WASHINGTON, DC - Turkey has finally joined the US-led coalition to fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS, but implications of this purportedly game-changing development are under hot discussion from Washington to Ankara and Erbil.
At long last, Turkey will now allow US fighter jets to use their Incirlik Air Base to launch airstrikes against ISIS positions in neighboring Iraq and Syria.
Even so, it has so far not just been ISIS that Turkey is attacking. Long-range artillery and F-16 sorties have started intensive bombardment of the same Kurdish fighters who have fought ISIS most effectively in Syria and Iraq.
The most well-known of the groups under assault from Turkey is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), whose female and male fighters have recently won sympathy in the West for their determined resistance against ISIS.
In Iraq, the PKK are credited with helping save the vulnerable Yezidis and Christians who fled from ISIS terror squads. In Syria, the PKK affiliate, the People's Protection Units (YPG), has brought all the major defeats upon ISIS in Syria.
So, has Turkey really joined the war against ISIS, or the enemies of ISIS? Prominent authors such as Robert Fisk see this as another Western betrayal of the Kurds. Is he right? Are the Kurds once again being sold out?
To discuss this subject, Rudaw talks to:
- Joshua Walker, Senior Turkey expert at the German Marshall Fund in Washington who served at the State Department’s Turkey desk and also at the US Embassy in Ankara.
- Merve Tahiroglu, Turkey Specialist with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a US foreign policy think tank.
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