How Ankara’s Policy Choices Enabled Its Terrorism Problem” (Dov Friedman, War on the Rocks)
“Turkey faces threats as intractable as they are disquieting, yet its leaders seem keener to manage political outcomes than remedy the violence’s underlying causes. President Erdogan’s conflation of terrorist attacks facing Turkey did not begin after the March bombings. After October’s twin attacks on the Ankara rally, Erdogan affirmed that he saw no distinction between the attacks on the rally and the attacks targeting Turkish soldiers and police -- ignoring clear differences between the perpetrators and driving forces behind the attacks. Not two weeks later, in reference to the same bombing, Erdogan named ISIL, the PKK, the Democratic Union Party (the PYD, a Syrian Kurdish PKK-affiliated group), and the Assad regime’s intelligence service as co-conspirators. After the Istiklal bombing, a Turkish official immediately fingered the PKK as prime suspects. Curiously, he made statements to the press within three hours of the 11 AM attack, despite the attack’s similarities to January’s Sultanahmet bombing. The official’s response raised questions about the government’s effort to both muddle the facts and deflect attention from another ISIL attack on Turkish soil.”