Statement on Syria

Statement from the Next Century Foundation to the 37th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on the 5th of March 2018 on the Syrian Arab Republic.

Mr. President, The Next Century Foundation shares the concern of the entire world with regard to Eastern Ghouta. However, we do not think that the UN approach of promoting temporary ceasefires is credible any longer, exemplary though it may have been at one time. By the UN’s own admission there are some 500 fighters from the group formerly known as Gebat al Nusra in Eastern Ghouta. This group has been supported by some in the Arab World. The Arab World as a whole could offer refuge to the fighters whose only other prospect is to fight to the death. Were they to do so, then a ceasefire might be of value. In any other context, a ceasefire is merely a breathing space before the resumption of further fighting and yet more misery for the population of Eastern Ghouta. Indeed conceivably one dire but unintended consequence of a UN promoted ceasefire might be to enable the population of Eastern Ghouta to flee and thus become IDPs or refugees, a prospect that is scarcely enviable. A ceasefire is only of true long-term value if it enables progress on the evacuation of the opposition fighters.

The Next Century Foundation also wishes to beg for the compassionate care of the citizens of Afrin, who suffer much the same torment as the citizens of East Ghouta. We wish to express our concern with regard to Turkey’s incursion across the Northern border of the Syrian Arab Republic. It is profoundly saddening to see the world turn its back on the YPG militia group (or People’s Protection Units) which served the world so loyally in the attack to liberate much of northern Syria from ISIS.

Turkey has been engaged in the bombardment of the Afrin region in the northwest of Syria to vanquish the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters. As a consequence, there have inevitably been civilian casualties. Around one million people are trapped in Afrin. Some 250 of the surrounding villages have been stripped of their population as people flee the advancing troops and take refuge in the town. The homes they abandon are often looted. And meanwhile, the hospitals cannot cope with the wounded.

We appeal to Turkey to recognise the territorial integrity of Syria. In a reference to its intention to channel Syrian refugees in Turkey back into Syria, Yasin Aktay, a senior member of Turkey’s Parliament and a chief adviser to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “Turkey will try to enhance the infrastructure and resources in Afrin after it is secured for them to return.”

Turkey’s previous cross-border operation – dubbed Euphrates Shield – ended in March 2017 after seven months. During that offensive to dislodge ISIS, Turkey captured the border town of Jarablus by the Euphrates River.

Turkish troops are currently still in control of a substantial area of Syria as a consequence of that offensive. Turkey’s actions are part of a pattern of territorial encroachment in Iraq and Syria which is doubtless well-meaning but is cause for concern.

Those in Afrin with whom the Next Century Foundation is in contact beg the UN to send in a peacekeeping force. They acknowledge Turkish concerns about the presence of the YPG and YPJ (the YPJ are the female fighting units that comprise around 35% of these Syrian peshmerga) in Afrin. They assure the Next Century Foundation that they would ask the forces of the YPG and YPJ to withdraw from Afrin to positions East of the Euphrates, in the context of the arrival of a UN peacekeeping force. This the YPG / YPJ would, they believe, agree to do. This would, they believe, ameliorate Turkey’s concern and enable Turkish forces to cease their advance on Afrin.

Thank you.

On Power and Leadership, Love and Hope

The following report is the first in a new monthly series from the Next Century Foundation’s Secretary General. It represents the personal view of the NCF Secretary General and should not be regarded as an NCF perspective:

British Prime Minister Theresa May continues to serve as a world leader out of a sense of duty. The 1922 Committee that controls the Conservative Party to which she owes her allegiance is frightened to allow her to fall on her sword. So a lame duck Premier limps on past her sell-by date, an embarrassment to the nation at a critical time, with the Brexit negotiations collapsing around her ears.

Why is the 1922 Committee so very frightened? Evidently because the leader of the opposition, Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, is both charismatic and effective. The Committee feels it needs to face like with like and, alas, there are just three charismatic public figures in today’s Tory Party with any real high-profile presence. They are:

Boris Johnson,

Boris Johnson and

Boris Johnson.

I had thought of including other names but there are only two bitter choices for the Conservative Party: either win the 2021 election with Boris – or lose it. A difficult choice, because the British Foreign Secretary is a wildcard, a maverick schemer and a narcissist. He is no predictable pragmatist. He despises Bashar Al-Assad, or so he claims, whilst seemingly being complacent about the blockade on Yemen. Boris as Premier is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The current Tory Party only has one other charismatic public speaker and that is the foppish Jacob Rees-Mogg. There is a drive to polish him up and bring him out of the dark ages and shape him into an alternative to Boris, but that would perhaps represent too great a challenge. Difficult times for Britain, because to limp on with Theresa is to lose all credibility.

