The bottom line is that a safe zone that drags the United States further into a quagmire that its regional friends should be taking the lead on, and insulates the one country that should be doing the most against ISIS, is a bad idea.
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Police officers stand as Turkish police raide homes in Haci Bayram neighborhood in the capital Ankara, Turkey, Monday, July 27, 2015. The graffiti on the background reads in Turkish “Front”.
Nasrallah lambasted the Turkish government and refuted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claim that ISIS was a threat to Turkish national security.
Turkey has been hesitant to become too directly involved in the U.S.-led effort against Islamic State.
The Post reported that Turkey’s agreement to let U.S. planes use its air base at Incirlik, which was revealed last week, is part of the deal.
Turkey asked for the meeting based on Article 4 of the organisation’s treaty, which allows members to request such a summit if their territorial integrity or security is threatened. Kurdish fighters in Syria control most of the 910 kilometers (565 miles) boundary with Turkey, and have warned Ankara against any military intervention in northern Syria.
But whatever America was hoping for, initial signs are that the Turkish government may be more interested in moving against the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq than it is in attacking Isis. Turkey said its aircraft would join the air campaign against the Islamic State in Syria.
“The government has equated the PKK with IS and, although they are two very different entities, this serves the government’s intentions”, said Marc Pierini, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe.
Until last week, Turkey had refused to allow the use of its airfields for attacks in Syria, seeking instead the end of the Bashar Assad government in Damascus.
The air strikes mean that Turkey is really joining a coalition, of which it had only been a nominal member until now. “So what happens when we set up a safe zone there and the Syrians want to conduct operations against people we’re supporting?”
The US has called on both sides to avoid violence but stressed that Turkey has the right to defend itself against attacks by Kurdish rebels.
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) say Turkish tanks shelled their fighters near Kobane in northern Syria. Til Findire is east of the border town of Kobani, where the Kurds handed a major defeat to the Islamic State group earlier this year.
The North Atlantic Council, which includes ambassadors from all NATO nations, will meet Tuesday after Turkey requested a meeting to discuss its crackdown on militant groups and jihadists, the military alliance said.
Activists said there had been cross-border fire before but that the overnight shelling was particularly serious because of the context.
The risk of seeing the Kurds in Syria take advantage of the new situation, however, could complicate the issue for Turkey. Several reports suggest that the US has agreed to “turn a blind eye” to Turkish military action against the PKK in Iraq and against its sister party in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD).
The official added that authorities were “investigating claims that the Turkish military engaged positions held by forces other than ISIS”.
Such zones, which should have been set up years ago, can be created not only in northern Syrian along the Turkish border but also in southern Syria along the Jordanian border.
“It is an aggression that should be stopped”, it said. The raids, in 34 provinces, are targeting people suspected of links to IS, the Kurdish rebels and the outlawed HKP-C leftist group.
The HDP believes that the bombardment of PKK positions is an electoral ploy intended to whip up nationalist Turkish fervor in case there are snap elections because Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of the center-right ruling Justice and Development Party could not put together a coalition with another party.
Turkey also defended its detention of hundreds within its borders.
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“This is how we are going to act from now on”, Hürriyet Daily News quotes Davutoglu as saying and explaining the three reasons for Turkey to embark on a policy shift with regard to IS.
