Originally published on the CGS blog on October 17, 2014.
If you’ve been keeping up with the news about the Islamic State (IS), you know that there is a strategic battle taking place in Kobane, a Syrian city close to the Turkish border. Currently, local Kurdish forces are doing their best to repel IS militants from the city with the aid of Western air support. The battle is far from over, as the Kurdish forces and the Turkish government have said that more ground troops would most likely be needed to repel IS. This then begs the question of why the Turks aren’t doing anything to impede the progress of IS, as surely Turkey could be their next target.
In quite a childish back-and-forth scenario, the Turkish and US governments have each been prodding one another to take a more active role in the battle for Kobane. We are all well aware of the US’s reputation for intervening in crises such as this, so US involvement should not have shocked anyone. What might surprise some looking in from the outside is Turkey’s seemingly carefree attitude towards a strategic border town, which, if lost, could devestate them.
The root of Turkish inaction stems from their volatile relationship with the local Kurdish population. The Kurdish people occupy a large swath of land in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, and they have been quite vocal in their mission to establish an independent state. The Turkish Kurds in particular have frequently taken violent action against the Turkish government, which has led the Kurdish political party (PKK) to be labeled as a terrorist organization in several countries. With that fact in mind, one must also remember that Turkey has a particularly strong interest in ousting neighboring Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad. Moreover, Turkey has also spoken out against the atrocities of IS and has vowed to take serious military action if need be–though, frustratingly, that has yet to occur.
Considering these tensions, it would be easy for one to conclude that Turkey has a serious number of enemies at its doorstep, and the problem they are facing is one of complicated, intertwined actions and consequences. Turkish inaction in Kobane could most readily be attributed to not wanting to aid the local Kurds because of their strained domestic relationship. The only other plausible explanation would be the potential loss of Turkish life on the battlefield. If Kobane were to fall, IS could attempt to move into Turkey, though no one is sure if IS would be foolhardy enough to attack a NATO member.
Turkey is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They must prioritize their enemies by who poses the most imminent threat, and somehow, IS has fallen to last in that regard–to the chagrin of the West and of this blogger in particular. They don’t want to fight IS because they don’t want to aid the Kurds, but aiding the Kurds and the Western forces in Kobane might push everyone involved to take a more active military role in deposing Assad, which seems to be their primary or secondary objective.
The global community and the Western-led coalition of belligerents have an interest in solving this issue between the Kurds and the Turks. Whether that is plausible is certainly up for debate. If the Kurds and Turks could put aside their differences and see that they have a common enemy, much could be done in the fight against IS, a truly terrifying organization that has threatened to bring a centuries-old system of religious law to the world. Until a truce is struck, it seems as though it would take a drastic event for Turkey to intervene or side with local Kurdish forces fighting against IS.
