In Fight Against ISIS, Turkey Also Strikes Kurds
July 29, 2015
On July 28, Turkish warplanes launched their heaviest airstrikes yet since joining the U.S.-led coalition battling the terrorist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. Turkey had resisted joining the coalition until a horrendous Islamic State bombing attack last week in the southern Turkish town of Suroç killed 32 student activists. Appalled by the attack, Turkey opened up its airbases to Allied warplanes and began flying their own combat missions. Turkish warplanes quickly hit Islamic State positions in both Syria and Iraq. Kurdish fighters in the area, however, a leading force on the ground against the Islamic State, also found themselves under attack by Turkish warplanes. Why is Turkey bombing both sides? Well, it’s complicated.
The Islamic State suicide bomber in the Suroç attack was a Turkish citizen, and also a Kurd—and Kurd-Turk animosity runs deep. The Kurds are a Middle Eastern ethnic group with a distinct language and identity, and live in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Except for a brief period in northern Iran from 1945 to 1946, Kurds have never had their own government. Their desire for cultural and political independence has led to conflicts between them and the governments under which they live. In Turkey, these conflicts have raged and sputtered ever since 1923, when the Turkish republic was formed out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Most recently, from 1984 to 1999, Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey waged a guerrilla campaign against the Turkish government. Violence then lessened but did not stop until both sides agreed to a fragile ceasefire in 2013.
In the months before the Suroç bombing, Turkey blamed a number of assassinations of police officers and military personnel on Kurdish militants. So, the Turkish government saw Suroç as a dual attack by both the Islamic State and the Kurds. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared the Turkey-Kurd peace process to be impossible and set about Turkey’s “synchronized fight against terror.” The rest of the world watches uneasily.
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