The warm international welcome given to Turkey's long overdue entry into the battle against Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) in Syria is on the verge of cooling. After initial airstrikes against terror targets in Syria, the greater part of Ankara's military effort has been directed against the Kurdish PKK fighters. Warplanes have largely been bombing PKK camps in Iraq. The countrywide dragnet which the government said was aimed at picking up Daesh sympathizers, actually scooped up far more PKK sympathizers. Turkey argues with some justice that the PKK are also terrorists. They point to a series of killings of Turkish police and soldiers apparently by the PKK. These crimes triggered Ankara's angry military reaction. The Kurdish terrorists have not denied responsibility. They appear to welcome the end of the ceasefire that began in March 2013. For years, Turkish top brass could demand a disproportionate share of the national budget to equip their soldiers in a struggle against terrorists whom they never quite managed to defeat. When Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister he sought to end the conflict by enfranchising Kurdish politicians and ending bans on Kurdish culture, not least the teaching of the Kurdish language. The ceasefire he achieved enabled him to cut the military down to size, reducing its capacity for coups mounted in the name of protecting the secular Kemalist political inheritance. Now, however, Erdogan and his faithful prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu have reversed the policy of isolating the military. But it is clear that this has been done not to take on the terrorists of Daesh but primarily the PKK. It does not need a genius to figure out why. In June, Erdogan's governing moderate Islamist party, the AKP, lost its absolute majority thanks to a surge in support for the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP). Erdogan was robbed of the chance to make constitutional changes that would have given the presidency considerable new powers. His assault on the PKK could, therefore, be seen as revenge. Government figures have already warned darkly of a crackdown on Kurdish sympathizers. This is taken as a threat to the HDP, even though its leader Selahattin Demirtas has gone out of his way to condemn the upsurge in PKK violence. Washington may be complicit in this. The key issue for the US has been the use of the strategically important Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey. From there it can launch manned and unmanned airstrikes far more easily while also maintaining considerably more effective round-the-clock aerial surveillance of Daesh positions in both Syria and Iraq. Incirlik is also deemed to be highly secure. Washington appears less concerned about another part of the deal to involve Turkey in the fight against Daesh. This was for the Turkish army to set up a buffer zone within Syria. As things stand, part of that zone would be in areas controlled by Syria's Kurdish fighters, who are said to be affiliated with the PKK. This buffer could thus actually become an extra war zone. Were that to become the case, the main beneficiaries would be Daesh. If only Erdogan had chosen to make common cause with the Kurds against Daesh, the real enemy, he would have avoided the strategic mess which, in the long run, will only serve to restrengthen the military whose intervention he has always feared.