Iran faces a similar challenge. President Trump intends to defer to congress the decision on whether to reintroduce sanctions on Iran. This act of moral cowardice is no doubt prompted by his friends in Saudi Arabia and Israel, who so fear a hegemonic Iran. Iran for her part is concerned about the US returning to a hardline position. As a consequence, Iranian President Rohani has chosen to visit Oman and use the occasion to offer, astonishingly publicly, to reign in Iran’s client group, Hezbollah as well as encourage the Houthi of Yemen to attend peace talks. Curious that last point. Our experience at the Next Century Foundation in promoting second track discussions in Switzerland has been that the Saudis are the reluctant party when it comes to discussing peace. That aside, Iran’s offer on Hezbollah is nothing short of astonishing.

How does this impact on leadership? Well, Iran has made it clear in private discussion with the NCF that she will face a hardliner with a hardliner. Which means what? It means that if Trump’s hardline approach is to be the order of the day, then at the end of Rohani’s current term he will be replaced by Qasem Soleimani, the head of the foreign division of the Revolutionary Guard (the Quds Force) and a charismatic hardliner.

Charismatic leaders are in vogue. Sissi in Egypt, Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, and the emergent Hadi Al-Amri in Iraq and Haftar in Libya are examples of hard men who through sheer grit and determination have seized or are seizing power.

We are moving out of an era of mediocrity, simply because the people of the nations of the world have had enough of the complacent establishment, that has led to an era of the rich-poor divide becoming more acute, and increasing globalization. There is a clear difference between commercial globalization with the uneven playing field that rewards the sweatshop and the polluter, and the advocacy of a world without frontiers, in which we should  all believe.

So the world has leaned, and is leaning, toward a preference for ‘What-you-see-is-what-you-get’, transparent leaders and protest ballots. Hence the Brexit vote and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. Hence Trump. Hence Mohammed Bin Salman’s incredible popularity in Saudi Arabia. These are all anti-establishment trends.

Clearly people seek something new from their leaders. What I believe the people of the world now yearn for in leadership is integrity. That is far more than mere box-ticking honesty. Integrity is empowered honesty in action.  Integrity means that you mean what you say when you say it. But that is not to say that there isn’t still room for old-fashioned loyalty. Theresa May and Sultan Qaboos of Oman are both examples of people who live for loyalty, by loyalty, with loyalty. And that is admirable. Combine loyalty with genuine risk-taking integrity and you get a leader who may truly change the world.

And so to Love, the other quality necessary for leadership. Here we are not talking of sit-at-home, watch television and weep sort of love. We are talking of love-in-action. This means love for all those for whom you are responsible. I have just returned from Kirkuk in Iraq where, questioned about care for the refugees in his province, the Governor of Kirkuk told me, ‘They are not my responsibility’. His issue was that they couldn’t vote for him, so why should they vote?

This is not genuine leadership. Genuine leadership means that you take responsibility for everyone for whom you have responsibility, even if you don’t particularly like them. This is a key aspect of leadership. You do not have to like people to love them. There are those who advocate the practice of loving your enemies. That is the nature of truly great leaders. Sissi of Egypt and Al-Amri of Iraq, take note. Great leaders care for the minorities, for the vulnerable. You could do better if you wish to build the nations we know you cherish.

We seek heroes,

We need heroes,

We demand heroes.

And we expect heroic leaders to love us, to protect us, to nurture us, even if they don’t particularly like us. That way they earn our loyalty. And people can be incredibly loyal.

And when we meet gross failure in love and leadership, we must call those responsible to account. Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar for example, who has let herself down, let the world down and, most importantly of all, has let the people of Myanmar down by being complicant in the Rohingya genocide.

Cruelty in all its dimensions is unacceptable. May God have mercy on the souls of all those world leaders responsible for the blockade on Gaza. The collective punishment on a people is an act of great wrong, whether in Syria, Gaza, Yemen or in Qatar. Leadership without love is not leadership – it is oppression. Even Machiavelli understood the need for wodges of love. He advised his disciples that, if they needed to use a heavy hand to keep things in order, they should do so ruthlessly and severely, but then stop, let go and treat people well. For he recognized people deserve love and care, and must get it if stability is to be engendered.

