This past week has not been kind to Turkey’s reputation as a moderate Islamic state, or to hopes that it would serve as a potential ally against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Multiple damaging revelations have come from a variety of sources—both from political leaders and news organizations.
New York Times foreign policy columnist Thomas Friedman summed up the problem yesterday.
Turkey allowed foreign jihadists to pass into and out of Syria and has been an important market for oil that ISIS is smuggling out of Iraq for cash.
Friedman isn’t alone in noting that in the fight against terror Turkey is more of a liability than an asset.
Last Monday, at the 14th annual Conference of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, former Israeli President Shimon Peres called on the international community to “use of tough economic sanctions against Qatar and Turkey to punish them for financing terror.” Also at the conference, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon questioned how the world could unite against a terror threat such as ISIS while abiding by Turkey’s support for terror.
In the United States last Tuesday, at a Congressional hearing looking into Turkey’s and Qatar’s support of terrorism, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex) warned that if both continue to “help finance Hamas, there will be significant consequences and they will be unpleasant.”
Later in the week, a report in The Times of Israel further confirmed Turkey’s role in hosting Saleh al-Arouri, who directs Hamas’ operations in the West Bank. Arouri has boasted of Hamas’ role in June’s kidnapping and killing of Israeli teenagers Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel.
When the United States attempted to form a coalition of allied nations to fight ISIS, Turkey let it be known that it would not allow the United States access to its bases to launch air strikes against the terrorist organization.
At the end of the week, NBC reported that Turkey had become a major market for oil produced and smuggled by ISIS, and thus a significant source of revenue for the extremists. NBC quoted a Turkish opposition politician who observed, ““There is cooperation. If there wasn’t any, how can you close your eyes to the smuggling like that?”
The week concluded with a report from Newsweek that ISIS is openly recruiting new members in Istanbul. It was estimated in June that 3,000 Turks were fighting in the ranks of ISIS.
Turkey’s support of terror groups signals its continuing estrangement from the West. Jonathan Schanzer described this in Where the Shadiest Players Find a Home, which appeared in the September 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine:
With [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan’s ascent to presidency, and with his former foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, taking over as prime minister, the architects of Turkey’s dangerous foreign policies have consolidated power. This means that Turkey is more than likely to continue to drift from the Western orbit, and to resemble some of the more dangerous actors in the Middle East.
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