R

ecent legislative amendments have brought about changes to the structure of the National Security Council in Turkey, which has played a decisive role in domestic politics throughout the history of the Republic. With the establishment of the Directorates of Internal Security Research and Assessment, External Security Research and Assessment, and Defense Planning Coordination, the expanding nature of security in the global arena has been taken into account. Furthermore, such an expansion should also be viewed as a consequence of Turkey’s changing foreign policy and geopolitical perceptions.

President Erdoğan delivered a speech highlighting key points at the opening of the National Security Conferences, a series planned to articulate Turkey’s approach to security. Alongside an emphasis on historical state tradition, the speech drew attention to the harmonious coordination between Turkey’s institutions in the face of the region’s ongoing and seemingly endless ‘ring of fire’, whilst also heralding the National Security Council’s return to its core remit. In light of the reforms implemented and this announcement, it is worth asking whether there has been a shift in Turkey’s security culture alongside its evolving foreign policy approach.

The relationship between foreign policy and security culture

Security culture is a concept frequently used in the study of International Relations (IR). In this context, it is defined as the totality of norms that shape how a state or society perceives security, defines threats and formulates responses to the security challenges it faces. Security culture, centered on the perception of threats, helps us understand what a state regards as a threat, or which policies it views as such, and, in parallel, the values by which it defines itself and the historical memory through which it does so. At the same time, the behavioral framework that develops through these elements forms a state’s established code of conduct in the international arena.

Consequently, the perception of security becomes a concept directly linked to foreign policy as a natural outcome of these definitions and perceptions. For when a state’s strategic mindset and self-definition change as a product of an internal process, foreign policy is naturally updated, which in turn implies a shift in the reference points of the security narrative. Just as a definition of interests, resulting from a protectionist mindset and a narrow geopolitical narrative, reflects a limited context, such a narrative also leads to the perception of security threats being viewed from a considerably broader perspective.

What is Turkey’s security culture?

The most fundamental element shaping Turkey’s security culture has been the identity redefined alongside the establishment of the state. With the acceptance of a Western identity as the cornerstone of the state, foreign policy was entirely shaped by a Western geopolitical narrative, and security culture was naturally shaped by the perception of areas outside the West as sources of threat. Paradoxically, despite waging war against the West, Turkey has constructed its security culture on a plane identical to that of the West, defined its perception of threat as originating from outside the West, and sought to meet its security needs through Western organizations or alliances.

Historical experiences inherited from the Ottoman Empire led to the new state being security-focused; the new Republic, through discourses on national sovereignty, territorial integrity and the unity of the state, necessitated a strong state structure. This, in turn, led to Turkey’s security culture becoming state-centered, and institutions have largely defined their roles as significant power factors in domestic politics by relying on this discourse.

The Middle East and the Caucasus represented the core regions perceived as threats by this security culture; the attempt to demonize Islam, the Kurdish issue and the identities defined through these factors were framed as problems for Turkey. As a result of the geopolitical narrative reflecting a narrow hinterland, distant regions did not even fall within the scope of this security culture. Consequently, Turkey’s security culture has reflected a framework synonymous with the West and its interests; adherence to the NATO concept, both during and after the Cold War, has been Ankara’s foremost priority.

The shift in the security paradigm

Since 2002, the changes in Turkish foreign policy have naturally led to a shift in the security paradigm, as they also signified a significant transformation of identity. Firstly, the norms guiding foreign policy have diverged, and Turkey has begun to perceive its historical ties not as a threat but as a source of strength. A foreign policy approach has begun to prevail in which Turkey defines itself through an identity that, without disregarding Western values, places greater emphasis on its own identity elements, an identity that, in the simplest terms, can be expressed by the concept of our ‘heartland’. In parallel with this shift in self-definition, the definitions of interests and threats have changed, and the geopolitical perspective has expanded from a framework confined to the West to encompass a much broader geography stretching as far as Africa, Asia and the Americas.

So, what has changed in Turkey’s security culture? First and foremost, Turkey has become a country that understands very clearly that it must ensure its own security. In particular, the situation into which European states have fallen following the war in Ukraine continues to be discussed as an example illustrating just how accurately Ankara has assessed the situation. In this respect, from its very inception, Turkey has moved away from relying on international coalitions and policies dictated by them, and has begun to define its own security framework. In the words of Erdoğan, Turkey has shattered the glass ceiling over it and has transformed into an actor capable of redefining concepts at a regional level, writing its own narrative and shaping its own future. This situation has been interpreted as a reflection of self-confidence; by enhancing its own capabilities, Turkey has been able to devise solutions through its own policies whenever it perceives a threat to its security.

Regions where the traditional security culture held a perception of security threats have largely come to be viewed as areas for cooperation; security has been perceived not merely as a need secured by closing oneself off within borders, but rather as synonymous with taking proactive action. Security has been linked to the deepening of relations and increased mutual interdependence; where security vulnerabilities have arisen as a result of this approach, necessary measures have been taken to expand security boundaries. In this context, cross-border operations have constituted one of the most significant indicators of the shift in Turkey’s security paradigm. Consequently, security boundaries have been expanded, and Turkey has risen to the status of a state capable of implementing its own policies, demonstrating that security can also be ensured through new points established beyond its borders. Furthermore, it is a fact that, in line with Turkey’s evolving and expanding geopolitical understanding, the country now maintains military bases in many countries.

I

n response to the recent attacks by the PKK terrorist group in northern Iraq, Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense declared the elimination of at least 26 terrorists in airstrikes carried out in both Iraq and Syria. The retaliatory actions came following the murder of 12 soldiers in PKK attacks.

The ministry specified that the airstrikes targeted terrorist targets and resulted in the neutralization of 26 terrorists. The operations focused on areas along the Turkish border with Iraq and Syria, regions that have historically been favored hideouts for the PKK.

Defense Minister Yaşar Güler stated that the assessment of the total casualties is ongoing, and further details will be provided as the information becomes available. Previously, on December 24, Güler announced that 30 terrorists had been neutralized since the soldiers’ killings.

A series of airstrikes and operations

Turkey’s response involved a series of airstrikes and operations to dismantle PKK targets, including caves, bunkers, shelters, and oil installations. The operations, overseen by Defense Minister Güler, aimed to deliver a strong message of deterrence against the terrorist group.

Additionally, Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) reported the neutralization of Erdinc Bolcal, codenamed Ali Xebat, a high-ranking PKK member responsible for the Silan Guyi Academy. Bolcal, who provided ideological and military training to terrorists, was eliminated in a targeted operation in Sulaymaniyah.

Turkey to prevent the emergence of a terrorist structure

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated Turkey’s unwavering commitment to combat terrorism, stating that the country would pay any cost to prevent the emergence of a terrorist structure in northern Iraq and Syria. Since the recent PKK attack, Turkey has neutralized a total of 56 terrorists in ongoing counter-terrorism efforts.

Speaking at an event in Istanbul on Saturday, Erdogan emphasized that Turkey is determined to prevent the existence of any terrorist organization in northern Iraq or northern Syria, underscoring that the country will spare no effort, regardless of the cost, to ensure the security of its southern regions.

The PKK, designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU, has been engaged in a decades-long terror campaign against Turkey, resulting in the loss of more than 40,000 lives. The recent operations are part of Operation Claw-Lock, launched in April 2022 to target PKK hideouts near the Turkish border in northern Iraq.

Sources: TRT World, Daily Sabah and Aljazeera English

T

he century-long development journey of the Turkish defense industry can be characterized by its pioneering actors and decisive breaking points. The developmental phases of the Turkish defense industry can be outlined in the following phases: (i) Early Republican era (1923-1950), (ii) NATO accession (1952-1964), (iii) the Cyprus Peace Operation (1964-1978), (iv) embargoes on the Turkish defense industry (1980-1990, (v) change in domestic and foreign procurement models (1990-2002), and (vii) the final development phase of the Turkish war industry 2003-2023.

First Steps

The importance of the first phase (1923-1950) lies in the awareness of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the new republic after its heroic liberation struggle, who encouraged self-reliance in national self-defense by developing military skills and capabilities with domestic and national resources. The legacy inherited from the Ottoman Empire, the century-old Sevres conspiracy of the Great Powers, and the transformative impact of World War I on military technology and the arms race played an important role in this consciousness.

For this reason, on the one hand, Atatürk adopted a “peaceful” rhetoric in foreign, security, and defense policies with the principle of “Peace at home, Peace in the world”, and, on the other, he considered the formation of a land, air, and naval war industry as essential for the political, military, diplomatic, and economic rights and interests of the country.

With his instructions, the small arms and cannon repair ateliers, and cartridge and carpentry facilities were gathered under the umbrella of the General Directorate of Military Factories, which was established in 1921 and transferred to the Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKEK) in 1950. This initiative accelerated the activities of the arms, ammunition, and chemical factories.

Another distinctive feature of Atatürk’s era was the encouragement of private sector entrepreneurship. Revolutionary names such as Nuri Demirağ and Vecihi Hürkuş, as well as the Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK) and the Turkish Aircraft, Automobile and Engine Limited Company (Tayyare, Otomobil ve Motor Türk Anonim Şirketi, TOMTAŞ), which are today cited as pioneering actors in the history of the Turkish defense industry, are products of the early Republican period.

Likewise, the Gölcük Shipyard, the largest facility of the naval warfare industry today, was established based on the decision to found the Naval Base in Gölcük with Law No. 2173 approved by the Turkish Grand National Assembly in May 1933. However, despite the attempts made during this period, Turkey continued to procure weapons from abroad.

The reason for foreign defense procurement was the desire, on the one hand, not to burden the state with the new enterprises, and, on the other, the time that was required for Turkish companies to reach the technological level to meet the needs of a more modern Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and to move to the mass production stage. Meanwhile, following Atatürk’s death and World War II, the Turkish warfare industry entered a period of stagnation.

While the destructiveness of the war and its impact on the world economy put many countries into financial bottlenecks, the East-West struggle centered on the Soviet Union and the U.S. was instrumental in strengthening Turkey’s warfighting capability and capacity, while at the same time sowing the seeds of a long-lasting “dependency.”

The third phase (1964-1978) was characterized by the Cyprus Peace Operation in 1964 and the subsequent arms embargo imposed by the U.S. until 1978. With the so-called Johnson Letter Turkey once again realized how vital it was for its national security and interests that it establishes a war industry and maintains it with national sources.

In fact, this bitter experience was not only about the shortage of spare parts and logistical support for the TAF; it also led to the realization of how quickly Turkey’s foreign policy decisions could isolate it from its regional alliances, with which it had developed high-level and multiple engagements.

Thus, Turkey once again turned to indigenous initiatives, this time in a more institutionalized and industrialized manner. The Air, Naval and Land Forces Foundations (Turkish Armed Forces Foundation as of 1987) and companies such as Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAŞ or TAI in English), ASELSAN, a defense electronics company, Rocketsan, a rocket and missile manufacturer and defense contractor, and HAVELSAN, a software and systems company, which are the leading institutions and organizations of the Turkish defense industry today, were born in the 1970s.

The fourth phase (1980-1990) of the Turkish defense industry was characterized by overt and covert embargoes. Turkey’s counterterrorism operations against the PKK—as well as its Syrian offshoot, the PYD/YPG today—often lacked support from its NATO and European allies, who introduced new procedures and decisions that made it difficult for Turkey to use the weapons, ammunition, and equipment that Turkey had procured from them.

However, as a result of the lessons learned from the 1970s, Turkey entered the 1980s with a higher level of awareness which led to institutionalization efforts to achieve a more modern defense industry, first with the establishment of the Presidency of Defense Industry Development and Support Administration (SAGEB) in 1985 and then the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) in 1989.

Another important aspect of this period is that, despite all the political conflicts of interest and challenging economic conditions, Ankara highly valued cooperation, and in this sense, the joint establishment by the U.S. and Turkey of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) and TUSAŞ Engine Industries (TEI) provided an extremely important theoretical and technical input to the domestic defense industry.

The fifth phase (1990-2002) saw a change in domestic and foreign procurement models thanks to this institutionalization. In this context, Turkey’s procurement trend shifted from smart supply to production under license, co-production, technology transfer, and cooperation.

While the F-16 project was valued as an important acquisition of knowledge and experience, new projects were initiated by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation companies from this accumulation and capability enhancement.

The indigenization of the defense discourse

The sixth and final development phase (2003-2023) of the Turkish war industry is the period from the beginning of the 21st century to the present day. The defining characteristic of this period is the defense industry discourse of the AK Party, which has been in power for the last 20 years, and which has been widely featured in both the party charter and election manifestos.

This discourse is based on the pursuit of indigenization, nationalization, and strategic autonomy, and subsequently took on a more robust face with the “National Technology Initiative.” A Defense Industry Executive Committee (SSİK) meeting in 2004 represented the first breaking point in these discourses and practices. In this meeting, it was decided to cancel many foreign procurement projects that were already on the table, and to develop the new procurement structure, which was envisioned to be applied to many old projects whose seeds were sown in the 1990s, by maximizing the support of domestic resources and capabilities. In the new period, Turkey has given higher priority to indigenous design and R&D models, taking advantage of co-production, technology transfer, and cooperation models.

This revolutionary decision initially raised some concerns about meeting the needs of the TAF in a timely manner and with competent technology. However, the projects that were realized in a short period of time, and the platforms that were quickly brought into the national inventory and put into the development phase with feedback from the field, gained the confidence of the TAF.

O

n the morning of Sunday, October 1, around 9.30 a.m., during the opening day of the new legislative session of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM), two PKK terrorists arrived in a light commercial vehicle at the entrance to the complex housing the Turkish Ministry of Interior and the General Directorate of Security. Using long-barreled firearms, they carried out a suicide attack.

In the aftermath of the incident, an initial official statement by the Turkish Minister of Interior Ali Yerlikaya revealed that one of the terrorists detonated an explosive device, while the other assailant was effectively neutralized by law enforcement personnel.

The Ankara terrorist attack, due to its timing, target, the affiliation of the perpetrators, and the modus operandi requires a careful and thorough examination.

Examining the unusual aspects of the attack

At the outset, it is imperative to acknowledge the limited open access information on the planning, reconnaissance, and financing phases of the attack. Nevertheless, a comprehensive examination of the operational methodology is possible by examining CCTV footage.

The available footage shows that at approximately 9:30 a.m. local time, a grey Renault Kangoo vehicle arrived at the prescribed coordinates. Two terrorists, armed with long-barreled firearms and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, alighted from the vehicle and proceeded to directly target the guards stationed at the compound’s checkpoint gate.

The attack took the form of an abrupt incursion, with one of the assailants attempting to breach the checkpoint’s ballistic fortifications with the rocket launcher. At the same time, the other assailant activated an explosive device in order to facilitate the entry of the second terrorist into the area, while rendering the checkpoint security personnel ineffective.

Intelligence reports indicate that an armed confrontation ensued between the first assailant, who was trying to breach the checkpoint, and the law enforcement personnel. The prompt intervention of the security forces resulted in the neutralization of both assailants, although two police officers, Alim Reis Demirel and Erkan Karataş, were slightly injured.

While the manner in which the Ankara terrorist attack was carried out, i.e., a sudden and violent breach of a checkpoint,  has tactical parallels with an earlier incident in Mersin, it is important to highlight the notable technical differences between the latest incident and the Mersin episode, including facets such as the typology of targets, the specifications of equipment, and the profiles of the perpetrators.

Weapons cache and connections

In the aftermath of the attempted attack, following an investigation launched by the security forces, a cache of weapons was seized, consisting of 9,700 kg of C-4 explosives, three hand grenades, a rocket launcher (specifically the RPO-A Shmel thermobaric rocket launcher), a Glock pistol fitted with a suppressor, a Blow pistol, a M4 carbine with an extended barrel, and a AK-47 with an extended barrel.

Of particular importance is the M4 carbine, a weapon developed by the American company Colt. Celebrated for its rapid-fire capabilities and lightweight design, the M4 is primarily used in close-quarters combat, with an effective range of 350 meters, and is among the weapons sent by the United States to the PKK/YPG.

The most conspicuous among the seized weapons systems is the RPO-A Shmel with a range of 20 to 1,000 m. This weapon was used by the assailant who attempted to breach the ballistic defenses at the checkpoint gate. The RPO-A Shmel, similar to the Light Anti-Tank Weapon (LAW) developed by the Soviets, is characterized by its thermobaric composition, which gives it incendiary properties, and had been previously seized by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) during operations in Syria in 2022 and 2020.

Furthermore, the RPO-A Shmel was used in an attack by PKK terrorists in the Metina region in 2020, which resulted in the death of five Peshmerga fighters. It is known that operatives in terrorist organizations are subjected to specialized training regimes to achieve proficiency in the operation of this weapon system. Meanwhile, the protracted Syrian civil war has, to some extent, facilitated the acquisition of such weapons by terrorist organizations.

Terrorist faction and motivation

The attack, which took place on the opening day of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, was claimed by a faction of the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), the military wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), known as the “Immortal Battalion.” The terrorist organization named the perpetrators as operatives under the aliases “Rojhat Zihan” and “Erdal Şahin.”

Following forensic investigations, the government authorities have officially confirmed that one of the neutralized terrorist was Hasan Oğuz. The identity of the other assailant is currently the subject of ongoing forensic investigation. As the results of these investigations crystallize, they will serve to clarify the context of the attack.

Given that the “Immortals’ Battalion” operates under the direct authority of the terrorist organization’s top leadership, specifically under the command of Murat Karayılan, it is reasonable to assume that the order for the attack came from the highest levels of the organization’s hierarchy.

