is in. the state department defense department i mean there is a raging debate going on in the intelligence community as well is how important they want because this is what it gets down to the it's who's calling who's bluff and i hate that ok because everybody's got arms ok what is going on in turkey u.s. relations this is what's really key here dan please keep going. after the downing of the russian jet turkey was hoping that this would force somehow the u.s. to actually come good on what they had seen as the u.s. promises to make to make this regime change happen turkey at huge cost to itself had allowed itself to be this way ahead of this western imperial regime change policy in syria and they seem to be doing so with very little actual help from from

from the west in doing so so we really wanted to force the u.s. to put the cards on the table that help wasn't forthcoming so that point i thought ok they're not serious let we're going to have to basically do something else cut some kind of deal or think again and it's interesting and no coincidence i think the months before the coup attempt was when there's the famous phone call between putin another one and and they and one began to make noises about perhaps assad has some sort of longer future than we first thought and relations began to improve that was when the coup attempt happened so the u.s. is very worried it is bluffing that it can do without turkey a nato is very worried about losing and losing turkey turkey is very angry at us or have been used and abused for is regime change project. but i think turkey is perhaps walking into fall into a trap here walked into a trap because the same time as i don't think the u.s. . particularly that troubled by what's happening in syria right now if one is happy to see turkish turkey we can because it was an operation all of branch i think it

will be a better name because turkey is really beating itself is weakening itself as the same time as weakening. the kurds and it's really once again helping to facilitate u.s. strategy no benefit to us oh yeah you know it's sammy you know i talk about that because you know i keep reading the foreign policy blah blah you know that turkey has to choose between moscow and washington i don't i don't buy that at all as a matter of fact because nato has no useful value whatsoever turkey is coming into its own now it may be walking into a trap but it's coming into its own as a regional player dealing with other countries and we we had this consolation when we have baghdad damascus beirut. all of them are on the same page it doesn't happen very often in and turkey is getting into the parlay here i mean this is this is something that i think is really interesting not i but i worry about turkey

because i really did like you know the no problems foreign policy well it has a lot of problems right now but it's this kind of a major paradigm shift sami in the region with what's going on with turkey. it's possible i think it all depends on whether the united states is going to dig its heels and. other areas where there are u.s. troops patrolling the streets alongside the i.p.g. forces now this is where the main conflict is between turkey and the united states i do not think turkey will retreat on the question green and the united states is. in a sense in a newsgroup situation i slightly different from down there that the united states is losing in iraq is losing in syria and they are in the fix because they

either have to send more troops which they are loath to do but because they would like to rely on proxy forces often out of their debacles in afghanistan and iraq they started using proxy forces whether in libya syria iraq and so on and in syria they found a golden opportunity with about forty thousand. fighters whom the general of the special forces of the united states general raymond thomas raymond. thomas he himself called them a proxy force yeah but if ted is going to go all out to prevent the emergence of such a kurdish enclave backed by the united states then without looking. contradiction between the united states and territory and i think ultimately it's the united states which will retreat on the one otherwise they will lose their yeah but they

tend to take everybody down with them before they leave let me go to you i mean how important is all of this to the turkish president because he's invested a lot in syria and he's gotten very little in return i think dan is spot on. he was egged on by the u.s. and the u.s. basically folded and he what is a political review repercussions for the president everyone if he doesn't get what he wants go ahead actually years and now you know after a year we have a very important elections in turkey a presidency and this is the first time in two thousand and nineteen and then the before that i think to turkey to try to finish or wrap up the syrian issue with some games you know in the beginning we started with the united states and the european allies and then they left us with russia and iran in the region now after two thousand and fifteen turkey started

a new city on his own or sometimes with the help of russia and iran in syria and he surely we have basically three you know iraq hates schildt and then lip and then this olive branch operations these are really important operations in for turkey and i think this turkish people is supporting is kind of operations then after that the turn will come to member i think this is the man beach is the most crucial area between turkey and united states because an american. army is there if turkey goes further to membership maybe it might be a problem for turkey this is i think most crucial think up to now but for us all a branch operation i think no problem with united states you know it's. not

interfere of this operation but if turkey goes further to a man beach it will be problematic for the region and maybe a turkey and that's that will be had to had. area. resident has support in turkey you know that's why i keep saying who's bluffing whom here again also the again the the one can surmise an indian if you look at the long. bad blood between iran in the united states is one of the reasons why the united states wants to keep a footprint there it really is quite amazingly doing the bidding of riyadh in tel aviv all the time because there is now absolutely no strategic interest of the united states or the anyone in the european union about syria and i think that it backs it all up in a in a it's always misguided the more they listen to riyadh in detail of the the opposite happens iran's influence continues to expand when are they going to learn

