シリア、トルコ情勢 ー モザイク状態

（シリアは虫食い状態になっている）


シリア、トルコ情勢　ー　モザイク状態

トルコの町でクルド族の結婚式場で自爆テロが発生し、５０人以上の死者と数百人の

負傷者が出た。ＩＳによる攻撃との見方が強く、その動機は、シリアで苦戦を強いられて

クルド族戦闘部隊に拠点を奪われていることへのリベンジ、ならびにトルコ政府に揺さぶりを

かけることを狙ったものと考えられている。

　トルコの立ち位置は非常に微妙である。その最大の問題がクルド族である。

クルド族の闘争的な部分は、かねてから自治、さらには独立国家を樹立する

ことを大きな政治目標にしてきたから、トルコ政府から弾圧を受け続けてきている。

そこへ、隣国シリアの内乱状況を絶好の機会とみたクルド族がアメリカの助けを借りて

反アサド陣営に加わっている。そしてＩＳ攻撃の重要な戦力としてアメリカに重宝がられ、

シリア内にかなりの占領区域を作り上げている。クルド族はその前からイラクの混乱に

乗じてクルドスタンという国家の樹立を宣言している。

　こうしたクルド族の行動にたいして、警戒の目を向けているのがトルコ政府である。トルコ政府

にとっては、ＩＳよりもクルド族の行動の方がはるかに重要な意味と問題をもっている。

このことがつい最近、トルコがロシアとの関係を回復させた大きな理由である。ともに、

シリアの国境を維持することを重視しているからである。プーチンがさっそくクルドの外交使節

の拠点を閉鎖させたのは、その意思表示である。

　トルコがアメリカにたいして苛立ちを隠せないのはクルド族への肩入れである。

こうした折り、クルド族部隊がこれまでＩＳへの攻撃を中心にしていたのをアサド軍

にたいする攻撃に転じるという事態が発生した。これはハサカという町で生じており、

このことにトルコは神経をとがらせている。アメリカにとってもこれは予想していな

かった事態のようである。アメリカは、アサド政権にたいしては、攻撃しないでいく

方針を採用しており、ロシアとイランがアサドを支援するのを放任する方針をとっている。

ＩＳせん滅を最優先するという方針のためである。



＊＊＊

Turkey tells border town to evacuate due to skirmish with Isis

Mortar rounds hit town of Karkamış as Turkish army responds with shelling of Islamic State-held border town in Syria
Two tanks in Karkamiș. Photograph: AP
Martin Chulov
Tuesday 23 August 2016 19.39 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 23 August 201622.00 BST
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Turkish authorities have ordered residents to evacuate the border town of Karkamış after it was hit by mortar rounds fired from an area of Syria controlled by Islamic State.
The Turkish army responded by firing about 60 artillery shells on positions around Jarablus in Syria, amid preparations by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels to retake the Isis-controlled town.
Turkey announced a major offensive against Isis after a devastating explosion killed 54 people at a wedding in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, blamed the attack on the extremist group.
While the Turkish moves are likely to increase pressure on Isis in one of its last major redoubts, they are also likely to amplify an ongoing conflict between Ankara and Washington over the direction of the war, in particular whether the priority should be defeating Isis or preserving Syria’s territorial integrity.
Now in the middle of its fifth year, Syria’s civil war took an unexpected turn earlier this month when Syrian Kurds who had been battling Isis turned their guns on forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad in the northern city of Hasakah. The move drew a quick response from Damascus, which sent jets to bomb Kurdish positions and forced Washington to scramble jets to defend its proxies and US special operations forces deployed alongside them.
The development underscores both the complexity and the stakes involved in Syria’s war, which has drawn in the region’s powers, laid much of the country to waste and forced a reshifting of longstanding alliances.
Turkey is furious at Washington’s use of Syrian Kurds as a ground force in an area over which they have claimed de facto autonomy, and has vowed to curtail Kurdish ambitions emerging from the chaos.
“It is more important to them than fighting Isis,” said a western diplomat. “And that has been clear from the outset.
A funeral for victims of the suicide bombing at a wedding in Gaziantep, which killed 54 people. Photograph: Osman Orsal/Reuters
“We have seen that whenever the Syrian Democratic Front [the Kurdish/Arab proxy force] get ahead, the Turks get more energised.”
A recent Turkish detente with Russia, following 10 months of conflict over Moscow’s robust support for the Syrian leader, stemmed from both sides’ belief that maintaining Syria’s current borders was paramount. Ankara agreed to compensate Moscow for shooting down a Russian jet that had entered Turkish air space from Syria last year.
Kurdish forces in fresh push to recapture Mosul from Isis

