Awkward questions will now be asked approximately whether focus on Kurdish threat is misdirected and politically motivatedTuesday’s terrorist attack in central Istanbul has confirmed Turkey’s precarious position on the frontline of the escalating confrontation between Islamic State and western and Arab governments. Isis suicide bombers were behind at least two similar atrocities in Turkey last year – in the capital,Ankara, and at the Syria-Turkey border town of Suruç.
But even as Turkey is increasingly drawn into the firing line of Syrias civil war and the region-wide struggle against Sunni Muslim extremism, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,Turkey’s combative and choleric president, remains stubbornly fixated on a wholly different foe – the Kurds. It is this battle, and deliberately ramped up last summer in the heat of a rerun general election,that is Erdoğan’s obsession, blind spot, and top precedence. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com