Turkey’s new war powers may not be in time to help Kobane

Turkey’s government now has more or less unlimited power, within the limits of international law, to engage in “cross-border operations and interventions of every kind” against all terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq, which it believes as threatening the country’s security. “It is not possible for us to remain just onlookers while the region is being rocked by a crisis,” President Erdoğan declared in his message marking the Feast of Eid.  

    

The measures were approved by the Grand National Assembly on Thursday evening with a whopping majority of 298. Members of the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) and the right-wing national MHP (Nationalist Action Party) combined to support it. The opposition centre-left and Kurdish parties opposed it, seeing the intervention as a nationalist and Sunni line-up against Kurds and non-Sunnis.

     

The passing of the bill was in stark contrast to what happened on the eve of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the present prime minister (then an adviser to Mr. Erdoğan) and other senior figures in the AKP broke ranks to prevent the government being given enabling powers, thus triggering a breakdown in relations with the US, which lasted several years. It is also a sharp turn-around from the government’s position only a month or so ago, when it signalled its reluctance to join the US-coalition.

    

Commentators in Turkey have already pointed to the catch-all nature of the resolution’s wording, which reveals that the government has given itself powers not only against IS but also against the Kurdish PKK (with which it is currently negotiating a “peace process” to end a thirty-year old armed conflict which has claimed tens of thousands of lives) and perhaps above all the Assad government in Damascus.

      

Fighting a war beyond their frontiers is a not a novel experience for Turks. It will probably not be very popular. Forty years ago, Turkey sent troops into Cyprus to protect the Turkish Cypriot population, but the Turkish army was already familiar with the island. More recently, Turkey has been part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan – though no Turkish soldiers have died there. Turkish public opinion does not seem to be in a jingoistic mood where Syria and Iraq are concerned: most Turks live in towns where there are martyrs cemeteries, full of the graves of youngsters who died fighting for the Turkish army in south-eastern Anatolia over the last three decades. Having more sons killed a foreign war after many decades of staying out of the conflicts of the Middle East is bound to be unwelcome.

     

For Turkey’s government however, which proclaimed that the Middle East was its chief area of interest but then found its regional initiatives deadlocked after the Arab Spring, the chance to strike against its regional opponents, notably President Bashar al-Asssad, looks inviting.

 

In the short term, however, it has to consider what it should do about the spread of IS along its southern border with Syria. This area, which is mostly Kurdish, is now known as “Rojava” and has been run for two years by the PYD (Democratic Union Party), a Kurdish nationalist movement which is an extension of the PKK. The PYD and Kurdish opinion generally want the channelling of arms and support to Kobane’s Kurdish defenders, and resents the fact that this has not been done despite pleas for help against IS for over a year, and they want urgent international intervention by the coalition to save Kobane. 

     

These calls have been rewarded by some US airstrikes against IS positions, but they have not managed to turn the tide in favour of the besieged Kurdish forces. 

     

“The future of the peace process [between the PKK and Turkey] depends on the fate of Kobane,” said Özgür Gündem, the main Kurdish newspaper in Turkey, which is often thought to be close to the PKK. Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK’s imprisoned leader, also urges operation to save Kobane, though he seems to be optimistic about a deal which could see him released from his island prison in the Sea of Marmara.

       

But Kobane’s fate now looks almost irretrievable. IS forces are closing in for the kill. Two or three days ago, it seemed as if the PYD militia aided by Syrian opposition units from further west was about to stem the advance of IS. But by Friday this week, the fighting was taking place actually inside the town and on its edges. Around 325 border villages have been captured by IS. The strategic hill of Tel al-Munteze on the eastern edge of the town is held by IS forces and IS tanks are so close to the town that the original Iraqi army markings can be read on them. 

      

Even if an immediate Turkish military intervention in Kobane was on offer (and it appears not to be) after Thursday’s resolution, a Turkish armed intervention there would be unwelcome to the Kurds, as would the creation of a safety zone (one of Turkey’s declared aims) run from Turkey, but populated by Syrian Kurds – and probably some of the estimated 1.4 million Syrian refugees now in Turkey.

       

As a result, in several cities in southeastern Turkey this week, there have been noisy demonstrations and protests, put down as now seems to be routine in Turkey, in both the east and west of the country, with tear-gas and riot police. This may be a serious miscalculation. Turkey’s eastern regions are very different from its Western cities. Demonstrators in Istanbul and Ankara last year were largely educated people with jobs and not prepared to pay too heavily for their opposition. The demonstrators in eastern Turkey are far poorer and have little to lose, while they are driven by strong nationalist aspirations.

     

As PYD militia commanders issued a stream of defiant messages from Kobane on Friday afternoon, fiercely denying that the city had yet fallen, there was no sign of what Turkey intends to do with its new military powers – though observers in Ankara believe that the Turkish military are getting ready for some kind of operation. 

 

Mr Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey’s prime minister told a local TV station “We do not want Kobani to fall. We'll do anything we can to stop this from happening.” But it looks as if he has only a few hours left to carry out this pledge.