The communiqué issued by the terrorist organization claiming responsibility for the attack,  stated that the attack was dedicated to the memory of deceased terrorist Hülya Demirer, known by the alias “Axin Muş.” Demirer is said to have been a member of the HPG and YJA Star Command Council and, in particular, served as the “Amed” province commander within the organization’s hierarchy. The attack was explicitly dedicated to her associates, specifically “Rohat Pasur” (Cihat Ay), “Egid Berxwedan” (Habib Karakoç), and “Demhat Setkar” (Çetin Temel). These terrorists had been neutralized in an operation carried out in Diyarbakır’s Kulp district in September 2022.

The operation had been carried out under the auspices of the Intelligence Directorate of the General Directorate of Security, and involved the use of the latest technology, including UAVs of the General Directorate of Security and UCAV platforms of the Gendarmerie General Command. The neutralized terrorists had been prominently featured on the Ministry of Interior’s list of wanted terrorists, color-coded “red,” “orange,” and “grey”  respectively.

Importantly, Hülya Demirer is known to have played a key role in orchestrating a series of bomb attacks: the attack in Istanbul’s Sancaktepe district on May 12, 2016; in Istanbul’s Fatih-Vezneciler district on June 7, 2016; in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district on December 10,  2016; and, most recently, along the Diyarbakır-Mardin highway on December 16, 2022.

From the point of view of the terrorist organization, the decisive neutralization of such a consequential figure represented a profound development, especially in terms of eroding the morale and motivation of its domestic human resources in Turkey. The attack of October 1 served the dual purpose of sending a message to the organization’s dispirited human resources in Turkey, and confirming the organization’s continued ability to carry out attacks on strategic targets within Turkish territory.

W

e are currently witnessing a remarkable simultaneous mobilization in Syria and Iraq. With the U.S. military mobilization in Iraq, the ethnic and sectarian tensions in Kirkuk have come to the forefront. Shiite groups and Kurds are in a power struggle both between themselves and with the elements they perceive as hostile to their cause.

While all this is happening in Iraq, in Syria, demonstrations in regime-controlled areas, increasing attacks on Idlib, and finally the Arab uprising in the Deir ez-Zor region have deeply shaken the country. In fact, serious demonstrations have been taking place in the regime-controlled areas for some time, with occasional manifestations in Damascus, Daraa, and Latakia, but the Suwayda region has been at the center of the demonstrations.

When the economic problems in the Druze minority-populated region, coupled with the catastrophic collapse of the Syrian lira, threatened food security, people organized and took to the streets to demonstrate. Under the mismanagement of the Syrian regime and international sanctions, the country is becoming increasingly unlivable.

Infrastructure and superstructures in the country have been severely damaged and cannot be replaced, while energy and food supply security cannot be ensured. A functioning ecosystem is almost non-existent. There is also large-scale drug production and trafficking, which is managed by the regime’s military elements, and the ongoing economic problems in Lebanon and Russia’s impasse in Ukraine are putting even more pressure on the Syrian regime.

In such an atmosphere, the regime is trying to use military clashes to change the agenda by targeting Idlib and legitimizing its existence. Of course, it should be underlined that one of the most important reasons for the economic bankruptcy in Syria is the PKK/YPG’s control of the country’s most important energy resources, fertile agricultural areas, and water basins. A closer look at the uprising in Deir ez-Zor will provide further insight (into the dynamics at play.

Arab tribes fight back again

The Deir ez-Zor Governorate is a province on the Euphrates River in Eastern Syria bordering Iraq, which is particularly rich in oil and natural gas resources. It has a Sunni Arab population under the control of tribes. The Al-Abid, Kalbiyya, Shammar, Zubayd, Duliam, Jabur, Tayy, Abu Saraya clan, and al-Rifai tribes, primarily the Al Uqaydat and Albu Saraya,a section of the Baqqara tribe, are present in the city. The city of Deir ez-Zor is 450 kilometers from Damascus and about 200 kilometers from the borders with Turkey.

The city of Deir ez-Zor came under the control of the opposition during the Syrian revolution, and was then occupied by DAESH for a long time. It was captured by the YPG, the Syrian extension of the PKK terrorist organization, and Arab elements affiliated with it, with the air and ground support of the United States. The region is currently controlled by the PKK/YPG-controlled SDF and its autonomous Military Council, and is also within the borders of the terrorist state that the PKK is trying to establish in the region.

In Deir ez-Zor, where small clashes and demonstrations have occurred from time to time in the past, larger clashes erupted recently when Abu Havle, the head of the Military Council, was invited to a meeting by PKK/YPG members and detained. Armed forces from Deir ez-Zor-based Arab tribes such as the Al Uqaydat and Baqqara mobilized and managed to expel PKK/YPG elements from many villages and towns.

When we look back a little, we see that a significant part of the Arab tribes in the region did not want to recognize the authority of the PKK/YPG, that they have rebelled from time to time, and that peace was achieved with the intervention of the U.S. Meanwhile, the PKK/YPG terrorist organization has always tried to eliminate possible threats through assassinations.

The determinism of demography

Through its engagement first with the Assad regime and then with the U.S., the PKK/YPG has come to dominate an area of about 50,000 sq km in Syria. It controls Manbij and Tal Rifaat west of the Euphrates under the protection of Russia and the Assad regime, while east of the Euphrates it controls areas such as Al-Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor under the security umbrella of the United States.

These regions cover most of the country’s energy resources, agricultural areas, and water basins, and are home to around 2.5-3 million people. Currently, 80% of the population are Arabs. Although the U.S. has tried to integrate Arabs into the existing system by creating the SDF, the PKK/YPG’s deviant ideological tendencies and the terrorist hierarchy imposed by Qandil ensure that Arabs are only figuratively included in this system.

Some tribes, such as the Shammar, have been more active in the system, but the majority of Arab tribes have been reluctant to participate and have only been forced to do so by the incentives and pressures of the Washington administration. After the move against the relatively autonomous Deir ez-Zor Military Council, the tribal structures have once again raised the flag of rebellion.

Are these events based on a natural reaction of the Arab tribes against the PKK/YPG terrorist domination? Or, is there an attempt by the countries supporting this rebellion from the outside and specifically the U.S. to create a different design on the ground, as has been expressed recently? At first, the PKK/YPG tried to package this Arab uprising through DAESH—as it always does—and produced fake videos to create the perception that the uprising was being carried out by DAESH supporters.

Then, it moved on to the second scenario, claiming that the Assad regime and Iran were behind these tribes. The main goal here was to suppress the rebellion more easily by getting Washington’s support and then consolidate its power in the region through the U.S. The Russian Air Force bombing of tribal forces in Manbij rendered this scenario largely ineffective.

Another scenario was for the rebellion to be an effort by Washington to break the growing influence of the Tehran government and create a tribal belt that would extend to the Jordanian border, cutting off Iranian routes into Syria through Iraq. Doing so would mean directing the YPG further northward and empowering the Arab tribes by making them independent of the YPG. The fact that the PKK/YPG made some concessions in favor of the tribes in the aftermath of the recent events strengthens this prospect.

A zone that would extend to the line in the al-Tanf region, which the U.S. controls together with Syrian opposition forces, is an attempt to cut the border crossing between Al-Bukamal in Syria and Al-Qaim in Iraq. If this step can be taken, Iran’s logistics line from Iraq to Syria will be completely cut, Tehran’s influence in the country will be broken, and Israel’s security will be strengthened.

Of course, if this scenario is to be realized, the PKK/YPG mustn’t be alienated. Some regional experts believe that the U.S. job is made easier by taking these steps through the related tribal rebellion. However, the Washington administration’s course of action so far, especially during the Biden era, indicates that it has not and will not engage in such risky large-scale moves.

Another scenario is that Turkey supports and directs the Arab tribes. Throughout the Syrian civil war, Turkey has always worked closely with Arab tribes and valued them. In the aftermath of the events, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan emphasized that the PKK presence in the region was unacceptable and that the areas in question belonged to the Arab tribes.

Likewise, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) did not interfere with the mobilization of the Arab tribes in the areas under their control and influence, and even facilitated their mobilization against the PKK terrorist organization. However, neither the TAF nor elements of the Syrian National Army (SNA) were involved in the fighting.

It seems that Turkey does not want to see another major wave of conflict in Syria nor does it want a new escalation with its counterparts, such as the U.S. and Russia, in the country. Diplomatic contacts with the Assad regime continue under Russian mediation. Therefore, although Ankara has supported the justified rebellion of Arab tribes against the terrorist organization through certain means, it would be wrong to read Turkey as the state and power behind this rebellion.

In summary, Turkey’s thesis that “you cannot fight one terrorist organization with another terrorist organization” has once again been vindicated. The recent events in Eastern Syria have also had meaningful consequences in terms of showing that the U.S. cannot build permanent presence in the region with the PKK/YPG terrorist organization against the demographic realities and sociology of the region.

Finally, even if the Deir ez-Zor rebellion is suppressed, it has clearly revealed one truth: demographic realities will eventually win in the region, and the efforts to establish a so-called terrorist state on an ethnic minority through a terrorist organization will come to naught.

L

eadership decapitation is defined as operations that target neutralizing or capturing leaders, and high-raking political or military figures of terrorist organizations. The underlying reason of leadership decapitation is the idea that the leadership cadre of terrorist organizations is the most fundamental element of the organizations’ ideological, discursive, tactical, and operational structure.

Leadership decapitation aims at diminishing the organizational and operational capabilities of terrorist organizations, and thus preventing their ability to carry out any action. These operations also seek to weaken the leadership structures of terrorist organizations and disunite their communication networks.

Intelligence services’ field personnel identify the leadership cadre, including their overall positions and areas of operational responsibility. When the leadership cadre is captured or their command ranks are broken, their operational capabilities are significantly affected; when hierarchy is lost, communication and coordination problems emerge, and distrust ensues.

However, there are critical approaches to leadership decapitation. Some argue that a new leadership can quickly be formed within the organization, allowing its activities to continue. Here, the internal structure of the organization matters as ideologically motivated organizations may resist leadership decapitation more than religiously motivated ones.

The MİT and leadership decapitation

A general assessment of the operations by Turkey’s National Intelligence Service (MİT) in Iraq and Syria reveals a focus on targeting mid- to high-ranking organizational leaders. This intelligence work is based on data collected by field personnel deployed over a wide area of Iraq and Syria. In addition, information passed to the Command Centre is used to conduct UAV/UCAV operations against the leadership cadre of the organization. The main strategy is to disrupt the command ranks, i.e., the hierarchical order of the organization, in order to cause significant losses of qualified personnel and thus maintain a psychological advantage, leading the PKK into a process of dissolution.

In particular, the frequency and nature of operations in the first seven months of 2023 indicate that they are targeting high-level operatives and officials who have been active in the organization for many years. Between January and July 2023, at least 25 mid- to high-level operatives, including members of the PKK’s executive council, intelligence officers, regional special forces, and finance, communications, aviation, logistics, sabotage, and training officers, whose names have been disclosed, were neutralized.

For example, Celal Kaya, codenamed “Hasan,” PKK’s intelligence officer and the mastermind behind the assassination of the diplomat Osman Köse, who was martyred in Iraq, was rendered ineffective by an operation carried out by the MİT in July. Kaya is said to have gathered intelligence and planned actions for attacks on Turkish forces in Iraq and for the kidnapping of Turkish officials.

Impact of the MİT operations

The neutralization of leaders leads to a shortage of experienced personnel and gradually weakens the memory of a terrorist organization. Militants without operational capabilities are promoted to higher ranks, which leads to a decrease in the quality of a terrorist organization’s actions and a blunting of its decision-making capabilities.

Leaders of terrorist organizations hide in locations far from the theatre of operations and attempt to maintain communication with other members of the organization by radio, letters, or videos. Gaps in communication lead to disruptions in the chain of command and undermine the authority of senior members. Disrupted communication accelerates the rate of desertion and leads to the surrender of terrorists. The fear of disclosure of their location prevents terrorists from leaving their hideouts, leading to increased autonomy among lower-level members and an erosion of the authority of senior members.

The statements by sources from within the PKK terrorist organization regarding the operations carried out by the MİT and the Turkish Armed Forces in Iraq and Syria in May and June expose the organization’s weakness. The co-presidency of the PKK’s executive council announced the suspension of the unilateral ceasefire it had declared on February 6, 2023, and the decision to carry out terrorist acts.

Similarly, terrorist leader Duran Kalkan highlighted the election results and the operations of the Turkish security forces in the region and declared the YPG’s intention to carry out more radical actions. Salih Müslim, co-chairman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said that they had moved to a defensive position due to the increased operations and were waiting for the results of the Astana talks on June 21, which focused on Syria.

The leaders of the terrorist organization continue to threaten Turkey rhetorically, but these statements are nothing more than an attempt to react quickly against the Turkish security forces. In the organization’s internal discourse, these statements have no practical foundation. The common point between the statements by the PKK, Duran Kalkan, and Salih Müslim is their call for the support of the international community and the world powers against Turkey. This is a clear indication of their tactical and operational shortcomings which stem from their defensive position in Syria, their retreat to the south in Iraq, and their demoralized mindset.

The fact that more than 70 terrorists have been neutralized by the operations carried out by the MİT and the Turkish Armed Forces in the region since the second week of June paired with the fact that the PKK/YPG has ordered its members to wear civilian clothes instead of military uniforms prove that the organization does not currently have the capacity to respond.

W

estern Europe is currently experiencing a wave of public desecrations of the Quran. In the Netherlands, the leader of PEGIDA tore pages from the Quran and trampled them. In Denmark and Sweden, activists have on several occasions burned copies of the Quran in front of buildings belonging to Islamic organizations.

What is striking is that the authorities in these countries have acted as mere bystanders, claiming that they are powerless to deal with such activities. They argue that the desecration of the Quran is a reprehensible act, but that it is legal and therefore cannot be stopped. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson recently said, “It can be legal and still be horrible.”

Many Muslims in the countries concerned and around the world are outraged by the authorities’ passive attitude and are calling on them to act. In July, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution, introduced by Pakistan and Palestine, condemning such desecration and calling on states to close the legal loopholes that prevent them from tackling it.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been a vocal critic of the Swedish authorities’ refusal to stop such desecrations. This raises the stakes considerably, as Sweden’s accession to NATO has yet to be ratified by the Turkish parliament. President Erdoğan has indicated that this is unlikely to happen as long as copies of the Quran are being burned. Thus, the question of whether the Swedish authorities are right to claim that their hands are tied has become politically important.

Freedom of expression?

The Swedish authorities claim that rallies where the Quran is burned are protected by freedom of expression and therefore cannot be restricted, thus giving freedom of expression priority over other rights. However, Sweden is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which does not recognize such a hierarchy of rights. All rights in the convention are equal, and if they conflict, they must be weighed against each other. In the case of the desecration of the Quran, there is a conflict between freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in its judgment in E.S. v. Austria, has shown how the right to freedom of expression must be balanced against the right of others to have their religious feelings protected. The case concerned an Austrian politician who had been fined for making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed. She claimed that the fine amounted to an unlawful interference with her freedom of expression.

The ECtHR disagreed: it recognized that religious groups must tolerate criticism by others of their religious beliefs. However, if that criticism incites hatred or religious intolerance, restrictions are justified. The applicant’s offensive attack on the Prophet Mohammed  went beyond the permissible limits of objective debate and her comments were likely to cause justified indignation among Muslims. The ECtHR reiterated that state parties have an obligation under the convention to maintain religious peace, i.e., the peaceful coexistence of religious and non-religious groups.

ECtHR key judgement

It is not clear what is stopping the Swedish authorities from applying E.S. v. Austria to the desecration of the Quran. The verdict is not obscure: the ECtHR has described it as a key judgment, meaning that it has strong precedential value, and although the ruling concerned Austria, it is expected to be followed by all state parties, including Sweden. The ECtHR is the final authority on the interpretation of the convention and state parties are expected to apply the principles arising from its judgments.

The convention has been incorporated into Swedish law by an Act of Parliament and the Swedish Constitution prohibits the adoption of laws that contravene the convention. Thus, even if there were a law allowing people to burn the Quran, such a law would be contrary to the convention, which would render it null and void. The authorities also cannot avoid banning the desecration of the Quran by claiming that they have no express legislative authority to do so; Swedish courts have consistently held that the convention can serve as a legal basis for action in the absence of enabling legislation.

The Swedish government has announced that it has introduced legislation to tighten border controls in order to prevent the entry of persons who might endanger Sweden’s security interests. Presumably this is intended to silence fervent critics of Sweden’s hands-off policy; however,  this is not how the ECtHR expects Sweden to maintain religious peace. The Swedish government has also indicated that it is considering changing the law to allow the police to prevent copies of the Quran from being burned in public. It need not look far: a simple application of E.S. v. Austria will suffice.

O

n April 4, 2022, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held an official meeting. In accordance with the official statement, the two leaders discussed the intricacies of Turkish-Finnish relations, the defense industry, military exports, and the pressing matter of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which had begun a month prior. The Russia-Ukraine war, in fact, ignited a profound transformation within Finland’s national security and defense policy, prompting considerations regarding potential accession to NATO. Prior to engaging in dialogue with Erdoğan, Niinistö had previously held discussions with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, focusing attention on the procedures associated with new and prospective NATO members.

Unraveling the dynamics

A similar shift was also occurring in Finland’s neighboring country and close partner, Sweden. The two nations engaged in discussions with prominent actors such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Jens Stoltenberg, expressing their desire for full membership. They were reassured of a warm reception. However, the limitation of consulting only a select few members became evident when journalists queried Erdoğan regarding his stance on Swedish and Finnish membership. Erdoğan, along with a significant portion of Turkey, held an unfavorable view on the matter.

The media was ablaze with theories, circulating in well-established journals and newspapers, attempting to decipher why Turkey was impeding Swedish and Finnish accession: Was Erdoğan maneuvering to gain leverage in the F-35 and F-16 negotiations with the Biden administration? Was Turkey seeking to regain political prominence, or was there a complex plot aimed at assisting Vladimir Putin in managing a crisis?

