Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the release of 46 citizens held hostage by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants has freed him to cooperate more substantially with the US-led coalition to destroy the group. It may not be that straightforward, though.
Although the US strategy on Isil is complicated — it is attempting to crush the group, while also trying to force a nuclear deal on one of the group’s two most powerful regional opponents (Iran) and topple the second (Syrian President Bashar Al Assad) — it is simple compared with that of Turkey. Erdogan aggressively committed himself to Al Assad’s demise soon after Syria’s military began slaughtering protesters in 2011. He opened Turkey’s borders and coffers to opposition groups willing to fight the Syrian dictator, including Islamist radicals. Whether or not Isil received any of this official support, it has been recruiting within Turkey and is embedded among the 850,000 Syrian refugees on Turkish soil.
Once Isil erased the frontier between Syria and Iraq this summer, an already shaky Turkish policy collapsed. The group threatened the Kurdish areas in the north, where Turkish companies have invested billions of dollars in oil wells, pipelines and construction. The enemy of Turkey’s enemy in Syria was now attacking Turkish interests in Iraq, So Erdogan, too, now faces conflicting enemies in Syria. The difference is that Turkey is far more vulnerable than the US to retaliation by Isil, even without hostages in the mix. “Many people are talking about how Turkey is free to join the coalition, now that the hostages are free, but I see no chance,” says Behlul Ozkan, an assistant professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Marmara University. Isil will be able to carry out terrorist attacks in Turkish cities, including tourist destinations. The country is expected to attract 40 million international tourists this year, accounting for 6 per cent of Turkey’s gross domestic product, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council. A few well-placed bombs could shrivel the industry.
Erdogan also faces conflicting incentives with the Kurds that the US does not. Turkey has become a strategic partner for the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, but has an unresolved conflict with Kurdish insurgents who operate in Turkey from bases across the border. So now Erdogan faces two registered terrorist organisations — Isil and the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) — that are recruiting among sympathizers in Turkey and fighting each other in Syria and Iraq. As the PKK has joined the fight against Isil, Turkey has grown increasingly nervous about what may happen to the modern weaponry from Germany, the US and other countries that is beginning to flow into Kurdish areas. A PKK affiliate runs the Kurdish areas of Syria, which have just come under assault by Isil, driving 130,000 refugees across the border, according to Turkish officials. So Turkey’s radical Islamist enemy is now threatening its Kurdish enemy. Turkish police fired warning shots last Sunday to prevent a large group of Turkish Kurds from crossing the border and fight with their compatriots in Syria.
There is one way of cutting this Gordian knot in Syria. Erdogan has begun to float (again) the idea of creating a “safe zone” in northern Syria. This will have multiple advantages: It will give Erdogan the incentive he needs to risk a terrorist backlash at home to join the military effort against Isil in Syria, if in humanitarian guise; provide the coalition with reliable boots on the ground to ensure success against Isil; and create a space within Syria to host some of the three million refugees who are currently in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
The catch is that Turkey’s agenda will not be the same as that of the US. Turkey will want to use the new safe zone as a place from which to base and train Al Assad’s opponents, including Islamists, because unlike the US, Erdogan’s top priority remains removing Al Assad. As a result, not only will Al Assad forcefully oppose the creation of a safe zone, but so will Russia and China in the United Nations Security Council, giving the enterprise a poor legal basis.
Erdogan does not want to break his security alliance with the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and is reportedly unhappy about the way Turkey is being portrayed as a semi-sponsor of Isil. So he will try to offer some kind of additional support to the coalition, now that the hostages have been freed. But unless the coalition is willing to adopt Turkey’s agenda in Syria and create a safe zone, do not hold your breath for Erdogan to risk contributing Turkish jets or air bases to the effort.
— Washington Post
Marc Champion writes editorials on international affairs for Bloomberg View.
