Wydaje się, że rząd AKP Turcji wspiera swoich dżihadystycznych sąsiadów na południu – ale wysyła armię turecką na granicę syryjską, by powstrzymać ofensywę kurdyjską przeciwko ISIS; mówi, że Zachód spiskuje przeciwko Turcji i muzułmanom na Bliskim Wschodzie

Autor: R. Krespin*

Wprowadzenie

Po odbiciu 15 czerwca 2015 r. przez siły kurdyjskie z wsparciem USA i koalicji syryjskiego miast granicznego Tel Abjad z rąk Państwa Islamskiego, wojownicy ISIS uciekli z tego terenu. Utrata Tel Abjad była dla ISIS poważnym ciosem, ponieważ od początku kryzysu syryjskiego to miasto było głównym punktem wejścia do Syrii z Turcji dla dostaw zapasów i wojowników, w tym ISIS. Była to także główna trasa ISIS dostarczania wsparcia dla swojej de facto stolicy, Al-Rakka w Syrii, 100 kilometrów na południe.

Turcja, chociaż jest członkiem NATO i sojusznikiem Zachodu, od dawna ignorowała prośby Zachodu o ściślejszą kontrolę granicy z Syrią, by zapobiec przekazywaniu dostaw i wojowników do ISIS. Obserwowała, jak kurdyjscy wojownicy z Ludowych Jednostek Obrony (kurdyjska nazwa: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, czyli YPG) – zbrojne ramię Demokratycznej Partii Jedności Kurdów syryjskich (PYD) – wraz z Buraq Al-Firat, małą frakcją Wolnej Armii Syryjskiej (FSA), skutecznie odparli ISIS, wykonując misję, której podjęcia Zachód oczekiwał od Turcji. Turcja odmówiła odegrania bardziej aktywnej roli w walce z ISIS obok sił koalicji i zamiast tego dawała priorytet walce z siłami prezydenta syryjskiego Baszara Al-Assada i niedopuszczaniu, by Kurdowie umocnili się wzdłuż granicy.

Zaalarmowany zajęciem przez Kurdów Tel Abjad, które wiąże dwa kantony autonomiczne, Dżazira i Kobani, prezydent turecki Recep Tayyip Erdogan zwołał wiele szczytów bezpieczeństwa w swoim pałacu, by zająć się “zagrożeniem narodowym”, jakie stanowi możliwość, że wzdłuż południowej granicy Turcji powstanie korytarz kurdyjski. W nadanym przez telewizję przemówieniu podczas obiadu iftar Erdogan powiedział: „Mówię światu: nigdy nie pozwolimy na utworzenie państwa [kurdyjskiego] w północnej Syrii. Chcę, żeby było to dobrze znane. Zapobiegniemy temu, niezależnie od możliwych kosztów” [1].

Należy wspomnieć, że kiedy ISIS ogłosiło Państwo Islamskie w czerwcu 2014 r. w pobliżu granicy Turcji z Syrią i Irakiem, rząd AKP nie tylko nie uważał tego za groźbę, ale zachował politykę otwartych drzwi ze swoim nowym, dżihadystycznym sąsiadem, pozwalając wojownikom, transportom broni i amunicji na wjazd i wyjazd z Syrii. Poparcie Turcji dla organizacji terrorystycznych ujawniły tureckie gazety głównego nurtu będące w opozycji do AKP, które udokumentowały wwożenie do Syrii ciężkiej broni i amunicji na dużych ciężarówkach konwojowanych przez personel Tureckiej Narodowej Organizacji Wywiadu (MIT). Mimo że rząd AKP zarządził blokadę informacji o wszystkim co stało się znane jako „afera ciężarówek MIT”, 29 maja 2015 r. „Cumhuriyet” opublikowała wideo z przeszukania dwóch ciężarówek w styczniu 2014 r., pokazujące ich ładunek. W następstwie tego prezydent Erdogan podał do sądu redaktora naczelnego “Cumhuriyet”, Cana Dundara, który jest teraz oskarżony o zdradę i grozi mu dwukrotne dożywocie. Także krytykująca AKP gazeta „Birgun” doniosła 22 września 2014 r., że Turcja zbudowała specjalne szpitale w miastach na południowej granicy, gdzie przywozi się rannych dżihadystów z Syrii. Te i inne doniesienia mediów tureckich będą tematem następnego raportu z MEMRI Turkish Media Project.

