All eyes on Turkey during ECFR event

A number of prominent politicians, academics, journalists and experts met in London yesterday to discuss the changing role of Turkey in the Middle East. Hosted by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in partnership with Al-Sharq Forum, the event, entitled “Turkey and a crisis-ridden Middle East: Where next for Ankara?” was intended to chart a new course for Turkey within the region.

“If these things had happened 15 years ago, Turkey would have seen them as being far away and not relevant,” said Ilter Turan, Emeritus Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University in reference to recent developments in Syria and Iraq, “Turkey’s interest in the region is relatively recent.”

Significant topics discussed at the event included the Turkish response to the rise of Islamic State (ISIS), the regional fallout of the nuclear deal with Iran, the stalling peace process with Kurdish militia group the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the recent election setback for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The notion of Turkey’s rising prominence in a “crisis-ridden” Middle East was intended, said President of Al-Sharq Forum Wadah Khanfar, to reflect the fact that across the region “our states are becoming less rational and our irrational actors are becoming more organised” – no doubt a reference to the growing threat from militant and rebel groups such as ISIS, the PKK, Jabhat Al-Nusra and others.

However, Khanfar was also critical of Western attitudes towards the region, saying that: “The Americans think that ISIS is going to stay for at least 20 years. Why are the Americans giving credibility to ISIS in this way? Is this a new Middle East in which ISIS is a part? At the moment there is no synchronisation of how we feel in the region and what the Western capitals are thinking.”

Other speakers offered a more nuanced analysis of the ISIS threat; most notably the head of Cordoba Foundation Anas Al-Tikriti who affirmed that: “As it stands, I don’t think ISIS as a group can maintain itself.” Instead, he offered one of three alternative scenarios: mutation, expansion or splintering of the group.

Another significant issue raised at the event was the ongoing peace talks between Turkey and Kurdish factions, made all the more timely by the recent PKK attacks on Turkish gas pipelines and Turkish airstrikes against PKK positions in Iraq last week. Hemin Hewrani, the head of the Foreign Relations Office in the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was keen to stress that “the KDP does not support and does not endorse the PKK,” but highlighted that “it is Turkey that has changed towards [the Kurds]; we in Kurdistan have always been part of the solution.”

On Saturday evening, two Turkish soldiers were killed and four others injured in a car bomb Ankara claimed was planted by the PKK in retaliation to Turkish air strikes against PKK camps in northern Iraq. The previous week, 30 people died when an ISIS suicide bomber targeted the Turkish town of Suruç near the Syrian border. The victims were mostly left-wing activists who had reportedly been intending to travel to the Kurdish enclave of Kobane to deliver humanitarian aid.

In response, Turkey has asked Nato to hold an extraordinary council meeting to discuss the ongoing operations against ISIS in Syria and the PKK in northern Iraq.