Turkey Considers Deploying Troops To Syria

This week, the Turkish government intends to introduce legislation in parliament that would allow a possible deployment of the army in neighboring Syria. The step represents a U-turn in Ankara - and it has Kurds worried.

Ankara has given up its initial reluctance and now plans to support the US-led anti-IS coalition, though without losing sight of its own interests in Syria. "For Turkey, the Assad regime remains the most important problem in Syria," Okay Gönensin told DW. Possibly, Washington promised Turkey greater involvement against Assad, the columnist for the Vatan daily newspaper said. In turn, Gönensin added, Erdogan promised to join the alliance.



For weeks, Ankara had refused to join the international alliance against the jihadists, despite the danger of fighting between the IS and Syrian Kurds along the Turkish border near Kobane and the IS jihadist group's threats to strike in Turkey.



It was only after a visit to the UN General Assembly in New York that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a radical turnaround: "The conditions have changed," he said. The release of nearly 50 Turkish hostages who had been held by IS for three months had removed a restraint on Turkey's ability to act.



Erdogan wants a buffer zone



Now Erdogan is demanding the attacks on the IS in Syria be expanded. A no-fly zone over parts of Syria and the establishment of buffer zones on Syrian soil are other Turkish demands. The Turkish president said last weekend he had spoken with his US counterpart, Barack Obama. Prior to this, he had given indications of his country's new attitude in New York. Gönensin and other observers suspect that Erdogan and US government officials met there to discuss the struggle against Assad.



The Turkish parliament is set to discuss a law allowing the deployment of the army in Syria as soon as it returns from its long summer break on Thursday (02.10.2014). The exact content of this law is not yet known, but it's also expected to serve as the legal basis for a possible deployment in Iraq. Erdogan is urging the US not to limit itself to airstrikes on IS positions, said Oytun Orhan, Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic Studies of the Middle East (Orsam), an Ankara think tank. "It's a matter of the long-term social and political reasons for the emergence of IS," Orhan told