Ukraine in Arabic | Mysterious Turkey-IS relations
KYIV/Ukraine in Arabic/ When the Syrian Civil War began in March 2011, Turkey was still in its blissful mood of having "zero problems with neighbors." The government even also believed it could help solve problems in its neighbors through its active diplomacy and soft power. That is why during the first six months of the war in Syria, Ankara tried to put the flames out by repeatedly talking to Bashar al-Assad and trying to convince him for a "peaceful transition to democracy."
But al-Assad, and his regime, proved to be a ruthless leopard that would not change its spots. Then, after August 2011, came the second phase of Ankara’s involvement in the Syrian civil war: Giving full support to the Syrian opposition.
This was not a wrong policy, for at the time the Syrian opposition was led by the Free Syrian Army, and the Syrian National Coalition, which were supported in the West, as well as "moderate" forces that aspired to a democratic Syria. However, as time went by and the war unfolded with more and more bloodshed, two problems emerged. The foreign "jihadists" who came to fight the al-Assad regime (not for democracy, but for sectarian victory) began to dominate the scene. Meanwhile, Turkey, which kept insisting that "al-Assad is the problem," did not realize this new threat. Rather, Ankara’s own initially pragmatic and moderate stance began to be compromised by the sectarian dynamics of the Syrian Civil War.
Meanwhile (throughout 2012 and early 2013) Turkey’s Western allies kept warning Ankara about the trouble with jihadists in Syria. But for a long time, these warnings fell to deaf ears. Admittedly, it was not possible to figure out exactly which "foreign fighter" who crossed the Turkish border would join exactly which brigade in Syria. (There were so many of them, and some were more moderate.) But both the U.S. and the Syrian Kurds probably had a point when they accused Ankara, especially for supporting the al-Nusra Front. You could even find pro-al-Nusra sympathies in Turkey’s pro-government media.
Our current nightmare, the so-called "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL), came onto the scene after all this, with a zeal, fanaticism and brutality that surpassed every other jihadist group on the scene. (No wonder other jihadist groups formed an "Islamic coalition" to fight against ISIL, which had already condemned them as "infidels" in late 2013.) To give a historical analogy, it is like the most brutal of all Bolsheviks, Stalin, dominating the scene in the late phase of the revolution and denouncing his relatively moderate comrades as traitors.
But did Turkey support ISIL as well? Some, including voices within the Turkish opposition, are more than willing to say "yes" to this question. But my answer is no. Rather, Turkey did realize ISIL was as a threat about a year ago. The wiretapped and leaked "secret meeting on Syria" at the Turkish Foreign Ministry last March was about nothing other than Turkey’s military options against ISIL, which was then threatening the tomb of the grandfather of the Ottoman Empire’s founder - a tiny Turkish territory located within Syrian borders.
In other words, it is unfair to blame the Turkish government for supporting ISIL. But it is fair to criticize it for not foreseeing this danger, and unintentionally paving its way by giving a blank check to jihadists, thinking that they were fighting the good cause. To give a historical analogy, it reminds me of the CIA of the 1980s, which supported the Afghan mujahedeen for fighting the cause - against the Soviets - but did not foresee that some of those same mujahedeen would evolve later into al-Qaeda.
On June 10, 2014, the notorious "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) took over Mosul, a key city in northern Iraq, with a swift conquest that caught many off guard. Among the latter were foreign policy makers in Ankara, who apparently were not expecting this blitzkrieg. They also were not expecting ISIL to raid the Turkish Consulate in the city and take its diplomatic and security personnel as hostages.
Since then, some 49 Turkish citizens, including a newborn baby, have been held as hostages at the hands of ISIL. We don’t know what will happen to them, or whether they will be ever free. But we know one thing: This hostage crisis has made Ankara much more aware of the ISIL threat beyond its southern borders. But, at the same time, its hands are tied against the same threat.
That is why, I, as a Turkish citizen, I have a lot of criticism, but also some understanding regarding the stance of my government in this ISIL business. The criticism is mainly about why and how they did not see this coming. First, why did they dismiss Western warnings about "extremists" in Syria throughout 2012 and early 2013, when the beast was in the making? More recently, why did they not evacuate our Mosul consulate in the wake of the ISIL onslaught? Did they naively presume that no matter how crazy they may be, “Islamic” actors in the region would not target the implicitly Islamic "New Turkey"?
However, while the Turkish government needs to be held accountable on such questions, its caution in joining the anti-ISIL coalition since the beginning of the hostage crisis is understandable. The problem is not that Ankara is "ally no more" for the United States, as a recent Wall Street Journal editorial put it. It is rather that its hands are tied.
This is not just because of the hostages, but also because of Turkey’s vulnerability due to its very long and easily penetrable borders with Syria and Iraq. America can heavily bomb ISIL targets and still feel safe 6,000 miles away, but a combatant Turkey’s safety will be much more open to risk. As journalist Piotr Zalewski also notes in a recent Bloomberg Businessweek article: “Of all the countries involved in NATO’s newly formed ‘core coalition’ against the [ISIL] terrorists, Turkey is the most exposed to potential blowback.”
But what about ISIL recruits from Turkey, including poor neighborhoods in Ankara? Well, that is certainly horrific, but ISIL is gaining recruits from European cities as well, including poor neighborhoods in London. Meanwhile, there is no evidence of large-scale Turkish sympathy for ISIL, and no wonder that the pro-government media is full of conspiracy theories depicting the group as a Western puppet. (This is, of course, ridiculously delusional, but is better than being pro-ISIL.)
As for the oil that ISIL reportedly sells to Turkey, it seems to be nothing other than local smuggling, which is a common occurrence on Turkey’s southeastern borders.
My bottom line is that while Ankara has made serious mistakes regarding ISIL, the view that it is complicit in the group’s crimes (as argued by the Turkish opposition and implied by some Western journalists) is wrong. Moreover, while Ankara could use some fair criticism and advice on ISIL, such sweeping accusations make its leadership only angry, defensive, and defensive-aggressive. And that surely helps none of us.
Author: Mustafa Akyol