About a month ago, the World Affairs Council of Atlanta asked Turkish Consul General Ozgur Kivanc Altan to come up to Atlanta from Miami to speak on Aug. 13 about his country’s June elections.
The invitation proved prescient in ways the organizers couldn’t have imagined.
Since that time, a July 20 bombing in the Turkish border town of Suruc attributed to Islamic State forces and violence blamed on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) against Turkish troops seem to have changed the country’s foreign-policy equation.
Turkey has begun air strikes against ISIS and has allowed the U.S. to use the Incirlik air base to do the same. Given Turkey’s status as a NATO ally, some wondered why it took so long.
In a November interview with Global Atlanta, Mr. Altan said Turkey was waiting for a “comprehensive strategy” that addressed the “root cause” of ISIS’s rise: instability caused by the Syrian civil war.
Analysts — including Turkey expert Joshua Walker, who spoke alongside Mr. Altan at tonight’s World Affairs Council event — have called Turkey’s new stance a “game changer” in the fight against ISIS, saying the country has finally come off the sidelines in a battle that has destabilized its neighborhood and sent nearly 2 million Syrian refugees flooding across its border.
But Mr. Altan says the recent incidents of violence against his country, while a catalyst for an enhanced policy, weren’t an absolute trigger. Turkey’s new offensive is the result of long-term deliberations with partners including the U.S.
“This cooperation was ongoing already. There was also a process of negotiation for doing more. Today’s story is just not popping up today,” he said, noting that his country has been training Syrian rebels, devising new and hospitable ways of hosting Syrian refugees and providing logistical support to coalition forces.
Those who argue that Turkey has been “sitting on its hands,” as a recent CNN article put it, haven’t been watching closely enough, he said. Equally off base in Mr. Altan’s view are assertions that Turkey has been content to let ISIS fester if it keeps PKK strength in check.
Still, analysts acknowledge at the very least a divergence in priorities among coalition partners. Dr. Walker recently said on CNN that Turkey’s first priority is to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state, then to depose Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, then to fight ISIS. The U.S.’s goals align in the exact opposite progression, he said.
Turkey’s recent air strikes have hit targets of the PKK, which both Turkey and the U.S. designate as a terrorist group.
“People say, you use it as a jumping-off tool [for attacking the PKK], but that’s outrageous,” Mr. Altan said. “That’s truly outrageous because we have been fighting against daesh, ISIS, from the outset, but the PKK is an equally dangerous terror organization, and we will not give in to their ways and tactics. We will defeat them.”
But complicating matters is the fact that PKK-affiliated Kurdish groups in Syria have been successful in fighting back ISIS, and analysts say American officials would just as well leave the Kurds alone.
Mr. Altan told Global Atlanta that Turkey’s battle is not with ethnic Kurds, which the country has worked hard to integrate into mainstream society in Turkey. In fact, the Kurdish HDP party won 13 percent of seats in parliament in June, contributing to the lack of a majority in parliament. The ruling AKP is meeting with opposition parties this week to attempt to form a coalition.
The consul general says Turkey’s fight is with PKK terrorists whose indoctrination has left them “morally and psychologically bankrupt” that they are unable to articulate reasonable goals. In his view, they don’t even know what they’re fighting for anymore — other than for their identity as rebels.
“What PKK is trying to do is take advantage of the fog of war,” he said.
For Turkey, that makes a two-front war against extremism. ISIS and the PKK, while ideologically divergent, are of the same ilk, he says.
“We don’t really make a distinction where the terrorists come from. We take terrorism as a menace in its own right, on its own integrity. For us, it’s all really terrorists,” he said.
That same definition applies to another communist splinter group suspected of opening fire on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul this week, igniting concerns that Turkey will face a growing internal security threat as it works to establish a safe zone along its border with Syria.
So what’s the end game? Mr. Altan says Turkey’s goals are aligned with the Geneva Communique, a deal struck at the United Nations in 2012 that calls for Assad’s removal and a transitional government to be installed in Syria. After all, a destabilized Syria was the breeding ground for the metastasizing “cancer” that ISIS has become, he says.
While allies are “closing the loop” on ISIS in many ways, it’s hard to gauge the success of a multi-front campaign in the heat of the moment, Mr. Altan says.
One wild card, for instance, is Iran, the Assad regime’s primary supporter. The U.S. and its allies have struck a nuclear deal with the country that critics argue will embolden its opposition of Western interests in the region. Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, has said explicitly that money coming in from previously frozen oil revenues will be used to fuel Iran’s anti-American interests in the region.
Turkey, which has been a commercial intermediary between Iran and the world under sanctions, takes a nuanced view.
“We don’t want weapons in our neighborhood, yet we also recognize Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy,” Mr. Altan said in support of the deal. “We believe this is an opportunity that needs to be seized.”
He hinted that the leader’s threats may be playing to political leanings of hardliners at home.
“Other than their statements, you should pay attention to their deeds,” he said, noting hopes in Turkey that the deal will “moderate the whole place.”
Attend tonight’s event by clicking here.
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