Turkey Rejects NATO Call To Bomb ISIS

Delegates from NATO and the United States came to Ankara last Thursday to redouble pressure on the Turkish government and accept military involvement in the offensive against the jihadists of the Islamic State. Meanwhile, ISIS fundamentalist militants maintained the siege of the Kurdish city of Kobane, located on Syrian territory but right on the border with Turkey.

“The Islamic State is a serious threat to the Iraqi people, for the people of Syria, for the region and for the members of NATO,” said the secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, during his appearance Thursday with the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu.

“It is important that the international community remains united in this long-term effort,” said Stoltenberg in Ankara.

Meanwhile, American retired Gen. John Allen, who coordinates the operations of the international coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also traveled to the Turkish capital in order to meet with different members of the Turkish government on Thursday and Friday.

In recent days, the United States has shown increased frustration due to Turkey’s refusal to intervene against the jihadists in Kobane.

The head of Turkish diplomacy publicly reiterated his reticence. “It is unrealistic to expect that Turkey will direct a field operation,” said Cavusoglu.

“While Assad remains in power, the bloodshed and the killing will continue. The Assad regime is the cause of instability and therefore political change is necessary,” Cavusoglu said in the press conference with Stoltenberg.

Even if the city of Kobane falls to ISIS extremists the Turkish government, which has the second largest army in NATO, has insisted that it would only intervene if several conditions are met. Among them, the establishment of a buffer zone, which concentrates the refugees fleeing the fighting, a no-fly zone on the Syrian side of the border, and a trained coalition of moderate Syrian rebels who would help pursue regime change in Syria.

“Turkey has a credibility problem because for a long time it has said that it could not do anything because ISIS had Turkish hostages, but since they were released, the government now says they cannot do anything because it is necessary to remove Assad: what all  this appears is that they are making excuses,” says Gareth Jenkins, a Turkish analyst at the Institute for Central Asia and the Caucasus.

“These conditions are not realistic and the Turkish Foreign Ministry should know they are not realistic,” he added. Turkey called for a no-fly zone to be established almost from the beginning of the war in Syria, in the summer of 2011. Today, that area would also serve to relocate some of the 1.5 million Syrians refugees who Turkey has taken in the last three years.

Creating a no-fly zone “has not yet been on the table in any discussion led by NATO,” said on this subject the new secretary general of the Alliance. Representatives of the USA and the UK have expressed that the creation of this area could be studied, while French President François Hollande has said he would support it himself.

NATO claims that coalition airstrikes have prevented the jihadist takeover of Kobane and that the bombings have helped the People Protection Units, a Kurdish militia defending the city. This militia has now asked Turkey to allow passage of Kurdish fighters, ammunition and weaponry to Kobane.

The Turkish Government opposes armed groups at it perceives the YPG as the Syrian branch of the Workers Party of Kurdistan, whose militia took up arms against Turkey in 1984 and is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, the EU and the United States.

Kurds comprise about 20% of the population in Turkey, approximately 75 million people. Therefore, the passivity of the Turkish government towards Kobane pro-Kurds has sparked violent protests in which at least 26 people have been killed.

The authorities lifted the curfew imposed in several provinces to avoid protests on Thursday.

Luis R. Miranda is the Founder and Editor of The Real Agenda. His 16 years of experience in Journalism include television, radio, print and Internet news. Luis obtained his Journalism degree from Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, where he graduated in Mass Media Communication in 1998. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcasting from Montclair State University in New Jersey. Among his most distinguished interviews are: Costa Rican President Jose Maria Figueres and James Hansen from NASA Space Goddard Institute. Read more about Luis.