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How Will Turkey Deal With Growing Expectations?

22.09.2014 11:23

Now that the 46 Turkish hostages held by the Islamic State (IS) have been released, there will be growing expectations that Ankara will finally play a more active military role in the anti-IS coalition.This is exactly why the conditions under which the hostages were released is of critical importance.

Now that the 46 Turkish hostages held by the Islamic State (IS) have been released, there will be growing expectations that Ankara will finally play a more active military role in the anti-IS coalition.
This is exactly why the conditions under which the hostages were released is of critical importance. Was there a covert operation that involved confrontation with the IS? Or was there an agreement? Why would the IS release the Turkish hostages knowing full well that Turkey would gain much more operational flexibility? These questions remain unanswered for now. As The New York Times noted: "Turkish officials provided no information on why or how the captives were transported from Mosul in Iraq to Raqqa in Syria before being brought to the Turkish border. Nor did they explain how they extracted such a large group, which included women and children, from Raqqa, the de facto capital of the world's strongest jihadist group, without facing significant resistance."
Given the state of the Turkish media, where half the press is following orders from the government and the other half is afraid of asking critical questions, access to information is highly limited. As a result, there is only a guessing game at the moment. What is clearly known, however, is that the presence of these hostages provided a legitimate face-saving excuse for Turkey. As is well known, Turkey even declined to sign a communiqué calling for a military campaign against the IS, saying that it feared repercussions for the hostages. With the hostages freed, all eyes will be on Ankara regarding critical questions such as the use of the İncirlik Air Base in a more offensive capacity rather than for just logistical support. In that sense, the new situation will provide a litmus test for Turkey's willingness to actively fight against the IS.
In the absence of a more visibly offensive Turkish role against the IS, a number of factors will become obvious. Most important will be the emerging fact that the hostage crisis was not the main reason behind Turkey's reluctance. One possible explanation is that Turkey will remain cautious because it fears domestic terrorism in case of active military involvement against the IS. The presence of the IS or other jihadist groups inside its borders has become a major concern for the Turkish authorities, who until a few months ago did not pay enough attention to such a risk. Ankara has now a no-entry list of 6,000 potential jihadist suspects, and last year it deported 1,000 foreigners on the basis of suspected links to jihadist groups, according to The New York Times. Yet, the real concern is that there are hundreds of Turkish citizens who are now active within the ranks of the IS. As a result, the IS is not just a threat outside Turkey's borders but perhaps more critically it is a growing cancer inside Turkey.
Beyond the terrorism risk at home, there are additional factors fueling Ankara's reluctance to actively join an offensive international alliance against the IS. First is the question of whether a weakened IS in Syria would mean a stronger regime in Damascus. Along similar lines, Ankara is also concerned about Kurdish gains in Syria, especially since the Syrian Kurds are predominantly associated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a sister organization of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkey still considers a terrorist entity despite ongoing negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan. The IS considers the PYD its mortal enemy in northern Syria. As if the situation was not complicated enough, there is now an additional layer of complexity with more than 60,000 Kurdish refugees from the Kobani area of northern Syria having crossed into Turkey since Friday, fleeing an assault by IS fighters.
In short, despite growing expectations for Turkey to play a more active role against the IS in the wake of the peaceful resolution of the hostage crisis, Ankara will not be short of reasons to display continued reluctance.

ÖMER TAŞPINAR (Cihan/Today's Zaman)



 
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