Leaving Turkey on the back burner could prove costly

The past few years have seen Turkey slide dangerously away from democracy under a government overstepping its bounds with increasing frequency. Additionally, the country faces a host of security issues, some of its own making and others not as much, that pose an additional threat to Turkey’s future stability.

Neither of these show any indication that they will improve at any point in the near future, and the road ahead for Turkey looks increasingly unstable.

For Turkey’s allies in the West, as well as its neighbors in the Middle East, the country’s increasing turmoil poses a dangerous strategic risk given its role as a stabilizer in the region. Turkey too, however, stands to lose its democratic freedoms and its security, even more acutely so for the country’s Kurdish minority. For all parties, letting the situation in Turkey run its course could prove to be very costly.

Recent years in Turkey have seen heavy restrictions on the freedom of expression of the press, academics and the general citizenry, as well as President Erdogan’s liberal use of the “terrorist” label and a glaring lack of judicial independence. It has become clear that President Erdogan and the AKP-led government are engaging in a power grab to retain and expand the strength of the party and its leader.

The picture of Turkey’s security looks no better. Terrorist attacks within the country have reemerged on a massive scale, as the state faces multiple enemies within its borders alone, from extremist Kurdish rebel groups such as the TAK or from the Islamic State (ISIS). Conflict with Turkey’s Kurdish minority is on its own a cause for concern within the country: the Turkish government has seen countless government targets and security forces targets hit as the country’s Kurdish minority continues to get shelled by Turkish fire in the government/s attempt to shut down the rebel militias, namely the PKK – in effect, the two sides are engaged in a de facto civil war.

The United States, given the interest it should take in Turkey’s stability, must do more to help its longtime ally – both in the abstract sense of aiding Turkey, but also in the more directive form of keeping Turkey from spiraling so far down from democracy. The United States must redirect its ISIS-first approach within the region to focus instead on its longtime partner that is far more key to collaborative efforts that make stifling the rise of groups such as ISIS more feasible. The United States at present has focused predominantly on ISIS, and to a lesser extent Syria, but in doing so risks losing Turkey, far more important.

This cannot be permitted to occur. The United States must step up – not in the form of any sort of intervention – but in some sort of collaboration with the Turkish government to combat its grave security threats. They both share a common enemy in ISIS, but the picture becomes less clear with regards to conflict with the PKK and other Kurdish rebel groups. The US could greatly aid security and stability within Turkey if it could push both sides closer to the ceasefire they had arranged prior to its recent unraveling. Again, this should not come in the form of any sort of intervention, but a more collaborative effort with both sides toward peace, or at least a state of conflict of a lesser degree.

Lastly, there is significant room left for the United States, in partnership with states within the European Union, to better vocalize the grave concerns they must share over the devolution of democracy in Turkey. Both have been for the most part quiet as Turkey has taken a serious undemocratic turn in recent years. Again, while I do not advocate for intervention, I do believe both have significant leverage in the situation that to this point they have not used wisely. The EU has the bait of EU membership to dangle in front of Turkey, and it has used the bait to this point only to put together a refugee deal rife with problems. Little has been done to tell Erdogan and the AKP, very directly, that EU membership is not and will never be able on the table if the state of Turkish democracy does not improve on a drastic scale.

It should be noted, however, that democracy cannot be the only focus of any role the EU or the US play in getting Turkey back on its feet. For the most part unmentioned has been the fact that free speech has not been the only casualty of Erdogan’s repression – Turkey’s Kurdish minority has faced violence and repression as well from the Turkish government, with the New York Times saying that in Kurdish areas of the country, “descriptions of the fighting and mass destruction in populated areas, which are off-limits to journalists, depict war zones not unlike the scenes in neighboring Syria to the south.” The criticism, however minor, of Erdogan’s government thus far has been limited for the most part to free speech, and has stopped there. “There has been hardly any real mention of the government’s abuses in the fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., the deportations of civilians, the destruction of Kurdish towns and the imprisonment of Kurdish politicians in Turkey,” says an April op-ed in the New York Times. This, too, should be completely unacceptable, and should be condemned to the same extent if not more than Turkey’s distancing itself with democratic freedoms.

As for measures within Turkey itself, Erdogan and the AKP are dragging Turkey into its present demise, and a reformed Turkey is unlikely to come about with Erdogan at the helm. Turkey must do better to monitor the use of its weak borders for the movement of extremists and arms into and out of Syria. And while Turkey does very legitimately face a threat from the PKK and other Kurdish militias, the offensive they have engaged in at the expense of numerous civilians only fuels further conflict. If a peace is feasible, however temporary, it must be prioritized, as the country cannot maintain any resemblance of stability if it is engaged in a de facto civil war. The country must also step back on its heavy restrictions of democratic freedoms within the country, and take note that the restrictions currently employed do more to distance themselves from any potential outside help from allies to address their security conflict than they do to actually help fight it.

In sum, the outlook in Turkey is more grave, and of far greater importance, than the attention it currently receives. Turkey’s stability, for its strategic importance to the US and the EU, and for the sake of Turkey itself, should be moved up to the top of the list of priorities, as letting Turkey sit on the back burner ignores the potential turn the country could take under current conditions. Turkey itself, for that matter, must cease to shoot itself in the foot in its conflict with the Kurdish militias and on terrorism entering through its porous borders, and focus less on the power of Erdogan and the AKP and more on its serious security threats.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/opinion/democracys-disintegration-in-turkey.html?_r=0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkeys-increasingly-desperate-predicament-poses-real-dangers/2016/02/20/a3374030-d593-11e5-a65b-587e721fb231_story.html

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/12/turkey-has-given-up-on-democracy-outside-its-borders-too/

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/14/world/middleeast/explosion-ankara-turkey.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/world/europe/turkey-kurds-pkk.html?_r=0

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/29/syria-turkey-suicide-bombings-ankara

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/03/turkey-worries-kurds-proved-true-160315102003127.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/opinion/sending-the-wrong-signal-to-turkey.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/opinion/free-speech-isnt-the-onlycasualty-of-erdogans-repression.html?_r=0

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/18/erdogans-war-turkey-terrorism-kurds-pkk-isis/

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/03/29/does-turkey-still-belong-in-nato/turkey-has-been-reckless-repressive-and-unreliable