Precious loneliness

When in August 2013, in his capacity as chief foreign policy advisor to then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, today's Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın tweeted: "It is wrong to claim 'Turkey has been left alone in the Middle East.' But if this was the criticism leveled, then I should say this is precious isolation." 
He probably was not joking. Turkey had indeed landed in a growing isolation. But its value was a source of heated discussion.

This is not of course the first time during the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) time in office that Turkey has found itself at odds with Europe, the United States and Russia, while also being disliked by most of its neighbors at the same time. 

Defending the borders, territory, and rights and liberties of citizens, topped by the right to life, is a fundamental duty of any state or government. If there is a deficiency of state rule or risk of civil war arising from challenges in neighboring territories - with governance vacuums in neighboring territories turning countries into terrorist dens - then any government is obliged to defend its territory and people from such threats.

Americans fighting Islamist terrorists in the same area, collaborating with a lesser terrorist Kurdish group in that struggle, should not and must not stop Turkey from undertaking whatever action is necessary to diffuse the threat. Why would Turkey let northern Syria and the Sinjar area in northern Iraq turn into new separatist terrorist command centers, like the one already in northern Iraq's Kandil mountain range, which Turkey has long been trying to get rid of? Would the Americans feel hurt on behalf of their lesser terrorist "allies" in the fight against Islamist terrorists? Apparently so. Russia has also...