MESOP TOP OF THE AGENDA : Series of Attacks Rock Turkey / Read Commentaries
| Turkey was hit by a series of attacks (WSJ) on Monday, including car bombs in Sirnak province and Istanbul, killing at least six people and injuring others. The attacks come amid escalating tension between the government and Kurdish militants. Meanwhile, two women opened fire (AP) at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul on Monday; one of the assailants was hospitalized but no one else was hurt. On Sunday, the U.S. military said that it sent (Bloomberg) six F-16 fighter jets and three hundred personnel to Turkey’s Incirlik air base after Ankara granted U.S. planes permission to launch air strikes against militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State last month. Separately, the al-Qaeda-affiliated group the Nusra Front said it withdrew (Reuters) from frontline positions in Syria against the Islamic State, leaving territory in northern Syria where Turkey wants to establish a buffer zone. |
An air campaign was launched against PKK bases in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey, and the PKK mounted daily attacks on Turkish soldiers and police. The abrupt escalation has already had a serious impact on the fragile Turkish economy. The AKP and Erdogan, who had highlighted economic burdens while launching the settlement process, appear ready to risk even worse economic consequence today for the sake of their political interests,” writes Zulfikar Dogan in Al-Monitor.
“Ankara’s dramatic military actions have created an opening which the European Union and United States should seize to help Turkey regain the political, economic, and security footing lost because of its own shortsighted actions,” write Stuart E. Eizenstat and Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan in Foreign Policy.
“The Turkish deal with the United States sets up an ‘ISIS-free’ bombardment zone along a 60-mile strip of the border region that features another exclusion: At Turkey’s request, it is also explicitly a zone free of the Kurdish militia, even though the Kurds had begun advancing toward the area to start battling the Islamic State there. Despite cooperating with American forces for months, the Syrian Kurds are now starting to worry that their success might not outweigh Turkey’s importance to the United States,” writes Rukmini Callimachi in the New York Times