It is likely that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden’s reference to the PKK does not solely pertain to the public demonstrations occasionally held by the organization and its supporters in Sweden. Instead, he alludes to the PKK’s extensive network within the country, and describes the PKK’s activities in Sweden as substantial, emphasizing that the funds collected there are utilized by the PKK for terrorist operations against Turkey.

While public protests in support of the PKK serve to illustrate the organization’s presence in Sweden, they pale in comparison to the PKK’s clandestine undertakings. The PKK is deeply intertwined with organized crime, not only in Sweden but throughout Europe. Consequently, Swedish organized crime becomes an inadvertent financier of terrorism in Turkey, while terrorism in Turkey remains one of the central concerns tied to criminal gangs and organized crime in Sweden. However, none of these revelations should come as a surprise to Sweden. Turkey has been raising this issue with its European counterparts for years, only to be met with indifference from all those who have failed to consider terrorism as a relevant problem in any country other than their own.

In a documentary on Sweden’s NATO accession process, which appeared on by the Swedish national public television broadcaster SVT, an interview with former Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ann Linde (2019-2022) was aired, during which she openly acknowledged that while Turkey faced a severe terrorism threat, Sweden and other European countries failed to take the terrorism in Turkey seriously. Linde further affirmed that Turkey’s claims regarding Sweden’s financial support for the PKK were accurate, acknowledging the legitimacy of Turkey’s criticism.

The loss of lives in Turkey has been met with resounding indifference across Europe. On the rare occasions when PKK-related stories capture European headlines, they often portray support for the organization. Many media outlets and policymakers prefer to highlight the PKK’s fight against DAESH and its supposed pursuit of freedom, conveniently overlooking the fact that the organization is recognized as a terrorist group by both the EU and the U.S. Moreover, the PKK is widely acknowledged as an active organized crime network, responsible for a significant portion of drug trafficking throughout Europe.

The permissive stance toward the PKK’s actions has also created problems in France, as a recent case exposed instances of racketeering, blackmail, kidnappings, and extortions carried out by PKK members in southern France.

Sweden’s transformative path

In order to demonstrate its commitment to Turkey and strengthen its approach to counterterrorism and the security of partner nations, Sweden implemented a significant change to its counterterrorism laws. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson took the extraordinary step of writing an article for the Financial Times to publicize the new legislation. The updated laws now criminalize participation in a terrorist organization and prescribe penalties of up to four years for basic terrorism offenses and two to eight years for more serious offenses. Moreover, leaders of terrorist organizations can face sentences ranging from two years to life imprisonment.

In his article, Kristersson described this development as a means to close a legal loophole in the Swedish system. Previously, being a member of a terrorist organization and supporting such an organization was not explicitly illegal. Prosecution was only possible if the actions of terrorists could be directly linked to a specific terrorist act. As a result, individuals providing logistic, administrative, or financial support to terrorism without direct involvement in a terrorist act itself were not committing a crime; for instance, sending money to a terrorist organization was not illegal unless prosecutors could establish that the funds were used for a specific terrorist act.

Since the implementation of the new anti-terrorism law, Sweden has already charged and convicted one individual on terrorism-financing charges. This person, a Turkish citizen of Kurdish ethnicity, had been in custody since February. He was found guilty of extorting money for the PKK, aggravated blackmail, and related weapons offenses after threatening someone with a gun. The perpetrator also maintained close contact with PKK members in Germany and France, including a senior leader responsible for the PKK’s collection activities in Europe. The Swedish intelligence and counterterrorism service, SÄPO, verified at least 11 instances where the convicted individual was seen moving alongside high-ranking PKK members in Stockholm before visiting restaurants and wholesalers. On July 6, 2023, the Swedish district court convicted the individual on all charges and sentenced him to four-and-a-half years in prison, followed by deportation.

While the issues with Finland were relatively superficial and primarily centered around the ban on defense exports to Turkey, which was even mentioned in the readout of the April 4 phone call between Niinistö and Erdoğan, the challenges with Sweden were of a more substantial nature, necessitating significant changes. Over the past few decades, Sweden has become a safe haven, recruitment hub, financial center, and propaganda base for terrorist organizations operating in Turkey. Swedish ministers have held meetings with PKK members and representatives of the YPG, promising them support.

Taking it a step further, the Swedish government at the time relied on the support of independent Member of Parliament Amineh Kakabaveh, a former Iranian Peshmerga member, who extended her support based on the promise of increased assistance to the YPG/PYD, the Syrian branch of the PKK. The details of this agreement were shared in a Facebook post bearing the signatures of Social Democratic Party leader Tobias Baudin and the party’s international secretary, Johan Hassel.

The reason Turkey questions Sweden’s sincerity and commitment to the trilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) lies in a series of events that unfolded during the process in Sweden. Since Sweden announced its intention to join NATO, protests have erupted across the country featuring Abdullah Öcalan and PKK flags. There have been instances of hanging effigies of Turkish President Erdoğan, projecting PKK symbols onto Swedish government buildings, and even the burning of the Quran by far-right activists.

The latter drew widespread condemnation from the Muslim community and escalated the terrorism risk within Sweden. In response, the Swedish police initially banned two further attempts at public Quran burnings, but this decision was later overturned by a Swedish court. The subsequent rejection of the ban was upheld by an appeals court on June 12. Although there have been no Quran burnings in the days following the overturn, it is only a matter of time before such incidents occur again.

D

uran Kalkan, a member of the PKK/KCK Executive Committee, described the operations carried out by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) against the organization’s top leadership as a declaration of “mobilization’’ aimed at purging the PKK leadership. Kalkan even targeted the terrorist wanted list prepared by the Ministry of Interior, lamenting that the PKK’s top leadership had been placed on a “death list.’’

Kalkan characterizes these operations as political pandering, and speaks openly against both the MIT and the Ministry of Interior at an institutional level. However, the targeting of the executive and operative elements of terrorist organizations by the security bureaucracy and its forces is not a new strategy. On the contrary, it is a part of the state’s counterterrorism policy that has been resolutely implemented for many years, and is expected to have strategic, operational, and political outcomes.

Tactical and strategic counterterrorism operations gain momentum

In the MIT’s 2022 annual activity report, Hakan Fidan, its director, underlines the activities carried out by Turkey’s security institutions to realize this successful counterterrorism policy. The MIT possesses proactive intelligence disciplines such as human intelligence, signals intelligence, electronic intelligence, and imagery and satellite intelligence, including unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capacity.

The MIT demonstrates its technological capacity and capabilities in cross-border operations that neutralize a terrorist organization’s leadership, destroy critical infrastructure facilities belonging to a terrorist organization, and capture many of its members, including the perpetrators of terrorist attacks in Turkey. In 2022 alone, 133 leaders and operative terrorist elements whose identities were shared in open sources were neutralized through internal security and cross-border operations.

Regardless of the terrorist organization and its area of operation, the counterterrorism operations discussed by Fidan continue to be carried out in 2023. The operation in Hasaka neutralized Zeki Gürbüz, the so-called Syria officer of the terrorist organization Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), and Özgür Namoğlu, code-named “Fırat Neval,’’ the organization’s so-called Syrian sabotage officer; the operation in Qamishli neutralized Halil Menci who planned the 2022 Taksim attack; the operation that captured Ramazan Güneş, code-named “Soreş/Soreşger,’’ a member of the organization’s “special forces” who carried out 12 terrorist acts in Turkey, and brought him to Suleymaniye, Iraq; the operation in Sinjar neutralized the terrorist Saad Ali Bedel, code-named “Ceko Pir,’’ the so-called military commander of the PKK-affiliated Sinjar Defense Units (YBŞ); and the operation in Aleppo neutralized Mehmet Yıldırım, code-named “Hamza Kobani,’’ the so-called finance officer of Aleppo and Tel Rifat.

Such tactical and strategic counterterrorism operations which aim to eliminate the leadership cadres of the terrorist PKK organization have been effective since 2015 and have gained momentum in Turkey since 2018, in Iraq since 2019, and in Syria since 2022. These operations target the leader or the operative elements directly, and also involve coordinated operations in which the physical infrastructure and resources of the terrorist organization such as shelters, positions, arsenals, logistical support lines, rear basing points, and financial resources are targeted alongside the command control echelon.

Following the detection of the target, the data received from the UAVs is used to identify the target by examining in detail the number of people, weapons, clothes, and whether the targets are civilians or not. After the identification process is completed, the targets in question are tracked by UAVs. At this point, tracking takes a few hours or a few days, depending on who the target is, and where and what kind of activity they is carrying out.

In the analysis phase, plans are made for the neutralization operation. In this context, special attention is paid that the target moves away from civilian areas and that there are no civilians in the operation area. In addition, information from intelligence officers in the field and data from the UAV center are compared. Ultimately, bearing all the data into consideration, when there is a definite conviction that the target is a terrorist element and there are no civilians around, a few operators destroy the target in accordance with the orders they receive from the relevant commander. After the target is neutralized, an evaluation phase is initiated and a report is prepared, thus ending the operation process.

As is evident from the statements of PKK member Kalkan, the psychological damage of these successful operations on the morale and motivation of the terrorist organization and terrorist elements is undeniable. According to the statements of captured or surrendered members of the organization, such operations cause confusion, anxiety, loss of authority, and give rise to situations in which subordinate cadres take initiative independent of the leader. As the number of such operations increases, members of a terrorist organization will have to constantly hide and take stricter measures in internal communication. Consequently, communication problems will lead to a lack of coordination and will seriously hinder senior leaders and operatives’ flexibility.

There will also be several collateral consequences. For example, the terrorist organization will be forced to undergo tactical transformation, and develop avoidance and protection mechanisms and counterattack tactics against the threats targeting the leadership and operative cadres. Meanwhile, while the imminent threats from the PKK are removed from Turkey through preventative counterterrorism operations, the organization, which has expanded its attack volume, will respond to the operations by activating organizational violence, especially in Iraq and Syria.

UAVs/UCAVs stand out in the transformation of counterterrorism activities

It is also important to mention the technological transformation and infrastructure that have facilitated the execution of operations against leadership and operative cadres. The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), the Ministry of Interior, and the MIT carry out such operations by maximizing their use of existing military technology and equipment, and minimizing the risks of field personnel. In fact, the defense industry’s domestic product range and R&D activities are diversifying thanks to user feedback activities.

The platform that has gained the most prominence in recent years is unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)/combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UCAVs). Considering the aerial imagery and visual data collection capabilities of domestically developed UAVs/UCAVs, their ability to provide intelligence feeds to the elements in the field, and even the use of their kinetic strike capabilities in neutralizing terrorist elements, UAVs/UCAVs are evolving into an important complimentary element for security forces in counterterrorism operations. In fact, the destruction capacity of security forces increases in operations that receive air support and UAV/UCAV support.

In the future, we will frequently hear statements from the PKK like that of Duran Kalkan. The PKK has been forced to retreat to its rear basing point by the TAF’s ground and air elements. Today, the PKK has been suppressed on the ground by the incessant counterterrorism operations of law enforcement and security forces, and its command-control and operative cadres have been gradually destroyed as a result of the operations carried out by the MIT both on its own and jointly with TAF elements. The future does not seem very promising to the terrorist group, one can say.

“L

eadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on Earth.” Nowadays, new terrorist groups have evolved into leaderless movements, yet we still see the traditional form of terrorist groups with organized leadership and hierarchy able not only to inflict immeasurable harm but also inspire the new generation of terrorist movements. Leadership is especially important when it comes to religious terrorist groups, whether it be Islamic terrorist groups or white Christian white nationalist groups.

In these groups, terrorist leaders are not just the leaders of their organizations; they are perceived by their followers as religious or spiritual leaders as well. Religious terrorist leaders are responsible for creating a group ideology and reconciling their group’s ideology with preexisting religious texts and teachings. Consequently, the leaders in religious terrorist groups tend to have an unparalleled influence on their organizations.

Terror in Transition: Leadership and Succession in Terrorist Organizations offers a rigorous theoretical perspective that extensively explores leadership and succession in terrorist groups throughout the period of their operation to track the opportunities that shape and maximize counterterrorism efforts. Drawing on extensive field research in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan, the book features detailed analysis of groups such as al-Shabaab, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and al-Qaeda in Iraq/the Islamic State in Iraq, as well as the KKK.

What is the role of founding leaders in shaping terrorist organizations? What follows the loss of this formative leader? What kind of leader is the successor? In their groundbreaking analysis, Tricia L. Bacon, associate professor at American University’s School of Public Affairs, and Elizabeth Grimm, associate teaching professor in the Center for Security Studies, School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, demonstrate that founders establish the whys and hows of the group. The founder explains and frames the group’s mission, and determines and justifies how the group seeks to achieve its objectives. Later, successors operate from within that base.

Bacon and Grimm argue that how successors position themselves in terms of the founder shapes a terrorist group’s future course. They breakdown the different types of successors: will they be a caretaker, signaler, fixer, visionary, or figurehead? They also examine how and why different types of successors choose to pursue incremental or discontinuous change: Some successors possess family bonds that strengthen their claim to authority. Others are outsiders who seek to escalate the group’s level of violence, and others yet are handpicked long before the leader’s death or arrest. These successors can also hold different aims, ranging from purifying the mission to restoring the group’s public image.

Succession is a critical juncture: it may potentially threaten the very survival of the group. Instability surrounding succession can place a group at its most vulnerable and is the precise time to explore options to weaken or defeat it. Therefore, Terror in Transition: Leadership and Succession in Terrorist Organizations comes as a valuable source that provides actionable recommendations for policymakers and counterterrorism practitioners.

Tricia L. Bacon and Elizabeth Grimm, Terror in Transition: Leadership and Succession in Terrorist Organizations (Columbia University Press, 2022) ISBN: 9780231192255, 312 pages

A

s Turkey approaches its 2023 national elections, the political parties are campaigning both under their alliances and striving to emerge victorious on their own behalf. The great struggle for both the presidential and parliamentary elections is palpable. In what can be described as a normal process up to this point, an issue that has raised eyebrows is the engagement of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and the Nation Alliance with the People’s Democracy Party (HDP) and the Green Left Party (YSP), which was formed as a backup party for the HDP.

It is noteworthy that after various negotiations with Kılıçdaroğlu, the HDP/YSP, the legal extension of the PKK/KCK, decided not to field its own candidate and showed support to Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy. Moreover, an adjunct development is the PKK/KCK terrorist organization’s all-out commitment to the election process: a terrorist organization, which by its very nature should be kept away from any legitimate political process, has begun to conduct a political campaign.

The organization’s top leaders have been issuing statements almost every day, propagandizing that President Erdoğan must be toppled. From Cemil Bayık, Murat Karayılan, and Mustafa Karasu to Duran Kalkan, Remzi Kartal, Helin Ümit, and Sabri Ok there is almost no leader of the organization who has not issued a statement.

In fact, immediately after the earthquake, the PKK/KCK made a declaration of non-conflict until the elections. In the declaration, PKK co-chair of the Kurdistan Communities Union Besê Hozat emphasized that the May 14 elections were unlike any other elections. She stated that she supported the HDP’s decision not to field a candidate in favor of Kılıçdaroğlu and announced that the organization had stopped “military actions’’ until the end of the elections. According to Hozat, “If a strong struggle is waged together in the election process, this fascist government will be overthrown on May 14.” Later, similar statements from the so-called leadership cadres followed.

Duran Kalkan’s statements, which appeared in the press on April 18 and were especially striking, elucidated the PKK/KCK’s related course of action. Kalkan stated, “Erdoğan mobilized the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) to kill us. They have announced our names on a list, and no one says a word. We are under attack everywhere: the media, defense areas, in the tunnels in Bakur. We are being killed in Qandil, in Shengal, in Rojava. He kills every day. No one says a word. They have created lists about our leadership. Red list, yellow list, green list, grey list, that is, they put 30 or 40 names on each list. They put pictures. These are not wanted lists; it is a list of those who will be killed publicly.” His statement revealed how the PKK/KCK is under pressure, how the leading cadres have become unable to act and manage the organization, and clearly painted a picture of the PKK’s exhaustion.

The rise of the MIT in the eradication of the PKK

So why is the so-called leadership of the organization burnt out despite the U.S. patronage in Syria, the support of Iran, Hashd Al-Shaabi, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraq, and all the aid provided by European countries and Israel? The answer is Turkey’s counterterrorism doctrine and the MIT’s operation against the organization. In the aftermath of the July 15 coup attempt, Turkey changed its paradigm with a new security doctrine and adopted a proactive approach in the fight against PKK terrorism, seeking to eliminate the terrorist organization through military and point operations.

One of the most important pillars of this doctrine is undoubtedly the MIT. Especially after the July 15 coup attempt, there have been significant developments in the organization’s capabilities: the MIT, whose human capital and technical capabilities have significantly increased, started to assume important roles in carrying out pivotal operations both within Turkey and across the border in Iraq and Syria, such as Operation Euphrates Shield, Operation Olive Branch, and Operation Peace Spring.

Under the leadership of Hakan Fidan, the organization, which has renewed itself in the face of changing world conditions and security threats, increased its effectiveness by expanding its legal infrastructure, technical, cyber, and human capacity. It has also accomplished great tasks in the context of identifying and neutralizing senior figures of the PKK terrorist organization. Kalkan’s statement that “we [the PKK] are being targeted in all regions, we are being killed,” in fact refers to the MIT’s effective strategy known as “decapitation”—the process of neutralizing the organization’s leadership cadre.

The MIT started to carry out very important operations against the PKK and its subcomponents in Syria and Iraq. While the organization’s leadership cadres were purged and the organization’s command-and-control structure was weakened, the move also aimed to collapse morale and motivation. These aims were met with great success. Since 2016, more than 500 names, including key PKK/KCK central executive committee members from Diyar Garip, a member of the so-called presidency and executive council of the PKK to Sinjar commanders such as Mam Zeki Şengallı have been neutralized in Iraq and Syria thanks to MIT operation units.