Po szczycie Tureckiej Narodowej Rady Bezpieczeństwa 29 czerwca 2015 r., któremu przewodniczył Erdogan, ogłoszono oficjalnie, że Tureckie Siły Zbrojne (TSK) otrzymały rozkaz podjęcia wszystkich możliwych kroków, by zabezpieczyć południową granicę Turcji i że są w pełni gotowe do podjęcia każdej akcji przeciwko „terrorystom z ISIS” i przeciwko „terrorystom z PYD, próbującym dokonać zmiany demograficznej w regionie przez oczyszczenie go z mieszkańców arabskich i turkmeńskich”. Jest jasne, że rząd AKP ma nadzieję, iż przez mylące przedstawienie swoich rzeczywistych celów przy pomocy takich sformułowań, których używa w międzynarodowej kampanii dyplomatycznej, będzie w stanie usprawiedliwić, legitymizować i zyskać międzynarodową akceptację dla interwencji militarnej w Syrii, jaką planuje.

The Turkish military moving tanks, missile launchers, artillery, and other heavy equipment to the Turkish southern border town of Kilis. (Photo: Hurriyet, July 2, 2015)

Poniżej podajemy (nieprzetłumaczone na polski) artykuły z mediów tureckich:

Turkey’s Military: Wary And Reluctant

A June 27, 2015 report by the Turkish mainstream daily Hurriyet broke the news that the military had received orders to prepare for war. It also noted that the military had refused to act on verbal orders from the outgoing AKP government which had lost its parliamentary majority in the June 7 general elections, but that Chief of Staff Gen. Ozel had insisted on written instructions, which were provided promptly by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

According to the report, the reluctant military officials were concerned about the risks involved, including situations in which Turkish forces could come under attack by ISIS, Syrian Kurds, and Syrian government forces, as well as possible civil unrest inside Turkey that massive protests by Turkey’s Kurds would create. Turkey’s top brass said that the country must have compelling reasons to justify any military action it took in Syrian territory, beyond its concerns that a Kurdish state would emerge in northern Syria. They warned that such military action could pit Turkey against the U.S., as well as against Russia and Iran, if undertaken without first consulting them. Military officials also said that the Syrian government should also be consulted, so that any Turkish military operation would not violate international law.[2]

Erdogan: West Is Plotting Against Turkey And The Region; AKP Islamist Media Pushes For War Against Syria

In the pro-AKP media in Turkey, anti-West sentiment is on the rise, as it stresses the necessity of military action to prevent a Kurdish entity from emerging along Turkey’s southern border, and the need to rescue Turkey from the grand designs of the Western powers. Front-page headlines declare the Kurdish PYD „more dangerous than ISIS”[3] and promulgated the AKP’s claims that the Kurds in Syria are engaged in ethnic cleansing of Arabs and Turkmen in Tel Abyad.

Media depiction of Turkish military plan of operation against Syria (Photo: Cumhuriyet, June 29, 2015)

Turkey’s pro-AKP Islamist media is urging Turkish military intervention to seize a strip of land in Syria, between Jarablus and Marea, near the de-facto autonomous Kurdish canton of Afrin, to serve as a buffer zone, thus preventing a possible Kurdish takeover of Jarabulus and a subsequent unification of the three Kurdish regions along the border. They write that the U.S. and other Western powers, along with their Turkish media pawns and the Kurds, are conspiring against Turkey, and are preparing the ground for a Kurdish state along the southern border, that will stretch from northern Iraq to the Mediterranean. Some even claim that the Western powers that created ISIS, and that are acting together with the Assad regime and the PYD in Syria against Muslim countries in the Middle East, are drawing new Sykes-Picot lines to change the map of the region.

On June 25, 2015, Erdogan also spoke about foreign designs on the region. Noting that an historic transformation was underway in Anatolia and the entire region, he added: „For the last 100 years, the history of our region has been determined by the Sykes-Picot setup. This order, that was built 100 years ago, is the main cause of all the wars and bloodshed between [Muslim] brothers. Today too we are witnessing a new Sykes-Picot being constructed in our south. The events taking place in Syria and Iraq cannot be assessed as [resulting] solely from those countries’ internal dynamics.

