Spy Agency Vs. Turkish Military And ISIL

It is neither customary nor normal for a nation's spy agency to always be in the forefront of all domestic and foreign policy matters, nor can it assume the role of the military. It is in the nature of spy agencies to conduct their activities under great secrecy so that they can generate healthy analysis for their decision makers. Intelligence agencies are not subjected to the same scrutiny by the media as other parts of the government. Having said that, intelligence agencies have to be accountable to the related government bodies as well as to the public through their legislative assemblies.
In Turkey, the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) used to be governed by the military but has been brought under the control of the government over the years. However, a change in its law in February has broadened the agency's powers, drawing strong criticism from the opposition, which described the move as turning Turkey into an intelligence state. The amendments to the MİT law made it much more difficult for the agency to be held accountable, while at the same time making it more powerful.
MİT has been at the forefront of some events, including a controversial incident in January of this year, when alleged arms-laden MİT trucks, said to be destined for Syria's radical foreign fighters, were seized by military-affiliated gendarmes. The government intervened and a search of the contents of the trucks was prevented.
In addition, it has become common knowledge to many informed Turks that it is this spy agency that has been shaping Turkey's highly controversial Syria policy.
The Turkish government has become part of the Syrian conflict, where President Bashar al-Assad's regime has maintained its power despite an almost four-year-long civil war that it has been waging against opposing factions. This is because, among other things, Ankara is believed to have supported radical groups such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which renamed itself the Islamic State (IS), with the purpose of seeing the Assad regime gone. It has not yet happened but Ankara still insists that the US-led Western/Arab coalition against the IS should also include a strategy to topple the Assad regime.
Moreover, some of the tasks and decisions that should be fulfilled and made by the Turkish military have reportedly been assumed by MİT. For instance, MİT has been selecting and assuming the protection of the peshmerga forces who entered Turkey on Oct. 29 to cross into Syria to bolster Syrian Kurdish fighters in their battle against the IS in the Kurdish town of Kobani. The Turkish military is definitely ensuring their safe passage via Turkey to Syria but the central role is being assumed by MİT.
Similarly, MİT has been selecting those fighters to be trained and equipped under a US-led program to destroy IS targets in both Syria and Iraq. But there are allegedly some US reservations over this because of long-held speculations that MİT has supported radical fighters in Syria, including the IS.
The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), for their part, will also be involved in the training of the fighters, but the bigger role in this respect will fall under MİT's responsibility.
Yet, it is understood that the TSK has been deliberately limiting its role in Turkey's overall Syrian policy due to its reservations over the alleged role of the Turkish government via MİT in assisting radical terrorist groups such as al-Nusra and the IS fighting against the Assad regime in Syria. Hence the TSK does not want to be held responsible for the Turkish government's ambiguous Syrian policy, and if a price is to be paid at the end for this policy, it believes the Turkish spy agency should be the one to pay.
Nevertheless, the TSK cannot escape from the responsibility it has to assume on military matters, such as whether to meet the US-led anti-IS coalition's requests for the use of, for instance, the İncirlik base in southern Turkey for offensive purposes against the IS. It is a fact that the decision by the government should be made on the nature of the long-delayed Turkish participation in the anti-IS coalition. But the TSK has a responsibility to influence any government decision on whether or not to allow Turkish bases to be used for offensive purposes against the IS.
The TSK, in the meantime, is facing a dilemma. It is not enthusiastic about allowing the coalition to use Turkish bases for offensive purposes. At the same time, the TSK is concerned that denying the coalition such facilities may lead to a rejection of its active involvement in ongoing intensive talks within NATO over its future strategies.
To sum up, the blurred boundaries among Turkish security organizations which do not trust each other concerning their responsibilities are further complicating both Turkey's internal and external policymaking mechanisms.

LALE KEMAL (Cihan/Today's Zaman)