Some operations were carried out hundreds of kilometers away from the Turkish borders. These operations, in which UCAVs are used effectively, are managed by agents in the field. While Turkey conducts conventional military operations, the MIT, whose capabilities have been improved in every sense and which has gained a new strategic mission, eliminates elements threatening Turkey’s national security through simultaneous operations. The MIT has become a rising organization in the global context and a very important multiplier for Turkey, reaching a capacity enjoyed only by a few intelligence agencies in the world.

The PKK’s weakening position and Kılıçdaroğlu

The PKK/KCK leadership is burnt out and has largely lost its ability to act within the above framework. It is now focused on targeting the political will led by Erdoğan rather than achieving results through terrorism, thinking that it can escape its predicament with the change of the current government. This is the motive behind the PKK’s decision to be inactive and its systematic statements during the election process. The leadership has instrumentalized its structures such as the HDP and YSP in the legal field to prevent Erdoğan from coming back to power at any cost and, in this way, it hopes to prevent the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), the MIT, and other security bureaucracies from continuing their current successful work.

Unfortunately, the position of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and his staff has vicariously allowed this idea to emerge. While the PKK’s leadership cadres are being purged one by one and the organization is being rendered unable to carry out any action in Turkey and is under great pressure in Iraq and Syria, taking steps to revive the organization would be a betrayal of Turkey’s future.

T

hroughout its 21 years in power, the AK Party (Justice and Development Party) has spent a lot of time and taken the highest risks to find a peaceful and lasting solution to the “Kurdish question” in Turkey. In this period, almost all options for reaching a lasting solution have been investigated. The AK Party governments have reacted rapidly to the changes in Turkish politics and the region, renewing their tactical and strategic approaches.

Both Turkey’s Kurdish citizens and actors fighting against terrorism have made significant gains as a result. The losers of this process have been the PKK terrorist organization, whose operation capacity within Turkey’s borders has been significantly limited, and the capacity of foreign actors that support this organization and its counterparts under different names.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan acknowledged the problem and described his government’s approach with his Diyarbakır speech on August 12, 2005, when he was still prime minister. Erdoğan claimed responsibility for the problem and in the following years, took important steps to find a solution.

Within the boundaries of the rule of law and democracy, Erdoğan took a crucial initiative to resolve the Kurdish question which was renamed the “National Unity and Brotherhood Project” in early 2010. With the initiative, vital legal and political steps were taken to eliminate discrimination against Kurdish citizens arising from their fundamental rights.

The “resolution process” (March 2013-July 2015) was a peace initiative conducted with the representatives of the PKK terrorist organization, namely Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the organization held in İmralı Prison). Many taboos that had been upheld and proliferated throughout Turkey’s Republican history were broken during this period. However, in the summer of 2015, the PKK ended its last ceasefire and declared a “revolutionary people’s war.”

Following the end of the resolution process, the Turkish state launched a multifaceted process of combating terrorism, and the security approach once again became the dominant perspective. However, this struggle did not reverse the democratic gains of the Kurdish citizens in the past 15 years. In the first place, the terrorist organization’s presence and power came to end. Subsequently, Turkey carried out extensive cross-border operations against the PKK in Syria and Iraq.

Operation Euphrates Shield (August 2016), Operation Olive Branch (January 2018), and Operation Peace Spring (October 2019) dealt significant blows to the PKK’s presence in Syria while the Claw operations significantly limited the presence of the PKK in Iraq. Turkey’s cross-border operations and the dismantling of the PKK’s top leadership with UCAVs have yielded effective results.

Yet, as long as regional powers and Western states continue to support and shield the terrorist organization and its branches in Iraq and Syria, this struggle cannot produce a lasting and decisive result. That said, today, the PKK has largely become an externally supported threat and the effective struggle of the Turkish security forces has blocked it from carrying out terrorist attacks.

Ideological divergence became visible

A major transformation in the last two decades was the economic, cultural, and ideological diversification of the Kurdish social fabric. The climate of security and stability paved the way for economic development that brought about a process of class stratification and divergence of interest among Kurdish citizens. Kurdish entrepreneurs and investors no longer want to be threatened by or pay tribute to the terrorist organization. Support for public order, law, and the state among Kurdish citizens is growing.

The PKK terrorist organization, which had previously established illegal “courts” in the region, is now seen by the people of the region as a threat to public order. Now, Kurdish families care more about their children getting a better education and living a safer, more peaceful, and prosperous life. On the other hand, the PKK concentrates on deceiving and kidnapping children from poor, uneducated families. The struggle of the Diyarbakır Mothers, in this regard, narrows the terrorist group’s organizational capacity. Ideological divisions within Kurdish society have become increasingly visible.

The CHP-HDP collaboration

With Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu becoming the Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the CHP have been experiencing a rapprochement. Their collaboration, which first showed its impact in the 2018 local elections, has become more deeply rooted over time. HDP supporters have secured employment in metropolitan municipalities run by CHP mayors and have established spheres of influence in various administrative units. This collaboration resulted in the HDP’s decision not to field a presidential candidate in the May 14, 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections in support of the Nation’s Alliance.

The CHP-HDP relationship has transformed the social bases of both parties and brought them closer to each other. However, this collaboration has also brewed opponents in both parties’ grass roots. The shaping of Kurdish politics through the language of secular, leftist, and ethnic nationalism now brings new alternatives to the agenda. As the PKK’s leverage and capacity diminish, Islamist, liberal, and conservative approaches will seek to find more space in the Kurdish political sphere. The process of Kurdish politics becoming polyphonic and multi-ideological has already begun, and this reckoning will gain momentum in the coming period.

The system of alliances emerging with the presidential system in Turkey will further diversify Kurdish political actors in the near future. This process could help free Kurdish politics from the yoke of the HDP and the PKK. Cross-cutting and intersecting relationships and alliances between different political actors could soften the language of politics, but could also pave the way for polarization. All these transformations will breathe new life into Kurdish politics and the AK Party’s Kurdish politics.

The recent electoral consensus reached between the People’s Alliance and the HÜDA PAR (Free Cause Party), which is an Islamic Kurdish party, is an excellent indicator of this. This relationship is likely to expand to other Kurdish political and social actors. This expansion will constrict the PKK’s area of domination and its political wing in the region, the HDP.

Climate of peace and changing priorities in the region

The new climate of peace that emerged with the establishment of security in the Kurdish region of Turkey has also changed the priorities of the region’s people. A strong infrastructure and reconstruction effort is underway in the cities of the region, particularly in Diyarbakır. Education, health, and infrastructure in the region are developing rapidly. Almost every city has a modern airport. The resources previously transferred from Turkey’s central budget to the fight against terrorism and the resources transferred by HDP municipalities to the PKK are now being spent to improve the living conditions of the region’s people.

These efforts not only reduced outward migration, but also transformed these cities once again into centers of attraction. Cities such as Diyarbakır, Van, Urfa, and Mardin have become centers of attraction for local and foreign tourists. Cities such as Hakkari, Siirt, Şırnak, and Batman are also rapidly changing. The arrival of new, large investments will accelerate as the climate of stability is understood to be lasting. The private sector will take over the initiative from the Turkish state in this regard.

While this change is appreciated by the locals, the PKK and its political and civil society extensions are still spreading the narrative that this change is a result of their own struggle. Unfortunately, we have to recognize that this propaganda has found a partial response and is still very effective in the region.

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ovember 28, 1978 is considered the PKK’s founding date. On this date, Abdullah Öcalan and his friends gathered in a house in the village of Fis in Diyarbakır and founded the organization. Eight months later, they declared their “official” establishment with an assassination attempt on Mehmet Celal Bucak, the leader of the state-loyal Bucak tribe and a member of parliament. In their founding declaration, in addition to colonialism and proletarian internationalism, they also addressed the issue of “independent Kurdistan.” Since then, the PKK and the Turkish left have always had an intricate relationship. Öcalan’s relationship with the Turkish left, however, goes back much further.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the peak of the Turkish left, leftist groups organized large demonstrations, trade unions orchestrated strikes, and labor movements became increasingly popular. Young people from the Turkish Workers’ Party (TİP) formed armed organizations and started to resort to acts of terrorism. Figures like Mahir Çayan, Deniz Gezmiş, and İbrahim Kaypakkaya were products of this period. Influenced by the Cuban and Vietnamese resistance against the United States, they received armed training in camps in Lebanon and returned to Turkey.

When guns started to be used, the era of bank robberies, kidnappings, and killings began. This period, which also saw the emergence of a left-right conflict, came to an end with the military memorandum of 1971. Leaders of illegal leftist organizations were killed, arrested, and executed, and the TİP was shut down. Those who could escape sought refuge in Europe.

Meanwhile, Öcalan was a land registry cadaster officer in his early 20s, preparing for university exams in Istanbul. When he moved to Ankara and enrolled in the Faculty of Political Sciences, he began to take part in the political debate. At the time, the 1971 memorandum had been declared and Öcalan was arrested during a protest against the killing of Mahir Çayan, the leader of the People’s Liberation Party-Front of Turkey (THKP-C). Along with his friends, Öcalan was put in Mamak Prison, Ankara. According to his own account, it was during this period that he became politicized, claiming that “prison became a school for him.”

With the 1974 amnesty, those who had fled abroad returned and the arrested members of the leftist group began to reorganize. Öcalan decided to drop out of school and form a Marxist-Leninist group to fight for an “independent Kurdish state” in southeast Turkey. From then onwards, the PKK has been the scourge, first, of the Kurds and, then, of the whole of Turkey.

In those years, as the country was rolling towards the 1980 military coup, Öcalan fled to Syria. The coup crushed all leftist organizations, but the PKK survived by keeping its headquarters in Syria. After the September 12, 1980 military coup, the PKK and the left first crossed paths in Germany. Through one of the leaders of the DEV-YOL (Devrimci Yol, Turkish for “Revolutionary Path”) who fled to Germany before the coup, the PKK deepened its ties to the left. The PKK joined the “anti-fascist front” formed there to gather leftists who had fled to Europe.

These groups first organized in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, and West Berlin, where the United States’ influence was felt most strongly. During this period, the PKK had strong ties to the German Greens Party and the Social Democratic Party. At that time, the Berlin Wall had not yet fallen, the Cold War was ongoing, and the city of Berlin was divided in two.

PKK-left collaborations

When the Eastern Bloc and the USSR collapsed in 1989-91, the ideological crisis of the Turkish left was unveiled. The remnants of the armed organizations of the 1970s united and formed political parties with some groups resuming illegal armed activity. The Öcalanists (Apocular in Turkish), who until then had been a “handful of marauders” in the eyes of the Turkish state, carried their bloody terrorist attacks against the state and civilians to a peak in the 1990s.

During this period, Öcalanists also experienced conflicts with some groups from the Turkish left. For example, they killed members of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey (TDKP) in rural Dersim. At universities, they sometimes clashed with groups such as the Labor Party, the Revolutionary Left (Dev-Sol), and the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) while they collaborated with other leftist groups. Smaller leftist political parties were also looking for leftist alliances to enter parliament. In the 1991 elections, MPs from the PKK-led HEP (People’s Labor Party, 1990–93) entered parliament through the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP).

In the 2000s, the Turkish left was still very vocal, but was no longer taken seriously. These were the years when the left became a marginal cultural actor consisting of boutique organizations with no resonance in society, far from promising a future. Yet, the PKK despite its large Kurdish base and the fact that it is far larger and more influential than the entire left combined, still maintains close ties with the Turkish left.

For example, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) gives its co-chairmanship to the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), one of the small illegal organizations of the Turkish left, and makes cadres trained in leftist organizations deputies through its party, recruiting them to the party administration, and giving them important positions in NGOs, associations, trade unions, etc. In this manner, the HDP makes the left a partner. What is more, the HDP has established a formation called “United Revolutionary Movement of Peoples” (Halkların Birleşik Devrim Hareketi) together with small, illegal leftist organizations whose names only a handful of people could recognize. In academia, media, and civil society, the HDP mainly cooperates with leftist groups and individuals.

In the last decade, the HDP adventure has taken the PKK-left relationship to new levels. When the HDP was founded, Öcalan said, “I started this struggle with Mahir Çayan’s stance and his sympathies. For 40 years, I have been fighting on Mahir’s line. It is a trust that Mahir gave me, and I have tried to fulfill this trust in the best possible way with the dimension of struggle in 40 years. I am now handing over this trust.” He, thus, presented the HDP as a gift to the Turkish left. Indeed, Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the only survivor of the clash in which Mahir Çayan and his comrades were killed, later became the HDP’s co-chair.

When the 2013 Gezi Park protests erupted, the “Resolution Process” was underway. The PKK had started to move its militants out of the border area of Eastern Turkey and clashes had stopped with the promise of laying down arms. The HDP kept a distance from the protests. In fact, when Selahattin Demirtaş, the former HDP chairperson who is currently in prison, used the word “coup” for the uprising, he was lynched by the left for days. However, the insolent belief that the government would fall must have enveloped the PKK members as well because they stopped the withdrawal.

Many will remember the famous photographs during the Gezi Park protests: Öcalan posters placed next to Atatürk posters, the photo of a person holding a HDP flag and “protecting” a person carrying a Turkish flag from tear gas by pulling him by the arm, etc. The “time-honored” relationship with the left was reinforced without any challenges.

Since its foundation, the HDP has collaborated with many organizations of the Turkish left, both large and small. Even before it became a political party, the umbrella organization, the Peoples’ Democratic Congress, consisted of the PKK and its affiliates, as well as these left-wing parties and NGOs. After participating in this structure for a year, the HDP, which is now facing a closure case, was founded together with these groups.

Fifteen days after the foundation of the HDP, another party was founded along the same lines: the Greens and Left Future Party (Yeşiller ve Sol Gelecek Partisi). This party was formed by the merger of the Green Party and the then extant Equality and Democracy Party (Eşitlik ve Demokrasi Partisi). The two parties, which were mostly populated by liberal leftists, had a negligible membership, and enjoyed close ties with the West, especially Germany; from their very inception, they were on standby. They changed their name to the “Green Left Party” in April 2016 and announced that they would enter the May 14, 2023 elections under that name and not under the umbrella of the HDP. Members of the Green Left Party are carrying out electoral work under the “Labor and Freedom Alliance” (Emek ve Özgürlük İttifakı), taking with them small left-wing parties whom the vast majority of the general public have never heard of.

Today, the Turkish left is composed of marginalized individuals whose ideology is bankrupt across the world, whose utopia has collapsed, leaving them with nothing left to cling to, and who have confined their entire politics to the fierce defense of a vague term called “lifestyle.” The PKK, on the other hand, is an organization that has international support, can get 5-6 million votes, is nurtured and polished by the West, and which, for many years, has been able to put governments under great pressure by its use of terrorism.

The PKK, which used to be the left’s “half-brother,” now uses the left for whitewashing its image. It derives legitimacy from individuals and groups with a range of identities that are sympathetic to the Western public and often associated with the left. The most valid of these identities is, of course, secularism. The vast majority of the Turkish left now clings almost exclusively to the principle of secularism in the fight over “lifestyle.” This also serves as a key that opens doors for the PKK. The depleted left can pretend that it is still influential in the political life by melting into the PKK’s mass—a willing buyer and a willing seller are both present.

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n March 9, the trilateral talks between Turkey, Sweden, and Finland restarted in Brussels. Following the talks, Turkey acknowledged that Sweden and Finland have taken some steps to meet Ankara’s concerns over the activities of terrorist groups in their countries.

On January 21, Turkey had suspended talks as part of the memorandum to ease Finland and Sweden’s accession process until the two countries addressed Turkey’s concerns.

Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year to safeguard themselves against possible Russian acts of aggression as such concerns became manifest with the Russia-Ukraine war. Hungary and Turkey are the only NATO members yet to ratify their bids.

In addition to the free movements and activities of terrorist organizations in Sweden and Finland, both countries also impose an arms embargo on the Turkish military industry.

While Turkey has always firmly supported NATO’s open-door policy, it also expects its key concerns to be addressed in the spirit of the alliance.

The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by the EU, the U.S., the UK, and Turkey, and for four decades has waged a war against Turkey.

A tougher stance?

Ankara also wants Helsinki and Stockholm to take a tougher stance against the FETO terrorist organization, which staged a foiled coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.

At the moment, Turkey considers Sweden, in particular, too hesitant and lenient in banning the PKK’s fundraising and other activities.

Ibrahim Kalin, President Erdoğan’s spokesperson, said that the meeting on March 9 was held in a positive climate, and that further steps needed to be taken by Finland and Sweden.

“The Vilnius summit in July is presented as a deadline for us. Our security concerns are at stake. Ratification of their bids depends on the steps the Nordic countries will take,” he said.

The suspension came after the far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan, an outspoken Islamophobe, burned a copy of the Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm despite Turkey’s persistent warnings to Swedish authorities to prevent it.

Sweden’s chief negotiator for the talks, Oscar Stenström, said that Sweden had met its obligations and that it takes Turkey’s concerns over the PKK militants in Sweden seriously. The Swedish government introduced a new anti-terrorism bill to parliament on March 9.

The new anti-terror law, which the government hoped would come into force on June 1, 2023, was poised to grant authorities greater power to detain and prosecute individuals who back terrorist organizations, through financing or other means. Traveling abroad to assist a terrorist organization will also be punished if the law takes effect.

The Swedish Parliament was scheduled to ratify the new anti-terror law on March 9, but it was postponed to May 3.

Pass to Finland but not Sweden

On January 29, Turkish President Erdoğan said Turkey might approach Finland’s bid differently than Sweden’s.

Although the two countries initially said they would join NATO together, on March 14, the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that the ratifications of the two countries might be at different times and that his country is prepared for such a development.

Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö traveled to Turkey on March 16-17 for a solidarity visit to the earthquake-affected areas and to discuss his country’s NATO bid.