„We are seeing engineered plans put into motion, that will shape the future of our country and of the entire region. Projects that are foreign to the history and nature of our region are being brought to life. It is as if they are showing us the option of death, so that we agree to accept the fever [i.e. the lesser of two evils].”

He continued: „We cannot permit terrorist organizations to be used as a lever, and we cannot pretend not to see these plots and act as if they do not exist. Nobody can expect us to [merely] observe these events that impact us as a nation while sitting in the grandstand.” Attacking the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for daring to accuse Turkey of supporting terrorists, and for organizing global campaigns on Twitter to discredit the country, he called the party „the pawns of foreign lobbies hostile to Turkey.”[4]

Islamist columnist Ibrahim Karagul wrote that military intervention is „a must” to „save Turkey from the destruction planned for it by the West.” He wrote about the danger of foreign grand designs, and about the formation of a hostile front in the south to destroy Turkey, block its growth, limit its reach, and sever its ties with the Arab and Muslim world by „imprisoning Turkey within Anatolia.”[5]

Anti-AKP Turks Oppose War

Mainstream media, opposition parties, and legal authorities in Turkey strongly oppose any military intervention in Syria, arguing that a lame-duck interim government or president cannot authorize such an action without consulting the newly sworn-in parliament.[6] They fear that Erdogan will lead the country into a quagmire in Syria that will cost the nation dearly, to serve both his personal ambitions and his hatred of the Alawite rule of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, whom he wants to see replaced by Sunni Islamists like himself.

Turkish analysts, such as Kadri Gursel of the mainstream daily Milliyet, think that Erdogan, following his upset in the June 7, 2015 elections, would undermine the process of coalition-building by pushing for his long-desired military intervention in Syria, knowing well that no opposition party would agree to join a coalition with AKP if it starts a war. He would create chaos, says Gursel, and declare early elections, hoping to ride the rising tide of nationalism and emerge a winner himself, and then have the AKP gain back its parliamentary majority.[7] Most Turks believe that Erdogan has not abandoned his grand ambition to become the absolute ruler of an Islamist, expansionist, neo-Ottoman country of his dreams.

The AKP’s Fabricated Excuses For War: Marketing It Domestically As Against Kurds, Internationally As Against ISIS

Fehmi Tastekin of the liberal Turkish daily Radikal also wrote that Erdogan might try to start a war, with the aim of redirecting his failed attempt in the June 7 elections to become a super-president by trying to run as a super commander, and burning Turkey in the process. He added that the AKP would try to market a military intervention by presenting it to Turkey as a „precaution to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state” and internationally as „an operation against ISIS.” All the so-called justifications for a war, he said, are fabricated by the AKP government:

„These false excuses include: ethnic cleansing of Turkmens and Arabs by Kurds; the formation of a Kurdish belt along the border that would threaten Turkey; the likelihood that ISIS, having lost Tel Abyad, would move westward with the help of Assad’s forces, and that ISIS would seize the border crossings of Bab Al-Hewa [Cilvegozu on the Turkish side] and Selame [Oncupinar on the Turkish side].”

Tastekin believes that only the latter could be considered a realistic justification for war for the AKP, since losing these two border crossings would mean the severing of its ability to provide the logistical and material support that Turkey, in partnership with the Saudis, gives to the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham and other jihadi organizations in Syria.

Regarding the AKP’s false accusation that the Kurds are carrying out ethnic cleansing in Tel Abyad, Tastekin claims that the displacement of the majority of the Syrian population was a result of the proxy war, in which Turkey is the main actor. He points to the AKP’s hypocritical silence when Syrian opposition forces expelled the Shi’ites and Christians from Homs, and the Alawites from Latakia. Likewise, he says, Turkey did not object when ISIS expelled the Kurds from Raqqa, Menbic and Al-Bab in 2014. He says that the Kurds’ success in forming the 'social contract’ that made it possible for people of all colors to live and survive in Rojava (northern Syria/western Kurdistan) should be seen as a model, not a threat.

Tastekin then warns about the consequences of a Turkish military intervention in Syria, a sovereign state, and says that this would constitute an invasion: „The AKP may claim that no one is controlling these areas anyway. But if Turkey stops the flow of arms and fighters through its borders, and stops shooting at the Syrian government forces every time they come near the border, control would be established there.

