Turkey's Malevolent Indifference
"Keep your mouth shut and sod off!"
"The Turkish government is helping ISIL. They keep saying they're not, but they are."
"They want ISIL to take over Kobani and after that maybe they can sort it out between themselves."
"We want to send a clear message to them to stop helping ISIL and to help the [Kurdish] YPG militias instead. But if they won't do that, then at least stop helping ISIL. We don't want the Turkish armed forces to go into Syria."
"They are working on the basis that the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Medet Ugurlu, 30, Syrian Kurdish refugee in Mursitpinar, Turkey
"We're doing everything we can from the air to try to halt the momentum of [ISIS] against that town, but that air power is not going to be enough alone to save that city."
Rear Admiral John Kirby, U.S. forces
"We still have thousands of civilians inside Kobani who might be massacred if ISIS takes the city."
"We don't want the Turkish armed forces to go into Syria."
"We would view Turkey sending its troops without an international decision as an occupation. Turkey can help in a different way by allowing support to come through its territory. All the talk by Turkey about helping us is still words and not actions."
Assi Abdullah, Kurdish official Kobani
On Wednesday, the Pentagon admitted it is troubled over Turkey's inaction, puzzling to some, but clear enough to the Kurds living in both Turkey and Syria. Turkey is the only non-European nation that is part of NATO. It purports to share the same values and visions as NATO, and it values its position within the military alliance. When Turkey nervously viewed the Syrian regime's readiness to use its chemical weapons arsenal and feared its borders would be breached by Syria in response to the government of Turkey's hostile position against Syrian President Bashar al Assad, NATO complied with its request to install anti-missile batteries.
NATO itself is somewhat nervous at the prospect of the Islamist State capturing Kobani and with it having an effective border close to Europe from which it might at some future date launch attacks beyond the Middle East. Turkey, as a member of NATO is expected to pull its weight, but it prefers to carry its weight around with verbose belligerence and restrain itself to a cheerleading capacity which entirely lacks credibility, but which keeps it out of the active battle zone.
Why, it figures, should it go to the trouble of helping Kurds defend a key city on its border when to do so would benefit Kurds? Turkey's hatred for its own Kurds let alone those of Syria remains an effective restraint toward the government putting its military where its mouth is. An estimated 14 million Turkish Kurds all clamouring for a homeland of their own to be carved out of Turkish geography is anathema to Turkey.
The depth of Turkey's violent animosity toward Kurdish independence and the Kurdish struggle now against the deadly incursion of the Islamic State can be measured by the actions it has taken to prevent food, medical aid, weapons or fighters from crossing the border in aid of the Kurdish militias' conflict with the Islamic State over the past several weeks to capture a key border city enabling the Islamic State to consolidate its complete mastery of the border area contiguous with Turkey's.
Turkey's bitterly violent conflict against the Kurdish PKK hasn't endeared it to either its own Kurdish population which Turkey has traditionally oppressed, enough so that the European Union has kept Turkey out of its organization citing human rights abuses endemic within the country, and mostly toward the Kurds, or Syria's. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has no intention whatever of using Turkish military power, even as the third largest military in NATO, to benefit ethnic Kurds wherever they happen to be.
Growing Kurdish fury relating to Turkey's seeming collusion with the Islamic State led to violent demonstrations when fourteen people died in demonstrations across Turkey following clashes with the Turkish security forces who evidently along with using tear gas lobbed at the demonstrators, also fired live ammunition. Eight people died in the majority-Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in eastern Turkey.
Violent clashes took place as well in Istanbul and Ankara while thousands of Kurds descended on the border region, but have been prevented from joining Syrian Kurds in their battle for Kobani.
Labels: Conflict, Islamic State, Kurds, Refugees, Syria, Turkey
posted by Pieface @ Friday, October 10, 2014
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