Shiite actors oppose Turkey in Mosul operation against ISIL, leading opposition figure says
CHP deputy chairman Murat Özçelik. (Photo: Today's Zaman, Mevlüt Karabulut)
March 09, 2015, Monday/ 18:15:08/ TODAY'S ZAMAN / ANKARA
A leading main opposition figure has said that Shiite actors in the region would be against Turkey sending ground troops as part of a coalition operation to retake Mosul from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), accusing the government of pursuing a sectarian-based foreign policy.
“Turkey cannot [militarily] intervene in Mosul. … The Shiites would in no way allow Turkey to [militarily] intervene,” said Murat Özçelik, deputy chairman in charge of foreign policy at main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), in an interview with the Bugün daily on Monday. “The Shiites, first and foremost Iran, would not like Turkey to step inside [Iraq],” added Özçelik, who served as the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad from 2009 to 2011.
The Iraqi army and the Kurdish government's peshmerga forces, backed by coalition forces made up of countries such as the US and France, are expected, in a month or so, to launch an assault to drive the terrorist ISIL out of Iraq.
Turkey's possible participation in the military operation has become a matter of acrimonious debate after remarks at the beginning of the month by Mosul's governor suggested an active Turkish role in the military campaign. Mosul Governor Useyil Nujaifi, a Sunni, claimed, following a visit to Ankara at the end of February that Turkish authorities had decided to send weapons and supplies to help the coalition regain Mosul.
As was underlined by Özçelik in the interview, Iranian forces have long been involved in the fight against ISIL in Iraq to defend the Shiites, including Türkmen. “While [Shiite] Turkmens were being butchered [by ISIL] in Talafar, the head of Iran's al-Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, was photographed there,” Özçelik reportedly said. Even if the US could convince the Iraqi Kurds of Turkey's military participation in the campaign against ISIL in Iraq, Shiites would oppose it, he argued.
As was underlined by Özçelik in the interview, Iranian forces have long been involved in the fight against ISIL in Iraq to defend the Shiites, including Türkmen. “While [Shiite] Turkmens were being butchered [by ISIL] in Talafar, the head of Iran's al-Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, was photographed there,” Özçelik reportedly said. Even if the US could convince the Iraqi Kurds of Turkey's military participation in the campaign against ISIL in Iraq, Shiites would oppose it, he argued.
A day after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu signaled that Turkey's military involvement in the campaign against ISIL was not on the agenda, Turkish Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz, vowed support, on March 4, for the operation against the terrorist organization, but his remarks revealed that the support would not be of a combatant nature.
Following talks with his Iraqi counterpart in Baghdad, Yılmaz said: “We are on the side of Iraq in an operation targeting [the recapture of] Mosul. We are ready to provide every kind of intelligence and logistical support to Iraq in its fight against terrorism.”
Asked to comment on Davutoğlu's recent warning that Shiite militia should not be allowed to replace ISIL in Mosul after the operation, Özçelik criticized the Turkish prime minister for continuing to pursue a sectarian foreign policy, thereby harming Turkey's interests, as such an attitude would be perceived as an intervention in another country's internal affairs. He said: “Ahmet Davutoğlu is making the same mistake. He is maintaining his sectarian attitude.”
Noting that it is not up to Davutoğlu to decide who will control the Iraqi city of Mosul, Özçelik told the daily: “He thinks he will redress the situation by making [out] as if he is protecting the Sunnis, but [in fact], he is attracting an even bigger [negative] reaction. You should not intervene in others' domestic affairs in such an obvious way.”
Yılmaz, who arrived in Baghdad after two Turkish C-130 cargo planes delivered military equipment to Iraq on Tuesday, said Turkey will continue to provide military aid to the Iraqi security forces, as well as training and equipment to the Iraqi army and the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces.
In a sign of support for the operation, Turkey sent -- ahead of Yılmaz's Baghdad visit -- two military cargo planes filled with military equipment to the Iraqi capital.
According to Özçelik, the Turkish cargo planes did not contain any combat equipment, but were merely filled with material such as boots and clothes for soldiers. “[This was] because Iraq said ‘you cannot do anything to the other side without informing me',” he said.
The CHP deputy chairman's remarks also implied that Turkey, which has long been accused by opposition parties and the West, of offering support to ISIL, would not like to be actively involved in the fighting against ISIL with troops on the ground as it fears that ISIL-linked cells nestled within Turkey may organize terrorist attacks in Turkey.
He said: “If it [Turkey] had sent weapons, missiles, ammunition [to Iraq], then Turkey would have given ISIL the message ‘I will destroy you [alongside] the international coalition. You are terrorists'.”
ISIL has currently almost one-third of Iraq under its control. Its swift expansion in the country came after it captured Mosul in June last year. Turkish military has been training and supplying Kurdish peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq with military equipment. The same thing will be done for the Iraqi army, Turkish Defense Minister Yılmaz recently said.
According to Özçelik, the alleged support the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has been offering to ISIL is part of its neo-Ottoman foreign policy concept based on which Sunni-populated areas in the region would come under Turkey's control.
Maintaining that Turkey allowed all foreign fighters to freely pass from Turkey to Syria under the guise of providing support to moderate groups fighting the Syrian government, Özçelik said the Turkish government believed a separate Sunni state would be established in Iraq.
Following the planned establishment in Turkey of a presidential system, which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been adamantly pushing for, the ruling party hoped that the Sunni states in Turkey's south would be subordinated to Turkey as states in a federal structure, Özçelik argued.
Following the planned establishment in Turkey of a presidential system, which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been adamantly pushing for, the ruling party hoped that the Sunni states in Turkey's south would be subordinated to Turkey as states in a federal structure, Özçelik argued.
As neo-Ottomanists, the ruling party is still acting based on such a mindset, Özçelik said.
According to Özçelik, the West is aware that Turkey is not willingly cooperating with the coalition against ISIL threat. That is why the international coalition is telling Turkey only to train and equip for the fight against ISIL, and stop foreign fighters from entering Syria, the CHP deputy chairman said.
The US and its allies have waged months of air strikes against ISIL targets, and Washington is training and equipping the Iraqi military to recapture lost territory. The battle for Mosul is expected to be pivotal in that struggle.
A US Central Command official said at the end of February that an Iraqi and Kurdish military force of 20,000 to 25,000 troops is being prepared to recapture the city, probably in April or May.
In Syria, where ISIL first came to prominence, Turkey officially declared that it supports Sunni rebels fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime, which is, though supported by some Sunnis and Christian groups in the country, mainly based on the Alevi minority.
Despite Turkey's efforts to remove Assad from power, Assad seems now more firmly seated as president after having obtained victories on various fronts against rebels in the past year.
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