Biden Scolds Turkey for Repression

Turkey could do more to weaken the Islamic State group, American Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stated soberly on Thursday in Paris. With that, he confirmed the uneasiness that he expressed before Congress a month ago. Turkey’s efforts to strengthen the checkpoint system on the Syrian border — and by doing so cut off the Islamic State group’s supply lines — are not enough, according to the Pentagon.

Fear of a Kurdish State

Washington’s criticism, which Vice President Joe Biden repeated on Saturday at his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, was thought to be excessive by the hosts. According to official statistics, Turkish authorities had arrested 1,200 suspected Islamic State group supporters as of last November. Over 27,000 people were prevented from entering Turkey. However, Ankara is revealing itself to be receptive of American military technology that will be put into place along all 98 kilometers where the NATO-member country borders the bloodthirsty “Caliphate.” Devices for finding tunnels are under discussion. At least one of the Paris attackers from November is thought to have entered Turkey in this way. The concept of an absolutely impenetrable border, however, is not very realistic.

Relations between Washington and Ankara are going sour due to different priorities: The Turks want to prevent an autonomous Kurdish state rising up in their backyard. In the United States’ perspective, though, the destruction of the Islamic State group takes precedence. The Pentagon is cooperating with Kurdish militias that are defying the Islamic State group, but which are discredited by Turkey as offshoots of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Eyeing the planned Syria peace talks, Ankara insists that the Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) not have a seat at the negotiating table; or, if it does, that it be in the camp of the regime in Damascus. Ankara claims that the Syrian-Kurd’s dominant political force is cooperating on the battlefield with Moscow. Russia’s entry into the war has led to the Turks manifestly not bombing any more Islamic State group positions. Since the downing of a Russian fighter jet by the Turkish military, which Moscow responded to with strong economic sanctions, the regional power has not participated in any more air strikes, according to the Hürriyet Daily News.

Biden Criticizes Repression

Erdogan joined the anti-Islamic State group alliance only after a long time of hesitation, but he immediately cracked down hard after the breakdown of the ceasefire with the PKK in July 2015. Since then, security forces and rebels have been conducting a brutal war in the country’s southeast. Both sides hardly take civilian victims into consideration.

In fact, the American government emphasizes Turkey’s right to take measures against the PKK. In a telephone call with Erdogan this week, President Obama called for de-escalation — an appeal that the political leadership in Ankara will likely ignore. Erdogan has rejected negotiations with the PKK and their closely related People’s Democratic Party (HDP).

Government hardliners appear convinced the state can “wipe out” the extremist organization, and are winning over nationalistic voters with warlike rhetoric. However, the ongoing, more than 30-year-old Kurdish conflict has amply shown that it is not resolvable by military means. Erdogan, who brands those who question his course as terror sympathizers, actually knows this as well.

At a meeting with representatives of Turkish civil society on Friday, Biden warned about an increasingly repressive atmosphere. America is pleased to see Turkey as a model, said the vice president, which, out of the whole region, plainly shows what a vibrant democracy looks like. With the intimidation and imprisonment of journalists and professors who criticize the government, Turkey is not providing a good example, Biden reprimanded, alluding to the wave of arrests in recent months.