As the battle against Isis continues, Turkey is now allowing Kurdish fighters to use Turkish territory to travel to Syria. However, there is growing frustration at Turkey’s reluctance to offer the Kurds more direct support, says David Gardner in the FT. “Turkey is seen by its Nato allies as a lukewarm latecomer to the US-led coalition against Isis.”
There are also concerns that Turkey’s leaders want “to create a zone of Sunni Islamist influence across Arab lands in turmoil”. This strategy risks “reigniting Turkey’s conflict with its own Kurds, when its most viable buffers against Isis are self-governed Iraqi Kurdistan and the emerging Kurdish entity in Syria”.
On the other hand, the Turkish view is that the real blame for Isis rests with the Assad regime in Syria. As long as Assad’s government remains, “Syria will be not be stable and secure”, argues Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, in The Guardian.
Action against Isis needs to be coupled with “the establishment of a no-fly zone with safe areas in Syria to protect its citizens”.
In Iraq, things are still deteriorating. “Isis is still advancing” in the Sunni provinces of Iraq, says James Rubin in The Sunday Times. Isis forces “are gaining control of towns and facilities, some perilously close to Baghdad airport”. Overall, “we may not be losing, but we’re sure not winning”.
The biggest challenge is that the Iraqi military still hasn’t recovered “from the defection, defeat or surrender of tens of thousands of its soldiers”. In reality, “it will take many months for the West to arm and train enough Syrian moderates to reverse Isis gains on the ground”.
We don’t have enough time “to wait patiently for a dramatic turnaround by the new Iraqi government… some other solution has to be found – and found soon”.