Having visited the earthquake-ridden areas, he met President Erdoğan in Ankara.

On Wednesday, March 22, during Niinistö’s visit, Erdoğan told reporters that they would fulfill their pledge to Finland. Even though he did not give further details, it is interpreted as greenlighting Finland’s NATO bid.

Turkish parliament

Also on Wednesday, two Turkish officials told Reuters that the Turkish Parliament is likely to ratify Finland’s NATO bid in mid-April before the Parliament closes prior to the elections on May 14.

Until recently, Hungary has also delayed Helsinki’s and Stockholm’s NATO bids.

In a letter published on Tuesday, March 14, the Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén requested that a parliamentary session scheduled for March 20 to vote on Finland and Sweden’s membership be postponed to a week later.

Nevertheless, Turkey and Hungary declared that they will ratify Finland’s application for NATO membership.

“We have decided to start the protocol of Finland’s accession to NATO in our parliament,” Erdoğan said during a press conference in Istanbul alongside his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö.

Speaking on Sweden’s application, Erdoğan said Turkey cannot greenlight Sweden’s bid as Stockholm has refused to extradite 120 suspected terrorists.

At a joint press conference alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said, “We believe that we are ready for ratification, but we respect that only Turkey can make Turkey’s decisions.”

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iolent non-state actors (VNSAs) become involved in multiple economic activities including illegal and organized crime to retain their political and military capabilities. In contrast to legitimate and locally and internationally responsible actors, such as states, VNSAs have more possibilities to engage in black or illicit market relations and transnational activities. This is possible because there are no strong and established international mechanisms or regional cooperation to monitor and prevent these activities. This legal vacuum and the reality of several disintegrated/collapsed states in the Middle East and North Africa further generated favorable conditions for illegal economic activities like arms and human smuggling, drug trafficking, and money laundering.

Among other drug trafficking problems, narco-terrorism is a leading endemic challenge for both states and the international order. This black-market activity provides huge economic resources for VNSAs through which they can manage their military equipment and keep their influence over their followers via the social possibilities they gain. Looking at several cases, in particular the PKK terrorist networks and Hezbollah, they try to use these black market relations and criminal networks to receive huge amounts of easy money. Cutting this critical source and monitoring VNSAs should be a top priority for states and the international public in the fight against terrorism and any illegal violence.

PKK’s Narco-terrorism Reality

Since its emergence in 1982, the PKK and its affiliated groups try to maximize their financial profits through illicit methods including transferring heroin and other types of drugs specifically to Western countries. By cooperating with local branches in the Caucasus, the Balkans, and Africa, the PKK is involved in drug transportation by taxing these transfers and directly managing drug trafficking. According to several reports unveiled by national intelligence agencies and security forces, the PKK directly or indirectly has a role in transferring almost 80 percent of the total heroin used in Europe, revealing its easy and unproblematic outreach to European countries.

To complicate matters further, the profits gained from this illicit trade are probably transferred through PKK-affiliated groups active in European countries to launch terrorist attacks against Turkey. Both European institutions and reports and U.S. institutions have unveiled reports proving the active role of the PKK in drug trafficking, once again exposing the reality in which the PKK conducts its dirty and bloody terrorism. These activities not only threaten Turkish security but also compromise European security and the social mosaic at large.

To illustrate, the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and Europol’s EU Drug Market Report published in 2019, and the decision taken by the U.S. Treasury Department to blacklist several leading figures of the PKK-affiliated Kongra-Gel such as Cemil Bayik, Duran Kalkan, Remzi Kartal, Sabri Ok, and Adem Uzun in 2011 confirmed Turkey’s long-term criticism and warnings about the PKK’s organized crime networks which are heavily involved in black market relations.

Especially with the start of the Arab Spring and the disintegration of several states like Syria and Iraq, the PKK intensified its criminal activities and extended its networks in the Middle East region as VNSAs including terrorist organizations have found new safe heavens in these collapsed states. Through its traditional networks in Iraq and Iran and new ones in Syria, the PKK intends to control this route and extend these activities to the southern Turkish borders. Eliminating the PKK terrorism is only possible by cutting its narco-terror networks which now extend to other countries. Against this background, Turkish successive operations in Syria and Iraq against the PKK terrorism not only ensure stable and secure local and regional relations and environment, but are also possibly the most strategic and deadly strikes to the cross-border drug trafficking managed by the PKK and its affiliates.

Funding “Resistance” with Illicit Instruments

Hezbollah is claimed to be involved in several different illegal enterprises like smuggling, the diamond trade, fraud, money laundering, and drug trafficking. Several reports, articles, figures, and even the U.S. and Israel often claim that Hezbollah has extensive criminal networks in several regions including North America, South America, and the Middle East to raise money through the black market. In addition to its financial resources from Iran, expatriates and donations from Shia communities living in several regions including Canada, Latin America, and several European countries, and taxation in Hezbollah-controlled areas in Lebanon, this so-called resistance group also conducts illegal activities.

Operating these activities from areas like the Beqaa Valley and South Lebanon, the group extended its activities to the Iraqi and Syrian borders following the collapse of the existing states there. Weapons smuggling to Hezbollah through Iraq and Syria became easier following the power vacuum in these countries and Iran’s direct geographical outreach to Hezbollah. It is also claimed that Iraq and Syria turn a blind eye to illicit trade relations including drug trafficking.

The serious accusations and reports on the deep illegal activities of Hezbollah-affiliated groups and figures in South America are of special interest. Considering that there are pro-Hezbollah Shia groups in several Latin American countries, which have been facing a narco-terrorism problem for a long time, Hezbollah-affiliated groups and figures have a role in these clandestine and transnational criminal activities including drug trafficking. Hezbollah affiliates earn dirty money and launder it via several charities and with the help of Hezbollah’s control of the Lebanese financial and banking system. This money comes from drug production in the Beqaa Valley which is one of the largest opium and hashish-producing regions in the world.

As a result, some analysts have gone further and identified Lebanon as a narco-state due to Hezbollah’s illicit transnational activities. In other words, Hezbollah is claimed to have transferred huge amounts of drugs and cocaine to several Latin American countries and laundered this dirty money by using its “legal” political networks in Lebanon. In this way, possibly much more than Iran’s financial assistance, the amount of which was already diminished owing to Iran’s worsening economic hardships, Hezbollah found new and more effective ways to fund its now extending military activities, economic initiatives, and social efforts.

To conclude, there are strong indications that both the PKK and Hezbollah are exceptionally active and embedded in black market relations and transnational organized crime. Actors like the PKK and Hezbollah consider the maintenance of their military-political power as a top priority irrespective of the means through which they fund this power. Therefore, they do not shy away from using black market relations to retain their status. In addition, the lack of stronger international enforcement mechanisms, regional cooperation and, more importantly, the reality of collapsed states enable these actors to intensify their illicit activities including drug trafficking.

Not having any national and international responsibility, these actors use local and transnational affiliates to carry out their illegal activities. In the case of PKK terrorism, it has been revealed that its narco-terror activities are mainly focused on controlling the European market and consolidating its narco-power in disintegrated states like Iraq and Syria. Hezbollah, the so-called resistance and anti-Western and anti-Israel actor, benefits from drug trade especially in Latin American countries by using the hashish and opium from the Beqaa Valley and by controlling smuggling between Iran and Hezbollah-controlled areas.

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weden has paid a heavy price in domestic politics for supporting terrorism for decades. Over the years, the country has become a safe haven for the PKK terrorist organization and other radical left-wing organizations targeting Turkey. In recent decades, the organizations have carried out, among others, their financial, political, and cultural activities on Swedish territory. By providing them legal and political protection, Sweden has helped such organizations stay in touch with the world. In this sense, their presence in Sweden has served as a protective shield for their activities elsewhere and granted them legitimacy.

Various groups in Sweden, which are directly or indirectly linked to the PKK terrorist entity, employ concepts respected by Western publics in order to enjoy the comfort of those countries’ diplomatic and political frameworks and engage in illegal activities. In this manner, they receive legal and political support to continue to exist within the local systems. In turn, the organizations and networks which have organized themselves in the guise of civil society on Swedish soil by utilizing Western-friendly concepts, and the immigrant ghettoes, which largely consist of political asylum seekers, have become a fertile ground for radicalization and all kinds of extremism.

In addition to the PKK, PYD, MLKP, and DHKP-C, groups like Daesh and the Al-Nusra Front have recruited dozens of members from the ghettoes. Although local intelligence services monitor such radical ghettoes very closely, the activities of such groups have been largely ignored as long as they did not commit any acts on European soil.

The Swedish authorities have disregarded repeated warnings and criticisms from countries that have been hurt by terrorism for long years, including Turkey. Swedish politicians, too, have exploited claims about human rights and free speech to clear the path for all forms of extremism – provided that they themselves did not suffer the consequences. Indeed, individuals linked to terrorist groups have even served as members of the Swedish parliament in an attempt to influence the country’s policies.

To some extent, Sweden’s indifferent attitude towards extremist views reflects the perspective of the Social Democrats, who have formed the backbone of Swedish politics for many years. Accordingly, various organizations and groups, which identify as radical left movements “fighting for freedom,” have operated under very favorable conditions during the Social Democratic rule. However, mainstream parties in many European countries, including the Social Democrats in Sweden, have been losing support in the face of radical right-wing parties. Indeed, the current government, led by the right-leaning prime minister Ulf Kristersson and his Moderate Party, enjoys the support of liberal and extreme right-wing parties. Whereas the Moderate Party and the extreme right-wing Swedish Democrats keep terrorist organizations at a greater distance, they are more receptive to Islamophobic and anti-immigrant approaches.

Sweden’s changing international standing

Hosting some of the world’s leading peace research and conflict resolution centers, Sweden also ranks highly among global arms manufacturers. The country has been ‘neutral’ in international politics since the nineteenth century, and with the exception of various peacekeeping operations, it successfully avoided being dragged into major wars. Whereas Sweden’s 1995 admission into the European Union and gradual efforts to link itself to the European security architecture have partly eroded its neutrality, its decision to join NATO represented a radical step for Sweden. Having stayed out of alliances for nearly two centuries, the country had already begun to change its approach under the influence of its EU membership. Nonetheless, NATO membership will represent a truly radical shift in the country’s policies.

In this sense, the NATO membership debate has been raging in Sweden, too. Although Sweden and Finland asked to join NATO at the same time, one could argue that the latter, which shares a 1,340-kilometer-long land border with Russia, has been more enthusiastic about joining the Alliance. Meanwhile in Sweden, the Social Democrats and some extreme right-wing parties, among others, remain divided over the issue. Still, NATO membership is particularly popular among young Swedes.

Sweden’s two centuries of so-called ‘hypocritical neutrality’ played a significant role in transforming it into an island of welfare. By remaining neutral within the international security architecture, the country was able to sell weapons and other industrial products to warring parties during major conflicts, allowing it to accumulate a significant amount of capital and welfare. Considering Sweden’s history, its attempt to join NATO represents an anomaly and faces heavy criticism from some Swedes, who believe that the new policy places their national interests at risk. Whereas the Russian invasion of Ukraine increased the number of advocates of NATO membership, it is important to underline that Sweden’s recent decision was radical and risky.

Meanwhile, some NATO allies, starting with the United States, criticize Turkey instead of mounting pressure on Sweden and Finland. Accordingly, there has been an increase in the number of articles and comments taking a jab at Turkey and advocating its removal from NATO, targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and even arguing that Turkey must be kicked out of the Alliance because it is a Muslim country.

At the same time, supporters of the relevant terrorist organizations under official supervision continue to stage shameless protests targeting Turkey and its president. It is important to note that all the acts of aggression take place under state protection. Certainly, the most unacceptable of the most recent attacks involved the burning of a copy of the Qur’an near the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm which not only targeted Turkey but also the sacred values of some two billion Muslims around the world.  It is no secret that Rasmus Paludan, the Danish provocateur that carried out the attack, received support from certain circles. However, he is a mere pawn, and it is necessary to concentrate on those pulling his strings.

The road map to prevent Swedish support for terrorism to which the three countries agreed on in Madrid is crystal clear. At this time, Sweden needs to abide by it and take all necessary steps. Attempts to falsely portray the attacks as anti-Turkish and anti-Erdoğan, as opposed to anti-Islam, don’t convince anyone and undermine Swedish officials. The Swedish authorities need to live up to their responsibilities instead of distorting the debate. At the same time, the Alliance’s senior leadership, starting with U.S. and NATO officials, should pressure Sweden instead of Turkey.

Taking stock of the current situation from a fair perspective, it would be more realistic to say that the problem is rooted in the confusion the Swedish society and politicians have about Turkey’s security – as opposed to Turkey’s reservations. Right now, Sweden attempts to divert attention away from its failure to uphold its commitments by targeting Turkey, President Erdoğan, and Islam’s sacred values. Those steps and approaches, however, only serve to deepen the crisis of confidence between Sweden and its potential allies.

Instead of instrumentalizing anti-Turkish and anti-Islam sentiments, Swedish society and Swedish politicians must face their Madrid commitments without further delay. Turkey and President Erdoğan are likely to face greater pressure during this process as Sweden refuses to comply with the NATO member’s legitimate security demands. In this sense, it would be more reasonable to make a distinction between Finland, which took steps in line with the Madrid memorandum, and Sweden, which did not comply with it.

Certainly, Washington and Brussels, which have been pressuring Ankara, would be disappointed by this approach as they are trying to ensure that Sweden and Finland are treated like two parts of a whole. Indeed, Turkey stands to experience greater tensions with Washington and Brussels if it were to come under additional pressure over Sweden’s NATO membership. On that front, it is necessary for the abovementioned players, at the very least, to take certain steps to alleviate Turkish concerns over terrorism and security. However, they are unlikely to make any moves that could potentially play into President Erdoğan’s hand ahead of Turkey’s upcoming elections.

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n Friday, December 23, 2022, three people were killed and three others were injured in an armed attack on the Ahmet Kaya Cultural Center on Rue d’Enghien in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. The 69-year-old suspect was first arrested and then rushed to hospital. He was detained a day later. The suspect, named William M., is a retired mechanic with a long criminal record.

According to the statements by the authorities to the French press, the suspect was previously found guilty of an armed attack in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, a suburb of Paris, where heavily populated by Muslims. Later, his conviction was overturned on appeal. William M. was also found guilty of acts such as slashing with a knife and destroying immigrants’ tents in a racist attack against immigrants last year. However, the prosecutor’s office determined that the perpetrator was not motivated by extremist ideology, which is probably why he was released on bail earlier in December 2022.

According to the statement by French Prosecutor Laure Beccuau, the 69-year-old suspect “had a pathological hatred of foreigners, suffered depression, and had suicidal tendencies.” The suspect spent nearly a day in a psychiatric hospital before being brought back into police custody on Sunday evening, AFP reported. His father explained, “My son is mad!” When talking about the attack on television, the emphasis was placed on the suspect’s “madness” in capital letters with titles such as “The Suspect Is at the Psychiatric Unit.”

Did this discourse surprise anyone? Whenever there is a terrorist attack, today, if the perpetrator is European, he is portrayed as “mad,” but if he is Muslim, he is depicted as a “terrorist” who is mentally sound and in full command of his actions. As for the representation of the criminal act, the first is called an “attack” while the second is “terrorism.”

In Norway, for example, Anders Behring Breivik, who was on trial for the murder of 77 people, was also labeled “mad.” In his defense, he said that his actions were “a defense” against Islam, which he claimed was taking over Europe. He explained that this was not a crime, and that he was defending Norway against multiculturalism. Today, the language of politics adopts cultural racism instead of ethnicity-based racism. This is not limited to the far right, but permeates the center-right and center-left parties in Europe.

With French President Emmanuel Macron’s early practices, hostility towards Muslims in France gained legitimacy like nowhere else in Europe. It is enough to take a look at the documents prepared by the Macron government, namely “Reinforcing Republican Principles” and the “Imam Charter.”

The French state stigmatized Muslims as a separate entity based on cultural nationalism and even racism, and defined Islam as a threat to French identity. According to a report published in the French newspaper Libération, there have been 20 attacks, both major and minor, with racist motives in France since September 2022. These, of course, are only the ones recorded. If the suspect had not been involved in this latest attack, despite his criminal record, he would not have made the news.

In his statement, the suspect explained that he originally wanted to carry out an attack in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, an area with a dense immigrant population, but gave up on the grounds that there were few people around and the way he dressed made it difficult for him to hide his gun. Instead, he went to the Seine Denis neighborhood of Strasbourg, in the heart of Paris, where Kurdish, Turkish, and Arab immigrants have their shops. When he saw the “Ahmet” of the “Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center” in the 10th district, he attacked!

According to the news published in the French press, the Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center is a place under the control of people close to the PKK today. French police conducted a search there in February 2007 and arrested 13 people for allegedly financing terrorism in an “organized gang” in the Paris area. In 2014, the center was ordered to be closed down by the Supreme Court due to financing terrorist activities. At the time, the center remained open as a result of large demonstrations in support of appealing this decision. Some may know that the PKK collects racket from Kurdish shopkeepers in Paris, and if they do not, their security is imperiled. Since the 1990s, this is such a commonplace occurrence that it often occurs in front of customers.

William M. attacked with apparent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant motivations, but in this post-truth age, which has been strengthened by social media since the 2000s, the PKK and its media organs as well as French politicians turned the narrative into an “anti-Kurdish” attack. The PKK, which is defined as a terrorist organization by Europe but protected by many European countries including France, was once again presented by French politicians and media as the representative of all Kurds. Sadly, no one emphasized the real anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant motive of the attack.