And then there is hope. We have an obligation to hope. Indeed without hope the very fabric of the universe could fall apart. And there is much reason to hope. We live in one of the most peaceful eras in all human history. You don’t think so? Remember our parents lived through the twentieth century with its two World Wars, its genocides in Europe for the Jews, in Turkey for the Armenians, in Africa for the Tutsis. The Vietnam and Korean wars, plus the partition of India. I could go on and on. Names parade through my mind. Aden. Kenya. Uganda. Then famine on famine. Live Aid was not for nothing. Ah, and Sudan. Misery on misery on misery in the twentieth century. And so many miserable footnotes. Little Kashmir, for instance. A century defined by human suffering. Things are better now in terms of sheer numbers of the dead in wars: the world has improved.

Plus things have got better in terms of war avoidance. We, as already stated, are just back from Iraq. There could reasonably be a war- a new war – between Baghdad and Arbil in order to curb Kurdish aspirations for independence. There won’t be, because Washington and Tehran want war avoidance so that they can concentrate on the existing war against Daesh. They have said so both publicly and privately, which is hope in action. Leaders, just like the rest of humanity, but even more so, have an obligation to hope. Whichever obligation or duty the rest of us has to be moral, the responsibility on the shoulders of our leaders is greater still.

The women of the little Christian town of Alqosh in the Ninevah Plain keep suitcases by their bed in anticipation of the coming war. But now they can unpack. There will be no new war in Iraq. Hope? Write the word large. It is often all that we live for.

William Morris LL.D.

Secretary General, The Next Century Foundation 10 October 2017

The Next Century Foundation at the United Nations – Intervention on Discrimination and Intolerance against Women

The Next Century Foundation took part in the 36th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. During the General Debate on Item 9 “Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance” the NCF delivered an oral intervention on the issue of gender discrimination in the Arab States urging them to take the necessary steps in order to improve women’s conditions, following the recent example of Bahrain.

Language as a bridge and a barrier in Iraq

 

Since the creation of Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq in 1991, political and linguistic disparities have been accentuated between Kurds and Arabs. The number of young people proficient in Arabic in the Kurdish governates of Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah is decreasing. This means that many young Arabs and Kurds no longer have a common language. Language is a very important, but also useful tool, in creating a shared identity. Language in many cases acts as a barrier between Kurds and Arabs in Iraq. However, there is hope that more Arabs will learn Kurdish in order to better understand Kurdish society. Luma Hussein from Al-Noor, a woman’s Non-Governmental Organisation in Baghdad, believes learning Kurdish would benefit her because Kurdistan has more experience in developing civil society organisations. The forced use of Arabic during the Saddam regime has caused Kurds to view the Arabic language as a potential imposition and an attempt to dilute Kurdish identity. Attitudes are however changing slowly since the demise of Saddam. Will bilingualism no longer be the norm in Iraq’s Kurdistan?

Written by Marcus Lomax on the 28/11/201

The Turkish Army’s relationship with the Kurdish people, and its role in Iraq and Syria

The Turkish Government has been shelling Kurdish fighters belonging to the People’s Protection Units, also known at the YPG, who are the armed force of the Syrian Democratic Union Party.  The recent attacks have prompted the US, the UN and EU to call for some restraint.  The degree to which Turkey’s fight against Isis is genuine has also been questioned by Kurdish officials, and doubts have arisen about Ankara’s agenda in both Syria and Iraq.  There have even been allegations about Turkey’s inability or unwillingness to control its borders. They were up until recently, allowing extremists to enter Syria from Turkey, thus helping to establish Isis in the north of the country.

There is of course a deep rooted conflict that has seen hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Kurdish people displaced from their homes or killed.  Centuries of oppression from both the Ottoman Empire and modern day Arab States have ignited the flame for an independent Kurdish state.

The YPG’s role in the fight against Isis is a crucial one.  In fact, the People’s Protection Units are one of the main ground forces battling against the self-styled caliphate.  With Turkey continuing to bomb YPG positions, could they be using the US led coalition against Isis as a cover to attack the YPG in Northern Syria?  The Turkish government certainly have no problem fighting their own people, Turkish Kurds belonging to the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) being a case in point.

