Sunday, June 28, 2015

Did Turkey help ISIS grab Anbar as well?



İlnur Çevik

We human beings have a weakness in that whenever something happens to us we immediately try to find someone at fault and never think for a moment that we may be faulty ourselves. For long years people in Turkey tried to blame "outside powers" for the Kurdish problem in Turkey and held outsiders responsible for giving material as well as moral support to the Kurdish separatist terrorists (PKK). We did not even bother to think that the Kurdish problem was a homegrown issue and that we also may be at fault for this problem to blow out of proportions. Now the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HDP) is making the same mistake regarding the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, claiming Turkey helped religious radicals attack the town again last week.

Earlier in the year the northern Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani came under the attack of the militants of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS or DAESH) and the town was about to fall into the hands of the radicals. ISIS simply knocked out the defenses of the Kurdish fighters called the YPG, which is the military wing of the Kurdish political entity called the New Democracy Movement (YDH), which is the extension of our PKK in Syria… Most YPG fighters are those who were holed up with the PKK in the northern Iraqi mountain of Kandil.

Turkey extended humanitarian help to the town's people and received about 200,000 refugees from the area. Meanwhile, Turkey allowed the Barzani forces from Iraqi Kurdistan to transit its territory and enter Kobani to save the YDH. With the help of the aerial attacks by the coalition forces led by the U.S., the Kurds gained the upper hand in Kobani and flushed out ISIS. Then with the help of the coalition they continued making gains, recently capturing Tal Abyad near the Turkish border. During the Kobani crisis the HDP again accused the Turkish government of paying lip service to ISIS and helping them against the Kurds of Syria. The HDP asked people to take to the streets and in the ensuing events more than 50 people died in the streets of Turkey…

Last week ISIS militants attacked Kobani again and wreaked havoc in the town, killing more than 200 people. The HDP claimed Turkey allowed ISIS to slip into Kobani from its own territory… It seems the HDP officials did not even bother to think that the border is watched closely by everyone, including the Americans, and if something did happen like this, Turkey would never be able to get away with this shame. In fact American officials when asked about the incident said Turkey is effectively cooperating against ISIS.

It is clear that ISIS entered the town in a three-pronged attack from Syrian territory and that the YDH had a security lapse or is not as in control of the area as it claims. The Syrian Kurds should seek the fault with themselves, and the HDP should stop acting like the extension of the YDH and PKK alliance in Turkey. ISIS is doing this all the time. They are boldly attacking Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens all the time. When the Iraqi central government was bragging about taking back Tikrit and aiming to recapture Mosul, wasn't it the ISIS radicals who shocked everyone by grabbing a huge chunk of the country when they captured Anbar province? So should we say Turkey was behind ISIS gaining in Anbar or should we say these Iraqis only have themselves to blame for all this mess? The HDP is now in Parliament with the votes of many Turks. It should start acting like the party of Turkey and not the extension of the YDH…

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