Read more
At the same time, Russia ordered the closure of a political office that Syria’s Kurds had established in Moscow. Over the past week, signs of common ground between Turkey and Syria – antagonists throughout much of the war – have also emerged.
Amid unconfirmed reports that the Turkish intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, had visited Damascus, Syrian officials pointedly referred to the Syrian Kurdish political organisation, the PYD, as “PKK extremists”. Turkey says there is no difference between the Syrian body and the PKK, with whom it has been fighting for four decades inside its own borders.
Moscow last week sent a delegation to broker a truce between Damascus and the PYD’s military wing, the YPG, but returned without a result. The YPG has said it will not honour earlier agreements with Damascus, which saw both sides stay out of each other’s way for much of the war and over the past 10 months had seen Kurdish forces move into Arab areas of northern Syria under Russian air cover.
Defeating Isis has been the dominant priority for the US, which had until now entered into a tacit non-aggression pact with Damascus, and has been willing to stay out of the way of Russia and Iran as they shore up the struggling Syrian leader.
US officials have told allies in the region that Barack Obama wants one of the two Isis bastions – either Raqqa in Syria, or Mosul in Iraq – to have fallen by the time he leaves office. However, the Kurdish move on Hasakah is a wild card Washington had neither prepared for nor knows how to deal with.
“The Turks will not let this stand,” said an Ankara based western official. “The next few weeks are pivotal.”

