{"id":5524,"date":"2022-12-08T17:11:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T17:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/?p=5524"},"modified":"2022-12-08T17:11:31","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T17:11:31","slug":"turkey-to-pursue-targets-in-syria-official-says-after-istanbul-blast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2022\/12\/08\/turkey-to-pursue-targets-in-syria-official-says-after-istanbul-blast\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey to pursue targets in Syria, official says after Istanbul blast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Link: https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/rocket-strikes-syria-kill-two-people-turkey-governor-says-2022-11-21\/ <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary:<\/strong> A bombing that led to the deaths of 6 people in Turkey’s capital of Istanbul has led Turkey to vow to strike against Kurdish militants in Northern Syria. Currently, Turkey is conducting operations against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and other Kurdish-aligned groups in Iraq, and their government claims they will conduct operations in Syria once such operations have ceased in Iraq. This would be Turkey’s fourth incursion into Syria, as they claim the PKK as a terrorist group, while its Western allies had aligned with the group during the Syrian Civil War. Turkey’s main fear is that there will be further attacks before the elections being held in 2023.

Analysis:<\/strong> Erdogan likely finds a political wedge in scapegoating and attacking the Kurdish people as he knows their potential sovereignty undermines the Turkish state and would come to a great burden to the country economically and politically. Turkey’s regional leverage would deteriorate if they willingly let Kurdistan form and this fact makes the Turkish people afraid, which he needs as an issue to assist him with re-election. He has also used the PKK as a political wedge in NATO, as membership requires unanimous support, he has required Finland and Sweden, both of which had supported the PKK during the Syrian Civil War, to withdraw their funding and support to the faction. In regards to Syria, Assad and Erdogan will likely see their cooperation further falter, as Syria had signed an agreement with the PKK and other factions in 2019 to defend Syrian territory against Turkish operations. Even with the Islamic State being greatly reduced, the situation in the Middle East stays tense as Turkey seeks to fill the power gap the United States and Russia had left when they withdrew their forces from Syria. In fact, the absence of the two has given Turkey free reign to interfere in Iraq and Syria unsanctioned.

Connection to Class:<\/strong> Turkey seeks to attain regional hegemony in the absence of Russian and United States forces in the Middle East, while also establishing cultural\/political power over other European states by imposing its views on the PKK in order to incorporate Sweden and Finland into NATO. Turkey uses NATO’s guidelines to its advantage in order to advance its agenda of ridding of the PKK and crushing Kurdish nationalism in Turkey and neighboring territories, with the key to regional hegemony being the removal of internal and external threats to Turkey, which Erdogan perceives as Kurdish separatist groups such as the PKK.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link: https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/rocket-strikes-syria-kill-two-people-turkey-governor-says-2022-11-21\/ Summary: A bombing that led to the deaths of 6 people in Turkey’s capital of Istanbul has led Turkey to vow to strike against Kurdish militants in Northern Syria. Currently, Turkey is conducting operations against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and other Kurdish-aligned groups in Iraq, and their government claims they will conduct operations in Syria once such… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5524"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5546,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions\/5546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}