go ahead in a year that's true iran has in some ways benefited from the disasters wreaked on the middle east by the u.s. in the last few decades but i would completely disagree that europe and the u.s. have no interest in containing iran or destroying syria the u.s. certainly does and the west in general and especially britain and the usa do are very concerned as i said the outset to destroy any independent or potentially independent force in the global south of. israel and saudi arabia the. bulldogs if you like of western power in the middle east the watchdogs keeping that area basically under the domination of the united states and britain so. i don't i don't buy into this idea of saying oh the u.s. is doing the bidding of tel aviv in. the part of the same the same program of

maintaining middle east under western domination maintaining the global oil production and the levels that they want to or the price they want to. being sold in the currency that they won and the dollar and so on i don't see these ok. but ok but for this is you know like let me go to sammy i think you have bring a very interesting point stan. and i don't necessarily disagree with them. but sammy you know going back to what i said earlier if we could just start and end it and it's not arbitrary two thousand and three and go all the way up to the present every single strategic initiative the united states and its allies have initiated in the middle east have failed and there's been only blowback ok i mean this ridiculous policy that tillerson announced that anyone the sends aid to syria will face sanctions i mean that that is you know what they want to do is they just want to keep and i'm now i'm good i would agree with dan here is this to keep every

single player weak and broken ok and and that's going to backfire is well ok because the region is going to stay not necessarily outside players they don't they don't always state they usually leave go ahead sami i think the main reason for it they have a fairly right to point to that failure is that there is enormous opposition to that of presence in the region if we talk about the middle east and all the way to libya and so on there is popular opposition to their presence and there is this fundamental contradiction between the united states aims of trying to control the region for its own interests and the interests of the peoples of the region and there is no way this contradiction can be dissolved unless the united states withdraws from the area admits defeat and gets out this is unlikely to happen so therefore we have this continuous conflict of us imperialism trying to dominate to

region and the peoples of the region insisting on their independence and they are mad against iran because iran regardless of what you what we think of its political system is a very. and then country from us policies and this they hate and i couldn't down there and you know if they are wrong that they are to question has been the sami then that's iran's greatest sin its sovereignty gentlemen we've run out of time many thanks to my guests in london oxford and in this stamboul and thanks to our viewers for watching us here to see you next time and remember. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then.

scene years ago i traveled across the united states exploring america's deadly love affair with a gun if a bad guy tried to get to one of my family members he would have better luck with that iron i think they are inheriting when i buy my babies says my book was published in the year two thousand more than hoffa million americans have been killed by phone to the us going out of thought to me as i did this is a middle school we go through drills and we put ourselves some real scenarios it was interesting to see who actually got hit by the gun i just saw i did to return to the subject to track down each gun owner who i'd met and photographed those years ago i don't know this but we are not.

running out of the close to the best out of the jaws of. the concerts i was preparing to perform i had actually prepared myself to die. you know so you trust me. as most of. you. and home will start turning to her i'm. just going to do was. really good. so we'll see of getting. more traditionally if it was that he could with us there was just not yes more here i did make sure. that the. toilet b.s. i never knew. was.

i think it's terrible if you want to know the truth i think it's a disgrace a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. the f.b.i. and the u.s. justice department security warrants to spy on donald trump's two thousand and sixteen election campaign using a highly dubious report partly paid for by the democrats a newly declassified memo. the world anti-doping agency says it is seriously concerned with a decision by sports top court to overturn a lifetime olympic bans imposed on twenty eight russian athletes also ahead. five migrants are shot and dozens more injured in a massive draw at a food bank in the french port city of galle

a number of locals we've heard from that tell us that they're living in fear. or you could give up i think we need a structure put in place to protect us there's a lot of delinquency here it's a catastrophe for the french and especially for the people of cali the violence is pretty damaging. for broadcasting live direct from moscow this is our thomas certainly glad to have you with us now the controversial congressional memo that has been stealing the headlines in recent weeks has now been released after receiving approval from the us president and accuses the f.b.i. and justice department of securing a warrant to spy on the presidential campaign based on the unverified claims in the trump russia steal dossier which was paid for by the democratic party after

initially being funded by a conservative publication. i think it's terrible you want to know the truth i think it's a disgrace what's going on in this country i think it's a disgrace and when you look at that and you see that and so many other things what's going on. a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that well if you take a look at the four page memo that there was so much anticipation of you'll be coming across some rather interesting facts now the christopher steel dossier this was the basis on which the f.b.i. acquired their warrant under the foreign intelligence surveillance act their warrant to wiretap members of the trauma campaign that was based on the infamous dossier from christopher steele now we also know that the f.b.i. chief said that it was so laces and unverified furthermore the f.b.i. was aware that the d.n.c. and the hillary clinton foundation paid roughly one hundred sixty thousand dollars for this deal dossier they knew it was paid for by the d.n.c.