In his message, Macron said, “The Kurds of France were the target of a heinous attack in the heart of Paris. Our thoughts are with the victims, the people struggling for their lives, their families, and loved ones.” Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, tweeted “My thoughts are with the Kurdish community and the French on this sad day.” French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who was a member of the National Assembly for the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône from 2017 to 2022 and who narrowly missed continuing on to the second round in French Presidential Election in 2022, said he “does not believe in coincidence when it comes to the assassination of Kurds in Paris.”

PKK media organs and organizations in Europe called on their sympathizers to protest in Place de la République immediately after the incident. Politicians participating in the protests marched and gave speeches, accompanied by PKK flags and Abdullah Öcalan’s posters. Some of the protesters, who had gathered from all over Europe, engaged in violence, forcing the police to intervene.

The statement by the police unions reacted to the violence by saying, “In the heart of Paris and Marseille, protesters burned cars, smashed stones and threw them here and there, and 53 police officers were injured on Christmas Day.” Indeed, the situation was summarized in Kurdish and French from the social media account of Sezai Temelli, a HDP MP in Turkey and former HDP Co-Chair, as follows: “Paris is on fire, let it burn!” Temelli wrote this comment, which he later deleted, as a reply to a social media post by journalist Clement Lanot, who wrote under a photo of a burning car, “There are very violent events taking place during the assembly of the Kurds. Burnt cars, bullets and tear gas.” It wasn’t just Paris – reality itself was turned upside down!

The anti-Muslim and xenophobic perpetrator openly attacked the “Ahmet” component of the Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center. But even this attack, which caused the death of three people and the injury of three others and was apparently motivated by racist and anti-Muslim motives, was exploited and dismissed on the premise of the conflict between Turkey and the YPG, the Syrian branch of the PKK and France’s ally. Reality is turned upside down and hostility towards Muslims is turned into “enemy of Kurds.” Yet, for William M. and his like, it doesn’t matter whether the target is Kurdish, Turkish, or Arab, providing the target is Muslim.

T

he international community experienced yet another terror shock on November 13, 2022; this time, the target was Istanbul’s most popular and crowded pedestrian avenue, Istiklal Street. Six people died and 81 others were wounded. Turkey is a country, which has been struggling to eliminate terror of all kinds for five decades. Contrary to the arguments by some analysts who repeat the old customary narratives about most terror attacks, this attack has unique differences compared to preceding ones.

The Istiklal Street terror attack directly and indiscriminately targeted civilians, proving the Western perception of the “moderate” PYD utterly false. To combat ISIS (Daesh), the United States and its European allies promoted the PYD by supplying weapons and nurturing the positive image of a group dedicated to legitimate ideals.

James Jeffrey, (former) the United States Special Representative for Syria Engagement and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, had ‘once’ tried hard to legitimize the PYD and persuade Turkey to tolerate its presence in Northern Syria. Brett McGurk, the former Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS at the U.S. Department of State, keenly protected and rebranded the PYD.

The “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) was the new name given to the PYD after the inclusion of several Arab tribes to show its alleged plural structure. The U.S. officials, mainly CENTCOM staff and McGurk, currently the U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, promoted the SDF as a secular organization to counter ISIS, denying their link to the PKK, which the U.S. recognizes as a terrorist organization.

The Istiklal Street terror attack both proved the PYD’s use of terror and revealed its organic affiliation to the PKK. The apprehended terrorists, primarily Ahlam Al-Bashir, confessed that the PYD trained her as a “special intelligence agent” in Manbij, where it planned this terror attack under the directives of the PYD leadership, and she then moved to Idlib before infiltrating into Turkey through the Regime-held areas. In other words, the huge network of a terror group is mobilized in Northern Syria’s PYD-controlled areas and its extensions in Turkey.

Al-Bashir’s confession of her relationship with the PYD is significant for understanding how the U.S. government is providing operational, intelligence, logistical, and ideational support to the terrorist group through American taxpayers’ money. The “18 U.S. Code Chapter 113B: TERRORISM” defines terrorism as follows:

(1) The term “international terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum…

Without a sliver of doubt, the Istiklal Street terror attack fits into this definition and is a clear violation of the U.S. code. It seems that the U.S. government will soon have to come to a decision: maintaining its solidarity with Turkey to defeat global terrorism or continuing to ally with a terror group and facing the responsibility of breaking its own legal code. There is also the interesting aspect of the American threat perception which on the one hand, perceives Iran and Russia as hostile and, on the other, tolerates the partnership of the PKK/PYD with Russia and Iran.

A further debate would be about the strategy of the PYD/PKK—the group appears under different names such as SDF, YPG, KCK, and others. This terror attack had subliminal objectives that could expose the terror network’s agenda. Let’s have a closer look.

The perpetrator of the Istiklal Street terror attack, Al-Bashir, seems to have been selected deliberately for this activity. For years, the PYD has been promoting its female members as “freedom fighters” with the male-dominated leadership urging female members to commit suicide bombings. If the Turkish security forces had neutralized Al-Bashir, the PYD would have circulated her image as yet another figure killed in a “heroic act.”

More importantly, Al-Bashir is of Afro-Arab Syrian origin, and her involvement in a terror attack was intended to provoke the Turkish public, already alerted by the huge number of Syrian refugees in Turkey. A Syrian committing a terror attack has a potential to sharpen people’s ethno-nationalist sentiments ahead of the June 2023 general elections. Thus, the AK Party government could be seen to be entrapped between its open-door policy to Syrians and sustaining the safety of Turkish citizens. Meanwhile, the opposition would have escalated the anti-Syrian rhetoric to gain votes, and the PYD would have ignited social unrest in Turkey by playing Turks off against Syrians, leading to the break of ties between the Syrian National Army and Ankara.

Although it is still unclear whether Turkey will launch another military operation against the PKK/YPG in Syria, the country has already been carrying out ad hoc military operations that have killed 2,000 terrorists between January and July 2022. The number is notably higher in comparison to Operations Euphrates Shield and Peace Spring, through which Turkey could neutralize 425 and 1,313 militants respectively.

In recent months, PKK/YPG militants have been killed on average nearly every day. Along with the Turkish Armed Forces, Turkey’s intelligence service, MİT, also hunts for terrorists, but unlike the army, it primarily uses armed drones to kill high-ranking PKK/YPG commanders. According to estimates, MİT has killed 83 senior PKK officials in the past seven months. Among them was the perpetrator of 2008 Istanbul bombings, known as Güngören Saldırısı, which killed 18 civilians in Istanbul, and a prominent executive of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) named Salwa Yusuk, for whose death the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) expressed its condolences on Twitter, infuriating the Turkish audience.

MİT’s operational capabilities were strengthened with the establishment of a special department for such operations a decade ago. PKK commanders are killed by using armed drones, whose locations are typically provided by informants inside the terrorist organization.

Such operations could not be carried out as long as large numbers of FETO (Fetullah Terrorist Organization) members had not been dismissed from state institutions with the covert objective to take over the legitimate government. Alerting the terrorist group before a planned attack, FETO members had been providing the PKK with the identities of the informants, who were then executed by PKK terrorists. Nearly all special operations to kill PKK leaders were successful as soon as FETO was cleared from MİT, the army, and police.

Turkey adopted a new tactic against the PKK

The new tactic of the MİT and the Turkish army of killing PKK leaders and militants, sheds light on a number of aspects of Turkey’s war on PKK terrorism. First, the Turkish government is steadfast in its desire to eliminate the PKK and its YPG affiliate in Syria. With its attacks, Turkey is repeatedly sending the message to the U.S. that changing the name of the YPG to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) won’t change the reality that it is a PKK offshoot, and that as a result, the Turkish army will keep killing YPG terrorists. Additionally, the Turkish actions imply that even if a large-scale military action is barred, small scale operations will continue.

The new tactic intends to eliminate commanders in order to cause the terrorist group to lose its executive brain power and lead it to desperation in both Syria and Iraq. When the total number of PKK militants killed each day is tallied, it becomes clear that the Turkish security forces are making steady progress towards their objectives, while losses on the Turkish side are shrinking.

Second, the Turkish government’s initiative to use domestically produced weapons has led to success. The best weapons for neutralizing terrorists are attack drones and indigenously produced ammunitions. It is not necessary to seek permission to use any of them because they are all produced in Turkey and are highly advanced. Had the Turkish army and intelligence service purchased the weaponry used in these operations from another country, such as the U.S., they most likely would not have been able to conduct such missions as foreigners sell their weapons under specific conditions.

We know that certain western countries still do not sell weapons to Turkey because they will be used in the Turkish army’s operations in Syria. Meanwhile, nowadays, targets can be struck from hundreds of kilometers away thanks to the recent addition of smaller drones and long-range guided missiles to the Turkish arms arsenal.

The third aspect is directly related to the role of the United States in Syria. Regions controlled by the YPG are a hub for PKK terrorists with a Turkish background as evidenced by the fact that many of those killed by the Turkish forces were Turkish citizens. This proves how the PKK and the YPG are the same despite claims to the opposite. From a different angle, the U.S. protects the YPG/PKK in Syria and creates a sanctuary for them there—in other words, it supports a terrorist group against a fellow NATO member.

The U.S. and Turkey occasionally experience tensions, the main reason being the U.S. backing of the YPG. It is unlikely that these tensions will be resolved soon, and relations may even worsen if the U.S. attempts to obstruct Turkish military activities. Since it is all but certain that the Turkish government will stick to its firm anti-terrorism stance in the face of the U.S. partial pragmatism in Syria, a non-military solution is possible only if the U.S. doesn’t sacrifice its NATO ally for a terrorist group.

On the other hand, Turkey is steadily bringing the YPG into the Syrian government’s clutches. The Turkish government believes that a divided Syria will not only allow the terrorist group to establish a statelet in northeast Syria, but will also force more Syrians to leave their country and likely migrate to Turkey and other countries. Although Turkey does not support Bashar al-Assad as the country’s leader, Ankara wants a united Syria due to the dire repercussions of a divided country. That is why the unity of Syria is the focal issue discussed with Russia, the actual decision-maker there.

The YPG hangs the Syrian flag as a ploy when Turkey suggests a fresh operation, but whether they are aware of it or not, this doesn’t anger Ankara, which prefers the presence of the Assad regime to a YPG rule in Syria’s northeast. In other words, the PKK/YPG cannot achieve its objectives even with U.S. backing since the latter is also pragmatic in its foreign policy and is wise enough to avoid a disadvantageous trade-off.

Turkey’s slow-motion encirclement of the YPG and the elimination of most of its high-ranking members will most likely continue and result in unprecedented damages to the terror group.

Could the YPG have chosen a different path? In fact, in 2013, the Turkish intelligence service had a meeting with PYD officials and asked them to stop challenging Turkey. However, PYD leaders broke all ties with the Turkish government and attempted to form an autonomous zone with the help of the U.S. in an effort to make the most of the chances afforded to them by the Syrian civil war. Now, there is a de facto autonomous territory controlled by the YPG, but it is self-declared and recognized by nobody—not even the United States.

It is unclear whether the YPG stands a chance of resuming negotiations with Turkey. However, it is apparent that the call won’t come from the Turkish side, which was disappointed with the PKK in the peace process that lasted from 2013 to 2015.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently disclosed Turkey’s intention to launch a new military operation along the country’s southern border to eliminate terrorist elements and strongholds of the YPG, the PKK’s Syrian offshoot. The operation aims to realize the Turkish goal of creating a 32 km safe zone, which was commenced in September 2019.

The safe zone, for which four military operations have already been conducted, is more necessary than ever as the Turkish government is currently creating conditions for the return of one million Syrian migrants. According to the Turkish media, the new operation aims to clear Tal Rifaat, Manbij, Ayn al-Arab, and Ain Issa from the YPG.

Reasons for the likely operation

As President Erdoğan has stated, the YPG continues to attack Turkish troops and the Syrian National Army (SNA) from the towns they control. Particularly, Tal Rifaat and Manbij pose a great threat to Turkey since the YPG uses them as bases for all car bombings on the Syrian side and launching missiles against Turkish territories. The last such attack was on May 12, killing a Turkish soldier and injuring six soldiers and civilians in total. Therefore, Turkey’s military operation into northern Syria is vital to prevent new attacks, and perhaps end them permanently.

In addition, the Turkish government is about to resettle voluntarily one million Syrians who currently live in Turkey. This number may rise to 2.5 million. However, a secure environment in the safe zone is a prerequisite for the plan’s success. The towns and cities in the safe areas of northern Syria might get overcrowded with newcomers, so an enlargement of the safe zone is a sine qua non for Turkey’s resettlement plan.

Current conjunctures in world politics might be an opportunity for Turkish authorities to act. Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and is withdrawing a large number of its forces from Syria to beef up its Ukrainian fronts and leaving its military bases to pro-Iran proxies. In fact, the deployment of Iranian proxies is not a great concern for Turkey with the exception of Tal Rifaat, controlled by the Syrian regime and the YPG, where the Turkish army and SNA are already exposed to attacks. If non-state actors and proxies arrive there, the threat will be more dangerous than ever.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu complained about the U.S. administration’s contradictory policies on Turkey. Besides promises by the U.S. regarding Manbij and their support for the YPG, Çavuşoğlu expressed his discomfort with America’s pro-Greece policy against Turkey while asking the Turkish government not to veto Sweden’s and Finland’s application to NATO.

In all likelihood, the Turkish government feels disappointed following the U.S. support for the YPG, and is reluctant to rely on Washington’s promises. Thus, Turkey wants to resume its military operations given that following the U.S. administration’s wishes just worsens the situation on the ground in Syria.

On the other hand, the allegation that Turkey is behaving opportunistically at a time when the U.S., Europe, and NATO are focusing on Ukraine is invalid. The Turkish army has already conducted four military operations to clear terrorist organizations from northern Syria, and started to create a 35 km belt safe zone on its southern borders. The imminent operation is the most recent and might not be the last. Most probably Turkey would have conducted this operation even if there had not been a Russian attack on Ukraine.

A few months before the Turkish government announced that one million Syrians would voluntarily return to their homes, sources close to Ankara discussed the return of Syrians to Syria and added that Manbij would be taken with the consent of the Syrian regime, which favors the unity of Syria and is disturbed by the YPG’s presence there.

A legitimate government should stop terrorism that hurts neighboring countries or the victimized neighbors, like Turkey in this instance, will have to take action. Turkey cannot be expected to stand by and watch in silence while being constantly attacked by a terrorist group and while the Syrian regime looks the other way.

On the other hand, the Adana Agreement signed between Turkey and Syria on October 20, 1998 lays down the duties of the Turkish and Syrian sides in relation to the PKK and its affiliates, and enables Turkey to intervene. A similar legitimacy stems from Article 51 of the UN Charter, which the U.S. uses to justify its presence in Syria.

It is no secret that some countries in the Arab world and Europe object to the likely Turkish operation; however, concerns and condemnations look mostly unilateral and ignore Turkey’s security concerns.

As Turkish Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu reiterates, while Russia had promised to oust the YPG from Tal Rifaat, the U.S. said they would remove the terrorist group from Manbij. However, both countries have not fulfilled their promises. These unfulfilled promises legitimize the Turkish intervention to remove the group from towns near its borders.

Turkey hosts about four million Syrians and their long stay in the country is being exploited by far-right political parties in Turkey and distorting domestic politics. It is noteworthy that other states oppose Turkey’s operations, but do not offer a solution or want to understand Turkey’s concerns. The terrorism threat and growing migration problem, coupled with the unwillingness of the international community to find solutions, leave Turkey no other option but to intervene in northern Syria.

Turkey’s Ministry of National Defence announced the launch of a new cross-border military operation called “Operation Claw-Lock” against the PKK in northern Iraq on April 18. The official objective of the operation is ensuring the border security of Turkey and destroying the PKK targets located in Metina, Zap, and Avashin-Basyan in northern Iraq. The Ministry of National Defence also emphasized that the operation aims to thwart wide-scale attacks planned by the PKK against Turkey.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) have a long track record of undertaking cross-border operations against the PKK, insofar as the diplomatic environment and Turkey’s own resources permit. Hence, the ongoing military operation is not a novelty. The PKK has enjoyed safe havens in certain pockets of northern Iraq such as the Qandil Mountains and has used them as a springboard to undertake attacks in Turkey.

However, undertaking cross-border operations against the PKK targets in northern Iraq is a difficult and challenging military venture. Some of the challenges Ankara faces are the protests by Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), restrictions on necessary military hardware by NATO allies, the geographic depth and height of the PKK hideouts, and the proximity of the Qandil Mountains to the Iranian border.

Operation Claw is a new-generation cross-border operation

Although Turkey’s cross-border operations against ISIS (Daesh) and PKK terror groups are not unexpected, their changing nature is. Beginning in mid-2019, the Operation Claw series, featuring Operation Claw 1-2-3, Operation Claw-Eagle 1-2, Operation Claw-Tiger, Operation Claw-Lightning, Operation Claw-Thunderbolt, and, most recently, Operation Claw-Lock represent a meaningful change from the logic of the cross-border operations of the 1990s and 2000s.

The Operation Claw series aims to carve out a “security belt” parallel to the Turkish-Iraqi border southwards in order to deny the PKK the capacity to operate, organize, train, recruit, and attack within and from the predicted security belt. This security belt is a result of years-long bitter experiences in countering the PKK threat.

Despite countless air campaigns coupled with ground offensives both within and across the Turkish border, the PKK succeeded in maintaining its presence and organizational capacity in northern Iraq. This enabled it to carry out attacks against Turkish security personnel, outposts, and civilians within Turkey.

The KRG and energy geopolitics

Although Operation Claw-Lock is an extension of the Operation Claw series, it comes to the fore with its unique geopolitical mission and function beyond Turkey’s national and border security. Operation Claw-Lock was launched against the backdrop of heightened tension between the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and the PKK: lately, the PKK has been increasingly challenging the authority of the KRG and clashing with it.

