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TURKEY'S TURMOIL: U.S. ACTIONS ARE LARGELY TO BLAME FOR THE INSTABILITY
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Oct 16 2014
October 16, 2014 12:00 AM
By the Editorial Board
Turkey's increasing problems, based partly on its relations with the
United States, are jeopardizing its chance to play a useful role in
the Middle East and in the Western-Muslim interaction in the world.
Turkey has had a difficult role to play between Europe and Asia, with
a heterodox population that is predominantly Sunni Muslim and borders
on Iran, Iraq, Syria, Greece, Armenia, Bulgaria and Georgia. About
25 percent of its people are Kurds.
A recent concern for Turkey was whether it could obtain membership
in the European Union. The United States was less interested in the
country because its value as a potential swing state on the borders
of the old Soviet Union had gone away. Turkey's chief internal concern
was the degree to which its Muslim majority would move it politically
away from the secular governance instituted there after World War I.
Now, due in part to the turbulence created by the U.S. invasion of
Iraq and the U.S. desire but failure to get rid of Bashar Assad in
Syria, waves of potential disorder are breaking in Turkey, despite
its relative stability.
Turkey has had trouble in the past with its Kurdish minority, but
it had been in the process of making concessions to the Kurds that
satisfied some of their aspirations and reduced their resistance to
rule from Ankara. Now Kurdish combat with Islamic State forces in
Iraq and Syria and the irredentist aspirations that U.S. protection
of the Kurds in northern Iraq has inspired are causing the Turkish
Kurds to become a thorny problem for Turkey and its president, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.
If the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq leads now to serious trouble in
Turkey, any possibly useful role for the United States in the eastern
Middle East becomes very difficult. Turning Turkey from a friend into
yet another problem does not constitute success for America.
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2014/10/16/Turkey-s-turmoil-U-S-actions-are-largely-to-blame-for-the-instability/stories/201410160140
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Oct 16 2014
October 16, 2014 12:00 AM
By the Editorial Board
Turkey's increasing problems, based partly on its relations with the
United States, are jeopardizing its chance to play a useful role in
the Middle East and in the Western-Muslim interaction in the world.
Turkey has had a difficult role to play between Europe and Asia, with
a heterodox population that is predominantly Sunni Muslim and borders
on Iran, Iraq, Syria, Greece, Armenia, Bulgaria and Georgia. About
25 percent of its people are Kurds.
A recent concern for Turkey was whether it could obtain membership
in the European Union. The United States was less interested in the
country because its value as a potential swing state on the borders
of the old Soviet Union had gone away. Turkey's chief internal concern
was the degree to which its Muslim majority would move it politically
away from the secular governance instituted there after World War I.
Now, due in part to the turbulence created by the U.S. invasion of
Iraq and the U.S. desire but failure to get rid of Bashar Assad in
Syria, waves of potential disorder are breaking in Turkey, despite
its relative stability.
Turkey has had trouble in the past with its Kurdish minority, but
it had been in the process of making concessions to the Kurds that
satisfied some of their aspirations and reduced their resistance to
rule from Ankara. Now Kurdish combat with Islamic State forces in
Iraq and Syria and the irredentist aspirations that U.S. protection
of the Kurds in northern Iraq has inspired are causing the Turkish
Kurds to become a thorny problem for Turkey and its president, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.
If the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq leads now to serious trouble in
Turkey, any possibly useful role for the United States in the eastern
Middle East becomes very difficult. Turning Turkey from a friend into
yet another problem does not constitute success for America.
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2014/10/16/Turkey-s-turmoil-U-S-actions-are-largely-to-blame-for-the-instability/stories/201410160140