Attacks on Kurds defy Nato plea
Turkish jets pounded Kurdish rebels inside Turkey yesterday, hours after Nato allies urged Ankara to curb its escalating offensive against the separatists.
A rare emergency meeting of Nato’s 28 ambassadors gave full backing to Turkey’s new offensive against Islamic State, whose presence in northern Syria has destabilised the border between the two countries.
‘‘All allies stand in solidarity with Turkey,’’ said Jens Stoltenberg, Nato secretary-general, referring to its fight against terrorism. However, the alliance also urged Turkey to distinguish between Isis and militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and to show restraint towards the latter.
One Nato official said ambassadors used the meeting to urge Turkey to avoid ‘‘excessive force’’ in response to domestic terror attacks and urged it not to collapse the PKK peace process.
Those pleas appeared to fall on deaf ears when within hours Turkish F-16 fighter jets bombed PKK positions in the southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak, close to the border with Iraq. Turkey’s military said the bombing raid was in response to troops coming under heavy weapons fire.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared the peace process effectively over before leaving for an official visit to China.
Turkey has this week refused to acknowledge any difference between the PKK and Isis. The stance has fuelled fears among Kurds that Ankara is using its offensive against the jihadists of Islamic State in Syria as cover to mount a sustained offensive against the PKK.
It also underlines the complications of the deal with the US that has reversed Turkey’s longstanding refusal to participate in attacks against Isis. Washington and Ankara will now seek to establish a 110-kilometre buffer zone in northern Syria along the Turkish border, a long-standing demand from Turkey.
The government aims to resettle up to 1.7 million Syrian refugees, currently in camps in Turkey, in what is envisaged as an ‘‘Isis-free zone’’.
In return, the US military will be able to fly missions from the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey for which, until now, Ankara has refused permission because it believes the priority is to bring down the Assad regime. US drones, as well as manned fighter jets and possibly other Nato aircraft, will be permitted to fly bombing raids over Syria from the air base, it emerged.
Nato ambassadors discussed the details yesterday and the first missions are expected soon.
Yesterday’s meeting was only the fifth time in the alliance’s 66-year history that such a meeting of Nato’s political decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, has been called by a member state that believes itself to be under threat. Turkey’s president said yesterday that Nato must be ready to step in militarily if required.
Erdogan warned that Turkey might invoke Article 5 of the Nato treaty, which commits member states to collective defence.
‘‘At the moment, Turkey has come under attack and is exercising its right to defend itself and will exercise this right until the end . . . but there could be a duty for Nato, and we ask Nato to be prepared for this.’’
Yesterday, a natural gas pipeline was blown up in southeast Turkey, an attack blamed on the PKK. In the same region an offduty soldier was also shot dead by Kurdish gunmen.
The creation of a ‘‘safe zone’’ inside Syria would require rebel forces to fight on the ground while US and Turkish aircraft flew bombing raids.
A US$600 million (NZ$895.9m) training programme for the rebels has so far managed to deliver just 60 trained fighters, although it was expected to train 3000 this year.
Yesterday the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group said it shared the Western goal of weakening Isis. Ahrar al-Sham has been targeted in US strikes for alleged links to terrorists plotting attacks against the West.
Turkey has been facing rising Kurdish civil tensions since the government refused to provide support to Syrian Kurdish forces during last year’s battle for Kobani.
Leaders of Turkey’s 20 per cent Kurdish minority have repeatedly alleged that Ankara has an ambiguous relationship with Isis, even using the jihadists as a counterweight to Kurdish dreams of creating an autonomous state.
Critics of the Turkish president claim his change of strategy in the past week is partly driven by domestic political need.