Unwavering Istiklal

The US condolence message on Twitter set off a kind of Turkish tsunami of anger on the superpower

“It is an outrage. I am shattered,” Naveed Baloch, a Pakistani journalist working with TRT in Istambul, describes Sunday’s bombing at Istiklal Street. The venue is all covered with flowers.

Messages of condolence and solidarity are pouring in from all nations. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, a heavyweight in the government coalition, however, has not accepted condolence from the US ambassador, “likening them to a murderer returning to the crime scene”.

An analysis of the reaction to the US condolence message on Twitter shows that it set off a kind of Turkish tsunami of anger on the superpower.

Though the United States is an obvious target of Turkish anger over the tragedy that left six people, including the wife and 15-year-old daughter of a known Turkish actor dead, the superpower is not the only target.

The reason is obvious. The attacker, a 23-year-old woman in a shirt with New York University written on it, had instantly confessed to investigators that she worked for Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

Though the group had been active for liberation of Kurdistan, it shot to prominence when the US and coalition forces decided to pitch it against Islamic State in Syria.

The decision was taken by President Obama, who broke all formal relations with Syria whatsoever. It encouraged Gulf countries and Türkiye to also cut ties with the Assad regime.

At the same time, Obama discretely appointed Daniel Rubinstein as US Special Envoy for Syria. Rubinstein now serves as the US Charge d’Affaires to Egypt.

Türkiye eagerly joined the Friends of Syria group, mostly composed of strange bedfellows like China, France, Russia, UK, USA, Iraq etc. in a hope that it will get a better chance to counter Kurds working in Iraq and Syria. The Turkish concern for Kurds is driven from the reality that Kurds make up one-fifth of the Turkish population. They are striving for a separate state for them, carved out of the areas where their population is concentrated in Türkiye, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

Along with Taiwan, Palestine, Catalonia, Scotland, Transnistria etc., the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), the Turkish region of northern Cyprus also strives hard to get recognized as separate entities.

Despite opposition by Türkiye, the Kurdish region has been recognized as a territory by some powerful countries with its flag flowing in their foreign offices.

Since the early 1980s, the Kurd separatists have been waging a struggle to achieve the ultimate goal of a separate statehood for them in Türkiye. Thousands of people have been killed on this account.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a very clear and bold stance on this matter. He regards the separatist movement as terrorism and does not spare any chance to convey to the world his message loud and clear.

In October last year, he wrote to his Foreign Ministry to declare to 10 ambassadors as persona non grata because they had signed a joint statement seeking release of a Turkish businessman, imprisoned on charges of funding Kurdish separatists. These ambassadors were from as powerful countries as the US, Sweden, France, Germany, Norway etc. After the presidential warning, they had to withdraw their statement, notwithstanding the fact that in the eyes of the European court, the businessman was not a terrorist.

The Turkish president found the joint statement as an act of “indecency”. A few months later, most of these employees were also signatories of a joint statement in Pakistan pressing the government to condemn Russia in a rare UN General Assembly session. Though Imran Khan, then prime minister, and his cabinet members, berated these envoys publicly but they did not go so far as to initiate the proceedings to declare them as persona non grata.

Erdoğan had also locked horns with outgoing US President Donald Trump, when the latter announced to roll back war on IS in Syria and Iraq, where Kurd separatists were the US partners.

At a point, Trump had to threaten Türkiye with sanctions to stop its air force from pounding Kurdish targets across borders.

For Erdoğan, it is a question of national integrity, endangered by Kurdish separatists. Days before the attack, Türkiye opposed inclusion of Sweden and Finland in Nato on the account that the two European countries need to turn back some people whom Türkiye considers as terrorists, linked to separation movement. To be a new Nato member, it is necessary that all 30 Nato members unanimously accept the nomination.

At the same time, Erdoğan’s opponents think that he thrives on nationalistic rhetoric and populist narratives. They are of the opinion that his coalition is politicizing the terrorist attack to edge out their rivals from the upcoming presidential elections. After victory in the last elections, Erdoğan had cracked down on the media accusing them of siding with the “enemy”.

Concerns are also being raised on how quickly the attacker had confessed to her links with the Kurdish Workers’ Party.

The US and European countries are sympathetic with Kurds. But all this criticism and sympathy does not stop Erdoğan from emerging as a big power on the global canvass.

All big world powers strived their best to wrestle a deal from Russia for Ukraine but failed. It was only Erdoğan who was able to bring both sides on the table and get a deal for delivery of millions of tons of food-grain from Ukraine to those in need at this time. He had also rubbed shoulders with the US high-ups in the G-20 summit but uploaded on social media his pictures only with European and Arab leaders.

Naten Yahoo, the Israeli Prime Minister-elect, has called him to condole the Istiklal Street attack. The attack has brought together the Turkish people in so far as to stand against terrorism.

Naveed Baloch, the Pakistani journalist working with TRT, told the scribe that the attackers were identified through security cameras. So far, about 50 more arrests have been made and the investigators are committed to uproot the network of terrorism. “Though I live at a distance from Istiklal Street, my family and I frequent this place. It is like a magnet for tourists. Millions of people walk through it. It is a symbol of Turkish integrity,” he concludes.

The writer teaches mediatization at International Islamic University Islamabad