So, the KRG has strong incentives to coordinate and cooperate with Ankara in putting pressure on the PKK to weather a strong challenge to its own authority. The meeting of KRG’s Prime Minister Masrour Barzani with President Erdoğan right before the launch of Operation Claw-Lock attests to such coordination and cooperation between Ankara and Erbil.

Apart from consolidating its authority, the KRG has stronger reasons now to eliminate the PKK, which in turn brings it much closer to Ankara. The Russian invasion of Ukraine rendered all non-Russian oil and gas resources extremely valuable for the energy security and market stability of international markets. There is already a universal search for finding alternative resources to Russian oil and gas to fill the gap in energy needs, and every alternative is being seriously tapped.

Algeria, for example, recently raised its profile as a main natural gas supplier of the EU. Likewise, the prospect of transferring the KRG gas to Europe and international markets via Turkey appears quite reasonable under the current international conjuncture. Both Ankara and Erbil have the will to realize this project and their bilateral relations are already in a better place than they were in the aftermath of the KRG’s independence referendum in 2017.

Plus, energy trade and cooperation are no strangers to Ankara and Erbil as there is already an oil pipeline transferring Iraqi oil to Turkey for years. Adding a natural gas pipeline to the existing cooperation is not a big deal for Ankara and Erbil. However, the stability of the KRG and the elimination of the PKK are prerequisites for the viability and security of such an energy cooperation.

The PKK must be eliminated to the extent that it would not be able to threaten the safety of the pipelines via sabotage attacks. Thus, Operation Claw-Lock aims to pave the way for a more stable environment in northern Iraq by stripping the PKK of the capacity to threaten the energy cooperation, in addition to its existing mandate.

Not only does the Operation Claw series differ from Turkey’s cross-border operations in the past, but Operation Claw-Lock with its additional and novel function of serving wider energy security goals also differs from the earlier operations in this series.

“Germany has declared war on the PKK. We can fight back. Every Kurd is a potential suicide bomber.” These words were spoken by Abdullah Öcalan, the founder of the PKK terror group, three years after the group had been banned in Germany due to arson attacks, self-immolations, the blocking of motorways, and storming of Turkish consulates.

However, despite these words, the PKK continued to pursue its double-pronged strategy. In Europe, the terror group focuses on non-violent propaganda work with demonstrations, marches, culture festivals, and various campaigns as well as extorting money and selling drugs to finance its violent terror activities in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. This dual approach by the PKK to use Europe to attack Turks, Arabs, and Kurds with terror requires a dual counter-terror strategy.

While Turkey, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and the Syrian Interim Government of the opposition focus more on the militant side of the PKK, Europe has to combat and extinguish the PKK base in Europe that subsidizes the militancy of the PKK with fresh radicalized recruits, funding, and propaganda. Despite the ban of the PKK across European capitals, Europe’s approach to the PKK has always been under the bar of minimum. In recent years, with the growing popularity of the Syrian branch of the PKK – the YPG – the PKK has managed to expand its base in Europe and established strong ties with the far-left.

Weak law enforcement against the PKK – The Case of Germany

According to the German secret service yearly report, the PKK has 14,500 members in Germany alone. However, the number of attendees to its demonstrations in Germany reached 25,000 people. The German intelligence service estimates that 290 people from Germany joined the PKK militants in Turkey, northern Iraq, and Syria since 2013. While 32 of them died during combat, 150 returned to Germany.

In 2020 alone, the PKK has collected at least 16.5 million EURO in Germany

In 2020 alone, the PKK has collected at least 16.5 million EURO in Germany. The total amount of collected money in Europe is estimated to be 30 million EURO. While this happened, the German courts sentenced 3 PKK figures to imprisonment of a period between 2,5 and 3 years.

The European fight against the PKK is symbolized in a recent incident in Germany. According to the report, 90 members of the PKK marched in Lüneburg, Germany, and decided to continue traveling by train. The train crew refused them as they had no tickets and did not abide by the COVID19 safety rules. The PKK members got violent and attacked the crew and the police that were called in. Several criminal proceedings were started against the 90 PKK members, but not on charges of being a member of a terror group or demonstrating in support of it. They were charged with assault and resistance to law enforcement officers.

More dramatically, leaks show that Macron received a designated terrorist. Recent leaks by a Belgian journalist prove that Ilham Ahmed is a PKK veteran. An interviewee provided the Belgian journalist Hedwig Kuijpers with a picture of Ilham Ahmed during her days in a PKK academy in northern Iraq estimated to date between 2007 and 2009.

The PKK did not only exploit the situation in Syria but also used it to expand its ties with the European far-left.

The new momentum gained by the PKK thanks to the name game allowed the terror group to increase its propaganda activities and network across European capitals. The YPG under the name of the Syrian Democratic Council or others opened several political bureaus and engaged in several diplomatic relations.

European Leftists Support the PKK

The PKK did not only exploit the situation in Syria to gain diplomatic and political opportunities but also used it to expand its relations and ties with the European far-left. An internal EU policy paper by the office of EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove, released by non-profit monitoring group Statewatch, showed that the EU’s anti-terror chief has expressed concern over strengthening ties between European extreme leftists and the YPG/PKK terrorist organization have recently been getting stronger.

Many western radical leftists joined the ranks of the YPG in Syria and have become propaganda tools of the PKK that advocate for the ‘leftist utopia’ in Syria. The implementation of democratic confederalism – a radical governance model of Murray Bookchin – was a strong part of Abdullah Öcalan’s terror agenda. While Syrians suffer under this totalitarian governance model, the idea is gaining popularity among the European left.

The PKK actively instrumentalize the support of radical leftists and western militants who joined its ranks in Syria to gather support for itself. This support ranges from propaganda to parliamentary members demanding the delisting of a terror group that killed over 40,000 people. Most importantly, the European left support for the PKK allows the terror group to access entirely new capital and resources to boost its terror activities.

The PKK now can use the western leftist white men for its interest. The PKK exploits the radical left to strengthen its base in Europe towards European governments and officials as well as towards the Kurds. The PKK plays the radical European leftist also against Kurdish rivals. For instance, when the PKK attacked the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq, radical leftists tried to enter the region and demonstrate in northern Iraq against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). This attempt was prevented by the Kurdish authorities who denied these radical leftists entry to the country.

After the peak of the PKK in the period between 2014 and 2018, the terror group suffered a blowback after the other. The joint Turkish-Syrian military operations, as well as the Kurdish cooperation with Turkey in northern Iraq, drew the PKK back. As I wrote in an earlier article, a de-facto unnamed regional alliance of Turks, Kurds, and Arabs was formed against the PKK.

The Turkish government, the Kurdish Regional Government, and the Syrian Interim Government are trying to end the terror of the PKK. While this happens, the PKK’s base in Europe gives the terror group a lifeline. The lack of law enforcement against the PKK, the fruits of the name-game of the PKK, and the European leftists support are what will keep the terror group alive. In contrast to the American unreliable support, the base of the PKK in Europe is more stable and has the potential.

If the U.S. pulls out of Syria as it did in Afghanistan, it may affect the PKK greatly, but Europe guarantees that the PKK will continue to live. Europe needs to address its wrongdoings in combatting terrorism. Otherwise, the terror of the PKK may take the lives of many more innocent Turks, Kurds, and Arabs.

On Friday, August 22, 2019, Hacire Akar became the first Kurdish mother to start a sit-down protest in front of the provincial headquarters of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the pro-Kurdish and third largest opposition party, in southeastern Turkey’s Diyarbakir.

Akar’s son was allegedly kidnapped by the ethno-separatist terrorist group PKK. As a result of her protest and the efforts of the Turkish authorities, Akar’s son returned a few days later, which motivated other Kurdish mothers to take action. Following Hacire Akar, women from different Turkish cities started the sit-down protest in front of the HDP headquarters for the first time on September 3, 2019.

Two years later, on Thursday, September 3, 2021, the kidnapped children were once again remembered and people from all across the country traveled to Diyarbakir to support the mothers. The HDP building has now been emptied and HDP councilors no longer work at the provincial headquarter of the political party. A large tent was set up by the parents where everyone has their own table with a photo of their missing child. Some of these families have not heard from their children in 6 to 8 years. Occasionally, a few of them have received a video where the PKK threatens them and demands they stop the protest.

The disappearance of the children dramatically affected the social lives of their parents and relatives. Many of them agree that all joy disappeared from their homes when their children abruptly went missing.

Maide Türemiş, a Kurdish mother from Berlin, traveled to Diyarbakir to share her story and express support to her fellow mothers. According to Türemiş, her daughter Nilüfer was recruited through a Berlin-based Kurdish folk dance association. Having experienced a period of ups and downs in their relationship, the then teenage Nilüfer (19) left Germany to join the PKK, her mother told Politics Today. “My daughter has been gone for 18 months. I’m here today to let the world know that my child doesn’t belong to anyone. Neither to the Kurds, nor to the Turks. I just want my child back.”

The recently published book My Mother’s Voice gives an overview of exclusive interviews with the mothers and child returnees of the PKK. The author, Tülay Demir Oktay, spent over two years completing the book in three different languages and hopes to create greater awareness of the issue of children abducted by the PKK, which few people are aware of outside of Turkey.

Mustafa Biçer managed to escape “the mountains” of the PKK last month and told Politics Today about his experiences over the past two years. “I started to get in touch with PKK fighters via the internet and told them I wanted to fight against DAESH. They invited me to Urfa [a city in southeastern Turkey about 150 km from Diyarbakir]. There, I met three men, including two Arab smugglers.

We spent the night in Akçakale and the next day the two smugglers brought me to the Syrian city of Tel Abyad. At that point, I regretted doing so, and I wanted to go home. They told me it was too late. If I went go, I’d be arrested by the Turkish authorities.” Mustafa adds, “They say that women and men are equal in the ‘mountains’ of the PKK. None of that is true. I have seen women who were raped, became pregnant, and never saw their newborn babies again after they gave birth.”

Mehmet Emin Alkan, a 22-year-old who has suffered a lot in his life, was mentally unstable after the death of his father four years ago and sought refuge in the HDP, with the help of his neighbor. The financial situation at home forced him join the HDP as they promised to take care of his family. Alkan eventually crossed the Turkish-Syrian border with a group of 50 men and joined the PKK. He spent three years between Iran, Iraq, and Syria where he was deployed on multiple fronts to fight against DAESH.

He spoke about the experiences of the past three years to Politics Today in the living room of his parents’ home in a village between Diyarbakir and Mardin. “The battle for Manbij was the toughest, but I also have been through a lot during the battle in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. At the castle of Salah el-Din in Syria, which is located on a hilltop near the port city of Latakia, we found hundreds of bodies decapitated by DAESH.” After numerous attempts to escape the PKK, Alkan was placed in the toilet of a prison, where he had been forced to stay naked in cramped conditions without natural daylight and ventilation for nearly seven months.

Despite their gruesome experiences and the traumas they have experienced, Mustafa Biçer and Mehmet Emin Alkan are able to accept the past and start their lives over again. Unfortunately, many children are still waiting to return to their parents, others have been brainwashed in such a way that they continue to want to fight for the PKK, and others yet might have been killed.

The parents whose children managed to escape are happy and relieved, but will not stop protesting until all the children taken by the PKK are reunited with their families.

After a pandemic-restricted election campaign, Joe Biden officially became the 46^th president of the United States in an inauguration ceremony under heavy security measures on January 20, 2021. During his inauguration address, he outlined the task ahead of his administration. Biden signaled that rebuilding coalitions and with the words, “Here’s my message to those beyond our borders. America has been tested, and we’ve come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.”

Damaged Relationships

While the White House has expressed a desire to “repair alliances,” how convinced are Washington’s allies in the Middle East, and especially Turkey? Relations with the longtime NATO ally have steadily deteriorated over the past years. U.S. support for a Kurdish paramilitary group in Syria known as the YPG has been a particular flash point between the two allies. While Washington has used the group to combat Daesh (ISIS) in northeast Syria, Ankara has expressed concern due to the group’s status as the Syrian arm of the PKK, a designated terror group by both the U.S. and the European Union.

The relationship between the U.S. and the YPG was established in 2014 under the Obama administration. Although there is no official word from the White House about the U.S. policies in the Middle East, the presence of many Obama-era officials in the Biden administration gives us a glimpse into what to expect going forward.

Most worrying for Turkey among Biden’s appointments is the return of Obama’s “defeat ISIS” envoy Brett McGurk as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) czar on the National Security Council. Ankara views McGurk as the architect of the partnership between Turkey’s longtime ally and its archenemy, the PKK, a Marxist separatist Kurdish movement which has been carrying out acts of terrorism for forty years in Turkey’s southeast region.

McGurk’s worldview has been painted by the war on terror paradigm, just as that of the former U.S. president George W. Bush.

McGurk started his career at the State Department during the presidency of George W. Bush. Despite a transition to a Democratic administration in 2008, McGurk stayed on and was appointed as the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in the Obama administration. McGurk continued to head the effort to defeat Daesh under Republican president Donald Trump until December 2018, when he resigned after opposing his commander in chief’s decision to withdraw American forces from Syria.

A ‘Democratic’ Rebranding

McGurk’s worldview has been painted by the war on terror paradigm, just as that of the former U.S. president George W. Bush. This ideological position, which has a black-and-white view of terrorist groups, led him to take decisions eschewing sovereign states like long-time NATO ally Turkey in favor of using questionable non-state actors to fight terrorists in Syria. Unfortunately, the geopolitical ramifications of these decisions were never taken into account.

With strong U.S. air support and intelligence sharing, the SDF was able to score moderate success against Daesh. However, tensions in the Arab-majority regions controlled by the Kurdish-minority SDF began to escalate due to poor governance by the group.

Furthermore, many Syrian Kurds were unhappy with the Marxist authoritarian rule that was being implemented. In addition, elements inside the SDF began to support actions of factions which aimed to destabilize areas under Turkish influence west of the Euphrates.

Following the rebranding of the YPG, McGurk successfully managed the perception of his new proxy group, painting the Marxist group as “secular” and the “best” option against Daesh.

The SDF’s seizure of Syria’s natural resources like the country’s oil and gas fields also created problems with not only the Assad regime but also the legitimate opposition. Many began to view the SDF as a group that wanted to fracture the territorial integrity of the country – and the group’s actions supported these concerns.

Whitewashing the YPG

Following the rebranding of the YPG, McGurk successfully managed the perception of his new proxy group, painting the Marxist group as “secular” and the “best” option against Daesh. This was supported by a campaign propagating that much of northeast Syria was Kurdish, when in fact many cities in the region like Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor have strong Arab majorities. The Western mainstream media quickly began to introduce the YPG/SDF as “freedom fighters” and proponents of women’s rights, overlooking the many human rights violations committed by the group.

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McGurk worked to legitimize the group by arranging meetings between U.S. officials and senior members of the YPG/SDF in northern Syria. As an envoy in the fight against Daesh, he was also very active on social media. On February 1, 2016, he tweeted, “Paid respects to over 1,000 Kurdish martyrs from Kobani battle. ISIL’s siege was broken 1-year ago last week.” A day after his tweet, photos of his visit were published.

One of the photos showed him receiving an appreciation plaque from a man in YPG uniform. That man was Polat Can, a senior member of the PKK terrorist organization. On May 17, 2017, McGurk held another meeting which brought together U.S. officials and senior members of the YPG in Raqqa, including Mazloum Kobani, (a code name) and the commander in chief of the SDF and the alleged adopted child of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan. Kobani is viewed as a top-level terrorist by Turkey, which has issued a red arrest warrant against him and labeled him a high-value target.

The Talabani Meeting

The seeds of McGurk’s plan to partner the U.S. with the YPG were actually conceived in Iraq. In 2014 as Daesh was converging on the Syrian town of Kobani, Lahur Talabani, the co-president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), had arranged a meeting between McGurk and Mazloum Kobani in Sulaymaniyah. It was at this meeting that the idea of U.S. support for the YPG was hatched. After the meeting, McGurk gave guarantees that the U.S. would support the YPG against Daesh.

Kobani followed up his meeting with McGurk by visiting the powerful commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force Major General Qasem Soleimani. The YPG commander wanted to ease Iranian concerns and gave assurances that their alliance with the U.S. would not be against Iran’s activities in Syria.

Many different terrorist entities operate across the globe, each with their own agenda and strategies. Among their favorite tactics to survive and expand are taking advantage of the availability of safe zones, utilizing independent income sources, and gaining access to critical resources like oil, water, agriculture, or manpower.

However, to conduct acts of terror, such groups rely on access to weapons. Traditionally, terror groups obtain weapons via the black market while some can rely on supply coming from foreign states. For instance, the support of Iran to Shia militias in the Middle East functions as a strong catalyst that enables Iran to project power in areas where it could normally not reach.

The capabilities and the reach of terror groups exponentially increase with foreign backing. The PKK is, by far, one of the terror groups that enjoys the most foreign support. However, despite the considerable backing, the PKK still struggles to achieve sustainable success which indicates that the group might disappear if it loses its foreign support.

Foreign states’ support for the PKK ranges from active military support to economic aid and political backing. In this manner, the PKK does not lack the necessary aid. Without going too far back, this article will focus on the main aspects of foreign aid received by the PKK since 2012.

The PKK established the YPG as the military wing of the PYD and maintained control over three separate Kurdish enclaves in northern Syria along the Turkish border.

In 2012, the Assad regime faced a dilemma in Syria. It realized that it was not able to control all of Syria as it had to withdraw from large portions of territories to defend “valuable Syria” from Latakia to Damascus. However, such a withdrawal would mean that the Syrian opposition and Turkey would fill the void in Syria’s north.

Based on this, the Syrian regime handed over chunks of territory to the PKK. Until then, the terror group operated mainly in Syria and was politically under its Syrian branch, the PYD. At that time, the PKK established the YPG as the military wing of the PYD and maintained control over three separate Kurdish enclaves in northern Syria along the Turkish border.

