Under pressure to take more active stance in coalition, Ankara is mindful of potential backlash from border extremists
Turkey is set to vote Thursday over expanding its role in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, a decision that could have long-lasting consequences for a country highly susceptible to an ISIL backlash and fearful of inadvertently strengthening other regional enemies.
Ankara has long been accused of turning a blind eye toward ISIL, but under pressure from NATO-ally Washington, Turkey’s parliament will vote Thursday on its options for bearing down on the extremist group in Syria and Iraq. It is expected to consider opening up Turkey's Incirlik airbase to the U.S.-led coalition and may discuss provisional approval for Turkish ground forces to enter Syria, should Turkey come under attack from ISIL.
With porous borders that have become the front lines in the battle against the Al-Qaeda-inspired insurgency, Turkey is vulnerable to fallout both inside and outside its boundaries. Not to mention that Turkey has been reluctant to assume a more prominent role in the U.S.-led coalition for fear it would undo years of Turkish efforts to overthrow the Assad regime and contain Syria and Iraq's Kurdish minorities — who are allied to the Turkey-based Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist group designated by both Ankara and Washington as a terrorist organization.
“Turkey has always seen Syria through the lens of its Kurdish problem,” said Gonul Tol, director of the Center Studies for Turkish at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. However fearful the Turks are of ISIL’s indiscriminate brutality, the group has been helpful in combatting Turkey’s foremost enemies in Syria: the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the PYD, the PKK’s sister party in Syria. “If you bomb ISIL, you’re not only removing the most effective force against Assad, but the PYD will also benefit,” Tol said.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/1/turkey-anti-isilcoalition.html
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