Turkey's Attempts to Kill Two Birds with One Stone

• 07.28.2015, 18:20
• Liana Hovhannisyan
•  Region,  Near East,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World

Last week, radical changes took placein Turkey's foreign policy in the Middle East . If by that time Turkey was conducting the so-called moderate foreign policy and did not directly interfere in the chaos in neighboring countries, last week after telephone conversation between the presidents of Turkey and the United States, Erdogan agreed to open air bases in Incirlik and Diyarbakir, which would allow the NATO partners to conduct air strikes in the direction of IS militants in Syria.

At the same time Turkey organized two direct military actions  on two fronts - air strikes in the direction of Syria against the "Islamic State", as well as in the direction of Northern Iraq against PKK fighters.

What was the reason for such a dramatic change in Turkish foreign policy?

Because of the Turkish Government’s unwillingness or inability, Turkish-Syrian border has become the primary entrance and exit path for IS militants. Together with this, though  it may sound strange, the Turkish authorities were not only able to prevent IS militants from launching terrorist activities in the country, but also, in case of necessity, they were coming to a confidential agreement with terrorists.

For example, last year in June, when the IS militants seized the city of Mosul, in quite a strange way the Turkish authorities managed to reach an agreement with the "Islamic State’" and  free the Turkish consulate employees from the hands of terrorists, exchanging them with prisoners.

But more recent developments and the terrorist actions in Turkey show that the policy of Turkish authorities run "behind the scenes", did not completely justify itself. Therefore, the Turkish government decided to turn to NATO partners for security assistance. But it is naive to believe that the danger, coming from the IS would be enough at this stage for Turkey to concede its positions and directly involve in the Middle East chaos.

As always, this time, too, Turkey tried to hit two birds with one shot, and under the pretext of combating the IS, it managed to get the US approval for direct air strikes against its old enemy, the PKK fighters. In order to achieve this goal, the Turkish authorities have once again proved that they can violate international human rights, which is obviously seen by the fact, that during Turkish air strikes a large number of Kurdish women and children were injured.

This naturally resulted to a new wave of rebellion by Kurdish people in Turkey. In response, the Turkish authorities are continuing their hard power politics, which is evidenced by the current Turkish government's attempts to suppress the voice of the Kurdish population.

Whether  the Turkish authorities are able to confront all challenges and become the winner in all three fronts, is too early to say, but the experience has shown that the attempts of the government keeping the public in a cage for concealing the existing problems within the country has been fatal , first of all, for the ruling regime.