Tough decisions for Turkey in the war against Islamic State

The crisis in Syria, in particular the expansion of Islamic State (IS) and air strikes on IS bases by the anti-terrorist coalition, are having an ever stronger impact on Turkey’s regional and internal security policy. Turkey is not taking part in the air operation, but defined the terms of its membership in the coalition at the beginning of October. Turkey wants the coalition to redefine its goals so that the operation is no longer targeted against Islamic State alone but is instead aimed at comprehensively resolving the Syrian issue (i.e. by defining Bashar Al-Assad’s regime as a target and the Syrian opposition as a partner), and will in practice also enable Turkey to seriously intensify its activity in the Middle East. Turkey’s passive stance with regard to Syria (the clashes in Kobane) has led to enormous internal tension (riots and clashes with Kurds). Turkey hopes that the relative ineffectiveness of the operation against Islamic State will make Washington more inclined to accept at least some of Turkey’s conditions in the longer term. Furthermore, it appears unlikely that Ankara will yield under Kurdish pressure.