Turkey plays a dangerous game on ISIL

Ankara’s apparent goal of letting ISIL and Kurdish forces fight to the end in Kobani is a risky strategy

ISIL militants raise their flag over Ain al-Arab, known as Kobane by the Kurds, as seen from the Turkish-Syrian border, with Turkish troops in foreground. Aris Messinis / AFP

Few could question Turkey’s clear strategic interest in eliminating the threat of ISIL. This is not just because the extremist group has captured large swathes of territory just across Turkey’s southern border with Syria and Iraq but also because ISIL promulgates a twisted form of Islam that is anathema to Turkey’s more moderate approach.

So there was a degree of perplexity in some circles when Ankara took so long to join the US-led international coalition that was formed to combat ISIL. The UAE and other Gulf countries were among the very first to sign up, appreciating the risk posed by the group despite having a far more generous geographic buffer than Turkey enjoys.

Now that Ankara has joined the coalition and its parliament has approved sweeping powers to intercede in Syria and Iraq, that puzzlement has continued because Turkey has so far failed to deploy the tanks and other armoured vehicles it has sited on the border near Kobani. This predominantly Kurdish town in Syria has been under siege from ISIL troops, with some stray fire landing on Turkish territory. Air strikes by coalition forces failed to prevent ISIL fighters entering the town, where yesterday there were reports of street-to-street fighting.

The reality is that Ankara’s actions reflect its attempt to reconcile several conflicting goals. While it has a clear interest in eliminating the cancerous influence of ISIL in the region, it also seeks to get rid of the Assad regime – the root cause of the conflict – and also to ensure that the end result of the battles in Syria and Iraq do not end up emboldening Kurdish aspirations for greater autonomy, including Kurdish groups having access to more sophisticated weaponry than before. Nobody should underestimate the difficulty of this juggling act for Ankara.

One prevailing analysis is that the reluctance to deploy Turkish forces in Kobani – or, indeed, in other flashpoints – is to let ISIL and Kurdish forces slug it out until one side wins. By that point, the vanquished side will have been destroyed and even the victor would have had its capabilities severely depleted. This is a very dangerous game, not least because it continues to underestimate ISIL’s military capabilities. While the conflict continues in this form, recruits will continue to be drawn into ISIL’s ranks, creating a much bigger headache down the road – and that cannot be in the interests of Turkey or any of the other coalition parties.