Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are this week meeting at their Headquarters in Bonn, Germany. This will be the final such meeting prior to the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris, France on November 30th (30/11/15) where a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol is set to be signed.
As a result I really need to be focusing on that this week rather then providing comprehensive updates on the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated group. However there is one issue that seems to cut across both topics.
On Saturday (17/10/15) a British national - Jacqueline "Jacky" Sutton - was found dead in the toilets at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey by two Russian nationals.
Ms Sutton was the Iraq director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) a non-profit organisation that was founded in 1991 to provide balanced reporting from what was at the time Yugoslavia.
IWPR's current Chairman is Sir David Bell a former Chairman of the Financial Times newspaper and its members include Christiane Amanpour, CNN's Chief International correspondent, Christina Lamb, Chief International correspondent for the London Times newspaper and Anne Applebaum who sits on the board of the Washington Post. Ms Sutton herself has previously worked for both the BBC and the Economist newspaper.
Apparently all the CCTV cameras in the area of the airport where Ms Sutton died were either broken, switched off or the footage has disappeared. However the Turkish version of events is that Ms Sutton had missed her connecting flight to Erbil, Iraq where she was travelling to on IWPR business.
On being told that she would have to buy another ticket which she was apparently unable to afford Ms Sutton - as an experienced traveller both in and out of warzones - didn't think to contact her employer or even her friends or family to ask them to pay for the new ticket. Instead she went straight to the bathroom and hung herself with her boot-laces.
Curiously in footage from elsewhere in the airport Ms Sutton was not wearing boots - laced or otherwise.
Suspicions that Ms Sutton was murdered by agents of the Turkish state are strengthened by the fact that intimidation and violence against journalists has become all too common in Turkey. This is particularly true for journalists who produce facts that are critical of either Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
For example on October 3rd (3/10/15) twin suicide bombings struck a peace rally that was organised in part by the Turkish Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey's capital Ankara killing 102 people - mainly Kurds.
Turkey's first response to this was to ban the publication of any images of the scene of the bombing. This included not only the bombing itself and the aftermath but also images of the scene taken before the bombing. As a result even train spotter blogs containing photographs of Ankara train station were removed and 12 people were arrested for violating the ban.
That ban has only been lifted today (20/10/15) with the identification of Yunus Emre Alagoz as one of the Ankara bombers. Yunus Emre is the brother of Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz who carried out the bombing of a rally by the youth wing of the HDP in Suruc on July 20th (20/7/15). It seems odd that in the mass security crackdown that followed Turkish authorities didn't get around to questioning the bomber's brother.
On September 8th (8/9/15) supporters of the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) went on the rampage in Ankara setting fire to the offices of the HDP and Hurriyet newspaper. On September 15th (15/9/15) this was followed up by a police raid on the Headquarters of the Dogan media group which published Hurriyet which AKP constantly accuse of being part of a conspiracy to overthrow Erdogan.
On October 1st (1/10/15) Hurriyet columnist and CNN Turkey host Ahmet Hakan was viciously assaulted by four men outside his home in Istanbul. Despite CCTV footage showing the attackers following Mr Hakan from the CNN Turk studios Turkish police remain adamant that it was just a random road rage attack.
Against this backdrop of violence against journalists the location of Ms Sutton's death - Ataturk Airport - could be viewed as significant. The airport is named after modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who established the nation's aggressively secular constitution.
The Kemalist Republican People's Party (CHP) are obviously very supportive of that constitution while members of Turkey's mythical "Deep State" including members of the MHP are sworn to uphold it at all costs. The AKP's attempts to change that constitution including by allowing Erdogan to rule as President have fuelled numerous rumours of a coup by the Deep State to protect the values of Ataturk.
As such in Turkey's conspiratorial politics there seems to have been a hope that Ms Sutton's death would be viewed as an attempt by the Deep State to reach out to the UK as part of the conspiracy to oust Erdogan. After all in the minds of the AKP the entire universe is one giant conspiracy to oust Erdogan.
Those who enjoy a good conspiracy theory are likely to be very interested in Ms Sutton's death because it seems like a plotline from the US TV spy Show "Homeland."
Specifically the plotline from season 4 of Homeland in which the Saul character is kidnapped from an airport by rogue members of the Pakistani intelligence services who conveniently switched off all the CCTV cameras.
Season 5 of Homeland is currently revealing its secrets but for the most part it is set in Berlin, Germany which has both large Turkish and Kurdish ex-pat communities. Episode 2 saw the main characters travel to a camp for Syrian refugees in Lebanon in what looks like being one of the seasons major themes.
Ms Sutton of course was very familiar with the Dohuk camp for Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan which Turkey keeps threatening to bomb.
In terms of the UNFCCC meeting whenever you have a political meeting of this type that brings together delegates from across the world - often including Heads of Government/State (HOGS) there is always a concern that there will be political violence.
For example six of the people killed aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014 were on their way to the International AIDS Conference that was being held that year in Australia. There remains a persistent suspicion that MH17 was chosen specifically to kill those delegates.
This is also why the Shrien Dewani case became such a major international issue. That occurred in the host of COP17 just as delegates were arriving for COP16 in Cancun, Mexico where violence by the drugs cartels was a concern.
Although security plans are good and the risk is low COP Summits are incredibly stressful affairs. Once people start getting stressed and overtired paranoia start to creep in and that paranoia can be used to disrupt the summit.
For example at the extremely stressful COP18 Summit in Qatar there were a string of news stories about celebrities and scientists falling to their deaths in suspicious circumstances along with rumours that Yasser Arafat had been assassinated with Polonium like Russia dissident Alexander Litvinenko. These were all intended to make delegates extra nervous at a Summit where some were hoping the entire process would collapse.
One of the main reasons why Saudi Arabia conducted the 2015 Paris attacks was to show - weeks after COP20 - that it could and would attack the COP21 host nation to prevent an agreement being signed. As a result the security plan for COP21 is shaping up to be one of the most comprehensive ever.
By getting everyone gossipping about potential political assassinations Turkey seemed to be trying to ratchet up the tension even further.
17:40 on 20/10/15 (UK date).
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