Intervention by Turkey or the US won’t help the Kurds
by Ron Margulies in Istanbul
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(right) meets US navy admiral Mike Mullen (Pic: Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff on Flickr)
The Islamic State is a clear and present danger in Turkey, not a distant threat. Islamic State tanks and heavy artillery are just on the other side of the country’s long south-eastern border with Syria, a stone’s throw from the town of Suruc and several villages.
Wayward Islamic
State mortar shells frequently land on the Turkish side of the border.
Yesterday, three people were injured when a house in Suruc was hit.
The population in
this part of Turkey, and on the Syrian side of the border, is mostly
Kurdish. People have family on both sides and, in normal times, the
border tends to be porous.
Islamic State has
been attempting, for three weeks now, to take the Syrian town of Kobane.
Kurdish resistance has been fierce, but the odds are stacked against
them.
Initially, the
Turkish government refused to open the border to escaping civilians, but
was forced into letting 160,000 refugees in under pressure from public
opinion at home.
The US-led
coalition has been bombing ISIS positions outside Kobane for the past
few days. Kurdish
forces on the ground report it to have hardly any
effect at all.
Peace
This battle puts the Turkish government in a difficult position.
It doesn’t want a
second autonomous Kurdish entity on its borders (the first being in
Northern Iraq), but the fall of Kobane would both endanger the peace
process with Turkey’s own Kurdish movement, led by the PKK and make the
unpredictable ISIS a direct neighbour.
After considerable
arm-twisting by Washington, Turkey has taken sides with the US
coalition. Parliament voted to authorise the government to send troops
abroad and to allow foreign troops to launch operations from Turkish
soil.
While the
predicament of the Kurds in Kobane makes it difficult for the anti-war
movement to argue against US bombs and Turkish military involvement, it
is important that the argument is put forward.
US bombs have never
solved any problem in the Middle East or elsewhere. Neither the US nor
Turkey are likely ever to do any favours for the Kurds.