„Such an intervention would bring Turkish military face to face with Syrian government forces. If the 'buffer zone’ includes the ISIS-controlled Jarabulus, ISIS will target Turkey directly, and the fighting will not be conventional fighting limited to the borders. If the intervention targets Kurdish YPG areas, this would mean fighting the Kurds, who, God forbid, will burn our cities.”

Tastekin claims that since there are no moderates left in Syria, the only beneficiaries of this military intervention would be the jihadi organizations: „Such an intervention would turn Turkey into another Syria.”[8]

Turkish columnist Nuray Mert of Cumhuriyet wrote that there was nothing more comical than the excuse for war given by the Islamists who were pushing for it, and added that those in the pro-AKP Islamist media who claim „that fighting ISIS would demonstrate that Turkey is not related to terrorists” would make a cat laugh. She asked: „Did [the idea of] fighting ISIS occur to them only now?” The ones who are voicing war cries now, she wrote, are the same ones who called it a 'victory’ when Mosul was occupied by ISIS, and who had said that what was important was the Sunni resistance and the Sunni State. One of the war-promoting daily newspapers, she wrote, referring to the pro-AKP Sabah, had published the headline, „The PYD is more dangerous than ISIS” – thus openly acknowledging that a military operation was planned by the government against the Kurds, and not against ISIS.[9]

ISIS Infiltrates Kobane Again, Massacres Civilians; Kurds Claim They Came Through Turkey

Having left the Kurdish town of Kobane on Syria-Turkey border on January 26, 2015, ISIS militants returned to attack the town in pre-dawn hours of June 25, entering from the north and the south. They detonated simultaneous car bombs, one near the Turkish border crossing of Mursitpinar just north of Kobane. The fighting continued at locations outside Kobane for the rest of the day, until Kurdish forces cleaned the town of ISIS terrorists. In what is considered to be the second-largest massacre that ISIS has ever carried out, over 200 people, mostly children, were killed, and about 150 were wounded. In Berxbotan village, 28 women and children were decapitated by ISIS. Nearly 100 of the wounded were carried over the border fence into Turkey, where they were taken to hospitals in nearby Suruc.

There was widespread belief among Kurds that ISIS fighters had infiltrated into Kobane from Turkey, through Mursitpinar crossing – a claim strongly denied by Turkish government officials.[10]

Twitter Campaign Condemns Turkey For Helping Jihadi Organizations In Syria

On June 25, 2015, a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #terroristturkey condemning Turkey’s involvement with and its aid to jihadis trended to the No. 1 spot globally.

Chart showing estimated tweets per hour for #terroristturkey. Source: #terroristturkey, Twitter, June 25, 2015.

President Erdogan allows jihadis in through the border but keeps refugees out. Source: #terroristturkey, Twitter, June 25, 2015.

PYD leader Salih Muslim told reporters that there were signs that some of the terrorists had infiltrated into Kobane through Turkey. He said, when told that Turkey vehemently rejects these allegations, „Turkey always denies everything, but it is mendacity itself.”[11]

Osman Baydemir, former mayor of the Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Diyarbakir, and newly elected HDP MP, exhibited on television a Turkish government-issue identity card found on one of the ISIS fighters killed in Kobane. Baydemir said: „This ID card that I hold in my hand belongs to one of the monsters that participated in the massacre in Kobane. It is proof that this murderer was sheltered in one of the camps in Akcakale” in Turkey – that is, he reached Kobane via Turkey.[12]

HDP MP Osman Baydemir shows Turkish government ID found on an ISIS fighter killed in Kobane. Cumhuriyet, June 25, 2015.

The anti-AKP Turkish daily Yurt also accused the AKP government of supporting, aiding, and arming the jihadi organizations in Syria, and claimed that some of the ISIS fighters who had carried out the massacres in Kobane had come through Turkey, as had the car bomb that was detonated near the border crossing. As evidence, Yurt provided photos of a Turkish government-issue ID found on Syrian ISIS fighter Ahmet Shikh, captured in Kobane by Kurdish forces.

Turkish government-issue ID found on Syrian ISIS fighter Ahmet Shikh, captured in Kobane by Kurdish forces. Source: Yurt Gazetesi, June 27, 2015.