However, Turkey does have good relations with Iraqi Kurds belonging to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).  The Turkish army are training and arming a predominately Sunni militia called Hasd al-Watani.  The militia group hope that by working with the Iraqi Peshmerga, the armed force of the KRG, they will be able to help retake Mosul, the de-facto capital of Isis in Iraq.

We cannot ignore the complexities of t00he situation in the Middle East.  The number of militia groups belonging to different ethnicities seems to be growing by the month.  Different factions are fighting for territories. A cohesive effort is needed in order to suppress the threat posed by Isis.  Turkey’s role, its cooperation with the rest of the world and with the Kurdish populations needs be far more transparent.

By Nihal Patel

The Immorality of Suicide Bombings in the 21st Century

The Kurdish Community has been the victim one of of the latest atrocites

By Nihal Patel

2016 has been a particularly worrying and frightening year for terrorist atrocities.  According to the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, from January 2016 until July, there have been an astonishing 892 terrorism related deaths in Europe alone.  That makes the first seven months of this year the deadliest for over two decades.  This figure does include terrorist attacks in Turkey, where 726 of the 892 deaths have occurred.  On 20^th August 2016, a particularly harrowing incident took place in the Turkish city of Gaziantep at a Kurdish wedding celebration.  President Erdogan has claimed that the attack was likely to have been committed by Islamic State militants.  Leaders across the world have condemned the attack, including the Kurdistan Region’s President Masoud Barzani, as well as British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who tweeted his sympathies for Turkey and its Kurdish population. The incident has caused immense distress, and stood out amidst numerous acts of violence because it is claimed that the attack was carried out by a child alleged to be 12-14 years old.

Victims of the Gaziantep attack

It is important to understand what the working definition of terrorism is.  In my opinion, terrorism, or an act of terrorism is defined as an act of violence performed by a non-state member, to achieve a political, social, religious or economic goal through fear and coercion.  Historically, suicide bombings have been used as a primary weapon by terrorist organizations in order to achieve an agenda. Suicide bombings over the past decade have been carried out by both men and women and fit into the working definition of a terrorist attack, mainly because the perpetrators are regarded as “non-state members”.

What has become apparent during the rise of Islamic State is their complete disregard for democracy, different ethnic groups across Europe and the Middle East and Islam’s historical tolerance for other religions, particularly Christianity and Judaism.    Many young men and women across Europe and the Middle East are coerced and brainwashed into giving their lives away, which needs to be combated through education.  However, using a child is even more sinister and cowardly than usual, and reinforces the notion that terrorist organizations are willing to do whatever it takes to complete their goals.

Migration Crisis – Fighting Xenophobia

Migration Crisis – Modern Slavery

The EU-Turkey Deal: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Syrian Refugee Camp on the Turkish Border

In 2015 1.2 million people entered Europe from countries as disparate as Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. With further displacement and migration forecast for the coming years, an existential crisis is now threatening the very foundations of the European Project. In a mood of desperation and political expediency negotiations to curb migrant numbers have been accelerated with Turkey, culminating in a deal that now faces severe legal, ethical and practical difficulties.

In a nutshell, the agreement attempts to mitigate refugee flows that may otherwise overwhelm frontier European states, relocating the exigencies of asylum processing back to the Middle East and providing space to devise a more tolerable, long term solution. In principle, it also aims to undercut and degrade the mechanics of an extensive trafficking economy now proliferating across the Mediterranean. The commercialisation of people smuggling has exacerbated the number of refugees travelling, and sometimes even perishing, along sea routes. By adopting a hardline stance on ‘boat-people’ and diminishing the pull factor of assumed European altruism, people trafficking will, in theory, devolve into a high-risk low-reward enterprise that depresses demand and channels refugees towards more easily regulated outlets.

Under the auspices of a ‘one in one out’ system, any ‘new irregular migrants’ arriving in Greece after March would be deported to Turkey and relegated to the back of the queue of those seeking asylum. In return, EU member states are obligated to resettle properly processed Syrian refugees from Turkey and expedite visa liberalisation for Turkish nationals wishing to visit Europe.