but they did not mention that in their applications for a warrant from pfizer courts furthermore sequester steel wasn't only working for the democrats christopher steele was a long time paid f.b.i. informant and the department of justice and the f.b.i. were well aware of the fact that christopher steele had an agenda against trump was quite biased they still used the report furthermore we know that the deputy attorney general bruce or his wife was actually hired by fusion g.p.s. the firm that the democrats hired in order to get this information on trump so essentially this document points to the fact there was a great deal of what appears to be collusion between the clinton campaign and and the f.b.i. and department of justice two entities that are essentially supposed to be bipartisan enforcers of u.s. law it appears according to this document or at least it's purported in this document that they were working to prevent the election of donald trump and we heard of many calls from many prominent figures for this document to remain

classified they wanted this four pages to be no. not in the perspective and not available to the american public remember nancy pelosi the leader of the democrats in the u.s. house of representatives said that releasing this document which is now fully public would somehow be a threat to the national security of the united states intelligence is that it's the cia that d.n.a. at the end. national defense everybody has their element of it and sources and methods must be protected now as the debate about the releasing of the memo ask elated russia most certainly came into the picture there was a letter that was sent to the owners of twitter and facebook urging them to investigate the role of russian bots or possible russian bots in the hash tag release the memo furthermore we even saw an escalation of this rhetoric with allegations that devin noon is the chair of the house intelligence committee was himself a russian agent let's take a listen to what some of what was said isn't possible that the republican chair of

the house intel committee has been compromised by the russians as a possible of the actual russian agents running the house intel committee on the republican side i hope that's not the case i mean this is behavior speak of that though i mean i'm not the first person who's raised this he's behaving like someone who's been compromised now we're waiting for a different reactions to come in but all eyes are on washington d.c. as the four pages have been released and the memo is now public. to discuss this issue further let's cross live now to richard black republican member of the virginia state senate thanks for being with us richard so good to have you with us. here so what do you make of the memo i mean one of the takeaway points that we're getting from this. ok i think i think the memo in my brenda memo in detail. it shows a stunning level of corruption at the highest levels both in the f.b.i. and the dealer j.

it shows a level of negligence and recklessness in the face the courts the secret courts that approved these wiretaps on american citizens i think. i think it is every bit as serious as it was portrayed and it's very troubling that this goes on you know we have honest f.b.i. agents we have honest department of justice agents but when you get to the very top of the pyramid you have corruption of enormous levels you're talking you bring up corruption but does this memo as some are claiming show that the f.b.i. and justice department are specifically biased against the trump campaign. yes in fact. the. information there were as disclosed by steele said that he was desperate that donald trump not get elected

and he was passionate about him not being president interesting lay. it later on there there were two f.b.i. agents who murder having an affair together and they texted back and forth i'm not sure what else they did give they texted enormously. peter straw ask and lisa paige these two people had been involved they were they were determined to undermine the trump campaign for president interesting with peter straws he was assigned to the case against truong he had also been assigned to the case against clinton in which case it was possible for him to sort of whitewash the fact that she had destroyed a great deal of evidence that was subject to subpoena and i'm not sure why that was

not considered an obstruction of justice which is a crime in the united states. so if we go back to that time period as i recall the f.b.i. was investigating both the trump and the clinton campaigns and to the thousand and sixteen but they were only quiet about the trunk campaign of famously coming came out and made public statements about hillary clinton's investigation doesn't this undermine that there was some sort of a conspiracy against trump on some level. i don't think so because what was happening is through force excessive. face the applications the the enemies of the trump administration within f.b.i. and d.o.j. were able to open up and and have access to the entire campaign on the other hand

with the clinton situation they had what most people would consider a blatant criminal activity of great magnitude and they were able to downplay it and in fact you had director comey come out and contrary to all custom and authority he said well we're not going forward with this case because we don't think the evidence supports it that is not his job that is a decision that's made by the department of justice clearly he was trying to kill off any possibility that if that case would go anywhere so you had this enormous conspiracy to to infiltrate and undermine the true campaigning at the same time you had you had an effort to downplay the clinton misconduct so what about theme memo written by the democrats on the house intel committee

we've heard calls for full and complete transparency yet this memo was blocked from its release shouldn't that be declassified as well so people can judge this from both sides if if we're talking about a political game shouldn't all politics be considered. well you know i don't know enough about the about the democrat memo i do know that the that the memo that was released by the intelligence. the foreign intelligence surveillance the. congressional campaign that was that was approved by the entire committee and. the other one was not approved by the committee apparently it did not meet their standards so. frankly i don't care what the others.