Turkey Wonk

Note: This episode was recorded on April 20th The famous Anatolian folk song, Yemen Turkusu, describes the painful memories of one Ottoman military unit from Mus, after being deployed to battle during World War I. The song’s haunting lyrics capture the difficulties the Ottoman’s faced in Yemen, saying “those who go never return.” Historians describe the Ottoman’s experience in Yemen as tumultuous, frequented by numerous local uprisings, and clashes with a powerful actor in the northern mountains: the Zaydi tribe, or the Houthis. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ignored history when he committed to supporting the Saudi led mission to rollback the gains of Yemen’s Houthis. Erdogan explicitly linked the Houthis’ rise to Iranian support – and called on the Islamic Republic and associated terror groups to withdraw. The antecedents for Turkey’s Yemen policy began in March during Erdogan’s high-profile visit to the Kingdom to meet with King Salman. To