What stands behind Turkey’s concern on military operation in Syria?
By Rufiz Hafizoglu
The Syrian Army’s expected land operations against the “Islamic State” (IS) with the support of Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the air forces of Russia, poses a serious threat to Turkey’s security.
Turkish media have already reported that these land operations are directed not against the IS, but against the moderate Syrian opposition, which is supported by Ankara.
All the countries that stand for settlement of the Syrian crisis have no disagreement about that the IS is the reason of continuation of the crisis.
The military operations against the IS, in fact, corresponds to Turkey’s interests too, but Ankara fears are logically justified.
Those in Turkey’s political arena are more than confident that the military operations against the IS will primarily lead to a new wave of refugees from Syria.
But apparently, this is not the only thing concerning Ankara.
A massive operation in Syria against the IS would cause the militants to change their permanent positions, which, in turn, could lead to their breakthrough into Turkey.
This is the main reason of Turkey’s fear of the military operations in Syria.
Today, Turkey's border with Syria has become more vulnerable after such countries as the US and Germany announced that they will remove the Patriot air defense system from Turkey, which was previously installed on the border with Syria.
They explained their decision by the fact that Ankara supposedly uses the Patriot system to combat the PKK. In particular, the US did not extend the term of deploying the Patriot air defense system in Turkey.
Afterwards, spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry Tanju Bilgic said that Ankara holds talks with NATO.
He said that Turkey continues the talks on strengthening its defense capability, including the Patriot missile systems with NATO as a whole and directly with the NATO member-states.
The Patriot air defense system was deployed in Turkey at the request of Ankara in 2012 to protect from Syria’s possible missile attack.
However, despite this system, Syria’s rocket attacks, as well as radical groups’ attacks were made on some regions of Turkey.
This makes Turkey dependent on NATO in security issues.
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