There are obvious benefits to this approach. On a human level, the sharp fall in individuals traveling to Greece in the aftermath of the deal will hopefully translate into lower mortality rates for those refugees seeking entry into Europe. It also relieves pressure on Frontex, the underfunded European border management agency, and allocates new resources for efficient processing schemes. In the face of perpetually gridlocked EU institutions, the political intransigence of Eastern European governments, rising right wing populism and the resurrection of internal border controls, it provides a palatable alternative for European publics that may be able to preserve the cosmopolitan values of Schengen while also delivering immediate results. Perhaps most importantly, the agreement alleviates the burden on Ankara. Supplemented by an aid package of €3 billion earmarked for improving ‘the lives of refugees’ in the region, and a series of concessions with regard to Turkey’s prospective membership in the EU, it is hoped the agreement will deliver desperately needed investment to fund accommodation, education initiatives and welfare services for the two million refugees in Turkey itself.

However, despite the humanitarian rhetoric espoused by its proponents, the broader implications of the deal remain a cause for concern. Any claims suggesting the authoritarian tendencies of the Erdogan regime may be ameliorated by visa-liberalisation and closer political cooperation between Turkey and the EU are spurious to say the least. As negotiations concluded, the government has shown no sign of slowing its crackdown on independent journalism, seizing control of the national newspaper Zaman in March and tightening its grip over civil society. The fact these excesses hardly elicited any reaction from the West, and that German authorities are now considering the prosecution of a local comedian for ‘insulting’ Erdogan, allude to the leverage Turkey currently enjoys. As such, by colluding with autocrats the EU may paradoxically be compromising its liberal values on another front, namely free speech and free expression.

Crucially, there are also significant legal and practical issues that need to be considered. Human rights organisations have cited grave problems with the agreement. They argue it not only contravenes international law and its underlying humanitarian norms but also fails to exert pressure on Turkey to improve the protection it offers Syrian refugees. Amnesty International (AI) in particular maintains “the EU is…incentivising the opposite’, referencing a concerted effort by local Turkish authorities to expel asylum seekers back into Syria and close the Southern border to stop any further influx. While the ‘one in one out’ system explicitly circumvents controversy over blanket returns by certifying a right for refugees to make individual asylum claims, there is no doubt that the testimonies collected by AI deliver a damning indictment of Turkish migratory policy. It also undermines the fallacy that any claimants deemed irregular by the EU are being deported to a ‘safe third country’. To assume Turkey is safe is to ignore the Kurdish insurgency waging in its Eastern periphery and the horrendous conditions refugees are currently living under. Non-Syrians face the threat of further extradition back to dangerous home nations under the conditions of independent bilateral agreements between Ankara and, for example, the Afghan government. For those remaining in Turkey, many lack work permits and are forced into unregulated black market jobs for little to no salary. Perhaps more worryingly, 400,000 of 700,000 school age Syrian children aren’t receiving any formal education. There is simply no opportunity for integration, leading to societal tensions that will exponentially grow as the crisis gets worse. Unless this trend is radically altered, the EU’s refugee policy as it stands today is giving rise to a disenfranchised, socio-economically marginalised and uneducated ‘lost generation’ completely at odds with the humanitarian virtues the organisation claims to champion. On a practical and moral level this is untenable.

Europe is therefore between a rock and a hard place. Its migratory infrastructure cannot manage a crisis of this magnitude and it does not have the institutional or democratic flexibility to deliver an equitable scheme for effectively distributing shares of refugees across its membership. But as Kenan Malik, a London based lecturer and broadcaster, argues, by ratifying this deal with Turkey the EU seems to be regressing back to its antiquated mentality of the 1990s; ‘criminalising’ migrants, militarising its external borders and paying peripheral states to ‘operate as immigration police’. Outsourcing the problem and pretending it isn’t there is not a viable option. There needs to be a substantive, systemic transformation in how Europe both conceptualises and engages with the refugee problem. Anything short of this is simply not sustainable and the EU risks having its moral authority irreversibly damaged.

Goodye to Helmut Schmidt

Jonathan Mueller writes:

So Helmut Schmidt died.

I heard him speak once, during the 1980 election campaign. One thing he said has stuck with me:

If self-determination is right for everybody else, why not for the Germans?

Well the Germans finally got their self-determination, but isn’t corollary one:

If self-determination is right for everybody else, even the Germans, why not for the Kurds?

ISIS continues to enslave Yazidi women

Yazidi Refugees

ISIS continues to target the Yazidi community in their campaign to “purify” Iraq.

Yazidis are an Iraqi religious minority that originate in Northern Iraq, predominately in the autonomous Kurdistan region as well as in the  Nineveh Plane and Sinjar region of Ninevah Provence. Although some Yazidis speak Arabic, many speak Kurdish; and all Yazidis consider themselves a distinct minority.

