Turkey’s double-edged approach in joining the fight against IS

By Amin Saikal
Updated April 23 2018 - 9:54pm, first published July 27 2015 - 8:56pm

Turkey's joining the US-led air campaign against the self-declared Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and its simultaneous targeting of the sanctuaries of the leftist Kurdish Workers Party, which has fought for extensive autonomy for the Turkey's substantive Kurdish minority, in northern Iraq is a double-edged development. It carries the potential to help the anti-IS operations, but it could also affect the capability of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria to do the ground fighting with the IS. What has brought Ankara to the point of adopting such an approach and what does it want to achieve?

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