S8 Ep577: 3. Sinan Ciddi: Analyzes Turkey's deployment of F-16s to Northern Cyprus following Iranian missile fire,. He discusses Turkey testing US boundaries, its regional rivalry with Iran, and potential Turkish support for Hezbollah to undermine Israel,,. (35 wor
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
3. Sinan Ciddi: Analyzes Turkey's deployment of F-16s to Northern Cyprus following Iranian missile fire,. He discusses Turkey testing US boundaries, its regional rivalry with Iran, and potential Turkishsupport for Hezbollah to undermine Israel,,. (35 words) (3)
1900 ISTANBUL
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague Sinan Shidi of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. |
| 0:21.9 | He leads the Turkey program watching the events in the region of the Iran War, but at the same time, |
| 0:27.8 | always watching Turkey, a member of NATO, not a member of the EU, a very powerful military and |
| 0:34.3 | ambitions led by the strongman President Erdogan. Sinan, the predicate for the events of |
| 0:43.2 | these last days to do with the Iran War is that not one, but two missiles were fired in the direction |
| 0:50.0 | of the Turkey airspace. Whether they were aimed at a NATO base or some other entity is unclear to me. |
| 0:57.1 | But in any of it, the second one was intercepted by what I was told was a NATO interceptor. |
| 1:03.3 | And that was the predicate for the deployment of F-16s from the mainland of Turkey to northern Cyprus. |
| 1:11.6 | What is the detail here that we need to understand about warplanes being based in northern |
| 1:17.5 | Cyprus? |
| 1:18.0 | What is northern Cyprus? |
| 1:19.3 | Good day to you. |
| 1:20.6 | Hi, John. |
| 1:21.1 | Yeah, thanks for having me. |
| 1:22.9 | Well, I guess what we could say is this. |
| 1:26.2 | The NATO shooting down of these two Iranian missiles, allegedly targeting Turkey, |
| 1:35.2 | which I actually do believe it was that they were intended for Turkey, |
| 1:39.4 | were intercepted by, you know, Turks don't like to admit this, |
| 1:42.7 | but by U.S. warships in the eastern Mediterranean |
| 1:45.0 | in defense of their NATO ally. And I say that because, you know, Turkey lacks the air defense |
| 1:50.3 | capabilities to shoot down such projectiles, mainly because back in 2019, and you and I have covered |
| 1:56.4 | this before, Turkey purchased an air defense system from the Russians, which you cannot activate and |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.