ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that his country is "in the middle of a ring of fire" as it fights various groups, including the Islamic State and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He said that Turkey’s “security zone” begins in Syria and ends in the Kurdish city of Sulaimani in northern Iraq. “Turkey’s security zone starts from Latakia and through Aleppo, Mosul and Sulaimani,” Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News quoted Davutoglu as saying in a meeting with local journalists during his two-day visit to Jordan. There, he explained that Iraq and Syria are no longer capable of securing their borders, and discussed several other regional security threats. The Turkish prime minister said that Ankara is in the process of rethinking its security policy, following to the recent terror attacks in Turkey by ISIS and the PKK. "The PKK has its headquarters and training camps in northern Iraq, while its offshoot, the Democratic Union Party (PYD,) is settled in northern Syria,” he noted. “ISIS controls a good size of territory in both Iraq and Syria." Davutoglu, whose country stands accused of turning a blind eye to jihadis using its territory to transport fighters and smuggled oil and other goods, claimed that Ankara would welcome the liberation of even an inch of land from from ISIS, no matter where. He said the group poses an imminent threat, not only to Turkey alone, but to the whole region. In the latest terrorist attack in Turkey, five foreigners were killed in a suicide attack in Istanbul on March 19, which was claimed by ISIS. Several bombings have rocked Turkey in the past eight months, including a double bombing at a peace rally in Ankara in October that killed 103 people. “We are in the middle of a ring of fire,” Davutoglu said. “I will not announce the number of terrorist attacks we have foiled.” He said that to stabilize the Middle East, the two key cities of Mosul in northern Iraq and Aleppo in Syria have to be liberated from ISIS control or protected from the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, who Ankara insists must step down from power. “If Aleppo would fall into the hands of either Daesh (ISIS) or the Assad regime, then it would mean the end of hopes for Syria. Likewise, if Daesh continues to control Mosul, Iraq will not be a peaceful country. But if Daesh would be replaced by extreme Shiite groups, then it would mean that civil war in Iraq will never end," he said. The premier added that, for Mosul, it does not matter when the city is liberated, but by whom, in order to prevent sectarian conflict in the post-ISIS era. “Mosul should be liberated by the people of Mosul. That’s why we have established the military base in Bashiqa,” he explained. Turkey established the Bashiqa base in Mosul to train local Sunnis and Kurdish Peshmerga forces in their fight against ISIS. However, Baghdad has expressed its opposition to a Turkish base on its oil, accusing Turkey of violating its sovereignty. But Davutoglu explained that the erection of a Turkish military base in northern Iraq had three reasons. “The first is to assist the Iraqi government and people in their effort to save Mosul from Daesh. The second is the fact that Turkey’s security zone begins from the line of Latakia, Aleppo, Mosul and north of Sulaimani. . Anything that takes place in this area is our concern. Third is the potential for the PKK to settle to the Sinjar region north of Mosul and to move into Syria through Hassakah. We do not want the PKK to get settled there," he warned. The Turkish prime minister cited three differences in the way Ankara has fought terrorism. “I see three main differences in our fight against terrorism now and in the past. First of all, it’s the first time that both Iraq and Syria cannot control their borders. In the past, we could divert our focus to only the Iraqi border when there was a threat," he claimed. The second "is that Turkey is now fighting not only against the PKK but also ISIS.” He said the last threat was from a “Fethullahist Terror Organization” (FETÖ), a reference to Turkish opposition figure Fethullah Gulen, who exercises immense influence in Turkey from his exile base in the United States. “All these terror organizations are providing logistics to each other,” he claimed.
