After the Arab Spring started in the Middle East in 2011, Turkey was seen as an inspiration for aspiring democracies in the region. And that is because in Turkey there is a democratic government that has a tilt towards political Islam but did so in a seemingly moderate way, is a member of NATO, a growing economic powerhouse, and an island of stability in the region. But the recent attack on the Ataturk international airport clearly indicates that Turkey is slowly moving in the direction of becoming another chaotic country in the region. ISIS first began targeting people it thought were Kurds sympathisers whom they were fighting against in Syria. Later, it turned to tourists in Turkey. Then IS attacked Turkey’s security forces. The next level was to target Turkey’s civilian population. The latest attack at Istanbul’s Atatürk International Airport demonstrates that ISIS regards the Turkish government and people in their entirety as enemies. By hitting its airport, ISIS also struck at Turkey’s pride, damaging Istanbul’s status as a major international hub. The airport bombing was a wake-up call for Turkey that the IS was no longer just its neighbour’s problem. ISIS is refocusing its strategy in Turkey towards destabilising the Turkish state.
Turkey’s ISIS problems originated from its Syria policy. For the early part of the Syrian civil war, Turkey was focused on trying to oust the long-time foe President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey offered its support to opposition groups, some of whom became increasingly radical over time. When ISIS, the most extreme and effective of them all, showed its presence by brutality, instead of condemning them Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) kept quiet. Turkey instead tolerated ISIS as a vector to apply indirect pressure on Assad, and hasten the overthrow of his regime by opposition groups supported by Turkey. ISIS also provided Turkey with a means to contain the Syrian Kurdish YPG, which Turkey views as a major threat due to its affiliation with secessionist agenda of the outlawed Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
In the early phase of the Syrian civil war Turkish officials allowed great quantities of arms and thousands of extremist foreign fighters to pass through its border into Syria, which helped those jihadists to establish deep roots and infrastructure inside Turkey. For years, IS fighters in the war next door in Syria had effectively used Turkey as a rear base. The situation began to deteriorate when Ankara made the decision to allow the US-led coalition use of its army base to conduct air strikes against the jihadists. The penetration of Turkey by the IS is a legacy of Ankara’s misguided open door policy on the Syrian border.
While Turkey classifies IS as a terrorist group, it was late to seal its borders to militants crossing from Turkey into Syria, focusing instead on Kurdish militants, and the regime of Assad as the primary threats to its national security. Turkey’s border policies are no longer merely fuelling the war in Syria. They are coming back to haunt Turkey, too. IS has well-established networks in Turkey, with clusters of people based in Istanbul, Ankara, Konya, Adana, Izmir, ªanliurfa and the Gaziantep. Many analysts now believes that some elements within Turkey’s conservative government stomached, or even fostered, militant groups in Syria that tallied with their beliefs, creating a domestic environment in which IS could grow. Even intelligence experts are now saying that Turkey, like many European countries, is struggling to counter radicalisation at home, and to adapt to the group’s new tactics.
The capacity of militants in Turkey is set to grow as long as the country allows political Islam to grow unfettered. No matter what Turkey does, it will be hard to stop IS in the short term. The group has networks and sleeper cells inside the country. It is also aware of weaknesses in the Turkish security system. ISIL has deep roots in Turkish society and links to other militant hotpots around the globe. In a country like Turkey, with a 500-mile-long (800 kilometres) border with Syria and 200 miles (320 kilometres) with Iraq, IS has an easy passage and a fertile ground. The Turkish government has attempted a crackdown on the militant outfits by tightening security along its border, raiding known cells and arresting and deporting suspected extremists. Many other effective measures should also be taken by the Turkish authorities to reduce the menace of the IS: water-tight sealing of the Syrian-Turkey border, action against other radical groups like the Jabhat al-Nursa and Ahrar al-Sham, and cutting off IS access to financing and funding.
Moreover, Turks should realise that the biggest beneficiary of the resumption of violence between Turkey and the PKK is ISIS, which is the top national threat for turkey now. The country is in a dire situation, and needs to get its act together to fight the real terrorists while holding talks with Kurds.
The writer is a columnist for the Middle East and Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and Editor of ViewAround, a geopolitical news agency. He can be reached at [email protected]