Moreover, the PKK earns large sums of money via drug trafficking and extortion money collected across European states. The PKK-affiliated organizations in Europe are vast and large. The PKK operates under fake NGOs, known to the intelligence services of the respective EU states, that undertake the terror group’s activities in Europe.

The PKK operatives sell drugs and collect extortion money from Kurdish businesspeople. While security forces occasionally combat these criminal activities, it is clear that they do not receive the same urgency as they would if they were conducted by Daesh/ISIS.

While the PKK’s main income sources are from direct foreign aid, income is also generated in foreign states, which turn a blind eye to PKK-affiliated organizations.

While the PKK’s main income sources are from direct foreign aid, income is also generated in foreign states, which turn a blind eye to PKK-affiliated organizations.

Moreover, the PKK also enjoys military protection by foreign states – nothing equivalent is seen in any other terror group. In the west and east of Syria, Russia provides military protection for the PKK/YPG in Tal Rifaat, Manbij, Ayn al-Arab, Ayn Issa, Tal Tamr, and Darbasiyah.

Additionally, the U.S. protects the YPG in the northeast corner of Syria stretching from the triangle between Turkey, Iraq, and Syria to the south of Deir ez-Zor. The PKK also enjoys military protection by Iranian-backed Shia militias in Sinjar, Iraq. When Turkey launched Operation Claw Eagle II against the PKK, the Iranian-backed Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba threatened to attack Turkey.

Furthermore, the PKK enjoys the support of foreign states in the form of soft power. This is mostly visible in the media coverage of the PKK. Most notably, the PKK is referred to as the “representative of all Kurdish people.” Even though there is no homogenous ethnic group in the world represented by just one entity and most of the Kurds oppose the PKK, the media continues to lump all Kurds under the banner of the PKK. Mainstream media outlets blatantly ignore the acts of terror by the PKK/YPG and give positive publicity to the two groups in line with the PKK propaganda.

For example, the PKK’s use of car bombings as a means of terror is widely ignored by western media outlets. If any other terror group had conducted over 170 car bomb attacks to kill civilians randomly, it would have been publicly condemned and ostracized. However, the PKK/YPG is not. Only sporadic and few references are made about these acts of terror. While these acts are ignored, the PKK/YPG propaganda of marketing women militia as “Freedom Fighters” is not.

Many books and articles have been written about the role of women in the PKK/YPG without any reference to their use as suicide bombers. Even Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state, is part of a project to spread PKK/YPG propaganda by producing a TV series based on a book written about PKK/YPG female terrorists.

These examples are enough to conclude that the PKK is the terror group that receives the most foreign aid across the globe.

On February 14, 2021, Turkey announced that the PKK (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers’ Party) had executed 13 Turkish citizens, who had been kidnapped some years ago and kept in a hideout in northern Iraq. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization not only by Turkey but also by the United States and the European Union. In fact, the terror group has earned this designation for committing innumerable deadly attacks across Turkey since the early 1980s.

The cold-blooded execution of 13 people in the hands of their captors created an uproar in Turkey. Many felt the same fury as Suleyman Soylu, Turkey’s Minister of Interior, who clearly put this rage into words: “Let this nation and our martyrs spit on our faces if we do not catch Murat Karayilan [the military leader of the PKK] and cut him into a thousand pieces.”

Despite the emotions running high in Turkey, no country in the Gulf condemned the PKK nor did they send condolences to the Turkish people or expressed solidarity, except for Qatar. In a statement issued by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar strongly condemned and denounced “the killing of 13 Turkish citizens” and sent its condolences to the families and the Turkish government and people. Thus, Qatar proved once again to be Turkey’s closest ally in the region.

Yet, upon closer inspection even Qatar’s statement appears far from satisfactory from a Turkish perspective. This is so for two reasons. First, the statement does not name the PKK as the perpetrator of this atrocity. Second, the statement reiterates Qatar’s policy position that rejects “violence and terrorism” and thus implicitly describes the act as an act of terrorism. But, then, the statement adds, “whatever motives and causes” were behind it. The statement, therefore, implicitly suggests that at least “some” motives or reasons might be behind the act.

Overall, the Gulf states are apathetic towards Turkey’s PKK problem. This apathy has two sources. One is historical. There is a general negative view shared by many Arabs, if not all, of either the Ottoman past or the modern Republic of Turkey, or both. As academic research documents, one line of argument suggests that the Ottoman rule was simply exploitative and repressive, and hence the root cause of the contemporary backwardness of the Arab world.

In another line of argument, contemporary Wahhabi-Salafism has accused the Ottomans of straying away from religion or even corrupting it with many religious innovations. The only societal group that held a more positive view of the Ottoman past was the Muslim Brotherhood. But the group was harshly critical of the modern Republic of Turkey for abolishing the Caliphate in 1924 and for other secularizing reforms.

These broad arguments have been shared and propagated by different influential groups in the Arab world, and seem to have deeply shaped the public discourse about the Ottoman past and the Republic of Turkey. The overall negative view of both has created an almost unquestioned sympathy especially among the Arab ruling classes and intelligentsia towards all ethnic groups who had once been or are still under Turkish rule, in general, and the Armenians and Kurds, in particular.

There is no systematic survey of these classes’ views on the PKK. But it is not difficult to imagine that the general antipathy towards the Ottoman past and the Republic of Turkey can turn into a sympathy towards the separatist Kurds and the PKK.

This is visible in the media coverage of PKK-related incidents. Even the coverage of the PKK by Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based news outlet, is disappointing for Ankara. In fact, TRT World, Turkey’s state-owned international news outlet, once critically noted the similarity between Al-Arabiya (Saudi Arabia-owned) and Al-Jazeera in their coverage of Turkey’s operation against the PKK in Syria.

Al Jazeera’s coverage of the most recent PKK execution was in fact no different, describing, for example, the PKK militants as “Kurdish fighters.” Given that the media is heavily state-owned in the Arab world, the media’s coverage of the PKK illustrates the general sympathy of, at least, the Arab ruling classes towards the PKK.

The other source of the Gulf states’ apathy towards Turkey’s PKK problem is political. Turkey had great relations with all Gulf states in the 2000s to the extent that the Gulf Cooperation Council declared Turkey as a strategic partner in 2008. But, this changed with the Arab Spring. Turkey embraced the Arab Spring and developed cordial relations with the democratizing post-revolution governments in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain became, on the other hand, status quo powers and distanced themselves from Turkey.

The same fate befell on Qatar, which also embraced the Arab Spring like Turkey. In the aftermath of the military coup in Egypt in 2013, Turkey and Qatar faced a severe regional isolation and in order to break out of this isolation, they developed a strong bilateral relationship. Showing the strength of these bilateral relations, Turkey resolutely stood by Qatar when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt cut their diplomatic relations with the country and imposed a total blockade on the emirate in June 2017.

The blockade lasted for three-and-a-half years and in the succeeding years Turkey’s relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain reached historically low ebbs. Turkey taking a clear side in a specifically Gulf crisis added further strength to the already existing apathy Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain felt towards the PKK problem.

In some governmental circles that apathy might even have turned into a sympathy towards the PKK. In fact, soon after the Gulf crisis broke out, according to a pro-government newspaper in Turkey, namely Yeni Şafak, officials from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, met with the YPG, which Turkey considers the PKK’s Syrian branch. Yeni Şafak even published a photo of the meeting where a portrait of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s founder, was hanging on the wall. A few months later, a Saudi minister, Thamer al-Sabhan, visited Raqqa, which was then under YPG control. Then, in August 2018, Saudi Arabia pledged $100 million for stabilization projects in the territories under YPG control and announced that it made the payment in October 2018.

Of course, the appeal of the YPG for Saudi Arabia and the UAE lies in the organization’s strong relations with the U.S. We should not forget that the YPG emerged as the U.S. partner in the fight against DAESH (ISIS) in Syria and as such received generous financial and military support from the U.S. The rise of the YPG alarmed Turkey so much so that it has so far undertaken three major military operations in northern Syria.

The good relations between former U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan helped Turkey’s efforts. But it is still unclear how the new president, Joe Biden, will address Turkey’s concerns with regard to the YPG’s continued presence in northern Syria. It seems logical to expect that the Biden administration will increase U.S. support for the YPG given the strong pro-YPG and pro-Kurdish sentiments in Washington D.C., alongside the anti-Erdogan and anti-Turkey sentiments that are also running high.

In this context, the Gulf states, which heavily rely on the continued military and diplomatic protection of the U.S., took the least risky path and have turned a total blind eye to the most recent atrocity committed by the PKK – the execution of 13 Turkish citizens. Qatar proved to be the exception in the Gulf by virtue of its strong relations with Turkey. Yet, Qatar’s cautious statement reflects not only the general apathy of the Gulf states towards Turkey’s PKK problem, but also the highly cordial relations between the U.S. and the YPG.

The way forward in north east Syria wasn’t so clear until in early November Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Russia’s Vladimir Putin over the phone to hash out the details of a ceasefire agreement in Nagorno Karbakh. Erdogan reportedly said that the same spirit in the agreement in Azerbaijan should be applied in Syria.

Just as Russia and Turkey began setting up the ceasefire oversight arrangements in Nagorno Karbakh, Turkey’s sights were set on Ain Issa.

Even though the town is small, it sits on a critical juncture of the M4 highway. Ain Issa is around 40 km north of Raqqa City, and sits on the M4 highway which when heading goes directly to Manbij. Ayn al Arab, known to many as Kobani, is also a few kilometers north west of Ain Issa. Sitting on this major thoroughfare the town carries much more significant for any party or group that controls it.

In late November reports emerged of ongoing oil sales; by the self-styled Syrian Democratic Forces, a group which Ankara believes the PKK’s Syrian wing the YPG uses to hide behind, to Assad, despite America prohibiting such sales.

The outgoing US Special Representative to Syria James Jeffrey recently said 100,000 barrels of oil are being transferred monthly to Assad controlled areas. The oil is being transferred at the behest of Husam Katerji, a Assad loyalist named in the recent American ‘Caesar’ sanctions.

It’s moved from fields in north west Syria through Tal Tamer, also on the M4 highway, to Ain Issa, then south to Raqqa city. The oil is a main source of income for the terror groups operations. An issue that hasn’t been addressed by American officials mainly due to a lack of clarity on America’s political transition following Trump’s loss to Democratic president elect Joe Biden.

That’s not the only issue that Turkey has with the YPG operations in Syria. It was only after Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring and reached an agreement with Russia in Sochi that called for the withdrawal of the YPG from specific areas including Tal Rifaat, Manbij, and the border areas east of the Euphrates River that the cracks in the YPG’s local and regional alliances began to show.

Like America before them, Russia has also failed to force YPG forces from Manbij, Tal Rifaat, and Ayn al Arab on the border. The YPG is thought be responsible for dozens of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks killing droves of civilians in Turkey backed opposition controlled areas. Recently, a YPG sleeper cell member was captured by the Turkey backed SNA and provided critical intel about those operations.

The PKK has a long history in Syria rooted in the presence of the terror group’s founder Abdullah Ocalan in Syria in the early 90s.

The PKK has a long history in Syria rooted in the presence of the terror group’s founder Abdullah Ocalan in Syria in the early 90s. Turkey nearly went to war with Syria in 1999 because the terror group was thought to be using Syria for recruitment and training.

Decades later the PKK is still leveraging its relations with Damascus to establish a foothold for itself in the Syrian geopolitical arena. It’s that historic link to Syria that the PKK and its Syrian branch the YPG are clinging to hoping that they can eventually establish an autonomous administration.

In the following days it quickly become clear that Turkey and Russia are ceasing the small window of opportunity between US administrations to pressure the YPG financially and militarily. Reports emerged that Russia and Assad offered the YPG a safe exit from Ain Issa in exchange for the Russian military and Syrian regime forces to take control.

According to local sources, the deal was presented as a means to prevent Turkey backed SNA forces from taking the town, in what is believed to be a pre requisite for Turkish Russian cooperation.

It’s not clear if the YPG has agreed to the terms of the Russian-Assad proposal but it is clear that both Turkey and Russia are not letting down their guard.

Turkey continues to reinforce front line positions north and north east of Ain Issa with the help of SNA forces. On the other hand, Russia has sent reinforcements to Ain Issa to “reduce tensions” according to Russian Ministry of Defense’s center for Syrian reconciliation.

Close cooperation between Turkey and Russia has given both nations significant strategic advantages in Libya, Azerbaijan, and Syria. Their cooperation has bothered American and NATO officials and sidelined world powers that were more influential in Syria during the past decade.

But that cooperation is strained by a patchy history of operational flexes. The most notable of which are the 2015 downing and capture of a Russian pilot over near the Turkey-Syria border and the deadly Russian led attack on a Turkish military convoy in Idlib’s Jabal al Zawiya region that killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers in February.

While Turkey and Russia are putting the pressure on the YPG the United States has been trying to lift the YPG out of the shadows of the PKK’s terror designation. The PKK is a designated terror group in the U.S., the EU, and the UN. U.S. officials have repeatedly admitted that the American military worked with members of the group in Syria in the fight against Daesh despite knowing of their terror affiliation.

That’s why in November 2020, James Jeffrey made a final call for all PKK members to leave Syrian territory. But Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that America is the reason the YPG didn’t fulfill its end of the bargain in the Sochi deal.

The YPG know very well that their strongest bargaining chip are the oil fields under their control. Whether they’re trying to secure better terms with Assad and Russia or trying to convince America not to cut them loose and abandon them while they’re surrounded on all sides.

On September 27, 2020, responding to constant shelling of its villages and cities, the Republic of Azerbaijan began military operations in Karabakh. Within 44 days of the military campaign, the Azerbaijani army was able to inflict a heavy defeat on Armenia and Karabakh separatists, liberating several occupied territories. Based on the peace agreement signed by the Azerbaijani president, the Armenian prime minister, and the Russian president, hostilities ended on November 10, while Armenia withdrew its forces from three more occupied territories. During the conflict, there were many allegations of Armenia using mercenaries from various countries. Several reports and articles indicated that Yerevan relied on the help of various mercenary groups including the PKK terrorist organization. This opinion article will elaborate on these claims and shed light on the use of mercenaries in Karabakh.

The first report on Armenian use of mercenaries in Karabakh came from Russian journalist Ilya Azar in the newspaper Novaya Gazeta. He was the first to report on foreign mercenaries in Karabakh fighting for the Armenian side. In his article, he interviewed French citizen Artur Oganisyan, who came to Karabakh to fight on the Armenian side. After the interview, Azar was expelled from Karabakh. Reuters also interviewed Lebanese-Armenians fighting in the war and claimed that there are dozens of mercenaries coming from Beirut to fight in Karabakh against Azerbaijan.

The PKK in Karabakh

For a long time, experts in international relations have warned that non-recognized territories can become rogue states, and therefore sources of terrorism and criminal activities. These territories are de facto independent but not bound by any international treaties. They have their own armies, law enforcement, and political institutions, but lack financial viability which may force them to earn money through weapons sales, drug trafficking, and hosting insurgent training camps. Karabakh, for example, was one of the most militarized areas in the world. That safe haven attracted members of the PKK terrorist organization as well. Discussions of relocating some PKK groups to Karabakh started in the early 2000s. Karabakh separatists also began a process of settling Armenians, mostly from Syria and Lebanon, in Azerbaijani occupied territories.

The PKK’s decision to move some of its groups to Karabakh was a pragmatic choice for both sides. Karabakh is the only territory in the Middle East and the Caucasus where Turkey seemed less likely to engage in military action. Most of the countries in the region would hardly risk hosting PKK members for fear of Turkey’s military wrath. Even for Armenia, it would be suicidal to establish PKK camps on its territory. Yerevan would need to give explanations to the international community and could face sanctions for doing so. But Karabakh is a different story – the Turkish army was unlikely to chase PKK terrorists there. Any Turkish military activity in that area would involve the Armenian troops deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian participation in a conflict would automatically bring Russia into it as the guarantor of the security of its southern ally. Thus, for many years, this territory was a safe haven for PKK groups.

Armenian soldier Albert Mikaelyan, captured by the Azerbaijani army during the recent military operations, stated during a press conference that while serving in an anti-tank unit, Mikaelyan noticed the presence of Kurdish-speaking mercenaries in the barracks, up to 1,500 of them. “They get paid $600. They are divided into teams of 10-15. They have been learning local conditions and preparing for deployment to the battlefield,” Mikaelyan added. Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani president’s aide, Hikmat Hajiyev, stated that Armenia is using the PKK terrorists on the front lines in Upper Karabakh. He expressed concerns about the use of the PKK in Karabakh and mentioned that there are terrorists in the ranks of the Armenian armed forces. Essentially, they were deployed on the front line of the Armenian armed forces. In a statement, Turkish President Recep Erdogan noted the presence of 2,000 PKK terrorists fighting alongside Armenia against Azerbaijan in Karabakh.

Armenian soldier Albert Mikaelyan noticed the presence of Kurdish-speaking mercenaries in the barracks, up to 1,500 of them.

Reportedly, Armenia transported most of these terrorists from Suleymaniyah, a stronghold of the PKK in Iraq. There were several flights from this Iraqi city to Yerevan before and during the recent military confrontations. Meanwhile, a separate group of YPG militants, regarded by many as the Syrian wing of the PKK, were sent to Nagorno-Karabakh from the Qamishli region on the Syrian-Iraqi borders. Azerbaijan, in turn, reported that dozens of PKK terrorists were killed in Karabakh during the military operations.

Despite the Armenian reliance on mercenaries, they were hardly able to change the course of the war. The Armenian side expected that the war would start and continue in a traditional way, using conventional weapons and tactics. Instead, Azerbaijan relied on technology, completely neutralizing the Armenian competitive advantage of using mercenaries. Thus, by the end of the military operation, Armenians suffered heavy casualties mostly caused by Azerbaijani armed drones and artillery attacks.