Now with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s authority limited to the enclave stretching from Damascus to the coastal city of Latakia in North Western Syria — thanks to Russia’s continuous military support, endless Iranian financial aid and the Lebanese Hezbollah’s direct intervention — Turkey has been enjoying almost total freedom in determining events in the bordering areas of Syria and some parts of the Iraqi north.
The scene has become too complex over the last few weeks, and is rapidly getting more complicated by the day, as Turkish forces have been engaged in war against one group of Kurds while still ‘befriending’ others and claiming to attack Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) targets.
Many are questioning the real intentions of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in breaking up the ceasefire agreement, which he had signed with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) when he was prime minister in July 2013, after secret talks in Norway over two years earlier. Equally under suspicion is his reaction, or the lack of it, towards Daesh whose criminal actions against humans as well as historic sites in Syria and Iraq are currently under scrutiny by the United Nations and other world bodies.
Turkey is widely accused of being the passage for Daesh fighters who cross over from Europe and other parts of the world. Turkish officials are also pointed at for closing their eyes when hugely valuable archeological items, looted by Daesh, pass through Turkish territories before they reach their final destinations in Europe.
A Lebanese-French expert, Joanne Farchakh, recently quoted in the London Independent, says Daesh sells the statues and stone faces in Turkey that international dealers demand. She described Daesh’s action not only as an international crime, but also as means of direct funding. She said: “Daesh has something priceless to sell and then afterwards it destroys the site to hide the level of the theft. It destroys the evidence, so no one knows what was taken beforehand — nor what was destroyed.”
What is really going on?
In addition to its declared decision that it is fighting Daesh, Turkey’s main concern is mostly the Kurds and how to curtail their rising power on the eve of a repeat general election due in early November. Therefore, Erdogan’s action in hitting Kurdish targets is seen as an attempt to whip up nationalist voters’ feelings to regain the majority that his party (AKP) lost in the last election.
AKP desperately needs the majority in order to rule without partners. Turkey’s leading Kurdish party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) succeeded in last June’s election for the first time in winning more than 13 per cent of the vote, denying the AKP a majority. AKP’s efforts to form a coalition government collapsed, hence Erdogan’s call for a new round of election.
The current tensions between Turkey and the Kurds have their roots in a much wider issue of course. The vast majority of Kurds, including many of those who live in the semi-independent Kurdistan of Massoud Barazani in North Iraq, were angered by Erdogan’s failure to help the leftist Kurdish YPG group, the military arm of the Democratic Unity Party aligned to the PKK, when they were fighting off Daesh militia in the vicious battle for Kobane in Northern Syria. After months of heavy fighting, YPG pushed Daesh out of Kobane in late June.
The following month, on July 20, a Daesh criminal act reportedly took place when a suicide bombing killed 32 people, mostly young Kurdish activists, in Suruc, a neighbouring Turkish town to Kobane. That has led many Kurds to believe that Turkey’s inaction against Daesh’s extremism means only one thing: Use Daesh as a tool to prevent any YPG and PKK linking up along its border.
Changing priorities
However, despite its open war against Turkish Kurds, mostly PKK fighters, and its hostile actions against Syrian Kurds, mainly YPG, Turkey has so far successfully managed to maintain good relations with the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), dominantly controlled by Barazani’s party KDP. At one point over the last few months, forces belonging to the three Kurdish parties and Turkey’s government were fighting against one enemy, Daesh, without an official plan of coordination. But now, just before the election, it is clearly obvious that the priorities of the Erdogan government have changed drastically.
Two days after the Suruc incident, PKK killed two Turkish policemen, accusing them of helping to arrange the bombing. Turkey responded by arresting 1,300 people while its air force bombed PKK targets in both Syria and northern Iraq. Erdogan’s government explained its position in a lengthy statement and eventually saying it was ready “to fight all enemies of Turkey’s national interest, including Daesh”.
However, it is commonly believed that Erdogan is interested in one enemy only and most certainly it is not Daesh. Despite its continuous denial that is it helping the Islamist organisation, Turkey has freely opened its routes for foreign fighters to join Daesh in Syria and systematically allowed funds and weapons to pass through the same routes. So far, Erdogan has refused to actively play a leading role in the US-led coalition against Daesh, but instead he is calling for a buffer zone deep inside Syria south of Turkey’s border which is not under the control of PKK nor the Islamists.
In a new development following the most recent military operation in the Turkish city of Cizre in which 30 people have been killed, HDP leader Salah Al Deen Demirtas says 20 civilians were among those killed. He warned the country was heading towards civil war. Leading a civil protest on foot with 30 other Turkish MPs, he said they wanted to draw attention to what was happening in the mostly Kurdish area in Turkey. Erdogan is retaliating by using the power of the prosecutors who are currently investigating the HDP leader “for insulting the president”. They want to strip the MP of his parliamentary immunity. If Erdogan decides to go thus far, he may save his neck and regain his party’s majority, but he will surely endanger his country’s stability and its social coherence.
Mustapha Karkouti is a former president of the Foreign Press Association, London.
