Turkey in Syria & ISIS (merged thread)

[AmericanPride]

For the purposes of the North Atlantic Treaty, does an attack by the Islamic State on Turkey constitute an attack on the whole alliance? The U.S. invoked Article V after 9/11... what is the threshold for Turkey to do the same?

[CrowBat]

An 'interesting' day in regards of Turkey today.

First the rumours started flying about, US says Turkey OKs use of bases against militants. Then Turkey, Denies/d Reports of Deal for Use of its Bases in Fight Against Islamic State.

On the contrary, F-16s of the Turkish Air Force (THK) have flown a series of air strikes against PKK bases in northern Iraq, along the border to Turkey, today. With this, the cease-fire between Ankara and the PKK is now dead and they're at war (again).

These air strikes came in response to wild 'demonstrations' launched by the PKK in various parts of south-eastern Turkey in recent days, and reported re-activation of some of PKK's cells, which resulted not only in quite some material damage, but the death of more than 30 people too.

And thus, sorry Kobane, but no way are Turks now going to let even a single Kurd refugee within their borders go back to fight in Syria. If you wonder why, remember the rule No. 1 of COIN warfare ('separate insurgents/terrorists/freedom fighters from the population').

In this place: my hearty congratulations to Obama (plus all the idiots in different Western governments and media, especially so in Germany): man, that's a third conflict in the same zone now.

You've got a hat-trick!

[davidbfpo]

Stranger than fiction? Turkey's position has been challenged, now we have this report for March 2014: Wiretaps reveal Turkey's attacks on Syrian regime positions:

Court documents reveal that last year, when the Syrian opposition captured the Armenian town of Kassab, the Turkish army shelled the Syrian army.

Link:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...armenian.html?

[davidbfpo]

The NYT reports that Turkish forces entered Syria and evacuated the garrison at the tomb and the tomb's contents:

The Turkish Army launched an operation into Syria to evacuate soldiers guarding the Tomb of Suleyman Shah, which has been besieged by Islamic State militants, and move the tomb’s remains, an official and Turkish news media reported on Sunday.The military then destroyed what was left of the site to prevent the militants from using the enclave, and one soldier was killed by accident during the operation, CNN Turk said Sunday, citing military officials.
The operation, called “Sah Firat,” began on Saturday and involved a large convoy of tanks and other heavy weaponry that entered Syria through Kobani....

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/wo...orts-say.html?

The BBC has a report, with some footage of the returning Turkish convoy and this:

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the remains of Suleyman Shah would be moved elsewhere in Syria.

[davidbfpo]

A thorough joint commentary by a RUSI SME and 'Turkey Wonk':https://turkeywonk.wordpress.com/201...-implications/

It is interesting to note the tomb's new home is in the "grey zone" in Syria @ Eshme village; the zone is a narrow area where local rebel groups do not exert full control.

From the conclusion:

Turkey, however, has proven yet again that its role in the Syrian conflict must not be overlooked. It has links to all the main actors operating in northern Syria and is able to generally get its way with most of them, albeit with the occasional disagreement. The biggest change appears to be Ankara’s approach to ISIS. Since 2013, Turkey had treated ISIS as an irritant, rather than a major security threat, but the Suleyman Shah operation is the clearest sign to date that this approach is changing.

They conclude that Turkey's role will remain limited.

[davidbfpo]

Yesterday 'National Interest' had an article 'Turkey's Secret Proxy War in Libya?', which ends almost with:

If Turkey were backing Libya’s jihadists, it would fit a dangerous pattern of Turkish support to extremist regional actors.

Link:http://nationalinterest.org/feature/...ar-libya-12430

Then today Al-Monitor has a Turkish author writing 'Pakistan warns Turkey: Don’t make our mistakes', citing a Pakistani politician:

I warned Davutoglu when he was here, ‘You are repeating in Syria the mistakes we made in Afghanistan. Organizations you support now will turn against you.’ Pakistan was wrong in becoming party to the war in Afghanistan and was wrong in supporting the Taliban. We are now paying the costs of these mistakes."

Link:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...mistakes.html?

[davidbfpo]

Turkey's decisions this week to "come off the fence" has been welcomed by some and a few have wondered if bombing ISIS & the PKK is helpful.

The Soufan Group's viewpoint:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrie...islamic-state/

The BBC's Turkey correspondent:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33664269

[JWing]

I'm going to triple post this because it relates to the Iraq, Syria & Turkey threads. Pardon the repetition.

Just wrote an article on Turkey's decision to join the US led coalition against IS. Three main points to take away:

1) Turkey is going to follow its own policy which conflicts with the U.S. Obama admini thinks it can change Erdogan's view in the long term while getting right to use Turkish bases in the short. Obama only has little more than a year in office however so Turkey will probably win out in the long run.

2) Turkey wants to punish the PKK/PYD into submission and make it a client like it's done to the KRG

3) Finally Turkey wants to give more direct aid to the Syrian rebel groups its supports like Al-Nusra with the Syrian Free Zone.

Here's the full article