***

Turkey
Erdoğan blames Isis for suspected suicide attack at wedding in Gaziantep

Turkish president says bombing that killed more than 50 people and wounded nearly 100 was carried out by child aged 12-14
At least 50 killed, nearly 100 injured in blast at wedding in Turkey
Constanze Letsch in Istanbul
Sunday 21 August 2016 20.24 BSTLast modified on Sunday 21 August 201622.00 BST
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Hundreds of mourners gathered in the south-eastern Turkish city of Gaziantep on Sunday to bury victims of a suspected suicide bombing that struck a wedding celebration.
At least 50 people were killed and nearly 70 injured in the blast, which Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, blamed on Islamic State and said had been carried out by a child of between 12 and 14 years old “who either detonated [the bomb] or others detonated it”.
Condemning the attack, which was the deadliest to hit Turkey this year, Erdoğan said any strategy “meant to incite the citizens against each other along ethnic and religious lines will not work”.
Mahmut Toğrul, a local MP, said the wedding guests were largely supporters of his pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP).
“This was not a random target and not just any wedding,” he told the Guardian. “Most of the people celebrating at the wedding were HDP supporters. People came together to celebrate, they were defenceless. [Isis] has always targeted civilians, but we need to see this attack as a revenge attack on Kurds.”
Isis, which has not claimed the attack – historically it has not claimed attacks in Turkey – has recently lost swaths of territory in northern Syria to Syrian-Kurdish fighters. Some analysts as well as locals have pointed to this as possible motivation for attacks against Kurds.
Metin Gurcan, a security analyst, said: “This is the first Isis attack targeting ethnically aware and politically active Kurds at a purely civilian occasion, a wedding. We know very well to what extent wedding attacks can sow disorder in a nation’s social fabric from [experience] in Afghanistan.
“Isis has been trying to exploit ethnic and sectarian fault lines in Gaziantep both to retaliate against the advancement of Syrian Kurds in the north of Syria and against Turkey’s attack against Isis targets inside Syria.”
Naziım Daştan, a local journalist, described a scene of devastation in the neighbourhood of Şahinbey after the blast hit at about 10.50pm on Saturday. “There were so many dead people. There were body parts,” he said. “A wedding really is the last place that one would expect an attack on – it’s horrifying. It seems clear that this was yet another Isis attack in Gaziantep.”
The bomb was reported to have exploded as wedding guests spilled out into the streets after the traditional henna night party, when guests have their hands and feet painted. One witness, Veli Can, said: “The celebrations were coming to an end and there was a big explosion among people dancing. There was blood and body parts everywhere.”
Children including a three-month-old baby were among the dead, witnesses told Reuters. Toğrul said identifying those killed was taking time because many victims were children without ID cards.
Neither the bride nor groom is understood to have been killed or seriously injured in the attack. The bride was quoted by the state-run Anadolu news agency as declaring: “They turned our wedding into a bloodbath.”
Ambulances arrive at the scene of the explosion in Gaziantep. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
On Sunday as some of the first funerals were held, shouts of “shame on you, Erdoğan” were reportedly heard, and mourners hurled water bottles at police.
There has been a string of deadly attacks in Turkey in the past year that were either blamed on Isis or claimed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) and its radical offshoot, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK). In June, suspected Isis militants attacked Atatürk airport in Istanbul, killing at least 47 people.
The latest blast comes a month after a military coup attempt blamed by the Turkish government on a network linked to the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen.
Speaking on television, the deputy prime minister, Mehmet Şimşek, said: “This was a barbaric attack. It appears to be a suicide attack. All terror groups, the PKK, Daesh, the [Gülen movement] are targeting Turkey. But God willing, we will overcome.”
Toğrul said the Isis threat had been ignored by the Turkish government. “We have said for years that Isis was active in Gaziantep. This danger has been present for a long time, but unfortunately we never succeeded in convincing the government of this,” he said. “The necessary precautions were not taken.”
Turkish media reported that local Isis cells had previously considered an attack on a wedding of PKK supporters in Gaziantep. Yunus Durmaz, an alleged former head of an Isis cell in Turkey and said to be one of the planners of the twin suicide bomb attacks on a peace rally in Ankara in October 2015 that killed at least 100 people, had suggested such an assault to an Isis contact inside Syria, according to the Turkish daily Gazete Duvar, citing an indictment.
Durmaz killed himself during a police raid in Gaziantep on 19 May, and Turkish police were able to secure evidence of his communications from his computer. Analysts have long warned of the presence of an extensive Isis network in the city, which is 29 miles (46km) north of the Syrian border.
Akif Ekici, an MP for the main opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), told Turkish media there was a “serious intelligence deficiency” and the government should work together with the opposition to prevent further attacks.
Women mourn as they wait in front of a hospital morgue. Photograph: Osman Orsal/Reuters
The Turkish government urged people not to let recent attacks divide them. “Today is a day of unity and togetherness,” said the prime minister, Binali Yıldırım. “We stand united with our citizens, from the youngest to the oldest, against terrorism. Our pain is immense, but everyone should be assured that our unity and togetherness will spoil these devilish plans in our country and abroad.”
Gurcan urged the Turkish government to rethink its security strategy. “Turkey desperately needs a new security policy and approach,” he said. “Ankara is making a strategic mistake [by] putting the PKK, Isis and the Fethullah Gülen terror organisation in the same basket, by saying that [these groups] are mere instruments used by foreign powers trying to destabilise Turkey.
“This approach ... underestimates their agency and causes the failure of tailoring an actor-specific counter-strategy.”
Selahattin Demirtaş, co-leader of the HDP, said: “Let’s stand together for the condolences. There is no such thing as your funeral or my funeral. There are only our funerals.
“I call on all our MP friends from the AKP, the [Nationalist Movement party] MHP and the CHP in Gaziantep. Come and let’s stand together for the condolences. Let’s unite our pain, let’s show those who turn our weddings into funerals, who turn our weddings into bloodbaths, that we stand as one. After that, everything else will be easy, there will be no problem we won’t be able to solve.”