Since the fall of Mosul and the expansion of Daesh (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) into most of western Iraq and the north-eastern Syria, Turkey has been facing tough foreign policy choices over whether to intervene or not. Pressure on Turkey has particularly risen following Daesh’s attempts to take control of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani. So far, Turkey has maintained an ambiguous stand on the US-led international coalition to defeat Daesh, notwithstanding the pledges made by Ankara to extend support for the war effort against the radical group.
Indeed, whatever move Turkey makes in this regard will come with costs and benefits both domestically and regionally. To start with, Daesh, which controls huge swaths of Syria’s borders with Turkey, constitutes a formidable challenge to Ankara. The inherent threat in the expansion of Daesh is not only limited to the possibility of carrying out attacks on Turkish soil, but it also extends to the prospect of triggering instability inside Turkey. Last month, tens of Kurdish protesters were killed during demonstrations that swept the country demanding prompt Turkish intervention to save the Kurdish inhabitants of Kobani. Protesters condemned Ankara’s indifference towards the fate of the Syrian-Kurdish enclave. Demands for intervention have also been taken up at the international level, the US-led coalition being particularly interested in the prospect of military assistance from Turkey.
Ankara’s actions thus far highlight its resolve not to get dragged into the conflict in Syria without having an integrated strategy to deal with the crisis in Syria and Iraq at the regional level and without firm international commitments, especially on the part of Nato, of which Turkey is a member state. Over the past three years, Turkey has assiduously resisted getting involved in an open-ended war in Syria, despite a Turkish military plane having been shot down by Syrian air defence systems and accusations that the Syrian regime was orchestrating terrorist attacks on Turkish soil. The government has also put on hold a parliamentary mandate granted at the end of 2012 to deploy ground forces outside the country’s border should national interests deem that necessary.
There are different views as to why Turkey is reluctant to intervene against Daesh or to even grant a corridor to provide aid and military assistance to the besieged town of Kobani. One view is that Turkey feels quite uncomfortable with the level of autonomy the Kurdish region of Syria has so far enjoyed as a result of the diminishing control of the central government in Damascus. Ankara fears that increased Kurdish autonomy could lay the foundations for an independent Kurdish state and thus strengthen separatist tendencies amongst Turkey’s own Kurdish population. Another view holds that Turkey’s decades-long conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) cannot be suddenly dispelled despite the progress that has been made in the peace talks between the two sides in recent years. The belief that Syrian Kurds are acting as close allies of the Syrian regime is also affecting Ankara’s calculation. Indeed, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) is nothing but the local branch of the PKK in Syria.
Others take this view further and accuse Turkey of even contributing to the fall of Kobani. The town has emerged as a symbol of Kurdish resistance and wields huge strategic significance. It lies between a swath of uninterrupted Kurdish-controlled towns and villages to the east, collectively known as the canton of Al Jazeera and the Kurdish-administered town of Afrin to the southwest. The Kurds have long wanted to connect these three areas by pushing out both Daesh and Syrian rebels from the areas separating them. The prospect of a Kurdish entity run by the PKK is more than Turkey can stomach. Kobani’s fall would deal a humiliating blow to the PKK and weaken its support among Syria’s Kurds.
Yet, there are those in Turkey who hold the opposite view and believe that the prospect for peace between the Kurds and the Turkish government will be better served if Ankara extends help to Syrian Kurds who are facing an existential threat from Daesh. The assumption that the peace process will not be fundamentally affected by the Turkish stand on Kobani and that the PKK will not dare to renounce the ceasefire with Turkey and get into a fight against both Turkey and Daesh at the same time is facing a serious test. The death of tens of Kurdish demonstrators in protests across the country against the Turkish government policy on Kobani testifies to this fact. The PKK also threatened to pull out of talks completely if Turkey failed to allow military supplies to reach Kurdish fighters besieged in the town. Allowing 150 fighters from the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga into Kobani is not convincing many that Turkey has fundamentally changed its position. Eventually, and as the situation deteriorates on its southern border, Turkey will have to decide to do something serious or risk leaving others to call the shots.
Dr Marwan Kabalan is a Syrian academic and writer.