Thousands of Yazidi men have been killed by ISIS in an attempt to diminish their population, and thousands of women and children have been abducted and forced into slavery. The Yazidi community says that ISIS is still holding more than 3,500 of their women and girls captive.

ISIS has implemented a program of systematic sex trafficking for abducted Yazidi girls. The organisation’s theology of rape has become deeply enshrined in their radical belief system. They first began kidnapping Yazidi women in August 2014, in Sinjar, Iraq. While the group at first tried to deny that they were sexually exploiting women from the Yazidi community, they finally acknowledged their sexual enslavement of Yazidi women in the October 2014 issue of their magazine Dabiq. ISIS ideologues offered justification for the enslavement of Yazidis by explaining how they consider slavery permissible under Islamic Law. The jihadists argue that capturing and raping Yazidi women is justified and not a sin because Yazidis do not believe in Islam. These ideologues further argue that it is their religious duty to kill or enslave members of the Yazidi community as a part of their jihad against their enemies.

Many survivors and escapees have recalled their traumatic experiences and the brutal nature of ISIS. Yazidis have spoken about being systematically raped, imprisoned and physically and emotionally abused by ISIS. However some women who have escaped after enduring sexual violence believe that their “honour” will be tarnished if they speak about what they have been through. Survivors face social stigma from within their own community when they return home. Many others in captivity have turned to suicide as a response to the constant sexual abuse by ISIS.

ISIS considers the continued existence of Yazidis incompatible with their goal of establishing an Islamic State and therefore have deliberately targeted Yazidis and used strategies that aim to erase the Yazidi culture, religion and bloodline. ISIS is aiming for the systemic destruction of the entire Yazidi population.

ISIS’s attacks on the Yazidi community amount to a genocide, however apart from UN expressions of “extreme concern,” very little has been done to protect and assist the Yazidi community.

How genuine is Turkey’s input into the fight against ISIS?

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Turkey’s reasons for its newfound interest in assisting the US to work against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are questionable. Though Turkey are now fighting against ISIS, they have an ulterior motive for doing so. That motive is to punish the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and prevent them from growing stronger in Turkey, and by so doing possibly bolstering separatist attitudes within Turkey’s own Kurdish population. Turkey’s president Recep Tayip Erdoğan, decided to become involved when ISIS suicide bombed a town on the border of Turkey, killing around 30 people. Erdoğan now has good reason to fight against ISIS but is also using this to his advantage to prevent the progress the Kurds are making. This became clear to see when Turkey chose to attack targets around Aleppo, very close to Syria’s Northern border so that as well as bombing ISIS, they are also killing members of the PKK in the area who are threatening Turkey. Erdoğan has good reason to fear the Kurds. Should they grow stronger in Turkey it is possible they will be able to seize their own land, as they have in Iraq, creating a domino effect as more Turkish Kurds take control of yet more land.

The conflict between the Kurds and Turkey is troubling. The Kurds are useful as they are bitterly opposed to ISIS because of Kurdistan’s near defeat at their hands. The Kurds have an intense dislike for the discriminative beliefs against any other religion or sect that ISIS have. The PKK and its sister group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) have been very effective in fighting ISIS so far. More so than the airstrikes from Turkey. Attacking with ground troops as the PKK and PYD have done seems a much more effective way to attack ISIS.

Erdoğan came out of the most recent election without a majority and for the first time, a Kurdish party, the Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), entered parliament. This party has historic ties to the PKK and their success was thought to mean the the relationship between the Kurds and Turkey was at last improving and the country was moving forward. It looks like Erdoğan might be hoping that by attacking the PKK and encouraging the anti-Kurdish sentiments of the Turks, he might win the the majority in a snap election should there be one. Erdoğan has suggested that the HDP could be prosecuted for having ties with the PKK. He makes it clear that peace is no longer a possibility.

On the other hand, we need Turkey. Having them as an ally means that the US are able to use its Turkish base, Incirlik, to keep aircraft in the skies above Iraq and Syria instead of using the aircraft carriers they had to have in the Mediterranean. It is also important to have as many countries working against ISIS as possible so the chances of winning are much higher.

Turkey claims it has stopped allowing ISIS to use Turkish land as a transit point to Syria. The only real solution there is, would be to encourage Turkey to make peace with the PKK and address their demands. That has to be done if we are to fully focus on the real issue which is how to wipe out ISIS.