By Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Correspondent for In Homeland Security
Ankara has called for an emergency session with NATO membership under the treaty’s Article 4, fearing territorial integrity, political independence and security threats. The flash point was the recent suicide attack by the Islamic State on July 20 that killed 32 people.
In retaliation, Turkish military forces carried out their first airstrike against the Islamic State in Syria. They also targeted the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq, using a combination of air and ground assaults.
Turkey faces two internal threats (the Islamic State and Kurdish militants) as well as an expanding de facto Kurdish sovereignty in Northern Iraq and the perpetual civil war and Islamic State on its southern borders in Syria.
Turkey is also wrestling with a destabilizing political dimension: a large, discontented and severe political majority. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling on the incoming Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to form a government since June 7. He is being accused of stalling this process to maintain his party’s power base while not offering the needed official mandate for a coalition.
Political opportunism in the security arena may aggravate the nation’s security. Snap elections might also take place amid a centralization of power in the Erdogan Presidency and the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Turkish national security strategy has been consistently to target the most numerous historic threat of Kurdish separatism and not engage the Islamic State or enter the Syrian Civil War without the backing of the West, a demilitarized zone and regime change of the Bashar al Assad Government.
Turkey has done well to receive hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees but is reluctant to assist northeastern Kurdish militants in Syria; even during humanitarian crises and potential threats of genocide. This fact has not helped their short-lived cease-fire with the separatists.
NATO has rebuffed Turkish demands and in large part worked around them; and with their permission, using Turkish air bases and assisting in training rebel forces to take part in the war.
The emergency session is no doubt a response to the inevitable radicalization of indigenous Turks to the black flag of the Islamic State. Prior to the last terror attack, Turkey had successfully prevented itself from being in the cross-hairs of the pseudo-caliphate since 2013. The negotiation of hostages in Mosul, Iraq, and suggested questionable practices of Turkey’s potential for foreign appeasement policy with the terrorist group, as well as their de facto hands-off security policy.
Inevitably, as I myself and many others predicted, Turkey has been in self-denial of the Islamic State threat matrix and substituted it with the longtime foe instead. While the political violence from Kurdish militants is still a strong threat, Turkey has and continues to exacerbate the situation. The difference now is that it no longer feels comfortable with the tacit arrangement of the Islamic State meddling into its airwaves and inciting citizens forward to internal radicalization and domestic terrorism. They have already rounded up 1,000 terror and separatist suspects.
NATO offers Ankara the same position held did before and Ankara is more likely now to take it, with or without the promise of regime change that long held up greater military response against the Islamic State. An ISIL-free zone and the participation of Turkey is needed regain a stable border that is increasingly contested by the Islamic State.
Another issue will be to address the concerns of rebel Kurdish militants of the YPG (People’s Protection Units of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party) claim they are under constant attack by Turkish security forces. Often this is within the Turkish borders; especially when they are under siege or on the defensive.
Ironically, many in these groups have and are receiving aid from Western states to fight the Islamic State. Ankara will have to assure NATO and establish a cease-fire with such anti-Islamic state forces short of coordination and formal cooperation. The Kurds makes up a majority population in eastern Turkey; sharing a border with Iraq and Syria in hopes to one day become a separate ethnic state: Kurdistan.
Hence the Turkish panic is a result of security mismanagement. Neglecting a growing threat and reigniting a war after establishing a peace. Turkey appears to be in the hands of foreign mercy. Hopefully it will listen to sound strategic advice to ensure its integrity. Greater participation against the Islamic State is welcome but further attacks inside Iraq against the PKK or even the YPG on the border may cause a short-lived joint effort. And the truth is that Turkey is still just now discovering the magnitude of an expanding and encroaching caliphate in its territory.
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