HDP Co-Chair: „The AKP Government Is Trying To Create An Excuse To Invade Syria” Because Of Its Animosity Towards The Kurds

Figen Yuksekdag, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party of Turkey (HDP) headed a delegation of HDP parliamentarians on a visit to the Turkish border at Kobane, where she lashed out at the AKP government for its complicity in the massacre of the 146 civilians in Kobane. The ISIS attack, she stated, had been well planned, well-prepared, and well-coordinated to be conducted on multiple fronts, one of which was at the Mursitpinar crossing on the Turkish border. She said that this was no infiltration but free passage given to the ISIS murderers and their car bombs by the Turkish government, that facilitated the slaughter. There are ISIS camps and centers inside Turkey, she said, and the evidence of this is clear, but the government denies this. Because the judiciary and law enforcement serve the AKP, not a single investigation is being conducted, she said.

Yuksekdag further stated that the AKP government was trying to build a case to justify military intervention in Syria, through lies and false accusations against the Kurds, on the pretext of protecting the Turkmen. She demanded: „Mr. Prime Minister, where were you when thousands of Turkmen women were kidnapped, raped, sold into slavery, or killed by these murderous, subhuman ISIS gangs? Why do you never tell this to our people? There are over 200 Turkmen women in the hands of ISIS right now! Aren’t they the Turkmen that you supposedly defend?

„It is not you but others who are defending them! It is the Kurdish forces of the YPG and YPJ that are defending the Turkmen. It is the PYD that has taken upon itself the responsibility to defend, protect, and provide security to all those targeted by ISIS, without discriminating on the basis of their nationality, ethnicity or religion.”

Calling on the AKP government to stop its support for and cut its ties with the terrorist gangs, and just for once to launch an operation against ISIS to prove that it is not with them, she added: „If you do not support and stand behind these terrorist gangs, then for God’s sake round up some of them – just like you arrest and imprison scores of children and women, young and old, every day in this country.”[13]

Still from video showing two ISIS militants at the Turkish border in apparently friendly conversation with Turkish soldiers, after stealing or setting fire to cars and trucks abandoned by refugees escaping Kobane. Youtube.com/watch?v=xz_Sd-6uAhs. September/October 2014, accessed July 8, 2015.

Jihadis on Turkish side of border chatting with Turkish soldier. Source: #terroristturkey, Twitter, June 25, 2015.

Turkey Is Now „The Jihadi Highway” – Because Of AKP’s Pan-Islamist, Ottomanist Foreign Policy

In his February 26, 2015 column in the mainstream Turkish daily Milliyet, Kadri Gursel, who has written frequently in the past three years in opposition to the AKP’s foreign policy, particularly its Syria policy, accused the AKP of blurring the lines between Turkey’s domestic and foreign policies, in line with its Islamist ideology, with disastrous results: „The AKP’s policy is 'Islamism at home, Islamism in the world.’ Its social engineering project to create a devout society at home through its authoritarian Islamist rule spilled over into Syria, with the aim of ousting [the Alawite] Assad by inciting civil war and to install there a Muslim Brotherhood government. This pro-Sunni, neo-Ottomanist and Islamist foreign policy has further exacerbated the polarization in Turkey.

„Turkey has become a country in which any opponent of this disastrous Syria policy is called 'Assadist,’ any citizen who does not give the four-finger [Rabi’a] Muslim Brotherhood hand sign is called a 'coup-planner,’ and anyone who criticizes AKP’s Middle East policy is accused of being 'an agent for Israel.'”

Previously, on January 12, 2015, Gursel wrote that the AKP government had created an emotional climate in Turkey in which some (i.e.pro-AKP) sectors of the population assumed that the civil war in Syria was actually taking place in Turkey. The AKP, he said, wanted its electorate not only to show humane solidarity with the people of Gaza, but to identify with Gaza by making it the main focus of its policy. „Likewise,” he added, the AKP „engineered a fictitious perception to elicit from the public the same reaction to the coup in Egypt that it would have had if Erdogan himself were ousted.”

He added that AKP government officials had until recently refused to call ISIS a terrorist organization, and had downplayed the threat it poses, in excusing its actions. Accusing the AKP of spreading its pan-Islamist ideology and causing thousands of young Turks to join the jihad in Syria and elsewhere, he warned that if they do not die there, they will come back to Turkey as fanatics who know very well how to kill.

* R. Krespin is Director of MEMRI’s Turkish Media Project.