The big picture including Syria

The commando brigade was not fighting in the field when 14 of its members were killed and 55 of them, six of them seriously, were injured in the Central Anatolian town of Kayseri on Dec. 17. Just one week before, our hearts were bleeding for the victims of the terror attack in Istanbul's Beşiktaş. 

I wish they all rest in peace. We have reached a place where words fail. But although we are out of words, we have many issues to consider. 

"Since July 20, 2015, in operations conducted against the [outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party] PKK, the organization has sustained 9,500 casualties. More than 40,000 people have been detained and more than 10,500 people have been arrested," President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Dec. 13. 

In the same period, in the fight against PKK terrorism, the number of martyrs killed has reached 1,178, including 843 security personnel and 335 civilians.  

In the past, this issue only had a "northern Iraq" external factor. But now, over the past five years, a more dangerous "Syria factor" has developed. 

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said on Dec. 18 that the Syrian factor was the cause of several recent challenges for Turkey regarding the PKK. 

True. The "Rojava" factor is certainly important. The PKK, adding to its 40-year organizational and terror experience, became the most effective Kurdish movement in Syria and even managed to smash the pro-Barzani Kurds. 

They managed to form totalitarian administrations in the Jazira, Kobane and Afrin "cantons." The Westerners regarded them as the most effective power in the field in the fight against ISIL.

Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) head Salih Müslim declared on July 4, 2015 that Kobane and Afrin would be united...