​Terror attack in Istanbul: This one is very different

TURKEY - In Brief 13 Jan 2016 by Atilla Yesilada

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The terror attack, attributed to an ISIS member, entering from Syria, was almost inevitable. The entire media knew and reported that more than 30 ISIS suicide bombers were loose in Turkey. The National Intelligence Agency and police were fully concentrated on catching Gulen operatives and HDP members accused of cooperating with PKK. No-one was pursuing leads related to ISIS jihadists at large in the country, except a few brave journalists. This is the fourth major terror attack by ISIS within the last 12 months, but its nature is very different and unless AKP makes up its mind about the threat posed by the terror organization, many more will be underway, potentially devastating the Turkish economy. The past three attacks focused on Kurds or their liberal allies, which allowed AKP to interpret them as extensions of the war in Syria between Rojavan Kurds (PYD-YPG) and ISIS. In fact AKP’s reluctance to blame ISIS was so blatant that for a long time Erdogan and Davutoglu tried to pin the incident on PKK, which despite endless indecencies never attempted to bomb innocent civilian targets. ISIS is targeting Turkey so easily, because of AKP’s deep ambivalence towards it. On one hand, the animosity with Russia and the broad realization that the country can’t deal with challenges of the region in upheaval alone brings Turkey closer to U.S. and NATO. On the other hand, a deep suspicion of Western motives in the region, Sunni leadership pretentions of Erdogan and the desire to get rid of Assad at any cost, compels the security forces to turn a blind eye to most ISIS, al Nusra and Ahr-al-Sham operations at the border and across the country. Despite repeated urgings by the White Ho...