Court of the Caliph: BC Hotseat Council Thread

[phonicsmonkey]

The Vizier has been drawn into debate with the Turkish Emissary

Turk, would that your words were less multitudinous, that we could spend less time wrestling with them.

The fact remains that the Turkish Sultan has, without warning or consultation, moved on a neutral country and seized several territories.

Whatever he intends to do with them, and whatever his motivations for doing so, and whatever the previous actions of the owners of those territories, this is an act of aggression against a neutral nation.

As for condemning previous acts of aggression, the Caliph has made it perfectly clear all along that he will not accept or condone warlike behaviour from any in the region - if he has failed to condemn specific acts in a vocal enough manner for the Turkish Sultan, he would point out that the true situation at the time of the Kingdom's invasion of Cilicia was not clear to the Caliph.

For the record, the Caliph condemns the aggression of Rome and Jerusalem against Armenia, and decries their imperialist tendencies.

But the Turkish Sultan cannot simply expect all in the region to take him at his word and trust his intentions without question - his self-appointed role as protector of Armenia is not without its benefits to the Sultan, and on a cynical reading provides him with many excuses to seize territory from and cause trouble with his neighbours.

And we have seen much of that!

Indeed, for the Sultan to be trusted he must act in such a way to earn trust - and from the Caliph's perspective an attack on a neutral neighbouring country with no warning to his friends and allies is not the way to do so.